I am like all over the place, and as far as I know, the only person who uses this username. So yeah, it was probably me, and I definitely post (and have posted) on a Codex-related community :)
okay, thanks
Readit Newsthrowaway1892 commented on Roguelikes: The Misnamed Genre (2011) zorbathut.livejournal.com... · Posted by u/luu
throwaway1892 commented on Roguelikes: The Misnamed Genre (2011) zorbathut.livejournal.com... · Posted by u/luu
Haha, man, it's weird when a post you made ten years ago, that isn't even linking to its main site (see http://www.mandible.net/2011/04/25/roguelikes-the-misnamed-g...), hits the front page of something somewhere.
For what it's worth, I was absolutely aware of the Berlin interpretation and was giving it about as much attention as I think it deserves. In my opinion the Berlin interpretation is not a sane definition of a roguelike, it's a point-by-point description of what the common roguelike of the day was. It's a ridiculous gatekeepy way to design a genre; just imagine the definitions we would have got if "first-person shooter" had been defined in the wake of Doom ("a first-person shooter involves using a set of six to twelve weapons, bound to the number keys, to kill demons") or in the wake of Battlefield ("a first-person shooter involves large team battles with matchmaking and gradual unlocks of sidegrades, which can be bypassed by paying real money").
But the point of that post wasn't to attack the Berlin interpretation, rightfully or not, it was to trace the outlines of a concept that I think a lot of people aren't isolating. The existence of the Berlin interpretation - which was a lot more popular back then - was, and to some extent still is, blinding people to the interesting parts of the genre. The interesting part of an FPS is not the exact number of weapons available; the interesting part of a real-time strategy game is not the fact that units move smoothly, and not on a grid; the interesting part of a roguelike is not whether it's made with ASCII art. It's an implementation detail.
My attempt in that post, made kind of hamfistedly as anyone would say about something they wrote over a decade ago, was to get at the interesting parts of a roguelike and try to draw a loose outline around them.
If I were to write this today, I'd spend a lot of time talking about the XCOM 2 expansion pack, which I think made some fascinating steps towards being this kind of game. Yes, specifically the expansion pack.
In the base game, you can more-or-less plot out your build order before you start the game; you can know what will show up at every step, you can know when you'll get certain items, you can roughly predict when you'll get certain abilities (modulo soldiers dying, of course), there's no unpredictability.
In the expansion pack, though, they throw a bunch of random events at you that can seriously influence your build order. Maybe you get double-speed research, for a single research item, that you must either cash in immediately or abandon; this can mean you're encouraged to pick somewhat-random equipment. You can also be given the opportunity to buy weird unique items that are permanent upgrades to, again, somewhat-random equipment, so maybe in one game shotguns are really good and in another game it's sniper rifles that get the random bonus. Again, this can change your strategy significantly. And finally the big enemy monsters have random traits - they're weak to things, strong to other things, and all of this is re-rolled every game.
This isn't an enormous amount of variation. But it's significant, and this is the thing that I'm pointing at; situations where the player is left thinking "wait, hold on, how do I navigate this? how can I put these bonuses and penalties together into something really awesome for me?"
didn't you post on the 'dex a few years ago? (just curious, seen a similar username in some older threads)
> I'm astonished at how much fishing is going on around Europe.
Why would that surprise you? Europe has a long tradition of fishing. And europe's population is 800 million strong. They even had a brief "war" in the north atlantic over fish.
http://britishseafishing.co.uk/the-cod-wars/
Japan and China are targeted in many fearmongering articles about fishing/whaling/etc because stories about them get traction/reaction. Maybe because of ethnic/racial tension. Who knows.
Try "Japan is killing whales" vs "Norway/Iceland is killing whales".
or
"China is overfishing" vs "Europe is overfishing".
The former gets the most reaction/clicks even though the latter outwhales and outfishes the former.
The biggest culprit is europe, then us, and then the japanese and then the chinese. It's primarily the europeans and us that are destroying fisheries. Not only that, europe's fishing reach is global due to their colonial heritage.
There is a very strong fishing tradition in europe. Nearly wiped out the whales in the 1800s. Wiped out the fish/tuna/etc in the mediterranean and the north atlantic. Then moved over to the US and wiped out our fisheries along our atlantic and alaska. And the regions destroying fisheries along africa are not the chinese, as you see on the news, but it's the europeans by a long shot.
As a French, I think I've as much "China/SE Asia is overfishing" as "Europe is overfishing". But usually it turns political very quick, since the region supported by the fishing industry don't have many other economical prospects.
throwaway1892 commented on Making Millions by Distributing Pirated Movies thehftguy.com/2017/12/20/... · Posted by u/user5994461
"Did you know that Google pay cash for every new installation of Google Chrome? Yes, they do." , Is it for real ?
Yes, they are paying software creators to add a chrome install in the installer, usually with a checkbox that's enabled by default. I remember the creator of VLC saying that refusing Google's offer was the hardest decision he's taken, so the money offered must be good.
throwaway1892 commented on Postmortem: Every Frame a Painting medium.com/@tonyszhou/pos... · Posted by u/19870213
This news breaks my heart because Every Frame is my favourite youtube channel bar none. I feel empty knowing that I won't get to watch another video from them.
I did enjoy reading this though, because learning more about their creative process helps me appreciate them that much more. It now makes sense why the Jackie Chan video was amazing - it was a 150 hour labour of love from knowledgeable professionals who spared no effort.
For me, watching this channel was more than just an enjoyable 10 minutes - it helped me understand and appreciate film for the first time ever. I could always say that I loved the opening sequence of Pixar's Up, that it brought tears to my eyes, but I could never express what made it so special. Tony and Taylor gave me the vocabulary and the ability to do so, and I'm forever indebted to them for that alone. Thanks guys.
Yeah, it's the same thing for me.
throwaway1892 commented on Will automation put an end to the American trucker? theguardian.com/technolog... · Posted by u/ranit
The rails are already there. When I drive down I5, you can see them.
The reason this sorry state of affairs exists is because truck traffic is heavily subsidized (highways paid for with taxes) whereas rail traffic is heavily taxed (and the rail companies have to pay for the tracks).
It could be improved by increasing weight taxes on trucks, and using the proceeds to subsidize intercity tracks.
Even in France, with paying interstate (called autoroute here) and subsidized rail (it was a state monopole until recently), most of transport of goods is by truck.
I think it's mostly a last mile problem (you'll need big trucks to carry from the station), compounded by the fact that most of the train station of cities and I don't think they is a lot of dedicated cargo train station. Also you do not control part of the schedule: you are dependent on the departure/arrival time of trains. And don't forget the strikes...
73% of the US is ethnically European, Germany is 81% ethnic Germans, France is 89% ethnic French (and another 5% from their colonies).
Yes, Norway is fairly homogeneous. But most countries are fairly homogeneous, Norway doesn't really stand out.
Where did you get the numbers for France? I though that it not possible to do any ethnic census there?
Perhaps it could have been done by asking for countries of birth for the parents/grandparents.
Also when you are saying colonies, is it the former colonies (North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Ex-Indochina) or the current overseas departments (in the Carribean, Guiana in South America and in the Indian Ocean)?
I had a discussion with a French medical student concerning organ donation. She said that the type of death where organs can be donated (cerebral death if I remember right) is very uncommon (compared to cardiac arrest) so we did not have to worry about it (or needed to opt-out).
In addition, like in the Austrian example, the relatives are consulted for their assent.