Chris

Without going into super-specific manufacturer details, the basics are: CPU: Intel i5 6600K GPU: GeForce GTX 970 RAM: 16GB DDR4 I have played a bunch more Just Cause 3 on it since getting it up and running and it's awesome!

Do you mind if we refer to your post if we end up doing a spot for this again?

Something like this actually happened with Nick at some point I think??

When I was a kid I didn't know what Bridge was, and I didn't really know who Omar Sharif was, but I definitely knew that Omar Sharif was really good at bridge.

This makes a lot of sense! Thanks!

Idle Thumbs 243: Idle Thumbs Demo Disk Q1 2016 The new year should be treated as a time of opportunity. A time to seek out fresh experiences, to get motivated to try some things you normally wouldn't. It's also a time to collapse in a tired heap and take a break to recharge. It is for both these reasons that we're bringing you an Idle Thumbs Network Sampler this week: You get a taste of the other great shows we host here at Idle Thumbs, and we get a quick breather to rest our weak old bones. We'll be back next week with a full new episode! Discussion by: Three Moves Ahead, Esports Today, Idle Weekend, Terminal7, Designer Notes, The Idle Book Club, Chris, Jake Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

Discussion thread up for the first book! https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/10647-the-idle-book-club-11-fates-and-furies-pre-discussion/

Welcome new folks! I remember you from the DF forums Bidiot Bales!

Idle Weekend December 25, 2015: A Very Dark Forces Christmas Idle Weekend is visited by the ghost of video games past, present, and future, as Danielle and Rob excavate their holiday memories for your amusement, and look toward the year ahead. Hear about Danielle's bloody-faced determination in Diddy Kong Racing, and appreciate how Dark Forces taught Rob the true meaning of Christmas. It's a gaming miracle! Discussed: Diddy Kong Racing, Dark Forces, Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, open-world games, DLC, Vive VR, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Dreadnought (Robert K. Massie), Hannibal, non-Star Fox-related Star Fox flight sweater, the true meaning of Christmas Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

I don't think I get enough credit for this on Idle Thumbs.

Idle Weekend December 18, 2015: Destined for a Reboot This episode, the weekenders ponder the curious monstrosity of Destiny, a game that still has Rob caught firmly in its snares. Danielle, meanwhile, is caught Raiding Tombs, trying to raise a floating crypt with an ancient water wheel just like the good old days. Ancient architecture certainly makes for fertile rebooting ground. You can learn more about the show at idleweekend.net, and send us questions for our weekend correspondence at questions@idleweekend.net. To keep up with the latest from us, follow us on Twitter at @idleweekend. Discussed: Destiny, Rise of the Tomb Raider, The Witcher 3, Limitless, Star Trek, Both Flesh and Not Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

I don't believe we've ever been drunk whilst recording Idle Thumbs, but perhaps we should give it a shot for our next "Dirty Socks and Relatives" roundup!

Write to questions@idleweekend.net!

Idle Thumbs 240: Mikami's Iconic Hat Come in, come in… Ah, I'm surprised to see YOU wearing that hat. But welcome. My name is Dr. Caligari. I mean Dr. Strangelove. Actually, call me Dr. Langeskov. Sit back and let's take a look into your history. Boy, there are a lot of murders, aren't there? Very…densely packed. And more tweets than I expected. Still, we'll see if we can't find some gems… Just a little puzzle game joke there, ha ha. I know you love your companion apps. Hmm. It appears your original family name is "Bredon." Well, you know what they say: It all starts with a doctor and ends with an emerald. Games Discussed: Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist, Beglitched, Star Wars Battlefront, Star Wars Battlefront Companion: Base Command, Ancestry.com, Untitled Shinji Mikami cockroach game Listen on the Episode Page Listen on Soundcloud Listen in iTunes

I apologize generally for my behavior in this thread. I find a lot of the way this topic gets discussed to be frustrating, but that's not an excuse to be a jerk about it. Like a lot of tricky topics it is made trickier when the discussion is a decentralized bunch of people all tossing in comments, and leads to a lot of talking at cross-purposes. Sorry!

It is possibly true that I am not taking this argument as seriously I could be. I'm sorry about that. I still believe I have a legitimate difference of opinion on this matter than many people in this thread do, and I'm not about to apologize for that, but I introduced that difference of opinion poorly--largely because my posts conflated 1) the particulars of this food issue, and 2) the spectacle of "most empathetic white person" acrobatics that I find to be a hugely muddling force when it comes to discussions of ethnicity and race on the internet. ("I'm the white person who actually knows the right answer because I know that white people are always wrong", etc.) However, those issues do not fully overlap and I shouldn't have let myself combine them into the same argument.

If you think only the people with whom you agree are the ones willing to engage in complexity, I think you are not being intellectually honest. For being someone who claims to speak for oppressed minorities, you seem to have a bit of a persecution complex yourself. The impression you were under about food and gentrification is one that I think you are being simplistic about, not too complex. A lot of (white, straight, male) people seem to feel that once they've become enlightened about feminism and race, they suddenly are participating in a race to be the most apologetic and humble white person, but it also seems to lead to a lot of self-righteousness that I think leaves a lot of actual real-world complexity behind.

This has literally happened in America for generation after generation. It still happens constantly. It essentially defines the first-generation immigrant experience in America.

There is some amazing "enlightened white person" stuff going on in here. Ascribing magical ethnic ability to food preparation is quite...problematic, to use the parlance of the land. Especially when, if you live in the United States, it is highly likely that regardless of what ethnicity the front-of-house staff is, many of those restaurants (non-chain, mom-and-pop operations) employ a disproportionate number of Mexicans as cooking staff anyway, across all types of cuisine. That's certainly true on the West Coast and I would imagine you see similar situations elsewhere depending on immigration patterns. There is plenty to be said for having grown up in a given culture and, as a result, having years and years of deep, deep familiarity with that culture and its associated practice. That is undoubtedly real and potent. But a lot of people here are treading way beyond that into a kind of infantalization of other cultures--sort of the "magical negro" trope--in a way that I think is pretty gross, even though it is being employed in a way that acts as though it is progressive. There is almost no food that survives across generations and does not end up being irrevocably changed by cultural interchange, whether it's due to the influence of surrounding cultures and nations, the influence of trade, or the even more rapid and powerful change that happens when immigrants bring foods to new countries and almost always end up with that food being reinvented entirely because of the influence of the culture they are coming into (in the United States, this has happened with Mexican and Chinese and Italian cuisine to the extreme). An American-born Chinese person who grows up in their immigrant family's restaurant (which may well be staffed by people of a variety of ethnicities), then visits China as an adult, is not going to have any kind of claim to "Chinese food." This all gets even more complicated when you consider all the different ways people actually grow up in the modern world; local San Francisco (now New York, I guess) chef Danny Bowien is an American of Korean descent who was raised by white people in Oklahoma and now is one of the most influential "Chinese" chefs in the country--even though he is not Chinese--by way of his restaurant "Mission Chinese Food," which started as a popup in a "traditional" "Chinese-American" restaurant in the Mission, a "traditionally" Latino neighborhood of San Francisco that also has roots as an Irish and German neighborhood. My point is just that culture is complex, and it is really insulting and condescending to act as though people are born with some kind of ethnic ability that gives them powers. People draw in their cultural context and practice from many sources, over a long time, and that absolutely gives them unique perspectives and abilities, but that happens on a level that is constantly-changing and subject to all kinds of factors that cannot be boiled down to "white people can't make collard greens." Being frustrated about seeing something you grew up with bungled is totally legitimate. I grew up in an Italian family with a dad who owned a restaurant when he was younger and grandparents who came over from Italy and a grandmother who cooked a huge dinner for her huge family every Sunday, and I have a lot of fond memories of that, and I think it gives me a leg up when I make a pasta sauce, somewhat. And I know I'm a privileged white person who hasn't had to deal with any of the bullshit that non-white ethnic groups have to put up with all the time. But I think well-meaning social awareness can cross a line pretty quickly into a way of looking at culture and ethnicity that confuses easy dogma with complexity.

So glad people are digging this! We recorded so many hours of test before landing it. PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS!!

Write into questions@idleweekend.net and ask! Rob and Danielle did a few test episodes and they talked about the game then, so there's no real way to know that missing context currently.

That has just happened by default! It wasn't an explicit goal, it's just sort of happened as Rob and Danielle did a few test episodes.

It was really fun to record!

I think you are sort of describing STALKER, developers of which split off to found Metro developer 4A.

Thanks!