styofa doing anything
h
Kiana Khansmith
art blog(derogatory)
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⁂
Keni
Andulka
Monterey Bay Aquarium
almost home
Misplaced Lens Cap
hello vonnie
ojovivo
oozey mess
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
tannertan36
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
@theartofmadeline
sheepfilms
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@zorkinian
To access Pinna Park in Super Mario Sunshine, Mario enters a cannon, which then shoots Mario to a different island in a cutscene. However, by rendering the scene as a wireframe, we can see that whatever is shot out of the cannon is not Mario, as he remains inside the cannon after it is fired.
Suppermariobroth I just want to say your expertise at subtley phrasing basic video game construction factoids as if something sinister is going on every time is acknowledged and appreciated
What happens to a country when its young people stop having sex? Japan is finding out… Abigail Haworth investigates
There’s a bunch of great quotes in here - I really suggest you read the thing in it’s entirety.
Aoyama's first task with most of her clients is encouraging them "to stop apologising for their own physical existence".
Aversion to marriage and intimacy in modern life is not unique to Japan. Nor is growing preoccupation with digital technology. But what endless Japanese committees have failed to grasp when they stew over the country's procreation-shy youth is that, thanks to official shortsightedness, the decision to stay single often makes perfect sense. This is true for both sexes, but it's especially true for women. "Marriage is a woman's grave," goes an old Japanese saying that refers to wives being ignored in favour of mistresses. For Japanese women today, marriage is the grave of their hard-won careers.
Official alarmism doesn't help. Fewer babies were born here in 2012 than any year on record. (This was also the year, as the number of elderly people shoots up, that adult incontinence pants outsold baby nappies in Japan for the first time.)
In the Japan Family Planning Association's 2013 study on sex among young people, there was far more data on men than women. I asked the association's head, Kunio Kitamura, why. "Sexual drive comes from males," said the man who advises the government. "Females do not experience the same levels of desire."
Reminds me of this graph: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Population_of_Japan_since_1872.svg
Every “Western” nation has declining birthrates, but Japan has taken that to the extreme.
I think I can speak to this as both a developer and as an executive in the video games industry. I apologize in advance for the giant book I am...
Raph Koster again - this time talking about the origins of the “gamer” from a marketing standpoint.
"Gamers" are, in large part, a marketing construct, for sure. That is not a knock against people who identify that way -- all sorts of aspects of identity these days are driven in part by marketing.
The 1990s is also when we as an industry twigged to the idea that we could intentionally cultivate the gamer identity, and the geek identity. With Ultima Online we were one of the first to do a "collector's edition" box, for example. The practice of creating art books and statuettes and the like, to more heavily monetize the core consumer, began to take hold -- think of it as early microtransactions, where we found ways to charge the whales more money.
E3 and other events shifted really noticeably from the shy, geeky, shared enthusiasm sort of vibe to the loud, garish, booth babe and guns vibe. In the arcades, the vibe moved towards fighting games, and the birth of the FGC, which had a much more confrontational, trash-talking vibe in general than other earlier games communities, just because of the nature of the game (it also was much more inclusive and diverse, because at this point, aracde machines were in urban areas, poorer areas, and arcades were somewhere safe for teens to go).
By the 2000s, you could lay most of the top games of the year down on the floor and look at the covers, and they'd almost all be a big burly dude with a gun. I actually got in the habit of doing this every year, as I judged for the various awards panels.
This goes on for quite a bit - as somebody who lived through this from the consumer standpoint, it’s great to hear from somebody on the production end of all of this.
Imaginary numbers always confused me. Like (http://betterexplained.com/articles/an-intuitive-guide-to-exponential-functions-e/), most explanations fell into one
This explanation of imaginary numbers is so good it kind of made me angry - I had such trouble with this in high school, and all throughout college (they show up a lot in electrical engineering).
I learned how to use them, but not really what they represent. Read this!
This is some fascinating stuff. One of the game designers for Star Wars Galaxies provides some behind-the-scenes stories of how the Jedi system was created in SWG, and how it may have ultimately led to the downfall of the entire game.
This other Mom mentioned how excited she was to hear me speak because her son wants to play Minecraft on the “game system” and she was concerned about it. I knew at that point my talk was going to be a big help.
I suggested to parents whose kids play online games to sit with them one night and ask if they can wear the headset for a bit. My guess is the kid will look horrified.
Really cool of Mike to speak at his PTA about games. One of the biggest takeaways was pretty simple - sit down and watch your kids play. You’ll learn a lot!
The Photic Sneeze Effect, also known as the “Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst (ACHOO) syndrome,
Scientists just can’t help themselves.
I studied some Signals stuff in college, and this is delicious.
The 16-bit samples means that the CD is able to (disregarding dithering) represent a dynamic range of 6.02*16+1.76 dB ~= 98 dB, which is much greater than any analog reproduction or recording system (Analog master tapes are capable of a dynamic range equivalent to 13-14 bits), and you should, in any normal room, be able to play at 120-130 dB without the noise floor of the CD becoming a heavy nuisance.
First, the cutting lathe for a vinyl master isn't some perfect, idealized zero-mass system. It too exists in the real world, has mass, and will alter the output dependent not only on current input, but on past input. It has a limited rise and fall time, dependent on the electronic circuit in front of the cutting head, and on the mechanical properties of the cutting head itself. Read: It's not going to "track the gentle curve of a violin".
This is a pretty excellent rant by a (self-proclaimed) scientist that is trying to emphasize one major point:
- Every study has flaws. It’s almost impossible to craft one study that will tell you all the answers.
- This means that each study should be seen as _information_, a hint towards a potential larger truth that could be explored.
- Basically, very few studies unequivocally say “X causes Y;” most say “X may have a causal relationship with Y, though there are confounding factors A, B, C, and we were only able to find 188 examples to study.”
Character study of Triple H
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYvMOf3hsGA
I have learned so much about WWE wrestling over the past few weeks. It’s very cool to think about a character having a twenty year character arc, and puts everything I saw about him during Fastlane into perspective.
Color - Sunlight vs Artificial
Something I never really understood until recently, thanks to Vsauce and some discussion on reddit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3unPcJDbCc
http://www.reddit.com/r/Lighting/comments/2yuw1k/can_someone_convince_me_that_a_high_cri_really/cpdvqbo
Basic idea:
1) Your eyes can detect three colors, more or less. Red, Green, Blue.
2) The sun emits (not evenly, but whatever) all colors of light
3) Objects that are yellow reflect yellow light
4) Your red and green receptors both get kind of excited, and give you the perception of yellow
However! If you were in a dark room, and shined a light that emitted “perfect” red and green light (which would appear to you to be yellow), that yellow object would be black, since there is no yellow light to reflect.
The fall of Breyer's Ice Cream
If you loved this as a kid, and not as much now, this may be why:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/20m9wp/what_productitemappliance_will_you_never_ever_buy/cg4ob7o
This brand used to be the epitome of high quality among the throngs of pedestrian grocery store brands. Rich, flavorful, and natural were a few adjectives that used to describe their products.
Today, there is so little cream in the product that, according to IDFA standards, it is not technically ice cream. In fact, Breyer's must now legally package their products as "Frozen Dairy Desserts".
Should I give a fuck scale guide for the State Legislature
Excellent guide from somebody who claims to have covered state legislatures as a member of the media:
http://np.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/2y0tq8/i_work_for_the_tx_senate_and_can_tell_you_100/cp5aie3
"State X Lawmaker says he wants to blow up the moon" - 0.5
This is the point and laugh stage. You have no idea how few votes it takes to elect a member of the House in a state legislature. Every one has plenty of village idiot kings elected by 1,200 people or so...
...
"Senate passes anti-moon bill" - 8.5
Oh shit... things just got real. After both chambers have passed their version of the anti-moon bill, they will have to send it to committee to iron out the differences in the two different versions of the bill. Maybe the senate favored some sort of death laser for the moon while the house approved a version calling for Bruce Willis to embed nukes in the moon's core. Sometimes these differences are enough to kill the bill altogether (at least for the current session), but the legislature is now all agreed in principle that the moon has it coming.
Manna
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Cool short story that describes the future of automation and AI. I don't necessarily think it's predictive, but some of the early stages are extremely believable.
My father, on the other hand, did not like Manna at all from the very first day he saw me wearing the headset in the restaurant. He and Mom had come in for lunch and to say hi. I knew they were coming, so I had timed my break so I could sit down with them for a few minutes. When I sat down, my father noticed the headset. "So", he said, "they have you working the drive-thru I see. Is that a step up or a step down?" "It's not the drive-thru," I replied, "it's a new system they've installed called Manna. It manages the store." "How so?" "It tells me what to do through the headset." "Who, the manager?" "No, it's a computer." He looked at me for a long time, "A computer is telling you what to do on the job? What does the manager do?" "The computer is the manager. Manna, manager, get it?" "You mean that a computer is telling you what to do all day?", he asked. "Yeah." "Like what?" I gave him an example, "Before you got here, I was taking out the trash. Manna told me how to do it." "What did it say?" "It tells you exactly what to do. Like, It told me to get four new bags from the rack. When I did that it told me to go to trash can #1. Once I got there it told me to open the cabinet and pull out the trash can. Once I did that it told me to check the floor for any debris. Then it told me to tie up the bag and put it to the side, on the left. Then it told me to put a new bag in the can. Then it told me to attach the bag to the rim. Then it told me to put the can back in and close the cabinet. Then it told me to wipe down the cabinet and make sure it's spotless. Then it told me to push the help button on the can to make sure it is working. Then it told me to move to trash can #2. Like that." He looked at me for a long time again before he said, "Good Lord, you are nothing but a piece of a robot. What is it saying to you now?" "It just told me I have three minutes left on my break. And it told me to smile and say hello to the guests. How's this? Hi!" And I gave him a big toothy grin.
The Last Question
http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html
A short story by Isaac Asimov, available for free online. I don't think I'll quote anything this time, as it would spoil the effect.
OkTrends favorites
The last article got me thinking about some of my favorite posts from OkTrends, OkCupid's blog that covers all sorts of interesting data from their huge database of people.
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-best-questions-for-first-dates/
"Okay, if you want to know...
Will my date have sex on the first date?
Ask...
Do you like the taste of beer?
Sadly, this is the only question with a meaningful correlation for women. For men there are a few others:
Q: In a certain light, wouldn't nuclear war be exciting?
'yes'⇒ 83%
Q: Assuming you were in the position to do so, would you launch nuclear weapons under any circumstances?
'yes'⇒82%
Q: Could you imagine yourself killing someone?
'yes'⇒82%"
Jeez, I guess some folks are all-or-nothing. =]
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/
"Almost universally guys like to add a couple inches. You can also see a more subtle vanity at work: starting at roughly 5' 8", the top of the dotted curve tilts even further rightward. This means that guys as they get closer to six feet round up a bit more than usual, stretching for that coveted psychological benchmark. "
"When we looked into the data for women, we were surprised to see height exaggeration was just as widespread, though without the lurch towards a benchmark height:"
Very true. I'm 5'11.75... the temptation is real!
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exactly-what-to-say-in-a-first-message/ - their most popular article ever.
"Bring up specific interests:
There are many words on the effective end of our list like zombie,band, tattoo, literature, studying, vegetarian (yes!), and metal(double yes!) that are all clearly referencing something important to the sender, the recipient, or, ideally, both."
"If you’re a guy, be self-effacing:
Awkward, sorry, apologize, kinda, and probably all made male messages more successful, yet none of them except sorry affects female messages. As we mentioned before, pretty, no doubt because of its adverbial meaning of “to a fair degree; moderately” also helps male messages. A lot of real-world dating advice tells men to be more confident, but apparently hemming and hawing a little works well online."
In the End, People May Really Just Want to Date Themselves
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-the-end-people-may-really-just-want-to-date-themselves/
FiveThirtyEight is a pretty rad blog - a bunch of statisticians just analyzing everything.
"So we can break down the general idea of “birds of a feather flock together” even further, into two patterns:
The simple pattern: People who display a certain trait prefer other people who display that trait; people who don’t prefer people who don’t.
The subtler pattern: Everyone prefers people with a certain trait, but people who have the trait themselves display a stronger preference for other people with that trait."
