A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that it was impossible to find objective information about Republican politicians. Now it's so bad that dictionaries can't even be trusted.
Are we going to now need a "Conservictionary"? Or "DictionaryChute"? I mentioned this to wifey and her reply was, "They would probably wind up like Gab-- needing to host their own servers, getting their financing cut off, just for running a dictionary with actual, objective definitions."
Dictionaries Politicized - 15:07 CDT, 10/22/20 (Sniper)
Spasmodic - 13:24 CDT, 10/22/20 (Sniper)
I hurt my back several days ago and haven't really been able to sit in a chair without spasms until today-- hence the inactivity on this site. Besides that, I've been at the bug out house meeting with contractors, trying to organize a potential addition for that home-- a project which has been taking up a ton of my time.
In any event, I've been on a roll with Styx lately, it's no wonder he has such a following: he really knows his stuff. He's obviously extremely bright and absorbs information by the bucket loads-- here he is discussing virology, a topic he probably knows more about than many doctors at this point.
Other than that, just been playing a lot of Flight Simulator, practicing with different planes, and working through the second-of-three bush trips. Also very excited for the PlayStation 5: getting close now.
In any event, I've been on a roll with Styx lately, it's no wonder he has such a following: he really knows his stuff. He's obviously extremely bright and absorbs information by the bucket loads-- here he is discussing virology, a topic he probably knows more about than many doctors at this point.
Other than that, just been playing a lot of Flight Simulator, practicing with different planes, and working through the second-of-three bush trips. Also very excited for the PlayStation 5: getting close now.
TDS Pandemic - 08:05 CDT, 10/17/20 (Sniper)
I've been listening to Styx a bit lately, and while he could very well be right that the polls are cooked, he could also be underestimating TDS.
I know a few people who are so deranged, trying to find any possible excuse to vote against Trump, that they've even gone so far as to-- in their brains-- not only make this election a referendum on the vice-presidential tickets, but to somehow contort themselves into a pretzel by claiming that Cameltoe is somehow preferable to Pence!
Lots of women don't like Pence because he doesn't support brutally murdering unborn babies and then vacuuming the body part remains out of the womb-- I get it, and the Democrat politicians feed off of that mass "I want abortion as birth control so I can lead an irresponsible, immoral, profligate bar-hopping one-night-stand lifestyle so common with young women like me these days" sentiment. That's the heart of why the mainstream media dumps on Pence, and why he has a negative reputation among some voters. Abortion is a massive special interests power lever for the Democrats.
But even for people who somehow favor abortion, Cameltoe has far more views and actual historical actions which that same abortion-loving crowd would undoubtedly find highly objectionable-- such as massive penalties for petty drug possession or suppressing evidence which would set innocent people free. Not only that, but when put up against Pence in absolutely any other regard-- statesman-like qualities, temperament, experience, and job qualifications just to name a few-- the two aren't even on the same planet. Thinking that Cameltoe is somehow the better vice-presidential material is insane.
So back to Styx then: the TDS pandemic is very real. If it's so potent that people will resort to this degree of mental gymnastics, then all bets are off. The only hope is that it's not as widespread as I fear it may be.
I know a few people who are so deranged, trying to find any possible excuse to vote against Trump, that they've even gone so far as to-- in their brains-- not only make this election a referendum on the vice-presidential tickets, but to somehow contort themselves into a pretzel by claiming that Cameltoe is somehow preferable to Pence!
Lots of women don't like Pence because he doesn't support brutally murdering unborn babies and then vacuuming the body part remains out of the womb-- I get it, and the Democrat politicians feed off of that mass "I want abortion as birth control so I can lead an irresponsible, immoral, profligate bar-hopping one-night-stand lifestyle so common with young women like me these days" sentiment. That's the heart of why the mainstream media dumps on Pence, and why he has a negative reputation among some voters. Abortion is a massive special interests power lever for the Democrats.
But even for people who somehow favor abortion, Cameltoe has far more views and actual historical actions which that same abortion-loving crowd would undoubtedly find highly objectionable-- such as massive penalties for petty drug possession or suppressing evidence which would set innocent people free. Not only that, but when put up against Pence in absolutely any other regard-- statesman-like qualities, temperament, experience, and job qualifications just to name a few-- the two aren't even on the same planet. Thinking that Cameltoe is somehow the better vice-presidential material is insane.
So back to Styx then: the TDS pandemic is very real. If it's so potent that people will resort to this degree of mental gymnastics, then all bets are off. The only hope is that it's not as widespread as I fear it may be.
NFL Diseased - 17:36 CDT, 10/15/20 (Sniper)
If this were coming from someplace other than ESPN-- where they seemingly have zero sense of humor-- I would have thought it was satirical: the NFL is prohibiting players from participating even if they test negative for the WuFlu!
They give the example of Adrian Peterson, who was "not practicing Thursday due to an illness unrelated to COVID-19"-- as in, they knew it wasn't the WuFlu, and still wouldn't let him play! "We're always going to err on the side of safety..." These people would literally fail a basic logic test: "A = B, A = C, so B = D"-- they can't even extrapolate their own stated principle, to see how silly it is.
Not to mention, their entire sport involves smashing your body into other human beings at top speed, and busting them to the ground as hard as you can. Err on the side of safety...?
But then again, this is the same league that has broken the kickoff yet leaves it in place, which arbitrarily made field goals tougher to make, made it virtually impossible to tackle someone or defend a pass without breaking the rules, and which decided to have an already stop-start game stop-start with extra video replays every three minutes-- among dozens of other sport-ruining alterations.
It's a league long-governed by hyper-emotional over-reactionaries.
They give the example of Adrian Peterson, who was "not practicing Thursday due to an illness unrelated to COVID-19"-- as in, they knew it wasn't the WuFlu, and still wouldn't let him play! "We're always going to err on the side of safety..." These people would literally fail a basic logic test: "A = B, A = C, so B = D"-- they can't even extrapolate their own stated principle, to see how silly it is.
Not to mention, their entire sport involves smashing your body into other human beings at top speed, and busting them to the ground as hard as you can. Err on the side of safety...?
But then again, this is the same league that has broken the kickoff yet leaves it in place, which arbitrarily made field goals tougher to make, made it virtually impossible to tackle someone or defend a pass without breaking the rules, and which decided to have an already stop-start game stop-start with extra video replays every three minutes-- among dozens of other sport-ruining alterations.
It's a league long-governed by hyper-emotional over-reactionaries.
Return to Form - 11:00 CDT, 10/15/20 (Sniper)
Richard Leadbetter has mentioned several times that where the current generation of dedicated video game systems-- made in an era where people thought tablets were the future-- were created with conservatism in mind, this incoming crop of systems have been formulated with optimism as the key ingredient: dedicated to pushing hardware envelopes to the bleeding cost-performance red line. He's correct: but it goes even further than that.
In 2012, I sold a PlayStation 3, with which I was bored, and bought a Wii U, simply for lack of anything more interesting to spend the Gamestop store credit on. I liked the Wii U more or less, and in fact it was the first time-- however briefly, in the Wii U's case-- since the Nintendo 64 that the Big N had the most powerful console on the market.
But in general, the Wii U was never anything more than a "well why not" purchase, versus a system I was particularly passionate about. When the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One landed a year later, I simply couldn't have been less interested in those: they felt like marginal upgrades from the Wii U, the software in the hobby felt very derivative and lacking in innovation, while the experience in general had the overwhelming sensation of "more of the same, with a slightly prettier coat of paint."
I did eventually buy a used Xbox One at a low price, but got bored with it quickly, and sold it. "What happened to the days of the Xbox 360?", I wondered?
The Xbox 360 was an incredibly innovative machine: it had full 16:9 HDTV support across the board; it invented the concept of "Achievements"; it invented the concept of having a parallel library of smaller, digital games ("Xbox Live Arcade"); and the graphics were a jaw-dropping leap over the original Xbox-- remember "Oblivion", or the spider crawling out of the cave ceiling in "Gears of War"?
When I watched this; video earlier today, it immediately invoked the sensation that these new systems are on the Xbox 360 side of the spectrum, versus the opposing PlayStation 4 end-- to put it mildly: many of these new user interface features are absolutely game changing, and simply would not have been possible at any earlier junction.
And that's not even getting to the hardware: RTX 2070-to-2080 levels of performance, with real-time ray tracing, and better-than-PC levels of IO and memory bandwidth. Obviously "Ampere" puts them to shame, and with DLSS even "Turing" is faster in supported games-- but the leap from the PlayStation 4 Pro to the PlayStation 5 is substantial, as I realized yesterday while flipping through my catalog of screenshots on the former. And that's before the ever-present "targeted one set of specs console-specific" enhancements are taken into account.
But there's even more: for the first time in my entire life, "old" games really are feeling "old"; the real-time Machine Learning and AI integration in the new "Flight Simulator" has totally opened my eyes, and for the first time since the shift to texture-mapped polygons, I think we're going to see game software match the sentiment I laid out above regarding system software: these new kinds of games will fundamentally, at their most basic levels, not have been possible at any earlier point in history.
I'll forever love the sheer artistry, authenticity, and originality of games like "Sonic the Hedgehog" or "Star Control II"-- and I think those will always be the ageless classics I continue to replay over and over as the years roll by. But on the flip side, I've noticed that 2020 is the first year where I've found myself playing very few old games on a day-to-day basis, relatively-- and I think that's a testament to new games finally starting to do fresh things again.
In 2012, I sold a PlayStation 3, with which I was bored, and bought a Wii U, simply for lack of anything more interesting to spend the Gamestop store credit on. I liked the Wii U more or less, and in fact it was the first time-- however briefly, in the Wii U's case-- since the Nintendo 64 that the Big N had the most powerful console on the market.
But in general, the Wii U was never anything more than a "well why not" purchase, versus a system I was particularly passionate about. When the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One landed a year later, I simply couldn't have been less interested in those: they felt like marginal upgrades from the Wii U, the software in the hobby felt very derivative and lacking in innovation, while the experience in general had the overwhelming sensation of "more of the same, with a slightly prettier coat of paint."
I did eventually buy a used Xbox One at a low price, but got bored with it quickly, and sold it. "What happened to the days of the Xbox 360?", I wondered?
The Xbox 360 was an incredibly innovative machine: it had full 16:9 HDTV support across the board; it invented the concept of "Achievements"; it invented the concept of having a parallel library of smaller, digital games ("Xbox Live Arcade"); and the graphics were a jaw-dropping leap over the original Xbox-- remember "Oblivion", or the spider crawling out of the cave ceiling in "Gears of War"?
When I watched this; video earlier today, it immediately invoked the sensation that these new systems are on the Xbox 360 side of the spectrum, versus the opposing PlayStation 4 end-- to put it mildly: many of these new user interface features are absolutely game changing, and simply would not have been possible at any earlier junction.
And that's not even getting to the hardware: RTX 2070-to-2080 levels of performance, with real-time ray tracing, and better-than-PC levels of IO and memory bandwidth. Obviously "Ampere" puts them to shame, and with DLSS even "Turing" is faster in supported games-- but the leap from the PlayStation 4 Pro to the PlayStation 5 is substantial, as I realized yesterday while flipping through my catalog of screenshots on the former. And that's before the ever-present "targeted one set of specs console-specific" enhancements are taken into account.
But there's even more: for the first time in my entire life, "old" games really are feeling "old"; the real-time Machine Learning and AI integration in the new "Flight Simulator" has totally opened my eyes, and for the first time since the shift to texture-mapped polygons, I think we're going to see game software match the sentiment I laid out above regarding system software: these new kinds of games will fundamentally, at their most basic levels, not have been possible at any earlier point in history.
I'll forever love the sheer artistry, authenticity, and originality of games like "Sonic the Hedgehog" or "Star Control II"-- and I think those will always be the ageless classics I continue to replay over and over as the years roll by. But on the flip side, I've noticed that 2020 is the first year where I've found myself playing very few old games on a day-to-day basis, relatively-- and I think that's a testament to new games finally starting to do fresh things again.
Variety - 06:54 CDT, 10/15/20 (Sniper)
My parents listened to a lot of pop music on the radio when I was a child in the 1980s, and I remember there being great amounts of variety. Today by contrast, whenever someone has the radio on it's either endless repeats of 60s-80s music, or it's "rap" music of some kind. Sure enough, the Billboard charts are dominated by ghetto music.
Pop music has always been very simplistic: when I try to listen to Michael Jackson today-- I was a huge fan of his as a kid-- I can't get over how basic it is. However, on a sophistication level this modern-day hip-hop stuff is like cave men banging two rocks together, as compared to the music theory on offer from previous eras.
Incidentally, I wonder how many of the people on this Billboard list are convicted felons? I've heard that's a major problem with many of today's "musicians", to the point where some of them wind up dead before their songs even hit the charts!
Changing subjects, someone recently equated Hitlery with Cameltoe Harris to me, and I don't think that comparison fits.
As someone who called for-- minimally-- a Western Hemisphere government, and who didn't see a trade "deal" she didn't like, Hitlery was a firm believer in One World Government, and the New World Order "Great Reset" kind of stuff. She had a vision for where the world should go, and she stuck to it until the bitter end.
You could say she was in fact a greatly principled person-- in the same way that Stalin and Mao were principled. That's why I call her "Hitlery": she wanted Fascism, but across the whole world-- she was the Ultimate Fascist. She desired a global State apparatus "coordinating" with a small handful of international mega-conglomerates to shepherd the cattle.
Cameltoe by contrast is a very different person: she has no principles whatsoever-- rather, she'll do or say absolutely anything to further her own personal goals. There is no idea too quack, no concept too insane, no notion too crazy, that you couldn't whisper in her ear-- and if she thought it was politically tenable, and it would get her where she personally wanted to go, she would jump on the concept whole hog.
It's like two different flavors of sociopathy. One may taste like years-unwashed socks and the other like motor oil-- but at least they taste different.
Cameltoe's approach is more effective for whatever that's worth, since it'll almost certainly make her defacto President in a month or two, despite the fact that everyone-- whites, blacks, Hispanics, criminals, business people, even her fellow politicians-- hate her, to the point where she was polling in low-single digits during the primaries this cycle. Whereas, Hitlery stuck to her guns and-- thankfully-- went down with the ship four years ago.
Pop music has always been very simplistic: when I try to listen to Michael Jackson today-- I was a huge fan of his as a kid-- I can't get over how basic it is. However, on a sophistication level this modern-day hip-hop stuff is like cave men banging two rocks together, as compared to the music theory on offer from previous eras.
Incidentally, I wonder how many of the people on this Billboard list are convicted felons? I've heard that's a major problem with many of today's "musicians", to the point where some of them wind up dead before their songs even hit the charts!
Changing subjects, someone recently equated Hitlery with Cameltoe Harris to me, and I don't think that comparison fits.
As someone who called for-- minimally-- a Western Hemisphere government, and who didn't see a trade "deal" she didn't like, Hitlery was a firm believer in One World Government, and the New World Order "Great Reset" kind of stuff. She had a vision for where the world should go, and she stuck to it until the bitter end.
You could say she was in fact a greatly principled person-- in the same way that Stalin and Mao were principled. That's why I call her "Hitlery": she wanted Fascism, but across the whole world-- she was the Ultimate Fascist. She desired a global State apparatus "coordinating" with a small handful of international mega-conglomerates to shepherd the cattle.
Cameltoe by contrast is a very different person: she has no principles whatsoever-- rather, she'll do or say absolutely anything to further her own personal goals. There is no idea too quack, no concept too insane, no notion too crazy, that you couldn't whisper in her ear-- and if she thought it was politically tenable, and it would get her where she personally wanted to go, she would jump on the concept whole hog.
It's like two different flavors of sociopathy. One may taste like years-unwashed socks and the other like motor oil-- but at least they taste different.
Cameltoe's approach is more effective for whatever that's worth, since it'll almost certainly make her defacto President in a month or two, despite the fact that everyone-- whites, blacks, Hispanics, criminals, business people, even her fellow politicians-- hate her, to the point where she was polling in low-single digits during the primaries this cycle. Whereas, Hitlery stuck to her guns and-- thankfully-- went down with the ship four years ago.
Socrates - 06:48 CDT, 10/13/20 (Sniper)
Surreal: I just saw someone online mention the company name "VTech", and after an immediate swing over to Wikipedia, I found it-- the educational video game system my parents bought me in the late 80s!
I've had this song bouncing around my head for decades, but could never find it because I had no clue what the system was called. I used to spend a lot of time in the drawing program specifically: I remembered that the thing was so slow, you could see it painting with the "fill" tool one line of pixels at a time!
It also had some kind of crossword puzzle thing. I remember waking up early one weekend, and pretending I was an old person like my grandmother, doing the crossword puzzle at the crack of a dawn on a Saturday.
I've had this song bouncing around my head for decades, but could never find it because I had no clue what the system was called. I used to spend a lot of time in the drawing program specifically: I remembered that the thing was so slow, you could see it painting with the "fill" tool one line of pixels at a time!
It also had some kind of crossword puzzle thing. I remember waking up early one weekend, and pretending I was an old person like my grandmother, doing the crossword puzzle at the crack of a dawn on a Saturday.
Future and Past - 16:37 CDT, 10/12/20 (Sniper)
I repeatedly hear people calling 2020 the worst year of their lives. I can relate to the sentiment in principle: it's certainly been a bad ten months to date. But those statements also tripped some self-reflection: how has 2020 stacked up versus other years in my life?
1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 were all fairly nightmarish-- for personal reasons I won't go into here. The past fifteen years have also been rather poor for me generally, lowlighted by 2010 and a maddening 2016, which was the most stressful professional year of my life by a wide margin.
Personally then, I would rate 2020 as the eigth worst year of my life: it's been bad, but things could definitely be worse.
By contrast and to put a positive spin on things, the best years of my life were 1989, 1995, 1996, and 2003: those were glorious times. Generally speaking, my elementary school years were the best, culminating in junior high. 2003 was the year I got married, and wifey and I got our first apartment together.
On the balance then, I've lived for 38 years so far. 16 of those years I'd rate as "A" and "B"-- childhood; 14 of those years I'd rate as "C". And 8 of those years I'd rate as "F". That gives me both an average and a median yearly quality of "C".
Fortunately, I've structured my life so that it really begins at age 50: both houses will be paid off, the kids will be independent, and I will be completely debt free-- which means I'll be able to quasi-retire into a super low stress, low paying job. That will give me, let's say, twenty five years to relax and fiddle with computers for fun, like I used to.
1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 were all fairly nightmarish-- for personal reasons I won't go into here. The past fifteen years have also been rather poor for me generally, lowlighted by 2010 and a maddening 2016, which was the most stressful professional year of my life by a wide margin.
Personally then, I would rate 2020 as the eigth worst year of my life: it's been bad, but things could definitely be worse.
By contrast and to put a positive spin on things, the best years of my life were 1989, 1995, 1996, and 2003: those were glorious times. Generally speaking, my elementary school years were the best, culminating in junior high. 2003 was the year I got married, and wifey and I got our first apartment together.
On the balance then, I've lived for 38 years so far. 16 of those years I'd rate as "A" and "B"-- childhood; 14 of those years I'd rate as "C". And 8 of those years I'd rate as "F". That gives me both an average and a median yearly quality of "C".
Fortunately, I've structured my life so that it really begins at age 50: both houses will be paid off, the kids will be independent, and I will be completely debt free-- which means I'll be able to quasi-retire into a super low stress, low paying job. That will give me, let's say, twenty five years to relax and fiddle with computers for fun, like I used to.
Sports Anecdotes - 08:01 CDT, 10/12/20 (Sniper)
I've been very loosely following the current Vikings season, and this chart gave me a huge laugh.
In Lazio-related news, there were a couple of surprises for me from this graphic: first, that Inter's payroll isn't even larger than it is given the players they bring off the bench against us-- and second, that Atalanta has a lower payroll than Bologna for Pete's sake.
More on that second note: Atalanta must be the best-managed club in the world. I think they're better than Juventus, at five and a half times less money. I've never seen anything like it. A potential first-place finish with the eleventh payroll is astonishing value.
As for Lazio, every single way you look at them-- all-time wins, size of fanbase, squad value, and here in payroll-- we are sixth. We are the most solidly-established sixth team in probably any league or sport in the world. We're number six! We're number six!
I know Tare gets a lot of praise generally, but in looking at this, our squad is only slightly above average value.
We finished fourth last season with-- I'm sure-- the sixth-sized squad then. Looking at individual players, I'm not sure the productivity of players like Sergej and Correa-- as good as they can be on their day-- are good value for those wages.
In short, I think Tare is good at his job, but not great.
In Lazio-related news, there were a couple of surprises for me from this graphic: first, that Inter's payroll isn't even larger than it is given the players they bring off the bench against us-- and second, that Atalanta has a lower payroll than Bologna for Pete's sake.
More on that second note: Atalanta must be the best-managed club in the world. I think they're better than Juventus, at five and a half times less money. I've never seen anything like it. A potential first-place finish with the eleventh payroll is astonishing value.
As for Lazio, every single way you look at them-- all-time wins, size of fanbase, squad value, and here in payroll-- we are sixth. We are the most solidly-established sixth team in probably any league or sport in the world. We're number six! We're number six!
I know Tare gets a lot of praise generally, but in looking at this, our squad is only slightly above average value.
We finished fourth last season with-- I'm sure-- the sixth-sized squad then. Looking at individual players, I'm not sure the productivity of players like Sergej and Correa-- as good as they can be on their day-- are good value for those wages.
In short, I think Tare is good at his job, but not great.
COMCOLD-27 - 13:58 CDT, 10/11/20 (Sniper)
"I have bad news George: I think we've both caught the COMCOLD-27! I had some sniffles last night, and I saw you sneeze yesterday! With such a dangerous, debilitating disease, we'd better make sure to not leave our house for at least two years.
And you know the craziest thing? The governor of our state mandated beekeeper hats, clown shoes, and bunny years, which we've been dutifully wearing-- and we caught it anyway! Maybe we should have taped some toilet paper to front of the hats to make them more effective? Lord knows-- if we believed in god, ha ha-- we have enough toilet paper stockpiled!
Speaking of the mandate, our governor is such an altruistic person! He deeply cares about us: not an ulterior motive in his bones. He just cares about public health! And it's important to show how much we care too by wearing our bunny ears everywhere we go, to protect us from the virus. In this household, we believe that science is real. And that love conquers hate.
Unlike those selfish people who won't wear their beekeeper hat, or even their clown shoes! I hate those people! I hate them so much! I just want to punch them in the face! Bunch of feckless Nazis! I hope they all die!
Oh, oh, sorry about that George, sometimes I get carried away-- would you pass me my Soylent and coloring book? Always calms me down!
Did you see that Canderson Oopser segment on FUD last night? He showed the President on TV not wearing his Binky the Clown nose! How irresponsible! This at a time when the number of cases of COMCOLD-27 is at an all time high. Think of all of that occasional sinus congestion! They need to lock this country down, and now! We really need to start following the governance models of sensible countries, like North Korea.
Later that night on FUD-- boy do I love that channel-- Lon Demon showed some joggers and peaceful protestors burning down an orphanage full of white kids: thank goodness, way too much colonialism and patriarchy in this country! It was also great to see that the protestors didn't need to wear their beekeeper hats for that-- how would they have breathed properly with all of that smoke? Let's use a little common sense here, thank you!
I think everyone deserves to know the truth about COMCOLD-27, it's the worst disease in the history of not just Earth frankly, but the entire multiverse. That's why I'm so happy that Google buried the search results that showed COMCOLD-27 is no more dangerous than-- get this-- the common cold. Fake news!
But there is hope, light at the end of this tunnel of madness, an oasis amidst a sea of crazy: Oopser also said that if Frankly Beatdown (who couldn't remember his own name during the interview-- isn't he cute?) wins the election, he'll make it illegal for anyone to leave their bedrooms without being entombed in pillows-- thank goodness! If it saves even one life!
Well, I'm going to prepare my kale for dinner and grab my Kombucha. I know you'll be out (too bad about not charging the Tesla because of the rolling blackouts-- the walking will do you good!), but I won't get too lonely eating in the house by myself. I'll admit it will be a little tough to eat through my beekeeper hat, but at least the drink pours right through!
And you know the craziest thing? The governor of our state mandated beekeeper hats, clown shoes, and bunny years, which we've been dutifully wearing-- and we caught it anyway! Maybe we should have taped some toilet paper to front of the hats to make them more effective? Lord knows-- if we believed in god, ha ha-- we have enough toilet paper stockpiled!
Speaking of the mandate, our governor is such an altruistic person! He deeply cares about us: not an ulterior motive in his bones. He just cares about public health! And it's important to show how much we care too by wearing our bunny ears everywhere we go, to protect us from the virus. In this household, we believe that science is real. And that love conquers hate.
Unlike those selfish people who won't wear their beekeeper hat, or even their clown shoes! I hate those people! I hate them so much! I just want to punch them in the face! Bunch of feckless Nazis! I hope they all die!
Oh, oh, sorry about that George, sometimes I get carried away-- would you pass me my Soylent and coloring book? Always calms me down!
Did you see that Canderson Oopser segment on FUD last night? He showed the President on TV not wearing his Binky the Clown nose! How irresponsible! This at a time when the number of cases of COMCOLD-27 is at an all time high. Think of all of that occasional sinus congestion! They need to lock this country down, and now! We really need to start following the governance models of sensible countries, like North Korea.
Later that night on FUD-- boy do I love that channel-- Lon Demon showed some joggers and peaceful protestors burning down an orphanage full of white kids: thank goodness, way too much colonialism and patriarchy in this country! It was also great to see that the protestors didn't need to wear their beekeeper hats for that-- how would they have breathed properly with all of that smoke? Let's use a little common sense here, thank you!
I think everyone deserves to know the truth about COMCOLD-27, it's the worst disease in the history of not just Earth frankly, but the entire multiverse. That's why I'm so happy that Google buried the search results that showed COMCOLD-27 is no more dangerous than-- get this-- the common cold. Fake news!
But there is hope, light at the end of this tunnel of madness, an oasis amidst a sea of crazy: Oopser also said that if Frankly Beatdown (who couldn't remember his own name during the interview-- isn't he cute?) wins the election, he'll make it illegal for anyone to leave their bedrooms without being entombed in pillows-- thank goodness! If it saves even one life!
Well, I'm going to prepare my kale for dinner and grab my Kombucha. I know you'll be out (too bad about not charging the Tesla because of the rolling blackouts-- the walking will do you good!), but I won't get too lonely eating in the house by myself. I'll admit it will be a little tough to eat through my beekeeper hat, but at least the drink pours right through!
Ballot Harvesting Aftermath - 18:55 CDT, 10/09/20 (Sniper)
I've been following the "Project Veritas" Ilhan Omar ballot harvesting aftermath with great amusement: James O'Keefe literally has people on camera, with their names and faces, confessing to their crimes, and pundits are still saying it's all fake! Hah! What would he need to do for them to believe it-- hook up some kind of psychic mind-reading printout machine? Give the criminals truth serum, "Get Smart"-style?
Like every other time I've ever tried listening to Joe Rogan this "commentary" makes my head hurt: remind me again what the heck the appeal of this guy is? He doesn't have two neurons to rub together. Then there's fatty and the kid, whoever the heck they are: "Hurr, how does this O'Keefe guy get into these 'conspiracies' anyway?", apparently not even having read the "Project Veritas" slogan literally watermarked on their videos (be brave, do something).
O'Keefe really hits it on the head: "It's amazing the extent people will go to, to find any explanation for what they're seeing and hearing with their own eyes and ears, is fake." In a sane world, James O'Keefe would be the kind of guy winning regular Pulitzer Prizes.
Like every other time I've ever tried listening to Joe Rogan this "commentary" makes my head hurt: remind me again what the heck the appeal of this guy is? He doesn't have two neurons to rub together. Then there's fatty and the kid, whoever the heck they are: "Hurr, how does this O'Keefe guy get into these 'conspiracies' anyway?", apparently not even having read the "Project Veritas" slogan literally watermarked on their videos (be brave, do something).
O'Keefe really hits it on the head: "It's amazing the extent people will go to, to find any explanation for what they're seeing and hearing with their own eyes and ears, is fake." In a sane world, James O'Keefe would be the kind of guy winning regular Pulitzer Prizes.
Petitions and Debates - 07:54 CDT, 10/08/20 (Sniper)
I'd been meaning to write a blog post similar to this, but it seems as though someone has beaten me to the punch! In a nutshell then, the author and myself hypothesize similarly: if Trump wins, expect immediate problems, such as marauding domestic terrorists burning down cities-- whereas if Biden wins, anticipate a medium term transformation of the entire nation into Commiefornia, with legal sex and race discrimination, rolling blackouts, and third world-esque cityscapes.
Presently, I'm expecting a Biden win-- but I have a complete contingency plan to keep my family safe, ready for motion at a moment's notice in the event of a Trump victory, or some other world-disrupting event.
Speaking of world disrupting events, here is a petition which everyone should sign. I've been very open minded about this topic, even warning people back in February that the WuFlu might have been wiping out massive numbers of people in China. But we had the truth even by the end of March, when I wrote this: I go where the logic, facts, and data lead me. For reference, my home state's governor put in his Face Diaper Decree in late July! It happening so late as to be unintentionally funny was one of many giveaways that this aforementioned mandate had nothing to do with "safety".
My only disappointment is that Conservatives, and even this apolitical petition, are so heavily pushing a vaccine. Not all vaccines carry huge risks-- but considering the risk of the WuFlu itself is in practice zero, I'm not willing to take any chance in terms of injecting who-knows-what into my children! The math is easy.
On to another topic, I only briefly watched the Vice Presidential debate, but even in that short time I was entertained by how predictably biased the moderator was. For example, rather than ask "What is your opinion about whether or not anthropogenic climate change has caused the California wildfires?", she asked something like, "What do you say to the scientific consensus that climate change causes events like the California wildfires?"
Someone like Mitt Romney, or even Donald Trump, would have been put on the defensive by her taking a position, which was the point of carefully wording the question in that manner-- but not Mike Pence! He calmly refuted that view with facts, touted everything the Trump administration has done for the environment, and simultaneously put Cameltoe on the defensive with a counter-point. He is a top-class debater, to be sure. Incidentally, I looked up his record the other day, and other than a couple of small quibbles, he's very good-- better than Trump on economics in fact, by some margin.
Presently, I'm expecting a Biden win-- but I have a complete contingency plan to keep my family safe, ready for motion at a moment's notice in the event of a Trump victory, or some other world-disrupting event.
Speaking of world disrupting events, here is a petition which everyone should sign. I've been very open minded about this topic, even warning people back in February that the WuFlu might have been wiping out massive numbers of people in China. But we had the truth even by the end of March, when I wrote this: I go where the logic, facts, and data lead me. For reference, my home state's governor put in his Face Diaper Decree in late July! It happening so late as to be unintentionally funny was one of many giveaways that this aforementioned mandate had nothing to do with "safety".
My only disappointment is that Conservatives, and even this apolitical petition, are so heavily pushing a vaccine. Not all vaccines carry huge risks-- but considering the risk of the WuFlu itself is in practice zero, I'm not willing to take any chance in terms of injecting who-knows-what into my children! The math is easy.
On to another topic, I only briefly watched the Vice Presidential debate, but even in that short time I was entertained by how predictably biased the moderator was. For example, rather than ask "What is your opinion about whether or not anthropogenic climate change has caused the California wildfires?", she asked something like, "What do you say to the scientific consensus that climate change causes events like the California wildfires?"
Someone like Mitt Romney, or even Donald Trump, would have been put on the defensive by her taking a position, which was the point of carefully wording the question in that manner-- but not Mike Pence! He calmly refuted that view with facts, touted everything the Trump administration has done for the environment, and simultaneously put Cameltoe on the defensive with a counter-point. He is a top-class debater, to be sure. Incidentally, I looked up his record the other day, and other than a couple of small quibbles, he's very good-- better than Trump on economics in fact, by some margin.
Simcade Sensibilities - 07:54 CDT, 10/07/20 (Sniper)
Someone asked me about my taste in racing games-- in addition to responding to him, figured I may as well post it here too:
"Good question, I have a pretty specific take on this.
My philosophy with games which imitate reality-- racing games, sports games, even first-person shooters, among other genres-- is that they should focus on being a fun game first, while creating an illusion of reality, versus actual reality. They also need to have an appealing aesthetic. Here are some examples:
The 'Forza Motorsports' and 'Gran Turismo' games also fit the bill. I just play them with a controller (a $20 Logitech F310 on PC, for instance)-- they put a lot of emphasis into 'gamey' stuff like music, polished menus, driving lines, rewind, while also having sim-style driving models which pretty accurately emulate understeer, oversteer, and so forth which creates a convicing illusion of driving a real car (I drive a rear-wheel drive sports car in real life, and have some motorsports experience). I also played the original 'Project CARS' some years ago, and enjoyed that too.
What's your opinion about all of this? Do you have a different take? I always like to hear other people's views."
My philosophy with games which imitate reality-- racing games, sports games, even first-person shooters, among other genres-- is that they should focus on being a fun game first, while creating an illusion of reality, versus actual reality. They also need to have an appealing aesthetic. Here are some examples:
- In the 80's and early 90's when I was a kid, I played a lot of classic DOS flight simulators. The best ones-- think 'Aces of the Pacific' or something-- exaggerated the aerodynamic differences between the planes, and made other 'unrealistic' alterations just to make the game fun to play: at the same time, you could stall, have blackouts and redouts, could manipulate all of the control surfaces, had dive brakes in some of the planes, etc. The games were like 70% sim, 30% arcade-- what we'd call today 'simcade'-- and they were a blast. It also had an amazing soundtrack, attractive menus, the solid-shaded 'Virtua Racing'-esque polygon look is still pretty, etc.
- My favorite car racing game of all time is the original 'The Need for Speed' on the 3DO. While you're playing it, you really feel like you're weaving in and out of freeway traffic in an exotic car-- the cockpits are fully digitized, the car sounds are actually recorded (first game to do that?), and the whole illusion is extremely convincing, even today. But when you really break it down scientifically, you're sitting too high versus real life (because the game is more fun when you can see 10% better), the ordinary traffic cars are going a bit too fast versus you, etc. It also has a phenomenal soundtrack, I really like the corny X-man videos, etc.
- In the original 'Halo', on many of the levels I really felt like I was part of some big war effort-- the way the game paces the missions, the chatter, and so forth was very convincing. But when you break it down mechanically, there are like three NPCs on the screen: again, it focuses on being a fun game first, while creating the illusion of reality. It also has a great art style, memorable music, etc.
The 'Forza Motorsports' and 'Gran Turismo' games also fit the bill. I just play them with a controller (a $20 Logitech F310 on PC, for instance)-- they put a lot of emphasis into 'gamey' stuff like music, polished menus, driving lines, rewind, while also having sim-style driving models which pretty accurately emulate understeer, oversteer, and so forth which creates a convicing illusion of driving a real car (I drive a rear-wheel drive sports car in real life, and have some motorsports experience). I also played the original 'Project CARS' some years ago, and enjoyed that too.
What's your opinion about all of this? Do you have a different take? I always like to hear other people's views."
Death of the Web - 20:28 CDT, 10/06/20 (Sniper)
Search for absolutely any Republican's name on even DuckDuckGo-- which remember, sources its data from other search engines-- and you get nothing but garbage! It's impossible to find even basic biographical material that isn't written by a neckbearded Antifa member.
Wikipedia articles are nothing but character assassination pieces, and the rest of the results are "so-and-so eats small babies for breakfast" articles from CNN and "Vox". It's so bad that the only site I can get basic information about virtually anything is via Conservapedia, for Pete's sake. I'm far from looking for an echo chamber, but the situation is just ridiculous!
Wikipedia articles are nothing but character assassination pieces, and the rest of the results are "so-and-so eats small babies for breakfast" articles from CNN and "Vox". It's so bad that the only site I can get basic information about virtually anything is via Conservapedia, for Pete's sake. I'm far from looking for an echo chamber, but the situation is just ridiculous!
Social Impact Agencies - 07:32 CDT, 10/06/20 (Sniper)
I'd always assumed that the reason radical Left-wing political agendas were so prevalent in popular media was so the creators could virtue signal to, or at least appease, the militant parts of their audiences.
But Mark Dice just made me aware of these companies called "social impact agencies", which apparently work with media creators directly to actually write propaganda into scripts! In any event, I just grabbed a Kindle copy of his just-released book to learn more about it.
But Mark Dice just made me aware of these companies called "social impact agencies", which apparently work with media creators directly to actually write propaganda into scripts! In any event, I just grabbed a Kindle copy of his just-released book to learn more about it.
Surviving Fear - 07:55 CDT, 10/05/20 (Sniper)
This is a fun chart: but it's incredible the extent to which this Salem Witch Trial-esque mass delusion has spread even "outside of cities, towns, and villages"-- as in, areas such as at my bug out house for example where nearly one-in-five apparently have "high stress" about the WuFlu!
Of course, what the chart doesn't break down is the distinction between "has the stress been created by the WuFlu, or by the government's reaction to the WuFlu?" In my case, I have zero stress about the virus itself-- but have been subsequently denied access to health care and the ability to go into buildings other than my own home, because of my refusal to wear a Yellow badge-- facts which have certainly caused me some duress, at least.
Of course, we saw that happened next to the people wearing the Yellow badges, or the Stars of David armbands (or in this case, who decline to wear them). Don't think that would happen today for people who resist soon-to-be-mandatory microchipping or forced vaccinations? Check out the "political opponent" cases of Tommy Robinson and Julian Assange.
Back to the Yellow badge thing: I'm in the process of assembling an outfit which will permit me entry into buildings-- it consists of a camouflaged balaclava-style military head piece, the kind you'd see soldiers in the mountains in Asia wearing, along with a gun holster-adorned tactical vest. I will strap my USMC combat knife to it, and just generally look as scary as possible. It's a shame I don't have a gun "carry permit", or I'd even sling my AR-15 over my back in trips to the grocery store (yes, you can open carry long guns in my state).
I shouldn't need this outfit: I've gone this long without essentially leaving my house for moments other than walks outdoors, and I'm prepared to continue in this way-- but it will be nice to at least have an alternative option.
Of course, what the chart doesn't break down is the distinction between "has the stress been created by the WuFlu, or by the government's reaction to the WuFlu?" In my case, I have zero stress about the virus itself-- but have been subsequently denied access to health care and the ability to go into buildings other than my own home, because of my refusal to wear a Yellow badge-- facts which have certainly caused me some duress, at least.
Of course, we saw that happened next to the people wearing the Yellow badges, or the Stars of David armbands (or in this case, who decline to wear them). Don't think that would happen today for people who resist soon-to-be-mandatory microchipping or forced vaccinations? Check out the "political opponent" cases of Tommy Robinson and Julian Assange.
Back to the Yellow badge thing: I'm in the process of assembling an outfit which will permit me entry into buildings-- it consists of a camouflaged balaclava-style military head piece, the kind you'd see soldiers in the mountains in Asia wearing, along with a gun holster-adorned tactical vest. I will strap my USMC combat knife to it, and just generally look as scary as possible. It's a shame I don't have a gun "carry permit", or I'd even sling my AR-15 over my back in trips to the grocery store (yes, you can open carry long guns in my state).
I shouldn't need this outfit: I've gone this long without essentially leaving my house for moments other than walks outdoors, and I'm prepared to continue in this way-- but it will be nice to at least have an alternative option.
Cameltoe Harris - 20:59 CDT, 10/02/20 (Sniper)
I realized the other day that I didn't actually know that much about Cameltoe Harris-- so I did some research.
She was born to a college professor named Donald Harris, who was hired at Stanford to teach economics due to his being a Marxist. She got her start in politics by fucking Willie Brown, who was thirty years her senior.
She became the District Attorney of San Francisco and, eventually, the Attorney General of Commiefornia. During those periods, she accumulated quite a reputation. Here are just a few examples:
She was so unpopular in the Democratic primaries that she jumped out of the race so she wouldn't get humiliated by losing in Commiefornia. She has virtually zero charisma, and comes across to most people as totally disingenuous, willing to say absolutely anything in the moment to get approval, even when it directly contradicts something she said just previously.
For example, flip through this interview. It's obvious that the two interviewers are totally put off by her. She emphasizes that "black people want police." Just a little over a year later, she winds up supporting defunding of police.
There is a phenomenon known as "Duper's Delight", where sociopaths can't control the exuberance they feel when they lie. Here is Peter Strzok doing it; Here is Bill Gates doing it; apparently, Adolf Hitler was well known by his associates for it; and here is Cameltoe Harris doing it. In fact, she frequently and spontaneously breaks out in inappropriate laughter when answering questions.
One of her favorite things are watching her voters burn down minority-owned businesses, assault innocent people in public, assassinate police officers, set fire to the homes of political opponents, and going around in the suburbs with megaphones in the middle of the night ordering white people to hand over their homes.
She said that the riots are "not gonna' stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna' stop after election day". She even re-emphasized: they are "not gonna let up. And they should not." She said that they are "essential", and that "no progress comes without a fight".
I also took a look at her "On the Issues" page. She:
As the cherry on top, she is also the face of the "Proposition 16" movement in Commiefornia, which would make it legal to discriminate against people based on their race and sex! In other words, she literally backs undoing the Civil Rights movement.
In general, her life pattern paints her as unscrupulously willing to say or do anything to try to get to the next rung. Where someone like Hillary had actual convictions-- evil ones, but convictions nonetheless-- Cameltoe has no convictions or principles whatsoever: she's a void.
She was born to a college professor named Donald Harris, who was hired at Stanford to teach economics due to his being a Marxist. She got her start in politics by fucking Willie Brown, who was thirty years her senior.
She became the District Attorney of San Francisco and, eventually, the Attorney General of Commiefornia. During those periods, she accumulated quite a reputation. Here are just a few examples:
- She pushed for parental jail time for truancy.
- She routinely pushed for maximum sentencing for petty crimes, like Marijuana possession.
- She once ran interference for a prosecutor who falsified a defendant's transcript.
- Another time she put the kibosh on a DNA test which would have proven a defendant's innocence.
- She continually pushed Civil Asset Forfeiture.
She was so unpopular in the Democratic primaries that she jumped out of the race so she wouldn't get humiliated by losing in Commiefornia. She has virtually zero charisma, and comes across to most people as totally disingenuous, willing to say absolutely anything in the moment to get approval, even when it directly contradicts something she said just previously.
For example, flip through this interview. It's obvious that the two interviewers are totally put off by her. She emphasizes that "black people want police." Just a little over a year later, she winds up supporting defunding of police.
There is a phenomenon known as "Duper's Delight", where sociopaths can't control the exuberance they feel when they lie. Here is Peter Strzok doing it; Here is Bill Gates doing it; apparently, Adolf Hitler was well known by his associates for it; and here is Cameltoe Harris doing it. In fact, she frequently and spontaneously breaks out in inappropriate laughter when answering questions.
One of her favorite things are watching her voters burn down minority-owned businesses, assault innocent people in public, assassinate police officers, set fire to the homes of political opponents, and going around in the suburbs with megaphones in the middle of the night ordering white people to hand over their homes.
She said that the riots are "not gonna' stop before election day in November, and they’re not gonna' stop after election day". She even re-emphasized: they are "not gonna let up. And they should not." She said that they are "essential", and that "no progress comes without a fight".
I also took a look at her "On the Issues" page. She:
- Supports reparations.
- Supports the Communistic "Green New Deal".
- Suddenly wants to get rid of filibuster, and electoral college-- just because those two things are in the Democrats' way right now.
- Wants forced confiscation of privately owned firearms.
- Wants to kick people off private insurance and onto "Medicare for all".
- Wants to scrap ICE and the DEA.
- Wants tech companies to censor Conservatives.
- Wants to ban all non-electric cars.
- Strongly opposes school choice and vouchers.
As the cherry on top, she is also the face of the "Proposition 16" movement in Commiefornia, which would make it legal to discriminate against people based on their race and sex! In other words, she literally backs undoing the Civil Rights movement.
In general, her life pattern paints her as unscrupulously willing to say or do anything to try to get to the next rung. Where someone like Hillary had actual convictions-- evil ones, but convictions nonetheless-- Cameltoe has no convictions or principles whatsoever: she's a void.
House Addition Plans - 18:19 CDT, 10/02/20 (Sniper)
I'm in the very early stages of getting an addition built on to the bug out house, so that in the event of mass social unrest due to causes such as the election, everyone who co-owns the home will have the space to permanently live there together.
Through home schooling I already had familiarity with Autodesk's "Tinkercad" web site, in which my daughter enjoys making 3d printable trinkets-- so I decided to draft some plan proposals there, which I will share with the contracters as I meet with them to get estimates.
Here is an example of one of the proposals. The red is the very edge of the existing house-- to provide context-- while the blue is the proposed addition.
Through home schooling I already had familiarity with Autodesk's "Tinkercad" web site, in which my daughter enjoys making 3d printable trinkets-- so I decided to draft some plan proposals there, which I will share with the contracters as I meet with them to get estimates.
Here is an example of one of the proposals. The red is the very edge of the existing house-- to provide context-- while the blue is the proposed addition.
Restoration - 16:58 CDT, 10/02/20 (Sniper)
About a month ago, I made a since-deleted post denying my prior political views. Here is what that was about:
Back in February of last year I penned this piece, wherein I discussed the United Nations "2030 Agenda". It was frightening, but I took solace in the fact that the New World Order push seemed to be isolated to just a couple of institutions, and there were pushbacks in the form of Brexit-- while some of its big proponents, such as Hillary Clinton, had been defeated in elections.
Then the WuFlu nonsense hit, and I watched entire cities turn into real-time zombie apocalypses, with the mindless glazed-eye farm animals walking through cattle chutes while wearing their dainty little, but very nearly totally pointless, government approved Face Diaper outfits. The ease with which the power brokers initiated this full-on Salem Witch Trial-esque mass delusion greatly alarmed me: maybe I was too dismissive of the New World Order business?
Then, a few weeks ago, I ran across this article: yep, I'd been too dismissive.
Everyone needs to read it themselves in its entirety, but to summarize very briefly for the moment's sake: there is an absolute abundance of smoking gun proof that not only did people in power know this "pandemic" was coming ahead of time, right down to minute details, but they were fully prepared for the slow-motion forced vaccination train that everyone knows is approaching.
Far from being isolated to the United Nations or stymied by a couple of election losses, the plan was steamrolling along in the background all along, unabated. Or should I say, right out in the open: the people in charge of this are so brazen and hubristic, that they lay out their entire plans right on their organizations' web sites. They bathe their language in euphemisms, and are clearly banking on people's need to virtue signal, trumping people's consciences.
Based on the widespread support for WuFlu authoritarianism and the support for domestic terrorists like "Black Lives Matter", I'd say it's a safe bet.
I needed to lay low for a bit to decide what to do: so within minutes I'd put my "plausible deniability" post in place, scrubbed all references to my real name everywhere I could, and deleted all pictures and videos which contained my face-- not out of cowardice even remotely, but rather so I could find a way to strike back in a more significant way, versus depending on my minimal reach as compared to more talented writers than myself.
But since then, I've decided to resume "business as normal" for this blog: its minimal viewership makes me such a small fish that I don't think I would even register on radars anyway. And besides that, the number of life changes I would need to make-- trying to get everyone I know on encrypted chat, paying all of my tech-related bills via Bitcoin, obfuscating the IP location of my web server, and dozens of other considerations-- is just more energy than I feel like putting in, given my plethora of other obligations in life.
Whatever happens to me, happens: it's not worth living life muzzled-- literally or figuratively.
And so, for better or for worse dear readers: you're stuck with me again. Heeere's Johnny!
Back in February of last year I penned this piece, wherein I discussed the United Nations "2030 Agenda". It was frightening, but I took solace in the fact that the New World Order push seemed to be isolated to just a couple of institutions, and there were pushbacks in the form of Brexit-- while some of its big proponents, such as Hillary Clinton, had been defeated in elections.
Then the WuFlu nonsense hit, and I watched entire cities turn into real-time zombie apocalypses, with the mindless glazed-eye farm animals walking through cattle chutes while wearing their dainty little, but very nearly totally pointless, government approved Face Diaper outfits. The ease with which the power brokers initiated this full-on Salem Witch Trial-esque mass delusion greatly alarmed me: maybe I was too dismissive of the New World Order business?
Then, a few weeks ago, I ran across this article: yep, I'd been too dismissive.
Everyone needs to read it themselves in its entirety, but to summarize very briefly for the moment's sake: there is an absolute abundance of smoking gun proof that not only did people in power know this "pandemic" was coming ahead of time, right down to minute details, but they were fully prepared for the slow-motion forced vaccination train that everyone knows is approaching.
Far from being isolated to the United Nations or stymied by a couple of election losses, the plan was steamrolling along in the background all along, unabated. Or should I say, right out in the open: the people in charge of this are so brazen and hubristic, that they lay out their entire plans right on their organizations' web sites. They bathe their language in euphemisms, and are clearly banking on people's need to virtue signal, trumping people's consciences.
Based on the widespread support for WuFlu authoritarianism and the support for domestic terrorists like "Black Lives Matter", I'd say it's a safe bet.
I needed to lay low for a bit to decide what to do: so within minutes I'd put my "plausible deniability" post in place, scrubbed all references to my real name everywhere I could, and deleted all pictures and videos which contained my face-- not out of cowardice even remotely, but rather so I could find a way to strike back in a more significant way, versus depending on my minimal reach as compared to more talented writers than myself.
But since then, I've decided to resume "business as normal" for this blog: its minimal viewership makes me such a small fish that I don't think I would even register on radars anyway. And besides that, the number of life changes I would need to make-- trying to get everyone I know on encrypted chat, paying all of my tech-related bills via Bitcoin, obfuscating the IP location of my web server, and dozens of other considerations-- is just more energy than I feel like putting in, given my plethora of other obligations in life.
Whatever happens to me, happens: it's not worth living life muzzled-- literally or figuratively.
And so, for better or for worse dear readers: you're stuck with me again. Heeere's Johnny!
Closing Windows - 18:44 CDT, 9/30/20 (Sniper)
Pointless Feature - 16:02 CDT, 9/28/20 (Sniper)
When looking at buying one of the two new dedicated video game systems, backwards compatibility didn't factor in to things at all.
I've reviewed every game I've played over the past several years, so it's easy for me to look back now and reflect on which games I'd even want to bother revisiting: Xbox, 360, and UWP. Note that the UWP games, other than the old version of Madden, have native Windows ports which run better on my PC than the Series X-- but I'm including it for completeness.
Skimming these lists really reminds me of how dismal video games have been over the past twenty years-- I quite literally don't see one game on the Xbox or 360 lists I'd bother playing today. Heck, even when I sift through the brand new games I've played this "generation"-- so, since 2013-- it's tough to find anything other than Flight Simulator that I'd want to play again, let's say, ten years from now.
That's not to say I don't enjoy playing modern games, or that I didn't have fun with the Xbox or 360. Rather, it's that the games don't have those timeless qualities which titles from the 80s and 90s have, in the extreme: games made this century are sort of like movies-- you see them in the theater once, then forget about them. Or like candy bars: you eat one, and throw away the wrapper.
So back to the Series X then: I'd probably pop old copies of a game or two in just to see what they look like, then never use backwards compatibility again.
I've reviewed every game I've played over the past several years, so it's easy for me to look back now and reflect on which games I'd even want to bother revisiting: Xbox, 360, and UWP. Note that the UWP games, other than the old version of Madden, have native Windows ports which run better on my PC than the Series X-- but I'm including it for completeness.
Skimming these lists really reminds me of how dismal video games have been over the past twenty years-- I quite literally don't see one game on the Xbox or 360 lists I'd bother playing today. Heck, even when I sift through the brand new games I've played this "generation"-- so, since 2013-- it's tough to find anything other than Flight Simulator that I'd want to play again, let's say, ten years from now.
That's not to say I don't enjoy playing modern games, or that I didn't have fun with the Xbox or 360. Rather, it's that the games don't have those timeless qualities which titles from the 80s and 90s have, in the extreme: games made this century are sort of like movies-- you see them in the theater once, then forget about them. Or like candy bars: you eat one, and throw away the wrapper.
So back to the Series X then: I'd probably pop old copies of a game or two in just to see what they look like, then never use backwards compatibility again.
Brain Frame Rate Cap - 10:28 CDT, 9/27/20 (Sniper)
I've finally figured out why I can't tell the difference between thirty and sixty frames per second in pretty much any modern game.
Some years ago, I wrote a blog post explaining how my brain has a difficult time processing all of the visual information being thrown at it in contemporary titles. I can't find the post now, so let me just re-illustrate the principle.
Take a look at this gameplay footage of the upcoming "Ratchet and Clank" game. It has the following attributes:
The game looks incredible, but to be honest I couldn't even tell what was going on half of the time, especially when there was an enemy running in the midst of several NPCs-- much less be able to identify the framerate: are you kidding?
The game could have been at twenty four, like a television show, thirty, sixty, or one hundred and twenty, and I was so overwhelmed by it I wouldn't have any clue, even if you put videos at different framerates side-by-side, without slow-motioning them.
This also explains why in older games, I sometimes can tell the difference: for example, I played that re-released "Dragon's Dogma" for Windows some years ago on my then-GTX 1070-- and with such blurry textures and simple geometry, sixty frames per second was observably smoother to my eyes: it's all because in that case, my brain wasn't overmatched by processing all of the other aspects of the imagery.
To put all of this another way, my mind is the bottleneck: it can only do so many tera-synapses per second, and with modern graphics, it's pretty much a hard thirty frames per second cap!
Some years ago, I wrote a blog post explaining how my brain has a difficult time processing all of the visual information being thrown at it in contemporary titles. I can't find the post now, so let me just re-illustrate the principle.
Take a look at this gameplay footage of the upcoming "Ratchet and Clank" game. It has the following attributes:
- Absurd texture resolution
- Crazy rich lighting and shading
- Shadows and ambient occlusion everywhere
- Particle effects for practically everything
- High densitory of plants and other static elements
- Non-playable characters running all over the place
- Ray-traced reflections on the floors
The game looks incredible, but to be honest I couldn't even tell what was going on half of the time, especially when there was an enemy running in the midst of several NPCs-- much less be able to identify the framerate: are you kidding?
The game could have been at twenty four, like a television show, thirty, sixty, or one hundred and twenty, and I was so overwhelmed by it I wouldn't have any clue, even if you put videos at different framerates side-by-side, without slow-motioning them.
This also explains why in older games, I sometimes can tell the difference: for example, I played that re-released "Dragon's Dogma" for Windows some years ago on my then-GTX 1070-- and with such blurry textures and simple geometry, sixty frames per second was observably smoother to my eyes: it's all because in that case, my brain wasn't overmatched by processing all of the other aspects of the imagery.
To put all of this another way, my mind is the bottleneck: it can only do so many tera-synapses per second, and with modern graphics, it's pretty much a hard thirty frames per second cap!
Games and More Games - 19:28 CDT, 9/25/20 (Sniper)
The more time has elapsed, the more excited I've become for the PlayStation 5: given the major stability issues 3080 owners are having, I really dodged a bullet: I'll wait for the twenty gigabyte models later on, and just enjoy a dedicated video game system for now.
My plan is to play absolutely everything possible on the PlayStation 5: both exclusives, and multi-platform third-party games. The Switch will be for games exclusive to that platform plus 2d games, while Windows 10 will be for Microsoft exclusives, or games which obviously benefit from a mouse and keyboard.
Speaking of Switch exclusives, this new Monster Hunter really came out of nowhere. It looks like a combination of many great mechanics from World, but with a dark, very Japanese-style aesthetic: just listen to the music in that video! Not to mention, as underpowered as the Switch is, it's still neat to see what "built for it exclusively from the ground up" games look like for it.
Back to the PlayStation 5, I have the "Ultimate" version of the Spiderman game reserved, which will give me an astronomical amount of content to play through at launch, considering it's essentially two games bundled as one. Then for Christmas, I'll see if people can get me a second controller and a copy of "Sackboy", which looks like a lot of fun in co-op: my kids will enjoy playing that one with me.
My plan is to play absolutely everything possible on the PlayStation 5: both exclusives, and multi-platform third-party games. The Switch will be for games exclusive to that platform plus 2d games, while Windows 10 will be for Microsoft exclusives, or games which obviously benefit from a mouse and keyboard.
Speaking of Switch exclusives, this new Monster Hunter really came out of nowhere. It looks like a combination of many great mechanics from World, but with a dark, very Japanese-style aesthetic: just listen to the music in that video! Not to mention, as underpowered as the Switch is, it's still neat to see what "built for it exclusively from the ground up" games look like for it.
Back to the PlayStation 5, I have the "Ultimate" version of the Spiderman game reserved, which will give me an astronomical amount of content to play through at launch, considering it's essentially two games bundled as one. Then for Christmas, I'll see if people can get me a second controller and a copy of "Sackboy", which looks like a lot of fun in co-op: my kids will enjoy playing that one with me.
To Mexico - 18:21 CDT, 9/19/20 (Sniper)
I have a friend who lives in Puebla, Mexico, and I wanted to see what it would be like to fly straight from my house, to his house. So, I made up a flight plan from the municipal airport right by my Murderapolis house, to a custom GPS waypoint right to his house, then a final landing at Puebla's international airport.
My friend also happens to be a director for the nonprofit organization TECHO. Most Americans haven't heard of it, but it's basically Habitat for Humanity, except replace the virtue signaling with getting actual shit done: instead of building one "first world problems"-style hermetically sealed giant two story house per summer, TECHO stands up entire mini-villages of prefab structures, complete with water filtration systems!
In any event, I also hacked in a waypoint at his first ever event he volunteered for many years ago, up in the mountains. Sneak preview: it's quite the sight from up there. But without further ado, here is me flying past downtown Murderapolis, just after having taken off:
Minnesota is pretty boring: flat; lakes; farms; and that's it.
I landed at Kansas City's big airport to refuel. The game generated some kind of freeway, with bridges clipping right through the airport, and cars traveling and clipping right through my plane as I taxied to the gate!
I proceeded to fly South, over Texas and part of Louisiana, nothing too interesting: pretty flat and boring. But then, I hit the Eastern side near Corpus Christi, and flew for what felt like forever over these absolutely other-wordly sand bar island thingies. How the heck did these even form?
I landed at one airport to re-fuel. But shortly after, I saw a tiny airstrip right on one of the weird sand bar things: "I absolutely have to try landing my giant Cessna there." And I managed to pull it off!
It wasn't long after that I started to approach the mountains North of Puebla. Here is a sneak peak at my custom hacked waypoints. I took a look at them, took a deep breath, and climbed up and over the first mountain ridge:
Whereupon I saw... this. It was like teleporting into a whole new world. It was one of those few times where a video game literally took my breath away:
After catching my breath and re-orienting myself, I found my friend's first-ever work site-- or whatever the heck the game constructed out of it, anyway!
This was like eleven thousand feet up in the mountains. Notice the huge mountain in the background-- I flew around that to get to this point:
My last stop: my friend's house! I couldn't figure out exactly which one was his, but this should be the intersection he lives on at least:
Here is Puebla then afterwards, as I banked away, circled around, and flew past it on the way to its airport.
With a grandiose name like "Hermanos Serdán International Airport", I was expecting a big ordeal, like the many I'd flown over in the States on the way in. Instead, it was a single runway with one terminal building! Oh bien. So I landed, parked, and that was that-- fun trip!
I don't actually know how long the entire trip took-- maybe six and a half hours? This was cruising at 10k feet, at 270 kts most of the time.
The game randomly crashed (har har) part-way through, so my stop watch got reset, hence why I'm not totally certain-- I had to generate a new mission from a mid-point to "resume" the journey: kind of a hassle.
I also had to restart a second time, after the drone camera dropped my airspeed to literally zero, and my aircraft plunged nose-first into a house in Puebla: another bug in the game; use the drone camera at your severe risk.
But in spite of not being quite ready for prime time, Flight Simulator is still quite playable even in this early-doors state.
My friend also happens to be a director for the nonprofit organization TECHO. Most Americans haven't heard of it, but it's basically Habitat for Humanity, except replace the virtue signaling with getting actual shit done: instead of building one "first world problems"-style hermetically sealed giant two story house per summer, TECHO stands up entire mini-villages of prefab structures, complete with water filtration systems!
In any event, I also hacked in a waypoint at his first ever event he volunteered for many years ago, up in the mountains. Sneak preview: it's quite the sight from up there. But without further ado, here is me flying past downtown Murderapolis, just after having taken off:
Minnesota is pretty boring: flat; lakes; farms; and that's it.
I landed at Kansas City's big airport to refuel. The game generated some kind of freeway, with bridges clipping right through the airport, and cars traveling and clipping right through my plane as I taxied to the gate!
I proceeded to fly South, over Texas and part of Louisiana, nothing too interesting: pretty flat and boring. But then, I hit the Eastern side near Corpus Christi, and flew for what felt like forever over these absolutely other-wordly sand bar island thingies. How the heck did these even form?
I landed at one airport to re-fuel. But shortly after, I saw a tiny airstrip right on one of the weird sand bar things: "I absolutely have to try landing my giant Cessna there." And I managed to pull it off!
It wasn't long after that I started to approach the mountains North of Puebla. Here is a sneak peak at my custom hacked waypoints. I took a look at them, took a deep breath, and climbed up and over the first mountain ridge:
Whereupon I saw... this. It was like teleporting into a whole new world. It was one of those few times where a video game literally took my breath away:
After catching my breath and re-orienting myself, I found my friend's first-ever work site-- or whatever the heck the game constructed out of it, anyway!
This was like eleven thousand feet up in the mountains. Notice the huge mountain in the background-- I flew around that to get to this point:
My last stop: my friend's house! I couldn't figure out exactly which one was his, but this should be the intersection he lives on at least:
Here is Puebla then afterwards, as I banked away, circled around, and flew past it on the way to its airport.
With a grandiose name like "Hermanos Serdán International Airport", I was expecting a big ordeal, like the many I'd flown over in the States on the way in. Instead, it was a single runway with one terminal building! Oh bien. So I landed, parked, and that was that-- fun trip!
I don't actually know how long the entire trip took-- maybe six and a half hours? This was cruising at 10k feet, at 270 kts most of the time.
The game randomly crashed (har har) part-way through, so my stop watch got reset, hence why I'm not totally certain-- I had to generate a new mission from a mid-point to "resume" the journey: kind of a hassle.
I also had to restart a second time, after the drone camera dropped my airspeed to literally zero, and my aircraft plunged nose-first into a house in Puebla: another bug in the game; use the drone camera at your severe risk.
But in spite of not being quite ready for prime time, Flight Simulator is still quite playable even in this early-doors state.
Total Cost of Ownership - 08:25 CDT, 9/19/20 (Sniper)
I'm starting to get cold feet with this PlayStation 5 prospect: the system hardware is interesting and I'm looking forward to several of the exclusives, but I just added up the total costs, and overall this is one expensive proposition. In a way, it reminds me of Sony's "$299" PSX announcement-- oh, except you need to buy a game and a memory card, making it more expensive than the $399 Saturn, and a lot more pricey than the $250 3DO.
In this case, it's the $500 console-- then you'll want a second controller for two-player, and those are $70. After that, you'll want a "PlayStation Plus" subscription, which is $60 every year. Then, unlike with Microsoft where they give away all of their games day one for a cheap monthly subscription fee, with Sony you need to buy the games at full price to get them right away-- that's $70 for the Spiderman ultimate collection, and $60 for "Sackboy", the two games I want to get.
Of course, I'll also want the remote at some point, since this will be my media machine as well-- that's another $30. That's just about $850, after taxes! Console gamers always talk about how expensive it is to build a PC, but I don't think they've done the complete math on just how much money they're spending on their ridiculously expensive controllers (my fantastic PC Logitech F310 sells for $20), their software (which is basically free or dirt cheap on the PC), and their online services over the lifespan they own the system (totally free on the PC).
Granted in my case, I can sell my PlayStation 4 Pro on eBay or via Craigslist for probably $250, which recoups some of that expense. But even with that in mind, the ongoing costs of routinely buying $70 games is going to get old very quickly, unless I want to play them months or years after release. It really puts into focus just how great Microsoft's value proposition is at the moment. Incidentally, here is a thread on Gamespot discussing similar thoughts about this topic-- especially take a look at post #7.
I guess it's the same as it has been for the past six months with me: I just can't make up my mind which direction to go. As I wrote about here, all of the choices are good in their own way, which makes the decision very difficult-- it's a matter of weighing dozens of pros and cons to each route, which is pretty paralyzing.
In this case, it's the $500 console-- then you'll want a second controller for two-player, and those are $70. After that, you'll want a "PlayStation Plus" subscription, which is $60 every year. Then, unlike with Microsoft where they give away all of their games day one for a cheap monthly subscription fee, with Sony you need to buy the games at full price to get them right away-- that's $70 for the Spiderman ultimate collection, and $60 for "Sackboy", the two games I want to get.
Of course, I'll also want the remote at some point, since this will be my media machine as well-- that's another $30. That's just about $850, after taxes! Console gamers always talk about how expensive it is to build a PC, but I don't think they've done the complete math on just how much money they're spending on their ridiculously expensive controllers (my fantastic PC Logitech F310 sells for $20), their software (which is basically free or dirt cheap on the PC), and their online services over the lifespan they own the system (totally free on the PC).
Granted in my case, I can sell my PlayStation 4 Pro on eBay or via Craigslist for probably $250, which recoups some of that expense. But even with that in mind, the ongoing costs of routinely buying $70 games is going to get old very quickly, unless I want to play them months or years after release. It really puts into focus just how great Microsoft's value proposition is at the moment. Incidentally, here is a thread on Gamespot discussing similar thoughts about this topic-- especially take a look at post #7.
I guess it's the same as it has been for the past six months with me: I just can't make up my mind which direction to go. As I wrote about here, all of the choices are good in their own way, which makes the decision very difficult-- it's a matter of weighing dozens of pros and cons to each route, which is pretty paralyzing.
Impulse Buy - 20:52 CDT, 9/17/20 (Sniper)
I'm now the proud new owner of a PlayStation 5. I saw on Reddit that Walmart was opening up pre-orders, and after spamming their cart scripts about a hundred times, I got an order to go through: got emailed, and have the pending transaction on my credit card.
Wifey is not very pleased about this: "We both know you're going to wind up only playing like two games on it." "Three", I corrected her. Probably not a good time to be cute, in retrospect...
I have mixed feelings about it: on the one hand, why in the world would I buy one of these over a Series X, which is technically superior and has Game Pass? And why oh why would I prioritize this over Ampere? I cry a little inside when I think that I won't be getting one of those cards now.
In the end though, all that was flashing through my mind was that "Gran Turismo 7" footage... if this thing can produce visuals like that, then what difference do specs really make, past a certain point? As I said in my previous post, I even still think the PS4 Pro produces very impressive graphics, and the PS5 is multiple times more powerful, all aspects considered.
And it's not like I'm trading in my RTX 2080 PC or something: frankly, my PC is so close to the Series X spec-wise, that I could probably live with it as is for this entire console generation, aside from maybe buying a better SSD along the line.
So, I suppose this does maintain my access to all three major ecosystems: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. I can also sell off my PlayStation 4 Pro now to get some cash back: won't be needing that anymore.
Provided I don't feel guilty and cancel the pre-order tomorrow morning...
Wifey is not very pleased about this: "We both know you're going to wind up only playing like two games on it." "Three", I corrected her. Probably not a good time to be cute, in retrospect...
I have mixed feelings about it: on the one hand, why in the world would I buy one of these over a Series X, which is technically superior and has Game Pass? And why oh why would I prioritize this over Ampere? I cry a little inside when I think that I won't be getting one of those cards now.
In the end though, all that was flashing through my mind was that "Gran Turismo 7" footage... if this thing can produce visuals like that, then what difference do specs really make, past a certain point? As I said in my previous post, I even still think the PS4 Pro produces very impressive graphics, and the PS5 is multiple times more powerful, all aspects considered.
And it's not like I'm trading in my RTX 2080 PC or something: frankly, my PC is so close to the Series X spec-wise, that I could probably live with it as is for this entire console generation, aside from maybe buying a better SSD along the line.
So, I suppose this does maintain my access to all three major ecosystems: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. I can also sell off my PlayStation 4 Pro now to get some cash back: won't be needing that anymore.
Provided I don't feel guilty and cancel the pre-order tomorrow morning...
Waiting Game - 15:19 CDT, 9/17/20 (Sniper)
For those who followed the 3080 "launch" this morning, this will come as no surprise, but for everyone else: no, I was not able to get one this morning; I had multiple store fronts open across several different tabs, all ready to go, and even after just a single page refresh, they would all simultaneously go from "coming soon" or "alert me", to "sold out". I've never seen anything like it.
Minutes later, they all showed up on eBay for $1100+: the bots essentially got the entire stock.
I think that's a blessing in disguise though, because throughout the rest of the day, I've been reading persistent, plausible rumors that Nvidia is timing a 20 gig. 3080 for very soon after the release of RDNA2. Both wifey and I suspect that 10 gig. is not going to future proof the 3080 throughout this incoming console generation.
In short, I think I'm just going to sit on my current 2080 for now. Besides all of that, with DLSS 2.0 it already runs non-ray traced games at a locked 60 fps, reconstructed to 4K-- and ray tracing-heavy games like "Control" between 40 and 50 fps, again reconstructed to 4K.
The Series X pre-orders start next Tuesday at 10:00 CDT. I'm going to have a difficult time not clicking on those, even though there is little practical reason why I'd want one.
The interesting part of all this is that everyone is very much spoiled for choices at the moment: I found even the now-lowly PlayStation 4 Pro to be incredible, with its HDR and checkerboarded 1800 and 2160p's, and it's nothing compared to the "slow" PlayStation 5. From the Series S up through the PlayStation 5 all the way to Nvidia's juggernauts, I think people are going to be absolutely gobsmacked no matter which one they pick-- they are all good choices.
In other gaming news, I've got a physical copy of "3D All-Stars" showing up tomorrow at some point-- I'll undoubtedly be playing a lot of that over the weekend. John Linneman found it to be good-not-great-- which totally works for me.
Minutes later, they all showed up on eBay for $1100+: the bots essentially got the entire stock.
I think that's a blessing in disguise though, because throughout the rest of the day, I've been reading persistent, plausible rumors that Nvidia is timing a 20 gig. 3080 for very soon after the release of RDNA2. Both wifey and I suspect that 10 gig. is not going to future proof the 3080 throughout this incoming console generation.
In short, I think I'm just going to sit on my current 2080 for now. Besides all of that, with DLSS 2.0 it already runs non-ray traced games at a locked 60 fps, reconstructed to 4K-- and ray tracing-heavy games like "Control" between 40 and 50 fps, again reconstructed to 4K.
The Series X pre-orders start next Tuesday at 10:00 CDT. I'm going to have a difficult time not clicking on those, even though there is little practical reason why I'd want one.
The interesting part of all this is that everyone is very much spoiled for choices at the moment: I found even the now-lowly PlayStation 4 Pro to be incredible, with its HDR and checkerboarded 1800 and 2160p's, and it's nothing compared to the "slow" PlayStation 5. From the Series S up through the PlayStation 5 all the way to Nvidia's juggernauts, I think people are going to be absolutely gobsmacked no matter which one they pick-- they are all good choices.
In other gaming news, I've got a physical copy of "3D All-Stars" showing up tomorrow at some point-- I'll undoubtedly be playing a lot of that over the weekend. John Linneman found it to be good-not-great-- which totally works for me.
The Field - 16:21 CDT, 9/16/20 (Sniper)
Now that every single cat is officially out of the bag except for RDNA2 PC cards, here is the gaming landscape as I see it at the moment, in price-descending order:
I'm prepared to plunk down my cash on the very first one tomorrow morning the instant they are up: it's the best option by a mile for people who have the existing PC, and that little bit of extra cash.
This of course assuming I can beat everyone else to the mouse clicks, which I'm not taking for granted: it's going to be a mad rush once the "buy" buttons go live.
- Nvidia Ampere: $750 for a 30 teraflops RTX 3080. Requires an existing PC. Crème de la crème. Stratospheric rasterization and ray tracing performance. Play Microsoft's entire publishing sphere for $5 a month.
- Xbox Series X: $500 for 12 teraflops. Modern feature set with limited ray tracing performance. Fast hard disk I/O. Play Microsoft's entire publishing sphere for $5 a month.
- PlayStation 5: $500 for 9.5 teraflops. Modern feature set with limited ray tracing performance. Fast hard disk I/O.
- PlayStation 5 Disc-Less: $400 for 9.5 teraflops. Modern feature set with limited ray tracing performance. Fast hard disk I/O. No optical drive.
- Xbox Series S: $300 for 4 teraflops. 1080p box. Modern feature set with limited ray tracing performance. Play Microsoft's entire publishing sphere for $5 a month.
- Nintendo Switch: $300 for 0.15 - 0.3 teraflops. Portable with old tablet chipset. Outdated feature set. Excellent for sprite-based indie games, but 3d functionality limited. Needs a refresh to stay competitive.
I'm prepared to plunk down my cash on the very first one tomorrow morning the instant they are up: it's the best option by a mile for people who have the existing PC, and that little bit of extra cash.
This of course assuming I can beat everyone else to the mouse clicks, which I'm not taking for granted: it's going to be a mad rush once the "buy" buttons go live.
Ego - 12:25 CDT, 9/14/20 (Sniper)
I just watched another one of those interviews, this time with Andy Gavin, and found it to be pretty subpar.
While there's no doubt that he's a creative problem solver, and allegedly a talented programmer-- I'm not sure how much of "Crash" he himself wrote, I'd need to do some further investigation-- the interview was rife with technical inaccuracies.
He starts out by incorrectly describing the 3DO as a "half-3d machine": I'm assuming he's referring to how the "Cell Engine" uses quads instead of triangles. While acknowledging that he's written a game for that hardware and I haven't, the Sega Saturn and certain period PC graphics cards also used quads: the result is still polygons-- i.e. "3d"-- regardless of what primitive types those surfaces consist of. The "OptiDoom" guy, who does contemporary 3DO programming, fully agrees with me.
He then describes PC games as needing "custom config.sys and autoexec.bat files", while trotting out that age-old cliché of PCs being difficult to play games on-- total ignorance: I played hundreds of DOS games from 1985 or so all the way through to the shift to Win95, and the only time I needed to use a custom config.sys file for a game was Megazeux, which utilized XMS. Games "just worked" in those days, way moreso than during the later Win98 era, and probably even moreso than today.
On that note, he then explained-- complete with an interviewee-provided graphic-- that PCs "basically only had 640k of memory." Uh, was he working on an IBM XT, and had never heard of EMS? My dad and I built a 486 in 1992 or 1993, and it had 16 megabytes of RAM. With a cheap product like QEMM, you could basically render the base 640 limitation irrelevant with a few keyboard presses and a reboot.
I also chuckled at his marveling at modern graphics cards doing gigaflops' worth of calculations! Oh my! Not sure where he's been the last odd-decade: even the humble Xbox One GPU is a teraflop chip. Further, his continued referral to the PSX's video chip as a "GPU" is a pet peeve of mine, for the very reason he acknowledged in this very interview (no hardware transform and lighting).
He also made it sound like the use of an SGI workstation was an innovation for "Crash"-- when in a period interview of him in my 3DO hint guide, he explains how they used just such a workstation for "Way of the Warrior" too: very misleading. He also brags about being one of the first people-- "I have patents!"-- to figure out how to stream stage data from slow-ish storage, when people were doing stuff like that on the Amiga in the 1980s, much less on the 3DO way before he did it on PSX ("Immercenary", "The Need for Speed", "Blade Force", etc.).
My impression of him overall is that he's pretty arrogant: his view of himself is inflated versus his actual accomplishments and knowledge. Interestingly, his "soft skill" game design chops seem much stronger than his technical aptitude: his explanation of the principles in "Crash" level design was the most astutely-stated part of the video.
While there's no doubt that he's a creative problem solver, and allegedly a talented programmer-- I'm not sure how much of "Crash" he himself wrote, I'd need to do some further investigation-- the interview was rife with technical inaccuracies.
He starts out by incorrectly describing the 3DO as a "half-3d machine": I'm assuming he's referring to how the "Cell Engine" uses quads instead of triangles. While acknowledging that he's written a game for that hardware and I haven't, the Sega Saturn and certain period PC graphics cards also used quads: the result is still polygons-- i.e. "3d"-- regardless of what primitive types those surfaces consist of. The "OptiDoom" guy, who does contemporary 3DO programming, fully agrees with me.
He then describes PC games as needing "custom config.sys and autoexec.bat files", while trotting out that age-old cliché of PCs being difficult to play games on-- total ignorance: I played hundreds of DOS games from 1985 or so all the way through to the shift to Win95, and the only time I needed to use a custom config.sys file for a game was Megazeux, which utilized XMS. Games "just worked" in those days, way moreso than during the later Win98 era, and probably even moreso than today.
On that note, he then explained-- complete with an interviewee-provided graphic-- that PCs "basically only had 640k of memory." Uh, was he working on an IBM XT, and had never heard of EMS? My dad and I built a 486 in 1992 or 1993, and it had 16 megabytes of RAM. With a cheap product like QEMM, you could basically render the base 640 limitation irrelevant with a few keyboard presses and a reboot.
I also chuckled at his marveling at modern graphics cards doing gigaflops' worth of calculations! Oh my! Not sure where he's been the last odd-decade: even the humble Xbox One GPU is a teraflop chip. Further, his continued referral to the PSX's video chip as a "GPU" is a pet peeve of mine, for the very reason he acknowledged in this very interview (no hardware transform and lighting).
He also made it sound like the use of an SGI workstation was an innovation for "Crash"-- when in a period interview of him in my 3DO hint guide, he explains how they used just such a workstation for "Way of the Warrior" too: very misleading. He also brags about being one of the first people-- "I have patents!"-- to figure out how to stream stage data from slow-ish storage, when people were doing stuff like that on the Amiga in the 1980s, much less on the 3DO way before he did it on PSX ("Immercenary", "The Need for Speed", "Blade Force", etc.).
My impression of him overall is that he's pretty arrogant: his view of himself is inflated versus his actual accomplishments and knowledge. Interestingly, his "soft skill" game design chops seem much stronger than his technical aptitude: his explanation of the principles in "Crash" level design was the most astutely-stated part of the video.
Inside Tracks - 10:05 CDT, 9/14/20 (Sniper)
Annoying plinking music and his frequent use of the non-word "performant" aside, this is a very interesting interview with Dan Greenawalt. The last game I played in the series was Forza Motorsport 5, and his explanation of their AI system really puts into perspective the strange phenomena I routinely saw in that release.
The most controversial topic he discusses is undoubtedly "rubber banding". My personal take is that while it is integral to a title like "Road Rash", it has zero place in a simulation-leaning video game: if you make a big mistake, deal with it or restart the race; heck, these games have even had rewind features for many years-- "rubber banding" is pointless.
And so, it was disappointing for me to hear that cars in front get weight added to them, or torque reduced. That said, he knows his market much better than I do, and it also sounds like their are technical reasons-- which I didn't quite follow-- that make it necessary for the time being.
I once wrote an overhead racing engine in STOS on my Atari ST-- and even when compiled, trying to get the AI to follow the road without my game dragging the 68000 into the abyss performance-wise was quite the task. I wound up coloring different sections of the track subtly different shades of gray-- then every few frames the AI cars look at the color: "This is gray shade three? Turn left", and so forth.
But back to the videos: I also watched this one, with Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford discussing my third favorite game of all time. In "The Need for Speed" on the 3DO, the driver is sitting unrealistically high, to make the game more fun-- but not so high that it destroys the illusion of realism; that's part of the art of making games, and the "Star Control II" planet excerpt is another illustration of the same principle.
Speaking of making games, I showed my son how to make his own texture pack in Minecraft-- he's been hard at work re-drawing all of the game's tile art, then testing in-game. I installed 7-Zip for him, and we worked together on some experiments with saving images in different formats, so I could teach him what "compression" is, and how it works.
The most controversial topic he discusses is undoubtedly "rubber banding". My personal take is that while it is integral to a title like "Road Rash", it has zero place in a simulation-leaning video game: if you make a big mistake, deal with it or restart the race; heck, these games have even had rewind features for many years-- "rubber banding" is pointless.
And so, it was disappointing for me to hear that cars in front get weight added to them, or torque reduced. That said, he knows his market much better than I do, and it also sounds like their are technical reasons-- which I didn't quite follow-- that make it necessary for the time being.
I once wrote an overhead racing engine in STOS on my Atari ST-- and even when compiled, trying to get the AI to follow the road without my game dragging the 68000 into the abyss performance-wise was quite the task. I wound up coloring different sections of the track subtly different shades of gray-- then every few frames the AI cars look at the color: "This is gray shade three? Turn left", and so forth.
But back to the videos: I also watched this one, with Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford discussing my third favorite game of all time. In "The Need for Speed" on the 3DO, the driver is sitting unrealistically high, to make the game more fun-- but not so high that it destroys the illusion of realism; that's part of the art of making games, and the "Star Control II" planet excerpt is another illustration of the same principle.
Speaking of making games, I showed my son how to make his own texture pack in Minecraft-- he's been hard at work re-drawing all of the game's tile art, then testing in-game. I installed 7-Zip for him, and we worked together on some experiments with saving images in different formats, so I could teach him what "compression" is, and how it works.