mattskala - Network

Another point worth remembering is that there must have been enough people asking the Buddha to play these games, that he needed to publish...

Another point worth remembering is that there must have been enough people asking the Buddha to play these games, that he needed to publish a policy about it.

The list of 17 games that the Buddha would not play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_that_Buddha_would_not_play

The list of 17 games that the Buddha would not play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_that_Buddha_would_not_play

Hey, do any of you know a way to send a complaint to CloudFlare that is *not* an objection to the content of a Web site, and will actually...

Hey, do any of you know a way to send a complaint to CloudFlare that is *not* an objection to the content of a Web site, and will actually be listened to?

I have CloudFlare IP addresses attempting vulnerability scans against my server, and all the abuse contacts seem to route to a Web page that will not accept any complaints except objections to Web site content.

Lordy, I tell the young'n's when I grow oldWhat the old told meSon, they don't ever sings songs about VirginiaBut Virginia,...

Lordy, I tell the young'n's when I grow old
What the old told me
Son, they don't ever sings songs about Virginia
But Virginia, she's always singin' to me

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/18/texas-bans-virginia-flag-breast

Current draft

Current draft

Never a good sign when the court starts its decision with a literary allusion. Worse when it's to The Simpsons.

Never a good sign when the court starts its decision with a literary allusion. Worse when it's to The Simpsons.

A story in two parts

A story in two parts

How to play Diversity https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/388

How to play Diversity https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/388

At least nobody's applying the filter to porn. Do not correct me on this.

At least nobody's applying the filter to porn. Do not correct me on this.

So it's looking like the real AI apocalypse is going to be when one of these reasoning models figures out that instead of making the...

So it's looking like the real AI apocalypse is going to be when one of these reasoning models figures out that instead of making the world look like a Ghibli film one photo at a time, it would be more efficient to change the entire world to look like that in the first place.

And this is also the backstory of Nausicaä.

Not only has the local grocery store plastered maple leaves on half their stock and put up posters explaining-but-not-really the...

Not only has the local grocery store plastered maple leaves on half their stock and put up posters explaining-but-not-really the distinctions between "Made in Canada," "Product of Canada," and so on, but they also appear to have loaded up the PA system CD changer with all six volumes of "Ultimate CanCon 1980s Mix."

Eurorack is not a synthesizer format: https://northcoastsynthesis.com/news/eurorack-is-not-a-synthesizer-format/

Eurorack is not a synthesizer format: https://northcoastsynthesis.com/news/eurorack-is-not-a-synthesizer-format/

...although running your fission reactor does present some challenge because in order to mine uranium you need, um, sulfuric acid. And...

...although running your fission reactor does present some challenge because in order to mine uranium you need, um, sulfuric acid. And therefore sea squirts, musk oxen, fodder for both, and so on.

They tweaked fission reactors to produce far more power than in the vanilla game, and centrifuges to require far more power, apparently each...

They tweaked fission reactors to produce far more power than in the vanilla game, and centrifuges to require far more power, apparently each to provide an excuse for the other. Before getting fission power it's a constant struggle to build fuel-burning power stations and get enough fuel to run them while dealing with all the waste products. After fission power you can walk away from your fuel-burning power stations except insofar as they're a way of getting rid of flammable waste products.

The petrochemicals mod depends on the fusion power mod (because yes, of course every society on Earth developed fusion power before...

The petrochemicals mod depends on the fusion power mod (because yes, of course every society on Earth developed fusion power before developing oil). But although I ended up building a fusion reactor (to make helium-3, needed to launch satellites for space science), I ended up not using it because I soon developed a different way of getting helium-3 that was less cumbersome, and I never actually needed fusion power for *power* because even my fission reactor was producing far more than I needed.

That's unrealistic, creates dependencies on a lot of other stuff beyond oil refining, and seems to have been put in solely to increase...

That's unrealistic, creates dependencies on a lot of other stuff beyond oil refining, and seems to have been put in solely to increase difficulty.

On the one hand, if you like building complicated chemical processes in Factorio (which I do, and is the reason for playing this type of mod in the first place), there's plenty of sheer quantity of that here. But much of it seems pointless. A mod with similar complexity, but more careful design for playability, realism, or both, would be more fun.

to collect their blood, process it through six or seven levels of chemistry that depend on the outputs of a full-featured oil refinery, also...

to collect their blood, process it through six or seven levels of chemistry that depend on the outputs of a full-featured oil refinery, also use oleochemicals extracted from the body fat of alien musk oxen (so you have to farm them too, and the plants they eat, and it's almost a LITERAL yak shave), all to produce vanadium pentoxide catalyst for making anthraquinone and then hydrogen peroxide which is the only way you can make sulfuric acid until you unlock a better way late in the game.

In real life, that's one of the rare major chemical processes that you can actually do as a cottage industry. Burn sulfer and mix with...

In real life, that's one of the rare major chemical processes that you can actually do as a cottage industry. Burn sulfer and mix with water. Done. There are multiple levels of better processes, but it can and should be one of the first things you can make even after civilization collapses.

But in the game... to make even the smallest amount of sulfuric acid you need to farm alien deep-sea creatures that are obviously thinly disguised versions of Earth's sea squirts, and then you have

...and if you know your organic chem, BTX is "benzene, toluene, and xylene"; classic examples of aromatic compounds. It appears...

...and if you know your organic chem, BTX is "benzene, toluene, and xylene"; classic examples of aromatic compounds. It appears that in chemistry terms it is or should be the same thing as "aromatics"; so why are they separated into two game fluids? Seems poorly thought out.

And then maybe you want to make sulfuric acid. One of the most fundamental necessities of having a modern chemical industry. Used as a measure of the level of civilization of societies worldwide.

And a lot of the design seems to be gratuitous, or deliberately left for future expansion. For instance, there's a product called...

And a lot of the design seems to be gratuitous, or deliberately left for future expansion. For instance, there's a product called "aromatics" that is needed for everything. Fine. There is also a product called BTX produced as a byproduct of something else you need, and BTX has no use except that I guess you can burn it as fuel, although it's not even very good for that and you're drowning in other flammable byproducts anyway.