Used AI to make bluesnews a song. Impressive how much music gen has advanced in the past year. Better than anything I could make, but still a long ways off until real musicians become obsolete(if ever). Going to be interesting to see how it's applied to games. Someday this tech may even surpass what Radiant AI was promised to be.

Happy birthday Ant.

The game is pretty easy even when you are 10+ levels lower than the enemies. Do levels do anything other than giving one skill point and determining what loot you get?

I'm 80 hours in, probably only 1/3 of the way through the faction quests and haven't touched the main quests after unlocking the dragon shouts. If you think there isn't a substantial amount of content, you aren't looking. Was hoping for more NMS style game play, but Starfield has become my favorite Fallout game. Haven't experienced many bugs(4 in 80h), and all but one were fixed by exiting/re-entering the area. The other bug was a quest completing too early. My tour of Constellation was just talking to one person then nothing. Loaded a quicksave and it worked the second time. Glad they took an extra year to polish the game, but how does anyone release a game without FOV sliders. Did they omit it so they would have something to add in an early patch to silence upset players? It's the same game engine they've used since Morrowind, you'd think they would have found time to add a FOV slider sometime during the last two decades. Tod insists on reusing the same old game engine, and the game engine still sucks. This time I get Cyberpunk levels of performance with slightly better than Fallout 4 graphics. Same horrible character animation since Morrowind and other oddities. It was time to ditch the engine long ago. zero-g combat was fun at first, then I found you can't look 100% down, and shooting people below you in an elevator shaft is impossible.
Overall I'm enjoying the game more than I thought I would. Did find secret locations from reading random books sitting on peoples shelves like I was hoping the game would have, but otherwise haven't bothered exploring much. Will have to play the latest NMS update after finishing Starfield. I appreciate the typical Bethesda quests, and the laid back atmosphere in the game. It's what I'm in the mood for right now.

Still trying to wrap my head around not being able to invite my parents to my wedding...

Looks like they delivered what they promised. A Bethesda RPG in space with few bugs. Will be picking it up after launch.

Glad they made most planets as empty landscapes. No Man's Sky was ridiculous with 90% of planets being full of life. Made discovering anything routine and boring. All the reviews I've seen so far mention that Starfield's procedurally generated content is mostly mediocre. Filling every inch of the 1000 planets and moons with it doesn't appeal to me. Having a few dozen planets with a mix of handmade and generated content to find in a galaxy full of empty rocks is exactly what I've been hoping for. Needing to read logs and talk to NPC to find hints of interesting locations to visit instead of tripping over them like in Skyrim, sounds much more rewarding to me.

drloser wrote on Jul 9, 2023, 00:46:
CD Projekt, which is bigger than Ubisoft, releases their games DRM free: Cyberpunk, The Witcher 3...

They get my $ because of it and Ubisoft doesn't, not that anyone cares. I don't pirate games. Vote with ballots and my wallet, but I'm a loner with different experiences and opinions than the majority, and the world is happy ignoring my existence. As long as there are enough whales left to fleece with microtransactions/season pass/DLC nothing I think or do maters.

Blue wrote on Apr 11, 2023, 18:18:

Burrito of Peace wrote on Apr 11, 2023, 17:54:

eRe4s3r wrote on Apr 11, 2023, 17:22:
Where I live competition pwned them so hard - solid freezer/microwave/oven stable fancy-glass containers with air-tight lid are everywhere now, nobody buys plastic containers anymore. I am guessing the move away from food+plastic is a big reason they lost traction.

That may be a German/Euro thing. Here in the States, all I see is plastic.

They're here, we've been using them for years. I'm guessing you've seen them, they're even sold in supermarkets. Ours are made by Pyrex with heat-resistant glass. They unfortunately come with silicone-esque plastic lids, but there are silicone replacements to be had.

https://www.pyrexhome.com/shop/storage/glass

Have those too. Threw out our plastic containers 10 years ago. Now all we have are Pyrex from the 2010s with broken lids and corningware from the 1970s with glass lids. Never thought of looking for silicone replacements. Thanks for the idea.

If we are going for oldest user, I visited Blues News before it was announced on the old quake forum. I had just learned about whois and domain name registrars in class. When I read a post about working on a new site, got lucky and found bluesnews.com before it had gone public. ...or at least that's how I remember it. Forgot the rest of the story over the last 25+ years.

CBme wrote on Mar 29, 2023, 22:33:

fakespyder wrote on Mar 29, 2023, 20:48:
Welcome CBme

Thanks! I've been here since the 90's, just haven't posted a message since probably the 00's and didn't remember what email I would have used then for the account.

So I'm not the only one. This is my 3rd account on this site.

whats up with all the ad tracking links on this post

Loved the first game. Hopefully the sequel can live up to the first.

Switching to Unreal 5 for future games sounds like a good move.

The Flying Penguin wrote on Nov 5, 2022, 10:35:

RedEye9 wrote on Nov 4, 2022, 14:47:
I remember seeing those irrigation circles in the 60's when we flew and now I know how they work.
I wonder who the sponsor was that dropped Smarter Every Day.
neither here nor there; I'm slightly obsessed with https://www.youtube.com/c/InDeepGeek

I've seen them close up around here, but honestly had no idea how complex a piece of equipment they are until I saw that video. The fact that they use a simple 'follow the leader' cam and switch mechanism to control the movement, and yet the whole thing is still computer controlled from a phone app is amazing. I'd love to see an even deeper dive into the control circuits. I bet there's a LOT of sensors to detect a fault and shut it down. I can imagine that the thing could easily tear itself to pieces if one set of wheels stalled.

They have far less sensors than you would think. Every sensor is a potential point of failure. There has been a TON of engineering put into these systems to make them as cost efficient and reliable as possible. Older systems before all the computerization were simple enough to put a copy of the wiring schematic on the control panel door Newer systems save so much time and effort, but require a technician to repair.

Before they had integrated circuits you had to drive to the center of the field to start/stop them, calculate speed/water coverage by hand, schedule when you would have to return for them to be at a planed position. Was a pain in the ass(still beat the hell out of moving handline), consumed tones of time, and with some fields 40miles away it added nearly 50k miles on the pickup every year. You would be surprised how often people start them in the wrong direction or forget to return in time and accidentally run them into a tractor/truck/lake.

Bent wrote on Aug 7, 2022, 13:23:
What's ruining Twitter now is them trying to force people to log in to see more than the first few tweets.

This used to be intermittent but it's happening all the time now.

I don't have a Twitter account. I'm not going to get one. I am, however, going to stop stop visiting Twitter sites. As are more and more people.

Way to Darwin Award yourself, Twitter.

Here is a hack to fix browsing Twitter without an account.

Thank you Frans!

Looks like Lawn Mower(1987) with modern non-ASCII graphics. Thanks to archive.org you can play it in your browser.

House of the Dragon
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
Witcher: Blood Origin

2nd half of 2022 is going to be full of prequels.

Hardline Mike wrote on Jun 23, 2022, 18:21:
...
Why? If you are still enjoying it then why would a cheaper ad-supported tier be a dealbreaker? It's not as if you have to downgrade.

I'll enjoy the change of available content by periodically switching services. I won't be totally abandoning Netflix, just putting them in a rotation with the others. No reason to treat Netflix differently than their competitors.

I've been a loyal customer since they first started mailing DVDs. Abandoning Hastings's promise of no ads ever, makes them just another streaming provider to me. Will be canceling Netflix and start rotating accounts with all the other options out there every few months.

Adult Wednesday Addams Was the best.

Wish they didn't flag and delete Melissa Hunter's web series. Thank goodness for re-posts. Doubt Tim Burton can make a better version, but I'll give it a watch anyway.

I've had a SodaStream (cheap model) for 8 years. First one I bought was defective, and had no issue getting a replacement. Was worried about the plastic button breaking(felt cheap), but after 8 years it still works as new. Wanted to get a glass bottle unit, but a friend who was a material engineer advised me against it. Said that the plastic in the plastic bottles was well chosen and won't leach chemicals if you use cold water and replace them every few years. I don't like their flavors, and never use them. Don't think I've saved any money having a SodaStream, but the taste is much better than the seltzer water from the store and not filling up the recycle bin every week is nice too.

wrlwnd gave some good advice. Always use cold water. It absorbs CO2 easier. Otherwise it will be a bit flat.
Do not use hot water. Even hot tap water can destroy the non dishwasher safe bottles. Trying to carbonate coffee never ends well.