Mikko

Mikko

  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    The Steam Deck presents itself as a games console with the usual gamified pick-a-game-to-play-now UI, but just barely buried under the hood is a switch to dump you into Arch Linux, and it's actually a pretty sweet linux portable (although...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    Well, yeah, I've had Macbooks as my work laptops for the last twenty years, basically from the point when I was asked what kind of laptop I want. I picked that one because I hadn't used OS X (or any...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    Oh & I REFUSE to use MS' "One Drive" - I want to store my files where I want them convenient in my hierarchical order, not some faceless sysadmin-in-California's ideas of where I "should" put my data. Again, OK? So...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    The politicians want to talk about high speed rail. But we don't have the locals to feed it. I just want to point out that air traffic, especially for short trips, has much of the same problem. The planes are...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    [Everything being at a walkable distance in Europe and how that's really not true.] Same in the rest of Europe. Yeah, same in Finland. I live in the second-largest city in Finland, in a suburb (which is again different from...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    I looked this up, and The Guardian has this quoted: 'an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance'. I'd think that the Conservative Party thinks it itself is not based on any of those but only pure logic, so the...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    In Japan, there're apparently two ski centres, named 'Hakuba' and 'Shirouma'. The fun thing is that they are both written '白馬', meaning 'white horse'. One of them is read with on yomi and the other with kun yomi, basically with...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    But to the "family" not being sprinkled soon after brith was a very very big deal. And for many still would be in terms of family relationships. This could also be a source of (in my opinion) unnecessary strife when...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    I remember some Amiga game which had a screen which basically said press any key to see the instructions press a key to start It took us some time to figure out how to start the game....
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    I once worked in a team whose (company internal) abbreviation was 'PCP'. I found it hilarious but I think not all of the team members were that delighted or even knew other meanings....
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    Arguing about which is better makes no more sense than arguing about which computer platform is "better". I'll just drop 'ECS era Amigas with 4 Mb or more memory and a hard disk' for the MC68000 series here. (I had...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    Somebody who screws up like this using an LLM will screw things up regardless. Still, there's a lot of stuff which the LLMs make easier to do. Generating posters, scripts and all that kind of stuff takes effort even if...
  • Commented on A Wonky Experience
    [L]arge-scale statistical models trained on gigantic gobbets of input data (of dubious quality because it's hoovered up off the internet without adequate vetting) Which is a big reason why every 'it will get better in the future' feels a bit...
  • Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
    I am delighted to report that he would probably be horrified by the direction licensed d&d based computer games are going in. I'm not sure he'd like the direction even the tabletop D&D games are going to, even in the...
  • Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
    I did search for this and found out that 'To Hit A.C. 0' was mentioned in the AD&D 1e Dungeon Master's Guide: https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/THAC0 . It seems to have a longer history in the TSR material than just AD&D 2e. This...
  • Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
    Oh! I stand corrected. I had the impression that THAC0 was a markedly AD&D 2e thing. Maybe it was just writing down what people were doing anyway. I'm young enough to have started AD&D with 2e, though we did play...
  • Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
    I'm not sure Derek is new school enough to use this modern 'THAC0' thing. Maybe Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and not the plain D&D, but the first edition could be easier to accidentally summon demons with. With the 2e you...
  • Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
    Cities need a different solution, one that ideally de-prioritizes automobiles entirely. Also you get different areas. We live in what I'd call a 'suburb', but in an apartment building. The houses were built in the 1960s, and there is parking...
  • Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
    Also, given that my gaming circles have enough real world issues with food given the various allergies, intolerances, adherence to belief/morality based restricted diets and preferences/dislikes between us all I don't think they would enjoy that as a theme in...
  • Commented on A message from our sponsors: New Book coming!
    Not that I’m into RPGs at the moment, but the following question occurs to me. How many games have dietary restrictions on player classes? I don't claim to be any authority on this, but in my experience very few, really....
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    I was working for a commercial fire & burglar alarm company in eastern North Carolina (look at NC on Google Maps & draw a line from North Wilkesboro to Myrtle Beach, SC - everything east of that line was my...
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    I work in IT security, and I kind of like having regular security updates for my pocket supercomputers. I also like having the magic slab in my pocket, so going non-smartphone wouldn't be fun. Using something connected to the internets...
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    On the other hand, it replaced a multiple-years-old predecessor in a planned upgrade I'd been putting off until the new model was released because I understand built-in obsolescence and wanted to buy a phone with maximum support life ahead of...
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    A lot of that is budgeting: living at least a bit below your means so you have a cushion rather than spending it as fast as it comes in. Still that requires you to have something to budget all the...
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    To return to something discussed earlier (and the original post), now the Finnish defence minister (the conservative party) proposed that it shouldn't be possible to resign from the reserves after doing the military service. As said, the options are military...
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    It wasn't meant to be offensive. Yeah, and I'm probably too sensitive to anything 'true'. Sorry for reacting a bit too fast, I think it became more clear later that no offense was meant. Thanks....
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    However, it's common for true (computer) geeks and keen researchers to work 60+ hours a week (rarely up to 80) and still remain effective. Sorry, but I find that 'true' there kind of abrasive. I still feel I'm a true...
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    Received wisdom in software used to be that programmers could maintain productivity through a work week of up to 40 hours, but for every hour over 40 that they worked, they wasted another hour subsequently fixing stupid bugs (as the...
  • Commented on Same bullshit, new tin
    I have an FP5, it's fine. I find the lack of a 3.5 mm headphone jack annoying but not a deal-breaker (I very rarely need headphones for it anyway). Otherwise I agree with Moz, it's pretty robust but I haven't...
  • Commented on Worldcon in the news
    And the rooms need to be large enough to accommodate the expected audience. (One of my daughters, who went to Helsinki, noted that was a problem there. There were lines to get into the panels of most interest.) Ropecon, an...
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