Interesting thing to note is that in the modern US, Jews are FAR over-represented in pornography-related industries. More of the male performers, you know, the same six guys that are in every movie, are jewish, as are a surprising fraction of the women.
I know that's true in the rest of the entertainment industry as well, but I think it's very interesting to note that yes, the tradition of working in necessary but unsavory professions has in fact continued.
I loved Syndicate and Populous. I thought I was going to get something fantastic. I did. It was a fantastic piece of shit.
I found showstopping bug after showstopping bug. Complaints in the official forum were being deleted rather than addressed. I literally spent 24 hours trying to get the game to run for more than five minutes at a time, and once it finally did, I found a different bug that prevented me from completing the first scenario.
Add to that the sheer amount of repetitive handholding involved in play (feeding your people, training your beastie), and the obnoxious gesture system, and you have something I wouldn't play even if I was given a salary to do it.
I ultimately wrote to EA and asked for my money back. Wanna know the good part? They gave it to me.
Moz is the browser that is most compliant with actual web standards. Probably some dumbass webmonkey didn't bother to check his page in anything but IE6 for Windows, and therefore didn't realize the problem.
OTOH, it looked fine to me, and I'm using Moz 1.4 with most of the image and javascipt-blocking options turned on.
So I'm guessing you're one of those twisted rightists I referred to in my initial post in this thread?
I *believe* I've read everything Weber has written. He's generally struck me as just right of center, and not given to political commentary in his prose (unlike say, Heinlein or Card).
I think perhaps you're reading something into this, but I'll go back and skim the relevant chapters again, too.
Last time I checked California and the rest of the US were highly productive economies with relatively few people on Welfare. I've read the series through several times now and I think the high-mindedness of the original Haven constitution is very much in line with the goals of the original French revolution.
Haven strikes me as 18th-Century French equivalent, even down to the various names in commmon use. Obviously there are also parallels to Soviet Russia (insert your own joke here) but a little googling about Robespierre (Rob Pierre, anyone?) will clear up any confusion about Weber's template.
I guess if you had a really twisted rightist worldview, you could make some kind of claim that billions of people on welfare = the future of the US, but then there are things like political orthodoxy officers and regular regime changes by coup that are not generally associated with the US.
The Sollies seem to be more like the UN than anything else. There are haves and have-nots and the Sollies can't seem to get anything accomplished because no group within it has the political capital to pass laws or whatever.
At least, that's what I got from things.
From a historical standpoint, there might also be something to a Manties = UK, Haven = France, Sollies = Spain (predominant naval power of the day, had a huge empire in the new world), Andies = Prussia.
I thought the Dahak books had a couple more stories, at least.
Yes, I am off-topic. I'm modding myself down. You don't have to.
I got this promotional newspaper for "Underworld" when I went to see League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that basically had a lot of backstory in it. Reading it, and being somewhat familiar with White Wolf games, I thought it was based on their product, too. "Oh, they're making up for that awful TV show."
If I and the parent poster can make that mistake, White Wolf's suit probably does have some merit.
OTOH, perhaps the best WW can do is use their current position to cross-promote their games, rather than tie up in litigation what is probably a movie that most WW fans would want to see.
Re:How old are vampires and Shakespeare again? ;p
on
White Wolf Sues Sony
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· Score: 1
Werewolf-like myths go back at least to the roman poet Virgil, who described a man who took herbs that turned him into a wolf at night.
The implication of the parent post is that Geeks like the Cartoon network, which would itself imply that the majority of geeks have ascribed a postive value to the programming presented by the Cartoon Network.
I simply cannot believe that this is the case, given what I know about the Cartoon Network's programming.
I'm not really a TV person or anything - I don't even have TV reception, which very possibily disqualifies from making any statements in this discussion at all, but as I understand things, Cartoon Network mostly shows 1. Dumb Hannah-Barbera cartoons from the 60s & 70s, which is to say, crap. 2. Recent cartoons of its own devising that have similar writing and production values to #1 (I sat through the Powerpuff Girls movie. That's 80 minutes of my life I'll never get back) and 3. Dubbed Anime (I sat through Akira and the Cowboy Bebop in the theater. See previous parenthetical comment for my thoughts on those).
Since I don't see the appeal of anime (unless you mean "Huge-eyed Schoolgirls meet the Evil Nazi Rape Machine" and you're REALLY hard up for actual porn, in which case, I guess you're forgiven), I really have to wonder what the appeal of Cartoon Network is. Anime doesn't seem to be better-written than Western stuff. It LOOKS better, fine, but if that's the whole appeal surely there are better ways to find something interesting to look at.
Where does it say that "Anime" == "Good TV" or "Anime" == "Thing Geeks Like"?
I'm 45 minutes away from downtown Chicago and have no broadband options whatsoever.
And my apartment's phone lines run through a crappy old mux, so I can't even manage V.34 connections. The FCC in the US mandates minimum data rates of 9600bps for data commnuication by telephone line, by the way. I've used lines that can't handle 9600bps. They're essentially unusable for voice communication (think really bad cell signal), too, so that mandate might as well be meaningless.
I suspect that most of those in the article who are in the 3% still using 14.4kbps are stuck not because of their modem, but because of poor line conditions.
I'd give it high marks for having some unusual puzzles, genuinely good writing, and an extremely well-realized "alien" world. I *loved* having a reconfigurable Modron in my party (with different stats that depended on the outcomes of your conversations), finding the living alley and the burning sorceror. I loved discussing enlightenment with the Githzerai character, visiting the Abyss and basically finding a D&D world that didn't owe its whole existance to Tolkein.
The Setting for Planescape is a melange of different Mythologies and half-formed settings because it's [i]supposed[/i] to be. The D&D cosmology places Concordant Opposition (the setting for PS:T) as the crossroads of existance. One reality runs headlong into another. This is not an easy thing to visualize, but it was handled exceptionally well in the game.
I generally liked the "Gold Box" games, which were mostly fairly minimal in terms of plot. I thought the first "Baldur's Gate" wasn't all that good, but the series really hit a high point with Planescape and Baldur's Gate 2.
... or don't subscribe in the first place, since the vast majority of folks in the US have some kind of for-pay TV service. I can go along with that.
But, um, how do I switch the channel on Everquest? Where do I find the game that doesn't have proselytizing xtians?
Cable and radio both have outlets for entirely-religious programming in largely secular media. So far as I know there's no such thing as a secular MMORPG, and here there's evidence that at least some people want to de-secularize these games as well.
I'm pretty sure the comic you're referring to was one of the early issues of "Team America", a book about motorcycle racers who could form a gestalt being called "The Marauder".
IIRC the kidnapped kids were basically locked inside the arcade games. I was maybe 7 years old when I read that. It scared the hell out of me.
That's what I was asking in the first place: What recourse would a player have? I'm not an MMORPG player or even a MUDer. I've seen Everquest. That's about as close as I've gotten.
If that is tolerated behavior, I can't imagine wanting to spend time or money in such an environment.
I've been hit on by members of my own sex. I've been told I need to become a mormon, a pentecostal, a baptist, one of those watchtower-carrying bastards and a catholic.
In my experience, there's a similar level of distaste.
Actually, I take that back. The first time a guy tried to hit on me, I was kinda flattered, which is something I've yet to experience with those who feel compelled to give witness.
For me, since I work for a very small company, the only time I've said anything was the winter holiday season, when I specifically asked my coworkers to quit wishing me a merry xmas.
I try to avoid retail spaces after early November. The assumption of xtian holidays annoys me.
I have other perfectly valid reasons to miss out on a lot of life. In fact, life is basically one long thing that I miss.
Seriously, though. How can this be tolerated behavior?
If someone walks up to me on a street that we each have an equal right to use, that's one thing. If I'm paying for the right to be there, doesn't that also (er, at least in the case of most reasonable services) give me some recourse when something as off-putting as THAT happens?
For readers who can't empathize, I guess a decent analogy, since a lot of/.-ers were at least raised xtian and are at least nominally heterosexual males, would be a situation where you were paying for an MMORPG and every time you got online some scary gay guy wouldn't give up hitting on you (yes, like the oldmanmurray article). That's what being an atheist around rabid xtians is like.
OK, so I'm a mildly tolerant atheist (actually, I'm not. Tolerant, particularly, but we'll pretend), or maybe just not a christian, and hypothetically, I'm paying to be involved in an MMORPG.
Some jerk starts following me around blathering about his god and how I'm not going to his heaven and basically talking about his personal relationship with Jebus.
At what point do I have recourse in this? I'm going about my business, and PAYING to do so, and I don't want to hear it.
Can I complain to the operators of the service? Can I smite the moron for annoying me? Or is my only option to log off or leave because some dumbass is ruining my time online?
"My actions" were the fault of other people. Every single time I've gotten a taste of 110 it's because some idiot flipped the switch for the light whose bulb I was trying to change. My ex- did it to me probably four times in two years.
220 is another story. I was working in a garage and was leaning against the back of a poorly insulated table saw-thingy. I got a nice jolt through my legs for my trouble.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting thing to note is that in the modern US, Jews are FAR over-represented in pornography-related industries. More of the male performers, you know, the same six guys that are in every movie, are jewish, as are a surprising fraction of the women.
I know that's true in the rest of the entertainment industry as well, but I think it's very interesting to note that yes, the tradition of working in necessary but unsavory professions has in fact continued.
I loved Syndicate and Populous. I thought I was going to get something fantastic. I did. It was a fantastic piece of shit.
I found showstopping bug after showstopping bug. Complaints in the official forum were being deleted rather than addressed. I literally spent 24 hours trying to get the game to run for more than five minutes at a time, and once it finally did, I found a different bug that prevented me from completing the first scenario.
Add to that the sheer amount of repetitive handholding involved in play (feeding your people, training your beastie), and the obnoxious gesture system, and you have something I wouldn't play even if I was given a salary to do it.
I ultimately wrote to EA and asked for my money back. Wanna know the good part? They gave it to me.
Thanks a lot. Now I have to clean the Pepsi I just sprayed out my nose off of my monitor.
Moz is the browser that is most compliant with actual web standards.
Probably some dumbass webmonkey didn't bother to check his page in anything but IE6 for Windows, and therefore didn't realize the problem.
OTOH, it looked fine to me, and I'm using Moz 1.4 with most of the image and javascipt-blocking options turned on.
So I'm guessing you're one of those twisted rightists I referred to in my initial post in this thread?
I *believe* I've read everything Weber has written. He's generally struck me as just right of center, and not given to political commentary in his prose (unlike say, Heinlein or Card).
I think perhaps you're reading something into this, but I'll go back and skim the relevant chapters again, too.
Last time I checked California and the rest of the US were highly productive economies with relatively few people on Welfare. I've read the series through several times now and I think the high-mindedness of the original Haven constitution is very much in line with the goals of the original French revolution.
Haven strikes me as 18th-Century French equivalent, even down to the various names in commmon use. Obviously there are also parallels to Soviet Russia (insert your own joke here) but a little googling about Robespierre (Rob Pierre, anyone?) will clear up any confusion about Weber's template.
I guess if you had a really twisted rightist worldview, you could make some kind of claim that billions of people on welfare = the future of the US, but then there are things like political orthodoxy officers and regular regime changes by coup that are not generally associated with the US.
The Sollies seem to be more like the UN than anything else. There are haves and have-nots and the Sollies can't seem to get anything accomplished because no group within it has the political capital to pass laws or whatever.
At least, that's what I got from things.
From a historical standpoint, there might also be something to a Manties = UK, Haven = France, Sollies = Spain (predominant naval power of the day, had a huge empire in the new world), Andies = Prussia.
I thought the Dahak books had a couple more stories, at least.
Yes, I am off-topic. I'm modding myself down. You don't have to.
I got this promotional newspaper for "Underworld" when I went to see League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that basically had a lot of backstory in it. Reading it, and being somewhat familiar with White Wolf games, I thought it was based on their product, too. "Oh, they're making up for that awful TV show."
If I and the parent poster can make that mistake, White Wolf's suit probably does have some merit.
OTOH, perhaps the best WW can do is use their current position to cross-promote their games, rather than tie up in litigation what is probably a movie that most WW fans would want to see.
Werewolf-like myths go back at least to the roman poet Virgil, who described a man who took herbs that turned him into a wolf at night.
The implication of the parent post is that Geeks like the Cartoon network, which would itself imply that the majority of geeks have ascribed a postive value to the programming presented by the Cartoon Network.
I simply cannot believe that this is the case, given what I know about the Cartoon Network's programming.
I'm not a Grisham fan, either.
In reply to your first sentence...
I'm not really a TV person or anything - I don't even have TV reception, which very possibily disqualifies from making any statements in this discussion at all, but as I understand things, Cartoon Network mostly shows 1. Dumb Hannah-Barbera cartoons from the 60s & 70s, which is to say, crap. 2. Recent cartoons of its own devising that have similar writing and production values to #1 (I sat through the Powerpuff Girls movie. That's 80 minutes of my life I'll never get back) and 3. Dubbed Anime (I sat through Akira and the Cowboy Bebop in the theater. See previous parenthetical comment for my thoughts on those).
Since I don't see the appeal of anime (unless you mean "Huge-eyed Schoolgirls meet the Evil Nazi Rape Machine" and you're REALLY hard up for actual porn, in which case, I guess you're forgiven), I really have to wonder what the appeal of Cartoon Network is. Anime doesn't seem to be better-written than Western stuff. It LOOKS better, fine, but if that's the whole appeal surely there are better ways to find something interesting to look at.
Where does it say that "Anime" == "Good TV" or "Anime" == "Thing Geeks Like"?
I'm 45 minutes away from downtown Chicago and have no broadband options whatsoever.
And my apartment's phone lines run through a crappy old mux, so I can't even manage V.34 connections. The FCC in the US mandates minimum data rates of 9600bps for data commnuication by telephone line, by the way. I've used lines that can't handle 9600bps. They're essentially unusable for voice communication (think really bad cell signal), too, so that mandate might as well be meaningless.
I suspect that most of those in the article who are in the 3% still using 14.4kbps are stuck not because of their modem, but because of poor line conditions.
I'd give it high marks for having some unusual puzzles, genuinely good writing, and an extremely well-realized "alien" world. I *loved* having a reconfigurable Modron in my party (with different stats that depended on the outcomes of your conversations), finding the living alley and the burning sorceror. I loved discussing enlightenment with the Githzerai character, visiting the Abyss and basically finding a D&D world that didn't owe its whole existance to Tolkein.
The Setting for Planescape is a melange of different Mythologies and half-formed settings because it's [i]supposed[/i] to be. The D&D cosmology places Concordant Opposition (the setting for PS:T) as the crossroads of existance. One reality runs headlong into another. This is not an easy thing to visualize, but it was handled exceptionally well in the game.
I generally liked the "Gold Box" games, which were mostly fairly minimal in terms of plot. I thought the first "Baldur's Gate" wasn't all that good, but the series really hit a high point with Planescape and Baldur's Gate 2.
... or don't subscribe in the first place, since the vast majority of folks in the US have some kind of for-pay TV service. I can go along with that.
But, um, how do I switch the channel on Everquest? Where do I find the game that doesn't have proselytizing xtians?
Cable and radio both have outlets for entirely-religious programming in largely secular media. So far as I know there's no such thing as a secular MMORPG, and here there's evidence that at least some people want to de-secularize these games as well.
I'm pretty sure the comic you're referring to was one of the early issues of "Team America", a book about motorcycle racers who could form a gestalt being called "The Marauder".
IIRC the kidnapped kids were basically locked inside the arcade games. I was maybe 7 years old when I read that. It scared the hell out of me.
I've never been to one. I wouldn't know.
That's what I was asking in the first place: What recourse would a player have? I'm not an MMORPG player or even a MUDer. I've seen Everquest. That's about as close as I've gotten.
If that is tolerated behavior, I can't imagine wanting to spend time or money in such an environment.
I've been hit on by members of my own sex. I've been told I need to become a mormon, a pentecostal, a baptist, one of those watchtower-carrying bastards and a catholic.
In my experience, there's a similar level of distaste.
Actually, I take that back. The first time a guy tried to hit on me, I was kinda flattered, which is something I've yet to experience with those who feel compelled to give witness.
For me, since I work for a very small company, the only time I've said anything was the winter holiday season, when I specifically asked my coworkers to quit wishing me a merry xmas.
I try to avoid retail spaces after early November. The assumption of xtian holidays annoys me.
I have other perfectly valid reasons to miss out on a lot of life. In fact, life is basically one long thing that I miss.
/.-ers were at least raised xtian and are at least nominally heterosexual males, would be a situation where you were paying for an MMORPG and every time you got online some scary gay guy wouldn't give up hitting on you (yes, like the oldmanmurray article). That's what being an atheist around rabid xtians is like.
Seriously, though. How can this be tolerated behavior?
If someone walks up to me on a street that we each have an equal right to use, that's one thing. If I'm paying for the right to be there, doesn't that also (er, at least in the case of most reasonable services) give me some recourse when something as off-putting as THAT happens?
For readers who can't empathize, I guess a decent analogy, since a lot of
OK, so I'm a mildly tolerant atheist (actually, I'm not. Tolerant, particularly, but we'll pretend), or maybe just not a christian, and hypothetically, I'm paying to be involved in an MMORPG.
Some jerk starts following me around blathering about his god and how I'm not going to his heaven and basically talking about his personal relationship with Jebus.
At what point do I have recourse in this? I'm going about my business, and PAYING to do so, and I don't want to hear it.
Can I complain to the operators of the service? Can I smite the moron for annoying me? Or is my only option to log off or leave because some dumbass is ruining my time online?
Yeah, and that comment about Michael's penis (it's there, trust me) was probably a little out of line, too.
"My actions" were the fault of other people. Every single time I've gotten a taste of 110 it's because some idiot flipped the switch for the light whose bulb I was trying to change. My ex- did it to me probably four times in two years.
220 is another story. I was working in a garage and was leaning against the back of a poorly insulated table saw-thingy. I got a nice jolt through my legs for my trouble.
Which part of "You've got to be respectful of it..." did you miss?
I've felt both a time or two (accidentally). 110 is really more of a tickle and certainly won't kill you.
You've got to be respectful of it but with 110 I didn't even realize I was being shocked until well after the fact.