Domino Quartz's Delightfully Quaint Random Banter Thread #248

[Peelee]

You're all arguing over units when the superior option is the degree Ranking.

Nope. Temperature, not degree. Kelvin, the superior one, is an absolute scale and as such does not use degrees.

[halfeye]

You're all arguing over units when the superior option is the degree Ranking. Steps as small as in Fahrenheit but zero is in an actually logical position

Now if you'll excuse me I'm waiting for them to release Chales's foot length so I can finally get an up to date tape measure and update my flat's dimensions

Love the deliberate pissmelling of Rankine.

[Anonymouswizard]

Love the deliberate pissmelling of Rankine.

Actually my ottocorrect kicked in

[Peelee]

Whoops, misread that. Although Rankine is also an absolute scale and doesn't use degrees.

[Bartmanhomer]

Today I have a relaxing day today. I wrote two stories and right now, I'm at home watching CSI: The Original Series.

[Rater202]

Be me.

3 days later.

Know what you want to write but be unable to get it out and keep getting distracted by other stuff, barely get out a thousand words and still have plenty to go.

It took two more days and some adjustments to the outline but I got it out.

[TaiLiu]

Well, my recent therapist says that her replacement is nice. So I have a feeling that I'll get along very well with her replacement.

That's good to know.

[Bartmanhomer]

That's good to know.

Thanks, friend.

[TaiLiu]

Thanks, friend.

For sure.

Since we're talking about change: How's your new Starbucks job?

[Bartmanhomer]

For sure.

Since we're talking about change: How's your new Starbucks job?

I'm not working there just yet.

[TaiLiu]

I'm not working there just yet.

Oh, okay. :O

[Bartmanhomer]

Oh, okay. :O

Long story short. I have to get paperwork and documents to move forward to get referral at my job. So I'm focusing on one document at a time.

[Metastachydium]

Yes, it does. Numbers are arbitrary. 0 is no more or less objectively a freezing temperature than 32, or 97, or any other number.

Meaning my point stands: Fahrenheit doesn't feel more accurate than any other system.^◘ So… Meh. (That I find it clunky, random and unintuitive is a different matter, but hey.)

---

^◘Except Delisle, but everything feels more accurate than Delisle. THAT'S JUST NOT HOW THERMAL ENERGY WORKS!

[Peelee]

Meaning my point stands: Fahrenheit doesn't feel more accurate than any other system

Sure it does, if it's your native system, but that's thumbing the scales because it's true of all the temperature systems. Raise someone in Rankine and they'll feel it's more accurate, I'd bet.

This is why I think the switch to metric in the 70s failed in the US. Should have kept US Customary Units but also put metric in side by side. Let an entire generation, maybe two, get through in the meantime, then just phase out US Customary. You'll have a large base that intuitively understands metric and an older population who may or may not but can still readily relate metric to what they grew up with.

[LaZodiac]

So, due to a recent spate of boredom and rewatching old video essays I enjoy while doing maintenance work, I started playing Mass Effect Andromeda. If you don't remember or care about an ancient old dead series and the game that killed it, Andromeda is the much maligned spin off sequel to the genuinely fantastic Mass Effect trilogy. All I've heard from Andromeda is one or two people being like "the gameplay and main story writing are rout and kind of bad which is a disservice to the good character stuff" and a million of The Usual Folks being upset there's a trans woman side character in the game and they had the gall to make an Asari character not look conventionally attractive, instead opting on having her look like a lovable dork who you wouldn't trust with your keys no matter how much she insists she won't do a Ferris Bueller.

Game's decently fun so far. It's got the kinda checklisty busywork and intolerable inventory management of Mass Effect 1, but has the character writing skills of Mass Effect 2 and 3, and while I imagine it will fall apart eventually and there are some holes I could poke and some things that are like "eeeh that's dumb" already I can safely say the main plot is Fine at the very least. I'm impressed that if you leave your character with her default name people will USE said name instead of everyone simply being on a last-name or title basis, which of course ties into the character writing stuff, and I actually really like the soft, trying-too-hard butch lesbian protagonist I've designed whereas in the Mass Effect trilogy I basically just left Shepherd as is because her default character design is perfect.

[ShadowShinobi]

I felt people were too hard on ME:A. Sure, it had its issues when it first came out, but it's not a bad game. It sucks that we'll never get any sequels, to find out the consequences of our decisions.

[BisectedBrioche]

Sure it does, if it's your native system, but that's thumbing the scales because it's true of all the temperature systems. Raise someone in Rankine and they'll feel it's more accurate, I'd bet.

This is why I think the switch to metric in the 70s failed in the US. Should have kept US Customary Units but also put metric in side by side. Let an entire generation, maybe two, get through in the meantime, then just phase out US Customary. You'll have a large base that intuitively understands metric and an older population who may or may not but can still readily relate metric to what they grew up with.

This is pretty much what happened in the UK. There's some oddities (such as beer and milk being sold in pints, with the ml printed on them, and most brands doing both 500ml and 568ml cans), but pretty much everyone under a certain age understands and uses metric without a problem.

[Anonymouswizard]

So, due to a recent spate of boredom and rewatching old video essays I enjoy while doing maintenance work, I started playing Mass Effect Andromeda. If you don't remember or care about an ancient old dead series and the game that killed it, Andromeda is the much maligned spin off sequel to the genuinely fantastic Mass Effect trilogy. All I've heard from Andromeda is one or two people being like "the gameplay and main story writing are rout and kind of bad which is a disservice to the good character stuff" and a million of The Usual Folks being upset there's a trans woman side character in the game and they had the gall to make an Asari character not look conventionally attractive, instead opting on having her look like a lovable dork who you wouldn't trust with your keys no matter how much she insists she won't do a Ferris Bueller.

Game's decently fun so far. It's got the kinda checklisty busywork and intolerable inventory management of Mass Effect 1, but has the character writing skills of Mass Effect 2 and 3, and while I imagine it will fall apart eventually and there are some holes I could poke and some things that are like "eeeh that's dumb" already I can safely say the main plot is Fine at the very least. I'm impressed that if you leave your character with her default name people will USE said name instead of everyone simply being on a last-name or title basis, which of course ties into the character writing stuff, and I actually really like the soft, trying-too-hard butch lesbian protagonist I've designed whereas in the Mass Effect trilogy I basically just left Shepherd as is because her default character design is perfect.

Andromeda is really good when you're in a contained mission area and you're playing a shooter-platformer. It's really bad when it's asking you to drive across overly large maps for objective #678 (remember that from ME1? Now the maps are bigger!). It also has this weird idea that I want Ryder to sleep with multiple asari when there's a krogan in the squad.

Like Andromeda's gameplay is really good, even if the story has some true idiot ball moments ('we expected to fly to another galaxy, ask to have the seven best worlds in the cluster, and be accepted with open arms' - the people explaining why the initiative doesn't have a single warship).

...I might go back to MEA after Greedfall.

[LaZodiac]

Andromeda is really good when you're in a contained mission area and you're playing a shooter-platformer. It's really bad when it's asking you to drive across overly large maps for objective #678 (remember that from ME1? Now the maps are bigger!). It also has this weird idea that I want Ryder to sleep with multiple asari when there's a krogan in the squad.

Like Andromeda's gameplay is really good, even if the story has some true idiot ball moments ('we expected to fly to another galaxy, ask to have the seven best worlds in the cluster, and be accepted with open arms' - the people explaining why the initiative doesn't have a single warship).

...I might go back to MEA after Greedfall.

I'm still early on so I don't know how bad the checklisty stuff gets, but I do like the idea of like "find the body of the first murder victim and investigate if this is actually murder or not" as a collection target, and I do enjoy ME2's planet scanning being back.

In the lightest defense I can muster (having not seen that scene yet probably), the people of the Milky Way galaxy apparently just all spoke the same language by design or had a universal translator that never came up in plot, so it made sense to them that they'd be able to come in with absolutely zero malicious intentions and be like "can we please negotiate a peaceful first contact?". Ryder even expresses a sadness at first contact on Hyperion's part being violent.

No my current big problem with the plot is that some of the writing just flatly doesn't gel with the scenario writing. "Well that was a bad first contact" is a fine thing for Ryder to say cause as far as she knows that IS the first time anyone has met an alien from Andromeda, but no the Nexus forces have met the Kett a lot. That side quest to solve the first murder on the station doesn't really track when it happened in the wake of an armed revolt that led to a huge chunk of people being exiled for super-crimes. The fact that they let Director "What do you mean you're bringing Krogan?" Tann be in charge of anything, even accounting for the fact that he's the eighth in line and never should have been more than a high ranking accountant, is wild. The acceptance most people have for the AI on board is also patently ridiculous, and is probably the real explanation for why the Quarian arc never launched.

That said, I do like some of what the game presents. The idea that, after 600 years the Krogan might actually start to adapt to the genophage, since they are extremophiles by virtue of where they live, is neat. Curing them in ME3 is still important since there's no reason to believe they could MAKE it 600 years by natural standards, but using the benefits of cryosleep to medically simulate centuries of evolution? Sure that's cool. And the idea Dad Ryder had about integrating AI into mortal flesh so that the AI doesn't have a creator-created disconnect and is able to better understand our perspective, leading to safe AIs thanks to the union of flesh and machine... is literally the green ending from ME3 done through the long, hard way, and I actually really like that!

[Form]

Sure it does, if it's your native system, but that's thumbing the scales because it's true of all the temperature systems. Raise someone in Rankine and they'll feel it's more accurate, I'd bet.

Well, of course if you traumatize a child by exposing them to nonsensical systems of measurement starting from birth it will scar them well into adulthood!

IThe fact that they let Director "What do you mean you're bringing Krogan?" Tann be in charge of anything, even accounting for the fact that he's the eighth in line and never should have been more than a high ranking accountant, is wild.

I think that was intended to convey how bad the situation had gotten. If all the leadership and several layers below them get wiped out then... yeah, you're left with whatever disappointment is left dangling at the other end of the chain of command.

[Peelee]

Well, of course if you traumatize a child by exposing them to nonsensical systems

[looks at Location: Netherlands tag]

[recalls what language is primarily spoken in the Netherlands]

Are you sure you want to be throwing stones here?

[LaZodiac]

I think that was intended to convey how bad the situation had gotten. If all the leadership and several layers below them get wiped out then... yeah, you're left with whatever disappointment is left dangling at the other end of the chain of command.

True but I feel like if you're sending an armada of people to colonize a new cluster of stars, where integration and integrity upon species/racial lines is important, I feel like casual bigotry is one of those auto-rejections. Like surely they can't be SO hard up for accountants that they need Tann, right? Right?

Thought yeah it really does make it clear just how ****ed things, and I do appreciate that. I hate Tann but I'm definitely supposed to and it works well. Conversely I love Drak and his grand-daughter so much, how are the Krogan such well written characters basically every time they get any focus in this series.

[enderlord99]

[looks at Location: Netherlands tag]

[recalls what language is primarily spoken in the Netherlands]

Are you sure you want to be throwing stones here?

I know this is photoshopped, but...

Spoiler

Show

[Form]

[looks at Location: Netherlands tag]

[recalls what language is primarily spoken in the Netherlands]

Are you sure you want to be throwing stones here?

En ik ben diep getraumatiseerd!

True but I feel like if you're sending an armada of people to colonize a new cluster of stars, where integration and integrity upon species/racial lines is important, I feel like casual bigotry is one of those auto-rejections. Like surely they can't be SO hard up for accountants that they need Tann, right? Right?

Thought yeah it really does make it clear just how ****ed things, and I do appreciate that. I hate Tann but I'm definitely supposed to and it works well. Conversely I love Drak and his grand-daughter so much, how are the Krogan such well written characters basically every time they get any focus in this series.

They needed a lot of people. I wouldn't expect them to screen everyone for something like that, certainly not kind of lower ranked personnel in the accounting (I forget, was Tann really an accountant of sorts?) department. To be honest, I probably wouldn't filter him out either. If he was supposed to be high ranking leadership or otherwise important to his job, then sure, he doesn't belong there, but somewhere on the lower end of the chain and somewhere he doesn't have control over interspecies cooperation? Erhhh, not great, but he shouldn't generate too much friction as an accountant and will probably be useful enough.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm still early on so I don't know how bad the checklisty stuff gets, but I do like the idea of like "find the body of the first murder victim and investigate if this is actually murder or not" as a collection target, and I do enjoy ME2's planet scanning being back.

Oh, some of the quests are great. Others are 'go to place X, kill people/find thing, report to auestgiver'.

In the lightest defense I can muster (having not seen that scene yet probably), the people of the Milky Way galaxy apparently just all spoke the same language by design or had a universal translator that never came up in plot, so it made sense to them that they'd be able to come in with absolutely zero malicious intentions and be like "can we please negotiate a peaceful first contact?". Ryder even expresses a sadness at first contact on Hyperion's part being violent.

IIRC Andromeda straight up ignores how the translators work, but I might just be misremembering. But they need their software constantly updated to keep pace with linguistic drift and aren't perfect (although that only appears in Thane's romance), so you need first contact to ensure they work.

Also humanity in Mass Effect refers to a certain event as the First Contact War. The initiative really should have brought ship scale weapons as well as personal ones (although the Tempests shouldn't be retrofitted, they'd need a complete redesign to be practically armed).

No my current big problem with the plot is that some of the writing just flatly doesn't gel with the scenario writing. "Well that was a bad first contact" is a fine thing for Ryder to say cause as far as she knows that IS the first time anyone has met an alien from Andromeda, but no the Nexus forces have met the Kett a lot. That side quest to solve the first murder on the station doesn't really track when it happened in the wake of an armed revolt that led to a huge chunk of people being exiled for super-crimes. The fact that they let Director "What do you mean you're bringing Krogan?" Tann be in charge of anything, even accounting for the fact that he's the eighth in line and never should have been more than a high ranking accountant, is wild. The acceptance most people have for the AI on board is also patently ridiculous, and is probably the real explanation for why the Quarian arc never launched.

Spoiler

Show

IIRC most SAMs are significantly more shackled than Ryder's.

Although yes, the plot really needed another few passes. And more dates with Krogan.

That said, I do like some of what the game presents. The idea that, after 600 years the Krogan might actually start to adapt to the genophage, since they are extremophiles by virtue of where they live, is neat. Curing them in ME3 is still important since there's no reason to believe they could MAKE it 600 years by natural standards, but using the benefits of cryosleep to medically simulate centuries of evolution? Sure that's cool. And the idea Dad Ryder had about integrating AI into mortal flesh so that the AI doesn't have a creator-created disconnect and is able to better understand our perspective, leading to safe AIs thanks to the union of flesh and machine... is literally the green ending from ME3 done through the long, hard way, and I actually really like that!

Andromeda is a really good foundation, it just needed to be refined a lot more than it was. Cool ideas, shame about how it doesn't really get to properly finish it's stories.

[LaZodiac]

They needed a lot of people. I wouldn't expect them to screen everyone for something like that, certainly not kind of lower ranked personnel in the accounting (I forget, was Tann really an accountant of sorts?) department. To be honest, I probably wouldn't filter him out either. If he was supposed to be high ranking leadership or otherwise important to his job, then sure, he doesn't belong there, but somewhere on the lower end of the chain and somewhere he doesn't have control over interspecies cooperation? Erhhh, not great, but he shouldn't generate too much friction as an accountant and will probably be useful enough.

Eeeh, fair enough.

Also to be clear, Tann's original title was, quote, "Senior Consultant, Advanced Matrix-Based Accounting", which is... definitely just sci-fi jargon for Fancy Accountant.

Oh, some of the quests are great. Others are 'go to place X, kill people/find thing, report to auestgiver'.

IIRC Andromeda straight up ignores how the translators work, but I might just be misremembering. But they need their software constantly updated to keep pace with linguistic drift and aren't perfect (although that only appears in Thane's romance), so you need first contact to ensure they work.

Also humanity in Mass Effect refers to a certain event as the First Contact War. The initiative really should have brought ship scale weapons as well as personal ones (although the Tempests shouldn't be retrofitted, they'd need a complete redesign to be practically armed).

Spoiler

Show

IIRC most SAMs are significantly more shackled than Ryder's.

Although yes, the plot really needed another few passes. And more dates with Krogan.

Andromeda is a really good foundation, it just needed to be refined a lot more than it was. Cool ideas, shame about how it doesn't really get to properly finish it's stories.

I'll be honest, despite being a massive lore-hound I don't even remember what the lore of translators in Mass Effect IS. I know some of the Kett language gets translated (enough to give them pithy unit names) but beyond that, nothing.

Yeah, Ryder!SAM being a specialized, tinkered up version of SAM is a thing I know. Though my point still stands- integration of AI and mortal as one omni-being is quite literally what Synthesis does, and in fact how the golden ending for the Quarian/Geth conflict goes as well.

I'm shocked they never let you date a Krogan at all throughout the entire series. My best best BEST guess is that aside from Asari whose entire space-hat is "breeds with anything", they don't want to even imply the idea that Krogan would have kids outside their species as a means of continuing their race post genophage, and so they completely divorce them from the romance system entirely.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm shocked they never let you date a Krogan at all throughout the entire series. My best best BEST guess is that aside from Asari whose entire space-hat is "breeds with anything", they don't want to even imply the idea that Krogan would have kids outside their species as a means of continuing their race post genophage, and so they completely divorce them from the romance system entirely.

Wait, Shepard and Wrex aren't married?

[Rater202]

You're assuming that Krogan can breed with organisms outside their species. Mass Effect tends to be pretty good about that. Event the Asari aren't so much breeding with other organisms so much as using them as data for the randomization process that prevents their parthenogenic offspring from being exact clones of their mother.

Even if Krogan could breed with other species... The Genocphage would still apply: It alters the genetics of the Krogran to not only lower their fertility(some more than others) but also significantly increase the odds of deformities as the offspring's nervous system is forming, preventing the vast majority of Krogran fertilized eggs from developing to term.

You also have to keep in mind that, while meant initially as a deterrent until the Turian's went rogue and deployed it, the Salarians did design the Genocphage so that the lowered fertility rate/increased rate of stillbirths wouldn't force the Krogran birth rate under the threshold for stable population growth. The reason the Krogan are dying out isn't the genophage, it's the fact that the implications of the genocphage/seeing the piles and piles of stillborn eggs ****ing broke them.

In the orignal trilogy at least it's clear via your interactions with wrex and other major krogan characters that the entire species is suicidally depressed and are just throwing their lives away, collectively, because they don't see the point anymore and that's what's killing them.

So even if the Krogan could breed with other species, and that would bypass the genophage, they wouldn't just because... what's even the point?

It's pretty telling the "plan to beat the genophage" the one general cooked up in ME2 wasnt "find a cure" but "genetically engineer the Captain America of Krogran with the intend to mass produce them and have them breed back with the base population to ensure that every child that does survive to term will be the best possible ****ing Krogran there is."

[Anonymouswizard]

The krogan were uplifted too late, as Wrex shows pre-apocalypse krogan would likely have been a violent but I tested part of galactic society, and would probably have started practicing birth control (eventually). As it is they became too violent and focused on the short term.

Although at least some krogan are up for cross species reproduction, effective or not. Remember that completing Grunt's loyalty mission has EFI mention a request to Les with Shepard.

Anyway, I've been playing Greedfall, and darn it but the age of sail (and less fun stuff) is such a great genre for CRPGs that I'm shocked that nobody does it. Well unless they're going full pirate, and even then that's rare. But it's ideal for letting you play a swashbuckling hero, with pistols perfectly fitting in as occasional burst damage and some truly great outfits.

[Bartmanhomer]

I have an exciting and relaxing day today.