LGOrcStreetSamurai

This is a genuine question.

(Please pardon spelling or grammar mistakes I typed in a meeting at work. A meeting on a Sunday morning. Fuck work)

I know that college students can be “annoying” but I have noticed that everyone seems to hate college students. From conservative college educated business vampires and ghouls, to college educated liberal rainbow/pink/pro-black capitalism types. Even many online progressives (not sure what that term even means anymore) as well college dropout “dirtbag leftists” (I don’t know if that term is still in use, I’m not on Twitter and I don’t even listen to Chapo anymore) say that college is stupid. . Which just so odd because while I agree there is a ton to critique about higher education and academia as a whole it just seems to dismissive and weird to dunk on students for being students.

It seems to me that most people seem to Make a caricature of the college student. Everyone who was college educated (especially liberals) seem to make their college education to be some halcyon golden age but now it’s all fallen apart. Those people seem to believe college is just young adult daycare now but was some rigorous training facility for the leaders of the world in past.

It seems to me at least this is a weird expression of the US hated of youth and youth culture but also a weirdly kinda fetishists it simultaneously. My theory is we collectively dunk on college kids because we hate ourselves and who we have become and see them using their youth to do youth stuff. Exploring and expressing themselves in a way were unable or perhaps unwilling to do in somewhat similar conditions.

But that’s just a baseless theory, I got my degree in STEM not in humanities/social sciences. Real talk venerate the humble humanities and social sciences majors. while their degrees are also used for evil like everyone else’s they at least don’t have a “start-up” they are pitching.

When I got my undergrad in 2017 at state university most of the katz I knew were working +30 hours a week and/or living with mom and dad and still in crippling debt. Now that I’m returning to get my master’s degree (part-time to be fair but I do into a campus for the night classes) also at a state university I’m still seeing the same thing. A lot of these young people are working, doing education as well as trying to become adult. It’s a lot, and honestly i empathize them. They are playing a rigged game and it sucks so many of them take it so personally, it’s a lot pressure to put on a younger person.

I don’t know why the pop-culture narrative is that everyone who goes to school is a “fail child” or some trust fund kid. I met a few in my here and there while at school my first time but was mostly just regular people of all types trying to get a degree, though maybe I was in the minority as I was (and still am) a square.

All that to say why do we hate college kids? Why do we think they are all “blue hair baristas” or whatever other current derogatory pejorative is. It just seems really stupid to me that we dunk on young people for doing what we tell them to do. The whole cultural narrative is “go to college, have fun, make friends, get a good job” but they seem to only care about the last part. It’s not like their a lot of alternative pathways for them to try, it just seems so odd to me

It's very frustrating watching knowing that quite literally everything bad that they said would happen in this hearing does in fact happen. They even directly point out that more cops will not reduce crime. I know 1994 and 2024 are two radically different time periods but goddamn. This bill has was fundamental to the expansion of the carceral and surveillance state.

It's a really long watch but I think it's worth watching. It's very long and dry and boring, but it's very insightful. I have seen clips of this C-SPAN broadcast in many different video political essays and such and never have I seen it in its entirety.

I think about this not just as it's an election year, or not even really about the DNC; Instead, I think about this is respect to all of the people who were hurt when they cranked up the police machine to 11.

( Just a reminder this isn't just a POC issue either. "Funny fact about a cage, they're never built for just one group...")

Jennell Jaquays is a unsung game developer. She has a really rich history in games and design. Itchio had a game jam in her honor.

Salute to a real one 🏳️‍⚧️

Check out her website. It's old-school and good.

I hate the current YouTube thumbnail meta. I found this extension and it just takes a frame from the content of the video and displays that. I believe that is fair and more representative of the video. I have been using this extension for a while and I find myself paying more attention to the names of creator and then considering if I want to watch the video; rather than being enticed by some intentionally inflammatory image.

I find it just make YouTube more enjoy in combination with Ublock Origin and YouTube Search Fixer.

Just wanted to share this extension with any Hexbears who aren't liking YouTube's thumbnail arms race of increasingly distracting images. I didn't know if I should have put this in c/videos or c/technology. I rolled a D6 and odds was c/videos and evens c/technology. I rolled a two.

It can be time consuming due to the sheer length and duration, but I have found fat falling off in the places I have most issues (lower abdomen, chest, and back). It's free, it's super chill, and I have found it clearing my mind too. In combination with more intense regime, I think it is a a necessary supplemental exercise. I think walking outside is probably better (it feels more natural to me at least), but just a plain ol' treadmill or other cardio machine will probably get those steps up. Its super low-impact, easy, and do-able.

I'm dropping weight and I'm finding my brain rebooting in some places as well. It's overall super great and I encourage every Hexbear to increase their step count.

America can't build houses. America can't fix roads, bridges, dams, pipes, or power grids. America can't provide high quality education for students of all ages and stages. America can't build libraries and parks. America can't provide medical care to all citizens. America can't provide childcare. America can't support public arts or media. America can't provide public transportation. American can't feed the hungry. America can't better the lives of its people.

America is powerless to do anything, other than expand the military industrial complex.

$14.5 billion is some COVID-19 level wealth extraction from working people. American oligarchs and plutocrats stole all our collective wealth yet again.

If you're overwhelmed by the bundle try to use this site to help find games for you. Support a real and meaningful charity and play games.

I have been teaching myself more programming stuff for c/gamedev over the last several weeks as my ambition is to make a using Godot to share with people. Just making a game for the sake of trying my hand at a creative work, no real "profit motive" just wanna make a thing . However, but I was feeling like I wanted to get back into the old-school C++ programming rather than using a game engine and was looking for a primer as it's been a bit since I have done it. In my quest I discovered Academic Torrents, I found a ton of great computer science courses and the last weakened synapses of academic rigor in my internet poisoned brain to fire once again.

I have always been for open-information (most just downloading .pdf files of textbooks during college) and stuff but I didn't really know about the concept of a Shadow Library. I'm finding myself interested in just learning more computer nerd shit for the sake of learning. I like the idea I have access to pretty much every computer science department that has a webcam and torrent link, I think that's good.

This idea applies beyond not just for tech stuff of course, but just about anything. I think it's really weird that knowledge creation is soloed away behind nations, institutions, and IP laws. Everyone everywhere should have access to knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I don't know much about the actual process of knowledge creation but the created knowledge itself should be assessable to everyone in a library sense. Knowledge is one basic things that makes us human and should be free and open to everyone. Discovering a website reminded that learning is just cool and worth doing for the sake doing (if that's your thing of course, if you don't wanna learn that should be considered cool too).

The promise of the internet still exists outside the walled gardens and I think that's pretty dope. So long as people wanna learn I'm glad that these sorts of Shadow libraries are there to help people.

Also support your actual local library. Light and Shadow Libraries are cool and lefty and good.

Vent your rage and or employment woes. I am having a bad time looking for a job as an employed keyboard-jockie. Hate my current job can’t find another.

The employment process sucks, the ghosting sucks, the endless automations and inhuman interactions just to find a job. The quantification of every part of the job process is bonkers. Reading all of this fluffy nondescript job profiles is a job in and of itself

The meta-game of having to “optimize” your resume to be read by an A.I. or to having to use an A.I. for the application itself just sucks. All this work for an entry to middle level job that barely covers your bills is just soul draining.

All these employers want you to have 2-5 years experience and a masters degree for a starter position. It’s all just terrible.

It feels like “finding a job” is a skill in and of itself in a way it should not be. “Job hunting” is also a deeply solo thing, even using your professional and/or social network pits you against the “The Market”. It sucks so much.

“The Market” is so bad at everything. We could all more easily organize work and finding work if we all weren’t alienated independent nodes all forced into battle. Yet another reason planning and democratic processes are better than this weird tyranny of “the free market”.

Jump in this thread and be mad with me. Big mad.

I recently discovered these two terms, Fordism and Post-Fordism. I have recently been on the David Graeber tip,[, re-reading Bullshit Jobs and some of his other essays on the Anarchist library. Dude was and still is 420% right about modern work and how/why it sucks, however I didn't really have that sort of deeper theory based framework of understanding why it sucks and how it came to suck so much.

I'm generally anti-work as the next leftie. However, I do think there is a lot of work that needs to be done and we should all do, but we should all not have to do it all the time for all of our lives. In general most jobs that need to be done can be done collectively or through a shared and equitable fashion. That said 93.7% of modern jobs don't needs to exist and the remain 6.3% of jobs could be radically re-imagined to be fairer and better for the worker.

Reading about Fordism and Post-Fordism I'm really understanding that capital-M "Management" in just about every industry all want to see a workforce strongly resembles that of a factory churning out repeatable products. Everything a process, that can be measured, and repeated, and traced, even the works themselves become a collection processes. I'm also listening to a podcast on Gramsci and learning more about a theorist I never knew about.

While I knew of this sort of sentiment before I didn't really parse it through a Marxist lens until reading about it more thoroughly and experiencing it now that I'm "moving up" in my current bland MEGACORP job. I'm experiencing people around me trying to internalize this ideology in a weird modern way, like it's somehow "progressive™ ® © " to want to become a better cog. To self optimize your cog-y-ness, and to want to hyper specialize your cog-y-ness. The worst part of it all is that it's seen as "self-actualizing" and generally a good thing to want to turn yourself in to the cog. The manufactured desire of you wanting to debase yourself for your boss is just vile to me.

I guess I just want to share his discovery, and prove yet again Marx was right.

Preface - It's never cool to be mean to developers or the rando who is running an official social media account online. Be cool.

One thing I will never understand about gaming and gamers™® is that they always seems to justify their own poor treatment. Worse yet they attack others for pointing out the way they are mistreated. Whenever I see good honest players point out that a system is predatory or designed in a plainly unfair way, other gamers™® will undoubtedly come in and defend that bad thing. It's so odd that gamers™® can min-max everything but can't seem to factor in the fact they are getting less than they used to. It's like digital inflation. Games are more costly in upfront costs, hardware cost, time costs, and yet are getting worse in general.

I'm very much anti-battle pass/anti-season pass/anti-microtransaction all that sort of stuff. I'm old-school, just want to buy a thing and have the thing and have the thing be whole and complete. That said there are semi-decent ways to implement a system that is profitable for the vampire executives and also don't siphon every single coin players have. It's so weird to me that gamers™® not only keep buying into these systems but seem to defend them so vigorously online.

From "Pay to Win" to weird obtuse purchasable currencies/resources to needlessly limited time rewards to create artificial scarcity (pre-order, in-game store "deals", general fear of missing out practices), all dark patterns make games worse. Gamers™® defend these things saying "I DoN'T HaVe tHiS PrObLeM. iT MuSt bE A SkIlL IsSuE!" or whatever dumb shit. Every dark pattern in modern gaming is making the games people play worse intentionally. People talk about the enshittification of internet all the time but gaming as a medium/hobby has been enshittifiying since the advent of Xbox LIVE. The worst part about it to me is seeing such vocal defense for it online (social media at large, game forums, comment sections of gaming news/articles). It's not just that sort of conceding "well what can't ya do?", it's more so this spirited "This is good actually, and you're not a REAL GAMER if you don't like this."

For example a decent battle-pass (regardless of the game/genre) usually rewards players with enough in-game premium currency to buy the next one and maybe have enough left over for an item or two. That way it keeps you locked for longer and feeds into the habit forming design dark pattern we all hate. You're constantly having just enough premium currency to buy something, and topping off your balance is just a few extra coins if need be. Yes, people talk about the "whales" and "minnows" but even just the regular players and worse yet the gamers™® get a bad deal. Setting the fact this is a dark pattern aside (however I can't stress enough how mobile gaming's/casino gaming inspired dark patterns have made gaming worse), it's bonkers to me that gamers™® just say "VoTe wItH YoUr wAlLeT BrO!". They will say that or these sorts of things support the development of the game, knowing full well that that money isn't recycled and invested into the betterment of the game.

It's just so strange to me that gaming of all things has grown worse in just about every way since 2000's and yet the online culture around it seems to take pride in it being so bad. It's so strange that gamers™® can datamine the most Ph.D level mathematical optimal way to play through a game before it's even released but can't seem to parse that games should respect them. Games should treat them better. Games should be better.

: "Wow this system sucks. We should either get more rewards faster or things shouldn't cost so much. I like this game but damn this system blows, and it probably doesn't have to. The developers should be better to us."

: "If you don't like it don't play it. If it were bad it wouldn't be popular."

My larger point is gamers™® are bad, gaming should be better, player != gamers™®.

P.S. Check out this Dark Patterns Site. It explains all of the shit that makes games worse in a nice bullet point format

Hello c/games. I have some games I'd like to giveaway. They are of varying quality, and I would rather give them to people who will actually play them rather than letting them gather cyber dust in my digital library. Some of them are shovelware no doubt. Others, just not my type of game. Some are games pretty rad.

That said I would like to giveaway to others. I would encourage you to compile a list of games you may have massed through various bundles you don't think you'd play and share them with others. Just spread a little joy to other people by giving away something you don't want to some who may very much want it. It's a win-win and we can all become big communism builders through the act of sharing.

For simplicity's sake it'll be first come first serve. I simply ask you only ask for games that you want and will play. One per person to keep things fair. If the key doesn't work I apologize, I don't mean to swindle or mislead anyone. It may have expired or some other DRM related trickery.

To protect against bots and webscrappers I'll be DM'ing the keys to comrades rather than posting publicly.

• ~~A Story About My Uncle~~
• Crossbow: Bloodnight
• ~~Darksiders~~
• ~~Medal of Honor~~
• ~~Mirror's Edge~~
• Neon Drive
• Panzer Corps + DLC
• ~~Windward~~
• ~~Going Under~~
• Robothorium: Cyberpunk Dungeon Crawler
• Forward to the Sky
• Hive Jump
• ICY: Frostbite Edition
• Insurgency
• Technobabylon
• Hexcells Complete Pack
• ~~Octodad: Dadliest Catch~~
• A Fistful of Gun
• ~~NOT A HERO~~
• ~~Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box Steam Key~~
• Offspring Fling
• Shank 2
• Snapshot
• Closure