Also related to reddit, since that’s where I was always inundated with this shit, before moving here: the constant stream of Genshin Impact leaks that come out, that the whole obnoxious subculture is built around, are just released by Mihoyo, intentionally, under the guise of all the anonymous leakers that constantly come and go. Seems to me like the only explanation for how CONSTANTLY leaks come out, and how they’re basically never actually damaging to the game or the company, while being REALLY effective at stirring up obsession in the fanbase, and driving people to invest more time and money into the game to be prepped to get the next new character immediately on release.

Also how so many of the leakers would release extremely accurate stats and numbers, but then drop statements like “if I release any more than this, I’d be risking my safety” or “since everyone’s been asking about it, I’ll go ahead and confirm X, but after this I’m gonna have to go on hiatus for a while, until things cool down”. Seems like nonsense meant to either inflate the leaker’s ego, or rile up the fanbase.

First game I ever played where I was like “yo, I actively WANT to do the speedrun achievement, and the deathless achievement.” So, first game where I ever did those things. Maybe I’m just crazy, but I found them way easier than I expected.

Also, a prime example of storytelling through music.

I appreciate the “carrot with a bit out of it” icon.

Red.

Naaaaaaaaaahhhhh…

I’m guessing Vance said something insulting about Appalachia.

It’s the capability of a program to “reflect” upon itself, I.E. to inspect and understand its own code.

As an example, In C# you can write a class…

public class MyClass
{
    public void MyMethod()
    {
        ...
    }
}

…and you can create an instance of it, and use it, like this…

var myClass = new MyClass();
myClass.MyMethod();

Simple enough, nothing we haven’t all seen before.

But you can do the same thing with reflection, as such…

var type = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()
    .GetType("MyClass");

var constructor = type.GetConstructor(Array.Empty<Type>());

var instance = constructor.Invoke(Array.Empty<Object>());

var method = type.GetMethod("MyMethod");

var delegate = method.CreateDelegate(typeof(Action), instance);

delegate.DynamicInvoke(Array.Empty<object>());

Obnoxious and verbose and tossing basically all type safety out the window, but it does enable some pretty crazy interesting things. Like self-discovery and dynamic loading of plugins, or self-configuration of apps. Also often useful when messing with generics. I could dig up some practical use-cases, if you’re curious.

It’s known, recently, as the “pig butchering” scam, and this is the telltale opener. The idea is that you respond with “hey, you’ve got the wrong number” and they can then open a dialog of “oh, sorry about that” and then spend weeks or months just conversing with you casually to build a “heh, what a crazy way to meet a new friend” sorta relationship. Eventually, they spring some kinda ask for money or malware on you, because they earned your trust.

Give it a google, it’s pretty fucked up, and completely counter-intuitive how effective and profitable it is.

Goddamn, I completely missed that.

I think they’re a decent chance that’s what they mean, anyway. “What, no, what the hell would we want with your shitty social media software? Just give us the domain name.”