If I'm being completely honest, I don't understand why so much drama over this.
So you didn't think of mentioning the authors of some of the runs and tricks during the TAS block. Well, it happens. It's a huge amount of work, and it probably is extremely hectic during the last weeks and especially days. Forgetting or not thinking of every single detail is understandable. Mentioning author names would have been nice, but hardly something catastrophic if forgotten.
Frankly, if somebody is honestly upset about not having been mentioned during the live commentary, even though the lapse is totally understandable, I think that's quite petty. (I don't know anybody is really that upset about it. I'm just saying that if.) It's not like some horrible crime happened.
But maybe I'm just not understanding the situation. Just feels completely blown out of proportions.
What is the integral of sin(x)*cos(x) dx ?
a) sin2(x) / 2 + C
b) -cos2(x) / 2 + C
c) -cos(2x) / 4 + C
This got me thinking that this is actually a great practical demonstration of why that +C in the result of integration is so important, especially given that many people lazily leave it out.
If you leave out the +C, one could incorrectly conclude that eg.
sin2(x) / 2 = -cos(2x) / 4
but of course this isn't true. However, it is true that
sin2(x) / 2 + C1 = -cos(2x) / 4 + C2
for properly chosen values of C1 and C2.
So, two questions:
1) When one is integrating something like sin(x)cos(x) dx, how and why does one come up with one of the above answers, and not the others? (It has been so long since I did any integration in high school that I don't even remember how you integrate sin(x)cos(x) dx.)
2) Small challenge: For which values of C1, C2 and C3 does it hold that
sin2(x) / 2 + C1 = -cos2(x) / 2 + C2 = -cos(2x) / 4 + C3
Speaking of the Riemann zeta function, I have had for some time now an interest in understanding the Riemann hypothesis. Just out of curiosity, as a little "hobby project". I was wondering if someone could help me with it.
In order to understand the hypothesis, I first need to understand the Riemann zeta function. In order to understand said function, I need to understand analytic continuations. And the topic already becomes really complicated (not to talk about how complicated the zeta function itself is.)
I have the impression that the viewers (at least those more in the know) are more critical of TASes in the stream than regular speedruns. They are more ready to give leniency to human speedrunners and allow for mistakes and somewhat boring segments, but are much more critical of TASes and expect a lot more entertainment and "value".
They want TASes that make them laugh, they want TASes that impress, that do something impressive, rather than just looking like a regular speedrun that they have already been watching for days.
The run being tool-assisted needs to be blatantly obvious, rather than subtle. TASes that absolutely break the game (eg. Megaman) look more impressive than TASes where the tool-assistance is more hidden and would need to be explained (such as random drops in Castlevania).
The TASes would likewise be preferably relatively short. I have the feeling that viewers are ready to watch a 2-hour regular speedrun, but if a TAS goes for more than 5 minutes they get bored. I might be completely wrong here, but that's the impression I have.
Perhaps a mix of the two? First show like three short TASes that just break the game (as in are complete glitchfests, rather than taking over the console) and are quite short (5 minutes absolute maximum), and then perhaps a longer one (maybe 15 minutes at most).
Skipping the TAS block at least in the next GDQ marathon could be a good idea. If it's taking way too much of your time, nobody deserves a break more than you!
It may even be a good idea to skip the next GDQ even if somebody else would be ready to take your place and organize it. There are several advantages:
- Six months might sound like a lot of time to the uninitiated, but time and again it has proven to be a surprisingly short amount of time, and it has become really hectic and stressful to the people planning, executing and running the TAS block. A year would allow for a much more relaxed and stress-free pace.
- Rather than leaving most rehearsals and the final contents of the block to the last minute, there would be much more time to do those things weeks and months in advance, and to refine the contents based on test audience feedback.
- It gives more time to come up with good ideas, rather than having to rush them.
One slightly negative aspect that perhaps would need to be addressed somehow:
The TAS block appears to have become, for good or bad, an integral and expected part of the GDQ events (so much so that R.O.B. even appeared in one of the event promo banners a few marathons back). If the next time there is no TAS block, rumors will probably start flying. Sure, we could just ignore them. On the other hand, maybe we could think of some kind of announcement done well in advance so that the lack of a TAS block doesn't come as a surprise to anybody.
-How close are we to console verification on stuff like Playstation?
If I understand correctly, that's never going to happen. At least not with unmodified hardware.
AFAIK PS games can only be run from CDs. Reading from a CD has pretty much random timing (that can vary by a lot). Syncing with that is probably impossible (unless, as mentioned, you modify the hardware somehow, which tends to be a bit of a no-no in terms of TASes and console verification).
Although, I suppose that if there is some PS game that's fully loaded to memory and never reads from the CD after that, it could possibly happen. I don't know if such a game exists.
(Disclaimer: I have zero knowledge about PS TASing and hardware, so I may be talking complete BS here.)
I have lived alone for longer than some tasvideos visitors have lived period.
I wish I could give you some advice on how to cope with it, but it's hard to give advice on a problem when I haven't even solved myself. But just wanted you to know that you are not alone with that problem. Depressing pun semi-intended.
Because Portal wasn't actually TAS (as far as I see, may be I'm wrong)
It is a TAS. Maybe not technically valid for publication at tasvideos.org, but still a tool-assisted speedrun nevertheless. Not a regular speedrun, nor some kind of hack, mod or script.
KennyMan666 wrote:
If it didn't evolve into that, I doubt we would see TASBlock every year. It would fall into the same category as the Tetris Block: fucking awesome if this is your first encounter with it but otherwise the impact is much less for people who have seen it before. This year the TAS guys definitely topped themselves rapidly ending a couple games (so still within the realm of games done quickly!), then quietly have them connect to an audio/video stream to provide that experience.
I have been a very regular tasvideos visitors since the very beginning, yet this TAS block surprised me with some ingenious new content. Just showing some "normal" TASes being console-verified live, with proper explanations and commentary, would have been quite ok, but showing something that even regular tasvideos.org users have never seen before is beyond expectations. So I have to agree with that sentiment.
It was nice that they did show a regular old TAS with no special gimmicks (other than it was running on the NES classic). Without it, it would have been all just a pure tech demo show with no actual tool-assisted speedruns (which has happened in the past, and which I have criticized).
I must be living in some kind of parallel universe, and because of some weird kind of spacetime distortion, posts from an alternate universe are leaking into this one. That's because what I saw was near perfect. A good balance of "regular" TASes and of absolutely breaking games and pushing consoles beyond belief. And nothing went horribly wrong technically or otherwise. Sure, maybe the video streaming went perhaps a bit too long before an explanation, but that's just nitpicky; the wait was worth it, when it was finally explained.
When I read the negative feedback here, it feels surreal. At first I honestly thought, no kidding, that it was some kind of parody. I was fully expecting there to be some "nah, I'm just kidding, the TAS block was great" at the end. But apparently not.
I have seldom disagreed more on some topic than here. dwangoAC, the TAS block was really, really good, and you (plural) really succeeded in pushing the limits once again, and the presentation was really polished.
I think this was the best and most polished TAS block so far. The diversity of types of TASes showcased was excellent, there was a good amount of variety, and their length was very appropriate. A classic old-school TAS, and a good amount of absolutely breaking games and consoles. And the commentary and explanations were polished and informative.
During the "SuperN64" and "Portal" segments it started to feel a bit worrying because while it was very cool, there was zero explanation of what exactly is happening. Not as in explaining what the video is showing, but about what exactly is happening with the video. But then the explanation came, which saved it perfectly. And it had that wow factor that has become expected of the TAS block.
I think this was pretty much the perfect TAS block, and there's very little to criticize, barring some very nitpicky and mostly irrelevant things.
If somebody ever makes a multigame-TAS of 135 simultaneous NES games, we can fit them all in a 4k video without any loss of pixels (in a 15x9 grid). If that's not a huge advantage I don't know what is.
Today's video cards support 32,768 by 32,768 resolution. Or if you want to limit to hardware decoding - so it can actually be playable, 8,192 by 8,192. I demand nothing less.
I think you are correct. After all, 8K displays do exist. We should look ahead and be on the forefront of technology.
But there is not much point is doing that unless you really, really want to keep that terrible pixelated look. HD is good enough for youtube, and the material is upscaled anyway, so it's just a matter of who does it.
My original post was made in jest. It was posted years before we actually started encoding in full-HD. I was just joking. Who would have guessed back then that it would actually become a reality?
That followup of mine was just continuing the joke. Not posted in seriousness. But who knows, perhaps it, too, will become reality.
I mean, it's perfect in your books because you have a bias against anything that isn't on a controller, which ultimately I feel doesn't make sense on a PC game that uses a mouse and an entire keyboard.
It has absolutely nothing to do with the type of controller.
The way I see it, if its in the game you should be allowed to exploit it as you please.
By that logic, the entire developer console in HL2 should be allowed. Which means you can just jump to the final chapter, turn on noclip, and just fly to the end through geometry.
I'm certain that you would agree that shouldn't be allowed. Therefore we come back to the fact that what you are and aren't allowed to use is pretty much arbitrary.
The HL2 speedrunning community has decided that the developer console is banned but, for example, deleting a savefile from the game's menu is allowed. The only difference between the two is where this is being done from.
IMO the restrictions should be much stricter, and restrict the available actions to actual gameplay, rather than any metafeatures that the game program might offer.
But then it would be so hard to land after huge ABH fly without quick save / load. So runners have to use more safe strats and game become boring again.
In other words, they would need to rely on game mechanics rather than meta-features unrelated to gameplay. Which, once again, would sound perfect in my books.
TASvideos has always used bleeding edge technology for video encoding, always ahead of everyone else. Thus the next logical step would be to use the newest HD technologies, which are becoming increasingly popular. Thus we should use 1920x1080 resolution and 5.1 channel surround sound in all future publications. Perhaps we could use some "Now in HD!" tag in the videos.
As technology advances, 1920x1080 is becoming a technology of the stone age. 4k is all the rage now. Thus, if we want to keep with the times, we should publish everything at 3840x2160. We wouldn't want to be deemed old and obsolete, now would we?
Back on this topic, one thing I noticed recently in HL2 speedrunning is that when the runner is quicksaving&loading, the clock isn't running. In typical current HL2 speedruns there are quite many places where the runner spends a significant amount of time quicksaving&loading. For example there's one particular place where the runner spends over 3 minutes doing nothing other than that. And all the while the clock is paused.
This, once again, goes to a territory that I really, really don't like. The player could just as well spend 3 hours quicksaving&loading, and it wouldn't be counted towards the length of the run. I just can't get over how much that feels like quasi-cheating. (Not "cheating" as in trying to do something surreptitiously to fool the viewers, or doing something clearly in breach of some rules, but something that, in my opinion, goes contrary to the whole idea of speedrunning.)
That's not the only example of this. Recently I tried to watch some speedruns of Dark Souls III, and the runner constantly (like once or twice per minute) would do this thing where he would quit the game to the main menu and then continue. This was done for various purposes such as skipping cutscenes, but in many cases it was simply done to travel some distance (because the player is not always spawned in the exact same place where he quit, but closeby).
That last part, especially, felt like a cheap cheat. The distances we are talking about are something that would take like 5 seconds to traverse by playing normally, while the quit+continue cycle takes something like 10 seconds. And, you guessed it, the clock was paused during that cycle. So he spends 10 seconds in quit+continue to save something like 5 seconds of traveling time, by abusing the fact that the clock isn't running during that time.
Since this happened pretty much constantly throughout the run, and was highly distracting and annoying, I couldn't even watch the run.
When programming, sometimes I need to select randomly from a set of elements, but the probability of each element being chosen is not the same. Instead, each element is specified a probability factor.
Normally probability factors add up to 1.0 (or to 100% if they are expressed as percentages), but this is quite inconvenient and not very practical. If you were to add or remove an element, or change the probability factor of any of the elements, you would need to go and manually calculate and adjust the factors of all the other elements. (Obviously the more elements there are, the more tedious work it would be.)
Thus it's much more convenient to just specify an arbitrary weight value for each element, and use them as a relative factor compared to all the weights. In other words, the magnitude of the given weight relative to the sum of all weights.
For example, if you have, let's say, five elements, you could define their probability weights as [3, 1, 10, 8, 4]. You can then calculate the actual probability factor of any element by dividing its weight by the sum of all weights. For example, the probability for the first element would be 3/(3+1+10+8+4) = 0.1154 = 11.54%.
I wonder if there's a name for that operation. It kind of resembles calculating a weighted average, but we are not calculating the average of the elements here, but rather the relative weight of a given element in relation to all the elements, given their weights.
I really have to question why this is. It only reinforces this notion that Vault is this garbage dump where we throw all the worthless TASes that nobody is interested in, and are in fact ashamed of them even existing.
I'm still of the opinion that getting to Vault should be an earned privilege (because, after all, you got the any% or 100% world record for that particular game), not something shameful.
Those people you describe, I see them as nothing more than the typical "loud minority" you always have. I can ignore them and still consider myself, for example, a socialist or feminist, I don't care about the few idiots that also happen to use those terms for their terrible ideology.
It would be really nice if they could just be ignored. Unfortunately this "loud minority" has too much power to be ignored. They cause changes in policies, official stances and laws. They make institutions of education, corporations, the justice system and even entire governments change their policies to placate to them. They are in real life affecting, for example, the deterioration of freedom of speech, at a legal level, and the proliferation of discrimination in hiring. They have affected police officials, eg. in the UK, to ignore teenage girl grooming gangs because it was deemed "politically incorrect" to investigate too deeply, because the perpetrators were immigrants. They are psychologically abusing and discriminating against children with their racist rhetoric. The list could go on and on.
I wish they could just be ignored. Unfortunately they have too much influence for that.
I just love how the alt-right crowd made social justice a bad thing.
No, the social justice warriors managed that perfectly well all by themselves.
They constantly want to stifle, impede, silence and ban the peaceful free expression of opinions that they don't like, and they often do this via intimidation, harassment and even illegal vandalism. They are utterly intolerant of any differing opinion (which is, by the way, the exact dictionary definition of "bigot".)
They constantly engage in vigilante justice against any man accused of rape, no matter how much evidence there is of his innocence. They want to reverse the fundamental principle of our judiciary system that a person ought to be considered innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Not only that, but they actually continue their vigilantism even after the man has been proven innocent beyond reasonable doubt.
They divide people into groups based on things like race, gender and sexual orientation, and assign rights, privileges, responsibilities and guilt onto every member of those groups completely regardless of personal actions, merits, or content of character. For example, some people have more rights to certain things (like certain cultural norms) than others, based on their race. They want people treated differently, even before the law, based on those characteristics. They judge people based on what they are (race, gender, sexual orientation) rather than who they are (actions, merits, content of character), which is the textbook definition of racism and sexism.
They want favoritism and discrimination, based on race, gender and sexual orientation, in things like hiring.
All of those things, and many other things, are quite blatantly unconstitutional (in basically any country that has a constitution), against universal human rights, and oftentimes even outright illegal in most countries.
So no, the "alt-right" didn't make social justice a bad thing. Social justice made social justice a bad thing.
If people were that offended by mockery, insults, and name calling, they wouldn't have voted for a candidate who mocks a disabled reporter in front of a stadium of people, insults a war veteran for being captured and tortured, makes up nicknames for his political opponents, etc.
Not offended by mockery and insults in general, but offended at mockery and insults directed at them. If a politician has a potty mouth, that might be acceptable in the eyes of the public, but if that potty mouth is directed at the listeners, his potential voters, accusing them of all kinds of heinous things, that is where it's going wrong.
I didn't say that was the only reason Trump happened, but it's part of it. People have grown tired of all the regressive leftist antics and wanted an alternative. That alternative might not be the best possible, but they wanted something different.
I do really hope that the democrats learn their lesson. Personally I would prefer a better president of the US than Trump, because the US has so much influence all over the world. But as it is, I do think Trump was overall the better choice because of that slap-in-the-face thing I was talking before. (And I doubt he'll start a WW3. He might act like a buffoon, but so have many presidents before him. Who knows, maybe he prevented WW3 from happening, by being elected.)
As for him being racist and sexist... The regressive left has hammered so much onto that narrative that it actually makes me dubious. Whenever they pound onto something so fervently, it makes me think that they are just trying to make a lie true via repetition. It's that crying wolf thing.
