#we won't get into the issues with the UI

[aria-i-adagio]

Work in Progress Whenever

I would say 'too much math, not enough writing this week,' but that would be less frustrating. 'Too much bullshit from an incompetent vendor that appears to have effectively DDOS'd themselves,' not enough writing this week.

Continuing with the theme of what my drafts look like, initial docs are frequently an explosion of bits and pieces, notes to self, etc. Eventually they get edited together into a coherent thing. My process would be modeled with an absurdly complicated exponential function.

Tagging: @hoochieblues @motherofqups @atypicalacademic and @cumbiazevran to share if you'd like.

[acerikus]

Okay so after reading that article about what's actually happening on tumblr now:

It's not dying, they're just downsizing. I know 'skeleton crew' is drifting around but guys. In this time automattic has had Tumblr they've had around SIX HUNDRED PEOPLE working on it. That's ridiculous. That's overkill. There's no way they needed that many. Not for what tumblr is and that's probably part of their weirdly high costs.

They're not taking people away from the safety/security part of their tumblr team (and are allegedly even expanding it) - just away from new project work and marketing. So essentially, less new features and less time spent on marketing. New features could still happen, but likely smaller and less frequent.

They were contractually obliged to keep tumblr live despite everyone's hatred of it, which explains a lot. Seems like they've gotta keep it till January, and if it's still not doing better by then they're gonna 'reconsider' if it's actually worth keeping.

That DOES however mean that we need to be aware that Tumblr might push tumblr live on us more than ever for the next couple months as a last ditch attempt at making it successful. It's also possible they've given up and don't think it's worth the effort, but it's worth keeping in mind. Just a couple more months and we might be free of it.

Essentially: tumblr is gonna be treated more like the little microblogging site on the side that it is rather than a big corporate monolith with high risk high reward turnaround potential. I'm not saying there won't still be issues to call out, but hopefully things are gonna get better in terms of UI and usability, without it constantly trying to morph into a different social media.

[attex]

I love your UI design. Any thoughts on them like their interaction with others?

that innocence is pretty paralleled if we are being honest...

My interpretation of UI is based on the idea of them just being attention and stimulation addicted... They were made like this on purpose, by the same group of engineers (not exactly the same persons though) as NSH, due to the seeming work efficiency in a more active and stimulation seeking personality. This is also why they are named ironically too, along with having a fake mouth! However, such a personality tends to give diminishing returns, especially when there isn't things to focus on constantly. Which is why UI leaned towards gossiping and messing around.

They don't do things out of malice, (the ordeal with 5P was not malicious lol) it's all just another little thing to pass the time. But they do feel guilty and awkward if pushed around a bit. They're more honest than they seem, they won't lie about their mean thoughts or opinions. They will lie if it causes more attention to be given to them or they dislike the way they're treated from their honesty; but this is all hard to achieve as they can get VERY stubborn. They're naturally curious in a gawking at things and not shutting up kinda way. If they see something weird, they will point it out and keep bringing it up to talk about it.

I interpret them to be the youngest, being built a short while after 5P. This is why they look the way they do, but they still have discerning traits due to the engineers that built them. Their design for the puppet should be obvious in the ways it's similar to how NSH's puppet is designed, at least I hope I managed to show that... I also imagine their structures have much bigger bio-engineering lab sections, not for actual production of purposed organisms but rather for experimenting with them and the like. Those two would be occupied with that often, along with their other duties. The small cloak, a lot of parts that light up to indicate status, fake mouth, more angular parts, focus on strip patterns, sturdier legs... Their cloak has patterns resembling rod cells in eyes, also!

As for their relationships with others in their group...

LttM gets along well with them, which usually surprises outsiders. She knows they just need things to do but does get disappointed at their more reckless behavior. UI likes LttM for being a bit too lenient regarding things they do that they probably shouldn't, but besides that they do see her as a trustable friend albeit not taking her senior status too solidly.

5P definitely doesn't enjoy having to interact with them at all after getting humiliated by them. He doesn't hate them or anything, he never did. While he wasn't surprised about them doing what they did, it still soured his view of them by a lot and feeling that many heavy emotions in one moment didn't help. Otherwise, he can't be bothered with them in general. UI sees 5P as an extremely difficult peer to mess with in any way, he is impatient and easily annoyed but his tendency to just cut things off makes anything silly near impossible. While they do find his issues interesting in a shallow way, a part of them secretly wishes to know more of him on a personal level... Most likely because he is the only one they've never gotten to engage with closely, their nosy interest in him got more blatant as time went on too.

SRS actually enjoys talking to them a decent amount, though they can't help but feel like there is always a barrier of sorts in fully understanding and connecting with UI. UI finds SRS very amusing. Definitely their "favorite" in the group due to SRS' extrovertedness combined with that iconic tinge of obliviousness. UI has always enjoyed snooping in on SRS, especially when they talk to outsiders. SRS isn't fully aware of the extent of UI observing them like a weird animal, though...

NSH is neutral, yet wary regarding UI. They both know how either one can behave pretty well. He still sees them as a friend though. He's the second person that tells UI to "behave" the most- but it isn't like UI can't snap back at him for being overly playful as well. UI is nearly the same way towards him. Both of them know of each other's mischievous attitude and that makes it difficult for them to mess with one another. They can get a bit too caught up in being silly if he eggs them on and vice versa… even if they don't fully notice NSH views them as acting more childish by a lot. CGW… I haven't thought of and characterized CGW well enough to say anything regarding them honestly… But the things I'm certain of are UI seeing CGW as being way too "put together" and unfun, because they act very proper in comparison to everyone else. That's more incentive to mess with them, though. CGW doesn't dislike UI or anything, but they see being closer friends with them as not entirely possible.

[burning-academia-if]

Hi again. If you've been around a while you're probably going to be like "Em, again??" But guess who got sick for the 6th time this year and this time it was a full on chest infection!! It has been three weeks, and somehow I am still Not Free!!

Anyway, BA fell to the wayside this month because it was Velox Fabula time and I've yet to miss a Velox jam (also...chest infection). I also needed to get my sudden and newfound Pirates of the Caribbean obsession out of the way so! I made a short pirate visual novel for the jam and I'm normal again. I also released the prologue of my side IF To Taste Sweet Silver (@sweetsilver-if) just to have it out. Feel free to check it out if you want, but it likely won't be updated for a while as I'm shifting gears back to BA for September!

I don't have much to report but:

UI update should be out in the next week or two depending on how I'm feeling. It won't look like much to y'all since it's more for my sake via cleaning up the code LOL but there were things added (friendship indicators, open dyslexic font option, character page updated, stat page updated, glossary page added) I'm not a graphic designer but it's better organized I think. There won't be an Official Post about it because it isn't new content, but I will make a small announcement when it's out. It'll also include the originally deleted Lars/Zoe/Nevio lunch scene in Chapter 2 as well. Sorry this is taking so long, I just really struggle with the coding side of things which has made the process slow.

Writing in August was also slow, and honestly, I think I really needed those few weeks off not thinking about BA. My inbox being very quiet helped as well, so I really did take a real break from BA. When I opened up the writing doc, I felt a whole lot better about working on BA again, and we have hit 100k words finally!

Anyway, I don't want to lament much, but I did have a personal goal of releasing up to Chapter 4 this year which obviously is Not Going to Happen. It honestly sucks I got sick so often this year because it cut into so much time for creative projects, be it BA or anything else.

I'm not really going to be hard on myself for it, though. I think releasing 3 chapters this year considering everything that kept Going Wrong this year is actually pretty good. I just think its annoying when I know I could have done it but the universe said no instead akfjalfa Anyway, I'm not sure when Chapter 3 will release but I do have a good feeling about September and I think I'll be able to at least get a decent chunk done this month!

Finally, September marks the one year anniversary for this blog and October marks the one year anniversary of BA releasing!! I feel like I literally just started writing this, the fact it's September already is wild.

I was going to do art commissions, but due to surprise car issues, I don't really have the money for that now (next year for sure though!!), so I was thinking of maybe doing character Q&As to celebrate? I've also seen some authors do raffles, but I'm not entirely sure what I would raffle off? Maybe personalized short stories with readers MCs if there's interest in that? I'm not sure yet, but I have a month to figure it out lol

But also thank you to everyone who has followed along!! It's been a really fun time both writing BA and on the blog. I know I say this a lot, but I'm really glad this is such a chill place. It's nice for me the author obviously, but it's also nice because I always want the spaces I have to feel like safe places for others as well so! Thanks again!

Lastly, I normally would end on a little snippet or preview but since most of what I wrote was just the two different openings, I feel like I have nothing fun to tease (or maybe I'm too picky about snippets idk). Hopefully Zoe's bday post tomorrow makes up for it, and I'll post some snippets later in the month instead!

Thanks for reading!

[estradasphere]

Ryujinx is dead

riperiperi: "Yesterday, gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he's in control of. While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it's safe to say what the outcome is. Rather than leave you with only panic and speculation, I decided to write this short message to give some closure. These words are my own. I don't want to speak for anyone else here, so just remember that while reading. Thank you to [@ everyone] who has contributed code, documentation or issue reports to the project. Thank you all for following us throughout the development. I was able to learn a lot of really neat things about games that I love, enjoy them with renewed qualities and in unique circumstances, and I'm sure you all have experiences that are similarly special. I'm extending my own massive thanks to our moderation team, who have been here through some rough circumstances and always found ways to make light of it.

I don't really believe in hard work going unrecognized, so I'm going to quickly go over some stuff we had working [but] weren't prepared to release: We had a working iOS port that ran really well, thanks to some amazing work on a special memory mode with a partitioned address space that both emulated 4kb pages and squeezed the process address space to fit within ridiculous restrictions. Without a UI, or easy way to run JIT untethered, it remained a novelty, so was not released. The hardware is great, it's unfortunate that it's wrapped up in pointless restrictions.

We also had a working Android port, which did have a UI, but due to driver quirks (performance, accuracy) and OS issues, was not in a releasable state. Rather than suffer support headaches and.. uh… the android emulation community, we held back until a later date. emmaus worked like crazy on the UI and getting everything to work with nativeaot, even allowing Ryujinx to be embedded as a native library.

Isaac has been working on a metal backend for a long time. It got very close to completion, and occasionally runs better than Vulkan (performance, accuracy), even in its early state! Here's a reel from July, but things had improved significantly from then. Unlike other changes, this one was public, just WIP.

Berry has been working on bringing LDN to master for a long time. Alongside reworking the connection to use a proper SOCKS5 proxy, UDP peer-to-peer, reworking large parts of the LDN internals, and merging ldn_mitm support to master… There were even experiments to connect directly to console using select hardware on Linux. One of those devices is even, well, see for yourself:

Finally, we had some work to run native applets, improving compatibility and the overall user experience. This would be the true evolution of the emulator going forward, but changes were stuck in limbo and never got released.

I feel that this desire for perfection over getting there as fast as possible set us apart as an emulator, but unfortunately it means you didn't get to see some of our best work in action. Just keep it in your heart as a vision of what is possible. There were over 100 unmerged PRs at the time before release. Unfortunately, that work is homeless now… but it should still go appreciated. Again, thank you to anyone who contributed to the project, or even just gave it a shot. While I won't be remaining in the switch scene either, I still believe in emulation as a whole, and hope that other developers aren't dissuaded by this. The future of game preservation does depend on individuals, and maybe one day it'll be properly recognized. Thanks for sticking around."

[idol-murder-mystery]

Let's talk about something juicy: Improvements to the game and how we plan on making this a MASTERPIECE

Since this was brought up, I thought it’d be a good time to talk about the improvements we have planned for the game and how we plan on making this a masterpiece!

We've made a lot of improvements to the demo and it's been very well received, but still not perfect and this was the biggest gripe people had. The intro was too slow.

It was indeed a mistake to have an autoplay cutscene, followed by huge chunks of NVL text...

How we plan on fixing it: Instead of info-dumping everything at the start - we'll intersperse the information during the investigation. For example, when interviewing Miyuki. This will not only make the beginning faster paced, but it will make these moments more meaningful too.

Another thing we did was we moved character backstories into the free time events - so you'll get to learn about them there!

The slow intro is the main reason why I haven't gone all out on marketing yet - since I don't want people playing for a few minutes then dropping the demo without getting to the good parts. We'll be ready for mass release when everything is fixed 😊

Choices that matter

There was only one ending in the demo, so the choices didn't really matter. However, in the full game, every choice will have consequences.

One of the feedback we got was people didn't really understand the point of the stats. Many people were confused when they reached 0 sanity that nothing happened. 

In the full game, there will be stat checks. And the stats will impact the endings you get, so make sure to keep your sanity healthy! 

You can improve your stats during free time events by visiting different locations, and through some random events.

Deduction Phases

Another feedback we got was during the deduction phases, when people were selecting the wrong answers, it shows you taking damage, but it wasn't clear on what damage you were taking. E.g. were you going to die if you got too many wrong answers?

Selecting the wrong answer results in your intelligence being decreased. It's not a huge amount, but will add up over time, affecting the endings.

In the full game, we'll add an indicator to show which stats you're losing.

More Free Time Events

Free time events are meant to balance the darker, serious atmosphere of the game with something more light. You get to hang out with friends, have a laugh, increase your stats, and learn more about the character's backstories.

These will be more frequent in the full game.

Into the Rabbit Hole 💀

As we head into chapter one, things are going to get more dark and intense. 

I can't say much about our plans for the future, but trust me when I say I'm DYING to show what we have in store for the next chapters because it's SO GOOD.

Even though our game was deeply inspired by Famicom Detective Club, Danganronpa, Ace Attorney, Zero Escape, what we're creating is completely different to them. 

Quoting Gaming Trend:

What we're creating is unique to Whispers of the Luminaries. In terms of story, atmosphere and emotion. There won't be any game like it.

And that's what I'm most excited for. We've been through so much trial and error to get to where we are, and now I feel like we're pioneering something completely new! 

A glimpse of what you can expect:

New music direction - even more atmospheric and tense at times!

A focus on gameplay that enhances storytelling

Improved scene direction to enhance storytelling

Deeper focus on characters, their secrets and flaws. Characters who made few appearances in the demo will play a greater role in the story (Akane and Sayuri stans rejoice)!

Moar murder and mystery!

I'm obsessed with learning about suspense and that's going to be reflected in the full game haha. 

In order for this game to succeed it's crucial that we nail the mystery and suspense.

Other Stuff

Make it clearer which character is speaking

Fix audio volume issues

Make sprites more expressive

Fix some UI jankiness

Add more transitions instead of fade in/fade out

[melissagt]

PSA for anyone with PATCH 4 broken kissing scenes who happen to be using mods. My kissing scenes were broken and I was able to get them to work by disabling my mods. All of them. The only thing I have enabled are Improved UI (was just updated today) and ModFixer. I have to keep those enabled or else my saves won't load because of the mods I've disabled. But...kissing scenes work! Yay, kisses for all!

For additional testing, I tried enabling my other mods one at a time to see if I could isolate the culprit. Sadly...there isn't just one. As soon as I enabled any other mod, doesn't matter which one...even just hair mods...then the kissing scenes broke again.

So if you are having issues with mods and the kissing scenes, give that a shot. It sucks, but that's the risk we run with mods. And hopefully they will get updated. I'm just lucky that all of mine are cosmetic!

[izzy-ikigai]

[Browser names in bold if you just wanna skip to the paragraph you want to tell me I'm completely wrong about because that's your browser]

So, in light of the possible future where some of the chromium-based browser might get kicked right in the content-blocking code with Manifest Version 3, I actually felt the need to look around for alternative browsers to our holy lord the Google Chrome if we can't even have uBlock anymore.

Obviously I'd love to have a browser that won't die in the next 2 years, so either backed by a company or backed by a large community would be neato. It's fine if it's chromium, as long as content blockers will keep functioning or at least have alternatives. I did consider MS Edge for a hot second, I read somewhere it's supposed to not yield to Google for the new APIs but couldn't find it again, but then I remembered that Microsoft is an anti-consumer oriented company that pours billions into AI and making our lives worse in general and that even if it does run on Linux I do not fucking care.

I went over a few of the obvious choices and while yes, Firefox is oh-so-different, the basic threat/security model of FF is still lacking. Trading one security issue(not being able to run full-fledged content-blockers) for another one seemed a bit like a letdown to myself.

And while yes, the company Mozilla puts a lot of money in advertising how privacy-oriented they are(on social media, with targeted ads, lol) the have gotten to a point where that's simply not completely true anymore.

I also looked at Brave, it has a few cool features and the notion of a crypto wallet built right into the browser gave me the ultimate anti-climax and the tab was closed with Mach 10(someone please make a video about what would actually happen with a finger going mach 10).

For now I arrived at Vivaldi for testing. It has a few decent built-in things like tracker/ad-blocking(via url lists, which works pretty decent on it's own but I decided to additionally also run uBlock since URL list don't catch everything).

It also has an absolutely overwhelming amount of customization that made me realise how "default chromium-based browser" is basically like plain rice and I've just gotten used to plain rice every day to the point where I didn't question if that's good or nah. Vivaldi made me realise that spices exist. I know it sounds ridiculous, it's just a stupid browser, after all, BUT...

Just look at this Tab Cycler.

Or this Spotlike-esque in-browser search

Oh you would like your tabs on the side, cuz that's what the cool kids do? WELL WHICH SIDE IS IT THEN????

Oh you said tiling your windows in your operating system's UI sucks so your browser should do it? Yup, if for some weird reason that resonates with you, it also does that.

Pause button so you can focus on something non-internetty? That little shit hides in the corner of the status bar.

A weirdly functional and also overly customizable side-bar? Got that as well.

Honestly, when I say an overwhelming amount of customization, I mean it. I've been playing around with this piece of shit for like 4 hours and I watched the intro videos to some of the things and I really feel like I haven't even scratched the surface.

Someone please tell me some dealbraker about this browser, it's almost 3AM and I need to sleep. Like holy fuck this thing feels like someone went "imagine if your browser was as much of a full-time job as emacs was".

And no, I'm not switching to Vivaldi (yet). I'll obviously give it a solid month before I'll make such an obviously life-changing decision. I might even do a cheeky install on my phone I guess.

[askagamedev]

What if any technical reasons are there that more PS5 and Series X games do not support offline co-op and multiplayer modes? It seems that while yes, current gen games are more demanding, current gen hardware is exponentially more capable than past generations. Why not just add a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th viewport into the world and let people game together? Any relevant answer would be appreciated. If none, I'll just assume my suspicions are correct and you are under some NDA about this. The breaking of which would result in being blacklisted and hunted down by John Wick himself. Thank you.

Let's assume that we have no technical limitations - infinite memory, infinite CPU and GPU cycles. We can run as many viewports as we could possibly want. What else could be holding us back? Here are a few game design considerations that make split screen a non-trivial task, even in a scenario where technical limitations don't exist.

Aspect Ratio

When we are designing a game, screen visibility and aspect ratio are important. Look at this screenshot from God of War Ragnarok:

The framing of the cinematic is absolutely focused on showing the characters and their difference in size on screen, with the point of focus being Mjolnir in the very center. You can see at a glance how much bigger Thor is than Kratos. That's completely intentional. Now let's see it in split screen. First, let's split the screen vertically:

I tried to retain the "gist" of the original shot. We're still centered on Kratos vs Thor with Mjolnir in the center of the frame. I tried to keep as of both characters in frame as I could. Clearly, this shot doesn't have anywhere near the visual impact of the original. You just can't see much of either character. We retain the struggle in the center of the screen for Mjolnir, but we lose the visual representation of the characters' sizes. Now let's try splitting the screen horizontally instead:

Once again, I tried to fit as much into the frame as I could. Now we can't see enough of either body, it's so squashed down. We can't see the relative size of Mjolnir either. We can't even see how tall Thor is because his head is getting cut out of the frame.

It's pretty obvious that this shot is meant to be viewed at a specific aspect ratio. Halving either dimension simply won't work, significant rework must be done in order to do this. But what if we retain the original aspect ratio by dividing into fourths?

It's better - we can at least see all of relative sizes of each other. But the characters themselves are much smaller, especially because we don't sit close enough to the television in order to get the same effect. But let's move on. There are other issues.

User Interface and Screen Size

Things get worse when we have to put UI on the screen too, because we can't shrink our UI or text to 1/4 of its original size in order to maintain the screen aspect ratio. Here's another screenshot from God of War Ragnarok, this time with combat UI:

Let's try splitting this screen vertically:

I've done a quick and dirty copy/paste job for the UI elements and maintained their relative size on screen. We're already losing out on a lot of peripheral vision in combat. Since we can't scale the UI, observe how it is taking up significantly more screen space too. We have to show two of every UI element, not one... and they can't really be scaled down or they'll be too small to see. Now let's see it in horizontal split screen:

Now we have the peripheral vision... kind of... but the UI is still eating a lot of that screen space and we're losing significant amounts of vertical screen space. This might be ok in a game where enemies show up to the left and right, but not if there are often enemies coming from above or below. The UI screen space problem gets significantly worse when we run it in four viewports while maintaining UI screen size:

Everything feels so much more squished and tiny, even when running at the same aspect ratio as the original. It's a fundamentally different experience, because you're seeing so much less of the world in the various split screen modes. God forbid we try to have any kind of subtitle display in four-way split screen.

These are two specific constraints with splitting the screen. There are more problems I haven't gotten into, like directional audio no longer working because we've got multiple simultaneous player locations or handling menu navigation gracefully in split screen. This is not to say that it is impossible to make split screen work - it is absolutely not impossible. What I am saying is that it is not trivial to make it work - we can't just turn on two/three/four viewports and call it a day, not without inadvertently causing a significantly worse player experience in many regards. These kind of challenges must be identified, designed for, and fit into the development budget.

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[xxmissarichanxx]

✨XMACX Monthly✨ | April 2024

lol i hope u enjoyed the silly update yesterday~ here's the answers to the lil game:

2 TRUTHS • i did draw the line art with my left hand c'''': • may's cover model MAY in fact be a yummy mommy. it's up to youuuuu~

2 LIES • i'll never stop drawing hunks. who would i be without them sobs • i am dropping a BL comic this month, just not on April 20.

you may read this month's update on PTRN for free or below the cut~ you can also view the previous issue here.

I cannot believe we are four months into 2024. What have I to show for it :''''D Anyway, a few announcements:

I got accepted into Citrus Con's Artist Alley this year! I had the honor of sharing my wares during the online BL convention last year. I'm excited to do it again this year! I'm hoping to debut physical copies of some BL comics, and if not, digital copies will be fine too. My bootiful patrons will be the first to read them. Starting this month, I'll be dropping pages. Whatever I finish, it's going up.

You might have also noticed that the banner on the top of my Patreon page changed. It's to reflect the transition I'm making from one project to the next. :^)

Schedule

April 1 - The Fool's Cover

April 2 - XMACX Monthly Update

April 5 - May Cover Model Polls

April 12 - April Cover Model Process

April 19 - Kiki's Sakura Date Part 2

April 26 - Cover Story, Ippon!

April 28 - FBDC Update

April 30 - Sketch Dump

Cover Story Preview | Ippon!

I think I am ready to take on a slightly longer comic than the short ones I've worked on the past few months. SO, I'll be dusting off this old project that features Masa sparring Ken in a judo match.

April OC Birthdays

April 1st is Satoru's birthday because he's a silly goose. He was featured in my short comic last month, Kiki's Sakura Date Part 1. He'll also show up in Part 2.

VN Development Update | FBW

This month I'm picking up where I left off in developing Froot Basket White! I'll be starting with Sutoro's route, which means his will be the first to release!

I've also decided that for Froot Basket White, I'd like to have some pals onboard to help me create assets, so I'll be hiring peeps to draw the background art, food items, and other things I need assistance with. I'll still be the sprite, CG, and UI artist and writer.

I'd also like to properly have the script proofread before I hand it off to our cast members. And when it comes down to it, I'd like to have the episodes tested before release. I'm excited for this project and I hope I can wrap up the story well!

Other Stuff this Month

I'm sorry, but I am STILL catching up on commissions orz. And because I am an Ainosuke and SK8 simp, I'll be partaking in another Adam Zine. I simply enjoy being in the fandom and seeing and supporting peeps who create in the fandom. And I think Ainosuke is an amazing character and if given any opportunity to support him and other Adam lovers, I WILL BE THERE.

In other news, I'll be on a teeny tiny vacay around mid-April. I won't be taking my tablet or laptop with me, so I won't be able to work on stuff. I'll do my best to build a buffer for May because...

Next Month

I'll be gone the first half of May. I'm peacing out. I'll be spending some time with mi mama. I don't wanna even think about projects or work. In fact, I wanna catch up on a backlog of playing some friend's games and reading some friend's comics and novels.

And then I'll cram everything in the last half of the month (like I usually do) LOL.

WATCH BRAVE BANG BRAVERN AND CRY WITH ME SOBS

Mahalo nui, Ari

[manonamora-if]

This time appropriately at the 6-month mark(ish), if a bit too late...

So earlier this year, I made a resolution:

Get things off my desk and shelf it for good!

This... didn't really happen. I had shelved MtP, before fixing some more stuff again... I think it's shelved for good now? I hope so at least.

Another one was avoiding adding new projects to the pile (failed), entering jams and comps on a while (absolutely failed)...

There's still 6 more months to correct that (and so many new shiny jams to participate/organise), so maybe I will keep my promise? We will see...

Looking back first:

(Damn it, it should say Chapter 4 in May... and missing the Orifice Comp in June...)

In the past 6 months:

I have been or helped with organising 4 game jams/competition: the @seedcomp-if, the Anti-Romance Jam (ongoing), the @neo-twiny-jam, and the Orifice Jam (ongoing)

I have participated in 5 other jams/competitions: the French Comp (which I won 🥳), the SpringThing, the Spring Jam (Twine Server), La Sens Dessus-Dessous, and the Text Adventure Literacy Jam.

All this saw the release of: DOL-OS, The Rye in the Dark City, The Roads not Taken, À la Campagne, Entre d'oeux Coquilles/An Eggcellent Preparation, Collision, Intersigne, and Clarence Street 14.

I also updated P-Rix - Space Trucker, and The Trials and Tribulations of Edward Harcourt (twice!).

And finally, I added the Settings Template, the Space/Tech Template, and lately, the SubgarCube Guide (along with answering SugarCube questions on this blog).

As one extra points, I reviewed a bunch of games too (@manonamora-if-reviews) and actually played games outside of Comp/Jam times.

It's been more busy than I think I realised... and I've done more than I thought I did (I really have been feeling like I've not done enough, that there was more I could have done, that I've wasted some my time...) So while progress on the planned things has not really been happening, or not as much as/the way I hoped (i.e. shelving projects), I did:

Make P-Rix mobile friendly, with some QoL (I still need to fix some)

Add 2 chapters for TTATEH (with one coming soon-ish?)

Actually released all the points about the templates from last January, with the Sci-Fi and Settings ones, and added the Guide on top of it.

On the other hand, Exquisite Cadaver and Crimson Rose & White Lily were more or less just pushed to the side. Other smaller games like La Petite Mort or Goncharov Escapes! have also not been opened in a while... And, having created new games, there's still the issue of finishing those (The Rye), or editing them a bit (all of them).

On the other other hand, I was able to test ideas and gameplay with those new lil games, try out new IF programs, win some prizes and get lovely reviews, played some really good games and learned from them through reviews...

...and most importantly: I've had loads of fun.

What now?

Preferably... fulfilling this year's resolution to shelve projects. So actually finishing them without crumbling under new WiP ideas. Aside from more jams I'll be organising, I probably won't be part of large comps. There are some ideas I want to test out still, so you may see new smaller things that I've done in like... a week, popping up here and there.

Concrete things to look forward to:

the new chapter of TTATEH dropping some time this summer (with potential of completion by the end of the year?????? <- infinite question marks)

fixing some issues of An Eggcellent Preparation and getting the French version up to speed.

the translation of Clarence Street, 14 (and fix of the UI, cause it's a bit of a mess)

the Disco Elysium inspired UI (I am this close with the base page, I still need the Main Menu, Class Choice, and Level/Inventory pages to finish)

more Guide pages (and a better organisation/linking)!

more jams!

more reviews!

For the rest... it is a bit more up in the air. I will try to complete/fix the smaller WiPs (especially the ones started this year) as fast as I can so I can go back to focusing on the larger projects (and the new ideas I've been stewing).

On to trying to fulfill my new year's resolution :D

And having fun while doing it!!

[radical-hr]

Resign or Be Fired: Which is Better?

If your employer intends to fire you, they may offer you the choice to voluntarily resign instead. There are some benefits to this, namely that it will never be on your "permanent record" that you were fired.

But if the company is firing you (esp with cause), how does it benefit them to let you resign? Simple! In most circumstances, they won't have to pay you unemployment.

Unemployment is a complicated system, but basically employers pay Unemployment Insurance to the state and possibly the feds. If someone is laid off, fired, etc. and eligible to collect unemployment, they then go to the state to get it. A number of factors go into deciding how much an employer pays, and one of those factors is how many employees filed for unemployment the previous year. So the more employees file, the more an employer has to pay. (I used to work for my state UI.)

If you voluntarily resign, you likely won't be eligible for unemployment.

Whether that matters or not really depends on your individual circumstance. If you work in a very high demand field, you'll be able to find a new job pretty quickly, especially with a positive reference from an employer. You will come out ahead financially by getting a positive reference, rather than filing for unemployment. Some employers will also offer some perks for doing this, like a small severence agreement.

It can be tricky if you are in a highly competitive field. It may take you longer to find a job, meaning you would likely need the unemployment income. However, if the field is competitive, it may hurt your prospects for a potential employer to learn that you were fired. You need to weigh the pros and cons.

If you're in a low demand, less competitive field, it is almost always necessary to get unemployment. It would depend on why you're being fired. If you're being fired with cause, you may be ineligible, depending on the eligibility criteria of your state. But also, if the employer is giving you the option to resign, then the cause might not be enough to render you ineligible. You need to know the specifics of your circumstances.

In certain fields, it can definitely be a huge mark against you. In HR, being fired with cause can completely derail your career. You're supposed to know better. For teachers, it can also be an issue because there is such a shortage that it causes suspicion.

Contrary to popular internet myth, it is not illegal for a former employer to tell a prospective employer THAT you were fired.

In some states, it is illegal to tell another employer WHY you were fired. That's a big difference. It also only applies in some states. It isn't HR best practice (I personally would only do it in very specific circumstances) so most HR workers will only answer "term type" (resigned, fired, laid off, etc) and "eligible for rehire". If it is company policy to not rehire a former employee (which it sometimes is) an ethical HR person will disclose that.

Finally, remember that being fired isn't necessarily the career ender we all think it is. When I recruited, I would only exclude a fired applicant if their firing had something to do with a license violation. I was staffing medical, so it could potentially endanger a patient. That was all I really cared about.

Give all factors due consideration and let me know if you need any advice.

[ilc-yt]

Tech Illiteracy for Upcoming Generations

I believe ever since Windows 95, the tech industry on the consumer side has went down a path of simplifying things too much, and instead of it helping us understand how computers work, they've also harmed us. Win95 for example, for all the amazing things it did with innovating UI design, added one of the worst options that would be enabled by default in all future windows versions: "Hide file extensions of known types."

This is bad from both a educational and security perspective. It's an educational issue because people starting out with Windows won't know what a file extension is. File extensions are important because they tell you what a file is; a program, a text document, an image, etc. Yet Win95 just expects you to know what a file is just by it's name and the icon alone. Unfortunately some file types share the same icon, so that method isn't reliable. It can also be frustrating to a user who's trying to import something like a photo into a program and it doesn't import because it's not the correct file type, but because the user doesn't know what a file extension is and likely believes all images are the same, that user would just be confused and wouldn't know why they can't import that photo (feel sorry to any new user downloading a webp.) Moreover, hiding file extensions is bad from a security perspective because you can't tell when a file isn't actually what is seems to be. Your only clue is if the icon doesn't match, but that can easily be changed by a virus author. Many users who were expecting to view an image, video or document ended up getting a virus likely because they couldn't see file extension and realize that file didn't share the same extension as the user's other documents, and instead matches the one for a program. That would have given a clue to a new user that something's up.

Later from Win98 and on, Microsoft would add the "My X" series of folders to try and simplify things further. While not a bad idea on paper, I believe this screwed with some users by thinking everything needs to go into those folders and that you don't have to worry about creating your own folders. I'm sure many users just dropped stuff into those folders and didn't think much of it, not knowing how to organize or create folders. And most programs didn't appear in those folders, so users might not know how to navigate the file explorer outside of the "My Documents" folder, or learn that removing a shortcut doesn't actually remove the program that's associated with it (and that's despite the popup in Windows XP about deleting shortcuts, which just tells you the uninstall control panel setting and not where the program is located.) Sure some users might learn to make their own folders and to organize better, but I'm sure more stubborn people, especially old people, will never realize that and just have their sets of "My" folders be a mess. And not all the "My" folders were used correctly. My Documents isn't "My" Documents any more, as programs would later use it to store stuff like user information, options and plug-ins, making it's purpose more unclear. Nearly everyone's My Downloads folder is a mess after Chrome made it a standard to save everything there rather than ask the user where to save. Lastly the short lived My Games folder, which I'm pretty sure a majority of games didn't actually save anything in there other than a shortcut.

I don't think we really realized the damage this has caused until we reached the smartphone era, where phones just automatically save images, videos and downloads to their own folders, and the file browser is seen as an app to ignore and most people don't know how to use it. Ask any kid or teen if they know how to navigate through their phone's file explorer, and a majority of them will answer no. Simple tasks like transferring files via USB are becoming less and less known with file and music streaming services becoming the norm. Everyone is just letting their phones put files where it wants and aren't really thinking about it. And this might not be too bad of an issue if apps weren't too inconsistent on where to actually place everything. Your camera photos might not be in a folder named "Photos", and are instead in a folder named "DCIM" in the root directory. Your phone might update your camera app too can cause your photos to be saved in an entirely different folder too (that happened to me.) Saved images or ringtones might be in their own weird folders separated from each other even if they are just audio or image files, because that's how they programmed the app. This isn't even a new user issue, it's an issue for everyone because experienced computer users don't even get to choose where an app should save it's stuff. You might not think this is an issue if apps just work fine despite this, but what if your phone gets full and you wanna delete files. Well if it's not related to clearing out cache or deleting apps, you're fucked if you don't know how to navigate through the messy and bloated file browser. I also wonder how much processing power is wasted on the phone searching for these files rather than looking on one or two folders where everything should be.

I could go on and on, but I think I've said enough. Things have been simplified to much to where it no longer teaches people how to use something. "Just ignore, you'll be fine, you're not letting anything build up. Oh is something not working correctly, well then the program just sucks. There's no super easy conversion method that will make the file magically work with the program, it just sucks! Did you get a virus? Well that's not our fault, you should have purchased an anti-virus! What do you mean you thought it was a video?"

Ironically in an attempt to make computers more accessible, we're soon gonna get more people that don't know how folders work.

[lizardlicks]

"we won't leave" isn't entirely true though. We have in fact left Tumblr in droves before. And going back, plenty of other websites saw their userbases entirely collapse because of unpopular changes in either policy or UI. We aren't currently leaving because they isn't a better option. All of the little Tumblr clones have security, transparency, or functionality issues. That doesn't mean that someone won't get fed up, get their shit together, and make the Ao3 version of Tumblr (that is, a co-op or non-profit social blogging platform). This is a game that they will lose. They just also don't care.

i get the point of the polls informally showing that the vast majority of tumblr users have been here for years and barely anyone is new. the problem is that the suits don't look at that kind of data and go "ah, we understand. the majority of our users are oldheads who want things to stay the same. we misunderstood our audience." they absolutely have hard numbers on these things. they surely know most active users have been here forever. but they look at these stats and go "wow, our growth rate really IS shit. we're still relying on an ever-dwindling pool of users who have been here since they were teenagers in the early 2010s. we need to be working even harder to make this place appeal to new users"

the higher ups and investors on sites like this want infinite growth forever. this is why they keep changing the layout to make it look like other, more popular sites, even though we hate it. this is why they try out shit like tumblr live that doesn't appeal to the established core userbase in the slightest. it's not for us. it's also not for the ~5% of active users (if the poll going around is to be believed) who signed up within the last year. no, they're chasing after the hundreds of millions of people who use twitter and the BILLIONS of people who use tiktok, hoping to appeal to them and make tumblr more popular again

this is, of course, deeply stupid. nobody is leaving tiktok to hop on tumblr live. they already have tiktok. and we're on tumblr because we like tumblr, not because we want it to morph into something else. but i'm sure automattic's got venture capital investors breathing down their necks going "why isn't tumblr more like twitter or tiktok or facebook or instagram or" etc. etc., and so here we are

[kosher-martian]

Ain't got no use for AI.

Look, I get it. I work in IT (if indirectly), but I think we need to kill this AI thing in its crib before it results in a majority of the US workforce doing back-breaking non-automatable jobs for pittance.

My job is 70% procurement and 30% e-waste disposal.

My job exists because:

Our procurement software has a UI that I would describe charitably as "openly hostile".

Far too many employees have access to the procurement software.

The finance department does not hold regular trainings on how to use the software and there's no process to notify finance of new employees who have been granted procurement access so the new employees can be trained.

Until recently, there was nothing built into the software to stop people from buying things with money they don't have or that is allocated to other projects. (A janitor could buy a high-spec Mac Studio using another department's money or simply not pay for it after it arrives.) Technically "not paying" is still very much an issue I have to solve.

Until recently, there was nothing built into the software to stop people from buying things without approval. After a few high-profile issues, we finally broke down and bought a plugin to correct this issue.

There is nothing built into the software to prevent people from buying devices that do not comply with our standards or are wildly inappropriate for their work tasks. (Secretaries getting high-spec gaming PCs just because they had the money in their budgets.)

Until I pointed it out, there was no policy in place to divert newly-delivered IT equipment to the IT department for set up and endpoint management. Until I pushed for a policy change, IT equipment could (and often would) be purchased and delivered directly to the department unmanaged or in a few cases a less-scrupulous employee's home address for personal use.

Our inventory system is arcane and there are a sum total of three people with access to it. And that's the system we primarily use for IT lifecycle management!

All of these things could be fixed by just buying better procurement software, let alone procurement software enhanced by AI. The only reason my employers haven't liquidated me is because right now the annual cost of having a human clean up all the human errors caused by the cheap lousy software they bought is still lower than the annual cost of software that would prevent the human errors from happening in the first place. But for how long?

What about all the jobs AI is already taking? All the writing and editing and media production jobs that simply won't exist because it was easier to let a machine do it? (Ignore that all the CGI people have four thumbs and 12 toes, human. Watch our slop content and enjoy it! You aren't worth real art.)

All the marketing jobs that will be liquidated because the algorithm knows us better than we know ourselves. Where are they supposed to go?

What about all the programmers and developers being laid off because ChatGPT does a decent enough job and if you lower our expectations enough, people will just accept a lousy app to purchase their burritos and yell at the human driver when the burrito is wrong?

Where are these people (and many, many more) supposed to work?

We closed the factories. We didn't find new high-quality jobs for the factory workers, did we?

All the factory workers went to work in low-paying retail and service economy jobs. Oh wait, they've been laid off from those jobs too because we had to have self-checkout and self-service kiosks and now entire Dollar Generals are staffed by one employee.

Drive a taxi? Sorry that was replaced by sharing your car with strangers (Uber). Oh no wait sorry, the self-driving cars are taking that too.

Call centers? We shipped those overseas and then shuttered them because a phone tree with a realistic human voice and intentionally vexatious wait times will take care of the pesky callers.

Gig work? If AI hasn't taken them already, they will soon.

Agricultural work? Slaves Prison labor will replace that soon enough (and frankly prison laborers will likely also take many other menial tasks like package delivery or fulfillment warehouse jobs soon)

Again, what are the vast majority of people on this earth supposed to do? Because if you think we're getting UBI in the US, you are deluded.

When the car replaced the horse as the primary means of transportation and other machines took the place of horse labor, the population of equines declined. They weren't needed anymore.

Between 1915 and 2006/7 the horse and mule population declined 63.07% in the United States. The US equine population in 1915 was 26,493,000 (horses and mules). In 2006, the United States had around 9,500,000 horses (1), and the United States Census of Agriculture for 2007 (table 31) counted 283,806 mules and burros (2).

And while the horse population has rebounded in the years since, it's because of enthusiasts wanting to breed more horses for entertainment and luxury purposes.

No one found the horses new jobs when the horse jobs disappeared. We simply stopped breeding horses. (And that's assuming, charitably, that we didn't juice the decline by culling the horse population.)

When our jobs disappear, do you think our overlords will just keep us around? I mean sure we're taking care of the population problem for them (a little too well actually, thus the anti-abortion laws), so they likely won't turn us into glue.

They'll still need people to fix the machines when they break and to continue building and creating better and better AI and machines to take care of their every whim.

And they'll need some people to do all the work the AI and robots cannot do yet.

And they'll want people for entertainment and luxury: Actors, singers, athletes, and playthings they can use as they please.

But ultimately what all these "tech-bros", "technocrats", "effective altruists", and "techno-progressivists" really really want is world that caters exclusively to their needs and all the inconvenient people who have needs of their own are swept into the recycle bin and discarded without a second thought. All problems are easily solved when you eliminate all the people:

Littering? No people, no litter. You, glorious techno-overlord, would never litter.

Climate Change? Less people, less carbon. You'll still be here, though, don't worry my liege!

Economy? The robots do all the work you used to have to pay people to do. And all the profits go to you, sire!

Taxes? LOL you don't have to pay taxes. Taxes are for the peasants.

You get my point.

The techno-overlords are tired of negotiating with us because they don't believe they should have to. We aren't their equals, if they even consider us human. They need some of us to do their bidding and some of us to keep around to torture and dominate to make them feel like gods. Beyond that, the rest of us are just excess people breathing up all the air.

AI has to go, not because the AI itself is dangerous, but because the people whom the AI ultimately serves have told us time and time again who they really are. It's time for us to believe them. We know their vision for the world, and it's a world without us. 1. This figure comes from a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and is often cited in writings about horse population decline, but I could not locate the actual report on their website.

2. https://agcensus.library.cornell.edu/census_parts/2007-united-states/

[citynewsglobe]

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