Oh unexpected Tess Parks sighting in the wild. Her albums are so good

https://tessparks.bandcamp.com/track/koalas

I’d love to see reductions in car usage because I very much dislike cars and car culture. I don’t personally mind inconvenience - I wait for mass transit when friends are like “just take an Uber lol” (not even touching the labor dimension there). I also always say electric cars and self driving cars are solving the wrong problems.

I’m just pessimistic that we’ll make much progress voluntarily. A lot of people are stupid and selfish, and the rich have power to keep things shitty for their personal benefit.

Yeah, but unfortunately a lot of people are lazy shitheads who are so out of shape they can’t ride a bike. That’s ignoring the horrifying infrastructure that puts you in the middle of cars driven by angry idiots.

It’s a good fact, but I don’t think we’ll get there without the left taking power and forcing the issue, or somehow playing to the emotions of reactionary fuckheads. Facts don’t convince them so it has to be emotions.

Shouldn’t be allowed. Companies shouldn’t be allowed to buy each other. We already know what happens with consolidation.

Desktop: 0. It’s off. I close the browser when I’m done

Phone: the number says 64, but only 25 “active”. I should probably prune.

I think it was heart of stone where I found random soldiers that were like level 40, and were thus inexplicably hard to kill. Kind of sucked. (Tip: setting things on fire does percentage damage, and so scales really well)

Nothing in the game is the kind of execution challenge difficulty I enjoy. It’s not like elden ring where you really have to manage spacing and stamina, consider your weapon, spells, skills. You can mostly just level and upgrade your stuff in witcher3, and win with face rolling.

Which is fine. That’s a valid kind of game. I just lost interest when replaying it because without the story to keep me in, the moment to moment gameplay wasn’t compelling enough

I didn’t really struggle with the controls when I replayed part of it this year. I lost interest because the difficulty starts out a little rough (wolves will kill you) and then a few hours later you’re so strong that even narratively scary things just melt.

Right?

I have someone in the friend group getting some gender surgery and I was like, “that’s great but please don’t tell me any of the gory details.” I don’t want to hear about surgery details no matter what part of the body is being modified.

I would so much rather just have a full timestamp. I can do the delta fine myself.

I expect that’s some people, yeah. Accepting that climate change is real means accepting uncomfortable ideas. Like that they’re responsible, at least a little.

Some people can’t accept that they’re everything less than a saint. You tell them that walking to the store is better for them and the environment than driving and they go berserk. Can’t handle the implication that they’re not perfectly faultless.

Many people would rather everyone suffer pollution and climate catastrophe than those people have a nice life.

Marissa Paternoster made a name for herself as the vocalist and lead guitarist of the punk band Screaming Females.

I’ve seen Paternoster do a guitar solo while crowd surfing, more than once. She’s a beast on stage. Was nice, and surprisingly quiet, at the merch table too. Great band. Highly recommend.

Once again the US is an embarrassment

They want hierarchy. A king, nobles, and an underclass. They don’t care if they’re on top, just so long as someone is below them.

I used to care more about work. But this job pays garbage and is frothing over AI, so fuck them.

Rich people don’t want to give anything up.

Assholes don’t want their out-group to have anything nice. Even if it means they suffer.

Many people don’t know shit about fuck, and they’re just trying to get through the week.

My dad used to rant about how government should be run like a business,

Anyone who sincerely believes that is too fucking ignorant and or stupid to be taken seriously. They’re a hazard to themselves and their polity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro-masculinity

Weak shitty men know on some level they’re weak shitty men. They lash out and desperately cling to toys to prop up their failing ego.

I’m mostly the same.

I often think about one time a friend invited me to play “DND”. I get there and it’s revealed it’s not DND, but a different RPG. I was like “ok hold on…” and spent like 20 minutes skimming the book while we all ate pizza and settled down.

By the time we started I knew the rules as well as everyone else, which was admittedly a low bar.

The authors are (typically) trying to write the rules in a way for you to understand. It’s not a puzzle.

Of course, being familiar with the genre helps immensely.

One friend sort of explained it to me. It’s anxiety. They were afraid they weren’t learning fast enough, or were playing badly, or other people were judging them. Fear shuts down the brain. You’re explaining to them, “You can take three actions on your turn” but they’re not hearing you - they only hear anxiety-fear-screams

Every time this happens, it’s worse the next time. It’s one more example of “humiliation” on the stack. Even if no one else thought there was anything amiss.