>> ^ponceleon:

Are we sure that's what going on here? I've seen birds interact a lot and know that there are strange reactions to what I think is a perception of weakness where birds will attack another one and peck at it incessantly.
Could the other bird be trying to hide?


Yea I agree, it appeared to be more a show of dominance than a show of helping a fellow duck. When a female duck gets all submissive it usually means mating time for the drake, in this case the drake was a little unsure how to "follow through" so got a bit nervous hence the odd behavior. It's also not unusual for female ducks to join in with this kind of thing. Perhaps I'm wrong, and the stuck duck was late for supper and cakes, and the other two wanted to air their grievances.

God I hope this man plays Nathan Drake in the "Uncharted" movies.

>> ^sineral:

What is the music in this? I love it.


They show it in the first 20 seconds of the video: Creepy Blue: Adam Drake / Neil Williams / Alison Pearse

>> ^sineral:

What is the music in this? I love it.


Creepy Blue (Adam Drake, Neil Williams, Alison Pearse)

Music is "From the Morning" by Nick Drake, final track on Pink Moon. Just heading this question off at the pass.

All the ducks in that video are Mallards. Female mallards are brown and white speckled and males have that green head with grey body.

So no... The title is not very self explanatory.

I think what you're looking for is, "Too many drakes not enough hens." But then most people would have no idea what you were talking about.

I used to love Final Fantasy games, but for me it started going downhill after whatever FF3 for SNES was in the Japanese numbering... 5? 6?

However, I won't fall into the trap of claiming that FF3(6?) was actually better than the more recent endeavors -- the real difference is that I personally grew out / away from them. Some of that stems from my being roughly 10-15 years old when I was massively intrigued with FF2 and FF3, but I don't want to overstate that and suggest that an older player can't enjoy the series. What I really grew dissatisfied with is the leveling system that is so prominently featured in JRPGs, and to a certain extent western RPGs as well.

My specific problem is this: I start out as a level 1 peon, with 100 health points. My level 1 stick of smiting does 10 points of damage, and the imps I am fighting have about 50 health points each. I grind away for a while, slowly being spoonfed a storyline that isn't exactly Pulitzer material.

Pretty soon, I bask in my own splendor at having reached level 10. At level 10, I have 1000 health points. I now have an iron sword which does 100 damage, and I'm now fighting ogres that have 500 health points each.

By the time I reach the final boss (or actually in the case of FF games, only after spending some significant grind time after that point) I'm up to a godly level 100, and I now have a massive 10,000 health points. My heavenly sword of deadliness hits for a staggering 1000 damage, but the drakes I am fighting are up to a beefy 5000 hp each.

What's wrong with this picture? Only the fact that the entire leveling system is completely meaningless. The proportions between my level, health, damage, and enemy strength remain essentially constant. At the end of the game, I'm basically doing the exact same things to win a battle that I was at the start. All of the flashy new skills, spells, etc. that I have access to provide me with very brief moments of new gameplay experiences that merely serve to emphasize how consistent and predictable 99% of the rest of the game is.

My foes are visually much more impressive and intimidating by the end of the game, but those looks can't really hide the fact that inside they are just a level 1/10/100 "angry bag" that functions in basically the same way from start to finish. There are exceptions, but not in any truly profound way.

Practically every RPG falls prey to this problem, but the ones that annoy me the most are those that utilize leveling that results in characters that are statistically orders of magnitude more powerful at their final level than they were at the start. Growing to be ten times more effective in combat after training / battle experience? Maybe, depending on where you place the baseline / "level 1". 100 times? I doubt it. 1000 times? Um, no.

Skills-based leveling limits this problem. Sometimes. But really, I'd love to see an RPG where a max-level veteran is statistically only 3-5 times stronger than a completely fresh noob. But realistically, I know that the only way that system can work is in an open-world sandbox style game, and those seem to be rapidly falling out of favor. A pity, at least to my tastes.

Drake passage added to bucket list.

I don't think it's boring, but it does have some flaws. Along with the pets/minions getting stuck and the having to click on EEEEEVERYTHING, the enemy hitboxes are small as shit in relation to their body size, so most of the time you want to attack them with a melee weapon, you just run up next to them and hang out while they slap you across the face. The only way around this is to either be very patient with smacking things/constantly use spells and specials that don't require aiming, or play as the vanquisher (tits). Holding shift to stand in place while I actually shoot at shit is the only way to keep from getting annoyed by running around in circles because some of the enemies do sudden movements (goblinhounds, lizard dudes, etc) or just have smaller bodies (pigmies, drake things, etc). Other than those, the game's pretty great. Just stock up on potions and identify scrolls (or get the identify spell if you want, you really only need two offensive spells for yourself, one offensive and one heal all spell for the pet, and two slots reserved for health potions, one for mana potions. Good game.

From an audioporncentral.com post:

The top 25 most popular hit songs of 2009, according to Billboard Magazine:
The Black Eyed Peas – BOOM BOOM POW
Lady Gaga – POKER FACE
Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O’Donis – JUST DANCE
The Black Eyed Peas – I GOTTA FEELING
Taylor Swift – LOVE STORY
Flo Rida – RIGHT ROUND
Jason Mraz – I’M YOURS
Beyonce – SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)
Kanye West – HEARTLESS
The All-American Rejects – GIVES YOU HELL
Taylor Swift – YOU BELONG WITH ME
T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake – DEAD AND GONE
The Fray – YOU FOUND ME
Kings Of Leon – USE SOMEBODY
Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo – KNOCK YOU DOWN
Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain – BLAME IT
Pitbull – I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO)
T.I. Featuring Rihanna – LIVE YOUR LIFE
Soulja Boy Tell ‘em Featuring Sammie – KISS ME THRU THE PHONE
Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne – DOWN
Miley Cyrus – THE CLIMB
Drake – BEST I EVER HAD
Kelly Clarkson – MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU
Beyonce – HALO
Katy Perry – HOT N COLD

I was a huge fan for ages, and then for a small period it disappeared up its own arse for a few episodes - they were clapping Kramer for walking in the door, there was that episode about the Drake ("I love the Drake, the Drake is good" etc etc). I stopped watching, thinking it had peaked.

I was wrong. The good news is that there are still episodes I haven't seen.

Them's the breaks.   It's odd that the dupe-o-matic finder didn't come up with that one, though -- maybe Sifty's getting lazy.

In reply to this comment by demon_ix:
At first I wanted to complain that you submitted this before I could. Then I wanted to give you a better embed, since this one is a bit crappy. Then I found that the embed I had is already sifted

http://www.videosift.com/video/Carl-Sagan-how-many-advanced-civilizations-in-our-galaxy -> http://www.videosift.com/video/Carl-Sagan-Explains-the-Drake-Equation

At first I wanted to complain that you submitted this before I could. Then I wanted to give you a better embed, since this one is a bit crappy. Then I found that the embed I had is already sifted

http://www.videosift.com/video/Carl-Sagan-how-many-advanced-civilizations-in-our-galaxy -> http://www.videosift.com/video/Carl-Sagan-Explains-the-Drake-Equation

This video has been declared a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by demon_ix.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/Carl-Sagan-Explains-the-Drake-Equation