I’m still using a 2016 card (1050Ti). If somebody could send a Polaris card my way, it’d save me the headache of having to deal with updating my system to legacy drivers (and from the AUR with my not-very-fast internet? no thanks Samuel). Otherwise, I’m pretty happy with this performance (and yeah, ignoring new/bloated games) and the GPU market seems pretty wrecked by the crypyo->NFT->AI market (on top of companies largely abandoning low-end).

GPU aside I did build a Ryzen system in 2019 because the sale prices were great (and it was a huge leap in performance from my 2011 hardware), so that’s something. Still happy there, too.

As for why I went nVidia in 2016? I had ATI driver issues way back in Windows, so that may have clouded my judgement on AMD options a bit longer than it should have though.

I don’t really care about money, and every part of modern employed (USA) life just seems like a scam. Car dependence+insurance, stagnant wages, housing/rent cost, debt traps, yearly tax burden (the filing process, not payment in general*), health insurance, captive markets, consumerism that doesn’t even seem desirable anymore. Which has only gotten worse over the years.

The only employment I’ve had was an unpaid internship at a car dealership (not really related to what I was interested in at all), which I would say was definitely a net negative when it came to my chances of entering the workforce.

* except that it goes towards harming people. Our post-2016 government is very Twilight-Zone feeling, so that does not inspire confidence when it comes to joining society either

If physical or mental health issues bar you I’d consider that different.

This is a big part for me, though I’d imagine it’s a common reason behind being NEET/Hikikomori. Don’t discount it.

Do you have bills?

No, I don’t buy services. I barely buy things at all.

Do you have autonomy in general?

I can go where my 2 legs and 2 wheels can take me, but where I live there I don’t really know much of anything within a comfortable distance.

I’m also limited by where the trail goes and how much cold water I carry, being in a somewhat rural area (and not knowing anyone) makes that even worse. So I’m not even really going the distance these days. Not really prepared for long travel, either.

Whats the living situation look like?

Boring, living with parents. Nothing most days. On top of typical rotting, I do try to help family when I can. Basic chores (emptying dishwasher, sweeping, unloading firewood from truckbed or carrying wood bucket in winter, pulling garbage bag out+replacing, peeling potatoes for dinner etc), recently I helped carry fence panels. In the past I have kept the house+garden when parents were gone. Today I pan-roasted myself some carrots+summer squash.

I do 3D model stuff and programming (somewhat niche language), though I still lack motivation for practice/projects there. I actually finished something simple a month or so ago, but don’t want to share it on Github (because copilot training) and can’t even share an export with anyone because problems with my system that I haven’t bothered to fix.

Is the term offensive?

Not really. There’s definitely worse said, though that stuff probably gets thrown at everybody rather than NEETs in particular.

Or more directly… you could just point to the Doha accord, AKA that time the Trump administration made a deal with the Taliban that put a date (and other stipulations) on troop withdrawal. Projection, just like with those nicknames.

An actual robot? Remember: No copies.

Though I guess full-conversion cyborg doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. That and if I did look like a robot, I probably would have the “wait, you’re a human?” moment fairly often.

I know it, but I don’t know or use it, honestly

I forgot to say: some of how I figure stuff out is just by autocomplete (in my case, an LSP plugin), and if that isn’t obvious I look at the docs (Raylib has this).

I like to start with pure code first (no framework), at least where it makes sense (like my sweeper example, I focused on generating the initial maps first) and making that usable via import. The framework/engine-specific file is where I put all the code that is more closely tied to input, game state, and rendering. Doing it this way also means that making a different implementation is a bit easier.

‘pure code first’ doesn’t really apply to more advanced(/realtime) stuff like a physics game or platformer though, as you’d be more closely using an engine’s functions and types.

In what way?

Tastes good? You want more? Made from ^seaweed? Part of a hearty meal? A key ingredient used by restaurants that many home cooks don’t use?

That some people have unfounded claims about it having negative effects?

but what quick projects? What can I do? I have no idea

I know exactly what you mean, I am the same way. The most common sort-of-thing I’ve done typically is generator-y involving loading stuff from text files (adventure book reader (gtk4 framework), polygons (raylib)) as it’s an easy start though I didn’t get far with those for one reason or another (I don’t write+font didn’t scale as desired, polygons were too technical of a thing for me to do a complete implementation viable to use).

Took a while with thinking about structure before I attempted it (I didn’t follow a guide or anything), but the last thing I’ve done is a minesweeper clone with the map generated as a few sequence-of-sequences (in Nim-lang). I finished that with Godot for the GUI+tile rendering as it seems easier for me (I lean in on a lot of the editor features, too), though projects like this could certainly be done with RayGUI (+tilemap editors maybe?). Stalled when it comes to sharing though (for a few different issues).

So yeah, my method is to find that intersection of something understandable and at least somewhat interesting to you. Something you can actually use. Which sure, may be easier said than done. If you do follow guides, it might make sense if you go in with a plan for adaption after completion (like dodge-the-creeps turned into a roguelike shooter).

Dust. Dust the shelf, dust the loaf with flour.

Well, this is the opposite thing (same word meaning opposite) but if you ask me it’s the same.

EDIT: For some that fit better:

• thaw / unthaw
• terminate / exterminate
• valuable / invaluable
• caregiver / caretaker

From a quick check, their anti-cannabis laws seems to be not really that old as far as culture goes (and might be related to British colonization, also tied at the hip with opium)

Also:

For recreational usage cannabis is not legal. However, cannabis plays a major role in the traditional culture of the island, with the specific Sinhalese or Sanskrit names virapati (“hero-leaved”), capta (“light-hearted”), ananda (“bliss”), trilok kamaya (“desired in three worlds”) and harshini (“the rejoicers”) indicating its various properties, such as inducing euphoria and heightening sexual energy.

That said, the amount here in this specific case (along with related monk-drug headlines) seems excessive* to the point where I wonder if it was a trade/running/money thing.

If it were legal and solely for their own use it would be much better for them to grow and process their own plants (and consume without combustion).

* unless maybe it was actually for way more than 22 monks, I don’t know how long (properly stored) it could last but maybe over many years (and accounting for bulk losses) prohibition could actually make the numbers make sense

I’m of the mind that it’s probably better to start out with engines/frameworks to get your footing before you move on to lower-level stuff. Then again, I’m not very far either (and sort of stalled for a few reasons).

Godot might be a good avenue with GDextension (GDnative for 3.X), particularly with C/C++. Nim bindings exist (and this is my language of choice) but if you like C/C++ it will certainly have a lot less friction and with those you probably can get far with just the official docs. For C++, you could probably edit the engine itself especially for older versions.

Raylib is another option (and you will likely do a lot more boilerplate stuff) for pretty much any language. And again, with C/C++ it will likely be even more straightforward.

EDIT: Sorry, I see that you know about Raylib already. To say it more directly, I am saying it is likely better to find quick projects that you want to make on the device you’re already coding on (likely a computer) rather than trying to immediately support a specific device or dream projects. Though other low-cost devices (single-board-computers, microcontrollers) if you can get them (at/below MSRP) might be an easier way to fill that niche as well.

I live a stagnant life (shut-in, somewhat rural area) so there may actually be “greener grass” somewhere but I am unlikely to ever even see it, which is part of my point. And funnily enough, in a literal sense importance of green well-kept lawns is a relatively modern problem as well (going back to aristocrats) adding to sprawl (and bad for pollinators/other wildlife).

To hammer my point home… on top of USA’s car-centric sprawl, there is also no freedom-to-roam enshrined in law (like Europe has along with the Schengen Area) and I don’t want to end up homeless without even a car to live in.

There are also a lot of other modern USA problems that are reduced or eliminated in other countries (healthcare, tax filing, worker protections, diet). Which is not to say they don’t have their own problems, but being the richest country in the world certainly is not reflected in our placement when it comes to global statistics of well-being (because yeah, our wealth is concentrated at the top).

I’m not trying to go camping, but just in terms of finding a “simple life” still requires weaving around a lot of modern problems/realities. For instance I do plenty of unpaid chores for family (today I helped carry fence panels), but I am not going to travel many hours (esp. lacking a car) to meet strangers to see if I possibly mesh well in such a community where I would also likely have to pay rent even after putting in what effort I could.

Yearning to find myself in another part of the world, forced to be letting the days go by.

Same as it ever was.

Never had much luck with anything social my entire life, and I have too many types of problems. I just exist now.

If you have any doubt, look up the gimp 2.7.2 splash screen (hint: cage tool, I don’t know what feature the goat* lady represents though).

* Quote:

the goat is a reference to GEGL, a technology for doing non-destructive editing, that was slowly being integrated with gimp around this time (GEGL’s unofficial mascot is a 5-legged goat, from the alternative acronym definition “Genetically Engineered Goat, Large.”)

I mean consistent sound is fully in-line with what I’m saying, I am fine with robotic sound though the issue I have is that it can be grating for newer. Which I just assumed was something about how samples are used (compared to older speech synthesis). Is the sound actually part of the design to allow such high-speed?

Even if it were, older-style synthesis could likely have that as a parameter or option (or just… a dedicated voice).

I’ve seen some videos on screen-readers with a somewhat fast voice (not quite as fast as your link) that does sound better, similar voices to DECtalk Paul. They don’t seem to always give the voice name but I’ve seen some mention of IBMTTS so it might be related (though current results give AI service stuff that I’m not sure would trace back to those old videos (2016) but either way it might be some Paul derivative). EDIT: It might be ETI Eloquence?

It seems ETI Eloquence is both beloved in the blind community as well as something that has had support issues (proprietary abandonware). And I’ve seen one person on the subject:

It’s frustrating to say the least. Eloquence haters are like, what’s the big deal, but I’m like, show me a voice that is fast and responsive, and doesn’t make me wanna claw my eyes out like eSpeak does. I don’t like concatenative voices because you hear where the splices take place and it’s just weird and off-putting. They are also not as snappy.

The problem I have with Dectalk is that it slurs like a drunk as you speed it up.

I just listened to the samples and it seems a bit hit-or-miss. Some of them still stumble over words, have stilted pacing, or just sound off in some other way (raspy-ness, speed). It seems to vary more voice-to-voice than by the quality setting.

I mean I’m sure some of these voices are fine and probably better than other AI models in terms of performance… though they are a bit uncanny valley and I still think a voice meant to sound robotic (while still having personality) is probably an easier target. I didn’t notice anything like that in the samples, though I did see a couple of YT videos with a GlaDOS voice (sounding fairly accurate) that mention Piper (though I know such a thing likely wouldn’t be front-and-center due to licensing).

Now playing: The Ballad of Hamantha by Jack Stauber.

Honestly, a lot of newer TTS is worse than the 80s/90s stuff like DECtalk or PlainTalk (/MacinTalk). Both of which, while not exactly human-sounding, actually sounded better (at least in a sort of aesthetic way). For an example, Microsoft Sam (and whatever the voice is default for espeak) is such a downgrade IMO.

I’m not sure how heavy Piper models are (data or running), but I’m sure TTS could be better without neural anything.

I see that as a bigger issue of default applications not being set correctly (and installing an alternative should hopefully fix that).

Search should also mitigate this (application search, package installer). kalc is not useful for search (kcalc is fine in that way), but the second obvious search term would be searching ulat (e/or) which would work for qalculate, and when descriptions are part of search calc actually does result in qalculate popping up.

For menus qalculate is in education and science section (because it can do a lot more than basic math), which might make it easier to find (on my system, both of those menus have that as the only option) or harder if you expect it to be in accessories like everything else standard.