I failed calc2 and am gainfully employed as a mid/upper level software engineer.

One guy at work really saved the day because he’s good at math, and made a very slow process much faster because he knows … uh… vector math? He did magic with numpy

It was okay.

Didn’t really like the ending(s). I think one of the lead guys was like “cyberpunk can’t have happy endings”, so I guess they never read Neuromancer.

Gameplay was so-so, but I fixed some egregious problems with a mod. People who thought it was going to be life changing were living in a dream land.

Played the games. Not interested.

A new story in the setting could be good

Retelling the game sounds bad. Conveniently, the reasons why are nicely outlined in the article.

I switched to linux because windows 10 is going end-of-life, and I can’t upgrade to windows 11 even if I wanted to.

It’s been fine, other than some trouble getting mint to dual boot the first time.

I really don’t think Baldur’s gate 3 and whatever the fuck Monopoly go is are the same kind of thing.

Kid is lucky the racists didn’t murder him and say that he did something to deserve it.

I hope those racist almost-murderers are ruined.

At least you can improve inventory in-game (eg: do normal gameplay quest and crafting stuff to get bigger bags). Some monetization is cash or nothing.

Still bad when they make something annoying and then charge to fix it.

Guild wars 2 specifically has a surprising amount of quality of life stuff for free, but you can see places where “we can make money here” won out occasionally.

Baldur’s gate 3 characters aren’t even that complicated. You pick stats at the start from a limited range of options, and then make very few choices when you level up. Some levels you don’t pick anything at all. This ain’t path of exile.

I got a mod for bg3 that gives you a feat every level and holy shit did that make it more interesting.

To WotC’s credit, making character choice really shallow is probably why the game succeeded so well. A lot of people don’t really want a lot of choices, especially when some are traps.

The larian games have some interesting interactions beyond just oil. You can make people slip on ice.

The old Magicka game also had some fun interactions that more games could learn from.

For a generous definition of “these days”, check out the pillars of eternity games. They’re very good and clearly a love letter to Baldur’s gate. Unfortunately the team is now making a Skyrim-like for some reason, but I hope they come back and finish the main game story sometime.

There’s also that solasta game that’s DND 5e but on a smaller budget from a few years ago.

“constantly be jumping while conjuring a skeleton” is pretty stupid and counter intuitive for an optimum thing to do, but it that’s what you should do if you want to level those skills up.

Morrowind also had some bizarre optimum behavior if you wanted to get the +5s on stats when you leveled.

Sex scenes on the other hand, come out of nowhere, add nothing to the plot and only leave you in disgust

These are not universal truths

I remember a bunch of years ago talking about This Film Is Not Yet Rated, and how I thought it was absurd a scene where someone’s brains get shot out and they die is ok, but a non-graphic cunnilingus shot was unacceptable. The two people I was talking to, a woman older than me and someone my age, were both like “No that makes total sense. I’d watch a violent movie with my kid but not one with sex in it”

I was like, “You’d rather your kid run around fantasizing about murder than sex?” And they were like “yeah”

Yes. What’s blocking you? What circumstances are you in where you want to talk and aren’t?

Depends a lot on the details and execution.

Some friends can tell a good story about having a beer anywhere. Other folks would make meeting (some well liked celebrity) tedious.

I’m a little too deep into the “I had an onion on my belt” side of things, so I try to be patient with other people’s meanderings.

Think the kid derailed his own future by not following the instructions/norms

One of my friends wanted kids. She has a full time job in software and does side gigs like bartending. Can’t afford kids, so she didn’t have any. It’s sad.

Meanwhile the ultra wealthy have more money than they can spend.

Nationalize health care. Basic income. Public housing. Enforce existing tax laws. Tax or prohibit bullshit like “I’ll get a loan against my assets but that’s not technically income so I don’t pay anything”. Break up monopolies.

As I understand it, people mostly change their mind (and thus behavior) for two reasons.

The first is in-group beliefs. If someone sees other people in their in-group believing a thing or behaving in a way, they’re more likely to adopt that. Possibly the people who play audio in public, their friends and peers are the same way. But if you also might be in one of their groups, like a college kid to another college kid, or a junior professional to another, talking to them might make a difference. But if you’re like a 59 year rich old white guy, telling a 16 year old non-white poorer kid is unlikely to land, because they probably see you as outgroup.

The other thing that changes minds is horrible trauma. Like, if you smashed their head into the bus window, took their phone and transferred all their money (via venmo or whatever), then tossed the phone out the window, they might change their mind about being a public irritant. Maybe. They might also take some other lesson instead. But either way you’d go to jail for several crimes, so probably don’t do that.

Targeted ads should be illegal.

Contextual ads are a compromise I would accept. That is, you can buy ads based on the page content, but not the viewer details. So if I’m looking at a website about bikes, you can have bike ads on there. You don’t need to know I’m a xx year old living in zip code 10001. That’s how ads worked for like decades (centuries?). It’s fine.

Been happy buying music from Bandcamp and not having a subscription. Didn’t even make it onto the chart :(