Avatar

Random Bullshit

@ghost-snowcat

Jess/ 21 / she/her /and this is where I like and reblog stuff cuz I haven’t posted anything in years

hey netizens! i'm not sure how many people are aware, but youtube's been slowly rolling out a new anti-adblock policy that can't be bypassed with the usual software like uBlock Origin and Pi-Hole out of the gate

BUT, if you're a uBlock Origin user (or use an adblocker with a similar cosmetics modifier), you can add these commands in the uBlock dashboard to get rid of it!

youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0) youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, []) youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

reblog to help keep the internet less annoying and to tell corporations that try shit like this to go fuck themselves <3

Avatar

The thing I like about the Blood Moon mechanic in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom is how it affords game-mechanical transparency to the player.

Like, we all know the reason it exists is because, like any complex open-world game, BotW and TotK periodically need to hit the reset button on all non-trivial changes to the world state; in games that don't, your save file has unbounded growth due to the need to keep track of every little thing you've ever done, and eventually the system runs out of memory, save/load performance goes to shit, or both. It's basic software engineering constraints dictating the shape of play.

The thing is, most open world games try to do this subtly, perhaps by setting individual timers for the consequences of different actions to expire, or by linking world-state cleanup to proximity to the player character, but in practice it never works – trying to be sneaky about it paradoxically makes it more obtrusive to the player by rendering it opaque and unpredictable, often prompting the development of superstitious gameplay rituals to work around it.

BotW and TotK take precisely the opposite tack and make it 100% transparent and 100% predictable. Once a week, at exactly the same time of day, there's a spooky cutscene and an evil wizard undoes every change you've made to the world that doesn't have an associated quest log entry. Why everything at once, and always on the same schedule? A wizard did it. Why exactly and only those changes that don't have quest logs attached? See again: a wizard did it.

And this isn't just a gameplay conceit. Everybody knows about the evil wizard! The fact that the evil wizard keeps resetting everybody's efforts to fix the befuckening of the world is a central plot point. There are organisations whose chartered purpose is to go around redoing stuff that's been undone by the wizard.

It makes me wonder what other potential synergies between fantasy worldbuilding and mechanical transparency are going unexploited.

sluttiest thing a man can do is know how to cook delicious meals

so glad i did

if you don't know how to cook:

  • layout everything you are going to need before you begin -- you know how in cooking shows everything is in a little bowl? If you can stand the dish washing, emulate this, it makes life a lot easier
  • if you don't have the soul to do that many dishes, layout as much as you can stand
  • take your time, part of your prep can be having a little bowl of snacks, I do this a lot when I'm on a big cooking project
  • reduce the heat, a lot of people go full bore with heat, start low and slow, if it takes awhile to cook, that's fine -- "medium" heat and "low" heat are your friends while you're figuring things out
  • adding some onion powder and garlic powder and freshly ground pepper is a great way to add a lot of flavor very easily and cheaply -- "how much? I've never done this before" -- sprinkle it across the entire surface, each ingredient, mixing as you go, so it is lightly dusted. You'll figure out a bit more or a bit less as you practice.
  • with meat, if the surface is cooked but it's still undercooked or raw in the middle -- put a sheet pan in the oven, heat up the oven to 350, put the meat on the sheet pan, put the sheet pan in the oven, check it in 5 minutes (undercooked in the middle) or 10 minutes (raw in the middle). Keep this pattern until it's done. It might take awhile. That's fine.
  • The process of heating up the sheet pan as the oven heats up helps because then you're not putting hot food on a room temp sheet pan in a hot oven. This is not a critical step, it just makes it a bit easier and faster.
  • There are relatively few critical steps in basic cooking. They largely involve wasting as little as possible (practice makes perfect) + food safety.
  • if you have a few bucks, "America's Test Kitchen" is a fantastic subscription
  • If you don't, they are often on PBS
  • veggies are often great raw, or steamed
  • rice adds a lot of dimension to things
  • don't let bastards gate keep you from testing new things at your budget, skill level, taste, etc. -- be you, be happy
  • experimenting is good
  • go as slow as will make you comfortable -- see above notes about having a bowl of snacks while you cook

I keep using my girlfriend with unusual work hours to get out of coworker interactions and happy hours and hanging out.

But now the company holiday party is upon us.

And I’ve been lying about the girlfriend.

I suddenly really empathise with the characters in Hallmark Christmas movies.

I like that people have two reactions to this post.

Reasonable: “just say she couldn’t make it!”

Chaotic: FAKE DATING AU

Well, which one is it going to be?

And so it begins

having the DMV area Craigslist bookmarked has never come in handy before but now

Update, Craigslist has flagged my post as inappropriate.

Apparently you can’t solicit a date as a “gig”

I now see my mistake

Update: a date has been acquired. This is true lesbian solidarity in action.

My wife has now read this and wonders how baby gays are even meeting and mating

Can confirm I am meeting and mating just fine 😂

By the way I’m in a relationship with this woman now

This is the feedback I’ve been looking for

world heritage post

THIS is the bear cave painting i was talking about, the line weight, the proportions, the fine details around the face, and the fact that this all had to be drawn from memory, idk man, it’s incredible to me. if i could meet one person from history it’d be the person that painted this bear 30,000 years ago

These are the red bears in the Chauvet Caves! The location in the caves where they’re found is called the Recess of the Bears, and the heavier line weight in the front is thought to be a primitive form of perspective!

Here are more paintings from the chauvet caves:

i just think itd be funny if kittypets were a little more familiar to twoleg things such as: cars and bad words

I haven’t reblogged something related to Warrior cats since like 2012 but this is fucking hilarious

was in the car with my friend when I saw the car we passed had the license plate "SADNESS" and I went oh wait we gotta slow down so I can get a pic, but every time we went slower the other car also slowed down. so I looked behind us to see what was going on and the passenger also had their phone up and wheezing the same way I was, and that's when I remembered my friend's license plate is "LOSSJPG"

you think I would do that? just go on the internet and tell lies?

This Pride, don’t forget about us

ID: “This Pride remember to respect all trans people : Trans women who don’t shave with a drawing of a woman whit a yellow and pink beard, trans men who don’t bind, masculine trans women and feminine trans men with a drawing of a trans woman with short pink hair wearing a yellow baseball T-shirt holding hands with a trans man with a yellow crop top and short curly blue hair, fat trans people with the drawing of a fat trans woman with short white hair, dark skin and a pink cropped top, disabled trans people with a drawing of a wheelchair and a walking cane in the color of the trans flag, neurodivergent trans people with the symbol of the autistic community, trans people who are sex worker with a drawing of blue bra and pink underwear, poor trans people who can’t afford transition, trans people who aren’t out yet with a drawing of a closed door, trans people who don’t plan on transitioning, black trans people with a black fist holding a trans flag, and any trans people who isn’t white with multiple hands of different skin tones, muslim trans people with a drawing of someone wearing a hijab in the color of the trans flag, jewish trans people with a drawing of someone wearing a white shirt and a kippah in the color of the trans flag, non binary people even those who don’t identify as trans with the non binary flag, those whose identity you might not understand with the genderfluid flag, the agender flag, the demi gender flag and the genderqueer flag, trans people who don’t pass and don’t want to with a drawing of a trans woman with a beard and dark skin raising her fist, every pronouns with dialog box in which are different sets of pronouns, trans people of every identity with the gay flag, the lesbian flag, the ace flag, the bi flag, the pan flag and the aro flag, every trans person is beautiful and deserving of so much love so don’t forget the T.” End ID

P.S. : can someone tell me if I did the image description right cuz I have no idea