It's been ages since I've sat down and read a magazine. But there are times when I don't have the motivation to read a book and I just want a quick, well-written article to enjoy.

To give an example of the sort of content, someone shared this interesting article on Lemmy the other day about the ways in which far right tech CEOs mimic AIs being trained on their own data. It was a really fascinating idea!

I'm not too fussy about the content - science, technology, gaming, nature, opinion pieces, politics (but not too heavy).

For the longest time I used to get the National Geographic, which always had good content. But I feel a bit burnt out with those. Something along these lines on another topic would be perfect.

Can anyone recommend any particular magazines?

Earlier this year I posted some thoughts on the games I'd been playing. Here are the ones I've completed recently.

Paradise Killer

As a fan of the Danganronpa series, I’d heard great things about Paradise Killer. And the ways in which this game was inspired by the former are obvious, with an eclectic mix of characters embroiled in a complex murder plot. It heavily leans into the vaporwave aesthetic and soundtrack, often crossing that border into the satirical (Hypnospace Outlaw springs to mind). Unlike Danganronpa, it’s quite open ended and allows you to draw your own conclusions about the true resolution to the case. On the whole I enjoyed my time with this game, though I didn’t feel quite as drawn in to the story or attached to the characters in the same way as other detective games.

Inscryption

I don’t really want to say too much about this game for those who haven’t yet played it. Please go in blind if you intend to play it! But at the most basic level, it’s a card game that plays with and bends its rules in very interesting ways. Undertale vibes in the best way possible. If that sounds at all interesting to you, I beg you to give this one a go.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

A few years back I played the excellent Ratchet and Clank (2016) and had a blast. It was just pure, classic gaming fun with lots of silly weapons and scenarios in which to use them. Rift Apart continues this formula in a beautiful sequel that shows off the capabilities of modern hardware while refining the nostalgic gameplay style of the series. The introduction of a new Lombax didn’t necessarily add much to the game (she’s essentially a reskin), but it made for an interesting story in a range of unique, beautiful locales. As always, the weapons are great fun to use and the game encourages you to swap your arsenal constantly, keeping things exciting throughout battles. I was able to 100% the game relatively quickly, but doing so was a real joy.

God of War

Many people have recommended God of War to me following the game’s release in 2018. And wow, now I can understand why! This was simply an incredible experience in terms of gameplay and story, with deep characters and plenty of customisation that has a significant impact on your moveset throughout the game. By the end of it you really feel like a god. I got the impression that Santa Monica Studio had taken notes from the Last of Us and Uncharted (in terms of a large open world with puzzles and character development), and from that they crafted something incredible. Impressively satisfying to play and I can’t wait to give Ragnarok a try.

Dave the Diver

This is a wholesome game that doesn’t take itself too seriously as you alternate between diving to catch fish and then selling said fish at your sushi restaurant in the evening. I enjoyed my time with Dave the Diver, though I couldn’t help comparing it to Stardew Valley throughout. Yet it never quite scratched the itch and hooked me in quite the same way as Stardew. I think the issue is that the many faces of DtD (fishing, cooking, growing vegetables) all felt like separate disconnected systems or minigames, whereas Stardew was much more holistic. This is probably why I had no motivation to continue playing once I’d completed the main story. But don’t get me wrong – this is a charming game with a fun gameplay loop and beautifully hilarious pixel art cutscenes.

Ghost of Tsushima

A friend of mine described Ghost of Tsushima as an Assassin’s Creed clone. And I totally see what he means, but I don’t think that does it justice! Let me just get this out of the way: this is an absolutely stunning game to look at. I was constantly using the game’s photo mode to stop and take screenshots of, say, a golden sunset, the glint off Jin’s katana in the moonlight, the mist over the hills and many other gorgeous environments. The way in which the game captures the different weather changes is incredible, really providing the backbone for the atmosphere during my journey. Whilst the story didn’t do anything ground-breaking, I liked the exploration of honour in a world where the protagonist has to be dishonourable in order to survive. The combat was fun and varied, with a range of different sword techniques and tools at your disposal. Playing stealthily is a big part of the game and it would have been nice to see a bit more variation in the gameplay here (press square to assassinate etc.) but despite this I found myself enjoying these sequences until the end of the game. I’ve just finished playing the DLC content too, with which I was pleasantly surprised at the way certain gameplay elements were remixed and expanded upon. This was an excellent game which I'd recommend to anyone.

Obligatory GOT screenshot collection below!

spoiler

Has anyone played any of the games above? Let me know what you think :)

I'm not sure how useful this'll be to people, but on the off-chance that like me, you like to track your pages read daily (into something like Storygraph or Goodreads) and you happen to have an ereader, I've created a spreadsheet that may be useful.

Essentially I found that tracking pages when you're reading a book on an ereader is a little tricky because the number of pages will differ depending on the size of your device and the font size. You can use percentage instead, but:

1. My Kobo seems to calculate percentage based on number of words rather than pages
2. Sometimes with really large books, you can read a ton of pages and the percentage won't have changed

So I created a spreadsheet that can work out the equivalent page count on Storygraph (although this can work for any book tracking site).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ehIw4dE_66yU0Km98i4fBtqMqWXvlN1zTSpLSgR4OCA/edit?usp=drivesdk

I think you should be able to save a copy of the spreadsheet from that link.

I've also added in padding. So for example if the actual text of the book starts on page 6, enter 6 in the padding start field. And then the final page number of the text in padding end. This prevents inflation of number of pages read at the start and end of your tracking (because of all the copywrite info, credits etc.)

Like I say, this probably would only be useful to a select few, but thought I'd share it just in case :)

Things have sort of come full circle for me. When I was younger, I recall playing a copy of Super Mario Bros 3 on Game Boy Advance and never being able to complete it (in fairness I eventually got to the final world). This was the case for a lot of games for me; essentially they’d have infinite replayability.

As I got a bit older I was exposed to more games with linear single player campaigns. Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 spring to mind. At the time, I couldn’t afford to buy that many games so I’d find myself doing a mission here and there, and focusing most of my attention on the multiplayer. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to play the campaigns, but rather than I felt like I needed to savour them. Sure, I could just blast through it in the space of a weekend - but then it would feel like I’ve blown all that money on something short-lived.

This mindset stuck with me as single player games became longer and longer. GTA IV, Red Dead and Skyrim for example took me months to get through, as I’d just play the occasional mission as a treat.

But nowadays I don’t have as much spare time as I once did. And it feels like the number of games in my backlog is growing each day.

I actually replayed GTA IV and its DLCs last year, and really enjoyed the experience. But only recently did I work out why it was more enjoyable than my first playthrough all those years ago – and I think it’s because I didn’t eke out the missions. The story felt a lot more coherent because it was fresh in my mind. The characters that appeared at the start of the game no longer elicit that ‘wait who were they?’ response when they turn up in the second act. And I was able to better understand the ways in which the three stories cleverly intertwined.

Recently I got the gamepass-style subscription on Playstation (‘PS Plus Extra’) which includes a bunch of older games I’ve been meaning to get through. And the fact that there’s an artificial time limit to playing them (i.e. I don’t want to pay for this tier of subscription any longer than I need to) has helped me to avoid wasting time.

Just to be clear, I’m not advocating for speedrunning single player games and missing all the side content. On the contrary, I’ve just platinumed Ratchet and Clank: RA, but did so in half the time than it would have taken me before. Previously I might have thought ‘I’ll just do the one mission’, and this was often an excuse to get distracted by crap on my phone for the subsequent 30 minutes. I feel like I now have a reason to focus for games for a little longer instead of wasting time. And as a result, I’ve enjoyed my time with them so much more recently.

So perhaps if you’re struggling with your backlog, try to set yourself a realistic time limit for each game. And don’t treat games like a treat – if you have the time, play them now!

I always got the feeling that this game was seen as a classic. I never owned a Gamecube growing up, but I'm pretty sure I remember my friend having one and playing Sunshine a bit (although he was way more into Zelda and Smash).

Eventually I got round to playing Sunshine the other year when Nintendo released a triple pack on Switch. It was fun! I loved the aesthetic and interesting water spraying mechanics. However the other day I had a friend round and we were emulating the game, taking turns to beat levels. It struck us how frustrating the game was at points - especially those platforming levels in which you lose the FLUDD. You really notice how slippy and floaty Mario feels in this. In Mario 64 and Galaxy, the movement felt so precise in comparison and you knew exactly how the character would react to your inputs.

The levels too seem quite harsh at points. The Ricco Harbor level which introduces the rocket nozzle has frustratingly narrow platforms with constantly spawning wind enemies. My attempts to get back up to the top after falling off felt like cheating - i.e. lining up the rocket to land on different ledges rather than going all the way around the map again. I couldn't tell if that was what the developers intended.

Overall I do really love the game, but it feels like an awkward transition in the 3D Mario series. As if Nintendo were trying to innovate with new mechanics before they'd perfected the basic 3D platforming. Is it just me, or do others feel the same?

So, say I get a set of chromosomes from my Mum which contains the X chromosome and the same from my Dad, but with the Y chromosome. I now have two sets of the same 22 chromosomes, plus an X and a Y.

For chromosome number one for example, is everything from my Dad's side activated? My Mum's? Or is is a random selection of genes within each chromosome?

And does the X chromosome do anything for me, or is it turned off, and only used if I pass it on to the next generation?

Follow up question: I believe that women actually recombine their X chromosomes when passing these on, but men can't recombine X and Y. So everything on your Dad's side stays the same. Does this have any impact? For example are you more likely to inherit genetic defects from your Dad's side?

I was watching a video the other day that mentioned the cassava plant, and how it's a staple food in many parts of the world. I may have had it once or twice, but for some people it's something they eat every day. This got me thinking - how many things do I assume that everyone else in the world must come in contact with and take for granted, because they're so ubiquitous in my life? It's very easy to take a self-centred view, and particularly when you assume that we live in a totally globalised world. But the experience of life for someone elsewhere may be completely different.

One silly example, in the UK nearly every house would have an electric kettle for brewing hot drinks. But a lot of countries don't.

What items, food, clothing, buildings do you have that other people may never come across in their lives?

I've been trying to get my head around this and I've watched a few videos but they don't seem to specifically answer my question.

According to what I've found online, messages encrypted with a public key can only be decrypted with a private key. But in practice, how is that possible?

Surely a public key contains a set of instructions, and anyone could just run those instructions in reverse to decrypt a message? If everything you need to encrypt a message is stored within a public key, then how is it a one-way process?

It's likely that I'm misunderstanding a core element of this!

From what I understand, a lot of knowledge was lost following the collapse of the Roman Empire as manuscripts were no longer being copied at the established frequency and information that had lost relevance (for certain jobs etc.) wasn't being passed down.

If a catastrophic event were to happen nowadays, how much information would we theoretically lose? Is the knowledge of the world, stored digitally or on printed books, safer than it was before?

All the information online for example - does that have a greater chance of surviving millennia than say a preserved manuscript?