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6 votes
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Virtual reality has real problems. Here’s how game developers seek to delete them.
10 votes -
Klei Entertainment has agreed to a deal for Tencent to purchase a majority stake in the company
9 votes -
ADT employee covertly accessed about 200 security cameras he installed to spy on people having sex
9 votes -
Coors Light’s Ice Cold, on immigration
4 votes -
Google threatens to pull search engine in Australia
15 votes -
Are software engineers "engineers"?
19 votes -
What’s something you have an unusually strong fondness for?
You know, the kind of thing that most other people might say is just okay at best, but you think is absolutely splendid. Something that others might find insignificant, but you find deeply...
You know, the kind of thing that most other people might say is just okay at best, but you think is absolutely splendid. Something that others might find insignificant, but you find deeply relevant.
Anything goes. It can be a food, a movie, a breed of cat, a programming language, or that one guy who always waves to you on your way to work in the morning. It doesn’t have to be noteworthy to anyone but you.
Also, don’t just name what it is, but also share your fondness. Show us why you love it so. Convince us to see the same merit in it that you do!
31 votes -
How To Use Nmap: A Beginner’s Guide
4 votes -
Interview with Valve founder Gabe Newell, who has been stuck in New Zealand since early 2020
18 votes -
What are some RPGs that really capitalise on player choice and branching story?
I keep seeing a lot of complaints surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 that it's not a particularly good RPG, because the story is pretty linear and the player choice doesn't really amount to much. I'm not...
I keep seeing a lot of complaints surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 that it's not a particularly good RPG, because the story is pretty linear and the player choice doesn't really amount to much. I'm not yet done with the game so I don't know how accurate that assessment is. But either way, with my limited knowledge of programming and game design, I assume that doing this sort of thing well is a significant technical challenge.
What are some games that rise to this challenge and make the most of player choice and branching story?10 votes -
DJ Cummerbund - Play That Funky Music Rammstein (2019)
6 votes -
US President Joe Biden's FCC appointment is a big step toward net neutrality's return
10 votes -
All a gig-economy pioneer had to do was “politely disagree” it was violating US Federal law and the Labor Department walked away
8 votes -
Why biopics go so wrong
6 votes -
New Year, new Red Hat Enterprise Linux programs: Easier ways to access RHEL
6 votes -
What have you been listening to this week?
What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as...
What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)
Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.
You can make a chart if you use last.fm:
http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/
Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.
5 votes -
On the trail of the robocall king
8 votes -
Ubuntu Linux is now running on M1 Macs
10 votes -
The missing link in renewables
4 votes -
The future of building for digital: Experts talk about changing customer expectations
2 votes -
A positive ContentID story
4 votes -
Daily thread - United States 2021 transition of power - January 21
This thread is posted daily - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic,...
This thread is posted daily - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
11 votes -
Judge refuses to reinstate Parler after Amazon shut it down
7 votes -
Cristiano Ronaldo's 760th goal fuels debate over greatest goalscorer of all time
6 votes -
Japan stands firm on Tokyo Olympics schedule, denies report of cancellation
5 votes -
What creative projects have you been working on?
This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on. Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just...
This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.
Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.
If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.
6 votes -
Tiny high-tech probes reveal how information flows across the brain
6 votes -
Democrats need to reimagine their role. They cannot merely defend the political system. They must rebuild it.
15 votes -
Ancient bronze rings and ribs were some of the earliest money
7 votes -
Space station detectors found the source of weird ‘blue jet’ lightning
7 votes -
Still alive
10 votes -
Windscribe: We're not paying for #1
9 votes -
The rise and fall of Roe v. Wade
Part 1 (55 minutes): The hosts take on one of the Supreme Court’s most famous decisions, Roe v. Wade. In this first episode of a two-part series, they look at the legal and factual origins of Roe...
Part 1 (55 minutes):
The hosts take on one of the Supreme Court’s most famous decisions, Roe v. Wade. In this first episode of a two-part series, they look at the legal and factual origins of Roe v. Wade. They also discuss how Roe was weaponized by the conservative legal movement to rally against an interpretation of the Constitution that allows for flexibility in favor of a far more rigid approach.
Part 2 (61 minutes):
In the second part of a two-episode series on abortion rights, the hosts discuss Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 case in which the Supreme Court made it easier for states to restrict abortion access so long as abortion regulations don’t create an “undue burden.” The vague standard set lawmakers on a new path of attacking abortion access and fueled anti-abortion groups’ efforts to spread stigma and misinformation, setting up Roe v. Wade for a death by a thousand cuts.
(it's impossible to link to podcasts in a simple or easy way...if anyone has a better way of doing this I'm all ears...)
5-4 (pronounced "five to four", as in the vote total of a closely-divided court case from 9 justices) is one of my favorite podcasts. It's lawyers dissecting Supreme Court cases in a way that is very understandable to non-lawyers, from an explicitly and unabashedly left-wing perspective.
This is an extremely informative primer on the entire arc of abortion rights in the US, from the actual case everyone has heard of (Roe v Wade in the 1970s) to the case in the 1990s that actually superseded Roe and a case from last year that was seen as a victory because it upheld a previous case but it also contained a poison pill that significantly weakened that precedent.
8 votes -
Predicting hard drive failure with machine learning
4 votes -
US President Joe Biden's first executive order will require masks on federal property
19 votes -
Retiring Tucows Downloads
11 votes -
Magnificent India win epic series versus Australia in last hour of last day of last Test
5 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's...
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
8 votes -
Preserving Egypt’s layered history reveals 'stories of the restoration of diverse locations around Egypt'
5 votes -
TrackBiden: The first 100 days
22 votes -
Storming Reddit's moat
18 votes -
Meet Raspberry Silicon: Raspberry Pi Pico
21 votes -
Why do we assume extraterrestrials might want to visit us? It is presumptuous to assume that we are worthy of special attention from advanced species in the Milky Way.
5 votes -
Efforts are under way to designate the site of a 60,000 year old submerged forest off the Alabama coast a marine sanctuary
11 votes -
How should we evaluate narrative tension in videogames?
I recently played through 2013's Tomb Raider and it was a delight -- a wonderful reboot that modernized a series whose originals I loved but that are quite dated by today's standards. In the game,...
I recently played through 2013's Tomb Raider and it was a delight -- a wonderful reboot that modernized a series whose originals I loved but that are quite dated by today's standards.
In the game, Lara, the main character, is in peril constantly, and she is driven into worse and worse situations in an effort to save her crewmates and friend. The narrative of the game demands immediate action -- any dawdling risks all of the characters' lives.
Of course, we know that games' timelines aren't necessarily time-driven but character-driven, so it is trivial for Lara to stop at any point in the game and not advance the story. The killers who are prepared to murder your friends will patiently wait around as long as necessary. Furthermore, the game gives you plenty of reason to do so! There are collectibles to find and story and lore bits scattered about the levels that you have to go out of your way to encounter. Finding these gets you more XP and resources which unlock skills and weapons that make the game easier. The game lets you fast travel back and forth to different areas as needed, and I spent a good amount of time at the story's height of tension not resolving that tension by advancing to the climax but by ignoring it and scouring the island for all the things I missed instead.
I use Tomb Raider as an example here, but I'm sure you can think of plenty of other examples where the game directly incentivize actions that outright subvert its story. What I find interesting is that, on paper, I should care about this discrepancy, but in practice I really don't. In fact it's customary for me to do this in nearly every game I play, as I find that I like "checklisting" and cleaning things up rather than advancing the plot (of course -- do I actually like that, or do I merely like that I get rewards for doing so?).
I don't have a singular question to ask but instead have some jumping off points for discussion:
- Is this undermining of narrative tension an actual issue, or is it just part of the suspension of disbelief embedded into the medium of gaming?
- Have you felt that particular games were made worse due to this issue? If so, why? If not, why not?
- What games are counterexamples -- games whose narrative tension is not undercut by their gameplay? What makes them work? Does that aspect benefit the game, or would the game be roughly the same (or better) without it?
- If you consider this an issue, does the "responsibility" for it lie with the developer of the game for incentivizing gameplay counter to narrative, or does the "responsibility" lie with the player for ruining their enjoyment of the narrative by pursuing other goals?
Also, don't feel limited by these questions or my choice of game and feel free to address anything else relevant to this idea that you feel is important or relevant.
15 votes -
Microsoft killed the Zune, but Zune-Heads are still here
9 votes -
TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here. Please just try to provide fair warning of...
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
7 votes -
US President Donald Trump revokes rule preventing White House staff from lobbying
11 votes -
Richard Feynman and the bomb
8 votes