Cordeos

I caught up with the Welcome to Vinci podcast, it does a good job looking at the real world references from True Detective. Now I have two podcasts related to one show, thank goodness there are only 2 episodes left.

Sounds like the Prince of Persia stream went badly in the best way possible: "he game is known to do a lot of weird stuff on PC, particularly when its player is playing it in such an unintended manner. At one point in the game, Usher skipped a cutscene where the Prince tears off one of his sleeves — as a result, later in the run, his body texture just straight-up doesn't load:" http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/30/9073717/prince-of-persia-sands-of-time-sgdq-speedrun-henneko

They are moving the update out slowly. Not sure what the planned schedule is. Also the update will most likely download in the background then tell you when its ready to install, at least that is what happened to me.

Young people making more money might even be a better economic stimulus, more people could pay for schooling which increases economic output drastically or just inject money into the economy because their parents are paying for their housing and food, so the young worker would have a lot of disposable income.

As much as I enjoy the Robot News segments, I am sad to hear that you guys are actually buying into the dangers of general AI. You made the point that to bears our intelligence is incomprehensible, yet many people in our society make the assumption that a super intelligent AI will automatically kill all humans. It seems just as, if not more likely that a super AI would be a pacifist hippie trying to preserve all life through non-violent means. I assume the issue is that all of our AI fiction is evil AI fiction because an AI that becomes super intelligent and leads humans to a golden age is quite a dull story. There is just no evidence that AI would be inherently evil. I know people talk about humans colonizing less developed societies, but violence has been declining in society for so long it disproves this idea. (Read Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker.) Humans haven't nuked/chemical/biological weaponed ourselves into oblivion, war in general is in decline, domestic violence is declining, duels aren't a thing anymore, why is it so hard to believe that super AI would extend this trend further? I agree that autonomous killing robots is a bad idea because they are too dumb to respond to all possible situations. Theoretically a human level AI police officer would be the perfect police officer because it would follow the law to the letter and protect other lives above its own. Sort of like how robot cars are better than human drivers because they always follow the rules of the road. I don't always agree with Kurzweil's dreams of transhumanism (I hope they are true) but he is a great counterpoint to the fear mongering of Musk and Hawkins, plus he is actually an AI expert unlike the other very intelligent people previously mentioned. (There is an issue with intelligent people in one field getting way too much clout in another.) http://time.com/3641921/dont-fear-artificial-intelligence/

He is making a basic error. Work has no inherent value, we play football players far more than teachers because of the way our messed up system works not because football players are more valuable to society than teachers. Wage is not a reflection of skill, horrible workers get paid the same as good workers. If the minimum wage was $15 people wouldn't get fired for their labor not being worth that much, we would still need fast food workers in a $15 minimum society. People may get fired because companies couldn't afford to pay as many workers as before, but if demand stayed the same the workers would still be needed. Demand might not even drop, think about it this way: if you give someone on the minimum wage $1000 they will spend that money relatively quickly and the money will return to the economy. If you give someone in the 1% that money, their spending habits won't change one bit and that money will stay stuck at the top.

I am listening to the audiobook Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China its a look at the boom years in China and the people who benefited. at one point the author is on a bus tour of Europe with a Chinese tourist group. One person in the group is a college student who keeps using the phrase "Oh my Lady GaGa!". I just wanted to share that because I found it hilarious.

Here is that Welcome to Vinci podcast they were talking about. Haven't listened yet, but it sounds interesting. http://www.scpr.org/programs/welcome-to-vinci/

Overlord - MechWarrior 4 Mercenaries Its the biggest battle in the game from what I remember. I wish there were more games like this, heavily customizable giant fighting robots, squad command FPS/sim.

I just remembered Anticitizen One - Half Life 2. The way that level opens, DOG on a rampage and an exciting little musical piece. It really did a great job building up to the nasty street fighting you would be doing until you reach the citadel. I played that level so much. The urban combat in HL2 was my favorite part. Also Hoth - Star Wars Battlefront 2. They did a great job capturing the feel of the movie and making a fun level to play online or with bots. Nevada Desert - Rainbow Six Vegas 2: After playing through most of the game with your two AI teammates you are suddenly on your own assaulting an Oil Refinery full of enemies. You have to change your tactics a lot to survive. When I played this level on the highest difficulty I was stuck for months on one spot, it was so rewarding to get past that and finish the level. This isn't exactly a level, but in the leadup to World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade there was a patch that had a one time demon invasion of major cities. I remember retaking Stormwind district by district with a mix of players of all levels, it was such a cool experience. Is that when the military showed up? Good stuff! A classic! I used to play that level all the time.

http://www.polygon.com/2015/7/29/9067345/just-cause-3-rico-video-developer-diary-nuke-wingsuit-grapling-hook-gameplay Its really cool to hear the devs say things like the modding community is usually right. I also appreciate the understanding of making traveling the open world interesting. If you are going to spend a lot of time traveling, make it fun or your game will suffer.

I just want Bing contained in internet browsers, not build into my OS, I might turn it back on to flirt with test out cortana, but for now I'm keeping it simple.

I was able to install Windows 10 this morning, no issues so far but I only played around with a a bit, mostly digging through settings. I was glad that almost everything I had set in Windows 8 was carried over into the 10 settings automatically, they did reset my default browser, GG Microsoft. here is another thing people might want to do: Disable Bing results in the start bar, also disables Cortana. http://www.howtogeek.com/224159/how-to-disable-bing-in-the-windows-10-start-menu/

"“The idea is that [the tools] will work on all platforms, but the truth is the system doesn’t exist,” continued Hines. “It’s still being built and worked on and it’s going to take awhile. It’s going to take clearly into next year because we can’t even start it…”" But will Fallout 4 be playable without the unofficial patch? http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/29/fallout-4-mod-tools/

I just remembered something truly awful about tipping culture: it encourages flirtiness in waitstaff to try and get bigger tips from wealthy customers. Its so gross watching a 20something flirt with 50 year old guys just to get rent money.

I was mostly joking, although I do appreciate just able to give a server my card then sign the check, the tip is an extra, annoying step Good point, when I said minimum wage i was thinking about applebee's workers etc. Obviously wait staff at expensive restaurants would have to get higher wages. switching away from tipping would make service industry wages more honest/transparent and give a better sense of how much or how little the owners were screwing the workers.

I wish the US would just ditch tipping altogether and start paying waitstaff etc the minimum wage. I don't remember getting bad service once in Korea where tipping isn't done. I have heard stories of taxi drivers in Korea chasing people down to give tips back. Plus the less math I have to do in my life the better

People seem to think Kickstarter is like a store, when its really more of a stock market. You can get everything from better than expected to a total loss.

I finished Far Cry 4: Valley of the Yetis yesterday. It was well done if a little short. I like the FPS tower defense mechanics. I really want to try it out coop, the last two night would be a lot less stressful with a buddy. Also classic Far Cry moment: my first encounter with a Yeti was when I hit one with a truck.

I just quit Ghost Recon: Future Soldier after failing a rather poorly designed mission I just decided to stop trying to enjoy the game. If they had taken the concept of soldiers with crazy future tech and the big, multipath maps from earlier games it would have been a much better game. The gameplay is solid, but is way too close to a corridor shooter for my liking I did like the ability to mark targets for a coordinated attack by you and your team. I have hopes that Ghost Recon Wildlands will be a far better game.

"This will be our first new major IP released since the original Crusader Kings over 10 years ago." https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/augustus-teaser-1-23rd-of-july-2015.872437/ "Seven and Three are important numbers." https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/augustus-teaser-2-24th-of-july-2015.872646/ Sounds like it will be an entirely new game not a sequel. Not sure what to make of these numbers.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (when I want some tactics with my shooting. I have played it to death however.) Far Cry 4 (When I don't want tactics or want to snipe.) Crusader Kings 2 (Pretty much the only strategy game I play anymore) Kerbal Space Program (Whenever they add content I come back to it) Just Cause 2 (For fucking around, will get replaced by 3 when it comes out) Minecraft (Might start an Industrialcraft server with some friends soon) Hitman Blood Money (Still my favorite stealth game) Xcom and Civ 5 used to be on this list, but recently I start up a game and lose interest quickly.

What I meant was that they built the systems for limiting the scope of the game to make it playable on phones and it doesn't seem like they considered how those limits would make the end game so dark., people trapped outside, eternal pregnancy etc

Oh man, I can't wait for Fallout Shelter to come out on android. Sounds like a lot of hilarious systems that the devs didn't think about all the way through.

I really enjoyed the Boat parts of Black Flag and wish Ubisoft would just make a game that is entirely built around naval warfare without all that running around towns part. There really aren't any games I can think of the scratch that age of exploration ship combat itch. I will definitely pick up Assassins Creed Rogue soon.