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13 votes
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The George (H.W) Bush promise that changed the Republican party
7 votes -
Van Der Graaf - Cats Eye (1977 unreleased video)
5 votes -
Ewan Dobson - Scarlatti - Sonata K53 (2020)
5 votes -
KÅRP – Left Handed (2020)
3 votes -
Why Australia's fires are linked to floods in East Africa
4 votes -
I've been thinking of retiring
25 votes -
Hookers, Hustlers, Pimps & Their Johns
7 votes -
The Dreadnought Diaries - A new series of development diaries following upcoming projects at Ninja Theory
3 votes -
The two types of randomness
8 votes -
Greta Thunberg: ‘Forget about net zero, we need real zero’
19 votes -
The Radiohead Public Library, an online resource launched today containing videos, music, artwork, websites, merchandise, and assorted ephemera
15 votes -
Darkside - Paper Trails [Live] (2013)
5 votes -
Accordion Synthesizer Project
I've been posting about this in various topics but now that it's on Github, I thought maybe it's time to give it a topic of its own. From the README: My goal is to eventually replicate the...
I've been posting about this in various topics but now that it's on Github, I thought maybe it's time to give it a topic of its own. From the README:
My goal is to eventually replicate the keyboard and sound of the bass side of an accordion in an electronic device that accordion players will find easy to adapt to. So far I've built three prototypes:
- Prototype 1 was trying out a Teensy 4 with an audio shield on a breadboard, with 4 bass buttons.
- For prototype 2, I put the buttons on two double-decker circuit boards (9 bass buttons). Here's the Video. You can see the remains of prototype 1 in the background.
- For prototype 3, I built a real case out of wood and laser-cut acrylic panels, to make a desktop device that's more easily portable. This one uses a Teensy 3.6. Here's the Video. I designed it in Onshape and you can look at the CAD model online.
12 votes -
Rethinking the meaning of success through the stories of Phil Campbell, co-founder of Quantic Dream and former creative director on major franchises like Tomb Raider
4 votes -
The plant ecology of the Los Angeles River
14 votes -
What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
23 votes -
R.A The rugged man: Uncommon Valor-A Vietnam story
4 votes -
Indie Games and Developers
This year I wanted to make a point to support and follow more indie game developers. I thought I'd post this topic to spread some love. Let's share indie game projects and developers that we are...
This year I wanted to make a point to support and follow more indie game developers. I thought I'd post this topic to spread some love. Let's share indie game projects and developers that we are currently following to help them get some more exposure. Here are a few from my end:
Pizza Tower:
https://pizzatowerguy.itch.io/
The demo feels so good to play. Controls are really tight and art/animation is really charming albeit eye-straining on higher resolution.
Guinea Pig Parkour:
https://twitter.com/GPigParkour
This game is not as far along as Pizza Tower, but the game-play footage looks superb. Seems like a taxing process considering the level of polish being demonstrated. Looking through GPigParkour's twitter, apparently this is something that they have been working on since 2016.Headcannon (Stealth):
http://www.headcannon.com/vertebreaker.html
You probably know Headcannon as the development team behind Sonic Mania. Despite the amazing job they did on Sonic Mania they don't receive much of anything for their hard work. The only pay from Sega that they received was the commission to create Sonic Mania and don't receive any revenue from sales. A recent kickstarter for the game Vertebreaker had be be cancelled because they were unable to raise enough funds for it. The founder and head of Headcannon Stealth goes into detail about this in the linked video. I highly recommend you check them out and donate to their Patreon if you can. They certainly have the talent and know how to create some cool ass games.
13 votes -
Snowdrift at Bleath Gill
5 votes -
Ubisoft revamps editorial team to make its games more unique
7 votes -
Big isn't better, it's just better; the restoration of St. Francis
4 votes -
Streaming TV is better in every possible way
In the recent topic about NBC's new streaming service the claim was made that: This is straight-up worse for the consumer than it was before. I responded to that comment, but wanted to expand on...
In the recent topic about NBC's new streaming service the claim was made that:
This is straight-up worse for the consumer than it was before.
I responded to that comment, but wanted to expand on it a lot more. So here goes.
If you've never read about it, you might not know what TV was like before the internet, so I want to give a brief history of television in the US as I understand and remember it. I was born in the early 1970s, so that's where I'm coming from.
~1940-~1960 - Televisions are large heavy devices full of vacuum tubes. In order to watch something on your TV you also need a large metal antenna on the roof of your house. There are 3 television stations - ABC, NBC, and CBS and they all broadcast in standard definition. You can clearly pick up 1 or 2 of them, but the 3rd is always kind of staticky because their broadcast tower is just over that hill in the distance, so the signal is weak. In order to watch a show you have to be in front of your television when the show is on. All shows are in black and white. Except the characters. They're all white. And straight. And middle class. And Christian. The shows are "free" because sponsors buy advertising time at the beginning or ending of the show.
~1960-1970 - Televisions are still huge boxes that weigh a ton and are full of vacuum tubes. You still need a large antenna on your roof to get the shows, and it doesn't work very well when it's raining. There are now 2 or 3 local stations that have a variety of programming throughout the day and often show re-runs of older shows you used to watch. You still need to be in front of your television when the show is on in order to see it. Some shows are now in color! Except the characters. They're all white. And straight. And middle class. And mostly Christian, though there is an occasional Jew, usually for laughs. Oh, and the big networks use satellites to broadcast their programs to local affiliates across the country. (This will be relevant in the 1980s.) The shows continue to be paid for with your attention; ads now interrupt the show for a few short minutes between the first and second or second and third acts.
~1970-1980 - You can now buy a small television that uses transistors instead of huge vacuum tubes that always burn out. It has "rabbit ear" antennas that don't require installation on your roof. There are now 5-7 local stations including a public broadcasting station that mainly shows a strange woman doing something called "yoga". For a very high monthly price you can get cable which gives you pristine picture quality of all the channels in your area plus 1 channel that shows movies. You need to have an installer come to your house to set it up, and they can't tell you when they'll be there, but they'll come eventually. All shows are in color (except for reruns of shows from the 1950s). Even the characters are starting to show some color! (But not too much.) There are a handful of LGBT characters, usually played for laughs or shown as someone others consider sick. Advertisements now occur roughly every 5 minutes.
~1980-1990 - Televisions are now all electronic (but still has the huge cathode ray tube displaying the picture). Most don't even need a separate antenna. It doesn't matter anyway because cable is cheap enough that most middle-class households can afford it. (You still have to wait for an installer to come.) There are something like 30 channels! It's insane! You can get multiple cable channels that show recent (only 1-2 years old) hit movies. And you can video tape any show you want to see so you don't have to be in front of the TV when it's on. (Assuming you can figure out how to set the clock on your VCR, and the power doesn't blink off for even a second during the show, and the show isn't pre-empted by any news or sports, and the tape doesn't get shredded or self-destruct.) You can fast-forward through ads, and your TV may have a mute button to turn the sound off during ads if you're watching live. If you're really a TV nut you can buy a satellite antenna. It's a 6-foot diameter round metal dish you stick in your back yard. You can directly receive the feeds from the big networks. This allows you to occasionally see Tom Brokaw eating a sandwich during what would normally be a commercial break. If you can't afford a satellite dish, you get to see ads every 5 minutes, plus product placements during the shows. Characters seem to have gotten whiter, straighter, and Christianer than they were in the 1970s. Ads remain largely as intrusive as in the 1970s, there are just more of them now.
~1990-2000 - TVs remain largely unchanged from the 80s. Everyone has a VCR. Everyone now has cable. (Waiting to get it installed now takes longer than ever, and the cable companies are notorious for terrible customer service.) Cable has 100 channels. Most of it is complete dreck and uninteresting to you. Since these channels have to fill airtime 24/7, much of it ends up being "infomercials." However, because there are so many channels most of the non-white, non-Christian characters move to niche channels. (There still aren't very many LGBT characters.) Satellite dishes shrink to about 1 foot across and several companies launch satellites just to provide consumers with content. Several cable channels spring up to show re-runs with small pieces missing, filled in with ads. The ads are much louder than they used to be.
~2000-2010 - VCRs start getting replaced with digital video recorders that can set their own clocks and schedule shows by name rather than date and time. They can save a number of shows without changing tapes. Some have automatic ad-skipping technology. DVDs replace VHS tapes. Televisions start moving to high definition LCD panels. Installing cable takes longer than ever, but cable carries hundreds of channels including channels devoted only to a single sport like golf or tennis. You can get bundles that include different features like lots of movie channels, adult content, artistic content, sports packages, etc. There are a variety of channels with shows devoted to different groups of people including women, minorities, and LGBT populations. It becomes possible to download an episode of a television show or a movie to your computer or iPod over the internet in only 20 minutes. You can watch on the way to work or on an airplane!
~2010-now - Standard definition TVs are obsoleted. All TVs are now High Definition and some are even 4k Ultra High Definition with High Dynamic Range color. The satellite companies are hemorrhaging customers. People are "cutting the cord" and getting rid of cable TV, though most still get their internet through the local cable provider. There's often only a single choice of provider.
Here's what streaming TV over the internet involves:
You can now be almost anywhere and instantly watch almost any episode of any television show you want with pristine quality. You don't need to install any additional hardware and the device you watch it on fits in your pocket. You can literally go to a cell phone store, buy a phone, and start watching television on your new phone minutes later. And you can put that on your huge high resolution TV, too.There are hundreds of streaming services, but you don't even need to subscribe to a service to find content. People are uploading it constantly. You can watch old episodes of thousands of shows as well as new original content for around what you used to pay for cable TV. You can watch educational stuff, or just short fun videos. You can find videos on every topic from every type of person about every type of person for better or worse.
And if you want to pay for video there are no ads. Nothing to mute, nothing to fast-forward through, nothing to annoy you. (There are still product placements, though they're usually subtle and make sense within the content.) If you watch part of a show on your phone on the train, when you get home, you can pick up where you left off on your television instantly. The weather doesn't affect the picture quality. Shows are never preempted because some politician is making a speech or a sporting event or awards show went longer than expected. There's always something on, even if it's a holiday or summer or there some big event you don't care about going on.
There is one down side: sometimes something you want to watch is on a service you have and then later it goes away, or it's not on a service you have. Usually you can subscribe to a service for 1 or 2 months, watch what you want and unsubscribe.
21 votes -
Is the USA evil?
17 votes -
Train driver's view: "Stormy" winter conditions on the mountainpass (Bergen Line, Norway)
8 votes -
Iceland's tourism revolution
4 votes -
Mark Blyth - So can we have it all?
4 votes -
The Top Ten Best Hit Songs of 2019 (Pt. 1)
6 votes -
David Bowie - It's No Game pt. 1 (1980)
4 votes -
What The Hell Is Going On?? with Vic Berger - Pilot
1 vote -
The smallest Discman ever made - was smaller than a CD
8 votes -
Sámi are the only officially recognised indigenous people in the EU and some of their languages are on the brink of extinction
12 votes -
Spaced at 21 - Interview with cast
5 votes -
I make jewellery from wood - here's how I make one of my designs
17 votes -
Privatizing public services: Does it work?
5 votes -
What happened to the news?
8 votes -
Ray tracing, VRS, and DLSS in id Tech 6 and Wolfenstein: Youngblood
6 votes -
Resident Evil 3 Remake | Official Nemesis trailer
8 votes -
What will life be like under China's social credit system?
5 votes -
Raspberry Pi 4 CRT-based VR Headset
15 votes -
Epic Games Store has generated $680 million in revenue so far, largely from exclusives. Weekly free games will continue through 2020
12 votes -
Enron: The biggest fraud in all of history
4 votes -
The untold story behind the design of Transistor
5 votes -
You couldn't make Blazing Saddles today!
14 votes -
The monopolization of the American market and how it happened
8 votes -
The original Game of Life was quite different from the one we have now
8 votes -
Half-Life: Alyx - Nine exclusive screenshots and what they tell us about the game
8 votes -
Daniel Floyd's favorite game animation of 2019
4 votes -
The modern economy of Russia
6 votes -
Grand Theft Auto 4 for PC is currently not available to purchase digitally due to depending on the defunct Games for Windows Live service
7 votes