The Open Thread is a place for open discussion among my readers. Post anything you feel like sharing! From now on, the Open Thread will no longer be monthly. Instead, there will be a new Open Thread whenever it is adequate. The stage is yours. Go ahead!
The latest Open Thread is made ‘sticky’ to improve access.
Please consider throwing a few coins into the tip jar, and buy my books! They are great. Your support is greatly appreciated.
This is seriously creepy. Since we last talked about software architecture I’ve been getting ads everywhere about webinars on improving architecture and such.
Since I know how this is supposed to work, it’s even weirder. I didn’t go and google and open any websites on architecture (yet). That would have explained it. At this moment it almost feels like mindreading since I just made a mental note to research software architecture next.
Yeeeesh. The film Brazil, the panopticon, 1984, Brave New World, it’s all here.
Maybe the Google’s user activity tracking is somehow integrated with WordPress. But in any case the level of tracking is really getting ridiculous.
Few days ago I was conducting email correspondence with a Chinese customer and next thing I know I started getting advertisements in Chinese.
I’ve never looked into tracking, but my understanding is that there is cross-site tracking, often tied into the browser. For instance, if you are logged into Google and use Google Chrome (funny that they name it “Chrome” not “Google Chrome”, just like Microsoft named their shitty console “Xbox” as opposed to “Microsoft Xbox”), your Google cookie just tracks all sites you visit. Twitter and Facebook, and all other persistent cross-site logins likewise track you in this manner.
@Aaron
“funny that they name it “Chrome” not “Google Chrome””
Google Chrome is actually the real name for it. It’s just that everyone shortens it to Chrome. 🙂
The chrome I used to surf this blog is indeed tied to a google account. So it possible it scans the blog you read to know what ads to show you. Because I am 100% sure the only time I’ve ever discussed or even looked at software architecture was in the comments here. And I immediately started getting ads about becoming good at software architecture etc.
That I’m familiar with. In fact I help clients set up this kind of stuff, set up tracking and retargeting systems, read from GA cookies etc, set up unique tracking IDs etc.
In this case I am 100% certain I didn’t open any websites on software architecture after we discussed it here. If I had opened such a site, it would have explained things, as pages are ranked for certain things. So if you open a page about software architecture, it will rank you as “person interested in software architecture”. Of course, assuming the page in question has google analytics installed.
Which means it’s either a massive coincidence – or google chrome actually scans the content of the page you’re reading, which would be super scary.
Wait, I just realized that this specific blog post here might be ranked as involving the topic of “software architecture”. The fact we discussed in the comments means the page is ranked for that as well.
However, that explains only half of it. The website would also need to have google-analytics installed for it to track people and send info to datacenters that a person looked at “pages about x”. Otherwise it doesn’t matter if this blog post here is ranked for software architecture.
So unless you have Google Analytics installed on your wordpress, it means that chrome is sending this type of data as well.
I don’t use Google Analytics, and I don’t find it implausible at all that Google Chrome constructs user profiles based not just on the websites they visit but also the content they consume as the latter allows for much better targeted ads.
Oh definetely. From an advertising standpoint it would be a holy grail of advertising.
I just can’t believe they’d be that brazen to go that far. That would essentially make Google Chrome spyware.
Although, today the news came out that google was funding the Wuhan lab. So maybe it is possible they are that brazen.
Oh, Google certainly has a lot of chutzpah.
What’s better than merit-based selection at universities? Obviously, it’s random selection in order to ensure “fair representation”:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/just-blind-chance-rising-call-random-selection-college-admissions
I’d say this was overdue. In case randomness does not work the way we expect, i.e. with an unexpectedly large number of whites, we need to retain the right to manually intervene so that the outcome is not too random.
Up next: random selection at the work place, with the same caveat.
This will not become the main method of selecting.
Honestly random selection is the most fair solution.
And when people fail university, it has to be some form of discrimination.
I quite like how German universities back in the days did it. Everybody could enroll and in the first semester, the expectation was that 50 to 90% would fail the exams. If you got your high school diploma, you could pick any subject, no matter how bad your grades where. If you thought that you’re cut out for a STEM discipline, you got your seat. It was a sight to behold how the lecture halls emptied out within the first few weeks.
Skipping selection processes altogether and letting everyone in is arguably the least unfair approach to this problem. These days, though, this on longer works because equality of opportunity is a racist idea of yesteryear. Instead, equality of outcome is desired, and meritocracy is a myth anyway.
This reminds me of my college days. The first two weeks you’d have to show up an hour early just to find parking. People would give rides to students cars just to get a spot. After that first two weeks you could park wherever you desired. Everybody drops.
I like the current Swedish system. Sweden is crazy PC in a lot of areas, but really good in this one.
University admissions are based on either high school grades, or performance on the SweSAT standardized test. A few programs and schools are allowed to have alternative admissions, but they can only make up a small portion of the total percentage, and are based on things like tests and interviews.
A few schools used sex and ethnicity as factors in the past, but that generated a lot of lawsuits, and one school (Uppsala university) ended up losing in the Supreme Court. Since then it’s been forbidden.
(This applies to undergraduate admissions. I don’t know much about how the systems work for admission to master’s and doctoral programs.)
Admission to Master’s and PhD programs in Sweden are a joke at this point. One of the top CS programs in Sweden admits an equal number of male and female applicants, leading to women in degrees that barely relate to the discipline sitting next to hardcore geeks, which is not surprising given how few women there are in the undergraduate population. Also, via personal contacts I know of a few PhD admissions processes where, as a first step, all male candidates were summarily rejected. Some of the academics even joke about it.
I happen to know a guy in a research group that doesn’t seem to like male applicants very much. He had access to all application files of a particular application process. In his opinion, the strongest female candidate was much less qualified than the weakest male candidate. Again, this happened at a top technical university in Sweden. The female candidate in question has been pursuing her PhD project for about two years and has achieved nothing thus far.
The thirst for “diverse” female graduates in CS is real, by the way. I crossed paths with a female PhD candidate in CS some time ago who produced no papers at all during her PhD and eventually dropped out, after four or five years. Yet, she got contacted by a lot of big tech firms, offering her internships or asking her if she’s like to interview for full-time positions. You can bet that they went through lists of PhD students at universities and messaged the female-sounding ones because otherwise this can’t be explained.
“I quite like how German universities back in the days did it. Everybody could enroll and in the first semester, the expectation was that 50 to 90% would fail the exams.”
I personally think you need a bit of handholding and a supportive education system that tries to uplift students from failure. At best, you teach and grade students with the desire of seeing them successful, not failing. Why would I say so? I used to be studying Mathematics under a system that is like what Sleazy described. The outcome is that I nurtured an everlasting fear and animosity towards Math. In 8th grade, I tried to ask my teachers why these two expressions are equivalent:
a(x+y)+b(z+k) ax+ay+bz+bk
The answer is I need to swallow it up and accept it. This creates a constant difficulty for me to try to factorize highly complicated expression. (Exercises in Vietnamese schools are not designed to be built up from simple to more complex expressions, exercises are designed to be disconnected and artificially difficult to obscure the basic and essential lessons) (Calculus written by Stewart at least try to arrange exercises in the order of difficulty, thus proving to be more instructive).
I would say teachers should have no remorse of grading F grades to students who make no effort of learning the taught materials. Those students who aren’t motivated to even lift a pen and do some simple exercises should be weeded out completely. They may try their luck on other jobs, like those that demand you to have good mechanical intelligence.
The basic tenet is: as long as you are motivated and make an effort, I will give you opportunities.
As for selecting elite students in various fields, they can be spotted by encouraging potential students to participate in higher classes, or special examinations that aim to let them to go to specialized schools.
“Skipping selection processes altogether and letting everyone in is arguably the least unfair approach to this problem. These days, though, this on longer works because equality of opportunity is a racist idea of yesteryear. Instead, equality of outcome is desired, and meritocracy is a myth anyway.”
Agree with your conclusion.
You describe a problem of teaching. In fact, I find it hard to believe, even though it is true and has been confirmed to me by several people, that US high schools have turned mathematics into rote learning. Instead of understanding basic operations that would allow you to deduce certain properties, they teach you rules like “FOIL” (first outer, inner last) that are supposed to make it easier to understand algebra. Instead, the effect is that the average student mindlessly learns those rules, without understanding why they were created and, more importantly, why they are not even needed. As a consequence, they limit understanding. Unfortunately, in your case the teacher has exhibited a similar lack of insight. A brighter teacher would have shown you how to transform one expression into the other or, even better, would have asked you to do it.
“I happen to know a guy in a research group that doesn’t seem to like male applicants very much. He had access to all application files of a particular application process. In his opinion, the strongest female candidate was much less qualified than the weakest male candidate.”
Perhaps this is a typo?
It seems that, by “a guy in a research group that doesn’t seem to like MALE applicants very much”, you mean female?
This is an issue of parsing. I would probably have written this sentence in a clearer way. What I meant to express is that in this research group, male applicants are not well-liked. If I had wanted to tie the attribute to the guy, I would have written “a guy … who …”. In the example above, though, I wrote “a research group that …”. You can of course question if a research group, as an abstract entity, can like or dislike something, but this kind of usage is not that uncommon. I frequently encounter statements such as, “company X likes …”.
Also, that guy does not have a dislike for women. Instead, he believes in meritocracy. Also, even in STEM fields there are women who have made good contributions. The issue nowadays, though, is that very often unqualified women take a spot that should have been given to a more qualified male. The same is happening in other fields, too.
“You describe a problem of teaching. In fact, I find it hard to believe, even though it is true and has been confirmed to me by several people, that US high schools have turned mathematics into rote learning. ”
Yes, in Vietnamese, it is called “học vẹt” (learning like a parrot). I have taken Precalculus, Calculus 1 and the beginning of Calculus 2 in the US before my family moves to another state. The rule of manipulations are all explained, but not the essence. One can proficiently do integrals without a thorough understanding of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus at all, and I am not satisfied because I like to understand them.
I would say that rote learning is not just unique in the US, it is very prevalent in other countries. In China, in Vietnam, you count it. It is a convenient way of teaching students how to do algebra and precalculus without hassles (to their own detriment).
“they teach you rules like “FOIL” (first outer, inner last) that are supposed to make it easier to understand algebra.”
You read my mind. I find this rule bizzard as well.
“Unfortunately, in your case the teacher has exhibited a similar lack of insight. A brighter teacher would have shown you how to transform one expression into the other or, even better, would have asked you to do it.”
As you have mentioned in an earlier thread, teachers now are drawn from the bottom of the population in the West. I think teachers in Vietnam are highly unmotivated due to low paid salary. This makes them withholding teaching materials in class, and later re-teach students in their own residents. We call this “học thêm” (supplementary study). You can google “cram school”. In Chinese, it is 补习班 (you could consult your wife, Sleazy’s gal for a translation).
Let’s go back to the algebraic expression in my previous comment. Now that I am much better at algebraic manipulation, I realize that to explain those expressions, it takes quite a lot more knowledge. With a bit of historical knowledge of mathematics, you will see that elementary algebra is a highly symbolic subfield of Math. It has its roots in the development of notations for variables and constants. The way of arranging these mathematical symbols allows mathematicians to conveniently proceed with highly abstract calculations without thinking much about the underlying rules. Prior to the 17th century, solutions to word problems in algebra is complicated by verbal answers. Symbolic representation is a huge advanced step. The rich layouts of these symbols is the source of creativity for mathematicians who naturally possess an extremely high degree of sensitivity to symbolic manipulations, think of Euler or Ramanujan.
Thus the answer to those expressions is that it is a convenient way to represent them. It facilitates manipulation. For example:
x(a+b)+y(a+b) (a+b)(x+y) (1)
Believe it or not, such an expression can be quite challenging to an 8th grade student. Not all students could grasp these rules of manipulations. It is not at all obvious as to why it is proceeded that way. It is certainly easier to explain if you do so with the aid of a subordinate variable. Let (a+b)=z
zx+zy z(x+y) (2)
This makes things easier, much more related to the above (1). The RHS is just a convention to write multiplication, and the LHS is the distributive property of multiplication.
“A brighter teacher would have shown you how to transform one expression into the other or, even better, would have asked you to do it.”
Indeed, prior to taking those classes in community colleges, I relearned algebra through a very insightful book called “Algebra” by Gelfand. It is a highly instructive book, with both routine and even much harder exercises.
I really like this exercise:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/gelfands-algebra-prob-42-corrections-hints.899082/
I think one can easily rewrite this sentence as followed:
ORIGINAL: “I happen to know a guy in a research group that doesn’t seem to like male applicants very much. He had access to all application files of a particular application process”
REWRITTEN: “I happen to know a guy, who is (“belongs to” is clearer) in a research group that (which) doesn’t seem to like male applicants very much, who had access to all application files of a particular application process.”
As you said, the relative pronoun “who” would clarify the sentence. It is indeed a complex sentence with nested relative subordinate clauses. We can connect those 2 sentences into one by introducing relative subordinate clause.
The prevalent use of the relative pronoun “that” in place of “who, which” can sometimes obscure the nature of the subject of the sentence.
Again, not trying to be nitpicked or obtuse, nor overtly pedantic. I really grammar, that’s all 😀
““I happen to know a guy, who is”
Sorry, there is no colon in this sentencez since you use an indefinite article “a”, it should be
“I happen to know a guy who is…
Aaron,
Here’s a good channel if you’re interested in Astronomy. Despite all current climates change talks that have been made in the current political arena, earth is supposed to be in an ice age according to the Milankovitch Cycle.
This is also my understanding. There is increasing evidence that we are indeed entering a new Ice Age. Meanwhile, SCIENCE! marches on with its usual climate warming bullshit. Another Ice Age may be what saves humanity because you need smarts and a willingness to cooperate for survival. I have a hunch that this will once again lead to IQ being positively correlated with survival.
I’ve had a bit of an unfortunate development in my life, although I can’t say I’m surprised. I just got an email from my job instructing to me to fill out a vaccination survey. I said I’d take it (don’t want to arouse any suspicion), but at the bottom where I could add a comment, I wrote that I won’t be able to give a definite answer until I see which vaccinations are available and how they work.
I’m currently resolute in my unwillingness to take the mRNA ones, but idk about the others. How would you guys categorize the risks of the COVID vaccines that do NOT hack your mRNA? If there’s a less sci-fi vax available, I may take it, but I haven’t made up my mind. My days in Vietnam may be numbered.
Below is the email if you’re curious:
“Dear Employees,
As part of its national vaccination plan, the Vietnamese government is collecting data on the
number of employees who would be willing to take a Covid-19 vaccination at companies and
organizations in HCMC and southern provinces. In addition to this, we are actively sourcing
Covid-19 vaccines for the purpose of providing vaccinations to all staff members.
As a result, you are requested to fill in this Survey of Covid-19 Vaccination Demand for the
purpose of estimating our vaccination needs before 12:00pm Tuesday, June 22, 2021.
Please note that this survey is mandatory for all staff. If you fail to complete
the survey by the deadline, it will be understood that you have no intention to get the COVID-19
vaccine when it is made available here and/or by the government.
Your prompt action is highly appreciated.
Stay safe and stay positive.
Sincerely,
HR Department”
The email states that filling out the survey is mandatory, not that the alleged vaccination is. By the way, calling it a “jab” or an “injection” is much more fitting as it does not protect you from contracting Covid. Anyway, in your case, I’d start looking for a local doctor with an adjustable sense of morality. In other words, bribe a local for a fake vaccination certificate. Of course, there is a non-zero chance that we will see a lot of dead people as a consequence of the vaxx, which is starting already, so being left standing in a year or two may very well put a target on your back. Still, the powers that be will have all hands full cremating all dead bodies as the superior WWII technology seems to have been lost in the sands of time. Pay attention to what is going on in Vietnam and once the b.s. is piling up, get out. This implies that it is probably a good idea to start hatching plans already.
Do you hold all the jabs as equally lethally/deleterious in your mind?
I’m keeping on an eye on places i can go that i am open to living in. Cirrently that includes Ukraine, Dubai, Brazil, El Salvador, and certain parts of the states. May live in a suburb outside a major stateside. Particularly somewhere in Texas or Florida.
I think the worst injections are the mRNA-based ones as they constitute unproven technology. The short-term side effects are bad enough, so I wonder what the long-term effects will be. The other vaxxes may be lesser evils but even there I’d argue that there is nothing to be gained by getting them. Also, keep in mind that more people died of the vaxx in less than one year than of all other vaccinations combined, at least as far back as records on VAERS go.
The countries and states you mention all seem fine. Dubai is great for making money if you can stand the place, considering that you don’t need to pay any kind of income tax.
“at least as far back as records on VAERS go”
Notabene, VAERS entries are only made when adverse reactions occur within 24h after the injection. Anything beyond that is not tracked by VAERS, meaning we can safely put a multiplier on the 4000ish deaths reported in VAERS (that’s the last ballpark figure I have).
@Herk
How do you plan on getting to live in TX or FL? Do you have US citizenship/a green card?
If so, I’d say get your ass out of Asia. at least in Texas there is a law that vaxx passports are illegal.
I wouldn’t think twice about it.
@Neutral, I’m American. The places i listed are places where it’s my understanding I can go as an american.
@Herk
I see. May I ask, why did Ukraine make your list and why did El Salvador?
A buddy of mine who works at an IT firm and is not bound to a physical place and spends a lot of time in Ukraine. He likes the people a lot there, says they are very laid back and leave you alone. Plus, women are beautiful (but some have gold digger behavior to be aware of).
As to El Salvador, did the recent legal tender law motivate you, or has it been on your list before that? It’s a country I’d be interested in, too.
@neutral, The woman and the affordability have to do with Ukraine.
Yeah, the btc thing was what put El Salvador on the list tbh. I have been to central america before though. I’m a beach boy, so i figured it would be worth checking out.
You can’t say it often enough to yourself that people are fucking stupid. Here, the idiot of the hour talks about “health anxiety” as the true cause of vaxx side effects. You see, after having been locked up for a year, he’s got an elevated heart rate and randomly feels pain. There’s no way that the vaxx wrecked your health, goy, no effing way at all: https://www.reddit.com/r/CovidVaccinated/comments/o4rfar/are_these_vaccine_side_effects_or_just_health/
The culling can’t come fast enough.
Get vaxxed, bigots!
https://gameruprising.to/index.php?threads/even-liberal-vaxxers-are-starting-to-report-side-effects.24338/
fuck man. i’m worried. both my parents took 2 of em.
It’s surely a crazy conspiracy theory that the vaxx is going to lead to genocide via sudden deaths, long-term health complications and female infertility:
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/4k-women-report-period-problems-potentially-tied-covid-jabs
Remember that Bill Gates never joked about wanting to kill billions of people.
Aaron,
Here’s an interesting video on the effects tattooing has on the skin that most sluts don’t realise.
I’ll check it out later. Thanks for sharing!
The opening statement is bad enough already: 1/3 of all people have tattoos and among the young, it’s around 40%. This seems intuitively plausible. In a big Western city, it could well be that 70 to 80% of young women have tattoos.
Polish gaming company CD Projekt Red hosted a ‘Pride Charity Stream’ on the pozzed platform Twitch last Friday to raise donations for LGBTQXYZ:
https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/pride-month-charity-stream-is-coming.11089496/
Is it any wonder Cyberpunk 2077 was an epic fail at launch? Has that game even been fixed yet?
This game has done incredible damage to AAA gaming. It was the most hyped release in years, and one of the biggest bombs. The first month was great, then came the refunds, and now nobody is buying it anymore. This is in stark contrast to Witcher III, which got great word-of-mouth and built up a fanbase over years. I would not be surprised if there are more active players of Witcher III than of Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam.
Which Final Fantasy games are still worth playing? I’ve played FFX, FFX-2, FFXII, and FFVII. FFX was the only one I completed. Really enjoyed the story and the side quests.
VII, I tried to play in 2004-2005, and my file got corrupted after getting maybe a quarter of the way through, and said fuck it.
X-2 had ok battle mechanics, but I quickly realized I had no interest in hanging out w/ a bunch of chicks for hours on end.
XII was just a snoozefest to me. The story did not hook me at all.
Is VII worth playing? I’d get pissed if my file got corrupted again.
What about VIII, IX, XIII, etc?
When I was a young teenager I had a blast playing 7, 8 & 9. I think 9 was probably my favorite all around. The protagonist, Zidane, is the first protagonist I remember ballsy enough to reach out and grab a handful of ass without a second thought. He is way more likable than the male leads in 7 and 8, imo.
I was actually in the middle of playing 6 a couple years back but ended up with a Switch and dropped it. I do think I’ll eventually go back and finish it, it was starting to hook me. I highly recommend Chrono Trigger if you haven’t played it before playing FF 6, 7 & 8. Just my personal opinion. They’re all pretty decent, though I can’t say for sure how well they’ve held up except for CT, it’s awesome.
I played FF VI on SNES (released as FF III in the West) on an emulator in the late 1990s and quite liked it, but I’m not sure how well it holds up. Chrono Trigger was also great, but if you have not grown up with 16bit-games the graphics may be a bit underwhelming. Other RPGs I played on emulator were Terranigma, Secret of Mana, and Soul Blazer. I have to say that I’ve somewhat outgrown that kind of games. I still would like to play through Earth Bound and Mother 3 at some point, though.
Final Fantasy IX has a phenomenal soundtrack. I’ve listened to it countless times even though I haven’t played the game yet. FF VII was fun. I’d like to play through FF VIII and IX at some point.
There is a remake of FF VII on PS4, but fan feedback has been a bit mixed. Also, the protagonist looks extremely unnatural with a twink body and a female face. This would be off-putting enough for me.
I played a bit of XIII on PS3 and may get back to it at some point. The graphics hold up surprisingly well.
Are you aware of the crossdressing section of FFVII? It was funny in the original, but in the remake it’s pretty cringy. From what I’ve seen, the action parts of the remake look pretty well done for an rpg, but the English voice acting is really bad imo. It also seems like they’re going to try and milk that particular installment of the series as much as absolutely possible. From what I remember, you make it out of the city of Midgar by the first of the three discs on the original version, yet you’ll spend the entire 40-50 hours of gameplay in the remake stuck in Midgar. So it’s assumed there will be several more ‘sequels’ to conclude the remainder of the story. Not only that, but they’re in the process of marketing and releasing what appears to be DLC of some female character I never remembered or cared about and her version of events that happened in Midgar at the time. By the time they’ve released all the game’s content, it will cost you $500 to get the full experience. Not interested.
I’m not sure I recall reading anything about a cross-dressing scene, but I came across a screenshot of the remake that shows Cloud in front, and a bunch of buff gay dudes behind him, which is oddly reminiscent of the infamous picture with four or five black dudes looking at a puny white girl (I tried finding that meme picture online but I got inundated with links to blacked porn, so I noped out that investigation).
That you no longer get complete games is one of the worst aspect of the industry these days. It happens even to long-established franchises. Monster Hunter used to give you a complete experience and on top, you got tons of bonus quests. I think there are dozens, maybe even more than 100 in Monster Hunter 4. In Monster Hunter World and Rise, you have tons of cosmetic DLC that will cost you a pretty penny. This significantly affects gameplay because one part people who play Monster Hunter enjoy is dressing up their character and giving it a particular look. In the two most recent versions, though, you have to shell out hundreds of dollars to get the complete game.
I just looked up Monster Hunter World on Steam. There are 200 DLC, which cost you about 550 Euros in total. It’s a complete travesty. Thus, your $500 figure, which I at first interpreted to be an exaggeration for effect has already been surpassed by reality as the complete Monster Hunter World experience is already well above $600, if I take the euro prices on Steam and convert them to USD. Meanwhile, I got the three Monster Hunter games for the 3DS used for a few euros each.
EDIT: The total cost of Monster Hunter World of course includes the cost for the base game as well. Also, DLC normally does not get deep discounts during sales. Thus, those business practices remind me quite a bit of “whaling” in the mobile game market where the goal is to milk a small fraction of the customer based for as much money as possible and not caring about the experience of the average player.
Here, Aaron. I found a 7 minute clip where Cloud dances with a gay man man for several minutes before being dressed in drag and resuming dancing with said homosexual. It’s an interactive sequence and I can’t believe the developers thought it was a good idea to subject the player to this:
https://youtu.be/rew5i1gfyoc
Your remark that Cloud looks like twink is pretty spot on haha.
Btw, I’ve never played the 3DS before but you’ve mentioned it a couple times. I recall my friend showing me a version of Chrono Trigger and a really cool Contra game he had on it while back. Does it have a lot of great titles on it?
This is a truly bizarre scene. Do the creators know who the audience of this game is? This clip just gets worse and worse and when I thought it was finally over and I could get some relief, I hear, “Beauty is a thing without shame to which notions of gender don’t apply. Don’t be afraid, Cloud!” Also, I don’t recall anything that cringe-worthy in the original. One commenter on YT got it right, though: “Square Enix: Ok let’s turn a brothel into Dancing with the Stars.”
Chrono Trigger and Contra 4 are DS games. I think both are pretty expensive if you want to buy originals, but you can hack the DS/3DS quite easily. I don’t do that, though, because this makes you view games as completely disposable whereas I tend to invest a bit more time if I spent money on them, even if it was just a token amount.
I owned a 3DS many years ago, I think it was in 2015. I bought a used one because I wanted to play through Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which is a sequel to the SNES classic LoZ: A Link to the Past. I loved this game a as a kid. Also, I quite liked Super Mario 3D Land. Otherwise, the library is considered pretty solid, but it didn’t do much for me. The 3D effect is quite nice at first but it’s just a gimmick in the end. If there are two or three games you’d like to check out and can find a cheap 3DS, I’d say go for it, but I’m not sure I can recommend building a collection of games as it is much more comfortable to play on a bigger screen. I only pulled the trigger because of the reputation of Monster Hunter 4 of being by far the best game to get into this series. Yet, I have to admit that I have not even played the game properly, despite having bought it quite a while ago.
This scene corroborates a statement you had made in an earlier conversation about potential worthwhile remakes ending up being pozzed or woke. Also, tweets like this one coming straight from Sony doesn’t help to sell me on anything:
https://mobile.twitter.com/playstation/status/1384653825038950408
I wonder how many impressionable gamers got cued in by how Aerith’s excitement at Cloud’s coming out as the proper way to go about gaining female validation. She’s practically orgasming in anticipation during the segment of his makeover.
I actually replayed A Link to the Past a couple years back. That game is still solid! I would imagine the sequel is pretty good as well, which I never got around to. The price of some of those 3DS games are honestly a deterrent.
I also thought that Aerith’s sexually charged response to fagged-up Cloud on stage was an example of deliberate psychological manipulation. It’s really well done, too, because that character is a lot more attractive than the average contemporary female video game character.
The price of 3DS games is only an issue if you want to build a big collection. If you are just interested in a few games, you can buy them used and sell them when you’re done with them. I’m happy with a purchase if my cost is 1 euro per hour of entertainment or less (Astral Chain was the worst purchase in my life by a huge margin). According to that metric, I could have paid the MRSP for LoZ: A Link Between Worlds and wold have had no reason to complain. In the end, my loss on that game was a few euros.
There is an emulator for 3DS (Citra) that can play a big chunk of the library reasonably well, it seems:
https://citra-emu.org/game/
I tried it out briefly about a year ago and was quite surprised how well Pokemon X ran. You can even increase the screen resolution. In all fairness, though, I only played the game for a few minutes as I was only interested to see how far 3DS emulation has come.
Thanks for the link! I honestly see myself delving more and more into the past of gaming as I get older and look for new things to play. There’s a ton a stuff out there that’s incredibly fun to play, meanwhile modern games look more and more polished yet become less and less enjoyable for a variety of reasons. I’ve only even touched the 3DS once so there’s an entire sea of entertainment to be had, hence why I don’t think I’ll ever purchase another new console. If something comes out that really catches my eye maybe PC would be an option for the rare game that is worth, but still Idk. Btw, I wonder how long Nintendo is going to be able to keep up with having the title of King of Consoles? Is it a matter of time before they cave in to social pressures too? Sony seemingly has already. I would make an exception for a new Nintendo console if they can stay the course.
Nintendo utterly dominates their home market, unlike Sony, which has been seriously losing ground with both the PS4 and PS5 in Japan. Thus, the West is simply another market for them whereas it is the major market for their competitors. I think Nintendo will be able to ride out wokeness. However, I do find their recent change in design philosophy a bit concerning. Instead of producing ultra-focused gaming experiences, their flagship titles take plenty of inspiration from Western trends. In particular I’m thinking of the shift to open-world gameplay in Zelda: BotW, Mario Odyssey, Pokemon Sword and Shield and Pokemon Arceus. Splatoon was also inspired by Western team-based shooters. They still polish their games to an extreme degree, so quality is not lacking. Yet, the recent Nintendo games didn’t quite do it for me, which is why I sold my Switch.
Love those guys: https://youtu.be/dE55YFkm8NQ
xD
Go get your kids vaxxed, bigot!
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/world-health-organization-says-do-not-give-children-experimental-coronavirus-vaccine-shots
I wonder who gave the WHO a call to remove that nasty headline that read, “Children should not be vaccinated for the moment”.