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Kudos for trying, but no matter how idiot-proof or intuitive they make the GUI, we will always have conversations like this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/12

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2003/20030630l. gif It's sad that people like that exist in my CS department. We have people search on Facebook for female CS majors and then poke all of them in hopes of a relationship. Rather than, actually, you know, talking to them in class.

• Alder Hey Wishlist
• Child's Play
• Penny Arcade

As a token of gratitude for such fine charitable work, I think it'd be nice to put a link to Penny Arcade itself in the story. :-)

As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has some issues. As a model of how and where distributed intellect fails, it's almost shockingly comprehensive.

When we were first considering making Epic Legends Of The Hierarchs available as a publically manageable satirical metanarrative, we dropped the basic timeline on Wikipedia because I liked the way their software went about things. Of course, a phalanx of pedants leapt into action almost immediately to scour - from the sacred corpus of their data - our revolting fancruft.

That's okay with me. I wasn't aware they thought they were making a real encyclopedia for big people at the time, and if I had, I'd have sought out one of the many other free solutions. I had seen the unbelievably detailed He-Man and Pokémon entries and assumed - like any rational person would - that Pokémaniacs were largely at the rudder of the institution.

I am almost certain that - while they prune their deep mine of trivia - they believe themselves to be engaged in the unfolding of humanity's Greatest Working.

Reponses to criticism of Wikipedia go something like this: the first is usually a paean to that pure democracy which is the project's noble fundament. If I don't like it, why don't I go edit it myself? To which I reply: because I don't have time to babysit the Internet. Hardly anyone does. If they do, it isn't exactly a compliment.

Any persistent idiot can obliterate your contributions. The fact of the matter is that all sources of information are not of equal value, and I don't know how or when it became impolitic to suggest it. In opposition to the spirit of Wikipedia, I believe there is such a thing as expertise.

The second response is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you've proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information.

(Penny Arcade)

I am a Jew and I celebrate Christmas. Everybody (read most) people do, and I like the excuse to do some nice things for friends who put a lot of stock in it. It is not skin off my back. Besides Harry Potter is faux evil in a historical perspective (as I remind my friends jokingly on Easter, "Happy My people Nailed Your False Prophet to a Wooden Cross and then Rolled a Big Rock in Front of his Grave Which was Subsequently Robbed and You Thought was a Miracle Day!, wanna go eat some chocalte?"). But remember magic is evil :)

This makes me laugh.... http://www.bettybowers.com/harrypotter.html ...

"Hark! Christian friends, do you hear a ringing sound throughout America? That clanging cacophony is coming from every movie theater showing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It is the Lord Jesus using cash registers (a communication device He pioneered with Pat Robertson and perfected with Paul and Jan Crouch) to sound a battle clarion for all True Christians living within earshot of a multiplex: With Harry Potter, it is clear that Satan is doing a much better job of marketing witchcraft than we are of peddling Christianity!"

Reminds me of the Penny-Arcade comic..... http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/08/26

Funny this should come up again the same day that Penny-Arcade published their take on Wikipedia. Their unhappy experience regarding their Elemenstor project spawned this comic and this news post. (Hey PA guys, fix your stupid redirect engine)

Reponses to criticism of Wikipedia go something like this: the first is usually a paean to that pure democracy which is the project's noble fundament. If I don't like it, why don't I go edit it myself? To which I reply: because I don't have time to babysit the Internet. Hardly anyone does. If they do, it isn't exactly a compliment.

Any persistent idiot can obliterate your contributions. The fact of the matter is that all sources of information are not of equal value, and I don't know how or when it became impolitic to suggest it. In opposition to the spirit of Wikipedia, I believe there is such a thing as expertise.

The second response is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you've proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information.

Funny this should come up again the same day that Penny-Arcade published their take on Wikipedia. Their unhappy experience regarding their Elemenstor project spawned this comic and this news post. (Hey PA guys, fix your stupid redirect engine)

Reponses to criticism of Wikipedia go something like this: the first is usually a paean to that pure democracy which is the project's noble fundament. If I don't like it, why don't I go edit it myself? To which I reply: because I don't have time to babysit the Internet. Hardly anyone does. If they do, it isn't exactly a compliment.

Any persistent idiot can obliterate your contributions. The fact of the matter is that all sources of information are not of equal value, and I don't know how or when it became impolitic to suggest it. In opposition to the spirit of Wikipedia, I believe there is such a thing as expertise.

The second response is: the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you've proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn't exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant fucking mob for my information.

I remember the old adage that my art teachers used to preach to me religiously. Form following function.

If the function of something is to look pretty, then use whatever font size you want, use graphics for text where the font face isn't a web-standard font, and screw the user whose eyes can't read that font size; it's not for them.

However, the number of sites whose primary function is art is certainly a small percentage compared to those sites whose primary function is information dissemination. But dime-a-dozen designers are more concerned with wowing their non-technical customers than they are with following function over form. So they reject this tennent of art & architecture.

The unfortunate result then is that people like me, whose job it is to implement someone's art, and oh-wouldn't-it-be-nice-if-it-was-usable-too, end up producing bad architecture on websites to accomodate design.

It's a weak artist who is constrained by constraints. Saying to someone, "All text should be substitutable in any of a series of standard fonts," and having them fire back, "I can't work like that!" only means that person is too accustomed to print design, where the rules are all different (and where they were probably producing work that people with even mild visual impairments found unreadable anyhow). It also means that they lack sufficient creative willpower to be an effective artist, hence they are one of the dime-a-dozen designers.

I had the pleasure once of working with a web designer who wasn't constrained by these sorts of limitations; she produced beautiful websites that could be resized, whose text was all text, and whose average page weight was like 1/4 that of the other designers. Her sites were implemented faster, easier to maintain, loaded faster, and produced a much higher quality user experience. She never declared, "I find this technical limitation inconvenient, so I'll ignore it," and everyone benefitted.

Finally, it's no more valid to say, "People who find the website unusable because of their disabilities can simply find another website that provides the same service," than it is to say, "People who find the stairs on our building unusable because of their disabilities can simply find another store to shop in that has the same goods." Although section 508 compliance only applies to government agencies, that's no excuse for weak designers shafting the disabled.

Whoa... is this hyperbotfly of Penny Arcade fame?! Cool!

Maybe they meant something else.

This is a very lengthy rant, but sue me.

1. I'm sick of the hyper people that host G4 shows. I couldn't tell you who they are, because I couldn't stand to watch them long enough to find out. Upon further reasarch, it turns out the hosts aren't even real gamers- just very desperate actors. (I bet a lot of you already knew that.) This PA strip sims up my feelings. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/10/28)

2. Putting on reruns of "The Man Show" just renforces the stereotype that all gamers are overwieght, lonely males with acne problems and the social skills of a brick. I'd imagine many other shows on G4 are in the same gear, but with lower production values. This in itself will be a turn-off to most female gamers.

3. Yes, I'm stating the bluntly obvious here, but the lineup of shows they have... suck. The first reason is lack of efficiency and common sense. I've looked through the list of shows they have on thier site, and it's pitiful. Who wants to watch 30 minute show about one game's cheats, when you can look up several in the space of 10?

4. Even if they were more effiecient, (or even entertaining), G4's still very based in the moment. Cheats for "King Kong" aren't going to be up to date or serve any purpose a year or two from now, and niether is the coverage of E3 2004. If I were in control of G4, I would be shelling out all of my money to Blind Ferret Entertainment to try to get the Ctrl-Alt-Del Animated Series (http://www.cad-animation.com/) and maybe a VG Cats animated series onto it. Even then, there are tons of other webcomics suitable for this type of thing. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to blindferret.com)

If you read all of this crap, you just made me feel special.

Penny Arcade (http://www.penny-arcade.com/ is arguably the highest-traffic site running on Rails. Its design is fairly simple, but it is at least a good example of the loads it can handle (hardware be as it may, scalable is scalable).

The new version of http://www.penny-arcade.com/ was built using Ruby (on Rails).

Link to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

why is it supposedly so much better to have the control key to the left of the A key?

From my parent's basement in Wyoming, I stab at thee.

I'd link to the comic, but it's not there anymore. I'll link to this one, instead.

Scientifically, the risk of getting caught topped off with not actually having been caught triggers a dopamine release which makes people feel good.

Which almost rivals getting laid. (dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun...)

re:"Cuz they still don't have PSP games"

Er...Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories and Luminies. Lessie the hottest property of any console system ever, and a game addictive enough that Penny Arcade featured it:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/03/25

Sooooo what the flying fuck are you talking about? And what the hell is Cuz? What are you, some kind of inbred? Try this - tell your family to take a refreshing dip in the gene pool. Date around enough so that family tree actually sprouts a limb.

I think Penny Arcade hit this one on the head with this comic regarding steel thongs.

Meh.

I'm still waiting for stuponfucious to make it in.

To an extent, I agree. There are many people foolishly declaring Aperture worthless. Indeed, even with its weaknesses, it seems like pretty compelling software to me.

I will suggest you keep in mind that someone for whom a product isn't intended might still be able to make rational and useful critiques of it. Sure, most are just clueless, but not everyone is. As a wise man said, "It's not for you." I think Ars's review was reasonable. The author enumerated the strengths and weaknesses he perceived and provided evidence. Apple included image editing capabilities and hyped them (specifically the nondestructive capabilities). Given the problems with it, it's a pretty big hit on Aperture's value. I don't think it's fair to say that the Ars review is "about as insightful as a Blind Spot review of Solaris 10." (Actually, I'm a bit fuzzy on the exact meaning of that, but I'm reasonably sure it's intended as a smear.)

As for defense of non-commercial software, well, one gets a little slack for being free. It's not hypocritical in the slightest. Software needs to justify its cost in both cash and time. For free Aperture would be an amazing deal. For $50, a great deal. At the list price of $500, it's a bad deal for me, and a questionable deal for professional photographers (thus the value of reviews to get a sense of how much value you get). At $100,000 it would be a terrible deal for everyone and reviewers could justifiable mock it. Reviews of software (or any product) can and should change as the price tag does.

Or if the controllers spiked your hands, or emitted powerful electric shocks

Dude, that's a feature.

Green blackboards and other anomalies

Sorry, but I find it very hard to take anyone seriously who styles themselves a 'killologist'...

Of course, Penny Arcade has words of wisdom on this matter.

the map in question.

After playing the Final Fantasy XII demo, and coming to the same conclusion Tycho did, I'm rather glad that they're completely selling out so I won't feel any bit of remorse for not buying the game.

By the way, DragonQuest VIII isn't all that good either. The combat system reminds me of Final Fantasy I - complete trash. But complete trash rendered in 3D with a cell-shading engine. Which is really too bad, because ignoring the terrible combat system, the rest of the game is really nice. Not gaming perfection by any means, but definitely not bad.

To be fair, the demo comes off as being very half-assed, so the final game may not be as horrid. (I'm fairly sure it's the exact same demo they had at E3, but not being a game journalist, I dunno.) You get no access to the inventory or equipment menus, no hint as to character advancement, and no clue about what the story is going to be. So the final version may not be complete trash like the demo is, but I'm sure not going to be first in line to waste $60 to find out.

No offence to the content of your post, but I believe you should meet Mr. Period.

MATURE Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

Or, as the rest of our culture calls it, "Rated R." Check out AO.

ADULTS ONLY Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

This can't seriously be their distinction. The scenes are longer? I played Resident Evil 4 nearly 26 hours, all told. I'm going to say that maybe nineteen hours of it was spent looking down the iron sights at humanoids. The reality is that once a person is 18, a violent videogame is fairly minor in the spectrum of "adult" content available to that person. Looking over my collection, if the duration of the violence is the distinguishing factor, I'm trying to figure out what purpose Mature serves other than to remove the stigma from otherwise "adult" content and grease the wheels at retail.

I don't like being strident or suggesting that the ESRB is fundamentally unserious about rating content in an effective way that our society recognizes - but they'd better have some fucking answers on-hand to deal with this shit. There's no question that the industry is beset by career opportunists and lazy people willing to outsource their responsibilities as parents, but the pronounced winking and looking the other way on the industry side of the equation won't fly with this level of scrutiny en route.

Next up: Tetris the Movie (see special features)

Alternatively, I could have used this link. They're both good choices.

Old news. I already know all the details about the Revolution I need, thanks to Penny Arcade:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/08/28 :-)

A Classic

Enjoy

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/06/30

I'm sure this has something to do with the manufacturer's tendency to use substandard spiders in the construction of n-Gages.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/11/26

~Ben

"As if the fact that the Nokia N-Gage is a pile of shit was not enough by itself to keep gamers everywhere from purchasing it, the head of Nokia's entertainment division decided to insult his target audience. In an article over at Gamespot he had this to say regarding their competition.

"Game Boy is for 10-year-olds," said Ilkka Raiskinen, head of Nokia's entertainment and media arm. "If you're 20 or 25 years old, it's probably not a good idea to draw a Game Boy out of your pocket on a Friday night in a public space."

Dear Mr. Nokia, my name is Gabe. You might know me better as a member of the lucrative 18-25 year old male demographic. That's right, I am a 24 year old early adopter with disposable income just burning a hole in my pocket and a thirst for the latest technological gadgets. I also happen to be a gamer which makes me the exact sort of person who might purchase your new cellular phone/portable game system. Unfortunately for you that will never happen.

Your first mistake was creating a dual purpose product that fails miserably at both of its purposes. Your phone is awkward and uncomely. Your game system is undesirable and insipid.

Your second mistake was in allowing Mr. Raiskinen to ever open his fucking mouth in public. His statement is so absurd that it borders on the humorous. In fact if I were not quite certain that he was serious I would think it was a joke. Not a good idea to take out a game boy in a public place? Does this man even live on this planet? Did he make these comments from inside some kind of protective bubble orbiting the earth, insulated from the day to day happenings of it's inhabitants? If I am out with my buddies on a Friday night and we are waiting in line for a movie or some other event I can guarantee that Game Boys will come out. Not one of my friends is without a GBA. They are practically a necessity at this point. Like bread or water. It is the poor young man still playing snake on his cell phone in the airport that gets the pitting look from our group.

We even strung our link cables across the seats in the airplane on our way to E3 in order to partake in some four player Puyo Pop. Whereas airline regulations will not even allow me to turn on your masterfully designed game system while anywhere near a fucking airplane much less play a game to pass the time. Oh and speaking of great design, having to remove the battery in order to change games...brilliant.

Between your insulting advertising, shitty fucking product and infuriating public comments it's almost like you are TRYING to get gamers to hate you. I honestly cannot understand how a single company could make so many mistakes. I await your next move with absolute fear because at this rate there is no telling what you might do. Perhaps Nokia agents will scour the globe seeking out gamers and then kicking them firmly in the yam sack. Or maybe letters! Mailed out to gamers worldwide that upon opening release deadly nanomachines into the air that once inhaled by the gamer begin to devour him from the inside out. God only knows what horrors await us gamers at the hands of these Finnish devils. Stay vigilant my friends! "

"As if the fact that the Nokia N-Gage is a pile of shit was not enough by itself to keep gamers everywhere from purchasing it, the head of Nokia's entertainment division decided to insult his target audience. In an article over at Gamespot he had this to say regarding their competition.

"Game Boy is for 10-year-olds," said Ilkka Raiskinen, head of Nokia's entertainment and media arm. "If you're 20 or 25 years old, it's probably not a good idea to draw a Game Boy out of your pocket on a Friday night in a public space."

Dear Mr. Nokia, my name is Gabe. You might know me better as a member of the lucrative 18-25 year old male demographic. That's right, I am a 24 year old early adopter with disposable income just burning a hole in my pocket and a thirst for the latest technological gadgets. I also happen to be a gamer which makes me the exact sort of person who might purchase your new cellular phone/portable game system. Unfortunately for you that will never happen.

Your first mistake was creating a dual purpose product that fails miserably at both of its purposes. Your phone is awkward and uncomely. Your game system is undesirable and insipid.

Your second mistake was in allowing Mr. Raiskinen to ever open his fucking mouth in public. His statement is so absurd that it borders on the humorous. In fact if I were not quite certain that he was serious I would think it was a joke. Not a good idea to take out a game boy in a public place? Does this man even live on this planet? Did he make these comments from inside some kind of protective bubble orbiting the earth, insulated from the day to day happenings of it's inhabitants? If I am out with my buddies on a Friday night and we are waiting in line for a movie or some other event I can guarantee that Game Boys will come out. Not one of my friends is without a GBA. They are practically a necessity at this point. Like bread or water. It is the poor young man still playing snake on his cell phone in the airport that gets the pitting look from our group.

We even strung our link cables across the seats in the airplane on our way to E3 in order to partake in some four player Puyo Pop. Whereas airline regulations will not even allow me to turn on your masterfully designed game system while anywhere near a fucking airplane much less play a game to pass the time. Oh and speaking of great design, having to remove the battery in order to change games...brilliant.

Between your insulting advertising, shitty fucking product and infuriating public comments it's almost like you are TRYING to get gamers to hate you. I honestly cannot understand how a single company could make so many mistakes. I await your next move with absolute fear because at this rate there is no telling what you might do. Perhaps Nokia agents will scour the globe seeking out gamers and then kicking them firmly in the yam sack. Or maybe letters! Mailed out to gamers worldwide that upon opening release deadly nanomachines into the air that once inhaled by the gamer begin to devour him from the inside out. God only knows what horrors await us gamers at the hands of these Finnish devils. Stay vigilant my friends! "

someone got shot in the chest!

As always, Penny Arcade has something to say on the matter.

When will it work, as we made a commitment a year ago to get the product out on time.

I'm lucky that I work with good engineers.

Or if those two don't work, just ask EA...

But have you tried severing and boiling your own penis?

Here's Penny Arcade's take on the issue.

That link will probably only work until Friday. I would have linked to the permanant link, but that, of course, does not work (at least, not yet).

Here's Penny Arcade's take on the issue.

That link will probably only work until Friday. I would have linked to the permanant link, but that, of course, does not work (at least, not yet).

For those not in the know, here are some exchanges between netizens and Jack Thompson:

VG Cats v Jack Thompson
Penny-Arcade v Jack Thompson
a 14 Year Old v Jack Thompson

He was pwned terribly in each case.

I'm not saying shut down all the media, I'm saying shut down the media ego. Yes, thank you for playing the game long before I can. Yes, thank you for telling me the quality of the graphics and sound. No, thank you, I'd rather not read a fourteen page blowout of Halo 2/DOA Ultimate/Fable. No, thank you, I don't need you to fill half the rag with opionions from editors about what it was like to be at E3. And so on...

Wow those guys really must be going without food

I wasn't serious, AC pussy.

OK, you say that now... however I'm quite sure that you were in fact serious. See, a small slight (in this case a mis-modding and subsequent trolling - I didn't mod you) becomes something large to you, a threat to what you percieve to be your intellectual superiority.

And for all the mental giftedness that you hold so high, you lack the ability to recognize social norms and respond appropriately when the situation requires that you do so.

Or, of course, this could just be yet another demonstration of John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

So did Timothy Roberts get rid of his... phobia yet ?

For those not in the know, here are some exchanges between netizens and Jack Thompson:

VG Cats v Jack Thompson
Penny-Arcade v Jack Thompson
a 14 Year Old v Jack Thompson

He was pwned terribly in each case.

Also related is the Internet Selection Effect:

The probability that a fool or a sociopath will post something in an online form is slightly higher than a person with insight and decent manners. Therefore, as the size of the forum approaches infinity, the stupidity will exceed the capacity of any reader to tolerate.