Cordeos

I used to care more about video game pricing, but thanks to steam sales I pick up so many games for so cheap and have such a broad array of games available that I am willing to wait for prices to come down. To some people GTA 5 is worth $60, I plan on waiting until it is around $20 to buy it. My only price annoyance is when a rather old game is still close to the original price. You have to decide how much games are worth to you. I can't remember what the last game I bought at launch for $60 even was (maybe Europa Universalis 4), I have pre-ordered Just Cause 3 so I do still do it occasionally. I would like to point out that many AAA games have unneeded multiplayer components that often don't survive long after the games launch, perhaps they could save some money by not tacking on a bad multiplayer component to a single player game.

A fallout game where you travel from vault to vault, each vault is generated by players of fallout shelter. Sort of like what spore did with the other aliens that showed up.

I forgot the mobsters name lol

Love the new logo!

The US was launching air strikes against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), but had pretty much been ignoring a ton of issues that Yemen has had for a long time. The US pulled out during the most recent unrest. In the 60s North Yemen's civil war pitted the British Saudis and Jordanians against Egypt in what ended up being a huge quagmire for Egypt. All of which was happening along side Arab Israeli wars where the Saudis, Jordanians and Egyptians were on the same side. Since the end of that civil war and the reunification conflict Yemen's stability has been questionable at best. Part of the confusion with who controls what and the location of the fighting is related to the large swaths on uninhabitable desert in Yemen (similar situation in Syria). Often the stronger side controls cities but the desert is open for the weaker side to move around in. These maps do an alright job of representing some of the uninhabited spaces.

This season has just had too many coincidences. The girl from the diamond robbery in the 90s happens to end up going to sex parties with the people who set the robbery up. Ani and her partner evict a woman who's sister is involved in the sex parties and worked for Ani's father. Ani's dad happens to know all the people in the business conspiracy. Ani's sister happens to know how to get her an invite to the parties. The mercenary company Paul worked for happens to be involved in this case.. The guy who kills Paul (he looked familiar, one of the state cops?) is somehow in the right place at the right time. I'm glad the person Velcoro killed when he thought he was killing his wife's rapist was just a random guy because it seemed like another opportunity to tie shit together. I think for the first time this whole season the only character I am excited to see in the final episode is Stan because he is going full on crazy robbery commando and at least we will probably get a good action scene in whatever mess of a last episode we end up with. I would not be at all surprised if everyone ends up dead, and at this point that is fine with me. There are so many damn characters in this show I can't remember who is who anymore. I think the only way to follow this show would be to watch all 8 episodes straight so every stupid minor character is fresh in your mind.

Its my least favorite Ace Combat game, but its also the only one on PC and there are few arcade style fight sims out there. meh/10

there are so many hold over keys from the early days of computing. I used to have some ability bound to insert when I played WoW. Does that count?

The Saudi lead coalition is apparently deploying ground forces in Yemen. There is at least a United Arab Emirates tank brigade there now. Yemen is such a mess right now, this might not be the worst development. If the Saudi coalition can end the fighting by putting in troops than it will save civilian lives from their bombing campaign. I have been hearing discussion of Yemen dividing into North and South Yemen again. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/world/middleeast/foreign-ground-troops-join-yemen-fight.html

True.

I know its what a lot of people like about Far Cry 2, the game is so unforgiving and makes you feel like just another guy instead of a super soldier bad ass. Sometimes disempowerment can be a tool to make a particular level harder. In Rainbow Six Vegas 2 they take away your two AI teammates for the second to last level, it makes it one of the hardest levels of the game. Dues Ex Human Revolution takes away all your augment abilities for the start of Missing Link. Ghost Recon Future Soldier does it when your advanced systems start getting hacked during an ambush. I know I have played several shooters where you get captured, crash or get injured and have to survive a level with just a pistol. Survival Horror games are all built around the concept of the player being the weakest thing around so you have to run away and hide from enemies because engagement means death. Its a tricky mechanic to use in games because you have to balance creating a challenge for players with annoyance. One of the things I hated about the game Black and White was the end of every level was an evil god quickly smashing everything you had built up. Similarly I did not enjoy Missing Link because it took away all the tools I had been using the whole game. I like the Vegas 2 level because it is challenging, but doesn't force drastic strategy changes.

At least we know Philly will be first on the robot destroy list.

I am a little annoyed that their initial PR push is happening before the game is even up on kickstarter. I want to be able to have some amount of detail, instead of just "its happening".

Its not even some amature casts, its BBC science radio shows.

I just don't see how an AI makes the leap from "I need to make these drone parts as efficiently as possible." to "I must get resources for and produce these drone parts in a way far outside my programming that will kill all humans accidentally in some way." that level of thinking requires a level of intelligence that would most likely come with enough introspection to realize what it is doing. Your example seems to require that no-one pays any attention to what the AI is doing and there are no other AIs competing for the same resources. Both of which seem like pretty big assumptions. I do love the idea of a computer using 99% of its power to play some kind of candy crush and 1% to do something nice for humans.

I am starting to be driven crazy by podcasts that format interview audio so the interviewer and interviewee are each in one ear. I constantly worry that my headphones are broken. Similarly too quiet audio so max volume is barely enough.

Probably mostly for spices, I lean towards jack of all trades kitchen tools since I don't have tons of space.

I was in High school and would compare strategies daily with another kid at my school. So if either one of us was stuck, we would figure it out during study hall.

I want to buy a Mortar and Pestle for spice smashing, but had not realized how many different materials were available. I am leaning towards stone since I like the feel and heavier seems better. Is granite best? Second question, I love the site https://food52.com/ it is the best formatted food site/blog I have seen, however I can always use more recepies, what are others favorite food sites?

I'm guessing a persons name who we aren't allowed to know for some reason. Or subterranean lizard people.

The level of intelligence required to make that calculation and implement it is high. It would need to be able to consider its task, decide to kill all humans and figure out a method to carry it out. An intelligence that can do all that, but cannot do a simple thing like think "If I kill all humans, no one will need paperclips." or "what if i fail" seems highly unlikely to me.

why not assume that humans will bring good to the AI instead of evil? I was discussing this with some friends and one of them said it perfectly. "It (presumption of evil AI) presumes a level of intelligence far beyond what we can do now, with a level of introspection into its internal workings far worse than we have now. Our intelligence is a product of our evolutionary development, biological drives and societal structures. AI will be developed in a much different way. Human generations have been getting less violent, so they are learning from their ancestors, but not emulating or amplifying their bad behavior. Why assume AI would revert to the worst of human impulses?

I am mildly excited about this. I had a moment of hope that this was MechWarrior and had dreams of stomping around in my custom mech. Ah well.

I wonder if motion sickness is an issue with these things.

Thought of another one: Shattered Skies - Ace Combat 4 Its just a huge air to air battle, probably my favorite level in any air combat sim i have ever played just because of the scale of the dogfight. Side note Ace Combat was the series that convinced me to turn music off in a lot of games, so much awful music.