PetitPrince's recent activity

  1. Comment on Extreme G5 geomagnetic storm reaches Earth, NOAA says, following "unusual" solar event in ~space

    PetitPrince
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    Exceptional geomagnetic storm also means spectacular aurora borealis without leaving home! Here's a pic I took yesterday from where I live (well, outside of the village but still) in Switzerland:...

    Exceptional geomagnetic storm also means spectacular aurora borealis without leaving home!

    Here's a pic I took yesterday from where I live (well, outside of the village but still) in Switzerland: https://ibb.co/fXtBLwt

    13 votes

  2. Comment on Warner Bros. to release new ‘Lord of the Rings’ movie ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ in 2026, Peter Jackson to produce and Andy Serkis to direct in ~movies

    PetitPrince
    Link Parent
    On the other hand, it's a fertile land for expansion. Just like every side character or remark where expanded on in the Star Wars universe, here you have actual material that would feel a bit more...

    It's not like The Silmarillion has a plot in the traditional sense.

    On the other hand, it's a fertile land for expansion. Just like every side character or remark where expanded on in the Star Wars universe, here you have actual material that would feel a bit more justified (imagine Beren and Luthien ! The Fall of Gondolin !) than wondering what happened to the guy who greeted Luke Skywalker in Jabba's palace Return of the Jedi.

    That said, given the state of media companies right now I'm not sure I'd want to see that.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Fear the Mad Catz - The worst video game controllers ever in ~games

    PetitPrince
    Link Parent
    IIRC at least for the TE they sourced the stick from Sanwa, and in particular they used the JLF-TP-8YT which is standard in the Japanese arcade cab. Fun fact: the JLF-TP-8YT has a restriction...

    IIRC at least for the TE they sourced the stick from Sanwa, and in particular they used the JLF-TP-8YT which is standard in the Japanese arcade cab.

    Fun fact: the JLF-TP-8YT has a restriction plate that can be rotated so that the stick movement is limited to 4 direction. It's ideal for puzzle game such as Tetris or Puyo Puyo.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Fear the Mad Catz - The worst video game controllers ever in ~games

    PetitPrince
    Link Parent
    It's not terribly ergonomic / there's no common use case for it? (the only one I remember is aiming in Metal Gear Solid 2). The Quest touch controller do have capacitive button though, even though...

    I have no idea why every controller doesn't have that feature. It's not like the implementation was terribly expensive.

    It's not terribly ergonomic / there's no common use case for it? (the only one I remember is aiming in Metal Gear Solid 2).

    The Quest touch controller do have capacitive button though, even though they're not analogue (it's just sensing if the finger is on the button or not).

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Humble Choice - May 2024 in ~games

    PetitPrince
    Link Parent
    It's one of the two recommended entry point (the other being Yakuza 0). It's a soft reboot of the series, both from a point of view of story (same universe, different main character) and gameplay...

    Yakuza: Like a Dragon curious what people think of this as an entry point into Yakuza games. I haven't played one but I would like to pick up one. Is this a good place to start?

    It's one of the two recommended entry point (the other being Yakuza 0). It's a soft reboot of the series, both from a point of view of story (same universe, different main character) and gameplay (the previous one were brawler with some JRPG mechanics, this one is a full turn by turn JRPG). You will be missing out some references, but nothing dramatic.

    5 votes

  6. Comment on HADES II Early Access has started in ~games

    PetitPrince
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I agree with that. There's three type of early access: the one that's purely marketing and is only some sort of an extended demo the one that's a source of cash for budget tight developpers the...

    I agree with that. There's three type of early access:

    • the one that's purely marketing and is only some sort of an extended demo
    • the one that's a source of cash for budget tight developpers
    • the one where there's a genuine will to make the game better based on feedback

    Reality is of course a mix of all three, but Supergiant (along with Larian, Motion Twins, ... others?) tends to gravitate towards the latter.

    7 votes

  7. Comment on How many clicks does it take to get to the center of Diablo? [A franchise retrospective] in ~games

    PetitPrince
    (edited )
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    Another one of those epic length essay by Caldwell-Gervais, with this time on the side a good amount of discussion about addiction and its the mechanisms (he cites the book Addiction by Design and...

    Another one of those epic length essay by Caldwell-Gervais, with this time on the side a good amount of discussion about addiction and its the mechanisms (he cites the book Addiction by Design and Opening Skinner's Box.

    1 vote

  9. Comment on VR gaming is reawakening my enthusiasm for games in ~games

    PetitPrince
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    It's been sometime now that I'm out of the honeymoon phase with VR, but I sure am nostalgic about when I was making the first steps into this new medium (geez, already 5 years). I don't play in VR...

    It's been sometime now that I'm out of the honeymoon phase with VR, but I sure am nostalgic about when I was making the first steps into this new medium (geez, already 5 years).

    I don't play in VR now because it's a hassle to setup the whole thing (compared to launch the PS5 or switch my living room PC to gaming mode [really, just launching Steam]), and I don't have a PC powerful enough to play what I'm interested in.

    Some recommendations aside from the inevitable Alyx, Superhot, and Beat Saber:

    • Occulus TV: my first two recs are not videogame, but 360 videos ! They are freely available on the Occulus TV app (and probably partly funded by Facebook anyway)
      • Alex Honnold The Soloist VR follows the guy famous for climbing El Capitan without ropes, this time rock climbing in the Alps. Like Alyx, this is probably one of the best possible 360 video there can be.
      • Space Explorers: The ISS explorer: ... except, of course, if you put your 360 cameras in space.
    • Games:
      • Pistol Whip: a more stylish beat saber, with some sort of a John Wick flair (you shoot at stuff)
      • Project Wingman and Star Wars Squadron: cockpit experiences are some of the best way to experience VR, and I am a sucker for arcade flight simulator. Project Wingman is an Ace Combat clone (arcade military flight sim: one one hand you pilot by yaw/pitch/roll, on the other hand you literally have dozens and dozens of missiles) with tons of love poured into it. Star Wars Squadron is a modernization of the Tie Fighter and X-Wings sim of yore (you have to balance a power budget over shield, engine and blasters).
      • Moss: a traditional platformer with not that many motion control mechanics. However, you do have a unique VR point of view, and the whole game looks like an adorable diorama. There should be more games like this.
    • Experimental stuff to get you pumped up about the future:
      • Welcome to Light Fields: so those 360 photos are nice right ? This is next level 360 photo. Instead of capturing light that hits a single point in space, with light fields you capture light that hits a volume in space. In practice that means that you have some kind of volumetric photo where you can freely move your head within a small-ish sphere. That's super impressive ! Too bad this demo only still pictures though...
      • Immersive Light Field Video with a Layered Mesh Representation: ... unless you wait for 2 years for the research to progress and produce this demo. This is the closest we have to VR videos
    • Experimental game stuff (some tinkering needed):
      • UEVR: so as you noticed, a lot of VR "games" are really "experience" or experimental toys were a lot of effort is based on the concept of corporeality. But this is hard to develop (you have to program all the interaction, props needs to hold up to scrutiny, etc). However there's a whole class of game where VR is worthwhile because it's "just" a novel point of view, and VR is an mostly addition to the base game play and not a fundamental part of it. The aforementioned cockpit game are in this category, as well as Moss. Wouldn't it be great if you just had a option in regular game to switch in VR mode, just like in Star Wars Squadron ? Well it turns out the recent version of Unreal Engine have exactly that. And with some mild hacking in the form of a code injector, you can reactivate that switch. Nowadays AAA games may not have the deepest of gameplay, but they all have insane production values. This works surprisingly well. Some example: Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Hogwarts Legacy. With some further tinkering you can also attach the camera to something else (to simulate a 1st person), and control you aiming with motion control (example of both with Returnal). I think I would play way more like this if my PC was more powerful. There's a comprehensive guide/compatibility table/preconfigured file here.
    4 votes

  10. Comment on Why don't we do more food-based activism? in ~talk

    PetitPrince
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    I have trouble visualising what you're asking for. Say I want to advance the cause of werewolves ('cause discussing real life politics is messy), what would you envision? Sell a brand of wolf...

    I have trouble visualising what you're asking for.

    Say I want to advance the cause of werewolves ('cause discussing real life politics is messy), what would you envision? Sell a brand of wolf themed cookies? Open a werewolf chain restaurant? Ask for a werewolf friendly label (cannot be too sure about all the trace silver there can be in the magical food industry)?

    As other mentionned, food as a form of soft power is definitely a thing. Other have mentionned McDonald's, but it's not the only example. On the of my head, there Thai cuisine (spearheaded by pad Thai in the 2000s, there's a nice episode by Andong on it), the French registering the concept of Gastronomic meal as a French intangible cultural heritage at UNESCO, and the whole concept of Protected Designation of Origin (Champagne is not any sparking wine, Parmesan is not any hard cheese, etc).

    1 vote

  11. Comment on "No CGI" is really just invisible CGI in ~movies

    PetitPrince
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    In what way though? I feel it's more of a factor of having cheap quality camera; and so instead of planning a shot or at least thinking about it creatively you just put several camera all around...

    CGI has enabled incredibly lazy filmmaking.

    In what way though?

    I feel it's more of a factor of having cheap quality camera; and so instead of planning a shot or at least thinking about it creatively you just put several camera all around and sort out the rhythm in post.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on It’s hard being black in France, says Omar Sy after Aya Nakamura racism row in ~misc

    PetitPrince
    Link Parent
    Indeed, for me it's like looking directly at a clickbait mechanism: Out of the 40-ish question on the interview, they decided to cherry pick the 5 that were about politics and current affair. Not...

    Indeed, for me it's like looking directly at a clickbait mechanism:
    Out of the 40-ish question on the interview, they decided to cherry pick the 5 that were about politics and current affair.

    Not that it's not important, but the interview was more about the book he just published, and his career and life in general.

    At least they had the decency to directly link to it.

    4 votes

  13. Comment on Towers of silence in ~humanities.history

    PetitPrince
    (edited )
    Link
    A fascinating reporting about a disappearing (arguably already gone) funeral rite in India for the Parsi people

    A fascinating reporting about a disappearing (arguably already gone) funeral rite in India for the Parsi people

    8 votes

  15. Comment on Reddit, AI spam bots explore new ways to show ads in your feed in ~tech

  16. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    PetitPrince
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    The flashback was also part of the original, I don't think you're missing out. Narratively it sets up a plot point that's going to be resolved later on, and also get you a glimpse of the...

    I never played the original, so maybe the Nibelheim flashback didn't land as well with me

    The flashback was also part of the original, I don't think you're missing out. Narratively it sets up a plot point that's going to be resolved later on, and also get you a glimpse of the antagonist pre-madness. Mechanically it also gives you a taste of what a end level character feels like, although here it also teach the player how to use the synergy mechanic.

    But I also agree with your critique.

    However, having played the original, I was constantly in awe at the graphics compared to what I remember so that was another point of motivation. The soundtrack is also a delight to listen to.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on Looking for free or cheap places to learn some SQL and XML in ~tech

    PetitPrince
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    Once you've got a basic grasp of SQL, you can play The SQL Murder Mystery.

    Once you've got a basic grasp of SQL, you can play The SQL Murder Mystery.

    4 votes

  18. Comment on Truong My Lan: Vietnamese billionaire sentenced to death for $44bn fraud in ~finance

    PetitPrince
    Link Parent
    Carlos Ghosn (then CEO of Nissan) did not hesitate to flee James Bond style of the Japanese government, and I doubt death penalty was on the line even. This make me remember of the Robert Badinter...

    Carlos Ghosn (then CEO of Nissan) did not hesitate to flee James Bond style of the Japanese government, and I doubt death penalty was on the line even.

    This make me remember of the Robert Badinter (former French Minister of Justice) argument against the death penalty. It goes like that (I'm paraphrasing / interpreting a lot for the sake of brevity) : using such an extreme measure to deter extreme events (heinous crimes, terrorism, or here defrauding an exceptionally large amount of money and people) is not going to work because the people committing those crime are already exceptional, be it in their willpower or cunning (for terrorist), or mentally instable (for stuff like passional crime). On a more positive side, we know that the fear of death does not work as a deterrence, because if it was true, we wouldn't have neither great athletes nor great soldiers.

    14 votes

  19. Comment on US aiming to ‘crack the code’ on deploying geothermal energy at scale in ~enviro

    PetitPrince
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Thanks for the writeup! This makes me more optimistic about the technology.

    Thanks for the writeup! This makes me more optimistic about the technology.

    6 votes

  20. Comment on Cow magnets in ~science

    PetitPrince
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    If there's no visible discomfort from the cow as it is the case with what is described as hardware disease then I think it's OK. After all, it's stuck in one of the stomach, not moving and...

    Like, just because it's in a less dangerous part of the stomach doesn't mean there isn't a ball of sharp metal in their stomach.

    If there's no visible discomfort from the cow as it is the case with what is described as hardware disease then I think it's OK. After all, it's stuck in one of the stomach, not moving and probably will be dulled over time.

    just a big pasture-roomba with a magnet on the bottom

    I suspect navigation on irregular terrain is harder than you think it is.

    13 votes