Steal My Sunshine: Episode 16

Alex with the subtle Linkin Park reference.

Poor Abby. She shouldn't have asked.

@donaldb: There’s always gotta be one :P

I don’t know why I was surprised to learn that Dan needs to hire someone to hang pictures. Apart from changing light bulbs, it’s the simplest DIY there is.

Also, if Dan doesn’t like toilets that are a hole in the ground, I recommend staying away from mainland Europe.

@nickmaster2007: A couple of general points. As far as word length goes, it doesn't increase the power of a machine so much as it increases the size of the inputs it can take. In practice 64-bit machines aren't much faster than 32-bit machines, but they can manipulate larger (or more precise) numbers natively, which more importantly means they can address more memory easily. The main reason that the 64-bit version of Skyrim runs better (aside from bug fixes) is because it's not limited to ~3GB of memory the way the 32-bit version is.

Also, yeah. More generally. It's totally fine to be bamboozled by how computers work. I've understood the core concepts of binary, etc. for a long time, but it wasn't until very recently that I finally grokked the fundamentals of computational theory.

It's like 50/50 set theory and black magic.

Over the years, I've come to agree with Dan about more things than the others. His categorizing of the Mario games is accurate in my book.

This game is slowly taking my sanity, its just so baaaaaad.

I also think they are so dismissive of his opinions at this point it's kind of insulting. I understand he can be DAN sometimes, but he's usually the one putting forth a lot of the effort to make these features entertaining and fun.

@lifejuice: Welcome to The Trolley Problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

OHHH okay, I didn't realize ASCII was pronounced "ay ess see two".

I'm not one to generally react out loud when watching a video by myself but it keeps happening with this series. I yelled BAAAAH! when Dan ran off the grassy red coin area. It was so sudden, surprising and a garbage move by the game.

1:34:55 is why you are here.

Alex's laugh and Vinny's little dance are the co-best things.

I realize that at this point 99% of Dan's "core Mario" argument is basically trolling, but dammit, it still makes me irrationally angry every time.

It's 0%, and that's a shoot, brother.

Between the Odyssey spoiler blockade here and the Wolfenstein 2 talk on podcasts, Giantbomb just needs to bring back occasional spoiler podcasts. Bioshock Infinite and Portal 2 both got them. Actually hashing out feelings on a big game without having to worry about spoilers shouldn't wait for Game of the Year.

Ae - Es - Ce - Two Art. Dan you beautiful man.

@danryckert: Damn you, Ryckert.

To be fair to them they did polish off a good number of shines this episode.

I really need to change my Echo wake up name. Dan set a 15 min timer for me.

Lots of people love driving

@vinny Automatic cars will be way way way way way safer than normal cars. They won't be perfect, but 95% of the time accidents are caused by people driving drunk, distracted, texting, angry, stupid, etc. and the computers won't do any of that. All those people you accuse of not checking their engine/cars out? They aren't doing that right now anyway. No change. And when the car does fuck up because their tires blow out or whatever because they didn't check out their car? The computer will react faster than a human would and make a better decision about getting out of the way, and all the other cars being driven by computers will get out of their way better.

What funny Wolfenstein II scene were they talking about at 1:29:50?

Dan needs to start wearing a belt made of 'Masterpieces' otherwise we might not be able to tell he's a Video Game Journalist.

@themasterds: A mournful reminder of a butt that never was.

Ha. They bet for the same outcome without realizing it.

Come on Vinny, let them eat the glass gumballs.

Dan is completely wrong about 3D World/Land.

@elath: For me it was learning about logic gates and assembly that demystified computers. Until then it was just magical bullshit that turned computer code into actionable things. With a foundation in the physical workings of simple circuitry and some understanding of how things get abstracted and black boxed you can go pretty far and at least see how the computer fundamentally works and how the complexity is built up.

@nickmaster2007: That's just syntax and protocol. What Abby is referring to is more fundamental. She doesn't understand how code, which is just abstract words on a page, actually causes real world action. To a layman it is no different than if words written in a book using structured rules could move mountains. Learning about the physical layer on a small scale is the only way to reconcile how computers aren't just magic. Logic gates, adding machines, simple digital displays; these are the keys to spoiling the magic. Understanding how simple circuits can be designed to solve simple problems and then black boxing those circuits so they can be used as components in future problems. Everything else is abstraction.

@crem: It's hard because you and I can just say abstraction/black box casually and we can visualize the hands-on experience we've had with the various steps along the way from Ohm's Law and jumper cables to logic gates and K-Maps to Set Theory and Javascript (and beyond). That's why I said that note on leaving it to us in ECE to understand everything, for the most part you can be insulated by the layered approach and make brilliant works of art or apps that change the world without knowing what a Laplace Transform is. But unless you have that comprehensive understanding you ultimately just have to trust the magic black box.

@cheetovicks: 3D land and world are more similar to the 2d games than sm64, sunshine ect. are. The real distinction is linear stages vs hub world design. There are 2d and 3d linear stage based games but only 3d hub world games. That's 3 categories, but to claim one isn't core is arbitrary. I just wanna see the 2d hub world version. Would that be a multi stage metroidvania? A 2d collectathon like that Kirby game with all the treasure?

@nickmaster2007: I agree. I do think you can go a long way to demystifying computers with a key few ideas.

If you can explain a logic gate, give a real world example of how to build a few kinds, show how to make a simple adder with gates, and finally show and explain a simple eight segment display to output your adder I think that's enough to at least conceptualize how a computer can exist without magical gnomes.

Remember those ALU's people used to build in minecraft? I would probably use those as a jumping off point if I was going to try and introduce someone to these ideas.

You can get a pretty decent start in computer education from videogames these days.Infinifactory, Factorio, Human Resource Machine, TIS-100, Hackmud, ect. There are games for every abstraction level of computing.

Pretty sure it's the one with Hitler.

@vinny Would it be possible to get warning notes about when you guys just start throwing out nonstop voice commands to electronic objects?

My Echo thanks you ;-]

souflay

I give it 10 years before Vinny winds up in a shack somewhere in the hills, muttering "I warned 'em" while the robots kill us all.

Thank you for setting a 15 minute timer on my Echo...
and then Bjork and freebird..

Mine went off a lot during that section...and that does explain the alarm that I couldnt understand why it was going off.

I agree that they are their own thing and not core games.

Dan, drop this "3D Land/World are spin-offs" thing it's on the same level as Flat Earth theories. By your own logic, if you're going by title, every game since Super Mario World is a spin-off/separate series and if you're going by "perspective" then 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, Odyssey are all spin offs because they aren't 2D, with that argument you could say the "New" series is main-line because the gameplay is 2D.

Besides Nintendo consider them part of the main-line of Super Mario games, like that alone shuts your argument down instantly.

I really appreciate Abby pushing back on the pessimism around automation of labour. Her point that people will find something else to do, as they have in the past, is correct. Here's an academic paper that makes the same point. Why Are There Still So Many Jobs?

As an example, if self-driving trucks get rid of the need to pay a human to drive the truck shipping would be cheaper. With shipping being cheaper people have more money to spend on other things, maybe even shipping more stuff then they would have otherwise. So we'd need more people building and maintaining the larger amount of trucks, more people making the stuff that people are ordering now that shipping is cheaper, more people building and maintaining the infrastructure to deal with a larger volume of trucks and so on. Job transitions can be painful but this is the process by which we've been able to reach higher living standards in the long run.

Looking forward to the next episode, anyone know when it's due?

Gotta say, one thing that bothers me about this game (even moreso than its unfinished state, bad camera and shit levels) is the designs. I like the tropical theme, but most of the enemies and new characters look squishy and kinda weird. Most enemies look so wacky, they seem like they came from Rabbids Universe. I'm all for Mario being weird, but I can't stand how they changed iconic designs of many enemies (Koopas, Boos, etc.) into something that looks so dumb.

ABBY WAS ROBBED!