2024/05/21

Oh no, my two (2) phone calls have each generated two (2) reply calls for a total of four (4) voicemails because my phone doesn't ring for unknown numbers as a matter of self-preservation. I guess they expect me to call them back

I'm always amazed at folks who just have, like, phones in their pockets that ring at random intervals

One of the worst of my phone calls recently was where I had to fill out a web form in order to request a call back, which meant I had to guess from which number they were going to call and make a special exception for that one to make my phone ring.

And then when it did, I was flustered because I reflexively thought someone was grievously injured or had died - which is really the only reason my phone rings over the past decade

And I was like... if you have the technology to accept a form post on the web, you should have the technology not to have to talk to me on a telephone.

Animal well

Just got to an extended length jumping puzzle with time pressure in Animal Well - and that might be the thing what kills the game for me. :sadness:

Animal well

Like, I adored Hollow Knight, and put hours & hours into it. But I’ve never finished it because there was a huge difficulty spike at the end. Also have put off finishing Metroid Dread because the final boss was a pain. At some point I just shrug and watch the endings on youtube

Animal well

Some games are like “grand finale, git gud!” and I’m like eat shit I have work in the morning

Animal well

I dunno, I might give this thing another try tomorrow night and make it through. But like most of the game had just been sort of logic puzzles without too much pressure on time or precision. Seems like this bit cranks up both knobs and I’m just like “I’ve seen this before”

Animal well

Like it went from “cute chill romp” to “how aerodynamic is the Switch when thrown”? Might just be me

@elhult sometimes, the acceleration is the key detail, as many would argue it is now and as such overwhelms efforts to mitigate

Animal well

I will say, though, Animal Well has some of the neatest ideas for upgrades and puzzles that I’ve in a metroidvania

@lkanies @genehack i dropped a bookcase on my big toe a few years ago and the nail’s never come back right, but I’m surviving 😄

Seriously Apple, this is toxic. I went for a few long walks back around Christmas, then started a daily 30 min habit on an exercise bike. But, persistence doesn’t matter so much as a handful of “workouts” from months ago

Thinking i might stop tracking these? I got into the habit of tracking along with the exercise biking because I wanted to see how i did, months later, if i kept it up. But this is worse than useless

flirty AI assistant voices

Every time I hear a "flirty" AI assistant voice, I feel a spike of revulsion. It's creepy. Seems obvious in retrospect, but I think I figured out why:

I'm very sensitive to manipulation. Not to say I always see it - I can, in fact, be quite gullible. But, when I do detect it, I take it as a deep personal insult and flag the source as never to be trusted again.

Apropos of that, a "flirty" AI assistant is not attempting to form a reciprocal social connection with me. A "flirty" AI assistant is manipulation.

A "flirty" AI assistant is an attempt at an emotional security exploit by a corporation in the hopes that I'll mistakenly grant the imperfect thing some empathy and give it a trusted place in my life. It feels very crass and dystopian.

Some folks describe this as a UI affordance to make users more comfortable with the machine. With me - and probably a lot of folks - it lands as sour as a door-to-door Comcast salesperson.

Ironically, the only assistant voices I tolerate tend to be very emotionally flat and matter-of-fact. Like, I know what you are, machine, and I'll trust you more if you stop pretending.