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Or play Bioshock Infinite, which is superb.

Some people won't like it. Empath, for example, is clearly tired of the whole genre. But you don't get one of the top 5 metacritic scores of all time by being terrible.
posted to MetaFilter by Justinian at 9:29 PM on April 4, 2013

I would just like to say, that as someone with a longstanding professional and personal attachment to video games, that Bioshock Infinite is really, really good, and plays off the AAA FPS tropes in powerful ways. I don't find the violence or early 20th century racism gratuitous, it seems part of the story that Ken Levine is telling. There is a lot of juxtapositions of beauty and cruelty. It feels like a conscious choice, at least to me.

Also, the game is really,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah at 9:26 PM on April 4, 2013

A recently released study has concluded that computers are capable of scoring essays on standardized tests as well as human beings do.

If a bot which cannot pass the Turing test can grade standardized tests as well as humans, I question the value of the standardized test.
posted to MetaFilter by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:06 PM on April 4, 2013

Funny, using flowery language, writing huge sentences and paragraphs, and everything else he mentions is exactly how I got such good grades from my human scorers when I was in school. Maybe the robots really are right.
posted to MetaFilter by Ghostride The Whip at 3:59 PM on April 4, 2013

OK, last ridiculously long answer here, I swear... it's just too much fun to resist.

empath: Well, since we don't know what dark matter is (as in, we don't know the mass and interactions of whatever it is that is making dark matter), I have no idea *how* dark matter is annihilating. But I can tell you what we usually assume, and what you need to futz with to get PAMELA/AMS to work.

Let's start with something that we know exists, like e-/e+... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by physicsmatt at 7:06 AM on April 4, 2013

Devonian: What bothers me is how pulsars work.

As a professional, I say to you: Join the club! No, seriously - the key issue is that the radio emission from a pulsar accounts for a tiny (tiny) fraction of the total energy output from a neutron star. Most of it is emitted as electromagnetic radiation but converted (how?) into a particle outflow "wind" - that wind in rare cases produces beautiful bow shock nebulae (link item 3). So trying to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by RedOrGreen at 7:08 AM on April 4, 2013

Let me be utterly clear: AMS did not find dark matter. AMS did not even get us a great deal closer to dark matter. AMS confirmed the positron fraction measured by the previous satellite experiment PAMELA. When the PAMELA results first came out, they were unexpected, and a great deal of work was done to try to explain the results in terms of dark matter. I'll get into the details in a minute. However, PAMELA results could be explained by nearby pulsars (again, I'll explain the details shortly).... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by physicsmatt at 7:05 PM on April 3, 2013

Roger Ebert wrote two whole books that exclusively discussed movies he thought were terrible. When you read them you find that he rarely burns a movie because he had a funny thing that he could say at someone else's expense, or because he was feeling spiteful, but mainly because he was disappointed that the film wasn't better. Even when he's being negative, there was a certain amount of optimism there - even when he didn't love what he'd seen, you could tell he still loved movies, and the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kiablokirk at 3:29 PM on April 4, 2013

DAMMIT ONION YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE ME CRY.
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 3:01 PM on April 4, 2013

Dammit. I grew up with Siskel and Ebert, and as an adult have really grown to appreciate his (mostly) nuanced reviews; my favorites are the ones where he spends about 75% of the review tearing into all the ridiculous plot holes and clichés in a film, only to confess in the last 25% that he loved it in spite of, maybe because of those things. Sometimes movies are like that. After the announcement earlier this week I realized that these last few years, the first thing I do whenever I finish... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by usonian at 1:54 PM on April 4, 2013

Looking at his late-career work, it's not a stretch to say that Roger Ebert had one of the truly great second acts in American public life. What an incredible loss.
posted to MetaFilter by deadmessenger at 1:38 PM on April 4, 2013

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Thumbs up, Roger! Class act. Thank you.

Gene has one up, too (two thumbs up!), waiting for you to join him in The Balcony of Balconies!
posted to MetaFilter by ericb at 1:36 PM on April 4, 2013

Again, great work from the Boston Globe Spotlight team. Same group that exposed the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal, the collections agency scandal, the probation department head scandal, and many others. Journalism is not dead.
posted to MetaFilter by Melismata at 11:33 AM on April 4, 2013

I think you mean the toys from this are scheduled to appear in a happy meal near you circa November 2015.
posted to MetaFilter by 2bucksplus at 12:04 PM on April 4, 2013

Just last week I was looking into the source of the wealth of the Pritzker family in Chicago and came across a lovely little bit about how the IRS sued them for off-shoring wealth but couldn't get details on how much money they had hidden so they settled a $40 Million suit for $10 Million. The Pritzker clan has also had to pay the gov't $460 Million in fines for shady practices with a bank operation. Penny Prizker is apparently on the short list for Secretary of Commerce.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by srboisvert at 11:40 AM on April 4, 2013

Am I just missing something or did American media companies refuse to participate or weren't invited to view the documents for some reason? I hate to speculate, but the words "chilling effects" come to mind...I wonder if these documents will end up online at some point...
posted to MetaFilter by antonymous at 11:37 AM on April 4, 2013

Can't wait for the jail times! I'm sure there will be! For sure!

Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling may be the latest beneficiary of the culture of pervasive permitted, even according to some - encouraged, crime. After being sentenced to prison for 24 years in the aftermath of Enron's spectacular 2001 bankruptcy, the former CEO may be released after serving well less than half of his term. As a result his prison term, which scheduled to end in 2028, may be... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by rough ashlar at 11:29 AM on April 4, 2013

The Ballad of Sandy and Dave
(On the Occasion of the Death of LucasArts)

1

Dave got fat.

Of course he did, though it wasn’t as if the tentacle hadn’t warned her.

All those years ago, sidling up alongside her in that moss-perfumed basement, he—he?—it pressed a sucker against her ear and whispered her a fortune:

Boys like that will... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:30 PM on April 3, 2013

Rebel SCUMM.
posted to MetaFilter by monkeystronghold at 9:39 PM on April 3, 2013

It sure does, but count on me to pay attention to good game music first and foremost. It's kind of my thing! (Land, McConnell, and Bajakian, the IMUSE Holy Trinity, are one of the main reasons I got into game audio)
posted to MetaFilter by jake at 3:01 PM on April 3, 2013

I kind of want to buy some just so I can talk about my bitcoin investment at parties.

You're going to make so many new friends!
posted to MetaFilter by thsmchnekllsfascists at 6:35 AM on April 4, 2013

Mars is for chumps. Look at how much trouble we're having getting out of our current gravity well. Why would we drop our first extraterrestrial settlement at the bottom of another deep gravity well?

~25 meters of rock will provide long-term shielding against cosmic radiation. Go to Luna or an asteroid and dig. Even easier, try the giant lava tube cave in Marius crater. It's pretty much ideal.

Mining and manufacturing on a low gravity moon or... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:08 PM on April 3, 2013

In very related news, Apple recently changed the Webkit commit policy to make an Apple employee the end gatekeeper and to periodically update code in an unhelpful dump-over-the-wall style.

Opera are also making the change to the Blink fork; this isn't a matter of Google choosing to screw over the rest of the Webkit community. It's quite possible that a majority of the Webkit-using companies will shift to Blink.
posted to MetaFilter by jaduncan at 6:35 PM on April 3, 2013

I resent each and every last one of you who even got in the front fucking door.
posted to MetaFilter by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 3:29 PM on April 3, 2013

"With boney hands I hold my partner
On soulless feet we cross the floor
The music stops as if to answer
An empty knocking at the door
It seems his skin was sweet as mango
When last I held him to my breast
But now we dance this grim fandango
And will for years before we rest."
posted to MetaFilter by sicem07 at 4:39 PM on April 3, 2013

Bioware made KOTOR 1, which is why its writing is vastly inferior to KOTOR 2.

Affirmation: Well said, meatbag.
posted to MetaFilter by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:48 PM on April 3, 2013

These are the games that made me not a gamer because no games made anymore are nearly as good or fun to play (though I'd love to be corrected on this).

Sorry, but I doubt I can "correct" your opinion, even if I think it's hilariously misguided. I adore (and grew up with) LucasArts games, and lovingly maintain a 486 DOS machine with a CRT monitor, on which I actually replay them every few months. I don't disagree that they were magical. But... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jake at 2:02 PM on April 3, 2013

Before the internet, before I could just go online and speak directly with a dozen people like me, before television even started trying to show balanced depictions of trans people on television, Iain Banks gave me a Culture full of people who could change their gender whenever they wanted, without fuss and without stigma. Changing gender was just something people did, or didn't to, as they wished. It was a window into a world I needed to live in, a world I could visit whenever I needed to while... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by ArmyOfKittens at 12:15 PM on April 3, 2013

My immediate reaction was sorrow that there would be no more books to look forward to. Then I remembered this quote:

“The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others”
― Iain Banks, Complicity

And so... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by never used baby shoes at 7:37 AM on April 3, 2013

Incidentally, designing a dungeon to live in, in game, presents some real problems.

1) I want to fill it with a variety of monsters to keep it interesting, at least one per floor, with me and my charmed succubus "girlfriend" in the final room. But intelligent monsters would have to be paid or something, which is expensive and builds little loyalty, or charmed, but keeping the succubus charmed is sucking up enough of my spell slots already, and semi-smart... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kyrademon at 8:43 AM on April 3, 2013

What we've run up against here now is the fight between the two competing schools of dungeon design, that was (to my knowledge) part of the split between 1st edition and 2nd edition AD&D, dungeon as magical obstacle course against dungeon as logically consistent environment.

Here are the poles of the argument, neither on its own is wholly satisfactory but are given to present some idea of the ranges of possibility:

The early design archetype... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 1:30 PM on April 3, 2013

GM: Make an athletics check. [pretend to care about what was rolled]. No, that is not nearly high enough. Well, while trying to get the skull in the burlap bag, you accidentally touch it! The skull begins to levitate and lets out an unearthly howl! Everyone make saves vs. death.
posted to MetaFilter by Pyry at 12:27 PM on April 3, 2013

The Birchbark Heroes vs The Tomb of Horrors. (The map is rotated from the one in the post, so the entrance is at the top. Click on the various ovals starting with the one on the top left.)
posted to MetaFilter by fings at 8:55 AM on April 3, 2013

I think one of the things about classic LucasArts games is that most could stand very, very little improvement, especially in presentation. Like, look at Day of the Tentacle, for instance. Short of gameplay tweaks and maybe making some puzzles a little less obtuse -- which, itself, would be heresy to a number of adventure game players -- what can you improve? Better graphics? Why? Better sound? Why?
posted to MetaFilter by griphus at 12:47 PM on April 3, 2013

I wasn't really introduced to the classic catalog of LucasArts until fairly recently, maybe about 6 years ago, so I was definitely a latecomer to the Golden Age of Adventure. In fact, I just finished Day of the Tentacle for the first time last week. If you're wondering if these games were really as good as you remember, I can only say that they've left a huge impression on me. I wrote a game as a birthday present for my now husband because of our shared love of adventure games, and I seriously... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Diagonalize at 12:21 PM on April 3, 2013

In fact, it is, instead, deeply and deliberately meant.
posted to MetaFilter by Len at 10:36 AM on April 3, 2013

Surely he's been backed up?
posted to MetaFilter by Cold Lurkey at 5:36 AM on April 3, 2013

You post like a dairy farmer.
posted to MetaFilter by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:26 AM on April 3, 2013

Can we just give LucasArts some life crystals? Or will they just go batshit and start making MoistureFarmVille and Fandango With Friends?
posted to MetaFilter by uncleozzy at 11:12 AM on April 3, 2013

Robot Walt Disney was last seen hucking Manny Calavera into the Disney(tm) Vault, cackling maniacally.
posted to MetaFilter by hellojed at 11:11 AM on April 3, 2013

Oh, yes.

X-Wing.

Grim Fandango.

Tie Fighter.

Dark Forces.

Full Throttle.

Sam and Max.

So many, many terrific games - and I know I've only mentioned a few. They haven't really produced anything of quality in the last however many years, as very many of you aptly note, but as a nostalgia kick, this hits hard. I loved those... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kbanas at 11:10 AM on April 3, 2013

Unsurprising... Disney is basically in the business of shutting game studios (Propaganda, Black Rock, Junction Point, Lucasarts).

Lucasarts closing now is, as noted, a bit like Sierra closing: it's been nothing but a badge for a long time now. Actually, we are now seeing cool indie mammals (things like Kentucky Route Zero) cautiously picking over the dinosaur bones.
posted to MetaFilter by selfnoise at 10:58 AM on April 3, 2013

*holds up lighter, puts hamster in microwave*
posted to MetaFilter by The Whelk at 10:48 AM on April 3, 2013

Tomb of Horrors was the first module I ever went through, back in 1978 or so. At six years old, I was the youngest player in the group.

We were FIRST LEVEL. To be fair, I think it was the only module my cousin had.

So, first, we spent pretty much all day learning the rules and creating our characters. After hours and hours of puzzling out a game that seemed to have been designed by demented numerologists, I happily took my first level magic... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by kyrademon at 3:32 AM on April 3, 2013

But in all of those cases, the virus was not optimized for human-human transmission. Maybe this one is.

Optimization for human transmission is something that has to evolve, no? Another reason why catching these things before they blow through a large population of humans is important.

Maybe "lucky" is the wrong word. We avoided disaster through a combination of efforts to stop the spread of the viruses... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:49 PM on April 2, 2013

The context of Tomb of Horrors is that it's a convention adventure (as were all 1st ed modules) and was not meant for any party in an ongoing campaign.

For an excellent modern reimagining check out Revenge of the Iron Lich for 4e; takes the balls out insanity of 1e and straps it to the slick 4e tactical/gameplay engine. No word of a lie it has save or die word puzzles and lakes of boilng fucking mithril. And although it is... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Sebmojo at 11:15 PM on April 2, 2013

Wow, Malor was actually there, dude.
posted to MetaFilter by Flashman at 8:45 PM on April 2, 2013

I'd like to see this tech deployed for invasive species control in Florida. Because finally Java could kill Python all day long. *rimshot*
posted to MetaFilter by humanfont at 7:18 PM on April 2, 2013

The Owl bearing gifts link you're looking for is here
posted to MetaFilter by The Owls at 9:17 AM on April 2, 2013

damn you JHarris.

There are advantages to having a next-door neighbor time traveler. -- cue spooky X-files music --

I was super surprised that 51% are critical of the JFK assassination story.

I think it's healthy for citizens to have some degree of mistrust of their government, although it tends to be entirely misplaced these days. (National... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by JHarris at 2:34 PM on April 2, 2013