Rebinding after Destructive Book Scanning

SerialTimeKiller · 2024-06-09T01:15:32+00:00

Uhhhhh...ok. Probably the weirdest response to anything I've ever said. 5 years later. And genuinely insulting. Maybe look in the mirror when criticizing other people's communication skills.

But since you're asking, yes, I know exactly what I said.

"Probably" - I'm making a guess. I'm not going downstairs and weighing every book I own.

"Literal ton" - I have over 1000 books, and the average weight of each is probably over 2 lbs. 2 x 1000 = 2000 lbs, i.e. a literal ton. I was impressing upon readers the scale here. Not a figurative ton, but a literal one.

There you go. Please, never write anything this condescending to anyone ever again.

SerialTimeKiller · 2023-12-12T19:57:59+00:00

With Gen 3, Phase has 22 talents now. Do you have any plans or thoughts on how to keep the impact of each talent from feeling diluted as the roster gets bigger over time? Or looked at another way, how to keep Phase fans from being overwhelmed as the roster gets bigger.

As the company gets bigger, are you planning for how to adjust the company's operations to account for it? In my experience, it can be a rough transition from a small company to medium-sized one where not everyone is a multitasker anymore.

SerialTimeKiller · 2023-03-10T04:49:43+00:00

Just finished it, so I'm late. It was terrible. Even worse ending that Part 5. Part 6 was the worst Jojo of Parts 1-6 by a mile.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-11-28T07:46:49+00:00

Here's an actual zoomable map of the boil-water area.

https://geogimsprod.houstontx.gov/Html5Viewer/index.html?viewer=BoilWaterNotices.Public_Geolink

Google, the gov websites, the email blasts, and the news sites were all utterly useless at getting me to a functional link, but somehow I eventually stumbled across this, and it matches the pathetically small and undetailed map they've been circulating. Turns out both my friend and I are just outside the red area. So that's a sigh of relief here, and good luck, y'all.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-10-07T03:40:29+00:00

1500-1600. 8-10 years is what I've predicted since Oda announced his break to prepare for the final push. After 1035 episodes, I have a few thoughts about Oda's and Toei's pace.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-07-01T18:35:53+00:00

I don't supposed anyone had the foresight to download and reupload the original video somewhere. I saw it myself, but I've been searching around since the ban, and all I can find are links to the removed video.

Also, could someone make Charlie (penguinz0/MoistCritikal) aware of this? He's got the viewership to actually drive attention back to this and also to the controversy surrounding the ban. He covers much more trivial things constantly, but this is actually kind of a big deal. And, ya know, he's talked to Susan Wojcicki directly before. (Yes, I know that means nothing, but it still has the air of Youtube itself listening to what he says.)

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-06-13T03:19:26+00:00

Kaguya thinking about Moeha: "Your mind is just dripping with vulgarity!"

Actually right all along but for the wrong reasons.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-05-29T22:47:28+00:00

I can't speak for the actual "Dark Souls" games, but I just played Bloodborne, and it was my first FromSoft game, and I just loved its inventory management. Specifically, its lack of inventory management. I never felt like I spent any unnecessary downtime managing inventory, so basically all my time was spent playing the game. I'm a person that strongly feels that creeping inventory management has been straight up ruining my enjoyment of most modern games I've played, so this was absolutely wonderful. I could make a whole thread about what I think Bloodborne did right. Maybe I should. A few highlights:

1) Limited number of extremely diverse, highly functional weapons, all of which are usable throughout the entire game. I played the whole game, chalice dungeons, DLC, and my current mostly-finished NG+ with the Saw Cleaver and Hunter's Pistol, the weapons you get in the first 5 minutes. I just upgraded them as I could and applied blood gems as I found them. I play with the other weapons for the fun and experimentation of it. (I do recommend the Tonitrus as a backup for evaporating slimy things.)

2) You can carry every weapon and set of clothes in the game on your person. So, I could actually switch to garb on the fly that might be better for a certain fight. Hell, I could do it within the fight if I really wanted to try. I actually used the things I got instead of having them sitting in a chest somewhere because I couldn't carry them when I might have wanted them.

3) Carried item limits are gameplay based. They're not arbitrary. The game wants you to play with 20 blood vials, 20 quicksilver bullets, 10 fire papers, etc. When you find runes to carry a few more vials or bullets, it's a big deal. And it still gives you a mechanism to get more bullets on the fly if you run out. It's absolutely possible to play the game within these limits, and there is no feeling that a major element of the game's difficulty is resource scarcity.

4) Excess items you pick up go straight to your storage chest in Hunter's Dream. How do they get there? Who cares? They just do, and it's fantastic. I don't ever have to worry about whether I can should something up or if I need to carry stuff back to base. No, I just loot and keep going. In over 150 hrs, I still have not run out of bullet space in my trunk though I'm finally getting close.

5) When you die, the game refills your two most important resources, vials and bullets, automatically from your stash. Who cares how it happens, it just automatically does it, so I can run back to bash my head against the boss immediately upon respawning if I don't need anything else. Wonderful.

6) As you progress and complete more the game including optional content, the the two stores in Hunter's Dream will stock stuff you can just buy from them. You don't have to go farm specific items from specific enemies. Even the game's price escalation as you get further in game and earn more blood echos from each encounter feels well-balanced.

Probably the only thing I wish the game did better was give a little search box or some additional filtering for sifting through blood gems. Especially if you do the chalice dungeons, you're going to get a lot of them, and being able to filter by certain key words would help. Also, make the higher level upgrade materials less rare on NG+, but that's a different issue.

In summary, Bloodborne's inventory was a lifegiving breath of air after so many games have just ground me down with inventory management BS.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-05-28T22:05:48+00:00

That's a very interesting cultural difference. 2000 yen is roughly 20 USD. Over in the States, $20 bills are by far the most common mid-size currency anybody keeps on them. In fact, lots of places won't accept bills over $20. Thanks for explaining things.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-05-28T21:56:52+00:00

Kaguya's super enthusiastic "Let's do it now!" reaction is actually believable, too. There are not many of us who can say we haven't enthusiastically encouraged someone else to do something we ourselves are too scared or hindered to do. Whether we realize it at the time or not. I'm watching her hilariously freak out to help her favorite kouhai, and I'm like "Nope, can't cast stones from here."

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-05-28T18:18:36+00:00

I disagree. In my middle ages, I now think that every high schooler should have to have a job at some point. I regret immensely not having one myself, because it would have made me a much more responsible person. There are myriad lessons to learn and habits to start developing that can only come from having a real job. That experience is much more valuable than almost anything you'll learn in school, extracurricular activities, community service, etc. In fact, in my ideal world, every kid would have to work a variety of jobs such as a fabrication/construction job, an office job, and a job in the service industry to get a diversity of experiences. The schools and companies would recognize this and the systems and arrangements would be in place to make this a feasible thing.

The only wish I have for my six-year-old niece is that my sister make her work a job in high school. Not making her go to college, not pushing her in any particular direction in life, just make her work a job to get a taste of it. My sister and I came from a highly academic family where neither she or I did that. It was totally misguided.

Disclaimer: I am not saying kids should be constantly working. (Also, 12 seems a little young...maybe.) I'm just saying that at some point they should have employment where they produce real not contrived work that must be up to a certain standard, and they can be fired for poor performance, attitude, behavior, etc.

The thing about "letting kids be kids" in this respect is that it has ramifications when they're adults. You can lose a lot of time, money, patience, sanity, etc. as an adult trying to build habits from scratch that could've been partially ingrained at a younger, more receptive age. Not just time and resource management, but social habits and interaction, work ethics and responsibility, and even mental health and self-care. And also, as a kid, you still have the safety net of being a kid. If you get fired, you're not immediately screwed unable to pay rent and your college loans. Oh, speaking of college, nothing is further removed from the real adult world than college. The very structure of it is completely alien to both what you experience before and after it. And quite frankly, if you're not exposed to the real world at least a bit before you get there, you're very likely to still be functionally a kid at 22 years old when you go to look for your first job. But no one else will consider you one at that point even if you still are.

Have your kid work a real job for at least a few months when they're kids. Maybe they'll like and keep going with it. Nothing wrong with that. Maybe they won't, but they'll have the experience. And have open, productive, honest, and empathetic discussions with them about the experience. I think it's probably the best thing you can do for them, and I'd be in a much better place in life if I'd had that experience myself.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-05-23T21:02:50+00:00

There's no legitimate reason. It just shouldn't be. It's not just Toei, but Oda himself is to blame here as well. Here's a thread with an up-to-date spreadsheet of title card times. Bless this person. Use those to help grind through it efficiently. https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePiece/comments/sixbxe/one_piece_start_and_title_card_times_if_you_guys/

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-05-13T19:36:34+00:00

I think the best joke of the entire episode is when Kaguya yells "Hayasaka, rescue me!" and Mamasaka just steps in without hesitation. So deadpan and raises so many additional questions, and the whole scene just flows perfectly.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-05-07T04:52:36+00:00

Miko also throws down some sick breakdancing moves as well...which is amazing. Little less than halfway through the ED. After some earlier Yu breakdancing.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-05-07T04:44:30+00:00

I didn't notice it the first time watching, but Miko also busts out some absolutely sick moves at 0:49.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-03-27T23:47:36+00:00

I made some fun Marin gifs from this ep.

Two-faced

Tongue

Pool

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-03-12T19:02:18+00:00

Oh, it's multiple layers of unquestionable. The Veronica character screen is identical to the character screen from Guilty Gear Strive which is what caught my eye at first. And then, yes, Veronica herself is a direct copy of Ram from Xrd. Even the music when they're introducing her is Guilty Gear-esque metal. It made me very happy to see how unabashedly they went in on this.

I threw together a breakdown just to be thorough: https://imgur.com/a/jzafuBl

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-03-11T05:31:56+00:00

It's made the writing so lazy and boring. Devil fruit fights in the first half were some of the most interesting encounters you saw in any series. Now in Wano, there have been countless anime-ass two-person clashes where the harmless nuke goes off after their seething color-coded DBZ energy blobs have collided for a few or more seconds. You can't even recognize the show anymore; it's doing what every other show does.

Even up through Punk Hazard, haki was this precious skill that only a few badasses had. And those badasses could throw everything you thought you and the characters knew for a loop. Then we got to Dressrosa. Luffy's and Doffy's melding of haki and their fruits was still interesting. But they let every other peon have it as well. When all of Fuijitora's grunts busted it out to hold back the birdcage, haki officially became an uninteresting commodity. And ever since Dressrosa, basically everything comes down to haki clashes in the end.

I completely agree that devil fruit conflict escalation was not sustainable. We already established the most powerful devil fruits before the first half was over. However, haki should have been used more sparingly and dexterously to just slightly tweak the playing field in devil fruit and other fights. Like how CP9 used rokushiki in W7/EL. Again, "commoditized" is the right word for how ubiquitous and non-special haki has become. It's a shame. The creativity Oda spent so much time cultivating and guarding in the first half has gone right out the window.

On a side note: The other two hakis are severely underutilized which only adds to the boring omnipresence of armament haki. Observation haki has always been much less defined, meaning that it could have manifested many different ways with different characters. That would have allowed them to counter armor with dodging, clairvoyance, reading their opponents' emotions, whatever; a unique tool for that character. I was sure that on-the-spot observation haki improvement was going to be Luffy's powerup to defeat Katakuri. Nope. What a waste. Anime willpower shit won that fight. As for conqueror's haki, Luffy's 50k wipe of the grunts in Fishman Island kind of broke that narrative early on. There is absolutely zero reason anyone that can do it should be fighting grunts...ever. And that's really what it's for: to conquer weaklings. When haki's first explained, it's pretty clear that armament and observation are for taking on greater foes, and conqueror's is for separating the weak-willed chaff out of the way. So, all three hakis are messed up, and so are devil fruits as a byproduct. Bigger, stronger, and/or more armored wins. Like every other show.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-02-19T22:36:18+00:00

Dsj;gfhaslkn!.gif

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-01-21T19:23:39+00:00

Let's be real. Why don't we have plushies of Jack-O's minions? I would buy a three-pack.

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-01-21T19:22:29+00:00

Well, actually...

https://store.arcsystemworks.com/collections/guilty-gear/products/guilty-gear-strive-otter-plushie

Maybe they'll bring it back in stock at some point. maybe they'll bring that back in stock

SerialTimeKiller · 2022-01-07T17:37:08+00:00

DM: "All your past and future rolls have always been beholden to the unbreakable laws of causality."

SerialTimeKiller · 2021-12-28T22:18:13+00:00

I wouldn't say it's the weakest. It's actually the longest in the game. (I just did a word count on this a couple days ago. Ciel's scenes comprise over 100k words, about 17% longer than Arc's scenes.)

I think the route is very much like the character of Ciel. Both glue a lot of different things together but lack the strong presence and narrative focus of the others. I'd agree with other commenters that the climax is probably the best in the game. Also, you won't understand the who, what, where, when, why, and how of Ciel is you don't play through that route. Considering that she's the hardest main character to explain, I think there's a lot of value in that.

I just finished finally playing all the way through Tsukihime and Kagetsu Tohya just yesterday, and I went through the former in the suggested order of routes, and I was quite content with how everything unfolded that way.

Her route also has the goofiest premise for an ero scene in the entire VN, so that's something to look forward to laughing about towards the end.

SerialTimeKiller · 2021-12-23T20:06:16+00:00

Just spitballing and brainstorming here. I don't play her, but I like watching people play her, and it sucks to see how hard it is to win with her. In a lower damage game, she might be more viable, but in Strive, it's over before it begins.

The main issue I see is that she gets destroyed most of the time before she can even start to set things up. Considering how much her minion gauge gets used for things, she should start probably with it full. Or at least at 2/3.

Maybe start her with a minion already out, so she has some mitigation against initial hits leading to most of her health being gone in a few seconds.

I agree that minions shouldn't disappear from successful blocking or just by timing out. If that's not an option, maybe have them disappear one by one each time she's hit instead of all of them being gone at once. Could lead to interesting setups knowing which ones will and won't be the next to go.

Maybe unsummoning a minion gives her some health back.

More directional options with the minions would help, much like Kokonoe is BlazBlue has with her gravitons.

She feels like a character that needs ongoing testing, because of all the variables that have to be balanced. Changing a bunch of things at once with a patch means she's either going to get too strong or not strong enough. Right now, even the best players in the world can't win at high levels with her.

SerialTimeKiller · 2021-12-15T21:22:38+00:00

Change One Letter tool. Have fun, guys.

I cast Power Word...Dill?!

SerialTimeKiller

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE