OmegaMouse

Amusing video exploring the origins of the term and the history preceding it.

In the hills of north Wales there is a great deal of archaeology. From standing stones, circles, cists and cairns, there is plenty to see today. However there is a type of stone used in the Neolithic that was clearly very important for its ability to be flaked. Its not flint, instead its a volcanic rock that could be flaked in the same way and ground into axe heads. These axe heads have been found hundreds of miles away from north Wales which demonstrates their high value.

Adam Ragusea taking a look at the history and different recipes of some traditional American cakes.

This weird artifact from the sharpening that old camcorders apply to video creates a unique flying experience

A video exploring how different drugs work, and why they trigger particular elements of 'happiness'

I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that a common aspect amongst all languages is the tendency to raise the pitch of your voice slightly when asking a question. Especially at the end of a question sentence.

If I'm wrong about this raised pitch being common amongst all languages, at the very least do all languages change their tone slightly to indicate that a question is being asked?

I guess there needs to be some way to indicate what is and isn't a question. Perhaps a higher pitched voice reflects uncertainty. Is this something deep rooted in humans, or just an arbitrary choice when language developed?

This may be an odd topic, but recently I've noticed quite a number of mouse/rodent themed games popping up. This is always excellent news in my unbiased opinion :3

I thought I'd mention some of them here.

--Currently available--

Small Saga - I've seen some gameplay of this online. From what I can tell, you play as a ragtag collection of rodents in turn based combat. The art style is cute, but I'm not yet sold on this one (I've got enough RPGs to play as it is!).

Of Mice and Sand - Somewhat reminiscent of SimTower or Fallout Shelter, you manage a desert crawler full of mice in order to survive against attacks and random events.

Backpack Hero - This is Resident Evil storage, the game. Your choice of what to pack and how you pack it determines your abilities in battle.

The Spirit and the Mouse - A charming 3D platformer in which the mouse protagonist has to power up a French village. Apparently it's quite short, but I love the design of the mouse and environment in this one.

Tails of Iron - In this grimdark souls-like side scroller you chop up frogs to regain your title upon the Rat Throne. I've been tempted to get this game on several occasions, but I've heard mixed things. If it's ever in a bundle I'll grab it!

--Upcoming--

Whiskerwood - A mouse themed city builder that's giving me Timberborn vibes. Sounds like you can eventually overcome your feline overlords? It remains to be seen if this game can set itself apart from the many other city builders out there.

Mina the Hollower - This is one I'm looking forward to! A 2D Zelda-like platformer made by the team behind Shovel Knight. I kickstarted this one a while ago now, and I'm pretty confident it's going to be great.

Mouse: PI for Hire - I've seen several trailers for this one over the last year. DOOM/Quake type gameplay by the looks of it, but with a really neat 30s cartoon style.

Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo - Ok this might be cheating a bit, as apparently the protagonist is a bat. But they're kinda 'rodent adjacent', right?? I love the look of the cute pixel art here with really colourful and expressive animals. Again, it seems like a 2D Zelda but perhaps with more of a platforming element. Is top down 2D platforming a thing? There's a demo that I should really try out!

Have you played any of these or do you have any interest in the upcoming ones I mentioned? Let me know :3

It's been ages since I've sat down and read a magazine. But there are times when I don't have the motivation to read a book and I just want a quick, well-written article to enjoy.

To give an example of the sort of content, someone shared this interesting article on Lemmy the other day about the ways in which far right tech CEOs mimic AIs being trained on their own data. It was a really fascinating idea!

I'm not too fussy about the content - science, technology, gaming, nature, opinion pieces, politics (but not too heavy).

For the longest time I used to get the National Geographic, which always had good content. But I feel a bit burnt out with those. Something along these lines on another topic would be perfect.

Can anyone recommend any particular magazines?

Earlier this year I posted some thoughts on the games I'd been playing. Here are the ones I've completed recently.

Paradise Killer

As a fan of the Danganronpa series, I’d heard great things about Paradise Killer. And the ways in which this game was inspired by the former are obvious, with an eclectic mix of characters embroiled in a complex murder plot. It heavily leans into the vaporwave aesthetic and soundtrack, often crossing that border into the satirical (Hypnospace Outlaw springs to mind). Unlike Danganronpa, it’s quite open ended and allows you to draw your own conclusions about the true resolution to the case. On the whole I enjoyed my time with this game, though I didn’t feel quite as drawn in to the story or attached to the characters in the same way as other detective games.

Inscryption

I don’t really want to say too much about this game for those who haven’t yet played it. Please go in blind if you intend to play it! But at the most basic level, it’s a card game that plays with and bends its rules in very interesting ways. Undertale vibes in the best way possible. If that sounds at all interesting to you, I beg you to give this one a go.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

A few years back I played the excellent Ratchet and Clank (2016) and had a blast. It was just pure, classic gaming fun with lots of silly weapons and scenarios in which to use them. Rift Apart continues this formula in a beautiful sequel that shows off the capabilities of modern hardware while refining the nostalgic gameplay style of the series. The introduction of a new Lombax didn’t necessarily add much to the game (she’s essentially a reskin), but it made for an interesting story in a range of unique, beautiful locales. As always, the weapons are great fun to use and the game encourages you to swap your arsenal constantly, keeping things exciting throughout battles. I was able to 100% the game relatively quickly, but doing so was a real joy.

God of War

Many people have recommended God of War to me following the game’s release in 2018. And wow, now I can understand why! This was simply an incredible experience in terms of gameplay and story, with deep characters and plenty of customisation that has a significant impact on your moveset throughout the game. By the end of it you really feel like a god. I got the impression that Santa Monica Studio had taken notes from the Last of Us and Uncharted (in terms of a large open world with puzzles and character development), and from that they crafted something incredible. Impressively satisfying to play and I can’t wait to give Ragnarok a try.

Dave the Diver

This is a wholesome game that doesn’t take itself too seriously as you alternate between diving to catch fish and then selling said fish at your sushi restaurant in the evening. I enjoyed my time with Dave the Diver, though I couldn’t help comparing it to Stardew Valley throughout. Yet it never quite scratched the itch and hooked me in quite the same way as Stardew. I think the issue is that the many faces of DtD (fishing, cooking, growing vegetables) all felt like separate disconnected systems or minigames, whereas Stardew was much more holistic. This is probably why I had no motivation to continue playing once I’d completed the main story. But don’t get me wrong – this is a charming game with a fun gameplay loop and beautifully hilarious pixel art cutscenes.

Ghost of Tsushima

A friend of mine described Ghost of Tsushima as an Assassin’s Creed clone. And I totally see what he means, but I don’t think that does it justice! Let me just get this out of the way: this is an absolutely stunning game to look at. I was constantly using the game’s photo mode to stop and take screenshots of, say, a golden sunset, the glint off Jin’s katana in the moonlight, the mist over the hills and many other gorgeous environments. The way in which the game captures the different weather changes is incredible, really providing the backbone for the atmosphere during my journey. Whilst the story didn’t do anything ground-breaking, I liked the exploration of honour in a world where the protagonist has to be dishonourable in order to survive. The combat was fun and varied, with a range of different sword techniques and tools at your disposal. Playing stealthily is a big part of the game and it would have been nice to see a bit more variation in the gameplay here (press square to assassinate etc.) but despite this I found myself enjoying these sequences until the end of the game. I’ve just finished playing the DLC content too, with which I was pleasantly surprised at the way certain gameplay elements were remixed and expanded upon. This was an excellent game which I'd recommend to anyone.

Obligatory GOT screenshot collection below!

spoiler

Has anyone played any of the games above? Let me know what you think :)

I'm not sure how useful this'll be to people, but on the off-chance that like me, you like to track your pages read daily (into something like Storygraph or Goodreads) and you happen to have an ereader, I've created a spreadsheet that may be useful.

Essentially I found that tracking pages when you're reading a book on an ereader is a little tricky because the number of pages will differ depending on the size of your device and the font size. You can use percentage instead, but:

1. My Kobo seems to calculate percentage based on number of words rather than pages
2. Sometimes with really large books, you can read a ton of pages and the percentage won't have changed

So I created a spreadsheet that can work out the equivalent page count on Storygraph (although this can work for any book tracking site).

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ehIw4dE_66yU0Km98i4fBtqMqWXvlN1zTSpLSgR4OCA/edit?usp=drivesdk

I think you should be able to save a copy of the spreadsheet from that link.

I've also added in padding. So for example if the actual text of the book starts on page 6, enter 6 in the padding start field. And then the final page number of the text in padding end. This prevents inflation of number of pages read at the start and end of your tracking (because of all the copywrite info, credits etc.)

Like I say, this probably would only be useful to a select few, but thought I'd share it just in case :)