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147 responses to “Talk Amongst Yourselves”
HI!
So glad I have today off after working til midnight (or later) most of last week. But yay, Easter week which means everywhere will be busy as all hell D=
So how’s everyone?
Loving the end of daylight savings, it’s so dark so early, but hating the commensurate drop in temperature.
I went on a chocolate shopping binge last week so I don’t have to outside this week.
Drop in temp? It got to 30 here today. Was fucked. Meant to drop later in the week when that cold air from the snow at Thredbo/Perisher gets to us, so yay can’t wait for comfortable sleeping weather. Also I miss daylight saving. Now I gotta walk to work in the dark now & walk the dog earlier and it’s bright as fuck at like 6am now, when the other week it wasn’t lol. So many first world problems!
Good morning all. Have sick 4 year old with a 39.5C temp, so no sleep last night.
It used to be other reasons for being up all night!
Not much else happening here, heading down to Canberra next week, just finished replacing the lash adjusters on the car so no more tick tick tick from the engine making me feel like I was sitting on a time bomb.
Can anyone recommend a good board game? I want something to play with three players. the youngest is 17, with maybe occasional 4 players with the youngest being 13. None have played anything other than scrabble, monopoly, cards against humanity etc. before.
Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne are both relatively simple, and solid introductions to games that aren’t monopoly.
Thanks, I keep having ticket to ride recommended 🙂 What is a typical playtime?
15 minutes per player and double that for first timers? I think our games, with relatively experienced players tend to run 40-50 minutes with 4 people, maybe less. Playtime isn’t something I tend to note particularly accurately.
Players get one action per turn, they can choose to: Discard a set of cards to place trains along a route of 1-6 spaces (you have 45 trains, and use one per space); draw 1-2 cards, or draw route cards (objectives). Once players get some experience, they will tend to start to play at the same time, as long as they’re not interfering with the previous player’s turn.
Sounds perfect. I’ve been wanting to do something to get the family around the table instead of each in their own headphone-device bubbles.
If you’re grabbing Ticket to Ride, get Ticket to Ride: Europe instead.
Ticket to Ride is essentially a series of games with different maps and slight rules variants. Europe is very slightly more complicated than the original but has a much better map design (and full sized cards instead of the frustratingly small ones from the original).
BTW, Canberra has a board game bar/restaurant called Guild with a good library of games and decent staff to help you pick and learn games. The only downside is that the place is surprisingly warm. Less of a downside now that the city is now quite cold.
Castle panic is a fun co-op game that is simple and easy to learn. Base difficulty is fairly low so you are more likely to win than not I have found.
Dixit is a wonderful game for younger kids. You get cards with wonderfully complex artwork and you need to select a clue so people can guess your card. Every body plays a card based on the clue and you lose if everybody selects your card so it is about making a clue vague but still guessable. Probably need more that 3 to play well.
Sounds good, but mostly we will be a three player outfit.
Then just take Castle Panic as my recommendation
It depends on what sort of thing your players would enjoy, and also what sort of time commitment you want to have if you start a game. 3-4 players is an ideal amount for a lot of games. Seconding the recommendation of Carcassonne (get the big box though, the first few expansions change up the game significantly) and Ticket to Ride.
Settlers of Catan is another one that usually comes up simply because it was a gateway game for a lot of euro game players. It’s quick (you can play a 3-4 player game out in 20-30 mins once you are experienced) and it’s easy to learn and play.
For something a bit more complex and co-operative rather than competitive, give Pandemic a look. It’s a hard game to beat but mechanically it’s very easy to learn and play. If you’re going to be playing with the same people on the regular then you might even look at Pandemic Legacy, which has you modify it after each game (opening new packs of cards, throwing away or changing components etc) so that after a few games your copy becomes unique.
If your group enjoys a more relaxed and abstract sort of experience, Dixit might be of interest. You have a bunch of cards with really abstract art on it, and one player comes up with a phrase that describes one of their cards. Then everyone else puts in a card they think also describes it, and players score points for guessing the correct card but also having other people guess the card they put in. It’s very simple but quite fun with the right group.
I’d suggest Dominion as well (especially if your group likes card games) but recently I’ve fallen out of love with it, and the game that I think does everything Dominion does better (Heart of Crown) is still not out in English.
Big box is hard to get these days, the version you’ll find is the one with the new art.
BUT CARCASSONNE YES PLEASE
New Art version is fine. But yeah, big box or just grabbing the old game & early expansions is ideal. In particular you want both river mini-expansions, the king and scout mini-expansion, and then Inns & Cathedrals, Traders & Builders, and Abbey and Mayor big expansions. The others add silly mechanics or change the game too much.
Also use proper first-edition scoring rules. 2-tile cities only worth 2 points, dudes in the fields score 3 points for each completed city adjacent to the field and each city can be scored by multiple fields. Pig farm tile or the pig meeple add +1 for each city, +2 if both are present.
Qwirkle (even a 4 year old can play and enjoy this one). Ticket to Ride (there is also a junior version) and Codenames. All awesome.
My comment from last week is still awaiting moderation, so I’ll just say check out Quirkle. It’s quick to play, easy to learn, sits up to four players and has a skill factor without being too much for the 13 year old.
Finished Evil Genius. I prefer this game over the Sims, Sims City or Hospital Tycoon because you have goals and objectives. While those games are kinda designed to just be endless until you get bored. If you’re interested in playing I wouldn’t suggest playing on the hardest setting, the only real difference is that everything is more expensive. Also there’s a game breaking glitch if you leave your Avatar within the the influence circle of the main screen monitor of your control room.
Looking for something simple to play I finally started Telltales Back to the Future. Enjoyed it, although the engine was crippling under itself at times. There were also points where it was obvious that nobody was talking with each other and you could see areas of the game that wasn’t supposed to be seen. Oddly enough one of the most positive things about the game is that there’s no ‘hard’ decisions to make. Everything is linear. Which means you won’t also see them try to find a poor excuse to make your decision pointless and have the other decision happen anyways. Also the puzzles were pretty good and didn’t have that weird ‘logic’ that old adventure games had.
Started watching through Freeman’s Mind again. Had a sudden urge to play something like that again. So I bought Red Faction 1 on PS4. Looking at the controls they’re very outdated, especially the outdated ADS system. But you can keybind each button, so I redesigned everything to a more modern layout. So the Fine Aim button went from Down on the D-Pad to L2, and weapon select is now Up and Down on the D-Pad. It kinda works like that. Although I don’t really need Fine Aim all that much since it’s not a Regenerative Health system and I can move around.
I don’t think I have ever finished Evil genius, but that game is a lot of fun
Oh, it can take a long time to finish. I didn’t play it through Steam so I don’t know how long I played it for, but even without an Agent or Soldier squad wrecking your base and causing you to rebuild everything the game can take a long time.
I remember playing through with an army of valets and always letting my heat drop so I minimised the appearances of soldiers/veterans wrecking my shit.
Finally got Doom installed, since I got all 60GB of it downloaded in like 5 hours with my NBN connection (that’s only at 25mbps down too). It’s so good. Holy shit. I haven’t had this much fun with an FPS in years. Tried to play on nightmare settings but kept getting my ass handed to me, ended up settling for hurt me plenty which is still challenging enough lol.
Also when shit starts getting intense the soundtrack is awesome. Ah, it takes me back to the days of LAN parties with Quake III Arena for some reason.
On computer, or console? Been tempted a few times on PS, but unsure if it’s worth the price/bandwidth.
PC. Got it running on ultra, it barely strains my GTX 1070. I think i’m running it with the Vulkan API as well, either way I see a constant 200 fps. Ha.
Ran through the demo the other day. The only compliment I have is that it’s visually striking at the highest setting. Just didn’t get why everyone thinks it’s the bee’s knees. Maybe it’s just that the initial areas aren’t very Doom?
There’s not a lot level wise that’s really similar to the original doom, except for the secret rooms, which are actually parts of old doom levels.
It’s more the flow of game play that makes it so good. No more corridor jump scares over and over again. Just good old fashioned monster mayhem, either in the room when you enter, or teleporting in at some stage. The action itself feels very much like the old doom. There are some nice new things as well, but I think the main reason people love it, it just that the action itself feels like doom should, instead of the odd monster jumping out in a dark corridor every now and then.
It’s the overall action, it’s awesome. Reminds me a bit more of Quake in certain aspects. Then again they aren’t too dissimilar really.
EDIT: Got stuck in moderation hell, so re-posted and deleting this one.
Hey, that’s new. Normally when I make huge posts with lots of HTML tags it gets auto-moderated.
Previous entry:
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/04/talk-amongst-yourselves-412/#comment-3798153
So… post-patch, my Ryder is actually quite pretty. No glowing white eyes and visible make-up jaggies…
Who woulda thought? 😉
It’s amazing how much of a difference self-shadowing on the eyes makes.
The game also no longer has that kinda “glitchpunk” vibe, where physics are tenuous and anything could happen. Though the movement now seems a tad more finicky…
Small community service announcement: Savini’s 90s rendition of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is currently streaming on Netflix.
Hell, get the original and play it on a monitor next to it. They’re practically frame for frame.
Still good though 🙂
Big Copypasta to get out of Moderation Hell because I stupidly edited to fix a typo 🙁
Time for a bumper edition of
NegativeZero’s Anime Impressions
Writing about the new season so you can ignore it
Clockwork Planet
I had my eye on this going in, as it’s adapted from a light novel series by the same author as No Game, No Life, which I really like. Unfortunately this was pretty disappointing. Some of the things that make NGNL appeal to me are here, especially the snappy dialogue, but the plot is daft. Apparently to stop the end of the world some guy remade the planet into a giant set of interlocking gears? And the protagonist is some kind of mechanic or something who encounters and fixes a broken automaton that is also a pretty girl. So basically it’s the garbage Magical Girlfriend genre trope. Protag’s voice doesn’t match the character, cast doesn’t have that appeal out of the gate that NGNL does. I’m going to give it a few more episodes because of the strength of the author, but it’s going to have to improve a lot to keep me.Busou Shoujo Machivellianism
Stupidest plot this season? Quite possibly. Setup is a former all-girls school that’s gone co-ed, but because all the girls were wary of being around boys they were allowed to be armed. Now the school is run by a group of sword-wielding anime tropes masquerading as girls, and delinquent kids are transferred into the school to be re-educated. Assimilate or die apparently. And by assimilate I mean all the former badass delinquent dudes now cross-dress? Except Our Hero, of course, who is way too cool for that shit and is stronger than everyone else. Anime was a mistake.Eromanga-sensei
I actually went into this expecting to find it as blergh as the author’s previous work (My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute) which was quite popular but not for any good reason. Also Kirino kind of reminded me of my own sister. But I digress. I actually didn’t mind this. Main character is a professional light novel author that got his big break while still in school. After his mother remarried, he ends up with a sister that he exchanges a few words with then never sees again, as she shuts herself in her room and never comes out. Meanwhile, Our Hero’s light novels have these really pervy character illustrations provided for him by an illustrator he’s never met that goes by the name “Eromanga-sensei”. I’m sure you can figure out how this develops. Solid production values and seems a lot less squick than the previous simply because the two aren’t actually related. And the sister doesn’t remind me of my own sister like last time. :\ I’d probably give this a pass normally but the season’s a bit weak, so this looks like probably a regular or at least something I watch in 2-3 episode burstsFrame Arms Girl
Once upon a time, there was an anime produced to promote Kotobukiya’s Mecha Musume figure line, Busou Shinki. In it, a random mook managed to obtain a new prototype figure which was basically a fully autonomous robot girl about 6 inches tall that had a bunch of weapons and armor that attached to her and was designed by Shimada Fumikane. Then more robot figure things appeared and they would fight each other sometimes and be friends other times and go on wacky adventures and stuff. Like, I guess if Japan managed to successfully cross-breed Gundam and Toy Story. Why am I describing another series? Because FAG (unfortunate acronym) is Busou Shinki. Like, almost exactly. Kotobukiya mecha musume toy line, Shimada Fumikane designs, same plot and everything. Only change is that now they seem to fight in a VR world a la Gundam Build Fighters, and the random mook is a cute girl. Seemed pretty crap, but I quite liked Busou Shinki and I like Fumikane’s stuff so I’m the target demographic and it’ll probably get me to watch more. 🙁Hinako Note
“Healing Type” slice of life show that’s basically about a bunch of cute girls being cute and not really doing anything. There’s usually one of these every season. This doesn’t seem to be one of the particularly good ones (it’s not going to give “Is The Order a Rabbit?” any trouble), but not terrible either. Main character is a super-timid girl from the sticks that moves to Tokyo to join a high school’s theater club, only to find the club was shut down. She ends up living in an apartment above a cafe & used book store, along with a bunch of weird girls from her school, including one that enjoys eating books and naturally an older girl that looks like she’s eight because that’s how Japan rolls. It wasn’t bad but the characters didn’t really appeal to me, and I had a lot of issues with the casting. All the cast are very high pitched and saccharine and that really doesn’t work, you need some variation. Additionally putting MAO and Yui Ogura together is a really bad idea, because they sound so incredibly similar (also I can’t stand Yui Ogura, she has a super cute voice but zero range or variation and very monotone). I had a lot of trouble telling characters apart if they weren’t explicitly shown talking on screen. Anyway it’s not horrible but I’m not sure I’ll watch further.Renai Boukun
Pretty awful show. Generic Male Protagonist is visited by what he assumes is a death god, carrying a knockoff Death Note, a ‘Kiss Note’. Any people she writes in the notebook will immediately fall for each other. Apparently while abusing this power to make cute boys kiss she typoed and got Our Hero instead. Then some stuff happens and she ends up adding the name of the girl he’s got a crush on that turns out to be a fucking yandere psycho, plus her own name and then name of some random girl (side note: design is a blatant ripoff of Cure Peace from Precure, threw me off a lot). So basically a forced harem. Production quality was awful, terrible character design and bad art. Shitty plot. Terrible. Avoid.Sakura Quest
Finally, a show that I can unreservedly recommend. PA Works’ show for the season. Their stuff has been a little more miss than hit recently but they’re generally quite reliable. Our main character, a girl from a rural town, has been trying to find work in Tokyo after finishing up at college, but hasn’t been having success. She’s convinced to take a ‘short’ job from a temp modelling agency, where she’ll be the ‘queen’ and basically tourism ambassador for a rural town. This is really great so far. PA Works’ style feels like it apes live-action drama and drama tropes more than it does anime, and that can be quite refreshing. Characters move and react much more naturally as a result. Plus the studio has high production values and they’re starting to build a consistent character design style too, much like how you can immediately pick out most Kyoto Animation stuff. This was light and entertaining and didn’t seem like it would be as emotionally intense as some of their work. Really liking it, absolutely a regular watch.Tsugumomo
Another trash show. Whining snot of a main character lost his mother when he was young, but for some reason kept the sash from her kimono, which he keeps with him always.His constant attention appears to have turned it into a youkai, which manifests as a cute girl with a massive superiority complex. I don’t know what the hook of the show is beyond this,
I assume that it will involve supernatural battles with random monsters or something. I don’t care. This was so bland and uninteresting that I won’t be watching more.
Re:Creators
I was completely blindsided by this. Had no idea it what it was. It’s Troyca’s third anime production (after Beautiful Bones and Aldnoah Zero, both of which I really enjoyed). Original series, very very high production values. Director of Fate/Zero, writer of Aldnoah, Hiroyuki Sawano (Attack on Titan, Aldnoah, others) on music. Main character is watching the latest episode of a hit anime series on his tablet when it starts to glitch out weirdly, and he finds himself transported into the anime, where the anime’s protagonist (a princess) is in the middle of fighting a mysterious girl. Said girl notices and seems to recognize the protagonist. Then the tablet falls and breaks, and he is transported back to the real world… with the princess in tow. I’m not really sure where this is going to go but it’s got heaps of potential with the staff behind it and the production values it has. Subversion of the all-to-common ‘isekai’ or parallel world genre that’s so popular right now – instead of the nerd transported to a fantasy world, the fantasy world’s characters are transported to the real world. Weirdly, I was reminded a bit of the old 90s Schwarzenegger film Last Action Hero, which I really liked but everyone seems to hate. Really excited to see where this goes.Tsuki ga Kirei
I’m going to admit right off the bat that I didn’t finish the first episode of this. It’s not bad,but I could tell pretty quickly it’s not for me. Seems to be a fairly conventional romantic drama about a pair of middle school kids that totally are crushing on each other but are too awkward to do anything about it and their peers and family manage to just make them even more uncomfortable about it. So awkward it made me cringe. Seemed to have nice production values, solid enough cast and if this is the sort of thing that floats your boat then your vessel would probably be fairly buoyant. Not for me. Cringe factor aside, I need a more of a hook or a comedy element or something to keep me interested, because being a perpetual lonely nerd I have basically nothing to relate to.
Sagrada Reset
I don’t really know what to think about this one. Set in a town where most of the population has ‘special abilities’ (which they forget about if they leave?) the main character has perfect memory of everything his body experiences. He meets, or rather is set up to meet a wierdly taciturn girl who has the ability to reset the world around her back to a state she saved earlier. He’s the only one unaffected, with his ability preserving his experiences across the reset. That’s basically as far as the first episode goes – I’m not sure what the hook is, what they’re trying to achieve. Main character seems to want to help Reset Girl because she has no friends? But what is he helping her with? There was just nothing to latch onto here. Maybe it gets better, but I wasn’t really engaged to begin with so probably not watching further.Boruto: Naruto New Generations
I never finished Naruto Shippuuden, because it went completely to shit. Runs of filler episodes every 2-3 actual plot episodes. Plot episodes that would fuck around for ages and then have huge long runs of flashbacks to stuff we flashed back to only a few episodes before, and so on. If this does the same thing it’ll be unwatchable. But basically this is a ‘sequel’ to Naruto. Spoilers: Naruto has become the Hokage, and Boruto (from now on referred to as “Bort”) is his rebellious son. Apparently Naruto’s a shit dad because he takes his job too seriously and is never around. Huh. So basically Bort is Naruto 1.0. Just about to start at Ninja School and stuff. While it’s cool seeing the original cast all grown up and stuff, and I think that Bort works as a protagonist, this is going to need to grow a decent plot hook and show that it’s not going to be an utterly broken show like Shippuuden was before I commit. Seriously I stopped that at around ep 350. Picked it back up over the weekend. After eliminating the filler episodes it turned out I only needed to catch up on about 50 episodes to finish the show, which means it was more than 60% filler. Watching that shit weekly? No fucking way.Akashic Record of Bastard Magic Instructor
I don’t know what to think about this. Going in I expected one of two tropes. The setup is that the Generic Male Protagonist has been hired last-minute as a magic instructor at a magic school. He acts like a lazy dickhead, so normally this would go one of two ways. Either it turns out that he’s actually amazing when he can be bothered, or he’s super smart and running some kind of long con where his behavior actually brings everyone together and he figures his way out of each situation (i.e. Irresponsible Captain Tylor). This seems to be… neither? The dude doesn’t have any ability at all and gets his ass thumped repeatedly by one of his students. So he’s just an asshole? I don’t know what to think here. The thing is, the production values are really high for what it is. Really nice character art and appealing designs and stuff. This seems like the sort of shitty pulp anime that I enjoy. I just didn’t see much here to keep me going. So I’m not sure if I want to give it another episode or two or not. My assumption is there has to be more to the main character, and if so it could turn out interesting. Just not a great first impression at all.So my regular watch list currently looks like:
* Little Witch Academia (continuing)
* Boku no Hero Academia S2
* Attack on Titan S2
* Re:Creators
* Sakura Quest
* Granblue Fantasy
* Clockwork Planet (provisional)
* Eromanga-sensei (provisional)
Stuff that hasn’t aired yet / I haven’t watched that I’ve got my eye on (stay tuned for updates):
* Sword Oratoria (Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon spinoff, light novels are great)
* Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho (Popular light novel series)
* ID-0 (Director & original creator of Code Geass)
* Quan Zhi Gao Shou (Chinese series based off a Chinese web novel series, curious)
* Sin: Nanatsu no Taizai (Probably an awful tits show but sometimes that’s not a bad thing)
* Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata Flat (I need to give the first series a try. Love the artist (Kurehito Misaki) but not sure about the plot)
I’m watching
-Little witch Academia
-My eccentric family season 2
-Natsume yuujinchou roku
-Alice to Zoro(something)
I remember trying to get into My Eccentric Family but not really digging the first episode much. Can’t remember exactly what was throwing me out. Is it worth picking back up?
Might have been the fact that the MC was in a female form, but didn’t bother changing his voice?
That wouldn’t bother me that much I think. I can’t recall what rubbed me wrong about it.
I have no idea then =P
Wading my way through all the xbox games in the Spring Sale, can anyone recommend any absolute bargains?
https://majornelson.com/2017/04/10/spring-sale-this-weeks-deals-with-gold-and-spotlight-sale-2/
Only bargains that stick out to me are Metro Redux bundle (2033 and Last Light) for $9, Sleeping Dogs for $9.90, and Life Is Strange for $6.60…
Just Cause 3 at that discount isn’t too bad. Geometry Wars 3 is a must-buy for ~$8.
Yep – I was happy with that so I picked up JC3 XL. Loving it so far.
(I also got Overwatch for $60 because that’s the cheapest digital price for console I’ve seen.)
I’m a big fan of the Metro series, the original is still one of my favourite FPS of all time
2033 is one of my favourite FPS, too – love everything about that game.
Really interesting article about the changing attitude toward PC games and developing for Steam in Japan:
http://www.pcgamer.com/how-japan-learned-to-love-pc-gaming-again/
Seems like they believe that the Dark Souls PC port was the turning point which is pretty interesting and probably true, though I actually think that what made everyone truly sit up was when Falcom revealed that they’d made more profit from Ys Origin on Steam than all the other platforms they’d released it on combined.
@alexwalker this might be of interest to you, unless linking to articles by other gaming sites is verboten.
I’ll let that one pass: everyone can see pretty clearly that it’s not linking to Spammer McSpamalot. I’d prefer people didn’t start just dropping URLs in every post, for obvious reasons, though.
But yeah, I did catch that article yesterday. Real good piece, lot of good work.
Good morning @strange Brisbane folk! Hope you are all @welbot ! I will be invading your @greenius lands like a @virus__ on Tuesday riding aboard a @rocketman powered vessel. Hopefully the weather holds up as I will only be packing my summer attire, and I’ll be shaving my @beardymcmuttonchops so im hoping not to @freezespreston my @sernobulus off. Also want to avoid getting stung by any @beeawwb ‘s. Unfortunately i dont think I’ll be able to convince work to let me hire a @lambomann007 , but i will only be about 15mins from town and will Uber/PT myself around the lands, and using Apple Maps to find my way around so hopefully i dont get @dc ‘ed cause of shitty internet.
if any @transientmind ‘s would like to catch up for a round of @popdart5 and some @gutsoup (eeeeeewwwwwwww) on either Wednesday or Thursday, let me know! I’m down there for work stuff so unfortunately its gotta be after hours!
@cufcfan616 @janexo @jimu @sughly i tried really hard, but didnt know how to get your names into that!!!! /o\
hahaah that was great. Such a shame it got sughly’d by not being able to use all the nicks, but your efforts should be commended none the less 😉
As for my availability during that period, I’m not sure at this point. Won’t really know til closer to the day, as it possibly depends on when the report from the occupational physician comes through. It’s likely I won’t be returning to work until the week after next though, so chances are I should be able to meet up with you at some stage 🙂
Tbh. It’s always summer attire up here. Well I wear shorts all year round, even if it is “cold” lol. At most you might need a hoodie if you feel the cold easily..
Sughly it can’t be that hard. They aren’t a bunch of unknowns like some john or janexo’s
Got the week off work, so sure. Have to drop son at school on Thursday morning but otherwise pretty free
Nice work. 🙂
Still, if it’s this week you’re talking about, I’m sadly going to have to pass. Too much on. 🙁
ergh… just realised my birthday falls on good friday. sucks cause i cant do my usual birthday LAN on Saturday with the whole Easter thing… /o\
Melbourne meat is happening saturday
yeah was initially unable to go cause of the LAN but now cant do that as the missus has invited everyone over for easter and wants us to set everything up. we do a whole greek thing on the saturday, making cakes, biscuits eggs and soups for an after midnight feast. its a christian orthodox tradition thing where we get together for dinner after midnight.
usually people right into that whole thing (definitely not us) dont eat meat and dairy for 40 days (my missus does about a week or two of that, i barely do half a week) and then we binge on chicken soups at midnight.
sounds crazy. And not fun, the not eating meat and dairy
yeah i just downed a dim sim…. im good! 😀
dim sim din-din for the win win!
Hey guys. Um, got a bit to say about my Mum so, I might spoiler it
Mum’s thyroid has been playing up a little for about 5 years, but now it’s actually gone into over active territory. In response, the endocrinology clinic wanted to put her on tablets, but because of the rare chance of the tablets affecting her already damaged liver, they decided to use a nuclear dye and a gamma scan instead.Before that, was an ultrasound to make sure that the nodules in her thyroid hadn’t become cancerous. We need to go back to endocrinology to get their decision.
Meanwhile, for the last 2-3 months, mum has also been suffering from some kind of infection that makes her cough often, sometime until she throws up.
We went to see our local GP today and he noticed that she was jaundice and decided to order urgent blood tests to find out the functionality of her liver.
So, it’s pretty much all happening, at once.
shit, thats pretty full on all at once. Jaundice as far as im aware (note, not a doctor) can be triggered by certain infections…. had she gone to see anyone about the cough prior to now? hopefully something obvious that they pickup on and can treat.
hoping everything is ok for you guys…
Yes. GP has already tried one lot of antibiotics without any success.
does she have shortness of breath out of the norm?
Normally her breathing is fine.
ok cool… just asking cause my mum was coughing constantly and had shortness of breath going up a flight of stairs for months and after several visits to the GP, it wasnt till they did an xray that they worked out why,
It took The hospital a week to figure out mum has a lung infection last time
Jaundine is often the primarily the result of a damaged liver. My mum went through the same thing for a while before she passed on. Her liver was totally fucked due to alcohol abuse though. One thing to watch out for @scree, would be if your mum is getting bloated around her stomach. If she is, that’s a surefire sign her liver is failing, and she’s retaining water. If it gets to that stage, she’ll have to have procedures to drain the fluid, and all you can do is hope that they’re able to find a compatible liver for transplant :\I’m really sorry to hear you’re going through this. It was a difficult time for me and my family.
Hopefully your mum’s liver isn’t quite as damaged as my mum’s was, and she’s able to recover. Will keep my fingers crossed.
Mum doesn’t drink, so it’s not liver failure (she’s not retaining water).
Apparently thyroid issues can cause liver issues.
I’m sorry your mum went through that. It sounds awful
not saying it is liver failure yet, but it’s something to be mindful of given the symptoms she’s got at present. If the thyroid continues to cause problems with her liver, it may lead to failure eventually. Hopefully she’ll get fixed up before it gets to that point, but at least you know some signs to watch out for, then you can alert your doc to it as early as possible, which will increase the likelyhood of a successful treatment 🙂
Doctor has asked her to come in on Tuesday and on Wednesday, we’re seeign the endrocrinology clinic. Hopefully if the GP deals with the liver (had bad experiences with the liver clinic at ST V’s) and the endocrinology deal with the thyroid, she’ll get better
In situations like this it often all comes at once as the first thing that is triggered knocks your ability to ward of the other issues.
Not much I can do but send happy thoughts, although if you do need anything you can give me a call
We’ll be okay I believe. It’s just waiting really.
Waiting can be the worst part, but glad things are stable
Oh and does this look like something you would like http://store.steampowered.com/app/391720/
Not something I will play and seems like something you will like.
I was actually looking at that the other night. I don’t have the money for it and I’m concerned it may set off my motion sickness. It’s quite infuriating.
If I see you on steam I’ll flick you the key for it.
Please don’t. Just in case it sets of my motion sickness and I can’t play it
I’m not going to play it
So the chance that you might enjoy it means it is better for you to try, even if it doesn’t work, than to sit in my library unplayed for ever
I didn’t realise you already had the key.
…
……..
The bee enemy in the Yooka laylee ad looks like Gru
Yep
Not the bees!
Well last night I officially got further into path of exile than I ever have before. Finally up to Act 3. So much has changed since I last played, and think I managed to end up in some different league thing so I have leaguestones to work out as well as the other changes like prophecies.
But I’m having fun even if I’m running fairly blind on what I should be doing.
Gonna set some time aside to play the new Hacknet DLC over the long weekend while I’m away from my PS4 – heading up to visit the folks for Easter. Debating how safe it would be to get some time with it on the plane or in the airport… could this be misconstrued too easily? 😛
Following up the Anime Impressions a few comments up, caught a couple more premieres:
Zero Kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho
Aka The Grimoire of Zero. This seems like it could be very good. Main character is a man who seems to have inherited a witch’s curse that makes him appear to be a beast, half white tiger and half man. He works as a mercenary but seems to be constantly hunted by witches. Then he meets a strange girl, a witch named Zero, who makes a contract with him to undo his curse and make him human if he helps her find her friend, Thirteen, who seems to have absconded with a magical grimoire that she wrote which teaches magic from the basics – if it falls into the wrong hands, it could end the world. Really solid show all around, looking forward to seeing where it goes.Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasu ka? Isogashii desu ka? Sukutte Moratte Ii desu ka?
Aka SukaSuka from now on because fuck me that title is long. Apparently was highly anticipated coming into the season, and I can see why. Fantasy with a very lived-in feel, airships and floating islands and stuff. Not an Isekai fantasy story, an actual straight-up fantasy for once. Seems like humans basically died out in the setting hundreds of years before, aside from a few stragglers, and most of the people are furries or other demi-human types. The initial hook seems to be a human (?) mercenary sent to look after a military installation to guard the weapons there, only to find it’s a bunch of girls. Would seem like a trite setup if it wasn’t for a couple of story hints thrown in asides. Also the opening bit – I won’t spoil it, but it uses a really good cover of an instantly recognizable western song with basically a montage and in the space of about 3 minutes tells what most shows would have taken a whole episode, as well as the tone and a lot of subtle world building. The title of the show (“What do you do at the end of the world? Are you busy? Will you save us?”) I think gives a bit of an idea where it’s going as well.Also updating one:
Akashic Record of Bastard Magic Instructor
Basically the second episode turned it around, made it quite obvious the dude is not a completely useless reprobate and is just a lazy fuck that’s actually super talented. More of an Onizuka than a Tylor (lol 90s anime references no one remembers). The high production values and really nice art is justified for me, it looks like it’ll pass the three-episode test and become a regular watch.I went into this season thinking it was going to be pretty shit but actually there’s a good chunk of really solid stuff.
So, i’ve just been banned from commenting on Polygon.com based on my comments there. I don’t think i’ve ever been so frustrated with a website’s moderation policy in my life. Aside from constantly positing click-baiting identity politics articles, they frequently delete entire threads of useful discussion between people who are disagreeing but debating respectfully. It’s clear they are invested in the clicks that talking about incendiary social issues brings, but not being actually committed to finding a solution to said issues.
I’m never one to resort to ad hominem attacks or unfounded generalisations, but I do constantly challenge the weak logic and hypocritical stances that a lot of commenters there take. This isn’t because i am against them, it’s because I want them to do better as people who represent the left-leaning side of political discussion. I frequently feel frustrated as all hell on there, people never seem to want to give an inch on their deeply engrained beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming objective evidence that they need to.
I’ve never had that problem with discussions on Kotaku. Do you think it’s because the Australian website is less a prisoner of the us vs. them, black and white rhetoric of the political system America employs? I guess i’m looking for some vindication here (which is pretty embarrassing actually) but also to say thanks to everyone for being respectful and open-minded and also to Kotaku moderators for encouraging discourse here rather than stifling it.
It’s a Kotaku AU thing, rather than an overall thing. There are still some bad eggs around but generally the Kotaku AU community has been very well managed by Alex, Mark predecessors. Solid but fair moderation and a lot of commenters that are happy to call people out if they’re being assholes in the comments. There’s still periodic comment shitstorms but they’re much less common.
There’s possibly a bit of culture involved too – Australians generally are a little less uptight than Americans – but it’s also probably that the bigger US sites like Polygon get way more views and 10% of 100,000 people is a much bigger, louder group than 10% of 1,000 people. Plus those sites get international views, not just US.
@negativezero Have noticed the comment section on Kotaku AU is so much more chilled than other sites. Love that people are polite on here. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen people get nasty here, or I’ve just been lucky enough to never see it
Reminder: Melbourne TAYFronds, I am going to be all up in your (my?) city for a couple of weeks from Sunday. I’m busy Monday and Tuesday but have not yet committed to anything further. It’d be cool to do something (maybe meet in the city?) maybe on Saturday 22nd, Saturday 29th or ANZAC Day (25th).
Come watch the ANZ Splatoon finals on the 29th :3
Tag me if things firm up – I may not see random post but if I get an elert I’ll do my best to make it.
I chanced on a startrek reboot proposal by the creator of Babylon 5 where he suggested a reboot of the five year mission with new kirk and crew. He dissed the fan idea of a startrek academy with kirk and company. We got both in the films.
@scree thanks for organising today – nice to see you and Elder Scree. 🙂 Nice to see everyone else too.
Ah, glad you posted. Thank you for helping my Mum out today. She was worried about coming, worried that she wouldn’t fit it. Mind you, if I’d brought out cards against humanity, she would beat you all =P
Ah what a weekend to get some hours at work. Got a 10 hour shift Saturday followed by 4 hours on Sunday at double time & a half both days that’s equal to what I work most weeks, and I think I did another 20 hours on top of that earlier in the week. Can’t wait for pay day, means I can splurge & buy an SSD for my PC (going for a 1TB as a D drive) and a new whipper snipper.
Miss read that as a new whipper snapper and was throughly confused
That’s the spirit! 😀
With all this Ryzen talk i’m considering building a Ryzen PC with an R5 1600 which seems like a great CPU from what i’ve seen.
I was gonna say that for roughly the same price, you could build an i7-6800k system with quad channel ddr4, but looks like the price has actually jumped by almost $100 since I bought my new bits.
Possible I just got mine during a special and didn’t notice, but makes me glad I bought when I did! The 6800K was only $460 or something when I bought mine. Now it’s like $599! :0
Even my cpu’s gone up. I paid $750 or there about, and now it’s $860, Crazy!!!!
The R5 1600 is $320 though 😛 a 6800k is what, $600? You’re not thinking of the R7 1800X, are you?
It may have been the 1700 I saw this morning. Can’t be 100% certain now. But even at $100 more, the 6800 isn’t a bad deal. No idea why the price of the intel stuff jumped by such a huge margin in the past week or two though! I was shocked when I saw how much my CPU was this morning. Also the 6800, cos I recall being really tempted by the sub $500 price of it at the time, but I went for the 6850 due to the 16 extra pcie lanes.
Just checked, and it may have been the 1600x and 1700 I caught a glimpse of this morning. The 1700 is almost the same price as the 6800K was when I got my cpu.
I actually had a bit of a heart attack when I saw the price of my CPU this morning. I was like “Shit! Did I really pay that much?!” Then I checked my invoice, and I was like *phew*
Haha. I’m only thinking of throwing a Ryzen system together for shits & giggles if tax time is decent. Plus it’d make for a decent secondary PC in case my current one shits itself/one to have attached to my TV for gaming purposes.
Does anyone here have any idea how to get tickets to advanced screenings without winning competitions? My girlfriend wants to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 but she goes into hospital the day before it comes out.
Ask on twitter?
Internet tells me it comes out on the 25th. Does she go in on the 25th? Because I just now got a ticket for the 24th so it might be worth having a look.
If you’re a member of Hoyts rewards, they often have members screenings sessions that might be early.
Deleted
Moderation for splitting a long paragraph?
If you edited the comment to split it, that’s what did it. All edited comments go to moderation atm for some reason.
Thanks, didn’t know that.
I think Campbell point this out a while ago.
The reason is to keep ad/spam bots out.
Sorry in advance if I remember it wrong but it is something along those lines to keep the bots out.
Started fresh on Hacknet, and got through the main story (campaign? critical path? not sure of the best term for it, given the way it tells its story) in about 3-4 hours, and started Labyrinths, the expansion that came out a few weeks ago. It’s so good. The clunky email contract system is replaced with a more fluid IRC-like chatroom linked to assignment listings.
The assignments start off pretty simple, but very quickly expand into new programs/ports, and some security methods that can’t be cracked, which lead you into hunting login credentials on employee phones/email and home PCs. Because you’re working more as a team than a lone wolf, the others will sometimes drop useful bits of info in the chat – admin passwords or hints to point you in the right direction (“What’s the default password for an eOS phone again?” kinda thing), but thus far it’s been stuff I’d already found, so not sure if it’s meant to be hints to help you if you’re stuck, confirmation that you’re on the right track, or just an ego boost :P.
Currently stuck trying to track down the password for an otherwise impenetrable mainframe, but feel I must just be missing something super obvious on another server on their network, given that everything points to the mainframe password being somewhere on that server…Loving it thus far.
Happy Wonder Boy day everyone!!!!!!
http://www.thedragonstrap.com/
Wow. I had no idea this was on the way.
WOO. Alice Cooper just announced an Australian tour for October, with Ace Frehley as support. I’ve had 4 or 5 chances to see him over the years and something always stopped me, well i’m going this time damn it! Now all I need is Metallica to make a tour announcement with a decent support act like Anthrax.
Hey TAYbies
I have a VPN question that I am hoping my fellow gamers can help me with.
Until recently, I have been using TunnelBear as my VPN, its….ok, but recently removed almost all customisations
I was wondering, what VPNs do people use, and can anyone recommend one that allows an exceptions list for specific domains (web browsing), and/or services, Steam/Netflix/Battle.net for example
Ideally, I want all my traffic to go via VPN except specific services that either a) prohibit VPN (steam will bad accounts detected using VPN) or b) is speed dependent (I cant stand high pings in Diablo 3)
Any tips?
I am no help as I also use tunnelbear. Sorry
I used to use Getflix, was alright until Netflix blocked it. I’ve used TunnelBear as well (thanks for that one Linus) but now I don’t even bother. #helpingnothelping
I use Private Internet Access and I’m pretty sure what you describe is possible but it requires fiddly manual configuration. Wouldn’t know where to start. Usually I just sleep mine when I’m accessing steam etc.
But I don’t use it for region hopping, just for privacy.
Thanks all
Guess maybe I’ll just stick to TunnelBear then :o)
I looked into it and didn’t really make any progress. I managed to make it so one of my browsers would only work if the VPN was active, so my region hopping browser could never connect from my actual location. That’s handy but it wouldn’t sort traffic the way you want it to.
I use VPN Unlimited. Got a lifetime subscription for like $50.
I don’t have any issues with it myself, and the other day, I ran some speed tests with it off, and then on, and the results blew me away.
VPN off = 95-98Mbps Down – 30-35Mbps Up
VPN on = 100-136Mbps Down – 30-35Mbps Up.
Haven’t had any issues with steam myself, but then I don’t play a lot of games online, and when I do, it’s usually me against a friend.
Stan works fine for me over the VPN too.
Oh look Telstra lied to me and billed me a cancellation fee when I was told there would be no cancellation fee for a service I never agreed to. Their words “they may be a small charge on your next bill” $300 is not a small charge.. Back to the complaints dept I go.
Boourns!
Yup!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-20/monkey-magic-to-get-a-reboot/8457782
Please please please PLEASE dont fuck it up!!!!!!!!!!
it’s got a western cast… it’s already dead :\
I would like to think that it could still be good, but I’m just not sure it’ll feel right without an Asian cast.
I’m rather excited that First 4 figures is going to do a spyro and Crash Bandicoot set. Apparently it won in the polls.
Hi,
Sorry if people have talked about this already but recently I got a new phone and after browsing Kotaku on such a small phone for so many years it was nice to have a big screen. But can Kotaku do something about all the ads? I understand they pay for the site but the one at the bottom of the page I keep hitting with my finger is so frustrating. Maybe its the new larger phone but I never had this problem before. Does anyone elsw remember when Kotaku was basically as free?
EDIT: Moderation hell 🙁
EDIT: Moderation also removed all the tags. 🙁
Melbourne TAY! I don’t know if this tag list is up to date (who maintains taytags now?). Let’s do Lunch!
@beavwa @budgieishere @chuloopa @coldcamv @crazyguy1990 @f4ction @jordi @mad_danny @morkai @negativezero @pixel_the_ferret_viking @scree @smurfydog @tech_knight @tigerion @tofu @trikeabout @zetrox2k
Currently looking at Platform 28 in Docklands on Saturday 28th, let’s say 12:30pm. I know this is going to clash with Supanova for some but unfortunately it’s the only time I can do before I run off back to the USA. I haven’t booked anything yet so if someone has a better location idea then let me know (my first choice would have been The Hof but they’re closed at the moment).
Please let me know if you’re coming (twitter or here) so I can get a rough idea of numbers and book a table. 🙂
28th’s a friday
Yeah I can’t computer good. I meant Saturday 29th.
If I edit the post it’ll get moderated again. :\
I’ve had a busy few weeks, so I will probably be out, sorry.
I think that’s OK for me. 🙂 Will confirm…
Oh yeah, if you’re in Melbourne and not tagged, you’re also invited. Taytags is out of date. @mythamphetamine should be on here? And I think some others have recently moved to Melb too?
Should be good to come along for this 🙂
Double post, urgh it didn’t show the above one I thought it errored :/
As per twitter we should be there
It’s probably a couple of years since I last made it to a TAY meat, and I’d love to go but I’m really snowed under with study and work this semester.
Sorry to have to miss it again.