Hmm, maybe we need to send these telcos over to World of Ends and remind them that the end-to-end or "dumb" nature of the Internet (in the sense that all the logic is handled at each end, not in the middle) is a big part of what's made it successful.
Not that that's ever stopped anyone from killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, of course...
OMG Violent Youth Play Video Games!
on
Videogame Mythbusting
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· Score: 3, Insightful
This argument always struck me as being as intellectually honest as claims that Dihydrogen Monoxide was frequently found in terminal cancer tumors. Once you realize that they're talking about water -- which is found in normal tissue -- you realize it's a meaningless claim. Similarly, if you actually think about the fact that most teenagers (or at least most teenage boys) play video games without shooting down their classmates, you start to realize that the games->violence claims are similarly bogus.
It's nice to see someone actually looking at the issue and noting that gaming and violence actually show an inverse correlation. I've always thought I'd rather someone go home and blow off steam playing Doom, Quake, GTA whatever instead of getting into fights or bottling it up until they do something drastic.
Seriously. Wikipedia is a tool, similar to almost all sites presenting information on the internet: good for a quick reference, but not authoritative. And I think most people realize that.
That's something that often gets lost in Wikipedia debates. In that respect, it is very much like the Internet as a whole: The best thing about it is that anyone can publish. The worst thing about it is that anyone can publish.
I swear, the next time I have mod points and see a joke about someone getting Opera mixed up with Oprah, or a joke about all three Opera users, I'm gonna mod them -1 Redundant. They were kinda funny the first time, but they get old really fast.
The interface is customizable; not so with Firefox.
This is one of those "give me a break" complaints. Firefox users say Firefox is more customizable than Opera, and Opera users say Opera is more customizable than Firefox. And for some reason, they all believe it.
This criticism -- whichever direction it's being used -- needs to die a lonely death to make way for more valid complaints.
The target audience for the Happy Meal is kids -- it's to give the kids something to play with during the meal and that they can take home.
Something that you can't use until after you get home won't catch on with the kids... but it could work for adults.
This sounds much more in line with the collector's drink cups or those sports-team bobble-heads you can sometimes get at fast food places than the classic kid's meal toy.
LoTR was done terribly. It should have been 6 movies (one for each book) instead of 3.
And about 10,000 people would have had the patience to watch them all, instead of the millions who now have at least some experience with Middle Earth.
Look at Lord of the Rings, you have a series of three movies which run over 11 hrs with the extended editions and things still had to be left out.
This is one advantage the Narnia books have, as far as movie adaptations are concerned. They're short. You can actually fit a much larger percentage of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe into a 2+ hour movie than you can cram from Fellowship of the Ring into a 3+ hour movie.
I remember hearing that, in story terms, a movie is equivalent to a short story or a novella rather than a novel. Of course a novel is the primary unit of prose storytelling these days, and a movie is the primary unit of visual storytelling, so you get novels adapted as movies left and right -- and they always have to be hacked to pieces just to be able to fit everything in. (Similarly, novelizations of movies always have to pad things out with cut scenes and other extra material to be able to pass muster as a novel.) Short stories, on the other hand, when they do get adapted to the screen, tend to work surprisingly well.
Exactly. IIRC, italics are the proper way to indicate book titles, and underlining was chosen as a substitute for use with handwritten or, depending on when the rules were nailed down, typewritten documents.
Yeah, school is an excellent way to ruin a great book. I think a big part of the reason many people don't read for enjoyment is that they think reading=work as a result of the way it's taught in school. I read The Hobbit when I was young, and a few years later we read it in school. I loved it, but many of my classmates couldn't stand it -- because it wasn't a book they were reading for fun, it was homework.
I think the reason I devour books (when I have time) is that my parents not only read to me before I could read, but gave me books to read -- and I saw them reading for fun long before school asked me to do a book report. School certainly improved my ability to read, and gave me the tools to analyze writing, but I'm sure I'd have a much smaller bookshelf if that had been my only exposure to books.
I don't know, I've never been the kind of person who can't enjoy a magic trick because I know how it's done. (I guess that puts me in Penn and Teller's target audience.) I can appreciate the skill involved in pulling it off. If I know there are gaps in the linking rings, but the magician manages to hide them, the trick works. If I know the flying guy is on wires, but I can't see the wires, great!
It's only when something jars me out of my state of suspended disbelief that it bothers me, and that can happen as easily with a plothole, a bad line of dialogue, or bad characterization as it can with effects where you can see the wires, or even just knowing the wires are there. Maybe even more easily.
There were places where it worked great, but others -- particularly the beginning of the battle -- where it really felt like watching the cinematic intro to a video game. Partly the movements looked wrong, and partly I think they just didn't use detailed enough textures for those shots.
Original desired order? I assume you mean with The Magician's Nephew first. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first book written, though, and by necessity written as an introduction to the world. It's in many ways a first contact story, while The Magician's Nephew is an origin story.
I personally refer the publication order, at least as far as starting with LWW, over chronological order, but I know other people disagree. I don't think it's as critical as some series, which really do work much better in publication order rather than chronological order. I do think it's better to start with "Here's Narnia," and then move on to "Here's where Narnia came from."
The books are certainly written as Christian allegory -- particularly the first, which is very messianic, and the last, which is essentially armageddon. The allegory doesn't quite track (one doesn't normally associate lions with Christ, for instance), but that's mainly due to the inherent limits of metaphor. Eventually you're going to run into a situation where you realize that no, the Internet isn't like a highway in this circumstance.
There's quite a bit of other stuff going on, though, so to dismiss -- or revere -- the story solely on its allegorical content is to miss quite a lot. Saying "It's Christian, so I don't want to read/watch it" is as silly as holding a prayer meeting during the previews, because it's not the entirety of the work.
As to C.S. Lewis, he had a long, complicated history with his religion. I recommend the play Shadowlands , or the movie made from it for an alternate view.
Coming from a background in comic books, this is easy to answer.
The typical male reader/viewer/player will identify with male characters and be interested in female characters. Superheroes -- and let's face it, that's basically what male game characters often are, even if they don't have tights and a cape -- are essentially power fantasies. What would I do with Superman's powers, or Batman's martial arts skills and gadgets. The typical guy looks at Superman or Duke Nuke'em and says, "I'd love to be that guy." Then he looks at Wonder Woman or Lara Croft and says "I'd love to do that girl."
In both case these are men's ideals, which is why men look at the idealized man and say "I could be that" instead of "I have to be that?!?" or "Oh, please!" as women often do when they look at the idealized woman. I have to wonder what games (or comics) would look like where the men and women were exaggerated to match women's ideals. Would we have the same reactions to their idealized men?
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm, maybe we need to send these telcos over to World of Ends and remind them that the end-to-end or "dumb" nature of the Internet (in the sense that all the logic is handled at each end, not in the middle) is a big part of what's made it successful.
Not that that's ever stopped anyone from killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, of course...
This argument always struck me as being as intellectually honest as claims that Dihydrogen Monoxide was frequently found in terminal cancer tumors. Once you realize that they're talking about water -- which is found in normal tissue -- you realize it's a meaningless claim. Similarly, if you actually think about the fact that most teenagers (or at least most teenage boys) play video games without shooting down their classmates, you start to realize that the games->violence claims are similarly bogus.
It's nice to see someone actually looking at the issue and noting that gaming and violence actually show an inverse correlation. I've always thought I'd rather someone go home and blow off steam playing Doom, Quake, GTA whatever instead of getting into fights or bottling it up until they do something drastic.
A similar phrase I recall from my youth: "Don't believe everything you read."
I guess my response would be this:
Is it easier to spend 5 minutes correcting the error, or contact a lawyer and spend several weeks/months waging a lawsuit?
I know how I'd prefer to spend my time...
Seriously. Wikipedia is a tool, similar to almost all sites presenting information on the internet: good for a quick reference, but not authoritative. And I think most people realize that.
That's something that often gets lost in Wikipedia debates. In that respect, it is very much like the Internet as a whole: The best thing about it is that anyone can publish. The worst thing about it is that anyone can publish.
Straw man.
I swear, the next time I have mod points and see a joke about someone getting Opera mixed up with Oprah, or a joke about all three Opera users, I'm gonna mod them -1 Redundant. They were kinda funny the first time, but they get old really fast.
...this guy? He definitely seems to be using the Opera.
Wow -- complaining that Opera should start innovating is kind of like saying that Mac OS ripped off Windows.
The interface is customizable; not so with Firefox.
This is one of those "give me a break" complaints. Firefox users say Firefox is more customizable than Opera, and Opera users say Opera is more customizable than Firefox. And for some reason, they all believe it.
This criticism -- whichever direction it's being used -- needs to die a lonely death to make way for more valid complaints.
The target audience for the Happy Meal is kids -- it's to give the kids something to play with during the meal and that they can take home.
Something that you can't use until after you get home won't catch on with the kids... but it could work for adults.
This sounds much more in line with the collector's drink cups or those sports-team bobble-heads you can sometimes get at fast food places than the classic kid's meal toy.
LoTR was done terribly. It should have been 6 movies (one for each book) instead of 3.
And about 10,000 people would have had the patience to watch them all, instead of the millions who now have at least some experience with Middle Earth.
Look at Lord of the Rings, you have a series of three movies which run over 11 hrs with the extended editions and things still had to be left out.
This is one advantage the Narnia books have, as far as movie adaptations are concerned. They're short. You can actually fit a much larger percentage of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe into a 2+ hour movie than you can cram from Fellowship of the Ring into a 3+ hour movie.
I remember hearing that, in story terms, a movie is equivalent to a short story or a novella rather than a novel. Of course a novel is the primary unit of prose storytelling these days, and a movie is the primary unit of visual storytelling, so you get novels adapted as movies left and right -- and they always have to be hacked to pieces just to be able to fit everything in. (Similarly, novelizations of movies always have to pad things out with cut scenes and other extra material to be able to pass muster as a novel.) Short stories, on the other hand, when they do get adapted to the screen, tend to work surprisingly well.
Exactly. IIRC, italics are the proper way to indicate book titles, and underlining was chosen as a substitute for use with handwritten or, depending on when the rules were nailed down, typewritten documents.
I don't know about the books, but the movie was seriously lacking a backstory
That would be in book 6, The Magician's Nephew. Or, if you're reading one of the newer sets that orders them chronologically, book 1.
Yeah, school is an excellent way to ruin a great book. I think a big part of the reason many people don't read for enjoyment is that they think reading=work as a result of the way it's taught in school. I read The Hobbit when I was young, and a few years later we read it in school. I loved it, but many of my classmates couldn't stand it -- because it wasn't a book they were reading for fun, it was homework.
I think the reason I devour books (when I have time) is that my parents not only read to me before I could read, but gave me books to read -- and I saw them reading for fun long before school asked me to do a book report. School certainly improved my ability to read, and gave me the tools to analyze writing, but I'm sure I'd have a much smaller bookshelf if that had been my only exposure to books.
OK, so don't watch the special features. Problem solved.
I don't know, I've never been the kind of person who can't enjoy a magic trick because I know how it's done. (I guess that puts me in Penn and Teller's target audience.) I can appreciate the skill involved in pulling it off. If I know there are gaps in the linking rings, but the magician manages to hide them, the trick works. If I know the flying guy is on wires, but I can't see the wires, great!
It's only when something jars me out of my state of suspended disbelief that it bothers me, and that can happen as easily with a plothole, a bad line of dialogue, or bad characterization as it can with effects where you can see the wires, or even just knowing the wires are there. Maybe even more easily.
WETA did props, costume designs (for the creatures), and prosthetics, IIRC. I don't think the digital side was involved.
There were places where it worked great, but others -- particularly the beginning of the battle -- where it really felt like watching the cinematic intro to a video game. Partly the movements looked wrong, and partly I think they just didn't use detailed enough textures for those shots.
Original desired order? I assume you mean with The Magician's Nephew first. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the first book written, though, and by necessity written as an introduction to the world. It's in many ways a first contact story, while The Magician's Nephew is an origin story.
I personally refer the publication order, at least as far as starting with LWW, over chronological order, but I know other people disagree. I don't think it's as critical as some series, which really do work much better in publication order rather than chronological order. I do think it's better to start with "Here's Narnia," and then move on to "Here's where Narnia came from."
The books are certainly written as Christian allegory -- particularly the first, which is very messianic, and the last, which is essentially armageddon. The allegory doesn't quite track (one doesn't normally associate lions with Christ, for instance), but that's mainly due to the inherent limits of metaphor. Eventually you're going to run into a situation where you realize that no, the Internet isn't like a highway in this circumstance.
There's quite a bit of other stuff going on, though, so to dismiss -- or revere -- the story solely on its allegorical content is to miss quite a lot. Saying "It's Christian, so I don't want to read/watch it" is as silly as holding a prayer meeting during the previews, because it's not the entirety of the work.
As to C.S. Lewis, he had a long, complicated history with his religion. I recommend the play Shadowlands , or the movie made from it for an alternate view.
Great theory, but now explain all of the MMORPG players running around as the opposite sex.
"Hey, watch how I can make my character bounce!"
Coming from a background in comic books, this is easy to answer.
The typical male reader/viewer/player will identify with male characters and be interested in female characters. Superheroes -- and let's face it, that's basically what male game characters often are, even if they don't have tights and a cape -- are essentially power fantasies. What would I do with Superman's powers, or Batman's martial arts skills and gadgets. The typical guy looks at Superman or Duke Nuke'em and says, "I'd love to be that guy." Then he looks at Wonder Woman or Lara Croft and says "I'd love to do that girl."
In both case these are men's ideals, which is why men look at the idealized man and say "I could be that" instead of "I have to be that?!?" or "Oh, please!" as women often do when they look at the idealized woman. I have to wonder what games (or comics) would look like where the men and women were exaggerated to match women's ideals. Would we have the same reactions to their idealized men?
The first section, on the history of the feminine ideal in western film and TV, got me thinking about other cultures.
Really, what would these writers think of fertility idols? Talk about exaggerated body types and... er... attributes (both male and female).