greyduck.net

Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Category: Media

This is a container category for media reviews and related drivel.

  • Satisfactory: Team Building Exercise

    I’ve been taking a bit of a break from my solo Satisfactory save, mainly because dealing with the logistics of nuclear power is a major headache when you have to build every last concrete foundation, conveyor belt, and hunk of machinery involved all by yourself.

    Luckily, several of my coworkers agreed to join me on a new multiplayer save.

    Satisfactory video game screenshot: In the rocky desert sits the Hub station and a couple of crafting benches. In the foreground are three pioneers (player avatars), one with a ginormous helmet, another one seated (actually disconnected from the game session).
    I didn’t even know there was a “huge helmet” option. It’s properly ridiculous, and I mean that in the best way.

    Unlike with the two-year-long multiplayer save with the kids, I’m not trying to impose any sort of restrictions on how these guys build out their projects. Huge concrete slabs hanging in the air? Fine, cool, as long as we’re getting results. And with four sets of hands (minus one of our players in the most recent session) it’s amazing how much progress you can make. We’ve gone from “nothing” to “coal power and steel production” in about six in-game hours. Never mind the mountain of research we’ve already unlocked.

    I’m having a blast, playing with people who are coming at the game from very different perspectives. We have one guy who’s roughly at my level of time spent really digging into the game, one who’s kind of a blueprint-based speed runner (I’m not judging here, I could honestly be better about using blueprints), and one who had barely touched the game at all before we started this run.

    What will we achieve? Fun, if nothing else, I hope.

  • Hundreds of Beavers

    Listening to an installment of the Xanadu Cinema Pleasure Dome podcast recently, I was intrigued enough by one host’s excitement about this movie to spend a couple of hours with it over the weekend.

    I’m still not sure what exactly in the world I watched.

    Still image from the movie "Hundreds of Beavers": Two people dressed up in beaver mascot costumes in a snowy-looking forest scene carry a log on their shoulders. They're looking toward the camera.

    Hundreds of Beavers is an absolute fever dream of a comedy, I know that much.

    (more…)

  • Random Amphibian Encounter

    I certainly wasn’t expecting to cross paths with a frog on the way home this afternoon.

    A frog with a mottled green-and-brown-and-gray color pattern perched on a damp sidewalk after a springtime rain shower, possibly contemplating the dandelions.

    Little critter was just minding its business, hanging out on the sidewalk along the very, very busy 185th Street. I almost didn’t notice it in time to stop and take some pictures. As it is, I had to use the digital zoom on my phone to get anything decent. The moment I crept a bit closer to try for a shot with better detail, sproing! Off they went, back under the bramble and toward the creek.

    Absolutely the highlight of my day, I tell you what.

  • When The Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

    But what if the moon really was made of cheese?

    That’s an absurd premise, indeed. When you stop to think about it, though, most of the “what if” ideas that launch us into science fiction stories are absurd. We’re probably never getting to travel to whatever point in the past or future we want to at the press of a button. We’re probably not going to hurtle through interplanetary space at speeds above that achieved by photons of light. And so on. While many “what if” stories dig into the technical mechanics of the thing, they usually also shine a light on what people would (or at least might) do when faced with this new element in society. What might time travel or FTL space travel do to “us”? Oh, and make sure to include some actual-science-y stuff because those nerdy details are fun to speculate about, of course.

    But what if we threw out any need to dig into the high-tech gee-whiz of it all and replaced that aspect with… well, Cheez Whiz?

    Cover artwork for the John Scalzi novel, "When The Moon Hits Your Eye", consisting mostly of the author name and title above an illustration of a space-suited astronaut standing on a rounded surface made of cheese.

    What we’re left with is the human angle, and that’s what this novel is all about.

    (more…)

  • Winter Anime 2025 (Nearly Over)

    A couple months ago I noted some shows that had caught my interest. Now that the season’s almost complete I have some additional thoughts to jot down about a few of them.

    Anime screenshot: Alina from "I May Be A Guild Receptionist But I'll Solo Any Boss To Clock Out On Time" in her work uniform.

    The news is mostly good. But only mostly.

    (more…)

  • Satisfactory: Spiraling Into Control

    To be clear: There are videos on YouTube which can show you how to do this, but I don’t like scrolling back and forth through a video to tease out the details of a process. If you’re like me in that regard, here’s a tutorial for making a single-track train spiral structure in Satisfactory.

    Satisfactory video game screenshot: In the desert, a railway spiral to nowhere stands in mute testament to the author's desire to craft a proper tutorial document.

    Note that you can (and should) play around with materials and other design elements. Maybe you want sign-based lighting on yours? Sweet, go for it!

    Let’s get started.

    (more…)

Calendar

September 2025
S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930  

My Links