Recently finished Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I thought was only slightly short of a masterpiece, but it did contain a lot of my personal superstimuli, so It's probably not actually as good as that.
12 episodes, and unfortunately it's almost impossible to talk about without spoiling. I don't even know if I ought to say what kind of story it is.
I just want to urgently gesture towards it :)
If anyone else has seen it, I'd love to get your take in rot13.
Alright, one teaser: It contains one of the better attempts at depicting an Unfriendly Optimisation Process I've seen in commercially-published fiction.
I mostly agree with you. In particular I really liked that Znqbxn'f jvfu jrag fb sne nf gb erjevgr gur havirefr. Gur fbhepr bs ure rzbgvbaf orvat sbe gur zntvpny tveyf naq gur pehrygl bs gur onetnva gurl znqr, V jnf npghnyyl n yvggyr jbeevrq va gur yrnq-hc gb gur svanyr gung ure jvfu jbhyqa'g or zbzragbhf rabhtu.
Ng gur fnzr gvzr, gubhtu gur jvfu raqrq hc ovt rabhtu gb or n fngvfslvat raq, V guvax vg'f cerggl rnfl gb jbaqre jul fur pbhyqa'g tb shegure. Gur arj havirefr vf arneyl vqragvpny gb gur byq bar, evtug qbja gb vaqvivqhny crbcyr. Gur zntvpny tveyf ab ybatre unir gb or chg vagb fhpu n ubeevoyr ab-jva fvghngvba, ohg gurl fgvyy unir gb evfx gurve yvirf. Naq sbe gur abezny crbcyr, gurer'f ab creprcgvoyr punatr ng nyy.
Gur bayl ceboyrz V unq jvgu guvf vf Xlhorl'f pynvz gb gehr travr-yvxr cbjref. Ryvrmre jebgr n cbfg frireny lrnef ntb nobhg guvf: http://lesswrong.com/lw/ld/thehiddencomplexityofwishes/. Gehr travr cbjref znxr n fgbel vzcbffvoyr gb ernfba nobhg. Gur ceboyrz vf gung jvfuvat vf n irel vyy-qrsvarq vqrn. Jung vs bar jvfurq gb or vzzbegny? Gung jvfu vf irel pybfr gb Znzv'f, ohg fgevpgyl fhcrevbe. Ubj pbhyq gung jbex? Jbhyq gung fnir ure sebz gur sngr bs orpbzvat n jvgpu? G...
Other Media Thread
If it doesn't fit anywhere else, put it here! Blogs, links, games, music, whatever floats your boat. If we get a lot of a specific genre, then next Media post, it can have it's own sub-thread.
Many have probably already heard of this game, but Dominion is an excellent strategy card game that I quite enjoy. You can play it online for free. The basic premise if that you start with three estates, which are worth one victory point each, and seven coppers, which are worth one dollar each randomly shuffled into a deck, like Magic: The Gathering. Each turn, you draw five cards. The game (and all of it's expansion sets) consist of specific cards, of which you randomly pick 10 for each game. Most of these cards are action cards, and will do special things. You can buy these cards with your money, putting them into your deck or you can buy better money, (Silver - $2, and Gold - $3) that will let you buy more expensive cards, or you can buy Victory cards (Estate - 1 VP, Duchy - 3 VP, or Province - 6 VP) that will help you win the game. The person with the most victory points in his deck at the end of the game wins. The game ends with you run out of three of the cards you can buy OR when you run out of provinces. (As a note, each victory point deck starts with 8 cards in the pile, and every other deck starts with 10, except coppers, silvers, and golds, which for all intents and purposes, don't run out.)
For a more detailed explanation of a turn: Each turn, you start with one action, one buy, and you draw five cards from the top of your deck. (Technically, you draw at the end of your previous turn, but that's largely irrelevant for understanding.) Action cards can give you additional actions, letting you play even more action cards that might let you, for example, draw more cards. This allows you to build very powerful decks based on the synergies between different cards. Once you run out of available actions or available action cards, you can automatically play ALL of your treasures. Lets say you played a Silver, Gold, and a Copper, for a total of $6, and had an action card that had given you $2. This would give you $8 total to spend, so you could buy one $8 card, or IF you had gotten an additional buy from an action card, two $4 cards.
I hope it's clear (it's probably not) why this game is so awesome, but if it's not, I'd encourage you all to try a couple games. It's confusing at first, especially when you have to look up what the cards you're playing with do, but it's really quite a fun game.
If anyone's over at isotropic, my ID over there is rlumley - hit me up if you ever see me around, I'd love to play. (I actually saw a guy named Methods of Rationality, which made me think of posting this here, but he joined a game before I could say hi.)
I started playing this game thanks to you and was addicted immediately. I just woke up after having dreams about Dominion, after playing 35 straight games in a row with no breaks. I may have gained the ability to play basic games subconsciously.
There was a recent discussion considering the idea of a monthly Book (later expanded to movies, links, etc) thread. The poll was pretty unanimous (Both before and after I was karmassassinated) that this was A Good Idea (tm), and daenerys's Janurary thread (from which I obviously stole a lot of this) was fairly successful, so let's see if we actually need one per month.
Post what you're reading or watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing!
Rules: