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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: April 17th, 2024

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  • Honestly that could actually be interesting. Would probably be able to discuss some nuances and make the mainstream a bit more comfortable with some currently uncomfortable conversations. People can remember complicated things if they’re invested in the narrative.

    I’m a cis-het potato. If any of this sounds insensitive, I can fix it:

    Guy who doesn’t meet the stereotype of a “drug guy” has to cook up drugs to make ends meet. <Narrative device> makes him start making <common drug> for <uncontroversial illness>, which turns out to also be used by <some queer people> for <hormoney things>. At first he sees them as nothing more than the users he was profiting from in an hour of desperation, people who twist their sad lives around acquiring and consuming a substance, but over time as he gets further down this path he begins to understand them in a way that he (and most people) has never had to. “Upstanding-man-who-is-a-secret-chemical-man ally” can go in so many directions.

    With all its many many faults, I remember seeing Dallas Buyers Club as a judgmental kid, and it was successfully able to split “queer identity” from “sexual perversion” for me. I think this understanding was beginning to spread before a tipping point in the past decade. Personally I think people saw a lot of (Western) companies really go all in on rainbow marketing, going directly from “queer identities exist” to “these are being celebrated openly” without the critical middle “this isn’t a sex thing”.

    If you think it’s bad in the US or Europe (and it’s not always great, it’s not a competition) let me assure you the heightened negative attention has also made people who were able to be themselves under the radar here in the Middle East face more bullshit. The average person around me has gone from “This person gives me the ick but it has no effect on my life really, just stay away from me and my kids, it’s between them and God” to “This person should be fixed immediately before they shove their perversion down everyone’s throats.” The former is abysmal, but at that point they weren’t really seen as an active, growing threat. Unfortunately it’s not just “this isn’t a sex thing” that’s missing here, historically most people have thought “queer” = “perversion” = “pedophilia”, and this was fading slowly before being supercharged by all this torrent of negative attention.



  • One day I’ll get around to playing Nomifactory CE. I’ve somehow played the base one twice over the past five years.

    I’ve been so alienated from friends playing the most popular game on the planet in multiplayer because I can’t play Vanilla for shit. Not since 1.2.5 probably.

    I’ll play no Minecraft for two years and then immediately nolife a modpack for two months.

    Good shit. The best value game I have ever bought, no question about it.


  • It depends.

    It could mean just try to put bad thoughts aside until the workday/workweek ends and really try to get intentional tunnel vision. In a corporate world of hell capitalism, I get it. Not a great sign that we have slang for it, but I get it.

    It could also mean emotionally disconnect for the next while and just do what’s mechanically important (work, often gym). This one’s worse and it’s what you’re thinking of.

    It’s been used a fair bit around me.


  • I’ve always been curious about this stuff and I know I need to make some effort soon, ever since we moved our home recordings from VHS to DVD some 15-20 years ago.

    My understanding is that SSDs are also likely to lose data when unpowered for a long time, which is why they haven’t been recommended to me for external backup drives.

    “Spinning rust” is much cheaper than I thought, even if I have to pay 200$ in shipping to get a bunch of massive used server drives here. And it seems to not have that problem, with the downside of either needing to be completely powered off or wasting a bit of power when it’s not active. I’m still not sure where the HDD parking technology is at.

    Of course ripping all the physical media would also be nice. A lot of the original discs I have (most of my discs are straight shitty copies with one file, yay third world) have things like special features and multiple audio tracks, things like that. I wonder how those should be organized.





  • Here’s what I got in my old local archive folder, if it helps. Let me know if I have something missing, I’ve never been on this side of this interaction!

    list of files

    banyantreefar.zip
    BookshelfMagic.exe
    ColumnFrench.exe
    Dartboard.exe
    Dartboard_001.exe
    DormBookcase.exe
    DormChairLiving.exe
    DormLampDesk.exe
    DormPainting.exe
    DormSculpture.exe
    DormStereo.exe
    DoubleDeluxe1.exe
    doubledeluxe2.exe
    doubledeluxe3.exe
    execchair.zip
    FunHouseTrack4x1-1003.exe
    FunHouseTrackLoop-1003.exe
    GreenBedroomSet.exe
    HPPottyPack.exe
    HungryHamster.exe
    IntelComputer_International.exe
    McFoodCart_International.exe
    PepsiMachine1.exe
    PicnicUmbrellas.exe
    PlantCarnivore.exe
    SCDrinks.exe
    StairsSweepingReverse.exe
    TableSoccer2.exe
    workerdesk.zip

    Not entirely sure if this is complete, or if it’s even all Maxis. I have a third party mod folder backed up somewhere (and one with those old text guides, loved those) but I didn’t find it with a quick search. This folder is from 2010, so it’s not exactly period-correct. In case Windows doesn’t like these older .exes they seem to just be archives with the .far files inside, so you can rip them open. Not exactly sure why some of these are .zips and others are .exes, but the .zips only contain the .far files.

    One thing that sucks is that some disk content was just permanently gated behind these downloads, and there was every possibility that you wouldn’t know these downloads existed. Specifically there were Makin Magic recipes for child-only magic stuff that used ingredients only adults could gather. So the Magic Bookshelf was mandatory to see that stuff that came on the damn disk. I’m pretty sure I was using a third party reskin of that item before looking for the original, but I could be wrong.

    Good lord, .far files. Remember FARout? Those really were the days. I still like to think I’ll revisit TS1 properly someday. That was a proper game, with unapologetic personality.


  • I still prefer paper, although not having to store moisture-sensitive fragile things is nice. So is the fact that I can read books that are out of print or hard to find (or banned, yay Middle East), even if fumbling with PDFs isn’t wonderful on the device.

    And of course, the obvious: downloading them for free. Which is always ethical when Routledge wants to charge you 85$ for a scholarly work of which the author doesn’t see a dollar.




  • Possibly for 2029 when used Decks become cheap and readily available and great candidates for lightweight HTPCs. Hell, I can see someone who’s put a lot of miles on an original Deck doing this to their original one after getting an updated one/competitor in like a year or two from now. You don’t need to do any modding for that to be honest, but a small device with a screen (and an old lithium battery…) collecting dust probably looks worse than a box. At least that’s my impression from my Switch. I can see people finding a handheld upgrade more worth it than a PC upgrade (the first 5090 presale listings are up where I am and they’re north of 3000$).

    Seriously, I’ve played lots of less-demanding games on my TV via a docked Deck, and it’s been surprisingly nice. A lot of these bundled games I wouldn’t have even tried. What the Golf is a silly mobile game that I got in a bundle that I ended up playing on the big screen. And I’ve bought a lot of bundles in the past, so I’ve got a lot of games to try.

    For more demanding games that the system can play, you get tiny battery life. So this does make more things more playable. So I get it.