Thrik

Weird but good to see IRC mentioned by anyone in the 2010s. I guess I shall have to re-add QuakeNet to my daily idle list. In case anyone actually remembers the place, we still have #monkey-island — which has somehow continued lingering on since the 90s — operating on irc.gamesurge.net. Pretty quiet, but we still get classic members like Rottingbeef, Emma, and Ben coming by.

The emergent politics and factions that this game seems capable of producing are exciting. It reminds me of some of the stories about EVE Online, where things you just wouldn't think likely in a multiplayer game occur: alliances, betrayals, espionage, etc. I guess that game's menu-heavy play makes it easier to make such cerebral concepts occur, and that's where a lot of games fail: the gameplay is too action-orientated and there's very little gain to not just blowing up everything you see. Some of my best gaming memories involve me working cooperatively with others. I fondly recall PlanetSide, and the day when I logged in to find an unbelievably large assault force gathering on my faction's home continent; it went on for about an hour, and as people continued to log in and realise what was potentially going down, they lined up their vehicles amongst the vast armadas and waited. Row after row of dropships, each capable of holding like 10 players plus a vehicle — not to mention countless smaller entities such as tanks and attack ships. When the siege in some enemy faction-controlled continent's key base finally occurred, it was truly a sight to behold. Yet the enthusiasm and pomp soon gave way to a bloodbath, and a huge proportion of our force was ruined. That began a slow battle that took all day to resolve, fortunately in our favour. But the great memory of how so many random people with little to gain personally from working with each other still wanted to be part of a larger thing. Anyway. Back to the point: I've also had many memories of working closely with a few other guys in games like Tribes 2, Team Fortress, and Battlefield. I think it's so great when games give you the right tools to entrench yourself and build your own 'base', as it seems to encourage people to work together to make a stronghold or community that is safe and resilient. There's a certain 'feel good' factor I can't quantify to having some other people there with you building up some awesome fortress. I can totally imagine how the specific recipe Rust is going for would create some great experiences. Wish I had time to play it right now. It's still in beta, right? I guess there'll be a nice, polished game for me to play at some point.

Haha. I love the twisted mentality in this game. 'Our wonderful utopian fortress we built to protect us is worthless because nobody is attacking us!'. A glimpse into the horrifying nature of human psychology and its priorities after the apocalypse.

SPLENDID

This wind is nuts, nearly knocked me over walking home this evening — and it successfully pushed me into a road! My balcony is definitely not a place I wish to be going tonight...

A fairly nice nine minutes of (mostly) electronica. No vocals for those who like that kind of thing.

You just can't go wrong.

This is what happens when YouTube releases its own version of Vine and I download it at work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq82uYXSwk4

Nice electronica duo I've been listening to on Spotify:

God man, sounds like a total loser. Can't you block his number? Can't even figure out how he thinks you actually owe anything. Isn't that what landlords are for?

Sadly not, it's a button on the top of the toilet that pushes some plunger down. The plunger then lifts up some other things. I can't even find any photos of it online so it must be some pretty obscure mechanism — it's dual flush but no other photos of such contraptions look similar. Might have to whip it open and look for what could be an underlying cause, maybe it is some kind of little shitty piece of rubber like you say.

I'm really struggling to get my god damn toilet flushes to stop continuing to piss out water after I flush them. I opened it up and there are these plastic things that go up when flushed, then drop back down. They can be tightened or loosened to fit together better or worse, but somehow they keep ending up not being in an optimal position so they stay up for way longer than they should if not indefinitely. I've fixed it a few times but it always recurs after a couple of weeks or so. Why couldn't they have just used a normal floating ball thing? What a piece of shit.

I rarely get a hangover due to the water — it's the post-drinking kebab that gets me and renders me toilet-bound the following day. With that said, nothing is as generally appealing as a fry-up the morning after. It appeals to the same part of the brain that makes a kebab or whatever as appealing as sex if not more so the night before.

We just interviewed one of Arkane Studio's (Dishonored) environment artists, some nice stuff for those interested in the development side of things. He's awesome at textures. Interview with Rosin 'kikette' Geoffrey, Arkane Studios Environment Artist

You know, flu can be slang for vagina round here.

Really reminds me of the Deus Ex: HR soundtrack for some reason: https://play.spotify.com/track/0vh1hTOexYucimO5q6PDEP Also, time to listen to the Deus EX: HR soundtrack.

I was checking out the change logs the other day and was surprised by how much each version changes — from innumerable smaller adjustments to bigger things like the introduction of true terrain, lakes, forests, etc. I was kind of thinking it'd be like some other early access games I won't mention where development seems to be a crawl and the end game doesn't really end up being much different from the first alpha. Conversely, it looks like Prison Architect is legitimately transforming as it goes on.

Rest, drink a lot of hot drinks (you can't sweat out a cold but it'll help with keeping you uncongested), and rest. Oh, and rest! I know it sounds obvious but there are so many people who burn through their usual lifestyle despite having a cold, and think dosing up on pills and tricks will make it OK. Conversely, I always become a sloth when I get a cold and it pretty much never develops into a bad one.

Really enjoying these guys as I work through their back catalogue. Their previous album shows clear signs of coming out in the middle of the dubstep frenzy, but extremely sharp production and melodies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLaC0PNMldo

I would imagine it's the support down the middle of the canvas. It shouldn't be visible when mounted on a wall properly — the surface the picture is on is somewhat flexible.

Oh, if I had a suitable room I'd totally be doing that. All I can look forward to is eventually getting a house with a room that I can turn into a home cinema.

The issue seems to be that they just can't make them cheaply enough to offset the relatively low demand for them. A long fight has been fought to convince people that LCD is the way to go, and it seems to have worked. Of course a huge number of people absolutely love plasma and understand its (quite frankly indisputable) superiority in terms of image quality, but you have to remember how ridiculously big the number of people buying TVs is overall. Also not everyone actually cares that much about true quality. With that said, only Panasonic — widely considered the king of plasmas — has officially dropped them starting this year. LG and Samsung are presumably keen to cash in on the fact that there are going to be plenty of plasma fans wanting their fix, but they too might tire of it after another year or two. The only thing to look forward to is OLED eventually reaching the point of being feasible. It's the only technology out there that can match (and surpass) plasma in terms of quality, whereas LCD never will no matter what fancy LED backlights they use or whatever. But they've been trying to get it right for like a decade now, and they're still some years off.

Both LG and Samsung have committed to further plasma development, however who knows how long that'll last. It's definitely my favourite technology of the moment, and my VIERA from 2009 continues to delight me. As for OLED, it's years away from being practical — never mind affordable. They're making great strides (a recent one was solving the 'blue pixels age faster' by using filters on top of white pixels), but I don't think the quality and longevity will be there for at least five years. Still, we'll likely all be using them in 10–20 years.

Nice. What lovely plasmas Panasonic has made. Might have to get a Samsung if mine gives up in the next few years. Looks like AMOLED is way off being practical.