Posts by bVork@raru.re
(DIR) Post #AQK8lzv1rKod5ihHHM by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-06T08:09:55Z
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Started playing Dusk Diver. The developers' inspirations are very clear - Persona artistic style and relationship mechanics, Yakuza-style quasi-realistic modeling of a real-world location (complete with actual real-world shops), and Musou-style combat, but it all seems to mech so far. It's also neat to see a game set in Taiwan with full Mandarin voice acting.I'm a little worried that the game's system of gating combat stages by requiring a certain amount of shards is going to turn it into a tedious collectathon, but that hasn't happened so far.
(DIR) Post #AQMM3NP9TozIZgK8Y4 by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-07T09:48:08Z
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@sarahssowertty I mostly remember the XBLA version for being the game I was playing when I got my first RROD.
(DIR) Post #AQes2vJualFMqmymEy by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-16T08:11:25Z
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Watched a streamer play the absolutely unhinged Japanese-exclusive N64 port of #SimCity 2000 (new features: wager city money on horse races, defend the earth from aliens in a space shooter, date several different women, raise a monster) and now I've fired up the good old #DOS version (via #DOSBox).I appreciate the additional depth and complexity of SimCity 3000 and 4, but 2000 really feels like the sweet spot for being complex but accessible.Here is my current ongoing city, rendered out with SC2KRender.
(DIR) Post #AQf4iZudm3Fw4Imu8G by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-16T10:33:23Z
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@ocean I think Cities Skylines scratches a different itch. It's great in a very different way: the level of detail is astounding and even makes mistakes ("how did I flood my downtown with sewage!?") entertaining as you learn what you did wrong and why.I personally find SimCity 2000 much more relaxing because as long as you build a city that kinda looks like a city, it will generally function well.
(DIR) Post #AQgORX0nUwCwOGmCJs by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-17T01:49:09Z
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@derekbruff @drewharwell You can work backwards through public data.Here's the FAA registry of N628TS: https://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/Search/NNumberResult?NNumberTxt=628TSYou'll notice that the owner is FALCON LANDING, LLC in Hawthorne, CA.We then go to the Business Search provided by the government of California and punch that into the search tool:https://bizfileonline.sos.ca.gov/search/businessYou'll get 4 entries, one of which is still active. Click on View History and you'll be taken to a list of filings and statements. Click on the Statement of Information from May 25, 2021, and download the PDF.Open the PDF and you'll discover that the manager of this company is Elon MuskAnd there you have it: Elon Musk is the manager of the company that owns this jet, derived entirely from government sources.
(DIR) Post #AQgg0lKHy48E8rHKUa by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-17T05:06:01Z
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@derekbruff @drewharwell I'm not sure they are comparable. I did this exercise solely through corporate records. I'm not sure I could work backwards through publicly available property records to acquire your address, even given that you are using your real name and I can make an educated guess on what city you live in - and definitely not easily-accessible online sources like the ones I used.Aren't most property title searches based on address, not name? I guess if you have a landline, I could probably find you in what remains of the phone book, but that requires actually acquiring a physical phone book from your presumed area.I think if I were to try doxxing you via legal, public methods (and I want to reiterate I would NEVER do this, I'm just laying out the most logical approach), I'd do it with a public records request of registered voters in Mississippi.But you do raise several questions (that I don't really have the answers to):What level of information counts as doxxing when it gets posted online without your consent? I mean, you'll notice I'm not using my real name here. Is it doxxing if somebody posts that, even though most people in this thread are using theirs?And do public persona (celebrities, politicians, or high-profile businesspeople) deserve lower expectations of privacy?And what information is worth disclosing in the public interest, like (just FOR EXAMPLE) a private jet making a bazillion polluting trips every year?I'm not sure it's possible to develop a solid line between doxxing and posting public information. I think the closest I can get is "is this likely to cause extra-legal harm to the subject over a matter that is not of the public interest?"
(DIR) Post #AQjL9Q9oWm1PWxXvZw by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-18T11:56:23Z
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Kinda love that my timeline is split almost 50-50 between people joining in on the John Mastodon meme and people who absolutely despise it and want to excise every instance of it from the world.
(DIR) Post #AQkIa3X0eWmmTKMfcu by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-18T23:02:19Z
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Note that the Twitter ban on linking to other social media platforms does NOT include TikTok, and that's by design, because then Musk would have to ban the libsoftiktok account.
(DIR) Post #AQpYs7phy5Sm5BY4GG by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-21T11:58:24Z
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@sarahssowertty Dungeon Travelers 2 has some of the best QoL features I've ever seen in a dungeon crawler, but its graphical presentation is likely to be a turn-off to 98% of potential players.If you're willing to go back a couple decades, Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land is a game I highly recommend. It's fairly accessible (though you do need to read the manual and the in-game lore, as mechanics are described in flavour text) without compromising the difficulty or the depth of the character progression.
(DIR) Post #AQpZU3INHsJh0u2eqO by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-21T12:05:11Z
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@sarahssowertty That specific Wizardry game has some interesting party mechanics. You don't actually create most of your characters; you recruit them at the bar. And this, combined with party composition limits based on alignment, means that it's really hard to end up with a totally useless party. The primary pitfall in PC Wizardry games is rolling up a bunch of characters who look okay on paper but ultimately have no future in-game, and this specific game avoids that entirely.
(DIR) Post #AQsYN7MCGqor6Tq556 by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-22T22:36:56Z
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I am snowed in. I have to finish my Christmas baking. I have exactly five eggs. This is going to be interesting.
(DIR) Post #AR63ggyxfEzAjHGPNQ by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-29T10:59:03Z
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@xian Now rotate your display 90 degrees!
(DIR) Post #AR64RWEFSl7qzLk6k4 by bVork@raru.re
2022-12-29T11:07:33Z
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@xian I guess OLEDs of that size aren't compatible with VESA mounts, huh? I just use monitors (and CRTs) so that actually never occurred to me.
(DIR) Post #ARpPqTm55zgl6MBABc by bVork@raru.re
2023-01-20T08:09:20Z
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@DigitalEclipse Thanks for the update! Dipswitches were the one thing I felt was missing. The Tempest 2000 updates are cool too.I am really curious about this, though: "Adventure game variation #3 correctly generates random item positions." - how did such a specific bug manifest? Emulator behaviour that didn't quite match real 2600 behaviour?
(DIR) Post #ARriaiFZnJXSoE5fl2 by bVork@raru.re
2023-01-21T10:48:50Z
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I finished Max Payne 2 this week. That was a really fun game - I love how chaining kills lets you speed up in bullet time. Felt far less unfair than the first, where enemies could delete you in a single bullet burst without anything you could do about it. Still very heavy on the quicksave/quickload though - the falling ceiling in the mansion took me about a dozen attempts to navigate. Piece of ceiling drops in front of Max? I guess the shockwave got him. By far the most frustrating part but not game-ruining.Not sure whether I should do Alan Wake's American Nightmare next or play a non-Remedy game from my backlog. My PS2 is hooked up beside me, so I might just play a meme game like Frogger: The Great Quest next.
(DIR) Post #ARtk4zN5BwW0roWQfg by bVork@raru.re
2023-01-22T10:14:55Z
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@meredith @hyrulian DeepL *always* prioritizes a coherent sentence over any level of accuracy. Maybe it's because I'm mostly familiar with a rather non-concordant language pair (English and Japanese), but DeepL is largely worthless for anything beyond the most simple textbook-level phrase construction. Google Translate produces "worse" (less coherent) translations between the two, but what it produces generally has a more logical path that I can follow, even if it also isn't what I would consider to be accurate.
(DIR) Post #ARtkPuzYfYwlMjUyDA by bVork@raru.re
2023-01-22T10:18:42Z
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@ocean Neither. I consider VR to be in the same category as overly-specific peripherals like arcade joysticks, flightsticks, and racing wheels: a niche market that will continue to exist thanks to a solid but niche audience, but never something that will be present in every household.
(DIR) Post #ARu2Uxdo2tCaCksWWG by bVork@raru.re
2023-01-22T13:41:18Z
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@martinlindell @bitwavegames One of the key tactics in Kyukyoku Tiger is to keep enemies offscreen so that you don't have to deal with their bullets. Is this mode only for Twin Cobra, and if not, how is Kyukyoku Tiger affected by the new mode?
(DIR) Post #ARxmulSN9FSJJIeUoi by bVork@raru.re
2023-01-24T09:05:32Z
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Dug out my #GBA SP to test my new #Everdrive X3 and ended up playing half an hour of Donkey Kong. That Game Boy version is still one of the finest games Nintendo has ever made.
(DIR) Post #ATmfrQT0hEGG0rvZ7w by bVork@raru.re
2023-03-19T20:08:52Z
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@SinclairSpeccy This article provides some pretty interesting general context of the Ottawa games and tech industry at the time: https://ottawarewind.com/2018/12/02/joystick-the-untold-story-of-ottawas-coke-fueled-1980s-video-game-industry/