I just thought of a really good metaphor that explains why using Unity feels so bad to me, despite the fact that I usually enjoy writing code (when I do it on my own terms)

(I just read Thing Explainer so please pardon how weird my word choices are lol - I’m really enjoying writing in this style)

so, when I write code it feels like I’m building a beautiful machine. I get to pick out all of the parts that go in it and if I can’t find the perfect part I get to make that part myself

sometimes I put other people’s parts into my machine, but those parts are always one of these:

• parts that do something so simple that I could make them myself, but I just don’t want to
• boxes that do something really ugly that I don’t want to think about. on the outside of the box, there are buttons and levers that let me understand the ugly thing in a really simple way instead. and I can understand the really simple way very deeply so I still feel like I’m in control of what happens

after I’m done building the machine I can feel really proud that I made it all from scratch. I know what every piece of it does, and I’ve tested all of them, so I know for sure that it will always work. I have to know that my machine will always work or I can’t feel proud of it

it also feels good that I was in control of how every part of the machine works. I don’t have to build it in the same way that everyone else builds similar machines - I found my own way to build it that’s beautiful to me

but when I’m using Unity - it doesn’t feel like I’m building my own machine. it feels like I’m living inside a really big machine that someone else built, and I don’t understand how it works. inside the machine there are tons of buttons and levers and switches and they’re all labeled vague things like “play particles” or “stop particles” - or they’re labeled really confusing things like “secondary axis”

the Unity machine is way too big for me to ever understand. I’m not sure if anyone really understands it - though lots of people probably understand parts of it

if I want to do something in the Unity machine, I need to press buttons and pull levers until I figure out a combination that works. and once I’ve figured out the combination, I can be proud that I made the machine do what I want, but it doesn’t feel like I built my own machine. it doesn’t really feel like I understand how the buttons and levers work either. it just feels like I eventually found some levers and buttons that are working okay for now, but later the whole machine might break because I used them

if I want, I can make my own small machines to push buttons and pull levers for me. but those machines actually go inside of the Unity machine. so instead of building a machine out of other people’s small parts, I’m adding my own small parts to Unity instead

so I don’t feel in control at all - it’s actually the opposite. Unity is in control of my own machines, and I don’t get to tell Unity what to do with them. I don’t even get to control how I build my own machines, because Unity has to be able to use them, so I have to build the machines to please Unity instead of myself

I also can’t figure out for sure if my machine will always work, because I would have to test all of Unity to be sure, and nobody understands all of Unity. so I can’t ever be proud of making a working machine because I can’t know for sure if my machine will always work

so instead of feeling proud and smart because I made a machine, I feel small and lost while I try to please someone else’s machine that I don’t understand

I’m worried that Unity will always feel like a big scary machine that I’m lost in. that I’ll never feel like I get to control what it does - and I’ll never be able to prove that what I make will always work - so I can never feel proud of what I make

I’m also worried that if I want to make a machine that other people will want to use, I’ll always have to make it inside of a big scary machine like Unity. I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel safe or comfortable doing that - let alone enjoy it

I’m starting to think that most of the time, writing software is actually really unfun

I’ve just been in a bubble where I use languages that I like to solve problems that I find fun, and the code only has to work for me

There's a special place in hell for people who post the closed captions in all capital letters. When you are reading braille, whether a letter is capitalized or not is indicated by a capital sign, and if everything is in THERE are multiple capital signs that take up a bunch of space on the braille display and when you're working with only 40 cells and eight of those cells are taken up with information relating to capitalization, it is incredibly frustrating! Anyway, these are the things that I think about during #DeafBlindMovieNight

#ad

I was going to post “soft drinks implies the existence of hard drinks” but then I looked it up and yes actually, that is the real etymology of the phrase “soft drinks”:

So called in contrast to strong alcoholic beverages, which are “hard liquors”.

To avoid scope creep, start all projects with the largest possible scope.

PSA: if you are on Arch (or derivative), and you have an Nvidia 10xx series GPU (like the 1080), you might want to hold off on updates.

https://hackaday.com/2025/12/26/nvidia-drops-pascal-support-on-linux-causing-chaos-on-arch-linux/

basically, nvidia dropped support for the 10xx GPUs because ????? and Arch being Arch just deployed it and goes "ez just chroot into your install and replace it with the AUR version .. and a ton of hacks because Steam requires the official libraries"

Cassette Beasts is free on Epic Games!

you’ll probably like it if you like Pokémon - and you might like it if you like other JRPGs instead

every thought, every emotion, every nuance of consciousness, over six wires

an entire existence filtered and encoded onto a smaller range of expression than an f150's trailer harness

the American mind can not comprehend Branston pickle

This probably does not need to be said, BUT -

I keep hearing fiction that involves people poking around in abandoned mines without protective equipment. Folks do, indeed, explore abandoned places, and it's worth pointing out to anyone who doesn't know. It's probably best to just not go into old mines and tunnels, for structural reasons, but breathing in the particles in the air is another reason not to do it. You can kick it up by wandering, get it on your clothes, etc ->

Found one of those ear cleaning sticks with a camera but instead of using it for its intended purpose, it turns out these make great wireless microscopes for electronics repair work. I could probably mount it to my soldering iron as a scope too!

PSA

Steam Support do make exceptions and allow you to update your Steam account name (login) for trans/non-binary folks

I originally made a guide about it here 👇

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgamers/comments/pughme/steam_support_do_make_exceptions_and_allow_you_to/

I wanted to share the details here also

#Steam #Valve #gaming #gayming #trans #transgender #enby #NonBinary #genderqueer #genderfluid #agender #LGBTQ #queer