havblue

I'm not as alarmed that one of the most influential economists in America is a potential sex trafficker. I'm alarmed about to what degree the most influential people in America are being blackmailed.

There was that Friends episode where Joey got halfway through Little Women thinking "Jo" was a guy and he had to start over. Blood Meridian was kinda like that where I realized I had lost track of what was happening in a chapter, who was killing who for what reason, and had to backtrack. So yeah the book makes you feel like Joey on Friends.

I just finished Blood Meridian and consulted AI as-needed to cover the many, many metaphors. The funny thing was that Google AI got a lot of the book wrong, getting the fate of some characters mixed up as well as confusing some faceless deaths with others. Too much wanton violence to keep track of.

The book definitely covers evil and nihilism thoroughly, so why would you want to read something like that? Well, for every bad decision someone makes in the book, the reader has the opposite response of, "oh crap, don't do that!" So reading about nihilism doesn't make you more nihilistic. While I thought it was a great book it isn't something you should just read without consulting outside sources.

Minisub goes in the water. You go in the water. Shark's in the water...

Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies...

There was an anime called Marmalade Boy where I believe every plot involved people being unable to communicate. It had the central romance that was a "will they or won't they" plot... They liked each other but were usually incapable of talking about it. Then the subplots involved their friends who were constantly scheming to break them up. Which the central couple was also incapable of discussing or confronting. It gets worse when they mistakenly believe at the end of the series that they were siblings. Did they ask for clarification? Nope, not until maximum drama was extracted from each misunderstanding.

I'm guessing that teachers never wanted smartphones in class in the first place and that this was just about pushing back against the helicopter parents.

I unfortunately still have to revert to the "customer is always right" level of understanding, the customer being either external or management or... whoever can get you booted. A lot of the time it doesn't matter what you fixed on the way to attempting to complete your behind schedule widget. If it's late they may ultimately blame you for it and ignore the positive effects. ... Because someone might have to fall on their sword.

I saw a funny DefCon video on elevator hacking where one of the emcees tried to patronizingly lure the lecturers off-stage, with shots! This was presumably because they constantly take too long to get their AV set up and wanted to get a headstart.

The response was ice cold. "No, this is our time." (Go ahead and stop us.)

So it isn't the problem of the people booking the meetings, it's the problem of the people who formulate and implement the rules.

Hmm, do we have any options then? Go work for the TSA maybe? Finding a cushy government job and securing a pension is clearly looking like a harder path now.

At the risk of splitting hairs, I was suggesting that people "promote the right to repair" more and not necessarily "pass legislation". While I agree that it's a good goal to buy less plastic junk, the subject probably needs more of a positive narrative behind it to gain traction. Repairability is a positive way to look at our stuff (eg speed queens and Toyotas last forever!). Plastic junk is a negative.

I'd suggest robots with fire extinguishers.

If we can promote right to repair a bit more, we could actually talk about this.

The problem I see with this is just the lack of originality. Disneyland originally focused on subjects like early America, the frontier or the future. This robot is about the guy who built a company that focused on that. It's very self referential. Couldn't they do something new like a Louis Armstrong robot that plays trumpet?

So I guess the standard is: dead for 100 years is acceptable. Dead for 60 years is "too soon".

I think a bunch of people would have been more interested in the ff7 remake had it been able to wrap up the story in a single game that's only 30-60 hours.

It sounds like: 1. Some people just dislike the qte combat. 2. Some people reject certain plot points. But we can't talk about it that much because it's a spoiler. I'm annoyed at myself for reading too many comments on it.

I tried the Oblivion remake and have been just assaulted by the number of things I can try and do. There's a story behind nearly every quest with some kind of ironic twist. Thinking of how you can get over the next hump by developing your character is fun.

Now, compare this with the newer Fallout 4, Outer Worlds or Starfield. There are a ton of fetch quests. There's nothing at stake seemingly in a lot of cases, or whatever you're trying to do seems really far off. Nothing is immediate and everything is impersonal. That's boring.

So to pose a theory, it's about the quests, not necessarily the world.

Let's say we aren't talking about "hate" as much as "disagree". Some countries have vastly different labor standards so globalization means subsidizing immoral practices. As we all know it means that local industrial base is vulnerable to a supply shock.

You can always wonder what there is left for people to do for a living if there's always someone willing to do it for less and have fewer kids, working longer hours. (with economics they simply say that there should always be something to do in a service based economy, but obviously service based jobs can be hit as well) So if you take it to the conclusion it looks fairly bleak. It raises a lot of existential questions of what group you belong to and how you can meaningfully contribute.

Well. Yeah, if they made great decisions like Capcom did, the adventure genre may have been more prominent to this day. I mean, Capcom even developed the Ace Attorney games which are themselves visual novels/adventure games.

If you look back at my post though I acknowledged that they would have attempted to modernize had the merger not occurred. And I never said they were doomed, I said they were in deep trouble regardless. So I'm not sure what people are arguing with me about here other than semantics.

Aren't we primarily talking about adventure games here? That is, games that nobody played after the nineties?If they weren't acquired they certainly would have modernized, of course. I can't help but think they were in deep trouble even without the failed merger.

The subtle art of not giving a f** had a great chapter on the importance of deciding your values, that is, what's important to you. The parent advice clearly stated what's important: living in a world where fundamental rights are protected and respected.

Clearly defined values are fine until we get more specific though. What values? Whose responsibility? And what's holding is back from achieving what we want even if our party is in charge? Is it a matter of excluding people who disagree with us? More money? Or is the utopian vision we're attempting not presently achievable?

So is an agreement on fundamental rights for everyone what you want to live your life on? Or do you have other priorities in the meantime where you can agree with people on more immediate matters?

My personal strategies... 1. I try to be indirect on what I think and just describe why some people think one opinion versus another. So I try not to convince people. 2. I try to stick to "is this going to work?" Style arguments when I do state my opinion. I acknowledge when my preferred party does or says something I disagree with. 3. I avoid getting bogged down with "do you agree with x y z??" Controversies that may be anecdotal and I'm not opinionated or familiar with. So I try not to argue the outage of the day.

This generally keeps me from arguing with relatives and in-laws, and on this site. So usually I can discuss differences without things going crazy.

My intellimouse explorer lasted until someone stole it after ten years, which isn't bad. I do think since then mainstream mouses are less durable (they only last 5 years!) but they didn't have the loose click feeling that the Microsoft mouses did. So Logitech and Razer for me.

Saying that Stormtroopers are bad or that the Vietnam war was bad isn't really that controversial or partisan.

And in 2007, a Doctor Who episode featuring the Titanic... In space!

I had played Morrowind and gta3 at the time, but I missed the train on Shenmue. So ten years ago I bought a used Dreamcast and a copy of the game and... The game was sloooow. Granted, the system I bought was dying as well, but just going into drawers was slow. So no immersion to be had unlike many of the games at the time gave me.

I guess it depends on what you're trying to accomplish with playing Shenmue now. Is it the story or the immersion?

These are definitely techniques that you take for granted, even moreso now with computer animation. I definitely am impressed now when I see scenes like the opening of Sleeping Beauty as the camera zooms in on the inside of the castle. My wife and kids get confused at this point as to what I'm making such a big deal about.

"To force players to get out of their comfort zone and explore the design of the game in a way they might not if this were a fully unguided gaming experience."

It's great how rogue like/lite games such as slay the spire and Hades have riffed on that concept. Guess what, you won't have the same power ups this time. You're going to have to learn to play the same game in a different way. So in Balatro you're playing draw poker in an attempt to build different hands based on your strategy.

Funny story. On YouTube someone posted the following verse in response to current events.

"When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them."

Leviticus 19:33... So I of course responded that there are a lot of verses that they don't agree with in chapters 18-20 related to the death penalty.

YouTube subsequently shadow banned me.

So it's music that 89x played in Windsor/ Detroit in the nineties.