-
Posts
23,466 -
Joined
-
Last visited
About polishgenius
- Birthday 07/22/1986
Profile Information
- A Glass of Class
-
Gender
Male
Recent Profile Visitors
polishgenius's Achievements
Council Member (8/8)
-
Star Wars: Far Far Away From What You Want It To Be
polishgenius replied to SpaceChampion's topic in Entertainment
Well the poster is good at least. Trailer tomorrow. -
UK politics - not inspiring but effective
polishgenius replied to BigFatCoward's topic in General Chatter
Are you saying this is a conspiracy by the lizards to stop Spocky's agricultural revolution before it gets off the ground? -
Luzifer's right hand reacted to a post in a topic: Dune part 2: the spoilers must flow (Spoilers for the movies)
-
Dune part 2: the spoilers must flow (Spoilers for the movies)
polishgenius replied to Kalbear's topic in Entertainment
Haven't seen the Wild Robot trailer I see. -
Mexal reacted to a post in a topic: Football: You can take Poch out of Spurs...or playing Boehly's Billion Bottlers Blues.
-
Having played and enjoyed Haiku the Robot (although not quite finished, I hit a possibly-final-possibly-not boss that was annoying me, so took a break) I intended to go and actually play those RPGs I said I was gonna. But yet another metroidvania I've been waiting for dropped- this time Rebel Transmute, a very Metroid metroidvania. It is, mechanically, very much an old-school metroid with smoother movement and a few additional details. One notable feature is the augments system, which is obviously built off Hollow Knight's pins but takes customisation to an absurd degree- to the point you can remove your own health display if you want. Enjoying it a lot. Early doors but it's easily rivalling Axiom Verge for me.
-
UK politics - not inspiring but effective
polishgenius replied to BigFatCoward's topic in General Chatter
I don't know if it's still going on exactly this way, but I remember around the time I was leaving England 10 years ago they started resurfacing roads, when they did, with absolutely shit material where the top layer would disintegrate almost immediately in the first rain. One road had to be redone immediately after because the top layer pretty literally turned to gravel and they had to temporarily limit a national speed limit road to something stupid like 20mph (can't remember exactly). But even less extreme examples were seeing damage very quickly. I dunno quite how widespread that was (this was in Hertfordshire) but I imagine it was a symptom of cost-cutting measures and even if they improved whatever was happening then (which, you know, I doubt), you'll still be seeing the aftereffects. Even if it wasn't quite as bad as the most extreme examples I saw, I'd still be fairly confident that roads that were scheduled for a full resurface in a couple more decades are way ahead of schedule on falling apart. -
IFR reacted to a post in a topic: 3 Body Problem
-
Corvinus85 reacted to a post in a topic: Football: You can take Poch out of Spurs...or playing Boehly's Billion Bottlers Blues.
-
baxus reacted to a post in a topic: Football: You can take Poch out of Spurs...or playing Boehly's Billion Bottlers Blues.
-
AncalagonTheBlack reacted to a post in a topic: Football: You can take Poch out of Spurs...or playing Boehly's Billion Bottlers Blues.
-
Clarke didn't spend pages describing the scientific details of the alien technology in 2001 though. Possibly he did in Childhood's end, I haven't read that book for decades (I think I've read it?), but generally in my experience when Clarke gets into the nitty gritty detail it's either real things or pure description (as in Rama, where he spends loads of time describing Rama but basically none speculating on the science beyond where it was relevant and understandable to the human crew).
-
I never liked Asimov anyway (not because of that, I just don't like his prose), but Clarke? Not really. Sure, not everything in his books was nailed-down scientific fact and some of it turned out to be bunkum, but if he ever got into the weeds it was via a progression that made sense (at least to me), and didn't contradict stuff we know to be true. Or (as in 2001) he did just go 'hey it's basically magic' and not go into it much. The parts that bothered me in TBP were detailed explanations of things that not just weren't realistic but my brain was yelling were wrong. The pages of explanation for the solar reflection was the big one I still remember, but there were others, they just didn't stick in my brain, I'd have to reread it. That's to a large extent a personal issue- a lot of readers are either gonna not notice when TBP is making stuff up or, because it's definitely been enjoyed by people with far more physics knowledge than me, notice but not care. Apparently some people find it the reverse- by mixing in the made-up stuff with real stuff in the same way it makes it more plausible. I might also just be wrong. If scientists ever discover that you can amplify signals by bouncing them off the sun I'm gonna feel very silly aren't I.
-
SeanF reacted to a post in a topic: Dune part 2: the spoilers must flow (Spoilers for the movies)
-
Dune part 2: the spoilers must flow (Spoilers for the movies)
polishgenius replied to Kalbear's topic in Entertainment
But those weren't the only two options. They were just the only options on the table once Paul made the knowing decision to manipulate the Fremen. The jihad isn't the inevitable result of Fremen freedom - it's the inevitable result of achieving that freedom via Paul's manipulation of their beliefs. -
Didn't realise this was a court of law. In any case I could possibly have used 'silly' rather than 'dumb' to indicate that in this instance, at least broadly, I don't necessarily mean in as a negative (I have genuine negative issues with TBP of course, but the big ones aren't related to this). It has its serious aspects but the sciency parts of the story are goofy as hell. That's fine, I like lots of goofy things. Anyway what I'm basically saying is that the book spends ages setting up certain moments with jargony explanations. Some of those did irritate me because they were such obvious nonsense being presented in the same manner that a hard SF writer would present real theories etc, but even setting that aside, the show won't need to do that because it's way easier to set things like that up visually. It won't be a betrayal of the book if the show has a lot of time for those set-pieces, which the book loves.
-
The book is a big, dumb, set-piece heavy SF epic, isn't it a bit weird to be pre-emptively slating the Netflix version on the suspicion that it might be... well, loyal to the book in that sense?
-
AncalagonTheBlack reacted to a post in a topic: Football: You can take Poch out of Spurs...or playing Boehly's Billion Bottlers Blues.