The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => General Chat => Topic started by: OblivionKnight on December 31, 2010, 06:21:30 PM
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So yeah...post >_>
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Ah, you son of a bitch
http://www.redlettermedia.com/
Episode III review in case anybody misses it
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http://www.youtube.com/user/nutsVSguts#p/c/46325B98422766DA/2/c7Nl03YEfAM
NSFW, Flash animation about upcoming nerfs to Street Fighter Abel. A bit repetitive but the ending is hilarious.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euXQbZDwV0w
I thought about posting this in Idiot of the Day, but it's just too comical.
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http://www.pokemongoldsilver.com/us/#/news/trio/
For Pokemon players, you can get these three special gerbils at Gamestop this month. They also unlock something when transferred to Black and White.
Also, they are *finally* releasing Celebi. Also at Gamestop, from Feb 27th to March 7th. This Celebi unlocks things in HeartGold/SoulSilver and in Black and White. This is also rather momentous, for it's the first wide release of Celebi ever in the U.S. (previous time was only at a few mall locations). About fucking time.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/12/21/careers.video.games.steinberg/index.html?hpt=C2
How to break into the game industry.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2545-Narrative-Mechanics
Games telling narratives through gameplay.
http://atheistmovies.blogspot.com/2010/12/jesus-revenge.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+AtheistMovies+%28Atheist+Movies%29
(video, NSFW) Jesus: The Revenge
http://9gag.com/gag/31321
Map of polyamory.
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Extra Credits is well worth watching every week, I highly reccomend hitting up the archive. It is sometimes a bit overly idealistic, but worth a look.
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Jason Bateman, Alyssa Milano and the guy from "Mr. Belvedere" perform Super Mario Bros. On Ice. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/01/06/super-mario-bros-ice-capades-1988-bateman-milano/) I am not joking about any of that.
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http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2011/01/07/worst_xmas_present/
Put your dirty love in a ball
and bounce it off me
Push me up against the dirty wall
and squeeze it out of me
My stance is too wide for that stall
Are you gonna out me?
Put your dirty love in a ball
and bounce it off me
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http://www.slate.com/id/2279601/
Slate talks tea
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http://www.trueachievements.com/n2696/behemoth-launches-castle-crashers-tournament.htm (http://www.trueachievements.com/n2696/behemoth-launches-castle-crashers-tournament.htm)
Attention 360 CC players: you can win squishy chickens! (Oh, and a gold-plated console too, I guess.)
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I'm probably too noob to be competitive, but if anyone wants to practice feel free to hit me up if I'm online.
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http://www.funzug.com/index.php/nature/amazing-sight-in-the-south-pacific.html
New island forming.
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http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/top-stocks/blog.aspx?post=c00e87b0-01a3-435e-8638-549e5d55170c?gt1=33009
Who needs insider trading?
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Extra Credits is well worth watching every week, I highly reccomend hitting up the archive. It is sometimes a bit overly idealistic, but worth a look.
Quoted for truth.
I like EC's idealistic slant. It reminds me why I love this medium despite how often we get flack. I feel like if -this- was the kind of show we had on TV to represent ourselves instead of like... X-Play, we might actually be able to convince companies to make more quality games.
Also, you can tell the writer and presenter are teachers. I wish I had teachers like this growing up.
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http://singularityhub.com/2011/01/05/controlling-video-games-with-your-pee-sega-brings-awkward-fun-to-the-restroom/
Warning: Japan.
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Keepin' it classy, Sega.
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I remember stories about that kind of thing like..four years ago. Except it was American. (Some university research project). If Sega's getting into it, it's probably going mainstream/mass-market.
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Or it is already mass market and Sega is the first to adapt it to a non Japanese pornography market.
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Regardless it is drastically going to shift the number of gamers towards males if it gets a big install base unless they include some peripherals.
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Regardless it is drastically going to shift the number of gamers towards males if it gets a big install base unless they include some peripherals.
Hmm...only in the same sense that the currently largest "gamer" demographic is statistically 35-50 year old females.
I would expect hardcore gamers to take urinal games less seriously than they take internet flash games.
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I love you two.
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Hmm...only in the same sense that the currently largest "gamer" demographic is statistically 35-50 year old females.
I would expect hardcore gamers to take urinal games less seriously than they take internet flash games.
That is a statistic that I am fine with. That is the exact target demographic we need to get gaming to cut down on the soccer mums freaking out over oh my god video games.
Also hardcore gamers will take the urinal games seriously as soon as it gives you unlocks in their regular games or it has achievement points and at this point in time both of these things are inevitable. I am fully expecting official CoD5 urinals.
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I am fully expecting official CoD5 urinals.
Gives new meaning to the term HEADSHOT!
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Hmm...only in the same sense that the currently largest "gamer" demographic is statistically 35-50 year old females.
I would expect hardcore gamers to take urinal games less seriously than they take internet flash games.
That is a statistic that I am fine with. That is the exact target demographic we need to get gaming to cut down on the soccer mums freaking out over oh my god video games.
Also hardcore gamers will take the urinal games seriously as soon as it gives you unlocks in their regular games or it has achievement points and at this point in time both of these things are inevitable. I am fully expecting official CoD5 urinals.
Given that CoD7 was recently released, I wouldn't hold your breath for CoD5 urinals.
And acceptance of all videogames due to playing Flash games is no more automatic than acceptance of videogames because you play card games like hearts, bridge, and cribbage (among the online videogames counted for that study are, yes: hearts, bridge, and cribbage). Much the same way if you went to an American book burning, you probably won't find people burning The Bible. Harry Potter, though? That's witchcraft: burn it!
The moral of this story is: "kids these days! We need to burn all their stuff!"
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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/01/do-we-have-ahmadinejad-all-wrong/69434/
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http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/8343/
A pretty cool article about just what it sounds like. Swiped this from Ciato.
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I thought MW2 didn't count as Main part of the CoD series (even though MW1 was...). Black Ops certainly isn't bearing a number on it with pride.
Playing little nonsense games won't stop it entirely or anything, but giving them some games is a damned good start. If you want an American book burning you won't get people turn up to burn the Bible, but you might for others. If you want to destroy games EXCEPT for the ones you like then your argument becomes that much more tenuous. The people hardcore into it might not see the logical fallacy, but some will and that is all I want.
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http://www.hikaku.com/shopping/category/500200/
Yuri Lowell is the best selling bishoujo figurine. So no one is treating Yuri as a man I guess?
Though is this the evil deeds of yaoi fan girl or is there more yaoi fan boy than I thought?
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Japan finally makes a tolerable main character after 25 years of trying and still people out there try to fuck it up.
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However cool or not Yuri is, she's certainly a woman.
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Forget number 1, what is up with number 4? JAAAAPPPPPAAAAAAANNNNN
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Queens Blade, that is what's wrong with no.4
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http://gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110113/6784/The_Zeboyd_Games_Approach_to_JRPG_Design.php
An actually fairly interesting and respectable look at JRPG game design from an American indie developer.
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I think the keyword is density and less grinding.
Why FF13 should been made into a Blazblue.
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Blazblue has more grinding than FF13.
Just sayin'.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/14/reading_fonts
Harder to read fonts showed better rates of recall in some studies. Interesting. Kind of wonder what teaching types think.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/14/reading_fonts
Harder to read fonts showed better rates of recall in some studies. Interesting. Kind of wonder what teaching types think.
That intuitively makes sense. The more neural pathways you create for a piece of knowledge, the greater the length of retention and, likely, depth of understanding (within reason, of course).
There's also likely an attention/focus bias. If something's hard to make out, you're going to necessarily spend more time figuring it out, especially for something like schoolwork which is required regardless of how difficult you find the material or presentation.
In other words, COMIC SANS = LEARNING.
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I will pull your legs into the depths of the earth in your sleep.
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http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0113/New-zodiac-signs-2011-Why-astrology-is-even-sillier-than-we-thought
I am no longer a sexy Scorpio. :(
I am a FABULOUS Virgo now.
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I don't give a fuck, I'm Capricorn and not Scorpio. Fuck the new astrologists.
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I really don't get it. Why now?
Besides which, I am Scorpio. What the hell do they think they're doing, making Scorpio last 6 days?! And adding in another constellation the ancients deliberately omitted?
Boo.
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I don't consider myself Ophiuchus for even a moment.
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I don't give a fuck, I'm Capricorn and not Scorpio. Fuck the new astrologists.
This wasn't devised by astrologists, but rather astronomers.
For classification purposes, astronomers divide the entire celestial sphere into 88 grid-base areas named after constellations, which include more than just the area covered by the classic 'shapes'. Using these areas, the ecliptic (the path on which the sun 'travels' throughout the night sky) traverses through 13 different constellations, including one (Ophiuchus) that isn't part of the traditional zodiac - although various works of fiction like FFT have indeed included it as the thirteenth Zodiac sign, often under a different name.
What happened is that the Minnesota Star-Tribune interviewed a Minneapolis-based astronomer, who explained why the traditional zodiac is complete bunk scientifically and gave the dates that the sun actually processes through the real world ecliptic, which naturally isn't divided so nice and neatly and has been influenced by thousands of years worth of procession. The headlines 'new zodiac' caught on meme-like throughout the internet by people who don't seem to care to read the article closely and never understand much about astronomy in the first place.
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I just consider myself to have two signs now.
Because my conclusion makes as much sense as astrology did to me in the first place.
hinode ninja: In that case the astrologers are gonna get frustrated trying to explain to their clientele what's going on, so I still win.
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Blazblue has more grinding than FF13.
Just sayin'.
You also have to move in more directions than FF13.
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You might as well throw in a chinese zodiac sign and make it three, Tai.
Then again, I'm Chinese so I pay more attention to that one than the western zodiac.
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Boo. I lose the awesome ability of being on a cusp day.
12 Zodiac 12!
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You might as well throw in a chinese zodiac sign and make it three, Tai.
Then again, I'm Chinese so I pay more attention to that one than the western zodiac.
I'd pay more attention to the Chinese zodiac if I hadn't gotten stuck with such an uninspiring part of it. Wood ox?!
Thanks for the explanation about the brouhaha, hinode. I kept trying to find some reputable news source that mentioned it...
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There is indeed an attention bias there, the results make perfect sense. I just wonder how difficult it is to get people to actually use difficult to read documentation in course work though.
In other breaking news, Astrology makes for bad science! Naturally forming phenomena don't disperse themselves evenly through out the universe from the earth's constantly shifting view point. Meme!
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Hmm, apparently despite swinging from one end of my sign to the other, I am unchanged. Yet another reason why the Ides of May rock face, and I still get to be a bulldog.
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Thanks for the explanation about the brouhaha, hinode. I kept trying to find some reputable news source that mentioned it...
The original place I saw it was the NBC Nightly News. I just linked the Christian Science Monitor because their article gave a better explanantion of the affair than the other sites I googled.
And yeah, Ophiucus is also known as Serpentarius, so FFT reference.
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I'm a lame Libra now, on that note. >.> I was totally a Scorpio.
Besides which, I am Scorpio. What the hell do they think they're doing, making Scorpio last 6 days?! And adding in another constellation the ancients deliberately omitted?
While deliberate, a better way to describe it would be "arbitrarily omitted"
And feel better about your Chinese Zodiac. I'm a Rat.
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This year, we have lost many good men, but the fresh fish have grown into mighty beasts. The war is drawing to a close. I know not where we are to fight next, but I do know this: with is rides destruction, and we shall lay it at their doorsteps.
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Wow, really, earth precession has become an internet meme now? I remember making a topic about earth precession on the RPGDL two or three years ago. Ahead of the curve!
By the way, astrology based on the season of the year in which you were born is probably going to have more statistical relevance than anything to do with constellations. So...don't switch to the astronomical sign for reading your horoscope. The symbology is not important, but the fact that September Babies had parents keeping each other warm at the time of conception...might be relevant.
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An ex of mine has a birthday in late August. She quit speaking to me when I pointed out her parents probably had sex on Thanksgiving.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/14/reading_fonts
Harder to read fonts showed better rates of recall in some studies. Interesting. Kind of wonder what teaching types think.
This could be useful in some situations, but overall, I'm skeptical. As LD said, any time you have something that requires more attention to learn (and receives that attention), you have better retention. I suspect that in very small amounts, a slightly-hard-to-read font would produce good results.
However, there's also an 'accessibility' issue here. After a certain point, you're going to get diminishing returns on a harder-to-read font simply because students are going to say 'fuck it' and not complete the task. In the setting this experiment has, the task was novel and had the advantage of every participant completing the task as norms. In a less controlled setting, upping the difficulty of reading something isn't going to produce more willing/focused students. It would probably just end up creating a bigger difference in retention between the good students and the poor students. The students who were going to complete the assignment anyway would probably improve slightly, and the poor students would simply not attempt it.
Relating my own experience using my foreign language study, I've found that I definitely remember the content of 100 lines of Japanese that I had to translate over the course of 30 minutes far more extensively than a quick 100-line passage in English that took maybe 5 minutes. However, after about 100 lines of Japanese, I tend to just start skipping passages that don't look important~
If I'm motivated, then sure, a slightly more challenging assignment will require more attention and thus produce more retention of content. However, accessability is one of the keys to encouraging motivation. So I really hope they don't start printing textbooks with comic sans font based on the dubious usefulness of this experiment... >.>;;
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Isn't the general graphic design strategy to use fancy fonts for headlines, and then readable fonts if you're throwing paragraphs and paragraphs of information at people?
Don't think that'll change. Only thing that might change...know when some articles pull out a one-sentence quote from the main body of the text, and put it in larger font? Maybe they'll make that font less readable.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCOwNT2mZuU&feature=player_embedded
Ken-ect hacking.
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http://www.gamedesignideas.com/wp-content/uploads/Emotioneering-Worksheet.pdf
Creating emotion in game writing.
http://i.imgur.com/aBgJE.png
OK Cupid adds an interesting feature.
http://mashable.com/2010/12/14/new-facebook-profile-hacks/#60671-Alexandre-Oudin
Creative ways of using the new Facebook layout.
http://www.examiner.com/technology-in-national/samsung-s-3-299-touch-screen-refrigerator-with-wi-fi-and-twitter
Twitter Fridge.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41157156#41135239
(video) Haha, what?
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/41157156#41135239
(video) Haha, what?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/18/business/global/18screen.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=3-d&st=Search
The more practical version.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoQVa86EvPA&feature=player_embedded
When mothers on maternity leave have too much time on their hands.
EDIT: self-explanatory (and NSFW): http://i.imgur.com/MCkO0.jpg
EDIT 2: Over the past weekend, someone leaked the unlock codes for Evil Ryu and Oni (Akuma) in the Arcade version of Super Street Fighter 4. Interesting writeup about copyright law and why Capcom was able to have videos removed from Youtube.
http://shoryuken.com/content/short-legal-analysis-capcom-s-requested-take-downs-evil-ryu-oni-match-vids-3380/
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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=419756
So either Tales of Graces F is coming or Bamco is doing some real serious trolling.
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They could always do both.
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Just when you're ready to take on the world
Some other girl had to get there first
And it's obvious that you're a man that's after her own heart
But you know where I am
And you know what I want
And I know I'll never have you completely alone
So I'm trying to draw up a contingency plan
And it's obvious that you're a man that's after her own heart
But you know where I am
And you know that you could have both
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I feel like C.C. Baxter in Wilder's 'Apartment',
That particular arrangement just came out of the blue
And who was it who sang 'I know that you love one
So why can't you love two?'
I was in full-time education when I got scared of the future
And I've only got a job so I don't disappoint my mother
It's like I've painted myself into a social corner
Well, that's what happens when you listen to
Saint Scott Walker
On headphones
On the bus
What about us? What about us?
My friends come round and they ask me 'What about us?'
My friends come round and they ask me 'What about us?'
You know that I, I don't kid myself about happy endings
I'm too old for all that now
But you don't have to worry that much about the future
And it's not as if you ever did before
Because you'll always have everything just as you want it
And there'll always be a phone to ring at three in the morning
And you'll always have someone who'll drive you home
Yes, you'll always have someone, someone to drive you home
Someone to drive you home
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http://kotaku.com/5744634/a-beginners-guide-to-the-ngp-or-if-youre-just-joining-us-the-psp2
PSP2 currently code-named "NGP" for Next-Generation Portable, to feature dual analog, touchscreen, rear touch panel, no UMD drive, supposedly turns out just-slightly-sub-PS3 graphics albeit with a max resolution under 720p.
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http://blogs.discovery.com/cat-scratchings/2011/01/new-york-city-shelter-announces-first-same-sex-cat-marriage.html
Gay cat marriage.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6269/playing_games_is_hard_work_an_.php?page=3
Games as work; good read.
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=4161
Halo Reach writer rants about the low number of female mains in games.
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If I had to take my cat to a shelter, I'd take them there. No kill, and cute human traditions for them? Awuh. I believe Jack is bi-sexual, which is whatever. We all should be.
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rear touch panel
Nice, now I can control my character with my dick when I hold the PSP in my lap.
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Enough of this silly gaming chatter, let us move on to awesome things. Like the Axe Cop Live Action Movie. (http://vimeo.com/19119108)
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http://pastebin.com/Hq2D5h51
Here's some stuff about Z2.
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http://pastebin.com/Hq2D5h51
Here's some stuff about Z2.
Just noting that quite a bit of this sounds pretty fake/made up. There is a source for some of it though.
http://ggglove.jugem.jp/?eid=1626#sequel
Here's what the Sunrise Radio event actually had to say. Note my japanese isn't the greatest, but I'll translate to the best of my ability. This mostly deals with VOTOMS stuff for Z2.
. If you use the data install feature, the load times for the game will be shorter than AP or MX Portable.
. Something about the pilot suit cut-ins for the VOTOMS pilots, I think they're talking about ways to see the pilot through the weird suits they wear.
. ATs have such weak armor that they can die in one hit if they don't dodge.
. While Chirico is a really good pilot, the Scopedog is really weak, especially the mass production models. Supposedly not as big of an issue with customized units.
. Geass and VOTOMS are being crossed over heavily, since both series have tiny robots with rollerskates.
. Something about some unit having a barrier, dunno what it is.
. The Mazinger Z's Photon Beam will be one of its strongest attacks, weirdly enough.
That's all that was said for now.
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Slightly dated, but an article with interviews / planning details from the winner in the big StarCraft AI competition:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/01/skynet-meets-the-swarm-how-the-berkeley-overmind-won-the-2010-starcraft-ai-competition.ars/
For those who don't know, they won via perfect muta harras, basically. You can see the finals here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjSXj4cb_Yo&feature=related
Apparently, they won the other games in much bigger slaughters, but their "threat evaluation" didn't take into account Krasi0 using escort SCVs to repair his Goliaths / Turrets, which meant the Mutas wildly overestimated their ability in combat. So rather than picking only fights they'd overwhelmingly win with no casualties, it turned into a giant grind - which the Overmind still won, because Krasi0 didn't really push due to being pressured so hard by the constantly circling muta swarm.
General interest misc link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/01/22/936630/stowaway-mystery-still-bedevils.html
Kid breaks onto airfield somehow, stows away in wheel-well, dies for his stupidity. Here's the money quote:
Tisdale, a sophomore at North Mecklenburg High, was a member of the school's ROTC program. His family will probably sue the airport and the airline, according to lawyers they've retained. The lawyers contend the security system failed, but say they're unable to explain precisely how Tisdale circumvented it.
Yes, sue the airline because they couldn't stop your son from committing a serious felony. Good luck with that. (Sadly they'll still waste money in court time if they actually proceed with this. Sigh.)
Edit: Because I'm not sure it's been posted here yet, but also Badass Lego Guns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrBW-nnRm1Y
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I wouldn't say it's that ridiculous for the parents to sue. In fact, I bet the government settles the case rather than try to explain to a jury how their security is so lax that a sixteen year old kid managed to circumvent it and die tragically as a result. When the government fucks up and a kid dies as a result, it draws attention away from the fact that the kid did something wrong.
There is a doctrine in tort law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance) that covers this kind of situation. I wouldn't say the parents have a great shot at winning, but I bet they can settle.
I've been following this case from time to time, and I gotta say: kudos to the detectives who figured this out. All they started with was a brutally battered body in an open field with no ID, no matching missing persons reports, no eyewitnesses, and no one who recognized the 'victim.'
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Yeah, but an airfield isn't an attractive nuisance. They definitely make it very, very clear that YOU NO GO HERE. You can argue the implementation was bad, but I think both the implementation AND the lack of warning / clarity of badness has to be there to be actionable, to my meager knowledge. (i.e. the abandoned wood chipper? Sure, sue. An abandoned wood chipper behind a 6-foot high fence with DHS warnings? Nah, even if the fence is bypassable.)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a72R8mokdNA&feature=player_embedded
Final boss of MvC3. Spoilers if you care.
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Yeah, but an airfield isn't an attractive nuisance.
It's a weak claim, that's for sure. I don't even know if it applies to (federal?) government facilities. There may be other acts that may lead to liability. If, for example, the plane crew did not follow a procedure that would have detected the kid, that might be negligence right there. I would think it'd be difficult for the family to recover based on a negligence theory because all those safety measures the base should have been taking are designed to protect other people from trespassers, not trespassers from themselves. Well, time will tell what comes of it.
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If you feel the need for some soul-crushing depression, have I got a link for you. (http://www.darcypadilla.com/thejulieproject/intro.html)
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http://hackaday.com/2011/01/28/wireless-electricity-enables-next-generation-of-annoying-packaging/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+hackaday/LgoM+(Hack+a+Day)&utm_content=Google+Reader
What do cereal boxes need? Apparently: Lightbulbs!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20012916-248.html
The internets: serious business for conservatives!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/31/facebook_system_messages_abused/
Facebook: a joke to the French.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2xnWYx8YK8&sns=fb
(video) "Speed enforced by aircraft." Amusing
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http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/steven-baxter/2011/01/straight-middle-discussion
"How to argue on the internet: the foolproof guide to avoiding intelligent discussion online"
And also, because no one is fat enough yet:
50 States, 50 Breakfasts - A photographic tour : http://www.foodnetwork.com/about-us/50-states-50-breakfasts/pictures/index.html
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2xnWYx8YK8&sns=fb
(video) "Speed enforced by aircraft." Amusing
I see those signs all over VA highways. I have never seen that happen before.
http://www.digitalspy.com/music/news/a301960/william-shatner-recording-metal-album.html
!!!!!!!!
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<Grefter> Yeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssssss.
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Yes.
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Marvel 3 + Short Circuit 2 = HYPE
http://www.youtube.com/user/Miles923#p/a/u/0/uyQf4Un9bKM
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http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/02/08/bulletstorm-worst-game-kids/
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107628-Fox-News-Says-Bulletstorm-Could-Make-You-a-Rapist
I'm feeling the urge to rape something just by reading about it~
Also: The Hello Kitty Burgler~
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-02-08/police-identify-serial-burglar-by-hello-kitty-sandals
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http://www.djhero.com/en-gb/community/news/638?tab=news (http://www.djhero.com/en-gb/community/news/638?tab=news)
The end of an era: Guitar Hero and DJ Hero fully cancelled by Activision - no more DLC or games for either series.
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I read on Kotaku they were still releasing GH DLC.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEuEUQIP3Q
Mr. Rogers testifying before congress in 1969. His kindness and sincerity are humbling.
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His eloquence, clarity of speech and intent on his argument outside a scripted event speaks volumes for how good a presenter he was. Nice to know how good he was outside of the controlled television environment as well.
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http://www.djhero.com/en-gb/community/news/638?tab=news (http://www.djhero.com/en-gb/community/news/638?tab=news)
The end of an era: Guitar Hero and DJ Hero fully cancelled by Activision - no more DLC or games for either series.
Good. After Guitar Hero 2--as I recall, the last GH game made by Harmonix before they got booted off and started making Rock Band--the series of went downhill. It was a novel concept that's been bled dry, its marrow sucked clean, and frankly I'm glad there won't be any future games.
No, no bitterness that I spent much of my free time playing Guitar Hero instead of a real musical instrument.
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I read on Kotaku they were still releasing GH DLC.
I doubt that. I don't remember GH DLC ever making money (unlike GH itself). Remember, even if it's just DLC, you have to pay full, massive licencing fees for every song. Given that DLC tends to hit a much smaller market than the store packages, and doesn't have a $200 price tag...yeah.
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I would guess it's more along the lines of "they're still releasing DLC they already made but hadn't released yet"
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Some people on chat earlier were asking, "why sue a 4-year-old?" The answer is, probably, that the kid is coverd by her parents' homeowners insurance policy.
http://volokh.com/2010/10/29/the-negligent-4-year-old/
Now you know.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/15/defector-admits-wmd-lies-iraq-war
You know, sometimes I read things that make me want to get a time machine just so I can slap the shit out of every one of you jagoffs who supported the war while you assholes still deserved it.
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I supported the war when it began; I won't pretend that I didn't. Based on the information presented in the media (the only information which I had access to, since I am not a government official), it seemed reasonable. Naturally as the war progressed and these imaginary WMDs never turned up, I changed my stance.
But yeah, this is all pretty facepalm-worthy. Looks like the war was going to happen no matter what; they just used this guy as a scapegoat to have someone to blame.
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http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/525347
The scale of the universe.
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Awesome!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkWwnRpwN0Y
(video) Amusing--gay criticism against attack Chick-fil-A.
http://www.destructoid.com/what-the-hell-blizzard-theme-park-joyland-for-china--193493.phtml
Because Blizzard needed a themepark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOpW5VN2j2Q&feature=fvst
(video) Computer plays Jepoardy.
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http://www.theonion.com/articles/embarrassed-republicans-admit-theyve-been-thinking,19248/
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Ike DID overthrow the government of Iran and put in a US crony Shah to lead the country in the mistaken belief that Iran was in danger of becoming a puppet of the USSR, but I'm sure nothing bad happened as a result of that.
Still, that's more or less the only thing he did wrong as president.
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(video) Amusing--gay criticism against attack Chick-fil-A.
But homophobia tastes so good!
embarrassed-republicans-admit-theyve-been-thinking
funnier if you just stop right there.
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http://thechive.com/2011/02/21/stunning-samurai-shadow-fight-video/
Awesome video of a theatre performance of a guy fighting shadows.
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http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=30969
Comic writer and animation producer Dwayne McDuffie, one of the premier black creators in the industry and an all-around hilarious dude (viz. (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2011/02/mcduffie-1298410058.jpg)), died yesterday at 38.
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Wow, that's terrible. His Deathlok was an outstanding comic. I don't know if it's on Marvel online, but those of you with the 1-month free subscription should check it out if it is.
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Huh. I'm not really familiar with his stuff at all.
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http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2011/feb/22/capcom-unity-mvc3-dlc-poll-results-tallied-round-2/ (http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2011/feb/22/capcom-unity-mvc3-dlc-poll-results-tallied-round-2/)
More cues to not stop believing. I, for one, eagerly look forward to transforming in to a black-hole hurling, soul-devouring abomination for twenty seconds at a time when I'm not beating people to death with my staff.
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Rob, every time you talk about Gambit it sounds like Marvel just made him stupidly broken and overpowered sometime after I stopped reading comics (~1994).
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Billy the Kid vs Dracula (http://thecinemasnob.com/2011/02/22/billy-the-kid-vs-dracula.aspx)
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http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-02-22/daily-video/how-not-to-line-up-for-autographs
I think Ryukishi has enough fodder for another series~
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Rob, every time you talk about Gambit it sounds like Marvel just made him stupidly broken and overpowered sometime after I stopped reading comics (~1994).
Once, back when you had Jean and Cable running around doing that shit and they ditched it in like three issues because it was a dig, and then now, where he has an evil alternate personality that eats souls. I think they explain it another way, but he eats souls.
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My friend Chris linked this to me: http://bawaal.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/white-people-stole-my-car1.jpg
Ahahaha. Google Search reveals everything.
Edit* Yes I know it's fake.
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http://i.imgur.com/ZyeCO.jpg
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http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=30969
Comic writer and animation producer Dwayne McDuffie, one of the premier black creators in the industry and an all-around hilarious dude (viz. (http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2011/02/mcduffie-1298410058.jpg)), died yesterday at 38.
...:( That is incredibly depressing. He's done some pretty awesome stuff.
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http://www.newbevcinema.com/calendar.cfm
I have no idea whether or not this is bullshit, but these guys claim to be screening the premiere of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair next month.
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http://www.reghardware.com/2011/03/01/playstation_ban_europe/
PS3s and some Sony TVs banned from import into Europe for 10 days. Could be interesting, but probably not.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/01/texas.immigration.bill/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn (http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/01/texas.immigration.bill/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn)
Bill proposed where you can be thrown in jail for hiring undocumented workers. UNLESS!!!! they are maids or gardeners.
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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supreme_Court/westboro-baptist-church-quadruple-military-funeral-protests-supreme/story?id=13039045&page=1 <-- Supreme Court votes to protect Fred Phelps and his group of wack-jobs.
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Just finished emailing my mom about this, so I'll just copy and paste my thoughts. I'm on the fence about this one. As a constitutional principle, it's as sound as can be: one absolutely cannot retreat from free speech based on the odiousness of the speech in question. But on the other hand, there's a highly artificial distinction at play here, and the Supreme Court tiptoes right around it by saying that "[t]he speech was indeed planned to coincide with Matthew Snyder’s funeral, but did not itself disrupt that funeral." Frankly, I can't imagine anything much more disruptive than a protest, even if it was silent and 1,000 yards away. The idea that the funeral was not disrupted because the only thing funeral goers were subjected to was speech is not realistic. But we cherish speech in America, and though the effects of an insult or a shove may be identical, we excuse one and not the other because if offensive speech were punishable, there would be no end to it.
The "chilling effect" is a concept often talked about regarding speech. Speech is 'chilled' when someone declines to speak for fear of legal consequences. If the Phelpses had been found liable in this case, it would certainly have created a chilling effect, and the effect would have been to make people extremely wary of any public demonstration that would deeply offend its target. This effect would not discriminate based on the politics or policies behind the protest. It wouldn't have a carve out for worthy causes. Any public speech calculated to offend its target would subject the speakers to potential liability. Imagine, now, a group of protesters outside Westboro Baptist Church.
Rather than reexamine the boundaries of the content of speech made in public, I think it might be wise to reexamine the boundaries of what it means to be in public. A funeral is the most private event to happen in the open air. Perhaps it would be better to treat a funeral as if it were occurring in an intensely private space for legal purposes. Then people protesting a funeral would be on the same footing as people standing in the street protesting in front of a person's house, which would diminish the speech protection. I think the principle of free speech perhaps could tolerate that exception. To me, it's a tough call.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/zombie-creating-fungi-cordyceps_n_830558.html
don't watch the video. it's reeeeeeally creepy.
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Pretty awesome, would make for a far more compelling infestation than Necromorphs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Space_%28video_game%29) or Every plant everywhere targetting groups of people everywhere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_%282008_film%29)
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Cordyceps is fucking terrifying.
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A good gauge for how "disruptive" the protest was is that the father didn't even know it had happened until he watched the news that night.
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I ate some Cordyceps in the The World Ends With You, and suffered no ill effects.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find a leaf to clamp my mandibles into.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg
(video) An amusing way to do nature naration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojJUzv88Els
(video) Ugly old frenchmen duel with lightsabers.
http://www.kuhldesignbuild.com/portfolio/other.php#lg-image
Awesome bedroom
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/03/charlie-sheen-quotes-superhero/
Charlie Sheen quotes in the context of superheroes.
http://www.ie6countdown.com/
Death to Internet Explorer 6!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSFsoLA2gIA
Priest offers oral sex to police officer.
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http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/03/charlie-sheen-quotes-superhero/
Charlie Sheen quotes in the context of superheroes.
Do you one better:
http://sheenandswanson.tumblr.com/ (http://sheenandswanson.tumblr.com/)
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http://brandonsanderson.com/blog/967/Suvudu-Cage-Matches
What it's sounds like. The DL with books (yearly tournament) as reviewed by Brandon Sanderson.
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http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/03/18/tse-riff-theater-gamecrazy-training-video/
You're all going to love me for this when you're done.
Aiight? I'm Zelda Scott, bitches.
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That. Was. Awesome.
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OH man you guys missed that first time around? Spoony in general is pretty fun. You don't want to miss the Wendy's training videos either.
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/09/21/tse-riff-theater-wendys-training-videos/
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OH man you guys missed that first time around? Spoony in general is pretty fun. You don't want to miss the Wendy's training videos either.
http://spoonyexperiment.com/2010/09/21/tse-riff-theater-wendys-training-videos/
Have seen many of Spoony's reviews, just hadn't come across the riffs. Fabulous.
--
Ursula K. LeGuin: Le roi est mort, vive le fucking roi.
http://blog.bookviewcafe.com/2011/03/09/would-you-please-fucking-stop/
I love it when old ladies swear.
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I have never been a bigger fan of Ursula LeGuin than I am at this moment.
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yeah, she's fucking great.
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Fuck that shit.
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Fuck 'er. Fuck, shit's so fuckin whack yo.
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This pastor is the fucking shit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RYq-KiKjrM&feature=player_embedded
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http://justjared.buzznet.com/2011/03/10/nickelodeon-to-air-1990s-programming-beginning-this-fall/
Nickelodeon to re-air 90's programming.
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Now if Cartoon Network would do that, it could stop sucking so hard.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf36KlvhmKI&feature=player_embedded (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf36KlvhmKI&feature=player_embedded)
As far as I know, this is the first actual gameplay video of space combat in SW:TOR. It's like if Star Fox was sexy in a Star Wars war, and not a way for furries.
Seriously, though, rail shooters are fun and I am glad this is in the game.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GDH0Ylp7bc&feature=player_embedded
BIONIC AAAAARRRRRRMMMMMMM!!!
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In case it hasn't been linked here already:
http://kotaku.com/#!5781325/stop-what-you-are-doing-and-watch-this-my-little-pony-video-right-now
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Also this:
http://kotaku.com/#!5782603/casey-the-bully+breaking-zangief-kid-gets-the-street-fighter-remix-he-deserves
Bullies are bad.
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http://volokh.com/2011/03/16/pitchfork-rights-case/
In case you've ever wondered, "does my right to bear arms apply to a pitchfork I'm wielding as a member of a mob?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GDH0Ylp7bc&feature=player_embedded
BIONIC AAAAARRRRRRMMMMMMM!!!
Wow. That made me laugh like a little school girl on crack.
Good times.
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http://www.aksysgames.com/2011/03/16/japan-benefit-sale/ (http://www.aksysgames.com/2011/03/16/japan-benefit-sale/)
Sale to benefit Japan through giving you BlazBlue, Record of Agarest War, a rhythm skating game, and a bunch of other stuff cheap. It may be US only, though, I'm not totally certain.
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http://io9.com/?_escaped_fragment_=5782150/george-rr-martin-and-his-dancing-ghost-get-the-zany-taiwanese-news-treatment#!5782150/george-rr-martin-and-his-dancing-ghost-get-the-zany-taiwanese-news-treatment
Holy freaking crap this is amazing.
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http://www.aksysgames.com/2011/03/16/japan-benefit-sale/ (http://www.aksysgames.com/2011/03/16/japan-benefit-sale/)
Sale to benefit Japan through giving you BlazBlue, Record of Agarest War, a rhythm skating game, and a bunch of other stuff cheap. It may be US only, though, I'm not totally certain.
Too bad it's not the PS3 Agarest Wars. Oh well. Might as well grab Blazing Souls if it's for charity~
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http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/24/prison-rape-and-government/?pagination=false
tl;dr: A lot of prison rape is actually committed by the prison guards.
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Preventing sexual abuse in detention is primarily a matter of management. The policies needed are, for the most part, straightforward: for example, considering characteristics that make an inmate especially vulnerable when deciding where to house him, such as homosexuality or a history of prior abuse.
That is an amazingly lulzy quote. It isn't just a case of management here and none of it is remotely simple.
The stuff later about housing different gender/sex inmates that go a bit beyond the standard straight M/F false dichotomy is alright though.
The cost of fixing this stuff is astronomical though. I am not saying it shouldn't be done, but the sad reality is that justifying the cost to the people in charge and the people they ultimately answer to (the public) is a very hard fight.
I don't understand why this is even remotely shocking though. It is an inherent flaw in the prison system that was highlighted in Zimbardo's Prison experiment at Stanford in 1971. So 40 years later HOLY SHIT normally reasonable completely perfectly functioning people that are put in places of power in a prison are easilly turned into abusive overlords but especially the way that prisoners do accept it to a degree. There is an amazing number of layers of control and repression in place in the prison system which inherently lends itself to abuse and control. The plight of the guard is that they feel backed into those corners of abuse and repression. A portion of them genuinely enjoy the results of being put into that position.
Suffice to say, people are fucked up and the answer is not solved "simply" with a managerial shift.
Edit - And of course some would argue that the Prison system works this way as designed. I don't think it is quite bad enough to say that it was designed to promote rape of prisoners by staff, but they are definitely designed to control the prisoners, make them fearful and impressionable. So yeah mission fucking accomplished.
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The cost of fixing this stuff is astronomical though.
There's a difference between "fixing" and "improving". Like...the part about medical exams for people who have been penitrated (which then provides some proof of "hey, this person has bruising and evidence of sex, and they say they were raped", as opposed to "It's your word against the prison ward's word, and who's going to believe an inmate?"
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Warning, the following is a Ke-(dollar sign)-ha video. Mainly linking it for MC because it has unicorns and a man-bra.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFWX0hWCbng
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There's a difference between "fixing" and "improving". Like...the part about medical exams for people who have been penitrated (which then provides some proof of "hey, this person has bruising and evidence of sex, and they say they were raped", as opposed to "It's your word against the prison ward's word, and who's going to believe an inmate?"
Absolutely agree that is a good step. It isn't a managerial shift and neither is it simple because to have confidence in the outcome it needs to be performed or have oversight from someone outside of the prison system. That has a cost to it. Even if you do introduce it performed by the Penitentiary staff there is a cost involved and still requires the victims to come forward about it and have confidence in the outcome. If it is possible to have it forced on inmates then it can just be used for further harrasment like the solitary confinement for safety has been.
Talking about Ke$ha, why in the fuck is she within a hundred metres of a Unicorn? That is not how they are meant to work. Also the man bra is standard Ke$ha "Turning it back on the men" uh thing. Way to ruin a perfectly good jacket by tearing it to pieces when you already had it unbuttoned bro.
I will be so glad when this talk into autotune and pretend it is singing phase of music is over. I heard a song from someone yesterday that was all in a single octave of their regular speaking voice. It made me die a little inside.
Edit - Fuck, I totally missed the chance to make a "This song about to blow" joke.
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I can't get behind so-called singers that can't carry a tune, get paid for talking, how easy is that?
Well, maybe I could get behind that.
</Shatner>
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http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/03/18/river_city_ransom_2/
River City Ransom 2 is coming, and being made by the original developers. Not the company that made the first game, mind you. The people.
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YAY
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YAY
Iron Mike Ditka:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDwo7UCu-u8
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I'm actually ok with autotune.
Kesha...I sometimes like her music (Get Sleasy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEe3p0mCFz0) in particular is pretty good, and a few others have decent hooks). But for whatever reason I can't stand most of her videos. Tik Tok she comes across as this drunken layabout that makes me want to scream "get off my lawn you miscreant". But then there's the ones where she tries to get all cleaned up and present herself as a supermodel/sex symbol with clean straight hair, and I think to myself "Not buying it. My suspension of disbelief is ruined." What other videos does she have...hmm, actually, she's totally fine in "Your love is my drug" and "blah, blah, blah"; I hadn't seen either of those before. Yeah, those are fine. I suppose I don't really have an issue with "Take it off" either, more just...they can't really legally make a video that fits the song...but it feels like they didn't even try.
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Autotune is like the next step in pre-fabricated musicians and bands. At least back when they were putting five strangers together based on their looks selected by focus groups who couldn't play instruments or write their own music, at least they had to be able to sing a little bit.
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Autotune is like the next step in pre-fabricated musicians and bands. At least back when they were putting five strangers together based on their looks selected by focus groups who couldn't play instruments or write their own music, at least they had to be able to sing a little bit.
If you compare 2010 to 2000, though, I'd actually argue there's more talent in 2010. In 2000, most artists weren't writing any of their own work. In 2010, most artists I've checked up on do write their own work (hell, ke$ha writes all her own stuff--that one surprised me). And a lot of the artists can play instruments (see: Lady Gaga) they just don't in their normal performances.
I'm not sure I have a good reason for why. Maybe production values have just gotten to the point that content is the only way to stand out of the crowd? Maybe talent searching technology has just gotten better (Justin Beiber was found through Youtube videos of talent shows).
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If you write your own stuff, but your body of work is shitty, that's not too much of an improvement.
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It is cheaper to let people that can't write songs and can't sing write and sing music than it is to find a bunch of pretty people that can kind of sing and a song writer. Presently you mostly just have to find a good producer and someone with some talent for mixing a catchy song (Commonly the same person).
Some stuff can come out with Autotune that is interesting and fun at times. It shouldn't be anywhere near as prevalent as it is however.
You know who it hurts the most though MC? The artist. If an artist is reliant upon Autotune for their singing voice it is going to mean that their live shows are more than a bit lacking (or lip synched which defeats the entire purpose of a live show). This is amazingly bad because for the majority of artists live shows is where they make their real profits. A huge portion of album sales goes to the label where as concerts are expensive to run when they are big live shows, but get you a good return on your investment.
Also comparing 2000 to 2010 is going to run into some issues with trends. Pop was on a downward slope from 2000 to 2006ish or so. Indie Rock was getting its grass roots movements going, but sadly Emo stuff was where the charts were headed. So I wouldn't be shocked at all to see most of the talent that can write shifting into those genres away from pop.
Check things like Linkin Park, all self written. Alternately (ugh) Limp Bizkit, also all self written. You are just looking in the wrong genres that were in at the time.
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You know who it hurts the most though MC? The artist. If an artist is reliant upon Autotune for their singing voice it is going to mean that their live shows are more than a bit lacking (or lip synched which defeats the entire purpose of a live show).
It shouldn't. You can do autotune in real-time. Hell, I worked on a project that did autotune in real time. (If you remember a few years back, when Activision was going to make "Sing Hero"? Yeah. We could make you hit every note on-key in time with the song. Pity it never came out; it was actually pretty cool technology for a console game; I believe Rock Band's done it by now, though so I can safely mention it...please don't come kill me Bobby!!!)
Point is, real-time autotune is doable (and doable with mass market technology).
Check things like Linkin Park, all self written. Alternately (ugh) Limp Bizkit, also all self written. You are just looking in the wrong genres that were in at the time.
Fair; I was not really aware of much music outside of the teen girl scene at the time. Which means no Linkin Park, no Eminem, yes Britney Spears, yes Backstreet Boys, yes N*Sync....
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yes Britney Spears, yes Backstreet Boys, yes N*Sync....
Did it wrong.
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yes Britney Spears, yes Backstreet Boys, yes N*Sync....
Did it wrong.
By most objective measures, absolutely.
But in my defence, I didn't know any better. You see, growing up I listened to mostly classical (Mozart and Rachmaninoff in particular) as well as my parent's music (Elvis, The Beatles, and 50s and 60s music in general). But at one point, I decided that I wanted to learn what modern popular music was all about. So...I tuned into a weekly chart countdown television show (YTV's Hit List). What I didn't realize at the time, was that the show had a 95% female audience, and was appealing to the Backstreet Boys fanbase by sticking within a relatively narrow genre. It seems painfully obvious in retrospect, but I didn't know what to expect at the time.
And yeah, I have some pretty good guesses looking back as to why that particular music countdown show got me into modern music, where other exposure had me turning up my nose and returning to my Rachmaninoff. But whatever the reason, I still have Aaron Carter lyrics memorized (and they're actually not that bad. ...What? >_>)
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yes Britney Spears, yes Backstreet Boys, yes N*Sync....
Did it wrong.
Linkin Park was not much better, to be fair.
-
Indeed the gap there in quality isn't as big as people would want you to think.
You were doing it right from the start though. 50's and 60's has some truely amazing stuff in there if your parents found the right stuff. Having a father that was into Velvet Underground when he is about as remote from the New York music scene as you can get in the 60s/70s is great.
You can do it in real time, but you are relying on people that can't sing to hit anything close to the note you are after or if you aren't doing it on the fly, you are expecting them to have some really precise timing. That or you are hiring someone who is way over experienced to work the mixing desk at a stage show. Sure those guys are good, but to handle all that stuff and the autotune? Mang they need to get out of the live scene and become a producer.
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http://vimeo.com/14724617 (http://vimeo.com/14724617)
NSFW. There's some boobs and some language.
It's also The Warriors meets The Wizard.
-
You can do it in real time, but you are relying on people that can't sing to hit anything close to the note you are after or if you aren't doing it on the fly, you are expecting them to have some really precise timing.
Err...no? You're thinking of traditional pitch correction that has gone on in recording studios for 25+ years, where people turn knobs to adjust a note up or down, and the resulting recording still sounds like everything is acoustic. Autotune is...well...auto--it doesn't matter what the pitch input is, it will always have the same pitch output. The tradeoff for autotune compared with professional pitch correction is that autotune sounds ridiculous and robotic, but that sound happens to be "in" right now.
The one thing you do have to do manually with autotune is if you're trying to adjust for resonance (like if you're trying to get a male voice to sound exactly like Lady Gaga). But as long as you're working with the same artist, you should have consistent resonance, so this isn't a huge concern.
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yes Britney Spears, yes Backstreet Boys, yes N*Sync....
Did it wrong.
Linkin Park was not much better, to be fair.
There's a reason I selectively omitted that from the quote.
EDIT: Oh yeah as far as Limp Bizkit or whatever they spell it like goes: They actually had some decent songs on their first album before Fred Durst ruined the band.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFh2KbNYwyw
Stellar, no. Better than everything that they came out with afterwards, definitely. Better than all the other bands currently being discussed from the late 90s-early 2000s? Absolutely.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4CP72FLS4s4
Back, and to the left... back, and to the left... back, and to the left... back, and to the left...
Jonathan Quick is the first psionic goalie.
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That's amazing.
-
Err...no? You're thinking of traditional pitch correction that has gone on in recording studios for 25+ years, where people turn knobs to adjust a note up or down, and the resulting recording still sounds like everything is acoustic. Autotune is...well...auto--it doesn't matter what the pitch input is, it will always have the same pitch output. The tradeoff for autotune compared with professional pitch correction is that autotune sounds ridiculous and robotic, but that sound happens to be "in" right now.
The one thing you do have to do manually with autotune is if you're trying to adjust for resonance (like if you're trying to get a male voice to sound exactly like Lady Gaga). But as long as you're working with the same artist, you should have consistent resonance, so this isn't a huge concern.
Like I was saying, you still have to get the timing right to autotune live, otherwise the pitch is going to shift at the wrong time mid note if the singer doesn't have it spot on. I don't trust them to get even that right.
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Err...no? You're thinking of traditional pitch correction that has gone on in recording studios for 25+ years, where people turn knobs to adjust a note up or down, and the resulting recording still sounds like everything is acoustic. Autotune is...well...auto--it doesn't matter what the pitch input is, it will always have the same pitch output. The tradeoff for autotune compared with professional pitch correction is that autotune sounds ridiculous and robotic, but that sound happens to be "in" right now.
The one thing you do have to do manually with autotune is if you're trying to adjust for resonance (like if you're trying to get a male voice to sound exactly like Lady Gaga). But as long as you're working with the same artist, you should have consistent resonance, so this isn't a huge concern.
Like I was saying, you still have to get the timing right to autotune live, otherwise the pitch is going to shift at the wrong time mid note if the singer doesn't have it spot on. I don't trust them to get even that right.
The note will still be right, you just might have the wrong word lining up with the note (and if you're only off by a little, it won't really be noticeable). But also: I find your lack of faith disturbing--I mean, go to a karaoke bar; the things that people struggle with is less rhythm, and more sound of the voice and hitting notes. You might as well cite "remembering the lyrics" as something artists might struggle with.
(And at any rate, timing and remembering words is something you have to remember for lipsyncing almost as much as you do for autotune, so uh...).
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Yeah I don't have much faith in artists that barely make their own music >_>
The more you dance around and the harder it is to see you the less good you have to be at lip synching. I wouldn't suggest a stage show that throws you up on a big projection for example (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=britney+spears+lip+synch). But then that isn't really what we are covering.
Also timing is different when you need to stick close to a beat and when you need to get the split second timing right for a not pitch shift in a preprogrammed device. Rhythm is one thing. Playing/singing perfectly in time is not something that comes without a lot of practice (See any youth orchestra at a practice. Those kids can all play their instruments and keep time. Just keeping it together and with the conductor is always shocking at first).
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(See any youth orchestra at a practice. Those kids can all play their instruments and keep time. Just keeping it together and with the conductor is always shocking at first).
The fundamental problem with youth orchestras is that people practice at home and then try to join together. So...they've probably come in practicing slightly different timings. Also: playing instruments is hard; when you're expending a lot of your focus on playing the instrument, you have less focus for timing. Another problem with youth orchestras is that there's like...50 people. That not only increases chances of individual screwup, but also if the person next to you is a little off, that can throw you off as well.
Compare that to autotune. The background mix is already recorded; you're probably just going to reuse that--so...when you're in practices, you can practice along in a sound environment much closer to your performance environment. (Technically if the youth orchestra has a recording of the piece they want to play, they can use this technique too, but they'd want to coordinate since different recordings of classical music have different timings). Next, while there are damn challenging things you can do with voice, most autotune songs aren't really in the "damn challenging" category. I can sing along timing-wise with most songs I hear on the radio...while driving; it doesn't even take much focus. Third, there's generally only one singer for autotune--you can do harmony with the autotune itself (who needs backup)? Fourth, that person is not going to get screwed up by a human error by the violinist beside them--the recorded mix they're singing over is very predictable.
But...I dunno. To me, the art is in the composition, so I'm not too worried how easy or hard the stage performance may be. We remember names like Mozzart and Beethoven, but I can't name a famous violinist from more than 30 years ago. For a more modern example like...does Krafwerk even have live performances? *searches* apparently yes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZT2MrVMHAs but I'm not even sure if the band is visible at all, what if anything, they're doing live, etc....
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They are doing mixing live. That is the whole DJ thing, you know plenty about that already. I can tell you that track by Kraftwerk isn't not perfect to the album (I think it uses some different samples), but it isn't going to be mixed by a producer and that song is 33 years old, so I imagine it has changed a bit when they perform it over the years. That is pretty much what the whole house music scene is about and part of what makes Daft Punk awesome (You have listened to Alive 2007 sometime yeah?).
That isn't to say there isn't DJs that mix all their shit before an event and stand in a booth with headphones on and just play with switches and buttons all night just for show though.
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Ashley felt this solved all autotune related arguments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QS0q3mGPGg
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That isn't to say there isn't DJs that mix all their shit before an event and stand in a booth with headphones on and just play with switches and buttons all night just for show though.
I know there's some stuff that's considered unreasonable to mix on-spot, like mashups. There's no way DJ Earworm mixes in real time; that's just not feasible when you're combining samples from over 25 tracks in specific orders. Looking up a random Girl Talk concert...yeah, he looks like he's only making minor adjustments.
Which is not to say that there aren't people who specialize in the stage performances. (Of the DJ's I've experienced live, Samantha Ronson impressed me most, I think? Not sure how many of her transitions were pre-planned, though--she did a lot of switching songs where the two songs had exactly the same words).
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Like I was saying, you still have to get the timing right to autotune live, otherwise the pitch is going to shift at the wrong time mid note if the singer doesn't have it spot on. I don't trust them to get even that right.
I just assumed that these were the skills you had to demonstrate to be hired as a popstar these days.
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Now you also have to weave broccoli and veal dresses while being born from an HP printer every time you perform live.
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Like I was saying, you still have to get the timing right to autotune live, otherwise the pitch is going to shift at the wrong time mid note if the singer doesn't have it spot on. I don't trust them to get even that right.
I just assumed that these were the skills you had to demonstrate to be hired as a popstar these days.
Hahahahaha, have you listened to Ke$ha?
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Not especially, no.
I've only heard Tik Tok, and I assume that she must have at least the skill to lip-sync or keep time for an auto-tuner.
...because she certainly doesn't seem to have any other skills.
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They are doing mixing live. That is the whole DJ thing, you know plenty about that already. I can tell you that track by Kraftwerk isn't not perfect to the album (I think it uses some different samples), but it isn't going to be mixed by a producer and that song is 33 years old, so I imagine it has changed a bit when they perform it over the years. That is pretty much what the whole house music scene is about and part of what makes Daft Punk awesome (You have listened to Alive 2007 sometime yeah?).
That isn't to say there isn't DJs that mix all their shit before an event and stand in a booth with headphones on and just play with switches and buttons all night just for show though.
Alive 2007 owns pretty hard, I gotta say.
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Not especially, no.
I've only heard Tik Tok, and I assume that she must have at least the skill to lip-sync or keep time for an auto-tuner.
...because she certainly doesn't seem to have any other skills.
Interestingly, Ke$ha got a "near-perfect" SAT score.
It's not talent that's the problem with Ke$ha. It's personality. It's not like she's incapable of making tolerable music. For instance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPWzYDnbkzc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zcyxjpkcW0
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In more appropriate links for this topic....
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2011/02/tom-bissell-and-simon-ferrari-on-games-criticism.html
Excellent series of emails on game writing (both in-game plots, and "game critics").
http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Disgruntled-Bomb.aspx
Actively evil C-code.
http://phyrra.net/2011/03/why-bioware-enforces-they-deserve-my-money.html
Bioware appealing to more than just the straight male gamer....
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http://phyrra.net/2011/03/why-bioware-enforces-they-deserve-my-money.html
Bioware appealing to more than just the straight male gamer....
Oooh Dave Gaider quotes. Always delicious good times, especially when he doesn't pull his punches.
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I'm pretty sure Grefter has already told you guys that you need to be reading everything Chris Sims writes, but he's just written what is basically the best DL bonus match humanly possible:
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic vs. Pokemon in a five-on-five Survivor Series. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/25/ask-chris-51-because-you-actually-demanded-it-pokemon-vs-po/1#c33558347)
With visual aids. And citations.
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I'm pretty sure Grefter has already told you guys that you need to be reading everything Chris Sims writes, but he's just written what is basically the best DL bonus match humanly possible:
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic vs. Pokemon in a five-on-five Survivor Series. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/25/ask-chris-51-because-you-actually-demanded-it-pokemon-vs-po/1#c33558347)
With visual aids. And citations.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
(SPOILERS for the article: I feel like Twilight should have been more effective. She's basically a high-level D&D Wizard for sheer power and versatility. Pretty sure she can make electricity to hit a W4 against Gyar. The use of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie was brilliant, though, and the moral at the end was a nice touch. Although...wait, if Pinkie is psychic, then she shouldn't have taken down Empoleon o_O. I guess it's waved away in the article with "Pinky warps reality").
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I'm pretty sure Grefter has already told you guys that you need to be reading everything Chris Sims writes, but he's just written what is basically the best DL bonus match humanly possible:
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic vs. Pokemon in a five-on-five Survivor Series. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/25/ask-chris-51-because-you-actually-demanded-it-pokemon-vs-po/1#c33558347)
With visual aids. And citations.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
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The word of the day is: FUTILE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C6khcmGnss)
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http://whitewhine.com/
First World Problems
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http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_li2hssp7zU1qz5tgbo1_500.jpg <-- Is this a real person omg
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http://www.aolnews.com/2011/03/28/after-30-years-apart-brother-and-sister-george-bentley-and-sara/
whoops.
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whoops.
The two people in the picture can't be 42 and 47, can they? They look older than my parents, who are almost 70.
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Welcome to England.
Also photographs aren't particularly flattering, they would probably look a bit less aged in motion.
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http://ugliesttattoos.failblog.org/2011/02/16/funny-tattoos-ill-take-a-pound-of-face-er-steak/?utm_source=embed&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=sharewidget
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whoops.
The two people in the picture can't be 42 and 47, can they? They look older than my parents, who are almost 70.
Maybe their mutual interests were binge drinking and heavy methamphetamine use.
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http://www.usabilitypost.com/2011/03/27/instant-notifications/
A rant against notification popups
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/facebook-chat-emoticon-tips-tricks/
Things you didn't know you could do with Facebook chat.
http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/
Schrodinger's Rapist.
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http://www.slate.com/id/2289801/
Best president ever, his vision for the future saved us all.
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I was going to post about April's Fools jokes of the day (Gamefaqs 40th anniversary, Youtube's 100th, etc.). But sometimes real life is much awesomer than fiction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83nSodg-HTU&feature=player_embedded
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http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/the-mystery-of-the-tainted-cocaine/Content?oid=4683741 Very good piece about tracking down why coke's being cut with a very specific drug. Also talks about the economics of the drug trade.
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http://wetanz.com/a-mermaid-s-tale/
A woman who had both her legs amputated as a teenager approaches Weta Workshop (best known as the prop guys for Lord of the Rings) and asks them to make her a functioning mermaid tail. They do.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kspPE9E1yGM
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That is pretty good. Glad to see Slipknot are good musicians that bring something fresh and interesting to the table.
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http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/31/zdenek-kalals-object-tracking-algorithm-learns-on-the-fly-like/
More advanced object tracking.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/05/technology/adzookie/index.htm
The next level in advertising.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/04/wow-players-could-one-day-buy-fair-trade-gold-from-chinese-farms.ars?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+Featured+Content%29
How to bring up the economy of third world countries? Apparently MMO gold farming.
http://www.microtask.com/blog/2011/04/lost-in-the-virtual-economy-here%E2%80%99s-a-map/
Even after gold farming is fazed out, there will still be stuff like this....
http://vampire.riotamot.com/readArchive.php?IssueNo=233
"There is a subtle difference between Wizards of the Coast and White Wolf"
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http://www.achilleseffect.com/2011/03/word-cloud-how-toy-ad-vocabulary-reinforces-gender-stereotypes/
Word clouds for how often various words are used in gendered toy advertising.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/04/commodore-64-is-back-with-hdmi-out-intel-atom-chip-blu-ray.html
Commodore 64 is back!
http://www.callofduty.com/hub?path=hub
(video, trailer) The new call of duty trailer is...amusing.
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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/04/15/3192505.htm
Quantum Teleportation successful! This is awesome! Yay for Science!
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I can't help but suspect partialcasm.
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That's one of those stories that I hope is real, but probably isn't. Remember when a team at Texas A&M University successfully invented cold fusion?
Dumbest ways to die:
http://www.trutv.com/dumb_as_a_blog/gallery/25-dumbest-ways-to-die.html
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A friend sent me a link. It cheered him up, it cheered me up, it amused us so much I expressed a desire for an infinite loop and well ...
http://nyan.cat/
Yaay for friends =-)
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http://ctd3.posterous.com/the-mountain-incredible-time-lapse-short-by-t
Awesome time-lapse photography.
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http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/trueskill/details.aspx#update
http://www.moserware.com/2010/03/computing-your-skill.html
Formulae for the kind of online ranking system used in SC2 etc.
http://gawker.com/#!5792303/google-wants-to-teach-computers-regret
See url.
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/33820/Opinion_Dealing_With_Designer_Input_Latency.php
Interesting article on input latency in games. Everything from hold actions to doubletaps to buffering to cancelling.
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There is a lot more in that input latency article than I have thought of. This is clearly an area I haven't dwelt upon enough. Good read.
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I think most designers are familiar enough with latency nowadays to cover it on the software side. Hardware side is another thing. The Xbox 360 has approximately 1 frame of inherent lag, while the PS3 has 2-3. And then there's lag on some HD televisions as well. Daigo Umehara didn't want to play on the (recorded on stream) Alienware tvs at last year's EVO because they were lagging by 3 frames. I guess when you're as good as he is, you can notice something happening in 3/60ths of a second.
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And then there's lag on some HD televisions as well. Daigo Umehara didn't want to play on the (recorded on stream) Alienware tvs at last year's EVO because they were lagging by 3 frames. I guess when you're as good as he is, you can notice something happening in 3/60ths of a second.
You actually don't need to be that good in the abstract. People of no massive skill notice lag when playing Super Mario Bros on an HDTV. People of moderate to decent skill at Guitar Hero/Rock Band easily notice the switch from a no-lag television to a some-lag television.
So...it's easy to notice on very simple games where reactions to button presses are immediate. (Harder with a fighting game where moves often have windup time...but obviously doable if you're really familiar with the moves in the game).
The Xbox 360 has approximately 1 frame of inherent lag, while the PS3 has 2-3.
Man, wish I'd known that before buying a PS3 over a 360.
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Well, like you said, you wouldn't even notice that unless you're used to one system and switch to the other. Most fighting game tournaments are played on PS3 despite that. Something to do with easier controller swapping on PS3.
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That makes sense. PS3 controllers you can just sync up plugging them into it with a USB port. X-Box controllers you need to push a button on the controller and a button on the X-Box around the same time while they sync wirelessly. If you are at a tournament with more than one console in a close vicinity you will have to sync them up at different times.
That has to be really shitty for X-Box gamers at tournies going to PS3 though.
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http://thehayride.com/2011/04/westboro-baptist-church-goes-to-mississippi-and-loses/
I've vaguely impressed. The important bits:
A couple of days before, one of them (Westboro protestors) ran his mouth at a Brandon gas station and got his arse waxed. Police were called and the beaten man could not give much of a description of who beat him. When they canvassed the station and spoke to the large crowd that had gathered around, no one seemed to remember anything about what had happened.
Rankin County handled this thing perfectly. There were many things that were put into place that most will never know about and at great expense to the county.
Most of the morons never made it out of their hotel parking lot. It seems that certain Rankin county pickup trucks were parked directly behind any car that had Kansas plates in the hotel parking lot and the drivers mysteriously disappeared until after the funeral was over. Police were called but their wrecker service was running behind and it was going to be a few hours before they could tow the trucks so the Kansas plated cars could get out.
A few made it to the funeral but were ushered away to be questioned about a crime they might have possibly been involved in. Turns out, after a few hours of questioning, that they were not involved and they were allowed to go on about their business.
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One of the kind of dirty secrets of public servants is that, for the most part, citizens don't have any legal right to complain about how police allocate their resources. As a practical matter, citizens can do jack and shit regarding foot-dragging by the police.
This reminds me somewhat of an old story from New York. NYC houses the UN, and diplomats from certain countries like to flout their diplomatic immunity by illegally parking and refusing to pay tickets. Nothing the courts can do to force diplomats to pay up. The Russians are the worst offenders: they currently owe NYC something in the vicinity of $20m in unpaid tickets. The Russians got taken down a peg, though, when NY cops started parking in the Russian delegation's assigned spots at the UN, then refusing to move the cars when the Russians complained about it.
(Hillary Clinton had to intervene on behalf of the Russian delegation to get the police to stop. Still not sure whether they've paid up yet.)
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That's a comparatively harmless abuse of diplomatic immunity. The Russians in Ottawa are known for driving drunk, and have killed some people that way. Diplomatic immunity protects them.
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Russian diplomats and politicians are known for all these things in Russia as well. So yeah.
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In case you visit no other websites on the Internet: Lis Sladen is dead. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/dw/news/bulletin_110419_01/Elisabeth_Sladen)
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That makes me sad because although I haven't seen episodes of it (just the ones that touch on regular Who series), Sarah Jane Adventures was conceptually a really awesome show for kids.
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It basically was (or is, there's still six unaired episodes) Doctor Who as a pure kids' show instead of a family program, and really really good at it.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/this-just-in-first-new-art-from-calvin-and-hobbes-creator-in-16-years-syndicate-says/2011/04/22/AF7l7NQE_blog.html
Like it says. Bill Watterson's first for-publication work since 1995.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSU1jQoGIqo&feature=player_embedded
(video) Slingshot that fires Machetes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw
(video, song) Prejudice by Tim Minchin (hilarious)
http://lezgetreal.com/2011/04/george-takei-reacts-to-tennessee-cant-say-gay-bill-with-humorous-tweet/
That's so Takei.
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Minchin will be here in Portland...
...while I am at work. Fuck.
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http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6360/the_cake_is_not_a_lie_how_to_.php
Decent article on achievements in games.
http://vimeo.com/22970879
(video) Video of the tornado in Tuscaloosa, Alabama yesterday.
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I tend to prefer achievement systems where there is a tangible reward for collecting the achievements.
For example, collecting Battle Trophies in Star Ocean 3 led to more character outfits, music test room, and (eventually) an entirely new way to play the game.
Collecting Accolades in Dragon Quest 9 is not fun at all, since they (a) don't unlock anything (other than Accolades for having a lot of Accolades) and (b) aren't even all possible to get at the same time (i.e. fuck you completionists)
The Halo series has the best overall use of achievements that I've seen. The achievements themselves are well-designed (doing cool and/or funny stuff ingame, or completing difficult challenges). They make available a free download (Waypoint) that lets you manage your achievements, compare your performance to your friend's, and has a "level" system that makes earning the achievements more desirable. And getting those achievements unlocks different armors ingame and Xbox Live avatar items. You're having fun *and* getting a reward, even if it is just a different skin for your character.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/sports/ncaabasketball/29sportsbriefs-STJOHNSSIGNS_BRF.html?_r=1
St. John's signs player with entitlement issues. Or maybe issues with his parents. Guarantee you: kid's got some kind of issues.
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I'm impressed someone with the name God's Gift could live long enough to move past kindergarten, let alone get to college.
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He and his five siblings all have names reflecting the religious beliefs of their father, a minister.
I would have named them Pay Day, Money In The Bank, Make It Rain, Bling Bling, and Salary Cap.
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Abbott and Costello would have a field day with that, I'm sure.
EDIT:
http://www.losteyeball.com/index.php/2007/06/19/56-worstbest-analogies-of-high-school-students/
"Oh, Jason, take me!” she panted, her breasts heaving like a college freshman on $1-a-beer night."
so good.
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Almost all of those strike me as being intentionally goofy, honestly.
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Me too, but they're awesome, so who cares?
"She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword."
"He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River."
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"Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever." is hands down the smartest thing in there.
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"Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever." is hands down the smartest thing in there.
Fucking word.
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http://www.duelinganalogs.com/comic/2011/05/02/portal-tetris/
Portal Tetris. For the life of me, I cannot beat the high score.
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http://joshblackman.com/blog/?p=4407
in case you never hear from me again.
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http://vimeo.com/22826209
(Video) Hammok on wheels controlled by PS2 controller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3gNQ2KYCb4
(video) Short film "Late Bloomer" from the Sundance Film Festival. It's about a sex ed class (so mildly NSFW) but I don't want to spoil it past that.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/04may_epic/
Precessing gyroscopes; more confirmed aspects of General Relativity.
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http://vimeo.com/22826209
(Video) Hammok on wheels controlled by PS2 controller.
But...why would you want to go anywhere when you're already at a hammock?
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http://monsterlicenses.com/index.php
Are YOU a supernatural lifeform? Then register today!
(This amuses me more then it probably should.)
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http://shitmystudentswrite.tumblr.com/
Ranges from unforunate typos to...pretty ridiculous.
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http://www.techspot.com/news/43696-the-us-legally-recognizes-video-games-as-an-art-form.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dc8487e9cc70318%2C0
Take that, Ebert!
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Jim's sig made me seek it out. Meta-humor!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md-q5GRo9E0
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Success at last!
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http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/library-of-congress-debuts-national-jukebox-crammed-with-rare-sounds.php?ref=fpb
coooooool.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncsHQ_psTEg&feature=player_embedded
The glory of Saikyo.
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http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/GregMcClanahan/20110508/7579/Logic_vs_Psychology_in_World_of_Warcrafts_New_Gear_Advancement_System.php
Interesting theories on the weird logic of MMO addictions.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6375/the_cake_is_not_a_lie_how_to_.php?print=1
Designing achievements, part 2.
http://thefinaledition.com/
Parrody: the final edition of the New York Times.
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Not a bad article. It certainly explains the addictions of a great many players to be honest. It certainly is the opposite for myself, I don't know why I liked the game in BC, but it wasn't because of loot and it being hard to get. I know why I like Cataclysm, because it is by far the best MMO content they have ever produced. They have even fixed some of my biggest misgivings in the recent patch (thus the relapse). However, like all expansions of WoW, the content is coming to slowly, that is mostly the heart of it. Not all the playerbase has beat the current raid content.
That doesn't matter, people have been doing it for 5 or so months now. They need something else. People DID grind through Black Temple for 12 months and they -bitched constantly and incessantly about it-. Not to mention the churn in higher end guilds was relatively high then, but even more brutally so on middling guilds that were being used as a stepping stone for loot hungry players.
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http://consumerist.com/2011/05/lady-weeps-with-joy-as-new-in-n-out-opens.html
That's right, baby - people WEEP for these burgers.
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They're good but they're not that good, damn.
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We got a Five Guys in town recently. They have all these signs plastered over the walls with their glowing reviews from various publications around the country. And then you get the food and it's like a nothing special burger and horrible fries at a ridiculously expensive price.
Go go hype machine.
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Having just gotten back from a Five Guys dinner two minutes ago, I can comfortably say that whoever runs your local establishment is doing it wrong. Their burgers are fantastic.
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Honestly, given that it's texas, one assumes opening a burger chain (even a classy one) there is akin to taco bells in New Mexico.
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Ditto to what Shale said to a certain degree. Five Guys burgers are pretty good. The fries are good, but not great.
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Five Guys is okay but grossly overpriced and too greasy. I'll have to second the Cap on that one.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/13/evan-longoria-catch-video_n_861824.html
Evan Longoria is apparently an action hero.
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I clicked the link thinking it was Eva Longoria.
Also, that looked incredibly fake.
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Video game alphabet!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lishoffs/5720479464/in/photostream
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http://thedailywh.at/2011/05/10/this-is-epic-you-should-watch-it-of-the-day-2/
(video) Vegan Black Metal
https://www.facebook.com/notes/yonah-ward-grossman/for-over-one-hundred-years-americans-knew-pit-bulls-for-what-they-did-best-babys/213698638654712
Interesting article on pit bulls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9XtK6R1QAk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvU9GZjBTzs
(video) Cats in Zero gravity.
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http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/05/10/will-anonymity-and-hyperlinks-be-illegal-in-canada/ (http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/05/10/will-anonymity-and-hyperlinks-be-illegal-in-canada/)
Stephen Harper will put MC in jail for posting on the internet without use of her real name.
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http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/05/10/will-anonymity-and-hyperlinks-be-illegal-in-canada/ (http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/05/10/will-anonymity-and-hyperlinks-be-illegal-in-canada/)
Stephen Harper will put MC in jail for posting on the internet without use of her real name.
Fuck you, Stephen Harper!
Man, this is reminding me of that creepy message I got from some guy in India over Facebook recently. (He was talking about my eyes or some BS--makes me want to switch my profile picture back to a Touhou character). Or, GameFAQs, where people barely knew I existed when I was "just" a game developer, but I got mildly stalkerish behavior when rumor spread about my gender. Really, I have plenty of good reasons for not openly displaying my name.
Also:
Stephen Harper: you're not as cool as Blizzard; stop copying them.
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The law about linking is also similarly brilliant.
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http://ca.kotaku.com/5802729/altair-misses-the-haystack-in-the-witcher-2 (http://ca.kotaku.com/5802729/altair-misses-the-haystack-in-the-witcher-2)
Really great Assassin's Creed easter egg in the Witcher 2.
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Nice.
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http://volokh.com/2011/04/28/ninth-circuit-holds-that-violating-any-employer-restriction-on-computer-use-exceeds-authorized-access-making-it-a-federal-crime/
Things that can be a federal crime in California: checking your personal email at work.
http://volokh.com/2011/05/17/employer-sues-former-employee-for-checking-facebook-and-personal-e-mail-and-excessive-internet-usage-at-work/
Things that are not a crime in Florida: same shit.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/15/video-game-design-psychology
Surprisingly good article about game design...in mainstream media.
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/
Solid ongoing blog about the psychology used in game design.
http://hardenthefuckup.wordpress.com/
I'm just amused by this, because one of my company's mottos is "Harden the Fuck Up."
http://www.hulu.com/watch/186883/ghost-stories-japan-the-horror-of-bloodstained-lake-the-snow-specter#x-0,vepisode,1,0
(video) "Originally an inane kid’s show copied off Scoobydoo, except with real ghosts, ADV decided to have fun with it and let Steven Foster write a new script, and the voice actors ad lib whatever they felt like. "
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http://superbooyah.com/index.php/Home/Galleries/Funny/The-100-Worst-Senior-Portraits-Of-All-Time.html
(http://superbooyah.com/images/stories/Galleries/Funny/seniorpotrait/c%20wolverine%20kid.jpg)
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http://www.hulu.com/watch/186883/ghost-stories-japan-the-horror-of-bloodstained-lake-the-snow-specter#x-0,vepisode,1,0
(video) "Originally an inane kid’s show copied off Scoobydoo, except with real ghosts, ADV decided to have fun with it and let Steven Foster write a new script, and the voice actors ad lib whatever they felt like. "
Ughhhhhh you had to remind me of this. What'd I do to you recently, met?<G> Aside from the asinine fan bitching, it happened right before I started at CPM, so I actually had to respond to many questions of "Are you gonna be doing this?", "Is this gonna be standard practice?", and my personal favorite, "What the fuck is wrong with you people?" as if we had any control over what ADV did.
-
http://www.hulu.com/watch/186883/ghost-stories-japan-the-horror-of-bloodstained-lake-the-snow-specter#x-0,vepisode,1,0
(video) "Originally an inane kid’s show copied off Scoobydoo, except with real ghosts, ADV decided to have fun with it and let Steven Foster write a new script, and the voice actors ad lib whatever they felt like. "
Ughhhhhh you had to remind me of this. What'd I do to you recently, met?<G> Aside from the asinine fan bitching, it happened right before I started at CPM, so I actually had to respond to many questions of "Are you gonna be doing this?", "Is this gonna be standard practice?", and my personal favorite, "What the fuck is wrong with you people?" as if we had any control over what ADV did.
"All you yellow people look alike to me. Black people, too, but not Mexican. Isn't that weird?"
I don't see why you're so ashamed.
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http://superbooyah.com/index.php/Home/Galleries/Funny/The-100-Worst-Senior-Portraits-Of-All-Time.html
(http://superbooyah.com/images/stories/Galleries/Funny/seniorpotrait/c%20wolverine%20kid.jpg)
Why are there so many of them involving people bathing like hillbillies?
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"With Macho Man dead, the world might as well end tomorrow anyway :(" -- Wonderella
OH YEAHHHHHH!!! --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JsdDCq1-I8
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http://superbooyah.com/index.php/Home/Galleries/Funny/The-100-Worst-Senior-Portraits-Of-All-Time.html
The guy with the Yugioh duel disks is pretty hilarious (assuming that it was a joke). Picture 81's inclusion is just the picture chooser being an asshole I'd assume.
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/47212472@N00/5677820110
Have you seen this cat?
http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=5426
So...someone comissions art for their pen and paper RPG, and decides to get something that isn't a white male or sexualized female on the cover. The number of iterations necessary to get there is kinda scary, but I rather like the end result.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/pictures-you-need-to-see-before-the-world-ends?&r=true&z=2DHTDZ
(not 56k friendly) Amusing animal pictures.
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http://www.cracked.com/article_19216_9-words-youve-used-today-with-bizarre-criminal-origins.html
Interesting origins of modern words.
http://www.atlus.com/persona2/
After more than a decade, they're finally releasing it!!!!!
No, I'm not talking about DNF, I'm talking about Innocent Sin.
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YESSSSS. I've been checking the P2:IS gf board intermittedly to see if/when they finally announced release.
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Expected/10, but still welcome. Another 2011 game worth buying!
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At this point, I'm not really sure that I ever have the expectation of RPG's coming over at all myself.
-
Agreed, but in this case Atlus gave us a really obvious teaser last week, so it was just a matter of WHEN they'd do a formal announcement. Speculation ran rampant in fact that we'd get it June 23 (the date on the teaser, corresponding to 'the day before the original release'), but unless they're yanking us around a bit with "Fall" apparently not. Ah well, considering my purchasing list for the rest of the year was "1. Disgaea 4 2. ... oh god", still.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muVfidujxRg
Not sure if old, but My Little Pony physics.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDIStA5VWe4&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4H5zOJnxBHc
So apparently, there actually are Kingdom Hearts fans who eschew "waaaah we want Kingdom Hearts 3!!!" and instead make awesome fan speculation on how awesome the music can be.
Second one doesn't sound much like the original aside from the chorus, but it DOES sound uncannily like something Yoko Shimomura would make for an epic showdown in Kingdom Hearts.
-
"1. Disgaea 4 2. ... oh god", still.
I was indeed wondering what other games existed that could possibly make the list.
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Tales of Graces was on there, but that's been pushed back to 2012. Nintendo by all evidence has no interest in putting out anything but 3DS games (which isn't getting anything relevant this year except maybe Paper Mario), and it's getting less and less likely we'll ever see FE12, Xenoblade, or The Last Story, so... yeah. The morrow was barren of promises so to speak.
Mind, the early half of 2011 had a perfectly busy release schedule, but going the remaining 9 months of the year with one release I intended to buy was rather a sobering thought.
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Xenoblade's going to be released in English in Europe. You'll have to mod your Wii but relatively speaking I guess it's a small price to pay.
(I'm mostly hyped for Dark Souls and ME3 myself. And Half Minute Hero on XBLA)
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Nintendo by all evidence has no interest in putting out anything but 3DS games
Well...except that the Wii2/Cafe/whatever has a probable 2011 release date, so they've probably got stuff in the works for that. (There's already rumors of SSB4).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muVfidujxRg
Not sure if old, but My Little Pony physics.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Although, it strikes me that at least two of these could be explained by "pegasus ponies are lighter". Certainly birds manage to have hollow bones, and thus have considerably lower density. Also, I think his calculation of filly-Fluttershy's weight is just off in the first place; he calculates her as being a cylinder of 11 inches by 7 inches...but also pulls out the number 275 kg. A cylinder of 12 inches by 7 inches is going to be like...5 kg, assuming it's of standard biological density. Yes, this makes my little ponies considerably smaller than horses, but that seems reasonable given their measurements relative to other animals in the show.
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Yeah, but that just makes the first one even worse. There's a reason butterflies don't do supersonic acceleration well.
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My biggest problem with the video is that the class actually enjoyed it. Screams fake.
-
In a Physics class that's.. presumably at a relatively high level? (At least a level here they're actively choosing to do Physics.) Wouldn't surprise me if they enjoyed it.
...I know I sure as hell did. >.>
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Yeah, but that just makes the first one even worse. There's a reason butterflies don't do supersonic acceleration well.
Well, there's a completely different issue with Ranbow Dash: where the hell does her acceleration come from? She's not flapping her wings. The only thing she seems to be doing is making herself more aerodynamic, which would make her maximum acceleration g. Unless she's actually like superman and able to fly by force of will (making the wings mostly for show and turning/gliding).
In a Physics class that's.. presumably at a relatively high level? (At least a level here they're actively choosing to do Physics.) Wouldn't surprise me if they enjoyed it.
...I know I sure as hell did. >.>
I'd guess grade 12 high-school, just based off of a few clues (like there's an american flag in the classroom, which makes me think high-school and not university. But also the material and equations used strongly suggest either grade 12 or first year university; And...first year physics classes tend to be too large to let every single student do a presentation on something goofy). And yeah, Grade 12 physics is usually optional.
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I don't want to alarm anyone, but Miike Takashi may be directing Phoenix Wright: The Movie. (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/24/rumor-ace-attorney-film-set-photographed/)
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Well...except that the Wii2/Cafe/whatever has a probable 2011 release date, so they've probably got stuff in the works for that. (There's already rumors of SSB4).
Which is even worse, really. More advertising thunder stolen from existing platforms, lower odds of good games with actual effort behind them (This gives them two year-one platforms simultaneously, year one == suck for all systems).
Xenoblade's going to be released in English in Europe. You'll have to mod your Wii but relatively speaking I guess it's a small price to pay.
(I'm mostly hyped for Dark Souls and ME3 myself. And Half Minute Hero on XBLA)
Hm. I haven't heard that. Looking through wikipedia, though, I think this information may be outdated, because it wasn't on more recent release lists that I've seen. I guess we'll know for sure next month though.
(I know of Dark Souls, Demon Souls didn't sound appealing and I have no reason to believe the sequel will be any better. I have about as much interest in Mass Effect as I have in drowning trapped beneath a sheet of ice.)
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http://www.capcom-unity.com/snow_infernus/blog/2011/05/25/street_fighter_ii_sounds_played_out_by_one_dude
Street Fighter fight where all of the sounds are being done by one person.
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Nah, Xenoblade's pretty much confirmed. The name's changed to Xenoblade Chronicles for Europe, there's an official site http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/games/wii/xenoblade_chronicles_32583.html and a "Choose the cover art" contest was started about 10 days ago.
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Odd. Well, either Nintendo has decided to toss a bone to more dedicated gamers at long last, or NoA are much bigger douches than the company at large.
Granted, assuming they aren't for whatever reason skipping over the largest region, they may well miss out on 2011, hard to say at this stage.
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I don't want to alarm anyone, but Miike Takashi may be directing Phoenix Wright: The Movie. (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/24/rumor-ace-attorney-film-set-photographed/)
This is going to be the fucking scariest Phoenix Wright shit ever. Oddly I think it could totally work if I didn't only know him from ze ultraviolence and distrurbing concepts. He totally works in batshit lazy land though.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam
Prisoners in China...forced to play WoW...
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/25/disney-withdraws-navy-seal-trademark-application/
Disney withdraws its Seal Team 6 trademark application.
http://www.vampiremob.com/
(videos) Indy TV: Vampires as mob members.
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I don't want to alarm anyone, but Miike Takashi may be directing Phoenix Wright: The Movie. (http://www.joystiq.com/2011/05/24/rumor-ace-attorney-film-set-photographed/)
This is going to be the fucking scariest Phoenix Wright shit ever. Oddly I think it could totally work if I didn't only know him from ze ultraviolence and distrurbing concepts. He totally works in batshit lazy land though.
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/05/27/ace_attorney_movie/
It's real.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/05/buffalo-buffalo-and-mathematical-induction.html
So...someone figured out how to get arbitrarily long sentences of buffalo, without even needing to refer to Buffalo, NY.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KJOmCPmVSc
(video) Japan. Horse racing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnVgsBLzHMM
(video) Super hearing!!1
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/05/buffalo-buffalo-and-mathematical-induction.html
So...someone figured out how to get arbitrarily long sentences of buffalo, without even needing to refer to Buffalo, NY.
I had to do that for one of my undergraduate CS courses. Pretty amusing.
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http://literallyunbelievable.tumblr.com/
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Oh how I wish they published the name of the people who originally posted on facebook. That would make for such glorious trolling.
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I'm waiting for one of these where the person responds laughing at their incredibly dumb friend.
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http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=6451796 (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=6451796)
Apparently South Florida pee-wee football leagues are shady as fuck. Large-scale gambling going on, drug dealers working as de facto GMs for teams, and the Chief of Police pretty much says "I don't give a shit."
Before some gamblers bet on a team, they'll invest in it, said Smith, the local pastor. Gamblers study kids, and they find the good players whose dads are in prison and whose moms are barely making ends meet to put food on the table for three children, he said.
They offer a mom $2,000 to have her son play for a certain team, and throughout the season they give her son clothes, shoes and money to give him an incentive to play well, Smith said.
According to Smith, the gambler's point of view is, "I'm recruiting these kids to play for this team because this is the team I'm going to be betting on all year." He added that many coaches are also in on the deal.
The way Smith describes it, the return on investment is more certain than the stock market: Give the boy and his mom $5,000 to $10,000 throughout the season. Make up to $20,000 to $30,000 per game, over eight to 10 games.
Thurston said he lost one potential player when another team offered the boy's mother $3,500.
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I saw that on ESPN a few weeks ago. You can see the guys in the stands just passing money back and forth after each play and the police just stand there and watch them.
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It's especially shitty for those kids who now know if they don't make some big play on 4th down or blow the point spread or whatever, their mom won't make rent.
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Can't believe the NCAA neglected to corner this market.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/29/50-state-stereotypes-in-2-minutes_n_868591.html
just like it says: 50 state stereotypes in 2 minutes.
"Our chief export is obnoxious Pats fans."
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http://gamearthritis.org/
Cute art project.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YveSHqhOkdo
(video) Secret wars reenactment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2BfqDUPL1I
(video) Parrody Pledge of Allegiance.
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http://www.digtriad.com/news/watercooler/article/178031/176/Florida-Homeowner-Forecloses-On-Bank-Of-America
File under: Justice, poetic.
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http://www.notracistbut.com/
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http://www.untoldentertainment.com/games/sissy/
5-year-old girl makes game and it's...actually surprisingly enjoyable. Sissy's Magical Ponycorn adventure; possibly my favourite game released in 2011 so far >_>.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8553366/MI6-attacks-al-Qaeda-in-Operation-Cupcake.html
Best cyber attack ever.
http://www.ajc.com/news/henry/zombies-take-over-henry-968755.html
One of those "awesome headline" moments.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110603/us_yblog_thelookout/first-man-functionally-cured-of-hiv
Turns out getting some bone marrow from an HIV immune doner basically knocks out all the symptoms of HIV (as in, White Blood Count returns to normal and the virus seemingly can no longer reproduce in general). Cool beans.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiblYasnzWE
Not the most technically proficient pianist in the world, but he's got music in his soul.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGvTgYyANy8
(video) Fire Tornado. FFX was right, it can happen!
http://www.cnet.com/8301-30976_1-20068778-10348864.html
Richard Dreyfuss reads the iTunes EULA.
http://cf.drafthouse.com/she_texted_we_kicked_her_out2.html
(video) After being warned twice about texting while watching the movie, customer leaves angry phone message. Theatre makes angry phone message into a pre-movie video. This theatre is in Austin...DLC6 trip? >_>
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q86vWgaLuwE
(video) Turns out Duke Nukem Forever is bad. No, no, I mean really bad.
"It's got all of the bad things about old-school shooters, but all of the bad things about new-school modern shooters as well. Which is a horrible mix, it really, really is."
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q86vWgaLuwE
(video) Turns out Duke Nukem Forever is bad. No, no, I mean really bad.
"It's got all of the bad things about old-school shooters, but all of the bad things about new-school modern shooters as well. Which is a horrible mix, it really, really is."
That video broke my heart. Oh well, at least I can spend that $50 on something better.
-
Duke Nukem being bad is somehow surprising? Clearly it has been too long since the last one came out.
-
Hey, Duke 3D is a classic.
Also, TotalBiscuit's still making videos! Awesome! I kind of lost track of him when he left off his Let's Play Shining Force 3 videos.
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Hey, Duke 3D is a classic.
1. While I'd agree with that statement, I wouldn't say that's because of its quality, and more to the point:
2. My understanding, though I admittedly haven't played them, is that every game in the series since 3D has sucked ass.
-
The "(im)mature content" in 3D definitely got it a lot more press than it otherwise would have had, but the core gameplay and level design were very good. Maybe not good enough to hold up today, that's up to you. The problem is that all those other games in the series were third-person shooters farmed out to third-party developers that didn't even pretend to be full-on successors to 3D, leaving that mantle for DNF. So every expectation for a Duke Nukem FPS came from (fans' memories of ) 3D, both because of the genre and because it was the last game in the series that 3D Realms actually worked on.
-
To further put things into perspective, Duke Nukem Forever is getting lower metacritic scores than games like Duke Nukem Advance, Duke Nukem 64, and Duke Nukem: Manhatten Project.
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To further put things into perspective, Duke Nukem Forever is getting lower metacritic scores than games like Duke Nukem Advance, Duke Nukem 64, and Duke Nukem: Manhatten Project.
To be fair, Advance (according to the screenshots) looks like Duke 3D on a handheld, 64 is a pseudo-port of 3D, and Manhattan Project was a downloadable title with lower expectations. There's no doubt in my mind that DNF isn't going to be great, but as long as it's fun and the multiplayer doesn't suck, I'm sure it'll be fine.
-
Time to Kill was a fine 3D action game as I recall, though the controls were sort of awkward.
edit: it's kind of a shame, but you can't really expect a 14 year old zombie of a game to be much of anything but a horrible mess. Gearbox has the rights to the franchise now, maybe they can make a better game without all that baggage. All the same, ignoring reviews and such until I get my own hands on the game, which hopefully will be soon. Always bet on Duke.
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http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/06/11/american-gods-tv-series-to-be-six-season-open-ended/
American Gods whatnow?
-
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/new-childrens-book-go-the-f-to-sleep/
a sure hit!
-
Huh, cooooooool. American Gods getting a TV adaption is yay, though I would prefer Gaiman to go back to writing novels.
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http://cf.drafthouse.com/she_texted_we_kicked_her_out2.html
(video) After being warned twice about texting while watching the movie, customer leaves angry phone message. Theatre makes angry phone message into a pre-movie video. This theatre is in Austin...DLC6 trip? >_>
Yes it is. There's a branch of it (although not the one in the article) about a half mile from where your hotels are.
-
Green Lantern is premiering that weekend~
-
I have a feeling Green Lantern is best seen with a dozen snarky friends, so perfect all around
-
While I theoretically approve of the idea that a guy can create any weapon he can imagine and when he's dumb he makes a sword, and when he's smart he makes a 20,000 round a minute minigun, Green Lantern can't be made in to a good movie any more than Superman. Dude's just too powerful. Other than fighting an evil version of himself, who do you have him throw down with?
Clearly the answer is a non-corporeal planet-devouring entity because those always make the most captivating villains.
-
Other than fighting an evil version of himself, who do you have him throw down with?
The good news is that they're clearly setting up for that, what with Sinestro being in this. The bad news is that this requires waiting for a whole 'nother movie.
-
And in the meantime the answer is "a guy with a big head and a yellow CGI effect."
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/12/pratchett-starts-process-to-end-his-life
Poor guy. This sucks on every conceivable level.
-
And in the meantime the answer is "a guy with a big head and a yellow CGI effect."
A guy who can make any weapon but instead attacks with huge green fists
VS
A guy with a giant head, making him MORE vulnerable to punches than a normal person.
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http://englishrussia.com/2011/06/10/wedding-photos-and-photoshop/
Russian photoshopped wedding pictures.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/target-forces-employees-watch-anti-union-pro
Target's anti-union propaganda.
http://jalopnik.com/5810395/australian-homebuilt-hoverbike-makes-star-wars-speeders-real
Australian homemade hoverbike.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13762313
10 strange ways Tudors died.
http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/10/gay-pride-flash-mob.html
Gay pride flash mob.
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http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/target-forces-employees-watch-anti-union-pro
Target's anti-union propaganda.
This is shockingly similar to what I watched when I got hired at Wal-mart. Okay, there was a little more Sam Walton cult worship, but other than that.
-
That is such a hilariously hamhanded video. Unions would be a disaster for companies like Wal-mart and Target, but that video is special.
-
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/target-forces-employees-watch-anti-union-pro
Target's anti-union propaganda.
This is shockingly similar to what I watched when I got hired at Wal-mart. Okay, there was a little more Sam Walton cult worship, but other than that.
Ditto with Universal.
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http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/new-childrens-book-go-the-f-to-sleep/
a sure hit!
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/awesome_of_the_day/2011/06/samuel-l-jackson-narrates-go-the-fuck-to-sleep.html
EVEN BETTER
-
http://10k.aneventapart.com/Uploads/262/#
Arty Bollocks Generator
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/new-childrens-book-go-the-f-to-sleep/
a sure hit!
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/awesome_of_the_day/2011/06/samuel-l-jackson-narrates-go-the-fuck-to-sleep.html
EVEN BETTER
http://www.ifc.com/news/2011/06/herzog-reads-go-the-eff-to-sleep.php
POSSIBLY EVEN BETTER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUUcOmgYEhY
(video, Trailer) "The Muppets--not in Sweedish, we promise"
-
Slightly dated, but:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags
Parsing HTML with regular expressions. Check out the first comment. Safe to read for non-CS geeks.
-
Slightly dated, but:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/regex-match-open-tags-except-xhtml-self-contained-tags
Parsing HTML with regular expressions. Check out the first comment. Safe to read for non-CS geeks.
Still amusing every time I read it.
-
Damn your baby forcefield!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT7_CtjEVFU
===========================
EDIT: Turns out the Magic 2012 Xbox game has unreleased cards from the fall MtG expansion "Innistrad" if you hack it. Check out the sick artwork:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=331976
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EDIT: Turns out the Magic 2012 Xbox game has unreleased cards from the fall MtG expansion "Innistrad" if you hack it. Check out the sick artwork:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=331976
Oh wow. Loving the artwork there on Angelic Destiny especially~ <3
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Yeah, looks like it's the first expansion (which is a bit disheartening, I was hoping they'd continue the tradition of giving us one of the boss decks from the previous set, Nicol or Karn). Wreath of Geists looks the prettiest to me, if only because I'm going to pretend that the guy is Rudolph Van Richten.
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Reposted in full from a law/nerdiness/misanthropy blog I enjoy. Warning: Game of Thrones spoilers.
1) I have read and enjoyed George R. R. Martin’s A Song Of Ice And Fire.
2) I hate and despise my fellow man.
3) It logically follows that this made me smile. (http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/06/13/game-of-thrones-reaction/)
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http://blog.games.yahoo.com/blog/780-bob-hoskins-hates-super-mario-bros-film
Self explanatory.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irLsjBDPe5c
(video) Street band performs bohemian rhapsody.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/magazine/my-ex-gay-friend.html?_r=1
Fascinating artile about a gay man who went straight.
http://discovermagazine.com/1996/may/afistfulofrisks763
An interesting collection of statistics on just how likely you are to die from various causes.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/magazine/my-ex-gay-friend.html?_r=1
Fascinating artile about a gay man who went straight.
That is fascinating, but I'm not sure exactly what to think about it.
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There isn't a great deal to think about. Someone made a choice. There is plenty of armchair analysis you could bandy about, but I think that is disrespectful to all the people involved.
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http://flavorwire.com/188138/the-30-harshest-author-on-author-insults-in-history
I think Faulkner hasn't really got the hang of this.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/magazine/my-ex-gay-friend.html?_r=1
Fascinating artile about a gay man who went straight.
Hey look at that, someone who things being gay is all sorts of awful things and that he got converted because he was "weak." Super.
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There isn't a great deal to think about. Someone made a choice. There is plenty of armchair analysis you could bandy about, but I think that is disrespectful to all the people involved.
Yeah, this is obviously a very unusual person, but not someone you could make generalizations about. It's just an interesting individual to read about.
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But if I can't use the example of a single person to make broad, sweeping statements about all people everywhere, how will I find the time to get to know people one by one?
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I learned today that all gays are Fundamentalist Christians. Good to know.
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And all fundamentalist christians are gay.
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I think you have that in reverse. All fundamentalists christians are secretly gay. Just look at republican sex scandals!
Edit: dammit!
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The good news: Matt Smith playing Batman. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/06/21/doctor-who-batman-matt-smith/)
The bad news: It wasn't videotaped. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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http://flavorwire.com/188138/the-30-harshest-author-on-author-insults-in-history
I think Faulkner hasn't really got the hang of this.
Mark Twain's #4 was the best one. Hands-down. The Faulkner/Hemingway duo were amusing too.
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http://www.queerty.com/ancient-coins-prove-that-rome-was-once-the-chucky-cheese-of-prostitution-20110621/
(NSFW) Ancient Roman prostitution coins (mildly pornographic...or rather: as pornographic as a 2000 year old faded coin can get).
http://io9.com/5813493/the-first-cancer-vaccine-that-works
Interesing cancer cure. They make a virus that has the DNA of the tumor, and then train the immune system to attack the cancer cells. The theory is that this could be used to attack almost any type of cancer, they don't need to target the tumor (unlike radiation therapy).
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http://www.queerty.com/ancient-coins-prove-that-rome-was-once-the-chucky-cheese-of-prostitution-20110621/
(NSFW) Ancient Roman prostitution coins (mildly pornographic...or rather: as pornographic as a 2000 year old faded coin can get).
Hey, I wrote a paper on those last year.
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I think you have that in reverse. All fundamentalists christians are secretly gay. Just look at republican sex scandals!
Edit: dammit!
But wait, the Democrats just had a sex scandal too! Therefore:
Republicans=Democrats=Fundamentalist Christians=Gays
1=1
So everyone is gay, except perhaps Ross Perot. More research needed.
Fabulous!
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But Weiner texted pictures of his dick to women!
Republicans = gay
Democrats = morons
Case closed.
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If sending pictures of my wang to women is dumb, I don't want to be the least bit intelligent...
...Just like a Fundamentalist Christian! Holy shit.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/magazine/my-ex-gay-friend.html?_r=1
Fascinating artile about a gay man who went straight.
That is fascinating, but I'm not sure exactly what to think about it.
This. Part of me is utterly horrified to see the really extremist views coming from someone who was once at the heart of the movement, but another part is just amazed to see this reaction.
That said, a few things stood out to me. One major thing was in the poetry he wrote in the past, it says he'd rather be referred to as queer over gay, as gay is apparently designed to segment and persecute. Seems kind of odd to me, given the original meaning of the word queer. ;s
On the whole, though, it's a fascinating read, for all that it's somewhat odd.
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It isn't a particularly shocking trend for someone with a background in Queer theory to seek an alternate label to one that at the time was fairly aggressively used to persecute and negatively identify an individual.
If you are interested in that branch of Sociology then I highly reccomend you check it out for yourself. The article name drops some of the more prominent theorists.
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http://www.npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/
(or to cut straight to the relevant part)
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137386121/bill-clinton-plays-not-my-job
In 2005, President Clinton founded the Clinton Global Initiative to address "the world's most pressing challenges." Next week in Chicago, Clinton is hosting the CGI America meeting, with a focus on job creation and economic growth in the U.S.
And because there's no possible segue from such important work to a show as silly as ours, we'll just come right out and say it: We decided to quiz the former president and Rhodes scholar about the My Little Pony show. The famously well-informed leader answers three questions about Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle.
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Bah, those Pony questions were too easy. Even if you'd never seen the show, you could easily answer them.
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http://www.cracked.com/blog/3-things-gay-people-are-going-to-hate-about-gay-marriage/?wa_user1=2&wa_user2=News&wa_user3=blog&wa_user4=feature_module
Cracked article in response to legalizing gay marriage.
http://kotaku.com/5815052/team-fortress-2-is-now-free-free-forever
TF2 is now free-to-play
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35460/US_Supreme_Court_Decision_Justice_Scalias_Opinion.php
Supreme Court strikes down California game censorship law.
http://poorlydressed.failblog.org/2011/06/24/fashion-fail-like-some-lox-with-that-bagelhead/
Japan.
EDIT:
Bah, those Pony questions were too easy. Even if you'd never seen the show, you could easily answer them.
The second question was at least a little ambiguous. It could have been "B: a title, such as Fluttershy the Inventive."
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Breyer and Thomas being the only dissenting votes is just goddamn weird.
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http://consumerist.com/2011/06/new-services-adds-your-drunken-facebook-photos-to-employer-background-checks-for-up-to-seven-years.html
I don't like this one bit. Title says it all.
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http://dvice.com/archives/2011/06/capcom-tries-to.php
Capcom is trying out a new form of anti-used-sales assholery by making it so once you create a save file in Resident Evil Mercenaries, you can no longer start a new game from scratch. Ever.
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http://dvice.com/archives/2011/06/capcom-tries-to.php
Capcom is trying out a new form of anti-used-sales assholery by making it so once you create a save file in Resident Evil Mercenaries, you can no longer start a new game from scratch. Ever.
As someone who is really into replay value, this makes me pretty upset.
Well...ok, no, it depends a little on the game. Like, this would be atrocious in a Touhou game. But there's also games that I play once, enjoy, and never have any real inclination to return to. Kinda like the difference between a movie I'd rent and a movie I'd buy. I would, however, expect that the price in a "rental" situation would be lower. Like, the price of that game had better be half that of a full-price DS game (so...$15? Yeah, I'd be okay with it if it was $15).
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http://dvice.com/archives/2011/06/capcom-tries-to.php
Capcom is trying out a new form of anti-used-sales assholery by making it so once you create a save file in Resident Evil Mercenaries, you can no longer start a new game from scratch. Ever.
One thing that would bother me the most (okay a lot of things bother me with this idea) is what would happen if the save file got corrupt? Usually with most cartridge based games you just hit new game and make a new save over the corrupt one. There better be a fucking warning that displays when you save "DON'T TURN OFF THE POWER WHILE SAVING OR THE GAME WILL BREAK!"
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...but the Mercenaries game doesn't have a campaign mode, so the only thing that's being 'saved' ever is the high score...
It's kind of like how the Phoenix Wright games don't allow you to 'start a new game'. There's no difference between starting a new game and just replaying the old chapters except that you can't see how many total chapters there are in a new cart...
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Phoenix Wright games unless they totally fucked shit up since the first one let you do a hard reset on the cart.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XePUTMXnBOA
(video) Poland
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2011/06/27/nl-zombie-warning-gallery-627.html
Newfoundland has been taken over by Zombies; just thought you should know.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MPRdotOrg#p/a/u/1/X9eriClHWLw
(video) Neil Gaiman talks Adam Savage into sharing his impression of Gollum singing "I Will Survivie"
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YLw2-OT7ios3ik5CdRN34dJCL5XviWSyQMnzFTiI_BU/mobilebasic?hl=en_US (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YLw2-OT7ios3ik5CdRN34dJCL5XviWSyQMnzFTiI_BU/mobilebasic?hl=en_US)
If you enjoyed Nier as much as I did, you may have heard of Grimoire Nier, which I think I have once linked the translation to here. Anyway I guess it comes with one of those Drama CDs, which someone has translated and made an outline of. Some interesting stuff that stretches from prior to the prologue, to 280 years after the end.
Naturally it has some spoilers and shit. But it does include a lot of things they were apparently wanting to put in a sequel that would never get made, and a lot of it is pretty intriguing.
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http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4641287.ece
This is extremely old and might have been posted already but damn if this isn't interesting.
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http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4641287.ece
This is extremely old and might have been posted already but damn if this isn't interesting.
So...wait, Roald Dahl was a Government Hooker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8uMXyxvbKA)?
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http://kentie.net/article/dxguide/
I have linked to this before, but with Deus Ex on sale today I hope some people are going to play it sometime soon.
This is a tool that will help the game run correctly on modern systems and OS. It also has a renderer for DX10 so you can make the game look a little shinier. It won't make the game look amazing or anything, but it will take some of the sharp edges off it.
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Never know when I'll go up against heavy armor. Give me the GEP Gun.
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My vision is augmented.
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You have a universal constructor???
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A bomb.
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http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article4641287.ece
This is extremely old and might have been posted already but damn if this isn't interesting.
So...wait, Roald Dahl was a Government Hooker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8uMXyxvbKA)?
*starry-eyed* I've found my new hero~ I want to get a job like this.
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Just think, in 60 years time kids could be playing Djinn's awesome hacks of games and then grow up to learn that he had been employed by his country to have sex with hot older women in the interests of national security.
Dude you have figured out your life goal, now make it happen.
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http://www.slightlywarped.com/crapfactory/curiosities/2010/humor_in_uniform.htm
Humorous photos from american soldiers.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6550847/female-armor-sucks
(video) Commentary on female armor in games.
http://kotaku.com/5818580/who-said-plants-are-immune-to-the-zombie-plague
(video) Plants vs Zombies humor.
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http://vimeo.com/25474499
(Video) WTF? (Nightmare inducing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXjTDZwU8b0
(video) Oh reality TV--"Who is the Worst Driver in the Netherlands" finale ends with the "winner" literally running over the show's host by accident.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxSyv4LC1c
(video, trailer) Every once in a while my company makes a totally badass trailer that I feel like I should share with...someone.
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http://vimeo.com/25474499
(Video) WTF? (Nightmare inducing)
Refreshment stands short, written and directed by the creator of Bokurano.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwjCTjdDyvw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwjCTjdDyvw)
The trailer for the new FONV DLC, featuring the voices of Doctor Thaddeus S. Venture and Hubert Farnsworth.
Naturally the comments include people talking about how Fallout 3 had a much better story because it had heroes and in FONV you didn't know who the heroes were so who am I supposed to support? Fucking Bethesda.
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Roboscorpions.
This already looks several times better than Honest Hearts.
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And LOBOTOMITES.
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No robocazadore I hope. Ever.
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I just pooped in terror.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKcChGsDqnU
(video) Impressive use of a plastic cup for percussion.
http://www.tastefullyoffensive.com/2011/07/epic-war.html
(video) "Epic Backyard Battle"
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6560683/du-hast-a-capella
(video) Rammenstein A capella
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2013513/Ashes-flashes-The-funeral-strippers-dance-honour-dead.html?ITO=1490
Funeral strippers. EDIT: Wait, Daily Mail; nevermind >_>
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http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/07/13/nomura_on_ff_versus_xiii/ (http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/07/13/nomura_on_ff_versus_xiii/)
Guess what? Final Fantasy Vs13 is releasing THREE NEW SCREENSHOTS because they're getting ready to start actually making the game, five years after announcing it and starting the project.
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The guy singing lead actually isn't bad at the given the audio quality there. Not a bad piece of A Capella.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05VhDBSQ8JQ
(video) Soccer goal scored by the goalie (first time they'd fielded the goalie too).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14135523
Religious headgear of the Flying Spaghetti Monster sect.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6564138/and-the-band-played-on-featuring-weird-al-yankovic
(video) if Weird Al played the Titanic...
http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF248-Transmission.jpg
"No, don't worry, it's not contagious"
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Read the article MC posted about Pastafarian Headgear appearing on a Driver's License.
This stood out to me:
The next step, Mr Alm told the Austrian news agency APA, is to apply to the Austrian authorities for pastafarianism to become an officially recognised faith.
Does getting Pastafarianism recognized as an official religion defeat the purpose of it?
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I think organized Atheists in general are kind of missing the point.
And while I'm on the subject, why do Atheists and Agnostics join the same organization in college? They believe in completely opposite things.
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Well, the point of Flying Spaghetti Monster was getting baseless religious dogma out of schools by offering up an extreme/absurd example of what allowing Intelligent Design into any kind of official procedure was implying. FSM seems like it should only be pulled out when pointing out that the special considerations made for religion are absurd.
Getting it recognized as an actual religion means that you've just made an actual religion that no one believes in, -at best-. At worst, you're implying that no religion has the right to be recognized because it's absurd. (Although, I suppose some people may agree with that last statement, it seems a bit extreme to me.)
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Oh, I dunno. I see no reason dedicated absurdists shouldn't enjoy the same benefits members of other religions get. Tax-exempt social functions, carte blanche on feeding their children alcohol, celebrations that must be accepted as legitimate reasons to miss work, excuses to exempt their children from school lessons they feel are corrupt...
Come to think of it, that last one even fits in with the basic premise behind pastafarianism.
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You also don't need a religious reason for that last one, last I heard. If you strongly feel something is controversial, your child doesn't have to learn it. Religion is just the main reason cited.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpyK6Ojnl-0
(video) "School of French Kissing for Dogs".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3CcyUAHtdk
(video) summary of the first 7 Harry Potter movies, using cats.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Chronodrax/antimatiere
Quirky little flash game; not sure what to make of it.
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Pastafarianism isn't an absurdist church. That is The Church of the SubGenius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius) (which I reccomend you check out because they are awesome). Pastafarianism is much more a protest religion as has been discussed.
Getting it recognised as an official religion would be a nice win not so much to say that it is ridiculous that religions get specific benefits so much that such things really should be more readilly made available to anyone with a humanitarian goal available to them. How much easier do you justify such benefits when you are doing it for religion rather than doing it purely out of charity or the like? Gods help us someone with an ulterior might be able to utilise these things to try and push people into a certain way of thinking if we let that happen.
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http://www.gamespot.com/news/6324412.html
Mega Man Legends 3 cancelled.
I don't even like the MML games but I was way more interested in MML3 than 90% of Capcom's games. Don't worry guys, they'll release Super Ultra Omega Deluxe Sexy Awesome Godlike Turbo Street Fighter 4 Redux Remix HD1080p with 10 dollar DLC for palette swaps.
Inafune left Capcom at the perfect time.
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12 new characters for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3.
Spoilers:
http://shoryuken.com/2011/07/20/umvc3-all-twelve-new-characters-leaked/
P.S. Don't tell Ephraim, still no Mega Man.
EDIT: Rejected UMvC3 characters (NSFW):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtsoPKftK9w&feature=player_embedded
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http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Critics+silenced+transgendered+Calgarian+wins+breast+implant+contest/5135901/story.html
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EDIT: Rejected UMvC3 characters (NSFW):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtsoPKftK9w&feature=player_embedded
So awesome.
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I'm sorry. I absolutely love Rhett and Link, and I absolutely love Harry Potter (need to read the books though), and I find this video amazingly funny. I absolutely LOVE IT. FABULOUS~ and the nerdy Swedish 23 year old girl is totally huggable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1_gFeVyVt8
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I didn't know MC had a vlog. I will have to check that out.
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It is always cool seeing someone who is just old enough to realise that some piece of fiction has been so ever present in their life to have been so important to their upbringing.
Also you know what this means? There is a whole generation of young adults out there that have been shaped by Voldemort instead of Darth Vader and the Emperor. The standards for Evil have sadly dropped I think.
On the other hand, kind of suprised no one linked Manly Men doing Manly Things this week.
http://thepunchlineismachismo.com/
Because this comic is awesome all the time, but this week's was especially so.
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And now, Snow fanservice. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/22/hello-kitty-slave-leia/)
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I was going to link Hello Kitty Street Fighter for Snow, but it's still in preproduction stage.
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http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/meowvel_vs_catcom_3_by_suzuran-d3b6we9-1.jpeg
Have a picture that Jenna found
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And now, Snow fanservice. (http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/22/hello-kitty-slave-leia/)
That was -low-.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/celebritology/post/amy-winehouse-found-dead-eve-moby-seth-meyers-and-other-celebs-react/2011/07/23/gIQA55JJVI_blog.html
Since I mentioned in chat. Amy Winehouse just found dead. It amazes me how stereotypical her entire career ended up being under this light. Still, I have to shout GODDAMMIT because she didn't even get to release a fucking third album. Dammit.
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A tale of an unmarried thirty-something math geek who sits around making games. Loser!
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html
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http://www.27bslash6.com/missy.html
Lesson learned: graphic designers are douche nozzles.
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And people asking graphic designers to make a poster that can be made in 5 minutes in Word are complete and total wastes of space as well.
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http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2397-Diablo-3-Auction-House-Announced-Spend-and-Earn-Real-Life-Money!
This is a little strange and I don't know what I really think of it at first. I do know that Activision Blizzard are going to be raking in free money hand over fist from it.
This might mean I only play offline LAN games or single player honestly. Not out of spite or anything, I just don't think that is a community that I want to take part in. On the other hand the day you quit playing you can sell fucking everything and get a (probably tiny) paycheck out of it.
Wwweeeeeeird.
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It's so easy to topple an Auction House market. Can't wait to see what happens when real money is involved.
I care less about their other two announcements (no mods, online play only) with the caveat that I will rage quit so hard if I get repeatedly trolled. That's the #1 reason I hate online games anyway. People are douchebags if given any chance.
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If it's anything like D2, you'll be able to start a game and restrict it to one player at a time (or password-protect it and not give anybody the password), so the only difference between that and offline play is that (a) you can trade the stuff you find; (b) you can't use the console to raise the difficulty/drops, and (c) there's still lag.
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... that reminds me, I need to rage about capped internet/data usage one of these days when I'm feeling less rational.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gTT59NibGw
(video) Trailer for Knights of Badassdom.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/19/aj-hateley-art-video-game-book-covers/
Fake vintage book covers for video games.
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2011/07/retro-future-space-futurism-update.html
Vintage science fiction drawings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4
(video) Interesting video about prospective game graphics technology.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6LmoRT2Ckc
Lady Gaga singing a song from her new album as a Piano ballad. Mostly linking for Metroid I suppose considering I wouldn't think you would seek out Howard Stern segments.
For everyone else. This is what is wrong with over producing your music. You can ruin a perfectly well made song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeWBS0JBNzQ this being the original which while not the most over the top one she has done certainly is a good case of a song that didn't need that driving dance beat like at fucking all. It definitely didn't need the anthems and it really REALLY doesn't need that hilarious saxaphone part.
I can't wait for 10 years time when she has made all the money should could ever want and straight up makes whatever music she wants without anyone else producing her stuff. I don't imagine it will be albums full of emotionally driven piano tracks but I am confident that she will be sick of churning out boring as fuck Party tracks at least.
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Yeah, there are a ton of those around; not the first vocal+piano Lady Gaga track; the internet has tons of these.
And...honestly? I'm under the impression that Gaga can mostly do what she wants. She's listed as the primary producer on all of her songs for the current album. (She only co-produced a couple songs on her first album, admittedly).
And I'm not exactly under the impression that she dislikes dance beats. I often hear it claimed that her music is heavily influenced by New York's club music scene, which would make sense as that's where she came from. (It's not that weird--I have a female coworker who writes dubstep). And...some of her stuff seems to be an attempt to take some of this mainstream (Love Game in particular apparently has a lot of the darker underground influence). Additionally...I doubt executives told Lady Gaga to rap in a language she doesn't even know, or instructed her to insert random phrases of French in her songs. (Especially since stuff like this didn't start showing up until her second set of releases).
Although, granted, I'm now noticing a pattern that the Lady Gaga songs I think are fantastic are mostly co-produced with RedOne, and most of the other songs are ones I find ok, but unremarkable (with a few exceptions like Paparazzi).
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I know that there is plenty around met, just more is good >_>
I know she has a great deal of creative control in the songs and that she is involved in the production of all the tracks. You do not need 4 freaking producers on a single track though.
It isn't that executives tell her to do things. She does things herself because she knows it will sell or get publicity. I will never really doubt at this point that she is very talented and good at what she does.
I just see all these really well done piano pieces she does live (while not all universally good, but you know, live music just does that sometimes). She keeps doing performances like this and they are her roots. She could just as easilly do a live singing performance over a studio track (which she has probably done for TV performances? Awards shows?), but she consitently comes back with these solo piano performances which can be so fantastic.
I want to see what she does when she isn't performing for an audience or angling somewhat for financial gain. I might get something like a bit more heartfelt and technically proficient Ben Folds album.
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http://boingboing.net/2011/08/03/a-comic-about-the-real-scientific-process.html
Pretty funny and true. Also the comments section is stupid; this isn't a hyper-serious thing, did you see that it was drawn in MSPaint?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gTT59NibGw
(video) Trailer for Knights of Badassdom.
That would be more amusing if Role Models hadn't already covered LARPing perfectly.
More Larping:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aim455kzabI&feature=player_embedded
EVO 2011 sets some records:
http://shoryuken.com/2011/08/04/evo-championship-series-2011-breaks-online-viewership-records/
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http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-comment-in-source-code-you-have-ever-encountered?answertab=votes#tab-top
Best code comments.
http://news.yahoo.com/swedish-man-caught-trying-split-atoms-home-153341057.html
see url
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/artificial-intelligence/you-you-can-take-stanfords-intro-to-ai-course-next-quarter-for-free
Free online AI course from Stanford.
-
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/2011_08spoilers.asp (http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/2011_08spoilers.asp)
Spoilers scientifically proven to be not a big deal. The joy of a story proven to be in the telling.
In other news, everyone but me a bunch of fat babies.
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From Suikosource's front page
"While conducting an interview on 4gamer (http://www.4gamer.net/games/132/G013230/20110721001/) for their new upcoming RPG Frontier Gate a couple Konami employees stated that they were designing Frontier Gate from scratch as they had previously disbanded their Suikoden team and had therefore lost all their RPG-creation know-how.
Needless to say this is grim news for the Suikoden community. But, it does not mean a new team cannot take over the Suikoden name later. Konami has done this before with other franchises, such as Silent Hill. There is also still the possibility of re-releases of existing content and side projects, such as the Pachislot machine."
:(
I mean, I fully expected this, but... :(
(4gamer is 100% japanese and I can't read it, but that seems pretty straightforward)
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Yeah, read that on NeoGAF last week. Does Konami have anything but MGS and that soccer game?
-
People seem to hold some hope for Silent Hill after Shattered Memories. Certainly more than they hope the Castlevania series will perk back up I imagine.
-
I believe the main Suikoden creator basically did a bit of a cock tease over potentially going back to Konami a year ago too. That said, didn't a new team already take over the Suikoden series anyways?
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I see no reason to believe that, considering they disbanded the team in the first place. But even then, you're handing it over to someone who doesn't know what an RPG is. So we probably get someone trying to knock off Bioware again and get FFXII: Suikoden edition. woo hoo.
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The guys in charge of FF12 at least know how to make an RPG of some kind though.
Oh noes we might get someone making a Suikoden game that feels unpolished and fails to take into account basic RPG design choices that were refined 2 generations ago! That would almost be like what over half the franchise does. That would be terrible and new.
Honestly? If someone else takes up the mantle and tries something new with it that is remotely interesting and actually tries to bring it back into the future continuity instead taking place prior Suikoden 1 then I will be happy. The series is fairly consistently either a complete and total throw back of varying degrees of quality or it is Suikoden 3 where it was trying something new and interesting. I will take new and interesting again if someone is willing to deliver it.
Edit - Goddammit, I make another post that is like I am savagely attacking CK when I don't mean it to be.
I just think you are looking at the series through an idealised nostalgic lens just remembering it as something you like. Not actually remembering all the parts that make up the series. As much as we love them, they aren't really pushing the envelope there.
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http://www.designmadeingermany.de/2011/15183/
horror-inspired bowling balls
http://www.fbtb.net/2011/08/02/vetaimiwkefwtheqlxqlihwfikwhbdgfvtdlzdjboeotrajevcrowgggvqgepshzexetyyulz/
Starships in the shape of every letter.
http://brandimpact.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/a-box-you-want-to-uncheck-on-linkedin/
If you use Linkedin, uncheck this box.
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Oh, no, no. I just haven't made this argument before, or at least made it clear.
FFXII is basically unplayable. It's fundamentally a jRPG design with wRPG combat, forgetting that the only thing keeping wRPG combat tolerable is that combat is not as large an aspect of gameplay. My pessimism springs from the idea that, if you don't have a design team with an established style, they'll try to imitate what's successful right now, and we'd get something like that again.
Ignoring of course that what made Suikoden successful in the first place (yes, even back in the first game) was the lore and sense of continuity within the world, not something I'd expect newcomers to be able to pick up on or take the time to research.
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FFXII is basically unplayable. It's fundamentally a jRPG design with wRPG combat, forgetting that the only thing keeping wRPG combat tolerable is that combat is not as large an aspect of gameplay.
You might be able to make arguments in this vague direction with the original version, but the fundamental design isn't totally dysfunctional like FF13 is, and it shows in the re-release. I think the one gigantic flaw in FF12's combat system is that the gambits and gambit slots are keyed to game progression, whereas it is my understanding in the re-release that you start out with all gambits and gambit slots available for use. It was an amazingly shitty design decision and even Square managed to figure that out.
The game is basically as automated as you want it to be. You can manually do everything or you can automate all the totally braindead parts of jRPG combat (my guy's health is low what do I do???? That guy is made of fire what do I cast on him????) or you can automate almost everything. Combine that with the fact you could cut down on the time you spend in combat by making it seamless so you can buff and such outside of combat, and I think that shows that FF12 had some really good ideas that were underappreciated by the fanbase because they were too different.
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That's not really the problem though. I'm thinking specifically of KotOR, because there's more than a little similarity. Imagine how much fun KotOR would be if...
a) each area averaged double the number of enemies
b) each enemy averaged 120 seconds to kill, rather than 30
c) executing each action took 10-15 seconds, not 6-8
d) you can't easily swap good equipment from one character to another if you want/need to change your party
and most importantly
e) there were long segments of the game where you went from one dungeon to another without breaking for NPC interaction, sidequests, and other experience gains.
That's pretty much FFXII. It's an immense slog that seems almost intentionally designed to wear the player down and keep them from finishing. The issue here is that, and perhaps Japan will surprise me, any blend of east-west design will have similar flaws because the only reason Bioware DOESN'T make them is because they've been doing this a long time and have a good sense of how to design it properly. Combined with any japanese gamer having long memories of games like Dragon Quest? Yeah.
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To be fair, JRPGs also get better when:
*dungeons aren't excessively long
*enemies take 30 seconds to kill instead of 120
*You don't have ridiculous FMV-length actions
*You can change equipment/party members easily
*NPC interactions and gameplay alternate at a regular pace
In fact, you can take this out of RPGs altogether. Portal/Portal 2 is best when:
*test rooms aren't excessively long
*If you're searching for a place to put an obvious exit portal, it takes you 2 minutes instead of an hour
*It doesn't play a 15 second FMV every time you shoot a portal
*If you're in a level where you have to goop things up, and you realized you dropped the wrong goop, it doesn't take you five minutes to fix the mistake.
*Glados/whoever talks to you while the puzzle is going on, and tells you to give up, instead of 30 minute stretches of the game with no voice overs at all.
In the abstract, these just seem like good design to me.
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<3
Also yeah with all that taken into account? Using KotOR vs FF12 there is pretty laughable. That was Bioware's first outing with that specific kind of combat and character juggling (BG and BG2 are fairly different beasts to KotOR). Square (and the team going into FF12) had a great deal more experience with it even at that point.
Edit - Oh and forgot to have the snark of, imagine KotOR was like Dragon Age 2? What? (I kid it isn't quite that bad, but it is shades of most of those!)
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FF12 is best appreciated as a dungeon crawl. When you're exploring places you have no business being and you're rewarded by finding a cool boss in the middle of nowhere is where the game gets entertaining.
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Unplayable sounds like it is going a bit far for FF12 (food for thought: more people have finished the game than would recognise the name Suikoden, almost without a doubt) but it does look thoroughly mediocre.
Ignoring of course that what made Suikoden successful in the first place (yes, even back in the first game) was the lore and sense of continuity within the world, not something I'd expect newcomers to be able to pick up on or take the time to research.
S1 had continuity within the world? Really curious about what you meant by that. Anyway, I'd say Suikoden's success owes considerably more to its high standard of writing (what's the worst game in the series again? The one that failed at that). In theory, that could be easy enough for someone to pick up on. That's actually the really nice thing about the series to me; as much as I like it (the name Suikoden is just one I associate with "this writing actually won't suck"), it wasn't exactly bringing much of anything to RPGdom in areas of gameplay or aesthetics (okay, S4 is pretty. Fuck off, S4) so uh all people need to do to resurrect it is to write a good story.
And I sorta figure that the medium will keep pumping out the occasional good story along with the piles of anime, D&D, and sci-fi tripe every once in a while, no matter what happens.
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(food for thought: more people have finished the game than would recognise the name Suikoden)
;_;
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S1 had the sense that the events you were part of were affecting a greater world outside, maybe? They made references to other nations that pressured the Empire and could be properly leveraged, for instance.
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Yeah, but you're crazy if you think that's important to why people enjoyed the game. You can delete the "Mathiu baits Jowston into making an attack at Kasim's forces" plot point and the game is the same for all major purposes.
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I think it's a decent contribution to the aforementioned good writing.
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I think the fact that you are clearly in a situation that is the way it is because of some pretty huge political maneuvers prior to the story is the part there. Suikoden 1 is very clearly a smaller part of a bigger story.
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I don't know if this was posted but Amazon is having a sale on a whole lot of games: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=br_lf_m_1000708781_pglink_1?ie=UTF8&tag=lightdrops-20&plgroup=1&docId=1000708781&plpage=1
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Yes, buy Dawn of Heroes you slackers. 68% off.
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http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2011/08/17/ac.ridiculist.depardieu.cnn?&hpt=hp_c2
(video) Movie star urinates on plane; news anchor goes overboard with puns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOo_RDrMQbU
(video) Japan
http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/20/dust-514-preview-contractual-murder/
NDAs keep me from saying anything more, but <3 Dust.
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/1007/gameindustry.jpg
Everything you need to know about the game industry.
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Is it wrong that Q&A's assessment rings most true to me as an outsider?
(aside from them being more like bdsm subs than Batman)
-
That makes some sense; QA has the most outsider view of the lot, interacting a little with everyone, but not actually going in-depth with anyone, and usually not knowing how things get made. Well...them and producers, but producers have kind-of a manegerial role, where they actually have to get people to commit and schedule their time blocks, which naturally means they have a low view of everyone.
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Funny, I would think QA would be more effective the more they knew about the process - knowing something about the programming might better teach them which places to poke and prod.
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I think I'd probably find that image hilarious if I didn't fail to recognise over a third of the images.
As is it's still amusing.
-
Funny, I would think QA would be more effective the more they knew about the process - knowing something about the programming might better teach them which places to poke and prod.
Oh, it absolutely does. But then you might actually have to hire people with skills, and therefore give them a decent wage and decent working hours! And give them more than a temporary two-month contract!
(My current company actually treats QAs as a serious, long-term position. It makes me so happy).
-
Seriously not a big shock jumping from where you were to a company with background in very long lasting MMOs. The difference in post deployment support is pretty much day and night there >_>
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http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue
The text isn't really important. Also read it on a real computer.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0TlECFbjvM
(video) How to make a homemade nuclear reactor. (Don't try this at home).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT46FV64dr8
(video) My drunk kitchen, Ep. 7: Tacos ("Tacos are the most versatile fruit")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZTdZZj417g
(video) Making props while drunk.
-
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442044
I figure at least MC would care about this, but Virtua Fighter 5 FS is coming to PSN/XBLA as a downloadable title.
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I care also! But yeah, not until next year. :(
Also, Zenny, can you translate some of your comic? I'm guessing the corpse is asking for directions, but I don't understand what happens at the end to piss him off. Heh, that was very different reading on Ipad first (frame-by-frame, no GIF movement).
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I don't speak Korean, so no.
Also I don't think it really matters.
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I care also! But yeah, not until next year. :(
Also, Zenny, can you translate some of your comic? I'm guessing the corpse is asking for directions, but I don't understand what happens at the end to piss him off. Heh, that was very different reading on Ipad first (frame-by-frame, no GIF movement).
Someone translated it on GameFAQs, but the whole topic got modded so I can't just copy/paste.
I remember it being something like:
Crazy-blood-lady: where's my baby?
Narrator: (oh fuck, oh fuck) Umm...she's over there *walks away*
Crazy-blood-lady: MY BABY'S NOT HERE *attacks*
Narrator: passes out
And they go on to explain that this is some ghost story relating to a pregnant woman who jumped out of a tall building and had twisted limbs and stuff. Or something like that; I'm probably not explaining it right.
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Close enough. Just fucking scroll down, a'ight? It's just some trite horror story with a cool gimmick.
-
Zenny: That was actually pretty well designed.
Cap: Pretty much ANYTHING pisses off EDIT: ASIAN ghosts (guilty of not actually looking at the writing, and it bore similarity to a couple Japanese ghosts. So sue me.). Tell the truth? They kill you. Lie? They kill you. Don't answer? They kill you. Prefer Pepsi to Coke? They kill you. Drink Coke instead of Pepsi? They kill you. Etc.
-
IT'S KOREAN
-
Yeah, watch out: That ghost probably has really high APM when playing Starcraft!
Either that or she's in a K-pop girl band.
-
http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=20&weekday=tue
The text isn't really important. Also read it on a real computer.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOU BITCH YOU BITCH
Ahem.
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That.
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:D
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(http://i.imgur.com/rD3gO.gif)
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http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2349#comic
for the nerds.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk
(video) Live action Portal
http://www.happyplace.com/8958/the-most-hilariously-convincing-gay-marriage-signs
Humorous gay marriage protest signs
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqbh6pESlt1qcbo9lo1_500.jpg
"Hipsters, bow down to your god"
Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber have crossed the streams (with Lady Gaga successfully looking more like a man than Justin Beiber ever has, and Justin Beiber slipping the other direction).
Gaga at the MTV music awards:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lady-gaga-as-jo-calderone-britney-spears-is-hot-20110829
http://newyork.ibtimes.com/articles/205471/20110829/lady-gaga-2011-vma-outfit-jo-calderone-britney.htm
Beiber at the MTV music awards:
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/FMCyialyhPA/2011+MTV+Video+Music+Awards+Arrivals/tDvdANQinIh/Justin+Bieber
(Now that you're done flinching, notice the women's jacket, women's glasses, the bracelet on his left wrist, and the Brook Shields eyebrows).
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4drucg1A6Xk
(video) Live action Portal
That was awesometastic.
http://www.happyplace.com/8958/the-most-hilariously-convincing-gay-marriage-signs
Humorous gay marriage protest signs
Hell is fabulous!
-
Some things are worth a double-post. Get ready to fangasm:
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2011/08/31/persona_fighting_game_update/
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/world/europe/01germany.html?hp
How wonderfully, stereotypically German.
-
Gods do I love Germany. So good at what they do.
-
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/back-future-sneakers-might-become-reality-futuristic-meat-160555599.html
dooooooooooood. Those Back to the Future self-lacing sneakers just might be coming soon.
-
http://www.dau.mil/pubscats/ATL%20Docs/Sep-Oct11/Ward.pdf
An article in the military's journal on acquisitions. So Defense Contracting. Thrilling reading, guaranteed. Basically it's the F-22 vs. Predator debate for "expensive and overbudget and not on time" vs. "cheap and works" except using Star Wars as an example... a pretty good example, actually. The Second Death Star is behind schedule and late, as expected, and it's not even that useful vs. an asymmetric opponent. Just stick with droids like R2-D2.
On that note: any warship that is not a submarine and not intended for, say, pirate-hunting duty, is pretty much dead in a real shooting war with a competent opponent thanks to modern missile technology. Yet we keep on building these floating coffins. Sigh.
-
On that note: any warship that is not a submarine and not intended for, say, pirate-hunting duty, is pretty much dead in a real shooting war with a competent opponent thanks to modern missile technology. Yet we keep on building these floating coffins. Sigh.
I'd be willing to bet carriers, at least, remain quite useful in application, though I can see how we might not want to bother with them if we get in a war with China.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KEfRR0XIko&feature=player_embedded
The Goon has some tips on how to combat your local zombie infestation.
-
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2011-09-17/genso-suikoden-new-psp-game-announced-via-video
New Suikoden game announced for the PSP.
-
I have never been more glad to be a PSP owner then at this very moment.
-
Yessssss.
-
Yessssss.
-
i hope japan enjoys their new videogame
*goes back to shooting people in brown wastelands*
-
I have never been more glad to be a PSP owner then at this very moment.
There's a first time for everything.
-
I hope this one is more like Suikoden and less like Suikoden: That crap on the DS.
-
Both the art style and the name definitely heavily imply Tiekreis. The only thing I wouldn't understand if they continued in the same vein is why they would switch systems.
-
Possibly because Nintendo of America seems to be discouraging localisations these days. *fumes* They might also have wanted better graphics, although since it's Suikoden that wouldn't be my first pick for a reason.
Anyway, since I don't have terrible opinions I am very happy with this announcement regardless of how it ends up being connected to the rest of the series. As always, I just hope they keep up the standard of writing from Suikodens-not-set-in-the-Island-Nations.
-
What crappy 3rd rate western developer will Konami throw the Suikoden franchise to permanently flush the series down the toilet?
It's what everyone else is doing.
-
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44537315/ns/us_news-weird_news/
wanna get my masters with this professor
-
fantastic.
-
Said Suikoden game, if it is indeed a Suikoden game, has a 0% chance of coming out in the US anyway. Even if they rushed it out this year, it'd sell nothing because the PSP is very, very dead.
Honestly the art style reminds me of Suikoden III's intro movie, but the translation of the title I've seen (Centennial Tapestry) and of course not outright being Suikoden VI suggest something closer to Tierkreis.
-
Unrelated, aside from also being Konami shenanigans, Silent Hill Downpour's TGS Trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4O1RsaiuEw&feature=youtu.be
I somehow expect Alex/Andrew rage.
-
Oh, please. He's lived through prison sex. Silent Hill isn't going to scare him in the slightest.
-
Seriously? The only thing that really looks off about that is some of the animations are a bit clunky (the part where someone is trying to kick down a door looks like it has no impact whatsoever). As far as Korn songs go that is pretty accessible and is so far past their point of relevance that it isn't going to matter.
Only other real downside is that The Suffering kind of beat them to the punch on that kind of plot. Silent Hill might be able to explore it a bit more maturely of course, but it might lose a bit of its punch in the review circuit because of it.
-
Unrelated, aside from also being Konami shenanigans, Silent Hill Downpour's TGS Trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4O1RsaiuEw&feature=youtu.be
I somehow expect Alex/Andrew rage.
The rage, I assume, being directed at the choice of using Korn as background music for the trailer?
-
I think the problem is more that it's just not a very good trailer. Too long, lacks any quality direction... the song is pretty decent, actually. Damn near good compared to everything else in the trailer.
-
Moreso it's not a very good trailer for a silent hill game and looks like a generic action-horror game. Use of Korn thoroughly supports that conclusion.
-
and looks like a generic action-horror game.
As a complete outsider to the series...no, it didn't to me. There wasn't a single scene of blowing a zombie's head off with a shotgun. For the first 80% of the trailer, it felt to me like it might just be the main character going crazy and just imagining demons in his head.
-
http://shoryuken.com/2011/09/17/umvc3-early-hints-at-phoenix-wrights-fighting-style/
Lawyer Combat
-
http://www.jocchan.com/stuff/IGeNerator/
the secrets of ign
-
"How mine cart levels could increase Dragon Quest's popularity."
"Is Zelda a No More Heroes for adults?"
-
Should MineSweeper be a shooter?
Is Professor Layton a Uncharted for adults?
Top Ten most uncomfortable cars in videogames.
What Red Dead Redemption could learn from Red Dead Redemption.
... this is genius.
-
Is Kinectimals a Resident Evil for adults?
How minigame collections could increase Pokemon's popularity.
What Star Tropics could learn from Star Tropics.
-
Is Imagine: Babyz a Call of Duty for adults?
Top Ten most impressive balls in videogames.
I daresay many of these would provide better article fodder than what goes up.
--
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/08/incredibly-small-origami-by-anja-markiewicz/ - Because it's tiny, and tiny is awesome. (And also because the juxtaposition within the URL is awesome.)
http://www.2dayblog.com/images/2011/september/550x-rrraarrrrgggghhhh.jpg - Memes are funnier in action.
http://gammasquad.uproxx.com/2011/09/star-trek-vertical-comics-wesley-crusher-gets-whats-coming-to-him - I found this far too amusing.
-
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from-decision-fatigue.html?_r=2
Decision Fatigue
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2011/08/ugly-faces-awesome-characters.html
(not 56k friendly) amusing images of people's faces.
http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html
See URL. Actually extremely neat and exciting.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/nominate_entry
New GameFAQs Contest nominations are up. Rivalry contest. Historical figures are allowed in this one, as long as they were in-game rivals, so...go forth and nominate Albert Einstein vs Adolf Hitler.
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Why Ace Attorney will smash Halo's face.
I don't see what you people are talking about, this site has some great ideas.
-
What Plants vs. Zombies could learn from Ace Attorney.
PAX: The rappers in Dudebro II gave me salmonella.
Is MineSweeper a Starcraft for adults?
Why Wii Sports will forget GoldenEye's face.
GDC: The load times in Epic Mickey gave me hope.
I'm addicted.
-
http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/11/mit-scientists-develop-a-drug-to-fight-any-viral-infection/
Cure for viruses?
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36951/Interview_How_GAMBITs_A_Closed_World_Tackles_Sexuality_Identity.php
Interesting apparently JRPG-style game made at MIT.
http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/
Opinion piece on Facebook games.
http://freaky.imgur.com/the_art_that_is_called_haah_waaw
Mirrored box art
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http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36951/Interview_How_GAMBITs_A_Closed_World_Tackles_Sexuality_Identity.php
Interesting apparently JRPG-style game made at MIT.
Played it. I've been mulling over various things in my head lately, so I was curious, was it just the themes you found interesting?
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Played it. I've been mulling over various things in my head lately, so I was curious, was it just the themes you found interesting?
Themes, and the return of games made by academia rather than made by for-profit companies. Particularly in a genre I enjoy.
Anyhow...
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2011/09/facebook-is-tracking-your-every-move-on-the-web-heres-how-to-stop-it/#more-401355
So...apparently Facebook knows when you visit any site that it partners with (a.k.a. most of the internet) even after you've logged out of Facebook.
http://newcondoms.tumblr.com/
(NSFW) putting out of context slogans onto condom wrappers.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=443628
Bad fanart topic.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4823640/16868303.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBsLCPYGmUQ
(Not 56k friendly) absolutely fantastic Zelda fanart (plus the making of)
-
http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-a-woman-working-in-the-tech-industry
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApBjVXdN0co&feature=feedrec_grec_index
Perpetual Mario Machine: the Musical
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApBjVXdN0co&feature=feedrec_grec_index
Perpetual Mario Machine: the Musical
Oh yeah, that one's been around for a while. You should also check out the Mario cover of Queen if you haven't seen it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXmNjB4-JdE
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http://easydamus.com/character.html
Answer questions (warning: a lot of questions), get told what you would be if you were a D&D character. Apparently I am a True Neutral Human Sorcerer...with the following stats:
Strength- 9
Dexterity- 12
Constitution- 11
Intelligence- 11
Wisdom- 9
Charisma- 9
That's right, a sorcerer that can't even cast spells due to negative charisma. So basically it's pretty accurate.
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Apparently I was bored enough to answer 130 questions. Yay weekend.
Lawful Neutral Elf Wizard (within 1 point of Good, Human, and Half-Elf)
Strength- 12
Dexterity- 12
Constitution- 14
Intelligence- 16
Wisdom- 13
Charisma- 13
Yeah I dunno about that 12 str.
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Smug bitch's back story: http://sawb.soup.io/post/146369711/Who-Is-Parked-Domain-Girl
--
True Neutral Human Ranger:
Strength- 10
Dexterity- 13
Constitution- 14
Intelligence- 16
Wisdom- 13
Charisma- 16
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Lawful Neutral Elf Wizard (5th Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 10
Dexterity- 13
Constitution- 12
Intelligence- 16
Wisdom- 12
Charisma- 11
So...like elfboy, but worse across the board except for dexterity.
(I totally don't have better reflexes than elfboy, OMG).
-
L2 Chaotic Good Elf Wizard/Sorcerer:
Strength- 12
Dexterity- 14
Constitution- 12
Intelligence- 18
Wisdom- 14
Charisma- 12
Holy shit that's a lot of stats.
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Neutral Good Human Sorcerer (3rd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 14
Dexterity- 17
Constitution- 15
Intelligence- 16
Wisdom- 14
Charisma- 14
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Neutral Good Elf Bard/Sorcerer (2nd/1st Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 10
Dexterity- 11
Constitution- 11
Intelligence- 14
Wisdom- 12
Charisma- 14
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True Neutral Halfling Bard/Wizard (2nd/1st Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 11
Dexterity- 11
Constitution- 11
Intelligence- 13
Wisdom- 13
Charisma- 11
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Lawful Good Human Wizard/Cleric (2nd/2nd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 11
Dexterity- 8
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 15
Wisdom- 15
Charisma- 14
Had the same score for neutral good. Scored extremely high on LN/TN/LG/NG.
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You Are A:
True Neutral Human Wizard (3rd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 10
Dexterity- 10
Constitution- 11
Intelligence- 13
Wisdom- 12
Charisma- 10
Yeah... that strength is highly overscored. Of note: the only job besides wizard that ended up with a positive total for me was Bard.
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Chaotic Neutral Halfling Wizard (4th Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 11
Dexterity- 10
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 15
Wisdom- 11
Charisma- 11
Incidentally, I scored Neutral by default: 6 Neutral Points, but 8 good and 8 evil points. Yeah.
-
Neutral Good Elf Wizard (3rd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 12
Dexterity- 10
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 17
Wisdom- 17
Charisma- 15
Apparently short and stocky answers = Elf.
Highlight though is Paladin --- (-19)
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Neutral Good Elf Wizard (3rd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 12
Dexterity- 10
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 17
Wisdom- 17
Charisma- 15
Apparently short and stocky answers = Elf.
Highlight though is Paladin --- (-19)
Monk ------ (-17)
Paladin --- (-23)
Hells yeah, scored lower on Pally than Gref.
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True Neutral Human Ranger/Wizard (3rd/2nd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 14
Dexterity- 14
Constitution- 11
Intelligence- 16
Wisdom- 11
Charisma- 11
I am apparently as terrible a paladin as Grefter, whatever that says. Monk and Paladin are -19 but nothing else is more than six away from the zero point.
-
I was somewere in the range of -19 to -23 on all three of Paladin, Bard, and Ranger.
So...apparently we're almost all Wizards, which makes me think the DL must actually be a Harry Potter setting. Having the highest Wizard level and among the lowest stats brings me to believe that I'm one of the teachers (McGonnigal, perhaps?)
-
I wish I'd noticed that you could see your scores for the other classes/alignments. Oh well.
And clearly that makes me Victor Krum or Cedric Diggory.
-
You Are A:
Lawful Neutral Elf Wizard (6th Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 14
Dexterity- 14
Constitution- 11
Intelligence- 17
Wisdom- 15
Charisma- 12
Yay, I get to be Dumbledore! FABULOUS
They were a little generous with the Strength score, but I'm not complaining.
-
Oh, and Barbarian -25, Bard -23, Paladin-19.
-
Barbarian -27, Paladin -23, Bard -21, to continue the general DL trend.
-
Yeah, might have been Barbarian rather than Ranger for my third hugely negative class; I didn't write it down.
-
::Highfives Snow and Captain K:: WOO! High stats club!
-
Barbarian - (-4)
Bard ------ XXXX (4)
Cleric ---- XX (2)
Druid ----- (-6)
Fighter --- (0)
Monk ------ (-23)
Paladin --- (-19)
Ranger ---- (0)
Rogue ----- (0)
Sorcerer -- XXXX (4)
Wizard ---- (0)
-
I was somewere in the range of -19 to -23 on all three of Paladin, Bard, and Ranger.
So...apparently we're almost all Wizards, which makes me think the DL must actually be a Harry Potter setting. Having the highest Wizard level and among the lowest stats brings me to believe that I'm one of the teachers (McGonnigal, perhaps?)
I think Sorceror is the "understanding and analyzing" set of answers, which is odd because I'm pretty sure you get sorcerer points for favoring science over things.
I reject the answers and submit that I am a sixth-level Chaotic Good gunfighter/technologist. Arcanum away!
-
::Highfives Snow and Captain K:: WOO! High stats club!
Also Grefter, although we can just run away from his slow ass.
-
Well yes, Snow is obviously Hermione Granger, Soppy is...someone spontaneous, charismatic, athletic, and decently intelligent, while being a little older than Hermione. Umm...this is sounding a lot like Fred and George.
No idea who that would make Grefter, though; maybe Bill Weasly?
-
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/koch-brothers-flout-law-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html
Link says it all.
-
True Neutral Human Bard/Wizard (2nd/1st Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 15
Dexterity- 13
Constitution- 14
Intelligence- 14
Wisdom- 11
Charisma- 14
A Wizbard who's highest score is Str. Yeah, sounds about right. The Con/Dex/Int/Wis and possibly the Cha are likely too high though.
Also got the same scores for TN and NG, so it defaulted to TN I guess. And -21 for both Monk and Paladin.
-
True Neutral Human Bard/Sorcerer (2nd/1st Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 11
Dexterity- 9
Constitution- 11
Intelligence- 13
Wisdom- 14
Charisma- 11
Class:
Barbarian - (0)
Bard ------ XXXX (4)
Cleric ---- (-6)
Druid ----- (-2)
Fighter --- (0)
Monk ------ (-21)
Paladin --- (-23)
Ranger ---- XX (2)
Rogue ----- (0)
Sorcerer -- XXXX (4)
Wizard ---- (0)
Seems about right.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-02/koch-brothers-flout-law-getting-richer-with-secret-iran-sales.html
Link says it all.
Man, the one good thing about the whole Tea Party "movement" is that it has shined a spotlight on Koch Industries....
-
I used to work at the refinery mentioned in the story. For what it's worth, Koch is actually much safer and environmentally conscious than other refineries I have worked at! Not that that's saying much...
-
Huh. I am a Neutral Good Halfling Wizard/Cleric (2nd/2nd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 13
Dexterity- 12
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 17
Wisdom- 13
Charisma- 13
...is it bad that I'm not lawful?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/04/science/04slime.html
"The slime mold abandoned its tendrils near the salt and then grew a new highway pattern that efficiently rerouted food across Canada."
-
So badass.
-
Chaotic Good Human Barbarian/Sorcerer (1st/1st Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 12
Dexterity- 15
Constitution- 13
Intelligence- 16
Wisdom- 13
Charisma- 16
One of my friends got Bard/Rogue. Totally the most useless two classes ever. :>
Also, -31 Druid.
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Lawful Good Human Wizard (2nd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength- 9
Dexterity- 13
Constitution- 12
Intelligence- 14
Wisdom- 12
Charisma- 9
-27 for barbarian and druid, whoo. Also that str should be like 6 or something.
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http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/10/10/akira-jacket-kaneda-red-black/
Totes something Laggy should have.
-
about $900 more than I'd ever pay for a jacket, but god damn do I want one.
-
http://www.amazon.com/Mongoliad-Book-One-Foreworld/dp/1612182364/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318343036&sr=8-1
Joe Brassey, one of the authors of this thing, is a guy I've been gaming with for a few years. He's an excellent writer, and has finally gotten himself published. Alongside such gentlemen as Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear. If you like historical fiction, then give it a shot. I've been reading snippits of Joe's stuff on this project for awhile and it looks solid. [/plug plug]
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http://www.actsofgord.com/
Kind of like "the customer is not always right" website, except one guy called Gord in one games store.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/uocp-ell100311.php
If something on your resume flags you as gay, you're 40% less likely to get called back for an interview.
http://blackboardsinporn.blogspot.com/
Critiquing the academic correctness of blackboards in pornography.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbkLjjlMV8
(video) A home-alone style anti-cat defence.
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http://www.actsofgord.com/
Kind of like "the customer is not always right" website, except one guy called Gord in one games store.
I read these stories and what I see in my head is Gate.
-
I'm not sure how to feel about that. <_<
-
It is more the description of things he is clearly physically capable of. Reads like a pretty tall guy with some reach and length to his stride.
-
http://www.actsofgord.com/
Kind of like "the customer is not always right" website, except one guy called Gord in one games store.
I read these stories and what I see in my head is Gate.
Yes, that is definitely Gate. Awesome read. "Ma'am, I can do anything I want. I own a game store."
-
Oh man, that site. I think Acts of Gord was my first archive binge.
-
Oh man, that site. I think Acts of Gord was my first archive binge.
This. Acts of Gord is absolutely amazing. XD Personal favourite is where he gets the laws changed. >.>
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The Acts of Gord is some serious Nostalgia. And unlike some video games I've played this nostalgia aged pretty well. Thanks, MC.
EDIT: I mean, you're a cunt. Or something. Fuck it.
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/herman-cain-999-sim-city_n_1008952.html
Finally! The investigative reporting we need.
-
Surprised nobody has linked this yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsThh8qRGTA
I'd actually play a Phoenix Wright game if it had She Hulk in it.
-
Surprised nobody has linked this yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsThh8qRGTA
I'd actually play a Phoenix Wright game if it had She Hulk in it.
Haha, watched this yesterday, and Shulk's line was possibly my favourite part of the whole video. XD
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Surprised nobody has linked this yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsThh8qRGTA
I'd actually play a Phoenix Wright game if it had She Hulk in it.
Haha, watched this yesterday, and Shulk's line was possibly my favourite part of the whole video. XD
I have to say, Phoenix Wright is done completely brilliantly. He actually changes the battle music to appropriate phoenix wright music at key lawyerly junctures.
Although, there is a snarky part of me, after watching that video, who wants to say "So: you couldn't think up enough moves for Megaman, eh?"
-
Thinking up moves for Megaman would take up valuable time that could be used to give Inafune the finger.
-
This is exactly what playing Dark Souls is like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnUGxY_b00Y
-
But won't they feel silly when Inafune's awesome penguin pirate game outsells MvC3.
-
http://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-season/blackadder-ii/id331574717?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
The only good reason ever to install iTunes: The entire second season of Blackadder for free.
-
Note this is actually a decent starting point for the series.
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http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/chinese-researchers-unveil-ping-pong-playing-robots.php?ref=fpblg
Robot ping pong. Don't ask me why the music is borrowed from an anime.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/17/herman-cain-999-plan-simcity_n_1016131.html
I almost want to buy this just to applaud the sheer marketing acumen.
-
Utterly shameless, downright skeevy self-promotion link ahoy! (Skip to the bottom to return to your regular programming.)
http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise?fcid=121158
NaNoWriMo is coming up, which means the Night of Writing Dangerously is also coming up. What is that, you ask? Take a look: http://nanowrimo.org/en/writeathon . In brief, it's a fundraising celebration night where 250 writers and the OLL staff get together to write like crazy-people for one night, while eating a catered dinner and literal tons of candy and cookies, in a ballroom with a sweeping view of the SF city skyline.
More importantly: it's a fundraiser. All donations are tax-deductible. So if you or someone you know is in need of a good tax deduction, look right over here! (You can donate anonymously if you wish.)
Also, my birthday is coming up.
Also, the kids need you.
Also, every time you don't donate, you kill a kitten. Like this one: (http://petandbaby.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/cute-pet-cat.jpg)
--
And for everyone who doesn't want to donate but ESPECIALLY for the people who do, here are some links:
http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/all-time-favourite-abstract-so-far-via-ginger -- All abstracts should be so honest.
http://stfubelievers.tumblr.com/post/11279105491/khrysta-eats-lemurs-skarosoul -- "sorry... read the bible it helps:)"
http://blastr.com/2011/10/image-of-the-day-grammar.php -- Grammar: It matters.
http://www.ted.com/talks/justin_hall_tipping_freeing_energy_from_the_grid.html -- File this under "shit we should have thought of years ago"
http://www.bakadesuyo.com/ -- This whole site gathers some interesting social research together. Some recent highlights: "Do tough economic times mean older, heavier and taller Playboy Playmates?" "Can you identify psychopathic killers by the words they use?" "Can amazing sex cause amnesia?"
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/fashion/makeup-makes-women-appear-more-competent-study.html?WT.mc_id=ST-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M223c-ROS-1011-PH&WT.mc_ev=click
A little follow up on the question of women wearing makeup.
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Utterly shameless, downright skeevy self-promotion link ahoy! (Skip to the bottom to return to your regular programming.)
http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise?fcid=121158
All the cool kids are in on this.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/fashion/makeup-makes-women-appear-more-competent-study.html?WT.mc_id=ST-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M223c-ROS-1011-PH&WT.mc_ev=click
A little follow up on the question of women wearing makeup.
http://alexandradal.deviantart.com/#/d4cn2ro
Utterly shameless, downright skeevy self-promotion link ahoy! (Skip to the bottom to return to your regular programming.)
http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise?fcid=121158
All the cool kids are in on this.
Word.
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http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday - Linked to this by a friend on Facebook. Really amazing to watch, long as it is, and really inspirational in a number of ways. Beautiful to watch too.
-
Sexism bingo
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_GB&hl=en_GB&key=0AmGyd83RsaUPdDRHajJJeEZROGRGTHhRcFZib1lVRWc&output=html
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Is this a bad time to debut my Gwynevere avatar? <_< >_>
-
Ridiculous glitch using Tool assisted speedruns (I thought those were lame, I was wrong)
Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance in 23 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqRisgE7QmM
Castlevania Circle of the Moon in 5 minutes 22 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Tot60oR-o (the best part is from 2:15 to 3:15)
Pokemon Yellow in 1 minute 09 seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yXTpnUCh5Q&
-
It's almost like playing Suikoden. LEVEL UP. LEVEL UP. LEVEL UP.
-
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/modern-game-journalism-the/723924
Just wait until I Tweet this!
Also includes a unrelated jab at FF13.
-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15752918
In case you were wondering.
-
http://www.lovethesepics.com/2011/05/creepy-crusty-crumbling-illegal-tour-of-abandoned-six-flags-new-orleans-75-pics/
Some nice photography.
-
http://www.google.pl/
Today's Google Doodle for non-US viewers is...a thing. To quote the thread where I found this:
"At what point does it cease to be a 'doodle'? Because I think we passed that point when we were incrementing 7-seg displays in order to give the correct answer to infuriate a robot to death."
Also, reference (http://english.lem.pl/home/bookshelf/how-the-word-was-saved) for the story.
-
http://santano.tumblr.com/
Greatness.
-
http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com
This blog is absolutely great. In particular, check out these, especially Hulk's response to the responses he got because of the first one:
http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/goddammit-video-games-the-first-few-hours-of-arkham-city-is-lots-of-fun-but-super-duper-sexist/
http://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/hulk-vs-arkham-city-round-2-bitches-be-trippin/
-
Ooh, great stuff.
-
Hulk's deconstruction of Twilight is pretty excellent.
-
Yes, I thought that was very well done indeed. Made me think about what Bella's appeal actually is. I'm thinking it's akin to the Silent Main in rpgs. They have no character, so you are supposed to pretend that you are the one having these wacky adventures.
-
That was the impression I got from hearing people defend the character.
It's more defensible in games, I think.
-
In games it's easier to pretend there's a logical reason they never say anything.
-
...that they don't have anything interesting to say? Sounds like most characters.
-
http://www.ted.com/talks/gabe_zichermann_how_games_make_kids_smarter.html
Random Ted talk about games and learning.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFB6LQ1-WKU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE5xZKszXMQ
-
The Romney one is good also. Sadly the Perry one makes more sense than he did in real life. Ice cream.
-
I swear that is the Day Job Orchestra guy (which explains why it is quality).
-
http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
Awesome.
Making fun of the horrendous way math is taught in schools.
-
Maybe I was lucky in teachers, but outside of Pre-Algebra (i guess what he called "Middle School Math", this was what I call "Meeple falls asleep in back of the room and still gets As" part of math), I cannot relate to any of that at all. My math experience was something completely different than what he said, and as such, the article is meaningless.
Also, reading the stuff before the conclusions made it hard to actually follow. He does too much of the personal "I hate this!" stuff rather than actually getting to the point, and if its an attempt at being creative, its coming off as more just him trying way too damned hard and looking like a jerk.
-
I will say for myself that I loved math, read math books in my spare time, and...did not really like most math classes.
-
Three pages in and have to stop reading because I am at work, but so far this is beautiful and depressingly on the nose. Much love for this link.
-
I think the article goes a little overboard discussing Math purely as art rather than as language (he outright dismisses the idea and all). Hell, it could be thought of this way; languages HAD to have been predated by singing. While much language is conveyed through tone (the artistic), precise meaning still requires the use of words (symbols). Math could be seen as having a similar evolution, beginning as purely artistic expression but acquiring synthesis with arbitrary notation to create clearer meaning. And in this light, the overall point is still true; throwing young students into the rules, the endless parade of definitions and rote calculation, without appreciation for the intuitive, artistic applications is insane and has the predictable consequence of ensuring students never have any real appreciation for what they're actually doing.
Though I still think the actual problem in math education is establishing early on, without fail, that math is so hard and consequently something to fear. Poetry is hard too, doesn't stop kids from making up rhymes and having a basic understanding of how to play with language.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=E8V8rtdXnLA#!
Too long, didn't watch: You're fucking wrong.
-
What matters is the beautiful idea of chopping it with the line, and how that might inspire other beautiful ideas and lead to creative breakthroughs in other problems— something a mere statement of fact can never give you.
THIS THIS THIS
We’re killing people’s interest in circles for god’s sake!
Well played.
In short, by having an honest intellectual relationship with our students and our subject.
Not just mathematics need this. But still. THIS THIS THIS
TEXTBOOK PUBLISHERS : TEACHERS ::
A) pharmaceutical companies : doctors
B) record companies : disk jockeys
C) corporations : congressmen
D) all of the above
Sick burn.
Oh, you can take classes in early childhood development and whatnot, and you can be trained to use a blackboard “effectively” and to prepare an organized “lesson plan” (which, by the way, insures that your lesson will be planned, and therefore false),but you will never be a real teacher if you are unwilling to be a real person.
Oh man I think I need to see a toxicologist, because I can taste the venom in that (and it is delicious).
Where exactly does this race lead? What is waiting at the finish line? It’s a sad race to nowhere. In the end you’ve been cheated out of a mathematical education, and you don’t even know it. Real mathematics doesn’t come in a can— there is no such thing as an Algebra II idea.
Problems lead you to where they take you. Art is not a race.
THIS THIS THIS
And never was a wolf in sheep’s clothing as insidious, nor a false friend as treacherous, as High School Geometry.
10/10 Would buy it on a T-Shirt.
Do we really want to suggest that a straightforward observation like this requires such an extensive preamble? Be honest: did you actually even read it? Of course not. Who would want to?
HAHAHAHA got me. I read half of it.
They are then asked to mimic them in the exercises. Those that catch on to the pattern quickly are the “good” students.
Again laughing goes here. Earlier in the piece I had been recalling how I learnt multiplication in fifth grade and my frustration at having to learn them by rote memorisation when all I wanted to do was understand why. Out of pressure to continue to be "smart" I practiced and learnt them for like forever so I could be fast at it, but wasn't actually grasping it. It wasn't until I got frustrated and stuck on 7 x 8 for the nth time that I "got" it and enjoyed myself. Painful 2 weeks for a 10 year old Grefter. Especially given how massively easy everything else was. It wasn't the content that was frustrating, it was the requirement for speed. Why exactly do I need to be able to do this super fast sight unseen when I could put it together myself instead of from memorising a table.
Don't even get me started on long division when I could replicate just as easilly using short division, just it made it harder for you to read.
TRIGONOMETRY. Two weeks of content are stretched to semester length by masturbatory
definitional runarounds.
A fitting note to end quote stream on.
That was fantastic, I will pass it on to a couple of others. My only regret is that I am not in touch with my senior math teacher from High School. If I had been able to understand Math then like I do now (probably thanks in part due to exposure to Canadians) I would have been a much better student and one that might have actually passed the harder math course I took. I remember times when he was frustrated with me, because he clearly knew I was capable of better but didn't apply myself. Well yeah, when I don't get a concept I am not going to be able to replicate and frankly the concept of natural numbers bored me and after you lost me on that I wasn't that interested in imaginary numbers either (which was my loss at the time, so much brain porn gone to waste). Throw a CONCEPT at me and I would play with it for a day and then be done and forget it. A real shame. He was a great guy.
So anyway, I think I will have to owe you some hugs for this metroid. This made my night to have something like this to read and babble about.
Edit - For perspective on how much I enjoyed this, I didn't even go put a CD on while reading it or before sending it on to a couple of people (one in the hope that it would disperse further).
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/sports/hockey/derek-boogaard-a-brain-going-bad.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=na
Fuck off, Gary Bettman. (CTE found in a 28 year old player who died, NHL blows it off)
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It wasn't until I got frustrated and stuck on 7 x 8 for the nth time that I "got" it and enjoyed myself. Painful 2 weeks for a 10 year old Grefter.
Pfft. Everyone knows that 7 x 8 = Low Battery
-
Gary Bettman being spineless isn't a notable enough development to merit its own link, but the article was a good read anyway.
Now for the math article.
I will say straight off that the article pisses me off on several fronts. Not that it entirely lacks points, by any means, but there's just so much wrong with it and a good deal that makes me personally annoyed.
I will start out by saying that I'm just glad nobody tried to teach math to me as a pure art because I'd have been turned off it pretty badly. I really only gained a love for the "art" side it has after understanding the rational rules. The author wants math classes to be art classes, which... well, there's a reason the only people who take art classes are the small minority of the population who are really into it. And if you're fine with doing that for math too, okay, sure whatever. There's a heck of a lot of fields that require more mathematical knowledge than that, though, and it's a dramatically harder thing to pick up at an older age (because, y'know, it is a language), so I think there's something to be said for teaching it to a larger pool of people at least for a certain length of time. (I'm pretty open to debate on how long that time should be, granted.)
The article pops off on the usual (valid) criticism of learning math, that most people will just never use this stuff (which is true, past elementary school roughly). Of course, a minority of people do, and for the rest, math education is just largely a code for "learning how to solve problems", which by the way, does not just mean coming up with your own proofs, but much more simple "take the rules you have learned and apply them", which is pretty darn valuable and you use it all the time unconsciously whether you realise it or not.
Extra venom is needed when this guy pretty much says that the only people teaching math should be people who have "proved something themselves" which I am assuming translates as "got themselves published doing mathematical research" because we totally needed more emphasis on research over teaching at the post-secondary level. I thought university was crappy enough, thanks. (And before someone says that the author meant "sat down and proved something for themselves"... no he didn't, because everyone I know who loves math and wants to teach it has done so, my class of math educators pretty much all had plenty of stories to share in that regard.)
So yeah, the article generally strikes a sour note, always lovely to be told that I am a cog of some evil machine I don't understand, that is totally why I spend time each week reading over the discussions of teaching methods and delightful tricks to teach and prove things to students and elicit that "aha!" moment (by the way, the article had a couple of these, always good to see).
The main place I see to agree is that it would be seriously awesome if I could devote more classes to just having students prove random things in group discussions, that is always great fun. There are many problems with it, though, which prevent me from doing it too often:
1. It's basically impossible to assess, and sadly, you lose lots of students of the age range I teach if they figure out it's not for marks. (Of course, the merits of our marks-driven education system are something that I can see being highly debated, but that's a bigger problem than this article seeks to address.)
2. The activity is somewhat hostage to the fact that most things you have students prove, some will have already seen proofs for, remember, and regurgitate (which is fine, to a point, but it does lose the creative process if that is the goal. Also makes the amount of time the activity takes seriously vary.)
3. While fun, it is inherently a slower way to cover and master material than "normal" teaching methods. When teaching a class there is a lot of material I am obligated to cover (both to the students themselves, and the state which set the curriculum) so time is always a concern.
4. In my experience, students who aren't at least moderately into the subject don't get into such activities at all and it becomes a waste for them; at best they follow what the "brighter" students are doing but often not even that. I kinda think such activities are wonderful for a motivated class (such as an enriched class obviously) and likely would work well in the lower grades (where more students tend to be more motivated to learn for learning's sake) but that's not really my area of expertise.
But in general the article seems pretty divorced for such real-life concerns, while also pushing its singular view of mathematics on the rest of us and generally presuming to understand the teaching of mathematics far better than anyone who actually does it.
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3. While fun, it is inherently a slower way to cover and master material than "normal" teaching methods. When teaching a class there is a lot of material I am obligated to cover (both to the students themselves, and the state which set the curriculum) so time is always a concern.
Well...yes and no.
Just based on what I know of human psychology, if a student is having fun doing math, they are almost by definition learning more than if they are not having fun (given how closely the psychological state of play is connected to primate learning). Of course, "learning" does not necessarily mean "covering curriculum".
1. It's basically impossible to assess, and sadly, you lose lots of students of the age range I teach if they figure out it's not for marks. (Of course, the merits of our marks-driven education system are something that I can see being highly debated, but that's a bigger problem than this article seeks to address.)
Well...right. Extrinsic motivators (like marks) reduce intrinsic motivation. Students who have 10+ years of being driven by extrinsic motivators will have very little intrinsic motivation to go forth and pursue something when an extrinsic motivator isn't present.
It's the whole "if you want students to read books and not eat pizza, you should give them books as a reward for eating pizza."
4. In my experience, students who aren't at least moderately into the subject don't get into such activities at all and it becomes a waste for them; at best they follow what the "brighter" students are doing but often not even that. I kinda think such activities are wonderful for a motivated class (such as an enriched class obviously) and likely would work well in the lower grades (where more students tend to be more motivated to learn for learning's sake) but that's not really my area of expertise.
Yeah, the entire article does seem more at home in lower grades.
Much the same way: I wrote a book when I was in grade 3. A god-damned illustrated physical book. I don't remember anything about it, other than it was awesome. By comparison, I don't think I had a single creative writing project in Grade 12 English. I remember a lot of 5-point essays doing literary analysis on the very specific books we were assigned to read. But freeform "go have fun kids"? No, grade 12 was serious business.
I'd expect grade 3 art classes and grade 12 art classes to have a similar contrast. Grade 3 being "ok kids, here's some paper, draw a picture". Whereas Grade 12 you'd be expected to be able to do perspective drawing and stuff like that.
The way the education system is currently set up, early grades are designed to get kids interested and motivated in the subject. And then high school is the "ok, here's the core of the subject, let's make sure you're not missing any gaps". Like...physics, for instance. I don't think I saw F=ma until grade 12. I don't know that that's a problem per-se; I ended up really liking physics and taking a ton of university courses in it.
Back to math, I don't really take issue with grade 12 math (I actually kind-of liked it). But like...grade 2 math is horrendously soul-less. Let's have 7-year-olds do worksheets with a hundred addition problems on them!
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I don't know too much about teaching kids proofs or anything like that, but my main problem with the way I was taught math as a kid was that it was rote memorization. I feel like if someone had shown me that "OK, so multiplying things by 7 from memory is a little bit hard, but you know what's easy? Multiplying things by 2, multiplying things by 5, and addition. (5+2)8=40+16=56 motherfucker" as a young kid not only would my mind have been blown (hell, when I learned that mental math trick in my 20s I was pretty dang impressed, even though I was taught the distributive property in middle school) I probably would have hated math less as a kid. I haven't read the article, but it does sound like you're trying to find those types of tricks from what you said, so you're probably not a bad math teacher, NEB.
Just, you know. A terrible human being.
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I try not to disappoint.
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:D
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Without having read the whole article, I'm slightly weirded out to say that I generally mirror NEB's opinion.
Also, that we English majors already get enough crap. About the only thing left is that we get an art tag associated with our major. Story trying to take that away from us. =(
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Let me just note, that if you are writing a Manifesto (which this is), you don't go half hearted. The reality of the situation is I think something that can be relatively easilly met half way logistically, culturally not so much. That is why it is written with such radical motions, because it is proposing a cultural upheavel and given human tendency to normalise all things then overshooting the target for such things is the most effective to get your desired goal.
You keep the lower grade stuff relatively engaging and you know, teach HOW to do math rather than rote memorisation. Get to middle school and get down to fundamentals, teach kids the stuff that the HAVE to know to at that point, consolidation etc. Then you can bloom out again.
The fact that the equivalent of what in this context would be AP Math is just continuations of boring rote learning is pretty fucking bullshit just like they describe. That middle school time will not only be formative, but will help kids that learned to enjoy the mechanics of the mathematics process develop while they apply the rules taught earlier through play while everyone else does it by rote. This doesn't even need to be two seperate mathematics streams if you have the built in love of math from an early age (although it would be much much better). From there, most of the extra stuff is gravy, you can keep the maths fundamentals classes you need. I mean what one of us doesn't have stories of some Veggie Maths or equivalent delightful high school nerd derisive term for the people that needed remedial math classes.
On that, we already have the basic curriculum in school systems to DO that baseline math. The real issue that they take is the higher level stuff that is ostensibly for the people that are there to do the harder interesting stuff, which is structured in the most dull boring and impenetrable way possible.
I can vouch for the softer sciences really not requiring that much actual indepth math. Everything I used for my Psychology degree that going in with a prior understanding of being helpful (not mandatory, just helpful) was an existing of probability picked up around grade 8 or 9, which was just built up knowledge of what is ultimately functional applications of division and multiplication. Everything else was built up on those base principles (that I had already consolidated in high school math).
Also the concept of needing to keep the current math model to teach critical thinking, honestly? I think that is a bit of a short sighted argument. Math is far from the only place that a practical application of rules, norms and standard practices can be applied. You should be getting the same kinds of lessons during Science and in a good English course that actually contains some of that Criticism that they talk about wanting to get into the math classroom. It isn't something that is taught only through math, but is primarilly so in the current model entirely by the design of the model (which as noted is dating back to the old Monastic/Prison or Quaker teaching methods (depending on how far back you want to reach). We don't have to stick with the exact same paradigm just because it is the way it has always been.
On that note, if nothing else one thing I think that would be great to take away from the article is that the hyperfocus on form and structure of math is definitely something that goes a long way to the negative response to math. If you get rid of such a strict requirement in how the language is utilised then you might see a more positive response to general math class (Order of Operations is important, but variations on how it can be written to get the same point don't necessarilly need to be strictly adhered to). I think a huge thing here is how strict the formatting of showing your working has to be. Yes I know how massively important this is for marking and the like, but the fact of the matter is for plenty of students that there is steps that they can do in their head. If you miss that bit of working in your flow it will cost you marks, maybe invalidate your entire answer, but if you take the time to write it down it can ruin your flow. In our ever pressing need to demonstrate our understanding of the math we are ignoring the trees for the forest. The answer is nearly meaningless. The method is what is getting all the attention and even then it is only on the precision of the form.
Yeah plenty of it does function for lower grades (likely where I expect the writer works?), but I really don't think it should be dismissed entirely for the higher grades.
Now I am rambling and think I need to stop.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFB6LQ1-WKU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE5xZKszXMQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9FSGmOtd4E&feature=watch_response
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http://kotaku.com/5863456/this-is-the-most-incredible-line-up-of-gamings-leading-ladies-ive-ever-seen/gallery/1
Nice fanart of all playable female characters created 1995 or earlier.
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(http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/9972/18935240.png)
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http://warmingglow.uproxx.com/2011/12/will-ferrell-mysteriously-shills-for-swill
Will Ferrell randomly supports beer.
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I believe I've already noted that if you don't watch Batman: The Brave and the Bold you're probably stupid, but they did an episode adapted MAD Magazine's classic Batboy and Rubin comic. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EujseRHsYcs) I mean, just......damn.
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Humble Bundle 4: Super Meat Boy, Shank, Jamestown, Bit.Trip Runner, NightSky, Cave Story+ and Gratuitous Space Battles. (http://www.humblebundle.com)
Uh, yeah. You should probably get on that.
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Good thing I just bought Cave Story +.
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Chocobo Theme from FFXIII-2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUOOgNzOv4&feature=player_embedded#!
There are lyrics.
Gas him up with greens and let him go
Stand back stand clear as he puts on a show
So cute yet fierce is he from hell?
I can't tell you I don't even want to know
So you wanna be a trailblazer?
Kick up dirt like a hellraiser?
Take the reigns but don't react slow
It's time to feel the force of the chocobo
So you think you can ride this chocobo?
Got chocobucks you better put them on the chocobo
Saddle up if you think you can ride in this rodeo
Are we in hell I don't know
If you think you're gonna hide, there's chocobo
Everybody's gonna wanna ride your chocobo
This chocobo's got style in the chocorodeo
Gonna ride'em straight through hell in this chocobo rodeo
(http://www.piwo.fr/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/i-m-too-old-for-this-shit.jpg)
I'm too old for this shit.
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Good thing I just bought Cave Story +.
What exactly is the + in Cave Story+.
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HD-ified graphics and music along with the originals, a new level, some new game modes (boss rush, etc), and when you buy it, Pixel gets money.
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Fenrir: That loops is so gloriously bad that it loops back around to good.
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Hahahahahaa. Glorious.
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are we in hell
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http://www.1up.com/features/the-man-who-created-street-fighter
Interesting interview with a guy who doesn't do interviews. Also, Moon Patrol!
http://www.xbox360achievements.org/news/news-10388-Fun-Friday-Skyrim-Facts-and-Figures-Fly-In---10-Million-Copies-Shipped.html
Skyrim sales numbers.
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http://www.siliconera.com/2011/12/16/pokemon-meets-nobunagas-ambition-in-a-new-crossover-game/
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/12/16/take-a-closer-look-at-pokemon-nobunagas-ambition/
And the next Pokemon game is a crossover between Pokemon and Nobunaga's Ambition. It is a strategy game of some flavor.
what is this i dont even
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A shining example of why it's not always good to give game developers the artistic freedom to make whatever they want.
(For all that, if it's an amazing game, I won't care if the concept is bad).
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Concept? Bad? Far from it, I'm excited. Pokemon strat game.
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I'm tenatively excited. But the screenshots make it look more like a FFT-style game (which I don't like) than the old Nobunaga games (which were awesome). Granted I haven't played a NA in many years so they may all look like that now.
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http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2011/12/line3.jpg
Nintendo finally releases an official Zelda timeline.
left timeline is the past you left behind in OoT (aka Link fails)
center timeline is the past you arrived at after defeating Ganon in OoT
right timeline is the future you arrived at in OoT
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Never having finished Ocarina of Time, I may be missing some information here, but I'm not understanding how the setup changes in any meaningful way between the left and right timelines? Surely Link failing in the past should lead to an essentially equivalent future as him disappearing in the past? (Unless the implication is that he stayed in the future in the right fork and changed things from there...?)
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I believe the right timeline is "Link defeats Gannondorf in OoT, and that timeline continues".
The actual ending of OoT (center timeline) is some BS where they remove Gannon from the timeline completely, and suddenly Hyrule wasn't ruled by Gannondorf for 7 years. (Even though they only defeat him in the future). Basically, OoT's cannon ending doesn't actually make sense.
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"Time travel is really hard to write. Were that this hoodie were a time hoodie." -Craig Pelton
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJIuYgIvKsc&feature=colike
Too long, didn't watch because the guy's voice is kind of annoying: Many of the companies lobbying the hardest to pass SOPA were in turn practically the sole distributors of file sharing and DRM removal software, particularly CNET (owned by CBS). Additionally most of these download sites provided detailed instructions on how to use the software to download copyrighted material, often providing embedded links to the material itself. Based on a previous SCOTUS ruling (MGM v. Grokster Copyright Ruling), this makes them liable for any acts of piracy committed by third parties (that part's at 4:17).
So. Yeah. That's a thing that has happened.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdJp5-g69go
Don Cherry piano desk
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Hurry, while the reading is good:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sub/2752940998.html
The Housemates:
We are invested in undermining capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, christian dominance, heterosexism, erotophobia and patriarchy. We are committed to the reclamation of our Indigenous consciousness. We like to cook and garden and care about food & food justice.
You gotta love this city o/~
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That is goddamn hilariously over the top.
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You are: cisfemale, trans/genderqueer, or queer cismale
...Why don't they just say "You are not a straight, cis male"?
Like...as-worded it excludes intersex individuals; I'm pretty sure that's not the intent!
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It is the stuff with the bees that makes me love it/laugh the most.
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"Superpower of choice" is straight up stolen from every roommate ad I've ever placed. The fuck.
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http://andriasang.com/comzi0/3ds_paid_dlc_fire_emblem/
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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Eh, you already had to preorder Mario Kart Double Dash to get the extras for FE7, so this isn't that new for the series. Of course in that case you got a good game as well!
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Eh, you already had to preorder Mario Kart Double Dash to get the extras for FE7, so this isn't that new for the series. Of course in that case you got a good game as well!
And if it's the same as the MKDD content that would be fine (i.e. just stat boost items). Something like 25 cents per +1 stat would be a-ok with me; I might even use it if I found a sufficiently hilarious reason to do so. (I did, after all, go for the MKDD disc to set up an ultimate Florina team to use against Excal who hates Florina).
On the other hand, if this is like...pay to unlock characters and bonus missions, then it may be time to pull out my fork of stabbing.
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Usual disclaimer about DLC applies: if you don't want it, don't buy it. If only paying what you consider "acceptable game price" does not yield an acceptable game, then torch the game all you want. Otherwise, what-the-fuck-ever.
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Usual disclaimer about DLC applies: if you don't want it, don't buy it. If only paying what you consider "acceptable game price" does not yield an acceptable game, then torch the game all you want. Otherwise, what-the-fuck-ever.
Except microtransactions are provably less psychologically satisfying due to "the flat rate bias":
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/06/apb-all-points-bulletin-or-aggregated-payment-bias-both/
And even if you don't ever buy any DLC, it's going to gnaw at completionists. Especially since games that are good at microtransaction baiting will remind people of the special shinys they're missing.
...Which is to say, in most cases the existence of DLC--regardless of whether or not you buy it--makes for a worse psychological experience.
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I read all of this and all that comes to mind is "this is why not being robots sucks".
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That's why I just dump a bunch of money into Xbox points at once. That way spending the points over time feels less connected to spending actual money, which in turn makes the cost gnaw less (and sometimes not at all, if I get the content/points/both on sale). Psychological trickery against myself, yes, but hey, I get to enjoy my Batman costumes and LA Noire cases, and the dollars-and-cents cost is generally acceptable in and of itself.
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I make sure to delete my account info every time I order points. If I have to go get my wallet and type in all my credit card info, I'm much less likely to spend the money compared to just clicking a BUY! button and having it done instantly.
Of course Micro$oft makes it difficult for you to do this, because you have to get on PC to delete your credit card - can't do it from Xbox dashboard.
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Oh, that's the other trick I use on myself. No buying points directly, just through cards.
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Yeah. I stopped buying points directly after the PSN incident. Less convenient, but safer.
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Apparently I am a robot, but we already knew this.
Except microtransactions are provably less psychologically satisfying due to "the flat rate bias":
http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2010/06/apb-all-points-bulletin-or-aggregated-payment-bias-both/
And even if you don't ever buy any DLC, it's going to gnaw at completionists. Especially since games that are good at microtransaction baiting will remind people of the special shinys they're missing.
You forget, I have a mean sense of humour when it comes to the irrational and see mocking completionists as a good thing. (This is probably why I shouldn't actually market anything.) So yeah, if DLers whine about this sort of thing I will snark about it, even if they're part of a majority that may make this a bad marketing strategy. Then again I have more faith in the companies themselves to decide what's a good marketing strategy (since all things being equal, it's their money and jobs on the line) than angry internet commentators, and a lot of companies seem to be implementing DLC, so I question that it's in fact a bad marketing strategy.
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Bad economics and bad design being two completely different things and DLC commonly being a shoehorned in thing, not an actual additional feature to the game (unlocking items already on the disc compared to unlocking a new game mode or new mission) kind of puts the functionalist approach to game design in a bad position. Too much external pressure involved in the system.
But sure, they are good at marketting it, doesn't mean it is in the best interest of the game or the end user >_>
But anyway, this is all one more benefit to being absolutely terrible with money and not giving a fuck about it. I click the buy button and get things. Done.
Deleting CC info to have to rekey it is lololol. I have my CC details memorised from habit, so it isn't exactly a big barrier for entry.
That said, there is kinds of DLC that are good for games. Oddly in spite of being the poster child for terrible DLC (HORSE ARMOR!!!111), Bethesda properties are getting pretty decent DLC these days. Fallout 3 started to go in the right direction, giving new standalone missions that increased level cap and expanded on the things people enjoyed in the game (power gaming shit like weapons etc). They were even doing it pretty well in Oblivion at least with giving people what they wanted (more fancy housing... I mean it isn't for the DL, but for the target audience? shit was off the chain). Fallout NV DLC takes it a step further with level cap increases, new stuff and expanding of the setting and exploring subplots hinted at during the main game.
It ain't all bad.
Hell sometimes that kind of shitty DLC that gives you kind of trashy items for a slightly easier experience? If you price them low enough and they are clearly a minor opt in thing, set the price tag low enough and it is fine.
Also for what it is worth APB went belly up real fucking fast and is Free to Play now on a far more standard model.
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But anyway, this is all one more benefit to being absolutely terrible with money and not giving a fuck about it. I click the buy button and get things. Done.
I've said this before, but for a communist you sure are an excellent capitalist consumer.
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As I have also said before. I may be a communist, but I am still a Nihilist.
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Must be exhausting.
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I haven't seen anything I've found objectionable with DLC as a consumer. It's a way for companies to make profits when they can only charge so much for the actual game.
It makes sense when you think about it; the price of games has barely gone up since the NES days. If say EA was charging me an extra five dollars to play the Packers in the game it would be unacceptable; but charging for silly side games? Whatever.
Now, The EA orgins agreement? *That* can burn in eternal hellfire.
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Games cost more to make now, but the market is much, much bigger. So I'm not sure we can read much into the price of games then as now.
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http://io9.com/5872016/marvel-lawyers-fighting-to-prove-that-mutants-arent-human
If irony were strawberries, we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right about now.
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Fail, Marvel.
That said, what the hell is the logic of taxing different types of toys at different rates depending on whether they appear human?
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Tax law. Logic. Pick none.