IsildursBane's recent activity

  1. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    I feel like that is starting to become an issue with vanilla minecraft now as well. Especially with temperature preferences making it harder to find a different temperature biome. I know in my...

    The tricky thing will be to figure out how rare the biome is with Terralith in the mix.

    I feel like that is starting to become an issue with vanilla minecraft now as well. Especially with temperature preferences making it harder to find a different temperature biome. I know in my single player worlds being stuck either in a warm or cold biome area, and having to travel very far to get to the other temperature preference

    3 votes

  2. Re-watched the Bourne Trilogy after several years, I understand now why it was so influential

    ~movies Ask
    I originally watched the Bourne Trilogy as a young teenager. I found them to be great action movies, and quite enjoyed them. At the time I knew they were regarded as great action movies, but did...

    I originally watched the Bourne Trilogy as a young teenager. I found them to be great action movies, and quite enjoyed them. At the time I knew they were regarded as great action movies, but did not understand the influence they had. Recently, I have heard about how influential they were on the genre, so I decided to re-watch them in my late 20s, with a lot more media awareness. A lot of the commentary I had seen going into this is how the movies popularized the shaky cam and fast cutting on action scenes. Going into this re-watch, I did not remember much, with only remembering just a few standalone scenes, but not much about the plotline (except Bourne has amnesia).

    If you have not seen the movies in the past 5 years, I highly recommend you bookmark this post and stop reading then go back and watch them before continuing reading

    So going into this movie, my expectations were more along the lines of a dumb action movie, with well done fast-paced editing for action scenes. I was thinking along the lines of mid-2000s equivalent to the John Wick franchise. I was wrong on this. The plot is a lot tighter than the action movies I was expecting, and the action a lot lighter. The entire trilogy has lighter action than compared to more modern action movies. There is a grand total of two explosions for the entire trilogy (one in Identity, where Bourne explodes a propane tank as a diversion, and the second in Ultimatum where another agent blows up a car). Instead, the movie focuses on hand-to-hand combat for the action (which will be discussed later), but also strongly prioritizes Bourne trying to sneak out of a situation rather than fight out of it. Trying to sneak out of an area definitely changes the tone of the movie, and for the better in my opinion.

    For the action sequences, I found the fast cutting and shaky cam actually really good. I have been annoyed at other movies that have copied this style, because when done wrong it just turns the scenes into an unreadable mess. I think there are a few things done in Bourne that makes this editing style actually readable. The first is that the scope of these fight scenes are quite small. Normally they are 1v1 fights, not the fighting through a hallway of opponents that can be common in other movies. When the viewer has to keep track of only two people in a fight, the fast cuts are not as jarring. The second trick they use is providing establishing shots of the environment, keeping the environment small, and doing familiar environments (normally apartments). The viewer can very easily keep track of the different rooms they fight through, which grounds it. The third is that the fight scenes are relatively short. Also, all the fights have very clear goals (normally defeat this single person that is preventing escape). Too many movies looked at the well done Bourne action and copied it, without understanding what made the scenes work.

    The other part of the movie that uses fast cuts is in the car chases. Bourne car chases are fantastic, although I would argue that there needs to be suspension of disbelief, as the damage to the vehicles are a bit extreme while staying operational. The fast cuts work well as the goal is clear "escape the city center." The viewer is not expected to be able to keep track of where in the city they are, just that they are being followed and Bourne needs to escape. Also, the movie does not use high performance cars, but instead does regular cars in tight European streets, which is a fun change compared to other movies.

    The editing in general for the movie is quite engaging. I would describe it as a fragmented editing style, which works really well for the plot. The fragmented style disorients the viewer a bit, which matches well with Bourne suffering from amnesia. Cutting between various things puts the viewer into the mode of trying to piece everything together alongside Bourne (although the viewer has a bit more info, since they are aware of others actions). Then there is the two ending scenes in Supremacy (Bourne in Russia, then Bourne in the US on the phone with Landy) being reused in Ultimatum with it starting with Bourne escaping Russia and then the phone call taking place about 2/3 of the way through Ultimatum. Since I watched the two movies within about a week of each other, I found that having the movie partially exist between the two ending scenes of the previous movie really fun.

    32 votes

  3. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    I agree that the input/output is the bottleneck. Putting a shulker loader at the end of the system might require a bit of planning so that there is the ability to break a partially filled shulker

    I agree that the input/output is the bottleneck. Putting a shulker loader at the end of the system might require a bit of planning so that there is the ability to break a partially filled shulker

    1 vote

  4. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link
    Been working on an exterior for the industrial storage I built a while back. I noticed that the dock area by the portal that was built early on was going for the brickwork industrial vibe, so I...

    Been working on an exterior for the industrial storage I built a while back. I noticed that the dock area by the portal that was built early on was going for the brickwork industrial vibe, so I tried building in that style which I have never done before. It has been a lot of slow building for me, but I think I have it roughly framed out in a way that I like for the most part. I just need to gradually add back in some detailed work and it will turn out well

    4 votes

  5. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    IsildursBane
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    Been starting to research building my own alarm clock based off of a raspberry Pi for my wife. She has been wanting a simple standalone alarm clock, but one where she can pick the audio file for...

    Been starting to research building my own alarm clock based off of a raspberry Pi for my wife. She has been wanting a simple standalone alarm clock, but one where she can pick the audio file for it. Her research has seemed to indicate that picking your own audio file is quite hard to achieve, unless you pay too much. So I am in the beginning research stage of building my own

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Caught the cycling bug. Anyone else? in ~hobbies

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    Cutting the wind is the biggest thing. Up until -30C for my upper body it is just a t-shirt, thin long sleeve, and a rain jacket to cut the wind. When riding in the winter, I do carry an emergency...

    Also, in the very cold, don’t try to bundle up in heavy padding. It’s unwieldy and you’ll overheat. The key is to have a thin outer layer that blocks the wind. Once you have that, your riding will generate sufficient body heat and the wind won’t be able to steal it from you.

    Cutting the wind is the biggest thing. Up until -30C for my upper body it is just a t-shirt, thin long sleeve, and a rain jacket to cut the wind. When riding in the winter, I do carry an emergency tinfoil blanket, because if my bike breaks down, I know with how lightly dressed I am it will become dangerous quickly.

    Also, super thick gloves or mittens will impede your dexterity a lot. Bar mittens or pogies are much better.

    I have not tried bar mittens before, but they do seem like a better choice. I ride in really thick mittens, and once you get used to it, you do realize that you do not need much hand dexterity to work the handlebars. I do slide my hands out the sides between the bars and brake levers, instead of sliding my fingers straight up/down, if that makes sense.

    2 votes

  7. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    One of the bigger changes since you have last been on is we connected your rail line that you built from your town to the island into the transit network. So now the rail line extends to the...

    One of the bigger changes since you have last been on is we connected your rail line that you built from your town to the island into the transit network. So now the rail line extends to the transit hub in the basement of community storage

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Commodore Callback flip phone in ~tech

    IsildursBane
    Link
    As someone who has been daily driving The Minimal Phone for nearly the past year, and has researched the neo-dumbphone market I have a few thoughts: I appreciate that it is doing a mostly hardware...

    As someone who has been daily driving The Minimal Phone for nearly the past year, and has researched the neo-dumbphone market I have a few thoughts:

    1. I appreciate that it is doing a mostly hardware based restriction model. My phone relies heavily on the e-Ink screen to decentivize use, whereas the Lite phone relies entirely on software restriction. My phone has full playstore access, but that doesn't mean you will want to use every app available. This does create some issues when some apps that need to be used are not designed well for e-Ink. Whereas the Lite phone does software locking down of the system, which creates a very smooth software experience. However, with the Lite phone you are restricted to what the developers think are essential apps, and if your use case falls outside of that, you are out of luck. The Commodore Callback for the most part seems to be relying on the flip phone form factor to reduce usage, which I think will work well.

    2. There is currently other flip phones on the market, and this one is not priced competitively. I remember looking at other flip phones about a year ago, and decided to not go that route. However, for a quarter of the price to the Commodore, the other options are better value even with the drawbacks on those models.

    3. Doing the price comparison when they are including earphones feels a bit dishonest. They are the same price as the Clicks and the Minimal Phone, but to make themselves look better they add an extra $40 to those listings to account for the headphones they throw in.

    5 votes

  9. Comment on Caught the cycling bug. Anyone else? in ~hobbies

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    The secret to doing this is consistency. My first winter riding I was not planning on biking through the winter. However, as the weather got colder, my body acclimatized and I did not find the...

    I'd like to bike more year-round but the weather always intimidates me :(

    The secret to doing this is consistency. My first winter riding I was not planning on biking through the winter. However, as the weather got colder, my body acclimatized and I did not find the cold temps nearly as bad as I was expecting. It did take some trial and error to figure out my layers, but now several years into riding through the winter it is quite easy for me to check the weather for the day and know what to wear.

    2 votes

  10. Comment on Caught the cycling bug. Anyone else? in ~hobbies

    IsildursBane
    Link
    So I do occasionally do bike rides for fun, but most of my time on my bike is spent commuting (which I do enjoy). I commute year round, so temperatures range throughout the year from +30C to -35C...

    So I do occasionally do bike rides for fun, but most of my time on my bike is spent commuting (which I do enjoy). I commute year round, so temperatures range throughout the year from +30C to -35C (not including wind chill). I ride the same bike year round, which is an old mountain bike (without suspension) that I swap tires out between seasons so that I am running studded tires in the winter. While both sets of tires are 26x2 (which makes it easy for stocking tubes), my studded tires are almost double the width of a contact patch due to the very different tread patterns.

    In the summer the enjoyment of riding is due to being able to ride faster and do tighter manoeuvres. I normally make sure during the summer that my bike is riding smoother with some maintenance, with more aggressive braking and try and get my shifter indexed properly.

    In the winter riding is this fun challenge that provides a different level of enjoyment (most times). If the conditions are good (which means the snow is packed down, as partially packed down snow gives me a tendency to fishtail) then I find it relatively easy to bike. It does require being a lot more intentional about weight distribution. I do quite enjoy winter riding, as there is an intensity of it where you need to be paying attention and it does require more effort (rolling resistance is higher in the snow). Bike maintenance is tougher in the winter, since a lot of bike components are not designed to work well when it gets to about -20C. Also, the spring melt with the salt just wears down parts quicker

    When I go for longer periods without driving, I have found that my brain adjusts to the speed of biking, and find that for some streets, the speed limit for cars is too high. When driving consistently, going 50km/h down city streets seem fine. However, when your brain is used to going 25km/h going 50 km/h seems quite high, and you realize how much of situational awareness you are losing at that speed.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    I felt that after expanding the transit infrastructure to service the 64x industrial one, having a small scale one at storage would be convenient for small smelting operations. It would have a lot...

    I felt that after expanding the transit infrastructure to service the 64x industrial one, having a small scale one at storage would be convenient for small smelting operations. It would have a lot of potential if I expanded the input/output storage and tied it into the chunk loaders, but I do want people to use the existing 64x smelter for large operations

    3 votes

  12. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    (edited )
    Link
    So I have added a small 8x furnace array at community storage. I went with a smaller array to be convenient for small jobs of a stack or two of items, since we have the 64x array at the industrial...

    So I have added a small 8x furnace array at community storage. I went with a smaller array to be convenient for small jobs of a stack or two of items, since we have the 64x array at the industrial district (which there is now a dedicated transit stop for). Building the furnace array was quite tricky to squeeze in in an aesthetically pleasing manner, since storage is starting to become packed full of various utilities that were not initially planned.

    5 votes

  13. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    Haven't you already made a cult hq this season?

    Haven't you already made a cult hq this season?

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

  15. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    There is also the west section that needs to be added, that goes into the transit hub, with the following coords: -645,40,83 (transit stop in hub) -599,40,83 (bottom of hill) -562,77,83 (top of hill)

    There is also the west section that needs to be added, that goes into the transit hub, with the following coords:

    • -645,40,83 (transit stop in hub)
    • -599,40,83 (bottom of hill)
    • -562,77,83 (top of hill)

  16. Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    Having read the posted article, the comments here, but no other perspective besides Coffeezilla's. I think Coffee's video did a good job in detailing that everyone was kind of at fault here, with...

    Having read the posted article, the comments here, but no other perspective besides Coffeezilla's. I think Coffee's video did a good job in detailing that everyone was kind of at fault here, with the blame of where the collection is spread out between various people. In the video, it was noted that the records of what parts of the collection has been sold had not been updated, and the original franchise owner was willing to admit fault on that. BAM corporate comes across in this video as extremely unreliable witnesses ("there was no u-haul on the night of the takeover, we have seen video proof of that" to when presented proof "here is an extremely detailed itinerary on why there was a u-haul present, but it was for something unrelated").

    The other interesting thing from this video is that the $200k appraisal was the initial undetailed appraisal value, with the appraisal once they had possession of the collection was averaged out to $107k, of which, about a quarter had been sold and paid out to the original owner before the takeover.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    I have fixed the industrial district storage system. Hopefully I have solved the issue to prevent it from happening again. I have also extended the Town High Speed line, so that it extends past...

    I have fixed the industrial district storage system. Hopefully I have solved the issue to prevent it from happening again.

    I have also extended the Town High Speed line, so that it extends past the industrial district to include a stop by the super smelter across the river. @creesch would it be easier for me to provide coordinates for the bluemap changes of the rail line or have you use your mod to get the coords?

    6 votes

  18. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    If you are looking for supplies, there is community storage built straight west of town, across the river. The main east/west road in town extends all the way to storage, or in the basement of...

    There is a chest next to the building with the nice facade, but filled in doors from which I have acquired a handful. Some may even say a pinch of bonemeal which I will return when I set up a fire. A spit. And a lamb on a spit.

    If you are looking for supplies, there is community storage built straight west of town, across the river. The main east/west road in town extends all the way to storage, or in the basement of town hall there is a train station, and that rail line goes directly to the transit hub, which is in the basement of community storage

    2 votes

  19. Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games

    IsildursBane
    Link
    So I noticed that the storage system in the industrial district has broken again. My theory on the culprit is that the item sorters and the shulker loaders are too close together, so occasionally...

    So I noticed that the storage system in the industrial district has broken again. My theory on the culprit is that the item sorters and the shulker loaders are too close together, so occasionally they interact, clearing the sorters filters. I have started raising up all the item piping to achieve this. The other benefit of raising up the piping is that now I will be able to extend the express line, adding a stop at the furnace array across the river.

    4 votes

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

    IsildursBane
    Link Parent
    I very much relate to this. But also, if I pace myself poorly it feels weird to just be grinding out all the side quests before doing the final battle. There is an optimal side quest to main...

    I must complete all side content possible before the endgame because I almost never replay a game, and once the "end" is complete, knocking out the remaining side quests just feels hollow.

    I very much relate to this. But also, if I pace myself poorly it feels weird to just be grinding out all the side quests before doing the final battle. There is an optimal side quest to main mission ratio, and I have no idea what it is, but I have experienced what it isn't

    5 votes