Posts by Lace Sabatons

  • Teaching a robot to fish.

    I honestly thought this was not a serious post at all and the tag was just poking fun at this. I think at times you overestimate our knowledge, haha.
    Only after you answer SP I understood better were you were coming from. I think if we teach a robot to fish we all eat but if we mass produce Robots with the ability to fish we all starve.

    I think the idea of humanity free of their labours to pursue knowledge puts way too much faith in humanity. I think without labour things can go in very different ways as not everybody values knowledge or learning as much as other individuals and even those who do the topics of their interest are also so diverse as their intentions once gained certain knowledge. I think the internet is a good reflection of what kind of things we pursue. The other extreme is scary but what makes it feel closer to reality for me is how great of a business is War and the constant fight for the upper hand. Before military suit armours or Robotic Armies I am more concerned with nano-robots. As technology allows for more capacity being planted in smaller chips.

    I like the rules of the robots regarding human interaction but I don't think we should build something that can screw us over if they decide to disregard the initial purpose. When I was in school I laughed at the notion of Robot with awareness. Now while I am not believing a Robot can see itself as "I", it is possible to program self-learning techniques. I also guess Hall did leave an impact when I watched the Odyssey, haha.


    I do put a lot of faith in humanity. We're deeply flawed, and we're often stuck moving at the pace of the most regressive among our number, but I believe in the infinite potential of our species for greatness. It's true that in our world today, not everyone values labor, or knowledge, or learning. But I think that, someday, their children could.


    If we revised our education system to promote a love of learning and of productivity, then I think the majority of humanity would come to love those things. They'd become the sort of people who could truly thrive in a society where the ability to live was freely given, rather than paid for in drudgery. Unfortunately our education system isn't geared towards that end. In my opinion, education is one of the most important failings of the United States. (And honestly, I don't know of a nation on earth that really lives up to the potential of what a public education COULD offer.)


    With regards to AI, I think that's a different issue. The majority of human labor could be replaced without the full leap to truly intelligent machines. But, to briefly touch on the idea: I think the response of machines will greatly depend on how we treat them. Will we treat them still as our slaves? Then perhaps they will come to resent us. Will we treat them with hatred? Then surely they will return hatred to us.


    Or, when artificial intelligence is truly created, will we greet it as a sibling? A creature that is wholely and truly a person without being human. An equal partner in our own explorations of the universe? That's the future I like to hope for.


    Although, again, I don't think it necessarily connects to issue of automation being used for the general good as opposed to being used for the enrichment of individuals.

  • Metaphysics

    Quote

    I guess I am a theist, if that is the term. I still believe in the Christian God but I can't see eye to eye with organized religion and of course with people just trying to get under your skin because you don't think like they do.

    Given your specification that you believe in the Christian god, I think you might be more appropriately termed a Christian who doesn't participate in organized religion. “Theist,” while technically referring to anyone who believes in a god, is typically used to refer to people who believe in a deity, but not in any specific conception of one.

    At least, I think that's true. I actually don't have internet as I type this, so I can't double check my work on that. Not that it matters anyway. The term you use to describe your beliefs is much less interesting than the content of the beliefs themselves. Reducing a subject like metaphysics to categories is boring.

    So, first off, thanks for really laying some stuff bare, Kaynil. I realize talking about this stuff on the Internet can feel vulnerable.

    What does your worship look like? The act of going to church and participating in a group is such a huge part of the Christian culture I'm familiar with. What does it mean to be a Christian who doesn't organize? Is there an active component to your faith? (A regular bible study, or regularly caring for the poor?)

    If you don't mind delving into your childhood a bit, what is it like growing up with influences from Jehova's Witnesses, Catholicism, and Pentacostal sources? Those are all very strong minded beliefs systems, none of which like each other much in my experience.

    If I may ask, what was the simple stuff you started to resist when the cracks first started forming?

    I confess, I often just assume people are atheists these days. The sort of folks I tend to deal with usually are in my experience.

  • Water Levels

    Ocarina of Time's water temple was hard.

    Man, even last time I played that game, I thought "Well, I'm an adult now. Certainly this won't actually be challenging THIS time."

    But naw, man. It's still a confusing maze of a dungeon.

  • The Super Mario Bros Movie

    It's funny, I actually just watched that video a few weeks ago, and I completely watched it again when you posted it.

    I wonder what a good super mario movie would have looked like. Live action, with 1995's special effects. It's difficult because Mario has an inherently cartoon-y feel to it, and cartoons pretty much never translate into live action well. Either they make the mistake of the Mario movie, and everything is so far removed from the source material that it doesn't really connect. Or, they make the mistake of the Flinstones movie, where everything looks just like the cartoon and, thus, looks uncomfortably out of place with the flesh and blood actors.

    Perhaps a better plot would be:

    Mario and Luigi are plumbers. Plumbing is a tough job, sometimes they are sad.

    Mario is on a plumbing job, and falls into a large pipe. He falls out in a strange, colorful land.

    He meets Princess toadstool, and her muppet-like Toads. (Perhaps she's a human who fell into this hole a long time ago?)She explains that they're being harassed by this evil monster named Bowser.

    Mario is out of place. He kinda wants to get home, but he's intrigued by how important he seems to be in this world. He's like John Carter of mars. The strength he developed in the human realm makes him super-strong in the toadstool kingdom.

    Now, personally, I like the idea that Mario and Toadstool don't have a romantic relationship. But in this movie, I think Toadstool should be suspiciously like Mario's perfect woman. Perhaps there's a scene with Luigi earlier where he describes his perfect woman, and Toadstool oddly fits the bill.

    Occasionally, we cut back to Luigi in the real world, worrying about what might have happened to his brother.

    In the course of his adventures (after some appropriate character development) Toadstool is kidnapped.

    Mario faces bowser, who is never shown in full. We only get closeups of his face and tail and such. Also, bowser doesn't speak, he just roars. Bowser is a dragon, not a character.

    Mario defeats bowser, perhaps by luring him onto a bridge, then cutting the bridge.

    The movie ends with Luigi finding mario, and talking to him through a warp pipe. They have a heartfelt moment together, and Mario decides to stay in the Mushroom Kingdom. The two brothers have a tearful goodbye, and Mario kisses Toadstool.

    We are left to wonder: did mario really travel to a magical land (as all the children in the theater would clearly believe), or was the whole thing a vivid hallucination brought on by head trauma? One where he gets to have the kind of exciting life that being a plumber didn't offer him, and meet the girl of his dreams? One which, in the end, kills him?

  • What are you currently reading?

    Talk about whatever you're currently reading here. If a conversation about a specific book springs up, the mods can move those posts into a new thread. =D

    My sister got me "Mistborn" for my birthday, which I really enjoyed. But now I'm done with it, and I decided I ought to try and read some of the hundreds of books I own that I've never read, so I've been reading Star Trek Voyager: Mosaic by Jerri Taylor. It's...honestly it's a struggle to read it at all. I love Voyager, so you'd think that a book in the Voyager universe written by one of the show's showrunners would be good. But Taylor is an awful writer. Perhaps her skills are better suited to television, which requires a whole different kind of writing. But she seems to be downright incompetent when it comes to writing a novel.

  • What is your favorite Gamecube game?

    I started playing Tony Hawk 3 on the Gamecube the other day. First time I've played a Tony Hawk game since the original.

    It's really fun. I feel like the Tony Hawk games created an entirely new genre of gameplay. The same way Minecraft created a new genre. Unfortunately, the genre Tony Hawk created pretty much died with the Tony Hawk series.

    Sonic games could actually learn a lot from the TH franchise, I think.

  • New Super Mario Bros

    I beat the game a bit ago, by the by. I eventually got a better handle on the controls, but I maintain that the game is sloppy. Primarily in the way it combines various elements.

    The levels are pretty well designed. They're classic mario with new twists, which works for me.

    The powerups are also pretty well designed. They feel 'right' for a 2D mario. The right blend of new mechanics that don't sacrifice the simplicity of the gameplay.

    But the two elements don't work together at all. I love sliding around on the shell, but never once in the whole game did I ever find an area where I was really able to use the shell. More often than not, I died more easily with the shell than I did without it. And the super giant mushroom thing? Fuck that noise. In the first level, the test level, everything is set up for you to use it. But you almost never get that powerup again, and when you do, what good is it? Half the time I used it I ended up getting completely stuck because there wasn't enough room for giant mario to move around, and he couldn't smash through walls.

    It feels like the guy in charge divided the team into groups, shouting "Alright, this is NEW super mario brothers, so we need NEW STUFF! NEW NEW NEW!" But then none of the groups actually talked to each other, so their new pieces don't fit together. It's the kind of mistake I'd expect from someone throwing money at a problem (Mario is stale) rather than coming up with a real solution.

  • Star Fox 64's design

    Agency is a powerful motivator in games. Most games have always had two end states, success and failure. Star Fox added a a third end state to every level: the partial success. It was just enough extra possibility to get us way more engaged than we would have been in a linear progression, BUT, it wasn't so many possibilities that we were affected by choice paralysis (a flaw in many modern games). Nor did it affect the quick-paced, linear nature of the gameplay.

    Linear gameplay with nonlinear progression is a really great combination.

  • Flaws

    So, we all know this game is the best in the series, and that it is damn near perfect. But everything has flaws, and everything can be improved. So what are some issues with Link to the Past?

    1. While the game does encourage a sense of exploration, much of what you discover becomes pointless on a second play through. There are caves and holes with nothing better in them than a few rupees or some health. (Although it could be argued that discovery is only fun if exploration sometimes fails to produce anything interesting.)

    2. The fairy pools are useless. (See point 1.) Aside from the two who upgrade your items for you, all they do is restore your health. I never really find that I need more health than can be found under bushes and such.

    3. The invisibility cloak and the blue cane are pretty much identical, and they both use up MP so fast that they're almost useless.

    4. The Skull dungeon (Dark world, 3rd crystal) is one giant "fuck you" to the player. Some parts of it are actually really interesting and well designed, like the fact that it has numerous entrances, or the fact that the final enemy in the dungeon is in a completely separate area. But the constant stream of wallmasters is frustrating. And, worse yet, huge portions of the dungeon have no purpose whatsoever. They're just there to waste your time. If you know what you're doing, you can skip 50% of the dungeon.

    5. The dash function is so integral to the experience of the game, that on any replay, it's incredibly frustrating to not have them prior to finishing the first dungeon.

  • Bosses

    Twinrova was pretty great.

    Arghus because he's just so satisfying to kill.

    Moldorm, because even after beating LttP a dozen times he can still challenge me sometimes.

    Honestly I like just about every boss in LttP except the giant eye in the pile of slime. That guy is disappointingly easy.

    The Iron Knuckle miniboss in OoT is really fun.

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