AlexandrB

Joined 16 years ago

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6,504

Member since

Nov 10

http://bencz.com

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Recent submissions

Comment · 8 days ago

> If the courts ruled against them, would you have taken that as evidence for the quality of the charter, and the legal system that stands behind it? Or is this a tails I win, heads you lose situation?

That's a fair point. Though the truckers are just an example.

I just don't think the charter offers guarantees anywhere as strong as the US constitution. For example, Canada's hate speech laws have taken a big chunk out of both the right to free speech and now the freedom of religion[1] set out in the charter.

[1] https://www.cccb.ca/media-release/proposed-restrictions-on-r...

Comment · 8 days ago

Politically or economically? Because economically Canada is headed to the bottom of the G20.

https://www.bcbc.com/insight/oecd-predicts-canada-will-be-th...

Comment · 8 days ago

> Are there lots of examples in Canada of basic charter rights being violated in such a manner?

Plenty, it's just usually against unpopular targets. The most notable recent one being the trucker protest[1]. And what were the consequences for those in charge for this charter violation? I believe the answer is "nothing".

So what we have in Canada is a charter that theoretically protects citizens, but in practice can be violated by the government with impunity.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-federal-cou...

Comment · 8 days ago

I've given up on all streaming services because none of them offer a model where my money goes to the artists I listen to and not to Taylor Swift and other top-40 nonsense. Switching completely to Plex + PlexAmp + Bandcamp + iTunes purchased music (it's DRM free). It helps that I have ~300 CDs to kick start my library.

Comment · 9 days ago

It's a trade-off. You get bigger scope and better production values at the cost of creative control. Often that also means that the gameplay gets diluted or dumbed down to make the game more marketable.

Comment · 9 days ago

Oh absolutely, but fans should not expect good games to continue at that point.

Comment · 9 days ago

Modern sports gambling ads amount to fraud because winners are prevented from winning more through wager restrictions. The whole industry can only exist because it cheats and lies.

Comment · 10 days ago

I don't think you can credit Windows 95 to agile when the agile manifesto was first published in 2001 and the whole sprint nonsense didn't start until sometime later. Iterative development goes back to at least the 80s and doesn't require "scrum masters", "sprints", or "t-shirt sizes".

Comment · 10 days ago

It's definitely a balancing act. There are some great cinematic games (Last of Us), but it's also easy to put all the focus on the cinematic aspects and have a bunch of mediocre gameplay as filler in between. I don't understand why more games didn't go the Half Life 2 route and have the conversation/cinematic play out around you without taking control away completely.

Comment · 10 days ago

I think the core issue is bad writing. All of that other stuff is only a problem because it's written with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face. In many cases the writing reduces characters to their identity group instead of being believable humans with believable motivations.

Comment · 10 days ago

I think the best way to keep quality up is to stay small. Supergiant Games is a great example of this approach. Once you have a massive publisher and expectations to ship AAA (or, heaven forbid, AAAA) games it's usually just a matter of time.

Comment · 10 days ago

The US gaming industry has serious Hollywood envy. There's a constant push to make games "cinematic" and put big name actors in leading roles. This not only bloats budgets but results in barely-interactive monstrosities where gameplay is just a bridge between long, non-interactive cutscenes.

It's ironic because Hollywood is not doing too well at the moment.

Comment · 10 days ago

This is a reach. Not because the Saudis don't want to influence the direction of games, but because Bioware has had such a run of embarrassing flops over the past decade that I'm surprised they stuck around this long. Peak Bioware was probably Mass Effect 2 and it's all been downhill from there.

Comment · 10 days ago

This is such a common story across different conservation domains that I no longer trust the green movement. I think many of them are motivated by a sense of moral superiority rather than by actual concern for the environment.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...

> In 1997, the National Wildlife Institute, in co-operation with the University of Turin, produced an action plan to eradicate the American grey squirrel from Italy, as this introduced species replaces the native red squirrel through competitive exclusion and damages trees through de-barking. The first step, a trial eradication of a small population of grey squirrels at Racconigi (Turin) to evaluate the efficiency of the removal techniques, started in May 1997. Preliminary results showed that eradication was feasible, but the project was opposed by radical animal rights groups which took the National Wildlife Institute to court in June 1997. This legal action caused a suspension of the project and led to a lengthy judicial enquiry that ended in July 2000 with the acquittal of the Institute. Nevertheless, the 3-year suspension of all actions led to a significant expansion of the grey squirrel's range and thus eradication is no longer considered practical.

Comment · 10 days ago

Good for you. I'm sure that makes you feel really good about yourself.

I wonder though, do you think the animals care about your integrity or whether your message actually affects change?