itsamoose

We've spoken about this a bit before, but I've seen a lot about this particular incident lately. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810/ Whenever I see an article like this I like to think it's an isolated thing, but it seems like this is becoming the new norm. The responses to any contradicting opinion seem to become more hostile, widespread and in some cases violent. in this case to an email of all things, which seems to be so far the most absurd reaction to something like this. I would be interested in sitting in on a class where sensitive topics are discussed, but if this is indicative of the tennor of a college campus today I feel like any conversation like that would be over before it began.

Yeah I wouldn't get too excited on a movie actually being made, almost anything that gets made sells their movie rights regardless of any plans to do anything about it. I'm glad she's able to spin something positive about what she's gone through, though something about a person who isn't even 30 yet writing their memior is like nails on a chalkboard to me. Also the fact that a memoir implies something having past when all the evidence seems to point to all this still being very much alive and well.

Man that video is rough. Every time I see something like that with an officer screaming something that the suspect is already doing just infuriates me. She spent a good two minutes yelling at a guy who was already on the ground with his hands where she could see them to get on the ground and keep his hands were she could see them. I mean I understand that cops need to escalate in certain situations, but it seems like there is no upper limit on that or any consistent idea of what to do once that escalation has occurred. I mean she was so amped up as to be completely unintelligible throughout most of that encounter, where I would assume she should have kept her composure to some degree. Does anyone know what kind of training cops get on unpredictable situations? I know in medical schools at some point they have all the doctors go into a room and tell an actor they just got some horrible diagnosis just so they can prepare themselves for someone having an extreme reaction to hearing that kind of news. Do cops go through anything like this?

That is kind of the most frustrating part of Unity--it doesn't really care how you organize things. I suppose that is fine for smaller projects or if you like the freedom, but really the onus is on you to be very strict about your organization. From my experience this basically means a few top level folders, and a pretty aggressive use of the search function, because given enough time you just lose track of where stuff is. The part about the language features not being present is a bit of a pain as well, I think even namespaces were only recently supported. I think if you check out the Unify Community wiki there are a few helper libraries, and you'll definitely find yourself writing all those things as you go. One word of Advice I would have is to take some time to look into the Editor features. There is a ton of stuff in there that makes the day to day work so much easier, and the documentation has gotten much better in recent years. Oh and attributes are a life saver and from what I've seen pretty well supported. Even as far as game engines go Unity is a pretty weird one. It's incredibly feature rich, but almost to the point of being useless. I mean I don't see a situation where a team would be cool with 3 scripters all writing game code that needs to talk to each other, but doing so in 3 different languages (Boo, Javascript, C#), but you can do it! So if you really want to get right down to it, the reason why the cooler C# features aren't supported is because there isn't a similar feature in Javascript or Boo.

YUP! Welcome to the wonderful world of games programming, where nothing works the way you'd expect! So a few things about Unity I learned after working with it for a few years. - You can use advanced C# functions, like LINQ functions, Tuples and the like, but you'll have to change the .Net compatibilty in the editor which is not guaranteed to work, so do so at your own risk. - Unity doesn't use threads, it uses "Threads". In fact, everything in Unity (or at least all the scripts you are going to run) will happen on a single thread, and even trying to manually create a thread and run that yourself will cause Unity to just do whatever you are doing in it's original thread. There is some similar functionality in Unity, but to be honest it's not going to get you anything in terms of performance or capability so I wouldn't bother. - Unity isn't great about letting you know this, but it's almost always a better idea to create very specific components than complex machines in a single script. It is fundamentally an engine created for designers and non technical people, so a bunch of it is going to drive you crazy. For example, if you wanted an AI Brain you'd probably want a script for the brain controller, another for the Brain Data, another for the motor, each of the sensors, the animator, the weapon, the health system, and so on and so forth. Unity really wants each of your scripts to basically be independent, with as few dependencies as possible. Essentially if you want to use Unity, accept the fact that when it comes to one or the other, convenience will always win out over performance. - Ahh the good old foreach loop. You aren't allowed to use that anymore, it is god damn terrible. Anything that allocates memory is something you'll want to use sparingly if at all, which basically means you need to go back to Arrays as often as possble or Lists when it is more convenient. This goes for objects and prefabs as well, but for the moment you probably won't run into anything too crazy unless you're trying to make some kind of RTS. - A good trick, and I'm not sure if this is different in other applications, is to not necessarily nest for loops but have everything either toggle flags or raise events about what it is doing or has done. This should help to keep your logic relatively flat, but it will result in a situation where you find yourself working with a preponderance of objects and interconnected systems. Whatever organization system works best for you, go with that. - Games, particularly modern games, are more difficult to script than older ones because they have so much fluff in them. You can't just just delete an object that is hidden by an explosion or push a thing offscreen, it needs sounds, animations, particles, UI, all kinds of shit. It'll frustrate you at first, but try to get used to the idea that scripts and systems don't talk directly to each other but simply make their states available to be worked on - Finally, and this is most important, you aren't programming anymore, you are scripting. It seems like a weird distinction to make, but the differences will become clear the further in you go. As your games get more complex you'll start having systems on top of systems on top of systems, and there really isn't any kind of explicit control between them unless you write them that way (which will make your scripts a pain to debug). You should write your systems such that they operate on their own and respond to things happening, but can't necessarily be controlled or dictated by other systems outside of a very specific context. The things that operate on systems aren't managers, they are handlers (if that makes sense) As an example, I wrote a targeting system for my last game that comprised of a targeting fuction in the player's control script, a targetable object, a weapon that dictated the aiming behavior depending on the state it was in, a handler for the targetable objects. So in that system here is basically how it worked - Controls of the player determine if the system is ON or OFF --- If the system is ON, the target handler continually updates a list of targetable objects, and picks the best one each frame. Whenever it selected a new target, I raised an event (C# event, those work fine) that altered the player's reticle, and a bunch of other minor stuff like moving and ability use (that often created conflicts) --- If the player hits the targeting button, the system is Turned On, and the Target Handler informs the player's control script which object is targeted. From here the player's control script would manage the player's look direction, and the camera control script would attempt to place the camera somewhere between the player and the object they are targeting within a tolerance. This would also pop some UI stuff, and the Thing that was targeted would receive a notification that it was just targeted (so the AI can begin attacking the player for example) --- If the player released the targeting button, the Player's targeting apparatus would inform the handler that the target had been released, and it would go back to cycling targets, and update a list of the recent targets so the player could quickly snap between targets like in Call of Duty --- Player facing control would revert to the player's currently held weapon, the best example being a sword weapon which maintained the player's facing direction throughout the duration of it's swing. Also, the motor would be informed of the change and control the player's facing direction when a weapon wasn't being used, and the camera control script was told to simply follow the player again Now here is where it gets weird --- This same targeting system also needed to be used during our cutscenes for various reasons, so I had to put a number of explicit hooks in the camera control script and targeting system to allow the artist to make it possible for all the stuff the player could do via their control script in a cutscene. --- Certain enemies (Bosses mostly) could disable the ability to be targeted temporarily, however doing so doesn't break the target lock, it simply started a search for a new target (the same as when the system was OFF) --- The facing logic was controlled somewhat by all these systems, but needed it's own facing change timer (it is a 2D game) so that we didn't get any sprite flickering, so none of these systems, while they did exert some control over the player's facing direction, were in direct control of it at any time --- The player can be stunned in the game, which turns off the targeting UI, but doesn't necessarily break targeting, which caused a whole bunch more headaches --- There are a number of other conflicts that arose, each of which were due to edge cases and needed to inform all the other systems involved in this step of their changes each frame Now the good news is that once this was all together it was rock solid, and we were able to use the targeting system for all kinds of stuff, from turning the player in a cutscene to changing the state of an object when it was the "best" targeting option, and so forth.

Even if he wasn't involved in gamergate, and I dare say even if his opinions were the opposite of what they are, that guy is such a narcissist that I don't think I'll ever be able to take him seriously. He's basically every 13 year old's idea of a cool persona. He spends his time picking fights with people when he isn't congratulating himself for having already had a fight with someone.

This kind of thing does tend to happen to young people, but I don't necessarily think I didn't go through the same type of thing growing up, albeit to a vastly smaller audience (a few people being negative vs the whole internet). I think what makes social media unique is that at some point a difference in scale becomes a difference in kind. Just think of any moderately sized twitter fight. They are often over things people wouldn't be thinking about outside of that context, almost like an argument had over a dinner with friends over say a particular football game played years ago. This seems inconsequential at a personal scale, but when CNN or some popular blog decides it's worth covering a feedback loop starts that reinforces its impact and importance. Minor flaws become what defines a person or thing, and bring heard is more important than having something to say. Personally I stopped using twitter, barely check Facebook, and am so much happier for it.

You can also try adjusting the viewport of your UI camera (I think that's what it's called) and applying the image effects only to that. Really Unity's shader system is just OpenGL commands as far as I understand it so you shouldn't be unable to do anything (it being performant another question entirely). I'd ask around the Unity forums and hopefully someone who knows more about shaders than I do can point you in the right direction. You might also want to look into blendmodes and distortion effects like fisheye and that thing where a grenade goes off and a localized warp takes place (I always forget what it's called)

In Massachusetts growing up I had a police officer in my school ever since elementary school. He was part of the DARE program (an anti drug thing) and stepped in every now and then for disciplinary issues but for the most part didn't do too much. I think he may have handled things like Truancy as well, but in all time there I don't remember him ever arresting someone. Part of it was likely that these kids are up around him, so he was on a first name basis with a lot of us.

Well put. I often see this accusation thrown around as though to say that any position aside from the status quo is somehow sinister, and I just can't get myself into the head space you need to be in for that to make sense. I remember watching a documentary a while back that made the point that at the core of any conspiracy theory exists an imbalance of power between the victim and perpetrator. The example they used was the holocaust-- on the one hand you have 6 million Jews killed and on the other the perpetrator was the most powerful nation in Europe. In a way that balances the scales and makes it believable. People on the gamergate side of things recognize that the world is changing (or alternative views are becoming more popular), but there isn't some massively powerful force creating that change so it must be a conspiracy. I used to work with a guy who was convinced of these kinds of things, and every piece of evidence that didn't support or contradicted his claims was either evidence of a cover up, or the cover up having been so good that it didn't leave a trail. Every time I see a story about Gamergate I'm reminded of him.

I usually show this comic to people who bring up the all lives matter thing. When I hear that being said, usually from older people, to me it sounds like the same kinds of things people have always said about protestors. Namely they're called lazy, interlopers, and generally treated with disgust. I don't know how different it is from say the attitudes about hippies in the 60s, but that the movement is explicitly about race tends to make the worst parts of people come out. The one thing I don't know about the movement at the moment are what kind of policy agendas they are pursuing, but that might be just a function of being largely decentralized. I've actually gotten to know quite a bit about this and related stories thanks to a friend of mine on Facebook who was at first against or perhaps indifferent to the movement at first. Then the thing with Bernie Sanders happened and she changed her tune completely because (paraphrasing her here) it was no longer possible to be black and neutral at the same time. http://chainsawsuit.com/comic/2014/12/08/all-things-considered/

I guess I would consider myself a video game maximizer, but not as a method of categorization per se. I don't think a game is a thing, say the way that an apple or an airplane is a thing. Instead I see games as a manner or method of interaction, or perhaps a set of rules that govern a thing's use. To use the drinking game example again, a movie on it's own probably isn't a game, but if all participants decide to interact with it by a certain set of rules that contextualize or define their behavior, it can be one. I've mulled over the arguments for both sides on particular games, and the common thread seems to be that a game is more a set of rules and interactions than some immutable thing. To come at it from the other side, it is possible to turn something that is a game into something that isn't by eliminating or manipulating the ruleset.

Could not agree with you more. On Netanyahu's watch they've consistently made the worst decisions possible, basically because they knew they could get away with it. I really wish lawmakers in the US would be harsher critics of Israel's latest policies, but they won't because they have become the sacred cow of American politics.

I tend to agree with you on the language front, but even when governments do this the people immigrants interact with typically don't. My Grandfather basically made his business around the idea that people were going to take advantage of people who didn't speak English, so he offered to become their accountant (mostly Italian immigrants) on the cheap and made sure they got setup with decent people who wouldn't gouge them after seeing it happen to virtually everyone in his neighborhood. The part that is most concerning to me is the idea, and I don't know how much of this is just a fantasy, that the immigrants won't accept the laws of the country they are entering. Any customs that don't respect the basic equality of men and women are unacceptable in the west and as an immigrant you must denounce them and discontinue their practice in order to live in one of those countries. I have a couple friends who are cops that say they run into this kind of thing all the time (either the person breaks a law, or they mete out some punishment for a person breaking a law that doesn't exist in the US) so again I don't know how much of this kind of thing actually goes on beyond the stories I've heard. There is one instance I know of where the UK government allowed for arbitration by non governmental entities so long as the parties agreed to it, which lead to some abuses in recent years. You may have heard about this when a bunch of fox news pundits went on about no go zones where sharia courts exist (they don't, but similar tribunals have handled things like inheritances).

I think part of the assimilation argument is specifically related to women's rights and religious liberties. Mainly that the new coming residents must respect the laws of the country they are in above what they are used to, if there are any differences at all. On the language front, I would say it is important to learn the language of the country you are moving to first for concerns of operating in that society, but more so because the laws are written in that language, and not knowing it makes you an easy target to be taken advantage of by landlords or anyone else you are purchasing things or services from.

If I'm understanding ihavefivehat correctly, and to make a crude analogy, Dear Esther is kind of like the horse of video games (as in the basketball game HORSE where each player must attempt to recreate the other player's shot). Games of horse use the language, and often the rulesets of basketball ( no double dribble, up and down, etc) but have odd or offshoot rules. Games like it therefore shouldn't be precluded from the conversation, just focused on a particular part of it.

Well first I would ask why isn't it? And second I would ask why can't anything be a game? Isn't a game just a structure or goal of some sort that guides an activity? Can't anything be played like a game, or used as part of a game? It seems to me like the goal shouldn't determine whether or not something is a game, but rather the method of interaction. Watching a movie probably isn't a game, but drinking every time a character says a particular line while watching that movie is. The distinction of something being a game seems to be determined much more so by one's interaction with it as opposed to the goal.

By no means is this opinion evidence based, but I've always seen games as more akin to problems (as in word or math problems) than the mediums they are typically associated with. Sure the physicality and methods of play are similar to movies and the like, being on screens and controlled via a device made for the purpose, but I think forcing a comparison in this regard is what creates the whole "not a game" categorization. If I had to put it simply, I would say a game is a problem that can be solved, but lacks a particular solution. To the comments regarding games like Dear Esther, why is making it to the end of a narrative not considered the same as making it to the end of a level? In other words, why does the goal, or why is the goal the determining factor in the categorization?

We keep dipping into this type of thing in various threads, so I figured I'd start one to talk about the intersection of society and technology. How one changes or informs the other, the results of these interactions, that kind of thing. Are you angry at your ex? Do you get a kick out of bullying people you know? Are you still bitter about facebook removing the dislike button? Do you enjoy denying the basic humanity of others? Well good news! Starting in November, there's an app for that. I don't think I need to elucidate all the ways this is terrible--they should be immediately apparent. Part of me wants to chalk this up to some morbid curiousity, or perhaps this being the most recent way that capitalism can devalue people as just another type of commodity. I don't like to discredit things that are controversial, mainly because in some far-fetched universe I can imagine a way something like this would be positive, but to be honest I can't imagine a way that a service like this could be used in a positive way. I know I should try to be intellectual about this, but these types of things just inspire in me a rage that I don't think I could express objectively.

I came across this short documentary about dating in the modern world, this section focusing specifically on dating apps. http://www.vice.com/video/mobile-love-industries-851?utm_source=homepage What I find interesting about these apps is that they have essentially turned dating into something resembling a car buying experience. You are able to spend some time learning about the person (or as much as you can) then go on your test drive of sorts provided there is a fit. The video and other places have pointed out the reaction to this being some kind of end to romance, but I think the main difference between a site like Match and an app like Tinder is that the former uses the same romantic structure as in the past, whereas Tinder turns dating into a viable endgame. With a site like Match the stated intent is to go on dates in order to get married, whereas a Tinder user might go on dates just to go on dates.

I agree the nerf at this point seems too harsh, but you never know what they are planning in the future. They could have an inspire effect that summons WC, deathrattle weapons that summon them, spells, etc. Based on the card text I think their intent is for WC to become a nice to have card, or they are working on a replacement for it that isn't as powerful.

I would imagine the new card text will get helped out by some cards released in the next expansion, possibly making it useful in a warrior charge deck to come. I think more than anything blizzard wants to keep the meta fluid, and the old text would have basically ensured patron warrior would have been a part of it forever relatively unchanged.

Is anyone interested in the multiplayer for this? I played it a bit at launch but they've added a bunch of new stuff since then like dragon fights and new classes, one being similar to the magical wizards.

I think what Ninety-Three is talking about is that arguments for cultural appropriation at a certain point start to sound like arguments for racial purity. I don't think anyone is arguing the validity of religious or similar imagery being appropriated, it's more when things typically associated with one group being something only that group can have.

It's so weird to me how Free Speech has gone from non censorship to "everyone has to listen to me" in certain circles. I got into an argument with a guy who was defending the doxxing and he used that George Carlin quote about knobs on the radio to justify his position. I couldn't quite express to him that the points he was making actually are stronger arguments against his conclusions than for them.