clyde

Outside my window, a brown oak leaf is suspended by spider-webs and I'm making friemds with many of the shield bugs. I do love this season.

A really interesting article that suggests a possible relationship between social-welfare and misogyny via Jake Rodkin's twitter: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/cockblocked-by-redistribution

Now all we need is some Jajoukain musicians to cover the mario-theme.

Here is something I struggle with: Is there such a thing as a feminine perspective? Typically, when discussing social-justice issues, the argument can often be reduced to "Don't make assumptions about people based on their race, beliefs, history, or gender." The idea of desiring a feminine perspective (or a hispanic perspective or a sikh perspective) seems to assume that one's perspective is enclosed within their gender or race. I certainly understand the benifits of diversity in any workplace or creative pursuit; having a wider spectrum of human-experience available will likely provide more well-thought-out concepts and executions, and provide a larger pool of experience from which to draw inspiration. But when I browse Netflix looking for a movie that was built from a feminine perspective, I feel that I'm making unfair assumptions with the labeling. Agnes Varda does not have THE feminine perspective, but certainly she has a more feminine perspective that J.J. Abrams. But I don't want to assume that The Beaches of Agnes (possibly the greatest documentary ever made) speaks for every woman, nor do I want to reduce the experience it provides by labeling it with the genre "feminine". Any thoughts?

I love it when meta-narrative turns inward; I'm a straight sucker for it. Here is a segment where Versu A.I. debate the possibilities of A.I. and the framing is pleasantly a penny-arcade. It this takes off, Pygmalion could become the new Space-Marine since the template circumstances tell the story inherently. We might end up with story after story of humans falling in love with A.I. I would not complain. Can't wait for Versu's Bladerunner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9VPSu_nPMXI Zen Studios has this really interesting tendency to make these dualistic themed tables. I wonder if it's because standard table design is dominated by bilateral symmetry.

I guess I kinda know what you mean. You don't want to be called a feminist because of what (in your worldview) the crazy man-hating feminists believe. It's kinda like how some parties are disinterested in being part of PAX because of the rape-joke person's behaviour.

I'm paraphrasing here: [ Feminism is informing lawyers, child-care providers and psychologists to form a blog that calls for eugenically exterminating the male path of the human race. ] What is it they say? If you can't stand for anything thestalkingdead, you'll fall for anything.

After the character-creation and an intro cut-scene, it seems to have a hard time launching a session.

I hope a version of Puerto Rico comes out for the iphone so I can play it and compare it to San Juan

I'm enjoying San Juan which I believe is a port of Puerto Rico for the iphone. It's a card game whose core-loop feels similar to that of Le Havre. The card format is far more suited for the iphone than Le Havre's boardgame medium, but it comes at the expense of Le Havre's sense of place, depth, and multi-player interaction. While Le Havre is building a city competitively with other players, San Juan feels like you are in a race to build a neighborhood with buildings of the higher arbitrary numerical-values. San Juan gives you much faster games though, if that is what you need. A game of San Juan takes about as long as a game of Ticket-To-Ride. Le Havre, by comparison, seems to take longer; it is probably because investment and development is tied more to time in Le Havre than space. Being able to use other player's modes of production for a fee evokes much more envy and greed in me (Le Havre) than picking a communal role for a round from a pool of shared duties (San Juan).

Interactive Fiction competition 2013. Some are even playable from my iphone. http://ifcomp.org/comp13/info.php

I'm such a hipster that when I car-jack or hot-wire a vehicle, I either feel shame or righteousness for my theft based on the previous owner's musical taste.

I spend so much time walking around the city, bike riding in the mountains, and using the hood-cam, just to appreciate the scenery. I have no difficulty sitting at a red-light for its duration just because It gives me an opportunity to examine the patina and illusionary use of the area. Pawn-shops and dollar-stores in the strip-malls evoke so much from me because I grew up in suburban-sprawl. I remember watching that beige asphalt be patched and painted over time, as lots-for-sale grew commercial-spaces-available and into nail-parlors and coin-collector stores. Maybe that's why there is so much for me to look at. I spent so much time imagining climbing up to roofs via dumpsters and fencing behind stores as a kid, that being able to do so now (without breathing-life arrest or danger) satisfies me frequently. I stared at a mural on a forgotten side-street laced with people sitting on the sidewalk in third-hand clothes. I was considering the moment of righteous community activism that was the impetus to inspire the desperate inhabitants with a large-scale art-project which would draw its theme from the cultural perspective of its locals. Liberty City has spots of this type of thing, but in Los Santos, I can't get away from it. I would love to figure out how to share my perspective with you so that you can appreciate how much there is to look at in this game; falling in love with consignment-stores and litter.

With the Battering Ram program, it says that you can spend 2 credits to break up to two barrier subroutines. If the runner encounters two Walls of Static on a run, do they have to pay 4 credits to use that ability twice? Or can they just pay it once to break a total of two barrier subroutines on two Walls of Static?

That is really cool. I see cops hunting down people all the time and I always wonder what they did, but that is really cool.

There was something so illuminating about watching the visual realization of their non-chalant banter.

I enjoy documenting moments of socio-economic juxtapositions in Los Santos.

On the "intelligent use of police-force":

I parked my food-truck in multiple (great) locations. No one would buy my tacos and I couldn't figure out how to serve out of the window or even stand up in the truck. I walked around kicking the truck, thinking that something might happen. All that happened was that my crowd became frightened. TL,DR: the game is broken.

I don't think you can be bossy unless you aren't the boss. Bossy is bossing when you aren't the boss. Bossing when you are the boss is just doing your job succinctly.

I was with you until you started talking about what you are asking for. GTA story missions are linear, but between missions it is a systems driven, emergent game. I think this staggered mixture is often what people complain about with all the ludo-narrative dissonance criticisms. But what type of non-linear gameplay are you looking for that wouldn't include Dwarf Fortress or CK2? They aren't linear because you have to stay alive. That would make life linear. Having to stay alive is just survival-bias. If you aren't alive, you aren't playing the game anymore.

I think Deagon Age: Origins did this very well. I think it may be that I enjoyed those characters more and therefore, the conversations between them.

I enjoyed reading this piece about GTA 5. It brought up an interesting perspective that I had not considered. http://www.polygon.com/2013/9/26/4773042/grand-theft-auto-5-waterboarding-torture

I never understood the bossy accusation. I've seen the other double standards, but I can't remember a woman taking charge, and someone saying "She 's so bossy."