Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Vidar wrote:
Dear Fabian,
Why am I so slow at TASing? Is there any methods you use to TAS that could help me TAS better? I don't want Star Fox 64 to be done in 2014..
Also, on an awesome scale with 10 being you and 1 being gannon/rock-banned, what am I? :D
Thanks~
You're asking me how to become a more effective TASer? hahahahahahahhahahahahaha :)
Seriously though I think you just have to enjoy it enough to actually want to spend time on it. Back when I was really enthusiastic about SMW I'd start working on this particularly tricky section and it's just challenging and fun, you don't want to stop you want to keep going and find better/better looking solutions, you know? When you feel like that it's easy, time will fly by and you'll see some very sweet progress to.
Once that feeling goes away I think it's pretty much over though. Even though you force yourself to work on something (and why would you?) when you don't feel like it the result is going to tend to be worse, because you won't put all of your energy to make it the best you possibly can. TASing under these circumstances just kinda such, because you won't enjoy the process and you won't enjoy the results.
I have no specific tips on how to keep your enthusiasm I'm afraid. Not sure it can really be taught/forced.
Placing people on awesome scales when you don't know them is pretty tough. Basically you can often tell how awesome they are minimum, but you don't know the upper limit until you get to know them better. For example, I can tell you that Joe is definitely a 5, he's no worse than that. I don't know yet if he's a 6 or if he's a super duper awesome 10 yet though.
I like you, but you're a pretty private one and I can't really tell how awesome you are. You're at least a 7 and I'm guessing probably an 8.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Shinryuu wrote:
are you soft or hard ?
what kind of eyes do you like ?
do you like spaceboys ?
do you like to dream about birds ?
do you like me ?
do you like random things ?
- Shinryuu
Soft definitely. Too soft.
Blue and happy looking.
Don't know what spaceboys is.
I don't like dreaming about birds.
I feel neutral/indifferent towards you. I don't know you at all.
I guess I like some weird things, if that's what you mean by random. Nothing really springs to mind at the moment though.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Deign wrote:
Dear Fabian,
What kind of music do you listen to?
Do you watch sports? If so which sports?
What other languages do you speak?
Sincerely,
Deign
Edited to delete a repeat question.
My favorite artists are Elton John, Simon & Garfunkel and The Beatles. In general I guess it's acoustic'ish rock or something. I think Elton John is especially awesome because I play the piano and I think his piano playing is awesome. Simon & Garfunkel are just overall sick good, same goes for The Beatles. Actually I think a lot of people who have never listened to Elton John would enjoy a lot or at least some of his music. Let me know if you want recommendations :)
I don't have a TV, and so I almost never watch sports. I used to when I was younger though, especially soccer I guess. Also enjoy(ed) watching hockey, table tennis (this one is extra awesome but is not on TV a lot) and
the occasional 2 week straight TV marathon that is the Olympics.
I speak Swedish (native language) and I speak English reasonably well. Apart from that, nothing. I took some French and Spanish in school but it didn't stick. I guess I understand Norwegian and Danish since they're so close to Swedish but that doesn't really count.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Phil wrote:
Fabian wrote:
Super Mario World, Super Demo World, Super Metroid (and some of its hacks), Sonic 1, 2 and 3, Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, SMB 3. If it's not one of those games I'm probably not watching it, so either pick one of them or pick whatever :)
Will you make an exception with SMB2?
Fabian wrote:
I do think banning people is generally a good choice to make a community start sucking less. I don't think there's much point in saying what my thoughts on possible bannings in this community are. Not looking for flamefests in this thread, I want to avoid that stuff.
If you want, you can pm.
Yeah I guess I would watch it if you made a new short SMB2 run. Probably just once and when it had been published though. But sure :)
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
alden wrote:
Dear Fabian,
What kind of food do you like to eat?
What kind of food do you actually eat?
Also, do you enjoy caffeine as much as I do (that's a lot)?
-Bummed I Can't Call You Fabby in America
I like to eat meat. Great steaks are fantastic for example. In everyday life, it needs to be easy enough to make/cook/buy because I'm not a good cook (though I'd like to become better) while still tasting alright and be reasonably healthy. This is a pretty tough combo to come by for someone as uncreative as myself, so really I have like 5 or 6 standard dishes I alternate between and rarely eat anything else.
I do enjoy caffeine as much as you do. I'm pretty confident I enjoy it more actually. Coca cola is the reason I used to be a fattie. Since age 13ish, I've easily averaged 2.5-3L a day. Might be more than that to be honest. I cut back to two cans (0.66L) a day in January when I decided I was tired of myself (see my response to Warp just now, a lot of that applied to me). It's sometimes tough to get by without it, but I try reasonably hard. I've lost lots of weight because of it, which is a great motivator.
If we meet in America, I will give you permission to call me Fabby.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Tub wrote:
Dear Fabian,
what do you tell a woman when she asks you if she's too fat?
Sincerely yours,
Tub
I'm never asked this because I'm useless with women. Ouch.
If someone I wanted to have sex with asked me this I'd look them up and down and tell her "that's just stupid stop fishing for attention" and throw in a little smile after a second.
If a friend (who am I kidding, I want to have sex with all my female friends) asked me, I'd say "that's just stupid you look great, stop being so insecure" without a creepy look or smile.
Edit: I should add, "that's just stupid stop fishing for attention (or compliments)" is what you should answer regardless of whether the chick is a fattie or not, doesn't matter.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Warp wrote:
Fabian wrote:
Warp wrote:
I'm 33, a hopeless computer nerd, and single. What should I do?
Are you seriously unhappy and looking to change? Because there's a ton of stuff you could try, small changes and big changes. Let me know, maybe tell me a bit more about yourself.
Well, I'm middle-aged and I watch people playing NES games. I think that's quite telling.
90% of my social life happens through the internet. 9% of the IRL socializing happens with two friends. Not a chick in sight, though. Sometimes I feel like there could be more to life than this.
It's usually married people who go through mid-life crisis. I suppose singles do too, although differently.
I think forcing yourself to change in this situation is really really tough to be honest. Trouble is, while it's all generally kinda sucky because you never meet any women and have almost no friends, on a day to day basis it's kinda alright, right? What I mean is, the feeling of emptiness isn't THAT unbearable during a given day, because you have stuff to kinda occupy your time with, even if they're things you don't really want, long term. I'm making this guess because that's exactly my situation 6 months ago so I can definitely see what you're going through.
Either you need some pretty serious willpower, or you need your life to get even worse so you're basically forced to change. Hopefully it's the former, basically you need an attitude change and have to acknowledge that you must make some pretty drastic changes to get things to turn around for you.
Step one is to meet people. I'm not sure where you live, hopefully in an area where there are singles bars for people your age group, that would be one good option. Picking up a hobby is a good idea too, I bet yoga is a solid choice. Going to the gym is another good one. This should be a good idea anyway to make yourself look more presentable (I'm obviously making generalizations here since I don't know you at all) so that one is awesome.
That's really the important thing. If you meet people and start talking to people (this can be tough too though, especially if you're really socially awkward or something. I don't know if people are still socially awkward in their 30s, I can elaborate on this or something else if needed, let me know), eventually you'll find yourself with a much larger social network. Once you've accomplished this you're almost all the way there and I'm sure you'll be fine, it's the initial steps to change which are tough.
To sum up. Make yourself look presentable. Start losing weight if you need to. Start working out if you need to. Don't look like a hobo (nice clothes, nice hair, nice nails), women pay attention to this. I think one thing you will have to pay extra attention to is your personality. You come off pretty bitter (no need to get defensive, I do this too) and grumpy some of the time. You don't have to explain to women you meet why they're wrong about subject X. It doesn't matter, let it go. What you have to do is fake being somewhat upbeat, interesting and CONFIDENT!!! Confident is such a keyword I should just write it sixty times here. Looking good will help with getting the ladies but as long as you're confident you'll be fine once you start talking to them.
There are some good books about picking up chicks or making yourself look attractive to women. I think that might help, let me know if you want some recommendations.
Again, not everything here will apply to you, I don't know you. Don't get offended if I said something about your personality that's not true or if I told you stuff you think is really obvious. And let me know if you want clarifications on anything. Good luck man.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
AdmiralJonB wrote:
Dear Fabian,
What do you think of the big and well-known MMO World of Warcraft?
I gave it a try once for a couple hours with a buddy. I thought it was kinda boring and have no desire to try/play it again.
It sounds like a sweet game though, lots and lots of people are obviously enjoying it.
Edit: I wouldn't shut it down forever if I could. I don't see a reason to at all, the overly negative effect it has on some people is unfortunate but by and large I believe it's their choice to spend their entire day playing an online game.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Zurreco wrote:
Fabian wrote:
Anyway you used too many big words and I don't really understand what you're saying so.
Dear Fabian,
What is it like to be a huge quitter? How long have you been copping-out of open forum questions, which you invite upon yourself, in order to have such a mastery of letting me down?
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
mr_roberts_z wrote:
Bestest thread evar, no srsly.
Dear Fabian:
1. Do believe in string theory, or do you think it's a load of shit?
2. Is it true that in Sweden, some old woman has a 40 Gb/s internet connection?
3. What is the purpose of life?
4. Do you think C# major sounds different than Db major? Does it depend on the music, or are they exactly the same? Does equal temperament matter?
EDIT:
5. Why is this page stretched for no noticable reason?
1. I believe in it. I should also say I have literally NO idea what it means though. Until I'm given a good reason not to, I'm believing what scientists tell me though. Believing in string theory is currently not a big part of my life.
2. It's probably not true. In general the fastest connections available to normal people is 100 mbit/s and that's mostly for the bigger cities.
3. Reproducing. That's the evolutionary answer anyway, if there is any, that's it. Ethically/morally though, you should be nice to people, while still focusing on becoming happy.
4. I think they sound the same. I bet some extreme music snobs will tell you differently. Not sure what equal temperament means but I'm going to guess it all sounds the same :)
5. It's not stretched out to me. My screen resolution is pretty sweet though.
Edit: Also thanks!
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Phil wrote:
Dear Fabian
I feel sad that you couldn't answer all my questions due to lack of information.
What game do you want me to TAS?
You said to Bisqwit: "The important part of a community is its members and if they suck you're not left with many options as the admin." One of those options is to ban some troublemaker(s). Do you think it's a good solution? If yes, who do you think should be banned?
Super Mario World, Super Demo World, Super Metroid (and some of its hacks), Sonic 1, 2 and 3, Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, SMB 3. If it's not one of those games I'm probably not watching it, so either pick one of them or pick whatever :)
I do think banning people is generally a good choice to make a community start sucking less. I don't think there's much point in saying what my thoughts on possible bannings in this community are. Not looking for flamefests in this thread, I want to avoid that stuff.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Warp wrote:
Fabian wrote:
While crime definitely is a "national problem", that's true for all countries. I don't think of it as "the Swedish democracy collapsing".
I wonder how much the situation must escalate before denial is impossible...
Anyways, on a completely different note, and more related to your original starter post:
Dear Fabian,
I'm 33, a hopeless computer nerd, and single. What should I do?
Are you seriously unhappy and looking to change? Because there's a ton of stuff you could try, small changes and big changes. Let me know, maybe tell me a bit more about yourself.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Z,
Don't encourage others to hijack my thread dude! Start your own thread, that sounds interesting enough.
Anyway you used too many big words and I don't really understand what you're saying so.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Warp wrote:
Finland. (Why does it matter anyways? I was just answering your question of why someone would perceive Sweden to have some kind of national problem.)
Doesn't matter I was just curious.
While crime definitely is a "national problem", that's true for all countries. I don't think of it as "the Swedish democracy collapsing".
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Phil wrote:
Dear Fabian,
Why JXQ uses the word "hypocrite" and its derivals and synonims so often? And why do some people think it's my word when it's obvious it's JXQ's word when I only use his weapon against him?
Who wrote: "there's only one player - controlling both characters!
That's really hard to do." ? And why some people think it's me who wrote that?
Why do I think JXQ and you are boyfriends(gay)?
JXQ doesn't use hypocrite/etc often.
I don't think anyone thinks hypocrite is your word Phil. It's true you use it more often than most though.
No idea who wrote that. No idea why people thinks it was you either.
You probably think me and JXQ are boyfriends because I said I loved him in an earlier response. Either that or you're homophobic and use gay as a derogatory term.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
P.JBoy wrote:
Dear Fabian
What's "intervention"?
An intervention is where you get all his friends together in a room with him and you urge him to stop abusing drugs. I don't think it's very effective.
If your question is serious, intervention probably won't be an effective solution. An effective solution might be to call the cops on him I dunno. I have no experience with drug abusing friends and I'm guessing different cases tend to be very different.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
kwinse wrote:
Dear Fabian,
Why did the makers of phpBB decide that it was a good idea that the 'View newest post' button take you to the newest post since you last visited the forums, regardless of whether you've read that post already? It's so annoying to click on it and be taken to page 3 of 5 every single time.
Signed,
An avid reader
Never used that function. Sounds like it could be pretty sweet!
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
flagitious wrote:
Dear Fabian,
My friend is totally whipped. Should I do anything about it and if so, what?
Whipped meaning his girl controls him?
Eh not really. You should encourage him to be a little more independent I guess and maybe make an extra effort to get him out of the claws of his woman occasionally on weekends and such. There's no need for an intervention though.
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Former player
Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 1711
Guybrush wrote:
Dear Fabian
What do you think about paranormal activity (ghosts, poltergeist and such)?
90% of those incidents are people who are deceived by their mind, the other 10% are lying. Something like that. The more outlandish the claim is, the more likely it is the person is lying.
Our brain is programmed to try making sense of things it sees, noticing patterns that aren't there, seeing shapes where there are none, stuff like that. It is not unreasonable for people laying in bed half asleep/half dreaming with vivid imagination to believe the dark human-like shape he sees is something more than just the shadow cast from a pile of clothes on the floor.
Another big reason for people seeing things that aren't there is they've been raised to believe these things exist. Whether it's a set of parents telling more ghost stories than normal to their child or someone being raised in a catholic home seeing angels or the virgin Mary, it's the same thing. Actually the effects of this can be especially strong in a religious environment (for example a church), as the pressure is a lot stronger than in the ghost example. You're kinda "expected" to see angels (again these are just examples), and you don't want to disappoint your family and so on a subconscious level there's added incentive to experience something paranormal.
