Don't Be Alarmed

ive been here too long. this used to be a homestuck joke, but now im 30. i like video games, poetry, history, board games, photography, and comics. i spend most of my time thinking about, playing, and making ttrpgs. https://cardboardhyperfix.itch.io/ - - this blog was started in july of 2011 - - --TTRPG design and other Games blog: https://www.tumblr.com/cardboard-hyperfix-games - - photography blog: https://www.tumblr.com/trial-by-error-photos

[apas-95]

everyone when i roll up

[tonysopranobignaturals-deactiva]

greeting the mutuals

[kundstphoto]

Jilmer Postma

Sheep overtaking a pond in Drachten (2018)

[lindleland]

why does this look like a professor layton puzzle

[partywithponies]

Strange racists and homophobes on the internet seem to have access to an alternate way cooler version of TV than me. "every white character on TV is in an interracial relationship" "every show has a gay couple in it" "main characters keep having to secretly be bisexual and nonbinary" "every show has gratuitous full frontal nudity" like damn promise?? What channel???

[urlocalpyshcopan]

as a black gay person real like where y'all be finding this stuff pass the name

[brainsforbabyjesus]

for real though, those DO NOT WATCH OR YOU'LL CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN lists put out by conservative christian family groups is where I find all the stellar tv shows. Like, shit I didn't know half of those existed, thanks for finding them for me, gonna go watch 30 hours of gay tv now!

[infamousbrad]

I think I know how this works.

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

Same as the journalists describing Black Rock City as all naked. Same as the right-wing religious culture warriors describing television as entirely mixed-race and gender non-conforming. Not because it's even vaguely true, we know that, but because they haven't gotten over their discomfort over the last one by the time the next one comes along. The anger, not the stimulus, is the part that's continuous, so their mind lies to them that it's "all" the thing they can't get over.

[kagedtiger]

Similar effect for the presence/proportion of women in things, by the way: https://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/human-nature/perception/how-17-equals-496-the-amazing-multiplying-women.htm

[monidoll]

aliens observing the solar system: [untranscribable telescope name]-59172 has 2 planets. It's a pair of relatively small, cold gas planets, called [untranscribable telescope name]-59172b and c. [untranscribable telescope name]-59172c was discovered only a few years ago. Systems with multiple cold gas planets are rather uncommon, so this is pretty exciting

[monidoll]

theyre probably not gonna know earth is third for some time, since mercury is a very small planet at a fairly medium distance. The moon, too, obviously.

Long before that happens though, these aliens discover [UTN]-59172d and [UTN]-59172e and determine d is uninhabitable and e is *probably* uninhabitable (because their idea of the habitable zone is slightly different and earth, already at the inner edge in our conception, happens to fall just slightly on the wrong side of the line they've drawn)

[monidoll]

artist's impression

[lavitts]

I wonder what they'd think of Uranus and Neptune if they spotted them. The REALLY cold and small gas bodies.

[monidoll]

our models at least predict neptune-like planets, that is, ice giants, are probably more common than saturn-like small gas giants, although they're much harder to detect

[monidoll]

when planets cross a certain mass threshold while gas is still plentiful, they tend to grow very rapidly, and form large gas giants, usually larger than jupiter. if they only reach that mass after the gas has mostly dissipated, they may become ice giants or smaller gas-rich icy superearths. but producing a light gas giant like saturn requires the planet to reach the mass threshold at a very specific time

[shroudofnerscylla]

This is really interesting to me, where could I read more about our models for what typical planetary systems look like?

[monidoll]

this is a paper simulating the evolution of planetary systems around sunlike stars. the 50 and 100 embryo simulations likely reflect reality

https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2021/12/aa38863-20/aa38863-20.html

[parkchanwoohoo]

I'm really trying hard to be a "It's everyone's first time learning something everyday" kind of guy but also if you don't know shit and you know you're, for whatever reason, a person who doesn't have context about something, why fucking talk. Like why are you talking. If you know you don't know what's being discussed why are you opining about it and getting confused when everyone is like, shut your empty headed mouth for the love of god? Are you ALSO learning for the first time that this is insufferable?? As though half the time these people aren't also insufferable pedants who'd blow a gasket if someone started talking about their loser hobbies wrong

[parkchanwoohoo]

"Here are my thoughts on this topic"

"You are completely off, you have gotten multiple basic facts wrong, you also lack x and y context"

"Well I didn't know that because I don't really involve myself in this topic" THEN SHUT UPPPPPPP OH MY GODDDDDDD

[blinkeasy]

Good Bones, by Maggie Smith / Witch Hat Atelier, by Kamome Shirahama

[darkspaceboytoy]

Guy who owns a steamdeck voice: it plays great on the steamdeck

[cardboardhyperfix]

[paper-mario-wiki]

do not forget the patron saint of these weeks that we celebrate ourselves proudly and openly in the streets

her name was Marsha P Johnson, and we have her to thank for so much.

remember, the first Pride was a riot, and she was one of the brave souls who endured it to help carve the path which so many of us walk today. she helped found several activist groups regarding LGBT safety and wellbeing. and she was absolutely radiant, too.

thank you, Marsha. we remember you.

[commanderchrist-deactivated2017]

Fuck small talk.  Let’s talk about how your day was, the weather, or the big game last night.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

This phrase has already entered my vocabulary re: media criticism where like. The viewer has a concrete view of what they expect a story to be based on the tropes and cliches they're used to seeing together, and when that doesn't happen, they judge it as a failed depiction of what they assumed it was going to be instead of judging it as what it actually is.

"This show is problematic because the hero didn't kill the villain at the end": When does he steal the bread?

"These two characters who were close friends throughout the series don't kiss at the end! What the fuck?": When does he steal the bread?

"This feels like it's missing a conclusion! Like, the protagonist does bad stuff and because of a critical decision he makes as a result of his major character flaws, meets tragedy in the end! Where's the part where he learns better and brings is love back from the dead and becomes a good guy and gets a happy ending?": When does he steal the fucking bread??

[thetetra]

I heard this out as "When criticizing something, you must judge it for what it is, not what it isn't"

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#this is why so many of us urge people to get a wider diet of stories

[tigerleopardlion]

Southern African Wildcat | Eugene Tulleken

[pangur-and-grim]

taking the Thing outside to experience nature

[pangur-and-grim]

Pangur can't eat plants (due to not having teeth) so she just puts them in her mouth and makes them wet and goopy

a pangur-slimed leaf

[crtter]

You’ve heard of Chicago Quiznos Coyote Friday, now get ready for

Brazil Bakery Maned Wolf Monday

[toskarin]

imagine seinfeld but if jerry had.... an inquisitive mind..

[toskarin]

I just meant if jerry wanted more information but I can see how you might have understood this as me proposing a bicurious seinfeld

[porcelain-siscon]

Not that there's anything wrong with that

[toskarin]

not that there's anything wrong with that

[cadhla182]

Grandma fell over. Life alert!

[compassionvi]

the thing about piracy is that i know i deserve everything for free forever

[prokopetz]

It's actually a bit surprising to me that we haven't seen contemporary meta brainfuck indie games do more than they have with 1990s point and click adventure games' penchant for developer-intended softlocks. That feels like something you could very easily spin as Saying Something.

[prokopetz]

Honestly, having grown up with this bullshit is probably a big part of the reason I'm fascinated with player-hostile game design. Giving a puzzle three different solutions with fully voiced and animated reactions to each, except two of those solutions render the game unwinnable in ways that won't become apparent until hours later is a level of "fuck you" that most modern games with pretensions of player-hostility can only dream of!

[prokopetz]

@lunchm34t replied:

what adventure games softlock you like that?

I'm usually loathe to suggest TV Tropes as a resource, but given that only a person who's entirely unacquainted with the genre would be asking that question, a primer is probably warranted. Check out the Unwinnable By Design article and read the preamble for context on the types of softlocks we're discussing, then hit either the "Sierra" or "Infocom" links (yes, those two publishers each have their own dedicated sections!), pop open the "Cruel" tab, and get ready to read some stuff that makes you mad.