Protected's recent activity
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 21, Episode 1 - 'Cube is good.' | Full episode in ~tv
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
Protected LinkI'm finally reading The Strength of the Few. It has been in my shelf for a while but I was a well-behaved boy and read other things I was interested in first. The story is immediately gripping...I'm finally reading The Strength of the Few. It has been in my shelf for a while but I was a well-behaved boy and read other things I was interested in first. The story is immediately gripping again (I did read the wikipedia summary of the first book to refresh my memory of all the character names).
I recently succumbed to peer pressure and reluctantly read Dungeon Crawler Carl. Honestly, it was better than expected! As a guy who reads a lot (and who is willing to try all kinds of weird obscure stuff as long as it's fiction) I have encountered some really, really bad light novels in the past, as in, I-can't-believe-this-author-isn't-ashamed-of-asking-for-payment-in-exchange-of-this bad. As far as LitRPG goes, Dungeon Crawler Carl is good! It actually features some creative ideas, good pacing and emotional moments (I understand enough spanish...) The prose is extremely accessible, to the point where it can feel the story is being conveyed in too basic a fashion at times, but I am told the writer actually gets progressively better throughout the series. If the potential I see here is being fulfilled, I'm happy to keep reading.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
Protected Link ParentI watched this with some friends and one of them said it was like the Higurashi etc. franchise, aka When the Cicadas Cry (he loves Higurashi). I wasn't a big fan when I watched Higurashi back in...I watched this with some friends and one of them said it was like the Higurashi etc. franchise, aka When the Cicadas Cry (he loves Higurashi). I wasn't a big fan when I watched Higurashi back in the day, but maybe you would enjoy it?
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Comment on Smartphone recommendations? in ~tech
Protected LinkAnother good reason to wait on a permanent solution is the GrapheneOS-Motorola partnership. You might have a smartphone with Graphene and a headphone jack in less than a year!Another good reason to wait on a permanent solution is the GrapheneOS-Motorola partnership. You might have a smartphone with Graphene and a headphone jack in less than a year!
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Comment on I think that we won’t see any new and radical new gaming input devices or form factors anymore in ~games
Protected Link ParentIt's not easy to implement an input scheme that feels good in this space. Most able humans are used to standing on their feet and walking around. What feels good to them is using their feet to...It's not easy to implement an input scheme that feels good in this space. Most able humans are used to standing on their feet and walking around. What feels good to them is using their feet to walk, but it's impossible to walk in the game without walking in the real world (and running into a wall). And if it wasn't? The prospect of disabling your legs for the sake of a videogame is kind of scary, as it is in the media you mentioned.
Alternatively you rest your weight on a different part of your body (ie, you sit on your ass) and now you can move your legs and feet like a scarab without running into the wall, but this doesn't feel very good to any part of your body. It's not natural and it's exhausting. Comfy chair is good, yes, but it's actually more tiring for a human to lift and wave their legs around than to simply walk...
I think using your feet to control a gamepad (unless you have to do so for ability reasons) is a step backwards (hah). This is also surprisingly exhausting; we can do things with the position of our feet, ie Dance Dance Revolution style, and we will get tired, or we can rotate and bend our feet and we will get very tired. The main reason is we evolved out of having useful toes. We can get away with controlling gamepads with our hands effortlessly because our fingers are so incredible.
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Comment on I think that we won’t see any new and radical new gaming input devices or form factors anymore in ~games
Protected Link ParentRegarding weight: We currently already have some extremely lightweight wired form factors. The greatest source of weight for wireless headsets seems to be the battery (or batteries), which is not...Regarding weight: We currently already have some extremely lightweight wired form factors. The greatest source of weight for wireless headsets seems to be the battery (or batteries), which is not an unworthy tradeoff for the freedom of being untethered. Several brands have settled on a form factor that balances weight on the head by placing the battery behind the head, relieving pressure on the face. For me, at least, this form factor works very well, and completely resolves the discomfort caused by the weight of earlier headsets.
I will admit that this causes the headset to be physically more unwieldy than the "just a lightweight pair of glasses" form factors though! And that it's dishonest to mention the weight of the headset without discussing the weight of the battery module.
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Comment on I think that we won’t see any new and radical new gaming input devices or form factors anymore in ~games
Protected (edited )Link ParentThe Vive XR Elite (2023) has adjustable diopters built in [EDIT: This information maybe wrong, sorry! Bad sources! I'll discuss weight in a reply.] Well, this comes down to what people want (or...until VR doesn't require a kludgy workaround such as replacing my VR headset lenses every time my prescription updates, VR headsets are functionally useless to me.
The headsets (...) are heavy
The Vive XR Elite (2023) has adjustable diopters built in
and weighs 142g[EDIT: This information maybe wrong, sorry! Bad sources! I'll discuss weight in a reply.]require standing
Well, this comes down to what people want (or not) out of VR. A lot of people want the immersion of moving their full body in the game. Games exist that cater to those people; those games may not be for you. Likewise, there are games that you can play seated that would please you, but not those people. I believe there's a big racing sim community using VR for instance.
limit my vision
This one is actually a very difficult technological problem, so you're on to something there. Adding more field of view requires more/bigger headset hardware, which means a lot more weight. It also causes issues with distortion depending on how the optics are set up, and greatly increases demand from your rendering hardware as well, increasing costs exponentially.
But also: Narrower fields of view are tolerated a lot better by a lot more people. Wider FOVs, with motion in your peripheral vision, make a lot of people sick (like reading in the car!) so they are a more niche market, unfortunately. So much so that sickness mitigation modes often do things like artificially narrow the FOV among other things.
Which leads me to what I believe is the single greatest impediment to VR being truly ubiquitous: A small but significant minority of people are physically incapable of tolerating VR. Ever. No matter how much they try it, it makes them sick and it gives them killer headaches. I'm happy that it turned out that a lot of people can train themselves past these issues, but much like some people will always feel sickness in a boat or car, some people always feel sickness in VR. I'm not a doctor, but I think generally speaking people do not tend to feel sick when playing a videogame console in the living room...
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected LinkHaving completed Escape from Ever After, I need to mention something I forgot last week. I quite enjoyed the game's sound track! High budget productions these days often have beautiful, expensive,...Having completed Escape from Ever After, I need to mention something I forgot last week.
I quite enjoyed the game's sound track!
High budget productions these days often have beautiful, expensive, orchestral sound production. There's a lot to love about that kind of music, but the creative directors in charge of these endeavors often (there are exceptions) seem to want the background music to know it's place, meaning, well, in the background. It's there to set the mood, but it's not there to be the center of your attention.
The melodic, upbeat music of Escape from Ever After harks back to the days when music rammed its way straight into your brain and attached itself to your neurons. Which millennial doesn't remember at least a few songs from the PSX era of Final Fantasy? Even if you didn't play Final Fantasy. (You may think you don't, but you do.) We know the music from Tetris, Mario, Sonic or Zelda, even though it was just a bunch of chiptunes and midis, because they were all earworms, with clean and crisp melodic phrases that played at the same volume as the sound effects. It was designed to be heard over and over, a thousand times, while remaining loved rather than hated.
I don't want to create false expectations here. EFEA doesn't have chiptune music and it's obviously not comparable to these legendary soundtracks. But it's a great set of pleasant, rich, vaguely jazzy instrumentals that do a good job of getting noticed, so I couldn't just ignore them! Each song is clearly meant for the storybook it plays on, although whether you agree that the storybook should have the feel of its song is a matter of personal opinion.
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Comment on Buying a high-end PC for the first time - help me to doublecheck what I'm buying? Is 4k a bad idea with the specs? in ~tech
Protected LinkI think your planned storage is too small and would go with 2tb at least. That's what I have and I still have to delete things from time to time. Also, I do VR on this GPU, which requires...I think your planned storage is too small and would go with 2tb at least. That's what I have and I still have to delete things from time to time.
Also, I do VR on this GPU, which requires rendering 2160×2160x2 plus video streaming at the same time (also twitch streaming on top of that, sometimes) and it works just fine. Like others have said, your maximum framerate will be lower, that's all.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
Protected LinkIt's not the only thing I'm watching, but I wanted to mention the underrated gem that is Megami "Isekai Tensei Nani ni Naritai desu ka" Ore "Yuusha no Rokkotsu de", also more reasonably known as...It's not the only thing I'm watching, but I wanted to mention the underrated gem that is Megami "Isekai Tensei Nani ni Naritai desu ka" Ore "Yuusha no Rokkotsu de", also more reasonably known as Megami, My Ribdiculous Reincarnation or (apparently, according to MAL?) Ribsekai. I'll use "Megami".
It's a heavily episodic show that's a little like Isekai Ojisan. Unnamed protagonist "Ore" is a goofball who dies before his time, and is given by a complex cosmic divine bureaucracy the chance to reincarnate. The goddess in charge of his case "Megami-sama" will let him become whatever he thinks will help him find fulfilment, but all the juicy roles in all of the worlds have massive waiting queues, so in the first episode he chooses to reincarnate as one of the hero's ribs.
That only lasts for one episode, and "ribs" are never mentioned again (bad title!) Ore is out of ideas so he uses a random lottery to decide on increasingly more stupid and unhinged things to reincarnate as, at a rate of two per episode. He never finds satisfaction and always returns to Megami-sama with a souvenir. Together, they use a device that plugs into his memories to watch and comment on his most recent life.
Each 10 minute long adventure, which takes place in its own world, is drawn and animated using a completely different style. Megami feels like an art school's student project exhibition, presenting the viewers with a vertiginous parade of papercraft, stop motion, pencilled backgrounds, watercolors, 3D animation, live action, even a little bit of generative AI (thankfully not too much so far). The little stories often incorporate and subvert clichés from the Isekai genre - for example, there's typically a hero or a demon king - but they're never meant to be taken seriously. There are other cultural references which might be varying degrees of recognizable or not to western viewers.
We're only a few episodes in but so far Megami does a good job of keeping fresh and interesting within the confines of what it's trying to do. It's an undemanding show that can be enjoyed without too much investment into any long term story, since even between reincarnations, Ore and Megami-sama interact with each other mainly like a slapstick comedy duo.
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Comment on What's something that you missed out on? in ~talk
Protected Link ParentBitcoin had already been mentioned when I replied so I just upvoted that. I was aware of bitcoin from the beginning, and I chose not to look into it further. The problem with those sorts of...Bitcoin had already been mentioned when I replied so I just upvoted that. I was aware of bitcoin from the beginning, and I chose not to look into it further.
The problem with those sorts of regrets is that they only work in hindsight. Bitcoin's high value is an irrational collective delusion. There is very little keeping it from crashing other than momentum and greed (and I guess maybe now that they put that stuff in ETFs, maybe some unfortunate interconnectedness with the rest of the market). Did I "miss out"? Only in the same way I missed out on not winning the lottery by not buying a winning ticket. I'll never regret making decisions I find reasonable in the present, because the alternative could be very self-destructive.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected Link ParentI thought the plot was quite good, as in, they did an excellent job staying mostly faithful to the older story (in both of the new games) while greatly expanding the depth of the various...I thought the plot was quite good, as in, they did an excellent job staying mostly faithful to the older story (in both of the new games) while greatly expanding the depth of the various characters and adding a lot of new, consistent world building. Everything looks great and the voice acting and music are excellent.
It's the endings that are controversial to say the least. But you can at least enjoy the other 95% of the games before getting to them.
Yes, Rebirth is very long. Play on easy to make the fights faster if you're concerned about duration.
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Comment on Jet Lag Season 17: Taiwan Rail Rush | Trailer in ~hobbies
Protected Link ParentEpisode 8 spoilers Mike and Sam spent too much time metagaming and not enough time actually... gaming! It played out much as I expected as of ep6. They got too confident in being able to possibly...Episode 8 spoilers
Mike and Sam spent too much time metagaming and not enough time actually... gaming!
It played out much as I expected as of ep6. They got too confident in being able to possibly win challenges; that is no substitute for actually controlling the stations. I hope when they play this format again Sam is more aggressive!
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Comment on What's something that you missed out on? in ~talk
Protected LinkSome people shared that they missed out on a "normal" youth, which is regrettable. I feel the opposite - that I missed out on being myself. My family were plenty permissive and always encouraging...Some people shared that they missed out on a "normal" youth, which is regrettable. I feel the opposite - that I missed out on being myself.
My family were plenty permissive and always encouraging regarding unsupervised outings and drinking (you drink from your mid-teens here) and clubbing. Very encouraging. Forceful, even. In fact, I had no choice but to go rupture my eardrums, smoke about a factory's worth of second hand tobacco and weed and spend hours in a crowd of faces I couldn't possibly recognize (prosopagnosia), unable to even strike up a conversation, one the one hand because it was too noisy, and on the other because everyone was roleplaying a hardcore alcoholic more often than not.
I hated every minute of it, but it was the mold. Everyone had to fit that mold. Nothing and no one around me ever helped me realize that you could be a different person. So I spent all those years never really pursuing my own interests or meeting people who might share those interests. This is especially problematic in Portugal, where the culture makes it extra difficult to make friends as an adult. I have friends and they are good people, but it's exceedingly rare to have any interesting conversation with any of them because we are so different; we share no interests and we lead very different lives.
If I could do it all over again - and in fact, this would be my advice to any young person today - I would go abroad without thinking twice. High school abroad is a possibility for many, although I don't think I was mature enough at the start of high school for it to have been the right decision for me. What I needed at that time was to learn independence. But university, absolutely. Attending university nearby was my biggest mistake, and so what I missed out on was attending it somewhere else, maybe the UK or something (was still part of the EU at the time!) Just get out of the local framework and meet completely different people in order to broaden my worldview.
While we're on it, I would also advise a lot of young people who are like I was to not attend university right away after high school. This would have been impossible for me because, infuriatingly, we were still working on getting rid of mandatory military service at the time, so the only alternative to university was military service (which by all accounts was not a good time). Now that that's no longer a problem (at least until the far right wins an election) I recommend at least one gap year, which should be focused on employment (or volunteering) and - if possible - travel. This ties back to what I wrote in the other recent thread about higher education. I think my first real "employment" (not my first job; you know what I mean) helped me gain a lot of confidence. Everyone should have that experience as early as possible.
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Comment on Why so many people are going "no contact" with their parents in ~life
Protected Link ParentAkir wrote: From my personal experience, some people will just never, ever take this step. They lack the empathy required to understand that their own worldview isn't absolute and that their...Akir wrote:
parents and family members who want to fix things need to work on themselves in order to reconcile
From my personal experience, some people will just never, ever take this step. They lack the empathy required to understand that their own worldview isn't absolute and that their children are also people with their own thoughts and perspectives. Since their perspective is the only one that matters, there's no need for them to self-examine - they only ever judge others.
Your child is his own person, and his perspective (after he grows up) isn't something you can control, so I don't think you can ever be absolutely sure he won't end up misunderstanding you. But as long as you're willing to try to see his point of view, including how he perceives you, and make an effort to meet him half-way, I honestly think you'll do great.
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Comment on Valve has released CAD files for the Steam Controller in ~games
Protected Link ParentMeanwhile, on the orange website: "But they're destroying videogames with their evil 30% share!" (paraphrased) I'm not defending or disparaging Valve's cut - I don't know nearly enough about the...Meanwhile, on the orange website: "But they're destroying videogames with their evil 30% share!" (paraphrased)
I'm not defending or disparaging Valve's cut - I don't know nearly enough about the finances of videogame production to have an opinion - but it's so endearingly naive when people seem to be arguing that the vast majority of studios would be better off without what Valve brings to the table...
Even just by existing - even if a studio or publisher doesn't deal with them at all - Valve is preventing a great deal of enshittification or (see the mobile market) races to the bottom.
(Also, to a smaller degree: "How dare they demand less from higher volume games?" I have no words...)
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected Link ParentThat's a whole bunch of interesting seeming games I don't know about, thanks for writing all that. The time it took you seems to be in line with my predictions when it took me 90 hours of being...That's a whole bunch of interesting seeming games I don't know about, thanks for writing all that.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
The time it took you seems to be in line with my predictions when it took me 90 hours of being very efficient. I'm glad to see more people who enjoyed the game. Personally I've become convinced these people are just bad at doing proper endings; I'm fully expecting them to mess up the third one somehow.
Regarding Vincent: Since it's looking like the third game will be played in the context of a greater focus on war (against Wutai to be precise) I'm wondering if we'll get more development for him (and Cid) during that game.
I loved chocobo races but reeeally couldn't get into the piano minigame. I typically enjoy rhythm games, but that control scheme just didn't work for me...
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected Link ParentHey! Batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter SWING!Hey! Batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter batter SWING!
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected LinkI've played Call of the Sea. It's a problem solving game in which you play Nora, an early 20th century american who travels alone to a polynesian island in search for her missing husband Harry,...I've played Call of the Sea. It's a problem solving game in which you play Nora, an early 20th century american who travels alone to a polynesian island in search for her missing husband Harry, who vanished on an expedition meant to find a cure for a disease afflicting Nora herself. There, she finds remains of the expedition that preceded her as well as ruins left behind by a cult of eldritch fish god worshipers.
The island is full of puzzle elements as well as plenty of writings and sketches that you can use to piece together what happened to the others. Nora keeps a nice handwritten journal with drawings and notes on puzzle elements that's filled in as you examine/encounter things. I quite liked it! The sets all look pretty decent too. There is some voice acting (including well-known industry names). These aspects of the game approximate it to Myst and other such games.
However, compared to that genre, this game is more confined by a linear narrative. Explorable areas are small and only accessible in order as the story progresses. Puzzles aren't all that basic (ie not all the garbage horror game "here's the safe code, right next to the safe") but they are still simpler than a fan of the more complex puzzle solving games would prefer, and the narrow scope of each area means the challenge is a little lacking. Most areas have a vaguely cartoonish/colorful/"styrofoam prop" aesthetic that doesn't quite fit the supposed Lovecraftian theme. As such, I liked the dark and stormy shipwreck area best, and wish the whole game had had that kind of mood.
Finally, the game was quite short. It's fully solvable in about 6 hours. I guess it doesn't overstay its welcome! Overall I'd say it was a decent game, a bit lacking but perhaps perfect for puzzle solving game beginners who don't want anything too challenging.
I've also been playing Escape from Ever After, a much longer game. This is a fantastic narrative RPG with an aesthetic that (I'm told) is reminiscent of Super Mario RPG (turn-based combat) and Paper Mario games (2D characters on 3D sets) alike. I also feel some A Hat In Time vibes from the goofy humor, although there's only limited platforming. Maybe another good reference for those who played it is South Park: The Stick of Truth, which combines similar elements.
You play as Flynt, a good-natured fairytale protagonist tasked with defeating a dragon. When he reaches the dragon's castle, however, he finds that it has been taken over by Ever After Inc, an evil real world corporation hell-bent on monetizing every fairy tale. Flynt has to join forces with the dragon (and, later, other not-quite-villains) and attempt to take out a much greater foe: Capitalism! In the course of the game, you go inside several storybooks and meet many familiar fictional characters, some of which will help you, others which must be fought. All the stories have a twist on the originals.
Party members all come with their own unique environment-traversal skill, as well as a distinct set of abilities that makes them useful in combat against specific parties of enemies. You can only use two characters at a time, but you can swap party members mid-combat, so a lot of the strategy has to do with picking the best fighters to deal with any status effects, shields, enemies stacked on top of each other Vincent Adultman style and various other shenanigans. Add to that synchronized moves, items and timing-based parries and you get a combat system that, while deceptively simple, turns each fight into a short puzzle unlocked by making the right choices and using resources wisely during the fight (or you can always grind a little, I guess, but you shouldn't have to!)
Gear is all equipped on a common pool of slots ("trinket points") and some has party-wide effects (mana is shared, for example). This is nice in a way, but also means gear can have a disproportionate impact on certain fights and that the difficulty curve may not always be injective, if you know what I mean. Despite the hub-and-spokes level graph, and the fact that new levels are unlocked one at a time, gear acquisition can be fairly non-linear. I'm well into the game and so far I only found a single boss annoying (before I found the right gear for fighting him), so I'd say this isn't too much of a problem.
In all, I'm having fun playing this. I like the characters, who are fairly distinctive, despite their sometimes being pushovers, and finding the various secrets and items. It's not a super demanding game as long as you don't have too much trouble timing the parries. Other than your party member's hilariously terrible pathfinding (which doesn't matter, as they teleport to you when you need their ability), the game is very polished. I'm looking forward to finding out what other storybooks I'll be visiting!
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Comment on Gothenburg promised to optimise school admissions with a piece of code. The resulting chaos showed how unaccountable systems are ruining lives. in ~tech
Protected Link ParentIt follows naturally. What has been the main role of the enterprise in a modern capitalist society? To abstract responsibility. It's great for profits! Every single person employed by the entity...It follows naturally. What has been the main role of the enterprise in a modern capitalist society? To abstract responsibility. It's great for profits! Every single person employed by the entity can disclaim responsibility for any unethical shit - they're following established processes and orders. Nothing a company does can be attributed to anyone* , so even if the company is halted by a legal process, no one is truly held accountable. Ownership might be, but who owns a big company on the stock market, really? Answer: It's you and I. Our pension funds. Our soverign funds. Our ETFs. Everyone is responsible, so no one is responsible. The profit machine grinds ever onwards, the people at the top extract more value and for everyone else, the misery compounds. No wonder companies like AI so much.
* Different countries and legal frameworks have different processes through which people can be held responsible under certain circumstances, but enforcement is tipically difficult and inevitably selective. My generally applicable argument about the role of the enterprise is my own and you may have a different perspective.
Click to expand spoiler.
"And you haven't deleted anything?"
"I swear I haven't deleted anything."
"Why not?"