Another ModBlog

The primary place for all musings, methodical meditations, and more mundane messages that belong neither in my pony drawblog nor my online soapbox. Feel free to ask things or whatever. Skype: poniedpiper Steam: Warren

[twibrary]

“I’m an alicorn.”

[askphantomthorns]

I feel like some apple stand out there is very confused at their dwindling stock.

[mat2modblog]

Curse Newton’s third law!

[anothermodblog]

I actually considered making it explicit that the laws of thermodynamics didn’t count for shit where alicorn magic was concerned, but decided that brevity was probably the better call.

[anothermodblog]

Been in a drawing mood despite not currently having a functioning tablet, and a friend requested *Kira* Miki despite the fact that he hasn’t actually played the excellent game from which she hails and knows of its quality only by reputation. Please don’t judge it too harshly by *Kira* Miki’s... let’s call it an outfit. And proportions. They can’t all be Betty.

Credit to whatever this picture is for helping with the pose. The worst of the problems are generally located where I flew without its guidance.

[thescorpioracer]

I’m caught between “when the f will I use this??” and “accurate”

[anothermodblog]

I wasn’t going to reblog this, but the friend who shared it with me said they expected me to, and while it’s powerfully an inside joke, he wasn’t wrong to expect it. So here we are.

[death-420]

i had a dream that i was solid snake workin at taco bell

[maxknightley]

“Uhhhh, can I get a doritos locos taco?”

“Doritos locos taco… Colonel, what’s the procedure?”

“That’s a taco with a special shell, Snake – made not from an ordinary corn tortilla but designed to evoke the famous tortilla chip, packed with extreme flavor. Substitute the shell and prepare the rest of the taco normally.”

“Got it. Excuse me, customer. There’s both Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese shells here. Which would you prefer?”

“Cool ranch, please.”

“On it.”

[death-420]

can we get david hayter in on this

[virtanderson]

[f0rgemaster]

guess who met david hayter 

[anothermodblog]

It is important that someone get Paul Eiding to deliver the taco instruction part as the Colonel and it subsequently be edited together with codec visuals.

[anothermodblog]

REMI

IT IS TECHNICALLY NOW YOUR BIRTHDAY, REMI! THIS IS AN OCCASION THAT CALLS FOR ALL CAPS! WHICH I DO BY HOLDING SHIFT WITH MY PINKIE BECAUSE I AM NOT A CAPS-LOCK USING SAVAGE! ALSO IT CALLS FOR EXCLAMATION POINTS! AND PROBABLY PEOPLE UNSUBSCRIBING FROM THIS BLOG I GUESS BECAUSE I’M MAKING AN ALL CAPS POST THAT ENDS EVERY SENTENCE WITH AN EXCLAMATION POINT!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

[pleatedjeans]

[showmethegreyspace]

This is apparently where my life is going now.

[anothermodblog]

@pyrrhaisms tagged this “ #does anyone have a ship name for them? “

I do.

[anothermodblog]

We Didn't Start the Cycle

We Didn’t Start the Cycle, verse one verses one and two (Music? Music.)

Conrad Verner, Urdnot Wreav, Eden Prime, Kirrahe Hades Gamma, Kelly Chambers, Oleg Petrovsky Shadow Broker, Kahlee Sanders, Purgatory, elevators Outer space, Collector Base, Kenneth Donnelly

Omega’s plague cure, Barla Von, Seeker Swarms Javik, Blasto VII, Hamlet played by elcor Tali’Zorah, dying star, Garrus gets a new scar Richard Jenkins, Spectre NihlusCharles Pressly, Thane Krios all done for!

We didn’t start the cycle. It was always turning beyond our discerning. We didn’t start the cycle. No, we didn’t will it, so we tried to kill it.

I am such a nerd. …I’ll probably pick this back up later.

[anothermodblog]

Mordin Solus, Urdnot Wrex, tame PG-13 sex Gavin Archer, Alpha Relay, Cerberus plot Geth Prime, Armatures, Colossi and Snipers Eden’s Beacon, Nihlus quickly shot Joker, Chakwas, Geth building their consensus Citadel, Chora’s Den, omnitools, the extranet Kaidan’s great aplomb, Ashley Williams, Wrex calm Krogan clones all get blown: Virmire gets the bomb!

[anothermodblog]

So... I did another verse, but it gets a little deeper into the narrative in a way that would mean revising the first verse to be more than mostly just a bunch of nouns thrown out in a vacuum if I were serious.

We didn’t start the cycle. It was always turning beyond our discerning. We didn’t start the cycle. No, we didn’t will it, so we tried to kill it.

Harbinger's leading role, assuming direct control Hunting for a way through Omega's relay By a dead reaper's core an IFF is stored Keep the geth, activate, turns out Legion's pretty great...

Garrus seeking vengeance, Grunt's krogan pubescence Samara's mission, the Gernsback’s "nutrition" Maelon's penitence, Tali's dad's experiments Kolyat's politician, Heretic sedition

We didn’t start the cycle. It was always turning beyond our discerning. We didn’t start the cycle. No, we didn’t will it, so we tried to kill it.

[anothermodblog]

In 2016 Americans spent about $6.5 billion on Presidential and Congressional races, setting a new record. That’s a lot of money…or is it? Americans spent in a given year: $8.5 billion on Halloween candy. $18.5 billion on NASA. (provided by Dave Paul) $20 billion on ice cream. $60.5 billion on pets. $65 billion on soft drinks. $465 billion on Christmas gifts and related merchandise. Just something to consider.

Kirk Johnson-Weider (via anothermodblog)

Okay, but to be fair, I'm pretty sure that we got at least ten times the value out of our 2016 soft drinks as we're likely to get from the winners of our 2016 presidential and congressional races.

That may be snark, and there are a number of reasons I can point to for the reasons that we seem to underspend on political campaigns (such as that we’re naturally more comfortable spending small amounts frequently than large amounts all at once and campaign spending often takes place in a single go), but for the record, I'm also saying that when we buy Halloween candy, ice cream, pet supplies, soft drinks, or Christmas gifts, we can be certain of the value returned for the expenditure. If the average american spends $200 in a year on soft drinks, Amazon will give them 5,760 ounces of Coke in 40 boxes of 12 cans. They might get more Coke if they buy cheaper or less Coke if they buy at restaurants or vending machines, but they can be damn sure they'll get the soft drinks they put their money towards. If the average american spends $200 per year on political candidates, tons of people will be out $200 with nothing to show for it.

[anothermodblog]

Expanding the Tipping System

The Department of Labor is looking to allow employers to take their employees' tips and redistribute them. This is meant to benefit untipped employees like dishwashers... but labor advocates say the rule would enable employers to pocket tips for themselves.

But another important factor is that this is basically a move intended to help remedy low worker retention in untipped jobs by extending the tip model to affect them even though they're working untipped jobs. It's a move made to help employers pay their workers less and shift the burden onto the tip system.

Which, at best would mean that people would need to start tipping far more on their bills than they currently do. Maybe 30% or even 40% instead of 20%.But, let's be real, people won't start tipping more just because the money's getting spread around after the work day ends. So it really just means that tipped workers will take home less money.

But I think the thing that bothers me most is that the tipping system is absolute bullshit to begin with -- they should just pay their workers enough from the get-go and charge the prices they need to charge to do so rather than relying on customers to pay extra voluntarily in the interests of maintaining deceptive menu prices -- and this is a move to expand the tipping system to cover more people. That is the opposite of the direction we should be moving.

And make no mistake, the tipping system is designed to obfuscate costs and shift risk to low-pay employees.

Anything you can do to make prices look lower than they are benefits a business. It's why, iirc, Xbox Live did a thing -- probably still does -- where you bought DLC and stuff with "microsoft points" instead of cash, and microsoft points cost like five cents for every four points. It makes the costs feel like less when you make your purchasing decisions and thus makes you more likely to patronize them and possibly to spend more.

Tips do the same thing. Pay your workers next to nothing yourself, but have customers pay 20% more without listing that 20% on the menu.

But you don't want to force them to pay extra without listing it or they'll get grumpy, so you go "Oh, no, it's optional, you don't have to tip. You just should because that's how these people make money." And then anyone who doesn't tip? Well, your employees eat that cost, not you.

It's is a shit system, and this move by the DoL is designed to expand it to cover more employees... in a way that aggravates the problem, calling for larger unlisted costs and/or bigger losses to tipped employees.

[anothermodblog]

Do you miss the Golden Oaks Mafia too?

Hells yes. I miss a lot of things from before I fell so far out of love with pone.

[anothermodblog]

A Few Thoughts on Winning Minds

If you want someone to agree with you on something, refusing to engage with them because they don’t agree already will not help. Likewise, if you want populations of people to agree with you on something, ceasing to engage with populations because they don’t agree already will not help.

The face of ugly factionalism is more powerfully repulsive than the face of ugly ideas.

People will seldom part with ugly ideas if people in opposed ideological factions treat them poorly for having an ugly idea to begin with. They are more likely to embrace the ugly idea with increasing ferocity.

People between factions in an ideological conflict will drift away from factions that treat them poorly for not sharing the faction’s stance than they will from factions that treat them less poorly, but have worse ideas. They are more likely to embrace an ugly idea held by welcoming factions than positive ideas held by antagonistic factions.

The first rule of counterinsurgency is “do not create more insurgents.” Similarly, the first rule to winning the minds of a population is to avoid driving those within the population to embrace opposing ideas with increasing frequency and ferocity.

To use a couple of contemporary examples: If someone is a Trump supporter and you refuse to speak with them because of it, you are helping to place them in an echo chamber that will support, maintain, and strengthen the ideas to which you object.  if someone suggests that maintaining the freedom to express beliefs no matter how objectionable is more important than punching nazis, even if you disagree, labeling them as an enemy drives them towards the camp of the real enemy -- the nazis -- who will be more than happy to have them, resulting in a more nazi-heavy population.

Now, I could write a damn essay on how to engage people you disagree with constructively, but that’s honestly a separate issue.

Thing is, while I don’t believe that we’re obligated to engage in unpleasant conversations with people holding opposing views all the time or even at all, I think it’s important that, at the very least, we understand that shutting out and especially antagonizing those who believe different things strengthens the beliefs we oppose.

It’d be awfully nice if some of the factions with which I'd most like to align would stop shooting themselves in the foot.

[anothermodblog]

My Lord Frederick!

I’ve had Ouran High School Host Club playing for background noise while I do other stuff recently, and while it’s not amazing or anything, I’d remembered it as being just “not bad,” and it is well outperforming that recollection.

[anothermodblog]

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

So after years of feeling like I probably ought to, I started watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the second highest-rated anime of all time on myanimelist.net, and... 

...eh.

The story is solid for the most part. Kind of overdramatic, especially with the music, but solid nonetheless. And while I have to make mention of the fact that the “comedy” is really bad -- so, so bad; literally every joke is awful -- I think my biggest problem with it is that they keep trying to generate and maintain drama by having villains always be, with no explanation or justification provided, in exactly the right place at the right time to prevent noteworthy progress every single time anyone is in a position to make noteworthy progress... artificially slowing the narrative to a miserable crawl.

Now, I’m pretty confident there’s a reason the villains are able to pull this nonsense off. I’m pretty confident that somewhere in this thing, some explanation will be provided for the viewers as to how they keep managing this. But I don’t think it particularly matters. First of all, if you play the trick often enough to strain the suspension of disbelief, the fact that you have something in store to address the strain doesn’t help the problem in any way until you use it. Second, though, and more importantly... like I said, it slows the narrative to a miserable crawl.

They’ve got a 64-episode anime here, and based on what I’ve seen so far, it would probably make for a really good 26-episode series. Still not an ideal 26-episode series because, again, it’s a little bit ridiculously overdramatic and what they keep trying to pass off as humor is just inexcusably bad even for an anime... but, even with those problems, it’d still be really good. Instead... 64 episodes, because every time we approach the plot above a tedious crawl, the approach gets abruptly cut off because omg these villains you guys they are just so good and so prepared and so on the ball all the time you guys wow!

Like, I get what they’re going for. Spooky, mysterious, and threatening antagonists. You don’t know what they’re up to, but we keep running into it, so we know they’re up to something! And damn, they’re just so capable that for all that we keep running across that their affairs, they keep everything totally under wraps! So impressive! So mysterious! So threatening!

Except... I don’t care. I mean, I cared a little early on because I was being a dutiful viewer and providing some baseline investment for them to build on, but all the times they’ve approached the plot and then veered off has burned through that investment without building on it. So far, fifteen episodes in, I find the villains tiresome rather than engaging. That’s a serious problem.

It’s kind of like... you know that trope where sometimes characters will come up with a plan and then whisper it to each other so the viewer can’t hear in order to avoid spoiling the cool thing they’re going to do? That’s basically this entire show so far. OH MAN WE HAVE SOME COOL SHIT LINED UP AREN’T YOU SO CURIOUS DANG IT’S GOING TO BE COOL WHEN YOU FIND OUT, but no payoff justifies this many hours of conspicuous on-screen whispering.

I mean, really. Maybe it gets better, but if you can’t convince me your show is worth watching in fifteen episodes, maybe you’re going about it wrong. Maybe you’ve spent too much time waggling your fingers and not enough time doing anything worth a goddamn.

[anothermodblog]

President Shroudlure the Unstoppable

So. I was imagining a democratic republic in a fantasy setting that voted overwhelmingly to elect a lich as their chief of state. And I kind of love it.

“Elisora is a democratic republic.... [I]t is accurate that their currently-elected head of state is a lich. With that said, Elisorans get really touchy when foreigners say nasty things about Shroudlure the Unstoppable. Their average quality of life is unusually high, and Shroudlure the Unstoppable is an Elisoran hero who played a big role in Elisora's survival of the cataclysm, helped them get back on their feet after the famine, and has only even run for office in turbulent times (having run in 340 due to rising and not-unrealistic concerns about the possibility of Elisora being attacked by Shade) with the stated purpose of ensuring Elisora's brilliant and bountiful future. And though an extremely vocal minority objects vehemently to the occasional feeding of condemned criminals to Shroudlure's phylactery, most Elisorans support the state-sanctioned practice, including even some condemned criminals who would rather their deaths support Shroudlure and, by extension, the Elisoran state than serve no purpose at all.”

Campaigning:

"The truth is -- really, the truth is -- that I'm not actually unstoppable. That's a front. That's an image I project, an image I project to keep our enemies, to keep Shade at bay. Yes, absolutely, I'm strong. I'm capable. I've seen a lot of things and I've learned a lot of lessons, but the truth is that there is absolutely something that can stop me. And that's you, Elisora. The only reason I'm here is because you want me here, and if the day comes that you change your mind, well... that would stop me. That would stop me because the whole reason I'm here is because I love Elisora, and it is you, all of you, that get me up every day to fight the good fight for our beautiful republic. For our ideals. For you. If the day comes that you want me to stop, I'll stop. But until that day, you can count on me to show up time and again, every time the world out there threatens our world in here, to say 'No! You will not assault us; you will not assault our way of life. Because this, this right here is ELISORA THE UNSTOPPABLE'!"

In an interview:

"But you are a lich." "Wow. Wow, that is discrimination. I have a condition. Okay? I have a condition, a condition that resulted from the only treatment available to me when I was suffering from a terminal illness. And I have made it one of my life's goals -- one of my life's goals, like securing the future and prosperity of our great nation -- to research alternative solutions so that other people don't need to share my fate or the fate of the countless innocent lives lost every day to diseases that should by any measure be treatable. And if you're going to throw out disgusting, backwards labels that wouldn't have been appropriate sixty years ago, I'm not sure what we're even trying to accomplish with this interview."

[anothermodblog]

The Top Final Fantasy Games

(excluding spinoffs and sequels)

So I was musing about what Final Fantasy game, if any, I should play next, and while there’s no general consensus about which games are the best, I figured I could try to puzzle out how they stack up by pulling together some weaksauce metadata from a smattering of ranked listings. So I googled “ranking final fantasy games” without quotes, noted down their rankings with spinoffs and sequels removed, and did some basic math.

I pulled together four rankings: all games (excluding spinoffs and sequels), all games excluding FF15 (due to it only being ranked in two of the sources), all single-player games (because, really, MMOs are a different kind of beast), and all single-player games excluding FF15 (which is the tightest ranking, with all included games ranked on all sources).

So... here’s the last ranking I mentioned. I’ll put the other rankings, my sources, and my methodology -- along with some sweet, sweet spreadsheet action -- after the jump.

Single-Player Games Excluding FF15 12. Final Fantasy II 11. Final Fantasy XIII 10. Final Fantasy III 9. Final Fantasy I 8. Final Fantasy VIII 7. Final Fantasy XII 6 and 5. Final Fantasies V and X 4. Final Fantasy IV 3. Final Fantasy VII 2. Final Fantasy IX 1. Final Fantasy VI

I won’t lie: I’m pleased that FF6 made first (and even more pleased that it took first place by such a significant margin). Surprised that FF7 was beaten out by two games given the hype it once had and, to an extent, continues to have to this day. But I guess FF7′s popularity was always driven in large part by its reputation among people who weren’t otherwise fans of the series. Also, after the jump, we see FF15 doing quite well, but that could easily be skewed by how few sources included it (and reduced access to the benefit of hindsight).

What I didn’t manage was getting a sense of what to play next. I tried FF9 a few years back and couldn’t stomach it. That doesn’t bode well for the other, less-highly ranked games I haven’t played.

Ah, well.

Okay. So. Other rankings.

All Games: 15. Final Fantasy II 14. Final Fantasy XIII 13. Final Fantasy XI 12. Final Fantasy III 11. Final Fantasy I 10. Final Fantasy XIV: ARR 9. Final Fantasy VIII 8. Final Fantasy XII 7. Final Fantasy V 6. Final Fantasy X 5. Final Fantasy IV 4. Final Fantasy XV 3. Final Fantasy VII 2. Final Fantasy IX 1. Final Fantasy VI

All Games Excluding 15: 14. Final Fantasy II 13. Final Fantasy XIII 12. Final Fantasy XI 11. Final Fantasy III 10. Final Fantasy I 9. Final Fantasy XIV: ARR 8. Final Fantasy VIII 7. Final Fantasy XII 6. Final Fantasy V 5. Final Fantasy X 4. Final Fantasy IV 3. Final Fantasy VII 2. Final Fantasy IX 1. Final Fantasy VI

All Single-Player Games: 13. Final Fantasy II 12. Final Fantasy XIII 11. Final Fantasy III 10. Final Fantasy I 9. Final Fantasy VIII 8. Final Fantasy XII 7 and 6. Final Fantasies V and X 5 and 4. Final Fantasies IV and XV 3. Final Fantasy VII 2. Final Fantasy IX 1. Final Fantasy VI

Sources: ign.com, venturebeat.com, screenrant.com, thegamer.com, kotaku.com, dorkly.com, and denofgeek.com

Methodology: So, first of all, for each list, I gathered the rankings for each game out of the number of games included. So if a game was 14th of 15 on a list of games that I chopped down to 12, it would become 11th of 12... unless one of the games chopped was 15th of the original 15. Then I divided the rank by the number of games in the ranking to establish a common value that could be averaged across lists even when not all games were included on all of the lists. I then averaged these fractional scores across all lists and sorted the results so that the biggest numbers got the lowest rankings. Except for the Single-Player Games Excluding 15 list, for which not all of that was necessary. Since all included games had rankings on all of the lists I just averaged their rankings after chopping their lists down to only include the relevant twelve games.

So. All that out of the way, I did mention a spreadsheet.

[anothermodblog]

Aswingannamiss

I just read an interesting article of sorts concerning tabletop combat, and while I had a few problems with his initial suggestions on the matter (as did the author himself), I found that I agreed with the core issue and the notion that something could be done about it.

The basic idea is this: Attacks that do damage and nothing else are neither terribly interesting nor representative of the actual results of most successful weapon-based attacks made against other combatants. A basic miss is even less interesting.

The article goes into greater depth and responds to some of the arguments that immediately present themselves in response to the oversimplified version I presented above. For now, I’ll just point out that if you watch some of the live Acquisitions Incorporated games played at PAX, the actions that tend to meet with the least fanfare are basic attacks with basic results… and there’s a reason for that. If you need more convincing, I strongly recommend you read the article I linked above. It makes a very strong case.

In fact, it made the point compellingly enough to transform something I’d thought potentially troubling into something encouraging: the next edition of Exalted, we’re told, will focus in combat on attempting to gain momentum and set the tempo for the conflict. That’s very different from grinding down an enemy’s HP, and it’s a big change from the way Exalted itself has traditionally handled things (which has mostly been about resource attrition in the form of Willpower points and motes of Essence rather than something like HP), and I’m now looking forward to seeing how it plays.

But I also had some thoughts of my own about how to deal with it, which is what I’m writing about here. I’ll put those thoughts after the jump.

Keep reading

[anothermodblog]

Reminder to self:

COME BACK TO THIS.