Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Emulator authors are usually not very interested in making the output resemble that of a genuine monitor. Only a handful of them have implemented Blargg's filters, for example. And even those are rather limited.
Another good example of a correctly emulated system that looks nothing like the real thing: http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=25987
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
My Youtube account:
http://www.youtube.com/user/dada78641
Mainly "regular" videos of games (mostly older ones), some speedruns and TAS WIP encodes. Recently uploaded a nice 40 minute long Hexen speedrun someone else made that previously wasn't available.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
ais523 wrote:
Another WIP encode is available (at http://sonic.net/~ac/tas/nethack_tas_20110103.mkv encoded by Ilari; as usual, that account has a relatively small cap, so although the video is small it would be nice if someone rehosted it with more bandwidth).
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
Dada wrote:
there's a financial incentive to seed misinformation about climate change
Like what?
Like the idea that climate change is not real. That it doesn't exist. Or, as has become the case in recent years, that it is real but that it's not our fault. And that we cannot do anything against it.
I don't entirely get the rest of your post. Are you suggesting that it is not in the interest of large, multinational energy companies to prevent the forming of legislation that would force them to start moving away from their beloved cash cows (fossil fuels, for one)?
And for the record, I'm talking about the financial incentive to prevent climate change legislation. There is nothing to gain from climate change itself in any form, nor was I suggesting that.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
I get a flu shot every year, paid for by the government because I'm in a risk group for flu complications. For the Avian Flu I got one extra shot. That still makes sense to me simply because some people who get the flu, any flu, have a higher likelihood to develop potentially fatal conditions like pneumonia as a result. That's just a regular consequence of the flu.
The hysteria was unfounded, however. It was really just a slightly different flu.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
andymac wrote:
What's even worse is that these people seem incapable of recognizing that there's a huge financial incentive by large energy companies (among others) to ensure that there never is a comprehensive policy to combat climate change.
Ad hominem circumstantial points out that someone is in circumstances such that he is disposed to take a particular position. Ad hominem circumstantial constitutes an attack on the bias of a source. This is fallacious because a disposition to make a certain argument does not make the argument false
I got this from wikipedia (sue me). You seem to have fallen into the trap of ad hominem.
How did you arrive at this conclusion? What I said is that there's a financial incentive to seed misinformation about climate change, which there is. I didn't say that anyone, or any researcher, is necessarily wrong because of their affiliations. (Because I don't believe they are.) Nor am I trying to discredit anyone's opinions, analysis or research based on any affiliation. That would indeed be very wrong.
What I did say, however, is that some researchers and politicians are affiliated with, or otherwise funded or supported by companies that have a financial stake in lax energy or climate change regulations, and that we should be skeptical of such dependence. Especially when corporate bias in scientific papers, especially with regard to climate science, is very real and well-documented. It has happened in the past and will happen in the future. The spread of misinformation from special interest groups is both very real and very dangerous to the ongoing effort to educate the public about this. That's why you'll want to get your information from independent researchers that don't get paid by a boss who would prefer that they arrive at a conclusion that's beneficial to his interests.
But again, I'm not saying all research coming from a particular source, person or group is necessarily flawed. Just that there is a well known bias that you should be wary of. I also believe that people who oppose climate change legislation have a tendency to be indifferent or sometimes even supportive of this bias, claiming that we're better off trusting corporate research than government- or NGO-funded research, and that's a seriously misguided conviction.
andymac wrote:
Climate change doesn't give a shit whether or not you believe in it. It's there or it isn't, and whether people have interests in believing it is irrelevant to whether it exists.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
I have always wondered why so many people oppose so strongly the very idea of global warming and climate change. They propose that it's just a big hoax, a conspiracy, we are being lied to...
Yeah, the idea that global warming is a hoax is completely absurd, but even more crazy is the idea that scientists "who just want to keep being paid" are "behind it".
What's even worse is that these people seem incapable of recognizing that there's a huge financial incentive by large energy companies (among others) to ensure that there never is a comprehensive policy to combat climate change. It should come as no surprise that the largest and richest companies in the world would fund their own research that is usually a lot more ambivalent about the whole thing.
It's also clear to see that most of the political opposition against climate change legislation is in the right-wing corner. You know. The guys who want to increase the gap between rich and poor and deconstruct the social welfare state. The guys whose campaigns are funded by these companies. (Not that all is well in left-wing politics either. There are numerous left-wing politicians who have lent themselves to this kind of despicable special interest lobby.)
ps:
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
ok here's evidence for you
(image)
This is not exactly the best way to get your point across.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
andymac wrote:
My point was that even though the media's representations are not necassarily accurate, no-one can say that they are suppressing that sort of information.
Well, suppressing is the wrong word, I think. Ignoring is more like it. In the US it's particularly bad because the mentality is to show you "both sides" of the issue (as if there are only two). Things that fall outside of that narrative are usually considered hopelessly ideological and impractical, or crazy, or even dangerous. As such, facts that aren't being pushed by the two main parties, which may well be important to understanding the issue, can be ignored for fear of appearing "biased", or simply too far removed from people's typical understanding.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
andymac wrote:
Personally, whether or not this video does or doesn't support Marxism is irrelevant. The main point I was trying to send across was that yes, we do have problems with our system, yes we can change it, but yes, everyone does know those two truths.
Yeah, I sort of got that you weren't dismissing the whole thing outright. It's just that the discussion is too often put within a rather narrow frame, and that bothered me. Not that your post was wrong or anything, that's beside the point like you say.
andymac wrote:
If you didn't think that large corporations acted purely (or almost purely) for financial gain then you are sadly mistaken, but pretty much everyone knows this. In fact media in popular culture have perpetuated this claim as well (for example Jame's Cameron's Avatar, or the International) not to mention the numerous other forms of media.
Actually, things like Avatar bother me because that's still just a dumb movie about sexy blue space cats and the whole EVIL CORPORATION thing kind of gets reduced to a hilariously awful Hollywood thing. To me this has nothing to do with being aware of how evil corporations can be in real life because there is no attempt to connect with reality whatsoever. Just imagine Joe Common talking about the inherent meaning behind Avatar:
"Hey dude, did you see Avatar? And how the evil corporation tried to steal the blue space cat natives' resources? And then how they tried to kill them but failed, and a hero(who was actually part of the evil corporation itself) saved the day? Man those guys were evil!"
I still don't think Joe Common knows anything about how the waste from an unregulated coal mine in Africa can make drinking water so toxic that your skin literally starts peeling off if you swim in it for too long. Or even that realities like this, in all shapes and sizes, exist and are funded by us every day.
I really think people don't really know and despite James Cameron's best intentions to educate people by using sexy blue space cats, it's still just a movie with no real substance and it doesn't really change anything, nor indicate that this is something people are aware of.
andymac wrote:
Noone likes to feel that someone is trying to force feed them an opinion, but then again, isn't this what the video is trying to promote?
I thought the video was just trying to show that things aren't always what they appear to be and that it's healthy to question the status quo and look at alternatives that are usually dismissed as being "dangerous". But I don't know, maybe I should have just watched the whole thing.
You're right that you shouldn't let crappy internet videos influence you too much though. There's too much attention for stupid Youtube videos and not enough on actual quality journalism.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
You know the reason why it's usually pointless to post videos like this is because most people will invariably reply like andymac did. The entire thing is dismissed as "yeah, but [insert differing social/economic philosophy] is much worse" and the point is lost completely.
Not that andymac's reply is inherently ignorant or uninformed, but it does show you how hard it is for us to be critical of the core concepts that underpin Western society.
Fact is, there is a major problem with our philosophy and its leads are not that deep below the surface. The dismantling of the regulatory systems around financial markets that has been going on for decades, which happened not because it's good for us but because it's financially attractive to the elite that controls those markets, is just one quick example. Similar things happen in all areas where very large companies are in charge. Like BP not investing a dime in safety measures and then paying only a minor fraction of the massive financial ramifications when things went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico. Or Shell building extremely dirty factories and refineries in the Niger Delta and ditching all of their waste directly into the once potable water supply. All of these things have in common that they're fully legal in spite of being awful for us, because the rich that run these companies have virtually unlimited access to the responsible politicians and the media.
Now I don't know if anything this video says is true. I honestly don't really care, nor did I even finish watching all of part 1 (because it's boring). They could be wild eyed conspiracy theorists for all I know. But the point I'm trying to make is that it's a massive cop-out to just say "Well, North Korea is a lot worse, so therefore these guys are wrong".
edit: instead of watching this junk you guys should try Democracy Now which is a daily independent news show. Freely downloadable, no ads. Their guests are people who actually know their science rather than the political hacks that you see on mainstream news programs. A must-see for those who want to truly be informed.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
I think this particular exchange is best quickly forgotten (but posting it here for posterity anyway).
[19:13] --- feos has joined #tasvideos
[19:13] <feos> i came
[19:15] <Dada_> hi. I just came on
[19:16] <Dada_> how are things coming for you guys?
[19:16] <Commando125> ok
[19:16] <Dada_> come on, don't be shy..
[19:16] <feos> oh, u came too?
[19:16] <Dada_> yeah, I just came on the computer
[19:16] <feos> weeew
[19:17] <feos> on display?
[19:17] * Mothraway is now away for real
[19:17] <Dada_> come again?
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Like I said on IRC I'm really glad to see this run :) Even if it's a really short game, it's pretty famous and I'm sure people will like it. You should submit the run to the site too.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Bisqwit wrote:
For the record, the hanukkah was three weeks ago!
Thanks for clearing that up. It's actually pretty awful how little I know about traditions from other religions. (I knew it wasn't on the same date, but not exactly how long before Christmas. Didn't figure it was 3 weeks.) Although I'm not religious I do think it's important to know about people's cultures. Should really do some more studying on that one of these days.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Glad I don't believe, otherwise I might be the least bit compelled to actually invest time in any of these boring old traditions. Now I can keep myself only to the ones that are actually fun.
Merry christmas and/or hanukkah everybody. Make sure you buy your presents from small stores to best stimulate the economy.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
If you read what I posted, you'll see that it's not necessary to resort to such a heavy-duty function as sqrt in order to draw a circumference of pixels. A few integer additions and subtractions per pixel is enough, using a clever algorithm.
Do you have an example of such a simple/optimized algorithm? Would love to see how they did this sort of thing in practice.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Yeah, it only really needs to look like a circle. I've never actually programmed a "pseudo circle" like that before but I imagine there should be plenty of information out there on how to achieve this.
Think of circular movement, but without the y axis. That looks a lot more simple and attainable without using sin/cos, right? If you manage to make a simple algorithm that can make something move slowly at the start and end, and fast in the middle, you could use that on both the x and y axes and you'd have something that, with some tweaking, would look a lot like a circle.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
I'm almost completely certain that using 20 seconds of a 20-minute TV episode falls into fair use under international copyright laws (as well as local copyright laws in the vast majority of jurisdictions), so those copyright holders are just abusing their powers and Google's zero tolerance policies.
Unfortunately this isn't solely Google's policy (although not being forgiving after the fact is, of course). The DMCA states that once an infringement claim (DMCA takedown notice) is made, the host must immediately comply and take the video offline, and then begin an investigation to possibly put it back up. In reality, most hosts don't do such an investigation due to the sheer number of requests they get which makes proper investigation too time consuming. Also, if a host puts a video back up after investigating, they're making themselves vulnerable to a possible lawsuit.
It's really the DMCA that is broken and slanted towards the copyright owners. Like Bisqwit said, it's all about profit, everything and everyone else be damned.
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Warp wrote:
Which raises the question: Why should be limit ourselves to what regular speedrunners can do? We are not competing with them, and we want to show precisely what happens when human limits are removed, not what happens if human limits are imposed. Regular speedruns are for that. If you want to watch how a skilled human plays the game, go watch a regular speedrun.
Because this site and its content, above all, is for entertainment. At least, that's what a lot of people subscribe to. You could say that the purpose is solely to find the fastest times, but that's not something everyone agrees with. We actually already have several movies similar to this idea, like Zelda II which has both a "glitched" version and one that's more conventional.
