What's the most immersive video game that you've played?
AnarchistArtificer @ AnarchistArtificer @slrpnk.net Posts 4Comments 1,199Joined 2 yr. ago
I really liked this snippet of the article
"When people claim there’s no one to make peace with because the Palestinians hate us, I always say that as an Israeli I can only change my own society. But I want this act of refusal to resonate among Palestinians as well, so that they hear our messages and understand that we want peace. I know from conversations with Palestinian friends over the years that this is something they deeply value. I’m not doing this for them; I’m doing it for myself, but I want a continuous connection with them so they don’t give up on the struggle."
People like this are a minority, but they exist, and that makes me hopeful
I agree. A great example of why can be found in this excellent article about an extensive "dossier" of fraud allegations against a top Alzheimer's researcher: (https://www.science.org/content/article/research-misconduct-finding-neuroscientist-eliezer-masliah-papers-under-suspicion)
Specifically, this snippet:
"Microbiologist and research integrity expert Elisabeth Bik, who also worked on the Zlokovic dossier, contributed other Masliah examples and reviewed and concurred with almost all of the findings."
Elisabeth Bik is someone who has an incredible eye for fraudulently edited Western Blots images and someone I greatly admire. Calling her a "research integrity expert" is accurate, but what I find neat is that (to my knowledge) she doesn't have any particular training or funding towards this work. A lot of work she does in this area starts on, or is made public on PubPeer, an online forum. This is all to say that Elisabeth Bik's expertise and reputation in this area effectively stems from her just being a nerd on the internet.
I find it quite beautiful in a way, because she's far from the only example of this. I especially find it neat when non-scientists are able to help root out scientific fraud specifically through non-scientist expertise. As a scientist who often finds herself propelled by sheer enthusiasm, sometimes feels overwhelmed by the "Publish or Perish" atmosphere in research, and who worries about the integrity of science when there's so much trash being published, it's heartening to see that enthusiasm and commitment to Truth still matters.
I think one of the really neat things about games as a medium is that "the experience" is inherently a super malleable concept. Gaming blows my mind when I think about how adaptive you need to be to run a tabletop roleplaying game, like Dungeons and Dragons — no matter how elaborate your plans are, players will always find a way to throw a spanner in the works. Video games have the same unpredictability of how players engage with the world you've made, but a much smaller ability to respond and adapt to ensure that they're getting the correct "intended experience".
In some respects, I agree with you, because when I play games, I care a lot about the intended experience. However, the reality is that I bring too much of myself to any game that I play to be able to think of my experience in that way, and I think that's probably one of my favourite aspects of games as a medium — a dialogue between gamer and game developers. Especially because sometimes, the intended experience of a game isn't well executed; there are plenty of times I have gotten lost or confused in games because the game didn't sufficiently communicate to me (or other players with similar experiences) what it expected us to do. Part of the role of the game designer/developers role is to be guide the players so they get something resembling the intended experience.
Honestly, part of why I am on the pro-accessibility side of this issue is because I'm a bit of a snob — I think that being able to adapt a message or experience to a diverse audience shows a singularity of vision that's more powerful than experiences that target a much smaller audience.
For example, let's say that the subjective difficulty level of a game (the "experience") equals the "objective difficulty level" of a game (the difficulty setting) minus the player's skill level. For the sake of this example, let's imagine that 10 arbitrary units is the correct level of the subjective difficulty level, and above/below that, the experience is degraded; also, let's say that player skill ranges from 1-10, with most people clustering in the 4-6 range. In that world, if a game could only have one difficulty mode, 15 ish would probably be best, because 15 (objective difficulty) - 5 (average player skill level) = 10 (intended subjective difficulty level). I don't begrudge game Devs for targeting limited audiences if that's what they feel capable of, but I do massively respect the craftsmanship of being able to build a game that can serve a subjective 10 to a wide range of people, by having a range of difficulty settings.
I have an experience relating to game difficulty and accessibility that you would probably appreciate.
I was playing Rimworld for the first time, and because I was aware of how huge disasters that wipe out most of your work (that you can sometimes build back from) is a part of the game, I felt bad about playing the game on the mode that allows you to load earlier saves; I would find losing progress in this way more stressful than fun, so I wanted the ability to reverse poor fortune or choices, even if it felt like I was "dishonouring the intended experience".
However, a friend (who was the reason I had bought Rimworld in the first place, and who enjoyed the chaos of no-save mode) pointed out that whilst the no-save mode may be presented as the default, the mode with saves enabled is presented as a perfectly valid way to enjoy the game. This made me feel immensely better about it, and I was able to dispel the silly guilt I was feeling. It highlighted to me the power of how we label difficulty settings and other accessibility settings.
Games are a funny medium.
I enjoyed using phyphox while on a plane recently. I found it fun to track the pressure and to see how it loosely corresponded to my own subjective experience of ascending vs descending.
I can't recall any "useful" things I've used the app for, but I really enjoy having it — it makes me feel powerful. Like, it's nice to think that if I did have some ideas of experiments to run, I could. It feels fitting to be able to access the sensors, because there are many ways in which our electronic devices nowadays aren't (or don't feel like) our own, so this feels like a small amount of clawing back power, even if I'm not using it for much.
I made a few Romanian friends in university. Granted you're going to get some skewed perspectives when talking to expats, but each one of them said that Romania was a shit hole that they were glad to have escaped. Decree 770 (and other policies that were enacted by the same regime, that have left a scar on the country) was a large part of why.
This might be helpful, or it might be unrelated.
Recently, I made mozzarella from scratch. In order to do that, I needed some milk that wasn't homogenised. Homogenisation is the process of breaking up the fat globules within milk into smaller droplets so they're more evenly dispersed throughout the liquid, meaning there won't be a fatty layer that separates out when you leave the milk to stand.
Most milk that you buy at the supermarket would be both homogenised and pasteurised. I learned that pasteurised milk could work for cheese, depending on the specific temperature the milk was heated to during pasteurisation (because the required minimum temperature for pasteurization is below the temperature that causes issues for mozzarella, but some brands pasteurise at a higher temperature. Unfortunately most brands don't say what temperature they pasteurise at, but I got lucky with the first one I tried). That part's not especially relevant to you and is mostly cheese related
The thing I wanted to suggest, out of scientific curiosity more than helpfulness, is that I wonder how your son would do with pasteurised, non-homogenised milk — perhaps it's the homogenisation that's causing the problem, rather than the pasteurisation. If you do try this, I'd be interested to hear back how things go; I haven't heard of anyone having issues like this before
It's very difficult to say "All Souls College" without sounding like you're saying "Arsehole's College"
This isn't a problem of being pregnant while in law school. This is a problem of someone's Title IX protections being violated. Your comment implies that you think that Brittany Lovely was unwise to continue at law school while pregnant, but it's fairly reasonable to expect a law school to be following the law.
When I first switched to Linux, I was nonplussed at why many videos didn't work. It ended up being a positive learning experience, but it certainly would be nice if the codecs could be shipped directly, as you say.
The paper mentioned in the OP, ( https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02067-4 ) (paywalled link)
This quote is very funny. "Hypothetically, one might expect..."
The Cult of the Red Circle teaches that if you circle irrelevant things, people will be desensitized to aberrations.
Ever wonder why some pictures have useless red circles, highlighting something obvious? This is why.
I agree that season 1 is far more engaging but imo, that's mainly because the level of intrigue that I felt at the beginning of the story was insane — they were great at keeping that intrigue rolling in an interesting way. But that kind of mystery can only last so long, because it grows weaker as the audience learns more about the characters and world.
I think there was a part of me that felt disappointed by season 2 simply by the fact it couldn't give me what I felt during season 1, and actually, I wouldn't want that — the final episodes of a series shouldn't have the same kind of tension of the beginning of the story.
Overall, I'd say that season 1 is excellent (in particular, there were some visually impressive and stylish sequenced that I loved) — Riveting" was the word OP used. Season 2 is also decent. I don't recall it feeling rushed, and it does end decently.
Something I've thought about a bunch re: recommendation engines is the idea of a "sweet spot" that balances exploration and safety
Though actually I should start by saying that recommendation engines tend to aim to maximise engagement, which is why manosphere type content is so prevalent on places like YouTube if you go in with a fresh account — outrage generates engagement far more reliably than other content. I'm imagining a world where recommendation algorithms may be able to be individually tailored and trained, where I can let my goals shape the recommendations. I did some tinkering with a concept like this in the context of a personal music recommender, and I gave it an "exploration" slider, where at maximum, it'd suggest some really out-there stuff, but lower down might give me new songs from familiar artists. That project worked quite well, but it needs a lot of work to untangle before I can figure out how and why it worked so well.
That was a super individualistic program I made there, in that it was trained exclusively from data I gave it. One can get individual goals without having to rely on the data of just one person though - listenbrainz is very cool — its open source, and they are working on recommendation stuff (I've used listenbrainz as a user, but not yet as a contributor/developer)
Anyway, that exploration slider I mentioned is an aspect of the "sweet spot" I mentioned at the start. If we imagine a "benevolent" (aligned with the goals of its user) recommendation engine, and say that the goal you're after is you want to listen to more diverse music. For a random set of songs that are new to you, we could estimate how close they are to your current taste (getting this stuff into matrices is a big chunk of the work, ime). But maybe one of the songs is 10 arbitrary units away from the boundary of your "musical comfort zone". Maybe 10 units is too much too soon, too far away from your comfort zone. But maybe the song that's only 1 unit away is too similar to what you like already and doesn't feel stimulating and exciting in the way you expect the algorithm to feel. So maybe we could try what we think is a 4 or 5. Something novel enough to be exciting, but still feels safe.
Research has shown that recommendation algorithms can change affect our beliefs and our tastes [citation needed]. I got onto the music thing because I was thinking about the power in a recommendation algorithm, which is currently mostly used on keeping us consuming content like good cash cows. It's reasonable that so many people have developed an aversion to algorithmic recommendations, but I wish I could have a dash of algorithmic exploration, but with me in control (but not quite so in control as what you describe in your options 3). As someone who is decently well versed in machine learning (by scientist standards — I have never worked properly in software development or ML), I think it's definitely possible.
Mine work somewhat okayish, which is within the margin of error I need them for. I think there was one that was terrible though.
Mostly I use them for the temperature aspect, mostly for reminding me if it's too hot or cold in my room (because due to my autism, I often don't notice whether I'm at a comfortable temperature). I have a few scattered about my room and basically they act as a visual prompt to consciously ask myself if I'm at a comfortable temperature, and to act as a rough backup to whatever I'm feeling (because even when I'm consciously aware that my temperature is feeling Bad, I can't reliably tell whether I'm too hot or cold, so these terrible thermometers at least help me answer "should I get a blanket, or open a window?"
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I agree with you about the core of the problem, but the reason the monopoly is the thing being focussed on is because that's the legal basis against Google that we have right now (speaking as someone who enthusiastically followed the proceedings).
The crucial bit now that Google has been deemed an illegal monopolist is how this gets resolved, because of the possible remedies to this situation, some are better for user privacy, and some are worse. This is an opportunity to do some real good here on that front.
Unfortunately, as I understand it, actually getting to a solution will take time, because of how Google will try to haggle down whatever remedy is suggested. This seems likely to be easier to do under a Trump administration.
I'm from the UK and I feel like I've heard enough UK English speakers saying "quote" that I had never thought of it as an American thing. That isn't to say that the distinction you make doesn't exist though, just that it may be variable across demographics or contexts.
I wasn't sure how to lazily and semi securely send you a pdf, so check your DMs
Wish it were possible to safely share this stuff more widely, but in the meantime, internet nerds gotta help each other out
Oh I struggled most of all on the sand twins. I'm mildly claustrophobic and those caves freaked me out (especially as I tend to think poorly under pressure, so running out of time made me panic and get lost more).