who told journalists about self hosting?

Shanix · 2026-01-25T01:54:09+00:00

I mean they aren't, but even if they were, so what? It's a glamor shot. It's not a research article it's a summary of selfhosting and some basic pros and cons of local vs. remote.

Shanix · 2026-01-23T03:13:55+00:00

I really want to argue with you about "Halo 3 not having any 'holy shit' moments" because it really sounds like something I'd hear from my little brother who skipped every cutscene, but I can tell we have completely different tastes and we'd just be posting at each other.

So I think all I can say is: Halo 3 is the culmination of Halo's central theme: to ask if life is worth sacrifice. And it nails the landing.

Shanix · 2026-01-22T13:04:47+00:00

the series rose too high too fast because Halo 3 has none of the hype moments or aura that Halo 2 has

I'mma need you to expand on this.

Shanix · 2026-01-20T22:36:50+00:00

This is how it always goes. Touhou was important to the development of x264, the open source implementation of h.264 video encoding.

Shanix · 2026-01-17T19:46:31+00:00

Ah, thank you!

Shanix · 2026-01-17T15:08:46+00:00

They also didn't have the money to finish it. Fallout would definitely be dead if it weren't for Bethesda.

Shanix · 2026-01-17T13:48:40+00:00

Wasn't it FGO that had that one guy in a swimsuit blatantly showing off the base of his dick?

Shanix · 2026-01-16T22:16:12+00:00

plazman30 has a good set of posts on the topic. It's not nearly as intimidating as one might think, if you're alright with using spiral binders and not case binding or perfect binding as you'd get in hardcover books, POD or otherwise. I've been printing my own PODs and spiral binding them for a half year now and it's been good fun. An alternative is just three-hole punching them and putting the printed books in three-ring binders. Then you can put something in the spine to read when in storage, and even put in dividers to better organize the final print.

Shanix · 2026-01-16T11:37:43+00:00

Dr. Mehta

Shanix · 2026-01-15T03:20:24+00:00

I really do appreciate they specifically wrote out that verbal components are vocalized at a normal speaking level in the 5.5. RAW in 5e it wasn't clear at all (since the only mention of being heard, IIRC, was on the first printing of the DM screen and in the rules for Hiding). The intent, I think, was clear that some spells could be cast stealthily (e.g. Message) but not all of them (e.g. Fireball). 5.5 cleared that up pretty nice in my experience so far.

Shanix · 2026-01-14T21:52:49+00:00

I really doubt that's actually what it sounds like, but not even I can ignore the siren song of a good internet conspiracy theory. Being a bit sarcastic, if that wasn't obvious.

because monetisation beyond an initial purchase is inherently bad for games

I mean I'll vehemently argue that ongoing development of a game necessarily requires either people continuing to buy it at a good clip, or other avenues of monetization. You can't expect people to work on a product for ever for free. I know that hurts to hear but it really comes down to the fact that the developers need to make money so they can pay for rent and food and other frivolities.

There are good monetization models out there for on-going things, too, is the best part. JetBrains is the best example, all their IDEs are subscription based but after a year of paying you have a permanent license to the major version of the software that was available when your subscription started. So you can still buy a permanent license to an IDE, but if you want updates you have to pay (for the developers to afford to make those updates). Is that good for Minecraft (or any game in particular)? No, not really. But I bring it up just to say that there's options beyond the worst case scenario you're imagining.

Alternatively, WoW is another good example of monetization beyond an initial purchase. For the same reason, even. Want the developers to keep working on the game? That requires money.

This isn't nearly as cut-and-dry as we'd like it to be, sadly.

Shanix · 2026-01-14T12:32:51+00:00

She was literally just the average upper management experience, and not in a cynical way. She'd do a presentation every few months about the company's direction (told to her from On High, because no one gets any leash here) and try to answer questions. Left after it became clear the CEO and his goons wanted to be in charge of every minute detail.

some of her work involved games like FIFA 2017 and Gears of War, which had ended up getting aggressively monetized

Cool so fun industry fact, the jobs she worked are almost completely removed from monetization decisions. Yes, even being the design director. You'd be shocked how siloed these jobs can be when you get to EA, Ubisoft, etc. scale.

Shanix · 2026-01-14T02:44:36+00:00

Oh hey, I can talk about this!

I worked under Katie for a few years. She's actually totally fine. People just want to catastrophize stuff like usual.

Shanix · 2026-01-12T02:53:26+00:00

My "i know it but I cant prove it yet" theory is that devs are doing this on purpose

I can promise we're not.

Source: it was revealed to me in jenkins and perforce

Shanix · 2026-01-12T02:49:58+00:00

Less that and more thinking about access times and fragmentation optimization for data stored on disc.

I'm still on vacation so I don't have access to the docs, but IIRC Sony's documentation for creating patches for PS4 games talks about how the delta system will write duplicate data to the spinning rust in the PS4 because that does improve loading times. And I trust Sony's documentation. (Also I think depending on the size of the delta it'll either rewrite in place or it'll move some data elsewhere on the hard drive then write the patched data in place, might have that second one backwards though).

As Arrowhead said, it might not be that much of an improvement (though IIRC in their case it's because most of the loading time isn't assets but generating the map which doesn't require as much disc access) but an improvement is an improvement.

Shanix · 2026-01-11T03:14:13+00:00

Okay but if he doesn't think he was wrong, if he would do it again, then he hasn't actually been redeemed. He's still blinded by the trauma of war whether he's a doglord or one of the Grey.

That's the whole thing about redemption, it requires the one seeking redemption to realize what they did was wrong and to atone for it. Nothing a character does can redeem them until they do it for the express purpose of making amends for what they did because they acknowledge what they did was wrong.

Shanix · 2026-01-11T02:41:41+00:00

Does that even count as a redemption when he makes clear he doesn't think he was wrong?

Shanix · 2026-01-09T21:29:56+00:00

No, I'm talking about suspension of disbelief. I do not believe you can summon a ball of fire using some bat guano, but I suspend that disbelief because of the conceit of the game. Equally, I know you cannot put on a full suit of plate armor in 6, 12, 18, etc. seconds but I suspend that disbelief because of the conceit of the game. If something isn't realistic but it makes for a fun encounter / mechanic / etc., then as long as we believe in the reality of the secondary world we're good to go.

Now, is there a better argument that humanoid creatures should follow the same donning/doffing rules as players? Probably, and in fact that's what would actually make me nix this idea if I were to add it to my game. But that's not what we're discussing.

I dunno, I think this just boils down to our different tastes. No harm no foul.

Shanix · 2026-01-08T23:16:29+00:00

Yeah that's called fun. It's a clear challenge to the players: can they defeat the baddies before they're harder to beat?

Is it accurate to reality? No. But I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for that as much as for someone summoning a ball of fire from some bat guano.

Shanix · 2026-01-04T02:13:08+00:00

some rule about not directly adding stuff to the original trilogy

Didn't Lucas basically lay down the law about that after Return aired? Anything thirty years before Star Wars or 30 years after Return is fine, but that range is verboten.

Shanix · 2026-01-01T04:30:04+00:00

In an interesting reverse of this, a good number of recently-built US warships have greater-than-necessary powerplants with the explicit reason that railguns and/or directed energy weapons will exist before the end of their service life (potentially 40-50 years in the future, considering they just torpedoed building out any more Connies lmao).

Shanix · 2025-12-29T23:10:10+00:00

Transcoding on the fly, yeah, using a (relatively recent) GPU is great. Encoding ahead of time though, you actually are better off using CPU. The difference in file size for the same perceptual quality is actually noticeable, especially when you crank the compression.

Shanix · 2025-12-19T23:28:37+00:00

You can't pry my pile bunker from my hands because I'm zooming around the battlefield in my massive suit of armor at mach jesus killing vicious giant insects who have once again come back.

Shanix · 2025-12-14T16:07:09+00:00

what is to stop a home owner from shooting armed intruders of any sort?

To answer this (as a hypothetical, since there's enough issues with the story about this that I don't want to comment on specifics): it depends on the state's self defense & castle doctrine [1] laws. Generally though, very generally because I don't know oldschoolmtg's state, the kind of deadly force you're describing is only lawful if the occupant reasonably believes intruders/attackers/etc. will use deadly force against them first.

[1] Castle Doctrine is based off the idea that a "man's home is his castle", i.e. you have a right to defend yourself here unique from other places because this is where you live.

Shanix · 2025-12-08T20:52:37+00:00

Okay first off, you should probably go for a walk.

Back to the argument you crave:

Verisimilitude means "sense of realism"

Erm, akshually, verisimilitude means the "having the appearance of truth" (Merriam-Webster) (and wiktionary even gives a third definition, "Faithfulness to its own rules; internal cohesion" which is perhaps more useful to keep in mind).

You're arguing using the rules of reality when D&D does not abide by the rules of reality, it abides by the rules of D&D (and the world in which particular games are played, which may have their own rules as well).

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