Bioshock EP9: This Ends Prematu

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Aug 6, 2013

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 29 comments


Link (YouTube)

Short version: I’m busy programming. Mumbles wasn’t around this week and we didn’t want to complete Tomb Raider without her. So you get BioShock. I don’t have anything to say about this episode because I haven’t watched it since 2010. So the entertainment value of this post ought to be directly proportional to how bad your memory of 2010 is. (Or maybe you’re lucky and you’re a new viewer?) Either way: BioShock this week. Here’s the text that went with the original post:

A lot of people have been asking us to move the show to Blip.tv. We gave it a try. It didn’t work out. Blip can handle HD video. It can handle half-hour shows. But it can’t handle a half hour HD show. There is an encode that happens on the server side, and it always fails out because it takes too long. So it looks like we’re stuck with Viddler for now.

Oh, and the episode ending the way it did? Totally not related to my comic earlier this week. Just an odd coincidence.

 


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29 thoughts on “Bioshock EP9: This Ends Prematu

  1. I take it the Escapist reformatted their page layout since you did that comic, didn’t they? It’s cutting off half of the final panel.

    1. PeteTimesSix says:

      I take it you didnt quite get the j

      1. Left off the sarcasm ta

        1. MrGuy says:

          Is there something wrong with the comment system? Those last two comments appear to be cu

          1. Chamomile says:

            Crap, Candle Jack’s figured out how to kidnap people before they say his na

            1. Adam says:

              Hey, a Candle Jack reference!

              …Huh, he didn’t get me before I finished the sentence. I guess he’s slowing d

      2. Though yours was far better.

        I didn’t realize that APB Reloaded was still a thing. I’ve never played it, so APB will always remain for me a coin-op video game with cartoony graphics that depicted the humorous side of police brutality.

  2. ChristopherT says:

    I started watching spoiler warning with the Mass Effect 2 season, so I wasn’t watching when this Bioshock episode was new, but, you asked Mumbles, Josh, and Ruts if they’ve ever used dial phones, if it helps any, I’m only 28 and I have used dial phones, grew up with them, the first phone I was allowed to have in my bedroom was a dial phone, inconvenient, took way too long to dial a number, but I somehow miss them a bit, not that I would ever consider buying one, though there was something fun about pulling the dial around then watching it roll back and the noises it would make.

    1. Nonecallmetim says:

      I made a note to write about that too.

      I wasn’t allowed one in my room, but I remember playing with them, and after we got a push button on, I got to keep the old one (non-functioning) to play with.

      I don’t miss them though.

    2. Dave B. says:

      I’m only 25, and I grew up using a rotary dial phone too. They did make a cool noise when you let go of the dial…

  3. Aldowyn says:

    Programming? Programming what? Anything interesting? Can we see it? :P

  4. Spammy says:

    Yeah, Viddler may not be the most ideal of hosts but there aren’t a whole lot of better options. It’s not like Youtube will get able to handle HD video and make posting videos over 15 minutes a thing. Although Blip would be a nice alternative, they won’t do something like give their content makes the finger and turn into a walled garden. Viddler’s a decent service, they won’t do something like try to extort money from all their content makers.

    2010 was a long time ago wasn’t it?

  5. KremlinLaptop says:

    Re: Dial phones.

    I’m about ten years younger than Shamus and for the first ten years of my life we had a rotary dial phone. All at once that makes me feel old AND like I grew up in Soviet Ruskieland or somewhere (Finland, to be fair).

    My workplace has internal landlines, every office, cubicle, etc has their own number and line. Due to the things we deal with when we need to call someone about company matters that are fairly sensitive information we’re supposed to use the internal land lines instead of our cell phones.

    The idea being that someone has to actually physically bug the line in the building — which means breaking in — to get any info.

    Being a bit of an ass I replaced the phone on my desk with a 1970’s rotary dial phone in faded light blue. It makes a lovely noise when you dial it.

    1. Wedge says:

      When I was young, our only telephone was an old rotary type. It didn’t even have a phone jack; disconnecting it meant opening up the box and removing the wires with a screwdriver. This was the late 80’s-early 90’s, so it was pretty anachronistic at that point.

      I remember when we finally got a touch-tone phone, with a built in answering machine! We did not have an answering machine previously. Having a machine to answer the phone was pretty magical (we also didn’t have a computer at that point)

    2. Humanoid says:

      Pretty much describes my experience with them too, used one through to the early 90s. Or perhaps more accurately, avoided them: as a kid I avoided using the phone as much as possible, was always uncomfortable talking on the phone

      Actually, apart from the rotary dial phone, this is still true today.

      1. Corpital says:

        This mirrors my experience with 100% accuracy. Also people trying to sell you something on the phone or at the door, which both ceased in the early 2000s. Probably some law was passed to actually help people.

  6. bucaneer says:

    I don’t know, this hallway decorated with corpses of innocents brutally impaled on spikes is kinda scary, but I feel something is missing… Oh I know, they should all have bits of random loot on them. Players dread reward, right?

    1. MrGuy says:

      It’s even wierder than that. One of the victims has the audio log on them that you’re required to get to proceed. The game FORCES you to loot impaled corpses.

  7. MrGuy says:

    Here’s the thing I find fascinating about dial phones. They gave us this verb “to dial.” And while the origin of the verb (the act of physically turning a dial) is gone, we still talk about “dialing” numbers and phones.

    “Dialing” is turning into one of those words that’s drifted away from it’s origins to mean something totally different.

    Edit: Seriously, The Moderation system? This is the post you flag?

    1. Cuthalion says:

      You just blew my mind.

      And I’m pretty tired right now, so I’m not even being sarcastic.

    2. Michael says:

      The moderation system declared war on me years ago. It flags all kinds of random stuff I post. :(

      Anyway, yeah, I’m 30 and my parents kept a dial phone around into my early teens. But, they were also kind of tech troglodytes, we were still using an Apple IIe in 1994, and I could swear the Atari 2600 didn’t get junked until ’90 or ’91.

  8. MrGuy says:

    BioSock!
    BioPow!
    BioZap!

  9. broken says:

    ice to see you?

    1. KremlinLaptop says:

      Bit of a cold reception, if you ask me.

  10. Heaven Smile says:

    It isn’t THAT impossible to build a city underwater:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf3TCNjyshc

    1. Eroen says:

      Sad thing is, whoever made that video completely misunderstood the issues at hand. Rapture’s interior air has equal pressure to the surrounding water. This can be observed in the bathysphere “ports”, where the water surface is at the exact height where the air and water pressure is equal. (air pressure doesn’t change much with height due to the low mass of air, so areas higher up that are not separated with airlocks will have higher interior pressure than the surrounding water pressure.)

      Due to this, there will not be significant forces working to implode the city. However, a different issue comes up; normal air turns toxic at such pressure, and people aren’t equipped for the decrease in pressure that would happen when moving to the surface or a part of the city with lower interior pressure (see “The Bends”). The toxicity issue can be solved by using a different gas mixture with lower proportion of oxygen for “air”, likely also replacing the nitrogen (which also has toxicity issues) with helium.

      I expect the decompression issue is the cause of the design of the bathyspheres, which are obviously designed to withstand great pressure differences between the interior and exterior. When a passenger wants to go to the surface, they would spend an extended period of time in a bathysphere while the interior pressure is gradually decreased. For conveinience, the bathysphere would likely stay either in Rapture or at the surface for most of this period, which is why it needs to either withstand the immense pressure of the sea at the bottom while surface pressure is maintained inside, or be able to contain the pressure of Rapture while located at the surface.

  11. Cybron says:

    My terrible memory and I are awash with happiness.

  12. djshire says:

    I love this episode, just because of watching Mumbles idealism die a horrible death….

  13. Wedge says:

    Those responsible for this episode of Spoiler Warning have been sacked.

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