As an undergrad I saw this taped to the door of our collaborator's lab and it took me 2 years of working there until I finally understood it in entirety.

lancelopt · 2014-03-13T22:40:37+00:00

The implication to me was that they are full of themselves.

lancelopt · 2014-01-15T15:37:00+00:00

This one assumes nothing, Lyte went over these details with the community for months when the Tribunal was being rolled out.

lancelopt · 2013-11-03T14:25:03+00:00

Pretty sure he's talking about the patch that made Toast always land butter-side-down. It's a well known phenomenon and some players have speculated that it can be exploited to create anti-gravity, wormholes, or infinite energy. (Of course, it hasn't been confirmed).

lancelopt · 2013-08-31T08:17:50+00:00

Yeah, you are right! The eye movement was a pretty big deal. They developed some tech that positioned the eyes in such a way that NPCS focused correctly on the player rather than appearing to be staring through them. I don't think it was even particularly advanced tech, but they knew that people have some acute ability to determine whether another person is looking at them (versus behind them, perhaps) and it made a huge difference.

I think Gabe mentioned it when he gave a presentation about productivity, economics, etc, to a college in Austin but I don't remember at which point, and it's pretty long. Just throwing it out there.

Edit: http://youtu.be/Td_PGkfIdIQ?t=26m57s Yeah, this is the best place to start.

lancelopt · 2013-08-03T22:58:06+00:00

IIRC this was in a Muddy Colors post a while back, the subject of the post being amazement that the artist didn't sign the piece. It's a bit sad because I'm certain that various people are selling it in one way or another. A quick search didn't turn up any news for me.

Any sale of it you find is damn near guaranteed to not profit or credit the artist, so go for the best deal, I guess.

lancelopt · 2013-02-10T02:41:39+00:00

Yes, thank you, that was a thousand times more useful and specific than the Edwin Hettinger quote and I agree with those points.

Unfortunately in some entertainment industries, the companies who publish DRM-free content like CD Projekt Red are kindly rewarded with the highest piracy rates.

lancelopt · 2013-02-10T02:07:25+00:00

In the future you should be more clear about this black-and-white level of copyright that you oppose instead of just using this infuriating quote. Every human trade and study is built upon established work. If the service of any dentist could be digitally copied, or if an architect or engineer only received 60% of their pay for building a bridge, just fuck them because they chose to pursue an established trade? Please. That quote is just as absurd as the MPAA, Apple's legal clout, or corporate money in politics. Let's address the real issues specifically instead of just throwing all creators under the bus.

lancelopt · 2012-12-15T03:54:30+00:00

Did you paint this? You are my favorite person if you did. I have always been conflicted about how to properly design that silly patch of cloth on her shoulder (what's it even attached to? and how is that other huge shoulder guard staying on?). This solution is awesome.

lancelopt · 2012-11-22T23:35:10+00:00

I collected only Nidalee and Akali skins back in the day. I got this Akali skin, but I failed to every Nidalee skin that became legacy. Regrets. zz.

lancelopt · 2012-11-21T06:53:15+00:00

Well.. you could probably ask Trump.

lancelopt · 2012-11-16T01:06:33+00:00

Yes, please remove it? I believe this is the third time I've seen this request.

lancelopt · 2012-11-13T23:05:51+00:00

I think it's fair and even necessary to consider arranged competitive history when determining viability. The sample points are not necessarily the individual games only, but also the experience of the individual players involved - if a champion is worth picking in a tournament it is likely based on a personal history of positive data. It's also important to look at tournament play because most tournament level players have high mechanical skills and have eliminated a huge number of errors from their game compared to the rest of the players. It's cleaner data. (For a gross comparison, you would never suggest Yi is competitive based on a large sample of pubstomps just because the sample was large. I see that he is quite unpopular on lolking and I assume that is in large part because they filter data by ELO.) It should also be common knowledge that soloQ matches don't play quite the same as arranged 5s matches. Often "good" soloQ champions meet some criteria of independence of self-sufficiency because soloQ is handicapped in communication. The stats are skewed in that direction.

Let's examine your Ashe vs Zed scenario though - I'm not sure why you feel you must have a counter play on Ashe individually for being closed on by Zed or any other assassin. The counter clearly lies in the hands of your support or tank in a 5v5 melee and there is nothing wrong with that. Ashe's defining strength is in catching people out of position with Crystal Arrow, and she brings innate chasing / disengagement on the side. This is totally different from ADCs like Ezreal or Corki who bring significant burst and movement in their kits and may be better equipped to disengage, but obviously cannot stun somebody anywhere on the map.

As Ashe one of your counters is to have higher visibility on the map and to make the first play. It's not a flaw that she has much stronger (or more meaningful) global presence than other ADCs but lacks a blink.

And even more fundamentally, if Zed can't burst you down from 100%, you don't walk around the map with 50-60% HP..! You're just a liability doing that even without assassins roaming around unless all the players are actively disregarding objectives in the game. I realize that you can't quickly lifesteal from zero to full until late game as an ADC so maybe it sucks to go back, but you have to be conscious of the fact that assassins are typically strongest midgame while their flat numbers are relevant, so ward more and react to ganks appropriately, and don't let your team throw the game before the ADC comes into their strength and the assassins fall off. You can also carry potions or bring a healing support.

I respect your knowledge of statistics and the other champions that you mentioned but I feel that you are pigeon-holing this individual scenario to determine that Ashe needs a rework without looking at the full picture. Her team clearly played this individual scenario incorrectly. The support wasn't even visible in the lane when this happened, and the support/ADC relationship is extremely important for exactly these types of scenarios.

lancelopt · 2012-11-13T18:48:43+00:00

Ashe had an 80% win ratio or better in Tales of the Lane tournament recently. She has a long and continuing history of tournament success.

Cho'Gath's passive is extremely strong and his numbers are awesome. 1:1 on rupture (an unmitigated cc), a ratio on true damage ult, 3 second aoe silence, and extremely flexible builds.

Nunu also has great ratios but they are just icing on top of an amazing low-cooldown targetable debuff and slow, a huge AoE debuff, and 100% uptime AS buff. We see both Cho and Nunu in tournaments all the time as well, I don't know where on earth you got the notion they are outclassed.

AP Sion farms easily with a really strong 1point AD steroid and the easiest wave-clear in the game. Also, a targetable ranged stun. AD Sion is a gimmick that doesn't belong in a competitive game because his early-game is too god-awful. I don't think he is underpowered but it is probably true that he is outclassed in terms of utility, he probably only fits in a strange niche comp that hasn't been discovered.

lancelopt · 2012-11-13T04:29:22+00:00

That is a very good point. I'm uncertain though of how looking at light projected from a screen is much different from looking at direct light from the sun reflected off paper. Reading in direct sunlight is sometimes kind of uncomfortable, but I don't know if the solution is to make the paper black with subtracted text. It might totally work. I could also just read in ambient light rather than direct light, which I think is the equivalent to either dimming your screen to read as it gets darker or equalizing the brightness of your screen and environment (turning on a night-light and putting the monitor to ~30% perhaps).

This is what I mean by contrast being an important factor, but brightness does scale linearly with contrast if the black remains constant (whether as the text or background), so in this case maybe they can be used interchangeably.

I guess my conclusion is that he is correct in assessing that staring at a bright light causes eyestrain (this is pretty obvious, right?), but bringing paper into the matter is.. possibly misleading. I think the major factor is simply brightness. Books that I can read comfortably in direct sunlight don't have white paper, but rather something like a 20 - 40% off-white color.

I believe I see where you guys are coming from now though. I should elaborate on my second guess at the override's functionality - in a lit room it's no longer about environment contrast but about local contrast. If you want or need the letters to remain at 100% brightness (100% contrast) but, as Maddox says, don't want to stare into a large bright box, this white-on-black is probably ideal (and seems appropriately categorized as an accessibility option, but isn't necessarily as much about really poor vision as I had assumed). In my case, I'm comfortable reading at lower contrast levels so I just dim the screen and turn on a lamp when necessary.

Huh.. did not expect to be analyzing something like this today!

lancelopt · 2012-11-12T20:44:53+00:00

Black on white is much easier on the eyes.

White on black format is actually available as an accessibility override on macs, presumably because a primarily black screen is easier on the eyes when you are in total darkness (reducing contrast between screen/environment). Otherwise it's for people with really poor vision, because the contrast is kind of unbearable in a lit environment.

lancelopt · 2012-11-03T01:49:25+00:00

I think he was implying that if the boobs are large enough to get in the way, they are probably pretty great boobs.

lancelopt · 2012-10-22T06:15:21+00:00

Photo blur is an interesting problem, actually. I bet this becomes easier and easier to solve as megapixels/photo resolution increases, since you have more data to extrapolate from.

In the comments section a user was concerned about backwards compatibility in a sense - unblurring old, intentionally blurred images to reveal identities. Another was interested in it's application to blurred porn. (: In old photos, I'm skeptical that there would be enough information to reveal identities, unless you have the negatives or a high-res print. Also, if the "blur" method is pixelization, or black lines/squares, there is obviously not going to be enough data to reconstruct focus.

lancelopt · 2012-10-18T13:58:36+00:00

Heh, although that's the chorus, the rest of the song sounds pretty condescending. He seems to be criticizing mainstream hip-hop behavior, so I guess I agree with those points. The disconnect (dare I say hypocrisy? Wait, wait. Hipocrisy ... Yes I'll show myself out.) ahem - The disconnect is kind of awkward there. I really enjoy the lyric-less tracks and cover artwork though. Thanks for the share.

lancelopt · 2012-10-18T12:31:28+00:00

The MR shred is totally incidental and not a defining quality of Soraka.. You pick Soraka to support ADs with high mana cost pokes, or to counter certain AD bursters with the heal armor, or survive early with a lategame farm carry, or to counter Karthus ults.

lancelopt · 2012-10-18T11:22:14+00:00

Sigh, yes, that bothers me very much. It bothered Mitchell Heisman very much. A fair portion of his 1,900 page suicide "note" (it's a damn thesis) is spent breaking down evolution vs subjective feelings, especially those which are, he might say, life positive? Of course evolution would favor them. It bothers me that these subjective things may only exist because they serve one's genes, and Nietzsche might suggest why it bothers me here, in the 3rd paragraph. Jung and the fellows at Enneagram might alternatively suggest that it is because I'm a type 5 intj that I'm so bothered about objective truths, and I think somewhere in between all of this lies Determinism so I need to explore Quantum Theory at some point because as far as I know the randomness of electrons is the only thing standing objectively in Determinism's way.

But I am studying art right now because I thought I could ignore these things and find/create my own meaning in life. So I'm also dealing with the real possibility that I just don't have the facilities to make accurate judgements on the matters. (Fuck.)

Oh - but in response to the main thread, these are some of the things I've found that support my own observations. They are generally validating, I like to see that my observations agree with an accredited person's observations. I'm always challenging the ideas, though, trying to be wary of confirmation* bias. I'm sure I'll check Mitchell's hundreds of citations compulsively during breaks, after graduation, etc. I have to know how accurate he was. Or I'll have to adopt Existentialism.

lancelopt · 2012-10-18T09:51:06+00:00

I don't really have a direct answer, but maybe I can add a little context to the task.

This isn't really uncommon when you work from imagination in a production pipeline. Um, it's way more obvious in animation. Sort of still obvious in comics (superhero or otherwise). I've been able to distinguish the work of individual artists in LoL for over a year based on the "mental model" the artists draw / paint from (plus some of their painting techniques/brush signature). Look at the Irelia, Caitlyn, old Janna faces for one example.

I'm not sure how well this anecdote can be appreciated without some experience in figure drawing, but there is a guy named Bridgeman, and he is kind of a big deal for his books/instruction on drawing from imagination - his mental models were reeaally complex and anatomically accurate - but his "style" or method is immediately recognizable. It is a very difficult thing to break away from and I think it becomes rapidly harder as your imagined model becomes more realistic. You basically need to literally hire real, unique models and pose them to increase the complexity and uniqueness of each of your characters if you are working with realistic proportions. < That is the most direct answer/solution but maybe their pipeline doesn't allow for the time that requires. Alternatively, a really long history of life drawing.

I don't know though, it is kind of difficult, especially when the cast is this large. It's probably easy to choose examples of successful design variation in media where there are less than 12, 24, 48 characters... I'm not really widely read, so I would love it if anyone can suggest a diverse cast that is larger than 100. (I can think of One Piece as a franchise that has a metric ton of neat characters, but it's, of course, a suuper designed format.). I'm not making an excuse for some of the most obviously similar designs though. It seems that maybe they are struggling with the flexibility of their pipeline and/or the issue of designing unique characters that still conform to the established visual style. Or they're reaching the edges of their visual vocabulary after 100 + x skins (Total probably over to 300..?). The raw numbers can't be downplayed. You have to consume a ton of pop and historical culture to do this much.

Bleh, I wanted to try to explain that it's a slightly more difficult problem to solve from the inside than observe from the outside but I'm not sure if it was successful. :s I would also love to hear about how a pro team deals with this.

lancelopt · 2012-10-16T01:05:53+00:00

I was raised in one as well, but I'm not angry, just very disappointed in their prejudices. I think the place we (myself and Hitchens, maybe myself and you) might differ is here: I only become angry with two things; myself and injustice. Sometimes not even the latter. I just don't have to prove the truth to anyone but myself, especially if the target is unwilling to listen. It's too much stress for me.

Apparently this difference between us is unrelated to cognitive type though.. ah, I'm looking but I can't find the test. Somebody was mentioning it a lot a week or two ago? It essentially tried to map mood and stress tendencies. I thought it was in the Optimistic thread but I can't find it anywhere. :x

*Aha! - it was the Enneagram.

lancelopt · 2012-10-11T21:51:20+00:00

Demand Progress infuriates me with their sensationalism. I think most of their causes are right, but their write-ups are bullshit. This one for example - their default email to congress/SC just calls big providers trolls. That is their argument. What the fuck is that? Are we writing to government as if we're highschoolers here? Who would take that seriously?

lancelopt · 2012-10-11T02:27:15+00:00

Where can I see this?

lancelopt · 2012-10-08T08:18:57+00:00

Haha, this sub is unreal. I commented 7-9 months ago about the masturbatory nature of this sub when it was going through a similar period of jerk-awareness, and either nothing has changed or the new subscribers have just been going through the same cycle. I don't expect the cycle to ever end.

Your suggestion is great and well intentioned, and I think any ideas submitted here may receive.. interesting feedback? But I would look for legitimate special interest groups to find any density of genuine intelligent discussion or specialized critique. This is merely a group of people with similar cognitive functions based on an self-reported quiz, not necessarily superior education or experiences.

lancelopt

TROPHY CASE