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Cake day: July 13th, 2023

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  • It’s kind of hard to have an incredibly varied and versatile powerset in a video game, simply becuase you have a limited set of inputs. So you would normally have a small set of powers that each serve a purpose. But then doing that and still representing 4 elements means each only gets very limited options.

    Thinking about it, I can see two ways to make bending feel powerful, versatile and give a good representation to all elements. 1) maybe the best solution would be to have customizable load outs with various bending powers, and let you switch between those load outs on the fly so you can coordinate a few power sets that work well together but swap them when other sets are more useful to the situation. 2) An interesting idea would be to use situational awareness to execute moves without specific user inputs differentiating the exact power used. For example, you could have a single boost button that uses a different element depending on if the player is on land, water, in the air or dodging (fire rocket!). And you could have a close/melee attack and ranged attack for each element that you can specify, but the exact effect/attack it creates can vary depending on the environment and enemy type of the target. Let it feel a little bit like the character is making decisions, not just you, like Batman in combat in the Arkham games. And of course, there would be a charge up to a special attack that uses the Avatar state and all 4 elements at once.


  • I mean, the guy had been doing this stuff for decades without any repercussions at this point. To him, he probably thought it was basically normalized. He really wasnt even trying that hard to hide his interest in seducing women with aphrodisiacs/drugs. Hell, years before the Cosby show even existed, he had a stand up bit in 1969 specifically talking about how, at age 13, he learned about Spanish Fly, an aphrodisiac that would make girls go super horny for you. He goes on about how, throughout his teen years, he wished he could find some Spanish Fly to slip into girls drinks, and how the first time he went to Spain as an adult he tried to find some for that purpose. By the time he told that “joke” in his standup, he’d already drugged and assaulted at least one victim in 1965.

    Here’s that stand up bit: https://youtu.be/LAorIG6MZnc?si=RKKtmGcWLfTf0KZn


  • I find it far easier to enjoy a work that is written or produced by a bad person when they are not physically in said work. For example, I can still enjoy the Harry Potter books and other various media even though JK is a hateful piece for shit that won’t just shut the fuck up and move on with her incredibly wealthy life. Going back to watch stuff that have people on the cast who later turned out to be monsters is certainly harder. Like Cosby obviously, but also OJ Simpson on the Naked Gun films, Brian Peck showing up in various Nickelodeon shows and movies, etc. It takes a level of compartmentalizing that is challenged every time you see that person. I can do it, but I really have to have a fondness for the material, especially if that person has a lot of screen time, otherwise it just taints the whole thing so much it can’t be enjoyed anymore. But I really make an effort to not financially benefit those people. If they have an ongoing financial gain from the works, I will either abstain, borrow/share the media with someone else that has it, or pirate it.


  • At that level of co2 production, they were probably right about the timetable. What they couldn’t predict is that co2 production would rise so dramatically with automobiles and industry in the decades after that. They were at 7 billion tons a year then. We are over 36 billion tons a year now, over 5 times as much. That has clearly expedited the effects on the climate.











  • First, you missed the part where the actual price now is not 4 dollars? He lied. It was 3 dollars, per the sign right behind him.

    Second, national inflation is calculated off a broad spectrum of goods and services providing insight into the relative buying power of tthe dollar itself, so it is not missing the point to compare based on the adjusted buying power of the dollar. It is a more accurate reflection of the true rise in cost of this individual good comparing how its rise in price has outpaced the average rise in costs across the board. It reflects the extra pressures put on the egg market from the avian flu outbreaks and possible other factors rather than the general inflation of the entire economy.

    Third, if Vance’s goal was to demonstrate that inflation in general had gone up tremendously and blame Harris specifically for that (despite how ridiculous that is), using eggs as a specific measure of the effect of their policies when the price hike on eggs have significantly outpaced other goods and is clearly due to non-policy related circumstances outside anyone’s control is obviously disingenuous. And that was before he lied and tried to add another 30+ percent on top of the already inflated price.




  • Not to mention the price spike on eggs specifically is also way less than he would like to make it appear. Yes, in 2020 dollars, a dozen eggs was $1.50. But adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars, that 1.50 is actually about 2 dollars today (inflation being a much broader issue and highly affected by covid). So the price didn’t jump from 1.50 to 4 dollars, an increase of 167%, nor even from 1.5 to 3 dollars, an increase of 100%. It only went up from 2 dollars to just under 3 dollars (given the signs), an increase of just under 50 percent. Considering all the avian flu outbreaks that is an entirely reasonable price hike on a high demand good.


  • If there were a 4th spatial dimension and you could see in 4 dimensions, yes, you could see the inside of things that are enclosed in 3 dimensions. It wouldn’t be like x-ray vision exactly though. Think about a sphere in 3d. It is enclosed. When you take 2d projections of the sphere by slicing cross-sections of the ball, from a 2d observer on that plane, they would also see an enclosed circular object. But from the 3rd dimensional observer looking down at that cross section they can see everything enclosed in the circle. From the 4th dimension, then it stands to reason they would have a similar view of a 3 dimensional objects innards. But rather than seeing through the object like in an x-ray, they just see the whole thing laid out in every detail at once like we see the insides of the 2d circle.


  • I disagree. I think we are very much hardwired to innately understand 3d space in an intuitive level. All else about higher and lower dimensions is learned experientially and/or academically, and it’s near impossible not to understand it in terms that relate to 3 dimensions or math. I also think that thinking about 4 dimensions in relation to 3 dimensions makes it impossible to truly understand 4 dimensional space as a whole. We can describe every detail of it mathematically, but still not be able to visualize it in whole. Regardless, given the fact that there is no 4th spatial dimension, I doubt either of us will ever have a definitive answer.


  • I’ve read it. Recently actually. It is really cool. It kind of supports my point though. It’s hard for those to both comprehend and describe that have been in higher dimensional spaces and much of what they do describe is in 3 dimensional terms, (enclosed spaces being visible as if by an open top being a good example of trying to comprehend a thing that would be uncomprehendable in 4d through a 3d mindset). Of course, it’s also written by an author that hasn’t actually experienced such things and is also trying to imagine what it would be like to experience his interpretation of the phenomenon, so… not exactly conclusive either way.

    Also later in the story

    When they describe how 3 dimensional space is dropped into 2 dimensions, I think it also illustrates how hard it would be to comprehend 4 dimensions from our 3 dimensional mindset because every bit of 3 dimensional spaces that drops into 2d space would unfold and expand infinitely because there’s no way to fit 3 dimensional data completely in 2 dimensions. So trying to comprehend 4 dimensions from a 3 dimensional perspective will likewise always leave gaps