Late realizations

[BIL]

I'd no idea Poison Dart Frogs aren't innately poisonous. They acquire that via their native diet, which includes lots of bugs, who in turn eat toxic Amazonian flora. Even the dread Gold, reputedly the most poisonous organism on Earth (2 inch critter packs enough neurotoxin to kill ten men), is harmless when raised in captivity. Seems they're pretty facety in temperament, regardless; not accustomed to worrying about predators. I suppose that much is inborn. Poor little devils! I hate to think of an irresponsible owner just abandoning one without its natural defenses.

Then again, maybe the predators are none the wiser, much as I wasn't? Hm.

Spoiler

Googled keeping one as a pet out of morbid curiosity, expecting to get RED ALART - apparently they're quite popular. I've never been an exotic pet person; I prefer plain ol' doggos, and their unambiguous love of domesticity. But who couldn't admire those colour schemes? Straight outta GI Joe's Annihilators, Alley Vipers, and Heat Viper mkIIs. Wouldn't surprise me if Hasbro's art directors were well aware of such things, ala Taito finding an entire ready-made STG mythos via ichthyology.

[null1024]

I have an old 5:4 Dell office monitor and like, despite knowing that the thing could rotate 90deg on its stand, I never really made use of that fact until today.
Being able to play games in proper tate orientation feels great.

Really, I'd probably just run my desktop in vertical orientation if I didn't have so much software that expects a screen wider than it's tall.

[BIL]

I blame the famous NEOGEO FORUMS.COM for turning me onto internet freakshow watching. But now I must offer grudging thanks! I had no idea my poor Burgerfriends were subject to the same HOLDING BGM as Crumpetland! I heard those irritatingly vacant clapclapclapclaps in the background of ranking tune Poopsquatch Gets Arrested For Trying To Gas His Parents, and was going "Faaack! Where's that from? Ohshi-"

(Warning: ear-piercing racket, also disgusting subject matter)

Commiserations, that sucks! Oof, those handclaps make me want to burn my Wolfteam games! Almost! I suppose Sakuraba's are more like castanets, much cooler.

[Lemnear]

Late realization:

i was so afraid of accidentally wasting a bomb when starting a shmup...that i NOW discovered that there's a second fire button in ProGear (yes i played it without "slowing down" lol )

[Arino]

Nintendo keeps amazing me with what they come up with. But mostly in a bad way. I recently bought a second Switch and today I wanted to play a game on my Switch OLED (using the TV) after first playing the game on my Switch Lite. The game is on a cartridge so I assumed my saved progress would be on this very cartridge that I was using when first playing the game on the Switch Lite. So I took the cart out of the Lite, put it into my Switch OLED, updated the system, launched the game, and: There is no saved progress. I thought ok, maybe I have to enable using the cloud save system or something. Went to options and it tells me: In order to use the cloud system, you have to have [whatever the fuck it's called], for only $$$ per month.

This is beyond ridiculous! I basically buy the same system twice from those assholes, and they still want me to pay extra for accessing my saved progress on both devices? It really takes some creativity to come up with the idea of linking someone's saves to their hardware, although they already use one account for both devices to play the games on both devices. You only have to buy a game once to play it on both devices, but even if you buy it on cartridge, you can't carry over your save files by putting the cartridge into the other device. They really deserve a punch in the face for this.

[BulletMagnet]

I'd be incredibly surprised if numerous other people on here didn't already think of this ages ago, but since one of the composers passed away recently the YouTube algorithm fed me this music from the SNES platformer Plok, and my first thought was "...there's no way this isn't secretly a lost Battle Garegga track." Seriously, someone needs to layer some sound effects from the latter on top of this and fade it into "Stab and Stomp" partway through or something.

[BIL]

my first thought was "...there's no way this isn't secretly a lost Battle Garegga track." Seriously, someone needs to layer some sound effects from the latter on top of this and fade it into "Stab and Stomp" partway through or something.

Would be interesting to compare the Follins' record collections with Namiki's.

[Randorama]

Maybe Follins and Namiki were plagiara…lift…covering the same Detroit Techno songs (specifically, Underground Resistance). We have a thread about this topic indeed! It’s a shame that Ratikal’s OP is now mostly unformatted, but with a bit a patience it can be read and enjoyed.

I believe that somebody could write a book on the influence of Detroit Techno music and imagery on Japanese SF across media, in the 1990s (e.g. video games and anime). I would add that these people shaped Dieselpunk long before the genre was on the radar of “mainstream” SF, though mention of Miyazaki’s works here would lead us to a veritable rabbit hole.

Maybe one day I will grab my Japanese colleague who likes shmups and we will write about this stuff. It might be outside our field, but we will try our best

EDIT:

One reason I can never appreciate fully video forms of SF (movies, Trek series, etc.) is that they are usually drowned into awful generic orchestral music almost invariably featuring only string sections and absurdly bland melodies (check a random episode of Star Trek except for the original series, which often featured '60s experimental/tonal, Jazz-influenced themes). "SF on video will be good when accompanying music will be Detroit Techno/Experimental Electronic/Etc. in general", Rando said (yes, we know, there are a few relevant exceptions, but in fact they are great movies/series that I don't want to cite on purpose).

[null1024]

Ctrl+Esc lowers the current window to the bottom of the stack. Absurdly dead-useful.

It feels like I should have known this for decades. Maybe I've even heard the shortcut before, just never used it.

hmmm. Just tried this in Windows 11 and it pulls up the start menu.

here's a late realization: I mistyped
it is alt+esc, not ctrl+esc [which apparently does just bring up the start menu]

[vol.2]

here's a late realization: I mistyped
it is alt+esc, not ctrl+esc [which apparently does just bring up the start menu]

lol. Better late than never! Also you just taught me how to manually cycle between windows with the keyboard, which is pretty cool.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Nintendo keeps amazing me with what they come up with. But mostly in a bad way. I recently bought a second Switch and today I wanted to play a game on my Switch OLED (using the TV) after first playing the game on my Switch Lite. The game is on a cartridge so I assumed my saved progress would be on this very cartridge that I was using when first playing the game on the Switch Lite. So I took the cart out of the Lite, put it into my Switch OLED, updated the system, launched the game, and: There is no saved progress. I thought ok, maybe I have to enable using the cloud save system or something. Went to options and it tells me: In order to use the cloud system, you have to have [whatever the fuck it's called], for only $$$ per month.

This is beyond ridiculous! I basically buy the same system twice from those assholes, and they still want me to pay extra for accessing my saved progress on both devices? It really takes some creativity to come up with the idea of linking someone's saves to their hardware, although they already use one account for both devices to play the games on both devices. You only have to buy a game once to play it on both devices, but even if you buy it on cartridge, you can't carry over your save files by putting the cartridge into the other device. They really deserve a punch in the face for this.

Noticed this as well when I wanted to continue my save state at a friend's place. It's enfuriating.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

One reason I can never appreciate fully video forms of SF (movies, Trek series, etc.) is that they are usually drowned into awful generic orchestral music almost invariably featuring only string sections and absurdly bland melodies

That is one of the many things I love about Mamoru Oshii's films: Kenji Kawai does fantastic soundtracks that are as far away from generic as possible. Ghost in the Shell 1 and 2 and Skycrawlers'S OSTs are both on par with Akira's OST.

[Randorama]

Oh yes, Kenji Kawai is one of my idols too. Even his most commercial works (e.g. scores for Japanese tv series) can offer something distinct and pleasant. His works for Oshii’s movies leave me mesmerised every time I listen to them.

[DMC]

Ring theme is nice too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsIuEB8Q9IU

[MJR]

My late realization is that programming 2D games with Unreal Engine is totally within the reach of my capabilities. So much so that I am quite shellshocked really.

I cant wait to finish my current project so that I can finally start making my own dream shmup.

[ChurchOfSolipsism]

Ring theme is nice too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsIuEB8Q9IU

I had no idea he did the OST for this film! I don't think I've even seen the first one... I bought the second one on VHS at Hongkong's Temple Street Night Market in 2000 and, back home, watched it at night; I almost didn't go to the loo because I was too scared of the dark empty house (parents were on holiday and I was alone)

[Mortificator]

Replaying Super Mario Bros for the first time in who knows how long and realizing that Mario's jump noise has a different pitch depending on if he's big or smol