Here is another podcast for you to enjoy while cowering indoors and waiting for the current mess to blow over. Or I suppose you could enjoy it while jogging. Or at work. Or during class. Or at a funeral. Whatever. Do what you like. I’m not the boss of you.
Link (YouTube) |
Show notes: Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #340: YouTube Killed the Video Star”
I’ve been taking walks lately, trying to make sure I get enough exercise to keep my hypertension at bay. I hate walking for its own sake, but I’ve found I can stimulate the “getting things done” part of my brain if I can turn the walk into an errand. There’s a store about a fifteen minute walk from here, so every day I look around the house, find some random household item we’re low on, and then hike to the store and buy it.
Technically the errand is pointless. If we’re low on obscure and rarely-used item, then I don’t really need to hike to the store to buy more. I could simply add it to the shopping list and we’d get it with the weekly groceries. Walking to the store for a single item is a silly ritual, but it really does help motivate me. My overall goal is “keep my heart in shape so I don’t die”. That’s a very long-term goal where progress is measured over the course of months or even years. It’s a bit demoralizing to get home from a walk all tired and out of breath, flop down in my chair, and realize I just made 0.001% progress towards my goal. Being able to come home and say, “Hey, we were out of cumin but I took care of it,” is far more rewarding. I wonder what the cashier thinks of the odd man that comes in every morning to do his grocery shopping one item at a time.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Being Okay in the Age of COVID”
It’s Monday, which means you get another hour of my droning voice and stumbling digressions. And also Paul, when he’s not giving me the silent treatment. This week we’re talking about Starcraft 2 tournaments in the age of COVID, Neverout, and Six Days in Fallujah.
Link (YouTube) |
Yes, it is April first. I normally change the background or color scheme of the site, but I didn’t think of it in time this year. Still, I wouldn’t want to send you out on the internet today without your usual April 1st warning: Careful what you read. It’s probably even more untrue than usual.
So… it feels like we’re short on content these days, doesn’t it? I’m still finishing up my book. My wife has started a new job. We’ve been busy shopping for a replacement car and getting rid of the husk of the old. These various things have eaten into the hours I normally spend doing MY ACTUAL JOB. Where does the time go?
Also, maybe I’ve squeezed in a few minutes of Factorio here and there. You know. In those occasional moments when I should be sleeping, exercising, or working. That kind of thing. I found a few mods that really tickle my fancy, so I’ve spent a few hours having that thoroughly tickled.
The book now has a cover. Check it out:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Mess Effect”
Link (YouTube) |
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Diecast #338: Midnight Mailbag”
I gave Satisfactory my #3 spot in 2019. There were things I loved about the game, and there were things I didn’t. At the time, it was easy to dismiss the things I didn’t like as simple growing pains. The game was in early access and it’s natural to assume that a good game is going to keep getting better as it grows. The things you love will become more polished, the stuff that bugs you will get fixed, and so by the end you’ll have the best version of the game.
But as Satisfactory has grown, I find myself becoming more annoyed and less interested in it. The stuff that bugged me has become more bothersome, and the stuff I liked seems to have gotten lost in the noise. I come back to the game after every major update, and these revival sessions get shorter every time.
To get where I’m coming from: I loved Factorio. According to Steam, I’ve clocked almost 2,000 hours in that game. Now, the defensive fan-boy response here is:
“Satisfactory is not Factorio! If you want to play Factorio, then go play Factorio and don’t criticize this perfect jewel of a game!”
In order to discuss a game we need to start somewhere. I’m not saying that Satisfactory needs to copy Factorio, I’m just explaining what initially drew me to the game.
I love solving emergent logistical problems. Every game ends up being its own puzzle, and no matter how well I do there’s always that nagging suspicion that I could do it all even better next time. It’s this constant process of visualization, experimentation, and implementation as I work on various optimization problems. I’m always looking to make it a little more efficient, get it working just a little faster, or pack the whole thing into an even smaller space.
The idea of having this style of puzzle-solving in a first-person world sounds almost too good to be true. The world of Satisfactory looks amazing, and watching the sunrise over the vast industrial complex I’ve carved into the face of this otherwise virgin planet fills me with a deep sense of accomplishment. Maybe I’m committing some sort of ecological crime, but damn if this isn’t one fine-looking, well-maintained ecological crime.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Un-Satisfactory”
I never thought I’d say these words, but I’ve watched Zack Snyder’s Justice League. I expected four hours of overblown bombast. I got that, but I also got a really interesting look at storytelling. More importantly, I got to see the Mass Effect problem from the other side.
In case you missed it: Director Zack Snyder made Man of Steel, followed up by Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I was not a fan of either movie. During my write-up of Bats v. Supe, I said:
[…] it’s kind of darkly hilarious that Zack Snyder was chosen to adapt modern-day Superman for the big screen. I can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the material. You can see the fumbling Hollywood thinking at work behind the decision. “This Snyder guy is really good at making movies about the funnybooks. He directed [Watchmen] a few years ago, so let’s give him this one!” It’s like saying, “This guy who made Snowpiercer did a great job, so let’s give him The Polar Express. I mean, both movies have trains in the snow! He’s a natural fit!”
Anyone capable of successfully adapting Watchmen shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Superman. The two works are opposed on a philosophical level. Superman is profoundly idealistic, and Watchmen has cynicism oozing out of its pores. Watchmen isn’t just a deconstruction of the idealized superhero myth, it’s a controlled demolition. It takes the entire premise of super-beings and says, “Actually, having nearly-indestructible godlings running around would be horrible for the world, because they would still be people and People Are Awful.”
We don’t actually know what the studio heads were thinking at Warner Brothers, but the most popular narrative was the the studios wanted to make their own version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But Snyder’s self-serious tone wasn’t resonating with audiences the way that Marvel movies do. Snyder took these stories about fighting crime in blue spandex and shot them as if he was adapting the Iliad. His movies have this overpowering Wagnerian vibe. You’re deafened by the angelic chorus as Snyder beats you into submission with one blunt symbol after another.
As the story goes, the studio heads didn’t know anything about art, but they did know that they were coming up short in the global dick-measuring contest against Marvel. So when Snyder suffered a family tragedy during the production of Justice League and he needed to step away from the project, the studio was only too happy to replace him with nerd culture darling of the moment Joss Whedon. Whedon is famous for his lighthearted tone and having lots of witty banter between the various leads. Under Whedon’s pen, all characters eventually turn into jokesters, dorks, or audience-insert critics. The characters become incredibly self-aware and the film starts to take on the “rollercoaster” vibe that Marvel movies are (in)famous for.
Stylistically, Whedon is basically the anti-Snyder.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Zack Snyder’s Justice League”
How did this game avoid all the usual stupidity that ruins remakes of classic titles?
Crunch-mode game development isn't good, but sometimes it happens for good reasons.
Obviously they are. Right? Actually, is this another one of those sneaky hard-to-define things?
What did web browsers look like 20 years ago, and what kind of crazy features did they have?
So what happens when a SOFTWARE engineer tries to review hardware? This. This happens.
Everyone hates Black Friday sales. Even retailers! So why does it exist?
How do you know the rules of the game are what the game claims? More importantly, how do the DEVELOPERS know?
Why killing you might be the least scary thing a game can do.
Here is a long look at a game that tries to live up to a big legacy and fails hilariously.
Two minutes of fun at the expense of a badly-run theme park.
T w e n t y S i d e d
