Oh god, please no. I need some mind’s-eyebleach.

Over on another reddit/beehaw-like site, there’s a “Backlog Burner” event. Basically playing games in one’s games backlog during the month on November. And boy do I have a backlog.

I started with This War of Mine. I didn’t play very long, nearly 1.5hrs. It wasn’t bad. I think I just got bored. I might go back to it at some point? We’ll see. It’s just slow to start and not a lot of direction. I’m kinda the type that at least in the beginning of a game, I’m gonna need a little direction and a push.

For the second game I’ve played so far, I tried Signalis. Now THAT is an awesome game. So far anyway; only about 3hrs in. I will say, I don’t normally like playing horror/suspense games like this. I’m too much of a wuss. But Signalis has kept me hooked. I’ll only play for like 20-30min at a time, before my nerves start getting to me (lol), but I do keep going back.

Otherwise, just playing FFXIV as usual. And also finishing up Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice. Finally on the last case, “Turnabout Time Traveler.”

Mitigations

Just use another torrent client. Deluge and Transmission etc do not have this vulnerability.

Was wondering what the takeaway is here. I updated to 5.0.1. Does that fix all these? If not, guess I’ll try a different torrent client.

No worries. Crazy times we live in. Have lived in. Continue to live in. Tiring, indeed.

Major stories from last week, concerning the Washington Post and L.A. Times refusing to endorse a presidential candidate. In both situations, the ownership veto’d the paper’s editorial board, which traditionally endorses candidates.

‘Washington Post’ won’t endorse in White House race for first time since 1980s (NPR)

‘Los Angeles Times’ editor resigns after newspaper withholds presidential endorsement (NPR)

Jfc. Can’t, or rather won’t, refurbish? That’s beyond stupid.

Yeah that’d be cool if the opened it up and recreate it as a platform for people to mess around with it. Like a rPi or Arduino or something. Because in it’s current form…pretty much useless. But you’re right; they’d have to drop that price point significantly and incentivize people even if it were open.

Trying to finish up Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirt of Justice. I think I’m on the last case, so I can move on to the Ace Attorney: Investigations spin-offs after this. I’ve played all of these in the past on DS/3DS (except AA:I2), but that was years ago so some of these I don’t remember the cases and stories. Either way, I’m enjoying it. I don’t particularly love Visual Novels, but these kinds I do like.

Picked up Metaphor: ReFantazio over the weekend. Only a few hours in, but it’s definitely got my attention. Cool to play a brand new JRPG IP. Definitely looking forward to getting deeper into it. I like that it uses the traditional JRPG turn-based battle system. I don’t mind active battle systems (a la FFXV and FFXVI), but I’m definitely a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to JRPGs. Plus I’m often just bad at active battle, ha.

Friends also goaded me into getting the new Factorio: Space Age DLC. Even though I’ve had the base game for years, I don’t really play Factorio, preferring Satisfactory instead when I want to play Factory Sims, but I wanted to play with friends. Plus it’s a good chance for me to finally learn how to play this game and play efficiently.

Gasp, that would never happen! =D

I didn’t say it since I didn’t want to bring US shithousery politics into the thread.

Philippines has gotta stop with these actors and celebrities entering politics. And also the dynasties (sometimes composed of entertainers). How does being on a variety show or a soap opera qualify someone for high office?

So I’ve played a fair amount of the Settler games, as well as the more recent Anno entries: 2070, 2205, and 1800. I find those games super micromanage-y, especially the Anno games. But not stressful. Like in Anno, you can just kinda keep things on autopilot, not doing very much, and things will be OK (though the AIs might start getting stronger).

Anyway, that’s a good take that Frostpunk is more of a puzzle game. I hadn’t considered that. If that’s the case, that might explain some of my, aversion. Because that parallels somewhat an experience I had with another game: Wargroove. I was looking at Wargroove as a TRPG/SRPG (akin to Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics), where I have wide latitude to execute my own strategies. So in Wargroove, I kept trying to do my own thing, but kept losing the level. It took me awhile to realize the game wanted me to complete the level its way, not my way. And that’s when I realized it was more of a puzzle game and less a strategy game. Which is weird, because I played Advance Wars as a kid. Though maybe it’s because I was a kid I didn’t realize it was a puzzle game at the time.

It might be with Frostpunk that I’m doing something similar. Expecting a colony manager, a la Banished, but not seeing the puzzle game aspect. I’m making those narrative decisions based on nothing logical. Rather emotional: “Oh these kids are gonna starve! I better do this instead of helping the workers!”

Thanks for this; this was helpful, for real!

I’m about halfway through FP1 (I have the DLC). I want to go back and finish it, but like you said, it just kicks the shit out of you. It’s legitimately stressful for me to play it, so I’ve kinda been like “Ehhh…do I really wanna play right now?”

But I am hoping to eventually complete it. Because FP2 does look interesting.

Something tells me that Amanda doesn’t know wtf she’s talking about. Just making it seem more scary than it is, in hope of scaring people straight.

As a recently former Kansas Citian, it is odd that this robot is here. As the article says:

We hear every week these days about more businesses being vandalized or robbed in Kansas City, but when you look at the latest crime map by KCPD, it shows no illegal activity reported at this shopping center.

This part of the metro, in Raytown, doesn’t strike me as an area that’s high/higher crime. It’s a pretty busy area. I’ve passed through this part of town many times night or day. Shopped in this area from time to time; never thought it was unsafe, since it’s a rather suburban area (not saying the city areas are inherently more dangerous; I lived in KC proper).

I had a Sega GameGear as a kid. Yeah it was a Sega system, which Sega was major back then, but the GameGear was nothing compared to the Gameboy. Very cool system, in that it had a full color screen and was backlit.

Now that was at the expense of being heavy as all hell and a monster eater of AA batteries. 6 of them at at time!

I think that was basically the only non-major system I had.

My first DS was the DS Lite. I bought it when the game “Contact” came out. Played various JRPGs on it, as I’m wont to do with handhelds. IIRC, the DS Lite was backwards compatible with GBA carts, which was great. I loved the look, feel, and size of it. Honestly, DS Lite is probably my favorite Nintendo handheld, with the Switch a close second.

After that, I think the next DS that I had was the 3DS. Which I still have; I even booted it up earlier this year to try to play “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.” I didn’t end up playing it on the 3DS, since I have that anthology on Steam, but I wanted to see where I was.

Games or series that I played a lot on the DS line were practically all of the mainline Ace Attorney games, and even some of the spin offs like the Professor Layton crossover and AA:Investigations. Fire Emblem was another. I think I played Awakening, Fates, and Echoes. I played at least one Pokemon game, too.

Huh didn’t know P1 and P2 were SMT games. Good to know. I’ve tried at least one entry in the SMT side and just could not get into it. Don’t even remember which it was. I get they’re both dungeon crawlers, but I don’t think I’m a fan of the more old-school SMT-style games.

I’ve only played P3 Portable and Persona 4, on PSP and Vita respectively (though I also have these on Steam now). I have Persona 5 (also Steam), but I’ve yet to start it, since I have quite the backlog to get through. Including P3 and P4!

I got fairly far into P3P before stopping, while I didn’t get as far into P4 before stopping, then restarting, then stopping again (though I got a little further than the first time). My last attempt must’ve been during the pandemic, so not that long ago. It’s not necessarily that I didn’t enjoy them; I just have a thing with JRPGs where I intend to take a short break…which often turns into years-long breaks.

P3P was more enjoyable than P4, IMO. P4 just seemed really slow at the start, while P3, I felt had much better pacing. If I’m remembering the correctly, the latter just dropped you straight in to the weirdness, and it just kept going, where I felt like P4 had more lulls in the action.

I don’t mind the school stuff, though I’ll admit it’s not my favorite thing in the world. I do try to make an effort, rather than just breeze through it. I do hope to one day complete both of them and then get to P5. I very much enjoy their visual styles and music. I also like games that take place in the modern world, so the series is right up my alley.

For something like Civ or Stellaris, I’d count “completion” once I’ve won at least one game. Because, ideally, I’ve shown some mastery of knowledge, skills, and mechanics that allowed me to win. I don’t need to play and win as each leader in Civ or every race/trait and combo in Stellaris to say I’ve completed it.

This is similar to how I’d view “completion” in open-ended games like Cities:Skylines or Banished. Having played a city or town for several hours, was I able to keep the residents alive, stabilize the city if there were any issues, and also grow and develop the settlement for a significant, though arbitrary, length of in-game time? If the answer is Yes to all of these, then I’ve “completed” the game. I’ve understood how things work in the game. Doesn’t mean I have to understand every nuance or know every little trick. But I know enough that things are going well and largely continue to go well. And every time I start a new map, things tend to always go well.

Earlier this year, I stopped playing Eve Online for the nth time after mostly playing straight through since 2019. Because I viewed my time during this last 4-5yr stint as “complete.” I achieved practically all the goals I set out to do: join a major alliance, join massive PVP fights, engage in smaller PVP fights, make money that I ever had before, buy and fly ships I’d never used before, learn how to explore and navigate wormholes, try out specific types of industry, play with IRL friends, own and run my/our own station, and more.

In all of these, “completion” obviously doesn’t mean I’ll never go back. There’s always more to do, new things to see. But for now, I am satisfied with my progress, experience, and understanding. I’m no longer a noob.

The date of the symposium, by the way, is the anniversary of the signing of the Great Barrington Declaration. It’s also Rosh Hashanah, one of the High Holy Days of the Jewish calendar. Stanford says the “overlap” with the holiday is regrettable, but it hasn’t offered to reschedule.

Admittedly, I don’t know much about of Judaism, but this seemed out of place. What’s the significance of the signing of this declaration and start of the conference, with this holiday? That it’d be like the equivalent of hosting a conference on Christmas or Eid or something?

While I understand the needs for “academic freedom,” the author is right:

No university claims to be open to the expression of any or all views, no matter how unorthodox or counterfactual; they make judgments about the propriety of viewpoints all the time; the level of discernment they practice is one way we judge them as serious educational establishments.

It’s one thing to have heterodox views, perhaps because we don’t yet fully understand something. But at this point in the pandemic, and what we know from past pandemics, this whole intentional widespread infection leading to herd immunity idea made no sense. It was misinformation during the height of the pandemic and it’s still misinformation now.

Stanford should’ve said “No,” and made these quacks have their conference at the local Super 8 hotel.

I use it since I subscribe to Proton for email. It seems fine. I used to use Windscribe – or rather still do since I have a lifetime subscription – but I tend to alternate between the two services these days. Proton seems to have tons more servers though. I’ve torrented on both and have had no issues with either.