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Jake

Idle Thumbs 69: I Had a Gleam

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Mars!

Idle Thumbs 69: I Had a Gleam

You lower your virtual vis-visor from your face -- the fate of your shipmates will have to wait. On the dusty crust of a distant alien planet, a faraway rumble grows to an inescapable roar and the discarded shell of a heroic jet-pack robot platform plummets towards your face. This is your seven minutes of terror.

Things Discussed: QuakeCon, Oculus Rift, Curiosity Rover, FTL: Faster Than Light, The Binding of Isaac, Dota 2

Direct episode download.

iTunes page.

RSS: Read!

Blog post also exists.

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I saw a guy at QuakeCon wearing the Oculus Rift and it looked like the silliest thing in the whole world, with his head just swaying back and forth, a controller in his hand, and the biggest grin I've ever seen on his face. Maybe the grin should indicate that the Oculus is awesome, but I'm maybe just a little too self conscious? Also, I get annoyed every time I have to take off headphones to get up from my desk, I can't imagine having to decouple my brain from this future screen every time I had to take the dog out or pee.

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I think that Sean didn't quite see what Chris was driving at in The Binding of Isaac discussion. Sean was talking about it as an exploration of taboo, where Chris was talking about unfiltered expression. One of my favorite examples of unfiltered expression is Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky. It is a look inside the mind of a low level beuraucrat in 19th century Russia with some kind of mental disorder. I don't see that novel as a comment on Russian taboos, mores or society, though the main character does some stupid and immoral things. Nor do I think that it is a damning portrait of that specific man or type of man. While it blows open the idea of what a novel is supposed to be through its structure and plot, or lack thereof, I don't think that's the point either. It's just a beautiful, truthful, dark, funny, largely irrational look inside a specific man's mind, and that makes it timeless.

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whoa. has there been official announcement for Double Fine Happy Action Theater 2!? This is the first I've heard mention of it. Also, September is really close! oopsAwesome!

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That comment about the phenomenology of motorcycle rides is why I loved jumping out of planes back when I was able to do it.

You don't realize it in your daily life, but your eyes do the same thing as a camera when it comes to focus planes. Try holding your finger up, closing one eye, and looking at your finger, and then looking at something way behind it. See how it pops in and out of focus, above and beyond the simple binocular convergence that most of us think of?

Skydiving is completely different because it's about the only activity where everything else is—to your eye—infinitely away. It's all in focus simultaneously, and the effect feels kind of hyperreal because everything's so sharp and you can see it all at once. It really feels like you're suspended over a giant painting and slowly floating into it. Absolutely astounding, and above and beyond the experience of simply flying in airplanes. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

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I think that Sean didn't quite see what Chris was driving at in The Binding of Isaac discussion. Sean was talking about it as an exploration of taboo, where Chris was talking about unfiltered expression. One of my favorite examples of unfiltered expression is Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky. It is a look inside the mind of a low level beuraucrat in 19th century Russia with some kind of mental disorder. I don't see that novel as a comment on Russian taboos, mores or society, though the main character does some stupid and immoral things. Nor do I think that it is a damning portrait of that specific man or type of man. While it blows open the idea of what a novel is supposed to be through its structure and plot, or lack thereof, I don't think that's the point either. It's just a beautiful, truthful, dark, funny, largely irrational look inside a specific man's mind, and that makes it timeless.

I understood what Chris was saying and was simply adding that society manufactures taboo out of the things created within that internal process. This taboo then gives a lot of (in this case game publishers) pause in outputting something an individual work when it is felt to be taboo. Books and movies have moved beyond that self-censorship and are able to represent one's internal relationship with a myriad of "fucked up" things but games haven't so I, like Chris, was refreshed by The Binding of Issac simply because it eschewed that particular system of censorship.

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FYI, NASA's "serious game" using UnrealEngine: http://www.unrealeng...moonbase_alpha/ && http://www.moonbasealphagame.com/

Yes, Chris, you can download this Moon game: http://store.steampo....com/app/39000/

Hilariously, Chris played this game and discussed why he would not make a very good astronaut in episode 60. Or a very good robot.

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While this is a bit more humble than a full-blown production in CryEngine or UE would probably be, I found this simulation of the Curiosity landing to still be really cool:

(it uses Java and you'll need to accept the prompt)

http://eyes.nasa.gov...nts/msl/edl.xml

The "live" mode followed the landing procedure along as it was happening based on the time. You can select the "replay" mode to view the landing again. You can also double click almost any object to center the view about that object, including the skycrane as it shoots off in a direction after the rover separates.

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Hilariously, Chris played this game and discussed why he would not make a very good astronaut in episode 60. Or a very good robot.

I also mentioned it by name in this episode!

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I wonder when the surprise will go away. Every time a new episode pops up in the feed I'm like, "Oh, shit! New Idle Thumbs!"

Yeah, same here. Please keep putting them out on irregular days :)

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Yeah, same here. Please keep putting them out on irregular days :)

That only happened this week because we had already put out the QuakeCon episode this week--generally we're trying to stick to a regular schedule.

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Confirmed: Mars Rover looked back and saluted as Sky Crane bravely gave its life for science:

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-me-0811-mars-curiosity-photo-confirmed-20120811,0,5983256.story

Its first duty was to deploy half a bottle of beer onto the ground for its fallen science-buddy. Bruce Willis has already accepted the role of Lt. Skyler Crane in the upcoming movie adaptation.

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Note that it does not have any solar panels, because IT IS NUCLEAR POWERED.

A giant nuclear robot on Mars? I hope it won't avenge its lost sky-crane buddy when we begin terraforming.

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So is Amelia the same person who identified Resident Evil as a film based on a Video Game?

You guys grow up so fast.

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Jake: The game we played at CAX that you mentioned was Space Dungeon. So not only is it a weird 1981 proto-Binding of Isaac, but it also has literally the best name for a video game.

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On "Guilt" about Video Games, and all entertainment:

There's no other way to put this. If you have guilt, any guilt, over what you like to do. Then you have to ask yourself one question. And that is "Who gives a shit?" Who care, and why, and why the hell do I even care?

All that "great" stuff, all that charity, all those "Great" people in history did not do what they did to be great. Einstein did not write physics papers and theories to be a great physicist or advance the knowledge of mankind or etc. He did because he liked physics, that was his DOTA, that was how he had fun, and every great person in history is little different. "Greatness" is, for pretty much everyone, just a nice side benefit.

And so you, whoever you are, maybe you like to do something that isn't celebrated by others. And that's the real definition between "unimportant" and "greatness". That's the real accomplishment. Usain Bolt is considered great because the Olympics exist, and world records exist, and because it's celebrated, and all of that allows the fact that he's really fast, and likes to run, and likes to compete that makes him "great". The only difference is that it's celebrated by others.

Even charity, even then we do that because we feel good about it, because it gives us something, and it's considered great because it's celebrated. Heck if you REALLY wanted to help people, if you REALLY wanted to make that huge difference then you'd invent a better solar cell, or invest in a company that's doing so. Helping something like fusion powerplants become a reality in 30 years wold help more people than the entire sum of all the charity given to anybody and everybody in those intervening years decades and even centuries after. But we don't think like that, because our brains aren't built to that way. So yeah, we are short sighted animals that derive pleasure from short term amusements.

Ohwell.

So hopefully, or at least I hope, that anyone with this complex would get over it, and enjoy whatever they do guilt free. Knowing that what they're doing really isn't any more or less important than what 99.999999% of other people do that same percentage of their lives. Or if they really want to be that "great" person, if that's really your thing, if you really want to be approved of by others; well then that's your thing, and hopefully you're doing that instead.

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All that "great" stuff, all that charity, all those "Great" people in history did not do what they did to be great. Einstein did not write physics papers and theories to be a great physicist or advance the knowledge of mankind or etc. He did because he liked physics, that was his DOTA, that was how he had fun, and every great person in history is little different. "Greatness" is, for pretty much everyone, just a nice side benefit.

I would challenge your certainty about this. Do you have any evidence to support this claim about Einstein or anyone else? Of course he had passion for his subject matter, but I think it's extremely presumptuous to suggest that nobody is driven by thoughts of posterity, of worthwhile self-improvement, of worthwhile improvement of society or humanity, or any other similar goals. The idea that someone would say, "Yeah I've dedicated my entire life to cancer research purely because I love it, not because I give a shit about what happens to other people or to advance the knowledge of mankind," just seems very unlikely to me.

I also don't believe at all that all pursuits are equally worthwhile, and that that worth is derived purely from personal satisfaction and nothing else. My job (for example) is one that probably wouldn't leave the world much worse off if it didn't exist; of course that doesn't mean people shouldn't have such jobs. But even within the sphere of how I can spend my free time, I believe there are ways to spend it that are, generally speaking, better than other ways. That's not to say any of those ways are totally right or totally wrong--there's no objective scale. Obviously not every job, hobby, or pursuit can possibly be crucial to the advancement of mankind. I don't mean that personal satisfaction is worthless, or shouldn't be a big consideration in how we spend our lives, but it's certainly not the only thing, at least not in my worldview.

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All that "great" stuff, all that charity, all those "Great" people in history did not do what they did to be great. Einstein did not write physics papers and theories to be a great physicist or advance the knowledge of mankind or etc. He did because he liked physics, that was his DOTA, that was how he had fun, and every great person in history is little different. "Greatness" is, for pretty much everyone, just a nice side benefit.

I would challenge your certainty about this. Do you have any evidence to support this claim about Einstein or anyone else? Of course he had passion for his subject matter, but I think it's extremely presumptuous to suggest that nobody is driven by thoughts of posterity, of worthwhile self-improvement, of worthwhile improvement of society or humanity, or any other similar goals. The idea that someone would say, "Yeah I've dedicated my entire life to cancer research purely because I love it, not because I give a shit about what happens to other people or to advance the knowledge of mankind," just seems very unlikely to me.

I know it's not exactly a total refutation of his point, since they're both mass-murderers if you boil them down to their basic acts, but the two greatest leaders of the ancient world, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, were obsessed with their legacy to the point of severe eccentricity. Caesar's last act while being assassinated was to cover his own body with his toga so that people wouldn't stumble upon his bloody corpse and remember him like that. Then again, Roman culture built people that way, by raising them in houses lined with ancestor masks, forever asking the current inhabitants what they would do to earn their own posthumous spot on the wall.

Honestly, much as I might wish it otherwise, I don't think there's a hard and fast rule for success or even for excellence. The closest anyone's come to good advice on that count is Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics: "Excellence is an art attained by habituation. We do not act rightly because we have excellence, but rather we have excellence because we act rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." But even that's not a roadmap.

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I would challenge your certainty about this. Do you have any evidence to support this claim about Einstein or anyone else? Of course he had passion for his subject matter, but I think it's extremely presumptuous to suggest that nobody is driven by thoughts of posterity, of worthwhile self-improvement, of worthwhile improvement of society or humanity, or any other similar goals. The idea that someone would say, "Yeah I've dedicated my entire life to cancer research purely because I love it, not because I give a shit about what happens to other people or to advance the knowledge of mankind," just seems very unlikely to me.

I also don't believe at all that all pursuits are equally worthwhile, and that that worth is derived purely from personal satisfaction and nothing else. My job (for example) is one that probably wouldn't leave the world much worse off if it didn't exist; of course that doesn't mean people shouldn't have such jobs. But even within the sphere of how I can spend my free time, I believe there are ways to spend it that are, generally speaking, better than other ways. That's not to say any of those ways are totally right or totally wrong--there's no objective scale. Obviously not every job, hobby, or pursuit can possibly be crucial to the advancement of mankind. I don't mean that personal satisfaction is worthless, or shouldn't be a big consideration in how we spend our lives, but it's certainly not the only thing, at least not in my worldview.

I'd mostly agree other than the part I have bolded, which seems discontinuous to me, surely that passion goes hand in hand with the advancement. Pony's argument can be thrown out fairly easily, but Sean should not feel guilty for playing.

I've recently been making more steps into the world of e-sports myself, while I'm not playing I am doing a lot of the other steps such as running online tournaments. Meaning I need to make sure players are ok between matches, I understand frustration that a loss can lead to, which means I need to compensate passing information to casters regarding this. It isn't as worthwhile as a doctors work, but I love it, and that's fine.

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Einstein's marriages paint the picture of a guy that's fairly self-absorbed.

Other scientists are certainly motivated by the implications of their work; Watson and Crick really wanted a Nobel Prize. Not all scientists are trying to cure cancer, and having grown up with scientists, I'm fairly skeptical of the "Advancing Human Knowledge" justification for what they do. I think most are merely totally engaged by their jobs and the subject matter. (This is an anecdote, not a scientific study) I don't think that the quality of science suffers.

I normally associate self-aware greatness with politicians and military leaders; and not in a good way.

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