thehubby

[thehubby]

A reminder from the surviving dandelions of my freshly cut lawn that being short is totally okay.

[thehubby]

However, that wasn’t all—she also suggested sending out a survey to all of the production employees (though the survey itself would actually be meaningless); it would ask them their name and require that they complete a number of questions. This survey would provide a baseline of typing and mouse-movement activity for each worker that they could then link to user data captured on the factory floor. By joining the two data sets, they could not only figure out where latency and problems were occurring in the facility but also pinpoint who was actually responsible for these problems. Brent shook his head somewhat in disbelief as he rehashed what Robin had proposed. The ability to not just identify problems but identify problematic employees would be extremely powerful. Not to mention that any decisions he would make about punishing or firing inefficient employees would be quantitatively based and no one could accuse him of subjectivity or bias—he could just point to the data and say: “It is what it is!” At the end of the day, Brent was walking slowly to his car when he had an even more intriguing thought: “What if I could use this same approach on employees’ supervisor assessments? Maybe Robin could help me identify the people who were critical of me by analyzing their typing behaviors and mouse movements.” He couldn’t see it, but a faint smile had broken out on his face.

I hate this class. So much. It is like the managerial equivalent of being thrilled at creating the Torment Nexus. Go to hell, Pearson.

[thehubby]

Like, someone answered the "longest word" challenge in Trivia Murder Party with "me." Another answered "cat cat cat" for everything in Quiplash.

Sitting at home sick tonight, in my pajamas, trawling for Jackbox pick-up games.

Conclusion, based on an admittedly limited sample size: the internet is filled with some really dumb people.

[thehubby]

Sitting at home sick tonight, in my pajamas, trawling for Jackbox pick-up games.

Conclusion, based on an admittedly limited sample size: the internet is filled with some really dumb people.

[thehubby]

Man, the Borderlands trailer looks bad. Like, ridiculously bad. I could accept if it was bad and matched the bad of the games, but this doesn't even feel like Borderlands. While the world of Pandora looks great, the humor feels off-beat and forced (for instance, the call-and-response jokes are not typically native to the games). The casting is one of the worst I've ever seen. Cate Blanchett is a premiere actress of our time, but she is woefully misused as a 20-something Lilith; the same goes for Jamie Lee Curtis as the 30-something Tannis, though I have no doubt both of these actresses can act their asses off in these parts. Roland is an imposing military man with zero sense of humor; why is a comedian barely five feet tall playing him? You know I love Jack Black, but Claptrap as the mascot of the series has a very distinctive voice; if they couldn't patch things up with David Eddings or even get Foronda, then you've lost the plot. Tiny Tina is like a rebellious teen brat instead of a psychotic explodomaniac. Apparently there will be no Brick or Mordecai at all?

I guess I have to blame the Dungeons and Dragons movie for setting standards too high. For decades I was used to game adaptation movies being simply terrible and then I saw hope for a brighter future. I don't think this is it. I'll just...play the games again, I guess.

#Borderlands

[thehubby]

If you still have the opportunity, go see Godzilla Minus One in the theaters. Right now, most theaters are playing it are showing the Minus Color version of the movie, which is an added bonus. Reasons you should see this:

• It's a good movie. This isn't just a good Godzilla movie, it's a good movie overall. You could swap Godzilla out with an invading army, a natural disaster, or some other sort of applicable crisis and it would still be good watching. There's a real plot here with real people who have real problems outside of just a big monster. They are often flawed, especially our protagonist (who demonstrates PTSD in an uncomfortably believable way), but they're trying and they are generally likable. I wanted almost every human in King of the Monsters to die; they were that stupid and arrogant and unrelatable that it made humanity seem like it deserved extinction. Here, you want the characters to overcome their own problems -- and not all of them do. It's not a perfect plot, and I think the movie fumbles the ball at literally the very end, but it's a good story, and for a giant monster movie? This is a great story.

• Godzilla is terrifying. This may be the scariest Godzilla we've ever seen. Even if he's not as bizarre as Shin Godzilla or possibly not as strong as the Godzilla of the Monsterverse, his presence and strength compared to the world he exists in is overwhelming. Remember the opening of Evangelion with the third angel, Sachiel, an unstoppable, incomprehensible force attacking Tokyo-3, a city built to fight its kind with Evangelions in reserve and a confident military? Remember how that went? (It went very badly.) Now imagine that a creature like it instead attacks a Japan still reeling from its defeat during World War II, with a neutered military and a public with no shelters to flee to, no safety protocols. This Godzilla is massive, strong, resilient, and its breath weapon literally causes miniature atomic explosions to occur. In many Godzilla movies of the past 30-40 years, people are scared of Godzilla, sure, but here they are panicked, with good reason.

• The filmmakers understand less is more. Remember when Jedi were cool because they were rare and mysterious, and lightsabers only came out when stuff was really about to go down? Or how in the first movie Jaws only showed up occasionally and that's when it hit the fan? That's how it is here. Unlike in recent times, Godzilla is only a small portion of the film, an occasional force of nature that shows up, wrecks house and is then driven off or leaves. You don't get a chance to become tired of him or inured to his presence as a result. This sets up a palpable tension as you have no idea when Godzilla will next appear, and I admit I was somewhat false-started a few times from a thudding sound in the theater next to me that I thought could have been it approaching.

• It's practical and understandable. Modern Godzilla movies often use pseudo-futuristic technology like genetic cross-manipulation of alien species, cybernetic mind-transplanation, vocal analysis replication, oxygen destroyer bombs and other such nonsense to fight the giant monsters. The people of post-WWII Japan use real equipment and techniques to battle -- conventional weapons like guns and bombs, known gases like freon and carbon dioxide, underwater speakers. They use human ingenuity to form tactics that match the known science of the time and seem like rational leaps to make. They don't know if it's going to work! They are just desperate. The ships and planes featured are authentic and real. The suspension of disbelief is very easy to achieve here, which only accentuates how scary it would be to fight Godzilla when you don't have, like, military grade nuclear powered lasers or something.

• The Minus Color version looks astounding. Don't get me wrong, the color version looks great too (although like most modern kaiju movies, the color especially during energy and breath attacks is oversaturated), but they really put in an extra effort to give it the feel of the early black and white Godzilla movies. The resolution is toned down ever so slightly instead of the crispness of 4k; the light and dark contrast is balanced properly. You get more clarity into what you're watching and the subdued tones really match the despair and fear that people are going through. It really feels like, if we filmed the very first Godzilla movie in 1954 with modern cinematic techniques and CGI but black and white film, this is what we would have ended up with.

Ultimately, this is easily my favorite Godzilla reboot, and probably my favorite Godzilla movie. The original Godzilla of 1954 has a special place in my heart, and just as people should still appreciate Pac-Man even though Ms. Pac-Man made it obsolete, we should still appreciate that first movie. I just think this is, frankly, better in just about every way (although they deviate from the original creature design in a couple ways I'm not thrilled on). If you must have monster-on-monster action, then either Destroy All Monsters from 1968 or King of the Monsters from 2019 are what you're looking for, but you'll have to sit through ridiculous plots (and sometimes infuriating people) in both cases to get your fix. I'll hope for a sequel from these folks.

#Godzilla Minus One

[thehubby]

Amazing, just amazing. If you are only ever willing to see one Godzilla movie and you can't stomach the rubber-suited 1954 original, see this one. More to be said later.

I am catching Godzilla Minus One Minus Color in the theater tonight. Super exciting. And it looks like I might even have the place to myself.

[thehubby]

I am catching Godzilla Minus One Minus Color in the theater tonight. Super exciting. And it looks like I might even have the place to myself.

#Godzilla Minus One

[thehubby]

Taking a Management Information Systems class this semester and nothing prior, not even governmental accounting, has made me just want to give up and go live in the forest as a bearded hermit so much. Take how CEOs were planning to replace employees at least 5 years ago:

Accenture, a technology consulting and outsourcing company, conducted a survey of CEOs in 2018. It found that 74 percent of CEOs plan to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to automate tasks to a large or very large extent over the next three years. But those same CEOs also believe that only 26 percent of their workers are prepared to collaborate with their AI coworkers. Even worse, only 3 percent of CEOs plan on increasing investments toward training and reskilling employees to prepare them for these new tech-centric jobs.

Or how a typical manager might handle firing an employee due to the impacts of AI:

“Well, I appreciate that attitude, but we’re a small company, really still a startup in many ways. Everyone needs to pull more than their own weight here. Maybe if we were a bigger company, I’d be able to find for a spot for you, see if we could bring you along. But we can’t afford to do that now.” “What about my references?” “I’ll be happy to tell anyone that you’re reliable, that you work 40 to 45 hours a week, and that you’re honest and have integrity.” “Those are important!” “Yes, they are. But today, they’re not enough.”

None of these are criticized; they're just presented as matter-of-fact, or even how things should be in order to run an efficient ship.

I also appreciate the course's implicit suggestion that my chosen field (accounting) is likely to drop in value soon, due to the need for "nonroutine cognitive skills" such as "abstract thinking" and "ability to experiment" -- things that our accounting and ethics classes generally dissuade since attempting to warp bookkeeping principles and tax codes can lead to minor situations like embezzlement and fraud.

In short, you suck, Pearson, and I haven't missed working with you in the two years I was able to avoid it.

[thehubby]

Well, thank God it's sunny I guess or we might have to deal with some real cold around here, right?

[thehubby]

I've been enjoying Sniper Elite 4 which I picked up for a song in the Steam sale, before the storefront stopped supporting Windows 7 machines. It is every bit as good as Sniper Elite 3, but... The DLC. Boy, am I glad I waited to try the DLC missions until after I finished the main campaign.

I mean, really, how do you top this? I've been killing Hitlers in video games since 1989 or so and It's never been not satisfying, whether he's just been resurrected so I can kill him again in Bionic Commando or he's wearing a suit of power armor in Wolfenstein 3D. But it's pretty much the capper to things. Did Rebellion think this was going to be the end of the line? For me, it can be.

There's a Sniper Elite 5 out there, and it's some France thing? No, man, you guys already let me snipe Hitler. Unless the next game has me killing Hitler and Stalin with the same bullet while they have dinner, you done goofed.

#For those wondering #In this level he runs like a damn wuss and hides himself in an office #assuming you took out his escape boat in advance because of course I did #But it makes it really hard to get the good sniper shots in those quarters #I wanted a Hitler testicle kill as my finale with the game but #alas I have to settle for a round to the head

[thehubby]

As promised yesterday!

Announcing: Nitro/Carbon

Just in time to ring in the new year, my latest game, Nitro/Carbon, is now published and available on Itch.io. As usual, publication on DriveThruRPG will take longer but it will show up on my games page there when it is available.

Yes, that's my artwork there. No, it's not good, but I never claimed to be an artist. (On the other hand, I think the logo came out well.)

Nitro/Carbon is a card game. This is a bit of a departure from what I've been releasing, but new can be good. You won't need any roleplaying skills, acting, desire and patience to look up character powers in some table, or gauging odds with dice. What you will need is the ability to accept an absurd premise -- cut-throat composting in the apocalypse -- along with decision making and utilization of limited resources.

You will need a standard 52-card deck in order to play the game. If your house doesn't have one of these, you should stop reading this post immediately and rectify that issue before continuing on with life.

This is a rules-light entry, with the actual guidelines for play coming in at only 5 pages. It's intended to be easy enough for casual players to pick up quickly while allowing for some strategy and tactics. Quick reference sheets are also included for usage during gameplay.

As with all of my other releases, it is free, so at worst you're out the amount of time needed to download and look through it. But I hope that you will get a bit more out of it than that. Enjoy.

#Nitro-Carbon #Stage 99 Games

[thehubby]

If you're planning any sort of get-together tomorrow and/or want to ring in the new year by doing something new, keep an eye on this spot tomorrow as I roll out my next game that I have rushed to deliver in time for the occasion.

Hint: It's a card game using a standard deck. No roleplaying is needed. (For that matter, you don't need to know how to compost, either.)

#Stage 99 Games

[thehubby]

As someone who has studied and appreciated insects and "bug" type arthropods my whole life, this hits close to home. If we were in the area, I would step up, but that's out of the question so the best I can hope for is a signal boost that could get this to the right ears.

Can we boost this one until it reaches the Oklahoma City Tumblrites? This seems like something this website could rally and solve. Help save all this genetic information? I messaged them to offer to consult with the entymology lab near mine to see if they could store the bugs with us, but they are VERY far away and would have to drive long distance to us.

[thehubby]

Aaaaaaand, nominee for this year's most awkward melee weapon is...

[thehubby]

5:45 comes mighty early in the morning. Some days are worth it.

[thehubby]

Receiving spam mail for the former owners of our house us long past something to be blase about, but there's something weird about getting a genuine hand-addressed holiday card from a real human being to someone who has been dead for six years.

#I mean #part of me feels the need to return to sender as deceased #because i feel they should know #on the other hand uf they don't know after all this time #are they close enough to care?