hugthebed2

Outlook question:
 
I end up using the web client fairly often for work stuff, mainly when I have to answer something on my personal computer.  I also deal with a lot of mathematics, and in particular geometry, which means that I write stuff like d(A,B) frequently.  The problem is that Outlook autocorrects B) to .  (Augh, SPUF does it too! In a worse way than Outlook, since at least there if you backspace it undoes the autocorrect.)  This is a pain in the ass, and there's never once been a situation where I would be remotely interested in putting the picture version of emoticons in work e-mails.  But I can't find any way to turn it off.
 
If you look this up online the only "fix" that people talk about is pressing backspace immediately after the correction is made, but you have to do that every time.  Worse, if you do any keystroke in between the autocorrect and the backspace you no longer can turn the smiley back into text and so have to retype.  There are people talking on forums circa 2017 about going into various options menus to disable autocorrect, but none of these menus seem to exist on the current version.
 
So, does anyone know how to actually disable this behavior?
 
(This also makes me wonder if the predictive text features that I was able to disable will eventually become mandatory in the future.)

So anyway, obviously I picked up Touhou 19.
 
It kind of answers my question from above: No, there aren't just three games in the Twinkle Star Sprites genre.  Now there are four games in that genre, since Touhou 19 is one of them (despite not having "Phantasmagoria" in its title, annoyingly.)
 
The basics of this genre is that you have a split screen where both players separately play a danmaku game.  The goal is usually for your opponent to die first.  You don't directly attack each other, but you do indirectly attack each other in many ways.  In Twinkle Star Sprites this is primarily done by chaining combos of enemies, which then will send fireballs and character specific effects to the other screen.  This results in extremely fast attacks coming your way, but without a huge bullet density. 
 
The Touhou versions of course tend to fill up your screen.  I'll describe how it works in Touhou 19, though I recall 9 being similar.  Each player gets the same patterns of "standard" enemies like fairies.  There's eight or so patterns in total and you'll very quickly memorize them.  Killing these enemies sends more bullets to your opponent, for example killing a fairy sends a tiny spherical bullet.  Eventually advanced enemies will be sent over, which I think has to do with how you chain your combos.  These are largely animal spirits, since you are in the Buddhist realm of animal existence (畜生) though Touhou reimagines this as part of hell rather than Earth.  Killing these either advanced enemies to your opponent or character specific attacks.  For example Reimu will send a bouncing yin-yang ball over, Marisa will shoot a mini-master spark from the side of the screen, Nazrin makes a giant diamond appear, etc.
 
On top of these you have a power meter which can be charged.  (This is another thing borrowed from Twinkle Star Sprites, since no other Touhou has a similar mechanic.)  You gain mana from killing enemies, which lets you charge to do more.  You always have a level zero attack available which takes a little to charge up and does a temporary burst attack.  Next you have a special skill that is usually a more powerful attack. (For example, Ran will double her stationary cannons for a time, in addition to getting burst damage.)  But you usually focus on levels 2 and 3.  Level 2 is an EX attack, which is dependent on the player.  For example, Marisa does a laser barrage, most of the kings of animal hell send a bunch of animal spirits after you, etc.  Level 3 is a boss attack.  This is a straight up spell card style attack like you'd see in a normal Touhou game.  Every time you do one of these attacks its power increases for the next time you use it.  On the EX attack this largely means greater projectile/summon density.  For the boss attack you'll go through different spell cards, though each character only has four or so variations with higher power attacks either combining difficult spell cards together or increasing density of attacks on previously used ones.  When you die this also increases the power of your attacks, as a catch up mechanism.  Where things can get particularly nasty is that you can launch EX attacks while the enemy is dealing with your boss attack, and you can also kill a bunch of enemies to throw those at the enemy at the same time.  You can't stack boss attacks, but if you save your mana you can launch a boss attack immediately after the last one ended.  There are a bunch of other mechanics, but that's the gist of it.
 
This one is pretty controversial because the Story mode is essentially "on rails."  Rather than having the computer do its attacks normally, it will do its attacks at set intervals.  For example, the stage 1 boss on normal will do (IIRC) EX 1, EX 2, Boss 1, EX 3, Boss 2 in that order.  When the computer runs through the last attack in its set list (which is always a boss attack) it dies regardless of how many lives and bombs it has.  You technically can kill the computer in story mode by exhausting all of its lives, but this almost never happens.
 
This fact pissed a lot of people off, but I'm basically okay with it.  You can play the computer in vs. mode and as far as I can tell it plays 100% fair there.  No automatic attacks, and it only dies when you kill it legitimately.  So it's not like you lose the experience entirely.  I think there are two reasons why ZUN did this.  The first is that he wanted story mode to work more like a traditional Touhou game: fight bosses, exhaust their spell cards, win.  The second is that VS mode is actually pretty grueling.  The default time limit on round length is 10 minutes, and I've had most rounds against the CPU go over five minutes.  That's only going through two lives, while you have five in story mode (and so does the computer.)  That would mean something like 15 minutes per level, or 90 minutes across the whole story, which is too long for a Touhou game.  Remember, you're doing it all in one go.  There's also 19 playable characters, and ZUN expects you to play through all of them.   I think that this current set up is fine.  The only thing that I don't like is that I'm not sure how much doing boss attacks and the like against the computer actually helps in story mode, since you're unlikely to kill them that way.  It does seem to limit their ability to kill enemies (and thus increase your bullets) and your attacks do clear some space, so it's definitely not completely worthless, but I always wonder if I shouldn't prioritize boss attacks as much as in vs.
 
The characters are nicely varied.  When playing against them the biggest difference will be their EX attacks and spell cards.  However, you can't really pay attention to that stuff in game.  Unlike Twinkle Star sprites, if you look at your opponents screen for even an instant to plan out an attack, you're probably dead.  Playing variety comes from a few different sources:
 
Movement speed. Marisa is still speedier than Reimu and Nazrin is so fast that she's actually tricky to control when not in focus mode. Shot patterns.  Most characters have a stream of bullets that shoot forward plus some supplementary attack.  For example, Marisa shoots a weak laser that penetrates across the whole screen. Sanae shoots snakes that will turn sideways to hit enemies.  Ran has three forward streams, but two of these are from turrets that will remain stationary while you're in focus mode (allowing you to continue hitting the boss while you are dodging elsewhere.)  Some are more fanciful, like Mamizou's very wide spread which she will bring together in focus mode, or Nazrin's bullets which change directions to target enemies. The special skill mentioned above (i.e. Level 1 charge.) A "Magic Circle" which appears while charging.  This will slow down bullets within it, outright stun animal spirits (including after they leave the circle), and I believe that you also get more mana the more stuff that is in it.  For the basic characters this really is just a circle, but the shape varies widely.  Ran has a large cross, Aunn's circle starts big but quickly becomes a very narrow sidewise ellipse, Mamizou has three circles focused in front of her, and Nazrin's circle will wander around the screen in search of enemies rather than staying with you. All of this makes each character play pretty differently, and of course they fight different people in the story mode.  Even when two people fight the same character, it will generally happen on different stages which changes up the difficulty significantly.  The main exception to this is the final boss, where a certain character shows up more often (though not everyone gets that boss.)
 
Haven't tried online play yet.  I'm kind of terrified about the skill of the average opponent.  You have to beat the game several times before Online Play is even available, so it's not like there's any chance of playing against total noobies.
 
And for the record this being the first game where Ran is playable is only 20% of why I bought it.  The primary reason is that I just really like the Twinkle Star Sprites format and am glad to play any game in that genre.  I do wish that someone other than ZUN would make one though.  Not because I dislike Touhou 9 or 19, but rather because I'd like to see a modern take on this that isn't married to the spell card format in particular.

Sonic Symphony cool
 
Started as a symphony
 
Intermission
 
Crush 40 concert
 
Shame the lead was sick, but the backup singer did really well

I still think it's really funny how in Deus Ex that the laser sight gives perfect accuracy to hitscan weapons and I didn't really know that but it made the game so much more approachable as a shooter for someone in the more modern shooter age after putting it on pistol on level 1.
 
I also remember having to lose an hour or two of progress just to backtrack before I put a scope on that same pistol due to jank where it removes that perfect accuracy (and you can't unattach it).
 
I should really play through more 90/00s shooters like System Shock...

I'll always remember once when someone on SPUF linked this version from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_Hymn_of_the_Republic,_Frank_C._Stanley,_Elise_Stevenson.ogg?useskin=vector
 
Was the first I ever heard of it, this recording has a special place in my heart, for some reason.

That's clearly a Nitorindo Hyper Famicom.

Made a meme from a recent Jobel stream.
 
 
 
 
Its a long story.

Never being able to play the Sonic CD disc we had always sucked as a kid because we never understood why it wouldn't work. The other two discs (Sonic R and Sonic 3+Knuckles) worked completely fine, but never Sonic CD. Was very frustrating but it was due to specs issues and such.
 
Also,
EVERY day at work I get the urge to work on this, but I never do - I've even super streamlined a lot of the annoying processes by writing basic scripts or learning new methods, but I've barely put any of them to practice. Grumble

Marie from Peripeteia:

 
I like her creepy doll face

I saw a guy that I used to watch devolve into a baittuber in just a few months. It was both sad and extremely pathetic.
 
Face cam, clickbait ALL CAPS titles, open mouth reaction thumbnails, copying whatever the big streamers are doing, jumping immediately into the current trend, bending down to the algorithm, torturing himself with bad stuff because it "generates more clicks", demanding people to leave their PCs on to fake audience for advertisement streams, stopping doing stuff because it was "not getting views".
 
The first red flag was set during one stream I joined and noticed the views had dropped by almost half of what it was a few hours before, so I asked what happened and he immediately snapped thinking I was insinuating he lost views because he was ranting (again).
The second flag was set when he stopped a stream for one hour to review his blocked word list and it was entirely made of single words that made him mad, including common verbs and even a few colors.
Then what made me stop watching was when I joined a stream and , like always, every ""joke"" was "haha cock", "haha gay" or "haha doing your mom". I made a side comment saying "recently all his jokes are either "penis" or "haha gay"" and he once again snapped saying "fuck you, you are not even subscribed".

Did you know that there's supposed to be a siren and a scream at the start?  I didn't until I heard it in doom.
 
EDIT: This made me realize that if you want to hear old midis as their composers intended them to be heard, your best bet might be to make a doom wad, put the desired songs as level music, then load the wad into some ZDoom variant (including GZDoom).  All the actual music players I know of that play midis use the Windows library, which usually doesn't match the AdLib sounds people were going for.
 
EDIT2: I have spent a half an hour trying to find a better way to play AdLib midi files without loading them into Doom.  I have found a DOS player which I can't get to work at all in DOS Box; all sounds are silent for midi files and files that I KNOW were for AdLib claim that they are in an unsupported format.  I did get the AdPlug plugin for Winamp working, kind of.  Now Winamp won't play normal midi files (including the infamous ghostbusters one) but it WILL play the Doom soundtrack files correctly, however I need to rename them from .MUS to .MID files.  I know for a fact that the Ghostbusters one IS intended for Adlib, but it's possible (and actually pretty likely) that the version I have is a conversion from .MUS to .MID that somehow destroyed the file format.
 
Conclusion: I wasn't joking when I said that the easiest way to listen to these songs properly is to put them as background music for a Doom wad and then load that wad up.

Black was a great game in a lot of ways, and I'm still wondering why I've never seen another FPS toy with the concept of dynamic reloads/weapon swapping (faster in combat, slower out of combat). It's such a small feature but it really improves the "flow" of the game, especially since they're new animations, not just sped up ones.
 
Example of a fast reload:
 
 
Slow reload:
 
 
After I first played it about 15 years ago I was thinking that there's got to be other games with this feature, but I've not seen them yet. Which is strange, since it's a really neat TECHNOLOGY feature to have. The closest I've seen was Killing Floor 2 changing some reload animations with perks, but that's not really the same thing (though it is also cool).

While I was browsing around trying to fix some other terrible fucking Origin shitshow related to buying the titanfall 2 steam release while owning the inferior origin release and that causing the steam version to be unplayable (never found the solution btw and I'm not convinced there is one) I ran across a classic support forum happening

"just right click and press exit anyway lol" god I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry

You remind me of this really good dev commentary node from a mod called "Half-Life C.A.G.E.D.". https://vocaroo.com/1hrZvB6PLlju
 
The "Big Lolly" mod he was talking about
 
I wonder if he knows how much of an impact his map, pl_hightower, had on the tf2 community... https://caylegeorge.com/

I was digging the depths of my hard drive and I just want to dump some old TF2 media here.
 
It's not the Black Box we got, but has ideas later used for the Beggar's Bazooka.
 
BUT THERE IS ONE THEY FEAR
 
Gang Garrison Engineer
 
The Holy Canteen
 
Part of a Fake Engineer update. Never got a nailgun, but the Cloak draining and EMP ideas were used in the Pompson and Short Circuit.
 
How tob eat spycicle
 
Pirate Fortress, Someone made models for them, don't know if they were ever released.
 
Before Collector's quality weapons, there was Science Achieved.
 
What if we could burn like... way more stuff?
 
I don't know if this was ever released as a mod.
 
Behold this ancient crossword puzzle.
 

Misaki's introduction.  This one had an obvious difficulty in the fact that most of the information is behind her tails, and both removing the text and repeating the effect on English text was definitely beyond my image manipulation abilities.  But this caused me less difficulty, since I decided early on to just leave it as is and put the translations to the side.  I guess that means that those of you who know some Japanese (which I guess means one person) can more easily critique my translations.
 

 
In panel two the three children each have a kanji making up the word "children" (子　供　達).  I did my best to mimic this in English.
 
The phrase "I use no tricks or gimmicks" is originally 種も仕掛けもない, meaning the same thing, and is apparently a stock phrase that magicians use in Japan.  If I recall correctly Trucy Wright says that even in the translation.  I originally changed it to "I have nothing up my sleeves!", the western equivalent stock phrase, but then Miko's retort didn't work as well.  And I've heard magicians make very similar statements in English so I ended up leaving it as is.
 
The text in the fourth panel is crossed out in the original.  Literally the first paragraph means something like "she loosens her expressions" but as far as I can tell this is an idiom to mean looking fiercely determined.  But it's crossed out presumably to indicate that no, she just ahs a fox's head at this point.
 
In the second to last panel the kids are screaming about a monster.  I almost changed it since I could have replaced that text, but at this point I just want this chapter to be done with.
 
There's a pun I didn't translate in the last panel.  "Master fox" corresponds to a word 達人 except 人 is literally crossed out and replaced with 狐.  The word 達人 means something like "master", i.e. someone very skilled in his field, and the second kanji literally means "person" or "human."  So the joke is that since Misaki isn't a human but rather a fox she should properly be a 達狐.  I couldn't find a way to preserve the pun, but if you can think of one let me know.
 

 
Now we get to the most tertiary character of all, Yuzu.  I don't much to say here other than to remind you that a "Yuzu" is a type of citrus fruit, which Yuzu is holding.
 

 
The title of the chapter is tricky to translate.  It means something like "a relationship decreed by fate" which could refer to Yuzu ending up living with Miko and Misaki, but I am taking to reference to how she's stuck being thought of as "that shrine girl."
 
I have no idea what the cloud is on panel 3.  Presumably some sort of spirit, but spoiler alert: it never shows up again in the comic (not even in the extra art pages provided in the pdf.)  All we know is that it's kind of like a cloud, it's hazy and it can take on other shapes.
 
The game Kokkuri is basically the Japanese version of Ouija.  You write out the kana on a piece of paper and have different people touch a yen coin which then gets moved to spell out messages in response to questions.  You may have seen it in anime without realizing it, for example Yukko tries to get Mio to play it in an episode of Nichijou.  The reason why Yuzu is getting asked about it is that rather than a ghost (like in Ouija) Kokkuri is supposed to be a fox spirit, like in the Kokkuri anime.
 
And that's it for the introduction.  I have drafts done of several of the later chapter, but since I need to revise and polish a lot I'm not going to give an estimate on when you'll see them.  (I don't think that actually lets you dodge the comic curse, but it doesn't hurt to try.)
 
EDIT: I just realized that I didn't replace Miko's text on panel two of the last page, and I'm definitely beyond caring enough to repost the image.  She's just saying "okaerinasai", i.e. the standard welcome you say to people when they get back home.

As long as we're doing blasts from the past.
 
 

This popped up in my recommendations and I was forcefully sent back in time to middle school.
 
 

Something I've been reminded of after working for 9 months is the things people just do without realizing it. I'm referring to myself in the sense of - when walking, I generally try to make as quiet of footsteps as possible. I've accidentally scared coworkers and to compensate I do loud stomps whenever I enter the lab or approach their office.
 
Another thing is that when walking, I generally have my vision angle pointing slightly downward, which I'm guessing is a habit I picked up as a kid when looking for coins or wanting to step in between the lines of tiles. I haven't really run into anyone (at work at least), but it explains why my shoes are cleaner than others since I try and avoid more spills or grossness I suppose.

This is pretty half-assed. Mainly done to convince myself that I can actually still parse Japanese sentences despite slacking off and to remind myself how to use the image software.
 

 
https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/108169378

STOLEN VALOR
 
https://spufpowered.com/topic/19920-the-protomen/?tab=comments#comment-278045
 
 
If I recall correctly they intentionally made Act 1 in such a way as to go against everything they were taught in music school which is why a lot of it sounds so harsh and raw. I oscillate between whether or not I like Act 1 or Act 2 more - although Keep Quiet is always GOAT. Either way it's true that the Protomen have a super high depth-to-appearance ratio (if that makes sense).. Hell, the liner notes usually contain more words than the songs they're about and 90% of people won't see those.
 
Also new(-ish) song from Act 3:
 
 

As I play more TF2 and be insufferable on mic by saying "MY ULT IS READY MY ULT "GAS PASS" IS READY" when I have built up my Gas Passer damage, I really think making it recharge like Jarate might just be boring and there's room to make it more fun for the Pyro to use.
 
My three ideas that could be added on to it include:
1. Make those covered in gas take more damage from you specifically.
2. Give you a speed boost while people are on fire from it.
3. Heal you for every afterburn damage tick.
 
I'm not saying all three, but 1 and 3, or just 2, could make it more interesting. It really needs something besides damage if it wants to be different than the flare guns. Right now its only perks are setting pyros on fire as well as 5 seconds of "area denial" (which is why it can't be resupplied).
 
Reminder that Gas Passer is fun on Halloween maps with spells, since it's so easy to charge. Honorable mention to the Huo Long Heater, which is programmed to give you 25% bonus damage whenever it's deployed and someone's on fire (which makes your spells do 25% more damage while it's deployed, granted they're on fire. It's a good thing two spells set them on fire...).

I remember years ago someone posted about this album on here, I Iooked it up and thought it was a cute nerdy Megaman thing on the first listen
 
Revisiting it completely by chance last week I can't stop listening to it, it is absolutely fucking stellar

spring sux it's just allergy central

winter rules theres no bugs and relatively no allergies

I finally got it! Predictably, when I got in Google was having an aneurysm.