Posts by 'zilla

I actually never owned it on my SNES, afaik. Like some of my other favorite games, it was all on PC emulators.

In fact, because of this I often mix up ALttP and LA, which I played even earlier. Both at such a young age that I got stuck and never finished them. Especially LA seemed to have an unending wealth of stuff to do. The last I remember is trying to dig up all of Hyrule looking for seashells..

I might have revisited ALttP and finished it, but I have forgotten about it. I have vivid memories of going to the dark world and.. Link being a bunny? I'm going to have to play it again, I suppose.

Ooh, this is actually a big Christmas thing since my childhood. There's a whole bunch of movies, though I never keep to any strict movie schedule. Except for some old Disney shorts that have been running on Christmas day since forever. I feel bummed out if I miss them.

I do try to watch some of these:
Edward Scissorhands
A Nightmare Before Christmas
A Christmas Carol (Disney version)
Home Alone
The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix
Gremlins

There's also usually a really weird Advent show in Norwegian, one episode per day in December until the 24th. My favorite is about three forest gnomes who fly across the sky to save their leader, but they crash by a farm and have to hide from a vampire. Great comedy.

I have these all the time. Climbing floating fortresses by jumping and flying; exploring vast Zelda-like dungeons with falling floor tiles and hidden vampires; sailing the sea and hiding from pursuers in the underbrush of small islands. And so on.

Not to mention the ability to load my dream from an earlier point, rendering me effectively invulnerable to evil intent.

Have you had a game inspired dream recently? Or did you have an epic one one time that you'd like to share?

We all have limitations. It does suck when you don't live up to society's expectations. However, even if you do, you still have limitations and you may struggle when you meet them.

For all, I think the notion of stupid has to be removed in order to move on. We're all idiots at something, that's relative, why harass ourselves over it? I don't think skill levels need to be justified, they are simply fact.

And, like before, I think it comes down to implications. If the label 'stupid' is used or carried in a way that reduces self-worth, which I think is typical, then it's not really doing good. It's basically saying "you're not good enough," which could be like blaming a swan for not being a horse.

Stupid and dumb are much too unspecific. I agree that changing words in itself is silly, and could be making things worse. But that is also a matter of how we carry our understanding of our own limitations. If you accept being dumb, you're limiting yourself. If you accept having a specific challenge, you can learn to work around it. But having such a label can also be carried in a negative way.

What does society say? Depends on where you are. School and rural areas are no good places to be different, as judgment abounds, with few attempts at understanding. Among the masses, I think there is a prevailing attitude to blame and reject. It doesn't help that if you have something like a learning disorder, then society will reward you less than others. That is a wordless judgment of your worth.

What can an individual say? I would share my own limitations and attitude that school is crap, society is screwed up and what matters is people and doing good to others. Success is often a tragedy and only hardship shows you what is most important in life. Cheers!

But that is still glossing it over, because I do not understand as well as I'd like to.

A very interesting subject. The paradox, I think, is found in the implications of tolerance, and the implications of judgment. That is, what do we mean by them and how are they carried out.

We're in a culture obsessed with blame as a facet of justice. Its emotional foundation is obvious: someone did something wrong, we want to punish them for it. Not revenge, but simply a reaffirmation of what is right and wrong. The burden of wrongdoing is placed on the offender. Disciplinary action and shame are our reactions to a breaking of the rules.

In comes psychology and shields people from this procedure. Bad behavior is excused because it had some cause. Because it was to be expected, and because it is believed that the normal response will not make things better. "They're not a bad person because.."

I think there's two linked problems in this. For the first, I agree with you, there is some danger in excusing bad behavior. Sure, some people are born with or acquire challenges. Mental illness is one of them. They will struggle with it, but you cannot let them off of the consequences of their actions. A cause or explanation is not a justification. That is my opinion.

The second problem, and I think this is the underlying one, is that punishment hardly ever makes things better. Jail doesn't fix people, shame doesn't either. We might have the best system of justice, given the circumstances. But what if the reaction to wrongdoing was that the offender had to do something to actually remedy the damage? It's probably too much to ask of our organized and anonymous society. But it might be a better fit for the minds we are equipped with.

We should never leave kindergarten. There, if you hurt someone, you say you're sorry and you have to mean it. If you do something by accident, you help out to make it better even so. As grown-ups, we are rarely as honest and brave as toddlers, and we wiggle away to feel better about ourselves. Anything to escape the blame, that attack on our self-worth that all humans fear.

What if instead of judging, "you are a bad person, now take the punishment," we could stick to "you did a bad thing, here's what's going to happen now." No matter if you've got a mental illness or not, the moral can be the same. But don't attack the self-worth, because that should be equal and constant for all people.

Whether this idea can exist beyond philosophy, I do not know.

What are you talking about, I was born with it

I got it at the midnight launch in 2006, bundled with Twilight Princess. My last great Nintendo moment. During the wait, we were playing multiplayer Mario Kart on our DSes, and I got respect for having 3 stars already. Still have an old folder on my computer dedicated to that day.

THE END

Here's a thought for the credits. Maybe it was all just a dream?

M83 - Wait (Kygo Remix)

You wake up sweating from your terribly intense dream. You're alone and the sun is a sliver coming through your window. For a moment, you are very disoriented and you feel a pang of loneliness at waking up just before sunset, as if seeing the back of a dear friend far away.

Then you sit up and remember that yesterday was the most incredible day of your life. For years, you had been striving and yearning for the unattainable. Every day left you unsatisfied, and you gradually forgot who you once were and the things you once loved. I guess, you had whispered to yourself, this is what growing up means: the death of meaning and good things. From this point on, I will spend all my power merely staying afloat in the great chaos. But then, all of a sudden, wonderful things happened one after another and you found yourself in a position you had long stopped envisioning. Your life had become what you had dreamt it could be, and it gave you back your hope.

That must be why your dreams were so profound.

You rise and see that it is actually early morning, that silent time before anyone and anything wakes up. In your heart, you find a small room of sadness for your life that was, and insecurity for what lies ahead. You wrap these feelings gently in warmth and embrace them, for they do no longer threaten you and you can see the beauty in them now. As you step out into the cold and fresh air, you let your bare feet touch the newly grown grass. With a cup in hand, you watch the progressing sunrise with a growing elation.

--

Alternative description: "...and on the sixth day, it created mankind."

Thank you! I haven't seen Origin yet, but I really want to watch it after reading about it.

Quote from Silent Lion

I feel as though the older I get, the more incapable I become of expressing anything that isn't clinical. It reminds me of a time gone by when I was a little less dead and boring. My hat off to you, sir.

I'm like that sometimes too. Growing older isn't always a linear progression. Moving through such phases is of great philosophical and psychological interest to me, and it's also one of the themes of this mixtape. Inner worlds can burn, and they can fade, and when the emptiness becomes familiar, building a new world is really hard.

I've let this album linger long on the theme of utter destruction, because maybe it is only in the new pieces, gleaned through the cracks of the old shell, that a better world can be made. Watching the pieces as they fall, not just grieving their fall, could perhaps hold a clue to new life.

The progression is that of an artistic process. Life can be such a process. We pass into death, we try to rise, we are mistaken and fall deeper, and then after a long time, we slowly build up momentum and are reborn stronger. Not the way we expected – but we had to shed all those imaginations during the journey, and only that allowed us to reach a future that we could never have imagined.

Possibly Friday.

I'm usually not having a blast in the weekends. Can't be bothered to make fun plans during the week, and the inactivity is a bore. And during the weekdays, the idea is to do some work. There's the siometimes rush to get home, get food, get sleep, wake up early and start again.

On Friday, however, I can even be lazy going home, enjoying the work a bit more, and I don't really care if I end up going to sleep really late. I can hang out with friends after work, move around slowly, eat some simple food, listen to music until late. It's a good day.

I can start with something that interests me. They say the agricultural revolution was about 10,000 years ago, and before that there was a cultural explosion around 40,000 years ago. At that time, we might have shared land with the Neanderthals and other human (sub)species.

What was it like to be a human, or a distant relative of modern humans, 40,000 years ago? We probably had very similar brains, so was culture the only difference? Was life very boring, did we sing songs and tell stories to make it more interesting? And then what was it like to live in the time of change, when culture was really starting to take hold? If I had a time machine, seeing this would be one of my first choices.

The goal of this thread is to start with a topic, and then to follow your curiosity and ask strange new questions.

If you want to tackle any question in the thread, you can post your own thoughts. Otherwise you can post new questions. You are extremely welcome to go off-topic, so long as your curiosity was set off by this thread.

I wonder what we all wonder about.

Example:
Post 1: I have this theory about Game of Thrones. One of the dragons is actually the reincarnation of a past king. What if this will turn into a plot device in the next books? Does that make sense to anyone?

Post 2: I have been wondering about reincarnation a lot. I guess if we could find a soul, then perhaps we could track it. It doesn't seem likely really. What exactly is this thing we call a soul?

Post 3: I'm more interested in consciousness. Speaking of which, are the dragons in GoT really conscious? Like, do they have a theory of mind, do you guys think? Tbh, I think that dragon reincarnation thing seems like a really long shot. My guess is that the strongest dragon will eat the other two, and then Daenerys will roast it on a fire and eat it.

For billions of years, the forces of nature conspired on this Earth to create a vast community of beings. Slowly, that community enveloped its host and changed it. Looking from the outside, you could almost say the planet itself was alive. Perpetually evolving, this grand ethereal being ensured its own survival past disasters and disturbances.

Perhaps it was its providence that nudged humanity to make these preparations. A hope had been set in motion before the calamities even began. And now, after the dust of devastation has settled, as the future of life itself is in limbo, their efforts come to fruition. Deep inside the moon, the fruit of the Earth has been growing.

M83 - Un noveau soleil

The builders spare a moment of reflection as they ascend for the last time. Upwards lies the grand Ark, the ship containing not only all the legacy of humanity, but the samples and means to start anew on a different planet. A likely location had been found, a promising world far far away. This will be the one and only Ark, leaving behind a system no longer able to produce such marvels. It may be our only bridge to the future.

The engines ignite, and as the ship speeds upwards, hope is at last kindled. At once, the sky explodes into a sea of stars, and in that dark night, a pearl hangs precariously. The crew feel a blend of emotions never before experienced by man. A changed Earth lies below, first by us and then by the calamity. Leaving it behind is heartbreaking like nothing else. At the same time, it instills a larger perspective in the human mind. Were we, in the end, the agents of the Earth itself? Only we could have made this happen, only our evolved awareness could be used to preserve life in such extreme cases.

Those set to crew the ship, however, will never see its destination. What awaits is a long, long journey through the dark. For as long as they live, these men and women will keep making sure that the Ark is functioning and safe. For the chief part of its journey, it will guide itself. Upon its arrival on the new world, the recreation of life as we once knew it will be in the artificial hands of the vessel itself.

What those faraway children will think, and dream, and laugh about, we can never guess and never know.

Solar Fields - Cocoon Moon

Let's go back in time a bit. Why did all of this happen in the first place?

Humanity had entered a new golden age of discovery. Besides preliminary space travel, we had gone to impressive lengths to discover the fundamental truths of the universe. A grand research project was underway, to probe the origin of time and glimpse what was before creation.

Two genius young scientists, and also childhood friends, were leading the program. Then, at the promise of glory, one betrays the other cruelly. The shock leads the victim to reconsider the project, and looking over it without the crazed frenzy of discovery, it starts to frighten her.

She decides to take the lead of a very different mission; a new moon base. By force of personality, she influences a whole lot of the plans. The investors come to regret this dearly, though, because the mission goes terribly wrong. A great explosion and a terrible loss of life puts an end to lunar activity for a long while.

It was a lie. The whole mission was a cover. With a core team of volunteers, she repurposed the equipment and started drilling down into the lunar soil. Going off the radar entirely, they set off a very long-term plan: a last-resort backup plan for life on Earth. Just in case something very, very terrible was going to happen. So, deep inside the cold rock of the moon, their small machines are starting to build larger machines, transforming the rock into life-support systems, launching mechanisms, and many other complex artefacts. A great machine is slowly growing outwards, embracing these committed exiles.

Meanwhile, their remote sensors are picking up the events unfolding on Earth.

A few years back, I went to a conference in the north of Norway. It was 1400 miles away and I decided to use public transport. It was a 40-hour trip non-stop, luckily it was through beautiful landscape.

And it was a great trip. The train passed through a big, mountaineous national park. At one time, I saw some creatures on a hillside close by the train. I'd never seen them before, but it wasn't hard to guess that they were muskox. After centuries of absence, the government has reintroduced them here. As I passed them, these rugged ancient bulls charged each other and banged heads in a rival showdown. That's not something you experience every day. I saw a moose too that day.

As I passed further north, the land sort of gave way to mountains and ocean, and I felt as if the humans living here were in constant danger of rolling off the country altogether. In this land of giants, I eventually reached my destination: a rare flat piece of land, an island covered by a city. After so long on the road, I was a bit sleepy to say the least. There was a midnight sun that night, but I couldn't bring myself to stay up and see it.

The day of the conference, rumors were spreading that someone important was visiting that very city. What a strange coincidence, we thought, and why here of all places? We heard a helicopter arriving with the guest. I didn't think much of it, but in a free moment, I took a stroll through the city and saw a military ship depart from the docks. And though I cannot be completely sure, because it was a short glimpse at a distance, there's a high chance I saw the US Secretary of State that day, at the empty docks of a tiny Norwegian city way out in nowhere, just by coincidence. Seeing as this was a few years back, I am referring to Hillary Clinton.

I'm feeling a zen moment of sorts, and thinking about the opposite – a rushing that I have been doing a lot. A whole lot of my motions have become abrupt, quick, efficient. When I move at that speed, a impatient irritability creeps in. I'm not convinced my rushing actually gets things done better, so I should make sure to slow down in the daily life and enjoy it more.

Also I'm thinking about the universe. I'm always thinking about the universe.

Neurotech - Evasive (title track)

An epitaph. Across the globe, the ice has settled in deep. Below it, the scorched ground holds little life. Even the precious gases of the atmosphere are slowly trickling away. And at this point, half-way through the life of the solar system, it is too late for life to again take hold as it once did.

Of the enemy, there is no sign. Did it not wish to own the planet, or has it now lost interest? Of course, there is a chance it has achieved exactly what it came for. To end the infestation of life that plagued this rock. And who knows, maybe it came as a test, to lead the unworthy to a hastened self-destruction.

Like a tide, destruction had washed over the planet. If not for humanity, would things have ended differently? Were we the cause of this, because we would not lay down our lives? Who is to say that it wasn't we who were the darkness, and the invaders merely mirrored our darker nature, acting as we would in its stead. As we vanished, so did the enemy. Doubtless, its motives were beyond us.

These conflicted thoughts course through a heartbroken crowd. For indeed, there are survivors, hidden away safely. By foresight or by folly, the human story is not over. Much depends on what happens next.

Hahaha. I had to stop watching before the end, it was too excrutiating!

Machinae Supremacy - Hubnester Rising

The adversaries were underestimated. What power they bore, what ancient wombs of the universe created them, we shall perhaps never comprehend. They are not alive, they are not even physically embodied. They seem to be, in fact, immortal.

Eventually the enemy gets under our skin, and they become undistinguishable from us. All remaining control breaks up, and the global war is a fact. The infighting goes on between numerous groups that are unable to stop or to relent, forever seeking the enemy.

The greatest battle yet is waged over an entirely new weapon, a perfection of posthuman endeavours in biotechnology, aviation and sub-nuclear weaponry. The vast exoskeleton embraces a human host, extending their body and sense of self.

As the dust settles on the battleground, a lone survivor finds herself shocked into the consciousness of her forefathers. The only waking human in the world, surrounded by carnage and devastation.

In order not to bleed to death, she fuses with the machine and pours her rage and grief into it. A new malice is born, a new star appears on the sky. And then there is fire.

With that title, it must be...

Britney Spears - Gimme More (Machinae Supremacy Metal Remix) [2:45]