seamus2389

Been watching and rewatching Miyakxi movies after watching the documentary Kingdom of Dreams and madness about the making of his final film led me down the rabbit hole of reading interviews with him. One thing he said he hated was the fact that a male and female sharing the same scene = romance and it was something he actively avoided in his movies which is true in Spirited away, Princess Mononoke and Nausicca. Trying to think of other examples thinking and just realised how many involved one or the being LGBT. It is really depressing. I think the Idle thumbs podcast mentioned Full throttle having a platonic male-female friendship and that's all I can think of at the moment.

Read this harry potter fan fic with his aunt being a good mother and his cousin a good brother that I liked. Also bbc4 are broadcasting the left hand of darkness and a wizard of earthesea starting next week and have a half hour interview with le guin that includes her talking about omelas and a of reading of parts of it that reminded me how brutal that story is. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05pkmyg Also started reading about ancient Greece between the death Alexander and the roman take over and I now want to read a book focused solely on the relationship between the various kings and a city states cause it is fascinating. The kings on one hand proclaim they support the polis indpendence and semi-democratic system to be seen as proper hellenes while also trying to keep them from being so independent they form a league strong enough to be a threat or ally with one of the rival successors. Bob of History according to Bob podcast is going to over the time period as well. Also the Gauls make an appearance and reading about roman actually got involved in Greece through dealing with pirates and Epicurus leading to allying against Macedonia is a part of ancient history I had little knowledge of. If you are looking for some interesting sci-fi stories that don't involve white people you should check out the apex world of sci-fi series cause it has some really good stuff.

You could do a manga podcast as well or with a differnt cast.

This is exactly the kind of podcast I want format wise and reading this thread ye are the kind of people I would find interesting to listen. For the spotlight anime part of the episode having someone on it with a decent synopsis prepared of what happened for what you watch is very handy especially if there are lot of things going on. Doing an audio only podcast takes a bit of getting used cause it's really easy to talk over people which I didn't realise how bad I was at it till I listened to an episode.

Newest episode of NPR's pop culture happy hour talked about SXSW and they mentioned a belgian singer Stromae that I've came across on a random best of 2014 song list on slate These would be my top three from his most recent album which I am back to listening as my default I want some music to listen to rather than a podcast while reading. This a song from his first album I remember hearing the english version of a couple of years ago Also sticking with french. Kenny arkana. and on the pop side in Indila

Karen Chu and a couple of other ex 1upers had a podcast were they went through a couple of anime shows a couple episodes at the time. Cant remember the name cause they stopped a good few years ago but i might be up your street - they went through ergo proxy and mushishi. I am wondering when will the anime rewatch podcast will start considering we are at the point with US tv where there is a saved by the bell rewatch podcast.

I read ralpl koster's a theroy of fun for game design a couple years ago and thought it was pretty interesting

I mentioned this in the manga thread but fellow EU/non-US members who use comixology and want to not pay EU prices (or VAT thanks to VATMOSS). Buy a gift card through a US comics retailer who have an affiliate program with comixology like this and send it yourself. If you buy something with the gift card money and have a EU address you will be charged for VAT at checkout. Buy the gift card with your credit card (or amazon payments) with your actual address (you don't pay VAT on this) . Before you buy the actual comics switch your primary payment method to paypal and edit the address for that to a US. Enjoy (till this loop hole gets closed). The above swtiching of payment methods could work in reverse as long as you aren't changing the payment method you should be ok. Just used to buy the Love and Rockets collection and Harley Quinn vol 1 which are currently 66% and 70% off. I just started reading Scott McCloud the Sculptor. Just read up to the point where he makes his deal so not much to say yet beyond both dust jacket and actual cover and the comics itself look great.

Your talk of valve reminded me of two interviews from a few years ago. Here is an interview with Yanais talking about working at valve, how they decide on what to do and decide on who to hire. Here is an article talking about this interview with a former emplolyee of Vavle who was fired giving her thoughts on the company and how while it has no formal hierarchy there is a strong informal one.

You can get round that. Comixology has a deal with some US comic book stores kinda like amazon affilates. You can buy gift card in dollars through the stores and send them to yourself. I use https://comicsconspiracy.comicretailer.com/ A friend of mine has been reading the newest untranslated chapters to myself and another friend over the internet while we look at the scans and if you thought Hitler and JFK were controversial things to incorporate you ain't seen nothing yet. We started a podcast just to talk about billy bat called manga machination which is me (since i never read it before) and them (who have) talking about chapter by chapter and wondering what is going on and what is the difference between the bats (we have an answer we are pretty sure is right although recent chapters may cast some doubt on it, I am still convinced golden cola has an important part to play) You description of the series is perfect.

This on his editing style is a must watch if you are Satoshi Kun fan. I'd suggest checking out Wolf's rain, Darker than black, Kids on the slope, Ghost in the Shell, Eccentric Family,Kyousougiga and Space dandy (the first 3 episodes are meh but 4 and 5 show what the series can be when it is firing on all cyclinders).

Someone at the MIT Singapore campus recorded a series of interviews with former members of Looking glass studios talking about the games the worked on. I have listened to the first three episodes and its an interesting insight into the creation of System shock 2 and thief 1/2 so far. http://gambit.mit.edu/updates/audio/looking_glass_studios_podcast/

I think it is the focus on writing. A couple years ago he mentioned wanting to have a freelance budget for writing which is 100% what GB isn't about. Kotaku is a better fit that way. There was a Kotaku podcast at one stage a couple of years ago, not sure how long it lasted. Reading about the changes Kotaku are making - getting rid of previews, having writers cover specific games after they are out to see what happens with them (like with Pokemon and Smash) I do think they are dealing with changes in how to make money covering video games in a way that is very different from GB but potentially just as successful considering their pages views rising.

My question is do they replace him? He was the news person/person who cared most about written stuff but I don't think the rest of them care much about that and him being in Chicago he was out the door video wise bar spooking with scoops and bombing the am podcast which could be replaced with a vinny/alex one. My crazy theory - he is going to salon cause he tweeted something in the last week bout it than when I heard he was leaving that was the first place that poped into my head. Also is this related to a job posting for cbsi a month or two ago looking for an east coast editor or was that something else entirely

Thanks for reminding me I have that book and should get round to reading it. The second book (Ancillary Sword) came out this year and got pretty good reviews. Meant to be like CJ Cherryh Downbelow station/ Foreigners series which I really liked.

Read it recently along with the lightouse and it is potentially out of my favorite books. The BBC4 show in our time did an episode about it that is worth checking out. Finally got round to reading Jonna Russ the female man. In the final page Russ is talking to the book and saying that one day when its no longer seen as something special but as something quaint cause there will be equality between the sexes it should be happy not sad it's seen as out of touch with the times. Reading that was pretty depressing when it was published in 1975 and you read it in 2014. Also like Wolf Russ does alot of having characters talking and it taking a couple of sentences for you to figure out who is talking (particularly when the 4 female leads are version of each other from different realities). I read these above books and a sci-fi book called the dragon never sleeps in the same month and I found it really odd that all 4 had chapters which are a paragraph or less in length. The Dragon never sleeps also a really good take on Roman empire in space particulary if you are interested in the changes that occured in the empire leading up to the fall of the western half. Also reading about Russ she got alot of shit for her reviews and whenever I see a thread about games reviews I think I am going to post her replies to the various complaints she got : Don't shove your politics into your reviews. Just review the books. "I will," Russ said, "when authors keep politics out of their books." You don't prove what you say; you just assert it. "There is no way to "prove" anything in aesthetic or moral matters." Then your opinion is purely subjective. "I might be subjective, but not arbitrary. It is based on a critic's whole education." Everyone's entitled to his [sic] own opinion. "Writing is a craft too, and it can be judged. And some opinions are worth a good deal more than others." I knew it. You're a snob. "Science fiction is a small world that often doesn't look outside of its own bounds. You're vitriolic too. "The only way to relieve oneself of the pain that has to be endured by reading every line is to express one'sopinions vividly, precisely, and compactly." Never mind all that stuff. Just tell me what I'd enjoy reading. "Bless you, what makes you think I know?" Just finished city of stairs. This review sums up my thoughts on this pretty interesting fantasy novel dealing with colonialism, oppression, religion and history. Reminds me of The city and the city and parts of Steven Erikson's Malazan series. I haven't read the bone clocks but I have read alot about it and I am going to throw this arictle on it being a work of anti-fantasy and a review from a SF&F site I read into the mix

Use the idle thumbs mumble server. I do a podcast (manga machinations) with 2 Americans on a mumble server and it sounds pretty good (as do the other podcasts they record on there). One of them does the editing and that is just taking out the silence from our pauses. I think the talking over people is something you get better at not doing over time. Starting an anime podcast will get you watching more anime even if it is just stuff you all agree to talk about.

The Third policeman by Flann O' brien where people can become bicycles and bicycles can become people and the job of the police is to stop that from happening. Also featuring the brotherhood of the one legged men and other oddities Also Atlas : Archaeology of an imaginary city which is about the former British colony of Victoria and investigation of its remains. Not sure where it fits in genre wise but it's weird in a very enlightening way

Does any else who listens to the slate culture gabfest ever feel like smashing a bottle over Steven Thompon's head ? Between Taylor Swift and Emojios I kinda want him gone from the podcast. He is literally the old man railing against the world from his porch. His only purpose in my eyes is for Dana and Julie to argue against said old man positions. I say dump and replace him with June Thomas (or Linda Holmes from Pop Culture Happy Hour just cause I am listening to her endorse that nymag emojio articles and not as a warning about how stuff that came into existence after she turned 35 is against the natural order of things).

I fininshed reading Explaining Hitler : the search for the origins of his evil and it is the best/most enlightening book I read this year. Its is as much a study of the various theories and people who try to explain them as the theories themselves. Also the sometiems bitter disputes between people over the different theories and the ethics of suggesting certain ones eg. it was the Jews ( specificily Jesus, Marx and a third person whose name I cant remember) fault for creating consciousness which Europe couldn't deal with which lead to Hilters rise to power. This is a new afterword to the book that lead to me getting my hands an a copy of it as soon as possible https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/hitler-continued-afterword-updated-edition-explaining-hitler-search-origins-evil Re-reading Friday night lights and I had forgotten messed up Odessa Texas (and other parts of Texas) with regards to high-school football being second only to God in the 80's. Reading the afterword Bissinger talks about how he originally came to follow the Panthers but after seeing the racism and the madness of the town with regards to football he felt he had to write about it (he says that the town had lost the ability to judge itself which it had indeed). He does mention that after the book the city realised to a certain extent the madness and put more money into actual education. In the midst of an economy boom people spending millions on multiple jets (Midland a sister city and bitter rival had the the 3rd highest rolls royce sales in the country at the height of the boom) and then the price of oil drops and you had the second largest bank bankcrupty in US history at that time. Also the book really nails how insane it is to treat a group of 17,18 years olds as the best thing since slice pan for a year and then just forget about them (and the injuries they suffered) once football season is over which leads to alot of them seeing it as the best time of their life while resenting that fact. Also to quote Bissinger "the ugliest racism he had ever encountered". One of the players says that he knew they lost the state champioship when he saw " a bunch of cocky niggers jumping up and down" and nigger a word that is thrown around pretty freely by the white people in this book.

A three moves ahead episode with the creator has convinced me that I should give that game a second try now knowing that I was playing it totally wrong.

I will gladly take the ai war dlc off your hands. Been meaning to get back to that game

Been re-watching Samurai Champloo and I had forgotten how good this show is as a group of misfits who get into dramatic/comedic situations as they wonder round Japan constantly broke and hungry while dealing with shit from their past. Also Space Dandy is probably the best anime and on when it wants to be one of the best sci-fi shows I have seen in years.

I am on board the Jane the virgin bandwagon for best show of the fall. The best description I can think of is the artifice of Pushing daises, the family dynamics of Gimore girls, the self-awareness and hilarious omniscient narrator of Arrested development (credited as Latin Lover Narrator) and a central character who belief in telling the truth cuts through the bullshit plots of people keeping secrets from each other that annoys the hell out of me in soaps. Watching it I realised that Arrested development could be described as a comedic soap - constant scheming, people going in to hiding from treason charges, affairs, reveals based round who actually related to who but all played for laughs and with Ron Howard commenting on the ridiculous nature of it all along the way along the way.

I got three two copies of risk of rain from the newest humble bundle if anyone wants one Looking through my humble bundle page I also have : Dear Esther Broken age for the OUYA Frozenbyte (Space Chem, Trine) and Frozen Synspase for Desura The original Dawn of war and Titan Quest I also have a key for humble bundle 3 from humble bundle 4 Broken sword directors cut Braid, supermeat boy and lone survivor pack steam key Gish steam key Empire Total War Superhexagon