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Gaming In Sweden Bigger Than Football and Hockey
An anonymous reader writes "SIFO (a major Swedish survey company) has conducted a gaming survey right before the launch of Dreamhack Winter. One of the results is that gaming is bigger than football and hockey combined."
They are referring to actual football a.k.a. soccer.
There is also a wimpy other side of the atlantic "sport" called "american football" which just is a bad copy of rugby (which is much more brutal than american football since you dont wear any wimpy padding). Though, you are not actually kicking on the ball with your feet in american football, so why it is called football no one actually knows.
Um, no.
Jocks and athletes have power in secondary schools simply because their ego is fed by the swooning girls who are hardwired to look for guys who can protect them. In secondary school, girls think that big, strong guys provide the daddy-style protection that they covet. It's not until later (20 to 30) that most women figure out it's the nerds that will provide the economic protection that they really want. Of course, by that time, the nerds will have picked up zero in the socialisation department and not know what to do to pick up the chicks.
If you actually knew any history about football, you would know that the "foot" in "football" has absolutely zero to do with kicking. It has to do with the fact that it's played on foot, as opposed to other historical games that were played on horseback. Football's origins go back much further than any other modern sport (possibly as far as the last century BC), hence why the term "football" still applies, even though under the original broad definition, basketball and baseball would also qualify. Neither Soccer nor American Football is close to how "real" football was originally played in most places, that honor goes to Rugby. (Although both Soccer and American Football do have roots going back for enough, it's impossible to say *for sure* that there weren't certain places that played with similar rules. Rugby just most closely resembles the most popular form of the game.) The only significant thing American Football added that wasn't there since the beginning is downs, and a turnover or punt due to not being able to gain a certain amount of yards in a certain amount of downs (first put into place in 1882). Soccer changed the game altogether. Yes, American Football is just as close or closer to how the game was originally played than Soccer is.
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I know it's popular to hate on American football because it's American
I don't hate it because it's American, I hate it because it's boring. I actually tried watching it for a while and I found that it consists mostly of commercials, with short bursts of football in between. If they would just get on with playing instead of having constant advertisement filled breaks it might be more interesting.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
I know it's popular to hate on American football because it's American, but the types of hits and tackles legal in the NFL would mean half a rugby team would be paralyzed by the end of the season
I'm gonna have to call bull shit on that one. I have sneaking suspicion you never actually watched a professional rugby game before. There is little difference between the severity of the hits and tackles. In fact, I definitely see more blood and injuries with rugby. Also, the play doesn't always end when you get hit/tackled and rugby. American football players generally get a good 20 second rest. American football is pretty much rugby with much more resting.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
they tend to look for different qualities: ability to intelligently carry on a conversation not related to D&D, emotional support, and well, being interesting.
Don't confuse traits girls may look for in a friend with traits they look for in someone they actually want to have sex with.
The difficulty is that human beings are fantastic at self-deception, and often the qualities that a person tells you they're looking for in a mate are not really the qualities they're looking for, but are whatever allows them to think of themselves in a positive light and avoid too much cognitive dissonance. In practice, if the reality of their behavior doesn't fit with their image of themselves, it can always be rationalized later.
In light of the constant state of self-deception that people live in (it's a fantastic evolutionarily strategy), taking advice from a woman on what she wants in someone to actually have sex with is like asking the Devil for advice on avoiding sin - it will always lead you wrong. If you want to learn, pay attention to the behavior, not the words.
I play one aerobic sport quite seriously (football aka soccer). I find that aerobic sports (and quasi-aerobic sports, such as volleyball) tend to be more fun to play. On the other hand, i find that they are generally rather dull to watch as the strategic intricacies are largely removed. You may talk about split-second strategic awareness that a rugby player might have and i could spill equivalent verbage about soccer. However, the reality is that while there is some sort of beauty about so many minds independently and in real time coming up with collective "brilliant" solutions to sports problems (such as scoring a goal or a try), such decisions are far less cerebral than those you get in american football and baseball.
Or, to put it another way, you typical rugby match on TV looks like a physical contest. The team that is fitter and more skillful usually wins. Or, rather, that's how it is for soccer and certainly that's how it looks on tv for ruggers. Real time "strategic" or tactical decisions in soccer are nearly nil. Who to substitute and what formation to play are mostly it. there are a few set pieces, but they are of secondary importance.
Baseball is a perfect strategic game. It's incredibly mathematical and lends itself to all sorts of analysis that is simply not possible in soccer. In soccer, "players working together" comes down i'd say 80% to personalities and at most 20% to complementary skills - such as having somebody with a good cross paired with somebody who is good in the air. In baseball, the situation is reversed. Sure, personality matters somewhat as it does in any sport, but players skills can be matched (both teammates and opponents) on far more levels. there are literally thousands of decisions that go into any baseball game that can be reviewed and discussed intelligently. In soccer there are maybe a handful.
So, I love soccer. I train 3 times per week on the pitch and gym most other days. But, other than picking up some ideas for my own game, I find it incredibly tedious to watch. Baseball and american football stimulate the intellect far more and builds far better dramatic finales because of this. Plus, the games are better structured. Maybe 3 televised soccer matches in 20 are still interesting and plausibly competitive in the last 5 minutes. I'd say at least 5-6 out of 20 baseball games and 13-14 american football games out of 20 could make similar claims.