The Internet is not supposed to be a source of happiness, that’s a sell by some platforms you should never buy into. The Internet is a source of information, and information will not make you happy.

Gaming, social media, or most other online interaction, is ultimately masturbation. It feels good for the moment, but it doesn’t last; you have nothing to look back on but Steam achievements or vacant profiles on a dead platform at the end.

If you’re suffering from depression, you likely can’t work yourself out of it through your own actions alone. Seek support. Things will not improve otherwise.

Explaining my job is trivial compared to the insanity I cook up in my spare time.

Oh, so you like gaming? No, I’m actually not playing the game. I’m building a mod for it. Erm, okay, so this is for other players then? No, I’m mostly building it for myself. Ah, so you haven’t put a lot of time into it yet? Roughly 12 years. What? So what does the mod do then? It plays the game for me, and publishes in-game metrics to a monitoring application, so that I can see the progress of the game in an abstract form while I’m on the couch, thinking about how to optimize the automation further.

Regular fun stuff.

I’m calling bullshit on any user count they release. The site was filled with bots even when I still used it. People kept complaining about “karma farmers” as if there were users who repost popular content. It has always been largely Reddit’s own bots too keep new users entertained and recycle popular content so that it reaches as many users as possible. They turned this up to 11 before going public.

Now that they no longer provide an API, they are free to make up any fake metric they want to try to pump up their worthless stock.

I know that that my opponents just love to bring up how I fucked that one couch only that one time very long ago in the past…

👏 👏 👏 OH YEAH YOU DID YOU HORNY COUCH FUCKING ALIEN ASS MOTHERFUCKER HAHAHAHA 👏 👏 👏

That’s the one clapping person he was looking at in this picture.

The thing is, you don’t want to “fix” that.

Your x86 is a supercomputer from an alien world compared to an NES. It’s not just extremely faster, it works in entirely different ways physically.

Some features of old console games rely on a deep understanding of the entire hardware of the console. As you wrote the game in assembly language, talking directly to each individual hardware component, you had to follow certain rules from the operating manual. There is no operating system doing this for you. Now, what happens if you don’t follow the manual strictly?

There is some undefined behavior that still works reliably, if you just get the timing for a certain instruction to a component just right.

If you now were to naively interpret the instructions in an emulator, even at exactly the right timings according to the frequency of processor, the game would suddenly be broken, because your emulator is missing micro corrections for signal delay that the original console had due to physical properties.

So even making the game run as it would on the console is a major challenge.

If you add optimizations in one place, because of your one level stuttering, it might break dozens of other games. The emulator doesn’t want to be a software to play your game as well as possible. The emulator wants to replicate the way the original console worked as perfectly as possible. Your game stuttering exactly the same way as you remember it is a sign of a good emulator.

Not sure if this works for you, but when I’m in a socially confusing situation, I involve people. If you think someone is talking bad about you, ask them about it. Ask for guidance. If you ask someone for help, they will often remember it positively. It takes courage to ask for help, as it’s a sign of weakness, and people usually respect that you trust them with your request.

Ideally it will turn out to be a misunderstanding, or you get some constructive criticism, or you get a confirmation that people are actually talking bad about you. At least you will have more clarity. If there wasn’t really anything bad going on, now you’re still in a conversation. Even if you say thanks and end the conversation, you’ve broken the ice with that person.

Friends are very much necessary. You need people in your environment, other than your family, to exchange ideas with and talk about things that are on your mind. Don’t try to substitute friends with online relationships. It will never be equal. Finding local people with similar interests online is fine if that helps you to reach out. You can’t force making friends, it’s a waste of time. Start with making one friend. Quality over quantity

I really hate it when people call for impromptu meetings and are completely oblivious to what you mention. People are absolutely incapable of bridging mental gaps. Nobody explains common vocabulary. Nobody explains the expected goal of conversation. Nobody evens the playing field. Instead, you watch people confused and asking stupid questions, before they arrive at a constructive mental place, right before the meeting is over.

Communication is art and a skill. Just because someone is talking a lot, doesn’t mean they communicate well.

If you can efficiently enable a group of people to arrive in a mental context where they can contribute value to a decision or process, you are a valuable team member.

IMHO this always requires preparation. You can’t expect to have a valuable exchange if you yourself can’t fully imagine the mental context the other people are in. At every moment you have to understand what might be keeping them from understanding you, and then approaching the specific conflict. “Why don’t you understand me?” is something you should never have to ask yourself.

Also, yes, build more prototypes and actually watch some shit go instead of talking so fucking much. Pictures are a thousand words and a real thing is like thousands of pictures. Stop talking already!

Tote bag handle length is not standardized. Get a different one

Thanks for the additional context

Thank you. That makes sense

What’s your motivation? Do you want to appear attractive, and you decided that you are not up to your own level of expectation based on your hair? Do you want to attract a partner or an audience? Do you require respect from peers and you think hair will help?

Any supplement is likely not going to bring the required results. If you are not satisfied with your hair, get a toupee or a transplant. Don’t fuck around with half measures. You will only waste time and money.

In general, hair is not suitable for half measures. Don’t kid yourself. People notice thin hair. People notice a tattooed scalp. People notice a calm over. These all make you appear insecure and the opposite of what you might be aiming for. You must be comfortable, but be aware that you are not buying into the wrong comfort.

Please don’t take it as an offense, but how do you know it worked? Like, what are you comparing against? If it’s your dad, maybe you just got the right genes from your mom to give you a benefit.

Yeah. It really does suck. You get over it eventually though. And, who knows, in a couple of years maybe someone releases all episodes in a single download and you’ll be enjoying them on a whole new level.

If you really like something that is only available on a single platform, and you don’t really enjoy that platform, and you also have zero control over the platform, get out of that situation. It will always end in frustration. Try to gain back control

Hmm valid. I guess there’s also a service aspect. I later read he didn’t even buy himself, but an assistant did it. Who knows how far gone the dude was at the time

Money was already spent. The hype companies were backed by big capital in their early days. Now the people who provided that capital want to cash out and they want their winnings. So you will have AI shoved down your throat on every piece of media channel those people also own. AI is a hype term that appears periodically since before the 2000s. This is nothing new. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_winter

LLMs are toys that sparkle for a brief moment. Their value is laughable compared to their cost.

Not watching is actually an option.

I feel like you can order a kilo of ketamine online for about $2500. Even if you don’t buy wholesale, it’s not really an expensive drug. Either he was being ripped off or that was a hell of a habit

Diamonds aren’t actually rare, and the people who control the market would have you executed.

I feel you. Not on this meme though 😄

Ever heard of Epstein’s Island? These people are doing shit you probably can’t even imagine.