• 15 Posts
  • 42 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Article 3, Section 2:

    In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

    Because judicial review is inferred (not stated) in the Constitution, and because Congress has explicit permission to regulate the judiciary (including the Supreme Court), Congress can effectively do what they want.

    This means that Congress can put a clause stating “this law is not subject to judicial review” and there is literally nothing SCOTUS can do about it. It’s a check on SCOTUS. Congress has full power over judicial review.

    Congress has tried exercising this clause in the past (to force judicial review to require a 2/3 majority of justices), but it’s always died in the Senate.



  • If you know C++ already, Unreal is a much more natural starting point than either Unity or Godot.

    Unreal is what gets used in many AAA shops - it’s not a monopoly by any means but it is the most common off-the-shelf engine in the industry. Unity’s main edge is that it’s easy to learn but if you are comfortable in C++ then there’s no real benefit to Unity.

    Godot uses GDScript, which is a custom scripting language that’s meant to be easy to learn. It’s FOSS so you don’t need to worry about being screwed over - but it’s a lot less mature than something like Unreal which can ship on everything you can think of.

    But my advice is to make small things. Don’t hyperfocus on a dream game. Just make things that will take a weekend (maybe a week at most). Then move on to something else.

    When I was getting into game dev, I made a couple simple projects then jumped into my dream game. I spent so long making that one game that I never finished.

    When I got hired in the industry, they cared more about what I released than what my education or job experience was. Because that one big game was never finished, I wound up with my smaller “just getting started” games on my resume; stuff I had made but wasn’t proud of. But those games were at least finished and available to the public… and they were what got me hired, not my magnum opus overscoped unfinished indie game I never completed.



  • I split my time like so:

    • Kbin.social: 35%

    • Lemmy: 55%

    • Reddit: 10%

    I prefer Kbin the most, but Ernest has been slow to update the main site and the mobile API is missing (meaning it’s quite bad on mobile, even with the PWA).

    Sync works great with Lemmy, so on mobile I use Sync (hello from my phone).

    Historically, I’ve used Relay for Reddit for many years at this point. Relay is the one third-party app that didn’t leave. So far, I haven’t had to pay anything either, and nothing has broken.

    While my Reddit usage is down, I still occasionally go on Reddit both in my browser and via Relay (while it still works). I usually go to Reddit for the WorldNews live threads and to check the Baldur’s Gate 3 subreddit.

    I do find myself missing out on news I would otherwise have known about. I don’t see dev diaries for Paradox Interactive games here on Lemmy/Kbin, for example. This makes me surprised when a patch comes out (since I don’t see the dev diaries in my feed). Likewise, there are other niche things that I only find out about way later than I used to, and that kind of makes me miss Reddit.

    I also find myself engaging more with other social media. I watch a lot more YouTube and TikTok. My Google Pixel has a “for you” article feed as part of the launcher itself; I used to ignore that but find myself browsing it now. I play more games on my phone than I used to.

    It’s sort of plugged the hole, but not really. Even when I’m on Reddit nowadays it’s simply not the same.


  • This is my “main” account nowadays; I still keep that older account around because more places federate with Lemmy.ml than Lemmy.world, so it’s handy to have accounts on multiple instances (I also have a Beehaw and a Kbin account).

    Of the 4, I actually prefer Kbin, but it doesn’t have an API yet and thus doesn’t have mobile apps. I avoid Lemmy.ml because of who the admins/maintainers are, and Beehaw - which used to be quite good - has gone downhill since they can’t keep up with the growth of Lemmy. (Which again sort of adds to my point of “it really depends on what instances you cared about before the migration”, which that survey doesn’t quite capture.)



  • I’m a little sad. My last studio was literally next to a Gold Line station here in Los Angeles. I could bike to the Gold Line and make it to work, and the Gold Line ran frequently and late.

    My current job is a mile away from a Metrolink station. On the one hand - at least there’s a nearby station! On the other hand - the Metrolink trains are running the wrong direction for me, I’d need to make a connection at LA Union Station, and the latest one that goes the direction I need it to go (while still allowing me to make my connection) leaves at 5 (which is still considered core working hours for me).

    The schedule is like… impressively bad. I’d use it if they ran it later, but they don’t seem to think anyone could possibly be headed in any other direction other than “towards LA” in the morning and “away from LA” at night.


  • Benefits matter, too.

    I’m in the AAA gaming industry. EA laid me off earlier this year, and so I wound up looking for work elsewhere.

    I’ve learned that really - the pay doesn’t matter if you hate your life every day. If I wanted good pay, I would learn COBOL and write software at a bank. What matters the most is the quality of the team you’re working with (primary), and what benefits your employer has (secondary).

    If Meta were to call me up and say “Hey, we want you to be on a team with the greatest coworkers you’ve ever had,” then I’d at least hear them out. What is their culture? Do they believe in crunch? How do they handle sick days? Vacations?

    And yes, WFH is part of that, too. But if they were willing to pay to relocate me, buy me a house near a metro station… yeah, I’d take it.

    But if they were to offer me that exact same deal - except there’s no guarantees about production schedules/timelines, there’s the “bus problem” (where the project couldn’t survive someone important being hit by a bus), there’s a lot of crunch (or just bad experiences from friends who’ve worked there… Blizzard offered me a sweetheart deal and I said no because of that history)… I’m less likely to want to bite.

    And everyone has different preferences. I’ve known some people who love the office. I don’t mind it myself, with the right group. But everyone has to make their own call.