Posts for Kuwaga

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Posted: 9/20/2011 5:57 PM
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Kuwaga
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Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
They are pink/purple, they have big eyes, they have cute voices, they are shiny, so just looking at them can be very stimulating. You empathize with them on a similar level as you would with your little sister, a youngish girlfriend or your daughter. Their cuteness and their little flaws trigger powerful helper instincts that make you want to make sure they're always alright (by watching all episodes). Very addicting. It's the devil's work.
Posted: 9/20/2011 2:15 AM
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Kuwaga
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Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
idk Link to video
Posted: 9/20/2011 1:36 AM
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Kuwaga
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Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
My fave is Fluttershy. Sonic Rainboom sucked. That's all I have to say. ^^
Posted: 9/19/2011 1:41 PM
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Kuwaga
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Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
Warp wrote:
The problem with that solution is that some islamic governments endorse the terrorist groups. Of course publicly they state the contrary, for obvious PR reasons, but often they don't even bother hiding it too much. It's basically a public secret. In other words, what should be done when it's the same people who run the terrorist groups and also the country? Europe's (and the UN's) solution to this dilemma is to just sit on its ass and hope the problem goes away on its own. US's solution is to consider it an open war and act accordingly. Is one of these solutions better than the other? Most people have a strong opinion on this, but it's far, far from a trivial question. The subject is very complicated.
The US is probably the biggest funder of international terrorism right now, only we don't call it that way (supporting dictators, destabilizing countries, invading countries because they don't like what they are doing, torture etc), so first of all that's pretty hypocritical. One of the terms we use for that is global intervention, I believe. It's just an euphorism for the same thing on a much larger scale. As per Wikileaks, Saudi Arabia is the biggest funder of groups that are currently officially labeled to be international terrorist organizations, and it's also where much of the Jihad-fanatism stems from. Why doesn't the US go after them? The answer is pretty clear. There's no strategic need to. With just a fragment of the money that has been spent on the wars, the US could have invested in public education in Iraq/Afghanistan to basically counter-brainwash the population. Improve foreign relationships, make a great contract. The US builds schools and infrastructure, the country fights against terrorism and gives the US resources in return. Of course that would have been infinitely more efficient in fighting terror. The single problem with that is that it just isn't as profitable. Real democracies that aren't too corrupt tend to keep much of their resources to themselves and engage in trade with their closest neighbors (Iran? Pakistan? India? Russia? China?), so of course the US doesn't really want that from a strategical point of view. To maximize profits they'd want to keep those regions poor while extracting as much of their resources as possible. Ideally, they'd prefer a pro-US dictator (Hussein, Mubarak, Qaddafi) for that reason, plus if it's a military dictatorship they can make even more money by selling them weapons. Another big problem is that the general population of those countries seems to think they're better off under the rule of whatever terrorist organization than under the rule of the US. I can't blame them for that. From their perspective, the US has killed a much higher number of people there and seeded far more terror throughout their home countries. If the US really held democratic values that highly, they should leave just because of that. You can't invade countries against the will of the population to bring them democracy. On health care: I think universal health care is absolutely necessary if you don't want the poor to get poorer because they can't afford proper treatment. Sadly, the US is currently not in a position to implement such a system.
Posted: 9/18/2011 12:58 PM
(Edited: 9/19/2011 11:05 PM)
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Kuwaga
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Posts: 1248
I wouldn't compare Operation Himmler so much to 9/11, but rather to Operation Northwoods (which never got carried out in the end). A mildly interesting read on the issue of tyranny disguised as democracy is Muammar Al Qaddafi's The Green Book, regardless on whether he followed the ideals presented in it himself. On contemporary issues in the US, I can strongly recommend [URL=http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=noam+chomsky+lecture]Noam Chomsky's lectures[/URL] if you have the time. I don't think 9/11 was staged by the government, but it certainly helped them to start a war they wanted to start anyway. I believe it's more likely that really a misguided Islamist extremist sub-group was behind the attack or if it was a conspiracy, that the government was not directly involved. I believe the culprits in the case of a conspiracy to most likely be people in the weapon industry / powerful warlords / drug lords (either US or Iraq/Afghanistan based, both or wherever), who of course would make huge profits from any war at all. One or two people inside the government might have been involved, but I find the idea for it to principally have been a government conspiracy rather unlikely to be true. That being said, I don't think the US government is on the right track, but I believe that the average US citizen is to blame for that. They don't care too much about political issues, especially if it's about countries outside the US. The wealthy, on the other hand, do care a lot. And that's the whole reason why the government acts on their behalf. The general public can be sold the idea that what's good for the rich is also good for them only because they don't really care themselves, they'd rather put their trust in somebody else than educate themselves about these issues and form their own opinions. As long as the general public doesn't care, a democracy cannot work properly. Many First World countries besides the US have the same problem, but with the US being so militarily powerful the issue is much more serious there. Of course (imo) the proper way to fight terrorism is to educate the people and help a country fighting against their terrorist groups themselves, instead of invading it. What has been carried out is a war that's mostly in private interest of the US, is pretty ineffective in fighting terrorism, but it helps sell the idea that these wars are good and just to the general public.
Posted: 9/17/2011 7:39 PM
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Kuwaga
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Oh, and while I'm at it: Link to video There's more where that came from. Pattern animation starts at 1:30 in this one.
Posted: 9/17/2011 6:43 PM
Post subject: Re: Velitha
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Kuwaga
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Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
pirate_sephiroth wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lV5lnYlR58 hahahah
Friend of mine once drew a comic about a little bear and his dad that went somewhat like this: "Daaaaddy, I'm hungry!!!!" ... "Daaaadddy!!!" "What's up?" "I have to go to the toilet." "Then go." "Nooooooooo!" And at that point the younger bear ripped off his dad's head, dropped it on the floor and then peed on it. Pretty awesome, huh? Link to video
Posted: 9/17/2011 6:35 PM
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Kuwaga
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Probably North Korea
Posted: 9/17/2011 6:32 PM
(Edited: 9/17/2011 8:05 PM)
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Kuwaga
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Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
A guitar and a kitchen? Or maybe a bike? I wouldn't even care. I don't think I would actually use any of these all that much. So let's be really lame and take a swiss army knife and a tent.
Posted: 9/16/2011 9:05 PM
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Kuwaga
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Joined: 10/20/2006
Posts: 1248
I feel like the community got hurt more by his permaban than it helped. Banning him for a week or so, then for a month, only then giving him a permaban (unless he apologizes sincerely or whatever?) would have made more sense to me. But what's done is done, I guess.
Posted: 9/16/2011 7:18 PM
(Edited: 9/17/2011 1:14 AM)
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Kuwaga
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The reason I'm making it a 8/10 is to state it's a great game. It's just my personal opinion that that's not enough to make a game worth getting. Kind of bad games start at 5/10, so I have 1-5 for bad games and 6-10 for good games. I think that's a fair range. You seem to be confusing my scale with my opinion that you should only get the crème de la crème of games, except you are a 'gamerholic', and I think a lot of us are. (that's just an interpretation of the scale)
Posted: 9/16/2011 7:04 PM
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Kuwaga
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In my opinion there are enough 10/10 and 9/10 games out there, so that 8/10 games simply aren't worth it. I should say that I rate games differently from most magazines though. If the gampeplay is truly unique, that unique idea is well developed and fun and there's some level of replayability, then it's always a 10/10 in my book. If there are minor flaws, then sound/graphics can make up for it. 7/10 means it's average. You shouldn't play it, but if it's one of your first games in that genre, it'll do. Or that it's fun for one or two hours, but overall pretty forgettable. Most recent games by major publishers I've played have been in the 7-8 range for me. They're either not unique enough for my taste or the gameplay idea isn't well developed enough (Nintendo in recent years).
Posted: 9/16/2011 1:36 PM
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Kuwaga
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I regret having started several projects, just out of curiosity how they'd turn out, but never finishing any of them because I don't really care. If having a published run doesn't make me happy, which it doesn't, and completing a TAS isn't fun to me either, I never should have tried. Those projects were a Sonic 1,2,3&Knuckles quad run, a Mario's Super Picross run (I know it would have been very entertaining for me to watch), a Saint Sword run and a Donkey Kong (GB) RNG simulator (predicting several levels ahead). When I think of it now, those are probably some of the only things I regret throughout my entire life. For now. Another one is having played chess for years, even though I didn't enjoy it at all (I did it just because I liked the people).
Posted: 9/16/2011 1:23 PM
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Kuwaga
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I rated the original a 10/10 (a must play) and this an 8/10 (not worth playing, except if you are a gamerholic). The graphics/presentation, the level of detail and dialogue options have improved, but the level design, music and amount of content are way worse than in the original. Some other problems I had with the game is that the plot seems to only be a (slightly worse) variant of the plot of the original, nothing truly unique, and that the same color scheme gets reused way too often. For FPS fans I can't recommend it, for RPG fans only if they want to try something different.
Posted: 9/16/2011 1:05 PM
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Kuwaga
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My own experience with free will tells me that it doesn't exist. I am unable to make certain decisions I would very much like to make, just because other parts of my brain vehemently refuse to. It's like wanting to move a limb, but it just doesn't work. So you're forced to do something else instead. They call it depression. I guess it's generally so, that whenever we want us to want something, it doesn't really work that easily. So how can there be free will? My will much more seems to be influenced from past experience than from what I want myself to want.
Posted: 7/13/2011 11:23 AM
(Edited: 7/13/2011 4:04 PM)
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Kuwaga
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I'm willing to spend money on certain things, so I guess that makes me indeed important enough for somebody to keep track of my browsing habits. ^^ Your argument doesn't make a lot of sense to me, as keeping track of everybody's browsing habits will cost less and less, so eventually there'd be very little effort to it. If I was an employer I'd be very interested in the browsing habits of my applicants, if it isn't too expensive for me to get that information. Would make for a nice automatic preselection process. :) I'm just saying Google+ is another very tiny step into the direction I've hinted at. @Zeupar below: There might not always be. I don't think it's very likely that we will keep even the tiniest grain of online anonymity over the course of this century.
Posted: 7/13/2011 4:08 AM
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Kuwaga
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Using Youtube means being signed on on Google and I guess the development could go into a direction where they outo-sign-on me onto Google+ as well. That would make me very pissed. Linking my profile, my browsing behaviour, everything together. Next step is for computers to automatically read my RFID implant to prevent the chance of identity theft (Cyber terrorists can steal all my money and ruin my life??? That would suck! I am really scared!) and I say welcome to our glorious future. :D
Posted: 7/12/2011 4:14 PM
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Kuwaga
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The Mega Man X example made me notice that with 66%/33% I perceive the frame with higher opacity to come chronologically later, which resulted in some mildly confusing movements. Too bad... The flickering looked alright though.
Posted: 7/11/2011 3:59 AM
(Edited: 7/11/2011 11:50 AM)
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Kuwaga
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Optimally, you'd just average the sprite layer and it'd be the emulator providing that functionality. Arm pumping would still look stupid though. Hm, if there was an option to blend frames x and x+1 with 66%/33%, then frames x+2 and x+3 with 33%/66%, etc, and only on the sprite layer, maybe that would produce some nice results... Maybe not. Btw, I've found 24fps to be the worst by far. It just looks very irritating to me for some reason. Edit: Hm, with 33/66, 66/33, 33/66, 66/33 the focus would be on frames 2 and 3, then 6 and 7 etc though, so maybe that'd look a bit wobbly. Maybe 33/66, 50/50, 66/33, 50/50 would look better (I'm trying to think of something that'd still make pumping look like the arm is actually moving, not just doubled). Or something like 60/40 of frames 1&2, then 10/40/50 of frames 2,3&4 and repeat? Pretty difficult to imagine what any of this would look like. @Flygon: How would it be impossible if you let a modified version of the emulator (or maybe LUA) do it?
Posted: 7/11/2011 12:23 AM
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Kuwaga
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I'm sorry for not having taken the time to read the messages in this thread and the poll options more carefully. It made my posts be based on wrong presumptions. Thanks @Bisqwit for explaining, I didn't know it worked like that. In any case, I'd like to have the inner image to have the same aspect ratio as the presented image on a Gameboy screen, which I assume consists of perfectly square pixels, my preferred zoom factors are whole numbers and I'll now leave this thread before I'm spouting more nonsense. ^^
Posted: 7/10/2011 6:52 PM
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Kuwaga
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On a purely subjective basis I prefer column 1 or 3. While I don't notice too much difference between them, to me column 1 looks slightly better. Also, I'd now like to point out that I have interpreted "I want Gameboy aspect ratio" to refer to the inner, borderless image. I've just noticed the caption text to that option may be worded a bit ambiguously.
Posted: 7/10/2011 6:32 PM
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Kuwaga
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Nach wrote:
If you're seeing your SGB at 4:3, it's because that's what your television is doing.
Oh, then I must have misinterpreted some of the posts in here. In that case it isn't so clear what the technically proper way to encode it is. I thought the TV received an image that's already in 4:3.
Nach wrote:
Which undistorted version? The SGB or DMG one?
The undistorted version of the original pixel art that can be seen on an actual GB. That's what I've voted for and afaik that's what most people would like to see. As moozooh has already pointed out, artists for SNES games can expect their art to be upscaled to a 4:3, so it's designed with that in mind, but artists for GB games design it pixel per pixel, exactly as it will look on a real Game Boy. So there's a clear difference and 4:3 for all games will certainly make at least look some like total crap in some people's eyes. It might be that there exists some game where the art has actually been optimised with the SGB in mind, but I doubt it. Even in that case though, they still have to had cared to make it look good on a real GB also (people are generally expected to own GBs rather than SGBs only, just to point out the obvious). That isn't the case the other way round at all, so I voted for option 2. I think deciding this case by case is unnecessary, though I don't feel too strongly about this aspect of the decision.
Posted: 7/10/2011 6:02 PM
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Kuwaga
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Flygon wrote:
Kuwaga wrote:
I guess this is just the way bureaucracy works. In that case it would probably be best to offer bribes, disguised as completely unrelated donations, in exchange for encodes that aren't 4:3 then. >__>
Unfortunately, from what I could tell, this just can't work.
I was just being sarcastic.
Nach wrote:
Kuwaga wrote:
This whole argument is still about what's technically the proper way to encode it, which is clearly 4:3
Why is it clearly 4:3?
A real SGB upscales the image to 4:3, so the technically proper way to encode SGB runs from just looking at the facts would clearly be 4:3 imo (imo referring to "clearly"). The only reason it shouldn't be done is because people watching the videos would prefer the the undistorted version. I personally vote for leaving the art, which is optimized for the GB in almost all cases, to be left undistorted.
Posted: 7/10/2011 2:53 PM
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Kuwaga
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This whole argument is still about what's technically the proper way to encode it, which is clearly 4:3, vs. what's the way to provide the most enjoyable result, which people seem to agree isn't 4:3. Why anybody would argue for doing something the right way over the way that most people would enjoy is beyond me. I guess this is just the way bureaucracy works. In that case it would probably be best to offer bribes, disguised as completely unrelated donations, in exchange for encodes that aren't 4:3 then. >__> I find this argument really irritating. Deciding against what people want because it objectively seems to be the right thing to do...
Posted: 7/9/2011 2:11 AM
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Kuwaga
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Dada wrote:
The reason why there's been very little discussion is because people seem to agree that aspect ratio correction is unnecessary. That includes moozooh, Lex, Flygon, Nach (in this specific case), Bisqwit, Noob Irdoh and myself. I don't think anyone besides you is explicitly for keeping the aspect ratio so far.
This was very true for me at least. I'm pretty sure the run was made for the SGB not because the authors wanted the image to be distorted, but because they found the border to look pretty and on an emulator SGB mode doesn't distort the image, so they never noticed how ugly that would be. Thinking about what's the "correct" or "proper" way to render the image is the wrong question to ask here imo, the question should be how the video can be rendered to produce the most enjoyable result. If 4:3 distorts the pixel art, then I really doubt it's the best solution for any game at all, regardless of the fact that it technically is the "proper" way to encode SGB games in 4:3 format. If some strange people really preferred the distorted image that much, they could still make their video player stretch the image for them. >_> Just remember these videos aren't encoded for robots but for people. Keeping the beauty of the pixel art intact should come before being technically accurate.
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