Idle Thumbs 69: I Had a Gleam

[tabacco]

  On 8/14/2012 at 8:02 PM, dibs said:

Oddly enough, the new episodes don't shop up in my itunes untill i follow your link on the blog and then it magically updates. Dammit but i hate itunes.

If you listen on an iOS device, I cannot recommend http://downcastapp.com/ strongly enough. It really puts any of Apple's solutions for podcasts to shame. No desktop app yet, though

[RoutineMachine]

  On 8/13/2012 at 9:36 PM, Chris said:

Yep, it's been in stereo ever since the last Progresscast. It's not a very heavy stereo mix, though. A number of people have said they listen to podcasts in the car and they hate stereo mixes that are too noticeable. I tried to find a decent compromise.

Ah, that explains why it felt like Sean was trying to sneak up on me to my right while Chris and Jake distracted me with mars lander conversation. I kinda liked it, it was immersive.

[dium]

  On 8/15/2012 at 4:46 AM, tabacco said:

If you listen on an iOS device, I cannot recommend http://downcastapp.com/ strongly enough. It really puts any of Apple's solutions for podcasts to shame. No desktop app yet, though

Thank you so much, Douglas. This has improved my quality of life.

You probably never go by that but I really like saying "Douglas" for some reason.

[gregbrown]

  On 8/15/2012 at 4:46 AM, tabacco said:

If you listen on an iOS device, I cannot recommend http://downcastapp.com/ strongly enough. It really puts any of Apple's solutions for podcasts to shame. No desktop app yet, though

Instacast is another great one but again, no desktop app. I just end up listening to all podcasts through my iPhone, even when I'm sitting at my computer anyways.

[toblix]

Doug recommended Downcast to me when I trashed Apple's piece of shit podcast app on Twitter, and I never looked back, except for when I transferred my subscriptions. There's still weirdness with it suddenly not being the "current" player on the iPhone, so I have to go in and start the app again and hit play, but I suspect that's an issue with the OS clearing memory or something – it's been an issue with all audio players I've tried. One of those awful bugs Apple for some reason do nothing about for ages and ages. Hopefully they'll implement some lightweight audio player state persistence in iOS 6, so that audio players are never cleared from memory again. I suspect they're more busy making a reminders app that physically resembles a refrigerator with little paper notes and magnets, and you can click on the refrigerator door handle and it opens and you can see all the food inside and interact with it.

[ObligatorySpiderQueen]

  On 8/13/2012 at 3:01 PM, Fizzbang said:

I tried getting into Dota2 and this was exactly the issue that hit me. Some elements, like the unintuitive gameplay and the derivative characters seems contrary to Valve's traditions of quality and player friendliness, which are highly visible in other parts of the game. And while I can't be sure because I don't know the inner workings of Valve's magical Shangri-La, it seems like there are two conflicting internal goals:

1) Create a faithful upgrade of the original Dota - which means keeping all of the derivative chracters, recreating gameplay that was based on rough edges of the Warcraft 3 engine, and generally catering to the hardcore fans.

2) Make it "a Valve game" in all the inclusiveness and polish that it entails - meaning brilliantly informative character design, with friendliness for new players and a strong attempt to encourage good behavior in the community.

Yeah, I was hesitantly looking forward to DotA because I kind of liked League of Legends but it wasn't all the way there for me with the character designs and I was thinking 'Heh yeah Valve is gonna show them how it's done!' and then when I saw the hero screen on the website I was so disappointed. I didn't realize it was going to be such a clone of the original that they weren't going to redesign the heroes much except to polish them up a little. So, it gets to inherit all the boring sexist designs decisions of DotA which inherited the boring sexist design decisions of mid 90s Blizzard. Kinda weird.

I really want to like that genre too. Except I don't, because I don't want to get sucked into a game that competitive. But I love character design and monster design, so I love the concept of a game that's just various character designs hitting each other. But no one has made one with designs that really appeal to me yet.

[Zederick]

  On 8/15/2012 at 10:56 PM, ObligatorySpiderQueen said:

I really want to like that genre too. Except I don't, because I don't want to get sucked into a game that competitive. But I love character design and monster design, so I love the concept of a game that's just various character designs hitting each other. But no one has made one with designs that really appeal to me yet.

Like I said, the combination of Dota2's derivative (to be charitable) character concepts with the excellence of Valve's art design makes for some really unusual results. It's like seeing a brilliant but faithful remake of Manos: the Hand of Fate.

[ObligatorySpiderQueen]

  On 8/15/2012 at 11:07 PM, Fizzbang said:

Like I said, the combination of Dota2's derivative (to be charitable) character concepts with the excellence of Valve's art design makes for some really unusual results. It's like seeing a brilliant but faithful remake of Manos: the Hand of Fate.

The voiceacting really doesn't help. It seriously sounds like they hired a disinterested phone-sex operator. I don't even really believe she's enjoying all this pain!

His wife is pretty much hearing her husband's computer make an awkward seduction attempt at him. If I have to listen to my husband's computer try to seduce him, he better at least be listening to Shodan.

[dibs]

Well, this is who they had originally doing her voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyNa_NsMR_4

[dibs]

Thanks for the tip, but my 1st gen ipod touch is on its last legs, so I shalln't burden it any further with apps. I just copy them via iTunes nowadays as the poor guy can't trundle past some hurdle in iTunes and crashes out when I try to download a cast.

[subbes]

BE HOT

BE NAUGHTY

BE COURTEOUS

[Salacious Snake]

Oh wow, Downcast is good! One minor feature has improved my listening experience quite a lot: Remote Media Skip. Now I have a way to scan around within a podcast (like to back up if I missed something or skip over some music, not that I'd skip Chris's sweet tunes) while I'm in the car. I previously had no way to do that, because the iPod kit in my car is a bit of a kludge.

Thanks, Doug! I'm glad I saved you over Carly.

[tabacco]

A recent addition that's quickly become my favorite thing is checking for new episodes when you arrive at or leave specific locations. I listen primarily in the car, so having it automatically ping for new casts when I leave work and am walking to my car is pretty great.

[Lork]

Let me be the 200th person to say thank you so much to Doug for recommending Downcast. I had all but given up on the idea of subscribing to podcasts on my iPhone after getting fed up with Podcaster's bullshit.

It still boggles my mind that there's no easy way to get podcasts onto the most advanced incarnation of the device that podcasts were named after without using a third party solution.

[Badfinger]

  On 8/15/2012 at 11:26 PM, ObligatorySpiderQueen said:

The voiceacting really doesn't help. It seriously sounds like they hired a disinterested phone-sex operator. I don't even really believe she's enjoying all this pain!

His wife is pretty much hearing her husband's computer make an awkward seduction attempt at him. If I have to listen to my husband's computer try to seduce him, he better at least be listening to Shodan.

I hadn't ever listened to her voice acting before. That sounds like someone tried to figure out if they wanted to be Katey Sagal or Sigourney Weaver and landed in a boring middle.