Rebuilding journal search again
Jun. 30th, 2025 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alierak posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceWe're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.
Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.
Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.
For anyone I've successfully lured: my top Disco Elysium tips
Jun. 30th, 2025 03:19 pmrydra_wong* SAVE OFTEN, especially in the early game when you may be very fragile and the game's auto-save is infrequent.
BUT -- don't reload from a save unless you actually die or otherwise hit a "game over."
This game is about failing, and it rewards you for playing forwards through failure. Some of the best moments in the game come from failed checks. There are always alternative routes and ways forwards. If you tried to savescum it, you would miss most of the game and all of the point. Embrace failure.
Okay there are those two specific checks where failing is so emotionally devastating I would not judge anyone for savescumming. But apart from those.
* You can just pick one of the Archetypes for a starter build, and leave messing around with custom character creation until you've seen the stats in action and understand how the system works. Don't stress about it. Or, if you want, you can throw yourself into custom character creation despite not having a clue how it works, and you will also have a fun time. Your initial build and your later choices about what you put points into will radically change your experience of the game, but you can't do it "wrong"; there are no optimal builds which are "better".
* Press tab to highlight objects you can interact with, or activate "detective mode" in the settings to do it automatically. Yes I know this is the sort of thing that is probably obvious to people who have played video games before.
* If your Health or Morale (displayed on the lower left of the screen) fall to zero, you have about 5 seconds to apply a healing item (if you have one) by clicking the cross above that stat.
This is the one timed element in the game, and also the one mechanic that some of us initially have trouble grasping.
With all the other mechanics in the game, you can not only learn them by flinging yourself in and floundering about, this is IMHO the best and most enjoyable way to learn them. No idea what the Thought Cabinet is or what Internalizing A Thought means? Try it and find out!
* Perhaps the most important tip of all:
If you feel you are flailing around and failing on most of the checks you try and you've just been informed you have acquired a Thought you can internalize in your Thought Cabinet and you have no clue what that means or maybe you just had a heart attack and died before you even got out of your hotel room or you had a nervous breakdown because a child insulted you and you have no idea what you're doing and it's been three days and you still haven't got the body down from the tree --
THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE PLAYING THE GAME "BADLY". THIS IS IN FACT THE UNIVERSAL DISCO ELYSIUM EXPERIENCE AND MEANS YOU ARE PLAYING THE GAME CORRECTLY. WELL DONE.
BUT -- don't reload from a save unless you actually die or otherwise hit a "game over."
This game is about failing, and it rewards you for playing forwards through failure. Some of the best moments in the game come from failed checks. There are always alternative routes and ways forwards. If you tried to savescum it, you would miss most of the game and all of the point. Embrace failure.
* You can just pick one of the Archetypes for a starter build, and leave messing around with custom character creation until you've seen the stats in action and understand how the system works. Don't stress about it. Or, if you want, you can throw yourself into custom character creation despite not having a clue how it works, and you will also have a fun time. Your initial build and your later choices about what you put points into will radically change your experience of the game, but you can't do it "wrong"; there are no optimal builds which are "better".
* Press tab to highlight objects you can interact with, or activate "detective mode" in the settings to do it automatically. Yes I know this is the sort of thing that is probably obvious to people who have played video games before.
* If your Health or Morale (displayed on the lower left of the screen) fall to zero, you have about 5 seconds to apply a healing item (if you have one) by clicking the cross above that stat.
This is the one timed element in the game, and also the one mechanic that some of us initially have trouble grasping.
With all the other mechanics in the game, you can not only learn them by flinging yourself in and floundering about, this is IMHO the best and most enjoyable way to learn them. No idea what the Thought Cabinet is or what Internalizing A Thought means? Try it and find out!
* Perhaps the most important tip of all:
If you feel you are flailing around and failing on most of the checks you try and you've just been informed you have acquired a Thought you can internalize in your Thought Cabinet and you have no clue what that means or maybe you just had a heart attack and died before you even got out of your hotel room or you had a nervous breakdown because a child insulted you and you have no idea what you're doing and it's been three days and you still haven't got the body down from the tree --
THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU ARE PLAYING THE GAME "BADLY". THIS IS IN FACT THE UNIVERSAL DISCO ELYSIUM EXPERIENCE AND MEANS YOU ARE PLAYING THE GAME CORRECTLY. WELL DONE.
PSA
Jun. 29th, 2025 01:54 pmrydra_wongDisco Elysium is currently 90% off in the Steam summer sale, making it a mere £3.49.
Play Disco Elysium, everybody. Yes, even if you don't play video games.
(It was the first video game I ever played -- apart from having once(?) played Pac Man as a child, many many decades ago -- and it was a perfect choice.)
If you understand the principle of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, have a vague sense that "stats" and "levelling up" are things, and can grasp "click to go to a place/interact with an object," you are sufficiently equipped.
ETA: Okay, I will add inastrogirl's excellent content warning:
Play Disco Elysium, everybody. Yes, even if you don't play video games.
(It was the first video game I ever played -- apart from having once(?) played Pac Man as a child, many many decades ago -- and it was a perfect choice.)
If you understand the principle of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, have a vague sense that "stats" and "levelling up" are things, and can grasp "click to go to a place/interact with an object," you are sufficiently equipped.
ETA: Okay, I will add in
astrogirl's excellent content warning:It's definitely not for everybody. I mean, for one thing, it gets pretty much all the trigger warnings for everything. Alcoholism and substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, discussions of sexual assault, gore (not visual, but some of the descriptions are very vivid), you name it. A number of characters are giant racists. (Towards fictional races/ethnicities, mind you, but it's still ugly.) Evil children will hurl homophobic slurs at you. That sort of thing. And whatever your politics, the game will try very hard to make you feel uncomfortable about them.
Looks like the mass lobby got NUMBERS \o/
Jun. 26th, 2025 07:49 amrydra_wonghttps://www.thepinknews.com/2025/06/25/trans-westminster-lobby-ehrc/
The organizers are estimating circa 900 people showed up, putting it on a par with the biggest LGBTQ+ lobbies ever (against Section 28).
Outstanding work from the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, who also organized the legal briefing for MPs in May:
https://www.attitude.co.uk/news/trans-legal-experts-warn-supreme-court-ruling-could-be-breaching-human-rights-in-parliamentary-briefing-483801/
You can support them and get the "Maybe I'm trans?" badges or just support them without badges:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/maybe-im-trans
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/solidarity-projects-campaigns-fund
The organizers are estimating circa 900 people showed up, putting it on a par with the biggest LGBTQ+ lobbies ever (against Section 28).
Outstanding work from the Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, who also organized the legal briefing for MPs in May:
https://www.attitude.co.uk/news/trans-legal-experts-warn-supreme-court-ruling-could-be-breaching-human-rights-in-parliamentary-briefing-483801/
You can support them and get the "Maybe I'm trans?" badges or just support them without badges:
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/maybe-im-trans
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/solidarity-projects-campaigns-fund
Latest new exhibits in the LLM-Generated Garbage hall of shame
Jun. 25th, 2025 09:53 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
erinptah_feed
Machine-Generated Garbage Hall of Shame: “What these bots are designed to do is essentially a matter of statistical programming, and presenting them as reliable sources of information can be misguided, foolish, exploitative, or even dangerous, as demonstrated by the examples on this list.”
Similarly, AI Hallucination Cases: “This database tracks legal decisions in cases where generative AI produced hallucinated content – typically fake citations, but also other types of arguments.”
Not to be confused with cases about AI hallucinations. “A solar firm in Minnesota is suing Google for defamation after the tech giant’s shoddy AI Overviews feature allegedly made up wild lies about the company — and significantly hurt its business as a result.”
“The unreliability and hallucinations themselves are the hook — the intermittent reward, to keep the user running prompts and hoping they’ll get a win this time. This is why you see previously normal techies start evangelising AI coding on LinkedIn or Hacker News like they saw a glimpse of God and they’ll keep paying for the chatbot tokens until they can just see a glimpse of Him again. And you have to as well. This is why they act like they joined a cult.”
“Executives and directors from around the world have called me to say that they can’t fund any projects if they don’t pretend there is AI in them. Non-profits have asked me if we could pretend to do AI because it’s the only way to fund infrastructure in the developing world. Readers keep emailing me to say that their contracts are getting cancelled because someone smooth-talked their CEO into believing that they don’t need developers.”
My website host, Siteground, has been trying to shove AI hype into their services lately. I can’t help wondering how many customers are actually asking for this, versus how many VCs and managers are insisting they’ve gotta be on the bandwagon. Especially given my fun new personal experience of bringing a problem to their customer-service LLM, where its very first response included a hallucination — advising me to change a nonexistent setting it just made up.
Multifandom recs: Murderbot + crossovers, Star Wars, Moon Knight
Jun. 25th, 2025 02:20 pmerinptah_feed- The Murderbot Diaries | Murderbot, SecUnits | G | T-Minus 14
SecUnit 08 says: This data claims to be from the future.07 declares: Running this code would render a Governor Module non-functional.
series:murderbot diaries,genfic,fic:one-shot,trope:timetravel
- The Murderbot Diaries | Ratthi, Murderbot | G | The Therabot Diaries
Ratthi and Murderbot have to pose as corporate marriage counselors for a mission. They have a 100% success rate at persuading the marital groups they counsel that they’d be better off separated.
series:murderbot diaries,genfic,fic:one-shot
- The Murderbot Diaries | Ratthi, Murderbot | T | Artificial Distance
Ratthi takes a bullet for Murderbot.Everyone feels very normal about this.
fic:one-shot,series:murderbot diaries,genfic,trope:hurt-comfort
- The Murderbot Diaries | Murderbot, Gurathin | M | Last Client Standing
I dragged myself through what was left of the habitat. Dr. Gurathin’s augments were active now. He was the only one of my clients who was still alive (or alive again, rather). To say I was angry about the situation was an understatement.
trope:hurt-comfort,fic:chaptered,genfic,pairing:murderbot_gurathin,series:murderbot diaries
- The Murderbot Diaries | OCs | T | Impersonal Choice
“The unit you call ‘Sunny’ in your personal logs? It wants to talk to you about a book you gave it.”The collected & complete personal logs of Supervisor_332 regarding the incident on RHM Asteroid Mining Site 79-C.
series:murderbot diaries,genfic,fic:one-shot,fic:socialmedia,amazing
- The Murderbot Diaries | Murderbot, OC | T | Hide and Seek
I was about to sneak into a defunct GrayCris research habitat, operating entirely on my own and making my own decisions, to look for data that might be left behind about what they had been doing here before they abruptly pulled out six months ago and left the place to rot.
trope:hurt-comfort,genfic,fic:chaptered,series:murderbot diaries
- Murderbot Diaries, Narnia | Murderbot, Mr. Tumnus | G | Narny, Narnia, Narniest
“Oh, no. I’m a faun. It’s just that any humans found wandering in the woods -” It stared at my gun ports pointing at it. “Well, they’ve got to be turned in, but obviously that doesn’t apply to you, haha.”
fic:one-shot,series:murderbot diaries,genfic,series:narnia,crossover
- The Murderbot Diaries, Futurama | MB, Leela, Fry | G | Planet Express Yourself
“Look, I’m sure we can all act like grownups about this,” said Captain Leela. In the feed she sent: “Shoot them in the knees or something, SecUnit!”
series:murderbot diaries,series:futurama,genfic,fic:one-shot,crossover
- Star Wars | Jenny Nicholson | G | The Top 5 Vacation Planets You HAVE to Visit (While on The Worst Space Cruise of Your Life)
Amethia Tope had an amazing time on her galactic star cruiser trip and wants to share her travel recommendations with you!What influencer would lie about her life on social media?
fic:one-shot,fic:five times,series:star wars,genfic
- Star Wars Original Trilogy | Han, Chewbacca, Luke, Leia | G | Estimated Time of Departure
How Han Solo decided to hang around the Rebel Alliance, just for a while.
fic:one-shot,genfic,series:star wars
- Star Wars Sequel Trilogy | Finn/Rey | G | Things You Missed in History Class
Having traveled back in time, Rey and Finn have decided to set right what once went wrong. Too bad they have no idea what actually once went wrong.
trope:timetravel,series:star wars,fic:one-shot,pairing:finn_rey
- Moon Knight | Jake, Khonshu | G | Suit Yourself
Khonshu reflects during the drive home, even if he doesn’t really want to.
fic:one-shot,series:moon knight,genfic
- Moon Knight | Khonshu, Steven, Marc | G | Nedjem
Is this little one not worthy of assistance? I thought you were all about the rights of the small and unregarded, Steven Grant.
fic:one-shot,series:moon knight,genfic
- Moon Knight | Marc/Steven/Jake, Khonshu, Avengers | M | The Most Beautiful Thing That I Have Never Seen
Steven apologizes too much. Marc doesn’t know how to apologize. Jake has apologized sarcastically too many times that no one knows if he means it or not anymore.5 times they actually said sorry and 1 time they didn’t, but it all turned out okay anyway.
series:moon knight,fic:five times,fic:chaptered,pairing:marc_steven_jake
- Moon Knight | Marc/Steven, Jake/Steven | M | Monster?
Steven along with his demon companion Jake, find Marc in a silver cage, skin burning, and being sold as a slave. Will he be able to help this poor werewolf find freedom?
pairing:jake_steven,pairing:marc_steven,series:moon knight,fic:chaptered,trope:hurt-comfort
mini-reactions to Dog Man, and to Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
Jun. 23rd, 2025 05:33 amerinptah_feedWorld news is spiraling. Here’s a distracting post about movies. At least it’s something to break up the doomscrolling.
Dog Man: Cute and fun. I kept noting and appreciating the characteristic Dav Pilkey humor. (“Lil’ Petey is actually Petey’s son!…in a coincidence so obvious, it’s not really a coincidence.”) Not actually sure how to describe it, but the guy sure can write a line.
One of the subplots is about an evil psychokinetic cyborg fish, and I love that everyone just…calls him “psychokinetic.” It’s the one word that’s blatantly outside the target audience’s reading level. Nobody asks what it means. Nobody casually mentions the definition. You can figure it out from context, or you can look it up — and what a fun word to look up, you know?
Another subplot involves “evil” cat Petey, trying to raise his child clone Lil’ Petey. The kitten insists on seeing the good in Petey, who’s the classic “soft heart underneath, will team up with the heroes when given a chance” kind of antagonist. But there’s also a subplot where he eagerly tries to reconnect Petey with his deadbeat dad…who turns out not to be on a redemption arc, he just slums around the lair for a bit, then finally runs off with all Petey’s stuff.
Which leads to a scene where Petey tells the kitten “Kid, it’s not you. Some people just won’t change.” A rare message to see in a kids’ movie — characters who are estranged from a relative, especially a parent, almost always learn a lesson about how they were being too harsh and unfair — and a really nice one. Young viewers should get to hear that if you go on a Plucky Child Reconciliation Quest and don’t succeed, it’s not because you weren’t nice/forgiving/plucky/open-hearted enough to deserve it.
–
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death: I heard about this movie when it was featured in This Movie Exists. Can’t top Moviebob’s summary: “a zero-budget spoof of jungle adventure movies that improbably crosses a legitimately insightful satire of late-1980s “battle of the sexes” culture-war politics with campy jungle-girl bikini babe action.”
I’ve seen the serious version of this movie on MST3K any number of times. The parody is amazing. Genuinely laugh-out-loud funny on a regular basis. The climactic battle in the village of the cannibal women is between two ethnographers, wielding swords (“I studied ancient weaponry at Berkeley”) and wearing slinky leaf mini-dresses, trading insults like “Your field methodology is sloppy!”
And most of it has aged shockingly well. If it had come out in 2025, as a period-piece satire of sexism in the 1980s, rather than a contemporary satire of sexism in the 1980s…it could’ve done basically all the same jokes.
(Honestly, the only bit I would change is, there’s an attempted sexual assault that goes down a little too casually. It’s clearly a bad thing, our protagonist stops it by showing up with a gun, it’s just portrayed more as “ugh, another of these sexist annoyances that pop up throughout the movie” than “narrowly-averted serious traumatic violence.”)
As of now, you can stream the Avocado Jungle on Tubi. Worth a watch.