Interesting Links for 22-06-2012

[andrewducker]

• Papal approval for movies that show nuns hitting people. Also, amazing car chases.
  (tags: catholicism movies )
• MIT creates fuel cell powered by your own cerebrospinal fluid.
  (tags: cyborg thefuture viaErindubitably )
• Here's the translation of what David asked the Prometheus Engineer
  (tags: prometheus language acting )
• Magnetic emulsions could clean up oil spills
  (tags: technology environment oil )
• Carrots, not sticks, motivate workers
  (tags: work reward punisment psychology effectiveness )
• How the future world of Minority World was created (get a bunch of experts together and lock them in a room for two days)
  (tags: thefuture movies Steven_Spielberg )
• You can't copyright the rules of a game - but that protection, apparently, extends only so far.
  (tags: copyright games )
• If you buy Diablo 3 online then it's locked into demo mode for the first three days
  (tags: EpicFail wtf games )
• Ten EU countries told to improve hen cages - and about time too!
  (tags: europe animals )
• Cosmo's 44 Most Ridiculous Sex Tips
  Now there's a party game!
  (tags: funny sex )
• Fifteen-year-old invents fast, cheap test for pancreatic cancer
  (tags: viaNancyLebov medicine cancer )
• Can anyone answer this question about sci-fi history?
  (tags: questions history scifi )
• English spelling - fucked up for all sorts of interesting reasons
  (tags: language history spelling english )
• 68% of Americans would now vote for a gay presidential candidate! Only 54% for an atheist though. (Lucky women - they get 95% support!)
  (tags: usa politics atheism lgbt demographics. )
• Why We Lie, Cheat, Go to Prison and Eat Chocolate Cake
  (tags: cake lying cheating crime honesty psychology society )

Comments

[gominokouhai]

For a film you hated so much, you sure are still talking about it a lot three weeks after release.

[andrewducker]

Oh Goodness Yes. It's such a fascinating mess. If it had been pointless and empty (like, say, Transformers) then I wouldn't have any interest at all. But I've enjoyed all of the stuff around the movie a lot. And part of the reason my reaction to the movie was so visceral was because there were bits I _really_ enjoyed, and having them next to bits I really didn't was so disappointing.

[andlosers.livejournal.com]

Reading the Cosmo post. Cannot stop laughing. Hoping nobody else in the coffee shop can see.

[andrewducker]

I kept giggling in bed last night and reading them to Julie!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I'm really distressed about Diablo III. I mean, they got my money, and I enjoyed the game massively (minus the odd server glitch) right up till the point where I killed Diablo on kindergarten level. And then I started on the second difficulty, and I was quite enjoying the actually challenging gameplay until my hindbrain went 'duh, you're on rails, you've *played* this game, there is nothing new to discover here'. Which took about two more hours. And it's not occurred to me to pick it up since. I spent 30 minutes in co-op once and it felt like a tedious grind; I have no interest in auction houses or anything like that. So, really, I think I'm done. £45, more than I've spent on a game in years, perhaps 25 hours of game play, most of which was spent thinking 'gosh, this is a bit easy'. All, pretty much, within the first 72 hours I owned it.

I could not possibly have imagined this. I put masses of hours into both the first two Diablos. Torchlight on Steam says 175 hours, and although that will include a few times that I left the game on pause overnight, I should think 100 hours is likely. And there's still loads of stuff in Torchlight I don't know about yet.

So, here's a rule of thumb for entertainment: £1 per person per hour. More than that is fine if it's some grand event, like Olympic tickets or the Royal Opera. But for stuff you're doing in your own house? £1 per person per hour. And of course, Diablo would be fine for that if I could now pass it on to Jonathan. But no, the whole thing's locked to my personal Blizzard account.

I just feel as the basic game structure of 'play our entirely linear game four times, why don't you, and you don't get to manage the difficulty', is completely broken, and that I've been ripped off by the most efficient marketing campaign of all time. Scammed, in fact.

[andrewducker]

Yes. I'm currently feeling that I should avoid Diablo III on principle. Torchlight II is coming soon, and will happily provide me with multiplayer co-op fun, for less money, without tying me in to a bunch of stuff I'm not interested in.

[khoth.livejournal.com]

I'm not surprised that it feels like 'play our entirely linear game four times, why don't you, and you don't get to manage the difficulty', but I am surprised that you didn't feel that for the other Diablos, which IIRC were exactly the same.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

I played the entirely linear Diablos I and II three times each - maybe more, and didn't mind doing that - I only played SP for each.

Haven't got DIII yet because I'm waiting for the bugs to be guaranteed fixed, the price to nudge down a bit and I'm not sure my existing PC would play it OK. I think I probably will have a go eventually though - if only for nostalgia's sake.

[andrewducker]

Might I suggest that in the meantime you try Torchlight?

Made by the original Diablo I/II developers, after they got fed up and left Blizzard. I think I might have a spare copy lying around if you want it.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Oh, my elderly underpowered laptop might be persuaded to play that so I might give that a go, thanks for the recommendation. And while I'm at it, the Amazon reviews claim that Diablo II will play on Windows 7, so for 8 quid I might have another go at that as well.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

You might be interested by a game called Path of Exile. It's in Beta, I think - but apparently it satisfies the Diablo-alike clicky urges.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Torchlight is designed to play on anything. But in fact Diablo III runs fine on my five year old iMac, which is not exactly a gaming machine.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

Hrrm, it has been a long time, but I don't remember having to take the identical character through in the same linear fashion -- is that right? That's the thing that's so bizarre, that you start on 'level 2' with your character who has already done all this. I think I'd have been totally up for starting again with one of the other character classes.

[andrewducker]

That's insane! I assume it's because of the online-only mode, all characters must level in the same way approach to things, which ties into the online auction house.

They've basically massively hobbled the game in order to enable one small part that most players aren't interested in!

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

That's right. If you want to start another character class, you have to start it over again on Normal (which is 'too easy' for most hardcore gamers and 'a bit easy' for the likes of me), and grind through for 25 hours until it gets challenging. Again.

[andrewducker]

Okay, that's my mind made up. Soooo not doing that.

[khoth.livejournal.com]

It is a bit bizarre, but it's also how it worked in Diablo II. (In fact, D2 was worse, because it didn't let you change the skills you'd picked for a character, so if you made bad choices or wanted to try a different skillset you had to restart even for the same character clasS)

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I've known two different women who worked for Cosmo who were virgins. I've always thought that this explains much of the advice - it's written by women with not a lot of sexual experience who are simply imagining what guys would like in bed.

Hence why you get stuff like 'slap his dick around!"

The other problem is that their business model is based around trying to make things that are fairly easy seem very complicated.

If you actually said to a woman "hey, pretty much anything you do with your mouth on a guys dick - other than biting - is going to make him happy" or "Yeah, just move your hand up and down his dick when you give him a hand job and if you are in a particularly interactive mood do so with lube/and or silky panties" then there would be no need for women to buy the next month's issue.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I moderately-confidently predict that the CSF glucose-powered fuel cell will turn out to be a really bad idea. It might work as an approach elsewhere in the body but not there. My reaction to the headline was to think "But I'm using my CSF, I don't want to burn it up!" and after reading the paper that doesn't do badly at capturing my essential worry. The body goes to spectacular, extraordinary lengths to maintain glucose supply to the brain, even when you're starving to death. I will be very, very surprised if the impact of implanting this isn't much worse than just getting hungry a bit sooner.

[andrewducker]

Getting hungry, lacking vital brain-supporting nutrients, possibly impaired brain function.

Only one solution. Braaaaaaaaains.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

By God, you're right!

Here was I, thinking complacenty that no real scientists would be so naive as to unwittingly unleash the zombie apocalypse. How wrong I was. They must be stopped!

[anef.livejournal.com]

I feel I should mention that women may be in fact either atheist or moslem, although probably not both.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Shame the US president percentages don't mention Hindu, Buddhist, Satanist and Wiccan (etc.) candidates. Would be interesting to know if they'd prefer a Satanist to an atheist.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

I had an unpleasant conversation with a lapsed-Catholic-but-strong-Christian today, who continually fails to appreciate that my lack of Faith does not mean that I am, eg., a Satanist*.

When I mentioned that I would find talking to a tree as useful as and more productive than praying, they declared that I need Sectioning.

So yeah, I wonder the same thing



[*my spluttered response to this particular question was 'What? Why the Hell would a non-believer pray to another member of the Christian mythology? That makes no sense whatsoever"]

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

You could point out that the lack of faith line appears in Star Wars, with Darth Vader ;-)

The church opposite my house has some banners saying 'Try Praying'. I've sometimes been tempted to add 'Did it work?' or 'Try science' to them.

How many believers in $deity have had their cancer or whatever cured by praying? I'd venture the answer was none.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

I may have to watch Prometheus just so I can keep reading your posts regularly.


that is in no way a complaint