Vaiven de letras: 1/3/20

29 mar 2020

Recycle Reuse

Seemed a shame to clear the table after just one game.

The original game was played with Don's 30mm Spencer Smith ACW figures but my first wargame book was his Battles With Model Soldiers and the figures were Airfix ACW so........

Hobby time has been curtailed this last week and casting & converting has taken precendence.

If all goes well I'll get to play on Wednesday.

28 mar 2020

Three Gaming Interfaces To Pay Attention To

In this post, I want to discuss some gaming interfaces and user experience features in games. I will use my three favorite games for this present post, but the subject is broader and allows a bigger discussion that I intend to return to, next month.

DEAD SPACE (PS3)

In the horror-fiction game Dead Space, the interface is something to pay special attention to. The character's (Isaac Clarke) main statuses are disposed in a very strategic way: the life meter is located on his back in the shape of a spinal light, the weapon ammunition is showed as a small number when you aim the gun and, finally, the game has an interesting resource that is a luminous laser to help you easily locate the way the character must go (and it saves time in the complex scenario maze).

HERO (Atari)

This one is a relic from the beginning of the video-gaming era. HERO is an interesting case of user experience (UX) and interface with very limited constrols. Atari's joystick has only one button and one directional stick; with only two resources, HERO's designers implemented a wide range of possibilities: when you press the red button in the joystick the character uses its laser vision to kill enemies; by pressing down the control stick the character launches a dynamite do open walls and, finally, when you hold the control stick up the character flies using a jetpack. A very rich interface and UX created using minimal resources.

Entwined (PS4)

One of my favorite indie games Entwined is a great case of interface and usability. All the gameplay is based on how you can manage the two control sticks from PlayStation's joystick. During the whole experience, you must control the two mystic entities by only using circular movements; the user experience is focused on coordinating two different positions simultaneously (a challenge to your dexterity). Entwined is an incredibly created game, using only circular movements in two control sticks, a master class of game design.

On the three cases related in the post, we can clearly see the ideas of how games must strategically use concepts from the user experience field. To finish this conversation I want to share some content from the site nForm about this subject:

"The user experience is not one simple action – it is an interconnected cycle of attempting to satisfy hopes, dreams, needs and desires. This takes the shape of individuals comparing their expectations to the outcomes generated by their interaction with a system. Managing expectations then becomes key to successfully providing a satisfying "return on experience" that delights users and generates shared, sustainable value".

#GoGamers

All You Need To Do Is Have Self-Compassion! And It's Rather Easy!

In training, the first thing we learned in therapy techniques was Carl Rogers' approach of unconditional positive regard for your clients. For me, he was the GOAT. Those who are suffering most likely haven't been given the love and nurturing they needed in childhood, adolescence, and even adulthood.

Therefore, as therapists, you accept and support the person, without question. You accept the client, including their flaws, after all, everyone has weaknesses, no one is "perfect".

By giving unconditional positive regard, the client then begins to regard themselves more positively after being heard, accepted and supported, they begin to see that they're worthy. And, because they're worthy, they'll be more motivated to change - you take care of things that are valuable, which includes you!

For some reason, this message has been strangely forgotten after my training, because the concept of self-esteem was the fetish. To the point where we have clients write positive things about themselves to improve self-esteem. Esteem, meaning, that you value yourself for your positive qualities, and the more positive qualities, the better your self-esteem.

Do you see the fatal flaw? When you start thinking of your negative traits, and we all have them as human beings, your self-esteem will fall. Also, what if one of the things you find positive about yourself is that you have beautiful skin, but as you age, it will "sag" and then your self-esteem will crumble. Or, that you're a kind person, but there are going to be times when you act unkindly (out of stress, we're all human), so that will also lower your self-esteem.

However, if you can accept yourself fully, warts and all, because you know that you're not perfect, and no one else is perfect, you begin to accept yourself, and in turn, accept others for not being perfect as well! Thus ending the deadly poison of self and other-criticism, that destroys creativity, inspiration, passion, productivity, and love.

Once you have self-compassion, you will be more motivated to act in more healthy ways such as exercising, not procrastinating, not being critical of others because you see that you're a valuable person. And if you're valuable, like all valuable things, you want to take care of yourself.

Here is the scientific breakdown for why self-compassion works, and why self-esteem doesn't:

How do you have self-compassion? The easiest exercise is to treat yourself as a best friend would treat you. You don't even have to be that mindful it's very obvious when you feel bad because they're such strong, obvious emotions:

Anger, stress, hatred, comparing yourself negatively to another person leading to jealousy and envy, criticizing yourself (which makes you feel down in the dumps), and so forth.

In this post, I will outline the steps with the best friend strat, and then give five very common scenarios when we tend to be really mean to ourselves, and show how you use this best friend approach.

BEST FRIEND APPROACH

Step One: As soon as you feel that sinking, negative gross feeling, stop and think about what you're upset about.

Step Two: Talk to yourself (internally or out loud) as if you're your own best friend, using this three step method:

Best friend will acknowledge the shittiness of how you feel and allow you to bitch and complain.
Next, best friend would say this shit happens to all of us, you're not alone, and of course you'd feel horrible, who wouldn't?
Lastly, how can we move forward and problem-solve?

EXAMPLES

Scenario One: You failed a test (or whatever project), you then begin to criticize yourself harshly and say that you're a complete loser and a fucking failure, you feel dejected and depressed. You feel like crap and crippled to do anything, which is the signal where you go into best friend mode:

As a best friend, he would tell you, that really sucks you got an F (or whatever failure), that's crushing and heart-breaking. He will say that we all fail, Edison failed millions of times, it never feels good but at least you tried and had the guts to show up and take that test (or do whatever project).

How can we do better to crush that test? And then come up with solutions in terms of studying "smarter" not "harder" (i.e. Gordon Greene's "Getting Straight A's"). You get excited and motivated so you order this used on Amazon.com and thank your best friend for support. Your friend says, "that's what friends are for!" You then get an A (at worst B+) on the next test.

Analysis: We see in this scenario how your friend acknowledged your feelings of suckiness when you got that big fat F.

He then universalized failure, that you're not the "only one" in the world who fails, so you're not the "sole loser outcast". Rather you're human just like everyone else.

Lastly, what can we do to change the outcome? Problem-solve and act upon the problem at hand!

Scenario Two: You're too tired to exercise yet again, even though exercising a mere 13 minutes, three times a week, can prevent major cardiovascular conditions that lead to death.

You say to yourself that you're a lazy, pathetic, useless piece of shit who can't even do something as short as 13 minutes. You feel awful, which is the signal to go into best friend mode.

Best friend would say, no one likes to exercise, why do you think there are all these memes about hating exercise, and there's this viral cat video where the cat's so miserable to even move her left paw!

You're not lazy, you're human and like all the mammals in the world! ALL mammals are biologically wired to go the path of least resistance since calories are so scarce back then! Pampered pets tend to be overweight to obese, and inactive. The goal was to conserve the energy and hibernate in winter!

You feel better about yourself. Then he'll problem-solve and say, just go to the gym as the goal. If you don't want to exercise, then go back home. Most likely what happens is that you'll end up doing the 13 minutes, perhaps rounding up to 15 minutes or more.

Scenario 3: Your boyfriend dumped you, and you feel anger toward him. You also start feeling that you'll never find love again because you failed in this relationship. You tell yourself that you're unloveable, hideous, disgusting and trash. No one would love you ever again. You become depressed, which is signal to use the approach.

Your best friend might actually have a girl's weekend at your place to wallow in the sadness Friday night after work. She'll bring 12 different flavors of Ben and Jerry's, various chocolates, and order out pizza. You process the breakup and she tells you that everyone goes through breakups, it's a part of everyone's life - you're just like everyone in the world who's gotten rejected, I still love you. You feel better because of this truth. Then binge on Downton Abbey episodes.

But, on Sunday night, after you enjoyed the binge and wallow fest, your best friend tells you that you need to work on yourself and get healthy. She doesn't want to see you wallow in self-pity for months on end.

She tells you to go back to your life, go to work, take it one day at a time, socialize with your friends - you may meet eligible men. Feeling encouraged and supported, you begin to get over the break-up and taking healthy steps.

Scenario four: This is taken directly from my recent experience. You compare yourself negatively to another person. You begin to think why can't you be as fluent, as on point, as passionate, as humorous as Dr. Ramani:

Your friend notes that of course she's on point, she teaches this stuff every day to her students so she has to know the material like the back of her hand. For these interviews, she most likely prepared these answers in advance, and she has done so many, that it gets easier and easier!

I then feel better and interestingly, I felt gratitude (rather than feeling down on myself for "not measuring up") toward Dr. Ramani for helping people avoid getting involved with a narcissistic partner in the first place! Avoiding these people who destroy and crush others' souls (a malignant narcissist can conceivably kill his partner), literally saving lives.

Scenario five: You berate yourself for procrastinating yet again because you'd rather indulge yourself by playing video games. You call yourself pathetic, lazy and useless because you can't accomplish anything at all!

How would you treat yourself with self-compassion? This is what I would tell myself, using the best friend approach:

I consciously tried self-compassion at work today which compelled me to write this post.

It was the first time where I felt light-hearted and a genuine joy, feeling full-hearted toward my coworkers without effort. I always feel the irritability when I'm at work, and use immense amount of energy to be pleasant to my coworkers since I like all my coworkers.

While they all say that I'm very easy to work with and non-intimidating, it takes up so much mental energy that I get drained at work. Which is why I end up playing video games after work. However today, having self-compassion, I have enough mental energy to write this post!

Despite being stressed today, interrupted every minute to sign, to make calls, and having to eat lunch in front of clients, I didn't feel mental fatigue, only physical fatigue. (The physical fatigue was my fault for not realizing I didn't have iron or synthroid in my weekly pill reminder box for the last 2 weeks, as well as untreated sleep apnea, and not exercising for being so tired).

At any rate, it was a wondrous feeling of being light and having this outpouring of love toward my coworkers (I do love them, I just don't feel it often due to work stressors), that I came up with rather creative solutions for a family, that surprised even myself!

The trap of doing any other exercises aside from self-compassion - activities such as keeping a gratitude journal, exercising regularly, and the like, is that if you don't do those things, you start feeling bad about yourself for being lazy, and you quit out of demoralization.

However, with self-compassion, you start feeling better. Even when you get down upon yourself for having a critical thought about yourself, you can snap out of it due to feeling the warning signs.

You may even laugh at yourself because of the irony. You're criticizing yourself for criticizing yourself! But by laughing at that, as your best friend would (perhaps even teasingly saying that you're a dork, but that makes you lovable), you can regain self-compassion.

Finally, as you accept yourself, flaws and all just like everyone else, you feel a sense of connection for others when you see them struggling, and end up having compassion towards them.

This feeling of love that you have to others make you feel even better and light - no jealousy, no bitterness, just a wonderful feeling of connection. We humans, as all the researchers say, are hard-wired for connection, and people tend to depression when you feel disconnected.

With self-compassion, as you feel better and find yourself worthy and worth doing all these hard things. You become more motivated to make healthy choices, do the gratitude exercises, eat healthy, get enough sleep, eat fruits and vegetables, just from self-compassion alone.

The love you feel inwards and outwards becomes effortless, love being the powerful force, empowering you to do the hard, necessary things that are fulfilling to you.

The How of Happiness Review

24 mar 2020

Download Wayward Sky VR For PS4

DUPLEX | CUSA06309 | Update v1.04 | VR |

Wayward Sky is a third person single player adventure game that focuses on atmosphere and storytelling through light puzzle solving designed to ease players into VR.

You are Bess, a young pilot flying with your father when you crash into a mysterious fortress that emerges out of the clouds. Your father kidnapped and plane in ruins, you set out to explore the fortress and rescue him.

PlayStation®Camera Required
Enhanced play with 2 PS Move controllers
VR games may cause some players to experience motion sickness.

DOWNLOAD LINKS

DOWNLOAD DUPLEX VERSION:

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

GAME SIZE: 1 GB

Password: After 10$ payment is done

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https://www.fiverr.com/s2/b543cf7fc5

21 mar 2020

Beyond The Oscars

Image used for criticism under "Fair Use."

"In many ways, Oscar hype and hoopla is similar to that of college or professional sports — it's an entertaining competition that's easy to become temporarily absorbed in, but one we know has ultimately no real effect on our lives. Most of the time, we leave it at that — the winners win, the losers lose and we all move on."

- Chelsea Samelson, New York Post.

As a black movie fan who has certainly seen his share of tasteless racism on film, I simply couldn't bring myself to care about the controversy surrounding the Oscar's supposed "whiteness". I've made it quite clear in an earlier essay "The Case Against Awards Shows", that these private parties for the Hollywood elite are of little interest to the everyday American. By being a televised event, the Oscars have fooled the American population into thinking that these awards are about them. No, they're not about you. They're about the celebrities. It's an opportunity for wealthiest entertainers to show off just how great they are, and that their greatness demands attention from the rest of us. Indeed, this elitism is only boosted by the ordinary Americans who waste four hours of their Sunday to view it. This masturbatory ritual of staring uncomfortably at your rich neighbor's RSVP celebrations have given viewers the illusion that they're supposed to get something out of it. They don't vote for any of the films, yet, they expect the Oscars to actually give something to them? Nonsense. To be fair, it's not as if we've ever had the opportunity to do so. Hence, throughout these shows, we (the 99%) are virtually nonexistent. Only a view count, not a participant.

I don't think very highly of the Oscars, and neither should you. The people behind these shows clearly don't know what they're doing. These trophies have gone to the insufferable likes of Gigi, Crash, and Brave. Should the opinions of these few really matter to our personal tastes? It seems unhealthy to the arts that we must seek validation with gold trophies and cocktail parties. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way we think of art. We need to think beyond the Oscars, and see art on its own terms, not in terms of the awards that they garner. Now I don't mean to strip the Oscars completely of any value they have brought to the medium of film. I've even quoted Tom Cruise's moving statements on the importance of film after September the 11th. No doubt, these Oscars have been helpful in bringing attention to good filmmakers and good performances, and of course, when one achieves recognition for their hard work, they deserve applause. Some say that the Oscars don't do enough to recognize black art, however, and that they're "too white." It's of little controversy that these awards shows are largely run by white people, so one could call them a "white people's award". My question is this: Since when does black art need the approval of a white people's award?

It doesn't. In fact, many black artists have been recognized by the NAACP Image Awards and the BET Awards. Of course, it's expected that black art be celebrated at these shows, so it dosen't have to compete with white art. Yet black art does get recognition in our society, even if one doesn't see it in the Oscars. Brandon Patterson has suggested that this emphasis on the Oscars seems to send the message that black art is more meaningful when it gets a white recognition,

"Other Black people seeing value in our art doesn't mean as much as White people seeing value in it. So we have rappers who brag about how many Grammys they have instead of how many BET Awards they've won; Beyoncé and Jay Z rarely attend the BET or Soul Train Awards even when they're nominated, but attend the Grammys yearly even when they're not; and Black people get upset when a Selma or a 12 Years A Slave doesn't win every Oscar or Golden Globe that they think they deserved, but don't care who's nominated for what at the BET Honors," (Politic365).

Even so, take someone like Sidney Poitier, who was the first black man to win the Oscar of Best Actor. A fine accomplishment, sure, but Poitier's not a fine actor because he's got a gold statue in his closet. It comes from his riveting performances in some of the most socially conscious films of the period. He is great not because of his Oscar, but in spite of his Oscar. Some of my favorite performances in film, Jack Nicholson in The Shining, Kim Novak in Vertigo, Denzel Washington in Malcolm X, and Spike Spencer in End of Evangelion have never won one of those goddamned naked men of gold. That Selma didn't win Best Picture shouldn't have mattered, because that film's greatness shouldn't need a Oscar. I'd also like to see what black celebrities are doing on my behalf, before I start demanding they get more golden trophies.

In any case, I say let the Oscars be as white as they damn well please. You heard me. As far as I can tell, the selection of mostly white nominees hasn't broken any of the Academy's rules. The Oscars don't have to be diverse or politically relevant, they just need to select the films that the Academy thinks are the best, not what we think are the best. We don't always have to like the choices, I clearly don't, but again, we aren't the ones making them. To complain that the Oscars have picked too many "white" films implies that "talent" shouldn't be the criterion for selection, but diversity and political relevance. If that's what people want, then quotas should be installed, x number of black, gay, female, etc. artists need to be selected. Just don't be surprised, however, if awards are given to people like Tyler Perry and Dinesh D'Souza. To say, however, that the Oscars are the final, only, and best statement on film in America, implies that, based on the winners, white males are better at filmmaking than damn near everyone else. I'm not saying that. I'd never say that. We shouldn't let wealthy elitists be the final word on American movies (though their opinions are duly noted). Yet when it comes to the point that Al Sharpton is creating an Emergency Task Force, I start to worry that we care too much.

Keep in mind that this whining over the Oscars all sounds rather superfluous to people who haven't even seen these films. I, for one, couldn't afford to see any of the films nominated for Best Picture, but now I'm suddenly supposed to care because some of them are too "white"? If Selma (a film I haven't seen) wins plenty of Oscars, what good is that to me? Not much. A certain degree of wealth and privilege is needed to have seen enough of these movies to care about what's going on. Which is why nearly all of the folks invited to the Oscars are excessively wealthy, just look at their red carpet dresses. I already feel like an outsider. Yet, this is now a civil rights issue that deserves my involvement? Don't make me laugh. This isn't to say that we don't need diverse films, or that racism in movies still isn't a problem (it is), but films are different from awards. Remember that.

Celebrity culture, of course, is why many people watch the Oscars, and why they're televised. Even though it would do the rest of us a lot of good if these shows were permanently pulled from the networks, the peons of America would undoubtedly protest on behalf of the royals. Celebrity culture has a particularly nasty strain on the Left, where Oliver Stone is a historian, Sean Penn is a peace activist, and Russell Brand is a revolutionary. This isn't to demean all celebrities, many of whom are great people, but dammit, why do we continue to treat them like they're center of the world? Why do we continue to see a celebrity awards show as so important to our tastes on film? Even George C. Scott once called the Oscars "a two-hour meat parade," and America still doesn't know why.

I hope that one day, we can look beyond these Oscars.

Bibliography

"Obituaries: George C. Scott: The man who refused an Oscar." BBC News, September 23, 1999. Archived by the Wayback Machine, March 11, 2014. Web. https://web.archive.org/web/20140311095900/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/obituaries/455563.stm

Patterson, Brandon. "Who Cares that Selma was Snubbed by the Oscars? I Don't." Politic365, February 6, 2015. Web. http://politic365.com/2015/02/06/who-cares-that-selma-was-snubbed-by-the-oscars-i-dont/

Samelson, Chelsea. "Why fuss over the Oscars?" New York Post, January 21, 2015. Web. http://nypost.com/2015/01/21/why-fuss-over-the-oscars/

20 mar 2020

Giving OHW Another Shot

The other day I stopped by Dale's Wargaming blog and read his latest post discussing Neil Thomas' Late Arrival scenario from One Hour Wargames. Since I was looking for a quick game I thought "why not?".

I like the boiled down scenarios from the book but the last time I tried the rules I wasn't impressed. Dale has got me thinking that I may not have given them a fair shake. So I decided to try them. Dale had been discussing an ancient game and, no longer having ancient armies (I can't believe I just wrote that after 45 years as an ancient's player!!), I grabbed some 16thC Scots and English and used them with the ancients rules.

The army selection gave the English (Blue Army though dressed in Red) 4 infantry, 1 skirmisher, 1 cavalry and the Scots (Red Army though dressed in White) 3 Infantry, 1 skirmisher and 2 cavalry.

The scenario has the Scots arriving en masse at the start of the game except that all units arrive on the single road so get stacked up. The English start with two units with another pair arriving on each of turns 5 & 10. To complicate things there is an impassible hill and a wood which only the skirmishers can move through.

I had hoped that the Scots would roll more skirmishers so that one could flank the English while the other ran fast and nabbed the town which is the objective. Having only rolled one, I sent it to the town.

What followed was a prolinged melee with the dice favouring one side then the other. English reinforcements arrived in time to restore the line and retake the town.

At least in the English counterattack the dice favoured one side over the other through the whole short fight. If the dice hadn't rolled English 5's and 6's vs Scots 2's and 3's the outcome of the game would have been different with the English being too damaged to hold out later if indeed they had had time to break in.

At last the Scots cleared the gap and their cavalry had just time to dash across the table and make a long odds attack on the town. It was close but the game ended with the English having 1 unit with 1 hit left facing 4 Scots units. A clear English victory.

So what did I think?

Well, it was fast, actual playing time was not quite 1/2 hour. In that time I made something close to 100 die rolls and made perhaps 6 or 8 decisions, all important. Since each die roll counted, there was some tension that built towards the end of the game when a few good rolls by the Scots would have reversed the decision.

On the whole, the rules are better than my original assessment. They aren't my cup of tea and I still have some objections on the historical side, for example, most units are allowed one and only one tactic although in many wars many, not all but many, unit types had a choice of tactics and all arms forces are not allowed if using the lists. With those exceptions, when it comes to how the rules play, they work and whether you enjoy their style is a matter of taste.

I decided to reset the table and play the scenario again later using a different period and rules but that's another post.

Must. Have. Wifi! (02/25/19)

What's going on everyone!?

Today as many others before have been filled with packing our belongings and moving to our new place. It's not glamorous mind you, and it's about 3 sizes too small but it will actually be OURS. Which is something I thought we would never be able to say.

So with that being said, we're spending our first night here tonight and don't have phone and internet yet or even cell service way out here. Therefore this post and I'm sure a few others are going to be messed up as far as the date goes so I will have the date in the title to solve this for the time being. :)

Today for the #2019gameaday challenge I was going to play a game of Ticket to Ride but just couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to.

So I opted for another game of Zombie in my pocket! As with most games it seemed to be going well but in the end I failed...

But the worst part is it was within the last TURN! When I should have succeeded it robbed me (rightfully, I admit) of my win!

As always, thank you for reading and don't forget to stop and smell the meeples! :)

-Tim

19 mar 2020

The Gotek Floppy Drive Emulator In The IBM PC World

The Gotek floppy drive emulator is a simple, cheap and little device that, as its name says, emulates a floppy drive. There are many varieties of these devices and they usually come with a USB port on the front of the unit and a 34-pin header + 4-pin power header on the back. While originally intended to replace disk drives in industrial, sewing and musical equipment, they can be used with standard PC floppy controllers. However, as they come they are at best diamonds in the rough, so in this blog entry I will describe how to make these devices more useful for vintage IBM PCs and compatibles.

Read more »

17 mar 2020

Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Poetical Essay" Belongs In The Public Domain

Image assumed to be in the Public Domain

The following is a tragic tale about how valuable work of literature was rediscovered, and then undiscovered. This loss for the arts was not due purely to negligence or accident, but to a selfish violation to the memory of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Even if you don't read Shelley, you should, at the very least, be profoundly perturbed by the ways in which the wealthy claim exclusive ownership over our cultural history. Shelley was a victim of avaricious entitlement.

In 2010, The Guardian reported a finding the rocked the literary world. Daisy Hay, a Cambridge graduate, was snooping through the library, as most graduates do, and came across an old manuscript. It turns out that these writings were the unpublished memoirs of one Claire Clairmont, Byron's former lover and a friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley. In these memoirs, she described these two poets in no genial terms, calling them "monsters of lying, meanness, cruelty and treachery." Clairmont, who was at that point a Catholic, branded Byron and Shelley as worshipers of "free love", who ruined the lives of women. Clairmont had personal experience with this ruination, and good reason to be sour. Soon after getting her pregnant with Allegra (who died at age eight), Byron abandoned Clairmont, presumably because he was married to another woman at the time. For this, she labelled him, "a human tyger [sic] slaking his thirst for inflicting pain upon defenceless women" (Alberge).

The writings have proved to be a boon to historians and biographers everywhere, and has helped to increase our understanding of the relationship between Clairmont and the Shelley's. Imagine, however, if Hay decided to sell Clairmont's memoirs to the highest bidder with the new owner refusing to allow anyone else to read the memoirs except himself. Such an action would be rightfully denounced as a greedy theft of history, a selfish attempt to claim personal rights to our global cultural heritage. Distasteful though it may be to entertain such callous contempt for the ever fragile past, it isn't beyond the depravity of some human beings to do so. Daisy Hay was not such an entity. Quaritch Rare Books & Manuscripts, it appears, is.

Of course, when Quaritch sold the recently discovered "Poetical Essay" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, they may have assumed that the owner would be generous enough to share Shelley's words with the public. Though if so, then it would've certainly been little trouble to ask. They were careless, however, in hastily selling off the "Poetical Essay" to the one with the fattest wallet. Quaritch knew how valuable this piece of Shelley's was, (or at least they should have) yet they felt no responsibility to alert local historians? Shameful. I don't have to tell you the exact amount of money paid to Quaritch for selling the "Poetical Essay", except that it weighed about the same as the silver coins paid to Judas Iscariot.

The news of the "Poetical Essay's" rediscovery was the toast of The Guardian in 2006,

"The revelation in today's Times Literary Supplement that an early poem by the great Percy Bysshe Shelley has come to light, and is in the possession of a London bookseller, will cause even more excitement than most. This is a wonderful discovery: few Shelley scholars ever believed the poem, Poetical Essay, would resurface and some even doubted its existence. It is a fantastic chance to learn more about the political and poetic development of the young Shelley," (O'Brien).

However, four years later, the same year, mind you, that Daisy Hay found Clairmont's memoirs, the "Poetical Essay" had vanished once more from the public eye. Michael Rosen noted that the poem in it's entirety was never made available, the reason being that only three people had read it: owner at Quaritch, the person who bought the poem, and some lucky professor by the name of Henry R Woudhuysen. The new owner, apparently, isn't interested in letting any of us peasants read his new treasure. More odd to Rosen, though, was the lack of outrage over the whole scandal, "we were approaching the fourth anniversary of the rediscovery of Shelley's "Poetical Essay" and that we, the public, were no nearer to reading it." (The Guardian) Rosen succinctly expresses his anger well in this paragraph,

"First of all, I would like the poem to be available to read by anyone who is interested. I believe that should have happened the moment it was rediscovered. Secondly, I want to know why Professor Woudhuysen was given the right to look at the poem, but no one else was. Thirdly, I want to know why this situation doesn't seem to bother anyone in the great republic of letters, least of all that guardian of literary precision and exactitude, the TLS. Isn't it an outrage, that a long dead, great writer's work can be hidden away in its owner's drawer?"

Rosen is completely correct here, "Owning manuscripts is one thing: owning the contents is quite another." Copyright laws back him up, too. In general, works fall into public domain 70 years after the death of the creator. This has recently been stalled in the United States by corporations such as Disney, but that's a discussion for another time. What matters, for the moment, is that Shelley's "Poetical Essay" was written in 1811, well past due any claims to copyright. Thus, the "Poetical Essay" is in the public domain, meaning: it belongs to us, the public. We, collectively, have a right to the contents of Shelley's essay, and it is illegal, let me repeat, illegal for the current owner to claim otherwise. There should be a manhunt for this shrewd, elitist coward, I want a subpoena for his arrest. Quaritch should be, at the very least, fined for their blatant carelessness with such a historical artifact. Their hands aren't clean in this affair. They are complicit, in every sense of the word.

So just what was Shelley's "Poetical Essay" all about? It is an anti-militarist piece, written in defense of Peter Finnerty, a critic of Britian's suppression of an Irish revolt, who was later imprisoned for speaking out. Paul O'Brien gave the poem background upon its discovery,

"But his first and defining political campaign was about Irish religious and political freedom - and it is here where the discovery of Poetical Essay is most relevant. Shelley published it in support of Peter Finnerty, the Irish journalist jailed for libelling Viscount Castlereagh, the Anglo-Irish politician who was sent to Ireland in 1797 to crush the United Irishmen rebelling against British rule. Castlereagh's brutality made him the most hated man in Ireland. Shelley was a professed admirer of the United Irishmen, and the events and personalities of the 1798 rebellion were crucial to his political and intellectual development. His abiding hatred for Castlereagh was venomously expressed in the Mask of Anarchy:

"I met murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven bloodhounds followed him

"Finnerty was the editor of the Dublin newspaper the Press and a man of great courage. He was indicted for an article which denounced the actions of Castlereagh, found guilty of sedition, imprisoned for two years and sentenced to stand for an hour in the pillory in Green Street in Dublin. Shelley, then a young undergraduate at Oxford University, was eager to show support for Finnerty. He placed an advertisement in the Oxford Herald announcing the new work, a Poetical Essay, "for assisting to maintain in prison Mr Peter Finnerty", for sale "price two shillings" (The Guardian).

This showed great courage on Shelley's part (though his relations with women may be another matter), and made me think of another great poet who wrote on behalf of Irish suffering, William Butler Yeats. A fragment of Shelley's "Poetical Essay" has made its way into public. It's sharp and rhythmic, certainly, but what I want is meat, when we've been fed only the bone. Regardless, take it away, Shelley.

"Millions to fight compell'd, to fight or die
In mangled heaps on War's red altar lie . . .
When legal murders swell the lists of pride;
When glory's views the titled idiot guide.
* * *
Man must assert his native rights, must say
We take from Monarchs' hand the granted sway;
Oppressive law no more shall power retain,
Peace, love, and concord, once shall rule again,
And heal the anguish of a suffering world;
Then, then shall things which now confusedly hurled,
Seem Chaos, be resolved to order's sway,
And error's night be turned to virtue's day."

Bibliography

Alberge, Dalya. "Byron's lover takes revenge from beyond the grave." The Guardian, March 27, 2010. Web. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/28/byron-and-shelley-were-monsters

O'Brien, Paul. "Prophet of the revolution." The Guardian, July 14, 2006. Web. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jul/14/poetry.comment

Rosen, Michael. "Owning manuscripts is one thing: owning the contents is quite another." The Guardian, July 23, 2010. Web. http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jul/23/owning-manuscripts-owning-contents

16 mar 2020

Top 7 Interesting Facts, Tips, You Need To Know About Assassin's Creed Odyssey | Pro-GamersArena

Assassin's Creed Odyssey has at long last arrived, And this one additionally is cherished by gamers and if the surveys are any sign, you'll likely need to play it. In spite of being another progressive passage in Ubisoft's about yearly arrangement, Assassin's Creed Odyssey has figured out how to bring enough new frameworks and stuff to befuddle new and veteran players.

Related Article: Assassin's Creed Review, Gameplay.

There's a considerable measure to do in this one, and not every last bit of it is simple. While Assassin's Creed Odyssey pursues a sensible trouble bend, there are as yet a couple of things you can do to help streamline your 50 or more hour trek through Greece.

So here Pro-GamersArena has compiled the top 7 Interesting Facts, Tips, you need to know about Assassin's Creed Odyssey before playing.

1. You better Choose Exploration mode instead of Guided mode. (Tip)

In Origins, the rash of unattractive, covering map symbols had been diminished by a lot, yet in Odyssey, it's gone altogether. Rather, the amusement offers you a decision comfortable start: would you like to play in "Exploration" mode or "Guided" mode? Guided mode is the Assassin's Creed maps as you've constantly known them, while Exploration strips away relatively every symbol, leaving a wonderful, clear guide reasonable for well known guide exercises like route. Rather, delineate are supplanted with bearings: the scoundrel camp is on the eastern bank of Kephallonia; the Spartan post is north of Mount Geranaia. Which appears to be extremely fascinating and extraordinary while playing.

Antiquated Greece is huge. Each method of transportation has a type of auto-run highlight that truly proves to be useful. On horseback or by walking, squeezing Z will get your character running so you can grasp your hands off the console, while Space Bar does likewise for water crafts. Steeds, specifically, are reasonable for this: hold Z for a minute and after that press E, and your steed will auto-pursue streets to explore directly to a guide marker. In any case, it doesn't imply that you depend on that as I would prescribe you to utilize it just when fundamental however I am certain that you will scarcely utilize the alternative as you wouldn't wanna miss anything of excellent Greece.

2. You get to choose to play as one of two characters. (Fact)

Ubisoft Quebec's last game in the arrangement, Assassin's Creed Syndicate, let players control a couple of twins, Jacob and Evie Frye. You're ready to control a male or female legend in Odyssey, however you won't skip between them as the story pulls you forward. Rather, you play as either Alexios or Kassandra toward the begin till the end. While there are some inconspicuous contrasts in their exhibitions and how the voice on-screen characters convey their lines, you don't have to struggle with the decision from any waiting feeling of FOMO.

"Everything is open for the two characters," says innovative chief Jonathan Dumont. "It's considerably more of a recognizable proof for you, for how to relate and associate with your character. That is the reason you have the decision." Unlike Jacob and Evie, who inclined toward battle or stealth, players can shape their character as they see fit. On the off chance that you need Kassandra to crush faces in with a club or have her adhere to the shadows, it's your call.

Regardless of who you ultimately choose, your role in the world is the same.

3. Use Sparta Kick to punt high-level enemies off anything tall (Tip).

Now and then, you will confront foes which are extremely intense or hard to execute as the foe may have an Elite modifier or a harmed hatchet or some damn thing that can truly make it difficult to slaughter them. I'll cut and wound them all I need, however my individual assaults simply don't do much harm. The best activity here: kick them off a cliff. Oh Yeah !!!

That's how you do it !!!

One of the main capacities I opened was the Sparta Kick, an "legendary kick" that indulgences adversaries in reverse. Above all, the Sparta Kick is amazingly fulfilling to utilize. When, I was in a contributed fight a marble quarry when an abnormal state, world class Spartan officer came smashing down on me. Urgent, I kept running up the laborers' platform, wavering hazardously over the abyss of the open quarry pit. At the point when the leader ascended to slaughter me, I kicked him off. Sword: 300 harm. Kick: 600 harm. Falling a few hundred feet to his demise: 20,000 harm.

Get Assassin's Creed Odyssey at a discounted price from Amazon.

4. Use fire to damage more.

There's an extremely forceful fire framework affecting everything in Odyssey which I will recommend you to use, as adding fire to your assaults is an insightful move. As it not just include consuming harm that stacks after some time but at the same time it's excellent group control. A few foes break and run when they're hit with flame, so in case you're amidst a significant battle, lighting everybody ablaze can disperse the horde a bit.

Hitting somebody with a flaming sword, while cool, won't consequently set them ablaze. There's a fire development detail that is unique in relation to foe to foe and may even rely upon what sorts of shield they're wearing. It takes a couple of hits of fire to extremely set somebody consuming. On the off chance that you need to benefit from your searing assaults, search for inscriptions or rewards that expansion "fire development." The higher your fire development detail is, the quicker you'll set your objectives ablaze.

5. Islands Of Adventure (Fact)

Our hands-on experience occurred on a couple of islands, Delos and Mykonos. It included a little more than twelve unique missions, led on a shockingly convoluted questline. It took around five hours to see that storyline through to culmination. "We needed to reflect what it might feel want to be on the odyssey of Odysseus, where he goes on islands and he doesn't realize what he will discover," Dumont says. Ubisoft Quebec needed players to experience an assortment of littler, local storylines amid their voyages, while additionally conveying a bigger scale experience.

6. Try to stay neutral in the war to get the best loot (Tip).

Odyssey happens amid the Peloponnesian War when Athens and Sparta were super, duper distraught at one another and were extremely exceptionally impolite about it. To trigger a fight, you need to irritate the parity of intensity by taking out the locale's national pioneer. The pioneer is intensely monitored by the entirety of his watchmen and extremely rich, and a toe-to-toe battle will be outlandish. Rather, you need to relax him up by executing his lieutenants, taking his cash, and consuming his armed force's provisions. When you cause enough mayhem, the attacking group, regardless of whether its Sparta or Athens, will begin a fight.

There are constantly opposite sides to each fight, it is possible that you can be an aggressor or a protector, here additionally you're allowed to join the assaulting or safeguarding side. The main contrast is that the assailants will have a significantly harder fight and much better plunder granted for progress. It doesn't make a difference which side you pick, however regardless of whether you've been killing Athenians throughout the day to blend up inconvenience, you can offer the Athenians help in the fight with the end goal to acquire some benefit.

7. Take Help Of Ikaros (Your pet Eagle) to scout and spot enemies (Tip).

In Assassin's Creed Odyssey too you have an extremely helpful and brilliant pet Eagle named Ikaros, and utilizing him as a scout will be commonplace to any individual who played Origins. Send Ikaros up and glance through his eyes to stamp adversaries, spot money boxes, alert flames, caught creatures, detainees, and so on. Having a constant guide of a camp makes it much simpler to sneak in, for a certain something. For another, spotting foes ahead of time can fill you in as to whether any of them have rewards or capacities that would be useful for your group. Additionally, utilize Ikaros to investigate adversary skippers and authorities. They'll more often than not have a type of direction reward pertinent to your ship, and all the more critically, they're probably going to be genuine rats in a battle. In the event that you detect a decent applicant with Ikaros, you can make arrangements to take them alive.

Ikaros' spotting is additionally valuable in underground natural hollows and tombs, however you can't utilize him underground. Rather, utilize him before you enter the surrender and have him fly over the highest point of the mountain. He can in any case spot things underground (Told you, he's a significant hawk), and the guide markers will enable you to discover your approach to heaps of plunder in the befuddling labyrinth underground.

6 mar 2020

Why Do You Play Games?

In the first post of this year, I want to share some content from the book I'm reading at the moment: Playing smart - on games, intelligence, and artificial intelligence by Julius Togelius. The author discusses many aspects on how games challenge us and what we can expect from games that use artificial intelligence in the near future.

One of the first points discussed by Togelius is about the question I already brought many times in this site: why do we play games? It's not easy to answer (and we have many different views for this subject) but I think it's essential to gather multiple points of view to create a more solid opinion.

Togelius launches the question: why do you play games? And starts his answer with a very interesting argument that most of the time we are playing games for many reasons but all the time – despite the game we are playing – we are doing an exercise of intense planning.

Below, I want to share this excellent content from his book and recommend the reading for all the followers of this site:

Why do you play games? To relax, have a good time, lose yourself a bit? Perhaps as a way of socializing with friends? Almost certainly not as some sort of brain exercise. But let's look at what you are really doing: You plan. In Chess, you are planning for your victory by imagining a sequence of several moves that you will take to reach checkmate, or at least capture one of your opponent's pieces. If you are any good, you are also taking your opponent's countermoves into account and making contingency plans if they do not fall into your elaborately laid traps. In Super Mario Bros., you are planning wheter to take the higher path, which brings more reward but is riskier, or the safer lower path. You are also planning to venture down that pipe that might bring you to a hidden treasure chamber, or to continue past it, depending on how much time you have left and how eager you are to finish the level. You may be planning to eat the power-up that lets you get through that wall so you can lick a switch that releases a bean from which you can grow a beanstalk that lets you climb up to that cloud you want to get to. In Angry Birds you are planning where to throw each bird so as to achieve maximum destruction with the fewest birds. If you crush the ice wall with the blue bird, you can then hit that cavity with the black bomb bird, collapsing the main structure, and finish off that cowardly hiding pig with your red bird. (TOGELIUS, 2019, kindle edition – position 412)

#GoGamers

Reference:

TOGELIUS, Julius. Playing smart - on games, intelligence, and artificial intelligence. London: The MIT Press, 2019.

Buds, Blooms, And Thorns Review Of Wooly Whammoth By Smirk & Dagger Games

Buds, Blooms, and Thorns Review of Wooly Whammoth by Smirk & Dagger Games
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Vitals:
Title: Wooly Whammoth
Designed by: Nicholas Cravotta, Rebecca Bleau
Publisher: Smirk & Dagger Games
MSRP: $40
2-4p | 20-30 min | 8+

Introduction:

If you were a member of a prehistoric tribe, you'd need to eat. And what better to eat than big, yummy, mammoths? They're big though, so hunting them is difficult... Unless you can drive them off a cliff and let gravity do the work for you! The problem is, mammoths are often unpredictable and dangerous. Sometimes they'll charge, sometimes they'll even take you off the cliff with them!

In Wooly Whammoth all players are controlling their own tribe, trying to drive a mammoth off a cliff in order to feed their tribe. Simultaneously, everyone will play a card that says what will happen that round, either movement cards or charge cards. The catch is that everyone's cards are combined to decide what happens! So if too many people play movement cards you may end up running off the cliff with the mammoth! Or if someone plays a Charge card you may end up getting trampled! Whoever manages to collect enough food at the end of the game, without losing their entire tribe, is the winner!

Blooms:
Blooms are the game's highlights and features. Elements that are exceptional.

Excellent components! The artwork is fun and whimsical, the double layered, sliding tracks for each player are nice and thick, and all the tokens and cards are top notch quality.

Buds:
Buds are interesting parts of the game I would like to explore more.

This needs to be played with the right group of people. If everyone plays conservatively it'll be a boring game, but when people take chances it can cause some crazy fun.
Light, quick play and a whimsical theme make for a good filler.

Thorns:
Thorns are a game's shortcomings and any issues I feel are noteworthy.

Gameplay is very light and casual. It feels like a mismatch with the $40 price tag.
If you don't play with people that like a little chaos the game will be pretty boring. In my first game I played with a group that was very calculating (they mostly play euro strategy games). Because of this everyone calculated what the best moves would be and everyone ended up in pretty much the same place for much of the game. You really need either a completely random element, or someone who loves instigating chaos to make the game exciting.
This is a game that really focuses on take-that mechanics. There is bluffing and a bit of deduction, but it all revolves around trying to get your opponents to either fall off the cliff or get trampled. If you aren't into a game built around this goal, as most of my game group isn't, then this game isn't for you.

Final Thoughts:

This is a game that I thought would be more fun than it was. Part of that is because it's not the right game for my gaming group though. Wooly Whammoth is really all about trying to see if you can get your opponents to destroy themselves. A lot of Smirk & Dagger games have strong take-that elements to them and Wooly Whammoth is no exception.

There are some interesting bluffing opportunities and mechanic interactions in the game though. You do have to think about, and then second guess, what you think your opponents are going to play in order to keep yourself both on the cliff and avoid being trampled. Each tribe has a unique ability that can help them in the game, and there are some cards that let you do things other than move that add some interesting options. However, after all was said and done, I didn't feel like much really happened in the game. There were no overly exciting moments, no sense of danger or thrill of the hunt. I'd love to see more "last minute" save types of occasions in the game to bring forward the sense of hunting a dangerous prey. I think part of the issue is that cards are resolved sequentially rather than simultaneously. So you are able to move and drive a mammoth off the cliff before a Charge card takes effect. If you've already driven your mammoth off the cliff it can't charge. Because of this, we felt that the Charge cards were less effective than we'd have liked. They were potentially mean, but in actuality, didn't seem mean enough. Simultaneously charging and moving would probably result in more casualties in the game, so tribes may have to be bigger, but I think it would also add more excitement.

Wooly Whammoth reminded me a lot of Get Bit, but much less elegant. The experience in Get Bit is very similar - players are trying to avoid getting eaten by a shark by playing numerical cards that determine their sequence in line, but it's also simpler. I think Get Bit works much better for the experience the games are trying to instill, plus Get Bit is a fraction of the cost.

Anyway, I gave Wooly Whammoth a Thorn rating because it really wasn't right for my group, and I think it fell short of the experience it tried to present. If you like simple bluffing and take-that games you may get more mileage from the game. Thematically it's wonderful and would make a great family game, but mechanically I felt it left a bit to be desired.

Buds, Blooms, and Thorns Rating:

Thorn! I can't quite recommend this game,
although you may enjoy it if you like games
like this. I feel this game has some flaws and
there are areas that it could improve in the
experience it provides.

Pictures:

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GJJ Games Reviews are independent, unpaid reviews of games I, George Jaros, have played with my family and friends. Some of these games I own, some are owned by friends, some are borrowed, and some were provided by a publisher or designer for my honest feedback and evaluation. I make every attempt to be both honest and constructively critical in my reviews, and they are all my opinions. There are four types of reviews on GJJ Games: Full Reviews feature critical reviews based on a rubric and games receive a rating from 0 to 100. Quick Reviews and Kickstarter Previews are either shorter reviews of published games or detailed preview reviews of crowdfunding games that will receive a rating from 0 to 10 based on my impressions of the game. Buds, Blooms,and Thorns reviews are shorter reviews of either published or upcoming games that highlight three aspects of a game: Buds are parts of a game I look forward to exploring more, Blooms are outstanding features of a game, and Thorns are shortcomings of a game. Each BBT review game will receive an overall rating of Thorn, Bud, or Bloom.