Trees in your eyes; Stars in your heart

Game studios learn to optimize your fucking games challenge.

Who the fuck do you think you are? You are a toy. A glorified slinky.

publisher executives will actually tell their studios to have an inflated install size because gamers will assume that Bigger Install Means Better And More Game.

I couldn't find any sources on this, it seems more likely that it's just because optimization costs more than it worth to AAA devs

source: i work in the game industry and coworkers who experience it firsthand have told me this. not to say that optimization costs isn't one factor but. this is certainly another

There's a very good piece of software that compresses games with ***NO DETRIMENT TO PERFORMANCE***

https://github.com/IridiumIO/CompactGUI

I'd say it's magic but honestly it's just fixing corporate's bullshit junk data

While it's not particularly relevant to people like me who game on Linux (including plenty of Windows games through compat layers like Proton), it really is nice that this tool has such a nice description of how it works. The README is putting the work in to be anti-magical, and I adore it. Long story short, Windows has some built-in features in the filesystem (NTFS) for transparent compression. Which is to say, Windows does the work of compressing data on write to disk, and decompressing on reads, so your programs can be blissfully ignorant about compression logic. Your game doesn't even know Windows is doing that work for it! This has been a feature for a long time, but the algorithms have just gotten better over time. Unfortunately, it's also kinda obscure, so most people don't even know this Windows feature exists.

This also gives you an idea why there's a caveat section about DirectStorage on Windows 11. You don't need to be well-versed in Microsoftese to guess what that does - it's in the name! A game might want to skip a bunch of layers of syscalls and kernel logic to just get bytes directly from some block device where the data lives. Gotta be low level, gotta go fast! Well that would also skip any magic automatic decompression Windows would normally do with the transparent compression feature. You can try to use CompactGUI on those games, but the game will try to read those files it expects to be raw, finds some compressed "garbage", and say "wtf is this shit." Ultimately, this is only some low-hanging fruit for optimization, and it's great that users can claw back that disk space, but there's no substitute for game developers and publishers putting effort into game optimization beyond a bare minimum. They'll always be more motivated to optimize for ship date, and if you're lucky, FPS. In fact, in some cases, the lack of compression in game assets by default probably comes from some fearmongering about decompression slowing down the asset load pipeline and hitching FPS as you move between areas of the game. This is demonstrably false - your CPU is fast and full of cores, and the savings of reading fewer bytes off disk usually make compressed assets load faster because those disk reads are still expensive and decompression is nearly free. But big corps are heavy on a lot of things, superstition included, which is why we still see so much A* pathfinding to this day.

By the way, if you ARE on Linux like me, you actually have options for transparent compression! It just... depends on your filesystem. It's supported out of the box on both BTRFS and ZFS, and if you're on a fancy modern distro like CachyOS, you're probably using BTRFS whether you realize or not. If you're an old fogey like me and default to EXT4, well, that's not gonna work. EXT4 is rugged and sturdy and I love it to bits and pieces, but yeah, you're gonna miss some features the cool kids are using. Pick your poison, as it always goes.

every time i see a picture of a coyote i am immediately like "omg my friend Cable Ties!"

My friend Cable Ties

Eva Funderburgh

love her work

she still makes these and they’ve only grown more wonderful over the years. The wood-fired surfaces really give them life.

love these lil guys

Me too!

My mom got phished in an EXTREMELY refined scam that pretty much anyone could fall for-- basically her account was already pre-hacked and they spoofed the bank's number exactly, called her pretending there was fraud, and read back legitimate and fake transactions and personal info so she wouldn't suspect they weren't the bank. Then discouraged her from logging in claiming the account was locked so they could investigate the fraud-- all so she wouldnt catch them making massive purchases using her stolen info.

We have the same boss and when she told him what happened he recommended she call the bank directly, so she did and they managed to catch it in time before $20k of transactions went through. Very scary

I guess the lesson here is never ever answer your phone, I love that fraud is so rampant an entire form of mass communication is now useless

ANYONE can fall for phishing scams- my mom is extremely smart and we discuss common scams that target her age demographic and she still fell for this. If it happened to me I may have fallen for it too. Always be careful!

that's EXACTLY what happened to me last spring. it's dire out there....

that’s EXACTLY what

happened to me last spring.

it’s dire out there….

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

If you EVER get ANY call from ANYONE claiming to be a bank or other important group asking you for anything, tell them you will call them back and call them yourself. Do not call a number they give you, look it up yourself.

Banks don't call people, IME. They send emails and texts and put notices on your online account. Credit cards sometimes do I believe, but in that case, just call the number on your card back.

Never take a call from anyone and assume they are who they say. Period. These people are skilled at social manipulation. They will always tell you there is a crisis.

And don't just google the number, use your bank's official site! A lot of search engines are now providing phone numbers of scams instead of legit ones. Also make sure the url of the site matches the one available on cards and other papers you've been given by your bank because fake sites can look VERY convincing.

FYI: the U.S. government will not call you. Is someone calls and says they're the IRS? They're lying. They say they're the sheriff? Lying. ICE? Lying.

The United States will mail you information. If the government needs to reach you, check your mailbox.

The IRS are generally pretty forgiving and will accept that humans make errors. They will never demand immediate payment for back taxes, ever. They know that's not feasible for most people, so they'll usually make a payment plan and help you out. (This is, of course, assuming you're an individual who fucked up their taxes, not someone running a massive tax fraud scheme.)

There’s also a scam going around right now for folks in the USA who use toll roads. NONE of the texts are real, the EZPass website has a huge banner on the site saying they’re all scams.

I think I've reblogged this a few times because I work in bank fraud. And the thing is, sometimes the bank does call! I have personally called tons of customers. And while it makes my job harder, I would STILL prefer if every one of them told me, "I can't prove you're really my bank," hung up, and called the number on their card. Don't worry about being rude by accusing a real bank agent of being a scammer. It's fine. Hang up, and call back.

The only way to know who you're talking to is if you make the call. And before sending a lot of money somewhere, run it by someone you trust--no one is immune to a good scam, but a friend will be in a different headspace, and more likely to recognize emotional manipulation.

Your bank, the IRS, and any legitimate person calling for non-scam reasons will NEVER EVER throw a fit about you hanging up and calling back. Scams don't work because people are stupid, they work because they stress you out, put you on edge, and prime you to not trust people who can actually help. People do not make smart decisions when they think they're in trouble, and above all else what they need to do is keep you on the line with them, so they will try to convince you that you are in trouble, you cannot trust the cops or your bank/credit union/ect., and if you hang up something really bad will happen to you. If you suspect you're being scammed, just say that they caught you at a bad time, or something came up, and ask if it's okay to call them back later. A legit employee will be understanding and agree, a scammer will immediately start doing everything they can to make you way too scared and stressed to hang up.

My fiance worked at a credit union for 8 years and they were trained to notice and intervene if they suspected someone was being scammed, and he told me the number one thing that signals a scam is a member coming in looking fucking terrified while on the phone with someone who is essentially screaming at them that the credit union staff cannot be trusted and that if they hang up the world will end.

It's a scam, every single time. They work by trapping you with fear. Just tell them you need a minute and will call them back, and then contact the bank/credit union/ect. yourself with the number on your card or their website. If they respond to you saying you need a minute and will call back with hostility or by upping the stakes, especially if they say you can't trust the authorities and that hanging up will cause something bad to happen, you're talking to a scammer, and you can safely ignore anything and everything they have to say.

10 Ways to Spot Financial Scams and How to Defend Yourself 

The breed standard for modern Persian cats calls for the nose and mouth to be in “vertical alignment” with the eyes 😭

Who sets these rules, and can they be pestered?

I can only talk about the US. For the AKC (American Kennel Club), the breed standard is set by each breed's parent club. I'll use poodles as my example breed.

The AKC standard says that poodles MUST be one solid color. Any other colorations is an automatic disqualification. My dog, Truffle, is an apricot parti poodle. While he appears to be pure white, he actually has a few patches of very faint apricot--- it's most obvious when he's shaved down and put into a show coat. Under the AKC rules, he cannot be showed. Well, I mean. I COULD show him. He'd just fail automatically.

But the parti color has been part of the breed for a long, LONG time. It causes no issues to the breed. So let's say I wanted to change the standard to allow parti colors.

I'd have to get involved with the parent breed club. In this case, that's the Poodle Club of America (most breed clubs follow the same name convention). I'd have to introduce the issue to the breed club and we'd all basically vote on it. If it's accepted by the breed club, the AKC can either accept or reject the new standard.

Technically, the AKC COULD just reject the new standard, but it doesn't happen very often. I don't think I've ever heard of it happening tbh.

The biggest part is just getting involved and getting other people on board. For this step, you have to understand WHY a breed standard exists. Going back to my example of parti poodles: we know that the coloration exists in the breed's history. We know it's harmless. It's accepted under the UKC's standards without a problem.

But it will almost certainly NEVER be accepted under the AKC and that's because it muddies the waters. A merle dog can look VERY similar to parti colors: white with patches of color. And a lot of poodle people feel very strongly AGAINST merle being part of the poodle breed because of the health problems associated with the color--- there's also some strong feelings against mutts here, because merle has never been part of poodles before, so saying 'NO PARTIS' is an easy way to keep doodles with hung papers out of the show ring.

So, if you want to change, say, the PUG standard, you'd just have to join the breed club, be proactive, and encourage people to vote for the breed standard you prefer. You have to be the voice for change.

t-shirt that says ‘I LOVE BEING ALONE IN QUIET DARK PLACES.’ on the front and ‘I AM NOT A FUNGUS.’ on the back.

Tshirt idea I had

This might be the funniest reply I’ve ever seen in my life

I AM WHEEZING

PLEASE STOP REBLOGGING THIS OMFG

Did you check the weather? - Jeremy Miranda , 2024.

American , b. 1980 -

Acrylic on board , 7 x 8 in.

Y’all I want to throw massive kudos out to the Roger Williams Park Zoo for a choice they made today: rather than joining in on a GenAI trend all the zoos are doing right now, they chose to support and spotlight an artist on their staff!

The big thing right now is these GenAI “figurine toys” of zookeepers or zoo management. And instead they shared a version drawn by one of their staff!

Go give them some love, if you’re on FB. Too many zoos are really getting into GenAI and just whitewashing the climate change / copyright issues that come with it, so I want this zoo to get as much positive feedback as we can muster for making a better choice.

Not my image, not part of the repository (so not available to use). But let’s celebrate a business promoting their own artists instead of using AI!

okay AND? Naruto said its called the will of fire not the will of non violent protest

when people pop off with some ass take like "why should I have to put my pronouns in my profile or signature or whatever, my name is Tom and I have short hair and am wearing an oxford shirt in my profile pic, figure it out" I always think

so do you just not talk to people from other countries for your job, ever?

like, some people don't, and you can follow the flowchart to a different part of the argument about why pushing back about pronouns is stupid, but I e-mail people in Singapore and Dubai and Japan and India every day. A lot of those people have names that are probably their local equivalent of "Tom," but I have never seen them before and I have no idea if that's a girl's name or a boy's name. They usually have profile pics too. I don't know how common short hair is for women or long hair is for men in their country. I don't know if that style of shirt is more common for men or more common for women. I'm not writing this from some homogenous whitebread oasis, either, I live in New York City, it's just simply not possible for me to know the common names in every language of every country where the people I need to work with, live.

just put your stupid pronouns in your signature, some exasperated project manager in Mumbai will one day appreciate it

I'm always teeth grit rolling the fucking dice on some Tsumugi on the Tokyo team rocking a pixie cut and a blue shirt, help me

you are that Tsumugi to somebody

I had an older, white, male coworker ask me over message:

"Hi, the Team Lead for our sister team... I need to ask them a favour. I've never met them in person, and their name is Chinese. Are they a man or a woman?"

And I was like "<Name's> pronouns are she/her"

This guy had never seen pronouns used in the wild before. He honestly thought they only mattered to people who flew the rainbow flag in their office. The look of dawning comprehension in his eyes warmed my heart for a solid week.

THE WIGGLES JUST RELEASED A SONG CALLED “WE’RE FRIENDS OF DOROTHY”??????

okayyyyyyy

For context:

Dolly Parton is also on the album doing a collaboration as well :)

[wip] a modern Cajun French dictionary/short narrative on loss of language and culture.

Les Cadiens: Me (I think).

Laissez le bon temps rouler: the same phrase is plastered on billboards and parade floats. An expression of happiness and celebration of the season. I didn't know what it meant until I was seventeen.

Allons à Lafayette: we drove through Lafayette every time we went to pick up my brother from university. We didn't usually stop there.

L'école: there was a French immersion school down the street from my childhood home. My parents sent me to an English school further away instead.

Sha: my mother would always say the same thing when she saw a baby in its stroller. The old man at church called me that, too.

Ma famille c'est ma mère, mon père, deux frères et trois sœurs...: there were two girls in my college French class who were native speakers. They held fluent conversations with the professor, who told the rest of the class that she didn't expect that same level of French from us. I put together sentences with the little I knew, struggling to find the right words to say. "Bien fait," the professor told me, but I knew she didn't mean it.

Chachere's: "I thought Cajun was a type of seasoning," the girl sitting next to me on the bus said. California is nice, but I don't know if I could ever truly feel at home here. "Do you speak French?" No, I don't, sorry. Sometimes this city is too fast-paced. Sometimes I miss that godforsaken swamp where I was born where there's only one season and all the water is polluted and the politicians are crooked and hurricanes tear through the entire place every few years. "No, I don't speak French," I told her. "Not too many people speak it anymore." I don't know why I feel so empty.

Le vieux: the old man standing next to me at the antique market in Breaux Bridge spoke on the phone in French but addressed his grandson in English. I flipped through an old family Bible, the meanings of the words lost to me. The sign on the restaurant across the street read "Zydeco and Brunch on Sundays After Mass."

Le Grand Dérangement: "The British kicked us out of Canada," my fifth-grade teacher said, "then we found our way down here." But that's not what happened, not the full story. The British, overwhelming the resistance fighters, violently deported our ancestors to France, Britain, and the United States. Nearly half of those deported died before reaching their final destination. Their homeland was gifted to new settlers loyal to the British crown. A lone monument in Nova Scotia now commemorates the event.

Arrière grand-père: me and every other Cajun I know has a relative whose first language is French. "I wish I could learn, but I'm not good with languages." We've all heard the stories our families tell of being beaten, ostracized, Americanized. French was not allowed to be spoken nor taught in Louisiana schools from 1921 to 1968. Offenders were subject to corporal punishment. French speakers were not allowed to hold public office. Half-savage creature, coonass, "don't speak Cajun, speak white." Our current governor speaks French, but he doesn't advertise it. Uncivilized, uneducated, unamerican.

Québec: sometimes I imagine what we could have had.

---

Here's a poem by Jean Arceneaux titled "Je suis cadien." If you don't speak French or your French is terrible (like mine), put it through a translator but be sure to pay attention to which words in the original are in English and which ones are in French.

What are you even supposed to eat for dinner

And it’s like. Like it’s everyday girls.

here's a funny conversation topic i had a with a friend: if you're over the age of 25, when's the last time you really *ran* in a panic (like you were late, chasing after something, etc. things like a marathon don't count!) and what was it for?