One article I read quoted someone's sig which said (from memory) ``Java combines the simple elegance of C++ with the blinding speed of SmallTalk''
What is a non nerd/geek called?
on
Geeks vs. Nerds
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· Score: 2
There's power in co-opting a negatively-tainted word and turning it into a positive word. Queer and Nigger are both words that are, in the appropriate peer group, used as power words.
I think geek is a stronger word than nerd. So, with this in mind, a definition of geek could be someone who realizes that they are uncool or unfashionable (by some popular prevailing notion of coolness or fashion) -- and who doesn't really care, and decides not to invest the enormous amounts of time and energy that normal people do in being fashionable, because he/she has more important things to do. Hence the co-option of the harsher word geek.
But what is a non nerd/geek called? I like the word hipster or urban hipster, because, like nerd/geek, is vaguely insulting.
Don't you mean FORTRAN? Remember, FORTRAN is an acronym.
Even though it's an acronym, I think it's commonly written as Fortran now. This seems to be a common pattern: the "nameness" of a name becomes more important than its "acronymness" -- hence the capitalized first letter.
Many things are addictive and can be taken to extremes. Exercise, for example, something generally considered to be a Good Thing, is addictive to some people. Excessive exercise can be a bad thing. Excessive anything can be a bad thing. Your friend's brother tying up the phones is a bad thing. I don't see that this has anything to do with games per se.
``Most games hand you an easy reality. Nothing worth doing is easy.''. I'm not sure what you mean by an easy reality. Some things that are worth doing are easy, some hard. I write software for a living all day; I find it extremely challenging. I like to come home and play an hour or two Quake3 to exercise the baser parts of my brain. It's fun. A few years ago I was working as a manual laborer, at the end of a day I was physically exhausted, but my intellect was under-utilized; so I liked to play some more intellectual games. Whether or not I contribrute to myself is up to me to decide. I think I do.
Whether or not games contribute to society as whole is an interesting question. Games are a form of art (why are they not?) which means they have aesthetic value (of course, like any artform, many or even most have little value in this respect). You may not appreciate games as art, which is fine because you have your own tastes. The question reduces to: does the production and appreciation of art contribute to society? IMHO it does.
I previewed my post above and it came out correctly; but now all of the HTML tags have been stripped. What's going on here?
I notice that an earlier poster experienced the same thing. Has this happened to anyone else, or did I just press a wrong button? Or did I use bad HTML and wasn't informed by the software?
be sure to apply this to the real world. lesson #1 : do not sit/stand still run around like a chicken with your head cut off [...] Good advice. Probably useful to know if some crazed gunman is ever firing at you. Might save your life (I've never been in such a situation, so I'm just speculating). lesson #2 : always aim for the head . but be sure to keep moving always fire you weapon in to possible sniper holes or nest just in case... No. Aim for the middle. That way you're more likely to hit the target (or with a rocket launcher, aim for floors/walls and get the target with splash damage). lesson #3: be sure to cary heavy explosives on you at all times and toss them around all corners or possible places where the enenmy may be lying in wait... lesson #4: always shoot first and ask questions later.. the time it takes for you to determine freind or foe is just enough for the target to blow your head off.. What about friendly fire and killing civillians? A bad thing in both games and real life. lesson #5 : always take risks the rewards always out weigh the the possiblity of losing a life . besides you will respawn next time. If you die, even if you respawn, you lose time and ammo. lesson #6 : almost always rush the opposing force . Except if they are retreating and firing. i think that these few lessons in life will get me real far if there is ever a war.... Possibly. I'd do something about the friendly fire if I were you. or i ever feel the need to go blow some people away who needs millitary and or police training when we have sims that install these fine qualities in to those that play them... ??? I would hope that police forces are well trained at least.
I think I have to treat FPS games as having crossed the line into experience rather than information input, which means that I have to consider a FPS game in the same light as whether I want my kid trained to shoot other people.
There is clear and simple difference between experiencing violence in a game and experiencing it in real life -- in real life people actually get hurt or killed. Maybe this is the point you should impress upon your son?
(Warning! Reading this post may make your head hurt! Not that alone - there are many out there who actually agree with me!)
There are many, like me, who actually disagree with you:)
The question is not how violent are the various games kids play, but why in the world do they waste so much time on them? It would seem like they have nothing to do. Why in the world do parents waste money on games for their kids??
You stated your opinion, that games are a waste of time, but you haven't supported your opinion in any way. So, after reading your paragraph above, we know that Pike thinks that games are a waste of time. Thanks for informing us of this particular fact!
I can give you a few reasons why playing games is not a waste time. Games are fun. Games can engage the imagination, the intellect, one's sense of aesthetics. Games like Quake require some sort of athletics (which is fun to develop).
People who live for entertainment and fun end up with empty minds, empty souls and empty pockets.
This may be true, but who are these ``people who live for entainment''?
Do yourself a favor. Spend your every moment doing something productive. You will discover what real achievement is. Your leisure time will be that much sweeter. When you stop wasting time in front of the console and give yourself a mission in RL, you discover what real fun is.
I don't understand. If I spent every moment doing something productive, I wouldn't have any leisure time. So how could my leisure time be ``that much sweeter''?
People who play games on their computers are wasting time + resources (storage & cpu cycles) = money. If you aren't interested enough in computers to be doing something useful with them, then get outside, read a book, or earn a buck raking someone's lawn. Make it your point in life to use every ounce of your energy to help people out, and if after five years you hate yourself for it, I'll send you $100.
Again, you are saying that playing computer games is a waste if time (but why?). You seem to be implying that real is better, and somehow truer, than virtual. I don't understand this; reality is reality, whether it is virtual or not. Your comment about reading a book is funny -- you can't get much more virtual than reading a book!
I remember reading this Scientific American article too. I started implementing a version for the Commodore 64. Unfortunately, my programming and physics skills weren't very good -- I remember bad things would happen if the ship flew too close to the star, like shooting off really fast (faster than it went in). Probably, the ship was getting too close to the singularity (and going into warp-space;)
In the SA article, the graphics were the USS Enterprise and a Klingon Bird of Prey, but I see that the original just has rocket ships.
OK, just tried it. It doesn't seem to have a query language like Deja has. In Deja, for example, if I wanted to seach for postings by Bob to comp.lang.sather, I could type ~g comp.lang.sather & ~a bob .
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One article I read quoted someone's sig which said (from memory) ``Java combines the simple elegance of C++ with the blinding speed of SmallTalk''
There's power in co-opting a negatively-tainted word and turning it into a positive word. Queer and Nigger are both words that are, in the appropriate peer group, used as power words.
I think geek is a stronger word than nerd. So, with this in mind, a definition of geek could be someone who realizes that they are uncool or unfashionable (by some popular prevailing notion of coolness or fashion) -- and who doesn't really care, and decides not to invest the enormous amounts of time and energy that normal people do in being fashionable, because he/she has more important things to do. Hence the co-option of the harsher word geek.
But what is a non nerd/geek called? I like the word hipster or urban hipster, because, like nerd/geek, is vaguely insulting.
Don't you mean FORTRAN? Remember, FORTRAN is an acronym.
Even though it's an acronym, I think it's commonly written as Fortran now. This seems to be a common pattern: the "nameness" of a name becomes more important than its "acronymness" -- hence the capitalized first letter.
Many things are addictive and can be taken to extremes. Exercise, for example, something generally considered to be a Good Thing, is addictive to some people. Excessive exercise can be a bad thing. Excessive anything can be a bad thing. Your friend's brother tying up the phones is a bad thing. I don't see that this has anything to do with games per se.
``Most games hand you an easy reality. Nothing worth doing is easy.''. I'm not sure what you mean by an easy reality. Some things that are worth doing are easy, some hard. I write software for a living all day; I find it extremely challenging. I like to come home and play an hour or two Quake3 to exercise the baser parts of my brain. It's fun. A few years ago I was working as a manual laborer, at the end of a day I was physically exhausted, but my intellect was under-utilized; so I liked to play some more intellectual games. Whether or not I contribrute to myself is up to me to decide. I think I do.
Whether or not games contribute to society as whole is an interesting question. Games are a form of art (why are they not?) which means they have aesthetic value (of course, like any artform, many or even most have little value in this respect). You may not appreciate games as art, which is fine because you have your own tastes. The question reduces to: does the production and appreciation of art contribute to society? IMHO it does.
Woops. The less-than symbol in the previous message was expanded out when I copy-and-pasted from Nedit. Trying again.
This is a test. This message should be HTML formatted.
This is a paragraph
This is another paragraph. Bold text. A less-than symbol:
This is a test. This message should be HTML formatted.
This is a paragraph
This is another paragraph. Bold text. A less-than symbol:
This is a test. This message should be HTML formatted.
This is a paragraph
This is another paragraph. Bold text. A less-than symbol: <
I previewed my post above and it came out correctly; but now all of the HTML tags have been stripped. What's going on here?
I notice that an earlier poster experienced the same thing. Has this happened to anyone else, or did I just press a wrong button? Or did I use bad HTML and wasn't informed by the software?
be sure to apply this to the real world. lesson #1 : do not sit/stand still run around like a chicken with your head cut off [...] Good advice. Probably useful to know if some crazed gunman is ever firing at you. Might save your life (I've never been in such a situation, so I'm just speculating). lesson #2 : always aim for the head . but be sure to keep moving always fire you weapon in to possible sniper holes or nest just in case... No. Aim for the middle. That way you're more likely to hit the target (or with a rocket launcher, aim for floors/walls and get the target with splash damage). lesson #3: be sure to cary heavy explosives on you at all times and toss them around all corners or possible places where the enenmy may be lying in wait... lesson #4: always shoot first and ask questions later.. the time it takes for you to determine freind or foe is just enough for the target to blow your head off.. What about friendly fire and killing civillians? A bad thing in both games and real life. lesson #5 : always take risks the rewards always out weigh the the possiblity of losing a life . besides you will respawn next time. If you die, even if you respawn, you lose time and ammo. lesson #6 : almost always rush the opposing force . Except if they are retreating and firing. i think that these few lessons in life will get me real far if there is ever a war .... Possibly. I'd do something about the friendly fire if I were you. or i ever feel the need to go blow some people away who needs millitary and or police training when we have sims that install these fine qualities in to those that play them... ??? I would hope that police forces are well trained at least.
There is clear and simple difference between experiencing violence in a game and experiencing it in real life -- in real life people actually get hurt or killed. Maybe this is the point you should impress upon your son?
There are many, like me, who actually disagree with you :)
You stated your opinion, that games are a waste of time, but you haven't supported your opinion in any way. So, after reading your paragraph above, we know that Pike thinks that games are a waste of time. Thanks for informing us of this particular fact!
I can give you a few reasons why playing games is not a waste time. Games are fun. Games can engage the imagination, the intellect, one's sense of aesthetics. Games like Quake require some sort of athletics (which is fun to develop).
This may be true, but who are these ``people who live for entainment''?
I don't understand. If I spent every moment doing something productive, I wouldn't have any leisure time. So how could my leisure time be ``that much sweeter''?
Again, you are saying that playing computer games is a waste if time (but why?). You seem to be implying that real is better, and somehow truer, than virtual. I don't understand this; reality is reality, whether it is virtual or not. Your comment about reading a book is funny -- you can't get much more virtual than reading a book!
I remember reading this Scientific American article too. I started implementing a version for the Commodore 64. Unfortunately, my programming and physics skills weren't very good -- I remember bad things would happen if the ship flew too close to the star, like shooting off really fast (faster than it went in). Probably, the ship was getting too close to the singularity (and going into warp-space ;)
In the SA article, the graphics were the USS Enterprise and a Klingon Bird of Prey, but I see that the original just has rocket ships.
Try http://www.remarq.com/
OK, just tried it. It doesn't seem to have a query language like Deja has. In Deja, for example, if I wanted to seach for postings by Bob to comp.lang.sather, I could type ~g comp.lang.sather & ~a bob .