Ask me about:

  • Science (biology, computation, statistics)
  • Gaming (rhythm, rogue-like/lite, other generic 1-player games)
  • Autism & related (I have diagnosis)
  • Bad takes on philosophy
  • Bad takes on US political systems & more US stuff

I’m not knowledgeable about most other things

  • 18 Posts
  • 14 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: September 15th, 2024
  • zlatiah@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•What is the longest word in your language, and what does it mean in English?
    1·
    9 months ago

    The Chinese language doesn’t quite work that way as it is based almost solely on distinct characters…

    I guess you can just keep compounding characters together. Just as a quick example, “[the] People’s Republic of China” is a 7-character word in Chinese with no breaks… it can go much, much longer as necessary, but I’m not sure if that counts, since it’s essentially just three words joined together (“China”, “People”, “Republic”)

    Otherwise, the closest thing might be some of the longer Chinese idioms (“Chengyu”), although most Chengyus are only 4 characters long

    Learning a language where you need to know how to write thousands of differently squiggles (with almost no rules whatsoever) to even communicate is difficult in its own way though

  • zlatiah@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Which game is it?
    1·
    9 months ago
    Get ready for Autistic infodump

    Osu (stylized as osu!) is a rhythm game… Developed by an Australian group, wiki says it first released in 2007. Probably by far the most popular rhythm game out there, and probably the only one that can rival DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) and DDR-clones/lookalikes. And unlike DDR which requires a ridiculously expensive setup (a reliable DDR pad would cost close to $1k and is extremely loud) or being a regular at your local Japanese arcade to play, osu can be played by anyone with a PC, a mouse/trackpad, and a lot of hopes & dreams

    Osu was inspired by the Nintendo Ouendan series on the NDS; in that game you use the little pen provided by NDS to click circles/drag sliders/etc on the bottom screen; obviously works well with the NDS form factor. The osu team decided to translate this into PC gameplay where you need to control stuff with keyboard/mouse… and somehow it worked quite well!

    Since osu is completely free (I believe it is still very much free-to-play, no idea how they monetize), relatively accessible (see counter-example of DDR above), and is a legitimate & very serious rhythm game, I think it quickly gained a sizable and very passionate player base. And unlike lots of other rhythm games where the charts are curated by a company, osu’s charts are created by players & “peer-reviewed” by mods, so there are a LOT of charts, basically any anime/game-related song you could think of is in the game as an approved chart, which further helps grow the popularity. Needless to say it just kept growing from there… I think even back when it was the 2010s and I was playing the game actively, there were already a bunch of community groups, and ppl literally had names for different play styles. I think my style of primarily using mouse but mashing keyboard Z/X key for combos was called the Seiiryu (blue dragon) style or something… I forgot sorry

    As for the gameplay itself… Osu’s gameplay is actually quite unique in terms of rhythm games especially back then. Back then the gold standard of rhythm games I believe are DDR and IIDX, both of which are vertical fixed-screen drop-down notes where you have to time the fixed buttons to the notes. Osu on the other hand has dynamic notes where circles fly all over the screen. However, this also means that at higher level gameplay, osu relies less on your “sense of rhythm” and more on… precise mouse movements, almost like an FPS. I think nowadays games like maimai/WACCA/Chrono Circle might be similar to osu’s playstyle. They did add more game modes though; they have a taiko clone, a “catch the fruit” game which is even more unique than their base game, and a djmax/iidx clone.

    And… yeah. In short I think osu could be seen as the gateway drug into rhythm games due to it being free, having charts for just about any song you could think of, and having a passionate community. Now that you’ve sunk yourself in the rabbit hole, grab your wallet and pay for that $1000 DDR setup you have always wanted, $2000 maimai ADX controller setup, and mortgage on the suburban single-family home to play it in so you don’t get complaints from neighbors. You know you want it. Do it. DO IT (/s obviously)

  • zlatiah@lemmy.worldtocats@lemmy.world•What is your cat's name, and what stupid nicknames do you call them?
    15·
    9 months ago

    Two cats. Some of these are translated from my first language (I use it interchangeably with English with these two…)

    The calico: Mew

    • Meow
    • Meeeeoooooooow (when she is sad & I have to call her)
    • Ms. Majestic (or something like that)
    • Big Mew
    • House tiger

    The void: Tommy

    • Thomas (his official name, when he’s majestic)
    • tom (when he’s derpy)
    • ROTUND/Massive object
    • Le creature
    • Fat Tommy/Tommy Fat/My-Fat-Tom/My-Tom-Fat (yup it’s just shuffling words)

    Both:

    • Massive fluffs
    • Le chonkers (or something like that; one came in as a skinny stray & the other was a baby, but they are both very well-fed now)

    Tommy is on a diet I promise

    Two cats in a bathroom, both looking left.

  • zlatiah@lemmy.worldtopolitics @lemmy.world•Thousands “Stand Up for Science” Across the Country
    201·
    10 months ago

    I was at one of the local rallies. I think the organizers also know that this event alone won’t be effective & is only the beginning; there will be more to come. A lot more if (and most likely, when) the administration doesn’t comply with the demands.

    Fun fact… My local rally literally featured a startup founder who scaled their company & attracted investors using NIH funding as seed money, and a community college student from a nearby red state. I would imagine that even the most die-hard traditional conservatives would find such stories inspiring/good use of tax payer money… Science support has traditionally been bipartisan too.

    Again, if they don’t comply, more actions would come

  • zlatiah@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•Is Lemmy your "main social media app"? If not, which one is it?
    2·
    1 year ago

    My main social media app is Mastodon (technically Firefish which I will soon migrate to Iceshrimp… but those details are less relevant)

    I consider Lemmy less so of a “social media” and more of a link aggregator/discussion forum… but yeah otherwise I try to use Lemmy a bit too. I still browse Reddit quite a lot, but only for individual communities that don’t have equivalents on Lemmy, and I no longer post there

    I never used much social media to begin with tbh… I feel pretty decent about the Fediverse. Despite all the drawbacks (blocklists, fedi drama, etc), I think people collectively managed to make an objectively better social media platforms compared to the previous corporation-dominated ones (at least by my personal metrics)

  • zlatiah@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Having fun with text scams
    12·
    1 year ago

    Oh my… I had a slightly similar incident. New phone number, had a bunch of random strangers texting me (some even calling!) asking for Ethan. My name is not Ethan, I didn’t know who Ethan is

    No idea what was on my mind back then, but I somehow got the contact info of this mysterious Ethan, called him (hilarity ensued since he got a call from someone on his contact list named “Me”), confirmed his up-to-date number, and promptly referred everyone looking for Ethan to the real person for over a year…

    Life is strange sometimes