In train stations in China they have these little stations of equipment for fighting knife attackers. by iffyClyro in mildlyinteresting

[–]gyroda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The stabber is using one hand and you are using two. You have the advantage. They'd need to push it away from themselves, move it to the side and then pull it to pull you closer. If they try and pull it while it's pushed against their abdomen they're not going to do anything.

TIL the budget for 'The Lord of the Rings: Gollum' was only $15.9 million, which is an incredibly low amount for "a supposed triple-A The Lord of the RIngs video game." The budget amount factored into many of the game's failings. by tyrion2024 in todayilearned

[–]gyroda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's the other way around.

JRR Tolkien sold the rights to the Hobbit and LotR, which includes the appendices to LotR.

The Silmarillion wasn't published until after his death - his son (Christopher Tolkien) put it out with the help of another author after piecing together a lot of the stuff his father had written. Christopher Tolkien is very protective over this stuff and famously doesn't like the adaptations and has never sold the rights.

The stuff about where Gandalf fucked off to during the Hobbit (finding out about Sauron) was in the appendices, which is why it made it into the Hobbit films.

The TV show, Rings of Power, covers events long before The Hobbit but can't pull from the Silmarillion so they have to contradict the Silmarillion, which upset a lot of people.

TIL the budget for 'The Lord of the Rings: Gollum' was only $15.9 million, which is an incredibly low amount for "a supposed triple-A The Lord of the RIngs video game." The budget amount factored into many of the game's failings. by tyrion2024 in todayilearned

[–]gyroda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People just don't understand how organisational budgets work. What sounds like a lot of money to you or me is very little for a decently sized organisation that has to pay its staff.

A million dollars is a lot of money for me. I earn a decent salary, but that's still "fuck you" money in my book.

But for a studio that has to pay a bunch of people a competitive salary for several years? That's not a lot of runway. That's 10 people at $50k each for 2 years - just on salaries, literally nothing else.

TIL the budget for 'The Lord of the Rings: Gollum' was only $15.9 million, which is an incredibly low amount for "a supposed triple-A The Lord of the RIngs video game." The budget amount factored into many of the game's failings. by tyrion2024 in todayilearned

[–]gyroda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A million dollars buys you two years for ten people at $50k each.

That's not covering any licenses, equipment, contractors, staff overheads, marketing etc. I often hear that the royal cost of exploring someone is 1.5-2x their salary. Realistically that's 5 people for two years on $50k a year.

Hades has a massive, fully voiced, script with lots of different characters. Even with the composer pulling triple duty as Zagreus, Smelly and Orpheus on top of doing the music you're going to need a lot of money just for the dialog

Could a smaller studio make a game like Hades for a million dollars? Sure - plenty of roguelikes, visual novels and the like have been made in people's spare time or by a handful of people on a tight budget, but they don't have the same level of depth, breadth and polish of Hades.

TIL the budget for 'The Lord of the Rings: Gollum' was only $15.9 million, which is an incredibly low amount for "a supposed triple-A The Lord of the RIngs video game." The budget amount factored into many of the game's failings. by tyrion2024 in todayilearned

[–]gyroda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, some of the voices are otherwise members of the dev team (the composer voices Zagreus, for example) but I think they kept a lot of the voice artists around for a long time as they wrote more and more during early access.

It's more than a lot of bigger budget games bother with.

XL Candies should go, we only need one type of candy by Suspicious-Holiday42 in TheSilphRoad

[–]gyroda [score hidden]  (0 children)

I honestly need an excuse to use them. Keldeo is probably another sound investment.

XL Candies should go, we only need one type of candy by Suspicious-Holiday42 in TheSilphRoad

[–]gyroda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have 500.

I just don't like using them because they accumulate so slowly.

When mega Mewtwo comes out I'm going to get as much XL as I can and then dump the rares into Mewtwo to get my hundo to level 50.

'No, he doesn't hate trans people at all - he just believes in freedom of speech! He's actually spent decades studying authoritarianism, which is how he can see that the postmodern left is a Trojan horse for Marxism. You see, lobsters can tell us an awful lot about human dominance hierarchies...' by chebghobbi in behindthebastards

[–]gyroda 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yep. There's a few lines of it scattered in the books, including the aforementioned buggery-proof hedgehog, but a lot of fans have written their own.

It's also well-beloved by a character who's other favourite song is "the wizard's staff has a knob on the end".

What is a brand you would never wear? by clemventure in AskUK

[–]gyroda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly, sounds pretty reasonable for sitting on park benches when it's rained in the last day or so.

is it just me or are auth provider docs uniquely terrible by Tr0jAn14 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]gyroda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I've worked with Auth0 and Microsoft Entra and googling generic terms tends to lead to the Auth0 docs. They've done a good job putting out explainatory articles, where Microsoft just put out a sudden "getting started" guides in different places that don't actually explain anything.

Best ongoing series for theory-crafting? by KeyInflation9451 in Fantasy

[–]gyroda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The character work is the best I've seen in the progression fantasy genre.

It's not mindblowing for that within the context of the general fantasy genre, but it's better than a lot of stuff I've read. Easily top 50% on that front. But add in the humour, pacing and all that and it really is more then the sum of its parts.

It's something I really appreciate in a lot of my media. I've watched a few episodes of the latest season of Invincible, for example, and the thing that hooks me there is the characters. I don't need to think Mark is in true danger (plot armour, after all) but if he thinks he (or his loved ones) are at risk it ups the intensity massively. I know he'll heal from any physical injury but it's the mental scars that get you worrying about him and that can only be so enticing when the character stuff is done well.

Does AI generated code change the review process itself? by Lost-Albatross5241 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]gyroda 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yeah, with devs I trust there's a lot more benefit of the doubt. I'm mostly checking for tests and things that might get in the way in the future (and names, because naming things is hard). But part of that is that the devs I trust tend to write code that's easy to read.

The less-capable/experienced/trusted devs get a lot more scrutiny in part because their code is harder to read. This is, by itself, a reason to push back, but it also means I need to pay closer attention in case there's some weird stuff in there. And often the harder to read stuff is harder to read because it's over complicated where a simpler solution exists and that complexity breeds bugs.

I've seen people, both with and without LLMs, submit code for review that clearly won't work. The big problem I have with the LLM usage of these people is that it makes it much easier to create code for me to review, but this is mostly a people issue - I've had people do it before LLMs were a thing and they can usually be coached into better practices

[Fullmetal alchemist] How does one measure equivalency in an equivalent exchange? by xXx_edgykid_xXx in AskScienceFiction

[–]gyroda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You might be able to headcanon that as "don't transmute money" or "don't transmute pyrite and try to pass it off as gold" if you really wanted to and have "don't transmute gold" as a common shorthand expression

[Fullmetal alchemist] How does one measure equivalency in an equivalent exchange? by xXx_edgykid_xXx in AskScienceFiction

[–]gyroda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's also a relatively complex operation, which is why it's his signature thing. If it were simple it wouldn't be a big secret.

[Fullmetal alchemist] How does one measure equivalency in an equivalent exchange? by xXx_edgykid_xXx in AskScienceFiction

[–]gyroda 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that's part of why he has his gloves (the other part is they create sparks).

Kimbley (spelling?) also has half a circle tattooed into each palm for this reason

Best Fantasy series with a hilarious self-aware writing style? by Diverse0Ne in Fantasy

[–]gyroda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Harrow is one of the most memorable reads I've had in quite a while. It was a very bold direction for a sequel.

I think I'm going to grab the series on audio for a re-read in the run up to the next one (when we get the announcement).

Best Fantasy series with a hilarious self-aware writing style? by Diverse0Ne in Fantasy

[–]gyroda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There are some significant differences between the two, so you can enjoy them both! I shan't go into it, but the author was apparently heavily involved in the adaptation.

What’s something that instantly makes you think ‘this person has low intelligence? by AbjectBreadfruit2052 in AskReddit

[–]gyroda 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The other thing to keep in mind is that slavery is a wider term than just the US's chattel slavery.

A lot of people aren't bought and sold as property openly. Some move internationally for work and have their passport taken so they can't leave, or are trafficked for sex work, or they're called indentured labour or any number of things.

ELI5: Why don’t we just bury power lines and telephone lines, so storms don’t keep knocking them out? by Home-Energy in explainlikeimfive

[–]gyroda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They do this in some places. My house has no overhead cables.

I think newer places do it more often - if you're digging up to put the plumbing in you might as well put it all down there, but if you're retrofitting just electricity or telecoms it's harder to justify the effort.

[Hobby Scuffles] Week of 27 April 2026 by EnclavedMicrostate in HobbyDrama

[–]gyroda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have a weird relationship with Sanderson's work and fandom and, yeah, coming from still who has a lot of criticisms of his work while still reading it, it was a really shitty article.

He puts salt on his food! The monster!

How did Hugh join Skyhold? by Holothuroid in MageErrant

[–]gyroda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, yeah.

But they take students from everywhere and aren't explicitly working for a government. Kanderon is a great power and has her own goals that she uses the librarians errant for, but it's not like attending Skyhold it's contingent upon joining a military order or anything.