Merus

I keep looking at your username and thinking of suggesting Neal Stevenson because his books end abruptly too. (If this joke interests you for real, try Cryptonomicon or maybe The Diamond Age. But his stuff does require a bit of a run-up.) As for actual suggestions for stuff told from found sources, I'm afraid I can't remember a lot off the top of my head.

The intent is clearly that they're wallowing in nostalgia for childhood, because Kellogg's, like all cereal companies, wants to encourage a new market to eat their extruded fibre product. Well if that's what you want, Kellogg's, why don't you make the Fruit Loops different flavours? Because there's no actual fruit flavour in there, it's all just sugar flavoured you cheapass bastards I'm onto your little game you can't fool me anymore

Yeah, but there are a ton of women (binders full of women) who play games and presumably listen to podcasts. It's weird that there's such a big gender imbalance, to the point where I'd say it raises questions. I find it hard to believe that Idle Thumbs is niche enough that there wouldn't be women finding it, trying it, and finding it offputting.

I dunno guys, I really liked Guardians of the Galaxy, and I think it had a lot more in its bag than 'someone said a-hole'. There's a bunch of jokes I really enjoyed that didn't feel forced or 'wacky' or crude, and still served to develop the characters, and it's got a real devotion to undercutting its big moments that is really endearing. If you go in expecting a science fantasy comedy I think it'll work much better for you than if you're expecting anything remotely serious. I don't know why you keep going to see these movies, Ben, I remember you didn't like Captain America 2 either.

How does your platinum trophy feel?

As an impartial observer, it seems like most of what Saved You A Click focuses on is clickbait headlines easily ruined by answering the question the headline poses. There were a couple of headlines where it seems clear there's content there. So that analogy of Buzzfeed's is kind of shitty because professors don't structure their lectures that way: they know you'll tough it out, and they'll structure it so students can work out what they're building towards early. The 8-year-old analogy is more revealing, because clearly the audience is 7 and under to that writer. The problem clickbait headlines are trying to solve is that we are drowning in content and most of it's shit. The solution is to not make that shit easier to shovel, it's to not write anything if it's just going to be shit. So I'm trying to design this shapeshifter character, and I'm trying to work out what the material would look like when it's in flux. I want it to be made up of thick, rough sinews (not like tentacles) with sharp angles and splits, and most of my sketches don't look particularly good. Does anyone know where I can get some good reference material for something like this? I stopped Googling when I realised how 'stretched flesh' would not lead to anything good.

The thing that bothers me most about it is not that they hired grognards as additional consultants, because that will happen and in a small hobby like tabletop RPGs you don't always have enough expertise to be able to entirely exclude shitty people, but that the design leadership automatically responded with skepticism to the possibility that they'd hired grognards. That's a much bigger red flag to me - particularly because the person I know most likely to GM a throwback D&D system like 5th ed is also the person I know the grognards would most want to exclude.

Yeah that's pretty much what it is, and yeah, it's pretty much common sense with a catchy name slathered on top of it, that is basically what Merlin Mann does.

If it helps, dataminers discovered that there's probably going to be a permanent trial implemented soon. They found that whenever they turned on free trials the gold spam was horrendous, and it slowly dies off over time.

I have basically given up on BG&E2, particularly the part where Ubisoft wants it to do well and to give it resources, because I expect that those resources will include Ubisoft Montreal and the Alice Unit.

and now here comes the reality fairy to ruin this for you: http://www.metafilter.com/141455/This-is-why-white-people-are-so-healthy#5661910

I'm obviously being sarcastic, but I don't think the intent of it is a bad thing. I think there is a certain amount of mental overhead that comes from managing an uncertain to-do list, and putting procedures in place so that nothing stays uncertain for long seems like a good idea to me.

I know that the public TF2 and GW2 communities are both very friendly on the whole.

So you know how everyone was excited for D&D 5e saying progressive things about gender? Yeah, about that. http://failforward.co.uk/post/93348768153/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-endorsing-the-darkest-parts

Relevant: Kucheralert, a Chrome extension that makes links on Twitter that point to pieces written by Ben Kuchera drip blood.

also http://confusedcatsagainstfeminism.tumblr.com edit: I can't really take honey badgers seriously, which I consider something of a moral failing given I can stare into the abyss of fringe Christianity and not blink. But it seems like the inciting incident might have been the ongoing problem feminism has dealing with women who want to express their sexual identity in a way that just so happens to look like sexual exploitation? (aka The Miley Cyrus Problem) I expect that's going to be a sticking point for the movement for some time, there's not really a solution for it, and I strongly doubt the appropriate move is to become an MRA.

Also acceptable: Vanellope and Missingno.

Seven Wonders is so much fun. Well worth getting a copy circulating.

I have Pinboard for things I want to read later. My tabs are exclusively for things I intend to read today. INBOX ZERO

Well, for me it's an approach that breaks the illusion of conversation pretty quickly - either you're able to step in and out of conversation topic modes in a really weird way, or it's a veneer that hides an illusion of choice, and to accommodate the minor deviations the whole conversation feels disjointed and weird. I'd either like the conversations to be much more granular and detailed, which no-one's quite worked out how to do yet, or completely authored, and the choices are presented around the conversation. Failbetter do the latter: you choose how you feel, and the actual conversation is written by them. I suspect other people are kind of over dialogue trees because of BioWare's signature dialogue tree design.

I actually laughed out loud at this. I don't normally do that. Well done.

God, if it is the Failbetter game and they've just made dialog trees I'm going to be so disappointed. Failbetter are better than dialogue trees.

Probably giving up on Mario and Luigi: Dream Team Bros. There's something about the game that just doesn't work for me - between the slightly overtuned achievement system that just makes me feel bad for not being able to predict monster movements I've never met, to the series of collectables, to the handholding, I'm just not enjoying playing it.

I think one of the most heartening things, for me, is that this essay feels smart. There are big ideas here that need a run-up to tackle, but there's a lot to chew over. A lot of essays I read of this scope end up sounding a little incoherent, even including essays I like, like On Smarm, which meanders a lot and is trying too hard in places, but still has enough argument contained within that I can forgive it. I used to be much better at spotting dissembling bullshit, and I sometimes worry that I get too excited about the potential of new ideas that I've lost that sense entirely. I think that sense is still there.

Let's be fair here, I hate most deckbuilding games. The idea of having to trash cards - getting rid of perfectly good cards - is anathema to me; I hate doing it, and I hate being forced to do it, so generally I enjoy deckbuilding games that are balanced around players not trashing their cards. I think Thunderstone's XP-upgrading mechanic is a good way to have decks get stronger over time without it being 'trashing'. Puzzle Strike's probably better, but there's a big conceptual hurdle to get over with Puzzle Strike, with the gems both in the gem pile and your hand, that makes it a little frustrating to play.