Slashdot Mirror
GeForce FX And More From AGDC 2002
Mr.Tweak writes "We have posted some coverage from the Australian Game Developers Conference which was held over this past weekend at the Melbourne Convention Center. There you will find information on Sony's PS2 online gaming plans, Sony's PS2 Linux Development Kits, and videos and pictures of nVidia's GeForce FX in action as well as shots of the graphics card and other juicy details."
Wired News 10:00 PM Dec 02, 2002 PT
http://www.wired.com/news/goatse/ 0,3883,1309,420,00.html
Goatse 'It' Guy Breaks Silence, Wind
First he turned down Jon Katz. Then he said no to Harry Knowles.
For years, Goatse Man, the mysterious Net celebrity who is featured at a popular website frequently featured on Slashdot, refused all interview requests, including those from the two titans of internet media.
But Goatse Man, whose fame continues to grow even as he eschews the media spotlight, has finally granted his first sitdown with a reporter, albeit from an unlikely publication.
The interview with the New York Times (free reg), the old gray lady of printed media, will be published Friday.
In that article, Goatse Man reveals he was, as many of his "fans" had guessed, under the influence of drugs during the famous set of photographs lifted from Stile, but exactly what he took, editors at the New York Times aren't saying; all is revealed in the interview. The best guess is amyl nitrate, according to online scuttlebutt.
"It sure as hell wasn't aspirin," said Gerald Boyd, the managing editor who conducted the interview.
Goatse Man became an Internet celebrity after being featured in a set of forty ass-stretching pics taken by his wife for USENET. After the pictures debuted in 1998, Goatse Man quickly shot to Net celebrity, largely because the url is passed around to unsuspecting surfers.
Very little is known about Goatse Man, Phil to his friends, except he's married, lives a stable life and has an MCSE; Goatse.cx isn't revealing any details. The New York Times claims the interview is his first.
The interview contains a number of interesting tidbits, including details on how Hollywood came calling as Goatse Man's online celebrity grew.
Besides inquiries from Letterman and Leno, MTV talked about doing a pilot show. The Farrelly brothers, directors of hit comedies There's Something About Mary and Shallow Hal, were thinking of offering him a role, but got cold feet when they found out the pictures weren't photoshopped.
According to Boyd, Phil turned down Letterman and Leno because he's cognizant that his fame relies on an air of mystique. He is different things to different people. Too much exposure would cause his star to quickly fade.
"He's pretty level-headed about all this," said Boyd. "He's very funny and is a good sport about it all."
But, of course, in true Hollywood style, he now has an agent, Boyd added.
Goatse Man is amused that people have t- shirts and coffee mugs decorated with his ass, but avoids Slashdot and Kuro5hin "because he's heard from friends there's some very weird stuff there," Boyd said.
Phil also reveals how the pictures were taken in the first place. He's a friend of Robert Malda, the editor in chief of Slashdot. The pair went to watch some hardcore gay porn being taped one day, and a couple of spots happened to be open. Both he and Malda were photographed but only Goatse Man's wife caught the magic of the moment. Malda's pictures ended up at a small but increasingly popular website called lemonparty.org.
The Goatse interview is being heavily promoted by the New York Times, which has plastered New York City with Goatse posters.
"We've been hyping this pretty big," Boyd said. "There's certainly been some buzz. I'm excited about it. I think people will get a kick out of it."
The paper scored the interview because someone on staff was an old classmate of Phil's. Goatse.cx has cautioned him not to speak to the press, but Goatse Man figured a newspaper that requires free registration would turn off every privacy nut that reloads slashdot every five minutes at their despairing and menial help desk jobs.
"Goatse.cx is not incredibly psyched about the amyl nitrate rumors," Boyd said.
Boyd said Phil is not a resident of San Francisco's Tenderloin district nor would he reveal any more about this rising star except that Goatse Man didn't need any help fitting a fire hydrant inside himself.
The revelation that he wasn't taking amyl nitrate doesn't trouble his straight fans, who simply don't believe him.
"I don't care what they say," said Rev. Samuel, who sells a line of Goatse- themed 'Stretch Different' T- shirts. "Duuude. Look at him. Just look at him. Oh sweet Jesus, my eyes."
While I think that the new GeForce card is constantly showing just how good it is, there is not reason to completely over-exaggerate its capabilities. I hate videos showing one model in a very simplistic scene and being hailed as 'most realistic 3D ever.' For these demos to be realistic, they need to have REAL scenes, with real moving objects. I wish marketing was more honest.
Who says that Linux Gamers won't pay for games, nothing says that you can't have comercial software on Linux, Linux people are gamers too and Open Source games are never going to be as close as the $50.00 game you payed for in the store unless its a buggy, rushed out the publisher's door game, but thats another story. Yes, there are some talented OSS programers, but never as good as the ones that get paid to do it. I don't see why there is such a sterotype twoard Linux on the basis that just because you can download Linux, means that you have to be able to download every program that is made for it.
I thought we had realised that linking to forums is a bad idea... ahh well.
A lot of big software houses have offices and a work force (if not several) in Aussie, including Sony. You've probably played more Australian, Canadian, Norwegian, Pommie, New Zealand, Indian games than you think.
Every company that deals in graphics has done it. I've seen this on screens for SNES games, Sega consoles, 3Dfx cards, Intel CPUs, ad nauseum. nVidia didn't create this practice, they merely became the latest in a long series of companies to engage in marketing puffery.
Pardon me for asking, but what is exactly funny about this? Gaming is a huge component of the entertainment industry, just like film. Is it funny that you can study film making?