So long, Raptr

Long-time readers might notice that something's missing from the right-hand side of the page... I had a play-time tracker there that tied to info collected by Raptr, which I found to be a fun and informative tool to show what really got my gaming attention.  Lately, however, their servers have been anything but stable, and, for all it was a free service, the annoyance factor just got to be too high.

For future reference then... while I did have multiple RPGs clocking in at over 100 hours each (including Skyrim, twice), the undisputed champion was Mabinogi, a free-to-play MMO with some interesting mechanics (enough so that I actually spent subscription-equivalent money with them while I was playing).  Someday, I'll be up for a proper MMO again... but there's simply too many new shinies out there in this Age of Entertainment to settle on one right now!

Spoilerriffic! Seafall, game 7

I'll keep it brief this time as well, since there weren't any "major" changes to speak of... but we're definitely getting closer to the next unlock.  Here's the rundown:

• One more island was discovered, so all that's left are the two 12-spots and the 30-spot... and, currently, one more island in stock, I believe.
• Of the leading trio, one of us had some terrible luck with the dice.  Otherwise, there might have been yet another island, and he might have stayed in close contention.
• As is, the guy who was two points behind me is now two points ahead of me, thanks to some aggressive exploration of existing, lower-difficulty sites.
• It could have been worse... the last round, I managed to complete my first colony (Gibraltar, king of the Kidney Stones), setting myself up for easier raids on the home territories and the mysterious Arch, if need be.  Unfortunately, the gent who got the first colony last game also managed to get a second built... so now there's three.  One more, and the path to the next unlock is open, and if he gets it, that'll likely trigger a milestone as well.
• Finally, in the end, I managed to meet the main goal I set out with on this game... acquiring luck tokens to beat back some of the enmity I had accumulated in earlier games.  Once you get to a multi-winter game, the combination of The Grizzled Veteran and The Bosun is a fine way to pump your luck, and the various "every winter" upgrades and buildings aren't too shabby, either.

Oh, and one parting story... I know the line from Ghostbusters is "If someone asks you if you're a god, say YES!", but that didn't work out so well for one of our players.  Remember kids, gold doesn't make you a god, no matter how much of it you may have, as one of our number found out when he discovered the Temple of Bone (I believe it's called).

Duolingo does Japanese now

Actually, Duolingo has been doing Japanese (on the phone app versions at least) for the past month or so... I decided to give it a go, see how it might fit in to my regular Japanese-learning regimen, that sort of thing.  My verdict:  it's... mostly OK, but I wouldn't recommend it as a primary source for learning the language.

The most obvious problem with this software is that it explains nothing.  At least from what I've seen so far, everything is taught through example, which is fine for most things, like basic nouns, verbs, and sentence structure, but doesn't necessarily serve well for "set phrases" that are roughly translated for the use they serve, without noting the actual translation that's just as valid... a good example would be いただきます, which I think gets translated as something like "let's eat" instead of "I (humbly) receive".  Of course, that may be the same sort of glossing over you see in introductory-level courses anyways, and at least this program actually teaches you the sound associated with individual characters (unlike some programs I've seen)... but then they introduce kanji into the mix early, without any warning that, oh by the way, these characters have multiple pronunciations depending, which isn't really helpful for students long-term, I wouldn't think.

The biggest problem I have with this program, however, is that sometimes it's Japanese is just wrong (from what I think I've learned so far).  I can understand why that might be, based on how I think they pursued their translation engine as a programmer, but that's doesn't excuse mis-teaching their users.  There are two main examples I can think of so far... first, instead of ではありません, I've seen them use じゃないです, which at least parses out alright, but strikes me as the sort of thing that might make a native speaker go "well, they're a foreigner, and they're trying, so it's OK".  A better example might be Duolingo's use of ほしい when you're saying someone else wants something (which you're basically not qualified to say with certainty, the correct version being ほしがる, which is more like they look like/seem like they want that something).

Those complaints aside, it is a good tool for drilling with and expanding your vocabulary, so at the price of free (with ads), it's worth using... but if you want to start learning Japanese, I would still suggest starting with Human Japanese, and maybe use Duolingo alongside... and listen to the dedicated Japanese program if you run into any conflicts between the two.