amber (she/her)

i bought one of the classic tamagotchis like a year ago and these things kinda suck ass tbh. there’s only six things you can get and the “play” mechanic is just flipping a coin 5 times in a row, and if you lose the coin flip more than 3 times then fuck you, your tamagotchi’s happiness doesn’t go up. the 20th anniversary digimon was way better, there’s tons of creatures to unlock and you can raise 2 at once, plus you can battle them with others. plus the tamagotchis don’t have SRAM like the digimons do so if your battery is dying then say goodbye to your vpet. the eggshell design is a lot cuter though and also friendly to lefties so they have that going for them at least.

i wanted to get a v3 tamagotchi because i remember those ones being pretty neat when i was younger but i couldn’t find one for less than like $80 so i never got to find out if they are actually good

edit: oh shit wait a minute apparently they did a 20th anniversary tamagotchi connection? i gotta check this out

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I would also be interested in more sources on this topic. The wikipedia page on Vavilov links this source on the Soviet view of genetics, but it has a very clear anti-communist bias and some obvious nonsense. I only realized this most of the way through typing my comment but apparently the author joined the USSR branch of Amnesty International in 1981, and was the chairman from 1985-1988. My favorites are claiming 10 million peasants were arrested and exiled or shot during collectivization (source: Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 4) and this line:

Thus, Party leaders began doing what scientists always tried to avoid: turning scientific sessions into forums for resolving political tasks.

Anyways, the article is interesting even if I’m skeptical of it’s accuracy. It seems as though there was a lot of debate around genetics in the Soviet Union at the time, which makes sense to me from a layperson’s perspective at least. From what I understand, modern genetics was a relatively new science at the time, and considering the role of eugenics and Social Darwinism in Nazi ideology, I think it’s reasonable that some Soviet scientists were skeptical. If I am incorrect here, I’d appreciate it if someone could correct me.

Vavilov himself certainly spoke highly of Soviet science. Here’s a telegram he sent to The New York Times:

The lie about Soviet science and Soviet scientists conscientiously working for the cause of socialism has become the specialty of certain organs of the foreign press…. On many occasions I gave reports in the press and orally in many cities of the USA about Soviet science, about the exceptional possibilities granted to Soviet scientists, about the role of science in our country, and about the tremendous progress of science during the Soviet period.

From a small institution during the Tsarist period—the Bureau of Applied Botany—the Institute of Plant Industry that I am in charge of has grown during the Soviet period into a most prestigious scientific institution having few equals in scale in the world. Its staff of about 65 people during the Tsarist period at the present time has reached 1,700 when all its branches in the outlying areas are included. The institute’s budget has gone from 50 thousand rubles to 14 million rubles…

We argue, discuss existing theories in genetics and in selection [plant breeding—V.S.] methods, we summon each other to Socialist competition, and I have to tell you frankly, this is a great stimulus, which significantly increases the level of work…

I more than many other people am obliged to the government of the USSR for its great attention to the institute I head and to my personal work.

As a faithful son of the Soviet country, I consider it my duty and good fortune to work for the good of my native land and give my entire being to science in the USSR.

Sweeping aside as vile slander of dubious origin your report about me and the fabrications that in the USSR intellectual freedom allegedly does not exist, I insist on the publication of the present telegram in your newspaper.

Academician N. I. Vavilov (1936).

As for his imprisonment, it seems like he was arrested for foreign espionage and sabotage? It’s pretty difficult for me to find a more concrete answer than this, as this story seems to be an anti-communist favorite and there are tons of articles propagandizing about Stalinism around it. Again if anyone has better sources, or if @[email protected] wants to link a source, I’d appreciate it. I got sucked into this and spent more time on it than I wanted to already.

I finished Chrono Trigger recently, fuckin’ awesome game. I haven’t really been able to articulate my thoughts on it yet but I can definitely understand why it’s got its reputation. Now I’m finally playing Disco Elysium, I’m only a few hours in but I’m loving it so far. I also started Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, but I’m kinda garbage at platformers and these sorts of old action games and this one seems pretty hard, so uhh I guess we’ll see if I can keep up with it.

Prolewiki has an absolute beginner’s list that should be valuable to you. +1 to Blackshirts and Reds, personally I would read this before anything else. The State and Revolution is definitely a must read for all socialists, but I think I agree with the beginner list that it would be better as a followup once you’ve got a working understanding of marxism.

idk about the other stuff but i had problems with buttons like the next page one not working like you are describing. are you on an iphone? for me it was an issue with safari being out of date, and updating my phone fixed the issue. maybe try next.hexbear.net as well.

reminds me of this classic

Listen, I’m all for dunking on shitlibs, but if someone’s literally asking for reading recs on communism, I think we should at least try and give them something. Maybe I’m just being naive or my sealion detector is bad or something, but this to me seems like a good faith request, even if it’s very ignorant.

The only gang in Aurora is the Aurora PD

Getting close to the end of Chrono Trigger I think, it’s my first time playing it and I’ve been really enjoying it. After I finish that I’m split between whether I want to finally play Disco Elysium (assuming my computer can even run it lol) or give Xenogears a try.

Yeah I got to that comment tree and blacked out for a bit, knew it was time to close the thread. Just unbelievably vile people

that’s pretty typical i think, i know the oot and mm pc ports are unaffiliated with the zelda reverse engineering team, and if i remember right the same was true for mario 64 but i’m not sure

This may be an even spicier take than the OP but I think most of the time “quality of life” changes are unnecessary and can undermine deliberate game design choices. Adding accessibility features (actual accessibility, as in features that allow disabled people to enjoy games they otherwise would not be able to play, not accessibility in the way Consumers use it) are obviously good changes, but otherwise I don’t think added features in remakes often make for a better experience. Most games that get remade are games that were beloved in their day, and it’s not like those games got worse or anything, people just have different standards that lead them to expect a game from 20-30 years ago to play the same as one that came out today. And tbh, if I wanted to play games that feel like modern games, I would just play modern games…

I just finished The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and now I’m reading The Mystery of Marie Rogêt. I don’t know if you can call stories about crime “politically agnostic”, but they’re short and not theory at least. I’ve been getting more in to mystery fiction lately, I’ve always liked mysteries in other mediums but never really branched out towards them in books before.

By the way, does anyone here use BookWyrm?

biden deserves worse. i hope every day like this is torturous and that he lives another 50 years like this

there’s a really good port of dodonpachi daioujou on the iphone app store, idk about android. sorcery is another good one, based on an old steve jackson gamebook

grow a fucking spine

It seems unlikely to me that they’d use covid as the excuse considering how hard they try to pretend that the pandemic is over and that Biden defeated it