Bechuga
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Posts posted by Bechuga
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The only game there of moderate excitement to me is the No More Heroes title. Can't exactly say I'm excited at the thought of buying a console for one game.
One more round of an unsuccessful console and Nintendo will be forced to start selling its software via other means. If you all band together, you can do this. You'll be able to play the new Zelda on a PS4 one day, if you all just choose not to support their ridiculous consoles. I believe in you, Nintendo fans. Make this the day you put your foot down and cancel your preorder. You hold the keys to the future.
This, Nintendo has been rubbish for ages.
Thing is, I don't really want a PS4 either. Why not just make the Nintendo shop stretch onto the ole interweb and let me play it on my PC? I'll gladly buy it for the PC if they did!
Eventually, I'm sure it will. But Nintendo has for years been very worried about piracy, so I doubt they'd jump to an 'open' ecosystem like PC any time soon. They're just now dipping their toes in the waters with Mario Go on iOS (I'm sure Apple touted how secure their gaming platform was, and you did hear about how the game has to always be connected online, because of piracy concerns? yeah.), and eventually Android, they'll try and stay in 'secure' ecosystems where they can charge ridiculous amounts of money for their aging/near-worthless IPs. The whole thing about their incoming online service being paid, and to seem competitive they're giving subscribers a free game to play each month...but only to play during that month, unlike of course PS and XBox. We're talking Nintendo games, 30 years old. They're all about making every last cent off of every ounce of nostalgia and return on their marketing dollars spent on the new generation. And its working, cause tons of Zelda fans are gonna spend around $400 ($300, +$60 game, + various accessories just to make the console not a fucking hassle to use as its intended) just to play that one game.
I ain't knocking you if you do, though. If it's worth it to you and you've got the cash to spend, go for it. Maybe it'll turn out to be a great console, who knows. Original Wii looked ridiculous at first, but it turned out to be decent. I sure bought a PS4 when Bloodborne came out, played nothing but it for months. Each to their own, I just want to be able to play Super Mario 3 on my Playstation god damn it.
I don't want a Switch either was my point, esp. if for just one game and likely not many more down the line. By which I mean if there's only one game I want, I doubt I will buy it. For the PS4, would really like to play Ratchet & Clank + Let it Die but I ain't buying a console for two games.
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The only game there of moderate excitement to me is the No More Heroes title. Can't exactly say I'm excited at the thought of buying a console for one game.
One more round of an unsuccessful console and Nintendo will be forced to start selling its software via other means. If you all band together, you can do this. You'll be able to play the new Zelda on a PS4 one day, if you all just choose not to support their ridiculous consoles. I believe in you, Nintendo fans. Make this the day you put your foot down and cancel your preorder. You hold the keys to the future.
This, Nintendo has been rubbish for ages.
Thing is, I don't really want a PS4 either. Why not just make the Nintendo shop stretch onto the ole interweb and let me play it on my PC? I'll gladly buy it for the PC if they did!
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Forgot to mention I'm also reading a little book of short stories by Nicola Barker, Heading Inland, which includes a man who feeds his hand to an owl. Classy stuff. And I have a copy of White Noise to work when I finish Shark by Will Self. Looking forward to it!
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Man, there's gonna be so many fake Switch trailers
Also lol
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I mean, does that novel also contain a scene with a professor sleeping with and stalking his students, or pushing an ex- out of a moving car?It's funny cuz he was reenacting a scene from a Don Delillo (DFW's fav author) novel.
I bet it's all just scenes from his favorite books, and he was perfectly moral and rational, and it's all just performance art.
edit: and don't forget that most of his non-fiction was made up, that's pretty important
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I'm saying DFW bought a gun in order to kill his crush's husbandwhat are you trying to say here, in a Wittgensteinian way
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Switch reviewed by time travellers on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nintendo-UK-Switch-Grey/dp/B01MFADJFV/ref=sr_tnr_p_1_videogames_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484484884&sr=8-1&keywords=switch+nintendo+console
My name is Luke, I am a time traveller from the year 2020. In 2017 Nintendo launched their new console: the Nintendo switch… one month later, in a shock announcement, Sega announced the Dreamcast 2. The release of the “Dreamiercast” created a rift right through the gaming community, thus beginning the second Nintendo vs Sega war….
Everyone picked a side. It was calm in the beginning, just the usual Facebook keyboard battles… “Mario is just a fat plumber who can’t run fast”…”Sonic can’t even fix a boiler”… admittedly these arguments were not the most creative…
Sadly, things quickly escalated into violence in the streets. Over the last 3 years I’ve lost many… too many to count. I was in my underground bunker, hoping that the roof would continue to hold through the next round of bombings. I was alone… I couldn’t let anyone else see my dark secret… a secret I was too scared to reveal… I owned both consoles. I thought it was logical, that way I could play all the best games, surely I could be on both sides right?
I wasn’t the only one. Phil owned both too, he shouted about it to everyone, claiming he’d found enlightenment. Instead of becoming the saviour he believed himself to be, he became the enemy to both sides, and they (literally) ripped him apart in the streets.
I knew I had to do something… to find a way to save everyone. The only way was to go back in time and stop the Dreamiercast from ever launching. It was too late for the switch, Nintendo would just do something else, but it wouldn’t take much to stop Sega and convince them they should stay as software developers.
Using components from both consoles I created a time machine. I travelled back to 2015 and went straight to Sega with a new idea- Sonic Mania. The idea was so genius that they immediately abandoned project Dreamiercast and put all their resources into Sonic Mania. The war was prevented, I saved everyone.
Sadly, as the Dreamiercast no longer exists in your future, my time machine has ceased to exist also, meaning I have been trapped in your time ever since.
I thought I was the only one… until now. Seeing these 70+ reviews for the Nintendo switch has made me realise that there must have been others who have also tried the console and then travelled back in time and left a review of what it was like. To you all I say- hello my brothers, I am sure you fought well. Together we will help shape a more united future.
Anyway, I’ve gone off track from my review… the Nintendo switch was a fun console - 3/5. -
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Only game I'm somewhat excited to hear more of is Suda 51's new game featuring Travis Touchdown. Can probably wait until a price decrease.
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lol @ keanu
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Reading The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey as research, pretty good so far and exactly what I need. Recommendations on other good books relating to epigenetics, normal genetics and similar material are welcome.
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If you want to cheer yourself up Span, read The Depressed Person by DFW. Very uplifting.
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Will read Delillo this year, I'm looking forward to it.
Finished Midnight's Children, super good book. Also finished a short story by Sam Delany called the Star Pit (at Spiral's urging) and it's also super good. Will have to check out some of his novels (need to top up my sci-fi reserves).
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Can't really remember what I read last year that came out that year, so I'll just say Jerusalem was the best book I read in 2016.
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Played & finished Kane & Lynch 2 with a buddy, was fun and enjoyably nihilistic / pointless plotwise. Now we're digging into Borderlands 2, this being my third time restarting from the beginning. But it's so fun I do not mind at all.
Also so many games bought in the Xmas sales on Steam. Now to find time to play the things.
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My 1080 CD shelf wasn't big enough for my collection.
Always assumed I had around 400-500 CDs, not over a thousand. Need to downsize. -
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Bookshelf I ordered is being delivered by a terrible delivery company we use at my workplace (UK Mail: has a 1.5 out of 5 rating on Google which is accurate), and their drivers--especially the driver who works this area--treat the parcels like shit. I know this for a fact because I load the parcels onto this driver's van every night, and he completely ignores bright FRAGILE or THIS WAY UP labels, throwing the parcels into his van like a bank robber chucking bags of cash into a getaway vehicle. I can only imagine what shape my bookshelf will arrive in, and that he know it is me who complains about the condition of it. I pray the bookshelve is so sturdy it survives his manhandling of it.
And he will probably arrive so goddamn early it will ruin one of my few lie-ins I get. And he will see me in my pyjamas.
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Ridley Scott did make the planet in Prometheus beautiful, and has done the same in that last trailer. My gripe w/r/t Prometheus was it seemed to be a mix of two competing ideas/approaches: an expensive art house movie with ruminations on where we came from with genre-standard horror/splatter sequences. The fact everyone died barring two characters seemed to ruin it for me: if a few other people than just the robot and new Ripley survived, maybe it wouldn't feel so blatantly confused (why would Theron's character be so dumb to not simply roll sidewards and avoid the ship? Why did Idris and his co-pilots all decide to die together for not much reason? Contrived to fulfil Fassbander + Scandanavian Girl adventures).
A really great film to watch with the dialogue muted though with some good sci-fi music on (is it me or is all dialogue in films atrocious lately? Seems to be written so you can understand the film while using your smartphone for the duration...) and the director's commentary is hilarious (Scott telling movie bosses to go fuck themselves).
Didn't hate it though, and I'm not exactly a movie fan nowadays. Might see the next, depending on how long it is.
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Been reading Mason & Dixon for a few weeks now and it's so wonderful, easy to call it a favourite of mine already. It also fits the season perfectly…don't think anything could ever reach the level of cosiness Pynchon is delivering in those Rvd. Cherrycoke narration breaks. Also, how wildly funny is this? A talking dog? An UFO abduction? Smoking pot on the Washington estate? The Iliad of Inconvenience?
Then again, it has these enchantingly beautiful moments, like when John Harland left his farm and wife to tag along with the two stargazers…and later stood in the sunflower field, having romantic thoughts for the first time in his life.
Ten outta ten.
Going to read Against the Day next I think, just for that historical continuity. Has anyone here read it?
I finished AtD this year. I liked it but don't think it's quite on the same level as Mason & Dixon, although it has plenty of moments worth reading it for (all those Pynchon feels & allusions to other works of his...). My crit of it is that it feels like a much longer book that has been cut down, which makes certain sections feel rushed or not quite explanatory enough. Undone by his own methods I reckon.
Overall I liked either Mason & Dixon or Vineland the most out of his works. M&D felt just right in terms of difficulty and cosiness reading wise, plus Mason & Dixon are just swell to hang around with. Sort of sad when you have to let them go.
Interesting how you liked Vineland best as it often gets a really bad rep (alongside AtD), any particular reason for that? I've had in on my shelf for ages without opening it but obviously I will at some point.
It has all the familiar density of his other work but more concise and easier to approach, along with just as crazy scenes as his other books (insurance investigator on the trail of Godzilla?! sky pirates boarding planes in mid-air?!) along with a strange book structure that isn't normal for his work. Seems somewhat different to his other books, in a way I really enjoyed.
I do find it sad Vineland gets such a bad rep, which I suspect is due to the 17 year wait between that and Rainbow, and all those critics disappointed it wasn't Rainbow 2. In my opinion, it's everything Pynchon can be in a tighter package (shorter than V.). If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend you start! Critics don't know shit.
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Then read Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom, which was fascinating and terrifying at the same time. So many factors to ai that i'd never even begun to consider. Great book, would recommend to anyone who wants to be left deeply paranoid about the future.
Great book by a great thinker
However, the general AI conversation is rife with blind spots
Everyone seems to assume that if you just create a smart brain and give it some senses, all of its beliefs about the world will naturally be 100% true, and it will thus act like economists used to think humans acted pre-Behavioral Economics (i.e. with perfect and complete information, perfect rationality, perfect self-control and perfect regard for their future)
Well, no
AI will be susceptible to superstition and mental illness
Because those things aren't uniquely human
Rather, they emerge as a result of limited information about the environment
Coupled with preferences/motivational states and personality
Why did Skinner's pigeon exhibit superstition when you punished (or rewarded) it in random intervals?
Well, it's not because pigeons are stupid
Imagine what it would require for the pigeon to have accurate beliefs about its situation: it would have to understand Skinner's mind, and whatever randomness generator he was using to dole out random punishments
This probably sounds daft, but AIs will suffer trauma
(The potential for trauma emerges simply from having preferences)
AIs will have delusions (delusions are simply 'pigeon superstition' in the face of limited information about the environment)
AIs will display OCD and PTSD
Because these things are not uniquely human
They are emergent properties of simply having preferences
Read Ted Chiang's story The Lifecycle of Software Objects, which is about the accidental creation of pet AIs and the traumas / lives they live. I suspect this will be right up your alley: http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_lifecycle_of_software_objects_by_ted_chiang/
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Been reading Mason & Dixon for a few weeks now and it's so wonderful, easy to call it a favourite of mine already. It also fits the season perfectly…don't think anything could ever reach the level of cosiness Pynchon is delivering in those Rvd. Cherrycoke narration breaks. Also, how wildly funny is this? A talking dog? An UFO abduction? Smoking pot on the Washington estate? The Iliad of Inconvenience?
Then again, it has these enchantingly beautiful moments, like when John Harland left his farm and wife to tag along with the two stargazers…and later stood in the sunflower field, having romantic thoughts for the first time in his life.
Ten outta ten.
Going to read Against the Day next I think, just for that historical continuity. Has anyone here read it?
I finished AtD this year. I liked it but don't think it's quite on the same level as Mason & Dixon, although it has plenty of moments worth reading it for (all those Pynchon feels & allusions to other works of his...). My crit of it is that it feels like a much longer book that has been cut down, which makes certain sections feel rushed or not quite explanatory enough. Undone by his own methods I reckon.
Overall I liked either Mason & Dixon or Vineland the most out of his works. M&D felt just right in terms of difficulty and cosiness reading wise, plus Mason & Dixon are just swell to hang around with. Sort of sad when you have to let them go.
Always assumed I had around 400-500 CDs, not over a thousand. Need to downsize.
What Video Games Are You Currently Playing
in General Banter
Posted
Hoping for a few more Wii U sales before saying 'btw, you can play Wii U games on the switch'
And by 'few' I do mean 'few', as in 'not many'