Ignorance isn't bliss.
It only takes one counter-example to prove this statement wrong.
You wouldn't want to be a mindless pig that enjoys its life simply rolling around in mud.
Not convincing? Here's a better example:
Ignorant people who do stupid things as a result are far from "blissful". They're annoying and in some cases dangerous or detrimental to the human race.
----
But knowledge isn't necessarily happiness either.
Infact, the more knowledge you have, the less happy you are.
This is game design 101.
This is how stories are written.
Once you know everything about a book, well, it's not immediately fun to read a second time through. You already know everything! Maybe years later once you've forgotten a lot of the story, it can hold value again. When you become ignorant of it again.
Games are designed around ignorance. You don't know what the story is like in the game. You don't know the layout of every level in the game. You don't know what the enemies and bosses are like later in the game. You don't know how far you can push the limits of your in-game character.
They hit on your desire to learn, and your desire to master a system.
It is fun for humans to learn new things - that's what makes us thrive as a species.
We also have a driving desire to master certain things - just like sports atheletes always trying to maximize their performance. Like engineers trying to maximize the output of technology. Like programmers trying to maximize the efficiency of their code.
Maybe you have learned everything about a certain game. The structure of every level, how every enemy is coded, and all the glitches and bugs in a game.
You still don't know how far you can go in interacting with the game as a human. You still haven't physically mastered playing it. This is what drives some people to do speedruns and other challenges, and spend many hours having more fun with the game than the developers even imagined happening, because mastering things is a common player driven goal.
But once you've satisfied yourself, you've seen how far you can go and tried, you have the knowledge of having done it and that's it.
I've watched 100 days worth of anime. That's almost 400 different animes.
At some point, you notice that many of the story lines for these animes follow a very similar pattern. So similar, that it's almost as if some animes are just copy pasted reskins of each other. So repetitive, that you become disullisioned to these types of stories after the 50th time.
Once you get to this point, the animes that stick out to you, that bring you the most joy, are the ones that tell a significantly different story, the ones that are unique, the ones that you are ignorant of.
The first time you saw that one story structure that's been repeated 50 times, perhaps it was endearing and interesting the first time. But then you get used to it.
It's just like our sense of smell (or even all of our senses). You can't smell something for more than a few minutes, before you become unable to smell it - because your nose quickly gets used to it and you stop "sensing" it.
I've noticed this applies to any form of enjoyment. Good stories. Good music. Good artwork. Good food. Good fragrants. Good feelings.
But eventually, after some time of not engaging in it, you can experience things again and feel good about them again.
Maybe it's not as fun as the first time you were introduced to it, but you can have a lifetime of these experiences in a cycle of highs and lows.
Highs and lows are what games and cinema pay special attention to after all. If every point of a game or movie is a "high point", then people will quickly find it dull. That is why there has to be periods of quiet or normalcy, buildup, and spontaneous spikes in action.
----
There are times when I watch really interesting, unique anime about love relationships. Because of my past experience in love relationships, I think I have a good understanding about how human brains tackle that topic, so I'm always watching the characters in these stories with the perspective of knowing - knowing every fault or mistake they're making, knowing what they could do better, knowing how they will probably react.
It's almost saddening - I know that if I were still a more naive person, if I were still like the people in that story, that this anime would have a much bigger emotional impact on me and be that much more endearing. What if I didn't know exactly how all parties were going to react to things? If I were just as clueless about love as the main character, having no idea where the story will lead? The moment the main character realizes something important that he's been getting wrong all along would be that much more impactful to me.
I wouldn't want to be a pig rolling in mud, but at some level, I'm missing out.
At the same time, when I do come across those unique, clever, and different stories that go beyond the stories that are repeated over 50 times, well, it's an even more amazing experience, because they're that far above the rest. And because I'm still ignorant of them.
Humanity as a collective is experiencing the same problem. Movies are being critically acclaimed to be mere reboots of old stories. And the few movies that do something unique, are the ones that get everyone's attention. We are exhausting the finite amount of creative things we can make at a certain level of knowledge - only finding things that are at another, higher level of knowledge to be interesting.
There is at least one anime that was so intellectually clever, that merely remembering some of the episodes is so distractingly exciting to me, that I have to stop myself from thinking about it when I'm trying to get work done. It's literally orgasmically clever every time I think about it. And I'm proud of having at least one thing that I don't easily become "numb" to.
And actually, I pride myself on my "ability" not to become numb to things as fast as other people.
I have an active mindset that knows how to avoid getting bored of things because of becoming numb to things I experience too much.
It makes everything I eat, every story I experience, every game I play, and my love life more enjoyable.
And all that is, is the acknowledgement that over-indulging leads to numbing. Or in the case of relationships, knowledge that the expectation that your feelings will never die out for even a moment is an erroneous judgement and that you're more likely to just experience spikes of happiness and that the point of the relationship isn't because humans are supposed to be wired to un-numbingly feel certain emotions, but because you want to live out the limited days of your left in your life with someone you can trust and enjoy being with.
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Saturday, September 17, 2016
We Are More Than Animals. We Transcend Instinct.
Just a small bit I want to mention. While we seem to be naturally stagnating, I have this idea that suggests otherwise.
When you come to think of it, they say humans are the only animals to do certain things. A lot of certain things.
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2013/07/humans-are-the-only-animals-that/
You could look at the bolded ideas there.
Have you ever heard someone say that humans are the only species that commit suicide? Something so against the idea of survival instincts.
In contrast to that, you may have heard about how various things we do are controlled and managed by our survival instincts.
"Humans have a natural instinct we have been using for centuries - just drink when you are thirsty."
We feel hungry and it prompts us to eat.
We feel pain and it prompts us to avoid danger.
Poisonous food tastes bad.
Sometimes we forget to realize that we are animals. Animals with the instinct to survive and thrive. Lots of animals have survival cues like these.
But that's the thing. We are the only species with the ability to think beyond our survival cues. We can learn more than what our faulty instincts tell us.
I hear it on The Atheist Experience once as my dad was watching it in the other room. Our instincts can actually be extremely unintuitive.
Things that taste good are bad for us.
Things that taste bad are good for us.
Our bodies reward instant gratification. Extra thought is required to understand long-term planning, and even more habitual training is needed to get one to commit to it.
But we can do it. We can think beyond primal instinct. We can learn to do more than what normal life can.
We can choose to help others. We can choose to hurt others.
And that is mere psychology. Technology and science goes even further.
Not only can we try to condition ourselves, but we are learning ways to engineer ourselves.
We could be the first generation of un-aging humans. But we could also be the final generation of living humans, if a superwar breaks out.
Again, we can choose to help others, and we can choose to hurt others.
I've had this philosophy in mind, but the social structure of our world tends to reward cooperation and friendliness more than it does antagonism or totalitarianism.
The USA is blessed by the fact that it is very hard to live a normal, peaceful life if you actually commit crime. Only suspicious or shady people have to worry about police. As I am a very honest person, I live without any of that sort of stress that drives people into doing even worse thing.
Consider this man. It is inevitable that he will be captured. But why doesn't he give up on trying to run away? There's no way he'll ever be able to get on some airplane or boat. He doesn't give up because he is already desperate from already getting his feet wet in the bloody shores of what he is doing.
A similar effect is shown to happen to criminals in the anime Psycho Pass, in which a person's mental state can be calculated instantly by a scanner gun, similar to a speedometer telling a car's speed. Once a person is calculated as being slightly capable of criminal behavior, and they are made aware of that fact, knowing that criminals are killed in this society, they suddenly become a lot more volatile, a lot more scared, and their "criminal coefficient" gets even worse.
In any case, just being honest is rewarding. Hope and goodness really does triumph. It's shown in history. In US history, we obtained independence and stopped having to do whatever people overseas said. The world defeated the Nazis. Etc.
And from that history, we know these things won't work. From science, innovation, and business, we know that humans do better creating and thinking than we do destroying and wasting.
You could say despair is a stepping stone to hope.
Of course there are still loop holes in what people do, especially when it comes to legal stuff. But hey, maybe it'll naturally be sorted some day if enough people complain and realize these things are being done. For example this:
While this guy seems like he has no hope of seeing righteous justice, one can hope for him. But who knows. Just being honest and hoping for something won't stop the most unfair or horrific things from happening.
Nonetheless, another good example of things naturally solving themselves are things like Youtube drama.
Since June of 2016 I suddenly started seeing a lot of videos about cases of Youtube drama between big name youtubers. Just outta nowhere. Apparently it's become a big enough issue for Youtube itself to make some rules.
But even if they didn't, I think this stuff would naturally solve itself. People don't like drama. youtubers know that drama is negativity. And people creating drama will get called out and outcasted. And it has happened. Once these people are outcasted, they lose whatever karma they had as a youtuber.
Since then, certain people or channels have lost a lot of popularity because the start drama. On the other hand, some channels have apologized and learned from the experience. Yes, social interaction with their communities and other people have made them realize that they can't just be jerks to anyone and get away with it. It comes back to them if they do.
I noticed a lot of this from h3h3 productions, ever since the first video of theirs that I ever saw, and the chain of videos after that.
Just the next day, the internet fights back.
In one of the videos after that, he does his apology saying he doesn't want to make videos to really unjustly demean others now. I think they unlisted it or something. I really forget what video it was. I don't really watch them.
Leafy did a similar thing as well. Maybe it was leafy that did it or something. idkwatlol.
Skip to https://youtu.be/kv2Td_H2MJY?t=4m49s
h3h3 also revealed some real problems that need to be taken down.
A while after seeing his video, I saw a video from Cr1tikal, who I'm subbed and watch almost everything from. And he's very against doing much about youtube drama. He posted this while youtube drama was blowing up everywhere:
And he posted this about the CS:GO gambling.
Ever since all of this, I've seen news on the TF2 reddit about how their matchmaking update was one of the worst things to happen in game, which also happened to have the CS:GO gambling fiasco listed there. I'm not sure what the article was. If you know plz tell me.
In any case, the guy behind that has had all his reputation destroyed. I think something similar happened to Keemstar. I don't keep up on this stuff, but apparently he even went into hiding? Idk.
Youtube doesn't need rules for the social behavior of what youtubers do. It's like scamming. After you've been scammed once, you don't get scammed again.
----
Whew, from war to youtube drama.
In any case, we are a complex species. Our desire to live supercedes any minority's belief in killing. Our ability to think supercedes our genetic faults.
We control our futures and our happiness.
----
You may not have noticed, but the way I worded and formatted this post was a bit influenced by the Danganronpa 3 anime airing near the time of writing.
Haha, it really does spread hope, doesn't it?
When you come to think of it, they say humans are the only animals to do certain things. A lot of certain things.
http://evolvingthoughts.net/2013/07/humans-are-the-only-animals-that/
You could look at the bolded ideas there.
Have you ever heard someone say that humans are the only species that commit suicide? Something so against the idea of survival instincts.
In contrast to that, you may have heard about how various things we do are controlled and managed by our survival instincts.
"Humans have a natural instinct we have been using for centuries - just drink when you are thirsty."
We feel hungry and it prompts us to eat.
We feel pain and it prompts us to avoid danger.
Poisonous food tastes bad.
Sometimes we forget to realize that we are animals. Animals with the instinct to survive and thrive. Lots of animals have survival cues like these.
But that's the thing. We are the only species with the ability to think beyond our survival cues. We can learn more than what our faulty instincts tell us.
I hear it on The Atheist Experience once as my dad was watching it in the other room. Our instincts can actually be extremely unintuitive.
Things that taste good are bad for us.
Things that taste bad are good for us.
Our bodies reward instant gratification. Extra thought is required to understand long-term planning, and even more habitual training is needed to get one to commit to it.
But we can do it. We can think beyond primal instinct. We can learn to do more than what normal life can.
We can choose to help others. We can choose to hurt others.
And that is mere psychology. Technology and science goes even further.
Not only can we try to condition ourselves, but we are learning ways to engineer ourselves.
We could be the first generation of un-aging humans. But we could also be the final generation of living humans, if a superwar breaks out.
Again, we can choose to help others, and we can choose to hurt others.
I've had this philosophy in mind, but the social structure of our world tends to reward cooperation and friendliness more than it does antagonism or totalitarianism.
The USA is blessed by the fact that it is very hard to live a normal, peaceful life if you actually commit crime. Only suspicious or shady people have to worry about police. As I am a very honest person, I live without any of that sort of stress that drives people into doing even worse thing.
Consider this man. It is inevitable that he will be captured. But why doesn't he give up on trying to run away? There's no way he'll ever be able to get on some airplane or boat. He doesn't give up because he is already desperate from already getting his feet wet in the bloody shores of what he is doing.
A similar effect is shown to happen to criminals in the anime Psycho Pass, in which a person's mental state can be calculated instantly by a scanner gun, similar to a speedometer telling a car's speed. Once a person is calculated as being slightly capable of criminal behavior, and they are made aware of that fact, knowing that criminals are killed in this society, they suddenly become a lot more volatile, a lot more scared, and their "criminal coefficient" gets even worse.
In any case, just being honest is rewarding. Hope and goodness really does triumph. It's shown in history. In US history, we obtained independence and stopped having to do whatever people overseas said. The world defeated the Nazis. Etc.
And from that history, we know these things won't work. From science, innovation, and business, we know that humans do better creating and thinking than we do destroying and wasting.
You could say despair is a stepping stone to hope.
Of course there are still loop holes in what people do, especially when it comes to legal stuff. But hey, maybe it'll naturally be sorted some day if enough people complain and realize these things are being done. For example this:
While this guy seems like he has no hope of seeing righteous justice, one can hope for him. But who knows. Just being honest and hoping for something won't stop the most unfair or horrific things from happening.
Nonetheless, another good example of things naturally solving themselves are things like Youtube drama.
Since June of 2016 I suddenly started seeing a lot of videos about cases of Youtube drama between big name youtubers. Just outta nowhere. Apparently it's become a big enough issue for Youtube itself to make some rules.
But even if they didn't, I think this stuff would naturally solve itself. People don't like drama. youtubers know that drama is negativity. And people creating drama will get called out and outcasted. And it has happened. Once these people are outcasted, they lose whatever karma they had as a youtuber.
Since then, certain people or channels have lost a lot of popularity because the start drama. On the other hand, some channels have apologized and learned from the experience. Yes, social interaction with their communities and other people have made them realize that they can't just be jerks to anyone and get away with it. It comes back to them if they do.
I noticed a lot of this from h3h3 productions, ever since the first video of theirs that I ever saw, and the chain of videos after that.
Just the next day, the internet fights back.
In one of the videos after that, he does his apology saying he doesn't want to make videos to really unjustly demean others now. I think they unlisted it or something. I really forget what video it was. I don't really watch them.
Leafy did a similar thing as well. Maybe it was leafy that did it or something. idkwatlol.
h3h3 also revealed some real problems that need to be taken down.
A while after seeing his video, I saw a video from Cr1tikal, who I'm subbed and watch almost everything from. And he's very against doing much about youtube drama. He posted this while youtube drama was blowing up everywhere:
And he posted this about the CS:GO gambling.
Ever since all of this, I've seen news on the TF2 reddit about how their matchmaking update was one of the worst things to happen in game, which also happened to have the CS:GO gambling fiasco listed there. I'm not sure what the article was. If you know plz tell me.
In any case, the guy behind that has had all his reputation destroyed. I think something similar happened to Keemstar. I don't keep up on this stuff, but apparently he even went into hiding? Idk.
Youtube doesn't need rules for the social behavior of what youtubers do. It's like scamming. After you've been scammed once, you don't get scammed again.
----
Whew, from war to youtube drama.
In any case, we are a complex species. Our desire to live supercedes any minority's belief in killing. Our ability to think supercedes our genetic faults.
We control our futures and our happiness.
----
You may not have noticed, but the way I worded and formatted this post was a bit influenced by the Danganronpa 3 anime airing near the time of writing.
Haha, it really does spread hope, doesn't it?
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Windows of Reality
Looking at your monitor right now, what is its resolution? Mines is 1920x1080. That's 2,073,600 pixels. Many monitors today have 24-bits per pixel for color depth, which is a possible 16,777,216 (2^24) colors. Also known as "truecolor". If you wanted to display every possible color in 24-bit, you'd need a picture that's 4096x4096 in size. To give a better understanding of this, 1bpp (bits per pixel) would only have 2 colors (2^1), black and white. If that confuses you, try reading this.
Now think of this, when you take pictures of anything, unless you take a picture of something completely stationary with no changes in lighting between pictures, the picture will almost always be different. When you record a video, you are taking a sequence of hundreds to thousands of different still images, each of which would take up a different combination of pixels of various colors.
This is series of frames playing one after another at 10 frames per second.
What's important here, is that this animation takes up 6 different frames, 6 different images. Now going back to 1bpp color depth, how many possible different "frames" could you have if you had a monitor with a resolution of 2x2 pixels? With two possible colors, you can calculate the answer which is (2^1)^(2*2) or two to the power of color depth to the power of the resolution/number of pixels or 16. And just to make sure, you can look at this picture:
So, (2^24)^(1920*1080) would give you the number of images that could be projected onto my monitor.
Just to show how high that goes:
(2^24)^(2,073,600)
16,777,216^(2,073,600)
2^1 = 2
2^2 = 4
2^3 = 8
16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192 <-- this is how far I know by memory, which is 2^13. We know from our color depth that 2^24 is 16 million. 16 million squared is 281,474,976,710,656 which is already in the trillions and 16 million^2 million would likely be too large to even fit in this post.
To give another example of how this works out:
(2^1)^(2*3) is 64.
(3)^(1x1) is 3
(3)^(2x1) is 9
(number of colors)^(number of pixels)
An SNES's screen resolution is 256x224, which is already 57,344 pixels.
The SNES also has various emulation modes. One in particular is Mode 7 which is 8-bit (256 colors). Every pixel is represented by its own byte (hence, 8bpp or 8 bits per pixel). Each pixel can have 256 colors (0x00 to 0xFF).
The hex data shown in the hex editor would actually point to the palette of colors to choose from. 26 would be the 26th color starting from 0. I'd make a screenshot of my actual palette data for this, but I don't feel like going through Lunar Magic to do that.
Each of the colors shown in this 16x16 palette could be any other of the 256 colors you can have. In the case of this particular image, only 6 colors on the palette would be taken up, and those 6 colors could be any of 256 different colors. In this case, a red gradient.
Here is a video of these Giygas graphics in action, implemented into Super Mario World as a Mode 7 background:
If I wanted, I could make a scratch ROM that displays all (2^8)^(256*224) images in sequence (which I might).
I could also use a different emulation mode that uses less colors to make the number less huge. I could even make it only happen in a specific 32x32 box on the screen. I haven't done SNES hacking in a long time, and I forget how many colors are in other graphic modes, so I might look up on that later. I mention mode 7 because that's what I'd still know how to off-hand manipulate graphically. (2^8)^(32*32) is 256^(1024) which is still a shit ton.
If one were to run a program to just cycle through all 16,777,216^(2,073,600) images, within this sequence you would eventually see a picture of your face. You would eventually see this very post on screen. You would see every frame of every movie ever made. You would see every frame of movies that haven't been made yet. You would see every pixel of your face, with a green dot starting at 0,0 going to 0,1 going to 1920, 1080. You would see every potential angle that a picture could be taken of your face. You would see every potential picture of a human being (not to mention lots of porn). You would see everything.
In my simple 32x32 window with 256 colors on the SNES, you would see all of the following eventually:
A white image, a black image, an image with one black pixel in the top left corner, an image with it moved over once, twice, all the way to the end. black and white static, the same static with inverted colors, the same static again, but flipped horizontally, ;3, ;o, C, a "Conway's Game of Life" glider, a sprite sheet of Super Mario World boos, the same sheet zoomed in, the same sheet zoomed in so far that it's all just one color, Cook Kirby, and "Cook Megaman".
The smug boo and spy boo are resprites featured in A Super Mario Thing (ASMT) which was a collab I helped produce. The Smug Boo was drawn by Argumentable and Spy Boo drawn by me. Here is an example of them in video: http://youtu.be/BTTSabLFwJI
Not to mention, every frame of that video would eventually appear in iterations of your computer screen. Also, what if you did a similar trick, but with all possible sounds? An SNES also stores sound data in the form of bytes. If I got into SPC-Assembly, it's possible. It'd probably be much, much huger than all possible images.
Even if I had an 8x8 sized space, that's still (2^8)^(8*8) which is astronomically huge. Even if I restrict it to (2^1)^(8*8) which means it's only black and white, that's still 2^64 or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. (18 quintillion, 446 quadrillioin, 744 trillion, 73 billiion, 709 million, 551 thousand, and 616 different images.)
At a constant 60fps (frames/images per second) on my emulator, it would take 5,209,497,168,964,272 hours to go through every black and white permutation of an 8*8 space. That's 594,284,413,526 years. My computer would probably break down before that happens. Our solar system will be gone by then.
Oh, did I mention, all the basic data for image display in a Super Mario World rom only takes up 512 bytes of space, thanks to the compression and coding it uses.
-----------------------------------------------
Now just stopping here, you have a pretty amazing concept. It'd be pretty cool if someone were doing this with a super computer right now or something. But let's take it further. Think about it, what does the fact that I was able to calculate 2^(49,766,400) as the total possible images you could show on my monitor show? I almost forgot to inlude this half of the post due to short term memory loss while typing the first half. I doubt most people would think to take it this far either. And just because I want to see if this post gets blatantly copy pasted somewhere else, I'm going to type "Diji" right here. Can't wait.
It means that the total amount is finite. Even though every picture you could think of far exceeds what you can image, it is finite. The maximum number of possible images is limited.
At least in our universe. The same idea so far can apply to http://www.hackforums.net/showthread.php?tid=3281155.
Now looking back at my infinity thread, I proposed that within our universe, infinity is impossible.
Planck length is proposed as the shortest possible length. Many of Planck's units are proposed to be the smallest "possible" units of things such as time, or energy.
If you look at a pixel on your computer screen, what is the length of that pixel? You might say, "1 pixel by 1 pixel right?" Wrong. One pixel is 0.264583333mm (millimeters). At least when calculated here. It could vary a bit depending on how big the light itself is for your "pixel".
So that's the length of a pixel. The area would then be 0.264583333^2 millimeters squared. Well, squaring a decimal comes out to 0.07 which is less than the length, so I'm not sure how you would correctly calculate that or if that's supposed to make sense somehow, decimal squaring has always been a weird thing to me. To make this simpler, the length of a pixel is 264.583333 micrometers which makes the area of a pixel 70004.340101388889 micrometers^2. A bit easier to understand right? So the smallest unit of my monitor (a pixel) has that size.
What if we apply that to the smallest unit of our universe? A planck unit, with a length of 1 planck length (1.616199(97)×10^−35 meters which is about 10^-20 times diameter of a proton), and an area of 1 planck length squared.
Looking back at my monitor, there was a finite amount of pixels (1920x1080). There was a finite amount of possible colors. There have been proposed measurements of the total number of atoms in the observable universe (I forget who's number it was, but in any case I remember hearing that people don't take it seriously). Let's just assume for now that the number of atoms in the universe actually is finite. We now have a measurement for the size of the smallest possible units in the universe (planck units) just like we had a measurement of the smallest possible units on a monitor (pixels).
The real universe, however is 3D. Instead of a 2D monitor (x*y), our universe is x*y*z.
I was able to represent a pixel as being the smallest unit on a monitor. I then broke it down to real life by measuring it in units smaller than a pixel, in terms of micrometers. I also gave a break down of the smallest units of the universe as planck units. One important thing I mentioned is that a planck length is many, many times smaller than the diameter of a proton. Throughout history, atoms were once known to be the smallest possible particle in existence. Then protons, neutrons, and electrons were found to be smaller. Then quarks, and now string theory. So, what if our planck unit were the small parts of our strings? Our smallest "pixels".
Based on this, the total possible "configurations" of our universe is finite.
What if I had a super computer, that could calculate its own inner particles in a 3 dimension scale? Perhaps then we could emulate every possible "still-image" of our universe... Not that just going through every 2D image could show us pictures of it already. Of course, this also points out a hole in the idea of exact simulation of reality. A computer composed of particles wouldn't be able to exactly simulate its own particles, nor would a computer within that simulation. When you record the output screen of the same camera you're recording from, you get the cool loop of screens inside screens inside screens. (Funny, I couldn't think of search terms to find a video of this on Youtube). But really, eventually the screens so far in are blurry or dark and are definitely smaller than the outer one (perhaps convex/concave lens would change that). This is why you wouldn't completely be able to simulate reality, and why simulating the human brain would take an extremely huge super computer. (Thank you, Mihiro, for the vid link).
At this point, I highly suggest reading SCP-1190 - Universal Simulator.
Remember how a Super Mario World rom only took up 512 bytes of space? There's an outer entity that can read the data on both how it runs and the graphical data (and musical data). It would be your Super Nintendo, or emulator. Real life...? Think about all the equations scientists find in physics to calculate how things move in relation to each other.
At this point, I also suggest reading SCP-1696 - Dr. Wondertainment’s Little Big-Banger™.
Also of interest: SCP-536 - Physical Law Testing Chamber
If you are familiar with Conway's Game of Life, there is more to elaborate on. Let's say you are running Conway's Game of Life in a 32x32 screen with a block in a middle of the screen. Because of the rules imposed on possible interactions of black pixels, there is only one image possible on the screen. If you place a glider on screen, the only possible images of that "universe" are the separate images of the glider going from one end of the screen to the other. This assumes a closed interval however. What if you had an infinity of pixels for the glider to run across? Then you have an infinite amount of possible images. But back to a closed 32x32 area. Based on your input, there is a finite amount of images, and no other images could have possibly occured. I don't know how to calculate the number of images you can produced in a Conway game of life based off of your input, but the lesson gives interesting implications about our own universe.
As shown in the Wikipedia article, there are other derivations of the Game of Life. Shown on the wiki was one featuring hexagonal cells instead of quadrilateral ones, with more colors than just black and white too. Our own universe could be a much, much more complicated version of Conway's Game of Life.
Here is a video relevant to a common idea I and many others have of the comparison of galaxies to neural clusters and the comparison of solar systems to old models of the atom.
Considering hashlife, perhaps one could make a "Game of Life" for reality and find out what happens at a certain time, just like in the Universal Simulator.
Going back to the idea of a program that steps through every possible image based on an amount of colors and pixels, would there be a reliable way to input a start iteration to see what the image would be like then? Perhaps, like Google image searching in which you can drop in an image file to look for, could you make a program that will try to find the iteration at which your image occurs? For Conway's Game of Life, given an "ending scenario", would there be a finite amount of "starting points" that could have resulted in the finite amount of "ending scenarios"? I think so. It would be a huge amount of starting points and ending scenarios though, considering some ending scenarios can be generated through the same starting points. Of course, there can be no starting points that have different ending scenarios. Another thing in italics to apply to our own universe.
Speaking of a boundless universe, look at the "depth" of a Mandelbrot fractal.
All of this is generated with the same starting algorithm by zooming into smaller parts of its infinite recursion. Mathematically perfect seemingly complex images.
For more information on fractals, see: http://library.thinkquest.org/3288/gnrte1.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set.
-------------------------------
There is one more step to take with all the information thus far. This one will be brief.
What if those smallest units, parts of our strings, could be combined a different way? We know protons, neutrons, and electrons can combine together to make a specific set of atoms, and specific atoms can combine to make a specific set of molecules. There are some atoms that are impossible combinations, that could never happen. But are protons, neutrons, and electrons the only sub-atomic particles one could make out of our "planck particles"? Or are the combinations that make up protons, neutrons, and electrons the only possible combinations?
What could be made then?
One more SCP article for you, SCP-009 - Red Ice.
Now think of this, when you take pictures of anything, unless you take a picture of something completely stationary with no changes in lighting between pictures, the picture will almost always be different. When you record a video, you are taking a sequence of hundreds to thousands of different still images, each of which would take up a different combination of pixels of various colors.
This is series of frames playing one after another at 10 frames per second.
What's important here, is that this animation takes up 6 different frames, 6 different images. Now going back to 1bpp color depth, how many possible different "frames" could you have if you had a monitor with a resolution of 2x2 pixels? With two possible colors, you can calculate the answer which is (2^1)^(2*2) or two to the power of color depth to the power of the resolution/number of pixels or 16. And just to make sure, you can look at this picture:
So, (2^24)^(1920*1080) would give you the number of images that could be projected onto my monitor.
Just to show how high that goes:
(2^24)^(2,073,600)
16,777,216^(2,073,600)
2^1 = 2
2^2 = 4
2^3 = 8
16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192 <-- this is how far I know by memory, which is 2^13. We know from our color depth that 2^24 is 16 million. 16 million squared is 281,474,976,710,656 which is already in the trillions and 16 million^2 million would likely be too large to even fit in this post.
To give another example of how this works out:
(2^1)^(2*3) is 64.
(3)^(1x1) is 3
(3)^(2x1) is 9
(number of colors)^(number of pixels)
An SNES's screen resolution is 256x224, which is already 57,344 pixels.
The SNES also has various emulation modes. One in particular is Mode 7 which is 8-bit (256 colors). Every pixel is represented by its own byte (hence, 8bpp or 8 bits per pixel). Each pixel can have 256 colors (0x00 to 0xFF).
The hex data shown in the hex editor would actually point to the palette of colors to choose from. 26 would be the 26th color starting from 0. I'd make a screenshot of my actual palette data for this, but I don't feel like going through Lunar Magic to do that.
Each of the colors shown in this 16x16 palette could be any other of the 256 colors you can have. In the case of this particular image, only 6 colors on the palette would be taken up, and those 6 colors could be any of 256 different colors. In this case, a red gradient.
Here is a video of these Giygas graphics in action, implemented into Super Mario World as a Mode 7 background:
If I wanted, I could make a scratch ROM that displays all (2^8)^(256*224) images in sequence (which I might).
I could also use a different emulation mode that uses less colors to make the number less huge. I could even make it only happen in a specific 32x32 box on the screen. I haven't done SNES hacking in a long time, and I forget how many colors are in other graphic modes, so I might look up on that later. I mention mode 7 because that's what I'd still know how to off-hand manipulate graphically. (2^8)^(32*32) is 256^(1024) which is still a shit ton.
If one were to run a program to just cycle through all 16,777,216^(2,073,600) images, within this sequence you would eventually see a picture of your face. You would eventually see this very post on screen. You would see every frame of every movie ever made. You would see every frame of movies that haven't been made yet. You would see every pixel of your face, with a green dot starting at 0,0 going to 0,1 going to 1920, 1080. You would see every potential angle that a picture could be taken of your face. You would see every potential picture of a human being (not to mention lots of porn). You would see everything.
In my simple 32x32 window with 256 colors on the SNES, you would see all of the following eventually:
A white image, a black image, an image with one black pixel in the top left corner, an image with it moved over once, twice, all the way to the end. black and white static, the same static with inverted colors, the same static again, but flipped horizontally, ;3, ;o, C, a "Conway's Game of Life" glider, a sprite sheet of Super Mario World boos, the same sheet zoomed in, the same sheet zoomed in so far that it's all just one color, Cook Kirby, and "Cook Megaman".
The smug boo and spy boo are resprites featured in A Super Mario Thing (ASMT) which was a collab I helped produce. The Smug Boo was drawn by Argumentable and Spy Boo drawn by me. Here is an example of them in video: http://youtu.be/BTTSabLFwJI
Not to mention, every frame of that video would eventually appear in iterations of your computer screen. Also, what if you did a similar trick, but with all possible sounds? An SNES also stores sound data in the form of bytes. If I got into SPC-Assembly, it's possible. It'd probably be much, much huger than all possible images.
Even if I had an 8x8 sized space, that's still (2^8)^(8*8) which is astronomically huge. Even if I restrict it to (2^1)^(8*8) which means it's only black and white, that's still 2^64 or 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. (18 quintillion, 446 quadrillioin, 744 trillion, 73 billiion, 709 million, 551 thousand, and 616 different images.)
At a constant 60fps (frames/images per second) on my emulator, it would take 5,209,497,168,964,272 hours to go through every black and white permutation of an 8*8 space. That's 594,284,413,526 years. My computer would probably break down before that happens. Our solar system will be gone by then.
Oh, did I mention, all the basic data for image display in a Super Mario World rom only takes up 512 bytes of space, thanks to the compression and coding it uses.
-----------------------------------------------
Now just stopping here, you have a pretty amazing concept. It'd be pretty cool if someone were doing this with a super computer right now or something. But let's take it further. Think about it, what does the fact that I was able to calculate 2^(49,766,400) as the total possible images you could show on my monitor show? I almost forgot to inlude this half of the post due to short term memory loss while typing the first half. I doubt most people would think to take it this far either. And just because I want to see if this post gets blatantly copy pasted somewhere else, I'm going to type "Diji" right here. Can't wait.
It means that the total amount is finite. Even though every picture you could think of far exceeds what you can image, it is finite. The maximum number of possible images is limited.
At least in our universe. The same idea so far can apply to http://www.hackforums.net/showthread.php?tid=3281155.
Now looking back at my infinity thread, I proposed that within our universe, infinity is impossible.
Planck length is proposed as the shortest possible length. Many of Planck's units are proposed to be the smallest "possible" units of things such as time, or energy.
If you look at a pixel on your computer screen, what is the length of that pixel? You might say, "1 pixel by 1 pixel right?" Wrong. One pixel is 0.264583333mm (millimeters). At least when calculated here. It could vary a bit depending on how big the light itself is for your "pixel".
So that's the length of a pixel. The area would then be 0.264583333^2 millimeters squared. Well, squaring a decimal comes out to 0.07 which is less than the length, so I'm not sure how you would correctly calculate that or if that's supposed to make sense somehow, decimal squaring has always been a weird thing to me. To make this simpler, the length of a pixel is 264.583333 micrometers which makes the area of a pixel 70004.340101388889 micrometers^2. A bit easier to understand right? So the smallest unit of my monitor (a pixel) has that size.
What if we apply that to the smallest unit of our universe? A planck unit, with a length of 1 planck length (1.616199(97)×10^−35 meters which is about 10^-20 times diameter of a proton), and an area of 1 planck length squared.
Looking back at my monitor, there was a finite amount of pixels (1920x1080). There was a finite amount of possible colors. There have been proposed measurements of the total number of atoms in the observable universe (I forget who's number it was, but in any case I remember hearing that people don't take it seriously). Let's just assume for now that the number of atoms in the universe actually is finite. We now have a measurement for the size of the smallest possible units in the universe (planck units) just like we had a measurement of the smallest possible units on a monitor (pixels).
The real universe, however is 3D. Instead of a 2D monitor (x*y), our universe is x*y*z.
I was able to represent a pixel as being the smallest unit on a monitor. I then broke it down to real life by measuring it in units smaller than a pixel, in terms of micrometers. I also gave a break down of the smallest units of the universe as planck units. One important thing I mentioned is that a planck length is many, many times smaller than the diameter of a proton. Throughout history, atoms were once known to be the smallest possible particle in existence. Then protons, neutrons, and electrons were found to be smaller. Then quarks, and now string theory. So, what if our planck unit were the small parts of our strings? Our smallest "pixels".
Based on this, the total possible "configurations" of our universe is finite.
What if I had a super computer, that could calculate its own inner particles in a 3 dimension scale? Perhaps then we could emulate every possible "still-image" of our universe... Not that just going through every 2D image could show us pictures of it already. Of course, this also points out a hole in the idea of exact simulation of reality. A computer composed of particles wouldn't be able to exactly simulate its own particles, nor would a computer within that simulation. When you record the output screen of the same camera you're recording from, you get the cool loop of screens inside screens inside screens. (Funny, I couldn't think of search terms to find a video of this on Youtube). But really, eventually the screens so far in are blurry or dark and are definitely smaller than the outer one (perhaps convex/concave lens would change that). This is why you wouldn't completely be able to simulate reality, and why simulating the human brain would take an extremely huge super computer. (Thank you, Mihiro, for the vid link).
At this point, I highly suggest reading SCP-1190 - Universal Simulator.
Remember how a Super Mario World rom only took up 512 bytes of space? There's an outer entity that can read the data on both how it runs and the graphical data (and musical data). It would be your Super Nintendo, or emulator. Real life...? Think about all the equations scientists find in physics to calculate how things move in relation to each other.
At this point, I also suggest reading SCP-1696 - Dr. Wondertainment’s Little Big-Banger™.
Also of interest: SCP-536 - Physical Law Testing Chamber
If you are familiar with Conway's Game of Life, there is more to elaborate on. Let's say you are running Conway's Game of Life in a 32x32 screen with a block in a middle of the screen. Because of the rules imposed on possible interactions of black pixels, there is only one image possible on the screen. If you place a glider on screen, the only possible images of that "universe" are the separate images of the glider going from one end of the screen to the other. This assumes a closed interval however. What if you had an infinity of pixels for the glider to run across? Then you have an infinite amount of possible images. But back to a closed 32x32 area. Based on your input, there is a finite amount of images, and no other images could have possibly occured. I don't know how to calculate the number of images you can produced in a Conway game of life based off of your input, but the lesson gives interesting implications about our own universe.
As shown in the Wikipedia article, there are other derivations of the Game of Life. Shown on the wiki was one featuring hexagonal cells instead of quadrilateral ones, with more colors than just black and white too. Our own universe could be a much, much more complicated version of Conway's Game of Life.
Here is a video relevant to a common idea I and many others have of the comparison of galaxies to neural clusters and the comparison of solar systems to old models of the atom.
Considering hashlife, perhaps one could make a "Game of Life" for reality and find out what happens at a certain time, just like in the Universal Simulator.
Going back to the idea of a program that steps through every possible image based on an amount of colors and pixels, would there be a reliable way to input a start iteration to see what the image would be like then? Perhaps, like Google image searching in which you can drop in an image file to look for, could you make a program that will try to find the iteration at which your image occurs? For Conway's Game of Life, given an "ending scenario", would there be a finite amount of "starting points" that could have resulted in the finite amount of "ending scenarios"? I think so. It would be a huge amount of starting points and ending scenarios though, considering some ending scenarios can be generated through the same starting points. Of course, there can be no starting points that have different ending scenarios. Another thing in italics to apply to our own universe.
Speaking of a boundless universe, look at the "depth" of a Mandelbrot fractal.
All of this is generated with the same starting algorithm by zooming into smaller parts of its infinite recursion. Mathematically perfect seemingly complex images.
For more information on fractals, see: http://library.thinkquest.org/3288/gnrte1.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set.
-------------------------------
There is one more step to take with all the information thus far. This one will be brief.
What if those smallest units, parts of our strings, could be combined a different way? We know protons, neutrons, and electrons can combine together to make a specific set of atoms, and specific atoms can combine to make a specific set of molecules. There are some atoms that are impossible combinations, that could never happen. But are protons, neutrons, and electrons the only sub-atomic particles one could make out of our "planck particles"? Or are the combinations that make up protons, neutrons, and electrons the only possible combinations?
What could be made then?
One more SCP article for you, SCP-009 - Red Ice.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Creativity and quality are stagnating
Lately I get the feeling that creativity and quality are stagnating.
One reason is capitalism. The way businesses work nowadays leads to making lackluster products that a profitable number of people are okay with despite its flaws. Businesses will not take any extra steps to create something extraordinary if it falls out of their projected profit margin.
Lately I see this a lot in gaming. F2P game markets aside, computer technology is always advancing and becoming more and more powerful. Computers are becoming capable of better graphics, programmers are learning new and better ways to do things, 10gbps internet, etc. MIT is always doing amazing things.
But lately there are few 3D games that I think are making their games super aesthetic.
Team Fortress 2 over time has had its frame rates go lower and lower, where 4 years ago there were no problems.
Blade & Soul has great graphics, yet apparently some people still complain about it not using the latest technology. In any case I think the graphics are great, the combat system is great, but the content is lacking. Questing and exploration in that game are very lacking, almost like a side thought to the game itself. Compared to Runescape, which has a vast amount of very deep quests with lots of detail in each one.
While Runescape has amazing quest stories, exploration, and whatnot, it took a huge hit with its attempt to change its combat system and now it's combat is like an inferior rip-off to other mmorpgs. Aside from that, the system fits nothing in the game because it was plastered on a 10 year old game in a rush and only enemies made after that point were truly adjusted to make sense in the new system.
They also are slow to move on from Java or trying to retain browser support, when lots of PC gaming has moved on to Steam.
Those are just a few games I've played, but I could keep going.
In anime, there seems to be a pattern of anime repeating the same tropes over an over, very few coming out of that bubble to show a unique story. This happens because it's what appeals to people in Japan, things like highschool settings and whatnot. They tend to get repeated because they're simple and popular.
True works of art and innovation, imo, result more often from individuals who spend their free time to create things. Of course, some games and anime are still exceptionally good. But they can always be better.
One reason is capitalism. The way businesses work nowadays leads to making lackluster products that a profitable number of people are okay with despite its flaws. Businesses will not take any extra steps to create something extraordinary if it falls out of their projected profit margin.
Lately I see this a lot in gaming. F2P game markets aside, computer technology is always advancing and becoming more and more powerful. Computers are becoming capable of better graphics, programmers are learning new and better ways to do things, 10gbps internet, etc. MIT is always doing amazing things.
But lately there are few 3D games that I think are making their games super aesthetic.
Team Fortress 2 over time has had its frame rates go lower and lower, where 4 years ago there were no problems.
Blade & Soul has great graphics, yet apparently some people still complain about it not using the latest technology. In any case I think the graphics are great, the combat system is great, but the content is lacking. Questing and exploration in that game are very lacking, almost like a side thought to the game itself. Compared to Runescape, which has a vast amount of very deep quests with lots of detail in each one.
While Runescape has amazing quest stories, exploration, and whatnot, it took a huge hit with its attempt to change its combat system and now it's combat is like an inferior rip-off to other mmorpgs. Aside from that, the system fits nothing in the game because it was plastered on a 10 year old game in a rush and only enemies made after that point were truly adjusted to make sense in the new system.
They also are slow to move on from Java or trying to retain browser support, when lots of PC gaming has moved on to Steam.
Those are just a few games I've played, but I could keep going.
In anime, there seems to be a pattern of anime repeating the same tropes over an over, very few coming out of that bubble to show a unique story. This happens because it's what appeals to people in Japan, things like highschool settings and whatnot. They tend to get repeated because they're simple and popular.
True works of art and innovation, imo, result more often from individuals who spend their free time to create things. Of course, some games and anime are still exceptionally good. But they can always be better.
I want to be immortal.
I live a pretty average life.
I sleep, I eat, I learn, I work.
But I have fun living.
Lately, the only thing that depresses me is the thought of dying. I've been conditioned to have strong control over emotional detachment, and ever since I've always felt like I enjoy things thoroughly and never take things for granted.
I've been conditioned to be able to easily let go of the past for change and adapt as well. At the same time I have very long lasting patience or stamina for what interests me. It takes me a long time to get bored of something I like.
I believe I'm partially capable of that because I don't trap myself with strong expectations of having things last. I don't enjoy something expecting myself to be able to enjoy it every single day for years straight, so I don't get disappointed when something goes dry. In fact, I look forward to when I get interested in it again, as I tend to rotate between major interests.
As a very anti-social-by-choice type of person, I don't expect human attachments to weigh me down in an eternal life. And realistically, if I become immortal, it would be done through anti-aging genetic science. Immortality achieved that way means I could still die any time. And if it's a procedure that can be applied to me, then it could also be applied to whoever I love as well.
I believe that humans will eventually have full control over genetics. Either that, or we will reach the limits of this universe's physical capabilities. We still seem to have a long ways to go before we reach any such limits however.
We can already decide birth gender in babies. We're on the tip of anti-aging and it can only be made safer and safer as time goes on. "Character Creation" for humans is just a start, but genes to control aptitude for intelligence and other skills could be manipulated too.
Some day we might see a world where the majority of people are INTJ or INTP personalities - a world I believe would be much more rational than we are now. I feel as if a majority of humanity has infantile thought patterns and only few people are very rational and mature going into adulthood. The way people act tends to be extremely predictable.
We are still restricted by mental biases imposed by our instinct to live. I read somewhere that men who have problems cheating on girls do so because their instinct is meant to lead them to create more offspring, whereas girl's instinct is more to protect the child. I agree to some extent, but this also points out the ability for human intelligence to intervene in natural.
We can overturn instinct and natural habits such as that. While rabbits or dogs might show similar behavior to those instincts, we've learned a culture of marrying and sticking with one husband and one wife pairings.
But that's not enough on its own. We are currently in a pitfall against human evolution. Natural stagnantation or stasis. Humans have hit a point where we survive against nature through technology. Where beetles adapt for survival by changing colors over various generations of their species so they camoflage better and get eaten less often, we kill or hide from our opposition.
Because our technology can protect us, there's no need for the human itself to evolve and for people to better themselves.
This is where we reach a point of natural stagnation. Something I believe that would best be solved by eventual acceptance of intelligence improving genetic surgery from birth. All those sci-fi movies about genetic super-intelligent children isn't a far stretch.
Even something as simple as disabling emotional anger can go a long way. I believe nothing good comes from anger and that anything you can get out of anger is better achieved by being rational. It mostly only leads to poorly thought hasty decisions and war and hatred.
Heck, genetics could possibly be used to overwrite our survival instincts and how they work to be similar to whatever kinds of couples don't actually end up divorcing in this day and age. It could even eventually stop population growth unless necessary.
As we learn more about the brain, it may be possible to some day cyberize our minds. This will likely take us much longer as the difference between a brain's processing power and a computer's is too different right now.
In any case, I think I could live on for a very long time without tiring of life. In high school during a psychology class a teacher mentioned that most people wouldn't be able to live alone without going insane. Most of the other students agreed, but I didn't.
Of course, I assume a lot of hope for humankind to improve and better themselves. If humans go extinct and I'm the last person alive, what would I be living for? I enjoy life because I love data. The vast amounts of data created by humans.
On that note, I suppose having the ability to induce a self-comatose state for millions of years in order to 'skip time' would be useful as well, if humanity where to go extinct, I could perhaps wait for a new intelligent life to appear.
I sleep, I eat, I learn, I work.
But I have fun living.
Lately, the only thing that depresses me is the thought of dying. I've been conditioned to have strong control over emotional detachment, and ever since I've always felt like I enjoy things thoroughly and never take things for granted.
I've been conditioned to be able to easily let go of the past for change and adapt as well. At the same time I have very long lasting patience or stamina for what interests me. It takes me a long time to get bored of something I like.
I believe I'm partially capable of that because I don't trap myself with strong expectations of having things last. I don't enjoy something expecting myself to be able to enjoy it every single day for years straight, so I don't get disappointed when something goes dry. In fact, I look forward to when I get interested in it again, as I tend to rotate between major interests.
As a very anti-social-by-choice type of person, I don't expect human attachments to weigh me down in an eternal life. And realistically, if I become immortal, it would be done through anti-aging genetic science. Immortality achieved that way means I could still die any time. And if it's a procedure that can be applied to me, then it could also be applied to whoever I love as well.
I believe that humans will eventually have full control over genetics. Either that, or we will reach the limits of this universe's physical capabilities. We still seem to have a long ways to go before we reach any such limits however.
We can already decide birth gender in babies. We're on the tip of anti-aging and it can only be made safer and safer as time goes on. "Character Creation" for humans is just a start, but genes to control aptitude for intelligence and other skills could be manipulated too.
Some day we might see a world where the majority of people are INTJ or INTP personalities - a world I believe would be much more rational than we are now. I feel as if a majority of humanity has infantile thought patterns and only few people are very rational and mature going into adulthood. The way people act tends to be extremely predictable.
We are still restricted by mental biases imposed by our instinct to live. I read somewhere that men who have problems cheating on girls do so because their instinct is meant to lead them to create more offspring, whereas girl's instinct is more to protect the child. I agree to some extent, but this also points out the ability for human intelligence to intervene in natural.
We can overturn instinct and natural habits such as that. While rabbits or dogs might show similar behavior to those instincts, we've learned a culture of marrying and sticking with one husband and one wife pairings.
But that's not enough on its own. We are currently in a pitfall against human evolution. Natural stagnantation or stasis. Humans have hit a point where we survive against nature through technology. Where beetles adapt for survival by changing colors over various generations of their species so they camoflage better and get eaten less often, we kill or hide from our opposition.
Because our technology can protect us, there's no need for the human itself to evolve and for people to better themselves.
This is where we reach a point of natural stagnation. Something I believe that would best be solved by eventual acceptance of intelligence improving genetic surgery from birth. All those sci-fi movies about genetic super-intelligent children isn't a far stretch.
Even something as simple as disabling emotional anger can go a long way. I believe nothing good comes from anger and that anything you can get out of anger is better achieved by being rational. It mostly only leads to poorly thought hasty decisions and war and hatred.
Heck, genetics could possibly be used to overwrite our survival instincts and how they work to be similar to whatever kinds of couples don't actually end up divorcing in this day and age. It could even eventually stop population growth unless necessary.
As we learn more about the brain, it may be possible to some day cyberize our minds. This will likely take us much longer as the difference between a brain's processing power and a computer's is too different right now.
In any case, I think I could live on for a very long time without tiring of life. In high school during a psychology class a teacher mentioned that most people wouldn't be able to live alone without going insane. Most of the other students agreed, but I didn't.
Of course, I assume a lot of hope for humankind to improve and better themselves. If humans go extinct and I'm the last person alive, what would I be living for? I enjoy life because I love data. The vast amounts of data created by humans.
On that note, I suppose having the ability to induce a self-comatose state for millions of years in order to 'skip time' would be useful as well, if humanity where to go extinct, I could perhaps wait for a new intelligent life to appear.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Debunking EoC: Power Creep and PvP
One of the problems in RS2 was that if level 90 weapons were added to the game, they would end up being way too powerful in PvP. Level 80 chaotics were already hitting constant 400s.
While the Wilderness had self-moderation in which people just run if you use "cheap tactics", balance in the wilderness could have been improved.
What I thought of was having an equipment wilderness level restriction. In other words, at level 1 wilderness, you can only use level 50 armor (runite) and level 75 of lower weapons (most of what you saw in Edgeville was around there).
At level 10 wilderness, you could use level 60 armor and level 77 weapons. In other words, the wilderness level adds to the level of armor you can use and 1/4th of the wilderness level adds to the weapon requirement (rounded down). Spells may or may not be subject to this too.
At level 50 wildy you'd be able to use level 99 armor and 87 weapons. At 60 wildy you'd see level 90s. Anything above that would be deemed too powerful everywhere. Actually, I don't think the Wildy goes up to 60, so the number may need to be adjusted a little bit, like 0.3 instead.
This is of course, a very awkward solution that could cost inventory space if you are required to unequip things, which I am against doing. I would merely mark the items as ineffective and act like their stats are 0 until the correct level is reached.
It may be possible to prevent entering the Wildy at all if your equipment is too strong, requiring you to jump levels by going through canoes, using a game's necklace teleport, or entering through Ardougne's wilderness lever.
On top of that, we could make it to where only a vertical strip of the Wilderness has these rules applied, possibly north of East Varrok.
This keeps an area in which the usual wilderness balance is enforced, despite additions of new and powerful level 90 gear. In RS2, it's entirely possible for people levels lower than you to get kills off you if they're built a certain way, and this might highlight that.
Already in EoC I see people complain about how level 90 weapons destroy people too fast, and level 90 armor makes you too invincible. No matter how you introduce new items in any system, powerful weapons are going to destroy the runite everyone usually PKs with.
This also does push people using bandos armor or similar a little further back into the wilderness, which I think might not be the best thing, but if the unrestricted strip of wilderness is still there, it should still be fine. It could also be world based.
----
In PvP minigames where you can go all-out on gear, power creep didn't seem to be too bad of a problem, because you can go all-out on gear. The addition of minigame hybrid armor also greatly leveled the playing field in my eyes, because it gave anyone good armor for free.
Of course, the more power creep, the more the gap there would be between high level players and low level, but hopefully other stuff can help to mitigate that, such as adequate defense creep.
While the Wilderness had self-moderation in which people just run if you use "cheap tactics", balance in the wilderness could have been improved.
What I thought of was having an equipment wilderness level restriction. In other words, at level 1 wilderness, you can only use level 50 armor (runite) and level 75 of lower weapons (most of what you saw in Edgeville was around there).
At level 10 wilderness, you could use level 60 armor and level 77 weapons. In other words, the wilderness level adds to the level of armor you can use and 1/4th of the wilderness level adds to the weapon requirement (rounded down). Spells may or may not be subject to this too.
At level 50 wildy you'd be able to use level 99 armor and 87 weapons. At 60 wildy you'd see level 90s. Anything above that would be deemed too powerful everywhere. Actually, I don't think the Wildy goes up to 60, so the number may need to be adjusted a little bit, like 0.3 instead.
This is of course, a very awkward solution that could cost inventory space if you are required to unequip things, which I am against doing. I would merely mark the items as ineffective and act like their stats are 0 until the correct level is reached.
It may be possible to prevent entering the Wildy at all if your equipment is too strong, requiring you to jump levels by going through canoes, using a game's necklace teleport, or entering through Ardougne's wilderness lever.
On top of that, we could make it to where only a vertical strip of the Wilderness has these rules applied, possibly north of East Varrok.
This keeps an area in which the usual wilderness balance is enforced, despite additions of new and powerful level 90 gear. In RS2, it's entirely possible for people levels lower than you to get kills off you if they're built a certain way, and this might highlight that.
Already in EoC I see people complain about how level 90 weapons destroy people too fast, and level 90 armor makes you too invincible. No matter how you introduce new items in any system, powerful weapons are going to destroy the runite everyone usually PKs with.
This also does push people using bandos armor or similar a little further back into the wilderness, which I think might not be the best thing, but if the unrestricted strip of wilderness is still there, it should still be fine. It could also be world based.
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In PvP minigames where you can go all-out on gear, power creep didn't seem to be too bad of a problem, because you can go all-out on gear. The addition of minigame hybrid armor also greatly leveled the playing field in my eyes, because it gave anyone good armor for free.
Of course, the more power creep, the more the gap there would be between high level players and low level, but hopefully other stuff can help to mitigate that, such as adequate defense creep.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Debunking EoC: Range's lack of unique gear
Between melee with all these cool special attack weapons and mage with all their unique spells, ranged always seemed a bit... lacking.
And actually, this is one of the things about Runescape that I seem to be the lowest on for creativity.
However, I have seen some interesting ideas from other people.
One example is making bolts able to affix any gem tip from their level to the lowest level.
In other words, instead of Runite bolts being able to have Diamond, Dragonstone, or Onyx, Runite would have access to anything from Opal to Onyx. Mithril bolts would have access to anything from Opal to mithril.
http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Enchanted_bolts
Personally, I would've gone for Opal Rune Bolts (E). Lucky Lightning had a cool graphical effect, sound effect, and the effect hit for 10% more damage.
And I'd totally get Pearl Runite Bolts for Fight Kiln.
Some people might like to use Smite in conjunction with Saphire Runite Bolts, which have a chance to leech prayer points.
Of course, Enchant Bolt may need to be edited to be based on the metal of the bolt instead of the gem.
Truthfully, making use of these already existing effects already adds a lot of fun and unique options for rangers.
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One thing I would've been interested in seeing was a dragon thrownaxe, and then having the rune thrownaxe special attack moved to the dragon version, and then making the special attack cost 1% or 5% special attack instead of 10-20% or whatever it had. But then make it cost 50% and triple-hit a target if it's a single-way combat zone.
I personally think they could've stood to make throwing knives more obtainable, because those were one of the most fun ranged weapons to use, yet the most expensive. The fact that Vanstrom's fight made them worthwhile to use and fairly easy to get a good number of, was a lot of fun.
Actually, that toxic blowdart in OSRS sounds and looks like quite an interesting weapon.
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Other than that, I guess I'd say rangers just needed more gear to fit their gaps, which is another one of the good ideas that the EoC did wrong. Things like putting a focus sight on your longbow were cool, albeit didn't make much of a difference in your weapon choice.
----
I'd love to hear other's ideas on giving ranged more interesting options.
And actually, this is one of the things about Runescape that I seem to be the lowest on for creativity.
However, I have seen some interesting ideas from other people.
One example is making bolts able to affix any gem tip from their level to the lowest level.
In other words, instead of Runite bolts being able to have Diamond, Dragonstone, or Onyx, Runite would have access to anything from Opal to Onyx. Mithril bolts would have access to anything from Opal to mithril.
http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Enchanted_bolts
Personally, I would've gone for Opal Rune Bolts (E). Lucky Lightning had a cool graphical effect, sound effect, and the effect hit for 10% more damage.
And I'd totally get Pearl Runite Bolts for Fight Kiln.
Some people might like to use Smite in conjunction with Saphire Runite Bolts, which have a chance to leech prayer points.
Of course, Enchant Bolt may need to be edited to be based on the metal of the bolt instead of the gem.
Truthfully, making use of these already existing effects already adds a lot of fun and unique options for rangers.
----
One thing I would've been interested in seeing was a dragon thrownaxe, and then having the rune thrownaxe special attack moved to the dragon version, and then making the special attack cost 1% or 5% special attack instead of 10-20% or whatever it had. But then make it cost 50% and triple-hit a target if it's a single-way combat zone.
I personally think they could've stood to make throwing knives more obtainable, because those were one of the most fun ranged weapons to use, yet the most expensive. The fact that Vanstrom's fight made them worthwhile to use and fairly easy to get a good number of, was a lot of fun.
Actually, that toxic blowdart in OSRS sounds and looks like quite an interesting weapon.
----
Other than that, I guess I'd say rangers just needed more gear to fit their gaps, which is another one of the good ideas that the EoC did wrong. Things like putting a focus sight on your longbow were cool, albeit didn't make much of a difference in your weapon choice.
----
I'd love to hear other's ideas on giving ranged more interesting options.
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