deanb

Oh yeah, on that forgot to reply to your "2-3 years ago no one was thinking about self driving cars for consumers". Turns out Google announced their car in 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/science/10google.html?_r=0

I'm now aware that we might be the only folks who know what LIDAR is. The similar naming to RADAR I imagine will clue most folks in, just light instead of radiation. I know it from 3D work, it's essentially used to "mocap" a landscape. So for example with the Avengers fight scenes they'll likely have done a crap ton of lidar and 360 photo scans of the area, allowing them to make a rough (point data still needs manual tweaking, though I imagine it has improved since I was last taught about it) 3D scan of the area. You won't really use it for the purpose of redoing a shot or making a fake NYC street (though they did a most of fake NYC in Avengers...I guess it's gotten better...and they have more money) but usually use it to put your CGI elements into "location" in your 3D scan, then apply that to the film footage. Or use it for early pre-viz work. Get a lidar scan of potential location and put your scenes in there with simple 3D figures n such. https://www.fxguide.com/featured/pointcloud9-a-lidar-case-study/ Also in finding the above article I found out that the UK gov has been LIDAR scanning the majority of the UK and that's open data (honestly I do love the whole digital transparency stuff going on with the gov atm, and it's getting better) https://environmentagency.blog.gov.uk/2015/06/16/free-mapping-data-will-elevate-flood-risk-knowledge/ Which I guess reminds me of a wee hazard: Of late we've had more n more flooding in the UK, hopefully the cars can recognise floods and navigate those. But I've a feeling it'll be completely useless. Heck I wonder if it'll understand fords....err as in the river crossing not the car brand. I guess they'll have fords in their database. I guess one thing is they could potentially recognise floods, or be alerted to upcoming floods and drive to high ground to save themselves which'll reduce at least some of the cost impact of flooding. Way too many shots of cars submerged to the roof on the news. Oh a potential work around for the poor marking is Beacons. They're being used for internal GPS at the moment (as well as Facebook being all creepy with letting companies know when you're passing by). The tech is very early stages, and I'm not sure it's designed to work at high speeds or walking pace. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBeacon Google have their own unsurprisingly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddystone_(Google)

Watched Eddie The Eagle with family on Monday, bit of a going away day for my bro. For those unfamiliar, which was pretty much everyone except my mum who I guess was a teen at the time, he's sort of the British version of Cool Runnings, and was in the same olympics. In fact in the background the radio does mention the Jamaican bobsled team too. It's pretty good, heartwarming kind of film. There's no huge surprises (he comes in last) but Taron Eggerton is pretty great in it (like...you can sort of make out it's him but he's rather different in mannerism n such). The real Eddie Edwards ever stated it was like looking at a mirror. Wolverine also shows up as the washed up failed Olympian to train him, though he's a fictional creation. I imagine Christopher Walken was too. The core message I guess is about following your dream regardless of whether you're the best or not. Tomorrow the plan is to watch Zootropolis, hopefully I'll be coming back to this thread too.

Honestly it strikes me as a pretty weird issue for the US to have given such a car-centric society. Was surprised a few years ago on the story of some states digging up roads rather than repairing them. I doubt it's an game breaking issue for them, there's more than one way they gather data on the roads, and in this case the cars mentioned, both the Volvo and the Tesla, are only semi-autonomous and likely not outfitted with the kind of tech Googles fully-auto cars will have (which given it mentions the semi-auto tech adds only $4K to the price of a car, and the LIDAR that Google use is $75K a pop there's a wee discrepancy)

I didn't get any of that stuff apart from Carbuncle. It was certainly weird, though interesting. I played it on the PSTV though (trying to avoid room as much as possible atm) so any jankiness I put down to the signal.

http://www.pcgamer.com/dwarf-fortress-creator-on-how-hes-42-towards-simulating-existence/ Tarn Adams declares he's 42% towards simulating existence. I somewhat believe him. Also this is great

New trailer out for the newer Top Gear. Also on the 4th series of Arrested Development, a notable shift in style in its move to Netflix. Also watching Supergirl so I can watch the crossover episode. It's quite formulaic start so far, with setting up the universe and learning a lesson each episode kind of thing (oh, that's not "setting up the universe" in a "this is kryptonite and how it works". Like...there's a green blade and you know it's kryptonite. Just setting up this "Fort Ross and the escaped criminals" thing). Kinda bummed in double checking if it was definitely Dean Cain on IMDB a plot element was revealed in the cast list. Very similar to Flash's "introduce a familiar character but change it so it keeps even knowledgeable people guessing" trick.

So they're making a movie An anime And a trailer for the game itself Also a new demo is out on the PSN store. I'm grabbing it atm, gonna see if it's much different to the one that came with Type-0. I might enjoy it a bit more since playing Lightning Returns. https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-us/games/platinum-demo-final-fantasy-xv/cid=UP0082-CUSA04568_00-0000000000000001 https://store.xbox.com/en-US/Xbox-One/Games/PLATINUM-DEMO-FINAL-FANTASY-XV/7e0fa99c-bcfd-49e2-90c3-d17d2e566b49 I'll have to put the stream on later, since it's like 3hrs long. http://i.imgur.com/ztDvPYK.gifv

I've been passing my time making jigsaws and watching Arrested Development and it's great. One observation is that most of the various gifs n refrences you see around are from the first few episodes, which did make me a bit wary it'd go downhill quickly, but it's been great. Love all the internal referencing (I'm up to 3rd series and there's the "the fact you call it 'pop-pop' tells me you're not ready" line repeated from the previous series), and how it all sort of weaves together in a way many other shows struggle to do. It's a very different style and tone to Community, but it's in much the same category I'd say. Like if you like one, you'll like the other. Also given it is over 10 years since it came out interesting to see folks "back then" and their progress since, though some cameos were already quite famous at the time.

To be fair Ethan doesn't get on well with superhero-ing http://i.imgur.com/W0Wzs9O.gifv Also neither GOH or Ethan are blind, which if the two shows I'm watching atm (Daredevil and Arrested Development) have taught me, is that that is a great trait for a lawyer to have. They probably can't just go for mistrial out the gate n hope for the best. Lawyers by day, Batman Arkham gamers by night. Also a minor irk on the "matt has super senses" thing (up to ep 9):

I've been playing ESO. I'm not sure it's clicking at the moment.

http://i.imgur.com/mxEFQpC.gifv

There's a deleted scene that WB have released that vaguely explains the ending a little more context.

It's possible Green Lantern hasn't been chosen yet. (within the universe, not as in casting)

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Jesus Justice. Jesse Eisenberg was utter shit. I don't think he's read a single page of comic with Lex Luthor in it and that includes the one with 40 cakes! Affleck is Batman, Cavill is the same Superman he was in the last film making Batman look like a cheery dude, and Gadot was alright, we'll need to see her in a bigger film to understand her WW I think. Jeremy Irons is a pleasure as always. If you've seen the trailer you've essentially seen the core of the film with one minor difference Music in Man of Steel was better too. Also there's a weird "Infinity Well Scene from Ultron" cameo and it's even weirder than what Thor had going on. Clearly trying to put in all the pieces to set up a Justice League film and ....look it's in the trailers but . In fact the editing in this film was piss poor too. They had an origin scene for Batman (in case you didn't know..he failed to stop a criminal that later shot dead his uncle leading him to...wait wrong overly repeated origin story). It didn't need one, the film would be none the worse for it, and they manage to do a super-cut of it later in the film where it's more relevant. The fights are great, it's neat to see all three on the big screen, and there's a lot of Dark Knight Returns homages in the film. But...I've seen the film and come away more confused than if I'd just seen the trailers, and I think the crux of all the confusion is around Luthor. He was terribly cast, written, directed and acted imo. He was like some poor mans rich Joker than a potential candidate for President and super genius. Braniac would swat him like a fly rather than join with him. His overall plots and aims seemed almost aimless, I think poorly told. We're gonna need a follow up film to explain what was going on in this film. Which is bad. The MCU stuff gets critized for wedging in Avengers plot-lines to the single films but they tell a single cohesive story in a single film but this is clearly a unlabelled "Part 1". Also Batman kills people.

http://nianticlabs.com/blog/pokemon-go-first-look/ First official look at Pokemon GO. I'm sort of interested in it. I'd given Ingress a bit of a go but was all overly confusing ARGness so this at least I know the "story" of. Be itneresting to see how much it gets screwed up with microtransactions.

What a mixed bag of films in that "from the studio that brought you" list.

Marvel is a recognizable world but doesn't mean it should exactly match ours. Part of the premise of the first series is that Hell's Kitchen got pretty fucked over in the aftermath of Avengers, which I'd guess if they had had any gentrification would have all vanished. It would be much easier to just assume Hell's Kitchen, which has the name for it, is a bit of a shithole and "change" that in the MCU than the suggested "Devil of Sunnyside" change. Most people aren't exactly intimately familiar with the housing market of NYC for it to matter much. Same as the lawyering. Just say enough latin words and hey presto does for most folks. We're all aware of folks "making a GUI in Visual Basic to hack an IP firmware" to know TV shows usually aren't overly concerned with technical aspects. @HH: Punisher is growing on me with Penny & Dime. Bit too much just shooty bang bang for the first few episodes. Elektra is currently annoying instead, though more Matt's acting around her (as in character, not Charlie Cox's acting). I'm up to the party/13th floor gate crashing episode which is her "just one more thing", and I can tell from upcoming episode thumbnail that there'll be another thing too.

I've not actively played since the crimson thing, and then picking up my winnings from that. Would like to play more but the content is only so appealing when on tod and plenty other games to go through. If folks want to play just poke me and can probably sort something.

I will give this a shot tonight.

Nope, not sure I would, I don't play on my 3DS anywhere near enough. Could always look for a cheap copy. Lost Oddyssey is in my mind the best 7th gen Final Fantasy game. A shame it never went multi-plat.