u/Vinylmaster3000

I have a cassette release of Mix-Up I got from discogs a while back and I was curious if the band would be able to sign it, do they still sign merch? Going to the gig in Philly today

EDIT: I did not catch them to get my cassette signed, great show though and I did get the live LP + signed poster

I just finished Bioshock 1 and it's my favorite out of all three, Playing Bioshock 2 and the more I get into it the more I like it. I played more of the older titles like Thief and System Shock 2 so I'm more jaded towards that.

So far, I feel like Bioshock is a fantastic game (I love it the most probably due to nostalgia) but I think when you look at other games like Prey and the new System Shock remake it kinda falls flat in many ways.

• The game doesn't really feel punishing at all and there is no mechanic like enabling vita chambers or a scarce economy. There were times where I felt overwhelmed but otherwise I had numerous places where I was overstocked on ammo versus the second game where I had to get creative and ration my rounds.

• No resource management makes the game shine less. I get that inventory mechanics would probably ruin the flow but having a system where you can stash items you don't need for later use would have gone a long way in making scavenging count.

• The game does have a deep sense of "immersive sim" mechanics in terms of combat but that's about it. I think Bioshock 2 does this a whole lot better because the game mechanics play into this, whereas in the first game the only time you can use the mechanics to your advantage is when you're defending an area or setting up a safe zone.

• The game levels are actually quite open ended and are extremely large, but the only problem is that the maps being auto-explored takes out the fun in actually exploring. One thing I don't get is people calling Bioshock a corridor shooter, did they only play the first level and that's it? Medical Pavilion has like, five different POIs you're supposed to explore...

• The sound design and lore is fantastic, really just some of the best environmental storytelling and writing out there for a game.

Otherwise it's still a fantastic game, but every now and then I wonder what it would play like if someone made a mod which gave it SS2 mechanics...

I loved Team Fortress 2, I played that so much in High School. Probably just one of those games which formed core memories of PC gaming for me, alongside Half Life 2.

I also loved Terraria more than Minecraft because it felt so open-ended, I remember when 1.2 came out and I was mindblown when I saw just how much stuff they changed from older versions.

I am a long-time vinyl listener and have had a setup for 6-8 years (Nagaoka MP-110, Schitt Mani, Fluance RT80, JDS Atom Amp 2) and have used a mix between the Breyerdynamic DT880, the Koss 4AA, and the Grado SR80e. Out of all three, I've used the SR80e the most, but used to use the Breyerdynamic with EQ and sparingly use the Koss 4AA. I find that the Grado SR80e sounds nice on my collection but the Koss 4AA emphasises more midrange on my older record collection (After all, it is relatively period correct for 70s-80s music). On the other hand the Breyerdynamic dt880 is very detailed but too bright which leads to it being extremely fatiguing, the only way to fix this was through EQ.

I am reaching the 5 year mark for my headphones and found the AKG K612 headphones which are listed for 200 dollars at 120 Ohms. Will these be a good fit for someone who likes the punchiness of the Grado SR80e and the more detailed-ness of the DT880s?

As for surface noise I know that better headphones will expose more surface noise but I don't really care too much at this point, this seems to be a matter of cleaning the records well (Which I do). My music is mostly 70s-80s New Wave with a bunch of other genres mixed in (Industrial, Post-Punk, Progressive Rock) so I think I'd need headphones which emphasise greater attention to detail with a good bass response. As said, I love the punchiness of the SR80s but I want a set with more detailed sound that can really let me listen to the surroundings.

Obviously the gulf war was a textbook example of a one-sided military engagement where better logistics, training, technology, and planning led to a lopsided defeat, but was there ever any way for Iraq to have succeeded in dealing a significant blow to the Coalition?

I'm not talking about Iraq actually destroying the coalition in the battlefield, I mean them at least being able to inflict a significant amount of casualties to not make the war look entirely lopsided (I.e, 1,000 to 4,000 casualties). Was this ever possible?

I'm talking about well before many Industrial bands started making music which was danceable. I feel like groups such as Throbbing Gristle or Cabaret Voltaire had an interesting philosophy that was both inspired by the changing socio-political climate of their time and as an anti-thesis to post-industrial revolution art and literature. You rarely ever find that in modern Industrial music, there is no incentive or philosophy behind that sort of music, it's only seemingly created to sound similar to bands like Skinny Puppy or Depeche Mode.

And the weird thing is that we live in a world which has gone through circumstances and events which were similar to the socio-political climate of the 70s that many Industrial bands came out of. The GWOT, the failings of a late-stage capitalistic society, the proliferation of emergent technologies like AI and the solidification of mass surveillance, all of these topics feel like they could be explored thoroughly by modern Industrial Groups in the same way that the pioneers of the 70s did. But you don't really see that same lineage in modern Industrial groups, which is why those bands still feel extremely timeless.

Does this ultimately have to do with the commodification of Industrial Music after the advent of synth-pop and New Wave hitting the US and UK charts? Or were the early bands of the 70s just hard to make overall?

As in, any better lore or QOL features that the original game did not have?

I think there's more incentive and opportunity to actually make Haven City more interesting, like having actually interesting side missions or more "events" that happen within the city. Or say, more explorability in the way of rooftops and scaffolding.

Talking about something like Stalingrad versus a more improvised environment like Warsaw. How did the Soviets at stalingrad utilize anti-tank rifles to ambush German heavy tanks? Did they try to utilize these rifles in areas where troops would be funneled in or did they also use them in conjunction with heavier weaponry like stationary anti-tank guns? Did it ultimately depend on factors like positioning and luck?

How did guerrillas and insurgents deal with them in areas like Warsaw, where obviously combatants did not have access to alot of heavy weaponry or tanks? Did they attempt to use IEDs (I know this is a mostly modern thing) or did they also utilize similar tactics?

It feels weird to think about. When I was in High School (2014-18) Phone usage was more incremental, I still remember calling my parents through the office phone but later on we used our mobile phones more often. The focus of social media was mostly on actual posting within your own friend group, now it feels more centered around reels and content. The Social landscape in that regard feels very different, though if you ask me it's all the same when you think about it.

The vastly different thing now is LLMs and AI in general just overturning the education system in general, when I was in High School and College we did not have any AI tools which allowed for the generation of essays. Maybe it's also similar to how older generations didn't have computers versus newer ones who did their education on computers, idk.

I've found a (kindle friendly) copy of Jim Butterfield's "Machine Language for the Commodore 64" and I understand some fundamentals of programming in assembly with supermon64. I want to try some graphics stuff, I know that I should do some BASIC graphics programming first but I was curious on what I can find. A small project I wanted to do was create an XL1-styled (i.e, the album) program which displayed moving graphics and lyrics in time to some music.

So far I can only find general assembly books, nothing specific to graphics. Does anyone have anything which details how to program graphics? I needed something which actually loads on my Kindle Scribe because AFAIK all of them have serious issues loading, esp that Compute! magazine book on Graphics and Sound.

I recently found a secondhand copy of Bill Nelson's Red Noise in the bargain bin for 3-4 dollars. I had gotten Be-Bop deluxe albums for a similar price and liked the instrumentation (not to mention Bill being a good lyricist and all), so I decided to give this a spin.

In all honesty, I don't think I've ever heard an album as crazy as "sound on sound". The first track is just straight-up fucking bonkers with the premise and the instruments going between discordant and extremely catchy, and other songs like "For Young Moderns" and "Furniture Music" are just very well written and they resonate even today. You can still kinda hear Be-bop deluxe in the background in songs like "Better home in a Phantom Zone" but alot of the early romanticism Nelson used to write about is very much gone. This album feels far more robotic and techno-fascist than ever.

And of course, the record executives seemed to agree with the notion that Bill was writing insane people's music because they booted his band and forced him off the label. Was 1979 ready for this album? Probably not.