• 1 Post
  • 33 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 9th, 2023

help-circle


  • I’m not entirely confident in my answer but I think my initial issue with Disco Elysium when I first tried to play it was because I expected the typical high action and quick cause-and-effect outcomes I’m used to in most RPGs. At least IMO, most RPG choices in games usually end up with a relatively clear outcome, whereas DE felt more gradual. Similarly, DE is more detective than action, which might sometimes benefit from gradual clues all coming together.

    Not to say anyone is wrong for not liking this approach, it does take a bit of commitment to engage with it. But I think being willing to engage with it on its level might make the initial hump more bearable. I’ve honestly come to enjoy the slower approach of DE, but refreshing compared to everything else.


  • At the very least, it’s not a live feeding. I personally couldn’t do that myself, even though it’s a natural process and normal enrichment for many animals.

    I personally can’t criticize too harshly on the zoo though. At the end of the day, zoos aren’t generally money makers (to the best of my knowledge) and their animals need to be cared for. If anything, I’m more judgmental of owners who may willingly donate healthy pets (perhaps those with unhealthy or close to death pets are more understandable).

    I do wonder if this some kind of publicity stunt. It has to be cheaper and easier just to get cash donations for livestock right? Less costs for euthanasia and you can buy in bulk. I’m sure they wouldn’t say no to free food for their animals but it feels like a weird angle to draw attention to the zoo. Maybe some of this nuance is lost in translation between Dutch and English news media.


  • I like playing as Yosuke too, but it’s hard to keep playing as him as it’s an Assassins creed game so much of the open world relies on being agile and climbing, which he can do somewhat but not enough that I don’t need to switch to Naoe (really fun doing a leap of faith with him though, I expected they’d just spawn me on the ground). It is nice being a one man army and all but really, his only use value is when I want to have an easy fight and the handful of quests/activities that necessitate him. His character doesn’t feel like an afterthought but he doesn’t feel like his play style is fully utilized.

    Generally, I’m still happy with having the two different characters for different gameplay, but I just wished I had more reason to play as both instead of sticking to one and switching when it’s necessary.









  • Finally started graduate school and seems pretty okay so far. Haven’t been able to connect much to my cohort, but a bit closer with my actual area. I’m not too down about that given I’m trying to treat this as a job than as school, and have always been shy and anxious (though not so much anymore). It’ll just be something that comes naturally over time I hope as my nerves settle down a bit and Im able to meet more people in the department and in my classes.

    Trying to learn Python then leapfrog from that to do more advanced analyses with AI. Good and bad, good as it seems to give me a bit of an edge on my cohort (not to validate my worth on my status to others) but bad as I didn’t really expect to be doing this so early and no one has any real resources to learn. So it’s up to myself to figure it out.




  • So bit of a stretch recommendation but I can never turn down a chance to recommend this author.

    If you like the general idea of an author exploring what-if premise of people living (like how the Fallout vaults are given specific scenarios to live in), you might like Ted Chiang’s short stories. For example, “Hell is the Absence of God” explores what life might be like if angels (heaven and hell) were real but come into societies like tornadoes or hurricanes due to their supernatural power (think tornado chasers). There’s world building in it to realistically support the premise of the story (e.g. support groups for those affected) and is generally really thoughtful.

    Again, very much a stretch to Fallout vaults, but really deserving of a read if you are more interested into exploring the realism in a world built around certain premises.



  • I mean you’re right on that, it’s not like someone having a Netflix account or not heavily affects the impoverished to the same extent Netflix the company has. But I meant moreso to hold so as a general mindset/expectation. Like owning a cottage is something doable, or at least was doable, for someone with a upper-mid income. Maybe a mid income with some time. But generally, but it’s an expense that really only benefits a few that could be used for something else. Not to say don’t enjoy things, but put your purchases in perspective with some deliberation.

    No entirely on topic, but this mindset would also benefit environmentalism. Being in Canada, I can’t count the number of times people have complained about the end of plastic bags. But really, the trouble of keeping a couple cloth bags on you at all times or even purchasing something later is a bare minimum hassle that outweighs the additional trash. Sure, consumers’ impact is more negligible than industry waste, and industry waste should be the main focus. But from an individuals’ perspective, you need to be slightly more mindful of your own responsibility if you care about your impact because you’re the only person that can keep yourself accountable all times. And it adds up with each person, etc.


  • I think it comes down to your level of analysis, or how you define relations. Having been living off $30-40k income for most of my life, I can definitely get the sentiment of the large differences between that and someone making $100k (even $60k), or at least someone living a working class vs middle class lifestyle. But that also goes for someone making $0-10k to $30-40k. Either way, the salience of financial insecurity hits a lot harder for someone with less existing cash.

    That said, I also get the sentiment of the nil difference between working and middle class versus the ultra rich who generate huge swaths of passive income and can basically can dictate whether or not the lower classes have enough for rent. Why bother fight against each other when there’s a much larger and casual target.

    In a more nuanced answer, for solidarity sake we do need to recognize our similarities to work together for a better system. But that doesn’t mean we should ignore our differences and privileges either. We should work towards achieving core necessities for all even at the cost of our own privileges (i.e. an opposite tragedy of the commons: those with some threshold excess contribute to the pond). Determining that threshold is another question, with both absolute and relative poverty thresholds with their own criticisms. And not to say that no class hierarchies will form either, technically skilled and heavily laborious jobs should be rewarded, and people will always try to skim a little off the top to get ahead of their own benefit. But in recognizing our differences, we recognize a need to monitor ourselves for the benefit of everyone.