tberton

That is indeed ridiculous. To even things out, here's Now, as a caveat, the video doesn't really show the fact that this thing only works on tracks, because it's using frozen superconductors which "lock" into place above a magnet. Still, though - Back to the Future 2 didn't lie to us.

Off-topic, but Gorm, when you do decide to purchase Her Story, I will be ready to have conversation with you about it, because I have thoughts about that game and how it relates to historical research.

The reason it works is the same thing as the infinite hotel. It's an infinite series, so you can shift it around in ways that you can't shift finite series. If you didn't shift the second S in 2S, you get the sum of the two series: 2+4+6+8+10... But I don't think that would really change the -1/12 answer, because that second series doesn't have any more of an obvious single answer than the first one does.

I got the same answer James! That is indeed a cool puzzle.

For multiplayer, Great Bay Temple in Super Smash Bros. Melee.

That's awful. Sudden deaths like this are impossible to make sense of. I've had two uncles who died in car accidents and it was devastating both times. My only advice is to surround yourself with people you love, support each other through the grief and remind yourselves of what made him the amazing person he was.

Etrian Odyssey IV is really, really good. My understanding is that Persona Q has a similar structure, so if you like that, you should like EOIV.

Read Vrai Kaiser's write-up of Onion Friend on The Mary Sue for more Onion insights.

The Breckon episodes already mentioned are great. The ones I'd add are: Episode 129: A Reminder Episode 132: Kobe's Last Shot Episode 133: Johann's Baton Episode 160: Die Ubiverse Episode 165: KeLo. Is. Here. EDIT: A good way of spotting good Nick Breckon episodes: the title is usually something Nick said or something about him.

People should seriously watch these videos, especially the second one. So much fun.

I'm not actually familiar this one. Mind sharing?

That Rocket League match was intense. I was in a Starbucks watching it and had to try really hard not to jump and shout every time something awesome happened.

The trial on Mannan in KOTOR blew my mind when I was 15.

I think Fallout Shelter is about to slip past Cities: Skylines as Idle Thumbs GOTY by Time Discussed.

Transistor literally has my favourite RPG battle and upgrade system ever. I hadn't thought about the Chrono Trigger connection, but you're right, it makes a lot of sense.

Chrono Trigger's battle system is really something that needs to be revisited. It was pretty fun already, but if it leaned into the combo stuff, elemental magic and especially positioning, it would be truly great. Basically, my ideal JRPG is a mashup of Chrono Trigger refined and Skies of Arcadia refined.

The final level of Half-Life 2 Ep 2 is pretty great as well. And the Masquerade in Dishonored.

Jeremy Parish wrote a good tribute to that game a few years back. The formatting's kind of borked on that page, unfortunately.

Funny enough, it's also the music that makes Magus' Castle for me. It's just a few sombre tones, but it's incredibly eerie and effective.

Yeah, that's why I find videos for this kind of thing to be much easier.

Magus' Castle from Chrono Trigger. Room 19 in Portal. The Mountain in Journey.

This is a great one, because it gets at some of the stuff mentioned upthread - ideas about infinity and what "=" actually means. I think that's a big misunderstanding in math. People think that "equals" in math means "becomes" or "transformed". But what it actually means - and this is what Vi illustrates so well in that video - is that the two things on either side of "=" are the same thing. Just different ways of representing the same underlying idea. Anything you do to one side has the exact same effect on the other. So .99999... = 1 because anything you do to .99999... does the exact same thing to 1.

I find that problem extends to a lot of other disciplines too. Like how people think that learning history is just memorizing names and dates or learning language is just learning how to spell. It's extremely frustrating.

Whoops, thanks for that. Infinity is one of my favourite math things. I read a book when I was 17 called The Infinite Book and it was so interesting. Cantor's Diagonal Proof was the first time my mind was blown by math.

That's pretty great, gerbil. Kids are the best. I miss working at a camp.