Suchian Musings And Ramblings About General Designs Involving Notable Estuaries

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  • So, as has been noticed before, the classical four elements of fire, air, water, and earth correspond pretty well to the standard four matter-states of plasma, gas, liquid, and solid.  Additionally, just as there are things that are not seemingly made of those four classical elements (wood, for example), there are complications to the states of matter (Bose-Einstein condensates, for example).

    I hope that future societies don't make fun of us for our generalizations.
  • Random amusing (at least to me) anachronism:  Classic age-of-sail Pirates discover that the smuggling vessel they just looted was smuggling drugs, not as in medicine, but as in illegal ruin-your-body-and-brain stuff.

    Alternate version:  The cargo was ink cartridges for printers.  Incredible monetary value per pound, absolutely useless to Blackbeard and his crew.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    Those are both amusing ideas!
  • well, pirates would already be operating in an extralegal capacity, and kinda mixed with black market dealers and other organized criminals, so pirates dealing in illicit substances really doesn't seem farfetched

    iirc they were already involved in smuggling booze, so it's not a stretch to imagine them smuggling things like heroin or cocaine or opium, and i'm pretty sure actual pirates have done that

    ink cartridges, however, is hilarious
  • Doesn't mean that that specific crew has the right contacts to sell to.  Also, it's a reference to how a lot of what pirates took was everyday, practical things that would have use on a ship.  Food, medicine, wood, nails, rope, entertainment, et cetera.  Sure, they take all the gold and silver they can get, but that's not to make a dragon-hoard of money, it's to spend it, to use it.  And as for booze, they drink it all the time.  But the idea that an old-timey age-of-sail Pirate would have no use for stuff a rat couldn't safely drink or gnaw on feels "right" in a lot of ways.

    I mean, if you really want the big drug dealers, you look at the East India Tea Company, and probably its older brother, the Dutch India Tea Company, and the sort of pirate I'm talking about hates those guys.
  • edited 2021-05-25 19:07:29
    One difficulty in translating Pessh is the tendency I call the "Instability of nouns", a phenomenon in which, for example, a cloud may be also a mountain, a bush, or a spirit.  It becomes easier to resolve if one remembers the concepts of personification, or if one accepts that in Pesshi stories Who is more important than What (though "Horka" may be a valley and the river and mountains which define that valley, and it may be the spirit of the river, "Horka" is always one of the younger daughters of "Rende" and "Luat", whether valley, spirit, or mountain).
  • I suppose, on the other hand, that our language has so many idioms and associations that translation is hardly possible the other way.  Consider the difference even in identical contexts: "Watch out for that one, he's a complete monster!", "Watch out for that one, he's an absolute beast!", and "Watch out for that one, he's a total animal!".  How does one translate such associations and meaning?

    I hardly see what use you get from having me translate mythologies when I should be at the front lines, but enclosed is as complete a collection of Pesshi myth as I could compile and annotate.

    Yours,

    K.  H.  Punthre
  • Dear K.H.,

    My most hearty thanks for such an extensive body of work, you do the work of three.  

    More will be explained in my next letter.

    Sincerely,

    I.E.V.


  • No comedy has ever accomplished any real good.  Many have accomplished great evil.

    At worst, a dark comedic exposé simply inoculates the public to the awareness of life's injustices.
  • Comedy can amuse, and it can be enjoyed and appreciated, so it has worth, but in terms of changing the world for the better it is fundamentally useless, because that is not its purpose.
  • edited 2021-06-02 00:00:15
    "Punching up" means that the comedian resents those he mocks.  "Punching down" is when the comedian has contempt for those he mocks.  To be "the voice of a generation", one need merely express the same contempt and resentments held by one's audience.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    Rozzy you should read Lud-in-the-mist by Hope Mirlees

    This has nothing to do with your thoughts on comedy, I just think it's a book you'd enjoy
  • I will look for it.
  • Since two bits is a quarter dollar, that makes one bit a piece of eight.
  • So, in the classic (to me) game Star Wars Battlefront 2 (the one from 2005, not the other one), they dealt with the fact that you play for the genocidal horrible faction by having the level where you do Order 66 be such that any feelings of guilt are drowned in a sea of pure FRUSTRATION not seen since THAT BARREL from Sonic 3 and Knuckles.

    After at least ten but probably fewer than fifteen years (since it's unlikely we got the game as soon as it came out), I finally beat that level, and now can feel like an absolute turd for my war crimes.

    ...come to think of it, the fact that you have to protect the bookshelves in that level may be related to my once-irrepressible formerly-incorruptible need to protect books.
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    image
  • that coloration and those teeth looks more like a croc i think?
  • image Wee yea erra chs hymmnos mea.
    Turns out it was actually a false gharial all along.
  • edited 2021-06-13 22:12:41
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  • You know, as blocky and non-detailed as Black and White 1 was, it has a visual charm that still holds up without any mods.

    image
  • Somehow I feel like Imipolex G would be interested in this.
  • edited 2021-06-25 16:39:04
    Don't you hate it when you're just minding your own business and then you hear your cousin's voice screaming "Aaaagh!  Help!" so you kick down the door yelling "I'mma comin', Giuseppe!" but there's nothing in the room but a box with his voice coming out of it so you threaten the demon-box but then another voice comes out of it saying "If you ever want to see your cousin again, give me the keys to the vaults of Tambora" and you're all like "Blast you, Senator Corres!  You're not even a senator, that's just your first name!  Let him go, your feud is with me, drat it!" but the box says nothing except "the door was unlocked, you overly destructive and tedious fool" before going silent so you leave through the window because you don't have the funds to pay for doors all the time but on the way home you see Giuseppe and OH SNAP you don't know if it's a shapeshifter or not and you realize that perhaps demon-boxes can mimic voices so you say "Oy, Giuseppe!  What color was your birthday cake on your eleventh birthday" to verify and then he says "Yo, I didn't have a cake at that one, I had pie, don't you remember?" and you DO remember but that doesn't help because what if there's a possibility that it's simply a very well-informed shapeshifter?

    ---from the journal of Aaaagh Jones.
  • Amnyways, I've been playing Inquisitor (a computer game by Cinemax from 2009) and daaaaaaaaang does it feel like a long-lost treasure from a different age.  Man, I miss the Infinity Engine, the inventory tetris, the finding-which-containers-are-saved-in-permanent-memory-so-they-don't-reset-to-empty-after-enough-time, the wandering-around-town-talking-to-everyone-to-see-if-you-missed-a-step-in-a-sidequest, the fun of reading about the world through item descriptions so that each new item is like a little bit of lore, the frustratingly hard combat combined with myriad cheap ways to restore health so when you barely make it it FEELS like you barely made it, the feeling of "oh crap I put skills in Pasta-making, Cheese-Making, Pie-Making, and Bread-making so now I don't have a high enough Floor Inspection skill to find secret areas so I missed my chance to get the sweet loot I'm going to need (but indeed, could not have equipped even if I got it because I put skills in the food-related skills)", the fact that they almost never try to force emotional engagement with your party members (if they die, they die) and, of course, party members getting killed by traps because their pathfinding on the way to the foe led them astray.
    Also, I just today realized how horrifying the old standby of rewarding players by having authority figures offer monetary rewards for Orc Scalps is.

  • Protip for time-travelling architecture enthusiasts:  attempting to prevent the destruction of your favorite historical building is an effort that is unlikely to go unopposed by people who like what came later.  Since those people are not only preserving their preferred buildings, but also the time-line, the advantage is against you.  Fortunately, that means that you have the advantage when trying to stop admirers of what-came-before-your-favorites from preventing the loss of what-your-favorite-replaced.
  • A scene/bit/scenario that has happened in several media which there doesn't seem to be a Trope for yet on Tv Tropes and probably hasn't happened enough to earn one is when-the-heroine-is-in-the-villain's-castle/lair/home/dungeon/place/hotel/island/submarine/whatever-and-there's-a-bunch-of-clothes-in-her-exact-size!

    It's always startling and scary as all heck.

    I guess the modern version would have perfectly-fitting shoes or glasses that actually look really good on her and are her prescription.
  • edited 2021-07-14 01:14:39


    Spoiler:
    Sometimes I resent how much people accept the idea of having-issues-with-the-second-amendment while not accepting the idea of having-issues-with-the-freedom-of-speech.*

    I also sometimes hate the fact that the first amendment contains several different ideas, in dealing with religion, the press, assembly, and expression/speech, so you always have to clarify what part you mean when you mention it.

    *The argument that "the second amendment was written in a time when the technology of firearms was much less than it is now, and thus the things we are able to do were never intended under these ideas" is evidently valid, but the argument that "the right to free speech was written in a time when the technology of information was much less than it is now, and thus the things we are able to do were never intended under these ideas" is not valid.


  • ...Speaking of technology making bad ideas possible:

    Irritating Thinkyperson:  "You were so busy thinking about whether or not you could make a mass media empire, Pulitzer, that you didn't think about whether or not you should!  And now, the journalismonsters can open doors!  Aaaaaaaargh"
    THE END
    a film by Aliroz
  • edited 2021-07-17 19:07:42
    If another person felt the way I feel about the future, and dreaded things the way I dread them, I'd say that that person was depressed or something similar and should really try to look on the bright side of things or seek therapy for his or her own mental health, but if someone said that to me, I'd say that I'm going to be alright because my faith in things eternal sustains me when I lose hope in things temporal, and compared to eternity, this life isn't all that much, certainly not too much to be bearable.

    Am I truly depressed if my very being, down to the bones, believes that there is a good ending to the choose-your-own-adventure book that is life, that that good ending is attainable, and that I have people who know how to do just that (and also guides/walkthroughs)?

    (Of course, perhaps trying to look on the bright side of things is a good idea regardless, because it does not help to needlessly burden myself, and feeling good feels good).
  • Note to future self:  If your thought patterns look like these italics, please consider the bold and don't get discouraged by the strike-through part:

    Premise: I am upset about [thing].
    Possibility 1:  [thing] does matter.
    "Logic":  Since [thing] matters, [thing] is worth getting upset about.  Time to be upset at [thing].
    Possibility 2: [thing] does not matter.
    "Logic": My concerns or feelings about [thing] are bad and useless.  Time to be upset at myself.
    Conclusion:  Not being upset is wrong.  Time to be upset.

    Super secret truth:  It is possible to care about [thing] without being upset all the time, and being mean to myself for being mean to myself is unnecessary.  The correct response, regardless of which possibility is the truth, is to deal with things in a mature fashion.
    PROBLEM:  It's difficult to figure out how to deal with things in a mature fashion, and harder still to actually do it.  
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    I think an important thing to keep in mind here is that just because [thing] does matter doesn't mean that you can necessarily do something about it.

    Like, a good example would be transportation in the United States. American car culture is unsustainable and I wish we could have a robust mass transit system...but I, as an individual, can't really solve this problem that exists on a structural level, so I try very hard not to beat myself up for owning a car to commute to and from my job.

    You know?
  • My dreams exceed my real life
    S2Y8RHV.png
  • edited 2021-08-04 02:25:53
    ...And even when your hope is gone
    move along, move along, just to make it through
    (2015 self)
    ...
  • edited 2021-08-04 02:27:33
    ?
  • Never be with0ut a Hat!
    (2010 self)

    I think an important thing to keep in mind here is that just because [thing] does matter doesn't mean that you can necessarily do something about it.


    Like, a good example would be transportation in the United States. American car culture is unsustainable and I wish we could have a robust mass transit system...but I, as an individual, can't really solve this problem that exists on a structural level, so I try very hard not to beat myself up for owning a car to commute to and from my job.

    You know?
    No no no, no no no, no no NO!  You can't do anything with that attitude.  And even if you can't win, you have to try until either you or the problem are gone, because anything less is just being part of the problem!  "Oh, I can't do anything about that" is a rationalization for being complicit.

    I'll stop fighting for what I care about when I die, and not a moment sooner.  And I'll never give up, never stop caring, never despair!

  • I think an important thing to keep in mind here is that just because [thing] does matter doesn't mean that you can necessarily do something about it.


    Like, a good example would be transportation in the United States. American car culture is unsustainable and I wish we could have a robust mass transit system...but I, as an individual, can't really solve this problem that exists on a structural level, so I try very hard not to beat myself up for owning a car to commute to and from my job.

    You know?
    No no no, no no no, no no NO!  You can't do anything with that attitude.  And even if you can't win, you have to try until either you or the problem are gone, because anything less is just being part of the problem!  "Oh, I can't do anything about that" is a rationalization for being complicit.

    I'll stop fighting for what I care about when I die, and not a moment sooner.  And I'll never give up, never stop caring, never despair!


    Oh, you will.

    The realizations that battles must be picked if wars are to be won, that perfection cannot be achieved, and the futility of lost causes does not equal nobility, they will come.

    True resilience is in facing this with grace, not in denying what is and screaming into the void to assert what ought because you hope the heavens will hear you for all the noise and forget that you're too scared to do anything, and not in throwing yourself against the tide until there's nothing left of you because you're too thoughtless to think before striving.
  • Never be with0ut a Hat!
    (2010 self)
    I hate you.
  • ...And even when your hope is gone
    move along, move along, just to make it through
    (2015 self)
    @Ali_Roz:  Who are you really trying to convince here?  I don't think you're as "mature" and "sadder but wiser" as you're trying to be.  If nothing else, the fact that you still do this "Oh, I'm so much more bitter and more disillusioned about this flawed world that fails to live up to the ideal than you are" to the-headspace-you-make-up-to-represent-your younger self that I have/had been doing for years as of 2015, means that I don't change as much as all that.

    Sometimes-losing-faith-in-humanity and sometimes-feeling-overwhelmed-by-a-changing-world has been characteristic of us/me/you since middle school at least, you just don't outwardly care about the same things and use that to act like you're all mature and "above" the petty stuff that "used" to matter to you.  But, the thing is, you still care.  You don't talk about prescriptivism and descriptivism anymore, but you still never misuse the word "literally".  

    I hate you.

    You're not a very good liar.  You don't have the social skills yet.
  • edited 2021-08-04 03:06:40

    I think an important thing to keep in mind here is that just because [thing] does matter doesn't mean that you can necessarily do something about it.


    Like, a good example would be transportation in the United States. American car culture is unsustainable and I wish we could have a robust mass transit system...but I, as an individual, can't really solve this problem that exists on a structural level, so I try very hard not to beat myself up for owning a car to commute to and from my job.

    You know?
    You make a very wise point here, especially the part about how not beating yourself up for this kind of thing is very hard...
  • My uncle can fit all of the computer games he likes on a flash drive, with all of his savegames, mods, and everything, and I don't think he's liked a single game that's come out since 2004 (he mostly likes stuff from the 1980s and 1990s).

    I think I'm reaching the point where the new games are too new for me.

    I hope somebody makes a DosBox equivalent for the computers I use/have-used, because what even is the point of having a computer that can play computer games if it cannot play Age of Mythology from the cd?
  • edited 2021-08-22 02:19:06
    Sure, it's nice to have your games install in 3 minutes instead of 30, but it was neat seeing the stuff they came up with to keep you entertained while the game installed.  Sometimes it was screencaps of the game to get you hyped, sometimes it was concept art, sometimes it was images advertising other games, sometimes it was information on the game, and on the original Age of Empires it was a spiffy animation of workers constructing a building.  There was such flavor to it, and you don't get that with Steam's black rectangle.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    The funniest game installers were the ones that advertised the game you were installing.

    Like, hey. I've already bought this product. You don't have to continue trying to sell it to me.
  • You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
    Also, I feel like you will appreciate this image:

    image
  • edited 2021-08-22 01:58:17
    I know I do lol

    also, advertising the game already ought could just work to hype players up for the game they're installing
  • Also, I feel like you will appreciate this image:


    image
    I appreciate it quite a lot.
  • edited 2021-08-23 03:25:40
    So, in a moment of improvidence, I spent a bunch of money on pixelated remasters of the first six (and from what I've heard, the only six good) Final Fantasy games.

    I can't play the first one, because the remastered sprites look too much like the 8-bit Theater characters without actually being the 8-bit theater characters, so my brain knows that they are wrong, because I know what those sprites are supposed to look like.

    4 apparently has a scene with a balcony and music that's one of the best things ever from what I've heard, but it was parodied in Undertale by Mettaton, who I despise for being unbeatable with my minimal thing-dodging-in-video-game skills and also being the loudest thing since these checkered pants, so I'm not playing that one.

    I'm not playing 5 or 6 because starting that late in a series is bad luck, so I went with 3 and 2.

    My party for 3 is Trilby (Red), Turban (Blue), Beanie (Green), and Bonnet (Pink).  The success of this color layout for the four main characters proves that plagiarism is okay.

    My party for 2 is Castor (with the cool helmet), Cloche (purple hair), Chullo (the same haircut as that one kid I knew in Kindergarten), and Canopy (greyish hair).  Judging by the intro to Final Fantasy 2, this is a much moodier, more showing-you-the-suffering-of-the-world-you-have-to-save sort of game, and maybe it could have had the comfortable kid-exploration tone of 3 if all the main characters wore cool helmets instead of just one of them.
  • I played 3 until I got the elixir for Cid's wife and then realized that I had betrayed by inherent video-game greediness for collecting every single item and not using them ever for the sake of healing a bedridden old lady and HOW DARE this decades-old game use my real-life morals against my video-game morals like this.
  • edited 2021-08-23 03:28:30
    You know, the thing that best demonstrates the difference in tone for me is that the orphans of Final Fantasy 3 are implied to have no memory of any parents except for their (very much alive) adoptive guardian and the (also alive) woman who stands two squares to the left and one square down from him who is described as being a "motherly figure" to them, while the orphans of Final Fantasy 2 are implied to have seen their parents killed by an invading army just before or during the opening cutscene.

    Also, while my four adorable little child soldiers Orphan heroes are indistinguishable except by color and whatever class I choose to make them (I won't, though, because these little tykes-in-armor sprites are too cute) and seem to all speak with one voice, Castor, Cloche, Chullo, and Canopy are all different-in-silhouette from the start, and also Canopy seems to have gotten separated from the others, which would be unthinkable for Trilby, Turban, Shacko, and Bonnet.

    (My party for 5 will probably be named Calash, Capote, Bombin, and Sennit.
  • Awwwwww, dang, Canopy is Cloche's brother, and he might be in an evil where-all-the-innocent-captives-go dungeon that the remaining three of the party aren't high enough level to go to yet?

    Snaaaaaaaap, I'm an absolute sucker for the old must-rescue-my-family AND the saving-playable-characters.  If someone combined those ideas with those games that go through generations and you play as different people in the family across time, I'd be all up in the "Nooooo, not Beardfist McFistbeard III, he of the double-jump, defeater of the minions of Senator Corres" investment.  (Why do you think all my characters in the Elder Scrolls games are part of the same family in my headcanon)
  • What version of the games is this?

    I thought the only English-language versions of 3 are the fan-translated Japanese NES version and the 3D remake which isn't pixelated.

    Anyhow it's 6 (i.e. US "3") that has the opera with the balcony scene.

    Also the games all have standalone plotlines so there's no canonical ordering you should play them in.
  • I'm playing on the new Steam pixel-remastered versions (I think that they are remakes).
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