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Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

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Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#971
post #968

I thought a little bit about this and I would say Apple Watch for me. When it first came out it was not perfect and there were lots of limitations to it but then Apple iterated on it with focus on Fitness based features and I finally ended up buying Series 5 version. I could definitely say the gamification (nudging you to close the rings and monthly challenges) has changed my habits and I am more active than ever bef…

Don't forget the "Half Life" series which still lives up to enormous hype, Gordon Freeman ;)

I have enormous expectations for the next chapter in Half Life series: HL3 and I hope when it comes out it'd live up to the hype. :)

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#972

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully I disagree. I tried Stadia a couple months ago. Note: I’m on a Gigabit connection. I found the library of games generally unappealing. I did play a few titles, including Player Unknown. The stuttering and lag in the game reminded me of playing Quake 3 Arena on a 56K circa 1999. Also, graphically the game wouldn’t run at my monitors 1440p. The graphics generally looked washed out. I thought it was just a…

im a bit confused with your comment, doesn't Stadia Pro supports 4K and HDR ?

Officially I think it supports 4K and HDR, but that doesn’t mean every game runs at 4K or offers HDR.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#973

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try the new Fitness+ app on the apple TV. Really good integration with the apple watch.

I'd like to, but the fact they required the TV was pretty crazy, to me. They've captured a huge portion of the smartphone market, but apple tv is only 1-2% of the market, and in many countries much less than that. They don't allow your phone to show Fitness+ on the TV through HDMI, nor through airplay. The phone screen is just way too small. So what's left are iPads, which can be a really great experience, particular…

I don’t know where you got your information about fitness+ playback via airplay but it is incorrect. I just tried it and it works fine.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#974
post #756

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe technology-wise, but the games are all super expensive and there aren't enough of them to justify a subscription.

You don't need a subscription, it's free to play games you buy. The subscription gives 4k and surround sound + free games. The current sale matches steam for the games I checked. Library size is still a concern.

Yes I know. I didn't imply otherwise. The games are too expensive to buy outright (IMO) and too few to justify a subscription.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#975

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just went down a rabbit hole of streaming for a couple of hours. I tried out Stadia, Moonlight, and GeForce Now. I want is a service that: * Lets me play my existing library of games (what I own on Steam, Origin, Battle.net) * Has League of Legends * Streams in 1440p 144fps I haven't found anything that does this.

> Streams in 1440p 144fps 144 fps is one frame every 7ms. Are there even any residential internet offers where you can get a ping that low to anything on the internet?

The resolution and FPS is only limited by bandwidth. The long is only relevant for latency/interaction.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#976

The Illiad. As the foundation of Western literature, it may have received the greatest amount of hype that it is possible to receive. I had attempted to read it and The Odyssey when I was much younger, in middle school, maybe too young, and failed miserably. But as it is always with cultural touchstones, references to it are inescapable, and a few years ago, in my mid 50s I overcame the reluctance accumulated in the…

In the same vein, the Mahabharata. Literally mind blowing character building and arcs and all of this more than 2 millennia ago. It is also 10 times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined.

I also enjoyed the N.K. Narayan translation/explanation of the Ramayana. That and Malgudi days really made me feel like I understood Indian culture. The Ramayana is also super important for other Buddhist countries, like Thailand and Cambodia.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#977
post #426

As far as video game examples go... The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. The trailers made them out to be the pinnacle of their respective franchises, and people's expectations for the two games was sky high. This plus all the changes made to the 3D Zelda and Mario formats meant there was a lot riding on these titles. But both delivered on that hype. They've both done extremely well in term…

And then Pokemon Sword/Shield came along and did the exact opposite, sadly. Really funny how that works out.

It's kind of funny being 30 and loving Pokemon. I have been dying for a good Pokemon game since I was a kid. The GBC games were addictive, but I wanted something that would feel more interactive and require realtime battle skills. The RPG-style battle mechanics got really old. Pokemon Snap was and still is magical, but the user was stuck on rails. Pokemon Stadium was at least 3-d, but the battle mechanics were the same. I fantasized about having an open world with the battle mechanics of Super Smash Bros. A BOTW-style Pokemon game would be just incredible!

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#978

The Illiad. As the foundation of Western literature, it may have received the greatest amount of hype that it is possible to receive. I had attempted to read it and The Odyssey when I was much younger, in middle school, maybe too young, and failed miserably. But as it is always with cultural touchstones, references to it are inescapable, and a few years ago, in my mid 50s I overcame the reluctance accumulated in the…

My 9th grade English teacher read the Iliad to us, explaining words and phrases as he went along. It was an incredible experience. He also read Romeo and Juliet in the same way. I considered it a great gift to allow us to experience the truly great literature at that age, in a way that I think most of us could understand and appreciate.

I would say to myself that you must choose carefully and knowingly when it comes to books so that you do not read just anything. Classics like Romeo and Juliet are worth learning, of course. It is also curious because there are the same gender roles. At https://studydriver.com/romeo-and-juliet/ I found interesting information about this subject. I think it should be useful for those who love this work, which has actually become a cultivation and is still focused on its gender characteristics today.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#979
post #155

The Wire. I'd tried to watch it a few times, but only a few months ago actually got past the first two episodes. I think it helped that I quite quickly saw it as a morally ambiguous discussion of the institutional ineptitude of conservative western cultures in mitigating the effects of crime, rather than a typical 'good vs bad' cop show. With that mindset, the possibly-underwhelming finale of S1 is much more effectiv…

The Wire is the greatest show that has ever been made in my opinion. It features thoughtful examinations of schools, corruption, media bias, policing policy, labor, drug legalization, addiction, politics, drug organizations, what it is like to be poor, and much more. The Wire also features the single most accurate portrayal of what it is like to exist in a large organization and how individuals within those organizat…

My issue with such a statement is that it most likely inevitably picks from a very specific subset of shows: that is, american and british shows (although the latter may even be quite a small subset of all british shows, if you are american), maybe with one or two other-anglospheric-country shows mixed in (probably a couple canadian shows, and maybe if we're lucky, one or two australian), and ignores the huge swathes of international tv production. That's without even going into the problem of age (most likely, your subset is composed mostly of shows of the > 1980s at best, probably a significant subset would be > 2000s). I don't mean to say that this is a "bad" subset, that is, I concede that it's inevitable that it contains great, and in some cases, sublime shows: we've gotten better at media production over the decades, and the financial and talent pools of the americans are nearly unparalleled. Yet I can't help but feel like the americano-centrism of the "Best shows of all times" list is worthy of criticism (I have similar criticisms for most "best album / songs of all time" lists), given that I've seen shows of extremely high quality from both european and russian media. (Of course, I myself am guilty of this, with respect to shows from asia and the middle east, for instance, which I've seen nothing of. It seems as though most westerners will consume media of the following categories: either american, or from their country, with at most a handful of what could be considered for them, a "foreign" show.) as I feel like tv in general seems to be a medium in which americans don't tend to really stray beyond looking at what's produced by their country, unlike say, films, where, perhaps because of the more "high-class" sentiment that comes with being a cinephile, there's a stronger push to look beyond the borders in an effort to stay informed and "cultured" about films around the world.

Re: Ask HN: What Lived Up to the Hype?

#980
post #900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely dreaded The Fellowship of the Ring because of how terrible the animated LotR film was. I loved the books but was convinced they were unfilmable. Instead, I think the movies are sincerely better than the books.

I recently re-read The Fellowship and appreciated how prudent the filmmakers were to remove the Bombadil side plot entirely.

Can you elaborate? Why was it prudent?
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