Posts for htwh

Posted: 4/12/2024 3:56 AM
(Edited: 6/15/2024 5:00 PM)
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htwh
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Location: At water with horses I've led there but won't admit it's water
OK, I guess I have a better sense of the feeling here. I do think maybe there's a missed opportunity here, but I can see how it might be logistically difficult (not impossible though) and overly focused on one goal.
htwh wrote:
But whom is the joke for?
Spikestuff wrote:
Mainly the active community that are apart of the forums, if YouTube doesn't see it then to us it's a "who cares". If they do then well I referred to it at the start of my post, it might actually get published, even if you didn't have that intention.
Clearly it's not a rare thing to publish one if there are several every year, and the sense of anticipation within those who are a part of the community could easily be some of the fun, serving things up for those apart from the forums.* As stated, a primary goal is entertainment, and entertaining just one another while ignoring a way to better entertain the audience seems a tad alienating. (I'm sure you mean "who cares" as in "whatever happens to my run happens, no big deal", by the way, but it can lead to "who cares about everyone else, we're entertaining ourselves".) For those without the awareness, knowledge, inclination, or time to go down the rabbit hole of forums and discord and all that, even a glimpse of the AFD fun in a tidy package on the day would be a great way of reaching more people. Maybe one run a year is coordinated in private with judges etc. and submitted/published all at once. I'm definitely not saying the current routine is awful. These are all just ideas, possible enhancements I hope might be considered over time. I've resisted stuff in similar situations out of habit, inertia, and so on, and it's peculiar but nice to find a new spin that works well. By the way, belated congrats to all on 20 years! *Editing later to semi-fix the nested quoting, and to make a point more clear than the original subtle nudge for anyone who comes back to read this. APART is not the same as A PART, and in fact it's basically the opposite. (Of course, apart is usually used with from, not of.) The new subject of pearl clutching over wounded feelings is unprompted language help, and a lot of small things may slide by, but when the words one writes mean the opposite of the intended meaning, outside of (even "apart from") rhetorical devices like sarcasm and irony, one ought to be told gently to avoid continuing to look like a fool and/or be misinterpreted. I saw this same mistake in a professional video today and couldn't believe it. Don't use apart (separate) when you mean a part (something included).
Posted: 4/12/2024 2:15 AM
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htwh
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To be clear, I don't mean a day early... I mean a week or two early, to allow for judging, encoding, etc. But more importantly: what is the goal of an AFD run? I am pretty much outside the inner workings of the site, and I'm sure we see things a little differently. I'm sure everyone who is involved here does it for the TAS community as well as for the public, perhaps in varying amounts. My suggestion is made from the perspective of the public. I check in on new publications regularly and watch enough that YouTube knows to show me new videos on its own; I rarely look too closely at new submissions, even less at discussion threads. (Actually, I used to follow submissions of interest with more regularity, but when the site revamp a few years ago bypassed the browser's ability to color visited links purple, I gave up. I might bring that up separately some time.) So I do see the new AFD submissions on 4/1, but usually with a mix of pity and apathy, knowing most won't make the cut but not caring enough to mentally keep track of those that did when I see them published over a week later. A really great one (SMW*11 from 2021 which sadly got disqualified, for example) I will watch the temp encode of, but otherwise... The atmosphere inside sounds like lots of fun, but also changes the focus and scope. What fun, I just submitted/saw a great gag run today on April 1st! Good joke! But whom is the joke for? Other dedicated TASers, to get the joke, and presumably, the judges and moderators as "targets". Ha ha, fooled you! Now wade through all this stuff, and step on it, while we giggle back here. Why did that guy submit an obvious joke run on the 20th? Oh hey, my run got published on the 12th, well, at least I had fun. That all makes plenty of sense, as long as you only consider the TAS community. Everyone else who just appreciates the runs, and would appreciate a good joke too, misses out. I feel as if working together to curate and present material for the internet at large would be just as fulfilling, and everyone wins. (As for delaying publications to the 2nd or 3rd to help keep the focus on AFD ones: that's a secondary concern, probably not horribly confusing if a serious run happens to be put out that day. But considering it usually takes weeks to get from submission to judging/voting, acceptance, encoding, pausing because someone found a quick extra optimization, and finally publication, I wonder who is sitting there on March 31 after a mid-March submission saying "I can't wait another day, this better damn well come out tomorrow or I'm going to explode!" and conversely who harbors conspiracy theories on existing April 2 publications... "oh, they probably held me back, just because of the calendar, or it'd have been yesterday!") That's my two cents. I think the joke of the publication is at least as good as the joke of the submission, and others may not agree, but the question then is where the amusement does lie and what the best way to present the joke is.
Posted: 4/12/2024 1:15 AM
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htwh
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Joined: 3/21/2023
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Location: At water with horses I've led there but won't admit it's water
I've been thinking about the way, every year, a flurry of joke/gag/silly submissions comes in on April 1st, only to languish and be largely rejected days or weeks later. A few might get published, but long after the brief thrill of the day is over. Wouldn't it make far more sense to get those in a few weeks early, possibly with a tag or at least textual annotation to identify them as AFD-themed, and then publish a few *on* the 1st? Far more people would see the published Movies on the site, and even more yet on the YouTube channel, and be able to appreciate the foolish intent, and those who watched the submissions and forums would get the idea despite seeing them early. I recall the original(?) AFD submission, 314M/612S, for the SMB walkathon, which was submitted and published all within one day, 4/1/05. A great gag, but it wouldn't be long before judging and processing delays would make that hard to duplicate. Indeed, the improvement to that walkathon, 1088M/1899S, was submitted on 4/1/08 but not published until 4/4. Another years after that (I closed it by accident and can't re-find now) took 8. https://tasvideos.org/HomePages/Noxxa/AprilFoolsHistory is really helpful, showing not only that a manageable number of AFD submissions were published each year (through about 2017, anyway), but also (with some clicking around) how the delays have stacked up. It doesn't include a few I spotted that were actually published on 4/1 but submitted well in advance, for which the timing might be purposeful or entirely coincidental. For example, is 3358M/5384S, a Pokemon ACE improvement submitted 2/5/17 but published 4/1, meant to be one? (Its predecessor, 2341M/3894S, was actually tied to Pi Day and submitted then, but only published a week later, highlighting a similar problem.) 5202M/8134S, a silly homebrew game, is even more recent: submitted 3/22/23, published 4/1. By design? Or lucky chance that it fits? They don't need to have flashing lights saying APRIL FOOL, but careful publication timing and pretty good hints in the text would be a real help, as would consistent dedication to publishing the best (and nothing but) gag runs on 4/1; edge cases of weirdness might actually catch a few people off guard ("Why did they publish THIS ru--oh..."). And if over a dozen each year are good enough to be accepted these days, maybe the best could be scheduled for the 1st, and the runners-up to trickle in later like any normal submission. Is this possible? Can people be persuaded to coordinate and turn in their work early? Apologies if I missed an obvious earlier discussion. I just want to see more good times like 2005!
Posted: 7/14/2023 2:30 AM
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htwh
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Possible improvements aside, I did enjoy the delayed ring collection in the special stages in a sort of frenzied-anxiety way. I'm curious about one thing: why, in the judgment accepting it, is there this bit of dithering and fretting?
The fact that this is a hack ROM
Is it different in some way from the official lock-on game?
Posted: 3/22/2023 7:02 PM
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htwh
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Joined: 3/21/2023
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Location: At water with horses I've led there but won't admit it's water
OtakuTAS wrote:
Zing? Grammarly's OK at some things, but usually not nuanced meaning in broader cases. Any guide will tell you that commas may and should be used to clarify meaning and prevent misreading, even when nothing else calls for them. This one prevents the "because" clause from being interpreted as a reason to trust the bot (such an interpretation won't make semantic sense in this example but it forces the reader to back up and try again), and instead indicates that it's a reason NOT to trust it. Sometimes there's meaning to both versions. For example: I don't trust you because you're wearing a fancy suit. (Some people may consider that reason enough to trust, but I don't. Trust-you-because... is one connected thought, and don't negates all of that.) I don't trust you, because you're wearing a fancy suit. (I might have trusted you, but I've become wary of such tactics, and now this suit makes me suspicious. Because... is a reason for don't-trust-you.) In speech, vocal inflection helps convey the sentiment. Capitalization, boldface, etc. may indicate stress instead, but the comma gets the job done. Of course, the first version could be taken the second way (one might insert "just" before "because" to avoid that), but the second version is clear.
DrD2k9 wrote:
Deleted
I'm not trying to suck anyone into an endless debate. Basic subject-verb agreement is important, but identifying the actual subject is too. Since you cited a specific resource - https://webapps.towson.edu/ows/sub-verb.htm (rule 1) - let me draw your attention to rule 10-A, whose extension to cover this topic seems obvious: "With one of those ________ who, use a plural verb. Hannah is one of those people who LIKE to read comic books. The above example implies that others besides Hannah like to read comic books. Therefore, the plural verb is the correct form to use." Implied by that explanation is the fact that like's subject is who=those people, not one. The others-besides argument is one way to think about it, but not the only one. Here it seems chosen to contrast with 10-B. Once you see the structure of such a sentence, though, it all makes sense, and you have a new feature of the language under your belt. Hannah is one of those (unspecified) people. Which people? Why, the ones who like comics. Chaotix is one of the (unspecified) few Sonic games. Which games? The ones without Sonic, plural. Rules 5 and 9 are useful to review in general, by the way. They have nothing to do with this discussion, but they're frequently forgotten. Many people say "there's" with plural subjects, for example, and sentences like "the best part are the battles". Written graciously and politely. I want to be charmy and not a mighty pain with this vector for knowledge. Thanks.
Posted: 3/22/2023 2:25 PM
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htwh
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Joined: 3/21/2023
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Location: At water with horses I've led there but won't admit it's water
Samsara wrote:
htwh wrote:
Maybe a humble lurker wouldn't need to make a forum account if this site gave any way to just drop a polite email for a minor correction or site-related feedback.
Buddy, you have been neither humble nor polite, and you have absolutely not been treating this as a "minor correction" given the increasing length and arrogance of your posting. Drop the attitude or you're gone.
How have I been impolite? Honest question. I haven't been calling people names or using rude language, just trying to aid in understanding. As for humble, I feel as if I started that way, though the more I've had to write to combat misconceptions, the less humble and minor this has all felt. If I'd come in and pointed out a misplaced apostrophe (say a 's instead of s') and received testy and inaccurate responses of "actually 's is right", wouldn't it make sense to explain further? Maybe I misjudged the atmosphere here, as in my many years of using this site, I have just been one of the many lurkers here*, though I've kept mostly to the front page and only browsed the forums a little. To barge in and make a scene, or stir up trouble, is not my intent. I didn't derail a busy thread, at least. (*Or, since lurkers=people who lurk, I've been one of the many people who lurk here, plural verb, since it would be pretty silly to say one of the many people, one who also lurks.) One last example. If this doesn't help shed some light, I don't know what will. 1. There are a few Sonic games, of which Chaotix is one that doesn't feature Sonic himself. 2. There are a few Sonic games that don't feature Sonic himself, of which Chaotix is one. Which of those both states truth and gives a helpful description? (And if we add a comma after "one" in 1, what happens?)
Nobody so far wrote:
Oh, I think I see what you mean now. Oops! I hadn't thought about it that way before. That makes sense, and it could add some precision to the language on this site devoted to precision. How unexpected but enlightening. I can use this to make my own writing more clear and precise, and help others as well!
Posted: 3/22/2023 3:48 AM
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htwh
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Joined: 3/21/2023
Posts: 11
Location: At water with horses I've led there but won't admit it's water
OtakuTAS wrote:
Who... are you?
I am the terror that flaps in the night. Maybe a humble lurker wouldn't need to make a forum account if this site gave any way to just drop a polite email for a minor correction or site-related feedback.
Αsumeh wrote:
If we were to use either phrase in normal cases, we can't say "There's one thing that don't seem to be new," but we can say, "There's one thing that doesn't seem to be new."
People are missing the point, and unfortunately you're taking out important words, altering the meaning, in the admirable effort to strip the sentence. I'm not making the obviously ludicrous claim that "don't" should go with "one". Because it goes with "games"! It can ONLY go with games. Here's another rephrase of the wrong version: Chaotix is one, that doesn't include Sonic, of the few Sonic games. Once again... NOTHING is there to combat the absurd semantic meaning that there are only a few Sonic games. If only there were a way to make that meaning clearer. Oh, I know! There ARE only a few Sonic games that DON'T include Sonic himself, right? That's an important fact, stated with unimpeachable grammar! Well, we'll just put that into the original sentence: Chaotix is one of the few Sonic games that don't include Sonic himself that doesn't include Sonic himself. That's perfectly grammatical but extremely redundant, because of course Chaotix's inclusion (one of the few) implies it has that characteristic itself. So we can leave "that doesn't..." out. And what are we left with? Or let's create a different restriction. It's true that there are only a few late 90s Sonic games, right? Out of the entire corpus, anyway. Chaotix is one of those few Sonic games that come from the late 90s. In fact, Chaotix is one of the few Sonic games that COME from the late 90s that DOESn't include Sonic himself. But that's not an interesting fact, because the era is irrelevant. Still, it communicates the narrowing of Sonic games Chaotix might be one of to the few late 90s ones, along with the fact that Chaotix is one without Sonic. And I'm not trusting a bot to have the final word, because it doesn't know that there are not only a few Sonic games, even if it can perfectly analyze the grammatical structure (can it?). But as an experiment, I gave it this sentence to rewrite: "Of the few Sonic games that don't feature Sonic himself, Chaotix is one." It suggests "Chaotix is one of the rare Sonic titles without Sonic the Hedgehog." I'd accept that as a valid sentence, but you know what, it does not resolve the question on its own, because it does not make it explicit whether "Sonic titles" or "Sonic titles without Sonic the Hedgehog" are what are considered rare. We know the answer, and in writing and speech we can hear it. It just so happens that both ideas can be expressed identically, with no grammatical inflections or other markers to distinguish them. (Funny, isn't it the language of Sonic's homeland that is well known for conversations with the rephrasing of one idea multiple ways to help reduce ambiguity?) When those different options exist, one should be careful to use the correct form for one's meaning, especially in writing as opposed to extemporaneous speech. It will be bedtime soon, so I'll leave it here and maybe not be greeted with more inexplicable rationalizations of sloppy grammar tomorrow. One can dream.
Posted: 3/22/2023 12:17 AM
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htwh
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Location: At water with horses I've led there but won't admit it's water
CasualPokePlayer wrote:
The sentence can work both ways, you might read out the sentence thinking the verb connects to games, but you might also interpret it as the verb connecting to "one of" as in any particular one of those games, therefore singular.
As I've pointed out, if you interpret the verb (and the rest of that clause) as referring to "one", that leaves "the few Sonic games" out without anything to make it specific enough. It loses the intended semantic meaning and indeed includes a falsehood. Rewriting the sentence AGAIN, "Chaotix is one of the few Sonic games, one that doesn't feature Sonic himself", may help illustrate this. There are not only a few Sonic games. There ARE only a few Sonic games that DON'T feature Sonic. If you're going to say "the few Sonic games" at all, it must be restricted in some way. Of course, by including Chaotix as one of those few Sonicless games, the logical implication is that Chaotix also does not feature Sonic, so there's nothing lost by treating the verb correctly as plural (referring to games) without explicitly connecting the Sonicless nature to Chaotix too. In fact, coining the term Sonicless helps me illustrate this another way, because that adjective may replace the relative clause closer to the noun. Would you say Chaotix is a Sonicless one of the few Sonic games, or Chaotix is one of the few Sonicless games? I know which I'd say! This is a common mistake in writing and in speech (especially when "the few" or "the only" is instead a word like "these" or "those"), and some constructions and examples may technically, if awkwardly, be interpreted correctly with either verb number, but X is one of [some] Ys that Z(s) should almost always have a plural verb syntactically. Diagram a sentence or two.
Posted: 3/21/2023 6:04 PM
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htwh
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EZGames69 wrote:
I think both examples work.
You must have a very broad interpretation of the word "few".
Posted: 3/21/2023 4:52 PM
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htwh
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Spikestuff wrote:
"Doesn't" is the correct English in that sentence. Read it out loud without the contraction as is and with your suggestion. Knuckles' Chaotix is one of the few Sonic games that does not feature Sonic himself. Here's your "don't" suggestion: Knuckles' Chaotix is one of the few Sonic games that do not feature Sonic himself.
No, "don't" is correct. There are many Sonic games, but FEW that DO NOT feature Sonic, and Chaotix is one of those few. If you reword the "doesn't" sentence to make IT clearer, you get this: Of the few Sonic games (no qualifier), Knuckles' Chaotix is one that doesn't feature Sonic himself. Obviously there are more than a few Sonic games; the restrictive relative clause about not featuring Sonic has to restrict THAT category. Attaching the relative clause to Chaotix/one makes it nonrestrictive, parenthetical, a side note the sentence could do without, and "Knuckles' Chaotix is one of the few Sonic games" obviously is not the intended meaning.
Posted: 3/21/2023 4:40 PM
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htwh
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Location: At water with horses I've led there but won't admit it's water
Is it possible to fix the grammar in the description (on the movie page 5159M as well as those of obsoleted runs and anywhere else this particular description is used)? It should be "don't", not "doesn't", in "Knuckles' Chaotix is one of the few Sonic games that doesn't feature Sonic himself."