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MrMetric

Re:So I guess everyone uses LLMs to think now on Sunday November 01, 2026 @06:15PM (#50330893)
You guys are using autocorrect?
Re:Total Annihilation, rebuilt for modern computers on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:31AM (#50051410)
Wow, thanks for replying! Thought I was pissing into the wind with that one.

I've never once touched the multiplayer mode. I don't recall seeing the option for it. I mean, I'm sure it's there, but I don't remember it, which means I've never clicked on it. So, yes, single player campaign only. A decent amount of the original, and then about half a level of Brood War when I skipped forward one time.

Wow, that sounds like a hella lotta workers. I vaguely recall trying that in a mission or two where I had severe resource problems, but then I didn't have enough offensive units and ran out of minerals by mining them too fast. Hmm... I remember getting frustration-curiosity a couple times and checking YouTube videos of how people beat missions I was completely stuck on, and being very unsatisfied because what I saw worked when I tried it myself but I didn't understand it (I can tell I didn't understand it because I don't remember it).

I didn't know there's a speed setting. That could make missions less of a long-ass slog, although, uh, controlling every unit at once? That sounds like a massive amount of busywork and I'm not confident I could pull it off (unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean). What I meant by "slow" is the missions can drag on for a reeeaaaally long time, and by "clunky and fiddly", I mean it was hard to make things happen because of all the... not sure how to describe it. I guess I'd want to change the speed lower, but then everything would take too long ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And if by "the genre" you mean real-time strategy games, StarCraft is the only one I have any level of familiarity with, so if it assumes you already know that stuff, then that's probably a problem. When I said it's "a confusing sequence of disconnected events", I mean I couldn't correlate most of what I did to any of what happened. It was just random stuff happening most of the time, and when I changed my approach, I couldn't predict what the outcome would be and no significant learning occurred.

Despite all that, I really do like the game (wouldn't be talkin' about it so much if I didn't). I appreciate your advice, too. I'll have to see if I can get the thing running again.

Re:Total Annihilation, rebuilt for modern computers on Sunday October 11, 2026 @10:25PM (#50050577)
Huh? I specifically said "my lingering impression". What I described is how the game felt to play, to me. I'm not talking about preferences and I'm not asserting some absolute universal state.
Re:Total Annihilation, rebuilt for modern computers on Sunday October 11, 2026 @07:13PM (#50049040)
Could you say more on this? I've tried StarCraft a few times over the years, thanks to a lucky thrift store find as a teen. Got a Battle Chest for $10 and the key hadn't even been registered! Never got close to beating it, though. Been a while since last time, but my lingering impression says it was always a confusing sequence of disconnected events taking an agonizingly long time to play out, and the controls were hella clunky and fiddly. I kept trying anyway because something about it feels real appealing, but I don't quite get it. But I feel like I want to get it, y'know?
Re:Good Tools Are Invisible on Saturday July 11, 2026 @06:02AM (#48870510)
I've had to batch-rename files many times over the years. That means:

1. I do it manually over however many minutes. Works if there aren't too many (especially if the pattern is too complex to trivially automate).

2. I make a Python script for it. No way I'm renaming a thousand files by hand.

3. I don't do it. Too much work. The problem lingers forever.

Or these days,

4. I make an AI datacenter eat another town's water supply.

I've never used Emacs. I tried vi(m) nonconsensually and had to google how to exit. A while later, I tried it intentionally and hkjl navigation didn't work because I use a custom keyboard layout, so I never touched it again. Sublime Text and its many cursors for the win!

I'd love a way that isn't miserable to do such a common basic task.

Re:New Beam Spring Keyboards on Sunday May 31, 2026 @08:44PM (#48351406)
Yes, they're way better now! The quality was poor because they were using decades-old original IBM tooling, and injection molds don't last forever D:. But, they made new molds in, I think, 2020? I bought a New Model M in 2021. Mine has a custom-printed layout, and it looks stock, not just some one-off. The plastic chassis is sturdy and doesn't need any sort of filing. It's been my daily driver ever since and is my favorite keyboard I've ever used, so I happily recommend them to any typing enthusiast. Sooo much better than Cherry switches (or, dog forbid, "office" keyboard rubber domes).
Re:Alberta startup sells no-tech tractors for half price on Wednesday April 22, 2026 @02:37PM (#47867504)
An internal combustion engine may be complex, but it's not fancy. I can see and touch and understand every part of it. I can maintain and modify and repair it. This is not true for fancy electronics and certainly not locked-down proprietary firmware.
Re:iOS allows alternative browser engines in Japan on Thursday January 01, 2026 @03:14PM (#46457591)
The difference is this isn't an inherently hard problem. It's just stupidity. The difficulty is not inherently interesting, because it's all made up.
Re:How to break free from smart TV ads and tracking on Saturday December 13, 2025 @05:20AM (#46253523)
Change your network name. When the TV prompts you to connect, join the renamed network. Then, rename it back so everything else can connect again and the TV can't. I can think of a few potential problems with this, but, it might work?

Or blacklist the TV's MAC address in your router settings. Didn't think of that first for some reason.

Re:Incomplete list of mistakes in the design of CSS on Thursday December 11, 2025 @06:03AM (#46229927)
Simple: A version specifier, or feature specifiers. Backward compatibility concerns vanish when I can opt-in to a newer spec. Old code keeps working, and new code doesn't suffer for legacy nonsense.

For example, the Circle compiler extends C++ with its `#feature` directive: https://github.com/seanbaxter/circle/blob/master/new-circle/...

Sadly, the closest I've personally seen to this sort of thing in widespread use is `"use strict";` in JavaScript, which is only a single binary switch. You can't, say, turn on a new keyword, disable a keyword, switch to a different incompatible version of some browser API, etc.

I encourage all language designers to include a feature mechanism in a forward-compatible way. Don't overthink the difficulty: It doesn't need to do anything at first, it just needs to not be a parsing error. Treat it like a comment. FYI, this is the same as having a version number or header size in a binary file format's header, which all sane formats have (there are a lot of insane formats out there...).

Re:The 512KB Club on Tuesday November 04, 2025 @02:50PM (#45815180)
My mobile phone's data connection isn't free. I'd prefer it not be wasted on sloppily-made websites.
Bad-faith argument. Incest can also be between adult same-age siblings or cousins (and not everyone considers the latter case to be incest).

Also, I don't insult or look down on sick or disabled people. Why are you?

Re:Jeep Introduces Pop-Up Ads That Appear Every Time You Stop on Tuesday February 11, 2025 @05:43AM (#43011260)
For corpos, I view things the opposite way: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by malice.
Re:The Accidental Invention of the Snow Globe (2024) on Thursday January 02, 2025 @02:14PM (#42577673)
As I recall, the term "rosebud" can refer to an intentional anal prolapse. I'm not sure if what porn actresses do is the same as the medical definition of an anal prolapse, though.
Re:The AI Reporter That Took My Old Job Just Got Fired on Tuesday November 26, 2024 @02:16PM (#42248922)
To me, unboxing videos are documentation, not entertainment. When I need to know exactly what's in a box and how it's packaged, an unboxing video is the only source of that information.
Re:Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough on Sunday November 10, 2024 @09:03PM (#42104037)
You... what? You can't be serious. Simply putting "exercise and adhd" into Google® got me multiple studies which say that exercise helps, along with many other websites (some reputable and others possibly not) all saying essentially the same thing. You can easily find licensed physicians giving this same advice to their patients, and they observe that it works. And, off the top of my head, exercising elevates dopamine and some other neurotransmitters, which are well-known to be deficient in people with ADHD. That's one of the reasons the drugs work: stimulants raise the levels of those neurotransmitters. Personally speaking, I've found that any activity or action that raises my dopamine level has the same effect on my executive function as a stimulant drug, although this can be a very short-lived improvement (worst case, it comes and goes entirely within ~5 minutes).

You may also consider this from an evolutionary angle. Mammals such as us are not meant to sit inside at a desk all day (whether that's school or any other menial work), so it's no surprize that doing that alters and impairs development versus the conditions we evolved to live in. It's really easy to encounter the biological equivalent of undefined behaviors and invalid state in modernity. If you don't know what I mean, here's an easier to see example: It's well-known in recent years that myopia (shortsightedness) is predominantly caused by insufficient exposure to sunlight as a child. As an aside, I find it very interesting that the reason sunlight exposure matters is it elevates dopamine in the retinas, and eyes with dopamine deficiency don't develop correctly.

Another angle is mental exercize: It's more difficult to physically exercize with ADHD, but it's possible, so mentally pushing past the difficulty (or, more likely, having someone encourage you and help you) can train you to do that with other things and teach you how to self-manage your symptoms with mental decisions / willpower. This is a pretty poor solution on its own, but it's a great force multiplier when combined with other strategies.

Re:Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough on Sunday November 10, 2024 @04:21PM (#42102695)
It's unfortunate that I had to scroll to the bottom of the page to see any mention of ADHD or executive dysfunction, when the linked post describes what is clearly a form of executive dysfunction! Instant temporary treatment is a stimulant such as caffeine (which has annoying side-effects) or amphetamine salts (commonly known as adderall). Long-term treatment is exercize, which can be as simple as balancing on one leg for ten minutes every day or using an elliptical machine. Running outside is a decent option, but take care to avoid damaging the knees, which will happen by running on hard surfaces.

Dr. Russell Barkley has good explanations of what different prescription ADHD drugs do, which I find gives insight into what's going wrong when you have an executive dysfunction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnS0PfNyj4U

In particular, the emotional blunting effect of stimulants erases the thought that what you do might not be good enough. You no longer care about what others think, so you can just do what you want to do. I personally find this also makes me a callous asshole if I'm not careful, which I believe is related to the modern epidemic of coffee zombies.