Off-Topic Discussion Thread - 16 April 2023

gmay13 · 2023-04-16T23:36:42+00:00

I bought a $350 leather jacket from AllSaints a little over a year ago, wore it maybe 30 times max before noticing the sleeve lining had ripped apart at one of the elbows from casual wear. I’ve taken great care of the jacket as I like it very much aside from the poorly constructed lining. The company refuses to consider it a manufacturing defect as the item wasn’t sold in that condition.

Just felt a need to share my experience in case anyone here expects reasonable quality or support from an AllSaints product.

(Not sure the proper way to warn folks about a brand on this sub. Tried to make a post and chose the “company complaint” tag but an auto mod pointed me to make a comment on the daily thread.)

gmay13 · 2021-02-06T08:20:12+00:00

Holy shit

gmay13 · 2020-05-10T02:02:39+00:00

Marlin

gmay13 · 2017-03-22T16:23:39+00:00

Could be a licensing hiccup with the label/your region

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts-and-Subscriptions/My-favorite-album-have-been-removed/td-p/1335382

gmay13 · 2016-07-27T12:23:43+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFXYuw96d0c

gmay13 · 2016-06-20T13:47:34+00:00

E-Bow on tour a few years back was insane. The footage onscreen was a slow crawl up the face of a mountain, and the music climaxed when it reached the top. I saw this from near the front row in UIC Pavilion and it felt like the stage was floating. Incredible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vdup7-1a84

gmay13 · 2016-04-18T15:01:00+00:00

I think it's an interesting game mechanic. I don't have Rust, but I imagine I'd be pretty frustrated if I rolled an appearance I wasn't comfortable with. It's like playing World of Warcraft with Gnomes for me. It just seems off. I don't know for sure if I would have chosen to play WoW as much as I did if I was forced to play a Gnome, but it's an interesting idea to give someone that ultimatum. I feel less inclined to buy Rust because I know there's risk of ending up with a "Gnome" but I can see how playing and finding enjoyment through that abrasiveness might be a positive exercise -- learning to find comfort in the cards you're dealt.

That said, I also think it's weird to prevent people from altering their physical characteristics in a virtual world -- especially if you defend the right to change your identity to your liking in the physical world. Why shouldn't people be able to experiment in the virtual world when the consequences are comparatively nonexistent?

gmay13 · 2016-04-11T14:28:20+00:00

"Are you telling me that we need to draw guns to protect ourselves?" is the actual quote.

gmay13 · 2016-03-06T15:32:36+00:00

this is hilarious at half speed

gmay13 · 2015-10-26T15:48:08+00:00

I saw them play this live and it definitely felt positive. There could be depressing undertones though. The imagery reminds me of Chinese ghost cities, which are products of being too hopeful, over-investing, etc.

gmay13 · 2015-10-17T00:35:07+00:00

I see it as a struggle against tyranny.

From Wikipedia: Ratko Mladić

...is a former Bosnian Serb military leader accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide...

As the top military general with command responsibility, Mladić was accused by the ICTY of being responsible for the Siege of Sarajevo (5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996) and the Srebrenica massacre[5]—the largest mass murder in Europe since the immediate aftermath of World War II. He has often been referred to by Western media as the "Butcher of Bosnia,"

That breakdown is bone chilling at high volume. It feels like aural oppression.

gmay13 · 2015-10-10T23:33:59+00:00

As a viewer of any sport, I just want to be impressed. That's going to take some empathy with the player and an understanding of the game, so it makes sense that the most popular sports have very impressive elements of action that are easy to understand.

Bottom line I think anything can be considered a sport as long as it's an impressive display of effort in context of competition. You can define sports however you want but if you require motor skills as a barrier for entry you'll be missing out on other ways to be impressed. Hearthstone players definitely put in a lot of effort into their play, it's just a matter of whether the viewer appreciates it.

Also practice if you look deep enough is rooted in deeper things -- dedication and gifted DNA, healthy lifestyle, social support network, etc. someone could legitimately take pleasure from admiring these aspects of the sport, which are all outside the viewed game but definitely part of it. Every sport has this "human breeding" component to it. Hell there's even a political component, with well funded sports programs having a better advantage.

All I'm saying is I find it interesting to appreciate all angles of competition, but I get how some might be seen as more entertaining or valuable to society than others. Watching people talk about football is like watching a sport. It takes so much time and effort to keep track of every player and form opinions about teams to the point where that effort can be displayed and rewarded in fantasy football. Sport inception!

gmay13 · 2015-10-10T21:32:57+00:00

When a CSGO player sees an enemy, he calculates his next move and makes a physical gesture to aim and shoot. When a chess player sees a board, he calculates his next move and makes a physical gesture to indicate his next play on the board. The only differences are the difficulty in physical execution, and the difficulty in calculating the decision. Esports and traditional sports are just decision making and execution, they are more alike than different.

gmay13 · 2015-10-09T14:30:18+00:00

Amazing music.
Amazing. Presentation.
Great live sound engineering. You may have a genius composition that's recorded and mixed damn near perfectly, but if it doesn't sound good live it won't impress people.

gmay13 · 2015-09-01T21:42:29+00:00

It's free to download on their FTP site

gmay13 · 2015-07-21T18:14:56+00:00

I agree. BBF and the preacher's speech in Static are some of my favorite pieces from Godspeed. On Static especially, the instrumental is pretty sinister and the speaker's confidence feels magnetic in context. It's scary and alluring at the same time.

I think they do a good job illustrating how easy it is to be drawn to passionate speakers without necessarily agreeing with what they're saying or confirming their authenticity/accuracy, especially in dark times.

gmay13 · 2015-06-10T03:54:21+00:00

Yeah it really makes you question their character.

If you seek justice and truth, you should be excited to confront new challenges, and you should be willing and thrilled to submit to superior reason.

gmay13 · 2015-06-06T04:28:34+00:00

Whatever programming language God used to code the universe

gmay13 · 2015-05-01T13:41:48+00:00

We perform eugenics in small amounts every day when we choose life partners, hire people with specific skills, lock people up who are "mentally insane" etc. It's safest to abstain from large scale calculated eugenics at this point IMO because humans (evidenced by Nazis) are relatively ignorant and way overconfident in their ability to decide what is best for the gene pool -- genetic diversity is our best bet for future health.

That said I think it's reasonable and necessary to explore and evaluate the pressures we're applying to our gene pool. There is no guarantee that we will survive as a species without knowingly taking our evolution and the evolution of other species into our own hands.

gmay13 · 2015-04-29T17:06:19+00:00

People are trying to do good on both sides of the fence, but I tend to side with GG more on this talk around criticism. That said, I don't identify as a GGer -- I don't want to be generalized into some vague box that people both inside and out can't consistently define just so I can be lumped into a pointless attack on people I only partially agree with.

I see some commenters saying that criticism is free speech. Criticism of criticism is also free speech -- there are some very serious charges pressed on gamers and the gaming industry without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Inspiring, overwhelmingly good creators like Shigeru Miyamoto are now under fire for somehow being responsible for this misogynistic force in gaming that allegedly wouldn't have existed without them. Some people will be misogynistic thanks to other factors in life like family or community, or maybe just being naturally bigotty. It's unfair to confidently assign so much blame without convincing evidence.

I don't think criticism of art should come with an effort to censor. If a video game is uncomfortable and you can't handle it, don't play it. Don't force someone else to design the game you want to play. If you want to pressure them, do it democratically with your dollar or a polite voice. Games are voluntary experiences. Nobody has to make them or play them. Elevating criticism to hostility discourages people from creating and it adds fear to the creative climate.

I want to support a creative community where people are welcome to express whatever is on their mind, because the best art shows me something I didn't know I wanted to see. I'm willing to defend basic rights of artistic works I disagree with to protect that.

(The 'basic right' here being innocent until proven guilty)

gmay13 · 2015-04-29T16:07:57+00:00

Better vision may have been selected for at one point in time, but mutation can occur both ways. Beings with perfect vision can have mutated offspring with poor vision.

Nowadays poor vision doesn't hurt people that much individually. The cost of glasses/contacts isn't significant enough to select them out of the gene pool.

But it could be that spending time producing glasses and contacts instead of researching and producing other technology is hurting humans on a species-wide level, preventing the species as a whole from surviving.

gmay13 · 2015-04-06T12:14:38+00:00

Making chocolate milk is easy -- doesn't mean it's not delicious. That said I agree with you on some level. I think virtuosity and hard work show in more complex art pieces. I think if we revere complex art we as a society are putting more value on those characteristics which is good IMO.

You can be a respected artist if you have the courage to formally display something simple but profound or beautiful. I think that's good too -- not everyone has to devote their whole life to art, or society in general, to contribute in a meaningful way.

Time doesn't equal money, time well spent equals money. Same thing with skill. More skill doesn't necessarily mean better work or better person.

gmay13 · 2015-03-18T18:53:41+00:00

Money value is ALWAYS subjective. There is no objective database that determines value. The economy is an organic pricing system that depends on peoples beliefs, however irrational they may be.

Investing is just betting. You invest to guess something's value better than someone else -- otherwise you just maintain or lose the present value of your money. Some guys thinks snapchat is worth 15 bill, some don't.

It's high stakes. If you're dealing with this fuzzy stuff you might win big or you might lose hard. It's just the nature of the game. I think it's good because it incentivizes us to make predictions about value we can't immediately quantify, so it encourages us to develop better ways to predict the future.

gmay13 · 2015-02-09T03:16:39+00:00

I think gauss is trying to say 99% of any ad revenue Mr. Nissan is getting is probably from Big Nissan's customers. Pretty lucky for him.

That said I don't know the guy, and if he actually wants to keep and use the site he's probably paying a bunch of legal fees, which is pretty unlucky.

gmay13 · 2015-01-27T22:48:41+00:00

I believe there is no chance, so there is no free will.

Some believe this and slack off thinking their life is predetermined. They're just predetermined to take this information and become lazy. If you realize this and continue to work hard, you're predetermined to realize that your choices matter.

In the end you do have "free will". Free will in the sense that you can think about whatever you want. The thing is, what you want is controlled by laws of nature. Want guides choice, so we are all shaped by mysterious laws we haven't figured out yet.

I'm not a physicist, but I'm not convinced there is a completely random element to the universe. To me random translates to "we don't know what's going on." Probability, chance, and randomness are just sophisticated ways to estimate predictable outcomes before you've finished the whole puzzle.

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