CuriousCat Archive Page 67 of 202

  2. Are you a morning person or a night owl?

    no

  6. What is it about Memoria that has a dreamy vibe despite the very slow, unhurried pace? What dreamy vibes exactly?

    director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is famous for a kind of magical realism mixed with extremely mundane details. so a lot of very normal things will happen, like mixing audio in a sound studio or noodling on your phone while visiting someone in the hospital, but then things like an entire parking lot of car alarms going off one by one for no apparent reason or a man demonstrating that every night he dies instead of sleeping and demonstrates it for a few minutes. so everything feels quotidian but also heightened and surreal. it's a cool feeling.

  7. Have you ever tried playing bass?

    in response to Do you play any intruments?

    I've never owned a bass but I've noodled around on one before.

  8. Have you seen Top Gun: Maverick yet? If not, are you planning on watching it?

    in response to Favorite Top Gun quote?

    I haven't actually seen the original. I do not have much investment in either one.

  9. Do you have anything against making ranty videos on youtube about movies?

    I'm not against them existing and have enjoyed a few. but I'm never going to make one.

  10. What antivirus software do you use?

    not a suspicious question at all

  11. has anyone ever made a joke about your partner's name being like "ate a man, duly"

    in response to Best books about sexuality you could recommend?

    it's pronounced "I demand a lay"

  12. can you post a rant here about why exactly No Way Home sucks cuz i have no intention of watching it but the points you raised in your movie thread sound very interesting

    GLADLY

    - Aunt May has at this point been in four movies and she has yet to have any character other than "you know, like Rosemary Harris, but hot," so they kill her halfway through and expect that to be this big emotional beat but solely because you cared about a different Aunt May in a different universe; they even have the other Peters give speeches about how being Spider-man just means losing people and blaming yourself forever, which pretty obviously cheapens the moment by pointing out how rote it has become

    - movie's got a very weird and inconsistent notion of what, exactly, "great responsibility" entails. it centers on the opportunity to save/redeem villains from previous movies. most of these characters died at Spider-man's hands in those movies. their deaths were framed as justified; several sacrificed themselves. so is saving them the right thing to do, or not? if so, what about the danger they pose to others while they're here; surely if you are responsible for the dangerous people you are also responsible for the people they put in danger. should we address at any point that the other Spider-mans who killed them are also in this movie? are they morally wrong for having killed them before? seems they are still coded as the good guys, but we are rejecting the moral calculus we used to designate them the good guys in the first place.

    - why are villains villains, anyway? is it mental illness or trauma, things that can be healed with time? or is it the choices that people make? oh, I guess it's neither, it's just a side-effect of their superpowers! ALL SIX OF THEM! so if you cure their superpowers, they will ALL turn into good people again! doesn't matter that this "cure" is entirely nonconsensual! wow, sure is convenient that all these villains have issues that can be "cured" instantly with technobabble macguffins that can all be whipped up in a single scene! why didn't anyone think of that in the FIVE OTHER MOVIES THEY'RE TAKEN FROM?!

    - everything pleasurable about this movie is sidelined. the three Peters bantering is fun! Andrew Garfield is surprisingly charming! Holland and Zendaya have PHENOMENAL chemistry! but ALL of it is crammed into the margins because we need to fight Dr. Strange in the Mirror Realm on top of infinite trains. if you know what the good bits are, MAKE THEM THE CORE OF THE MOVIE FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

    - MJ scolds Peter early on for, you know, casting a spell that was gonna change the fundamental nature of reality in order to get her into MIT without consulting her, and I THINK we're supposed to be on her side? like, "don't change the universe for me if I'm not asking you to?" but NOPE, the movie ends with him doing an EVEN MORE DRASTIC alteration to the universe without her consent and we're supposed to see it as a noble sacrifice.

    - you cannot convince me Tom Holland's Peter Parker was ready to become a coldblooded killer, but that's apparently the emotional climax of the movie?

  14. Not to discount your friends' experiences, but I find that notion hard to reconcile with the patriarchal dystopia we all live in.

    in response to The problem is that the majority of johns deserve the stigma for being creeps if not full-blown sex criminals far more likely to get off scott-free than the sex workers they abuse. Such is life in the patriarchy.

    "I would rather listen to my assumptions than the lived experience of sex workers" is pretty patriarchal

  15. favorite aphex twin songs

    in response to favorite aphex twin album

    yellowcalx

  16. Any ideas for some new genres?

    I want a mix of IDM and thrash metal.

  17. Favorite Star Fox 64 quote?

    Slippy's not such a screw-up after all!

  18. Can you recommend me any good roguelikes? I'm a fan of The Binding of Isaac and Downwell.

    in response to well, for example, the ones you got during the steam sale you tweeted out. Desync, Papetura, NUTS, and Vomitoreum all have 0 current players as I'm checking right now on steam charts. The Signifiers Director's Cut only has 5. I am curious where you learn about these games. Were they gifts, or perhaps part of a Humble Bundle?

    Nuclear Throne and/or Spelunky

  19. Is it too much pressure to say I think your vids are the most important media I've ever consumed?

    I am honored and humbled by that, and not too pressured, so thank you

  20. Best books about sexuality you could recommend?

    I asked my partner ( https://aidamanduley.com/ ) and they recommended:

    Girl Sex 101, by Allison Moon
    Come as you Are, by Emily Nagoski
    The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability, by Cory Silverberg and Miriam Kaufman
    Healing Sex: A Mind-body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma, by Staci Haines
    Nerve Endings: The New Trans Erotic, edited by Tobi Hill-Meyer

  22. What's a game you wish you could play completely blind again?

    Outer Wilds

  23. favorite aphex twin album

    I have a lot of love for Drukqs and I Care Because You Do but my heart belongs to the Richard D. James Album

  24. I started playing The Talos Principle today because I already had it in my Steam library. So far... eh. It hasn't struck my fancy.

    I don't like how each puzzle involves having to time your movements to avoid the mines. My heart skips a beat whenever one blows up. I like how The Witness's puzzles were shorter and sweeter. Each maze was shown entirely on a single screen, so I don't have to run around picking up jammers. The times when puzzles from TW had you look around outside the maze, they were more because you had to look for clues that reveal which path you have to take. Not to mention the *other kinds of puzzles* you can find in the Witness that is really creative, but I don't want to spoil them for anyone reading right now. The overworlds in TTP feel more empty and drab. There's no point in how spacious they are because you only use them to go from one stage to another. At least the test chambers in Portal just had one elevator to step into to load the next puzzle and bam, you're already there.

    The computer files are just boring so far and don't make sense, but I haven't played the game long enough to understand them of course. The religious/philosophical aesthetic is alright. I want to learn more about Aristotle and other Greek philosophers, so it's nice that the game mentions him already. The protagonist being a robot also hasn't really been brought up, except when I humorously had to answer the "are you a bot?" test to log in like with real websites.

    I've only played the game for 78 minutes though. If there's anything further on that might change my mind or pique my interest, then do tell! Also sorry to rant on your CC ^-^

    in response to What are some puzzle games like The Witness that center around one mechanic that gets more complex as you progress?

    I haven't actually played it, I just know it's near to The Witness in design

  25. The problem is that the majority of johns deserve the stigma for being creeps if not full-blown sex criminals far more likely to get off scott-free than the sex workers they abuse. Such is life in the patriarchy.

    in response to Do you think that in order to destigmatize sex workers we also need to destigmatize sex customers?

    enough are creeps that it's a danger, but none of the sex workers I've known would say the majority are creeps

  26. You do have a point there, but I was thinking more about extremist communities online. When Twitter banned many alt-right figureheads like Richard Spencer, they migrated over to Gab. Same with when Reddit banned r/The_Donald, they just created their own site.

    There are still hateful subreddits that have only been quarantined, like r/KotakuInAction and r/TheRedPill. Do you think banning them all together would go a long way towards preventing their ideology from spreading and recruiting more people? For example, r/TheRedPill has been pretty successful at spreading its rhetoric all over the internet. Words like "incel" have become ubiquitous online. It feels like Pandora's box has already been opened.

    in response to Does deplatforming work?

    I find it odd that you don't consider those wins. the Alt-Right's goal is to recruit normies to the cause. I made a whole video about how they mainstream their beliefs. you can spread your ideology far and wide on Twitter; you can't do that on Gab. it's a tiny fraction of the audience, and a huge chunk of that is people who already agree with you. in fact, platforms like Gab and Parler get so overrun with Nazis that it tends to chase away everybody else. Reddit is one of the biggest sites on the internet, how is The_Donald better off on a private website? who even goes to private websites anymore?

    obviously a degree of damage has been done and deplatforming doesn't instantly undo it all. there are some cats that don't easily get back in the bag. but micro-platforms with no one BUT Nazis on them are not gonna help them grow, and they know it, which is why they're trying so hard to get back on Twitter (e.g. how may of them returned when they thought Elon was gonna buy it).

  27. This is your sign to drink water

    no I'm an earth sign

  28. is that bad?

    in response to How parasocial is this interaction

    not so far. I try not to go higher than that.

  29. Was that you playing the acoustic guitar on ass danced off by danskin?

    in response to Do you play any intruments?

    yes, but not live. that's me making some decisions in advance about the notes and chords I wanted to use, recording them individually, and then building the song out of those samples in the editing program.

  30. Does deplatforming work?

    yeah, when's the last time you heard from Richard Spencer?

  31. Do you think that in order to destigmatize sex workers we also need to destigmatize sex customers?

    there is social stigma around johns but, generally, laws and the public punish the workers far more than their customers, so, like, yes? but it's not the top priority.

  33. What phone do you use?

    the one that's mine

  34. soul-crushing/thought-provoking walking simulators like What Remains of Edith Finch? i know a lot about Gone Home and Dear Esther but have not played either

    in response to well, for example, the ones you got during the steam sale you tweeted out. Desync, Papetura, NUTS, and Vomitoreum all have 0 current players as I'm checking right now on steam charts. The Signifiers Director's Cut only has 5. I am curious where you learn about these games. Were they gifts, or perhaps part of a Humble Bundle?

    you should definitely play Virginia, it's gorgeous. and then, yeah, Gone Home and Dear Esther.

  35. different poster: since you mentioned it earlier, what did you think of Steve Jobs (2015)?

    also extremely, addictively watchable, but with fewer interesting themes and more irritation with Sorkin's obsession with talented assholes

    here's the thing about Sorkin and talented assholes: he is usually projecting talent onto men who were mostly just assholes

  36. What are your thoughts on the film The Social Network if you've seen it?

    complicated.

    for pure entertainment value, it's probably the best movie ever made from a Sorkin script. the material meshes well with his suite of talents (ping-pong dialogue, legal proceedings) and obsessions (talented assholes, guys being dudes). the opening conversation in the bar is SATISFYING in a similar way to a good dance number or action scene. and it juggles some interesting thoughts about how creativity manifests in the digital age, the evolving nature of friendship, the way the young and computer literate are taking over the culture from the previous generation accustomed to holding the purse strings. crackerjack stuff, and Fincher directs the hell out of it.

    trying to explore any of those themes beyond the glossy surface Sorkin and Fincher give it leaves me hungry. like, Sorkin's movie about Steve Jobs was called "Steve Jobs" because it's about Steve Jobs; this isn't called "Mark Zuckerberg" or even "Facebook," it's called "The Social Network" because it's about the rise social media. and that requires a lot of fudging of the details to fit into the Zuckerberg story. because everything the movie has to say about friendship in the digital age and the changing face of wealth depends on Facebook representing some revolutionary new idea. and that only works if you treat "Facebook" as a shorthand for "social media" itself.

    because all Facebook did was a streamline MySpace. like, the thing that allegedly makes Facebook different from MySpace is that it's "exclusive," but, by the end of the movie, it expects you to be impressed with how HUGE it's gotten, that there are two BILLION people on the platform. clearly not exclusive anymore, it's the biggest social media site on Earth at that point! "exclusivity" amounts to a marketing strategy that gets people in the door. compared with MySpace, it has a cleaner design that you can't customize and the first wave is all rich college kids. THAT'S what makes Facebook different: they gentrified MySpace.

    but Sean Parker's speech in the club - "a once in a lifetime holy shit idea" - ONLY WORKS if you ignore that and accept that he's talking about the very idea of social media itself. which, yes, was clearly going to be huge, and the people to capitalize on it were going to get rich as fuck, but Facebook didn't actually INVENT anything there. they just figured out how to package it so it made money. in which case, Zuck isn't actually that creative and none of the stuff about friendship or young wealth is unique to Facebook.

    and I resent that it made me believe Mark Zuckerberg was smart, creative, and quick-witted for years before discovering he's a total dick.

    (but I still love watching it.)

  37. Why wouldn't it matter if it were?

    in response to Is patriarchy natural to humans?

    what is natural is not necessarily moral, what is moral is not necessarily natural

  38. Do you play any intruments?

    I play guitar

  39. Can you solve a Rubik's Cube?

    not on purpose!

  40. What are some puzzle games like The Witness that center around one mechanic that gets more complex as you progress?

    in response to well, for example, the ones you got during the steam sale you tweeted out. Desync, Papetura, NUTS, and Vomitoreum all have 0 current players as I'm checking right now on steam charts. The Signifiers Director's Cut only has 5. I am curious where you learn about these games. Were they gifts, or perhaps part of a Humble Bundle?

    Baba is You or The Talos Principle might whet that appetite

  41. (Different anon) What are some good Collectathon games like Super Mario Odyssey, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, and A Hat in Time? Doesn't have to be indie.

    in response to well, for example, the ones you got during the steam sale you tweeted out. Desync, Papetura, NUTS, and Vomitoreum all have 0 current players as I'm checking right now on steam charts. The Signifiers Director's Cut only has 5. I am curious where you learn about these games. Were they gifts, or perhaps part of a Humble Bundle?

    not one of my pet genres, but Fez and Psychonauts fit the bill in different ways

  42. Should we make more ape sounds

    evolutionarily speaking, all our sounds are definitionally ape sounds

  44. What's the difference between a comma and a semicolon

    semicolons are commas with CAPES

  45. different anon but i've been looking for an fps where you're one person pitted against tons of enemies, for whatever reason serious sam and painkiller didn't scratch that itch, and i'm tired of playing doom wads, even if they're really good

    in response to well, for example, the ones you got during the steam sale you tweeted out. Desync, Papetura, NUTS, and Vomitoreum all have 0 current players as I'm checking right now on steam charts. The Signifiers Director's Cut only has 5. I am curious where you learn about these games. Were they gifts, or perhaps part of a Humble Bundle?

    hmm, Serious Sam is probably the largest tonnage of enemies, so it looks like that's not your only criterion!

    if you want something DOOMy but a bit modern, I really love Project Warlock. also Project Warlock II is in early access, and, though I haven't played it, word is levels have HUNDREDS of enemies, so that might be up your alley.

    DUSK is great and most shootgam fans enjoy it! it's got that DOOM vibe of having a concrete number of enemies with reliable behavior patterns that get mixed and matched to create unique combat experiences. some of the bigger maps are quite stuffed with baddies.

    HROT is also in early access, but it's got two full episodes now. parts of it are more slow-paced, where you explore mazelike maps, but it's also got some pretty frenetic battles.

    if you want something truly frantic, Post Void has you covered. it's a run-based roguelite so it's never quite the same twice, but it's very fast and absolutely MAD.

    I can't get enough of Prodeus.

    and you don't get much more wild than Ultrakill.

  46. I'm writing a city for a D&D campaign that's supposed to be a realistic-ish depiction of what a libertarian 'utopia' would look like, with no government that makes or enforces laws, that's ruled by a single autocrat. What would that look like? Is there any media you'd recommend to get a feel for writing a place like that?

    uh... BioShock? Tommorrowland? Atlas Shrugged?

  47. Have you ever communicated with Samuel R. Delany or reached out to him?

    a friend of mine was one of the organizers for ReaderCon and when she passed along that he was coming into town for it I finagled it so that I'd be in the car that drove him from the bus terminal to the convention. I meant to bring my copy of The Motion of Light in Water for him to sign but I forgot it LIKE A WORM. he was very bright and friendly, total sweetheart, and I'm pretty sure I came off as a fanboy trying not to come off as a fanboy.

  48. you talk about having a lot of dates, so i assume you are a phoenix dactylifera palm tree

    I don't have a lot of dates, you must be confusing me with someone else

  50. Have you ever considered making a video that explains how to organize a group that can take collective action towards leftist goals or how to join one that already exists?

    the second thing, yes, but I don't currently have that information

  51. Have you seen RRR? I'm feeling weird about the fact that my two favorite moves of the summer are Hindu Nationalist and US Military propaganda (RRR and Top Gun Maverick).

    RRR is anti-imperialist!

  52. do you have any plans for that scrapped doom script?

    enhhhhhh... I had loose plans to do something on violence in video games that wasn't about DOOM but cannibalized much of that script, but... I don't know if it still interests me?

  53. Is patriarchy natural to humans?

    a) probably not
    b) it wouldn't matter if it were

  54. Alright, it's time to ask the real serious questions.

    Asuka, Rei, or Misato?

    yeah

  55. quick question, have you abandoned this question asking platform for the new hot question asking platform?

    no

  56. I've wanted to adopt a vegetarian and eventually vegan lifestyle for a while now. The problem is I live with my parents, so I rely on them to choose what food I eat.

    They've discouraged me from trying to eat healthier because I'm already very underweight (125 pounds as a male teen), and they don't want me to disappear. In order to try to gain weight, I've been eating the standard American diet for the last two years of quarantine (burgers, pizza, ice cream, etc.), along with home-cooked food that consists of rice, beans, and veggies. I think I have a fast metabolism, which is why it hasn't been working. But I'm aware that most people's metabolisms slow down by the time they reach their 20s.

    I want to start eating more green for health and ethical reasons, but I don't know what my next course of action should be. Any advice, please?

    https://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Junk-Food-Expanded-Crave_Minus/dp/1507209037

  57. How many times have you had jury duty?

    0

  58. what exactly does "conditional-orientatiom love song" mean? asking in the context of a potential Jolene protagony episode you mentioned on twitter

    you'll have to wait and see!

  59. What are some other game websites you like besides adventuregamers.com?

    in response to well, for example, the ones you got during the steam sale you tweeted out. Desync, Papetura, NUTS, and Vomitoreum all have 0 current players as I'm checking right now on steam charts. The Signifiers Director's Cut only has 5. I am curious where you learn about these games. Were they gifts, or perhaps part of a Humble Bundle?

    I used to check indiegames.com and TIGSource daily, but not anymore. honestly, I don't really visit review sites these days? E1M1 has a curator page on Steam that's really helpful if you want boomer shooters (even if they like some games I think suck). Casey Explosion's curator page is reliable as well. but, honestly? it's mostly social media these days.

  60. Just watched a video about yuri norstein and francheska yarbusova and The Overcoat. For some reason I feel like it’s something you’d find interesting and or have an opinion about so I’m here to ask if you’ve ever heard of it?

    nope

  61. Noooo, I missed your ask me questions Twitter thread :(. Oh well. If only there were some other way to send you messages anonymously. That's too bad.

  62. favorite disco elysium skill?

    I mean, Shivers. there are lots of great skills, but you can't outclass how odd and fascinating Shivers is.

  63. different anon, but i NEED more detective games like obra dinn and disco elysium.

    in response to well, for example, the ones you got during the steam sale you tweeted out. Desync, Papetura, NUTS, and Vomitoreum all have 0 current players as I'm checking right now on steam charts. The Signifiers Director's Cut only has 5. I am curious where you learn about these games. Were they gifts, or perhaps part of a Humble Bundle?

    GMTK has a video about detective games, looks like he found a lot of the good ones! https://youtu.be/gwV_mA2cv_0

    you might also check out The Forgotten City and Paradise Killer. oh, and A Case of Distrust could scratch that itch!

  64. Am I racist for feeling that blonde, blue-eyed women are more attractive than people with physical features of other colors?

    if you have a type, that's your business, what's dubious is the need to broadcast it

  65. How accurate is it to say debates are only really effective at affirming perspectives that somebody already believe in?

    medium accurate! it's also the case that debate-watchers tend to root for one of the debaters, and this emotional investment is stronger than their perspectives on the issues being debated. so, if the side they're rooting for says something they disagree with, they are more likely to update their beliefs than lose respect for their "team."

    I have a section in a future script where I dig (briefly) into the science of debate. there is SOME room to make progress using the format, but it's very narrow. it's a high-risk, low-reward proposition.

  66. well, for example, the ones you got during the steam sale you tweeted out. Desync, Papetura, NUTS, and Vomitoreum all have 0 current players as I'm checking right now on steam charts. The Signifiers Director's Cut only has 5. I am curious where you learn about these games. Were they gifts, or perhaps part of a Humble Bundle?

    in response to why do you buy games that only have 4 concurrent players on steam (no offense)

    Desync and Vomitoreum are known within the "retro FPS" space, and I follow some of those folks on Twitter/YouTube. Papetura I heard about from adventuregamers.com. NUTS, I think, was from my Discovery queue? I'm not sure about The Signifier, it might have been a trailer I saw way back in its development, or that might be a different but similar game and this one was also Discovery queue.

    in general, I'm a fan of some niche genres and I used to spend a lot of time on indie game websites, so those are the communities I'm plugged into. I also have enough of a Twitter audience that I can just say "recommend me some shit you think I haven't heard of" and reliably get some cool results.

    are there any genres you'd like to find hidden gems in? I could point you in some directions!

  67. Favorite band or musician from Boston?

    They Might Be Giants are from Lincoln, does that count?

  68. Have you experienced any long COVID symptoms?

    hard to say, honestly. lotta people report brain fog and fatigue, which I definitely have been grappling with, but I was dealing with them BEFORE I got COVID as well thanks to the stress of living in a pandemic, having access to community and culture restricted, fearing for the lives of my loved ones, watching the numbers of dead rise, having all my routines obliterated, and having no privacy once all my housemates started working from home.

    so, like... which of my lingering issues are COVID, and which are *gestures at everything*?

  69. Care to elaborate?

    in response to Here's another hypothetical for you, unrelated to the idea of personhood: The goal of pro life-advocacy is for abortion to not only be legalized globally, but to become commonplace. But would that not carry with it the risk of the death rate exceeding the birth rate worldwide, which over a long enough timetable would inevitably result in human extinction? Could that not become a global crisis on par with say, environmental destruction? Would it not be ethical to place restrictions on abortion then?

    fam if it's not clear I dunno what to do for you

  71. Anything come to mind you'd say should NOT become nationalised?

    in response to Should telecommunications, data networking and Wi-Fi connections be free of use everywhere and nationalised?

    one of the problems with capitalism is that "private" and "personal" are often conflated. we say we should abolish private property and folks are like "so you're gonna take all my stuff??" no, your toothbrush is not private property, it's personal property.

    I want to nationalize private goods and services. I want to leave personal goods alone.

  72. Would a chicken egg somehow made without a chicken be morally/ethically distinct from one that a chicken laid? One egg made from magic, somehow, another gained the standard way?

    you have presented me with an egg conjured by magic from nothing, my first question is not "who gets to eat it?"

  73. How parasocial is this interaction

    low end of medium

  74. Thoughts on Sigmund Freud's ideas?

    look, he was the first guy to do what he was doing, of COURSE he was gonna be wrong about everything!

  75. How long should copyright last on works of fiction?

    this is a difficult question for me, because, in the society I want to live in, there probably wouldn't be any such thing as copyright. for the world we live in now? life of the author at most, and copyright is non-transferable.

Anon commented:
Ian replied: