The same thing happened in France when American GIs were stationed there during WWII. I'd recommend "What Soldiers Do" by Mary Louise Roberts if you're interested in the details.
This is one of my favorite things about that game. You could technically beat The Outer Wilds on your very first time loop, but in practice you need to explore just about everything in order to understand how to do it.
I also find comfort in the idea of becoming food after we die. I remember reading somewhere how a beached whale in the arctic can be a life-saving windfall for the scavengers there. Helped me see the positive in something I’d always seen as purely tragic.
Same here. It's helpful insofar as any story can be helpful in the face of what we have to go through.
Interestingly enough, although my wife shares the same beliefs as me in terms of religion and God, the stories that resonate most with her from that show were the evocative ones about God and heaven. She told me that the science-based ones barely register to her at all, and almost not at all on an emotional level. As I heard the other character describe her idea of heaven, I too feel the pull of those descriptions. There's a part of me that agrees with the character when he says, after listening to her speech, wiping away tears, "I really hope you're right."
Most people think of heaven when it comes to the Bible's view of life after death, but it speaks more about a resurrection from the dead for the vast majority of people who die, to live forever on a paradise Earth.
There is something in us that makes us yearn for more than the short lives we have now (hardly anybody would choose to die if they had good health under normal circumstances), so these do resonate with us more than a purely materialistic world view, which has ostensibly left people with lack of contentment and sense of purpose.
It's a real danger that we'll have to deal with on a sociological level soon. Atheism is on the rise. I'm not versed in atheism as it occurs in countries other than in the US, but it seems like we'll see new types of problems that are not immediately apparent. That's the double-edged sword of rationalism. Truth and reason above all... But it's vital to remember that we're squishy and mushy and spiritual and emotional beings. It seems like it will be a lot of fun to be involved in media as it comes to deal with that shift more and more. What stories make the most sense, while still holding truth at the center? What do people need?
I'm reminded of the prototypical Alan Watts lectures. He might be out of fashion at the moment, but maybe his work will one day again be a little flicker in the cave for us to reach for, down the line.
I find little comfort in it. By the time your 120-200 imperial pounds becomes food, you will have shat another 25,000 pounds that has gone into a sewer or elsewhere and fed some bacteria down the line.
It also depends on your stove. Mine’s electric and alternates the heating element on and off to try to maintain the desired temp. The heat capacity helps to smooth out temperature fluctuations but if I had a nice gas stove I’d probably switch to carbon steel.
For sure! I'm an SF-based software engineer who's also on an improv team that did monthly performances in the Before Times.
There are three "big" improv theaters in SF which I know of: Endgames Improv in the Mission, Leela in SoMa, and BATS Improv in the Marina. The show you might've heard of is "Your F'd Up Relationship", which is put on by Endgames Improv's main house team on Fridays at 9 and 10:30. That's a great one to start with. Speaking as an improviser, those performers are especially strong, and the format helps them be consistently funny.
You can also take classes from those theaters, or from a couple other spots, like Thunderbolt Comedy (who actually have a really neat online platform called Pineappl: a web app that's designed specifically for improv, so that performers can simulate being on stage, maintain consistent relative positions to each other, set custom backgrounds, etc. without wrangling any of the messy Zoom stuff like covering up your camera when you're "offscreen".)
Unfortunately the city's comedy scene has taken a massive hit due to the pandemic. I have to imagine that being locked in a crowded room with 50 strangers all laughing is just about the last thing that the city is going to allow to reopen. It seems like Endgames is in financial trouble, since they've put one of their theaters up for rent and the other one is running GoFundMe's. To me, watching Zoom improv really just isn't the same -- really, so much of the improv experience is sharing it with an audience. I really do hope the theaters survive the pandemic so we can have in person shows again when it's safe!
Before COVID I was going to Endgames almost every week, sometimes 2x a week. Highly recommend.
Thunderdome on Wednesdays was also great. It's a "running bracket" competition. Two teams, 25 minutes each, audience votes on which performance they liked better, winning team continues onto the next week.
When Sketchfest becomes a thing again, that's improv heaven. My favorite was when UCB did their show where they improv off of an audience member's Facebook feed. And this woman had an old Facebook official pirate theme that changed all the words to pirate slang.
I went to a Secret Improv Society show at Shelton Theater on Sutter in SF. It was hilarious!
Definitely agree about “juicing” your game, especially from a visual perspective. There’s so many graphics concepts that I didn’t know about and didn’t have the eye to recognize.
Things like ambient occlusion, bloom, reflection probes, and physically based rendering/materials were totally unknown to me but were really essential to making a game look “AAA”.
Definitely recommend the audiobook if you haven’t heard it already. Caro’s got a thick Brooklyn accent and a manner of speaking that’s really compelling.
