Granny Dragon

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Posts posted by Granny Dragon

  3. Posted

    I like the idea of starting a new show, and will definitely give it a listen.

     

    I am not really enjoying podcasts which are 100% about games. Idle Thumbs had the right mix for me, and so does Idle Weekend. Even Three Moves Ahead is not exclusively about gaming, and sometimes the discussions about actual history and warfare are more interesting than the game talk. I listened a bit to the Bombcast, which is 100% gaming, and some Shall We Play a Game episodes (also pretty much 100%), but they didn't do it for me. There is one German gaming podcast I listen to (Stay Forever), but it is about old games and the hosts spend a lot of time putting the games into different contexts.

  5. Posted

    I think you should cast your pods filled with whatever makes you enthusiastic about casting, and I always enjoyed the discussions "off-track". At the same time, I'd like it if you kept video games as the central focus. It's where your common expertise is and I get much out of your observations and experiences especially nowadays when my gaming time is more limited.

     

    P.S.: You probably know that The Last of Us is inspired by a fungus that alters ant behaviour. There is another parasite (a fluke) which infects ants - one fluke in each ant digs into the host's nerve clusters and causes it to climb up a blade of grass and stay there so it gets eaten by sheep. Actually, the full cycle is sheep -> snail -> ant -> sheep.

  6. Posted

    I agree that the third film is better by admitting that it is meaningless trash and at least having fun with it. Lost World tries to be enviromentalist for half of the film. I remember the dinosaur-catching scene to be quite moving in a what-are-you-doing-to-these-majestic-creatures sense, but quickly after that the film starts going nowhere until the end where it wraps up by trying to be King Kong.

     

    You probably know that Lost World is also based on a novel, Crichton's sequel to the first book. In the first book, Malcom dies. Crichton revives him for the second book. Lost World the novel is very different from the film, but it is among Crichton's worst books. Crichton later said that he would never write a sequel again (he didn't).

  7. Posted

    *slow clap* Idle Machete.

     

    Some PhD students here at uni decided to watch "all" of Star Wars using the Machete order (Episodes 4, 5, 2, 3, 6). I wasn't around for all of that, but in my mind it makes sense as an attempt to weave in some of the prequels (I personally would just watch 4, 5, 6, 7 - didn't enjoy Rogue One that much). With regard to the OT, we watched the "despecialized versions" which aim to give you the original experience in Blu-Ray quality. The work that has gone into it is insane.

     

     

  11. Posted

    As for Sapir-Whorf, I must say that I am impressed by how well Rob and Danielle (with help of the letters) represented and discussed the theory. I am a cognitive psychologist working in language sciences, and the relationship between language and thought (I prefer to frame it as the relationship between verbal and non-verbal behaviour) is an important part of my work. I would just like to mention one concept which I find useful, namely "thinking for speaking". If you consider how much we are used to sharing our thoughts verbally, it wouldn't be a surprise if our language biased us towards structuring thought in a way that is best suited to it, at least in communicational settings (which include writing an article or letter). The concept of thinking for speaking supports of a weak Whorfian hypothesis, and indeed weak effects have been found in several experiments including some on color perception and orientation in space (though there is some disagreement about the methods).

     

    I know analysis paralysis quite well from games in which death is of big consequence. I spent way too much time with FTL paused, trying to think of the next step and slightly afraid of pressing the play button. I made similar experiences with XCOM Ironman mode. I have played a bit of Arma 3 lately, a military sim in which one bullet can kill you (Arma is most famous for spawning DayZ). So there I am, hiding in the bushes, looking at my map, trying to figure out how to best flank the enemy while my commander tells me that the clock is ticking.

  13. Posted

    I like it when there is a topic, but you have surely shown that you can just have an entertaining chat about whichever topic comes to your minds.

     

    Rob, at least one listener appreciates you pronouncing "Stasi" the right way. And, yes, Life of Others is an incredible film. A film that is different, yet similar in the way it presents consequences of German 20th centruy dictatorships is The Reader based on the book by Bernhardt Schlink and featuring a great cast. If you are interested, I would just watch it. Seriously, don't even look at the trailer.

     

    Smashing Pumpkins! Oh man. LIttle trivia: one of their tracks uses the sound of the Doom missile launcher a couple of times.

    To me, Metallica and Ultima will always be connected at some level. Listened to them a lot while uniting humans and Gargoyles. While the final game in the series, Ultima IX: Ascension, was a disappointment, I have fond memories of waiting for it to come out. The track I associate with waiting for Ascension is Where the WIld Things Are, also by Metallica. Weirdly, I associated the song with how imagined the game to be, and still do.

  14. Posted

    I always wondered whether the 4 X's in Civ needed a P for the endgame: preservation, given current themes about tye environment and the constant threat of total destruction through nuclear war. This would mean doubling down on the threat of nuclear war, e.g. by making nukes more powerful by allowing them to attack multiple cities, and on climate change/pollution.

  15. Posted

    I've listened to 3 or 4 episodes of Idle Weekend now, and sadly, I don't think it's for me. Maybe it's just over my head. Maybe what I like about Idle Thumbs isn't the serious video game talk, but the banter between friends. Idle Weekend doesn't feel like friends having a good time, it feels like overhearing academics pontificating about video games.

     

    I really miss Danielle on Idle Thumbs.

     

    I feel that only in the past two episodes Danielle and Rob managed to get an enjoyable chemistry going. I do like how IW differs from IT, though I enjoy both shows.

  16. Posted

    Rob, thank you for your comment on William Buckley. From today's standpoint it is difficult to understand how some found him impressive. You mention Buckley vs. Baldwin. This is the interview, a fascinating historical document.

    I would like to follow this up with Buckley vs. Chomsky on Vietnam.

    It's not as much his views (which thankfully didn't stand the test of societal change) as his very dishonest presentation, his barely hidden disrespect for his guests, his overly verbose language carrying very little content.

  17. Posted

    Seriously folks, the industrial meat industry is horrible (somewhat better in some European countries, but still horrible even there), for many reasons beyond labor, so please try to stop supporting it.

     

    I am currently playing 80 Days. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Madagascar, so I went there just to check what's up. It didn't seem to make much sense from a race-around-the-world standpoint, but the game made sure that I had to opportunity to get to Burma fairly quickly. Which brings me to the question of whether it is possible to make serious mistkaes while planning your route. Is it that the game always offers you some decent connections even if the route you choose looks silly on paper (map/globe)? Is the only way you can screw up bad management of your funds, and the resulting waits for banks to open etc.?

  20. Posted

    I don't think the robot uprising is the real threat, it's just the funny threat. The real threat is all this robotic military equipment making warfare and the eradication of "unwanted" people achievable, in a way that is absolutely terrifying to picture in ones mind, all without having to put a human face on any of it (joke: it is a robot that looks like a human but without a face). The scary thing is that people are building these devices, to then control them as they are deployed against other people.

     

    I don't believe that my kids will have to fight Skynet, but machines taking over is a theoretically possible scenario. The "intelligence" of a self-driving car combined with weapons is sufficient to create a literal killing machine. As development speed increases in robotics, it is important to discuss possible scenarios.

     

    The optimistic me thinks that a semi-automatised world will be better than the current, provided that we figure out political solutions for the increasing redundancy of human labour. It is with regards to the latter question where my pessimistic me speaks up.

  21. Posted

    Why would I ever ask a chiropractor anything about physiology or medicine?

     

    The human walking feedback model is actually pretty amazing, which is why we do it so easily and robots can't yet.

    I was trying to make a joke. Sorry if it didn't come across.

     

    In any case, bipedal walking is complex, but if you are just interested in effective locomotion my understanding is that humanoid robots are poor solutions.

  22. Posted

    Petmen are the last hope for mankind. Here is why:

     

    Boston Dynamics are building an ergonomically imperfect model. The human spine, in combination with bipedal walk, is terrible design (ask any chiropractor). We are like we are not because evolution is perfect, but because it works with what's available and we evolved from four-legged creatures.

     

    I understand why human engineers want to build robots with human-alike anatomy, but the circuit-mother that will one day rule Earth and space will have no tolerance for such a waste of resources. Robots will be tank-alikes, helicopter-alikes, centipede-alikes and fish-alikes. As a result, Petmen will be hunted down by other cyborgs, and this is where we come in: The remaining humans will form an alliance with the Petmen, and thus gain access to critical knowledge about the machine-rulers. The Petmen-Pact will ensure the survival at least of some.

  24. Posted

    Chris, for me Idle Thumbs has never been a podcast about cool new games. I bet other listeners feel the same, otherwise they wouldn't be listening to the back catalogue.

     

    I rarely get to play a game as it is new, and even if I do I am often behind and prefer not to have my experience spoiled (this happened with This War of Mine). So for me it's absolutely fine if you keep talking about what you are interested in at the moment, even if it's older and/or you talked about it before. In fact, I like the depth that comes with continuing discussions, be they about Far Cry 2, DayZ, Spelunky, or Desert Golf.

  25. Posted

    Below are the "highlights" from the Law & Order episode. I wish it was just stupid and funny, but this made me a little upset. I can't imagine anyone involved with gaming, gamergater or not, not cringing at this. I am not angry of the writers. They probably took their job seriously, trying to be authentic while still coming up with a thrilling story. It's their job. But how is it possible that understanding of gaming topics has not changed in some writing rooms since the 1990s? They could have used someone to sometimes say "no": No one speaks like this. The issue is not that simple, and at the same time it's not that convoluted!

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7faUHdlh9g&feature=youtu.be