The virocell model seems really interesting, where you basically conceptualize of an infected cell as the organism, and the virions are functionally spores, which makes them more akin to (but still not quite like) parasitic fungi. Although it's not like fungi aren't already alien as shit.

And sure, maybe that's functionally no different from bacteria or larger parasites, but I think there's something particularly eerie about "there isn't even a cell, there is literally nothing autonomous, the thing that memetically replicates itself is nothing more than a set of instructions"

Yeah, it's like the Truffaut quote that there is no such thing as an anti-war film.

It’s so good! Them encoding the logic dependency chain for hints and the “hey, no guessing” popup is such clever design.

And this feels like yet another case where you could reasonably argue “collection mechanics” existed centuries (millennia?) before the invention of videogames (same as e.g.
games of chance!), but the technology we’ve developed is the ability to distill it so purely in service of “engagement”

It feels like the 21st century will be defined by RNG — the rise of stochastic terrorism, sports gambling and prediction markets, LLMs turning deterministic tasks non-deterministic, climate collapse as series of random catastrophes — in a way that makes me feel deep unease about gaming’s role.

Fingers crossed for you!!

Last time I tried a (fancy, farmer's market, corn-and-soy-free-diet) single runny egg yolk on a (bunless) burger it tasted like *heaven* (and absolutely did not agree with me)

how did i go so long not knowing we were literally teaching people to read wrong. i knew something wasn't right but jesus christ www.apmreports.org/episode/2019...

If you have not encountered a sweepstakes casino, they're the gambling equivalent of "we're not selling alcohol without a liquor license, we're selling empty cups and then happen to fill them with booze for free", it's extremely funny and fully expected municipalities are closing the loophole.

I'm a big fan of Gabe Wyner's pronunciation trainer Anki decks, I've used a few in the past and am doing their pinyin deck now, they're all great + minimal pair training rocks.

fluent-forever.com/product/flue...

(he has an app too, I dislike it but might be good for folks who aren't Anki-brained)

This joke remains full of deep wisdom.

(e.g. an OVERWHELMINGLY common dream at a certain point in CPTSD trauma therapy is a child figure begging you to turn back, you're about to reach a point of no return, etc, and while you definitely need to respect and accept that traumatized part/complex, you probably don't want to heed the advice)

Yeah, most of the time when my dreams are noteworthy, it basically consists of a character turning straight towards to the camera and stating a thesis statement, and the intellectual work is merely "okay, what part of my brain wants me to know this, and how does that knowledge affect my response"

The great thing is that “dream interpretation” isn’t an arcane field that requires deep study or a psych PhD. Your unconscious communicates via the only symbols it has access to, which happen to be images that carry emotional resonance to your conscious mind.

Your instincts are probably correct.

Oh yeah, that’s some BS.

I’m impressed Excel (or whatever spreadsheet software) could even handle it!