LGOrcStreetSamurai

I hate the current YouTube thumbnail meta. I found this extension and it just takes a frame from the content of the video and displays that. I believe that is fair and more representative of the video. I have been using this extension for a while and I find myself paying more attention to the names of creator and then considering if I want to watch the video; rather than being enticed by some intentionally inflammatory image.

I find it just make YouTube more enjoy in combination with Ublock Origin and YouTube Search Fixer.

Just wanted to share this extension with any Hexbears who aren't liking YouTube's thumbnail arms race of increasingly distracting images. I didn't know if I should have put this in c/videos or c/technology. I rolled a D6 and odds was c/videos and evens c/technology. I rolled a two.

It sucks that most people can't afford an ticket travel to see their friends or family. I shouldn't have to drop $400 to hangout for the holidays. I should be able to get a train ticket go from state to state with ease.

If you're overwhelmed by the bundle try to use this site to help find games for you. Support a real and meaningful charity and play games.

Not exactly anime, but I still think this is one of the best animations online.

I have been teaching myself more programming stuff for c/gamedev over the last several weeks as my ambition is to make a using Godot to share with people. Just making a game for the sake of trying my hand at a creative work, no real "profit motive" just wanna make a thing . However, but I was feeling like I wanted to get back into the old-school C++ programming rather than using a game engine and was looking for a primer as it's been a bit since I have done it. In my quest I discovered Academic Torrents, I found a ton of great computer science courses and the last weakened synapses of academic rigor in my internet poisoned brain to fire once again.

I have always been for open-information (most just downloading .pdf files of textbooks during college) and stuff but I didn't really know about the concept of a Shadow Library. I'm finding myself interested in just learning more computer nerd shit for the sake of learning. I like the idea I have access to pretty much every computer science department that has a webcam and torrent link, I think that's good.

This idea applies beyond not just for tech stuff of course, but just about anything. I think it's really weird that knowledge creation is soloed away behind nations, institutions, and IP laws. Everyone everywhere should have access to knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I don't know much about the actual process of knowledge creation but the created knowledge itself should be assessable to everyone in a library sense. Knowledge is one basic things that makes us human and should be free and open to everyone. Discovering a website reminded that learning is just cool and worth doing for the sake doing (if that's your thing of course, if you don't wanna learn that should be considered cool too).

The promise of the internet still exists outside the walled gardens and I think that's pretty dope. So long as people wanna learn I'm glad that these sorts of Shadow libraries are there to help people.

Also support your actual local library. Light and Shadow Libraries are cool and lefty and good.

Vent your rage and or employment woes. I am having a bad time looking for a job as an employed keyboard-jockie. Hate my current job can’t find another.

The employment process sucks, the ghosting sucks, the endless automations and inhuman interactions just to find a job. The quantification of every part of the job process is bonkers. Reading all of this fluffy nondescript job profiles is a job in and of itself

The meta-game of having to “optimize” your resume to be read by an A.I. or to having to use an A.I. for the application itself just sucks. All this work for an entry to middle level job that barely covers your bills is just soul draining.

All these employers want you to have 2-5 years experience and a masters degree for a starter position. It’s all just terrible.

It feels like “finding a job” is a skill in and of itself in a way it should not be. “Job hunting” is also a deeply solo thing, even using your professional and/or social network pits you against the “The Market”. It sucks so much.

“The Market” is so bad at everything. We could all more easily organize work and finding work if we all weren’t alienated independent nodes all forced into battle. Yet another reason planning and democratic processes are better than this weird tyranny of “the free market”.

Jump in this thread and be mad with me. Big mad.

There are lots of great albums, some you can directly download. It's not super underground stuff or anything but it's also not generic industry approved or algorithm designed music either. Lot of it is pretty dope.

I ordered the physical book and it’s just a keen source of knowledge.

The rail companies are were clearly the "bad guys" and it was plain cut story about labor. Striking workers said this was gonna happen, and then it happened and the media did everything it could to cover the Rail-baron's asses. It was failure of regulation, a product of American lobbying also known as corruption in the rest of the world. It was just everything wrong with American industry and the media just did everything it could to get everyone to shut the fuck up about it.

It's just one of those stories I don't think got enough conversation, coverage, and discourse. It was just plainly everything wrong with America resulting in literal death shroud over a working class community. Don't forget the lasting ecological impact of all the plants and animals that drink the water or share the life-force that was injected with death shroud chemicals. Also this was all totally avoidable if they stock buying back vampires just spent like .5% of their revenue to just update some of their hardware. Also the absolute pittance they offered the citizens of East Palestine should have have some [REDACTED] happen.

The whole thing just shows the necrotic rot of capital in the modern age. The zombie looking CEOs just did the bare minimum and gave the smallest concession they could have avoid this and keep their money train going. It wasn't quite panama papers level but goddamn why did we stop talking about this catastrophic failure? The media probably realized all of this is neoliberalism made manifest. From top to bottom. The US department of transportation should have had done a Perp walk on these CEOs. Fuck this whole thing just makes mad. We all deserve so much better.

(BTW I'm pro-train, pro-rail, pro-worker, pro-regulation, all that jazz. I'm just mad that some really real shit happened and America just shrugged and moved on)

The Wikipedia entry is surprisingly pretty decent.

Preface - It's never cool to be mean to developers or the rando who is running an official social media account online. Be cool.

One thing I will never understand about gaming and gamers™® is that they always seems to justify their own poor treatment. Worse yet they attack others for pointing out the way they are mistreated. Whenever I see good honest players point out that a system is predatory or designed in a plainly unfair way, other gamers™® will undoubtedly come in and defend that bad thing. It's so odd that gamers™® can min-max everything but can't seem to factor in the fact they are getting less than they used to. It's like digital inflation. Games are more costly in upfront costs, hardware cost, time costs, and yet are getting worse in general.

I'm very much anti-battle pass/anti-season pass/anti-microtransaction all that sort of stuff. I'm old-school, just want to buy a thing and have the thing and have the thing be whole and complete. That said there are semi-decent ways to implement a system that is profitable for the vampire executives and also don't siphon every single coin players have. It's so weird to me that gamers™® not only keep buying into these systems but seem to defend them so vigorously online.

From "Pay to Win" to weird obtuse purchasable currencies/resources to needlessly limited time rewards to create artificial scarcity (pre-order, in-game store "deals", general fear of missing out practices), all dark patterns make games worse. Gamers™® defend these things saying "I DoN'T HaVe tHiS PrObLeM. iT MuSt bE A SkIlL IsSuE!" or whatever dumb shit. Every dark pattern in modern gaming is making the games people play worse intentionally. People talk about the enshittification of internet all the time but gaming as a medium/hobby has been enshittifiying since the advent of Xbox LIVE. The worst part about it to me is seeing such vocal defense for it online (social media at large, game forums, comment sections of gaming news/articles). It's not just that sort of conceding "well what can't ya do?", it's more so this spirited "This is good actually, and you're not a REAL GAMER if you don't like this."

For example a decent battle-pass (regardless of the game/genre) usually rewards players with enough in-game premium currency to buy the next one and maybe have enough left over for an item or two. That way it keeps you locked for longer and feeds into the habit forming design dark pattern we all hate. You're constantly having just enough premium currency to buy something, and topping off your balance is just a few extra coins if need be. Yes, people talk about the "whales" and "minnows" but even just the regular players and worse yet the gamers™® get a bad deal. Setting the fact this is a dark pattern aside (however I can't stress enough how mobile gaming's/casino gaming inspired dark patterns have made gaming worse), it's bonkers to me that gamers™® just say "VoTe wItH YoUr wAlLeT BrO!". They will say that or these sorts of things support the development of the game, knowing full well that that money isn't recycled and invested into the betterment of the game.

It's just so strange to me that gaming of all things has grown worse in just about every way since 2000's and yet the online culture around it seems to take pride in it being so bad. It's so strange that gamers™® can datamine the most Ph.D level mathematical optimal way to play through a game before it's even released but can't seem to parse that games should respect them. Games should treat them better. Games should be better.

: "Wow this system sucks. We should either get more rewards faster or things shouldn't cost so much. I like this game but damn this system blows, and it probably doesn't have to. The developers should be better to us."

: "If you don't like it don't play it. If it were bad it wouldn't be popular."

My larger point is gamers™® are bad, gaming should be better, player != gamers™®.

P.S. Check out this Dark Patterns Site. It explains all of the shit that makes games worse in a nice bullet point format

I think personally the big thing leftist thought has done for me is gave me the mental toolkit to unlearn the idea of “ meritocratic/meritocracy”. We don’t live in a remotely fair world and the idea it is in any sense fair and justice is disproven in just about every leftist text, thinker, speech, figure throughout history. We get some hints about it in religion text (Speaking as a Christian) but we don’t really see how to break it down outside of personal virtue and kindness (which are cool and good but not a scaleable solution).

I really think it super dope that leftist thinking give you the tools to understand and see the Matrix we live. I also really like how it shows you ways of addressing it.

What are things you think leftist thought has improve your life? Big or small?