“I went to school for game design! I am highly qualified to talk about any game out there!”

I bet you don’t even know how big an 8 year old’s hands are.

You cannot meaningfully understand a great deal of Nintendo’s game development decisions without understanding how a child holds and uses a modern game controller. People love to critique game companies like Nintendo, especially core gamers and educated developers, as if they are some authority on game design but in twenty years I have never seen this type of individual talk about how Nintendo’s game design is constrained by the size of a child’s hands.

So…how big are they?

Big enough to use a dpad on the playstation controller but not large enough to use the analog stick comfortably. The opposite is true on the xbox controller. The shape of the joycon is designed for easy access for small hands for both.

Still, the kid’s thumb will have difficulty reaching both so rapid switches are not possible. On the left hand of the switch the stick is above and the dpad below, and the opposite is true on the right. This is a direct consequence of how a kid might use the controller. In most games the left hand controls movement - meaning an analog stick - and the right hand controls discreet inputs - meaning the dpad/button diamond.

Children’s also struggle to reach shoulder buttons and have lower grip width, so the natural gamer grip in which two fingers are resting on the shoulder buttons does not work at all for children. They usually have to use all four fingers to hold up a heavy device. The shoulder buttons go from being the most easily accessed buttons on the controller to the most difficult.

A child’s grip strength is lower, and thus so is their ability to hold a heavy controller comfortably, especially one not designed for their hand size. A single joycon in sideways mode, often used in child’s party games on the switch, is a far better controller size for a child while it is uncomfortably cramped for an adult.

It is not a coincidence that the Switch, which is marketed as a family console, comes prepacked with the controllers that are kid friendly and adult friendly controllers are a secondary purchase.

There are more things you can point out, but in a practical sense you can see these design principles applied by comparing something like Kirby vs Metroid Dread.

Kirby is almost entirely controlled through the face buttons, with only the rarely used defense button mapped to the shoulder buttons, and you can really get by with never using it. The triggers are not used at all. You rarely have to combination press anything. If my memory is correct, the shoulder buttons are never used for any temporary transformation abilities. The difficulty of using new abilities should not be compounded by hard to reach buttons.

Dread on the other hand uses combination presses a lot and ties three critical abilities (free aim, missile use, and sliding) to the shoulder buttons. The omega cannon, a rarely used but critical and time sensitive ability, is tied to the shoulder buttons for the easiest and most intuitive possible use. The stress of defeating an emmi should not be compounded by fumbling with controls.

Smash Bros in particular is pretty cool in how its control scheme is set up. The most basic functions that a child might use are very simply mapped to the single stick and face buttons. As you learn to play better and try more advanced techniques (like an adult might) like timed grabs, dodging, and shield use you move away from the face buttons, incorporating more and more use of the shoulder buttons. It splits the difference for the best of both worlds. You can trace the principles of this design all the way back to the N64 and I would not be surprised to learn that the in game mechanics were built specifically to compliment this novice to expert transitional design, which is what makes smash bros so friendly to novice and expert gamers alike.

#i have smallish hands for an adult#and arthritis#so this is relevant to me too#something to consider

This is an excellent point as well, something I wasn’t going to get into but so much of game design just ignores accessibility issues like this all together. So many of the basic assumptions of game design from input device to button mapping to in game accessibility features are built around the assumption of fully abled adult between late teenager and middle age.

I’m watching that documentary “Before Stonewall” about gay history pre-1969, and uncovered something which I think is interesting.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

It appears that no one has made the connection between Dale Olson the publicity agent instrumental in the AIDS debate and Dale Olson the 22-year-old first openly gay man on TV. So I thought I’d make it. For Pride month, an unsung gay hero.

RATING: RELIABLE

you can listen to the clip of the 1954 interview here and find him on wikipedia here

Can I watch a great film knowing the actresses in it were terrorized and mistreated the entire time? Can I watch a football game knowing that the players are getting brain injuries right before my eyes? Can I listen to my favorite albums anymore knowing that the singers were all beating their wives in between studio sessions? Can I eat at the new fancy taco place knowing when the building that used to be there got bulldozed eight families got kicked out of their homes so they could be replaced with condos and a chain restaurant? Can I wear the affordable clothes I bought downtown that were probably assembled in a sweatshop with child labor? Can I eat quinoa? Can I eat this burger? Can I drink this bottled water? Can I buy a car and drive to work because I’m sick of taking an hour each way on the subway? Whose bones do I stand on? Whose bones am I standing on right now? 

On one hand, it’s a privilege to be able to choose to acknowledge these horrors or not–we’re going to acknowledge that privilege. On the other hand, I once attended a lecture by the explorerer-conservationist Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s daughter and son and they had a lot of opinions about what we could do to help the environment and the ocean and I talked about how in my country, we have to drink bottled water, because it’s a desert and there’s only salt water all around, but we’re contributing to pollution and all of these things…

And she looked at me and told me not to fall into the trap of “activist guilt.” I couldn’t remember the exact words, but, it was the first time I’d heard the term and it took a weight off my shoulders.

We do what we can. It’s so much better than giving up entirely or not doing anything at all because we can’t do it perfectly. It doesn’t benefit anyone in the end if we just sit around feeling guilty about every little thing in life. I’d just joined tumblr back then (haha, so like, eight or nine years ago at this point?), I was being exposed to way more than I’d ever been before (I was previously just into feminism and animal rights/wildlife conservation/environmentalism since I was a kid), and it was weighing on me.

As long as humans are humans and living flawed lives, many consumed by greed, there will not be anything in this world untouched by evil.

I usually avoid stuff that says it was made in China or other cheap looking knockoffs, out of fear of them being made in sweatshops (now, I know even a lot of big brands use those…), it’s exhausting. Then, I read something about how people who actually lived and worked in those would still buy this cheap stuff and how this shocked the foreigner reporting on it, but they just looked confused like, it’s what they can afford and them avoiding consuming it isn’t going to change the whole system from the ground-up.

… it went on about how “money talks” and choosing where to put your money still feeds the whole capitalist system and is nearly a way of comforting yourself, but you not buying doesn’t mean everyone else isn’t. What needs to be tackled is at a much higher level than any of us can reach.

Of course, I’d still, given the choice, give my money to companies I agree with and I’ll boycott what I know to support awful stuff, but I also feel no superiority over this and know now it’s not as black and white or easy as I thought it was.

This is the same reason that moral purity “you can’t enjoy [x] because it’s Problematic ™” is such nonsense, because nothing is pure. There’s something bad about everything if you dig deep enough. As long as we lived in flawed human societies we’ve got to make the best of what they offer us. If you have the choice and means, please, do support those who do good, but also, don’t beat yourself up over not living up to an unattainable ideal.

No one can. You’ll just make yourself so miserable, you either burn up and stop fighting entirely or you’ll make yourself a non-productive, depressed heap just out of a bleeding heart left unchecked. You can’t make a change to this world if you refuse to engage in it.

Have a related article with self-care tips for activists.

Purity is one of the worst, most harmful myths humans ever invented.

Rebloging for this amazing reply telling us how to actually handle this, because yeah, sometimes I’ll simply shut down trying to find something that doesn’t cause harm to anyone

Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.

What’s good for one is bad for another. So just be as kind as you can.

You've heard of Earth is space australia now get ready for: Earth is the space Amazon Rainforest. Aliens land on Earth and they are losing their goddamn minds because every square inch of the ground is absolutely PACKED with life like there are hundreds of species just in this one site, there are winged animals flying through the sky and multiple colonies of sophisticated social insects just in the shadow of their ship, this ONE ROCK is covered in MULTIPLE SPECIES OF ORGANISMS that are themselves MULTIPLE ORGANISMS LIVING SYMBIOTICALLY, the tall, woody autotrophs look so different from each other because they're...holy shit that's like 5, 6, 7???? different species on this one site???

they start talking to a human and the human is like "haha yeah that's a crow!" and the alien researcher is like "you called it a 'bird' earlier, is that a different name?" and the human is like "oh a crow is just one species of bird, there's like, 10 others out there"

"On this planet?"

"No, in the back yard right now."

imagine aliens that come from a tidally locked planet where only a thin band of the planet is habitable, or a planet life was only able to develop in small areas at the poles, or in the few pools of liquid water on the planet's surface, or just in isolated areas where geologic activity causes geysers and springs, visiting Earth. They seem completely unprepared for the shock of realizing that Earth's continents appear green because the continents are absolutely covered with green organisms.

The alien biologists are so uncomfortable because there are certain protocols for maintaining certain distances from life signatures to avoid harming unfamiliar organisms, and groves of plant like autotrophs and pools where aquatic life dwells are carefully protected and respected, with very important rules for approach

On Earth, the inhabitants are just. Playing and walking LITERALLY STEPPING ON CARPETS OF ORGANISMS the whole time. the aliens are like "it doesn't hurt them??? Can't you just...move them to a place where you don't have to step on them?" and the humans are like "no of course not, grasses evolved to tolerate being stepped on, and besides, more plants would grow there if we tried to move the existing ones"

It then must be explained that humans would need to regularly spray poisons on the ground to prevent any given area of bare soil from filling up with plant life, and that "regularly" means "multiple times within a single solar cycle." And that the poisons stop working within a few decades because the plants evolve to resist them that fast.

Human: yeah solar is the dominant energy source these days but some of the recent solar farm projects are pretty controversial because they're in reclaimed strip mining sites that others argue should be restored as best as we can to their previous ecological state

Alien: I don't understand...why would you not place the solar farms in an area of the planet with no existing ecosystem?

Human: ...what?

Alien: You have rather sophisticated protective gear and have done some space exploration, surely you could establish them in an area of the planet to which life is not yet adapted?

Human: ...there isn't one.

Alien: ...what do you mean there isn't one

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU 'DON'T KNOW' HOW MANY SPECIES THERE ARE"

"Our biologists would love to collaborate with your Earth scientists to draw up a definitive listing of Earth species and resolve any inconsistencies in the records."

"I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Only 25% of Earth's species have been formally described, at most."

"that's...that's most of them."

"Yes?"

"Well...I suppose the ocean trenches and abyssal plains must be difficult for you to reach...where did you have to travel for your discoveries?"

"Travel? I moved here to Alabama in the first place to study its aquatic ecosystems. The crayfish I discovered live in that creek I showed you earlier."

the difference between yugioh and magic the gathering (as someone who plays neither) is that a yugioh card says like "if you own a Blorbionicus the King of Red Eyes in your pendulum summon zone (but NOT your left pendulum summon zone) you can special summon (NOT ritual or zexal or pendulum summon) sixteen cards named Blorbimini (excluding Maid Blorbimini) to any zone EXCEPT the super double defense zone" and no one can explain this to me but meanwhile a magic the gathering card says "flying. after the end of your turn draw a card" and people are like oh those fools bc the action only goes on the stack after the end of your turn and because of the use of 'your' instead of 'the owner's' and because mercury is in gatorade, technically it only resolves during the opponents third upkeep when explicitly you cant draw cards or else a sniper will shoot you

Like as an alcoholic I HATE the fatphobia related to any form of treatment. The idea that I should stop drinking cause it'll make me lose weight, the way doctors will point out my "beer belly" before they talk about my liver or my kidneys or the social aspect of my drinking problem, the way people only care about my drinking problem cause it makes me fat. You don't care about me as someone who's struggling with addiction.

I encourage non alcoholics to like and or reblog this because it's a unique experience of fatphobia you don't understand if you've never tried to get help for a drinking problem.

This post is not about ballet.

With its seven Oscar wins, including Best Picture, this became the most awarded Best Picture winner since Slumdog Millionaire (2008) 14 years earlier. Everything Everywhere All at Once + trivia

KING.

I think it’s worth talking about that he couldn’t get another job between filming the movie and it coming out and lost his health insurance because of it. It’s shameful.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE | 2023 Oscar Wins

requested by anonymous:

RATING: RELIABLE

The above is from this article from The Guardian.  The images are from MYA Network. The caption on their website reads:

Source: ‘When a sperm and egg get together, the body creates tissue in order to support the developing pregnancy.  Here are photos of that tissue from 5-9 week pregnancies.  This is called the gestational sac, and it’s like the “house” for the pregnancy. Inside this sac there are cells that have the potential to become a fetus but there is no visible embryo at this stage. We rinsed off the blood and menstrual lining (decidua) for these photographs.’

The published images sparked a lot of debate, leading to the story being picked up by other news outlets. For example:

Source: ‘Last week, the Guardian published images of pregnancy tissue after abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The small size and appearance of the tissue were shocking to many. We have all absorbed, knowingly and unknowingly, the pervasive anti-abortion narrative that a pregnancy resembles a tiny baby starting in the earliest weeks. Though an early embryo can be seen under the magnification of ultrasound, it can take months for it to be perceptible to the naked eye.’

Source: ‘People have responded in disbelief, citing the (magnified) images they’ve seen on ultrasounds. […] ”Think of the illustrations on pregnancy and medical websites. The Mayo Clinic, one of the preeminent medical organizations in the country, shows week-by-week illustrations of embryonic and fetal development without any context of scale, like the rulers in the MYA photos.’

As stated in the article, whilst people talk about a ‘heartbeat’ at 6 weeks, there is no heart developed at this stage - only a group of cells that will become part of the heart.

Source: ‘But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a “fetal heartbeat” at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case. Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect “a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby,” said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future “pacemaker” of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.’

It should also be noted that the images show an embryo, not a fetus, until the 9th week.

Source: ‘In human pregnancies, a baby-to-be isn’t considered a fetus until the 9th week after conception, or week 11 after your last menstrual period (LMP).’

The co-founders of the MYA Network responded in a New York Times article.

Source: ‘Many people, even those who support abortion rights, did not believe the photos were accurate. Some insisted we had deliberately removed the embryos before taking the photos. The images weren’t consistent with those often seen in embryological textbooks, magnified on ultrasounds or used in anti-abortion propaganda; these enlarged images are not what you see with the naked eye after an abortion. A Stanford gynecologic pathologist has validated our photos, but many people could not believe the pictures were presented unaltered.

TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Florida

y'all there is an absolutely bonkers deal going on at itch.io right now

You can get over 500 rpgs for only *five dollars* right now. That's right, over $2000 worth of games for only five fucking dollars. It's insane. It's unreal. It's totally worth more than any dollar amount you're going to throw at it. And it's all going towards charities that work with trans folx on the ground: specifically Zebra Youth and Transinclusive Group. If you donate more than $10 you get a special bonus - the creators of Action Fiction will send you a PDF copy of the 5E supplement "Monsters of Murka: Chromatic Gamut." Go check it out now!!! Offer lasts until April 6!

Here's the link, figured I'd drop it here since it took me so long to find it. Click

writer survey question time:

inspired by seeing screencaps where the software is offering (terrible) style advice because I haven't used a software that has a grammar checker for my stories in like a decade

if you use multiple applications, pick the one you use most often.

At this point it's kinda evenly split between word/physical notebooks/notepad

I'm purposefully trying to move away from using Google Docs and from Google in general. Been having a good time with Scrivener!

The amount of people using Google Docs is terrifying. It barely functions when you have too many words! It eats things! IT'S GOOGLE.

Some fun (and potentially horrifying, if you know anything about coding) facts about Google docs that I have forcibly discovered via my new job:

1: due to their newest "this is a GREAT IDEA!" idea, Google docs is now actually an Image, not actually text on your screen.

1a: Google docs uses an html element called a Canvas now, which is exactly what it sounds like -- using JavaScript, Google accepts your key presses, cursor movement (for selecting, moving text chunks, etc), and other such interactions, translates those actions into a form the canvas can understand, and then DRAWS THOSE ACTIONS ON THE CANVAS

2: if you're wondering how efficient this actually is, the answer is "not very". Every interaction you make, from clicking to move the cursor, typing a single letter, deleting a single letter, highlighting words... it all triggers code that quickly erases a large chunk of the canvas and then redraws everything previously erased with your new change. Sometimes even just sliding your cursor across the doc is enough to make the JavaScript code erase and rebuild an entire page image. Yes, this happens literally on every keystroke. Yes this is probably part of the reason that Google docs eats things sometimes.

3: yes this is actually Horrible for accessibility needs, because all that text you see on the screen? It's not text. It doesn't exist AS TEXT in any location that external code (or you and I!) can access. Google saves your document as a bunch of text + metadata about that text (and any images, so yes, images being added to a Google doc are being Redrawn On The Canvas) but we can't access that without explicitly getting access to the Google doc API

4: yes this means that screen readers can't actually read anything on Google docs except via the API (which requires a Lot of hoops and is frankly very poorly documented, as many APIs are) or via some. Fascinating code wiggles.

4a: yes I'm aware of this specifically because I needed to get a specific screen reader web extension working with Google docs, and yes I went the route of the fascinating code wiggles because it enabled me to get screen reader support on shared but uneditable documents, which is actually NOT GUARANTEED with any other method of getting access to the text.

5: somewhat unrelated to screen reader accessibility, and much more of a 'huh, weird decision, but I guess I get it', but all those Pages you scroll past in a long document? Google is reusing 4 canvases at most to display that whole document. Depending on your direction of scroll, Google keeps Last Page, The Two Pages Potentially Visible On Screen, and Page After Those Two Pages (so if you're looking at the middle of page 4 of a document, Google has probably got page 3, page 4, page 5 and page 6 loaded on the four available canvases. If you scroll up to the bottom of page three, those loaded pages switch to pages 2, 3, 4, and 5). The canvases are erased and redrawn with the new page as you move, which is why if you fast scroll thru a long document, everything goes WEIRD as gdocs tries desperately to load/erase/load canvases fast enough to keep up.

That bit really doesn't affect too much of my work, it's just a weird aside I found fascinating while I was working on the extension.

6: have you ever felt that the font and font size you're typing with on gdocs doesn't look Quite Right? That's because the canvas interface has it's own specific interpretation of font and font sizes that doesn't always align with browsers or word processors. This is less on google and more just a result of the fact that font and font sizes are not, and have never Been, actually standardized across different programs. Every browser, word processor, browser based word processor, text pad, etc has Literally Their Own Interpretation Of Display. Most of the time you can't see the difference with your eyes, because a lot of these interpretations agree pretty well with each other, but sometimes the difference CAN be spotted, especially if you're opening the same document in multiple places and comparing them.

I'm sure there are other things I've forgotten about, but this is getting long enough, so XD

Okay, I knew Google Docs was bad. But what the fuck.

??!! Seconded. :/

It seems like there should be a non-technologically-complicated, non-monthly-subscription-requiring way to use a computer to Write Words.

I have heard good things about Cryptpad, though mostly from the open source and data privacy end. I keep forgetting to actually try it out.

I use Cryptpad, and although the initial load of a doc takes a bit of time (since it's unencrypting the file for you), actually working on the document is easy and non-laggy, and if the above is true maybe now we know why, wtfff.

Libre Office is also a dream to work with, and it’s what I use to check that non-breaking spaces are where they should be before posting. (Also it's free and open source.)

ppl who oppose gender affirming care for kids are nuts like the extent of medical intervention for trans kids is maybe puberty blockers but they’ll still be like “SO UR SAYING WE SHOULD LET TODDLERS HAVE TOP SURGERY???????” barbara toddlers do not have a top to surgery

Saw someone asking "so do you endorse giving puberty blockers to five year olds?"

Friend, a five year old should not have puberty to block. If they do that's called precocious puberty and is the original reason puberty blockers were invented. If a five year old is going through puberty I absolutely endorse them being given puberty blockers

Holy SHIT.

THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO SIT THERE SHOULD BE THE ARTIST AND THEN IT SHOULD GO BE IN A MUSEUM.

Hand made crafts should be worshipped for the art they are.

i respect this SOOOOO much more than any iron sword throne chair

This one involves way more stabbing

SHE BOUGHT A PEACOCK

I was reading something about Whitestown, Indiana and my eyes nearly popped out of my head thinking it was one of THOSE comically racist towns. Nice to know, at least the name, wasn’t that.

Racisttown, named after the abolitionist Stopbeing Racist,

That's nothing. Check THIS shit out

WHAT THE HELL

Broke: vampires are vulnerable to the trappings of Christianity only, particularly Catholicism, no matter how dubiously applied. (See: Van Helsing's Communion wafer grouting).

Woke: vampires are vulnerable to sincere faith of all kinds, and atheist vampire-hunters need to believe very strongly in the Power of Friendship or their love of Star Trek to get by.

Bespoke: vampires are vulnerable to the faith that they followed when they were alive, and hunters tracking down an ancient vampire are obliged to learn about Neo-Babylonian theology or Middle Palaeolithic bear cults.

Man, vampires must really hate those modern pagans that revive 4000+ yr old faiths. just as you think you are done with those pesky egyptians and can really start enjoying your undead life, one of those weird young ones comes by with an ankh and a burning belief.

I needed this drag. Let’s change guys and not look back

working out your brain is a must!!

• hydrate it by drinking lots of water

• eat dark chocolate and blueberries and walnuts and salmon and other foods high in antioxidants!!

• play little brain games on your phone; I like wordconenct! anything that makes you think!

• read books. It’s simple but necessary. Even better - join a book club, or read with a friend, so you can have discussions after. This will improve your reading comprehension.

• do puzzles - it doesnt have to be sudoku, I love playing Beat Saber on the Oculus Rift because it makes my brain have to match colorful patterns to physical movements very quickly!

• learn a new dance - even a tik tok trendy dance. Learning new dance moves are proven to strengthen synapses!!

• go bird watching, or foraging, or anything outdoors that requires you to explore pattern recognition and visual searching

• watch a movie with the intent of analysis - this is best done with a cinephile friend!! talk about tropes and symbolism and character growth

• cross stitch, or sew, or do anything that requires matching nimble hand movements to patterns

• play or learn an instrument!

• develop a consistent sleep schedule (or as close to consistent as you can get!)

• when eating, try to identify the ingredients and flavors you’re perceiving!

I hope this helps :)

I like how this went from me feeling like “hm why is this attacking me 🤨” at first, but feeling grateful seeing an added guide on a genuine expansion on a “ how to” work out the brain. This genuinely helps a bunch. People find solace in doing activities that get them through life by doing said activities of phone/tv or if that’s all they’ve ever known in their life to get them through things + etc tho. However, this was very impt to point out. Slowly beginning incorporating things to work the brain in ones own time.