I completely agree with you. I'm really sorry that you've had the negative experience with academia that would lead you to believe that most of us are "snotty-nosed twead-wearers":) People who are pretentious enough to believe that the "canon" is an absolute must for anybody who wants to merely think are just idiots.
The profs I had in university were absolutely fantastic. Sure, some of them had their own set of beliefs in regards to literature ("Henry James is God" comes to mind), but none of them would try to ram their beliefs down our throats.
"the irritating people I used to meet who, every time I said something witty, would ask "who said that?". As if it would be impossible for anyone to have an independent thought..."
Heh heh, I guess that's me:) For my sins and the sins of those who ask that question, I'm truly sorry:) I'm so used to reading great literature that I just assume that, when I hear an outstanding comment, it came from Rushdie or Joyce or whoever.
ANYWAY. I totally, totally agree with you -- the idea of a canon shouldn't be applied to video gaming. In a thousand years, when the Facilty of Electronic Gaming at my local univ decides to hire me as their "Theory and History of Gaming," then yes, maybe I'll have to come up with a list of influential games. But then again, I'll be a thousand years old, and pretty grumpy.
"Listen, the whole "literary canon" thing was created by a bunch of elitist, tweedy snobs in an attempt to legitimize their superiority. They claim that in order to be a "real" writer of literature, you have to have read a certain number of extremely boring books, and agreed with their snobby, boring interperetation of same. If you have ever suffered through a conversation with one of these people, you know that they basically sit around memorizing their professor's pet literary criticism instead of actually reading and enjoying the books themselves. And, most INTERESTING books are written by people who IGNORE the "canon". Outsiders, in other words, people who aren't involved with literary academia. I find the situation funny: the literary canon crowd write long, boring, self-congradulatory books that only other tweedy types read, while outsiders publish books that are interesting and relevant to the rest of us."
On the other hand, I can go through your speech and switch "tweedy types" to "intellectuals" and change "outsiders" to "Stephen King and his ilk."
Yes, writers like T.S. Eliot believed that, in order to write literature, you have to *know* literature. You'd be amazed to discover that other literary critics and writers disagree with him.
Also, the idea of a literary "canon" is just that, an idea. Everybody has their own concept of what should be included, but there's no complete list of books that every writer/professor needs to read in order to earn their tweed.
Finally, I would challenge you to find a novel of one truly outstanding "outsider" that hasn't been adapted into the Platonic "canon." People want to read good books. If it's good, whether it's traditional or experimental, people will read it. I agree with you in that it's preposterous to believe that video games, a genre that has existed for maybe thirty years, would have a "canon" equitable to the literary tradition which has taken place over the past four or five thousand years.
I was actually asked to install eDonkey on an RCMP officer's home computer the other day... I made some sort of wry comment about entrapment, and he told me that it's perfectly legal to download music for your own use -- it's the guys who sell pirated music who are in trouble in Canada. I now have a bulletproof alibi for music piracy.
Right now, I'm running Windows XP Pro. I've got a program that disables the bottom taskbar (the start menu still pops up if I hit the windows key), and I'm using the recently shut-down YzDock (this is not my blog) set to transparent. Yes, I know, Mac OS X, but it's cheaper to use this than buy a Mac.
Anyway. Why are they adding yet another desktop bar? It wastes space, it looks ugly, and it's difficult to remove. If they're going to add yet *another* taskbar to the OS, please allow it to be turned off!
"Other books at especially high risk include those that sell to the student (particularly college student) market as secondary reading. A student could easily grab the relevant chapter or two out of a book without paying for it."
Or, of course, a college student could go to their university's library, where (*GASP!*) the textbook is probably on reserve. Oh horror of horrors!
The difference is that Mandrake 9.2 is free, whereas Windows XP Pro is $450 CAD. Imagine paying all that cash for XP Pro and then having it toast your CD-ROM...
Y'know what would be nice? Using Mac OS X on PC hardware. Why aren't there emulators that do this? There was a rumour last year that Apple was working on a program that could do this, but here we are, a year later, and no beans. I'd rather pay for cheap hardware and use a nice OS than pay for expensive hardware and use Win XP. If Mac OS X *can* be emulated on PC, please respond!
Planescape: Torment. A story that has RPG elements:) It's a bit older, but you cannot go wrong with this game, and eventually you'll wind up comparing every single RPG to it -- it's that good.
No problem. Local resellers (read: idiot retailers like Chapters) will take your book and any story you want to throw at them ("I got this math textbook as a Christmas present, so I don't have the receipt") and will exchange it for you no hassle. I've done this with books I've bought from all over the freaking place.
I can now say this with impunity because Chapters recently changed their online discount for iRewards members from 10% to 5%. Amazon.ca, you've got me for life!
I feel really, really bad for all those chem and bio majors out there... one of your textbooks costs as much as my textbooks for an entire semester. Anyway. Abebooks.com is a collection of used book retailers across the world. I know that this won't help science majors (as major revisions for textbooks occur what, every three years?), but for us in the humanities, it saves a ton of money.
First of all, I'll thank you kindly to not tell me how to write.
"I realize that you're proud of the fact that you read a book but you don't need to bring it up at every moment." I'm sorry, but apparently I'm not the only one being rude here.
Anyway. I think we're talking at cross-roads here. You say that there aren't very many video games in which the player attacks Germans who kill Jews (or Poles, or Christians, or whatever). However, just because you don't actually see any of these ethnic/religious groups being killed in the game, it doesn't mean that these games don't depict men and women who *represent* such killers.
I guess I have a problem with the statement "low-level grunts who were poor Germans that were drafted into war as part of Hitler's plan" -- there are no such "poor Germans." Hitler rose to power out of sheer acclamation of the people, and as many historical sources point out, these same people were eventually fanatical about racial purity and the destruction of anyone not Aryan.
"...and if you are going to start indicting people for making uninformed decisions in a democracy, you're going to have a lot of people to go after." Nazi Germany may have started off as a democracy, but it definitely did not retain *any* elements of democracy after the Crystal Night when Hitler seized control of the country. The common people *knew* what was going on, knew that the huge factories billowing out smoke were killing "people" (though they might not have considered Jews, Poles and Christians, etc. "people"), but few (if any) did anything about it.
The number of video games in which Jews are actually depicted as being killed is probably zero. Such a video game would be immediately unacceptable, and would be most likely banned in the West.
However, if you consider WWII German characters in video games to be based upon their real life signifiers, then yes, those German front-line troops you're killing in BF1942 *are* "Jew-killers." This was the entire point of the book I mentioned -- people not only tacitly agreed with Hitler's policy of racial genocide, but the common man actively participated in such acts. Not only that, but they were *not* (as commonly assumed) punished for not participating in such pogroms, so there was no rationale to go along with such atrocities merely to protect one's self.
I'm not arguing for the sake of argument -- I think that your original statement was uninformed and showed a basic lack of historical understanding in regards to the era in question. Maybe you know a lot more than can be gleaned from your post, I have no idea, but generalisations really tick me off. Sorry if you got the brunt of that:)
Finally, as to why there are more games based around Hitler than Stalin or Mao, well, Hitler inspired a truly evil event in the twentieth century. Why Hitler is imprinted upon our cultural minds instead of Stalin (who killed twice, three times as many of his own citizens as Hitler killed *anybody*), however, I have no idea. Very few gamers are alive today that actively remember WWII. I think that, because WWII was a very common board game product in the 60's and 70's, it was the first genre to really catch on in regards to computer strategy games, and as such has maintained its foothold in computer gaming today.
"...Actually, if you read my post you would realize I was making reference to games where you are fighting on the front lines of the war (of which most games in the WWII vein fall)..."
What, are you kidding me? You're telling me that the majority of WWII games are FPSs where you're battling on the front line? I can count on one hand the number of games like BF1942 where you're only fighting against "soldiers." Are you completely missing the strategy genre? What about tactical games like Commandos 3 where you actually infiltrate a concentration camp?
I realise that you're proud of the fact that you've been playing BF1942 non-stop since it came out, but making a gross generalisation about a video game genre based on one video game alone doesn't make you an expert.
Actually, it *was* the low-level grunts (and non-combatants) that formed the majority of the "police squads" who herded up Jews and killed them. About 1m Jews were killed in this way. See Daniel Goldstein's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust."
I tried to like it. I really did. The graphics were okay (but that doesn't really bother me), but the guns were pretty lame and the level design was bad (i.e. the library -- what were they thinking)? I got to the Covenant ship after slogging through for 10 hours and said to myself, I can't do this anymore. UT2k3 against bots is more fun than Halo. I feel really, really sorry for XBox gamers that bought a system for this game (and who don't really know what aN FPS is!)
By your own admission, your argument doesn't work. If most people get their start on a warezed version of Photoshop, then they wouldn't need to activate the product. They would use it, and as time went on would become familiar with its interface. When they have a job or have the cash to buy the product, they'd be more likely to buy something they're familiar with and an activation code than another product without such a code.
I understand what you're saying. On the other hand, however, clients like you are not going to purchase a consumer-model laptop such as this one. This laptop is obviously geared towards college students and yuppies who would normally look at an iBook or Powerbook for their mobile computing needs. The low RAM amount and the low processor (i.e. more battery power) confirms it.
You even stated that you're not a typical laptop user, so I would say that your "counter-example" is irrelevant.
..."I'd say that keeps WAY more people alive than 50,000..."
You forget: in the US, if people don't have a job, they have welfare, clean water, and a place to live. In the Congo, if people don't have a job, they die.
And did I comment on whether it was a good thing or not? I just pointed out the facts; no need to get all defensive on me, coward.
Terminator 3 cost $180 million to produce. I figured out that, through World Vision, this is enough money to feed 50,000 kids (and build infrastructure, including clean water and education) for 10 years.
I love anime. I've tried watching English-dubbed anime, and in my opinion it just doesn't work. One of the aspects that makes it anime is the JAPANESE, not Billy Bob Thornton speaking the lines of a Buddhist monk!
So, it's kinda annoying to me when I hafta wait ages for them to re-record English voices over awesome Japanese dialogue (Princess Mononoke, Ghost in the Shell, and Grave of the Fireflies, for example) when they could slap it on a Region 1 DVD and I could have it at the same time as everybody in the Far East. But I'm not bitter.
I was leafing through a Stuff Games magazine (mostly because of the hot chick on the cover... I didn't know there was such a thing), and EVERY single spread (two pages), I kid you not, there was an advert for the N-Gage. Every blasted page. This included the cover and the back of the mag. I couldn't find a single advertisement *not* from Nokia. I was astounded.
In _Gattaca_, Ethan Hawke's character specifically mentioned that it was explicitly illegal to discriminate against those with a lesser genetic code. However, if a potential employer asked for a urine sample for a routine drug test, that wouldn't stop them from testing your DNA. The US still might be heading towards a Gattaca society; indeed, the first legal component is now in place.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, since we're talking about ideal situations, how about "Better nobody has these weapons than everybody having them."
The profs I had in university were absolutely fantastic. Sure, some of them had their own set of beliefs in regards to literature ("Henry James is God" comes to mind), but none of them would try to ram their beliefs down our throats.
"the irritating people I used to meet who, every time I said something witty, would ask "who said that?". As if it would be impossible for anyone to have an independent thought..."
Heh heh, I guess that's me :) For my sins and the sins of those who ask that question, I'm truly sorry :) I'm so used to reading great literature that I just assume that, when I hear an outstanding comment, it came from Rushdie or Joyce or whoever.
ANYWAY. I totally, totally agree with you -- the idea of a canon shouldn't be applied to video gaming. In a thousand years, when the Facilty of Electronic Gaming at my local univ decides to hire me as their "Theory and History of Gaming," then yes, maybe I'll have to come up with a list of influential games. But then again, I'll be a thousand years old, and pretty grumpy.
On the other hand, I can go through your speech and switch "tweedy types" to "intellectuals" and change "outsiders" to "Stephen King and his ilk."
Yes, writers like T.S. Eliot believed that, in order to write literature, you have to *know* literature. You'd be amazed to discover that other literary critics and writers disagree with him.
Also, the idea of a literary "canon" is just that, an idea. Everybody has their own concept of what should be included, but there's no complete list of books that every writer/professor needs to read in order to earn their tweed.
Finally, I would challenge you to find a novel of one truly outstanding "outsider" that hasn't been adapted into the Platonic "canon." People want to read good books. If it's good, whether it's traditional or experimental, people will read it. I agree with you in that it's preposterous to believe that video games, a genre that has existed for maybe thirty years, would have a "canon" equitable to the literary tradition which has taken place over the past four or five thousand years.
I was actually asked to install eDonkey on an RCMP officer's home computer the other day... I made some sort of wry comment about entrapment, and he told me that it's perfectly legal to download music for your own use -- it's the guys who sell pirated music who are in trouble in Canada. I now have a bulletproof alibi for music piracy.
Anyway. Why are they adding yet another desktop bar? It wastes space, it looks ugly, and it's difficult to remove. If they're going to add yet *another* taskbar to the OS, please allow it to be turned off!
Or, of course, a college student could go to their university's library, where (*GASP!*) the textbook is probably on reserve. Oh horror of horrors!
The difference is that Mandrake 9.2 is free, whereas Windows XP Pro is $450 CAD. Imagine paying all that cash for XP Pro and then having it toast your CD-ROM...
Y'know what would be nice? Using Mac OS X on PC hardware. Why aren't there emulators that do this? There was a rumour last year that Apple was working on a program that could do this, but here we are, a year later, and no beans. I'd rather pay for cheap hardware and use a nice OS than pay for expensive hardware and use Win XP. If Mac OS X *can* be emulated on PC, please respond!
Planescape: Torment. A story that has RPG elements :) It's a bit older, but you cannot go wrong with this game, and eventually you'll wind up comparing every single RPG to it -- it's that good.
I can now say this with impunity because Chapters recently changed their online discount for iRewards members from 10% to 5%. Amazon.ca, you've got me for life!
I feel really, really bad for all those chem and bio majors out there... one of your textbooks costs as much as my textbooks for an entire semester. Anyway. Abebooks.com is a collection of used book retailers across the world. I know that this won't help science majors (as major revisions for textbooks occur what, every three years?), but for us in the humanities, it saves a ton of money.
"I realize that you're proud of the fact that you read a book but you don't need to bring it up at every moment." I'm sorry, but apparently I'm not the only one being rude here.
Anyway. I think we're talking at cross-roads here. You say that there aren't very many video games in which the player attacks Germans who kill Jews (or Poles, or Christians, or whatever). However, just because you don't actually see any of these ethnic/religious groups being killed in the game, it doesn't mean that these games don't depict men and women who *represent* such killers.
I guess I have a problem with the statement "low-level grunts who were poor Germans that were drafted into war as part of Hitler's plan" -- there are no such "poor Germans." Hitler rose to power out of sheer acclamation of the people, and as many historical sources point out, these same people were eventually fanatical about racial purity and the destruction of anyone not Aryan.
"...and if you are going to start indicting people for making uninformed decisions in a democracy, you're going to have a lot of people to go after." Nazi Germany may have started off as a democracy, but it definitely did not retain *any* elements of democracy after the Crystal Night when Hitler seized control of the country. The common people *knew* what was going on, knew that the huge factories billowing out smoke were killing "people" (though they might not have considered Jews, Poles and Christians, etc. "people"), but few (if any) did anything about it.
The number of video games in which Jews are actually depicted as being killed is probably zero. Such a video game would be immediately unacceptable, and would be most likely banned in the West.
However, if you consider WWII German characters in video games to be based upon their real life signifiers, then yes, those German front-line troops you're killing in BF1942 *are* "Jew-killers." This was the entire point of the book I mentioned -- people not only tacitly agreed with Hitler's policy of racial genocide, but the common man actively participated in such acts. Not only that, but they were *not* (as commonly assumed) punished for not participating in such pogroms, so there was no rationale to go along with such atrocities merely to protect one's self.
I'm not arguing for the sake of argument -- I think that your original statement was uninformed and showed a basic lack of historical understanding in regards to the era in question. Maybe you know a lot more than can be gleaned from your post, I have no idea, but generalisations really tick me off. Sorry if you got the brunt of that :)
Finally, as to why there are more games based around Hitler than Stalin or Mao, well, Hitler inspired a truly evil event in the twentieth century. Why Hitler is imprinted upon our cultural minds instead of Stalin (who killed twice, three times as many of his own citizens as Hitler killed *anybody*), however, I have no idea. Very few gamers are alive today that actively remember WWII. I think that, because WWII was a very common board game product in the 60's and 70's, it was the first genre to really catch on in regards to computer strategy games, and as such has maintained its foothold in computer gaming today.
What, are you kidding me? You're telling me that the majority of WWII games are FPSs where you're battling on the front line? I can count on one hand the number of games like BF1942 where you're only fighting against "soldiers." Are you completely missing the strategy genre? What about tactical games like Commandos 3 where you actually infiltrate a concentration camp?
I realise that you're proud of the fact that you've been playing BF1942 non-stop since it came out, but making a gross generalisation about a video game genre based on one video game alone doesn't make you an expert.
Actually, it *was* the low-level grunts (and non-combatants) that formed the majority of the "police squads" who herded up Jews and killed them. About 1m Jews were killed in this way. See Daniel Goldstein's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust."
I tried to like it. I really did. The graphics were okay (but that doesn't really bother me), but the guns were pretty lame and the level design was bad (i.e. the library -- what were they thinking)? I got to the Covenant ship after slogging through for 10 hours and said to myself, I can't do this anymore. UT2k3 against bots is more fun than Halo. I feel really, really sorry for XBox gamers that bought a system for this game (and who don't really know what aN FPS is!)
By your own admission, your argument doesn't work. If most people get their start on a warezed version of Photoshop, then they wouldn't need to activate the product. They would use it, and as time went on would become familiar with its interface. When they have a job or have the cash to buy the product, they'd be more likely to buy something they're familiar with and an activation code than another product without such a code.
You even stated that you're not a typical laptop user, so I would say that your "counter-example" is irrelevant.
Um, yeah, this coming from the company that's offering exactly *how* many music downloads?
No kidding. I'm moving my assets elsewhere. I can't BELIEVE that they'd do this!
You forget: in the US, if people don't have a job, they have welfare, clean water, and a place to live. In the Congo, if people don't have a job, they die.
And did I comment on whether it was a good thing or not? I just pointed out the facts; no need to get all defensive on me, coward.
Terminator 3 cost $180 million to produce. I figured out that, through World Vision, this is enough money to feed 50,000 kids (and build infrastructure, including clean water and education) for 10 years.
So, it's kinda annoying to me when I hafta wait ages for them to re-record English voices over awesome Japanese dialogue (Princess Mononoke, Ghost in the Shell, and Grave of the Fireflies, for example) when they could slap it on a Region 1 DVD and I could have it at the same time as everybody in the Far East. But I'm not bitter.
Ya, ya, I know, I need to get out more. In the aboveworld, so they tell me, hot chicks hang out on every street corner...
I was leafing through a Stuff Games magazine (mostly because of the hot chick on the cover... I didn't know there was such a thing), and EVERY single spread (two pages), I kid you not, there was an advert for the N-Gage. Every blasted page. This included the cover and the back of the mag. I couldn't find a single advertisement *not* from Nokia. I was astounded.
In _Gattaca_, Ethan Hawke's character specifically mentioned that it was explicitly illegal to discriminate against those with a lesser genetic code. However, if a potential employer asked for a urine sample for a routine drug test, that wouldn't stop them from testing your DNA. The US still might be heading towards a Gattaca society; indeed, the first legal component is now in place.