efaardvark

iPhone 8.  Can’t recommend it.

Building in Planet Nomad.  I get so distracted building stuff that I forget to actually play the game.  The only time I even look at the mission objectives is when I need to unlock a part to build with.   I'm like that in other games like Kerbal Space Program too.  The only reason I do contracts is to have $$ to buy parts to build stuff with, or to get science points to unlock more parts to build better stuff with.

5 hours ago, Ohiotaku said:

Episode 7 - A drinking game where you have to recite prime numbers ... I’d have trouble with that while sober Also funny seeing what kind of drunk the various characters are. 2nd half was Himuro offering retellings of different fairytales with herself & Yukimura as the romantic leads.  @efaardvark Think you’ll appreciate her conclusion to Princess Kaguya .

I, er, may have played that game.  Well, not the reciting bit.  The rules were/are that you take turns calling out the next higher prime number from the last call.  If your number is not prime or you miss a prime in the sequence - and someone calls you on it - then you .  If you call someone's number not-prime and it turns out it actually is prime then you .  Aids like paper or phones or computers are not allowed except for figuring to settle disputes.  Winner is the last one standing, or the person with the last correct prime when the booze runs out.  I don't remember who won, but I think we made it to 5 digits.      

I still haven't watched past ep 2.  Sounds like I have some stuff to look forward to.

But can AMD's new ($4,000) 3990X CPU run Crysis? 

Yes.  Yes it can.  Without a GPU.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LaKH5etJoE

This one is worth listening to at least twice.  (At least.)  Listen once before you see the movie so when you get to that one part... and once after to remember it.

I'd agree with Wolf's Rain.  Also Angel Beats!, Your Lie in April, Clannad: After Story, and AnoHana (that I can think of offhand) all had an episode or two that was pretty intense.

Looks like a new minecraft snapshot for 1.16 just dropped.  New nether biomes!  And netherite.. better than diamonds for tools and armor, and it floats on lava!  The bad news is that it is extremely rare, and only found under lava in the nether.

https://youtu.be/jxLytC1nAIo

Manaria Friends.. shortend-form (10x15min eps) iyashikei.  Cute, simple.  Not exciting or fancy like the others in the Shingenki no Bahamut ilk, but that's how these things are supposed to be.

7 hours ago, TigerLily said:

I would love to visit there for a few weeks as a holiday but I dont see myself wanting to move there.

I would love to learn the language, I really like the meals, but my love of anime really isn't enough for me to move simply because my family, friends and life in general is here where I am now. I love travel but I'm prone to homesickness.

I know a bit of the language, and I like a lot of the food (and the presentation).  Anime wouldn't be enough for me either, but add in Akihabara where there's video games, manga, and all sorts of electronics (did I mention that I'm also an EE?) as well as anime and cosplay....  That's hard for me to say no to.    I mean, we don't even have Radio Shack over here in the states anymore.

14 hours ago, Ohiotaku said:

@Seshi It gets much worse in season 3. The longer he remains trapped in the game, the more of his “humanity” he loses. Fans point to this dark aspect as to what sets it apart from other isekai, but it can make it hard to watch at times. I’m not entirely sure I could make it through a season 4 if one gets made the way things are progressing. Not to discourage anyone, but just a heads up on the direction it takes.

Yes, it definitely has a dark side if you think about it.  At least through season 3 he still seems to be doing things mostly for the "right" reasons intellectually speaking, but without emotion or empathy.  By the end he certainly has no problem (for instance) killing people on a massive scale and without a second thought if they get in his way or it serves his purpose.  He even remarks on it himself with a kind of "no big deal" attitude.  

By the end I was kind of getting bored of it though.  I mean, he's so overpowered, especially with Albedo and the rest, that I started to wonder what's the point of it all?

WINDY, clear, and cold!  Gusting to 20kph officially, but our anemometer is reading 5-10 beyond that on/over our roof.  Currently about 11C (50F), and overnight is supposed to get down to single digits.  That's cold for this California native, especially considering wind-chill!  Going to be "fun" dragging my a-- out of bed and getting to work tomorrow.

For the trivial pursuit fans out there...

I just realized.  That computer in the background behind Yukimura's head?  The desktop looks a lot like Canonical's Unity desktop that came with Ubuntu's linux (among others) up until ca. 16.04.  Ubuntu installs > 16 have switched to gnome by default, but Unity was my desktop for several years before they made the change so it was pretty obvious what the animators were basing their desktop on once I noticed.

Compare...

to..

(latter from wikipedia )

The background wallpaper is a different color, but if you look at the icons in the dock down the left side of the screen they bear a strong resemblance to your typical gnome user's dock.  Especially the"swirly" (dash launcher) icon in the upper left corner of the screen is a giveaway.  Even now Ubuntu is still using that 3-lobed circle thingy prominently in their logo.  The other icons look very much like (now) LibreOffice's icons for their suite of spreadsheet, text editor, drawing, and presentation programs that also typically get installed by default on Ubuntu linux.

Sorry, I just had to mention this once I noticed.  Carry on...  

2 hours ago, Ohiotaku said:

For me:

Funniest moment so far

  Hide contents

the experiment where Kanade is supposed to feed Yukimura (“Say ahh...”), but Himuro keeps chomping it

Most romantic moment so far

  Hide contents

Yukimura going off on that guy who was trying to flirt with Himuro

Next week is supposed to introduce the effects of alcohol into the equation ... can’t wait 

I'm liking this one too.  Only seen 2 episodes so far though.  I'll probably do my usual end-of-season binge.

12 hours ago, IIVIsouljam said:

I have a friend that's in love with this show and I've been thinking about checking it out myself. When you can, let us know what you think! I'm very curious. 

Sure, though it might be a while.  I usually watch only a couple episodes early on in the season.  If I like it then I put it on a list of shows to binge-watch at the end of the season.  I like what I've seen so far, but I probably won't watch any more until then.

42 minutes ago, Seshi said:

Glad you found something. Hope its interesting!

 

I'm still watching a lot of currently airing, but have also been watching Overlord! Overlord 2 is next. I love this anime, and I was so skeptical to even start it lol

I’m only 2 episodes in on science types.  I don’t know how it’ll turn out, but the visuals are fun so far.

I had kind of had the same reaction to Overlord.  I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did.

Just added Science-Types to my to-watch list.  I think it got me with the wagging ponytail thing.  

I’ve never seen one that looks much like me.  Not too many anime characters in my age group for one thing.

I don’t know if a giant real-life Gundam is considered cosplay, strictly speaking, but this topic looks like it could use a bump.

(Mods please feel free to [re]move as appropriate.)

I'm a dragon in the eastern zodiac and a virgo in the western.

Of course, being virgo I don't believe in any of it.   

The Island of Giant Insects

yep, it is as bad as it sounds.     

3 hours ago, The History Kid said:

But a laser is a laser.  It will read whatever you put in front of it.

Kind of.  There's a physics limit as well.  Shorter-wavelength (bluer) light can focus to a tighter/smaller spot than longer-wavelength (red or infra-red), so they can get more bit density with bluer BD tech than the "redder" wavelengths used on DVDs and CDs.  The tracking technology has improved a bit over the years as well.  Again, older CDs are the worst, so they can't read the closer-packed lines of spots on a DVD disc, and DVD drives can't read BR discs.  Bottom line is that Blu-ray technology can read CDs and DVDs, but the longer-wavelength lasers and less-accurate servos in DVD and CD drives simply can't read or track the lines of smaller spots on BR discs.

That said, it is fundamentally correct that there's no hardware reason a new PS5 couldn't be compatible with older PSs.  Assuming they include an optical drive at all then it would have to be blu-ray compatible these days, and if they have that then they'd get CD- and DVD-compatibility for free.  Same deal with CPU and GPU and memory.  Modern hardware can easily handle legacy titles at the same or better performance and cheaper cost.  Probably not even (much of) a software issue either.

And yes, gamestop is full of crap. 

Checking out Planet Nomads today.  It recently achieved v1.0 - with the inevitable post-release patches it is now at 1.0.6 - so I thought it was probably a good time to give it another look.

2 hours ago, Illusion of Terra said:

I think they are expecting people to have at least 10 fold that in the future though, especially since most people won't be at AT&T  But yeah still, latency could be quite an issue.

That’s right, rub it in!     (  )

Speaking of which, the latest in the fiber install saga is that AT&T missed yet another appointment!!   That’s 4 for 4!  I got ahold of their loyalty number and went in yelling.  I was aiming for the CEOs desk this time.  (Of course he wasn’t available.  Probably out golfing with Trump.   )  I did get a half-off deal on our service for a year however, including our two phone lines.  Of course, that isn’t worth jack if they never actually get around to installing it.   BBB and FCC have also already been notified, though in the latter case that agency has already been Trumpified as well so that’s probably a wasted effort.  Making America Grate Again!

On 1/23/2020 at 7:17 AM, Illusion of Terra said:

I think the PS5 seems quite decent, especially because of the backwards compatibility. I wonder how many more console generations there will be, however. I'd expect them to run the games from a server in the future and just stream them. Maybe I'm just oversimplifying things though and games in the future will be too big to be streamed in any way.

 I’d like to like consoles but they’re just too locked down.  If they ever make a console that accepts mods, I’m there.  Until then I’ll stick with my PC.

As for streaming, I see 2 problems there.  First is bandwidth.  How does a FPS in HD work over my ~7mb/s DSL at anything like acceptable frame rates and latency?  It probably doesn’t.

2nd is kind of the same problem that I have with existing consoles.. lock-in, which leads to expensive content, user-farming (loot boxes, etc), and less value for your money.  Apps that I don’t physically take possession of and that require an expensive console that can turn into a useless brick at any time some company decides they’re not making enough profit are basically a non-starter With me, especially if it takes “my” entire software library with it.  At least with existing consoles I can generally continue to run in single-player mode from the cart/disc until the hardware itself breaks.

To be sure there is interesting possibilities inherent in the streaming console idea.  Multi-player games are hard to do if there is much physics interaction between players and it all has to be coordinated individually, without recourse to a server.  If the whole “physics” environment is simulated in the servers’ local memory and just control inputs and visual/audible results streamed from/to a remote console someplace then that limits the required bandwidth and compute power for massively multiplayer games even as it opens up new gaming possibilities on the development side.

I'm interested to see where consoles go from here.  At the same time I’m in no rush to be in the bleeding edge.  

Some updated info on crunchy..

https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2020/01/21-1/third-season-of-smash-hit-anime-log-horizon-announced