The Giant Beastcast: Episode 47

@cheato: Oodalalee! That brought back some memories.

1. Sometimes "sabbatical means, "I am done with working here", so I am not quitting, but you will still pay me while I figure out how to quit.
2. Austin saying,"So much of what made GTA not the storyline, but the sandbox" hits home

@liquidprince: Yeah, totally misread a thing. We'll correct it next week for sure!

@vinny: i was under the impression that The Black Cauldron was the real grimy one.

@dan_citi said:

The crazy part is that the TA in question probably lived in some bizarro world where he doesn't say that stuff in front of students (because female students would immediately lodge complaints and he would be a TA for a week), but around other TAs he's like "High five! Am I right? ...Hotties." and doesn't see that they're both equally unacceptable.

Great cast. Great cast.

A lot of people post things on the Internet irrespective of things like social norms. As a kid, I certainly had no filter, but as I've grown older, I've started being more moderate and more polite in online discourse. I often wonder whether we can or should try to make Internet communication more akin to face-to-face communication, and enforce those social norms like tact, awareness, etc. It's easy to explain that being abrasive on the Internet is "just the Internet", but I hope someday we can all be more respectful to one another.

No worries. Just pointing it out.

Monster Factory is brilliant.

I've heard surprisingly many people saying, that they either disliked or really disliked the Future series on PS3, while at the same time loving the original trilogy. I couldn't figure out why, really. I can't remember much of Tools of Destruction, but I do remember liking it. Crack in Time I really loved. I bought the HD trilogy and had a real good time with that as well, so...eh. Maybe I played them in the "wrong" order, so I can't see where the supposed problem is?

So just saying at a bar somewhere one teacher to another that man this student is hot. I don't see the problem here. Simply commenting on an objective fact. TREATING the student differently because of that yes bad and unacceptable.

Lots of great Austin "wow!" this episode.

Prince of Persia movie okay.

It's just one of those dumb fun summer blockbusters, nothing wrong with that.

Whatever, time is a feature of experience, not "objective" reality.

I must be one of the odd ones that @austin_walker spoke to about PS4 streaming. I've been playing Gungeon and Dark Souls 3 streaming to my old-ass Macbook Pro and had almost no problems. PS4 wired, laptop wireless. Quality isn't as great as my HDTV, and ran into a brief period of artifacting at the end of a couple hour playsession, but overall been able to play both flawlessly and leave my TV open for others even on twitch-reaction type games.

Also lobster rolls are the only really good form of lobster. It's good dipped in butter, but what isn't? Otherwise crab picking for life, with lots of old bay seasoning and cold beer.

@crimsonjester: Christopher Nolan addressed a similar issue while writing Interstellar, if you have to take the explanation to a level where you have break down the science, it becomes a less engaging film, and you lose the audience. Or maybe there is an easy explanation for it but it's probably not important.

@dan_citi: It's more of an ethical issue, a pretty big ethical issue actually.

@mrbang: Thank you very much. It actually felt good to kind of get it off my chest. Even if it was in a fractured and unfocused manner...>.> Its always good to know I am not alone, even though sometimes it really does feel that way. I try to have a good attitude and outlook and life, and always try to be one of the brightest in the room.

Its good to hear that you are also doing well after going through some rough stuff. Its just tough when it happens during your most fragile years. You are always afraid its gonna just stick with you forever. I found a woman I love and have been with her for many years. Met her in high school and she helped me more then anyone. Sometimes just knowing you have someone helps tremendously, even if they dont think they are doing much at all.

You keep trucking on brother. We will get through this shit show called life if even if it kills us!

The Javits Center isn't hard to get to. Doesn't the 7 train go there now?

Was anyone else disappointed that there was like 2 minutes of Dark Souls 3 talk? This is a huge game and they barely covered it. They mentioned it a few weeks ago but had to be so vague because the game wasn't out yet. I want to know what Vinny thinks of it. I get that Alex doesn't like Dark Souls and I don't really care, that's his opinion to have, but I want to hear what Vinny and Austin have to say about it.

I read Austin's review on the site and it's great, but the point of the podcast is to hear people talking about games. To say "go read the review on the site" and then shut down the talk really killed my excitement for this episode. They spend 10+ minutes talking about Quantum Break which I have absolutely zero interest and then go on to shutter the souls talk after a couple minutes without diving in at all. There are a lot of souls fans like myself that I'm sure want to hear impressions of the game. Oh well, at least the game is good! I'll go back to playing it.

P.S. If it wasn't clear, "I need the benz(more dark souls talk) ! Please GBeast.

Guys. The thing you throw is not a glaive. A glaive is a polearm consisting of a sword-like blade on the end of a pole. The thing you are thinking of is called a "bullshit made up thing from Krull." Note that this is not me dissing Krull, Krull was sort of awesome, as was the bullshit throwing thing from it. But it isn't a glaive.

I might send this in to the corrections.

Just finished the GB (the joys of having a 1 year old).

Awesome as always.

Did want to bring up the chat the guys where having about saying stupid shit and people being offended by it.

So, I'm very tired (again, the 1 year old) and I can't think of a more nuanced way of putting this so I'll just say it; I don't get why someones right to be offended is more inportant than my right to make a joke. Take Austins story for instance about the TA. Now, I couldn't really tell so I'm making the assumption that the guy was joking about students being hot (maybe he wasn't, I don't know)...which I thought was pretty funny. Because it's a joke. Maybe that guy should be a bit smarter of saying things like that in works if his colleagues can't take a joke but, at the same time, it was a joke and maybe those other TA's need to lighten the fuck up (again, assuming this was a joke).

Another example; my dad died of cancer so does that mean I'm not allowed to laugh at cancer jokes? Every joke would be boring if they where about chicken crossing the road.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think you should go out of your way to offend someone but I've been in situations where I or someone else has said some pretty tame shit (and it wasn't game in my opinion, it was just tame and obviously a fucking joke) and someone has said 'I'm offended by that. , I guess I just think it's like more and more people are saying 'I'm offended by that' and I don't get why there right to be offended means more.

I guess I just don't agree with the Beastcast on this.

Anyway, like I said, great friggen show. Keep up the great work.

EDIT guys, please don't think I think it's ok to go up and say horrible shit to people just for the sake of it. I'm not suggesting that it's ok for people to be dicks to each other. Just that people could do with lightening up a bit of someone is obviously joking.

The idea of Mr. Rogers saying "PS4 for life" is pretty hilarious to me.

@allyc31: What? Except for the fact that you're saying it's ok as long as the context is given as a joke. Your argument of 'I'm sorry you can't take a joke' is a bad argument.There is a time and a place for jokes. Not everyone sees the lighter side of a racist joke. Or joking about something that's unacceptable at work. The beastcast crew is saying be mindful of your audience.

@henchman_72:

I guess so.

Maybe I misunderstood their position.

And I know not everyone can see the lighter side of a racist joke.

I guess I'm not saying people are wrong to be offended by something, I just think that if something was said without any malice then I shouldn't care.

Like I said, going up and being mean to someone for sloths sake of doing it is a pretty dick move. That's not what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I can see your point

I'm not sure what the GB duders keep talking about, the last CG movie SE produced, FF VII Advent Children, worked out fine for them.

As far as time travel, the closed loop watch seems like it would not really work. The watch you give your past self differs from the watch you received from your future self, the hands advanced and the battery drained a bit. That's not a stable loop...

Additionally this would allow you to violate thermodynamics...

Though keep in mind that in the physics sense time travel already happens if you exceed your own time cone (i.e. violate causality), FTL travel would be time travel due to the relativity of time.

Oh and for a really weird doomsday scenario look up the "vacuum metastability event".

I kind of clocked out about halfway in. It became nonsensical rambling about who knows what. Wish it would be a bit more games-centric. Someone serving in a role like Brad keeping things on track would help a lot.

@allyc31: Personally, I think where I don't understand your argument is where it gets into the concept of "rights."

I think everyone is within their rights to make whatever jokes they please, be they racist, sexist, or whatever. And everyone is also within their rights to get offended at any joke they find offensive, for literally any reason, no matter how stupid (from an outside perspective).

Having to apologize to someone who is offended by a joke that you've made is not in any way an infringement of your right to make jokes - it's a social and moral responsibility to mend wounds that you have caused, whether physical or mental, intentional or unintentional. It's what most people consider being a "good person". But you absolutely don't HAVE to do it. You can absolutely say "it's just a joke - get over it," and then that person can decide whether they want to spend more time with you or not. They don't have more rights than you - but most people would consider you a dick if you don't apologize, and that just happens to be the social construct that you live in, so you have to pay the piper.

Put another way - you are describing a situation where a thing that you said, which you don't particularly care about (as it is a "joke"), has hurt someone in a real way. If you're being empathic, and putting yourself in their position, you can understand that hurt, even if you don't share it, and it doesn't cost you much to attempt to rectify it. Instead, you're choosing to think about it as an issue of their "rights" over yours, which not only means you don't have to be wrong, but you can be righteously indignant instead! Much more fun.

Tl;dr - in my mind, it's not so much a situation about "rights" as much as kindness, and the willingness to put aside your pride.

@allyc31: If I remember, they do touch on inadvertent offensiveness or just an ignorant factor. I think Alex said something like you have be able to decipher what is crossing the line and what is not, and then stop yourself from doing something offensive. It's a growing process.

Remote play worked great for me streaming it over the internet to my work laptop a few miles away.

Beastcast is the bestcast

BRING BACK THE PLAYERS BALL, IT SOUNDS AWESOME

The reason for the Square Enix merger. Read the links from that time.

Due to the saturation of New York throughout pretty much all visual media, Jeff's story about the Cake Boss tourists seems a bit much to me. I've never been to New York, and I would love to visit someday, but I know more about it from movies, tv and games using it as a setting than cities that are much closer to me. I guess what I'm trying to say is it goes both ways; you guys obviously get tons of tourists, and I bet Times Square is the absolute worst. But I think the main reason that happens is because people grow up associating their favourite films and shows with New York, rightly or wrongly, because of how often it's used as a story setting.

Hey Austin,

Amazon issues a 1099-K if you sell more than $20k worth of products or more than 200 items. If you sell an item, you're supposed to indicate if you made a profit on them on your taxes. A profit means you made money on top of what an item is worth. So for instance, you buy a book for $50 and sell it used on Amazon for $45; technically yes, you do have $45 more than you did yesterday but in reality you sold the book at a loss of $5 and no profit was made and you don't owe taxes on it. Think of it like a garage sale. It's rare that you would actually have to pay taxes on things you sold at a garage sale. This is different than say an antique sale where items accrue value.

So whatever the guy you know was doing, he must have sold a lot on Amazon and I'd make sure he's declared the profit, not total amount of money hey made.

@horseman6: I think "the guy" is Dan Ryckert. He self published a few books digital-only, I think. Some Air Force Gator books, and his anxiety book. It sounds like he was assuming that Amazon was automatically charging whatever sales taxes or something, when in fact they do not? It does seem weird, because presumably Dan's products sold at least 200 copies this past year and should've been included in this 1099-K you're talking about.

PLAYERS BALL PLAYERS BALL PLAYERS BALL

@meissnerd: Jeff's probably cheesed off because the Cake Boss bakery is in Hoboken (NJ) which wasn't previously part of the reality show fan/tourist hot zone.

@mushida: Thank you

@homelessbird: This is very well-phrased!

@jazz_lafayette: Thanks!

That last correction is pretty wrong. There are totally physical properties that break physics if reversed. It's the second law of thermodynamics that entropy can't be reversed, you break thermodynamics, it's a lot of physics. If you want to say you can't "prove" the second law sure but you can't "prove" that the sky won't turn into jello tomorrow, statistical certainties are given the name law for a reason.

Edit: I guess the best way to phrase it would be its Highly Unlikely that a broken egg would come together to perfectly reassemble itself.

Ratchet and Clank: Nexus and Chill

reading comments you think they could extend the "corrections" section to take up 2/3rds of the episode. Partly why i think thsy shouldn't be doing it.

This was a phenomenal episode.

The first 10-15 minutes of the podcast had me nearly crying with laughter... while I was out walking in public. Probably looked like a crazy person.