Good luck!

I’m gonna put the recipe I used into the spoiler here, in case you want something to compare against.

¾ cup milk

¼ cup butter

2 cups bread flour

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

¼ cup white sugar

¼ cup water (Optional)

1 large egg

¾ teaspoon salt

5 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

⅓ cup white sugar

¼ cup butter, chilled

¼ cup confectioners' sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup butter, chilled

1 large egg, beaten (Optional)

1 tablespoon water (Optional)

Oh that’s odd! I’ve never had a recipe that didn’t call for adding sugar to activate it. I guess it was relying on the tiny amount of sugar already in the milk? If you’re sure it’s not rising enough, adding a tablespoon (or less) of sugar is definitely worth a try!

Edit: okay wow I’m sorry, it’s been a while since I made that, so I went and double checked my recipe and I do not remember doing it the way it calls for! Apparently I mixed the active dry yeast in with the dry ingredients (including both sugar and flour) and then mixed a warm milk and butter mixture into that. Definitely unusual and not my normal breadmaking process!

Still, I think the amount of sugar in milk can naturally vary, so if your recipe has you proofing the yeast (unlike mine, I guess!) adding a little extra might help?

Hmm, maybe. I’ve made a lot of bread and never used instant yeast; active dry has always worked great for me. If you’re already going over what the recipe calls for, my guess would be that you need more sugar in the water mixture. You also might first try using warmer water. It really shouldn’t need more than like 3 minutes, 5 max. In my experience I’ve often gone slightly under the amount of yeast my recipes call for and never run into issues.

edit: also, the crumb looks good to me, obviously you have the firsthand experience but I’m not even sure the problem is it needing to rise more. I just meant, you know, making a bigger babka with more dough lol!

I’m so happy my advice about the oven and moisture helped!

I’ve only made babka a few times but I always figured the filling spilling is just a consequence of shaping the dough that way. Still seems like the effect was more pronounced for you than it has been for me. More flour should work, or slightly cutting back on whatever oil/butter you’re using. Could be that’s part of why I’ve seen some recipes that do it totally differently; after rolling they have you form it into a donut kinda shape, cut slits into the top, then bake on a cookie sheet. Personally I like the bit of crispiness and I think the method you’re using is prettier.

You also might prevent it by making the babka a bit bigger, taking up the space the filling would otherwise burn on. I remember you mentioned in the previous post you had trouble fitting the ends in, but when I did it I just folded the ends under to make it fit, similar to how you might do a challah to hide where the braids come together.

Huh, I found a photo of one of mine to show how folding the ends underneath looks good on the finished product, but comparing our results I’m also wondering if I simply used less filling. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I took any photos to compare before baking.

My advice if you have a cold house: turn the oven on its lowest settings, let it warm up for a few seconds, then turn it off and let the dough rise in there. You can also cover the dough with a wet towel or put in a tray with some warm water to keep the air nice and moist; the yeast looooves that. But if you go with the towel method just be aware that if the towel is actually touching the dough it will get very sticky and you’ll be picking chunks of dough out of the towel

They do often talk about “it needs to be new,” but for the most part the things they release don’t actually follow that philosophy. Artifact was trying to follow the likes of Hearthstone. CS2 is a glowup of CS:GO. DOTA2, League. Deadlock is the closest they’ve come to something genuinely innovative in at least a decade, but even that is still following on the heels of MOBA/FPS hybrids like OW and Paladins, just taking more elements from MOBAs.

And the “not caring about money” thing wasn’t true in 2008. They were probably getting to that point around 2012, as Steam began to turn into a money printer and their microtransaction games took off, but that wouldn’t have been until after HL3 had been cancelled at least once. At some point Valve talked about the difficulties in selling Portal 2 (I think it might have been in the dev commentary? Idk it’s been years) and one of the points they bring up was how even a huge success like that game wasn’t living up to their other titles. They tried to implement microtransactions with the co-op mode, but they learned lessons about how that model only worked in bigger multiplayer games. One of the big stories they tell in both the HL1 and HL2 documentaries were the troubles they ran into with funding, and I guarantee they were not looking to repeat those experiences by continuing work on a game that had far less potential for return on investment. Again, that might have changed by 2012, but by then the momentum was already gone.

I’m not sure I believe that Valve ran out of ideas for HL3. That’s clearly the image they want to project, and maybe even what they tell themselves, but judging from the ideas they did have for Episode 3 they showcased in that documentary, there was more than enough to justify releasing a game. Certainly there was as much or more new stuff than there was for either EP1 or 2. I think it’s much more likely they simply decided their other projects at the time–CS:GO, DOTA 2, even TF2–had way more moneymaking potential. And I mean, they were right! They made a ton of money off of lootboxes and cosmetics for their multiplayer titles. I don’t think Steam had totally taken over the market yet, so they were hedging their bets on multiplayer microtransactions.

I dunno. The whole “it needs to be new” philosophy they constantly espouse to hasn’t really been true at least as far back as Portal 2. Even Alyx wasn’t particularly revolutionary as far as VR titles go. Maybe doing that type of design was new to Valve, but the only standout features that distinguishes Alyx from other games are the graphics and the (genuinely very good) grabbity glove object pickup system. Pretty much everything else is several steps behind other VR shooter games in the name of Accessibility™, from movement to weapon selection to the painfully dumb AI.

They didn’t run out of ideas. The movement FPS genre is alive and well for a reason, even today: there’s lots to be done. They just lost interest in it themselves, and I believe the reason for that is primarily monetary.

the current climate for GPUs is terrible with no relief in sight.

Not only no relief: it’s gonna get so much worse. Between the buying power of the dollar spiraling into the depths of hell and the tariff war heating up, this might be the last opportunity for a lot of people to buy cards for the foreseeable future. It’ll be years at the very least.

I was online when the 9070 listings first went live and had to fight not to impulse buy, which I was proud of at first. Then they instantly sold out and the more I think about it, the more I’m starting to regret it lol.

That’s just my perspective, though. Maybe with Americans no longer buying cards they’ll drop the prices internationally to try to boost sales… but the cynic in me knows they’ll boost prices even further to try to make up the difference.

I think this is the first time I’ve seen a screenshot of Lemmy used in a meme. I know we’re still on Lemmy and all, but wow! Historic moment!

Unfortunately I don’t know the physics, maybe something to do with how lights scatters through the windshield? Idk, all I can tell you is my repeated experience: turning the brights on definitely helps with seeing through oncoming traffic. But you are right, my older car is both smaller and lower, so I’m sure even the modern cars with lights aimed downward are more likely to shine directly at me

I mean I guess I’m stupid but I straight up can’t see if there’s oncoming traffic and my brights aren’t on. Doesn’t go for every oncoming car (if its lights are reasonable then I have no issues) but the vast majority of cars have newer, hilariously bright headlights that shine in a way where my normal lights simply don’t seem to cut it.

Meanwhile I’m out here driving a 20 year old car with correspondingly dim headlights and need to have the highbeams on just to be able to see anything when there’s oncoming traffic. My normal headlights are fine when there’s nothing coming the other way, but that’s not really how that’s supposed to work lol. Kinda defeats the purpose of ever turning the brights off! I swear any newer car’s normal lights are brighter than my brights

I’m overthinking it, but it’s maybe not as dark as it’s meant to look. I mean, she clearly survived being turned into an axe. And hey, with this guy chopping down trees entirely by hand, maybe he’s the type to make his own tools. They could actually wind up together!

You were acting like computers mimicking a conversation is something that wasn’t possible until genAI. That makes the fact that it’s been since at least 2008 relevant.

Animation is not a shifted goalpost, I was demonstrating an example of what AI is actually capable of. It helps with the inbetweens, not human moments. From animation to physical acting to voice acting, you can get a blend of the most generic, but nothing memorable, nothing that stands out, no quirks. That is literally a core component of the technology and no amount of development can fix that. GenAI can be a tool to help us focus on those human moments instead of mountains of generic shit, especially in massive games like RPGs, but it will never outright replace the creative process.

Again, Cleverbot. You could have “conversations” with a computer as far back as 2008. Generative models are better, but still terrible at giving accurate information or even at staying on topic without constant nudging in the right direction. Actual acting is FAR out of their range.

Take the robotic, stilted automatic animations that have been used for decades in games like Skyrim. It’s fine if you don’t care at all about looking natural, and AI can make that trashy bulk animation a lot better, but it will never replace the quirks and characterization provided by hand animated cutscenes like you can find in Uncharted or Red Dead, let alone stylized games like Pikmin and Mario.

Oh yeah, that’s why nobody reads regular fiction anymore, it’s all choose-your-adventure these days.

Bots will never be able to act as well as humans do until they are literally sentient. They might sometimes sound like someone naturally speaking, but they will never be able to intonate the correct emotion the way we do. They will never be able to make creative decisions and work with a director. And they will never be able to hold a real conversation. ChatGPT and Deepseek can hold their own longer than Cleverbot did, but they still devolve into nonsense in short order. Zero chance they’ll be able to hold together consistent fiction the way a human writing a script does.

Holy shit. I had been thinking about upgrading while prices were still relatively low but have been trying to convince myself my 6700xt is fine and will hold up… Guess that window is closed now lol

Happy to report I was wrong. They released it as a torrent; I’m downloading it now

My bet is before release. Shoulda just made it available instead of announcing it.

Yeah I can’t even log in on metapixl