I really enjoyed reading this. It's not often you stumble upon long form somewhat stream of conscious writing thats this personal without it also feeling overly navel gazey. This had a nice balance between travel log and personal reflections.
Readit Newskhalladay commented on Always On, Always Connected, Always Searching, Always Distracted leejo.github.io/2025/06/1... · Posted by u/leejo
khalladay commented on A Taxonomy for Rendering Engines c0de517e.com/021_taxonomy... · Posted by u/ibobev
khalladay commented on A Taxonomy for Rendering Engines c0de517e.com/021_taxonomy... · Posted by u/ibobev
khalladay commented on Study finds solo music listening boosts social well-being phys.org/news/2025-03-sol... · Posted by u/PaulHoule
My birds are much happier when music is playing. And they seem to have preferences over time. Like there are no predators around when the environment around them is noisy.
Though I found they like having control over whether the music is playing more... to my chagrin. I tried to keep my parrot from being too noisy through the day by setting up a microphone in his room, and having it turn off the radio for 30 seconds every time he was louder than a threshold amount.
Day one -> he triggered the shut down ~10 times. Day two -> easily 50. Day three -> you can see where this is going
Dude freaking LOVED being able to turn on and off the radio. It almost beat out being able to flap his wings and make the curtains move as one of his favourite hobbies.
What's interesting to me is that despite all that (the escalating lights and noise as your score ticks up, and the hypnotic effect of the sound slowing down and speeding up when you fail/restart the run, are two big examples), I seem to be the only person who hit a wall with Balatro. I enjoyed it for a few days, saw what grinding out all of the jokers/stickers would be like, and put it down. Not in an insulted way, but in a "I've had a good meal, I'm full, and I'm happy to leave the rest of my plate" way. I find this particularly interesting because other games do have an ability to grab me by the throat.
Perhaps it was too overt?
I was this way too, until I bought it again on my phone. Now its my commute game and I have clocked in a huge number of hours. But in small, 1-2 run sessions
khalladay commented on Story points are pointless, measure queues brightball.com/articles/s... · Posted by u/brightball
> I personally have never been able to translate story points into a reliable indicator
You haven't discovered the secret formula: make your estimate and then mindlessly triple it.
multiplying estimates by PI has proven to be a scarily accurate rule of thumb over the course of my career.
khalladay commented on It's time to take phones away from students thewalrus.ca/take-phones-... · Posted by u/pseudolus
Banning phones is a waste of time, the children will find a way. We need to embrace phones and teach responsible use along with holding content providers accountable. A war on phones will be as effective as the war on drugs.
This is about banning phones during class or school hours. Even though the war on drugs may have failed the general populace, the prohibition of drugs at schools has been largely successful in preventing drug use from taking place in classrooms and on school property. (the same with smoking bans at schools)
This is the same.
khalladay commented on Are commercial "third places" a dying breed? spacing.ca/toronto/2024/0... · Posted by u/herbertl
I just had a sandwich at Tim's the other day. It was freshly made with fresh ingredients. I was pleasantly surprised. In the middle, Tim's had food quality issues, but if the last experience is any indication, they have recovered nicely from it.
Sadly not in Vancouver :( All my memories of it bring good were from when I lived in Ontario though, it could be a regional thing too.
khalladay commented on Are commercial "third places" a dying breed? spacing.ca/toronto/2024/0... · Posted by u/herbertl
Tim's used to be the original third place up north. In smaller communities or local (blue collar) enclaves, it still is. It's the blue collar connotation that's lead to their declining use in urban centers.
I'm not sure its 100% "blue collar connections." That may be part of it, but the quality of food/drinks at starbucks has gone down dramatically in the past 5-10 years.
I worked full time there for awhile and happily ate hundreds of meals there. Now I won'tbeven touch my favourite donuts (#sourcreamglazedgang)
I dont know if its a corporate level thing or a franchise level thing, but man, Tim's sucks now
[edit: i meant to say the quality of tim's food has gone down, not starbucks]
> [wifi didn’t work]
It’s bad that in 2025, digital cameras do not ship with a way to automatically upload to Apple and Google’s photo libraries, for free, and clearing the local storage as images and videos get uploaded.