3rdsday

[3rdsday]

Forever thinking about the period of time before Stan fully regained his memory. Especially from Ford's perspective. Because, like, that's the brother he has just now almost lost and he is so immensely grateful that he hasn't. But here he is, watching their grand niblings and Soos tell Stan all kinds of stories about the time they spent together. And Ford realises that, aside from their childhood, he doesn't have anything to add. Because of course he mattered to Stan SO much. He knows that now, even if he failed to recognise that before. But his role in Stan's life has been mostly defined by his absence and the pain that it caused. So here Ford is, absolutely refusing to leave his brother's side but also being... well, not unable, just not ready to help. Because helping would mean having to tell Stan that they had been apart for most of their lives for reasons that were partly Ford's fault. And of course this won't last long and Ford will eventually tell his brother what happened between them and they will get over it. But for a short but painful while Ford sees a Stan who only remembers Soos and the kids, a Stan who is for once genuinely carefree and happy and wonders, whether maybe it's better this way, maybe that's his punishment for all of his wrongdoings. That maybe he deserves to have one of the very few people who have ever mattered to him remember everyone but him. That maybe Stan deserves to have his family back, but Ford does not.

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i think the near-extinction of people making fun, deep and/or unique interactive text-based browser games, projects and stories is catastrophic to the internet. i'm talking pre-itch.io era, nothing against it.

there are a lot of fun ones listed here and here but for the most part, they were made years ago and are now a dying breed. i get why. there's no money in it. factoring in the cost of web hosting and servers, it probably costs money. it's just sad that it's a dying art form.

anyway, here's some of my favorite browser-based interactive projects and games, if you're into that kind of thing. 90% of them are on the lists that i linked above.

A Better World - create an alternate history timeline

Alter Ego - abandonware birth-to-death life simulator game

Seedship - text-based game about colonizing a new planet

Sandboxels or ThisIsSand - free-falling sand physics games

Little Alchemy 2 - combine various elements to make new ones

Infinite Craft - kind of the same as Little Alchemy

ZenGM - simulate sports

Tamajoji - browser-based tamagotchi

IFDB - interactive fiction database (text adventure games)

Written Realms - more text adventure games with a user interface

The Cafe & Diner - mystery game

The New Campaign Trail - US presidential campaign game

Money Simulator - simulate financial decisions

Genesis - text-based adventure/fantasy game

Level 13 - text-based science fiction adventure game

Miniconomy - player driven economy game

Checkbox Olympics - games involving clicking checkboxes

BrantSteele.net - game show and Hunger Games simulators

Murder Games - fight to the death simulator by Orteil

Cookie Clicker - different but felt weird not including it. by Orteil.

if you're ever thinking about making a niche project that only a select number of individuals will be nerdy enough to enjoy, keep in mind i've been playing some of these games off and on for 20~ years (Alter Ego, for example). quite literally a lifetime of replayability.

[3rdsday]

Toby Fox just put this in his bluesky and I think it’s very important and everyone needs to see it

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[3rdsday]

It is with the deepest frustrations that I must report Microsoft has pushed out Copilot onto Microsoft Word no matter what your previous settings were. If you have Office because you paid for it/are on a family plan/have a work/school account, you can disable it by going to Options -> click on Copilot -> uncheck 'Enable Copilot'.

(Note, you may not see this option if you haven't updated lately, but Copilot will still pop up. Updating should give you this option. I will kill Microsoft with my bare hands.)

In addition, Google has forced a roll-out of it's Gemini AI on all American accounts of users over 18 (these settings are turned off by default for EU, Japan, Switzerland, and UK, but it doesn't hurt to check).

To remove this garbage, you must go to Manage Workspace smart feature settings for all your Gmail/Drive/Chat and turn them off. Go to Settings -> See all settings -> find under "Genera" the "Google Workspace smart features" -> turn smart feature setting off for both Google Workspace and all other Google products and hit save. (If you turned off the smart settings in your Gmail, it never hurts to open Drive and double-check that they're set to off there too.)

Quick Edit: I found the easiest way to get to the Smart Feature settings following the instructions above was to do it through Drive. Try that route first.

Now is the time to consider switching to Libre Office if you haven't already.

[3rdsday]

happy divorcavercery, fiddauthor nation

[3rdsday]

so about that stream the other night…

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do genuinely find it fascinating how indeed.com is like the biggest job-hunting website out there and yet manages to be profoundly useless in every possible way

[3rdsday]

i love shadow's forever idenity crisis bc no it's not bc of the biolizard. no its not bc of the memory loss. no it's not because of the shadow androids and no its not becuase of the alien half. you see he was made to be THE guy. but while he was asleep THE THE guy just showed up. its like if you carved a rock to be michelangelo's david and then you just found a rock somewhere that naturally formed as michelangelo's david but like cooler and better and it doesnt need the base to stand and the untrained eye can't tell the difference but you (michelangelo's david) can absolutely tell

[3rdsday]

Self-Discipline Isn’t Always the Answer

So I wasn’t really taught to brush my teeth every day as a kid. So I didn’t. I got to be an adult and realized “hmm teeth are expensive I need to start brushing them” and brushing my teeth twice a day has been on my actual to do list every single day of my college career. It’s a habit I needed to build.

Have I successfully done it? Absolutely not. I’m pretty good about doing it at least once a day, but some days it just doesn’t happen. It’s not that I forget usually, I just had some aversion I couldn’t figure out, until last week.

I’m at the grocery store, in the toothpaste aisle with my roommate, and I complain about how much I hate mint. I FUCKING HATE THE TASTE OF MINT. The taste and the smell, any kind of minty thing in any form, I HATE IT. But literally every “adult” toothpaste in the aisle was some type of minty disgusting nonsense. And my roommate was like “you know you could like get kids’ toothpaste? You like bubblegum right?”

And y’all, it was like the clouds parted. I got some strawberry bubblegum kids’ toothpaste. I brushed my teeth with it and it was a whole new experience. I have successfully brushed twice a day every day since, because the mental block I had towards it is gone! 

I thought my lack of brushing was just a moral failing on my part; I was too lazy, too undisciplined, to build a good habit. But really? I just hate the taste of mint so much I didn’t want to brush my teeth.

This made me realize that when presented with a change you want to make, a habit you want to build, if you’re encountering resistance in yourself, you should lean into that resistance and really investigate what’s causing it, then work on accommodating that. 

Say you hate washing dishes so they pile up and then you’re overwhelmed by how many you have to do. Why do you hate it? Deep down, what about it do you dislike? Is touching wet food super gross for you? Try thick rubber gloves while you’re washing. Does the sound of dishing clanking together grate your nerves? Do them with headphones in and turned up loud. Do you hate the smell? Light some candles, spray some air freshener. 

Do these things instead of gritting your teeth and forcing yourself, then ultimately failing and getting discouraged by your “lack of self-discipline”

TL;DR: When a task is consistently hard for you, relying on self-discipline, forcing yourself, and gritting through doesn’t always work. Lean in and listen to your discomfort, and find what makes the task hard, then try to accommodate that. Also, mint toothpaste is gross.

[3rdsday]

the IDW sonic the hedgehog comics? (2018—present)

Sonic the Hedgehog (Comic, 2018)

Explain your reasoning in the tags!

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do you think shadow was aware of his super strength when he stopped marinating in his tube ? since he can just flip buses i think it'd be funny if there had to be a learning curb

also the image of small crechure shadow being able to lift maria over his head is funny to me.

maybe gerald trips on some osha violation and when shadow goes to help him up he accidentally launches him into the ark's ceiling

i'm absolutely obsessed with this concept of overpowered tiny dude shadow pre-inhibitor rings. chaos and destruction everywhere

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Sonic keeps getting infected with weird sci-fi diseases that will kill him within days

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[3rdsday]

AU where Quackity goes with Slime and they see the world together.

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Looking for some of the best science fiction and fantasy coming out of Africa right now? Here's a list of recommendations from Wole Talabi, Lauren Beukes and T.L. Huchu, from their 2024 Glasgow Worldcon panel "Through an African Lens".

The list

Rosewater - Tade Thompson

Lagoon - Nnedi Okorafor

Mermaid Fillet - Mia Arderne

Dazzling - Chikodili Emelumadu

The First Murder On Mars - Sam Wilson

The Theory of Flight - Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu

Triangulum - Masande Ntshanga

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years - Shubnum Khan

Ghostroots - 'Pemi Aguda

Womb City - Tlotlo Tsamaase

The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction - Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Chinaza Eziaghighala (ed)

Zoo City - Lauren Beukes

The Library of the Dead - T. L. Huchu

Drinking from Graveyard Wells - Yvette Lisa Ndlovu

Digging Stars - Novuyo Rosa Tshuma

Glory - Noviolet Bulawayo

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon - Wole Talabi

Intruders - Mohale Mashigo

AfroSF - Ivor Hartmann (ed)

It Doesn't Have To Be This Way - Alistair Mackay

Azotus the Kingdom - Shadreck Chikoti

Dazzling - Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ

Online, they also suggest The African Books Collective, the Sauutiverse, and AfricanSFS.

[3rdsday]

Hey so I still see people utterly baffled by how religious fundies (still a majority in America and moreso its senate) react on certain issues so uhhh is it actually not common knowledge what the antichrist is all about? You guys know his defining characteristic is ending war, right? That he’s foretold to unite the world under his leadership by preaching global peace and solving basically every single problem in the world? So you know when you try to talk to these people about equality and togetherness they literally believe that’s what makes you an agent of the devil right???