jericho
7mo ago
But what's really interesting is the potential for misuse that I predict will occur for the next controversial game. While Unity has said they'll try to limit malicious behavior, they're providing gamers with the ability to charge developers money by essentially clicking the uninstall/reinstall button.
Any predictions for how quickly we see the first weaponization of this tool?
I suppose if you do not consider new weapons for the culture war to be part of the culture war, it would be unrelated.
My impression is also that the user base for video games generally trends less woke than the developers, so I would predict this particular weapon getting pointed one way more often than the other, but that remains to be seen.
jericho
6mo ago
Also my experience. Even Newt Gingrich, possibly one of the least charismatic politicians I can readily think of, was quite a bit more charming than the average Joe when meeting him in person.
jericho
10mo ago
HBO's Rome, chock full of absolutely stellar performances (James Purefoy's Marc Antony is perhaps my favorite performance across all of television) and while the historicity leaves quite a bit to be desired it does such a fantastic job at creating a sense of time and place.
Other favorite would definitely be The Expanse, quality is not even across the run (first 3 episodes are unfortunately among the weakest which can put people off), but it reaches some outstanding heights in seasons 2 and 3 especially. Highly recommended to anyone who likes Sci-Fi.
jericho
4mo ago
I wonder if this is the first generation appearing that way in the Disney parks - surely there weren't 40-year-old fanatical Disney moms in the 1980s or 90s.
I can say they for sure existed by the 90s as I interacted with some of them at that time. The "Disney Renaissance" coincided with making Disney versions of damn near everything and really pushing it into all corners of life which made this a viable archetype. Annual passes, especially those for Florida residents, were also cheaper at that time so that going to the park multiple times a year was a lot more accessible financially. In 1997 an annual pass was $269, inflation adjusted to $513 while in 2019 it was $1,119, inflation adjusted to $1,340. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the current crop of "Disney Moms" are the children of the initial crop.
I would not dispute, of course, that their numbers have increased greatly over time. I think the increase in prices and wait times along with the variety of schemes (fast pass, fast pass+, genie, apps, etc) to bypass these wait times has led to a lot more people planning their visit in the sort of obsessive, regimented way that those "Disney Moms" were in the 90s-early 2000s rather than just showing up and making their way through the parks, which used to be how almost everyone handled it. I think once you've spent however-much-time looking into different attractions and prioritizing them it's a lot easier to put disproportionate importance on the parks themselves.
jericho
5mo ago
Is it because the accusations came from outsiders? Is it because these particular accusations are not considered as awful as others?
Almost certainly the former. If these screenshots had been dug up and passed around by someone with progressive bona fides as a result of some internecine dispute, this would have gone done much differently.
jericho
9mo ago
I believe the kid in Up is actually Asian (at least, I and others read his appearance as Asian and the character's voice actor is Asian).
I can't speak to the church experiences of others- but for an American protestant growing up in the 90s and 2000s, when talking about sin and temptation and all that during services, the focus was definitely:
The Flesh >>>> The Devil >> The World
I wonder to what extent people jumping to thinking Lewis was talking about the flesh was due to a "horses, not zebras" assumption based on the sermons they heard growing up?
Edit: I do think your assessment that Lewis is in fact talking about Susan being lured away by the temptations of the world rather than the flesh is correct.
jericho
4mo ago
While in some cases I'm sure some people are taking "conservative" and "edgy 4chan humor" to extrapolate to "actually a Nazi using the pretense of irony to cover for it", for others "conservative" + "edgy 4chan humor" = "Nazi", no further layers needed.
jericho
5mo ago
I agree with you broadly but:
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson held people captive and forced them to work by threat of violence. Does that mean all of their social/political/economic views are suspect as a result?
I have absolutely encountered people making basically this argument.
There were black British characters in Hamilton (see here where the British soldier is a black woman). Also, the primary antagonist is Aaron Burr, not King George III, played by a black man. Unless by "all the villain characters" you literally mean just King George III, which makes me confused on the plural.
jericho
7mo ago
If, on the other hand, you have people willing to go the extra step to solve a problem, help a customer, or fix something that is not working - well hey there, your customers have a better experience and don't go away planning to switch to your competitor!
The issue is often that their competitors are not any better in this regard. Or, even when they are, any advantage from customer service is absolutely swamped by other considerations.
I travel a lot and have had a range of experiences with hotel front desks, but I can't say any of them would ever trump even a small difference in price or location. I think the only exceptions I could imagine would be those bordering on the actually criminal.
Especially in the era of travel aggregators, a lot of folks are looking at just the price tag and maybe a map.
jericho
2d ago
Galapagos Tortoises are apparently tasty enough that it was a real problem getting living specimens back because they kept getting eaten.
I'm sure their deliciousness was at least somewhat exaggerated due to hunger being the best sauce, but they were certainly praised highly.
The 17th-century English pirate, explorer, and naturalist William Dampier wrote, "They are so extraordinarily large and fat, and so sweet, that no pullet eats more pleasantly,"[136] while Captain James Colnett of the Royal Navy wrote of "the land tortoise which in whatever way it was dressed, was considered by all of us as the most delicious food we had ever tasted."[137] US Navy captain David Porter declared, "after once tasting the Galapagos tortoises, every other animal food fell off greatly in our estimation ... The meat of this animal is the easiest of digestion, and a quantity of it, exceeding that of any other food, can be eaten without experiencing the slightest of inconvenience."[102]
Not beyond what is covered in the document itself, but yes any survey like this is going to be biased because at the bare minimum the respondents are cooperative and capable enough to answer a survey instead of stabbing the person attempting to administer it or simply staring into space when asked questions.
Here is how they said they got responses:
Surveys were conducted by peer survey workers with lived homeless experience who were referred by local service providers. Training sessions were facilitated by ASR, City staff, and community partners. Potential interviewers were led through a comprehensive orientation that included project background information as well as detailed instruction on respondent eligibility, interviewing protocol, and confidentiality. Peer survey workers were compensated at a rate of $7 per completed survey. It was determined that survey data would be more easily obtained if an incentive gift was offered to respondents in appreciation for their time and participation. Socks were provided as an incentive for participating in the 2019 homeless survey. The socks were easy to distribute, had wide appeal, and could be provided within the project budget. The incentives proved to be widely accepted among survey respondents.
Based on a Point-in-Time Count estimate of 8,035 homeless persons, with a randomized survey sampling process, the 1,054 valid surveys represented a confidence interval of +/- 3% with a 95% confidence level when generalizing the results of the survey to the estimated population of individuals experiencing homelessness in San Francisco. The 2019 survey was administered in shelters, transitional housing facilities, and on the street. In order to ensure the representation of transitional housing residents, who can be underrepresented in a street- based survey, survey quotas were created to reach individuals and heads of family households living in these programs. Strategic attempts were also made to reach individuals in various geographic locations and of various subset groups such as homeless youth, minority ethnic groups, military veterans, domestic violence survivors, and families. One way to increase the participation of these groups was to recruit peer survey workers. Since 2009, the ASR survey methodology has prioritized a peer-to-peer approach to data collection by increasing the number of currently homeless surveyors. In order to increase randomization of sample respondents, survey workers were trained to employ an “every third encounter” survey approach. Survey workers were instructed to approach every third person they considered to be an eligible survey respondent. If the person declined to take the survey, the survey worker could approach the next eligible person they encountered. After completing a survey, the randomized approach was resumed.
And their self-admitted problems with their methodology:
The 2019 San Francisco Homeless Survey methodology relies heavily on self-reported data collected from peer surveyors and program staff. While self-report allows individuals to represent their own experiences, self-reported data are often more variable than clinically reported data. However, using a peer-to-peer interviewing methodology is believed to allow respondents to be more candid with their answers and to help reduce the uneasiness of revealing personal information. Further, service providers and City staff members recommended individuals who would be the best suited to conducting interviews and these individuals received comprehensive training about how to conduct interviews. Service providers and City staff also reviewed the surveys to ensure quality responses. Surveys that were considered incomplete or containing false responses were not accepted, the process for which included reviewing individual surveys submitted by surveyors and assessing patterns in survey responses for inconsistencies. It is important to recognize that variations between survey years may result from shifts in the demographic profiles of surveyors and accessibility to certain populations. Survey confidence intervals presented indicate the level of variability that may occur from year to year when interpreting findings. While every effort was made to collect surveys from a random and diverse sample of sheltered and unsheltered individuals, the hard-to-reach nature of the population experiencing homelessness prevents a true random sampling. Recruitment of diverse and geographically dispersed surveyors was prioritized. However, equal survey participation across all populations may be limited by the participation and adequate representation of subpopulations in planning and implementation processes. This includes persons living in vehicles, who are historically difficult to enumerate and survey.
Edit :To your point:
Is this a representative sample? I would survey most egregious cases first -- the zombies milling about the UN plaza in the open air drug market. The shitters, shooters, hitters, harassers, yellers. Maybe the ones with the most encounters with police.
I am not sure how this would be a more representative sample of the homeless population as a whole. I do think that for many matters involving the homeless it would be far more useful to drill into the disruptive + perennial homeless population rather than those who are unobtrusive or temporary. Though there are obvious difficulties in collecting data on those actively working against you doing so.
jericho
5mo ago
My understanding is that while there is not a shortage of prospective adoptive parents for babies, there is one for children.
jericho
10mo ago
While I played a bit of Minecraft early on, it was VERY early on, pre-nether.
During the summer of 2020 many of my friends and family, including those who hadn't played many video games in years, were stuck inside more for obvious reasons. So one of my friends spun up a Minecraft server for everyone to play on.
Between the new stuff added to the game in my long absence, the fresh world and people playing and building stuff at all hours (between furloughs, different shifts and different time zones) I was constantly discovering new things while playing and was often sharing that experience with people who I had not talked to as much as I'd have liked in recent years due to diverging paths in life.
Died down over time, once again for obvious reasons, but for a month or two it recaptured the feeling of playing games with friends back in elementary.
Didn't make up for all the stuff we couldn't do, but it definitely helped take the edge off.
jericho
9d ago
It's interesting, the people I know who have had one night stands and have talked about it did in fact have them at either their or their partner's residence.
I think a major factor is that most of them were having these one night stands while young and/or broke, so getting a hotel for the night would not be a negligible expense.
I think another factor is that you maintain the thinnest veneer of plausible deniability that you're just going to hang out when inviting someone back to your place, whereas there's no reason to go to a hotel/motel with someone you met at a bar except to fuck.
jericho
1mo ago
I think there is something to your main thrust re: locus of control, but:
Good luck finding a successful woke person placing their hand on their heart and saying "I acknowledge that my success is partly a result of my dad buying me a house when I was 21 and getting me an internship in Lockheed Martin because the CEO is his golfing buddy."
I have multiple progressive friends who would absolutely say that they were given significant advantages due to their family connections. I do think it helps that in several of the cases it would be absolutely ridiculous for them to claim otherwise (probably a lot easier to disavow your dad being the golfing buddy of a CEO than your dad being a CEO or if your last name is on a building at the college you went to).
Though if anything that further supports your main argument.
jericho
8mo ago
since RtWP is a vastly superior mechanic for CRPGs than turn-based gameplay (because it allows one to fast-forward through trash encounters and to play at one's own pace).
Why have encounters that involve no real decision-making? At that point just cut those ones and have interesting encounters give better rewards. I get maybe having one or two an act just to embrace a power fantasy, but a system being better for grinding isn't much of an endorsement when you can just design the game without grinding.
Now, can be a completely separate issue that the encounters are poorly designed, but then it makes more sense to me to spend more time tuning the encounters rather than slapping in a fast forward button.
A big part of this is because of the direct translation of many 5e mechanics into a game, which is ridiculous since they were designed for abstraction to make tabletop play viable. The combat system has too many actions...
I feel the overall complaint is correct, but much of the issue of too many actions are a result of it NOT being a direct translation of 5e. Bonus action shoving, dipping as a thing at all, bonus action throwing things and all the short-rest weapon abilities etc were added on by Larian to basically give martials more stuff to do.
D&D itemization is fine for tabletop campaigns where you can carry a handful of items, your inventory is a box on a lined piece of paper and there are three combat encounters in a 4 hour session, but it works less well in a game where there are mountains of loot and players are used to more interesting itemization than +2 swords or things that provide a single-point increase in one stat.
The inventory management is absolutely trash, especially given separate inventories between characters and the extra steps to swap characters in and out to access their inventories.
That said, I'd say Larian did an OK job tackling half of this complaint (the loot in BG3 is generally a lot more interesting than base 5e), but made the other half far worse- the absolute deluge of magic items you run into is not standard 5e, it much more resembles Pathfinder. Looking at the table from the DMG for starting at higher levels makes it clear how absolutely loaded down with loot you are in BG3, before considering that without attunement slots you're also not only collecting but using a lot more.
This also makes the above issue with too many abilities worse, as many of the more interesting magic items are more interesting because they bestow yet more abilities.
This ought not to be taken as a defense of 5e, more showing that it can be hard to parse out issues with 5e, issues with Larian games in general (obsession with barrels, bottles and surfaces) and issues with BG3 as a result of Larian trying to fix issues with 5e.
Radical Feminism is (and especially was) primarily defined in contrast to Liberal Feminism and Marxist Feminism. While Liberal Feminism is primarily concerned with women gaining equality before the law and Marxist Feminism is primarily concerned with dismantling capitalism (as it sees oppression of women as downstream from exploitation of labor and the ownership of private property), Radical Feminism holds that the oppression of women is part of a broader system of patriarchy where women are dominated by men and that equality cannot be achieved by equality before the law or the dismantling of capitalism as the patriarchal social structures would still remain.
Most modern western Feminists who actually actively call themselves Feminists are in fact Radical Feminists, though they usually identify primarily with one of its offshoots. Think of like how a wide variety of different Christian denominations are still Nicene Christians, despite their other disagreements on matters of theology and identification. Someone specifically identifying themselves as "Nicene Christian" or refusing to get more specific than "Christian" probably tells you they have some theological disagreements with other people who would also be accurately described as "Nicene Christians", but they agree on some key elements.
Arguably a lot of Marxist Feminists are more "Radical" in their beliefs/methods than actual "Radical" Feminists, much like "Gay" Republicans are probably not that much happier (if at all happier) than straight ones.
jericho
5mo ago
jericho
7mo ago
I love the irony that baseball cards from your father's era are valuable because kids played with them (and ruined them) and Moms threw out the collection later, while baseball cards from my era are still totally worthless because everyone from my childhood saved them in archival quality protetive materials (I still remember kids arguing about the merits of various cardboard boxes and plastic pockets sheets) for long term storage.
The exact same thing happened to comic books, of course. At least that has the advantage of it not being too expensive to read old (but-not-too-old) series.
jericho
1mo ago
I'll admit that's a trend, especially in the AAA open world design space, but I don't see why things have to be that way. There are plenty of other games where they're still designed for Alice, then Bob is thrown a bone by cranking his modifiers up and his enemy's modifiers down until he can faceroll it.
If you still need the Bobs to think the game is designed for them since they're your biggest market segment, just do what Bungie did for Halo 3: design your game around the "Heroic" mode, then rename your "Easy" mode to "Normal" so the Bobs don't feel insulted.
For a slightly more recent example, that's how the Owlcat Pathfinder games work as well. "Core" / "Challenging" utilizes the actual rules for the system, while "Normal" gives the player a variety of cheats to smooth out the experience.
May be worth noting the difference is almost entirely due to a growth in the bisexual category.
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