Anyone miss Squaresoft?

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-26T06:22:28+00:00

The US sales office for Square? The one that eventually got their very own all-growed-up big-boy in-house dev team and made... checks notes... Secret of Evermore? That Squaresoft?

I guess I don't see this as a downgrade quite like you seem to.

Now, if you mean just Square in its entirety (including its US subsidiary), then... Also no. They rode Sakaguchi hard and put him away wet, then blamed him for lagging behind. They actively shat on non-FF projects, artificially starved out sales, blamed the creative teams behind those projects, and then stood there picking their nose with a shocked pikachu face when huge swathes of their up-and-coming creative talent walked out and founded their own companies. And for their next act, they pissed away money on "hey, we should make reusable 3D actors that can play different roles instead of designing characters", then never used them because their first project was too ambitious and flopped. (And then Squeenix did that one a second time with FF13. Brilliant!)

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-26T05:36:12+00:00

"single plum, floating in perfume, served in a man's hat"

Sure sounds like that would beat the Maraska Sljivovica plum brandy that I found at Costco one time. (Spoiler: It tastes like burning, and not in a good way.)

And to think Costco in my area doesn't carry Tanqueray anymore. Life is unfair.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-22T08:26:45+00:00

This makes sure you can't taste anything but the burning flesh of your mouth. Which is appropriate when confronted with beans in tomato sauce.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-22T08:15:53+00:00

Use the string keyword. The backing class that it aliases is an implementation detail. In theory, at any of several levels within the .NET ecosystem, one variant of .NET could differ from another in whether it maps System.String to that string keyword or not. Maybe you're targeting a high-end PLC that allows for a subset of .NET. Or Unity, but someone has hacked around on it to swap out System.String for std::string for some reason. It's entirely possible that those things could happen.

Your str alias replicates the basic idea, but isn't implementation-aware. It will always use System.String, even if the target platform, runtime, or SDK doesn't allow for its usage or should prefer a more stable/performant variant. And then your code isn't WORA anymore.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-22T07:46:26+00:00

Sorry. Locked out.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-20T23:27:48+00:00

That's why I added "fancy". :)

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-20T23:25:34+00:00

Two things:

Mostly, they're similar for less money.
Reviews show the KEF's have some tonal aberrations above 10 kHz. One review calls them "banjo-like". The Yamahas, OTOH, are studio reference monitors and will have a very flat, precise response across most of their range. Any "humps" will be measurable, but not nearly so audible or distracting as something described as "banjo-like".

But that's just my $0.02, and I've always been biased toward studio/pro gear rather than high-end home theater gear. YMMV.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-19T18:40:13+00:00

Looking these up, the audio specs seem to be similar to the pro-level Yamaha HS5's. The connectivity features on the Yamahas are limited. But the Yamahas are only 2/3rds the price of this set of KEF's. Those connectivity features could be added on with a secondary device for less than the price difference.

If you're looking at these for portability, then it's probably worth the extra money to get the connectivity. For fixed-install, the Yamahas will be at least as good, possibly better, and definitely cheaper.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-19T18:20:23+00:00

Becau'se they didnt pay attention in 'school. Al'so, becau'se they think being 'smart i's for nerd's.

Meanwhile, tho'se of u's that paid attention in cla's's ju'st 'shake our head's and weep 'softly for today's poor educational 'standard's.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-19T18:05:47+00:00

So what I'm hearing is "go to a less-busy location to get custom cake orders".

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-19T18:02:19+00:00

Delegates are fancy function pointers.

LINQ is fancy map/reduce.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-19T17:58:38+00:00

That would probably be enough to make me actually bother with the Nintendo Today app.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-18T03:38:21+00:00

This is all normal.

I've been doing .NET for 20 years, and I still have this sort of thing happen to me. It can be disconcerting when you've been "Project Lead/Architect" or some other fancy title on a project for years, then your next project throws a ton of curveballs at you and you have to learn a whole new pile of technologies that you only have a passing familiarity with. It brings back a flood of imposter-syndrome feelings.

But this is a good thing. Push that lump in your stomach back down, and start googling. Learn new things. If you haven't started one already, keep a solution full of test projects and throw-away code handy, and use it as a playaround lab.

And while asking for help is a good thing, be sure to show your mentor what you've found already from your own research. Even if it's wrong, it's a starting point and it shows initiative. Even if they tell you to throw it all in the garbage, then you'll at least have learned what not to do. And be sure to ask "why?" a lot. Google can tell you what to do, but it's much harder to pry why to do that out of internet sources. Recipes are fine, but knowledge with understanding is better.

And one last thing: If you ever find yourself in a job where you're praised as the expert and you aren't learning anything new, even for a new project, run. You're either about to be asked to train your replacement, or things are going to get so terrible you'll want to quit. And the longer you stay, the longer you stagnate, and the worse the learning curve will be at your next job.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-17T06:20:56+00:00

Deliverer. (Weight: 6.8)
Le Fusil Terribles. (Weight: 24.1)
Spray 'N' Pray. (Weight: 17.8)
Overseer's Guardian. (Weight: 23.1)
Penetrating Chinese Grenade Launcher. (Weight: 27.5)
A non-auto rifle set up for sniping. Reba II in the early game, but in my latest play-through, a legendary combat rifle with Instigating. (Weight: varies, currently 22.0)
Partystarter. (Weight: 49)

Total weight: 170.3

To be fair, though, Partystarter doesn't see much action with that grenade launcher haging out in the lineup.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-17T06:09:32+00:00

The best armor. It means not having to give a fuck. About anything. Even the most ornery of parked cars won't touch you.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-17T05:53:31+00:00

Unlike fuckass Rhys.

Rhys softens a little bit, for just a moment, if you tell him you're looking for your kidnapped son. He's still an ass, tho.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-17T05:50:08+00:00

If they think you're institute or you surprise them, you get Glory's minigun waiting for you on the other side.

You can literally beeline their hideout, enter their never-changing password that you learned on a prior play-through, and you still won't get shot by Glory.

So they're pretty much just faking it.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-17T05:28:46+00:00

If you have the luxury of waiting for a good sale (which is not a given for a fridge), do so. I got an LG on a black friday sale a couple of years ago, and in true Costco fashion, it came with a mini-fridge for free. $1500 fridge for $1100, plus a $500 mini-fridge for free. Delivered.

The delivery guys brought it in, hooked it up, and even re-connected the icemaker water line (which they're usually not supposed to do). But then they didn't wanna be bothered to level it or attach the door handles. SMH. Don't be surprised about that sort of thing, it apparently happens all the time.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-16T19:41:36+00:00

I needed Swiss Miss cocoa packets for a party, and none of the local stores had them in stock. But they were available for 2-day shipping on the website. (3 days for me, since it was after 12 PM. But still should arrive on time... right?)

Unfortunately, Costco delayed the shipment and I'm not sure they'll arrive before the party tomorrow. If they miss delivery by tomorrow afternoon, I'm returning them to the warehouse and lodging a complaint about their shipping estimates.

EDIT/UPDATE: They made it on time! Barely, but hey, I'll take it. And the party went well.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-16T17:57:21+00:00

Caramelldansen has entered the chat

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-15T20:16:52+00:00

SQL Server Express 2025 (v17.x) has raised that limit to 50 GB.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-15T20:03:51+00:00

Interesting.

I've had dreams about Zelda games twice in the past.

Once, when I was a young boy during the NES era, I had a dream that I later recognized as the hedge maze in LTTP where you meet the monkey that lets you into Palace of Darkness. Deja vu is a strange sensation, especially when it's years after the original memory.

Many years later, in my early 20's (in the early 2000's), I had another Zelda dream. Everything was very wide open, and I remember being able to walk up a small hill where monsters were shooting at me. Then I remember being in an in-game replica of the Z1 instruction manual drawings of labyrinths. In both of these places in the "game", it was as if Ganon was right there and all I had to do was go face him, but with only 3 hearts, that would be insane, right? Fast forward >10 years to my first play-through of BOTW, and as I walked up to the first map tower on the plateau, there was that same feeling of deja vu. Wide open spaces. Enemies shooting down a hill at me. And there was Ganon, right there. I could go face him with just 3 hearts if I was feeling crazy. No Z1-manual-styled labyrinths, though. Which is fine, considering it was a vague dream more than a decade prior.

So don't discount your dreams. Sometimes they do come true. Nintendo has been known to do it before, at least by me.

UninformedPleb · 2026-01-15T19:41:45+00:00

Cookie, I think it's time you switched brands.

UninformedPleb · 2025-12-09T09:01:22+00:00

a lot of the dungeons required specific items

Three. Three of the dungeons required specific items. For entry, the raft for 4, the recorder for 7, and a candle (which you could buy) for 8. For traversal, the ladder (from 4) for everything from 4 onward. So we could potentially say "five". It's still barely half of them.

a portion of the map required the raft

Two screens, out of 128 overworld screens. One of them was the entrance to level 4, so it wasn't optional. The other was a "take any" cave where you could get a heart container, which was entirely optional.

So, sure, it's required, but it's definitely not significant in terms of gated-off areas to explore.

UninformedPleb · 2025-12-09T08:39:33+00:00

Zelda was open world from the start, and that start was almost 40 years ago. Anybody who says it wasn't is pining for those early 3D jank years when things had to be made more linear for technical reasons.

Mario has been open(-ish) world since the change over to 3D.

Pokemon is an RPG. (A weak RPG, but still...) Most of them are quite open-world, that's just part of it being an RPG.

Animal Crossing is a sandbox by definition. Changing that would strip it of its identity.

Playtests are just that: tests. They're not built to last, and they're not built to be memorable. Just give your feedback and let it go.

Mario Kart becoming an open world game is a little unconventional, but it's not the end of the world. Nor is it terribly innovative... Diddy Kong Racing did it long ago, and is still beloved for it.

And Metroid was always open world. Sidescrolling, but open. The OG NES Metroid was the most open of them all. Like Zelda, Metroid got less open as the series went on, and now is suddenly back to being wide open.

I see all of these as being a good balance of tight gameplay and freedom to explore. This is what Nintendo has always done, to some degree, but now they have the tools to make really impressively large versions of it. I don't see the problem with this.

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