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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   1737 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 30, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Discussed a couple of days ago in the latest "why does Hollywood suck now" subthread and now finally here: GRRM goes into business for himself and criticizes House of the Dragon Season 2. Reddit link with text, in case archive goes down too

He also spoils the Season 3 outline, just to salt the Earth. The talk of the butterfly effect is telling me that this is a man that regrets biting his tongue after Lady Stoneheart & Aegon lol.

It was taken down immediately but I'm shocked he even published it, given his status as producer and how unprofessional it is to reveal season outlines for an ongoing show. HBO had long enough to take him into a darkly lit room and threaten his royalties.

So, Trump was on the Lex podcast https://x.com/lexfridman/status/1831010861248585738

I don't care to comment on the substance of this at all, except perhaps Lex asks Trump if Congress would become better if they all took mushrooms lol and, IMO, Trump pauses almost imperceptibly like "wtf" but then smoothly pivots into medical marijuana. Well done.

I find Trump's answers kind of uninteresting and he evades a lot of gotcha questions, typical politician stuff. But what always astonishes me when I listen to him talk is that his speech seems specially crafted to communicate with people who have ... 3 second long attention spans at best?

At first I thought this might be an example of Trump's dim wit, but I don't think that's it. I think it actually takes incredible skill to speak in a way where people with median IQ hear you and don't get confused because you're hyperlinking to things that came up too long ago and have long since fallen out of their short-term memory.

One example is pretty early on Lex asks him if politics is a dirty game? Trump says yes. Lex immediately follows up, almost interrupting, to ask him how you win at this game? And from there Trump completely totally pretends this has nothing to do with the game being dirty and instead he switches gears to answering as if he asked an independent question "how do you win at politics in general?"

I find that remarkable. I don't think I could do that. I'd probably spend a really long time constructing a solid answer that covers these points

  • politics can be dirty
  • <anecdote about outrageous thing my opponent did>
  • but you gotta take the high ground
  • <example of you playing dirty that you spin as taking the high ground>
  • finish up with more milquetoast answers about meeting people and listening

and I'd probably impress the top 10% of listeners and make everyone else think I'm some huge bullshitter because they forgot most of what I said by the time I was done.

I don't really want to become some kind of Trump analyst but there are other examples.

One time during a press conference with leaders of Congress, Trump brought up winning Iowa and Schumer butts in, with a sarcastic comment about how you know Trump is in trouble when he brings up Iowa, and Trump just deadpan responds "but I did win Iowa". I found that remarkable because even Schumer, who successfully became Senator of New York and is the Senate Majority leader, used air time to say something snarky that maybe 10% of viewers would understand while Trump just took the opportunity to turn it into a positive for him that almost everyone understands.

tl;dr Trump's actually really skilled at communicating with the general public, much to the frustration of people who can rub two brain cells together and find his speech agonizing.

It's not that those people have shorter attention spans. It's more that most people just don't take politics all that seriously. Because let's face it: electoral politics is not serious business. Voters do not think of themselves as board members trying to pick a new CEO, even though the two situations are structurally analogous. The huge difference of degree has resulted in a difference of kind. For most people, discussing politics is similar to watching sports: an amateur hour time when intellectual rigor is out of place, a time for letting one's hair down and cracking silly jokes (kind of like the Friday Fun threads. "This is for fun!")

Trump's actually really skilled at communicating with the general public, much to the frustration of people who can rub two brain cells together and find his speech agonizing.

Reading transcripts of his speeches, especially off-the-cuff ones at small-town rallies, is... an experience.

yes I agree transcripts of his speeches are brain rotting

What new music have you been listening to recently?

My favorite band dropped a new album last week! It has been five years since Marianas Trench released their last album, and Haven was well worth the wait. It continues the cinematic 80’s-inflected pop-rock the band first perfected on their 2015 album Astoria.

What I love most about Marianas Trench is that they are determined to keep album-oriented rock alive; Haven is a thirteen-song semi-autobiographical meditation on Joseph Campbell’s theory of the archetypal literary/mythological hero’s journey, with each song representing a specific juncture within that journey as it applied to frontman Josh Ramsay’s own life. Ramsay was inspired partly by the impending birth of his first child, and what this means for the small-scale “hero’s journey” of his own life.

While many of the album’s songs are long, epic, and complex (including the opening and closing tracks, both of which are between six and nine minutes long) others are tight and incredibly catchy pop songs - Ramsay wrote and produced the bubblegum-pop mega-hit “Call Me Maybe” for fellow Canadian Carly Rae Jepsen back in 2011, and his ear for melodies and musical textures is unimpeachable - elevated by Ramsay’s powerful falsetto and the band’s multi-layered vocal harmonies. Several of them sound like they were lifted straight from the height of 1980’s dance-pop; Ramsay channels Prince and Michael Jackson on the infectious “Remember Me By”, and the bouncy love song “Ancient History” contains a saxophone solo that I assume was recorded by the ghost of The E Street Band’s Clarence Clemons.

I get the vague sense that many people here have little interest in new music - particularly new pop music - but for those who want to see rock bands continue to release full-length albums with thematic and narrative through-lines, perhaps my recommendation might inspire you to give Haven a listen. You could find worse ways to spend 52 minutes. I’m seeing Marianas Trench in concert (for the sixth or seventh time - I can’t keep track) in two weeks, and I can’t wait to see how they recreate this thing live.

I've been listening to it today, I'm enjoying it! Reminds me a lot of 30 Second to Mars.

That’s a good comparison! I think both bands have a similar flair for the cinematic and bombastically-expressive. I saw Thirty Seconds To Mars in concert years ago, and they had an ensemble of taiko drummers playing massive drums onstage while Jared Leto went far out into the middle of the arena seating to perform. Really great live act.

I stumbled across joji and have been listening to him a great deal, but I had this nagging feeling that I recognised him from somewhere... Only to Google and realise that this is not only what filthyfrank pivoted to after stopping YouTube but that he's been majorly successful as well.

Still waiting for the day he comes out onstage and launches into a spirited rendition of "Weird McDonald's Rap".

Recommendations for a nice analogue men's watch under €200?

https://www.themotte.org/post/237/friday-fun-thread-for-december-16/43418?context=8#context

Prior discussion. I basically stand by the advice in there. For a cheap, analog, mechanical men's watch I'd go for a Seiko5 dive watch or cocktail time; or a Timex Marlin; or a vintage Tissot Seastar, I recently added one to the collection and it's very nice, while not having much resale value.

I own a Seiko 5, as well as other watches with Seiko 7S26 (or related) movements. It's my go to for wear on the weekends, the evening, or other "sporting" contexts. That being said it's no chronometer. I don't get it cleaned and regulated nearly as often as you are supposed to, and it can easily be minutes per week out of time after only a couple of years without a service.

The watch nerds will look down on you, but if you just want something in the physical hands sense of analogue, the solar-charged quartz-crystal-regulated watch (citizen eco-drive style) is extremely low fuss. Even with all the pedigree of the classic mechanical Omega Speedmasters the NASA astronauts now use quartz Omegas. I do miss the smooth sweep of a mechanical seconds hand, but I don't miss wondering if I'm going to be late to a meeting.

In terms of analogue time display, I personally find a field watch or flieger style easier to read quickly or at odd angles. Surprisingly useful if you feel compelled to check the time during a particularly boring engagement, and more discrete than moving your wrist to light up a smart watch (or even worse pulling out your phone). At one point I worked in an office where the bosses wore a Rolex Daytona and Submariner respectively. Even then a decent quartz military inspired watch on a decently nice leather band was easily in the top quartile of not looking "horrible and cheap" amongst the office. YMMV, depending on the office.

I do miss the smooth sweep of a mechanical seconds hand, but I don't miss wondering if I'm going to be late to a meeting.

Is this a real scenario you've run into? But then, I don't wear any of my watches regularly enough, so I pretty much figure on setting the time every time I put it on.

Personally, for day to day function, I imagine using a chronograph all the time, but never do. But I use the rotating bezel of the dive watch all the time. It's a much more natural timer function, to note on my wrist when something started or when I need to end it, or adjusting timing.

I'd really like a good solar-analog watch. I can't stand non-solar quartz watches, because all the ones I've ever had are dead at inconvenient times. But I can't seem to find a single really good looking solar watch, outside the G Shocks which have a different style. All the citizen and seiko solar offerings I've seen are kind of goofy looking. I'm surprised we don't see more indie solars.

Is this a real scenario you've run into?

I admit this is highly job specific. My old job had the odd combination of having to manually supervise things and needing to be on time within roughly +/- 10 seconds. Obviously my boss’s boss didn't need to get his hands dirty with that kind of thing, so an automatic was more than accurate enough for him. I don't mind setting a watch I'm putting on for the first time in a while, but prefer not to have to think about it for my daily.

In ordinary life, I did exactly once find that we had exactly enough time to run between a train transfer and thus save 30 minutes on our journey from our planned transfer. This was in Switzerland though, in most places you don't need sub-minute accuracy to catch the train. This obviously means i need to buy a Patek Philippe next time I'm there...

Agreed that a rotating bezel can be very useful for casual wear.

For a watch that is somewhat unique, but not hideous, it does seem like the middle tier watch market has been entirely hollowed out by the smart watch market. In the sub €200 category, most classic designs available for the Seiko 7S26 movement have something in a similar price range with a Citizen Eco-Drive. The SEIKO SRPG3X series and the Citizen BM8180 series of field watches, for example. But looking at them now, man the watch market is crazy nowadays. I could have sworn you would be able to pick up either for $80-$90 street price in 2019. SMH over $200 for a Seiko 5 now.

I wonder if any of the Swatch Group Marquees produce entry level solar-quartz movements? I also wonder how their newer entry level mechanical movements hold up over time. I would imagine something like their sistem51 would be decently accurate initially, but seems difficult to have serviced. If they really don't have an adjustable regulator, then I guess you'll never get it back to factory accuracy once the lube dries out?

Thanks a lot!

Was just outside for a morning walk and by complete coincidence saw a starlink train pass overhead. Two dozen stars in a row is an amazing sight.
After they fell behind the trees I ran in and searched for train locations just in case it was a UFO lol.

I felt identical when I first saw one. I was in a low light pollution area as well, so it was blisteringly clear. I didn't have to look anything up in this case because I just knew what it was, but for a brief moment I thought "UFO" and then a much more calm and elated "Holy shit, we're living in the future".

Man I've only seen it once, but it was insane. Honestly a part of me legit thought it was the beginning of a UFO first contact, my parents came to the windows to check it out too, then I looked it up on Google and it turns out it was Starlink, for some reason it never occurred to me that you could see Starlink with the naked eye early in its launch, I never heard that they looked like a line of stars in the sky either.

I haven't seen one myself, but my parents actually did a month or two ago while walking their dog at night. They hate elon for all the same reasons reddit hates him these days (and mumbled something about space junk), but they still thought it was a neat sight.

My first sight of Starlink was almost transcendental. I had no idea what it was -- I had to look it up afterward -- but I was immediately put in mind of the sci-fi stories of Dyson spheres and Dyson swarms and humanity making its home in the stars.

Haven't seen them myself IRL, but I saw them in the documentary Wild Wild Space. I can imagine I'll get a feeling of "the future is now" when I see them myself. Sounds a bit inspiring. A feeling of possibilities. Until there's way too many and the beautiful empty sky is more of a congested mess, heh. But why are they visible? I don't think I've heard of visible satellites before Starlink.

I don't do as much stargazing as I'd like to, but even before Starlink I caught satellite streaks on long-duration telescope photos, and saw dots that looked too fast+smooth to be planes only to discover they were satellites, both fairly frequently.

Starlink is what gets all the attention for two reasons:

  1. They're very close to us, and brightness decreases with distance squared. They start out really bright (peak apparent magnitude 2.6 - the planets and the brightest hundredish stars are brighter but that's about it) and bunched up in "trains" of a couple dozen at a time, and they don't get separated or get dimmer (mag 5 for the first batch, dimmed to 6.3 for the first "visorsat" designs, brightened to 5.6 for the "v2 mini" design) until they've all spread out (under slow ion drives) and raised their orbits to their final altitude. (larger magnitude numbers are dimmer, and mag 6 is about the limit of what can be seen with the naked eye in a dark sky)

  2. They're very numerous. About a hundred countries have put satellites in orbit, two of them have put at least a thousand in orbit ... and yet if you add up all the non-SpaceX satellites put together, SpaceX has more now. Like 50% more if you only count active satellites. It's something like 6000 right now. They literally launched 42 more with two rockets this morning. They're a bit preoccupied with a manned mission at the moment, so they probably won't be launching a couple dozen more until (checks calendar) Wednesday.

They're in a very low orbit, and get much less visible once there's not a giant row of them.
I sometimes lay down staring at the sky, and even with the light pollution being much worse now it's amazing the things you start seeing. Dim stars, thousands of meteors, satellites.

I don't think I've heard of visible satellites before Starlink

There are hundred of visible satellites apparently, though before seeing Starlink I had only ever seen one at a time.

This article touts binary (rather than decimal, dozenal, or senary) as the best number system.

If you routinely need to count past 10 on your hands, I highly recommend learning to count in binary. I don't think this is a huge group, though, and decimal is definitely much more compact for doing math on paper

decimal is definitely much more compact for doing math on paper

This concern is addressed in the article. In the author's opinion, comparing "1234" to "100 1101 0010" is unfair, and "|.. ||.| ..|." is comparable in compactness to "1234".

The two binary digits only need to be distinct from each other, not from eight other unused symbols. [Using 0 and 1 for binary] is the equivalent of using Chinese characters to write English, but by just picking twenty-six characters to substitute for Latin letters.

An interesting way of reading early Abrahamic religious texts: forget God as a cognitively-stable conception of a Being with attributes, and consider God as the placeholder for maximally persuasive and potent language. I’ve always wondered why the Old Testament had zero interesting philosophizing about God; instead of saying God is omnipotent, they will spend paragraphs about how God “stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea”. Why the incessant poetry? Why is there no describing God philosophically or as a set of assertions etc, when this would be an obvious thing to do and include in your sacred texts? I think now it’s because their focus was on powerfully persuasive language, and not the “entity” God per se. God is essential for the use of the powerful language — the Word, if you will — but actually of no use outside of potency and persuasion.

You could reverse engineer a lot of religious language with this question: “what repute and metaphor and story can I use to make someone pay attention to what I am telling them?” The language would have to be universally understood if you’re attempting a central text. Everyone understands the world, so God is its creator; they understand death, so God keeps one from the grave; or maybe they understand a certain social archetype, and so God “awoke as from sleep, like a strong man shouting because of wine”. God is the combination and crescendo of potent / persuasive felt language, and in a funny way, his power is reduced by abstracting him. “God is omnipotent” is not something that actually comes with a feeling or memorable mental image, so it is useless. It’s like the composer Tavener’s piece the Whale. If you merely describe the scientific details of a whale, it means nothing. If you write Moby Dick, it means everything.

they will spend paragraphs about how God “stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea”. Why the incessant poetry?

Maybe it wasn't just poetry? There's reason to believe that people at the time really did believe that the sky was a dome. And battle with the sea was a common trope for deities.

But that kind of makes your point I suppose; the language used to describe God was aimed at convincing people in that milieu so naturally the cultural touchstones of the time would be used, even if they're also subverted at times (Leviathan is the mere pet of the God of the Book of Job, not an equal foe of the sort ANE gods fought for cosmic dominance).

God is the combination and crescendo of potent / persuasive felt language

I like to think of monotheism as an argument that just got out of hand.

The Biblical authors wanted to center Israel around the worship of one God and one Temple so they did what others in the region did and made him a national God and dissed other gods constantly.

When that didn't work they just kept doubling down and making God more powerful and having him absorb more and more of the portfolios of other gods to eliminate the competition. Gods are explained in terms of phenomena people care about (like fertility and rain, there's a reason Baal was popular) but it's more that Yahweh just kept cannibalizing existing gods and metaphors than they made those up for him. Which is why he's discussed in so many contradictory ways.

The Israelites eventually found that the most stable equilibrium was denying even the existence of all other gods by positing a maximal, singular God that unified all those portfolios instead of just calling them wussies.

But the elements that were persuasive in their original milieu are still there, despite any theological awkwardness they may produce.

Even if we ignore the poetry of the cosmos, poetry and metaphor are the primary (if not exclusive?) way of talking about God in ancient Judaism and Christianity. God is shield, sun, hiding place, shepherd — yet also the Ancient of Days whose word causes his servants to tremble… usually these poetic instantiations don’t intermingle. The psalm that hypes up God as shepherd isn’t the psalm that hypes up God as vanquisher of foes, which isn’t the psalm that begs God with a broken spirit / heart… what unites every poetic block is that in a given context and with a given focus, God is the potent and compelling thing considered. For fear of sins, his punishment is described potently; for love of living, his mercy and created beauty; etc.

That’s probably a good theory of origin for monotheism

Even if we ignore the poetry of the cosmos, poetry and metaphor are the primary (if not exclusive?) way of talking about God in ancient Judaism and Christianity

Sure. I guess I'm just asking to what degree sometimes "poetry and metaphor" are just what a God does. If you start from the idea of an omnipotent god then it has to be metaphor, just chosen to convince. If you start from a polytheistic world that collapsed into monotheism gods really did do the things they were said to do . Baal really did ride clouds.

I guess to me it's more of a two-stage process. This:

they understand death, so God keeps one from the grave; or maybe they understand a certain social archetype, and so God “awoke as from sleep, like a strong man shouting because of wine”.

Happens first to the polytheistic gods. Each of these things gets a god. Baal is potent because rain is important and he's rain. So worship Baal (he really will make it rain). This gets absorbed by Yahweh, then it collapses from both metaphor and fact into purely metaphor. Because once Yahweh is omniscient and omnipotent he can make it rain, but doesn't really ride clouds or stride across the floor of heaven with his feet.

The psalm that hypes up God as shepherd isn’t the psalm that hypes up God as vanquisher of foes

We should expect this if God is gradually eating porfolios. El is the old benevolent "Father of Years", Baal is the vigorous god, the "rider of clouds" who trampled the Yam the sea. They weren't assimilated simultaneously or uniformly.

Being a potent and compelling thing worthy of worship is what it means to be a god. You dump all those stories into one pot cause you don't want to deal with anyone else's god, you get a mess with the only common element being potency.

I agree mostly but “poetry and metaphor are just what a God does” stands in stark contrast to the modern understanding of the divine, which is philosophizing for the theologian and assertions (with maybe some music) for the congregant. We attempt to philosophize something that is inherently poetic-potent, like trying to bottle lightning, which creates a vastly different feeling of the divine phenomenologically. Today there is very little hyping up of God for the purpose of hyping and basking in that potency, which from the ancient texts is just kind of how they did worship. That the earlier gods were potent in a given capacity (of the sea, of war) makes me think that this is the root kernel of religious language, rather than a way that humans merely expressed the root kernel (the expression is the substance, not just a consequence of their root religiosity). It goes beyond mere assimilation of rival stories.

And from the perspective of identity and behavior transmission (you should be this and do this), this is important to dwell on. Saying “God is omnipotent” or “God loves you” does not change a human’s identity or behavior, because it lacks potency and signifies nothing real. Poetry and stories are potent, as are art and architecture, and this is where divinity lies, not in assertive or philosophical language. If religion is truly about inculcating behavioral and value changes, then theology matters zero, potency matters 100%.

in stark contrast to the modern understanding of the divine, which is philosophizing for the theologian and assertions (with maybe some music) for the congregant

Because all other gods are dead. Yahweh's deeds were his resume in a competitive market. But the market has shifted.

The choice now is one God of varying flavors or the No-God. Everyone arguing for the former takes divine potency as fact so the debate is on other lines (whether God is moral, which God is coherent). The No-God simply puts forward a rival theory to divine potency. You have to start with philosophical argument and assertions to even make room for God.

I suppose the more naive and unpoisoned by modernity a religious community is , the more we should expect unabashed glorying in God's potency. Some people do still think hurricanes are just a form of divine moralizing so...

Hmm very interesting take! I always like your... unique ideas about scripture, heh.

This one has a benefit of describing the concept of deity sociologically: what is that which when described is most compelling to the subject? A secularized Anselm’s ontological theory. If the language is sufficiently compelling, you will modify your identity and behavior, which is the intended result of religious systems. We can tie this into the studies on awe as a learning mechanism with its reduced default mode network etc. The Abrahamic God elegantly combines the innate awe-reaction to the natural world (the Red Sea) with the prosocial submission to a perfect human-like presence (he parted the Red Sea, for your safe passage).

Fans of 'Slay the Spire' should check out 'Knock on the coffin lid'. It's very similar and very, very good. Launched only a couple weeks ago but there's at least a couple hundred hours of gameplay in the current version and it feels like a very complete game.

I've been playing Trails Through Daybreak, am currently in chapter 5 (which is the 7th of 8 chapters). It's been pretty enjoyable, although I don't much care for the character building in this one which is a shame. Also thinking I'm gonna play some more of Sins of a Solar Empire II this weekend, scratch that itch.

Just got it, and it feels janky.

  • I have no idea what the black and white bar that randomly pops up at the top is, what actions make it move, what my goal is regarding it, and what its state is at any given time. I suspect it's important, but I have no idea what to do with that feeling.
  • You can't use keyboard shortcuts, so turns are twice as long as they should be.
  • Tooltips are slow in general (which is unfortunately a common UI choice), and for some reason they are disabled on some elements. This is particularly annoying in events, where some of the choices have known consequences (e.g. sacrifice 60 current HP to gain 70 max HP), while others are vague. You have to mouse over the option and wait for the tooltip to fail to show up to figure out if you should know what you're choosing.
  • You can't reorganize your inventory.
  • Set items are only identified by a tiny symbol (not even a name, even if they are thematically similar)
  • Auto-equipping new items is only offered some of the time (when it's a higher rarity?)
  • The map is 110% of the screen size, so you lose out on a simple overview without gaining any increased detail.

All that being said, it's a worthy member of the genre, and I'll probably add it into my regular games.

I have no idea what the black and white bar that randomly pops up at the top is, what actions make it move, what my goal is regarding it, and what its state is at any given time. I suspect it's important, but I have no idea what to do with that feeling.

That's a pseudo-morality system, you can safely ignore it. You'll get an ending slide near the end of the game that recaps the state you've left each chapter in. And those slides are based on the final balance between black and white for each separate zone.

...you can safely ignore it.

I don't think that's correct. One playthrough I got different slides and got an alternative bossfight because of it. (I think I almost won, but I'm not sure of that fight's mechanics).

EDIT: and one more complaint: Under "Story Mode" on the main menu, you can choose "New game" or "Continue". One is black, one is gray, and both are valid options.

I'm nearly at the end of beating God of War 2018 on the highest difficulty. I'm not going for 100% completion, but I want to kill all the valkyries.

Overall, a fun experience. The enemies' health does feel bloated until you spend some time vacuuming up resources and sidequests all over the world to upgrade.

I'm on a Nebulous: Fleet Command spree. My head is designing fleets and analyzing past matches whenever I have a minute to think. Sometimes I even play the game!

If you haven't tried Balatro yet, you should give it a shot

Vidya thread? Vidya thread.

I recently tried playing Sunless Skies. It's a really cool concept with intriguing lore (gothic horror/lovecraftian), but getting around the world is so insanely slow that most of your playtime is consumed by mindlessly holding W. Also about 20% of the population used they/them pronouns. I gave it up after a few hours.

I picked up Forgotten City on sale some time ago and finally gave it a try. Great game, highly recommend, don't want to say too much to avoid spoilers. Running around the ancient ruins and learning everyone's plotline is quite engaging.

I picked up Forgotten City on sale some time ago and finally gave it a try. Great game, highly recommend, don't want to say too much to avoid spoilers. Running around the ancient ruins and learning everyone's plotline is quite engaging.

Dunno why everybody liked it. If you already experienced time loop story you can already guess what you would be doing whole game. And aliens plot twist which I think was specifically added in the standalone version of the story is completely retarded. The one thing that is good is the main human villian, i.e. magistrate, achieving immortality through the time loop is an interesting idea, sadly it's underdeveloped like most other things in the game.

Why yes, I did enjoy Outer Wilds and The Lord of Light, how could you tell? 🗿

Just use something like cheat engine to increase game speed.

Forgotten City was great! Just too short imo but very fun.

but getting around the world is so insanely slow that most of your playtime is consumed by mindlessly holding W

Now here's the punchline. Skies is faster than it's predecessor Sunless Seas. I'd still recommend it if you like Skies, just download a mod that increases the game speed if you value your time.

I found Sunless Seas a lot faster. Your ship moves slower, but everything is much closer together and there aren't pointless mazelike structures you have to maneuver around.

Pretty sure you can enable autopilot in Sunless Skies, but maybe it requires you to buy an upgrade first.

It's true, I lied. You don't actually have to hold down W. But you do have to just hurry up and wait while you slowly traverse the heavens (and you still have to steer).

People like podcasts and audiobooks those days, right? Sunless Skies feels like one of those podcast games.

Definitely. I don't think that sort of thing is for me though.

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