clyde

I enjoyed reading it.

Ohhh. I'll try Mount & Blade.

I enjoyed hearing about this encounter. The fact that you knew who he was talking about probably made him feel ecstatic for a moment. I don't experience ecstacy every day, but when I do, it motivates me for a good while.

The only 3d games I've played more than once have been Gran Turismo 5 and Zen Pinball 2 on the PS3. I've tried using Nvidia 3D vision (which is free and seems that it is different than 3D play, but I'm not sure how) but I haven't had a good experience with that. I haven't been thorough, but on PC I've tried Dirt 3 (not sure if it is working or not) and Battlefield Bad Company 2 (I didn't enjoy it). I might not be having an optimal experience because I'm using the PS3 3D display that Sony was selling a while back, and the free version of Nvidia 3D vision on a 460 SE card. I've just tried it out every once in a while for novelty. All that said, Zen Pinball 2 on the PS3 in 3D is phenomenal. Gran Turismo 5 is novel, but Zen Pinball 2 is so good that I can't go back to playing it on the 360. When the tables are laid out in 3D, they don't appear squished and you have an intuitive sense of ball speed and how the ball will react to inclines. The most extreme examples are the Thor table and The Incredible Hulk table. Without 3D the table feels short and I hit a lot of dud-shots. With 3D, the upper playfields make a lot more sense. I've been trying to get Pinball Arcade to work in 3D on Steam and some people have reported that it works really well. I'm not sure if it's because they are using a better display, a better card, the paid version, or if they just know what they are doing. When I try to get it working, it slows the game down 50% and there is no discernable difference. One person reported that they were able to adjust the settings so that the table comes out of the screen. That sounds cool. Far Sight has said that Pinball Arcade on PS3 will be getting 3D support, so I'll probably end up waiting for that. What I really want is to play these games with a consumer-ready Oculus Rift.

Pinball FX2 and Zen Pinball 2 nerf the slingshots, make the ball heavier and put the flippers just a little bit closer together. I didn't get super into pinball until I played a lot of Pinball FX2. The combination of getting the experience of having control of the ball for the first time, and seeing what completing modes is like, hooked me. You might want to check them out. On Steam, Pinball FX2 offers "Sorceror's Lair" for free which is an excellent table. One cool thing about it is that you don't have to achieve the objective in the modes in order to get to wizard-mode. But if you do manage to achieve the objectives, you light pieces of Obsidian which puts multipliers on the wizard-mode. Another interesting difference with Pinball FX2 is that nudging is much more predictable. You can make 3 nudges every 15 seconds, any more and it's a tilt.

Then you might really enjoy my "How to draw" videos too.

This reads like one of those work-from-home ads.

Do they ever speak to each other in the movie? Connections might be determined by speaking to each other.

Have y'all seen this? Graphs of social relations between characters in movies: http://moviegalaxies.com/movies

Thanks Rodi, the thought counts. I know how you feel. I'm watching a lecture on Kant right now and I have to pause it every time the lecturer uses a big word in a sentence. I have to take a moment to attempt to understand the concepts. Still, I manage to make a few connections. Regarding being slaves to desire and consumerism, Kant apparently has a few things to say. The claim seems to be that we are only truly free by choosing our own goals as rational beings; this in opposition to obeying our desires. I'm not quite clear on what the differences are between our goals and our desires though. Luckily I'm only 11 minutes in.

I made a video that attempts to explain some basic pinball stuff to those with passing interest. I'm trying to explain that once you know the rules for the table, it becomes much more fun to play. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HEMwYcS8X28

It actually doesn't help me because I don't know whether to pronounce it "eew-biquitous" or "you-biquitous". Even as I was listening to the podcast, I couldn't tell which one they were saying.

Thanks for responding Sententia.

Here's a pharma-story that I found interesting. I know a psychologist (not a psychiatrist) who was being offered free tickets to conferences in exotic places. It was of course an expensive ad for specific drugs. What he (and I) take offense about was that he doesn't prescribe pharmaceuticals. This promotion was to encourage psychologists to refer patients to psychiatrists so that patients could deal with their problems through medication. I understand that medication is the best solution for some problems, but I suspect that it's abused. On the bright side, once they unify all this data from the de facto psycho-active experiments that are being performed on modern society, we might find out some interesting stuff about brain-chemistry.

Is the check engine light blinking Gormongous? I've been told not to drive it at all if it blinks.

Name a game and something that it successfully expressed to you. Here is an example: Stacking expressed what it is like to be a child looking at adults in social situations. Not only does it communicate the reductive Richard Scary view that adult-identity is mostly a job with a uniform, but the simplistic fantasy of "If I looked like an adult, I wouldn't have these specific, arbitrary rules imposed on me." As a bonus it expresses that such impersonation would reveal hierachies among adults, to a child.

Analog sticks, 360 controller. Are "analog" and "analogue" different words? I spent a good minute in sorrow after tonight's run.

That is fantastic Bjorn. Delivering the third item feels like beating the game.

I imagine this being a Spelunky mod where the shop-keeper is an unarmed old blind woman. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrisd/the-escapist?ref=category

Congratulations Laco.

How does pinball fit into this? Maybe some sort of savant could predict the exact trajectory and ricochets of a shot, but for most of us it becomes a process of managing potential risks based on their possible rewards and likely dangers. But theoretically, the physics are foundational and consistent.

I like thinking that Chris was asking if Jeff had to order the new monitor through the one he was ashamed of just having shattered, for symbolic reasons rather than technical curiosity. It's a wonderful allegory.

I'm worried about y'all living there because of earth-quakes. I remember hearing all sorts of stuff about a "Big one". Are my fears justified?

I'm having such a hard time grasping the ideas of Guy Debord (and maybe also Baudrillard?). As I look through Youtube videos and read student articles and such, I oscillate between thinking they they are saying something profound and thinking that they are saying very little with nihilistic generalizations. I ask myself "A dominant system seems like a good idea. How else are we supposed to get along without a leader?" and then wonder if I just can't see outside of false dichotomies. It's fun though. It's nice to have something so impotent that claims massive applicability; I can just poke at it every once in a while and see if it turns me on. Do any of you have thoughts on the Spectacle or hyperrealities? Is there an inescapable illusion or a reason to not ingest it happily? I read this stuff and I feel either too stupid or too smart for it.

Bit of a Banksy move: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2478822/Female-circumcision-campaigner-horrified-shoppers-sign-pro-cutting-petition--theyre-scared-culturally-insensitive.html