Space Anchor

Clearly I missed out on this Toastable place! Passed it a bunch as it was just up the road from one of my uni locations but for whatever reason I never tried it out.

Cool to see this here. I just spent a year as a student living in Diemen (which is just after the cut-off point to the south east of your map) and I'd second all your recommendations - some great picks! I'd definitely add the Eye Film Institute which you can access via the world's shortest ferry journey* out the back of central station. Even if you're not a cinema buff it's a bizarre building worth checking out and it offers a nice panorama of the city at night. For some where to actually watch films, The Movies might be the most charming cinema I've ever visited, and possibly the oldest (it's been kicking about since 1912) Here's a quick list of my favourite coffee coffee shops while I'm at it: Rum Baba, Coffee Bru, Toki, Caffenation, Caffe il Momento, Back to Black. *Probably not true, but can be as short as 2 minutes depending on traffic (yes, boat traffic)

Just popping in to say I'm totally doing this. No particular plans or ideas or anything to share yet, just stating my resolve to take part so the public shame of coming up short'll stop me wimping out. Thanks william for introducing me to Tom Francis's GM tutorial series - what a superhumanly cheerful man!

Which kind, the Alpro one? Never really liked ordinary chocolate pudding but might give that a try on your recommendation. Used to be a really fussy eater but over the last couple of years I've found that now I like pretty much everything, so who knows. Oof mega jealous here. I'd do some disdainful stuff for a smooth maker. Ever do any of those weird spinach mixes I see people drinking?

Have had the same thing almost everyday for what must be getting on two years: banana, flax seeds, muesli, soy yoghurt. It looks gross but it's wonderful.

Thanks Sgt! First beat is real smooth, liking it. That example from Lisa is pretty much exactly what I was looking for - track I'm working is also pretty slow and mellow. Been thinking "simple and syncopated" is a pretty good mantra for composing bass lines. Never listened to much New Order beyond Blue Monday but I gather Peter Hook is something of a bass playing diety. I feel like bass players don't get enough credit, and the one's who do tend to be the more showy types like Flea. That being said, I'm all about Thundercat. Hopefully I'll have something to post up here pretty soon.

Really like this interpretation. Though I've mostly enjoyed what I've played so far, I found myself getting frustrated for the same reasons Vasari described; the niggling feeling that anytime I interjected I was cutting off dialogue. Looking at it your way though, I realise that's a response totally conditioned by video games, in which you generally participate in conversations as a sort of content sponge rather than an agent with a personality. Next time I boot it up I'll try paying more attention to how the dialogue expresses characterisation rather than getting hung up on what I might be missing. Only real problem with the game is performance. Doesn't strike me as something that should be particularly demanding but I'm playing on the second to highest resolution with the effects turned off and it's still chugging away (meanwhile I'm playing The Witness at max with little difficulty). Seems a shame to go any lower given how lovely the style is.

Really appreciate of the theory stuff folks have posted on here. Been playing and trying to write music purely on intuition for years now but having no real method's made it difficult to see ideas through to completion. Couple of questions: I'm not a drummer and am pretty hopeless when it comes to laying down patterns that aren't total snore fests. Any tips? What makes a good bass line? Guess a lot depends on the genre your working in but I reckon there's got to be some shared principles

I did this interview/feature with Cara Ellison about her Embed with Games book. Getting to chat with her was tremendously enjoyable and informative, to the point where it felt a bit like receiving divine wisdom from guru up mountain somewhere. It reads a bit clumsier than I'd like (advice/criticism would be wonderful) but I'm posting in here in the hopes that if it gets a few clicks they'll let me do more of this sort of stuff.

Well the consensus on here is pretty emphatic so clearly I'm the odd one out but as someone who also didn't care for Skyfall whatsoever, I thought Spectre was totally serviceable, even quite fun in places. That they've dialled down on addressing the sexism in the series is disappointing but Spectre handles that stuff heaps better than any of the "classic" Bonds, so if you could put up with that before then it shouldn't be an issue with this one.

Sadly not at the moment, I miss it dearly! In any case, the beers'd be on me: free entertainment AND alcohol? No one gets to be that generous. Guess I should actually recommend a podcast while I'm here. It's concluded now but I really enjoyed the Guardian's The Biggest Story in the World which was a behind the scenes look at the conception, execution and reception of their climate change campaign earlier this year. The topic alone would be plenty interesting in it's own right but it's also a really candid insight into their editorial process with lots of internal politics etc.

Fair enough. I've only listened to it maybe a handful of time so far so maybe it'll hook me in the end - could well be guilty of letting expectations cloud my judgement. Definitely recommend going back through his older material. The last LP The Flower Lane marked a turn towards more lavishly produced conventional whereas his older stuff is more ambient, atmospheric experiments and jams, most of it recorded on crackly old tape machines and stuff. Landscapes is probably my fav. (Here's a cool ) Don't know if you know Julia Holter - she's backing vocalist who pops up on a number of the tracks - but this song from her new record's been stuck in my head for a while now. Ever since falling hard for Weezer's blue album in high school, pretty much anything with dramatic slow-build drum crescendos gives me goosebumps. Also features a sick sax solo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OERixQR-hxY (How do you embed these things?)

These are great Declan, been really enjoying them. It's a bit shameful though that after 4 years at Glasgow uni it was the Idle Thumbs forums that finally got me to tune into Subcity Radio!

What did you think of his new record? For me, might be the best thing he's ever done but on the whole I found it pretty disappointing. Really dug the last one and the accompanying EP.

Good choice! (I know it's not really the point here, but do you know that they've made free downloads of their two LPs available right?) Not a very frequent Spotify user but find the web app to be pretty decent. (i.e. http://play.spotify.com). Their library's gotten much better too - there was no Dylan for a good while, among other stuff.

When I was still a student I lived near a takeaway called HomeWok, and to this day I've never managed to get my head around the name. It was near the university so my guess is that they were either trying to position their food as a study supplement or suggesting you should pick some up while walking back from class. Fish and chip shops round here are also wont to some pretty torturous wordplay: The Codfather is a very common one, though probably not as prevalent as [insert Proprietor's Name]'s Plaice.

Thanks for the response Jason, it's very comforting to read you outline what I suppose has been an unexamined anxiety about reading inadequately, if that makes sense. I do feel like I worry way too much about, as you say, being too far from an imagined "definitive reading". Still, I can't help but feel frustrated with myself when I get to the end a piece of media and find that I haven't formed a conclusive and useful understanding of what it "means" to me. I find this stuff much easier to deal with when listening to music - like, maybe composing is a more intuitive process wherein meaning can be conjured organically/accidentally as a result of trying to represent something abstract and therefore open to interpretation on both end, whereas writing seems much more deliberate. Or something. And no Nappi, I don't have an eReader, but considering the number of eBooks I've accrued recently from StoryBundles etc (and the Campo Santo Quarterlys of course!) I think it's only a matter of time. Had no idea that some of them had built-in dictionaries - pretty much an instant selling point for me. Which do you recommend?

Apologies for digging this up nearly a year later, i just needed to vent a bit. I'm only about 70 pages in (though getting that far has taken me the best part of a month) and all I can say for certain so far is that it's forced me to reorganise how I approach reading, at least from a logistical standpoint - I can't go near the thing unless I've got a notepad, a dictionary and access to wikipedia at hand for starters. It took me maybe 3 sessions just to get through the catalogue James O's filmography and even then I can't say how much of that I really digested. What's your guys' thoughts on the abundant use of jargon and gleeful spattering of footnotes? Do you think it's just a test of commitment, "an Umberto Ecoey trick to weed out all but the most attentive", like Alastair suggests? (Pleb alert: I haven't read any Eco, sorry! I'm very poorly read in general.) Did you meticulously research every word or term you didn't recognise? For me, that's proving to be at least a handful per page. Otherwise I'm enjoying it, especially the parts which appear to be focalised through Hal. I feel like it does an exceptional job of demonstrating how his mind works.

So I'm the biggest of babies when it comes to any kind of unsettling fiction, the upper limit of my comfort zone extending about as far as maybe a tame episode of Dr. Who, so I'm struggling with this already though I'm only an hour in. I'll echo the astonishment that you guys have expressed regarding the visuals - I mean, I haven't seen game environments rendered as lifelike these before, a fact that certainly isn't helping me any. In the back of my head I know that the technology isn't there yet to present animated models with the same degree fidelity but that hasn't stopped my mind from racing each time I enter a new area. Folks who are further on, how've you been finding it scaryness wise? So far I'm feeling that same sense of thick, lonely unease that really got me going in Gone Home and Dear Esther though I suspect that's only a taste of what's to come with this game. *gulp* On a related note, anyone have a particular strategy for coping with spooky stuff in games?

Hello folks, nice to meet you. Been a listener and furtive forum browser for what must be about two years now. Re-adjusting to small town life after finishing uni has found me craving pleasant, open-minded conversation, so here I am. Cheers!