text_garden's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
text_garden Link ParentQuake is not a good analogue in this case IMO. Quake with hardware rendering is a fully texture mapped game with dynamic lighting effects. Quake with software rendering is essentially the same...Quake is not a good analogue in this case IMO. Quake with hardware rendering is a fully texture mapped game with dynamic lighting effects. Quake with software rendering is essentially the same thing: a fully texture mapped game with dynamic lighting effects. The renderers implement the same basic features so the results are visually kind of similar.
Software rendered MechWarrior 2 on the other hand does away with most of the texture mapping features available in the hardware accelerated versions. Visually, it's an entirely different game, and on newer hardware it runs well even at higher resolutions like 1024x768 (which most of the hardware accelerated versions didn't even support).
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
text_garden LinkMechWarrior 2. My dad got the game with a Matrox graphics card in the mid 90s and I remembered it fondly, so I decided to set it up in DOSBox. Didn't look at all like I remembered it, but in a...MechWarrior 2. My dad got the game with a Matrox graphics card in the mid 90s and I remembered it fondly, so I decided to set it up in DOSBox.
Didn't look at all like I remembered it, but in a good way. The version we had before was apparently designed specifically for that graphics card. Other versions were released for other cards, each using the different features of each card (the APIs were all incompatible back then). The "plain" version I downloaded only supports VGA and VESA, and texture mapping is used very sparingly because it isn't accelerated.
The result is quite striking, though: low poly but more than serviceable mechs running around in stylistic, mostly flat shaded landscapes over gradient skies, that judging by screenshots doesn't betray how old the game is as obviously as the 3D accelerated versions.
Anyway, the game is still a blast and manages to suspend disbelief in itself as a simulator, not just a sci-fi game. Before most missions you get a chance to set your mech up, including arming it, installing heatsinks, jump jets, engine and armor. During the missions, parts of your mech could be blown off, which results in any weapons or heat sinks mounted to it flying off as well, so there are situations in the game where even if you can't avoid getting hit, you have to manage where you get hit. Similarly, you have to consider where you hit enemies, and what effects hitting them in different places will have.
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Comment on Swedish company Scout Park has launched a mobile app where you can tip off wrongly parked cars to traffic wardens to earn money in ~transport
text_garden Link ParentIf the bounty is for traffic infractions and traffic infractions are bad, that people go along with whatever the bounty is for is a good thing. More people should go along with the idea that...The compensation gives people a reason to go along with whatever the bounty is for
If the bounty is for traffic infractions and traffic infractions are bad, that people go along with whatever the bounty is for is a good thing. More people should go along with the idea that traffic infractions are a bad thing.
a) real reform of the sources of problems
I see, so to consider it as a potential source of some kind of perverse incentive. In the same sense that someone being compensated for performing surgery may be disincentivized to propose medical solutions that don't involve surgery, except largely inconsequential by comparison.
These things are culturally addictive, just look at another case of bribing the citizenry to vote against their own long term interests: the USA's use of prisons and the staffing needed to run them to "stimulate" locally stagnant economies.
Evidently there are prison systems in the world that aren't massive private, industrial ventures where workers still get paid to work. So maybe it wasn't the boon of employment opportunities that created the weird prison industrial complex of the US. Moral compromise happens on all levels, but I don't think people in an affluent, christian society decide on their own that a stolen jacket should earn someone life without parole just because they want a job. The consent for the conditions in prisons and the legal system that destroys people has been deliberately manufactured by an industry that is too big to be anything but amoral in its strategy. It's not the result of activism from a grass roots movement of potential prison employees.
The compensation is how totalitarianism justifies itself.
The phenomenon in the more general sense of economic incentives and disincentives is also a huge part in how any modern liberal democracy implements policy.
Personally I tend to agree that that kind of incentive can lead to misallocation of resources and rigid, counterproductive policy. In a more general sense I would agree that money as the governing force behind the allocation of resources is largely a mistake. Merely having a job is potential for moral compromise—time I spent working basically connecting one piece of software to another could have been spent on far better things from a utilitarian perspective, but I've made the choice to do this less useful thing out of the self-interest the economic system demands should guide my labor.
So yeah, I can get with the "money bad" argument if that's what you are ultimately saying, but if we accept the existing economic framework as a baseline, compensation for reporting traffic infractions doesn't strike me as particularly dangerous to the social fabric nor as a particularly likely source of perverse incentives.
Whether it's moral or not that I get compensated for my work seems to me to depend most of all on whether the work I get paid for is morally justifiable in itself. A surgeon that does very important and useful work has optimized the use of their time in a way that has a high moral "pay-off" regardless of the compensation they receive for the work. Sure, the compensation they receive for the work might create an incentive not to explore alternative medical solutions, but there's a baby in the bathwater that we shouldn't throw out only because of coulds.
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Comment on Swedish company Scout Park has launched a mobile app where you can tip off wrongly parked cars to traffic wardens to earn money in ~transport
text_garden Link ParentSo instilling that same sense of alienation and mistrust is not an issue, so long as people aren't getting paid for it. Or is it that someone gets paid for it that creates the alienation in...Because I'm tired of repeating myself: the issue is the bounty, not the laws around parking.
So instilling that same sense of alienation and mistrust is not an issue, so long as people aren't getting paid for it. Or is it that someone gets paid for it that creates the alienation in itself? I don't think I understand your point correctly, because these feel like unfavorable interpretations on my part, but I'm honestly not sure what else you are getting at.
Are they being employed, invisibly from all outward appearance, to inform on legal infractions against their neighbors? Because that is very much like secret policing.
The action remains the same regardless of whether I am getting paid for it or not, so I don't see how the effects of the action on society as a whole should be different. I report a crime; society, insofar that its laws are good, is better for it and the perpetrator will rightly feel somewhat alienated from society for being reminded that their behavior is not socially acceptable, regardless of my compensation. Then, to me, it seems like you're making more of a semantic argument than something that makes a material difference to the practical reality. You could call it "secret police force" per some relaxed definition of "police" but it's really not at all like a secret police force in a totalitarian state.
And to get back to the point made above, is it the compensation that is the issue in a totalitarian state as well? Is it right for me to report your thought crime so long as I don't get paid for it?
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Comment on Swedish company Scout Park has launched a mobile app where you can tip off wrongly parked cars to traffic wardens to earn money in ~transport
text_garden Link ParentIt seems this app is based on photographic evidence which is then verified by parking attendants. I'm not sure what opportunities for making something up you envision. I think you'll find that...For one, it undermines the more basic levels of social trust that justify the use of violence implied by policing when everyone you meet has a good* reason to make something up about you or another person
It seems this app is based on photographic evidence which is then verified by parking attendants. I'm not sure what opportunities for making something up you envision.
- did so because of another person's choices effectively forcing them, and therefore punishment is unlikely to disincentivize future behavior
I think you'll find that there is a subjective threshold of "have to" that varies greatly depending on the risk balance. I don't have to own a car or a bicycle in the first place, so certainly I only have to park at all in some abstract sense.
- is genuinely only parked for a minute or so, and therefore isn't likely causing issues large enough to justify the hassle for anyone, let alone, again, the implied use of force
In my view there is a good reason traffic regulations don't make exceptions for things like "just a minute" or "just this once". Rules like this have to be considered through the lense of the categorical imperative. What would the effects of universally allowing blocking a bike path for "just a minute" be? If anyone was entitled to "just a minute" of your time, your life would absolutely suck. In my own experience, an awful day is more often than not built out of mild inconveniences.
That's, to some small degree, the situation where I live. Enough people put on their hazards anywhere and do whatever for just a minute, only because the risk that someone that can enforce the law will see and attend to your infraction, that it becomes a ubiquitous inconvenience.
The result is less predictable traffic situation because it snowballs into congestion and people having to break the law in the sense hinted at above. That's much worse than someone feeling "alienated" for not being able to trust everyone they've inconvenienced by breaking the law not to report them.
It's not like this is some slippery slope from "parking snitching" to a police state, but it's pretty well-documented that secret police forces alienate people from their communities and are a powerful tool for any totalitarian hopefuls, and there's no reason to believe this wouldn't normalize those same dynamics.
Here you use the term "secret police force" as though being able to report infractions makes you part of a secret police force. Am I similarly part of a secret police force if I overhear a violent domestic fight in my neighbor's apartment and report it? There clearly isn't a categorical reason such a thing should be more harmful to the social fabric than breaking the law, so I assume you consider it a matter of degree. In that case I feel like comparing the effects of reporting traffic infractions to the effects of secret police forces in totalitarian states is more than a little disingenuous.
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Comment on What's a game that you feel is almost great? in ~games
text_garden LinkIn my teens I bought Witchaven 2 on a whim, at a bargain price from a mail order company. This is a game by the infamous Capstone Software, who released tons of games ranging from terrible to...In my teens I bought Witchaven 2 on a whim, at a bargain price from a mail order company. This is a game by the infamous Capstone Software, who released tons of games ranging from terrible to mediocre.
The game looked great with a distinct visual style (seemingly using clay models for some of the enemies), melee focused combat, meaty and satisfying combat sounds and animations in a bleak fantasy setting. So far, so good: everything seemed right about it.
But then it seemed like every aspect of the game outside its presentation is bad in some way, ranging from slightly off to plainly awful. Not just technical bugs (of which there were a lot) but poor design overall. They had a great idea, great presentation and the potential to follow it through to a great game, but it felt so half-baked in the end, in a way that I feel wouldn't have taken that much more effort to fix.
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Comment on What AI tools are you actually using? in ~tech
text_garden Link ParentRepeat indefinitely for more and more semantic loss!It gets even better when the receiver uses AI to translate the verbose email back to bullet points.
Repeat indefinitely for more and more semantic loss!
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Comment on What AI tools are you actually using? in ~tech
text_garden LinkI occasionally use the free version of ChatGPT to ask music theory questions, or for "reverse term lookup" where I describe a concept and ask if there's some established term for it. It kind of...I occasionally use the free version of ChatGPT to ask music theory questions, or for "reverse term lookup" where I describe a concept and ask if there's some established term for it.
It kind of sucks at it, because it doesn't seem to have any concept of confidence and so will answer every question as though it knows exactly what it's talking about even when it doesn't, but it can be useful as a starting point for further investigation.
Kind of like having 24/7 access to a well read librarian that lies pathologically on a bad day.
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Comment on Scattered thoughts on the absurdity of existing in ~talk
text_garden Link ParentC) We're somewhere along a causal chain that doesn't have a definite beginning in the sense we understand causality. I could come up with more, but we're both just guessing, which is my point....Either the universe was spontaneous and without cause, which is absurd, or it had a cause, which then must necessarily have had a cause.
If you have an option c that gets around that, I'm all ears.
C) We're somewhere along a causal chain that doesn't have a definite beginning in the sense we understand causality.
I could come up with more, but we're both just guessing, which is my point.
If not...then I don't think you actually have any basis for making that assertion, because the way you wrote it implies that you know it to be true.
What assertion? If you mean to imply that I have asserted that there is a cause to the universe, please read again and respond to what I wrote instead of what you think I believe.
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Comment on Scattered thoughts on the absurdity of existing in ~talk
text_garden LinkIt's believed that up until a certain stage of development, it doesn't occur to babies that objects exist outside their own experience of them. In particular, if you don't see it, it might just...From a logical perspective, there is no reason we're here.
It's believed that up until a certain stage of development, it doesn't occur to babies that objects exist outside their own experience of them. In particular, if you don't see it, it might just not exist, so games like peek-a-boo are not only a rather mundane kind of entertainment, but a baffling demonstration of the wonders of the world.
Here, you similarly can't perceive a logical reason and surmise that there is none, confusing ignorance with knowledge. The result is the absurdity you experience: you know that there is no logical reason for us to be here, so being here at all is as baffling and magical as peek-a-boo is to the baby. It seems pointless to you because you have already decided, in ignorance, that there is no point.
For what it's worth, I don't attach any value judgement to that. I think it's innately human. We're in kind of an awkward position where we are prone to think of and deeply care for such things, yet limited by our experience to only ever arrogantly assume or concede to being clueless.
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Comment on What are some of your favorite PlayStation 1 games? Any odd or unique ones worth playing? in ~games
text_garden LinkJumping Flash was nice and weird. Probably the first first person platform game I can think of, and they nailed it. I generally associate 3D platforming with some frustration, but in this game,...Jumping Flash was nice and weird. Probably the first first person platform game I can think of, and they nailed it. I generally associate 3D platforming with some frustration, but in this game, the camera automatically faces downwards when you are falling down, so you always have a good idea of where you'll land.
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Comment on It annoys me that so many PC games feel like they're intended for consoles in ~games
text_garden Link ParentIt's not relevant to my point that they are not. My point is that there is an aspect of freedom of interaction in tabletop RPGs which I enjoy that you can get somewhat closer to in video games by...But video games are not tabletop RPGs.
It's not relevant to my point that they are not. My point is that there is an aspect of freedom of interaction in tabletop RPGs which I enjoy that you can get somewhat closer to in video games by decoupling verbs and nouns and offering not just a lot of nouns, but a lot of verbs. Video games don't have to be tabletop RPGs to implement that or for that to be more than "bad design". I consider it one of the defining and positive aspects of the genre.
Just as, say, a first person shooter doesn't have to be real life to have make use of a realistic design in some basic, limited sense.
The rest of your reply seems to be about AI text input games. I am not arguing for or against AI text input games as an alternative to the long-but-fixed-list-of-generally-applicable verbs kind of design.
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Comment on It annoys me that so many PC games feel like they're intended for consoles in ~games
text_garden Link ParentIf I were the game master and you were the player in a table top RPG session I could certainly come up with a believable effect to licking a dog, and maybe even a reasonable cause for doing so....If I were the game master and you were the player in a table top RPG session I could certainly come up with a believable effect to licking a dog, and maybe even a reasonable cause for doing so. You as a player wouldn't say "I use the dog" after which I as a game master decide what that means. You wouldn't ask "what can I do with the dog?" as though there's an exhaustive list I can reasonable recite before it's time to go home. You describe what you do, and as a game master I come up with a response to it; I am only limited by my vocabulary. I think games with the interface and complexity of NetHack are a step closer to that experience. An interface which limited me to one action or to a small set of actions of the game's choosing seems to me like a different thing altogether. I see it as a success in achieving exactly what it achieves, not a failure to achieve something else.
NetHack also has a way to enter commands without memorizing keys. You can enter extended command mode with
#, after which you can start typing the name of a command and auto complete suggestions start appearing. If I were to design a roguelike of that scope myself, with mouse use in mind, I would probably add a context-sensitive "default action" to a left click and open a fuzzy-filtered, scrollable window for any command upon a right click. That way, quick play is less dependent on rote memorization without sacrificing flexibility.For what it's worth, you can't actually lick things in NetHack as far as I know.
On a tangential note, I recommend checking out the game Fit For a King, which is kind of a pastiche on the user interface in early Ultima games. In reality, it's a puzzle game where each letter in the English alphabet is bound to some mostly inane and oddly specific action. It's a decent example of a game that really leans into this freedom of verb-noun combinations in a way that is essential to the experience the game conveys.
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Comment on You don't need to document everything in ~tech
text_garden LinkAs I spend more time alive I've gained some appreciation for piecing together half-lost memories with old friends. It's kind of interesting to have a fuzzy fraction of a story in your head and...As I spend more time alive I've gained some appreciation for piecing together half-lost memories with old friends. It's kind of interesting to have a fuzzy fraction of a story in your head and building a clear picture through a back-and-forth with someone else who was there.
That said, I also think there are some memories that I should have documented more diligently. I can't apply this kind of forensic brainstorming around memories of things I've experienced alone or that weren't as significant to others. If anyone feels like in-the-moment photography detracts from your experience in some way, I recommend a few things:
- Before/after pictures. Anchor the memory to a picture of something relatively mundane that happened around it. For example, take a photo while standing in line for a concert, or while you're wet after a splashy water ride.
- Write a diary. This can be done some time after the exciting events and has the benefit that the record can have an emotional tint that a photo doesn't always as easily capture. Emotions are otherwise really easy to misremember due to nostalgia, in my experience. For example, I dared a lot in my 20s that I now easily look back at, knowing that I succeeded, as though it was am altogether good time for me. After more careful consideration, in reality, it was in many ways a stressful and sad time; I didn't yet have the confidence of success you only gain after the fact.
- Reminisce often. This can kind of has the opposite effect of a diary compared to a photo. The memory becomes a fungible thing experienced for what it is in itself, not so much as a record of something that really happened as imagined. It doesn't have to be realistic; the purpose then is to maintain a sense of having come from some place, not so much what exactly that place is.
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Comment on You don't need to document everything in ~tech
text_garden Link ParentI don't know what hyper focused means in this context, but I was distracted and mildly irritated when I watched an Alessandro Cortini show with projections in an otherwise dark room and the guy...I don't know what hyper focused means in this context, but I was distracted and mildly irritated when I watched an Alessandro Cortini show with projections in an otherwise dark room and the guy sitting in front of me regularly pulled out his phone, held it over his head with the screen facing me with full brightness as he took pictures or video clips of the show.
I didn't give the slightest damn how his experience was; for all I care he could be closing his eyes and holding his ears while recording it, so long as he did it discreetly. My irritation concerned the disturbance it caused me.
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Comment on It annoys me that so many PC games feel like they're intended for consoles in ~games
text_garden Link ParentRoguelikes are turn-based RPGs by some measure and are traditionally built with somewhat Vi-like control schemes with distinct actions typically being bound to distinct keys on the keyboard. The...Vambrace: Cold Soul is a turn-based RPG, not something you'd particularly benefit from the fastness of a keyboard-only control scheme in.
Roguelikes are turn-based RPGs by some measure and are traditionally built with somewhat Vi-like control schemes with distinct actions typically being bound to distinct keys on the keyboard. The original Rogue even had movement in the cardinal directions bound to H/J/K/L, something which has survived into much later and current entries in the genre, long after it was simply a limitation of the medium.
There is a game design problem when introducing the mouse to roguelikes. I think NetHack most of all established surprising interactivity as a staple of the genre in the sense that pretty much any action could apply to any object in some way. So when you click a dog, what do you do? Do you pet it? Eat it? Shove it? Kick it? Lick it? Sit on it? Displace it? Attack it with your sword? Zap it with a wand? Pray to it? Walk towards it? Pick it up? A context menu is not an ergonomic way to represent several tens of different actions that may or may not apply, and where discovering the effects of certain actions on certain objects is half the fun.
LucasFilm adventure games addressed this problem in a mouse-centric way by dedicating 1/4 of the screen to displaying a list of verbs that can be applied to objects in the world. Of course, this means that the set of possible verbs has to be relatively small, and you have to have a generalized catch-all interaction verb like "use" that represent a variety of actions of the game designer's choice. Sierra adventure games addressed the problem by using a text prompt where you could describe your interactions with nearby objects. That means that you'll be guessing verbs and nouns.
I've been playing Caves of Qud which retains a traditional roguelike means of controlling player actions but does a good job of adding a mouse interface on top of it. It has a context sensitive idea of the action you most likely want to perform, which can be done by clicking things, but still allows you apply any other verb using the keyboard. If you click a bad guy, you likely want to bump-fight it. If you click a good guy, you likely want to talk to them. If you click something while selecting a target, you probably want to select that which you clicked on as a target...and so on. This still works more like an added convenience on top of an interface that still essentially works like it did for NetHack, which is what players of the genre expect. You could still speak to the enemy or set the friendly villager on fire if that's what you prefer, but those actions aren't representable by the mouse interface.
Now, Vambrace certainly doesn't seem like it's a roguelike. It does however call itself a "roguelite" in the Steam description, so maybe it owes some of its design choices to Rogue and the likes.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
text_garden LinkDesecrators has been eating up most of my gaming time since getting it during Steam's spring sale. I really enjoy it, and it's damn challenging, but conversely rewarding when you play well....Desecrators has been eating up most of my gaming time since getting it during Steam's spring sale. I really enjoy it, and it's damn challenging, but conversely rewarding when you play well.
Mechanically, it plays like a mix between Forsaken and Descent, so it's a six degrees of freedom shooter, kind of a mix between an FPS and a space sim where you dogfight flying enemies in winding tunnels in asteroid mines and derelict space stations. Aesthetically, it obviously takes most of its inspiration from Forsaken, even emulating the low res texture+interpolation look of mid-to-late 90s 3D accelerated games, but concedes to modern affordances where it counts, for example for dynamic lighting.
The levels are generated so as to be unique on each playthrough, so you can't rely on rote memorization of layouts and enemy placements to beat the thing.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
text_garden Link ParentCheck out Ballistic NG if you are into these Wipeout-style games!Check out Ballistic NG if you are into these Wipeout-style games!
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Comment on What was your first computer game? (Soundcheck question 2023) in ~games
text_garden LinkPossibly Superfly, but the computer was a hand-me-down from my dad with quite a few shareware games already installed, so it's kind of hard to tell which one I played first. He got himself a...Possibly Superfly, but the computer was a hand-me-down from my dad with quite a few shareware games already installed, so it's kind of hard to tell which one I played first. He got himself a Pentium system, and by my estimate the one he gave me would have been a 386 or 486.
Aside from that, a bunch of Apogee and Id games were on there. Notably, Doom, but was a bit too hard and scary for me. My dad taught me some cheats. I remember disabling wall clipping to walk past the outside perimeter of the level, hoping that you could see more of the landscape that was clearly present in what I hadn't yet fully grasped was just a background image. I was of course disappointed when the weapon just started leaving trails on the screen as it bobbed and I realized it was all a trick, but I look back fondly on the sense of wonder that I felt exploring these games.
I've only personally played the retail version and the Matrox Mystique bundled version. Of those two I'd say that the retail version looks better. If I had a 3dfx setup I would definitely give that version a whirl, if nothing else just to see it running!
Here's a comparison of the different graphics card bundled versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWzWdwj9NvU
The PowerVR and 3dfx versions look pretty good in my view, but here's a review with a lot of footage from the retail version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1O4WTwjWZ4