Problem Machine

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Posts posted by Problem Machine

  1. Posted

    I got a non-Quip electric toothbrush through happenstance a while back, and I had no idea why it would pulse three times at approximate 30-second intervals and then turn itself off until I heard the Quip ad read and put two and two together. So thanks for informing me about the features of my own dang toothbrush. Also thanks Jambe for making me feel better about probably not being able to replace its heads as frequently as I'm supposed to.

  7. Posted

    I often tend to be very cautious in recommending things. I kind of think of it like there's a few outcomes with benefits/detriments:

    A - I don't say anything, everyone goes on with their lives. +0 points

    B - I recommend thing I like. They like it too! +5 points

    C - I recommend thing I like. They don't like it! Now I feel weird talking to them and they trust my opinions less! -10 points

     

    So I try to develop a reasonable confidence that person will like thing before giving it a proper recommendation. Until then I just settle for saying I like it a lot and the reasons why :)

  10. Posted

    1 hour ago, GeologyIsOK said:

    During the discussion of spiders, the guys briefly speculated on the collective noun for spiders. As a wildlife biologist, collective nouns for animals are somewhat an interest of mine (my favorite being a conspiracy of lemurs). It might interest you all to know that the correct collective noun for a group of spiders is actually a mouth-full of spiders. 

    I hope Jake brings up this interesting and important information on the next cast.

  11. Posted

    I think the main issue is that right now Steam is both a distribution service and a marketing platform. Should every game that wants to be get on the Steam distribution service? Yes. Should every game that wants to be get on the Steam marketing platform? No.

  12. Posted

    1 hour ago, SgtWhistlebotom said:

    All that said, I've also been playing through Dark Souls 1 and have no interest in looking up that lore I've heard about while I'm playing. I think the process of learning that stuff seems burdensome, my impression of it being that you have to stop the flow of the game to read item descriptions and talk to characters multiple times to get that stuff. To paraphrase Nick, 'It's not what I'm here for.'

    My experience of DS lore is mostly that you just play through the games doing what's expected of you at the moment and the lore kind of settles in on you through incidental dialogue and environmental storytelling. Actually stopping to read item descriptions is really not something I started doing until very recently. Don't sweat the lore stuff: It's interesting, but primarily it contextualizes the game. I think partially what's happened with Nick is just an artifact of streaming, where most of the people in chat have had the experience of going through the game a few times and have had a long while to understand the significance of each part and how it fits together; however, the vast majority of first plays are just people going from area to area, not putting in a whole lot of thought exactly why until later on. DS2 explicitly acknowledged that you'd have no idea why you were doing what you were doing until much later.

    DS's story style is interesting precisely because it DOESN'T demand anything of the player. The story elements are just there, and how much you engage with them or don't is entirely up to you. That stuff is important though. Even if it's not what you're there for, I think it still actually is what you're there for to some extent. That is to say, you may not be interested in the specifics of the crumbling age of fire at the moment, but the way that backstory forms a specific and meaningful context for the challenges you overcome is still important. Remove too much of that stuff and action games start just becoming guitar hero without the music.

  13. Posted

    Yeah dual wielding really did not add a lot to the game -- At least when it's just the howitzer there's a kind of fun timing/guessing game element, but when you're just hosing at your opponent with a rifle there's really not much interesting going on.

     

    I ended up using a modified version of the original controls to address this issue, myself. I changed triangle to jump/boost, square to right hand, x to left hand, and circle to switch weapons. It might sound awkward, but it let me fairly easily roll my thumb down a half step to hold boost and shoot and then another half step to hold boost and both shoots.

  16. Posted

    51 minutes ago, Patrick R said:
      Hide contents

    And because, as satire, it doesn't really address cultural appropriation in a meaningful way. I find the micro-aggressions-played-as-horror moments throughout the film way more effective than the reveal of what's going on. For me, it's more cutting and incisive when you think the family is genuinely well-meaning. In The Stepford Wives (a clear inspiration), the men in charge genuinely think what they're doing is best for them AND their wives, and that makes it much more insidious (and true to the patriarchy). If the ultimate conclusion of Get Out is "White people don't value black lives", than it's answering the least interesting question it raises. The whole movie has so much great stuff about micro-agressions & how to stay true to yourself in an interracial relationship & assimilation. Whether or not black lives matter to white culture at large is a more obviously answered question to me.

     

     

    Hm dunno I definitely got the impression a lot of these people felt like they were doing their future hosts a favor, like they would put their bodies to better use than they could. Admittedly, this too is just my read, and never stated explicitly in the text.

  19. Posted

    Also re: the 'why black people' thing, what you hear in the movie isn't the actual reason, it's just the way that the villains justify it to themselves. The real reason is just that they value black lives less. Saying that would be out of character and excruciatingly unsubtle though.

  20. Posted

    In the reality I live in, when Chris said "You're going to shoehorn this into every conversation aren't you?" he appended "you slyboots" after.

    Also in the thumbs community Terraria game last night someone made reference to a monster being Frankenstain, and not getting the reference I tried to make the exact same joke in reverse. Whoops?

     

  24. Posted

    On 3/24/2017 at 4:00 PM, Urthman said:

     

    Nah, just play with mouse and keyboard and then you can always be looking around easily no matter how you're moving.  You have so much greater situational awareness it feels like cheating.

    Oh I use headphones as my situational awareness hack. Don't need to see em if you can hear exactly what they're doing.