Crespyl's recent activity

  1. Comment on What game are you terrible at? in ~games

    Crespyl
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    I love Hive! I feel like it could eventually (d)evolve in a similar way to Chess over the long run, but it still feels fresh and rewarding to explore strategies with friends in casual games in a...

    I love Hive! I feel like it could eventually (d)evolve in a similar way to Chess over the long run, but it still feels fresh and rewarding to explore strategies with friends in casual games in a way that reminds me of how I used to feel about Chess as a kid.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on What game are you terrible at? in ~games

    Crespyl
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    I made it through that section of DUtM after watching another player solve it on YouTube; turns out there's no trick to it, you just gotta go for it. After seeing that it could be done, it only...

    I made it through that section of DUtM after watching another player solve it on YouTube; turns out there's no trick to it, you just gotta go for it. After seeing that it could be done, it only took me another three or four tries to make it work (after like six or seven tries before looking it up, ugh. I kept getting the zappy spheres pulled up towards the respawn point, so they basically were spawncamping me).

    The game as a whole was... ok, but not great and I don't think you're missing much not finishing it. I played it through with my dad, which made it more fun. I liked it enough that I'll probably pick up the sequel eventually, but only on a decent sale, and only after I've worked through some other better ones I have my eyes on first.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on What game are you terrible at? in ~games

    Crespyl
    Link Parent
    Ohhh that Yiga clan hideout! Between the one-hit kills and that section disabling the extra life/Mipha's Grace I'd worked hard for, and then getting yanked out of my glider in the misty forest...

    Ohhh that Yiga clan hideout! Between the one-hit kills and that section disabling the extra life/Mipha's Grace I'd worked hard for, and then getting yanked out of my glider in the misty forest section I had to take a long break from the game. I don't think I ever finished it completely, and I did enjoy it over all, but those two incidents really put me off it for a while.

    1 vote

  4. Comment on New worlds, and what was your "Future Shock" moment? in ~life

    Crespyl
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    I always think of the section in Infinite Jest about the video calls and the masks people would wear so they wouldn't have to feel like they needed to do up their makeup and look their best for...

    But now that it's available, it turns out that almost nobody wants to be seen on camera

    I always think of the section in Infinite Jest about the video calls and the masks people would wear so they wouldn't have to feel like they needed to do up their makeup and look their best for every call all the time. Eventually everyone was just a mask looking at another mask, so they collectively gave up the pretense and just went back to regular voice-only calls.

    10 votes

  5. Comment on The Gateless Gate 3D: Forty-nine Zen Buddhist koans, each with its own interactive scene in ~humanities

    Crespyl
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    My first introduction to Zen was by way of Douglas Hofstadter's G.E.B, and I was intrigued by the koans but always kind of wanted to learn more directly about where they came from and their...

    My first introduction to Zen was by way of Douglas Hofstadter's G.E.B, and I was intrigued by the koans but always kind of wanted to learn more directly about where they came from and their original context. I still haven't really gone and learned about Zen properly, but I really enjoyed reading through the texts here, it's a very nice presentation!

    2 votes

  6. Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books

    Crespyl
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    I remember Fallen Angels as well! Niven and Pournelle are always a great team (Niven is brilliant, but gets silly left to his own devices), and Flynn brings a lot to the table as well. I actually...

    I remember Fallen Angels as well! Niven and Pournelle are always a great team (Niven is brilliant, but gets silly left to his own devices), and Flynn brings a lot to the table as well. I actually brought up some of Flynn's solo work in another comment on this post (Eifelheim).

    Genesis Quest sounds interesting, especially given that I saw Pluribus recently and have been playing The Message From Deep Space lately; both works that explore intersteller transmissions of different kinds as a form of first contact.

    2 votes

  7. Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books

    Crespyl
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    Michael Flynn's Eifelheim is one I don't see mentioned often; his January Dancer series is also excellent. Eifelheim has some interesting ideas that are almost psychohistory-adjacent in regards to...

    Michael Flynn's Eifelheim is one I don't see mentioned often; his January Dancer series is also excellent.

    Eifelheim has some interesting ideas that are almost psychohistory-adjacent in regards to where cities are likely to appear and some of the more or less predictable cycles of development and collapse across history.

    spoilers The idea of first contact involving a medieval priest and a tiny backwater village is really interesting, as is the framing device of trying to understand what happened so long ago from a modern perspective.
    2 votes

  8. Comment on What lesser-known sci-fi reads do you recommend? in ~books

    Crespyl
    Link Parent
    Both Mote and its sequel The Gripping Hand are excellent. I still sometimes reference "on the gripping hand" when the occasion arises. I loved the exploration of how the cycles impacted Motie...

    Both Mote and its sequel The Gripping Hand are excellent. I still sometimes reference "on the gripping hand" when the occasion arises.

    I loved the exploration of how the cycles impacted Motie culture and evolution over time.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on Babylon 5 S01E22: "Chrysalis" - Episode Discussion in ~tv

    Crespyl
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    Just finished the episode (and season I guess)! It's been fun watching Londo start to become uncomfortable with his creepy new friend. We'll see how he feels after he starts getting the effects of...

    Just finished the episode (and season I guess)!

    It's been fun watching Londo start to become uncomfortable with his creepy new friend. We'll see how he feels after he starts getting the effects of his new notoriety.

    Seeing G'Kar so affected by the outpost situation was nice too, and it was interesting to get that little reference to Narn being "peaceful and agrarian" at some point in their past.

    Fingers crossed we get the rest of the show without further incident...

    1 vote

  10. Comment on GOG confirm they are working towards GOG Galaxy on Linux in ~games

    Crespyl
    Link Parent
    If you're running the fs2open version of the engine, GoG or Steam shouldn't make a difference as far as I'm aware; you just need the game data files from wherever. Knossos was the recommendation...

    If you're running the fs2open version of the engine, GoG or Steam shouldn't make a difference as far as I'm aware; you just need the game data files from wherever.

    Knossos was the recommendation for all-in-one installer/manager last I looked, but I don't have much experience with it, I always just used the open launcher directly and did things manually since that's what I grew up doing.

    If you want to whet your appetite while you wait for a sale, there's some cool total conversion mods that don't require the original files at all. There's mods for Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, and Wing Commander, among others.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on GOG confirm they are working towards GOG Galaxy on Linux in ~games

    Crespyl
    Link Parent
    As someone who loves both Freespace games, this threw me for a minute until I realized that "Conflict" is just how the first game was branded in Europe. In the US it took advantage of the...

    Conflict: Freespace

    As someone who loves both Freespace games, this threw me for a minute until I realized that "Conflict" is just how the first game was branded in Europe. In the US it took advantage of the "Descent" brand (from some of the same devs at Volition/Parallax), which has nothing directly in common with the Freespace games except that they're both 6DoF space combat games. Fittingly, Descent was more claustrophobic, exploring tunnels in an asteroid or something, while Freespace has you in, well, "free space" out in the open.

    Anybody still thinking about Freespace at this point is probably well aware, but just in case you or another reader isn't: the source code for Freespace 2 was released in 2002, and the latest update was in 2024(!). There's loads of mods, including total conversions and ports of the first games campaign, and it looks and runs better than ever. There's a native Linux port too, so as long as you have the files off your GoG or Steam copy you can run it without even needing Proton!

    1 vote

  12. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tv

    Crespyl
    Link Parent
    I so, so want to know what's going on behind the scenes with these releases.

    I so, so want to know what's going on behind the scenes with these releases.

    1 vote

  13. Comment on US Federal Communications Commission approves test of space mirror to light night sky despite outcry in ~space

    Crespyl
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    Even after reading the Reflect Orbital website, it took basically until reading this headline to fully believe that the whole thing wasn't some elaborate joke or hoax. I'd been hearing about them...

    Even after reading the Reflect Orbital website, it took basically until reading this headline to fully believe that the whole thing wasn't some elaborate joke or hoax. I'd been hearing about them for months now in other places, but always thought it was tongue-in-cheek.

    I'm still skeptical that it'll actually work as advertised, I'm not convinced they'll be able to be as tightly focused as they claim to avoid environmental problems. Starlink is bad enough for telescopes, this will be ridiculous.

    12 votes

  14. Comment on Babylon 5 S01E18: "A Voice in the Wilderness" - Episode Discussion in ~tv

    Crespyl
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    Ooh a two-parter! This is another of those cases where Sinclair, as the station commander, seems a little too happy to jump into dangerous situations full of unknowns. It's fun seeing Ivanova and...

    Ooh a two-parter! This is another of those cases where Sinclair, as the station commander, seems a little too happy to jump into dangerous situations full of unknowns. It's fun seeing Ivanova and Sinclair get some adventuring time together.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music

    Crespyl
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    Phideaux's new album, AutoMoto Animus is here! It seems like it's only up on Bandcamp at the moment, hopefully it'll get a Spotify/Youtube release soon so more people can hear it. I've been a big...

    Phideaux's new album, AutoMoto Animus is here! It seems like it's only up on Bandcamp at the moment, hopefully it'll get a Spotify/Youtube release soon so more people can hear it.

    I've been a big fan ever since I came across Phideaux years ago with Doomsday Afternoon and Infernal, and so far I'm quite liking the new album too. Not quite as much of an instant favorite, but still quite good.

    If you like progressive rock, electronic/synth, and a little bit of pop-rock for good measure, it's worth checking out. Maybe check out Doomsday Afternoon if you don't want to wait for the new album to get a wider release.

  16. Comment on What AI does to the minds of novice coders in ~comp

    Crespyl
    Link Parent
    I also learned Java (from a book) with Notepad, but for me the benefit wasn't about Notepad per se, but more in using the command line javac/jar etc directly and not having that stuff hidden...

    I also learned Java (from a book) with Notepad, but for me the benefit wasn't about Notepad per se, but more in using the command line javac/jar etc directly and not having that stuff hidden behind the magic buttons in an IDE. I think if I'd used an IDE from the start, I would've had a harder time understanding things like the classpath, jar structure, and compilation workflow; and I also would've taken a lot longer to get comfortable with the command line environment and missed some of those benefits.

    Now I live in Emacs and use the command line for all sorts of things, but at this point it's a matter of preference, I can still hop to an IDE if that's where the best tooling is for whatever I'm working with.

    6 votes

  17. Comment on Nvidia announces liquid cooling system that promises to reduce electricity consumption and cut water use by up to 100% in ~tech

  18. Comment on Doctor Who Christmas Special cancelled, show put out to competitive tender in ~tv

    Crespyl
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    It's a real hoopy frood who knows where their towel is!

    Always carry your towel

    It's a real hoopy frood who knows where their towel is!

    7 votes

  19. Comment on Write your own virtual machine in ~comp

    Crespyl
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    I'm definitely saving this for later. VMs are an interest of mine, and I always love working on them. Wastl's Synacore puzzle and his 2019(?) Advent of Code Intcode problems were some of the most...

    I'm definitely saving this for later. VMs are an interest of mine, and I always love working on them. Wastl's Synacore puzzle and his 2019(?) Advent of Code Intcode problems were some of the most fun I've ever had programming.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on What are your gaming idiosyncracies? in ~games

    Crespyl
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    On jumping, I have a similar feeling, and something of a theory. Jumping (and crouching) is, when implemented, usually one of the more immediate responsive things you can do in a game. It's an...

    On jumping, I have a similar feeling, and something of a theory.

    Jumping (and crouching) is, when implemented, usually one of the more immediate responsive things you can do in a game. It's an avenue for player self-expression and communication between otherwise mute players, and it doesn't necessarily need to serve any immediate gameplay function to do those things.

    Even if you can't jump high enough to get over that fence, it feels good to hit the button and immediately have your character on screen react, especially if your friends can see you jumping and do it too.

    5 votes