NoNane
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I just came back here and re-read that post, and oh man I must have been oh so sleep deprived to have admitted that. But the internet never forgets.
Never…
Also, congrats on the Gauntlet Kickstarter!
Oh. I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this, but code green is often used as an emergency code in hospitals. There’s no standard in the United States, but the Wikipedia article lists a few of them. Code green is used as the severe weather warning in a few Florida schools, the code for general evacuation in certain Canadian hospitals, and UnityPoint Health uses code green to indicate the presence of a combative person.
However, I find I am most interested in Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center’s interpretation of code green. In that hospital, it means “Internal disaster.”
Take that how you will.
So, for the first time, Travis has taken the words right out of my mouth (Alex O’Shea carrying something over from his other role, perhaps?). Damn. “Nightmare scenario” couldn’t be more accurate.
So, anyone want to take a stab at how many people will die?
(Hehe, “stab”.)
Okay, in light of today’s big reveal of the location of the video key, I thought I might share the theory I made back when the video key was originally introduced back in Chapter 3, for no reason whatsoever.
So, my guess is that the video key is in the gym somewhere. As Travis said a little while ago (was it Chapter 6?), Jamilah would have needed to pick a place that was already mentioned in the video diaries up to that point, since none of them were doctored afterwards. Additionally (and this is me talking, not Travis), it doesn’t hurt to put the key in a place that was mentioned frequently. That way a cursory examination of the diaries wouldn’t have yielded anything, while a more knowledgeable one would have yielded the answer by answering a fairly simple question, “What place did Jamilah mention the most often in the videos up until now?”. From what we heard in Chapter 3 of the diaries prior to that fateful entry (there were three), all but the very first entry Jamilah made included some mention of the gym. Additionally, the one immediately after started by saying that Jamilah had “twisted [her] ankle and both wrists” (Chapter 3, 15:09-15:12). Close listening also revealed that Jamilah was confined to a wheelchair for a while after the incident, meaning that she wouldn’t be mentioning going to the gym any more for a while. I personally don’t think that was a coincidence. However, I will admit there is a lot of room for error here. I have a very small amount of information to pick through, and none of the other diary entries that weren’t in Chapter 3 mention the gym as far as I can remember. Still, this is a theory, and I thought it should go up before the Chapter where it’s proven or disproven.
Well, it’s 1AM Alaska Time, so I’m signing off. See you all in a few hours to see how wrong I probably was.
Everyone: What’s your preferred method of caffeine delivery?
Rebecca: How did you get started with audio editing before Tokyo Demons?
Rebecca: What’s the next thing for the Sparkler Audio department after Awake ends?
Lianne: How long had Tokyo Demons Book 2, Chapter 8 been planned? Also, WHYYYYYYYYYYYY??????
Lianne: When is the next part of Tokyo Demons going to be ready? And is it the last part of Book 2? Also, WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?????????
Lillian: Uhhh… I got nothing. Sorry…
So, this thread hasn’t been updated in 3 months…
Eh, screw it. Gotta prove I didn’t spontaneously combust and die somehow, right?
So, I watched Psycho-Pass last week. Judging by the fact that the second intro theme just started playing, that was just about the worst thing I could have done for my own obsessive tendencies. I know the anime is several years old now, but with a remake, season 2, and a movie coming before next winter’s end, there isn’t a better time to do this than now.
So, for those of us who haven’t heard of it yet, Psycho-Pass is about a team of detectives in a futuristic, dystopian Japan where a mysterious computer system called the “Sybil System” (Why is it in English you ask? I have no idea. I just tend to roll with it.) is capable of easily performing a complete and perfect analysis of a person’s psyche. Arguably the most important aspect of the final report is a single number that is a genral representation of a person’s mental state, which is called the Psycho-Pass.
I’m going to stop there, because it is my personal opinion that
- 1, the specific terminology is used so frequently that a quick background would actually help you understand it a lot, and
- 2, the character and story introduction is some of the smoothest I’ve seen in a while, and I’d hate to ruin that for anyone who decides to watch it.
So, why do I like this show to the point of writing a review directed towards people I’ve never personally met and who probably don’t particularly care? It mostly comes down to its presentation. The show is all about these people living in this dystopian world, and yet for the most part it remains a detective show. It does this by viewing the side-effects of the society through the lens of the detectives and their work. This makes the show feel a lot like what little I’ve seen of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D or early episodes of Fringe, where the focus of the story is usually a single, fairly isolated incident. Even when they fully establish a large, overarching plot, they tend to chip away at it through a couple of individual incidents rather than as a single massive thing. The little bites keep the plot from getting too big to handle while keeping the story from slowing to the point of stagnation (I’m looking at you, Bleach). All in all, Psycho-Pass manages to present the story of complex characters in a complex world in a simple, easily followed manner, and that makes it a great show.
Unfortunately, so much complexity being simplified inevitably leads to some problems. Namely, an extremely variant pace and violence level. The best example of both of these is the first two episodes. In episode two, the closest thing to action you get is a main character dodging a punch or two. Not exactly yawn-inducing, but not exactly exciting either. In stark contrast, however, episode one barely gives you the names of the characters before shit makes violent contact with lots of fans, and the episode ends only just after someone literally explodes. As you are most likely capable of seeing, that level of juxtaposition can be a little rough on people.
Additionally, I feel obligated to mention that, in the first episode, there is one rape scene, and in my opinion it is handled poorly. On the upside, there aren’t really details, and the show doesn’t make a habit of it. However, this does not make the scene okay by any means, and the only reason I stuck around was because I liked the female lead and… well… (TW: Gore & Spoilers) this is him. (Hover on the link if you don’t want to look.)
So, to wrap up, Psycho-Pass, despite having pacing and violence issues, is a great show, and if you can take that you should absolutely watch it. With that, I bid you all a good day, and I hope I see you all on the forums.
Okay, the issue was on my end and I fixed it. So yeah, my end, not yours.
Hey, the follow buttons at the bottom of the page seem to be missing their images and links. Also, drop downs! How long have they been there and why didn’t I notice? *fumes angrily* Nicely done!
Yeah, that picture in the email frightens me more than a little bit.
Interesting point there, sgl. However, without consciousness, Persephone is unable to take blame, so the question we have to answer first is that: Is Persephone conscious and self-aware? Currently, signs point overwhelmingly to “No”. A being that could reason beyond how it was initially programmed could have inferred that Hina wanted the door open for Travis in Chapter 1 despite not using a keyword, and would have given everyone more detailed answers than “ERROR” when it was asked about the body in Chapters 1 and 2. Plus, the programming behind a self-aware artificial intelligence would be extremely complicated, and it is extremely unlikely that Robbie would have the knowledge required to even work with one, never mind be “the best technician the ship has had in its 600-year trip.” (Character Bios, Robbie) However, Persephone seems to be able to selectively increase the access she gives to certain individuals (READ: ROBBIE), which is probably why the question of blame is coming up. However, Robbie could have, in theory, given himself more privileges through personal backdoors, or backdoors left by his predecessors.
However, we also must consider the possibility that I may be wrong, and that Persephone is indeed self aware and conscious. In that case, it actually is really simple to justify Persephone’s actions: she wanted to do those things. Mind, Persephone absolutely only responds to commands given after the keyword “Persephone” because Persephone understands the principles of good user interface (THAT WAS INTENTIONAL TRAVIS OR WOULD YOU RATHER HER FLOOD THE ENTIRE SHIP WITH DEADLY NEUROTOXIN WHILE YOU ARE DISCUSSING THE SCIENTIFIC ACCURACY OF PORTAL), but the rest of those things she could have done because she genuinely wanted to.
Either way, I am frightened by what would be implied if Persephone was guilty in either case. If Persephone was sentient, it would mean that the entity charged with the safety of the entire population of the ship would be subject to the whims of base emotions desires, and opinions, which could potentially lead to some extremely frightening scenarios. If Persephone isn’t sentient, but she intentionally allowed or caused this murder in some way, that means that someone programmed her to do this, possibly the original creators. They would have had an ulterior motive to all this, and the code they installed would probably still be running unbeknownst to the crew, because the malicious individual would be sleeping off the rest of the journey to Tau Ceti Prime. And while Persephone being sentient and hating everybody is a scary prospect, I think having malicious code inside her would be far worse.
So basically it comes down to this: We don’t want Persephone to be guilty, because if she is everyone is absolutely screwed, either by a snippet of malicious code or Persephone’s bad attitude.
Okay, swerving back to a previous topic, what if there were a “Hide/Show Comments” button underneath the chapter, like the sidebar toggle button? If the author wanted to show on-chapter comments, when a reader navigated to the page and scrolled down the comments would be hidden. When they wanted to look at the comments, they could click the button and reveal them. I was also thinking that, rather than commenting on individual pages, the comments would be linked to the full update for the sake of simplicity, and that the on-chapter comments would just be a mirror of the actual forum board. It might seem redundant, but it might be a good way to encourage participation while keeping everything organized. The first bit certainly worked for Tokyo Demons. Sorry if this is getting to be a bit pushy, I just thought it wasn’t a terrible idea, and those rarely come during finals season.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a terrible idea for creators to get to choose whether they wanted to have page comments or not (though I think they should always have a page here for the sake of consistency). Or maybe they could have the option, but the comments can also be accessed from their own board on the forum as well as the page itself, if that is possible. Or maybe the creators could choose whether they wanted to have the board for each chapter appear as the same thing in both the forum and directly below the content. Personally, I think that having the comments here is nice, and while I loved the comments on the Tokyo Demons website, having the boards here opens things up for nicer access when you want to talk but not read or listen. And for this kind of site, it makes more sense to me to allow topics outside of just the media on it. I mean, this conversation now wouldn’t really exist otherwise, would it?
So, on Black Friday I took Amazon’s bait and purchased the Black Friday PS Vita Bundle with The Walking Dead and some other stuff I don’t remember because the last 2 weeks have been entirely consumed by Persona 4 Golden. I just checked, and my total time spent on my game so far is just shy of 30 hours. Needless to say, I am enjoying it. Mind, there are parts that creep me out (READ: SHADOW RISE), and there are a few bits where treatment/depiction of women has made me cringe visibly. But overall, I very much like the story, and Atlus has done a phenomenal job of improving the graphics and letting combat fade off to the side, because nothing ruins a strong story faster than combat that gets in the way of it. I’ve never been a huge fan of turn based combat (my last major game obsession before this was Sanctum 2, a First Person Shooter/Tower Defense hybrid), but in Persona 4, it works perfectly, especially considering how clunky navigating the dungeons in third person can sometimes be. I played Persona 4 a little with my controller on a PC emulator, and the problem is the same, so maybe that’s just a problem with dungeons made of hallways or my playing style rather than the Vita’s joysticks.
—NOTE!—
The next two paragraphs are a rant about the PS Vita. It is summarized in the paragraph after. You don’t really need to read it unless you really are interested in buying one, because otherwise it’ll probably be boring.
—START RANT—Speaking of which, I have been extremely happy with the PS Vita so far. For me, I like the weight of the thing, and despite the small size of the buttons and joysticks, I like those too. I think Sony has done a very nice job of making the device feel nice, at least to me. And the touch screen actually works well, which was honestly somewhat of a surprise to me the first time I turned it on. However, I’m not a big fan of the UI, and though I can imagine having issues using the back touch panel and the bumpers (‘L’ and ‘R’ buttons) at the same time, most games don’t use the rear touch panel, so the point is somewhat moot.
Which brings us neatly into my issues with the Vita, namely the lack of games. I’m not really sure why, but developers haven’t really been making all that many games for the Vita. I can only imagine as to why (and if someone can clarify this for me I would be extremely happy), since the primary method of distribution is digital download rather than the PSP’s UMD’s (so glad they ditched those). However, there are 2 more major issues I have with the console that sort-of compile into one larger, more important issue that I think Sony really needs to address, and fast. The 2 issues are device storage and the charging port, which compile into the large, ugly head of proprietary hardware. To explain, it helps to understand that Sony likes making money, and one of the many ways it has tried to do this over the years was to introduce and only support hardware and software that they developed in-house. The PSP’s Universal Media Disk (UMD) and the Memory Stick Duo (used in the PSP and all Sony cameras for several years) are two of their more recent failures, while the Betamax video format is probably their most high profile one. Unfortunately, they haven’t always lost, in fact the Blu-Ray Disk format was initially developed entirely by Sony. This success evidently gave Sony enough hope that they decided to give the Vita zero onboard memory, a proprietary charging/USB interface port, and expensive memory cards that are only made by Sony. This is bad, because while there have been times where companies really needed to do things like this to make their devices work, those times are not now. Micro SD cards and Micro USB ports are now used almost (I’m looking at you, Apple) universally in mobile devices, and they work quite well. So it doesn’t make sense that Sony would build a device that is otherwise quite nice and nearly ruin it with proprietary stuff.
—END RANT—
(Wow that is a long two paragraphs… I should probably step down now…)
So, to summarize all that, despite the proprietary charging cable, proprietary memory cards, and lack of games, I like the PS Vita. It is a well designed and well built handheld and I will play it more, as long as I can find games to play on it. More importantly, I love Persona 4 Golden. The awesomeness of the original combined with the updated graphics of the Vita make it pretty much a must have for fans of the original and the Persona games in general. I look forward to finishing it and playing again.
Did this Edit button bug ever get ironed out? I’m just a bit confused because I see the edit link on some of my posts but not others and I wasn’t really sure how that was supposed to work in the first place, exactly.
Ridiculous plans are the best plans, Rebecca. I, for one, look forward to seeing the results. Especially the visual novels, because I am on a Japanese video game/storytelling kick right now and honestly? Persona 4 Golden has a finite amount of content.
Good luck to all of you.
