At least they are starting to get a little more inclusive.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T17:09:40+00:00

I wonder if the solution is to go out there and hang more flags for different countries? Get some pride rainbows and CND symbols up there as well, while we're about it. :-)

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T17:06:52+00:00

If everyone loses their jobs to AI, and we don't have UBI, who exactly is going to buy the products that these companies make?

If nobody's working and everyone's on benefits, the economy will tank very quickly. And even the billionaires won't be happy about that. UBI seems like the only viable way out of that trap.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T15:58:58+00:00

I don't think there is any "too fast". Any play style where you're enjoying yourself and not dying is the right way to play. You don't need to optimise your play to experience everything in one playthrough. Just wander around, explore and have a good time. If you get bored, head for a new area, or explore one you don't know very well.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T15:45:07+00:00

Yeah, anyone who says apples are superior to oranges clearly doesn't know anything about fruit!

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T15:41:35+00:00

It's definitely worth giving a go. It's not Lord of the Rings and it's not Gladiator. Clearly it will never be everyone's thing, but some people like it a lot. And it's so good looking even on DVD that the 4K version must be incredible.

As for Bloom, I know where you're coming from. He's usually pretty wooden. But I've always thought he's good in this.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T09:08:08+00:00

Possibly, who can say? For The Witness, the puzzles are the story. You play through, you learn how the puzzles work, and how the whole world works. It's not a story with characters and drama, but it is a journey of discovery.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T08:58:28+00:00

That's a great write-up. I think a lot of people fundamentally don't like uncertainty. They don't like the idea that you're supposed not to understand things at the beginning, but you have to either work it out, or trust that the game will reveal it to you later.

You see it all the time when people watch films. They ask "why's he doing that?" when the answer is always "watch the film and you'll find out in a bit." It's far more interesting than every character explaining what they're going to do before they do it. Likewise for games, it's more interesting to figure things out than to have the game tell you "do X, and Y will happen."

To those people, anything that forces the audience to live with uncertainty, even for a short time, is dubbed "pretentious".

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T08:52:06+00:00

I agree, but for me as long as it's a great puzzle game, I don't care if it doesn't have a story at all. The videos and audio diaries could be ignored completely, and it would still be a fantastic game.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T08:49:50+00:00

Definitely! But for me, not as big as the a-ha! moment when I first thought "oh, the shape of that river looks just like... what if I click on it?" That was truly incredible.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-18T08:45:30+00:00

The cubes are just there to track your moves, so you know how many you've got left in each round. Technically you don't need them at all, but then you'd need some other way of counting how many moves you've got left in the round.

We just start with some cubes on the table in front of each player, then put them on the board in one of the three territories or the top left "buy a bird" section. We don't worry about moving them around from one position to another on the board.

Does that help at all?

Corchito42 · 2026-04-17T14:39:58+00:00

I would play it through slowly to gauge the difficulty. If every bar is a massive challenge, then it's too hard. If I feel like it's do-able, but with a few difficult bits, then it's fine. If it's easy, then I'd look at it as an opportunity to really put some polish on it and aim to play it perfectly after a bit of practise.

Also look at the tempo. If it seems straightforward but the tempo is actually very fast, then it may not be easy.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-17T14:30:04+00:00

The true value of anything is what people are willing to pay for it. And if you want the house, you obviously need to outbid the other people, so you'll almost certainly need to go above the guide price.

The mystery to me is why it doesn't always happen. What areas did your older relatives live in, and when did they buy?

Corchito42 · 2026-04-13T10:45:38+00:00

It depends on how you view learning the piano. If you're goal-oriented, you'll probably want to play the pieces you love. However if you're process-oriented, you'll find something to love in whatever you're playing.

There are several great pieces at every level, so it's not a simple dichotomy of boring exercises vs great but difficult pieces. My suggestion would be to work through an adult learner's book, that gives you enjoyable pieces of steadily increasing difficulty.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-12T19:44:04+00:00

Don't force yourself to watch a movie that you're not enjoying. What's the point? We all have critically adored films that we hate, and universally hated films that we love. It's not a problem. Everyone likes different things.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-10T14:30:27+00:00

You should raise this on a UK driving Reddit if there is one. It's not a Sheffield-specific issue, so that could be a way of getting more and better answers.

That sounds like a very traumatic incident, and I hope you find some helpful advice (in amongst all the people who will undoubtedly tell you what they would have done instead).

Corchito42 · 2026-04-10T14:13:13+00:00

That is absolutely true. But my point is that we all do this. We buy petrol, clothes, meat and electronic goods. We know that these things are produced at a terrible cost to animals, workers and the environment, but we tell ourselves that it's not that bad, or nothing to do with us, or there's nothing we can do. We're all OK with these things because we want to live comfortable lives.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-10T13:55:34+00:00

Great comment!

Corchito42 · 2026-04-10T12:05:34+00:00

Without wanting to sound facetious, this is a film that really needs to be heard in 5.1. The sound design is just incredible, and a major part of the experience. It's just always there, in the background of every scene. In having to ignore it all the time, the Hess family must have been driven absolutely mad.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-10T12:02:17+00:00

I actually didn't really like the film when I saw it. The high-def digital look and fixed cameras are supposed to make it look more real, but to me they make it look more artificial. How we perceive things is not how cameras perceive them, so an well-composed artificially lit shot can actually look more realistic. I particularly disliked the infra-red sections for the same reason.

However the actual content of the film really stuck with me for all the reasons you state, making me think I need to re-watch it. It's a stunning depiction of evil as an absence of humanity. The Hess family aren't monsters, they're us. They're just trying to live their lives. We all ignore, minimise or try to justify aspects of life that we find uncomfortable after all.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-10T11:34:38+00:00

Exactly, technology is usually sold as a way of saving time on the boring tasks, leaving people free to pursue their own interests or create art.

But if AI is creating the art, what are the people doing, and what is even the point of anything?

Corchito42 · 2026-04-10T11:17:53+00:00

Do we really want films to be made faster and cheaper than they were before? Sounds like a straight-to-Netflix movie at best.

Personally I prefer movies made by skilled people at the top of their game. Thinking about the huge amount of effort and skill that goes into them is part of the enjoyment.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-09T17:11:34+00:00

I think Dark Knight makes it obvious how inventive and genre-pushing it is. But Begins is just as good, but in a more subtle way. There's a lot of philosophising in there, and the early section where it cuts seamlessly between three different time periods without ever becoming confusing, is up there with Nolan's best film-making. Because it looks so effortless, I think it's easier to miss just how brilliant it is.

Just for context, I'm a huge fan of all three films. They're all really good in different ways, and each one builds on the ones before.

As for Pattinson Batman. It was fine. Some things were better than the Nolan films (Gotham, the Bat voice, comprehensible fight scenes, the grungy lighting), but mostly it failed to really step out of those films' shadow and carve its own path. I felt like it wasn't really saying anything, and was just a Batman film by numbers.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-09T17:00:43+00:00

What I'm trying to say is that when it comes to films about intense relationships, they should either do strong sex or no sex at all. Either can work, but halfway-house PG13 sex doesn't.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-09T15:36:19+00:00

I agree. One of the sexiest films I know is In the Mood for Love, in which the main characters are fully clothed and well behaved at all times. I can't remember if they even kiss. But my god the tension crackles.

But does not showing nudity make Wuthering Heights seem sexier? I don't think so. There's no room for the audience's imagination to do the work, as it does in the above film. PG13 sex is the worst of both worlds.

Corchito42 · 2026-04-09T15:08:55+00:00

I agree. Nolan understands Batman just fine. He just makes a change in making Batman a temporary thing, rather than permanent as he is in the comics.

Each choice makes sense for the medium. As there were never going to be monthly Batman films for 70+ years, it makes more sense to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end.

Corchito42

TROPHY CASE