programmers-off-topic

[rotund violet]

I can definitely see retailers using that kind of form factor.

[pliant snow]

Alright, alright

Option 2

Solar panels

[rotund violet]

Option 1 looks... unstable.

[safe dragon]

how hot does that laptop surface get

[pliant snow]

Just don't touch it

[safe dragon]

ok

[pliant snow]

I see you're a man of culture

Don't worry, we've got something for you

[safe dragon]

ah now that one I know

it's well known for falling over

[pliant snow]

It has different attachments

[safe dragon]

useful for android app testing

[pliant snow]

Like this... thing

[safe dragon]

wtf

[pliant snow]

You'll be pleased to know it runs on AI and maybe comes with cat ears

[safe dragon]

the cat ears sold me

[pliant snow]

I say maybe because none of these will actually come out

[safe dragon]

if the AI overlords are cats then I will not stop them

[pliant snow]

I don't like the hand gesture this AI cat is giving me

[rotund violet]

This is simultaneously very impressive and completely ridiculous. I'm not sure how I should feel about it.

[marble jewel]

Too bad the entire concept is based on tablet form factors which are already pretty limited

[safe dragon]

when are we getting magical hologram displays that somehow work in well lit rooms anyway and have zero downsides

[marble jewel]

https://tenor.com/view/cybertruck-owner-cybertruck-apple-vision-pro-vision-pro-tesla-gif-13922052984698474042

[crystal wren]

I think they call those brain implants.

[marble jewel]

The future is now, and it's underwhelming tbh

[safe dragon]

I'm afraid apple already stopped all production of their vr headset

sorry, apple vision headset

I would like to try VR someday

I mean I've tried VR aka put a test unit on my head at the electronics store

[marble jewel]

Just hope you don't have the thing that I have where 20 minutes of it makes me sick

[safe dragon]

motion sickness?

[rotund violet]

I'm not going to be at the front of the line for brain implants.

[safe dragon]

me neither

[marble jewel]

I wouldn't even call it motion sickness because it feels very different to me in a bad way

Like, it's just an instant migraine

[safe dragon]

on the tech enthusiast vs tech worker meme spectrum I lean much closer to the tech worker side of things...

(the meme)

[rotund violet]

Definitely on the extreme worker side of that.

[safe dragon]

realistically I'm more somewhere around the middle

I just don't like "smart" stuff at all

[rotund violet]

Smart devices generally aren't.

[safe dragon]

for much of it it's not even that I don't trust it I just don't understand their appeal in the first place

like I don't get what people get out of being able to turn on their lights through a home assistant or whatever

a light switch works reliably and for decades

[pliant snow]

That's because you don't dream big enough

[safe dragon]

[rotund violet]

Motion sensors can be useful for nighttime outdoor lighting, that's about as far as I go.

[pliant snow]

I've got a button on my bedstand that when I push it, all my lights go out

[cinder karma]

I do motion sensor lighting and also timer lights

That's it

[safe dragon]

the person who lived here before me installed a motion sensor for the toilet and I have no idea why cause it has no advantages and now the light turns off if I sit there for a little too long

[marble jewel]

Enthusiast here, but also lean heavily on the DIY side of things. I don't like my smart home to be connected to the cloud.

[rotund violet]

I have something like that except it cuts power to the whole neighborhood.

[marble jewel]

So I'm all about automation, provided I can host it all from within the home

[pliant snow]

Oh don't be silly, none of my stuff is in the cloud, all my switches and plugs and nonsense are local

[safe dragon]

the only way I would accept it

[pliant snow]

Except the vacuum I guess, he I may have to execute some day

[safe dragon]

I like to keep things simple and unlikely to break if possible

[pliant snow]

if it breaks you just gotta get up and push the lightswitch

like a caveman

[safe dragon]

a catastrophe

at least I hope none of you are like linus from linus tech tips doing the most bizarre "smart" shit

[rotund violet]

Dishwasher auto starts whenever I go to sleep, even if there are no dishes in it.

[safe dragon]

when your thermostat needs ventilation because it produces too much heat itself there's something wrong

incredible

keeps the dishwasher nice and clean

I run my dishwasher once every few days

[rotund violet]

(not really, just trying to think of ridiculous things to automate)

[safe dragon]

I'm sure someone has automated it

[cinder karma]

I kinda like the little timer switches

Cheap. Simple

[safe dragon]

the simple mechanical ones?

[cinder karma]

No connection to the cloud

[rotund violet]

I actually don't even like the "semi-smart" thermostat with the annoying "recovery mode" that I have to turn off. Makes it so complicated just to set the goddamn temperature in the house.

[pliant snow]

I have an automation that I can tell it I'm going to any room in the apartment, and it'll shut off all the lights except that one

[cinder karma]

Nah, mine are solid state but it's the same theory

[safe dragon]

your partner just sitting there in the dark

[pliant snow]

Yeah it only works if you live alone

[safe dragon]

you don't...

[rotund violet]

When I set it to heat the house at 8 am, it's because I want it to heat the house at 8 am, not start blasting the furnace at 6 am because one day six years ago it was -35 outside and it took 2 hours to heat that day.

[pliant snow]

I do as of last summer

[safe dragon]

o

time for cats

[pliant snow]

Cats tend to prove problematic for the motion sensing

[safe dragon]

I have a cat attacking my face rn

[pliant snow]

Do you sense its motion

[safe dragon]

I do

[pliant snow]

see

[safe dragon]

I do actually have an automatic food dispenser for the cats here

[rotund violet]

I have one timer switch, which I've used for Christmas lights.

[safe dragon]

but it's a simple timer

I have also used a timer switch for christmas lights

[rotund violet]

I mean that is the only timer switch I have and the only thing I've ever used it for.

[safe dragon]

ignoring timer switches that are in random devices I own that is also the only thing I've ever used one for

[crystal wren]

It's the kind of thing that can linger for the rest of the day or more too, from what I understand?

[ivory shadow]

I still want to set up "smart" home stuff but hot heck is everything either expensive beyond reason or wifi only

And I don't need light switches on my wifi

[cinder karma]

(I've considered brain implants)

[ivory shadow]

I just want some affordable switches that use a reasonable, non-wifi communication protocol

[cinder karma]

(Vagus nerve stimulation counts as a brain implant right?)

[crystal wren]

I'll do smart via non-wifi if I can control everything manually. So Zigbee and some HomeAssistant equivalents.

[pliant snow]

I've got Zigbee ones

They're... not super cheap lol

[rotund violet]

Like Crumble, I don't see the value for such a trivial convenience. If it was smart enough to clean my entire home for me, OK, then maybe I'd consider it.

[ivory shadow]

Exactly, lol

[crystal wren]

I've always wondered why smart bulbs couldn't use powerline ethernet type communication.

[rotund violet]

I know some people enjoy setting it up just for the "project" itself, but I can think of other projects I'd rather do.

[ivory shadow]

I've always wondered why smart bulbs

[crystal wren]

A valid question!

[cinder karma]

What if you want moody lighting lol

[marble jewel]

Yes, pretty much this. It's not for everything in VR, but ones with a lot of motion. I can induce a day-ruining headache with less than 5 minutes of VR Temple Run.

[cinder karma]

Tbh I have some of the theory

I have red light strips that turn on at dawn and dusk

It's to help regulate my sleep cycle

[ivory shadow]

Color change controls for smart bulbs makes sense. On and off doesn't make sense.

[cinder karma]

But the thing is....they're just on dumb timers

[marble jewel]

I switched from using smart bulbs in my house to using smart light switches

[ivory shadow]

Every single thing humans have ever made with a light socket is meant to have an external switch control the light socket. Smart bulbs are designed to be always powered

[cinder karma]

Also I think I paid about five bucks for led strips

[marble jewel]

So I can lazily dim or switch from my phone

[pliant snow]

Smart bulbs are the worst

[rotund violet]

I don't really need colored light bulbs to regulate my sleep, I can just look out the window.

[pliant snow]

You have to leave the switches on, so you're stuck operating them from a phone

[ivory shadow]

And the last thing I want is to have to replace a bunch of wifi garbage because an LED got too warm and exploded

[cinder karma]

I'm already at the age I can feel it in my back if I sit for too long

I'm not that old

[crystal wren]

That really sucks to hear, though. Have you tried AR type headsets instead? I do wonder if your brain might be happier with the camera feed... or if it might just make it worse.

[safe dragon]

despite me not liking smart lights I have actually programmed support for them before because our selfcheckout software used smart bulbs to control some indicator lights to notify which self checkout needs help or get checked

[marble jewel]

AR can be better, but the passthrough has to maintain 120 FPS because if it desyncs at all it causes a headache

Like a slight millisecond glitch is enough to require me to take a break

[rotund violet]

I've worked on many products I would never even dream of using myself.

[crystal wren]

This is why people really going deep into this get smart switches instead of bulbs, unless they also want colour changing. Can physically flick it off at the wall, but also remotely turn it back on.

It's... a lot.

[rotund violet]

Smart switches are adding a lot of complexity to the electrical system of a house.

If I were an insurance company, I'd double the rates for anyone installing them. Just sayin'.

[safe dragon]

that's why you don't tell them

[marble jewel]

If your house is following electrical standards of the last few decades, it should be fine

[crystal wren]

I'd charge even more for people with sockets that have USB sockets on them, because that's just a strange choice.

[rotund violet]

Emphasis "should". More ways to fail are more ways to fail. Probability of an electrical incident is higher.

[marble jewel]

Well those people are monsters, so they should pay more

[crystal wren]

Unless the USB portion is a swappable module... then I could be convinced it's not too bad. At least then you wouldn't need to swap the entire socket when the USB portion inevitably dies.

[thin estuary]

• motion detection automation for turning on the lights for these trips to the bathroom in the middle of the night
• turning off all lights when everyone leaves
• trolling your girlfriend

[rotund violet]

(I get that underneath it all is "basically" a simple AC relay, but there is a reason most switches are mechanical and not solid state)

I don't actually want to turn on the lights for a middle-of-the-night bathroom trip, they're blinding after I've adjusted to the darkness. A simple night light is fine.

[ivory shadow]

Still, I don't want any of that logic in a bulb and not the switch controlling the bulb. Bulbs are consumables, even with the greater lifespan afforded by LEDs compared to incandescent filaments.

[thin estuary]

You know, these bulbs usually have a brightness setting too

[rotund violet]

Yeah - but it just raises a question again, why all the complexity instead of a $5 night light?

[safe dragon]

you can also just install a dimmer

[ivory shadow]

Smart bulbs are generally incompatible with traditional dimmers, from what I understand

[thin estuary]

I get what you’re saying that it shouldn’t be the job of the bulb

[marble jewel]

Plenty of people manage to do dangerous things without the aid of smart switches

[thin estuary]

But it’s the easiest for consumers

Especially if you’re only renting the place

[safe dragon]

sweet fuckin jesus

[ivory shadow]

It wouldn't be the easiest for consumers if we just had some damn regulation and people making houses actually gave a shit about infrastructure that isn't electrical or water.

[cinder karma]

I can't hear you over my DIY electrical work

[safe dragon]

so that's where the power strips I can't find go

[marble jewel]

Merry Christmas, your house is on fire

[ivory shadow]

I hate the state of houses honestly. I have a friend who just moved into a brand new town house in a brand new development. No ethernet runs anywhere

[rotund violet]

Quite true, and those people should just never be allowed to touch anything with a wire attached. But, that doesn't change the safety equation of smart switches.

[safe dragon]

is that not also true in old houses

my house from 1956 certainly does not have ethernet cables going anywhere

[marble jewel]

My house is older but renovated, and I had to run ethernet myself through the walls.

[ivory shadow]

Not that ethernet runs would help with smart stuff which is all wireless, but it stood out to me as completely ridiculous

[thin estuary]

Yeah, I’ll definitely be taking part in designing my house, to make sure it’s up to my expectations, whenever it gets to the point where I’m gonna be building a house that is

[cinder karma]

Tbh, I trust modern GaN/SiC more than I trust any relay

[rotund violet]

No ethernet runs in this place, it's all wifi mesh (and surprisingly works fine)

[marble jewel]

This isn't my forever home though, I definitely want ethernet in every single room and closet for that matter. And there should be an outlet on every wall, maybe a second one at a slighter more elevated level.

[rotund violet]

If I ever do a major renovation here then I'll probably install cat6e, just because, but it's not actually essential.

[marble jewel]

It's a bit silly that I have to run an extension cord to power my coffee machine.

[cinder karma]

Meanwhile I'm not sure I want internet at all in my forever home lol

[rotund violet]

Eh, it's increasingly hard to do without, even if you just want to pay your taxes.

[marble jewel]

I only went with CAT6E for my quick and dirty ethernet installation, but I just might have in house fiber for my forever home. Which is far into the future.

[rotund violet]

I get what you mean, of course; you don't want to spend your retirement years wasting away online.

[thin estuary]

How else would you check for new knitting patterns

[marble jewel]

This is what my quick and dirty installation entails

[crystal wren]

Looks perfectly acceptable to me!

[rotund violet]

I hate popcorn ceilings.

[marble jewel]

This is how I get ethernet to the three rooms I need it in, straight through the wall and ceilings

[cinder karma]

Exactly! I say, on discord

[dusty pollen]

question out of curiosity - is governor a bespoke mod for this server or a renamed version of an existing mod like uber? I always assumed it was bespoke until I saw some of its commands yesterday and realised they implied it exists in many servers

[dusty pollen]

I always call the two types silicone valley type techies vs open source type techies lmao

[crystal wren]

All fully custom and not used anywhere else that... I know of? https://github.com/aquova/Governor

[ivory shadow]

But popcorn ceilings have it all! They:
a. look like someone did a bad job painting something
b. often contain asbestos if they're older
c. make repainting the ceiling a complete fucking chore

how could you not like popcorn ceilings

[dusty pollen]

wait I should have known it was made by aquo haha, you guys (crumble?) mentioned that before

[rotund violet]

Heh, actually the reason I hate them most is (d) you can't stick or fasten anything to them without a gigantic clusterfuck.

[marble jewel]

I don't like it either, but it's pretty low on the list of things I need to fix with this house

[worn remnant]

a popcorn ceiling may look bad. but it makes up for it by having insufferable properties

[dusty pollen]

they’re the Bloody Stupid Johnson of ceilings, I see I will keep dropping pratchett references until I find people who understand them

[rotund violet]

I've heard of people basically shaving/filing them down to normal ceilings, but generating an inconceivable amount of toxic dust in the process, so you might as well just have a new ceiling installed.

[fleet wren]

I dont have popcorn ceilings in my apartment. I have "hand-swiped, non-repeating circular pattern" ceilings instead

[marble jewel]

This isn't popcorn ceilings, but rather textured ceilings and walls. Still not fun.

[ivory shadow]

Bloody Stupid Johnson would've invented something dumber than popcorn ceilings, give him some credit

[marble jewel]

Textured to hide the still obvious imperfections like how nothing is level in this house

[rotund violet]

I'm not sure, how much lower can one sink?

[dusty pollen]

I am an autistic woman with nerdy hobbies and I think even before I knew I was autistic, enough of that show tried insisting I don’t exist and am a shitty person that I refused to watch it

[rotund violet]

Even some Escher-like architectural abomination would at least have "interest" value.

Maybe BSJ would design it with descending spike ceilings with 2-foot-wide safety zones. I guess that would be worse than popcorn ceilings. Only slightly.

[crystal wren]

This, maybe?

[rotund violet]

Is that a ceiling or a floor?

[crystal wren]

Ceiling!

And polystyrene.

[ivory shadow]

I was about to ask if that was polystyrene

Is that like a worse version of the white square ceilings you get in commercial buildings?

[cinder karma]

I love polystyrene!

[rotund violet]

It is impressively awful, and it looks like it's somehow caulked in between.

How caulk works with polysterene, I can't even guess.

[marble jewel]

If my floors were really tall, I wouldn't mind a dropped ceiling just for the versatility of it all

[rotund violet]

Still, at least you can stick things to it. With popcorn, you can't.

[ivory shadow]

Dropped ceiling. I couldn't think of the word, lol

[safe dragon]

looks up at his popcorn ceiling

[rotund violet]

Hmm, I wonder if that polysterene thing actually is just a drop ceiling, but the builder just got really lazy/cheap and used polysterene tiles instead of the usual cement/drywall stuff.

[dusty pollen]

interestingly enough, when I wanted a socket with a wireless remote switch but no other capabilities, the only real solution I could find was ikea, and it was pretty cheap, too. Their line of tech is surprisingly no-nonsense

[rotund violet]

If so, then that means the styrofoam blocks could be replaced with proper ones, which actually makes it OK as a design (just shitty construction).

[rotund violet]

I'm sure we've all experienced them, otherwise we wouldn't know enough to hate them.

[ivory shadow]

I think this might be the stuff? https://www.homedepot.com/p/A-La-Maison-Ceilings-Basic-Plain-White-1-6-ft-x-1-6-ft-Glue-Up-Foam-Ceiling-Tile-21-6-sq-ft-case-R22pw-8/207134832

[dusty pollen]

the funny thing about chaining extension cords is that I once asked in a UK electricians subreddit if it’s safe and they all went “yeah? what’s the problem?” turns out that fused extension cords really are (relatively) safe to chain, and they all legally have to be fused here

[ivory shadow]

Affordable design glues easily to almost any ceiling

This is it. This is the dumbest ceiling.

[rotund violet]

"Sleek and modern", hahahahaha

[safe dragon]

do I have to get my US vpn out

[marble jewel]

If you just want remote control, all you need is an endless supply of disposable bulbs, a slingshot, and good aim.

[crystal wren]

Same, we're too not American.

[ivory shadow]

Let me just glue some coffee cup lookin squares to my ceiling

[rotund violet]

Dear lord, what is it with the cheapest garbage-tier products always having the most pompous names and marketing descriptions?

[safe dragon]

US vpn worked

[dusty pollen]

it was for my computer rather than a lightbulb, but I like the way you think

[rotund violet]

"A La Maison" - literally means "like a house", as in worse than a house, but you know it's good because it's French!

[safe dragon]

those kinds of tiles just make me think of my high school

[ivory shadow]

Also wow, home depot's website blocks people outside the US? That's so weird

[dusty pollen]

isn’t a la maison a common US restaurant term?

[cinder karma]

No

[dusty pollen]

huh. why did I think it was

[ivory shadow]

la maison literally just means "at home" does it not

[safe dragon]

I'd assume it blocks me because not doing so would require them to adhere to GDPR

[cinder karma]

Except a French person would say chez moi

Not la maison

[rotund violet]

Yeah well... "like a house", "like home", "homestyle", they're all shades of gray here.

[cinder karma]

Chez moi, a Paris

[dusty pollen]

once saw a legitimate, non-tiny business say they couldn’t ship to the EU because gdpr meant they wouldn’t legally be allowed to keep financial records or receipts. That was an interesting one.

[rotund violet]

Can confirm, the short-term answer to expensive EU regulations is "just block Europe until we figure it out".

[ivory shadow]

(Side note I was one of only like 5 kids in my high school class that took french instead of spanish, not that many of us took languages at all.)

[marble jewel]

https://tenor.com/view/jason-sudeikis-fred-armisen-melissa-mccarthy-pizza-day-pizza-gif-11031014

Almost Pizza

[crystal wren]

In school, I had the choices of French and French.

[lethal walrus]

Despite how often vpn ads claim this happens, this is the first time I've a tuskly seen it happen

[worn remnant]

a tuskly

[cinder karma]

(Side note: in high school I tested into fourth semester Frnch based on yolo alone)

[ivory shadow]

At work we've gotten like a single GDPR request since all that started, and it wasn't a big deal at all. But I suppose it's a bigger deal for such an oversized corporation as Home Depot. God forbid they hire some people to do things.

[dusty pollen]

(gdpr specifically is actually relatively simple to work with, it mostly applies to sensitive identifying data and basically just requires you not to store it if you don’t need it any more, and to give users the ability to update and delete their info wherever relevant. Other EU regulations are probably tougher though)

every gdpr training I’ve had mostly said things like “do not take someone’s credit card number and name and store it forever for no reason for your free survey”

[rotund violet]

Let's be fair here, GDPR is heinously expensive to comply with, and big companies are already paying big bucks to comply with crap like SOX. Do they even have retail operations in Europe that would justify it?

[dusty pollen]

I’m pretty sure gdpr isn’t usually that expensive to comply with? at least from what I heard here in the UK

[rotund violet]

I've lived in areas without Home Depot and compared to every other hardware store/chain they are amazingly well run.

[dusty pollen]

I don’t doubt that, and I’m sure they just have no need for it, I just meant in general

[marble jewel]

Tell that to a company whose business runs on marketing to people using their PII

[ivory shadow]

I've just never been a fan of that "oh we'll just block all EU IPs" because, first off... blocking EU IPs doesn't mean you're blocking Europeans who are covered by the GDPR no matter where they physically are

And you don't have to stop someone accessing your website if you don't want them to be a customer just... don't sell to them?

[dusty pollen]

even that’s legal! facebook didn’t have to stop operating in the EU when gdpr happened they just had to make it a little more possible to delete your data

[rotund violet]

They probably do that too. I'm guessing if you register with a US IP but request delivery to an EU address, it'll be denied.

[ivory shadow]

(And don't store a bunch of information about people who aren't actually customers, but I guess that's a hard ask...)

[worn remnant]

the first rule of being on the internet is of course that a user's IP perfectly maps to their physical location /s

[marble jewel]

Two complications in complying with some of the various regulations around data privacy - the right to remove, and the right to request

[dusty pollen]

the creepiest thing about facebook was the shadow accounts thing. idk if they still do it but god that was such an unsettling thing to learn about

[marble jewel]

i.e. you can ask yourself to be removed from systems, and you can ask to obtain a copy of what the company has on you

[dusty pollen]

yup, that’s the core of gdpr (the way I was taught it)

[ivory shadow]

And just blocking EU IPs doesn't remove them from needing to do that lol

[dusty pollen]

(as well as some stuff about only storing necessary data for appropriate amounts of time)

[rotund violet]

Yeah, "don't store personal data" sounds all noble in theory, but you've got their physical address on a bunch of past orders, so you need some elaborate system to scrub it without fucking up the database and such.

Just as one simple example.

[dusty pollen]

but it mostly applies to identifying info, iirc you legally can store anything anonymised, and you’re allowed to just remove the identifying parts and keep the rest

[rotund violet]

Trouble with regs like GDPR isn't that the intent is wrong, but that they're so vague and so expansive that compliance is impossible unless you're a huge company.

[marble jewel]

It's easy if all you have on them is just what they enter, but some company's source tons of data from a bunch of different places, and it's not always a simple answer what is "the customer's" data

[rotund violet]

Well, not "impossible" obviously, just impractical.

[marble jewel]

Think "big data" problems where the volume/velocity of data exceeds any humans ability to interpret it

[crystal wren]

Or just "oh no, our database and systems are so badly designed and we didn't anticipate actually needing to delete PII for a customer..."

[rotund violet]

And here, well, it kind of does. If the company is not registered in Europe, doesn't market or sell to Europe, then if some random dude in EU sends a GDPR request, the company can and will tell him to fuck off.

[dusty pollen]

that is true, though tbh my (idealistic, somewhat impractical) instinct is that I’d prefer that they organise my identifying data better than that tbh lol

[rotund violet]

Home Depot serves North America, they don't have to comply with GDPR.

[dusty pollen]

(again, GDPR is almost entirely relating to identifying data afaik. Credit cards, legal names, addresses, etc. They’re allowed to store anonymised data however they want. Which is why it’s always been something I wasn’t really against lmao)

[marble jewel]

It's like when politicians somehow think that YouTube can do human moderations on approximately 500 hours of content uploaded every minute

[rotund violet]

Anonymizing data is in practice extremely hard and actually an expert discipline. Look up k-anonymity as a basic primer.

[dusty pollen]

oh god that kills me every time

[rotund violet]

It is easy to think data is anonymous when it actually contains identifying markers.

[ivory shadow]

Clearly YouTube just needs to hire 30,000 humans I'm sure their business model will support that on top of actually paying to host such an utterly ridiculous amount of video content

[marble jewel]

Yeah, it's not anonymous in X or Y table just because you applied the same hash to the keys on both tables.

[ivory shadow]

Honestly the financials of YouTube don't even begin to make sense to me

[dusty pollen]

yeah, but the law only really pertains to outright identifying information iirc. They aren’t asking to make sure that the textbox the user happened to use a regional dialect in is scrubbed. But I could be wrong about that

[rotund violet]

YouTube doesn't have financials, it's a subsidiary (as in, literally subsidized by) Google/Alphabet.

[dusty pollen]

but then again, small businesses here in the EU didn’t seem to collectively go out of business, so I assume they have a way around gdpr haha

[safe dragon]

I can guarantee you as someone who has built retail software that you can absolutely keep financial records and receipts. In fact you are required to by law

[rotund violet]

Yup, 7 years worth (at least in US)

[safe dragon]

I've run into it a few times

[dusty pollen]

exactly haha, that’s what made me laugh

imagine if we collectively stopped keeping financial records as soon as gdpr hit

[marble jewel]

Guys, did you know you legally don't have to pay taxes if you declare yourself a sovereign citizen /s

[rotund violet]

Been many a year since I heard that one. Was popular in the... 90s?

[marble jewel]

It's had an emergence thanks to the TikTok era

[rotund violet]

Definitely a pre-internet meme.

[dusty pollen]

I don’t think it ever went away ngl

[ivory shadow]

Still can't believe tiktok made stealing cars into a meme

[dusty pollen]

I’ve been hearing about it on and off every couple years for as long as I’ve been online. Funniest part is the UK people shouting about what our constitution says

[rotund violet]

I imagine you could technically avoid paying any income taxes by renouncing all citizenships, in the sense that renouncing all citizenships would make it impossible to get paid at all.

[dusty pollen]

“read the constitution!” how, it’s uncodified

[marble jewel]

Has that happened to "This is your brain" yet? If not I feel like it's overdue.

[dusty pollen]

you’d also have to not live in a country because income tax is applied to non-citizen residents too haha

alternatively, you can avoid paying (some) income tax by moving to nevada

[rotund violet]

(You can't be taxed for income you don't have. No income, no income tax.)

[safe dragon]

now you're reminding me of the Established Titles scam where you could buy a square foot of land in scotland "to become a scottish lord or lady"

[dusty pollen]

a scottish laird* technically, and yeah, that was hilarious. Especially since honestly, just call yourself a lord, who cares lmao

All Monarchy Is Made Up And The UK Monarchy Can Fight Me On That

[safe dragon]

I'll call myself a lady

[rotund violet]

How much land do I have to buy in order to get Duke?

[dusty pollen]

none, not how that works currently

you have to have approval from the British monarchy, at least for UK titles

(I think there’s also a separate version for just scotland but same principle, you don’t get it for land ownership any more)

[rotund violet]

I wouldn't mind being a Duke or Earl. I'll even fly out there once a year to spit on the commoners.

[dusty pollen]

googled someone from a British comedy music group I found funny because she had the title Lady in everything I saw of her. Turns out one of the other members knighted her and they all insist that’s just as legitimate as anything else I respect that

easiest title to get in the UK as a commoner is a Lord/Baron/Lady/Baroness (equivalent titles, women typically use Baroness and men typically use Lord for reasons related to marriage etc) via life peerage (so it’s not inherited by your kids, it’s just yours)

(Lord/Lady are the generic titles but Lady could technically also mean “wife of a Lord” rather than someone with her own title, which is why women typically go for Baroness instead)

[marble jewel]

@ivory shadow out of curiousity, is your Discord bot coded in C#?

[ivory shadow]

Typescript

[marble jewel]

Ah okay. I was playing around with making a C# bot, but debating between the two popular libraries.

[safe dragon]

uberbot is c# though

[marble jewel]

It looks like either Discord.net or DSharpPlus are both well-supported options so as far as I can tell it's all a matter of preference perhaps

Neither of them are official, despite the former having an official-looking name

[pliant snow]

The Javascript and Python ones are by far the most well used, but I think some of the others are decently close behind

[marble jewel]

Yeah, I'm probably better off going with Javascript/Typescript since I'll probably have a better Docker stack to build off of as well

[pliant snow]

What else would you want in your Docker builds?

That sounded more cynical than I meant it

[marble jewel]

I just mean I can start with a well supported stack that has node/deno or whatever and bring my scripts to it

I think if I went the .NET route, I'd need a stack that has the .NET framework I intend to use.

I haven't checked, but it seems like javascript would be a lighter stack.

[ivory shadow]

What all do you want your bot to do? If it's just responding to interactions (slash commands, context menu commands, etc.) you could consider something like running it in a Cloudflare Worker using js/ts

But if you're not looking for something serverless like that I don't think C# is that much heavier than JS

[marble jewel]

I have a few things in mind, but just to start responding to commands will be my "Hello World"

I tentatively plan to host it as a container on my existing VPS

[ivory shadow]

Frankly I'd probably recommend trying C# over JS just because discord.js is obnoxious

[marble jewel]

I might even have it run on my raspberry pi since it's always on/connected provided the resources allow me to do so

[crystal wren]

I was looking at C# for a Discord bot a while ago, but unfortunately I don't remember which choice felt the nicest to use...

I just know I'd be picking C# because I prefer it, and that's that.

[marble jewel]

Based on some quick comparisons, I'm leaning towards DSharpPlus, so maybe I'll just give it a shot and see how it goes

[cinder karma]

Rust.

[marble jewel]

What language would you recommend for...

@cinder karma Rust.

[ivory shadow]

Rust. For when you need maximum performance and maximum dev slamming their head into their desk

[marble jewel]

I'm not entirely opposed to the idea since I'm just playing around for now, and I don't have Rust experience but this seems like it could be a good learning opportunity

[crystal wren]

Go wouldn't be a bad choice either!

[marble jewel]

The Go Discord library has 5.3k stars, while the Rust library only has 5k

[ivory shadow]

I don't hear people talk about Go much anymore, I feel.

[marble jewel]

DSharpPlus only has 1.3k stars, .NET is in its sad little corner as always

[cinder karma]

I really need to learn Go

[marble jewel]

Go learn Go

You must learn it because this guy wants you to

I should learn Go, it's the language of choice for quite a few of the apps in my homelab

[ivory shadow]

big "character from a ridiculously unhinged flash animation from the mid 2000s" energy

[crystal wren]

This little guy would've been on ABS for sure.

[pliant snow]

At one point I went and looked at the number of stars per Discord binding libraries

[crystal wren]

Or, I mean: https://cogmasters.github.io/concord/

[marble jewel]

I'm running Traefik, Miniflux, Blocky, and Picoshare which are all written in Go

[lethal walrus]

What's wrong with discord.js? I've never had any issues eith it

[ivory shadow]

breaking api changes in non-major versions

[marble jewel]

Who would do such a thing... *cough

[pliant snow]

Using Rust for a discord bot sounds like actual hell

nothing but wrangling &str as far as the eye can see

[cinder karma]

And

My c# is like that sometimes

[lethal walrus]

Oh true

I usually don't update unless it's a major so never actually ran into those

[devout vault]

That was a lot to backread.

Also slightly confusing since I started from the bottom and went up, thinking “surely there isn’t that much more” (spoiler alert: ||there was||)

[pliant snow]

discord.py has treated me well enough

[lethal walrus]

Yeah it's not bad

[ivory shadow]

hi casey

We've been chatty today

[pliant snow]

every few years the devs try and kill each other, but that's their business

[marble jewel]

I mean... just going by stars so far discord.py is the largest I've looked up today

[pliant snow]

iirc it's second largest after discord.js

[marble jewel]

Oh wait, yeah just looked that up. discord.js is the winner

1. discord.js
2. discord.py
3. discordgo
4. serenity (Rust)
5. DSharpPlus (C#)

[crystal wren]

It is the official one, isn't it?

[ivory shadow]

I don't think it's official.

[pliant snow]

There's no official one I think

They just have the API and leave the bindings up to whoever

[marble jewel]

It must be the most popular because Javascript is objectively the best programming language

[pliant snow]

I never really looked into the javascript one too much tbh idk how they handle things

or how complicated it is to run

[lethal walrus]

discord.js is like 25k - just about in the top 1000 on github

[lethal walrus]

tbf I've never had issues with discord.js just not working

[pliant snow]

what are the top 5 most starred repos

[ivory shadow]

Step 1. Have node installed
Step 2. Have a package manager installed
Step 3. Use the package manager to install your dependencies
Step 4. Run your script with node

If you're new to JS, save yourself headaches and use pnpm for your package manager.

[devout vault]

DSharpPlus sounds like someone ported the D language to .net, and then added some stuff for the ‘plus’

[pliant snow]

awesome and build-your-own-x are top 5??

[crystal wren]

Yeah, I really don't like that name...

[marble jewel]

I'm trying to get on the deno hype train tbh, so maybe I'm back to Typescript

[pliant snow]

Last I looked they were basically dead

[marble jewel]

Or is it bun nowadays, I can never keep up

[crystal wren]

I remember playing around with D forever ago, though!

[ivory shadow]

I think bun was the new hotness?

Either way I don't know if discord.js actually supports them

[lethal walrus]

Buns not bad but can be weird

[marble jewel]

From what I last recall, Deno 2 took back the throne

[lethal walrus]

I assume it does given it'd have no native code

[pliant snow]

The only thing I know about deno is that this stupid markdown preview plugin I have requires it

[lethal walrus]

And bun strives for full node compatibility

[marble jewel]

I like the idea of a runtime made by the creator of Node.js but with the hindsight of all of his regrets

Something about that sounds appealing to me

[crystal wren]

Same, but it would also mean using JavaScript.

[marble jewel]

Deno is Typescript by default not that it makes that big of a difference

[ivory shadow]

How much hindsight and regret can they really have if they made another runtime and it's still javascript

[crystal wren]

I wonder if...

https://github.com/discord-zig/discord.zig

Yup!

[marble jewel]

18 stars, lol

[ivory shadow]

Clearly you should use https://github.com/SinisterRectus/Discordia

[marble jewel]

Ah man, this has not been updated:
https://github.com/Kaktushose/pascord

[pliant snow]

I really looked at Discordia at one point lol, but decided against it

[marble jewel]

My dreams of making this in Pascal are shattered

I feel like I came in here looking for a little bit of direction, and now I'm more lost than I started, but it's fine I'll figure it out

[ivory shadow]

who wants to write a Discord API via Stardew mod

Trigger a trigger action on messageCreate or interactionCreate

[marble jewel]

.choose discord.js, discord.py, discordgo, serenity, DSharpPlus

[heavy dagger]

Choose result: serenity

[crystal wren]

Perfect.

[lethal walrus]

I assume this is some library as opposed to making a discord bot entirely in serenityos

[marble jewel]

Serenity Discord bot, in SerenityOS, while watching Serenity

[lethal walrus]

Ohh it's the rust one

[rotund violet]

Robot made the correct choice.

(and honestly, &str is really not going to a problem unless you actually care a lot about using as little memory as possible; otherwise, just toss String on all your types and forget about lifetimes)

[rain apex]

wait i thought u just do that by default for C

& so u can have a const whatever * arg

[devout vault]

Think they're talking about Rust not C

[rotund violet]

Yeah, &str is sort of like StringRef but less scary.

[rain apex]

say besides remaking the whole object, is there any other way to reset all fields on an object to their initial values

[cinder karma]

Making a new object and copying the values over

[dusty pollen]

discord.js annoyed me so much at various points

[dusty pollen]

thoughts on yarn?

(not you, atra )

[ivory shadow]

better than npm, barely, much worse than pnpm

[dusty pollen]

maybe I should try pnpm. Never looked into the package manager side of things much tbh

[ivory shadow]

It uses symlinks for package installation

So much better than traditional node_modules

[dusty pollen]

as long as it could accommodate all the nonsense I threw into the scripts section of my package.json I was happy

wait, so no 30GB node_modules dir? where’s the fun in that?

[rain apex]

does discord api have access to forwarded message yet

[thin estuary]

if it works on their client, it has to be in the API

[pliant snow]

Yeah it does, I know the python library added support in its last release

[pliant snow]

Which I probably should support..

[dusty pollen]

is governor the bot that assigns new roles in this server? or is that uber or something

[safe dragon]

it's me

a busy job

[dusty pollen]

you’ve been missing some people recently saw my second one in two days today

[safe dragon]

I try ok

[dusty pollen]

not good enough!!!11!1!

I assume you’re also the one manually deleting spam messages, in which case you should know that on several occasions they have stayed up for nearly a second. Unacceptable

[safe dragon]

I don't even get paid

[dusty pollen]

you get paid in exposure

[safe dragon]

no better payment out there

[rain apex]

Boncher real identity revealed

[pliant snow]

Governor does the new roles

I slightly changed when users gain the villager role, so it's sort of a known issue that users who joined ages ago but haven't spoken enough to reach level 2 will be missing villager

The spam messages is the Discord automoderator now

[dusty pollen]

(that one I knew haha)

[cinder karma]

Why does json not support comments

I just spent the last ten minutes writing a little bit of python to strip comments

[safe dragon]

depends on the json parser if comments are allowed...

[cinder karma]

json from python

I know about json5

It's faster for me to throw in a quick little thing than to ask IT to install shit for me

[rain apex]

pyjson5

[rotund violet]

That's kind of an odd frame. "How dare this old library not support this new feature that the new libraries all support"

If anything you should be complaining about silly IT restrictions.

[pliant snow]

idk, I would argue it's strange that the json spec didn't support comments from the beginning

[rotund violet]

Why would it?

[safe dragon]

if I remember right it was intentionally left out since json was intended to be used solely to transfer data

[rotund violet]

It's JavaScript Object Notation, it was just meant to describe serialized objects.

[safe dragon]

and since comments are by definition ignored they don't make much sense

[pliant snow]

except json doesnt ignore them

We've had comment support in code for like 50 years

idk of anything else that doesnt support them

[cinder karma]

(I'm complaining about the json spec)

[safe dragon]

what do you mean? what exactly does a comment achieve when you deserialize it again

just cause we use it now for random shit like config files doesn't really mean that was what they had in mind at the time

[pliant snow]

In that case, I would argue it was naive of them to assume no human would ever edit one themselves and would want to take notes of what it was doing

[cinder karma]

Tbh I would have used toml if I had access lol

[safe dragon]

at least most modern json parsers at least know how to handle comments

alas

[cinder karma]

Anyways, I fixed my issue already, lol

[safe dragon]

🙏

[rotund violet]

JSON isn't code.

[safe dragon]

tell that to jdsl

🙏

[pliant snow]

We've had comment support in every other config format as well for 50 years

How dare the humans read our human readable format

[safe dragon]

I mean if you compare it to pure data formats...

[rotund violet]

JSON wasn't created as a "config format".

[safe dragon]

can't exactly add comments to grpc data

or graphql I don't think

[rotund violet]

When it started to be used as a "config format", that's when they made the move to JSON5 and added comments.

[pliant snow]

Which again, I find naive of them to assume it wouldn't be

[safe dragon]

oh well

now json rules the world

[pliant snow]

I've been seeing more and more toml lately actually

[safe dragon]

other than the rust config I have never seen toml

I've run into yaml a fair few times

[rotund violet]

I believe the term for this is "hindsight bias".

We're talking about a time when even JavaScript itself wasn't taken very seriously, never mind JSON as a data format.

Also haven't seen TOML outside of Rust, really, although it's a nice enough idea.

(It's also kinda sorta just reprising the old INI style with a few modern flourishes)

[safe dragon]

meanwhile the rust people I know seem to be all over "RON" these days

though that's more a data format

...which they then use for configs

[rotund violet]

Ron seems better for complex runtime stuff, vs. the fairly straightforward configuration settings that TOML serves.

Toml is just hard to read/maintain as a hierarchical structure. (Yes it supports hierarchy; does not mean it's ideal for that purpose)

[pliant snow]

what is RON

[cinder karma]

Rust object notation

In my case, I am defining a config format

And thus would have preferred toml

The hell is a windows dev drive

[safe dragon]

never heard of it

[cinder karma]

I'm in the os.path docs (because of course I usually use pathlib lol) ans it mentioned this weird thing

[safe dragon]

it is indeed apparently a thing

[cinder karma]

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dev-drive/

Put smapi on it lol

Bench that

[ivory shadow]

Oh right, ReFS

Wish Microsoft would just catch up with the other OSes when it comes to filesystems

But being crap at their job and somehow being the most popular is the key defining trait of Windows

[pliant snow]

I've heard of this devdrive thing

[safe dragon]

when I tried to extract a single file from a fairly large ZIP recently I was reminded of how microsoft is just very good at doing something poorly that everyone else already figured out ages ago

something that would've been near instant with 7zip

but by the time I realized I was already committed to wait out the loading screen

I'm also still quite annoyed that C#'s built in zip library does not support password protected zips

but that's unrelated

especially with practically all popular third party zip libraries no longer being maintained or even being genuine security concerns

[pliant snow]

Everytime I have Windows delete a bunch of files and have to sit there waiting for it, I just cant help but wonder what it's doing so differently

[safe dragon]

it's taking a break in between

[thin estuary]

oh cool https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour

[marble jewel]

Is that an official repo

[thin estuary]

yuuup

[marble jewel]

Weird, I wonder what's the motivation behind that

I don't know much about Generals Zero Hour, but I was a big fan of C&C and C&C Red Alert growing up

[thin estuary]

Generals was my childhood game

still love listening to the soundtrack

[crystal wren]

Time to go check out its version of Hell March to judge it based entirely on that!

[thin estuary]

that will be hard, since there's no Russian-based faction in that game

[crystal wren]

I did a quick Google, and was led to believe every version had its own version... damn.

[frosty echo]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/strategy/ea-just-released-source-code-for-a-bunch-of-old-command-and-conquer-games-and-added-steam-workshop-support-to-bangers-like-c-and-c-3-tiberium-wars/

[devout vault]

Fun fact: We weren't allowed to enable that at my previous job because it interacts incredibly poorly with BitLocker, or something

[pliant snow]

Everything seems to interact poorly with bitlocker

[dusty pollen]

I once saw bitlocker interact poorly with a certain laptop model. Caused blue screens of death.

[rotund violet]

Red Alert was definitely the banger. Tiberium Wars... not so much.

[marble jewel]

I was young and had no mind for strategy (I still don't but that's besides the point). I'd always try to rush Tesla Coils, much to my detriment.

[dusty pollen]

THAT'S why I don't recognise it I was so confused until now. Just looked it up and C&C came out when I was 4 haha

were EA the original publishers, or did they just get the rights at some point? this is interesting

[marble jewel]

It was Westwood Studios who made the versions I played

But EA gobbled up all the companies

[dusty pollen]

tracks, a lot of the older smaller game studios were acquired at various points

[marble jewel]

I'm still salty about Black & White being a dead series. It would have been the perfect game to remake for the AR/VR era of gaming.

[dusty pollen]

I wonder why EA released the code. It isn't exactly like them

[marble jewel]

Like, the hand gestures that are finally getting decent. That's what Black & White control scheme was based on, a simulation of hand gestures using your mouse.

[dusty pollen]

damn, that sounds interesting. How old are the games?

my swipe keyboard typed "fans" instead of games lmao, that seems mean

[marble jewel]

Black & White 2 was released in 2005, but it's ownership is in limbo because EA and Microsoft both have a say on that franchise for some reason

It's a whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtNvEna6bxc&t=1260s

[dusty pollen]

dw, both these companies are famously understanding and reasonable about their IPs. Wait--

[rotund violet]

The Westwood titles were the best. Hard to believe today that major game studios back then actually had a sense of humor, but it's true.

[marble jewel]

Microsoft has the right to code the game, but EA has the rights to publish it

[dusty pollen]

anyway, it sounds like someone should make an entirely unrelated game called Greyscale

totally legally distinct

[marble jewel]

It's one of the few decent games that came out of the Molyneux hype engine before he became a joke

I consider Project Milo to be the start of his downfall

[dusty pollen]

...Stefan Molyneux was a game dev?

oh wait, different Molyneux lmao

[marble jewel]

He basically promised a sentient being running on the Xbox 360

Peter Molyneux became known for vastly overpromising and vastly underdelivering

[dusty pollen]

I associate the name Molyneux with a very different type of ridiculous person nowadays

[marble jewel]

Given your age, Peter's noteworthiness was probably before your time

[dusty pollen]

probably, though a part of it is that I just didn't grow up playing games

or in an English speaking country until age 10 haha

[cinder karma]

I don't reconfize either of those names

Is possible better this way

[dusty pollen]

definitely better that you don't recognise the one I mentioned

[marble jewel]

You might know him as the founder of the studio that created the game Theme Park

He founded a few game studios, which all were acquired by EA or Microsoft

[dusty pollen]

however, apparently there's a guy called Stephen Molyneux (phe instead of fa) who seems like a pretty cool dude according to Wikipedia

and is actually also in the gaming space

[marble jewel]

https://tenor.com/view/rollercoaster-death-crash-gif-5406584

After the success of Theme Park, Black & White, and Fable, his head got really big

[dusty pollen]

fable rings a bell for some reason

[marble jewel]

His job though is like what people who think they want to make games in the game industry really want to do. He was like the vision guy who could bankroll teams of artists and developers to make his games a reality.

Every teenager who wants to make games, but has no artistic, writing, or programming talent, but they have "really good ideas"

[dusty pollen]

"I have an amazing idea, it's an mmo but instead of having channels and servers, you have a million people on the same instance. Why hasn't anyone done this yet?" (may or may not be a real example)

(iirc this was a large part of the earth 2 pitch)

[rain apex]

Mr molyneux would have done numbers on Kickstarter

[marble jewel]

He did crowdfunding with Godus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godus

[dusty pollen]

100% theme park science-based rpg

[rain apex]

Nice is it real yet

[marble jewel]

It raised $850k and it was released, but just like everything he does it was not at all what was promised

[sonic mirage]

If you watch the recent video(s?) by PeopleMakeGames with him in them, it seems like he's learned his lesson.. finally

[cinder karma]

Is it that scam kickstartwe

Dream world

(See, I only know about video games when bad things happen)

[marble jewel]

There used to be a Twitter account named Peter Molydeux which made statements that sounded like they could have been made by the real guy

Some of the parody account's proposals include:

A racing game in which the player controls the road instead of the vehicle[1]
A Kinect game in which the player must cry to open a gate[1]
An eight-person online multiplayer game in which each player controls one leg of an octopus[1]
The final segment of a war game, in which the player pauses in silence at the tombstone of each KIA recruit[1]
A 3D adventure game in which the amnesiac player awakens in a museum with a room dedicated to each year of the character's life[1]
The player holds a radioactive baby, which acts as a torch in a dark environment; rocking the baby increases its luminescence[1]
The player pretends to be blind and must walk into objects to avoid suspicion[1]
A bear must hug people in order to live, but crushes the people he hugs[1]
A pigeon carries sentimental objects to businessmen to persuade them not to kill themselves[1]
A divorced father sneaks into his family house to help with chores without alerting them[1]
When the player kills henchmen in one game, the player sees recurring images of those henchmen's crying children in an unrelated sports video game[4]
A version of Street Fighter in which streets fight other streets[4]

[dusty pollen]

when are we getting that last one

[marble jewel]

You know, I was recently looking into if M.U.G.E.N. was still a thing, and it is via it's spiritual successor I.K.E.M.E.N. Go

[rain apex]

Octopdad coop edition

[marble jewel]

Theoretically Ikemen Go can be used to make a fighting game with any characters you want

[sonic mirage]

And by recent, I mean I watched it semi-recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeNGLhNM5Kk

[marble jewel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kZG480MmjA

I wonder if anyone has made SDV Characters for MUGEN/IKEMEN

[rain apex]

Pierre vs Morris

Joja meta trust

[marble jewel]

He kind of ruined his legacy, he could've gone down as among the best game designers in history. Instead he'll probably be remembered as a joke.

I think John Carmack is probably one of the few critically acclaimed game developers who actually deserves the recognition

[sonic mirage]

Yeah, I don't think there's any getting around that he ruined it. In the vid he basically says he would get caught up in his dreams for whatever game he was working on and he understands now that the games have to speak for themselves, so he doesn't talk about them til they're done (or something like that)

[sand frost]

An eight-person online multiplayer game in which each player controls one leg of an octopus[1]

this sounds real to me tbh

[cinder karma]

I would love to be an octopus for a day

[sonic mirage]

Carmack is a critically acclaimed straight developer in general

[cinder karma]

That would be so cool

[sonic mirage]

I think he's working on like nuclear power or somethign now?

[marble jewel]

Isn’t he the person who invented a faster way to approximate trigonometric functions?

[rain apex]

He was doing oculus right

Fast inverse square root yeah

Oh that's actually different id soft guy huh

Greg Walsh

I just remember quake iii

[marble jewel]

The guy that invented the code that revolutionized online gaming went on to scam people on Kickstarter with Stonehearth

[rain apex]

What r some big name modern game designers now

I guess there's kojima

[marble jewel]

This was their claim to fame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GGPO

Kojima, Miyamoto

Gabe Newell

It seems like the pseudo-celebrity game developers/designers are not really a thing anymore as much as they have been in the past

[rain apex]

Yeah these guys have all been around for a while

Tho ig indie games have the 1 guy/gal at the helm

[marble jewel]

Everything is just faceless corporations

[rain apex]

Like sdv duh, but also toby fox and such

[marble jewel]

(Other than indie game developers of course)

But you don't have larger than life people at the helm of studios anymore

[rain apex]

Games take 3manyppl to make now

[cinder karma]

Chue game when

[rain apex]

There's only 2 chu as established which is not 3many

[cinder karma]

Okay

Chue and Matt game

[marble jewel]

Best I can do is mod

How about instead of a game studio, I start a mod studio, and it's just me

[rain apex]

Together we will have approximately 10pt in code and 0.2pt in art

[fleet wren]

at least we still have Todd "buy Skyrim" Howard

[marble jewel]

Ah, Todd Howard, the founder of the game studio Skyrim?

[fleet wren]

I heard he just announced his next game
Skyrim for Samsung Smart Fridges

[marble jewel]

I really hope Switch 2 gets Skyrim, because I can't wait for another opportunity to buy that game again

I think I own Stardew Valley, Minecraft, and Skyrim 5 times each, but I only play the first two anymore

[cinder karma]

Try to convince 6480

[rain apex]

When is mr todd going to let us visit the khajit province

Cat.

[marble jewel]

That'll be in TES IX in about 200 years

[devout vault]

Some of those actually sound fun. Maybe not substantial enough of an idea for a $20+ dollar game, but like a $5 one.

The octopus one sounds like it could be fun, though it might need matchmaking. Who actually has 8 friends and can actually coordinate everyone's schedules? 😛

[rain apex]

maybe if u let each player have 2 arms

[devout vault]

Huh, I thought stonehearth sounded familiar, it's apparently on my wishlist. Is it bad?

No idea it was from the ggpo person

[devout vault]

That could be interesting in VR

Though not sure how vision would work unless the octopus has 4 heads

[marble jewel]

I was a backer of the crowdfunding campaign and the resulting game has largely been abandoned

[devout vault]

(Being on my wishlist isn't exactly saying much though, my wishlist currently sits at 555 apparently.)

[devout vault]

Oof. Did they at least technically finish it?

I've never backed something and it end up not delivering. Though there is one I backed early 2021 which seems to just recently have gotten to the shipping stage. (They do monthly updates, tons of mass production problems compared to their handmade prototypes.)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixels-dice/pixels-the-electronic-dice

[marble jewel]

I haven’t participated in crowdfunding for years after several projects failed to deliver. At least with Stonehearth we got a game, but as soon as the studio behind it got acquired by Riot they pulled all the talent off of it.

[cinder karma]

At this point I treat all kickstarters as scams lol

I expect nothinf

[devout vault]

Yeah, despite never being burned, I won't ever back anything for an amount I can't afford to lose.

Which makes sense in general since it doesn't tend to be 'important' stuff on there, but like I wouldn't back something for a $1,000 tier, except if it was maybe something I knew had to cost that much (like a VR headset) and also was a reputable company

Most expensive thing I've considered backing was this, though the timing compared to my disposable income was also a factor: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stanlarroque/lynx

I wanted to eventually get one once it was in 'full production' and I had more income, but they aren't really doing consumer ones anymore, which is a bummer. Guess it's better to not have one in that case because of software support though

[sand frost]

Not sure I’ve ever backed a kickstarter tbh

[devout vault]

Main reason I was interested was the 'screen' part being able to flip up and down. Would've made doing VR experiements for games sooooo much more convenient

[sand frost]

I get the sense a lot of them go in with big dreams and zero manufacturing knowledge

[devout vault]

The RGB dice certainly seemed that way. 😛

[sand frost]

Heck, I don’t have 0 manufacturing knowledge and I would really hesitate to promise any kind of timeline on a small scale manufacturing project

[cinder karma]

Tbh I wonder how hard it would be to make rgb dice

Not that that is a reasonable thing to consider

[sand frost]

Probably depends on your ideal dice size 😛

And hand-eye coordination for soldering

[devout vault]

A lot of the mass production problems for the Pixel have to do with fitting everything in the size of a standard dice

[sand frost]

Like the fundamentals at least aren’t that hard

[devout vault]

And they don't use the pyramid style for d4s for that reason

[sand frost]

It’s the scale and pricing that will bite you

[cinder karma]

I'm bad at soldering okay

I had to get help with some 0402s

[sand frost]

I bet your bad at soldering blows us all away 😛

[devout vault]

You could probably go through all the updates on the kickstarter I linked early to learn a bit about how they did it

[pliant snow]

(I got mine months ago 😬 )

[rain apex]

if u arent looking to make them particular fancy then rgb dice is basically just sticking LED in a little thingy right

[devout vault]

I've never soldered anything.

I bought stuff to do so at one point, for my experimental home made HID controller, but never ended up getting that far

[cinder karma]

I mean, I already know which low energy Bluetooth microprocessor I prefer lol

[cinder karma]

Yup! And work let's me have infinite use of 3d print

And infinite use of solder station

Sadly no free pcb

[devout vault]

In the case of the Pixel, each face has it's own led that can be controlled and 'react' independentally. Plus like atra mentioned Bluetooth, it can connect to your phone

[rain apex]

ig these must have a little chip thingy in them too, somehow detect what they rolled

[devout vault]

So putting 20 LEDs in a standard d20 is probably a bit difficult

[cinder karma]

Nah

We have 0603 led

[rain apex]

much fancier than my imagined rgbdie then

[cinder karma]

(0603 is 6x3 mils)

[devout vault]

Yeah, I got my set for $200 in the kickstarter, but on the website they have now they're $360 (though kickstarter backers have a lifetime 15% discount)

[cinder karma]

A mil is a thousandth of an inch

[devout vault]

...Actually, I wonder if I'll actually be able to get mine now, being in the US and the tariffs and all the other stuff going on

[cinder karma]

....for $360 I would probably try my hand at it

Lol

[devout vault]

Completely unrelated, but when I tried a new mac and cheese place the other day I added an extra cheese sauce to my order and forgot to use it. Having some crackers with it now, yummy

Pretty sure I have more sauce than crackers worth though 😛

[devout vault]

Yeah, I'm actually not sure why they're so expensive. I get there needs to be profit (especially accounting R&D and such), but it seems a bit exorbitant. But I also don't know much about the costs involved in that sort of thing. shrug

[fleet wren]

The final segment of a war game, in which the player pauses in silence at the tombstone of each KIA recruit[1]

Literally Metal Gear Solid 5

When the player kills henchmen in one game, the player sees recurring images of those henchmen's crying children in an unrelated sports video game[4]

Basically The Last of Us 2

[devout vault]

Also completely unrelated, started the Handyman Saitou anime a few minutes ago. As he's unlocking a chest (that was behind two locked doors right after each other) and starts to open it, I started thinking "It'd be funny if it turned out to be a mimic".

Apparently I'm a prophet /s

[cinder karma]

I'm up to about $70ish bucks back of the envelope for dev costs

But that's dev, prod should be cheaper

[devout vault]

Dev as in manufacting and materials and such?

Or including research salary and such?

And I guess they probably hired at least one person for the phone app

[rain apex]

ppl gotta get paid

[fleet wren]

The player holds a radioactive baby, which acts as a torch in a dark environment; rocking the baby increases its luminescence[1]
If you really stretch the definition of "holds", "radioactive", "torch", "rocking" and "luminescence" to be metaphysical this is literally Amnesia: Rebirth

(sorry for the interjection I've been going through the list and playing the game of "is this actually a real game" lol)

[devout vault]

That uh

Sounds like a lot of stretching

I know nothing about Amnesia though

[rain apex]

the baby has become biangbiang noodles thanks to selph

[cinder karma]

Nah, what I meant in that was I was counting the full cost of a run of pcbs

[rain apex]

A racing game in which the player controls the road instead of the vehicle[1]
those bridge builder games

[cinder karma]

I'm not counting labor at all

Or design

This is the "in theory atra tries their hand at dice"

[devout vault]

Ah, yes, polybridge, how could I forget

[fleet wren]

basically halfway through Amnesia: Rebirth ||the protagonist discovers that she's pregnant ("holds") with her dead husband's child. said baby is probably magic ("radioactive"), and when she kicks ("rocking") in your stomach your fear level decreases, making your vision clearer ("torch" and "luminescense")||

mega level of stretch, yes

[devout vault]

You know, we probably won't get any of those game ideas made anyways, so I'll accept it

[cinder karma]

Legos

[devout vault]

Unfortunately not the case, I'm still gonna have like 10 crackers that won't get any sauce 😔

[fleet wren]

truly a terrible fate

[devout vault]

Truly. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy

[sand frost]

Should I spend my blood money on Etsy credits

[cinder karma]

No

I also consider Etsy a scam

Unless blood money is blood donation money in which case yss

[sand frost]

Or Lego

[cinder karma]

(Etsy is like 70% drops hipping now)

Lego seems fun

[sand frost]

Yeah, it is blood donations money

I spent my previous blood money on Lego but I haven’t used it yet

The problem is that Costco has better prices on Lego

[devout vault]

I was slightly concerned the way you first worded it. 😛

I mean, I guess you could be donating someone else's blood still with that phrasing...

[devout vault]

How come?

My mom sells on etsy, just curious why you would consider it inherently a scam (rather than perhaps a bunch of scammers on the platform)

[sand frost]

I find that it’s got cute stuff if you look

And cute stuff is a huge weakness of mine

[devout vault]

😛

[sand frost]

It’s a mix of weird fly by night operations and high quality handmade stuff

[cinder karma]

I feel like it's just so much work filtering out the dropshippers

[devout vault]

Re: lego - if I ever end up getting back into that (I had tons of lego sets when younger, it was kinda crazy), this will be the first thing I get: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/tuxedo-cat-21349

[cinder karma]

Who I absolutely do not want to give money to

So it becomes more of a pain than I would like

[sand frost]

Cat!!

[devout vault]

Loved when that set first came out people were making jokes about theirs coming 'preassembled' (with a photo of their tuxedo real cat in the box)

[sand frost]

I find browsing Etsy at least moderately fun, but I do wish it was a little easier to find things

[cinder karma]

I think the last four times I've donated I haven't gotten the email with the gift card....

And it isn't like

[sand frost]

Also I wish that one shop that sold “珍🐷奶茶” stickers sold them again

I love those stickers

Best stickers

[sand frost]

That’s weird o.O

I mean assuming they offered it beforehand?

Like they don’t always offer money

[sand frost]

I’m going for it

[cinder karma]

They offered. But the email with the card doesn't get to me

Like, the last email I got was 2/4/2024

So. Yeah

It's been a while

[sand frost]

That’s really weird!!

[cinder karma]

Oh well

I donate for the kindness of my heart ||but red cross paying for my running shoes would be nice ||

[devout vault]

For etsy, I remember seeing this and really liking it: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1058072943/circatboard-dress-cat-circuitboard-dress

Didn't actually get it because
A. don't think I'd necessarily be comfortable with that much leg showing, the few times I've worn a skirt (despite liking the idea a lot) were like ankle length
B. I think I checked and it just wouldn't fit me (at least with my weight, maybe if I was a healthy weight it would? or perhaps male puberty made my shoulders too broad or something for that anyways, hard to say).

Plus there's my whole very unfair 'why should I bother with clothes I like when I can't look good because of my weight' body dysphoria. Maybe if I got back to a healthy weight I'd contact the seller and see if I could get a custom size if one the listed ones still didn't work - A) could be avoided a bit by just not wearing it outside my apartment.

[sand frost]

Shoulders shouldn’t matter for fit in that style fwiw

I’m suspicious that I’d object to the fabric texture but it is a cute pattern

[devout vault]

Huh, I figured it might since it sorta tapers to lower body if you have broad shoulders too

[sand frost]

They don’t seem to say what fabric is used, so probably a polyester

I mean it may matter to how you feel about the dress, but for fit that style is sleeveless so broad shoulders shouldn’t matter too much

[devout vault]

It just says 'comfy stretchy fabric', yeah

Guess it's just a matter of losing weight then. 😛 Though that'll probably be ages

Legs scary but again, could just use in apartment, or get used to it that way

[sand frost]

Also fwiw modifying a dress smaller isn’t that hard

Not saying you should buy it! But there’s options!

[devout vault]

I'm still like that about my upper arms too to some extent, though less than I used to (one shirt I got had barely any sleeves which I didn't expect, so occasionally when I run out of other shirts I use that one)

[devout vault]

More concerned about being too big for the largest size 😛

[cinder karma]

fwiw, I have broad shoulders, I would not size up in a dress like that for my shoulders.

[marble jewel]

I have a bad track record when it comes to Kickstarter. I've backed 48 campaigns, and the only ones that delivered something that ended up working out well were all keyboards, belts, and wallets. Just about everything else ended up being a flop.

[cinder karma]

that's a cute dress

[marble jewel]

If it weren't for Keychron, Smart Belt, and SlimFold, 100% of my Kickstarter campaigns I would consider to be scammy

[cinder karma]

a very cute dress

[devout vault]

Yeah, some of the things I've backed (mainly games) aren't necessarily great... but they are finished

Re:Legend was one that seemed promising, has mixed reviews on steam. (Never got around to trying it myself)

And there's some I just haven't gotten around to playing yet. 😛 (Like Cattails: Wildwood Story)

[marble jewel]

Mighty No 9 was supposed to be the spiritual successor to MegaMan since Capcom was only interested in making gambling machines with the IP.

[fleet wren]

ah, the three things I couldnt leave my house without

[marble jewel]

I backed Exploding Kittens, but that ended up being a pretty fun card game, so that's another one that worked out well

[rain apex]

did u back the castlevania but with an anime girl

the name escapes me...

[fleet wren]

Bloodstained?

[marble jewel]

I backed Bloodstained which was a spiritual successor to Castlevania

[devout vault]

For some reason I thought Mighty No 9 was a movie.

I remember one game that looked Megaman-esque was 20XX, though looking at the steam page now it's just maybe the setting, it's actually a roguelike. (They also have a sequel called 30XX, apparently)

[rain apex]

yea that one

[sand frost]

I’ve played cattails (maybe the original though?)

[fleet wren]

I havent backed any kickstarter campaigns; the closest thing (which I only backed spiritually) was Ubuntu Edge back in the days (not kickstarter but you get it)
now that one's shooting for the moon

[devout vault]

Yeah, that was a fun game. I've played it before with my family.

My brothers and I were gonna try on tabletop simulator at one point, but tabletop simulator didn't really seem to have good tools for some of the things you do (like putting a card into a specific place without looking at all the cards). Maybe they had the tools to do that stuff and we just couldn't figure out how, or maybe they've added stuff like that since then. Hard to say for sure

[sand frost]

My thermocouple data logger is acting up 😔 I think it’s broken (unrelated to kickstarter but almost programming)

The thermocouple itself is fine, the voltage it reads is normal

[devout vault]

Thermocouple?

[sand frost]

Temperature sensor

A specific kind

It was telling me 1000C just sitting there in my office

[marble jewel]

Dang, turn on the AC

[devout vault]

Looking at steam's new & trending and see another roguelike deckbuilder.

It's not that I inherently don't like them - I enjoyed slay the spire, even modded it for a bit (though never finished and released something), but for whatever reason deckbuilding just immediately makes me lose interest in most games. It's weird.

[sand frost]

Don’t worry, 1 second later it was reading -200C

[fleet wren]

I don't think the human body's optimal temperature range contains either of those values

not a biologist though

[marble jewel]

Can confirm, am human. My thermostat stays at about 68 F.

[fleet wren]

it's admittedly a very easy way to indicate "dealing with controllable randomness" as a gameplay mechanic

[devout vault]

Also, on the popular upcoming tab.... There's a bongo cat game?!?!

An idler where it just works based on all your other computer activity (ie. clicking, typing, etc.) does at least sound somewhat novel, but it seems like it's mostly just another one of those games that game the steam marketplace

[devout vault]

Man, climate change is really wrecking your office's temperature stability, isn't it

[dusty pollen]

that doesn’t looks like the highest quality fabric to me tbh. I associate those kinds of fabrics with cheap mass-produced aliexpress type stuff

[devout vault]

Perhaps, though I saw today that one of the reviews said they've washed it a bunch and it hasn't really changed, so shrug

I guess that doesn't speak to the texture and such though

[devout vault]

I don't necessarily dislike that sort of thing, but maybe I just don't like it as part of the core gameplay.

[dusty pollen]

mostly I just assume it would be sheer (though it seems to be lined?) and just not the most flattering tbh

[devout vault]

Outside of situations where you can opt-in to it for a specific build or something, rather than being required for playing at all

[dusty pollen]

that stretch fabric is my enemy nowadays

[devout vault]

Oh, steam visual novel fest is going on right now.

I would say 'maybe I should buy a bunch of games I probably won't end up playing all the way through', but given my current finances probably not the best idea

[dusty pollen]

huh. why did that message trigger automod

oh my god I just realised why. Scunthorpe-style issue with the automod rules I think

[sand frost]

Steam?

A lot of the scams going around seem to mention Steam stuff

[dusty pollen]

I’m the same I think. I assume it’s a balance and versatility issue - to enjoy a deckbuilder, I need it to both be flexible enough to come up with crazy builds where various things work off of each other, while also being balanced enough for none of these builds to be the ONLY meta. I’m liking balatro rn but even that has some builds that beat every other build

[dusty pollen]

nope. I was using a synonym for “beat” which happens to also be the name of the current president of the US. Seems like it’s been blacklisted.

[sand frost]

Oh huh

Well, I can see that

[dusty pollen]

Not ideal but ig I get why it’s there

[cinder karma]

Oh my god it's true

Lol

[dusty pollen]

guess I can’t speak about UK novelty fighting card pack game series from around ten year ago, top _s. And I wanted to so badly!

[cinder karma]

Anyways

[fleet wren]

tbf if your goal is "beat ante 8" there's lots of builds to get there
ante 16 though yeah there's like 3 viable build

[dusty pollen]

yup, the message I sent is identical in every way to my original message other than that one word

[cinder karma]

Does anyone want to explain a deck builder to the poor overworked atra

[dusty pollen]

oh yeah, like (checks notes) using plasma or checkered decks and just making shit up

[cinder karma]

A deck builder involves 2x4s right

Damn.

[dusty pollen]

I’m stuck on unlocking stuntman though

[cinder karma]

I wish the local Habitat did builds I really want to take my anger out on undeserving 2x4s right about now

[dusty pollen]

afaik a deck builder is a game involving cards and rng in which you combine different cards with different effects in order to beat the game. So balatro is one of them, where you combine jokers to get higher scores

[cinder karma]

So like poker

I was bad at poker

... y'all are typing

[dusty pollen]

kind of haha, but usually you get effects for keeping the cards in the deck too

[fleet wren]

balatro is even themed around poker, even though that's about where the similarities end

[dusty pollen]

(balatro specifically is very much related to poker but only bc it uses poker hands as one of the main game mechanics haha)

[devout vault]

I have been meaning to try Anonymous;Code though, especially since people are speculating some of the story stuff there will impact the upcoming Steins;Gate 'remake'...

Also sometimes a good romance VN is just fun to go through (especially if it's wlw - gee, I wonder why I would have that particular preference...)

Not really a VN but also been very curious about In Stars And Time.

[cinder karma]

Tbh when iro recommended it to me i legit thought it was a poker variant

[devout vault]

(Also A;C is 70% off despite only being like a year and a half old)

[cinder karma]

Since I've been known to enjoy losing Starbursts to other people while playing poker at nerd camp

[dusty pollen]

ig the first ante kind of is a poker variant? but after that, not so much I played the wildest run the other day

[fleet wren]

it's poker if you're allowed to bring your magic the gathering cards to the casino

[devout vault]

Go find one of those businesses where you just pay to go in a wreck things. (Assuming those still exist)

[cinder karma]

I want to take my anger oit at 2x4s and be productive at the same time

[dusty pollen]

my deck was roughly 50% these aces I was doing flush fives on every single hand

[devout vault]

Enjoy losing starbust? What's wrong with you

[cinder karma]

I have an essay I need to write about knitting and pseudo productivity

Like, I think part of the knitting thing for me is that I am driven to feel productive

So the knitting becomes a way for me to productivity rest

[devout vault]

Part of why I got into programming I think

[cinder karma]

Is there a real world point? Nah, I can buy socks

[devout vault]

Oh, well, not productivity rest 😛

[dusty pollen]

ig if you have a need to feel productive than crafty hobbies are a great way to satisfy that

[devout vault]

Though I've programmed enough that depending on what I'm doing it doesn't take too much brain power

[devout vault]

Hmm. Well, with what I suggested, you'd be supporting a local small business. Does that count? 😛

[dusty pollen]

for me I just like seeing that something I did resulted in an actual thing I can hold

and also I like learning new techniques haha

[dusty pollen]

I think a decent amount of the code I wrote has permanently lowered my brain power

[devout vault]

Re: Balatro - I've played one round, got to the final round and lost (and it wasn't close). From what I understand there's some tweaks for the 'tutorial seeds', but still, it was fun making it that far my first time

[dusty pollen]

winning your first run feels like it takes ages before you get there lol

but then you slowly get the hang of it

if you got to ante 8 on your first run that’s really impressive though!

[devout vault]

For me that's only when I read other people's code if it's really bad. And for that reason I probably wouldn't look at code I wrote 15-16 years ago when I first started programming, if I even had access to it

I'm pretty sure there's still a thread on the SFML forums where they had to explain what C++ references were to me.

[dusty pollen]

see I do sometimes actively try to write good code. But sometimes I throw spaghetti at the wall and then cast it to a string sooo

[indigo mist]

@dusty pollen You leveled up to Rancher. That's level 250. Woot!

[devout vault]

...Assuming that didn't get purged when they changed forum software ages ago

[dusty pollen]

oh nice

[devout vault]

Congrats irocendar.
suddenly has the urge to check my level

[dusty pollen]

1216. damn

[devout vault]

Still well within the top 100 😅

I've been here since the first year the game came out (though I've left at least a couple times and so my 'join date' isn't correct - even the join order uber tracks, pretty sure I was one of the first 1k members)

[dusty pollen]

crumble at #3 lmao (and the first person on lb I actually recognise)

oh wait, 1 is the server owner

[devout vault]

Back in my day, the leveling bot posted a message in the channel you just spoke in if your message levelled you up, every time! (I think, I could be totally misremembering)

[devout vault]

How did you forget jade for a moment. 😛

Though to be fair I guess most people don't ever really interact with her

[dusty pollen]

never seen her active didn’t know that was her username

(which, tbf, does not contain the name jade lol)

[devout vault]

Well, she doesn't really hang out in this part of the server 😛

[dusty pollen]

oh, I am way too high on the monthly lb jesus I need to get a life

[devout vault]

There's a monthly leaderboard?

[cinder karma]

Mate I wrote a json sanitizer today

[dusty pollen]

it’s in the lb command (check governor’s mansion)

[cinder karma]

Cursing the lack of json5 the entire time

[dusty pollen]

oh wait it was one of those ephemeral messages, damn

[devout vault]

I remember once in C++ I wrote a thing to strip comments since the library I was using didn't support them. Wasn't very hard though (can't recall if I bothered handling 'comments' in strings though - might've just looked for // and /* */ )

[cinder karma]

Yeah mine is jank too but it's okay

It's for work

[devout vault]

Wow, I'm not in the monthly leaderboard. It's like I haven't been around much or something

[cinder karma]

Also Elizabeth

You know what I had to do today?

INTERACT WITH LISP

in a real world application!

My coworker found it funny

[devout vault]

What

Why Lisp?

[cinder karma]

Don't ask me ask the people who made their scripting language a version of lisp!

[devout vault]

I guess they just really love (((parenthesis)))

(Going back to steins;gate for a moment - I really love the opening for the anime even if I may not ever watch the show again. I like the one for steins;gate 0 as well - mainly mentioning that because I searched "steins gate opening" on youtube and got the 0 one, but the title of the video made it seem like it was for the original. And it was on the crunchyroll channel. I caught on within a few seconds that it wasn't the right one though 😛 )

[sand frost]

I feel like you might know Dominion?

[sand frost]

woooooach

i haven't touched lisp since i learned it

for the most part

[cinder karma]

I don't

We played the train game

[sand frost]

math-y people played dominion a lot in my day

I like the train game

[cinder karma]

Also the game where...settlers of catan

[sand frost]

(it does not really matter which train game)

(I like them all)

[cinder karma]

We also played actual poker

[sand frost]

(but I think you mean Ticket to Ride)

[cinder karma]

Yessss

Ticket to ride

God damn we should do virtual board game night

[devout vault]

Ticket to Ride?

[cinder karma]

Yessssss

[sand frost]

i do love ticket to ride

Railroad Ink is another train game I love

[devout vault]

Speaking of which, if you want to spend way too much money on a single board game, have I got the kickstarter for you. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ultimatecatan/catan-masterpiece-series

[sand frost]

I feel like I could do that at home

[devout vault]

I've never tried ticket to ride, don't really know what the gameplay is like though. Just know it involves train 😛

[sand frost]

Ok, that's arrogance but still

I know how to cast resin and 3D print

[cinder karma]

Clearly we should join up and make dice

[devout vault]

They have gemstone options for a lot of the pieces 😛

[cinder karma]

You 3d print. I'll handle the electronics

[devout vault]

Top tier is $1k 😛

[cinder karma]

That's the other reason I don't kickstart

It's fun to make things

[devout vault]

We should

[sand frost]

I mean, I bought a piece of amethyst the size of an egg for $3 the other day

it was probably not even a good price

since this was one of those spiritual rock shops

[devout vault]

I have some online friends I haven't talked to in a while, but we used to play catan a lot

...I might've won over 50% (maybe 75%?) of the time

We never played with the expansions though, that might've shaken things up a bit

[sand frost]

I feel like for the prices they're selling these things for, maybe they're having to build a small workshop from scratch?

[devout vault]

We were using colonist.io (I think they do one of those discord VC games now?)

[sand frost]

Gemstones are more annoying to work, but they are probably doing them on a lathe

The metal is probably anodized aluminum

It could be painted

[cinder karma]

That and salary

[sand frost]

"antique gold" metal is very funny though, that's def like bronze or brass

It's a cute design but not worth it to me

[cinder karma]

I vaguepriced glowing Bluetooth dice for like $70 earlier but I also have, like two full electronics labs at my disposals

[sand frost]

but I also never play Catan anymore

[cinder karma]

And also was not pricing in the labor of a talented young engineer

[sand frost]

If I was a Catan superfan, I can definitely see how it would be appealing

[cinder karma]

I literally was like "and this is how much a pcb run at jlc is, and this is a Nordic, let's add some for more components..."

I don't think I'm a superfan of anything enough to spend a thousand dollars

Like, I've never gone to a Taylor Swift concert

[sand frost]

Their lowest tier is much lower, $300

[cinder karma]

Stillllll

[sand frost]

Which is still way more than I would pay, but I think Catan itself is like $20-$50

[cinder karma]

You know how much Taylor Swift means to me I handknit a fan sweater

[sand frost]

Taylor swift tickets are like super duper hard to get though I thought

[cinder karma]

Yeah

[sand frost]

independent of price

[cinder karma]

And expensive as heck

I'll buy an album and I might even watch her documentary on Netflix

But tickets? Toooo much

[sand frost]

My teriyaki salmon looks terrible because I put the sauce on with my hands 😆

[cinder karma]

Looks tasty enough to me

I should show you my lemon butter pepper salmon

So easy. So good