If there's one trend I'm glad is actively dying out, it's VR. I remember when the Oculus Rift was announced my high school friends were freaking out, saying Star Citizen was going to make other games completely obsolete because everyone would be so engrossed, saying "it's been compared to the Oasis" (i.e. from the book Ready Player One) and that everything would be VR. Of course I was skeptical. My PC could barely render one screen at 60 fps, much less two screens, much less two screens at high resolutions like WQHD or whatever they used back then. Then when the Rift came out, there was a bit of hullabaloo that quickly quieted down. Star Citizen was not released, stuck in development hell and kickstarter grift land. Since then Facebook purchased Oculus and renamed themselves to Meta Platforms, Inc. trying to play off the VR trend. Zuck's infamous picture from the Meta talk striding above the plebians in suits wearing VR headsets was pretty much tell-all. VR was portrayed as a long march toward Progress - unstoppable, inevitable, whether-you-like-it-or-not. And if you weren't ready to jump on board with Progress, you'd be left in the dust.

Fast forward almost 9 years since the release of the Rift and I still don't know a single person who's purchased VR to play a VR game like Half-Life: Alyx (though I know many who purchased VR for its own sake) so it seems penetrating the mainstream computer market is not working out great. They also tried to push the phone VR thing with Google coming out with an adapter, but it also flopped and I've straight up never seen someone use it.

I'm far more concerned because of what VR represents - it's in the name after all, a slide from reality into virtual reality, with Facebook wanting people to come into work on VR. Mind you, the only difference between coming into work on VR and playing pool on VR is that you think one of them is fun, and the other you don't. Looking back on the quote, it's almost as if my friend said that because he wanted it to be true. He wanted the Oasis to exist. That way everyone can stay holed up in ISO half shipping containers and eat soylent green while living in VRland. It's not problematic because it's a computer game or something like that. I play computer games from time to time like most people here. It's the idea that a virtual interaction between people contains just as much moral, asthetic, and entertainment value as really touching a flesh-and-blood person. The inevitable conclusion after that point is a regress to something even worse, just taking the other person out, leaving an individual locked up in a virtual world with only simulated people

There is a philosophy teacher in the University of Hawaii which, probably by some sort of mistake, has some of his folders with notes of his courses publicly accesible, so you can check them out in case you are curious as to how this subject is taught at universities or you are just looking for some sort of guide as to what books to read and in which order: link

Didn't know where to post this so I guess here is as good of a place as any haha

We need a word/affix like -fold but for exponents

worked the day shift today so management was around, and i had lunch with the head of the maintenance department since i had a few issues to report from the previous week. as it turns out, the guy that runs the it department for the facility is close to retiring and he recalled that i had programming experience on my resume that came up briefly during the interview, and long story short i spent a good hour going over all of my computer work history with him. it felt strange, since for years i refused to talk about it at all and had a very serious vitriol for the profession after my experiences, and now suddenly i'm talking about it as if it all happened yesterday. long story short there's a nonzero and relatively probable chance they'll offer the position to me when he retires, and if that does happen it'll be the ultimate proof that time is a flat fucking circle. still not entirely sure how i would feel about re-entering the profession as a whole yet, but it pays damn well and would be incredibly easy. the union contract stipulates that when switching departments the original department needs to reserve your spot for several weeks so if i ended up hating it i could just go back to maintenance. i swear to god my life is like someone doing a triple backflip off a skyscraper blindfolded and somehow sticking the landing over and over again it's absurd

in the shorter term i hear word that the gal that does the day shift normally is retiring, and the guy that does the graveyard shift is likely going to take her place. nobody wants to do that shift so it seems like I have a chance at fixing my schedule, though i'm not too sure how i feel about being totally nocturnal. never know what day it is anyhow so it doesn't make much of a difference

been living out of a backpack for the last few weeks since i'm bouncing around a lot so i don't have access to many clothes, but while organizing the maintenance building at the camp i found a hoodie i kept in a closet just in case. was never a very big fan of hoodies as outer clothing because i think they look kind of strange and i prefer to tuck in my shirts when it's cold so wind can't blast up from the shirt, but it suddenly went from sunny lower 70s to rainy lower 50s and i was woefully unprepared for this. been wearing this hoodie for the last two days and i gotta say it is pretty nice during these days where the weather fluctuates a lot because you can just take the thing off without having to readjust the rest of your clothes to stay tucked in. it does stay pretty damn warm for a piece of cotton clothing even in the rain, and the hood is really nice in the rain as well. i haven't been wearing hats lately so it's nice to have the option. really the only two things that i don't like is that there's no way to unbutton the thing if it gets hot and there's no breast pocket like on button-up shirts, which is annoying because i usually carry a small notepad and pen in that pocket to keep track of things while i'm making the rounds

pretty much all of my winter clothing is worn out and falling apart and i'm looking to purchase a bunch of new stuff, hoodies weren't on my radar before but i definitely think i will keep an eye out for them now. they seem like something pretty easy to get ahold of second hand and they're probably pretty cheap since a lot of people wear them

Found an old clip i made years ago of Asmongold turned from a videogame streamer to a conservative influencer since that gives him way more money.

I don't know how can people use social media these days man, a bunch of my irl friends have gotten radicalized as well. people will go and claim that those sites are essential because of "freedom of speech" while believing that the AI videos or the obvious fake news that appear on their timelines are real.

Obviously you can't ban those sites since you'd have the same fate as Nepal, so i don't think there's a obvious course of action for the governments to take (not like they would do anything anyways lmao).

I don't really care anymore since most of the things that become trending on the internet don't affect me at all, and because i think that arguing with strangers online is one of the worst ways to waste your time. Also because I don't care about politics in general, I don't even vote.