clyde

@Siromatic If the appeal of these synchronous scenes is mostly observational, then there are a couple of performances you may be interested in knowing about. The Order dvd of Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 is a novel thing. Users can basically switch between cameras as dude climbs the the inside of the Guggenheim. It's been a long time since I've played with it, but I'm pretty sure that the performances on various floors keep time with each other while you flip around. Another comparison would be the Cirque du Soleil performances in VR. They don't switch between cameras, but there is a modularity to the performances that surround you and your gaze is limited so you can never see it all. I know these are not really what you are talking about, but I think they can provide us with some observations relevant to your hypothetical game. One thing you seem to be focused on is the idea of making sure the player can see enough in a playthrough to feel satisfied by the narrative. You also seem to want there to be a strongly authored main through-line. The novelty of The Order and the Cirque du Soleil performances for me is a certain humility I feel as the audience; I feel decentered by a persistence that occurs without my gaze. I think this is the main strength of this type of performance. In order to move towards audience satisfaction, I would recommend filling each "floor" with something sublime in itself that also can be unified with the eventual juxtapositions which are likely to occur in order to give the piece a more general sensibility. The resulting rhetoric can still be affecting even if the juxtaposed pieces can't be fully attributed to a strongly authored narrative (though a strongly authored narrative is still relatively possible).

I am pretty sure I'm on a U.S. server. To be honest I'm not sure that I want to play this game with anyone. I don't enjoy the combat, loot, crafting, or merchantilism at all. I'm just moving through quests and finding out that everyone in town has a peculiar story. I don't know anything about mmo's though. I hear people talk about going on raids but I have no idea what would be fun about raiding. I'm open to trying something out, but I'm not willing to put much effort in or committing to much.

I bought it and I'm enjoying it. I'm not an mmo player so the other players killing my targets is actually a bit distracting as I explore the world (through the quest-chain) and check out these visual-novel esque short-stories. I'm a Khajit Nightblade in the Dominion.

@itsamoose I think the idea is basically that capital accumulation has created a situation in which the two political parties in power (in the U.S.) both side far more with the interests of capitalists than with labor. So their plan is to find ways to give labor more influence. The DSA seems to actively avoid any details of what a socialist system will look like while aiming for one. The reasoning for this is that to come up with a socialist design for a system would lessen the power that those who inhabit that system would have to design the socialist system once it comes. I can understand why that will be an unsatisfactory answer for many, but I kinda like the idea. Capitalist interests have slowly created a circumstance where labor doesn't have the ability to organize and influence the public sphere. At this point, we can see where capitalists interests tend towards in U.S. politics (and I don't think it is a good direction). So I think increasing the influence of labor, learning about a socialist perspective on things like race, gender, and class, and promoting more active citizenship has some hope to it.

I think this song is an enlightening expression of masculinity. I don't think that masculinity is fully comprised of confused jealousy, but I find myself thinking that the way the jealousy is expressed in this song is masculine . I figured this would be a good opportunity to discuss what we think masculinity is. Sometimes it seems that masculinity is only brought up as something in opposition to feminity and I'm interested in developing a more full understanding of the gender that I most identify with. I'm hoping that we can talk about it honestly, both its positives and concerning aspects. Gender confuses the shit out of me largely because I'm resistant to forcing generalities on folks, but feminism seems to suggest that a lot of good can come from identifying with gender(?). So let's talk about this one!

I had a blast playing with you yesterday. After you talked positively about the shotgun I saw there was a shotgun-challenge available and I played with it last night. I like using Smoke with it now because I tend to push back a little bit when time is running out and I can throw smoke and then shoot in that general direction a few times. Which operators do you have? I know you rock Sledge a lot. I've probably asked you that before but I don't remember. In a way I envy the limitation of having a small roster to get familar with, but I do like the novelty of getting to choose a particular operator based off of what killed me two rounds earlier.

Is anyone else playing the beta? I like it a lot. I haven't seen anything as innovative as this in the millions of dollars, multiplayer-competitive, team-based shooter genre since Titanfall. I'm still rather clumsy at it, but I'm starting to get an idea of where the entrances to the rooms are. I've unlocked IQ and Pulse and have very little understanding of how their abilities work. My favorite part of the game is when I'm breaching with four teammates.

I feel you and I appreciate you putting this sentiment into words. It helps explain how I can be excited about becoming a member of the Democratic Socialists of America without feeling confident that I understand what "Socialism" is. I like the policies the DSA supports and the ways that they support them.

I will say that I've tried this and it stopped working for me. That is if you define "rigorous" as organizing behind any named ideology besides centralism .

I'll check it out. I'm watching Mine Wars right now, I'm about half-way through. When They talk about the economics of the company town (housing for workers, company stores that take the company's currency, that type of set-up) it sounds like a good idea to me in a way, but I can also see how it creates a reliance on the company and how the companies then began to not only take away rights, but took away Constitutional Rights. And when they talk about how the mine owners were all trying to under-sell each other and how that created a low profit-margin, it sounds like an argument that continues to have a lot of relevance today (immigrant labor and foreign factories). I'd say what I'm most interested in right now regarding theory is something that can supply me with the imaginative capacity see those two arguments and not default to Capitalist Realism. I'd also like to find more sources talking about the supposed economic war in Venezuela. I've seen three things on the internet that claim the manufacturers for specific items such as toilet-paper, corn-flour, and cooking oil are intentionally sabotaging either production or distribution in order to put more public pressure on the leftist government. But it all seems to come from Telesur and it doesn't compute for me; why can't the government apply state-capitalism to start a factory for corn-flour and cooking oil?

I don't have anything remotely close to the attention-span required for reading Das Kapital. Every once in a while I look for YouTube videos that are good explainers for things like the "Theory of Value" or ... I don't know other Marxist concepts I could look up ("Capital accumulation"?). I'm interested but I prefer more digestable summaries to listen to while I play Trackmania. If anyone comes across some please post them here.

I'm convinced that Chris would love pinball if he found a table with with a strong tie between an attractive theme and the modes, but I know we are all busy people with a limit to how many hobbies we can participate in. This is the table that made me understand pinball as an expressive interactive art-form that uses optimization, discovery, and dexteeity-challenges to create something greater (but totally reliant on) its parts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Who's_Tommy_Pinball_Wizard

So I'm still on this kick and digging deeper by just filling my social media feeds with socialism-oriented accounts and browsing like normal. I've come to learn that "socialism" is largely defined as a critique of (and development of an alternative to) "capitalism". This allows for a lot of wiggle room and wider involvement. The reason I'm posting at the moment though is that I just listened to the DSA's official podcast called "Rose Radio" and I found the first episode to be very helpful. It's possible that the helpfulness of tbis particular episode is completely reliant on the jist of what I've been vaccuuming up in the last month (or possibly years really). http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:313105177/sounds.rss Also the got more t-shirts in the swag area of their website and the "feminist socialism" tshirt is totally my thang and I am not an XL. So I just bought a print subscription to Jacobin instead.

I'm super excited about Bannerlord and I was NOT expecting a five-on-five multiplayer mode where you order troops around. I'm so excited.

I'm looking forward to playing a lot of this next week when the new operators come out (Sept 5th): http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/gaming/848703/Rainbow-Six-Siege-operators-update-Blood-Orchid-release-date Based off this description, they don't sound nearly as interesting as Jackal or Mira, but I love traps and I have a hard time effectively using sensory-deprevation devices so I'm looking forward to trying these new G.I.Joe toys out. I'm glad I have a season-pass; I look forward to new operators rather than dreading them. Based off the descriptions I probably wouldn't unlock any three of these characters if I had to grind for them.

I've heard that "block-chains" and "crytocurrency" are gonna be big from internet tech-evangelists for a while. This is the first article I've read where the market-value of those technologies aren't based solely on currency-speculation so I find it interesting. This makes sense, I could see how companies that require CPU and GPU power might start their own cryptocurrencies rather than pay Amazon (if it is cheaper). https://www.roadtovr.com/otoy-render-token-rndr-light-field-vr-ar/amp/

I'm pretty sure that this type of game isn't my thing, but I'm using the beta as an opportunity to see what the talk is about. So is the cooperative mode the closest mode to the main draw of the franchise? Is the main game going to be more like Borderlands in structure?

I had no idea this mode was in Fire&Sword until I read a RPS article yesterday. I'll wait for Bannnerlord.

https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/socialism-democratic-socialists-of-america-convention-millennials-carlos-ramirez-rosa/Content?oid=29358708

Here is what they wrote regarding the lack of a release-date. http://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/2353548518936257594

I'm pretty sure I found your armored fortress @adsmz You are pretty close to me I just haven't been traveling North until last night. I was also surprised to see how close I am to the first place I spawned when I came onto the server. I am not the person who removed half of that wooden house but I did paint over the sign to remove the reference to a sex-crime. ...................... I made a sachel charge for the first time to blow up my own wooden door. Now that I'm getting familiar with what can be crafted in Rust I'm wanting to go spend some time on a violent server and see how well I do solo.

Playing on this server is oddly similar to playing Firewatch, mysterious break-in's included. http://imgur.com/a/5deYh

The animals not moving and not being a threat is not preferable imo.

I watched a beginner's video that explained stashes and the standard locks. I like the idea of the standard lock personally because it would be so exciting to loot my body and find a key then go around looking for my house. After I respawned this morning I got chased up a rock by a bear and ended up settling there. It has turned out to be a really neat house. I hid a key to the door in a stash nearby. I'm not sure if I want to make a sleeping bag.