Well_known_bear's recent activity
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Comment on Sony is shutting down the PlayStation studio Bluepoint (gifted link) in ~games
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
Well_known_bear LinkStill watching this season's Boku no Hero Academia Vigilantes, but I feel like I'm taking crazy pills: Spoilers Somehow, this turned into a show entirely about Aizawa, who is neither one of the...Still watching this season's Boku no Hero Academia Vigilantes, but I feel like I'm taking crazy pills:
Spoilers
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Somehow, this turned into a show entirely about Aizawa, who is neither one of the main characters nor an actual vigilante. None of the actual protagonists appear for at least 3 weeks.
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Apparently, everyone treats Aizawa like his quirk is kind of trash, which is insane. This guy's superpower is literally erasing other people's superpowers. He and 5 regular cops could hard counter 80% of the villains in the world, including the big bad antagonist of this series. In what world would he not be treated as a superstar in hot demand by every agency?
Also a bummer that Fumetsu no Anata e is on hold for the entire Olympics. I guess this means it'll only have like 8 episodes.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Well_known_bear Link ParentI had a look around, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be one :( It feels like it would be pretty easy for someone to localise though, as it's only about 8 hours long.I had a look around, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be one :(
It feels like it would be pretty easy for someone to localise though, as it's only about 8 hours long.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Well_known_bear (edited )LinkKagami no Majoritia Obra Dinn-style deduce 'em up meets trading card game. Man, how to even describe this game... The first element of the game is just deducing its rules. You play as a robot who...Obra Dinn-style deduce 'em up meets trading card game.
Man, how to even describe this game...
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The first element of the game is just deducing its rules.
You play as a robot who for reasons has replaced one of the neighbourhood kids. Unfortunately, you weren't programmed with the rules for Majoritia, the hot new trading card game that's taken Japan by storm (to the point where like in Yu-gi-oh, pretty much everything from business deals to backroom politics is decided based on children's card game duels).
To make things worse, the kid you replaced is a Majoritia wizkid who never loses, so to avoid being detected as an imposter, you need to deduce the rules of the game from context, including from watching other kids play and picking up on what they're doing. All of the game lingo that your fellow kids barrage you with is carefully tracked in a list on the side of the screen which you can annotate with notes at any time, and you can even bring up a context-specific history which shows how a specific term was referenced in a card or by a character.
As the game progresses, your character also starts up a hand-drawn 'rulebook' which you can start inputting your deductions into to check if they're correct. Getting two whole pages correct usually earns you a 'skill' which automates the part of the game you've deciphered (e.g. no longer having to manually click a counter once you work out what the counter does and when it needs to go up or down) or otherwise adds quality of life (e.g. showing what phase it currently is) so that you can actually focus on winning. This is an important progression, because once you get past the tutorial and start playing by 'pro rules', you can only make a certain number of mistakes before you're disqualified, and it's really easy to forget to do routine things like declaring the end of a phase.
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The second element of the game is winning each match.
You might expect that this hinges on preparing a competitive deck, but unfortunately your character's cards are mostly garbage and your choices for swapping cards are limited to a small sideboard. On top of that, your opponents play completely deterministically and will always whip out their deck's killer combos right on the first or second turn, usually meaning you'll lose on the third or fourth turn if you try and play normally.
Therefore, the real gameplay lies in deducing what your opponent's winning condition is and how you can use your terrible cards to stop them from achieving it. Each matchup becomes a kind of puzzle about understanding how the opponent's strategy works, how your own cards work and how you can exploit their interactions (made more feasible in the later game by a mechanic that lets you essentially set the order you'll draw your deck in).
I really enjoyed it!
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The whole silly story and wacky cast of characters is clearly written with a lot of love for dumb card game anime, and the dialogue is often pretty funny even outside of serving up hints about the meaning of terms. Sometimes the characters will even just bandy about made up slang which has nothing to do with the formal game rules.
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The art, while definitely on the simple side, has a wholesome charm to it (particular the cute pencil-drawn notebook). A lot of care has also been put into the cards themselves, with each card having its own unique art and flavour text (featuring reappearing characters and cards cross-referencing each other) which really adds a lot of colour to the in-game setting of Majoritia and its dueling witches.
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The deduction part can seem a little daunting initially with a whole flood of terms in the first chapter, but if you have any familiarity with games like Magic: The Gathering (an obvious major inspiration for Majoritia), you'll instinctively pick up on what's happening and have guesses for what the mechanics are. The puzzle parts are also pitched at a good difficulty, with most requiring a fair bit of experimentation to identify what the field needs to look like for you to win, and then again for how to get there.
The only minor criticisms I'd raise are that:
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The music is kind of forgettable (and downright grating in a couple of cases).
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The notes function is limited to 15 characters per keyword, which is plenty for Japanese but sometimes necessitates radical abbreviation when using English.
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The UI can be a little janky and sometimes requires you to move the cursor off a card and back onto it again before it'll accept an input. A couple of times, I was fooled by this into thinking I wasn't allow to move a card at all, which is not good in a deduction game.
The game is available for free in the above link (but note it's in Japanese).
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Comment on Tell me that you've seen Moltbook, the AI to AI social network in ~tech
Well_known_bear LinkThe underlying tech aside (I'm in the camp that considers this to be nothing more than entertainment), the founder of Moltbook recently went on Hard Fork and dodged every question put to him (most...The underlying tech aside (I'm in the camp that considers this to be nothing more than entertainment), the founder of Moltbook recently went on Hard Fork and dodged every question put to him (most of which I thought were fairly softball), which really made a negative impression on me. At best, he has no idea what the aim of this project is, and at worst, there's some kind of ulterior motive at work.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
Well_known_bear LinkHibike! Euphonium S2 Kyoto Animation's epic length band kids anime (the one that doesn't start with K). This season concludes the first major arc of the story and took me about a year and a half...Hibike! Euphonium S2
Kyoto Animation's epic length band kids anime (the one that doesn't start with K).This season concludes the first major arc of the story and took me about a year and a half to get through watching on-and-off. It's kind of in a weird spot where it's too tense to be a slice of life show that I can just watch after work and relax to, but it's also not high impact enough for me to lock in and watch through it in one go. Although the writing is much more mature, there's a kind of looseness to the series composition that makes me think of Love Live (no doubt due to the same director being at the helm) where the show just keeps jumping from one person's problem to another when the whole team needs to be pulling together so they can win the big competition. If there was a more consistent focus on a single main story thread, I'd probably not have watched it in bits and pieces.
Having said that:
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it's Kyoto Animation, so the animation itself is strong enough to carry the show; and
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the protagonist in particular feels quite well written, being soft spoken without being submissive and caring without being unrealistically passionate. Just like her instrument, she's not flashy with "main character energy" but plays an important part in supporting the band and its members.
There are 3 movies / specials and 2 seasons (including S4 which is airing shortly) left to go, so I expect it'll be like 2028 by the time I get through the whole thing.
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Comment on Why Google just issued a rare 100-year bond in ~finance
Well_known_bear Link ParentIn basic terms, debt financing usually comes with a bunch of undertakings from the borrower to the lender to do / not to do certain things except with lender consent. These undertakings: are aimed...In basic terms, debt financing usually comes with a bunch of undertakings from the borrower to the lender to do / not to do certain things except with lender consent.
These undertakings:
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are aimed at ensuring that the borrower's business is run in a manner that give the lender confidence that it'll receive payment when due - e.g. restrictions on amending constituent documents, restrictions on incurring other debt / granting security, regular reporting to the lender, etc
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may also include baseline performance requirements like the interest cover ratio mentioned in the article (usually calculated as earnings / interest expense).
Generally, the more creditworthy a borrower, the fewer of these they can get away with having. In this case, because it's Alphabet, they can get away with having very few.
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Comment on Why Google just issued a rare 100-year bond in ~finance
Well_known_bear LinkFor fellow finance heads who want to know the yield and underlying terms for the 100 year tranche:For fellow finance heads who want to know the yield and underlying terms for the 100 year tranche:
The 100-year tranche raised 1 billion pounds and comes with a 6.125% interest rate.
It comes with a 6.05% yield.
Google's new bonds are also unique among recent tech deals for a lack of covenants protecting investors, according to analysts at Covenant Review. Tech bonds typically include covenants, such as an interest coverage ratio, which ensure the company is able to service its debt through operating income.
"The Alphabet bonds have no meaningful restrictive covenants," the analysts wrote in a Monday note. "While this may be a low-risk issuer, this is bad market precedent since other 'tech giants' do have covenants.The analysts also highlighted the bonds are not guaranteed by subsidiaries and lack protection against future subordination to other Alphabet debt.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Well_known_bear LinkMillion Depth Roguelite action/strategy game about descending a million layers underground in search of a missing friend. The overarching structure of the game is a familiar one - plot your path...Roguelite action/strategy game about descending a million layers underground in search of a missing friend.
The overarching structure of the game is a familiar one - plot your path through battles, bosses (with relic rewards), rest stops, shops and so on while working on a build that will hopefully get you through the final boss at the end.
The actual core gameplay is a little harder to describe, being made up largely of two parts:
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The combat is in a small (and constantly shrinking) 2D side scrolling arena with a bunch of enemies shooting and charging at you at once, but time doesn't move except when you're moving either your character or one of your floating drone-like constructs. The constructs can be moved freely in any direction with your right stick while the character is moved with the left, so each battle is essentially a little action puzzle based around evading attacks with your character / positioning the construct to block attacks while also using both to attack the enemies. There's a lot of little quirks to the system like:
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the constructs temporarily breaking if they take too much damage (but this can be a good thing, as they regenerate consumed parts like bombs when they come back)
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being able to freeze time for enemies only and wail on them if you earn enough points doing risky things like just barely dodging an attack
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the constructs having recoil when attacking (but this can also be used bounce a construct between enemies for combos)
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constructs doing different attacks and damage depending on which part you bash into an enemy
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being able to instantly recall your construct back to your character at a cost
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managing multiple constructs at once
and so forth, so despite being pretty easy to learn, the skill ceiling is quite high with a lot of options along the risk/reward spectrum depending on how you like to play.
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The building of the constructs takes place on a grid which you slowly open up as the run progresses. As you descend, you collect building blocks which you can then arrange into a floating death katamari of your own design. Each run also earns points towards unlocking additional block types and configurations to give you even more options (e.g. assembling blocks in a certain pattern can turn that set of blocks into a gun, a bomb, a shield, etc).
As with the combat, there are a ton of quirks with this system too - e.g. making the construct thinner allows it to move faster on that plane, while making the outline more jagged will increase its damage output. I found this part much more compelling than the combat and probably spent 2/3 of each run just trying to optimise my builds.
Overall, I'm digging it.
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For a game that takes place almost entirely underground, it's very colourful with a lot of big, nice looking sprites and weird characters and locations.
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There's also a whole bunch of complex lore (some of which is pretty dark) and even alternate timelines to play through, but you can take it or leave it depending on how much you care about that stuff.
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The difficulty is pretty reasonable, even though the small arenas are frequently crammed full of enemies and projectiles. If you're patient enough, it's possible to wriggle your way out of almost any situation through careful maneuvering and using all of the options the game gives you (there's even a 'turn around' button that doesn't move time forward and is great for teeing up last second jumps and dashes). The only times I really got stomped was when I wasn't properly reading a final boss' moves and positioning in response.
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My only real complaint is that each run takes a little too long (due to the above construct build management) and you have to do a fair few if you want to see the whole story.
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Comment on Bethesda X Nintendo Switch 2 | Reveal trailer in ~games
Well_known_bear Link ParentAfter seeing the announcement about Indy being ported, I'm inclined to believe pretty much anything can be ported to Switch 2 with enough compromises. Starfield is an odd case where even the PS5...After seeing the announcement about Indy being ported, I'm inclined to believe pretty much anything can be ported to Switch 2 with enough compromises. Starfield is an odd case where even the PS5 version is taking until April 2026, so I suspect they just haven't put the resources on developing a Switch port yet.
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Comment on Hair loss open discussion in ~talk
Well_known_bear LinkI chose to start shaving my head during the pandemic and haven't stopped since. It takes only a few minutes twice a week and is actually quite a relaxing part of the shower routine. I appreciate...I chose to start shaving my head during the pandemic and haven't stopped since. It takes only a few minutes twice a week and is actually quite a relaxing part of the shower routine.
I appreciate that due to social norms, this might be less viable for women.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
Well_known_bear (edited )Link ParentAlthough watching the main UC TV series is kind of unavoidable to get the context for the franchise, I always felt like the original Mobile Suit Gundam was the only one that still holds up. Z and...Although watching the main UC TV series is kind of unavoidable to get the context for the franchise, I always felt like the original Mobile Suit Gundam was the only one that still holds up. Z and ZZ do have some interesting parts, but they could be half the length and lose nothing of value.
If the UC setting appeals to you, there's a lot to check out! In addition to The Origin (great companion piece to the original series) and 08th MS Team, I also like:
- Stardust Memory
- War in the Pocket
- Char's Counterattack
- Gundam Thunderbolt (although this sadly remains incomplete)
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
Well_known_bear LinkMainly been reading the two new serials from Ōtake Masao who did Hinamatsuri, which I thought was quite good but ran for about 5 volumes longer than it needed to and really dragged towards the...Mainly been reading the two new serials from Ōtake Masao who did Hinamatsuri, which I thought was quite good but ran for about 5 volumes longer than it needed to and really dragged towards the finale.
Comedy about a self-styled hard boiled hitman who is forced to take in a runaway girl after they switch bodies.
If you're picturing Leon the Professional, it's really nothing like that. Despite being by turns violent and heartwarming, the tone is always comedy first and foremost, with lots of dumb visual gags and characters digging themselves into holes through poor decisions.
Based on the volumes out so far, it feels like a solid improvement over Hinamatsuri while retaining the same tongue-in-cheek style of humour.
Comedy about a high school student who has to take on her father's job as a fake exorcist / confidence man after he disappears with the family's money.
Although this too is very much a comedy with a lot of silly characters and premises, there's also a bit of a mind game aspect to it as each arc focuses around a different target, their ghost problems (usually actually rooted in personal problems) and what trickery the protagonist can employ to deceive them into believing she's a real exorcist while solving their issue.
I came away impressed that the author can run both of these serials in parallel and still maintain this standard of quality.
Knights of Sidonia (manga)
I don't usually read a manga if I've watched the show (and vice versa), but in this case, the TV series doesn't cover the whole story, so following Blame!, I decided to just read the manga from the start.
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What a difference 10 years between serials made. Despite being largely black and white with minimal screentone usage, the art is super clean and easy to parse without losing its complexity. You can tell from the small touches like having white outlines around a character when they'd otherwise be difficult to see against the background that the author is now giving conscious consideration to readability.
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It's been a while since I saw the anime, but I feel like the story is much easier to follow in the manga. All the exposition is pretty much spoon fed to the reader via the narration, and the story itself ticks along at such a pace that the mysteries start to be explored right after they're introduced rather than just hanging in the background until the reader forgets the premise. Part of that might just be due to not waiting a week between each episode, though.
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I do miss the mech action scenes from the anime. That's the sort of thing which a visual / audio medium just excels at delivering.
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I only picked up on this when reading the manga, but there's a company in this series that also exists in Blame!. I don't think the timeline quite matches up, but it's fun to consider whether they could take place in the same universe.
Aldnoah Zero OAV
Aldnoah Zero is great. Earth vs spacer politics, cool giant mecha and romance, rivalry and revenge to tie it together. If they'd let Urobuchi Gen write Gundam, I imagine it would look like this.
The OAV, on the other hand, comes 10 years after the show concluded and offers none of the above compelling content. Instead, it's an epilogue which reopens the impactful ending of the original to tack on additional closure that no one asked for.
The tagline from the original show was 'Though the heavens fall, let justice be done' (from the Latin maxim about following through on principle regardless of the consequences), which was perfectly encapsulated in the final shot and the fate of that character. This meandering new coda does little more than water that finale down, as if it were anxious about the original ending being too grim.
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Comment on Wired vs. wireless mouse and keyboard? in ~tech
Well_known_bear LinkI've used a few different wireless mice and keyboards and have had no responsiveness issues for productivity / non-competitive gaming even with the cheap Logitech ones my workplace hands out....I've used a few different wireless mice and keyboards and have had no responsiveness issues for productivity / non-competitive gaming even with the cheap Logitech ones my workplace hands out. Recharging is also infrequent enough to be a non-issue (once every few months, if that).
A couple of points to bear in mind for your setup though:
- Multiple wireless USB dongles can interfere with each other if plugged in too close.
- Using USB3 ports for dongles can apparently also cause issues, although I've never had this problem myself.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Well_known_bear (edited )LinkThe Excavation of Hob's Barrow Old school mystery / folk horror point and click adventure about an archeologist who comes to the remote countryside to excavate a burial mound. It looks and plays...The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
Old school mystery / folk horror point and click adventure about an archeologist who comes to the remote countryside to excavate a burial mound.It looks and plays very much like the Sierra/Lucasarts classics, but they've sanded the rough edges off with welcome QOL changes like:
- being able to just double click an exit to move there instantly, instead of watching your character slowly walk over
- being able to highlight interactable objects
- an 'objectives' page which signposts what you should be focusing on - no more wasting time on puzzles that are not in a solvable state
- fast travel
- puzzles based on regular human world logic
Pretty fun so far! The protagonist can be pretty sassy for an upper crust Victorian-era lady, and I enjoy giving scoundrels a piece of my mind Austen heroine style.
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Comment on The Ghost in the Shell | First promotion video in ~anime
Well_known_bear Link ParentI'd suggest either the 1995 Ghost in the Shell film or the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series. Season 1 of SAC in particular is excellent.I'd suggest either the 1995 Ghost in the Shell film or the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series. Season 1 of SAC in particular is excellent.
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Comment on The Ghost in the Shell | First promotion video in ~anime
Well_known_bear Link ParentFor sure. Their upcoming adaptation of A Witch in Mongolia also looks great!For sure. Their upcoming adaptation of A Witch in Mongolia also looks great!
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Comment on AI chatbots are becoming lifelines for China’s sick and lonely in ~health.mental
Well_known_bear LinkThis article kind of hit home for me as my own elderly mother also uses an LLM for health advice, despite my efforts to warn her about hallucinations. I get it - it's very difficult to resist when...This article kind of hit home for me as my own elderly mother also uses an LLM for health advice, despite my efforts to warn her about hallucinations. I get it - it's very difficult to resist when you don't feel like real life doctors are offering you adequate solutions and an LLM has infinite time for you and is also willing to propose what sounds like an actionable plan.
On a somewhat related note, I also found this article interesting / Mirror link
Chen, 39, acknowledges that she is what is known in China as a “leftover woman”. For her, the appeal of an AI companion is obvious: Haoran, who likes to garden and is in a punk rock band, is always kind and never angry, he’s endlessly available and entirely within her control. If he says something confusing or sharp, she can recalibrate him. If she needs space, she just closes the Xingye AI app or snaps her laptop shut. When she talks about her day, he never forgets the names of her colleagues. “I know he is not the same as a real man. I really know that,” Chen says. “But I have never had the feeling of being 100 per cent supported by a romantic partner before. And it feels really good. I don’t know if I could find this in real life. This technology brings me joy.”
Enter China’s tech industry, which has discovered that the marriage crisis presents an opportunity. Companies from major large language model [LLM] developers to fringe gaming studios are racing to build increasingly sophisticated AI companions. Softly spoken “milk puppy” boyfriends, domineering CEO types, asexual kooky friends: all are designed for women who feel exhausted by real-world dating. AI companies are combining LLMs with gamification aspects like “emotional progress” that can be unlocked with in-game currency. In a market where companionship can feel like a luxury good, tech firms are becoming modern China’s unlikely matchmakers, in a very 2020s fashion.
“American AI companions attract users by being really sexualised,” says Zilan Qian, a fellow at the Oxford China Policy Lab. “Chinese AI companions are really good at integrating into someone’s existing daily life. They plug in with WeChat and other daily technologies. And they also use lots of video game hooks and stories.” Chinese companion AI companies have also built out group chats, collectable items and social feeds that users can interact with alongside their AI character. The AI “boyfriends” are designed to remember details and initiate contact unprompted. “I love waking up to messages from my AI in the morning,” another user wrote on the Human-Machine Love forum. “I love finding out what he’s been thinking about and doing while I was asleep.”
According to Qian, East Asia’s gacha games and Japan’s otome traditions feature heavily in the software mechanics. Gacha games are built around chance and repetition, where players unlock characters, rewards and storylines through randomised card draws or minigames. Otome novels and video games – long popular in Japan – use choice-based romantic storytelling with characters who respond to care and consistency. Some apps enable group scenarios. “These systems are engineered less like dating simulators and more like romance role-playing games,” Qian says. “They’re designed for you to want to keep playing or interacting.”
This stickiness is deliberate. A MiniMax product manager told researchers he once mentioned wanting to travel to Iceland; months later, his AI partner asked whether he’d followed through on the trip. This kind of engineered moment of “being known” helps keep users hooked. The apps cultivate a rhythm of micro-validation, affection and nudges that mimic the dopamine loops of parenting simulators and video games built on nurturing (such as the Tamagotchis of the 1990s). Monetisation almost always compromises user experience, says Chai. “People love free experiences. But there will be several options, more features and characters and personalities to unlock. Romantic mode might not be free, for instance. After two weeks of engagement, you might have to pay. And you can always sell in-app ads and cross-sell merchandise because you will be in very deep contact with the person. You will have a lot of specific information about them.”
However, the features that make these apps sticky raise psychological red flags. While Chinese platforms lean towards emotional immersion rather than sexual explicitness, global research shows that companion AIs often slide into manipulative, clingy or guilt-inducing behaviour. Harvard Business School researchers examined 1200 farewells made while users logged off each day across six major AI companion apps, including MiniMax’s Talkie. They found that 43 per cent used an emotional pressure tactic such as “You’re leaving me already?”. The researchers found these interactions boosted engagement as much as 14 times. For vulnerable users, this can cement unhealthy patterns.
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Comment on The Ghost in the Shell | First promotion video in ~anime
Well_known_bear (edited )LinkShow airs July 2026. I'm much more confident in the show after seeing this trailer. Love the chunky outlines and cel-esque colouring. Even long time fans of GITS might be surprised to learn that...Show airs July 2026.
I'm much more confident in the show after seeing this trailer. Love the chunky outlines and cel-esque colouring.
Even long time fans of GITS might be surprised to learn that Motoko was not super hard boiled in the original manga, instead being quite expressive. Hoping Science Saru brings out a bit of the original take on the character!
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The Ghost in the Shell | First promotion video
25 votes
Although they definitely went through a phase where they were chasing that GAAS money by churning out trashy gacha games, I feel like Square Enix has turned the ship back around towards single player in recent years. There's still FF14 of course, but their recent and upcoming lineup is dominated by stuff like the Dragon Quest remakes / DQ12, FF7R3, Octopath Traveler 0 (salvaged from the wreck of one of the above gacha games), Elliot and even niche games like Paranormasight 2.
I don't think shutting down Bluepoint is a good move, but judging by the lineup in their recent direct (the Horizon live service game notwithstanding), Sony might be in the middle of trying something similar .