werehippy's recent activity
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Comment on Early tests of H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread in ~health
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Comment on US Federal Trade Commission bans new noncompete agreements in ~life
werehippy LinkA phenomenal, common sense quality of life ruling. Non-competes are just another example of a reasonable in theory idea that was supposed to apply to an extremely niche situation (where a worker...A phenomenal, common sense quality of life ruling.
Non-competes are just another example of a reasonable in theory idea that was supposed to apply to an extremely niche situation (where a worker in one business agreed not to compete directly with that business if they left because bringing them on as a worker in the first place involved giving them proprietary information/access that would make the uniquely and unfairly able to undercut the original business) which was basically immediately twisted into a broadly applied avenue to suppress worker's wages and stiffle normal competition.
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Comment on Movie of the Week #26 - Aliens in ~movies
werehippy (edited )LinkOne of the all time perfect action movies. Solid acting, the plot is on point without being too lean and still leaves room for things to breathe and character moments to happen naturally, and the...One of the all time perfect action movies. Solid acting, the plot is on point without being too lean and still leaves room for things to breathe and character moments to happen naturally, and the action is top notch through out. I'll admit I like the extended edition a bit more but it's relatively minor changes (the two main differences I can recall are an early bit with Newt's family finding the face huggers and the turret scene).
From a slightly more meta perspective, it's incredible how smoothly it changed genres considering the original was a nigh perfect haunted house in space movie AND that it's one of the almost unheard of examples of a sequel being as good or better than the original (the only other example I can think of where the whole thing was intended or adapted as a trilogy is Terminator 2, also from James Cameron).
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Comment on American politics is undergoing a racial realignment – Democrats are rapidly losing non-white voters as the forces that ensured their support weaken in ~misc
werehippy Link ParentThank you for the link, it was a huge help. For some reason I haven't been able to resolve, awhile back all the archive sites decided they hate my computer though they're work through my phone, so...Thank you for the link, it was a huge help. For some reason I haven't been able to resolve, awhile back all the archive sites decided they hate my computer though they're work through my phone, so having another work around is much appreciated.
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Comment on Joe Biden’s chances of US re-election are better than they appear in ~misc
werehippy LinkIt's the Economist, so of course the economy is front and center in their thinking, but while all their points about economic performance impacting election cycles is certainly valid based on...It's the Economist, so of course the economy is front and center in their thinking, but while all their points about economic performance impacting election cycles is certainly valid based on historical analysis I feel like we're very much in the definition of "past performance does not guarantee future results."
We're WAY off the reservation in terms of analysis on the last 50 or 75 years of voting patterns because a lot of the societal conditions are radically different. You can't compare bread and butter issues from the 80s or 90s to current conditions when we are pretty steadily moving down the list of civil war risk factors. Which to note I'm not saying is absolutely happening, but the immense societal instability that an literal attempted coupe and simmering, explicitly stoked hatred and borderline-to-explicit insurrection is going to have a massively distorting effect on all aspects of the political process.
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Comment on Category 6 hurricanes have arrived in ~enviro
werehippy Link ParentThey do touch on that in the article and link out to a study on another perspective model, but from a purely practical stand point I don't know that it'll ever get off the ground, or at least any...They do touch on that in the article and link out to a study on another perspective model, but from a purely practical stand point I don't know that it'll ever get off the ground, or at least any time in the next generation or two. The US hasn't managed to convert to the metric system, I'm hard pressed to imagine all the things that would have to align for us to completely revamp the way storms are measured and communicated, especially with the current social/political climate and if the main driver is "climate change is making storms worse" which immediately gets a third of the population knee jerk rejecting anything after that. It objectively makes sense to update our terminology, it's just one of those things I think inertia and societal quirks prevent from ever actually happening.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
werehippy LinkI just finished Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone. I've been a big fan of his since he first came on the scene with his Craft series (Two Serpents Rise is pretty stand alone and legitimately one...I just finished Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone. I've been a big fan of his since he first came on the scene with his Craft series (Two Serpents Rise is pretty stand alone and legitimately one of my favroite "just for fun" reads that I've come back to repeatedly, but this one I bounced off of a couple of times and while it definitely does pick up once they get through the Getting the Band Together phase and was a fairly fun an enjoyable read overall I didn't LOVE it and I honestly don't think it'll cross my mind again. I know other people liked it, and there's nothing WRONG with it but it didn't feel fun enough to be thing I read for the sheer pleasure of it and it didn't have enough depth to feel like it was saying something or making me think.
Currently working through But What if We're Wrong by Chuck Klosterman and it's actually fairly enjoyable and engaging. The premise is that we all know people in the past were wrong about any number of objective and subjective things, and everyone agrees that it's insane to think our current understanding of the world and tastes is the end state of reality, so what does that actually look like in practice. Klosterman is a music and pop cutlure writer and it's occasionally annoying HOW involved he gets on minutiae level details of musical history and taste breakdowns, but there's a lot of honestly fairly interesting insight to be had about what matters to us now, and our taste and understanding, being almost arbitrary and how differently things could have gone and what that means about what people will think about the world we're living in now.
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Comment on Any tips for games for two or more players? in ~games.tabletop
werehippy LinkA lot of good recommendations already, so I think it comes down to what KIND of games you and your person (or bigger group) actually like playing. Beyond the ones already mentioned: Lords of...A lot of good recommendations already, so I think it comes down to what KIND of games you and your person (or bigger group) actually like playing. Beyond the ones already mentioned:
Lords of Waterdeep is a really fun worker placement game that can be as cut throat or laid back as you'd like. The D&D themeing is actually really great, but if you aren't into that it's by no means required to enjoy. The Scoundrels of SKullport expansion adds a ton of depth if you like the base game.
Viticulture is another great worker placement game, if you think your group might like running their own winery in Italy as a theme over fantasy stuff.
If you wanted more of a dungeon crawler/action adventure feel something like Marvel Zombies (or one of the fantasy or classic versions of the game) is a great "tons of figures on the baord, throw buckets of dice" games that can scale with two people playing a single or multiple characters to decent sized groups.
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Comment on Tildes Gaming Club, February 2024: Legacy in ~games
werehippy (edited )LinkI'm going to tackle legacy from the angle that first jumped to mind when I saw the title, as the quasi-genre in boardgames that's developed over the last decade. It's not quite a genre in it's own...I'm going to tackle legacy from the angle that first jumped to mind when I saw the title, as the quasi-genre in boardgames that's developed over the last decade. It's not quite a genre in it's own right, as since it was first broadly introduced with Pandemic Legacy (one of the two games of that type I'm currently playing) in 2015 it's been applied to all sorts of wildly different games, so much as a general style and new approach.
So, the idea behind legacy boardgames is to make the game dynamic between sessions and to give it a definitive arc and end point (though depending on the game you may or may not still be able to keep playing the final state you end up in). This can be done with adding stickers to change the board or the rules, destroying tokens or spots on the board, adding new characters/pieces/mechanics, or anything else the designers can think of depending on players actions and how each session goes.
For a standard game of Pandemic are moving your working together with the other players by collecting sets of cards to try and cure the diseases while clearing those diseases advancing progression in random cities to avoid cascading outbreaks, and use your generic player roles to maximize what you can do as you go. It's a game of steadily escalating tension as you run around trying to put out fires while working towards the overall goal to win the game. And there's a lot of fun meat on those bones, there's a reason it's one of the pillars of the modern game renaissance.
The spin Pandemic Legacy puts on this formula is that you not only have in the moment tension of pushing your luck to juggle crises and making decisions at that level, you now have to balance that against additional risk versus reward across sessions. You have specific named characters that can develop relationships with the other characters, gain new abilities as they get better at their jobs or weaknesses as they get stuck in bad situations dealing with the world falling apart. It isn't just the same strategy of dealing with the same diseases where the main variability is the luck of the draw in terms of what cities are impacted when; the diseases mutate to get harder to fight or are studied to get easier, and when you send in your characters to try and manage outbreaks you need to worry about the risk of them getting hurt in the civil unrest if you fail or watch cities get harder to help as government collapses when the diseases get out of control. It adds a huge amount of tension, investment, and narrative that makes every decision seem that much more fraught and meaningful, and it's easy to see why the same underlying formula has been applied to so many different games in recent years.
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Comment on Zombie sequel ’28 Years Later’ lands at Sony in ~movies
werehippy LinkFrom the first two there's a great horror movie (the frist) and stand alone short film (the opening of the second), though the rest of the latter that wasn't directed by Boyle was more than a bit...From the first two there's a great horror movie (the frist) and stand alone short film (the opening of the second), though the rest of the latter that wasn't directed by Boyle was more than a bit of a mess.
I'd love to see this actually get done and turn out well, though some shade of this deal has supposedly been kicking around for years so we'll see if it actually happens or if it's just more rumbling.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
werehippy (edited )LinkVideogames: Marvel Snap continues to be a weirdly addictive time sink, but I've actually been working through Citizen Sleeper and loving it. The dice mechanic is something I've seen in boardgames...Videogames: Marvel Snap continues to be a weirdly addictive time sink, but I've actually been working through Citizen Sleeper and loving it. The dice mechanic is something I've seen in boardgames but never really in a video game, and a lot of the time crunch/balancing act that makes the meat of the game play is elegantly done and neatly woven into a surprtisingly engaging and sweet/melancoly story.
Speaking of boardgames, the wife and I broke out Sprawlopolis on a plane trip. It's a wallet game from button shy, who's whole shtick is to fit a game onto a small handfull of cards (18 in this case) that come in a little puch and you could carry around in your wallet for whenever. In this case each card has four city areas on it and you lay them connecting or overlapping as you'd like to build the biggest possible segments of each type, minimize the number of roads, and meet special goals for each game(that you chose by flipping over 3 of the cards at random to start). We were exhausted out of our minds so we didn't get too into it, but I'm really taken with how much game they managed to jam into such a tiny package so it's definitely hitting the table again soon.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
werehippy Link ParentMan, that brings me back. I read the series for the first time back at the start of college when I was home sick over winter break and my mom grabbed me a couple of random thick as a brick scifi...Man, that brings me back.
I read the series for the first time back at the start of college when I was home sick over winter break and my mom grabbed me a couple of random thick as a brick scifi books from the library to read while I was hunkered down. They definitely have their flaws as you said, but it works better than the concept has any right to on paprt and the series has become the prototypical space opera in my head. I used to reread the whole series every year or two but I haven't touched them in ages, I really should but I'm kind of scared to ruin the fond nostalgia they have for me.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
werehippy LinkJust finished How Civil Wars Start by Barbara Walter on a trip and it was good but more than a bit depressing. It's not as if any of the info was really new, but seeing all the warning signs run...Just finished How Civil Wars Start by Barbara Walter on a trip and it was good but more than a bit depressing. It's not as if any of the info was really new, but seeing all the warning signs run down like a checklist is more than a bit disconcerting.
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Comment on Doug Liman says he’s boycotting SXSW premiere of his Jake Gyllenhaal film ‘Road House’ to protest Amazon MGM bypassing theaters for Prime streaming release in ~movies
werehippy LinkComing at it from the "non-cinephile but still watches/reads/watches-videos-about movies" angle, I broadly dislike platform exclusive anything (android apple/game consoles/streaming...Coming at it from the "non-cinephile but still watches/reads/watches-videos-about movies" angle, I broadly dislike platform exclusive anything (android apple/game consoles/streaming services/whatever) but I also don't really CARE which is pretty much what I think they're hoping for.
A month of amazon is cheaper than a single theater ticket for me, and it comes with the rest of their library and free shipping. If I actually want to see this I'd bite the bullet, or keep it vaguely in the back of my mind and look it up the next time I get aprime trial to buy something or it comes up when I'm rotating through the various streaming services anyway.
It seems like they're banking on movie/media fanatics watching it regardless, and other than that it's just another advertising cost. Pretty much every big budget anything in Hollywood has profit motives backed into it, I don't like it but I'm not more riled about the fact the money is being poured into the endless pit of streaming wars than I am about the janky Hollywood accounting that says Star Wars still isn't profitable to screw with roaylties.
It's all some degree of gross in the current system, if this happens to be a bridge to far for people I won't argue with them about it but I also can't muster up any more outrage for this than all the other financial chicanery we've gotten used to.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
werehippy LinkMarvel Snap has sucked me back in the last couple of weeks after I'd dropped it months ago. It's a Marvel themed head to head card game where you try to win 2 of 3 lanes combined with a push your...Marvel Snap has sucked me back in the last couple of weeks after I'd dropped it months ago. It's a Marvel themed head to head card game where you try to win 2 of 3 lanes combined with a push your luck/wager aspect to win tokens called cubes off each other to advance in the overall rankings.
In terms of pros it's really polished, things are nicely balanced with a lot of viable strategies to build a deck along with a lot of on the fly decision making each turn, and the game plays incredibly fast so you can get in as little as 5-10 minute bursts whenever the spirit takes you. It's sincerely a really fun game.
On the downside, I really should hate just how thoroughly it's fine tuned to be an addictive skinner box sucking you in with loot boxes on top of loot boxes and grinds for your grind. It's legitimately possible to be competitive and have a great time without paying a cent (I've never bought anything and am already close to the top bracket on the ladder, so that's not just a you "can" but it really sucks thing), but it really feels like you're looking at a masterpiece of scummy business practices and that should bother me more than it does.
On the boardgame front, I haven't been playing as much lately just because it's a bigger committment to get organized and block out time to get something set up for a whole session but the last couple of things to hit the table was Wingspan, which is a fantastic engine builder game with gorgeous art. You chain together birds with various effects, which create combos that make each of the actions you take the rest of the game more and more effective. It's light enough to be a great gateway game while still being interesting enough you won't get sick of it unless you're DEEP into the crunchiest of boardgame addictions.
It's unlikely to be dangerous IF the dairy was pasturized. The virus samples from this article were detectible but not active/replicating so it shouldn't be possible to pass an infection.
If some is consuming unpasteurized dairy (or the much less likely scenario of something slipping through), that might be different case but no one knows for sure yet.