#There's a lot of ways to measure this and they're all very rough estimates

[schrodingersinteraction]

i have cutted my hairs

[wirewitchviolet]

I miss games conveying a sense of Bigness

As you know if you watch my twitch streams, I play a lot of games, and games from a lot of eras, and there's a whole bunch of industry trends you pick up on from certain time periods. The one I really feel like talking about was a definite thing from oh... 1998 through... 2010 or thereabouts? Basically the aughts, give or take a couple years. Or if you prefer, the first two Playstations' run and a bit of the third. It was a period where games in general were really committed to feeling Big.

It feels a little weird to say that when major releases are priding themselves on stuff like measuring how much disk space they need in terrabytes and maps that sprawl out everywhere, but that's not what I'm talking about here. Games trying to feel Big is more of an attitude thing, and ironically enough I'd say it fell out of fashion almost immediately when Open Worlds became the new big thing. We hit a point where people actually made the maps for their games super big (even if most of that space was just kinda vast stretches of unremarkable rocks) so there's no more need to fake it, right? But faking it was kinda great.

I was thinking about this a lot playing the Resident Evil 2 remake, and comparing it to the original PSX game. See the original Resident Evil was set in a spooky mansion out in the middle of nowhere, but RE2 was the Bigger Better Sequel. So now we have a zombie outbreak happening in a whole major city, not just this single mansion. And how do we accomplish that? Do we actually model hundreds of buildings and have a big meandering adventure through all of them, or even a good swath? No not at all. Let's compare the actual maps side by side...

[There WAS a full map of RE2 here it was causing the post button to bug out. Look it up on your own?]

It's a little bigger. There's maybe a dozen more total rooms? But mostly, it's a smoke and mirrors thing. We've still got one big primary location, an animal-filled hike to a side location and back, and an underground science facility, but it feels like we've increased the scope to an entire city. The first playable moments have us out on the streets of the city, objectively in a few quick hallways, but presented as streets packed with dozens of crashed cars, raging fires everywhere, dead bodies littering the streets, and what again feels like innumerable zombies feasting in scattered packs. Once inside, arms of several zombies outside will reach in clawing at you, or later in the game finally breaching through. The remake completely loses that feeling. It feels like there's maybe a dozen zombies out on the streets.

Not to focus on just the one game though. How about GTA3? Remember how even when you're just on the first island, it feels like you're exploring this vast sprawling city?

Here's a more elevated angle from about the same point. I'm looking at this with noclip.website by the way, it's a really cool little toy.

The actual map is LAUGHABLY small. But it FEELS huge. They were really careful to avoid straight roads, and place a couple big vision blocking buildings, even if they're basically just a cube or two so that when you're actually on the ground, it always feels like there's so much more around you. Have another side by side, and a rough estimate of what's visible on the ground in the bird's eye.

RPGs around this time were also having a lot of fun playing with scale comparisons. FF7 is the obvious go-to. The world map is on par with any other in the series, but Big Cities are presented as such, making it very clear that you're just seeing parts of a single district in Midgar, really just the main street in Junon. Dragon Quest 8 had this very bold idea to keep the same visual scale on the world map as in the streets of the towns, with forests made of actual individual trees.

And I'm not even getting into the biggest elephants in the room. Are you old enough to remember how mind-bogglingly sprawling Hyrule Field felt? Maybe a bad example when sequels have kept that focus on selling their worlds as staggeringly Big. Shenmue? Objectively, looking at this map, there's not much there, but damn if I don't feel like this was a real town I lived in for a while 20 years ago. It's the way the detailing gets finer and finer the closer you get to Ryo's bedroom, where you can open every drawer, turn on every light, turn that orange in your hand, you know? I believe that bus you take to the docks has to stop in several other neighborhoods like this one.

And of course, then there's the one other series, maybe worth mentioning, perhaps.

Years later I'm still just speechless.

Again though, I don't actually WANT games with worlds as big as some of these feel. There just isn't the time and the money and the ability for a creative team not to burn out to fully realize that in a handcrafted caring way. I want some kind of inverted Plato's Cave, where it feels like there's a vast breathing world out there, but I'm really in a small cozy space watching masters of the craft put on a shadow puppet show.

[csykora]

Random general question, but what is something about sports medicine--anything relevant to that topic--you wish more sports fans understood?

This was extremely fun to think about! There are a lot of things I'd like people to know about just because I think it's neat, but a rough list of the things I really wish people were taught:

Yes, there's sugar in Gatorade and other sports drinks. That's the point, that's why it was created that way. When your body is doing work, your body needs fuel. A huge percentage of athletes show up to their sports activities under-hydrated and by the end are clinically dehydrated. If you like how your drink tastes, you're more likely to drink more of it. That's the priority. While plenty of people need to manage their personal glucose intake at various times for various reasons (most of those times won't be while they're working out, when they're burning energy and are at risk of their blood sugar dropping), if you have not been told that you need to manage your blood sugar, you do not need to manage your blood sugar. Sugar-free electrolyte drinks are not "healthier": I actually wouldn't say that any one thing is "healthier" for everyone, because different people's nutritional, metabolic, physical, etc needs are completely different.

It has been suggested that blood sugar spikes may effect certain areas of athletic performance, but it's not thoroughly established that this does happen, for who, or which areas of physical performance are affected, or whether there are other areas of performance that it may have a positive effect on, and there are plenty of other things that also affect performance. (Also, despite the standardized glycemic index being used to estimate how different foods affect blood sugar, this actually varies because different people process foods differently, and even the same person might process foods differently in different situations).

This one is something I wish many current hockey coaches understood.

On that--different areas of physical performance are different. Explosive strength or speed vs. enduring strength or speed require different types of muscle fiber, different metabolisms, the works. Other qualities like speed and precision can have a reciprocal relationship. Different kinds of muscle development work well for different tasks. One area of performance can actually impair other areas of performance: there is no one universal athletic build or training regimen that will result in an athlete doing well in all areas.

This is also something I wish current hockey management understood, because I'd really love to see more physical diversity of athletes in more specialized roles. I'm actually fine with it or even excited when a player isn't an "all around guy"!

It is extremely difficult to measure the physical factors in human performance without the social factors (and we should probably try less to). When you measure "men" against "women", you are not just comparing genders, you are also comparing two groups of people who have had different access to physical activity and athletic training, been encouraged to be active in different ways, etc.

Also, in pretty much every area of the athletic performance, the spectrum of "male performance" and the spectrum of "female performance" overlaps, with the significant majority of people living in the normal area for both.

(Including, for the record, the amount of testosterone in your body. Which has no clear single impact on performance.)

Athletic ability is not the same as health. And neither of them have much of anything to do with how much body fat you have. The extreme of human performance is not "ideal" human performance: we made sports up, and in many cases they require us to move in ways that are very different from the movements we evolved doing.

(Also, I don't think health should be idealized either)

Traumatic brain injuries don't just happen when you're hit on the head. That might be a relatively small fraction of the times that they happen! What matters is the internal forces acting on your brain and spinal cord. Sudden changes in speed or direction like falls and certain collisions can and will do the job. So while penalizing sports plays that involve hits to the head is a good idea, I think fans shouldn't let that appease us as the only change that pro sports make to prevent TBI and CTE.

TBIs are also not "the most dangerous" of sports injuries. I'm not sure if there is an objectively most dangerous one, honestly, outside of things that cause instant death. TBIs can have profoundly difficult and serious impacts on people, and so do many other injuries that affect the way someone moves, feels, their pain, or how they see themselves. We shouldn't let pro sports appease us when they focus on CTE and avoid addressing other injuries, either: they absolutely will use the attention on CTE as cover.

[mamamittens]

Guestimating the overall length of the Moby Dick would be easier if the very anatomy of the ship didn't change every time we see it istg.

Bad math and more than the required assumptions to make an ass out of you, me, and everyone in the Blues combined.

See this very clear picture that implies we could possibly determine the size of this specific section my rough estimate based off of Whitebeard's height (divided down for his thighs assuming the seat is made to seat him comfortably sitting up, which means roughly the length of his thighs)? I'd be willing to assume it's about the length of the boxes along the side for ease of measurement. Also, side note, horrible stairs for everyone, they're not even for Whitebeard's feet and RIP everyone else's stride on these damn things.

A fucking safety hazard is what it is.

Anyway! Assuming quite a lot, we could theoretically measure out this one section as between the rigging for two masts, which is great! Fantastic! How many are there again?

4? Are we counting the one on the very back? No? Cool, let's just say 3. The ship is (roughly) divided into 4 parts. So, where's the even rigging section...

Not in this one? The railing isn't flat between two rigging sections on an even level. Okay, maybe another one?

Aha! It's here (apparently)! Odd... Big change for a ship... I'm a bit concerned ngl. Especially since that earlier scene is closer to the (unfortunate) destruction of the ship. There's no way they changed a whole ass mast/rigging/railing set up in a few months. They coated it between them and Marineford but I imagine restructuring the the vessel like that would take a lot longer and would be very ill advised all around.

Not to mention the whole ship is different, right down to the coloring. The first one is clearly newer...

Anyway! 6 green boxes (6 Whitebeard thighs, assuming that's 1/4 his height of 666 cm... 166.5 cm or 5 feet 5 inches... Sounds really short... Ah, his ass, right. Forgot to add his ass... Let's round it up to 6 feet to make it even!) So that's... 36 feet for 1/4 of the ship! Assuming our rough as hell math is correct that's 144 feet long of ship!

... 144 feet long? Only that much???

That... That can't be right.

That's like, a yacht?!

The Titanic was 882 feet and 9 inches. Six Moby Dicks is equivalent to one Titanic!

And that ship had a max capacity of 3,547 normal ass sized humans. Not over a thousand, incredibly varied but generally quite tall humans/fishmen/whatever else. With modern amenities taking up space but also making it more efficient, you'd think the Moby Dick would need to be at least a third of the size, maybe two thirds to accommodate Whitebeard alone traveling hither and yon on his own damn ship without compromising the ship's weight distribution or general stability.

This ship is meant to be massive but two and a half count fit across a football field, whale nose to whale ass!

I know I'm bad at math but Jesus that's bad lmao, adjusting the green boxes to 8 would just make the ship 192 feet long. Which isn't much better if I'm being honest.

What a fucking nightmare lol, here's to hoping someone better at maths and nautical knowledge one day finds a better answer than mine.

[cinnamonest]

Daily Life - Scaramouche

Ahhh ye I loved writing those. For anyone who hasn’t seen them I’m linking the posts from when I did this theme with Kaeya and Diluc as well as the one with Zhongli, Xiao, and Childe

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He's... not much of a morning person. He's actually pretty quiet in the mornings, he's still groggy and having to wake up and all that. So he doesn't say much, just kinda nudges you. Do NOT make him do it twice, though, no doing the thing where you groan and roll over or beg for more time. He'll just yank the covers off of you. 

That's if *he* wakes up first, though, which is... unlikely. It's more likely you will find yourself in the reverse situation -- telling this grown ass man that yes you have to get up. Yes you have to go to work. You're going to be late. Come on. Get up. I'll make you food if you do. Please. It... takes a while. He’s actually late quite a bit due to his tendency to wait until the last possible minute and drag his feet. Not that anyone ever has to audacity to actually confront him about it. It can almost be kinda... cute? In a weird way. Just don’t actually say that out loud.

But still, it's rather surprisingly quiet. Yeah, sure, he could get food from his work, there's certainly a sort of eating area where they provide food for the masses of the underlings, but it's gross so, eating here it is. He used to do that before. Not that he would actually, god forbid, sit around and mingle with anyone, but he used to take it and go munch on whatever was provided, by himself. Just because it was easier and the man has probably never cooked anything in his life, doesn't know how to, but you do right? Well, if you don't, figure it out. Now that he has you he shouldn't have to go out of his way to get fed, you can do that, make yourself useful. 

He has the same thing going on as mentioned in the daily life post for Xiao where he just kinda... creepily watches you go about your morning. Except not from the other side of the room, no, he just follows you around. The days actually have an awkward start because you don't want to be the first one to speak and risk making him grumpy, so you just kinda wait for him to talk. It's never a "good morning," he just jumps straight into telling you what the day is going to look like plan-wise, or complaining about this or that. But he will stand kinda right beside you the entire time, if you're making food he just stands there and leans against the counter and talks to you. If you're getting ready and have to go get this or that he'll follow you into each room and keep talking. Boy is clingy.

You could look at it as a blessing or a curse that the man takes you everywhere he goes. You don't get locked up and chained to a bed with nothing to do, but you also... have to deal with him pretty much every waking moment. If you've proven yourself annoying when not given things to do, you get things to do, simple measures to keep your attention consumed and not bothering him. Books and pencils and paper and whatever. But if he has a task to be done, it's your job, will call out the occasional go put this over there or go get that and bring it here. Why should he stand up and do it himself when you can? And it's in your best interest to do it immediately and quickly. 

If it's a mission sort of day, going from place to place, he just drags you along wherever he goes. Expects you to just stand there quietly and not interrupt while he's talking to important people. If there's like, actual physical combat... well, if combat is expected, it's one of a few times you'll get left under the care of someone else (value and cherish these precious moments), and if it's unexpected hostility from someone, well, you know the drill -- go run away a hundred yards or so and stay behind something until it's over. And don't you dare think of using the opportunity to do something stupid or run. You tried a few times in the past... it didn't go over well.

The two things you get a lot of throughout the day is complaining and fucking. The first is usually after interactions -- some subordinate that has to come up to him to talk to him, some connection he's forced to converse with for the sake of a mission -- either way, he gets grumbly as soon as they're out of earshot. Honestly it's not hard to deal with, just kinda agree with everything he says, give a nod and smile and say he's right. You don't even really have to listen to what he's saying. As for the latter, fucking follows a predictable pattern, you can pretty much accurately estimate that you're about to get bent or pushed to your knees at specific times -- namely, whenever he's particularly stressed or nervous about something, when someone beneath him fucks something up or upsets him in any way, or when you specifically do something to upset him, be it intentional or unintentional. Lots of quick rough fucks throughout any given day, really.

Now, there are a very very very few days where you genuinely can't tag along, this is pretty much for your own safety and to prevent him from being distracted by concern for said safety. This is only when there is a planned conflict with formidable enemies. It's one of very few times you'll ever be left alone. Not under the care of any one person, but likely two or three personally appointed guards that he knows well enough to trust. During this time, they are given the instruction to keep an eye on you while you're given your normal idle task options like reading. It's not very eventful, and there's not really any opportunities for escape, it's just boring.

Unlike a lot of the other yans, you don't get a "honey I'm home now listen to me rant about my day" sort of deal, because you've been with him all day and heard him complain throughout. That doesn't mean the complaints don't continue, but he gets quieter once settled in for the evening. It's also the softest time you'll get -- at that point he's tired from whatever events occur throughout the day and has less energy to be irritated.

He never really verbally insisted on it, but the habit of bathing together just kinda naturally formed from the first few days when he had to drag you back and forth to follow a normal living routine. It's very very quiet. You never asked him to, but he just automatically does everything for you, scrubs at your body and hair before you get the chance. It's... not very gentle, but he's not intentionally trying to be rough or anything. Nor is it intended as a gesture of kindness or anything, you're pretty sure he just kinda started doing it since you were stubborn and refused to move a muscle when you first came here, and now does so on autopilot, without really thinking about it. You've decided to not bring it up. It's nice enough.

He's actually kinda particular about his sleep. He can stay up late if needed, but prefers to go to bed more or less soon after, and no, you can't stay up on your own, if he's going to sleep so are you whether you like it or not. He doesn't fall asleep immediately, just kinda lays a while and stares off in thought. As long as he knows you're awake, he's not gonna make any movements to touch you or anything. If you pretend to be asleep though... you might get somewhat cuddled. And if you decide to move to lay on him on your own or nuzzle up to him, he's not going to fight it. Will probably be surprised and embarrassed, but will lay there and allow it, maybe gently pat your head.