jmoiron plays the blues

@jmoiron.bsky.social Looks like Gemini is coming. I've been using Assistant because: 1. Gemini is geo-disabled in Hong Kong 2. I can type into Assistant when I have to be quiet 3. Gemini can't do simple tasks like create reminders or calendar events blog.google/products/gem...
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: This is super fun if you don't lose too many settlements, though. I've spent whole eras in desperate defense, barely developing my infrastructure and making zero headway on counter. This is crippling in 6, but the era reset lets me restart my snowball and make a comeback, it's ...
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: The deity +8CS bonus is insane in the ancient era before you've got your commanders online. However, AI has almost no ability to micro commanders, use navies, or develop air power, making them very squishy in Modern era.
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: Peace settlements only allowing city transfer makes the AI do annoying things. I've only played ~6-7 games, but in 3 of them I've been besieging a city and occupying some districts only for the enemy to peace out my ally and gift them that city in the deal. Should at least offer...
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: There are also a bunch of mechanics that are just hard to visualize and understand. I had a city 4 tiles from my capital not "connect" because it was on another continent and had a port in a lake, or maybe the road was blocked by a resource tile. Can't say for sure!
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: It is also difficult to see enemy units sometimes. Highly mobile units in the Modern Era can pass right through your frontiers undetected. Civ unique units have their own names and icons, so it's hard to know what they. Is a nagarika infantry? A hazarapatis cavalry?
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: A lot of people hate the UI. The UI is beautiful, but it is tedious to use in many places. Many menus close after you make a selection when they shouldn't. Upgrading all of the units in a packed commander is one such case. Selecting production is another. Purchasing repairs anot...
@jmoiron.bsky.social Follow ups: I really love this game and I think it has the potential to be the best hex-based Civ. If previous entries are any indication, it will get official updates for quite some time, and I expect modding to really kick off after steam workshop support ships.
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: Still, it's very impressive. Terminal emulators are notoriously tricky to get right. They're built upon 50 years of layered standards with a 2400 baud communication channel at its core + whatever popular non-standard behaviors exist in the wild. There's just not much blood in t...
@jmoiron.bsky.social Tried ghostty. Good: Default theme, _very_ fast text display. Meh: Slow startup(?), configuration, doing the Right Thing(tm) with terminfo is nonetheless a bad user experience, no windows version. Before this I wondered "How can people find a terminal so life changing?", and I...
@jmoiron.bsky.social The contrast between the detention of Mahmoud Khalil and the pardoning of the Jan 6 rioters is sickening. Conflating speech with terrorism is a ploy. The goal is to punish dissent. For the people under 35, we saw this under GWB. It's the neocon playbook.
@jmoiron.bsky.social When I was a freshman at uni, Led Zeppelin IV and Dark Side of the Moon felt like very old, classic albums. Albums that age for today's freshmen: Odelay and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
@jmoiron.bsky.social Spent several hours incredibly perplexed until I learned that Java allows circular imports.
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: It's also upbeat and optimistic in a way that frees us from the relentless cynicism and fatalism of our gen-X elder siblings. At least, as long as we think too much about what happened in Japan after the 80's.
@jmoiron.bsky.social The reason that City Pop is so compelling for western millenials specifically is that it is both familiar and alien. A missing canon full of bangers that fills the gap between the jazz & disco of the 70s and the game music we grew up on.
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: It looks .. okay! The drink I had was more tastefully put together than I made it sound, but I still didn't have a great time with it. I've tried coffee+lemonade and coffee+tonic and had similar regrets so maybe I'm the problem. Here's a pic I took of the Valencia:
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: A few years ago, after having a delightful "Cafe Valencia" (cap w/ burnt orange peel) at a cafe in Ebisu, I decided to order an "Orange Coffee" at another cafe, which was the orange juice coffee you describe. Regrettably, I found it to be pretty undrinkable.
@jmoiron.bsky.social replied: I've been choosing the Butterfly and spreading the religion of Bluesky.
by jason moiron, 2026