Yeah they made a movie about creepy guys like that, it's called Old School, and it was hilarious. This may not be Hollywood, but people over the age of 30 are allowed to have a sense of humor I hope. Especially if they work in the Tech industry, then it almost seems like it comes with the territory.
(In case anyone thinks that statement is personal, I'm 24.)
Agreed. You can't comply with something that is an absolute impossibility. You could order someone to walk off a cliff without falling, but even if they're willing to do it, they can only follow your orders up to the point that they're off the cliff, then they will fall no matter what you said and how you said it. Likewise, if people in Brazil are being Taxed to this extent, they can only comply with those taxes that they can afford to comply with and still maintain the means to live. As for the rest... Well that's falling off the cliff, isn't it.
Now I'm certain that's why the adults are smart enough not to wear those glasses, or the contact variants. Deception is as strong a weapon as any, and there's no reason why independent malicious coders couldn't work this to that same advantage. Regardless I'd hate to be dependent on technology like that to the point that I was confused or lost without it. Sure I don't have the skills to survive without most of todays technologies, like most everyone else, but I'd hate to not even know my own neighborhood by my own eyes alone.
Re:Why does the media still call tech folks nerds
on
The Fall Geek TV Lineup
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"t used to be that 'geek' meant 'reject', now it means 'smart, technically inclined person who is likely to be rich and/or interesting'."
No, it used to mean that you bit the heads off of chickens at the carnival for a living. I don't care if you don't believe me, but that is the true origin of the word. As for what it means now, it essentially amounts to "You've been given a 'negative' societal label based on assumed differences between you and 'the average'." Thanks, I'll take that difference with pleasure. You don't even WANT to know the statistical averages for education, wages, IQ, etc. in this country. I'll take being ostracized along with fellow 'geeks' over that alternative any day of the week.
So sure, they can sit in front of their tv sets and laugh all they want. We'll even be laughing with the poor bastards. The only difference happens to be the most important one of them all; they laugh in terrible ignorance, we laugh in wondrous comprehension.
Ahh once again Meriam-Webster & Wikipedia come through for me, look at those last two definitions for Geek; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek. Just proves what I already figured. They may have created the stereotype, but in the end, we decide the definition. Praise to the 'Geeks' who wrote the Webster definitions and the Wikipedia article.
I just wonder if it ever gets disorienting having walls and other 'physical' objects that aren't really there. What if someone places a digital extension to some construction scaffolding for a skyscraper. I hope those construction workers can't afford the glasses, otherwise work related deaths could skyrocket for them because of one goofy kid's idea of a prank. While the show presented itself as sweet and fun, and I loved it for that, my mind began to churn up scenarios of mortal peril at an exponential rate. Fake an extension to a cliff side? Create a false texture making people think a highway or road is empty so that they try to cross? False textures for stoplights? This is probably why none of the functioning adults in that show wear those glasses.
Samantha Carter isn't a geek, she's attractive. Having good looks and being given an insulting label are diametrically opposed. Real female geeks must, by unwritten real world law, be just as stereotypically unattractive as their male counterparts, having a fictional Ph. D doesn't change that. Otherwise they forfeit any attempts at the title. It's the least we can do, since while male nerds just receive minimal abuse, female nerds are generally treated like they don't exist by the public at large.
I'll take the coming "googlopoly" over the current mind-fuck our ISP's have put us in any day. Instead of looking at it like that, let's pray they'll set up a full infrastructure and offer service in our areas.
Yeah but who'd want to be a shill for Nintendo? That'd be lame. If I'm going to be a shill I want to be as unethical as possible, because if I sell my soul it's going to be to the Devil, not to Bob Next Door, who happens to be of the "harmless kooky inventor/innovator" variety. E.G. Picking the greatest evil of the three demands rationally, that I choose SONY. So I can force people into A.) proprietary HD formats they don't want, B.) more money funneled towards digital rights management efforts and C.) idea theft and misuse from actual innovators. Yeah yeah, I know what arguments abound regarding the SONY 'acquisition' of motion detection in their controllers etc. But that's not the point here, it's the combination of all three under one company. The other two don't have what it takes, even if Microsoft runs a close second for reasons all the Linux users can list for you, so they lose. Don't get me wrong, I haven't chosen a side, I've just declared the obvious.
Or does that make me a shill? o_0
Nothing is black and white in the corporate world, but at least sell out to the darkest shade of grey.
[...]that this allows for small artists to know where they need to go to find out if anyone has been playing their music and to get paid for it. how well this part works i have no idea[...]
Not very well to be honest. From what we have previously seen, I believe this is used as more of an excuse to charge for someone else's music whom they have no rights to, and then force those small artists to come begging to them for money that (A.) they (the small artist) had never intended to charge (with regards to their music, having intended it to be free in the first place) and (B.) should have gone immediately to the small artist in the first place, instead of some kind of anonymous group of thugs using strong arm tactics to charge for protection money.
Not only does this serve the motives of it's parent organization, it's proof that this entire conflict has escalated beyond simply music. Wrote a suddenly popular independent song and distributed it freely recently? SoundExchange is going to bill them anyways, regardless about your intentions or how you feel. They may not even tell you they did it.
It seems that wherever I go, discussion on President Bush consists of one thing and one thing alone. And just by seeing it, I recognize the vast inequity between the problem represented by our current Administration and the ability of the population to understand the seriousness of that problem. What is that thing? Name calling. That's right, something as simple as people going around saying "Bush is a Nazi." is all I need to hear (noting that it is unbelievably frequent) to know that our population on the whole is woefully ignorant. The saddest thing here is this, They don't even know why they "hate" him. When I hear baseless name calling, it blatantly screams out that the person doing the name calling doesn't have any clue as to what wrongs have been committed or even what makes them wrong or they mix up what came from where. Issues like Abu Ghraib or other handiwork of Vice President Cheney is attributed to President Bush, or failings of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is attributed to President Bush with no note of Gonzales himself. To be fair, it's all the same administration, so at least knowing the list of offenses would be good enough for me, but faithfully as ever many of my fellows around here just don't seem to know even that.
So what in the blue hell does that have to do with this topic? Simple. Even if they support the same position I do, even if I'm the same age as them, I don't see them as educated enough to vote. That's right. We'd both vote the same, thus in essence they would be supporting my cause of choice. But their reason is flawed. They are voting for "Not Bush", because he's "Not Cool". That's just not going to cut it. I'm willing to lose my own right to vote, if it keeps them from voting too. Sounds spiteful and caustic of me, sure, but there's just a minuscule chance that they'd actually read the bloody issues for once. And that would make it all worth it to me.
As "try_anything" said so succinctly;
"It's this kind of confident fakery that causes many intelligent people to feel apathetic and inadequate when it comes to voting. Those people should vote. If there's anyone whose votes are needed, it's the people who doubt their own worthiness to vote."
If you doubt the value of your vote due to whether you are informed enough on an issue, then put that goddamn graduation cap on, cause you just graduated into a Voter of the highest ordinance. Anyone who A. feels they should be informed to vote, B. is never sure that they are informed enough and C. believes that voting is so important that they should be MORE educated in order to do it, is a 1 in a MILLION kind of person. And exactly the kind of person we need.
Jesus Christ, don't tell me he was a guy in the JET program... Because that would make the entire system look bad, and I may not get to read my beloved OUTPOST NINE entries by Azrael.
An understandable question, and one that must preclude a particularly long winding spiel about what exactly is wrong with Second Life specifically from a Gaming perspective (note: the first parent comment is not necessarily from this perspective). Comparing Second Life to any other MMO or even any game (which Second Life is not), is simply comparing Apples to Oranges. Despite this most Gamers cannot stop looking at Second Life as if it were a game, however their MMO woes bear no resemblance to Second Life's. Generally speaking, Second Life is all Greek to them.
So when someone says "And this folks, is why I don't play Second Life." the emphasis is on the term play, because it reminds us that the person voicing the complaint is making the assumption that Second Life is a game and expects to play it with some hope of a goal. Granted no MMO really ends, however all MMOG's have a simulation of Task & Accomplishment.
So what do you get when you combine the internet population with a virtual sandbox and remove any simulated Task & Accomplishment?
Second Life.
Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, is purely a matter of personal opinion. But just reading that statement, the first two parts sounded like a frying pan, and the second was definitely us jumping into the fire. Take it or leave it.
Meme's aside, rather than welcoming the usual overlords, I'm just going to say that I welcome the opportunity to add Tyrannosaur meat to my next barbecue. Let's start cloning these things soon, guys. Dinner's waiting.
For all we know, this whole debacle has only made Take Two Interactive even MORE profitable due to notoriety.
Hah, who knows, maybe the jury could buy the game and play it before they pass judgement. Wishful thinking, I know. But I'd do it. I'd bring a small tv a ps2 some controllers and play it right in front of them. While we are coming to the decision on the case. Then after the suit's miserable failure, some of the jurors themselves will probably make a few very sudden very unrelated purchases.
The only thing detrimental about all this is the Adults Only rating that was forced onto the title. While the popularity of the game has taken off, it's accessibility has declined heavily.
Three days after the intial release, it is found, after some investigation, that the reason there were no consoles available to the public at large was that all of them, the entire initial shipment, was preordered from every distributor by Bill Gates.
"It's ok, if you don't like it just don't download the patch and just continue playing it your way with your mates on the local LAN..."
I really don't see how this can compare. Maybe I'm just not cool enough to have 47 or 31 some friends ready to hop onto a game of counterstrike at any time of day or night. But something tells me that you don't either, and the option you presented was just to fuel your argument, rather than a feasible choice that anyone else would make.
To be honest, I bought my entire game through steam. I don't even have a physical backup. So from an external perspective, one might think I'm biased towards them. But the truth is, I just saw it as an opportunity to do everything through the computer, as I was over at my brother's and I planned to surprise him by having the platinum pack bought, installed and running by morning when he woke up, so that we could play together. On other people's servers. Because small lans of counterstrike can't possibly as entertaining as playing normally, with the online crowd.
I agree that having updates forced on you is no fun if there's a chance that they could be detrimental in some way. Star Wars Galaxies being a good example. God knows it could be the same with WoW. But the content updates have to be applied to everyone evenly to ensure they can all play together. You can choose not to update in steam, but you are also cutting yourself off from everyone who has. And in an online game, that's not really an option.
Which is probably why XM said that it would "vigorously defend this lawsuit on behalf of consumers" and again labeled the entire case as a "bargaining tactic." I don't think the playground bully is going to get any easy lunch money out of this kid.
In any case I want to take a moment to say that despite all the obvious and utterly stupid jokes we could make about this name and so on, you could do a lot worse. For instance... naming a line of women's shoes "incubus". Or any other of those little marketing mishaps. Like everything Nintendo does, they've gone a bit, well, out there with it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Look at how much conversation the name alone has generated. This is the sort of name that will stick in your head. You will devote that much more thought to it, and it may have more pull than you give it credit for. Look at what happened with the DS in Japan. The thing is like the iPod is here. And there's a reason for that. This is the sort of trendy counterculture that people eat up. The name of the thing, the look of the thing, it's all incredibly sleek and designed to feel contemporary. If I stick that on top of my 17 year old 51 inch television screen, with its wood paneling and antiquated looking stereo speakers built onto either side of the display, I'm the one that's going to feel out of place not the console.
...just what sort of a biblical failure they are about to produce? Nothing they do will be adequate. Nothing they do will satisfy. Nothing they do will be enough. At this point in development, if we can call it that, if there's even an official 'point in development' for a game that's been under construction for ten years, 3DRealms can't even have normal marketing for their game. Worse yet, anything they say becomes some strange and surreal form of anti-marketing in which everyone the world over that knows about this game's history gets a good 10 minute laugh after debasing them for an equivalent period of time.
Who exactly are they trying to sell this game to? God knows it can't be any of us.
...is that the market where these things are being sold at is right beside the base.
What that tells me is that these things aren't being sold with the thought that they may hold valuable information and that the insurgents will pay a high price for them. It's that they're just another product and the Afghans who happen upon them are selling them as such. I guess small miracles save lives.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah they made a movie about creepy guys like that, it's called Old School, and it was hilarious. This may not be Hollywood, but people over the age of 30 are allowed to have a sense of humor I hope. Especially if they work in the Tech industry, then it almost seems like it comes with the territory.
(In case anyone thinks that statement is personal, I'm 24.)
Agreed. You can't comply with something that is an absolute impossibility. You could order someone to walk off a cliff without falling, but even if they're willing to do it, they can only follow your orders up to the point that they're off the cliff, then they will fall no matter what you said and how you said it. Likewise, if people in Brazil are being Taxed to this extent, they can only comply with those taxes that they can afford to comply with and still maintain the means to live. As for the rest... Well that's falling off the cliff, isn't it.
Now I'm certain that's why the adults are smart enough not to wear those glasses, or the contact variants. Deception is as strong a weapon as any, and there's no reason why independent malicious coders couldn't work this to that same advantage. Regardless I'd hate to be dependent on technology like that to the point that I was confused or lost without it. Sure I don't have the skills to survive without most of todays technologies, like most everyone else, but I'd hate to not even know my own neighborhood by my own eyes alone.
"t used to be that 'geek' meant 'reject', now it means 'smart, technically inclined person who is likely to be rich and/or interesting'."
No, it used to mean that you bit the heads off of chickens at the carnival for a living. I don't care if you don't believe me, but that is the true origin of the word. As for what it means now, it essentially amounts to "You've been given a 'negative' societal label based on assumed differences between you and 'the average'." Thanks, I'll take that difference with pleasure. You don't even WANT to know the statistical averages for education, wages, IQ, etc. in this country. I'll take being ostracized along with fellow 'geeks' over that alternative any day of the week.
So sure, they can sit in front of their tv sets and laugh all they want. We'll even be laughing with the poor bastards. The only difference happens to be the most important one of them all; they laugh in terrible ignorance, we laugh in wondrous comprehension.
Ahh once again Meriam-Webster & Wikipedia come through for me, look at those last two definitions for Geek; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek. Just proves what I already figured. They may have created the stereotype, but in the end, we decide the definition. Praise to the 'Geeks' who wrote the Webster definitions and the Wikipedia article.
I just wonder if it ever gets disorienting having walls and other 'physical' objects that aren't really there. What if someone places a digital extension to some construction scaffolding for a skyscraper. I hope those construction workers can't afford the glasses, otherwise work related deaths could skyrocket for them because of one goofy kid's idea of a prank. While the show presented itself as sweet and fun, and I loved it for that, my mind began to churn up scenarios of mortal peril at an exponential rate. Fake an extension to a cliff side? Create a false texture making people think a highway or road is empty so that they try to cross? False textures for stoplights? This is probably why none of the functioning adults in that show wear those glasses.
Samantha Carter isn't a geek, she's attractive. Having good looks and being given an insulting label are diametrically opposed. Real female geeks must, by unwritten real world law, be just as stereotypically unattractive as their male counterparts, having a fictional Ph. D doesn't change that. Otherwise they forfeit any attempts at the title. It's the least we can do, since while male nerds just receive minimal abuse, female nerds are generally treated like they don't exist by the public at large.
I'll take the coming "googlopoly" over the current mind-fuck our ISP's have put us in any day. Instead of looking at it like that, let's pray they'll set up a full infrastructure and offer service in our areas.
Yeah but who'd want to be a shill for Nintendo? That'd be lame. If I'm going to be a shill I want to be as unethical as possible, because if I sell my soul it's going to be to the Devil, not to Bob Next Door, who happens to be of the "harmless kooky inventor/innovator" variety. E.G. Picking the greatest evil of the three demands rationally, that I choose SONY. So I can force people into A.) proprietary HD formats they don't want, B.) more money funneled towards digital rights management efforts and C.) idea theft and misuse from actual innovators. Yeah yeah, I know what arguments abound regarding the SONY 'acquisition' of motion detection in their controllers etc. But that's not the point here, it's the combination of all three under one company. The other two don't have what it takes, even if Microsoft runs a close second for reasons all the Linux users can list for you, so they lose. Don't get me wrong, I haven't chosen a side, I've just declared the obvious.
Or does that make me a shill? o_0
Nothing is black and white in the corporate world, but at least sell out to the darkest shade of grey.
[...]that this allows for small artists to know where they need to go to find out if anyone has been playing their music and to get paid for it. how well this part works i have no idea[...]
Not very well to be honest. From what we have previously seen, I believe this is used as more of an excuse to charge for someone else's music whom they have no rights to, and then force those small artists to come begging to them for money that (A.) they (the small artist) had never intended to charge (with regards to their music, having intended it to be free in the first place) and (B.) should have gone immediately to the small artist in the first place, instead of some kind of anonymous group of thugs using strong arm tactics to charge for protection money.
Not only does this serve the motives of it's parent organization, it's proof that this entire conflict has escalated beyond simply music. Wrote a suddenly popular independent song and distributed it freely recently? SoundExchange is going to bill them anyways, regardless about your intentions or how you feel. They may not even tell you they did it.
Think about how wrong that is for a second...
Regarding political discussion;
It seems that wherever I go, discussion on President Bush consists of one thing and one thing alone. And just by seeing it, I recognize the vast inequity between the problem represented by our current Administration and the ability of the population to understand the seriousness of that problem. What is that thing? Name calling. That's right, something as simple as people going around saying "Bush is a Nazi." is all I need to hear (noting that it is unbelievably frequent) to know that our population on the whole is woefully ignorant. The saddest thing here is this, They don't even know why they "hate" him. When I hear baseless name calling, it blatantly screams out that the person doing the name calling doesn't have any clue as to what wrongs have been committed or even what makes them wrong or they mix up what came from where. Issues like Abu Ghraib or other handiwork of Vice President Cheney is attributed to President Bush, or failings of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is attributed to President Bush with no note of Gonzales himself. To be fair, it's all the same administration, so at least knowing the list of offenses would be good enough for me, but faithfully as ever many of my fellows around here just don't seem to know even that.
So what in the blue hell does that have to do with this topic? Simple. Even if they support the same position I do, even if I'm the same age as them, I don't see them as educated enough to vote. That's right. We'd both vote the same, thus in essence they would be supporting my cause of choice. But their reason is flawed. They are voting for "Not Bush", because he's "Not Cool". That's just not going to cut it. I'm willing to lose my own right to vote, if it keeps them from voting too. Sounds spiteful and caustic of me, sure, but there's just a minuscule chance that they'd actually read the bloody issues for once. And that would make it all worth it to me.
As "try_anything" said so succinctly;
"It's this kind of confident fakery that causes many intelligent people to feel apathetic and inadequate when it comes to voting. Those people should vote. If there's anyone whose votes are needed, it's the people who doubt their own worthiness to vote."
If you doubt the value of your vote due to whether you are informed enough on an issue, then put that goddamn graduation cap on, cause you just graduated into a Voter of the highest ordinance. Anyone who A. feels they should be informed to vote, B. is never sure that they are informed enough and C. believes that voting is so important that they should be MORE educated in order to do it, is a 1 in a MILLION kind of person. And exactly the kind of person we need.
Jesus Christ, don't tell me he was a guy in the JET program... Because that would make the entire system look bad, and I may not get to read my beloved OUTPOST NINE entries by Azrael.
"Some people grow up before then, and some never do."
There you go. End game. That's all you needed to say.
An understandable question, and one that must preclude a particularly long winding spiel about what exactly is wrong with Second Life specifically from a Gaming perspective (note: the first parent comment is not necessarily from this perspective). Comparing Second Life to any other MMO or even any game (which Second Life is not), is simply comparing Apples to Oranges. Despite this most Gamers cannot stop looking at Second Life as if it were a game, however their MMO woes bear no resemblance to Second Life's. Generally speaking, Second Life is all Greek to them.
So when someone says "And this folks, is why I don't play Second Life." the emphasis is on the term play, because it reminds us that the person voicing the complaint is making the assumption that Second Life is a game and expects to play it with some hope of a goal. Granted no MMO really ends, however all MMOG's have a simulation of Task & Accomplishment.
So what do you get when you combine the internet population with a virtual sandbox and remove any simulated Task & Accomplishment?
Second Life.
Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, is purely a matter of personal opinion. But just reading that statement, the first two parts sounded like a frying pan, and the second was definitely us jumping into the fire. Take it or leave it.
Meme's aside, rather than welcoming the usual overlords, I'm just going to say that I welcome the opportunity to add Tyrannosaur meat to my next barbecue. Let's start cloning these things soon, guys. Dinner's waiting.
For all we know, this whole debacle has only made Take Two Interactive even MORE profitable due to notoriety.
Hah, who knows, maybe the jury could buy the game and play it before they pass judgement. Wishful thinking, I know. But I'd do it. I'd bring a small tv a ps2 some controllers and play it right in front of them. While we are coming to the decision on the case. Then after the suit's miserable failure, some of the jurors themselves will probably make a few very sudden very unrelated purchases.
The only thing detrimental about all this is the Adults Only rating that was forced onto the title. While the popularity of the game has taken off, it's accessibility has declined heavily.
Three days after the intial release, it is found, after some investigation, that the reason there were no consoles available to the public at large was that all of them, the entire initial shipment, was preordered from every distributor by Bill Gates.
"It's ok, if you don't like it just don't download the patch and just continue playing it your way with your mates on the local LAN..."
I really don't see how this can compare. Maybe I'm just not cool enough to have 47 or 31 some friends ready to hop onto a game of counterstrike at any time of day or night. But something tells me that you don't either, and the option you presented was just to fuel your argument, rather than a feasible choice that anyone else would make.
To be honest, I bought my entire game through steam. I don't even have a physical backup. So from an external perspective, one might think I'm biased towards them. But the truth is, I just saw it as an opportunity to do everything through the computer, as I was over at my brother's and I planned to surprise him by having the platinum pack bought, installed and running by morning when he woke up, so that we could play together. On other people's servers. Because small lans of counterstrike can't possibly as entertaining as playing normally, with the online crowd.
I agree that having updates forced on you is no fun if there's a chance that they could be detrimental in some way. Star Wars Galaxies being a good example. God knows it could be the same with WoW. But the content updates have to be applied to everyone evenly to ensure they can all play together. You can choose not to update in steam, but you are also cutting yourself off from everyone who has. And in an online game, that's not really an option.
"How many internets can I get for a bj?" What a sad sad world ours has become...
And you're doing the right thing buddy, you're doing the right thing. You're playing the right kinda games too.
It took them that long to figure this out...
Which is probably why XM said that it would "vigorously defend this lawsuit on behalf of consumers" and again labeled the entire case as a "bargaining tactic." I don't think the playground bully is going to get any easy lunch money out of this kid.
I... I still do that...
Trouble is no matter how I do this I'm still going to look like the rabid fanboy that I really am...
So here's my fanboyish show of support (As above, there is embedded sound. But yes, otherwise it's work safe.)
In any case I want to take a moment to say that despite all the obvious and utterly stupid jokes we could make about this name and so on, you could do a lot worse. For instance... naming a line of women's shoes "incubus". Or any other of those little marketing mishaps. Like everything Nintendo does, they've gone a bit, well, out there with it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Look at how much conversation the name alone has generated. This is the sort of name that will stick in your head. You will devote that much more thought to it, and it may have more pull than you give it credit for. Look at what happened with the DS in Japan. The thing is like the iPod is here. And there's a reason for that. This is the sort of trendy counterculture that people eat up. The name of the thing, the look of the thing, it's all incredibly sleek and designed to feel contemporary. If I stick that on top of my 17 year old 51 inch television screen, with its wood paneling and antiquated looking stereo speakers built onto either side of the display, I'm the one that's going to feel out of place not the console.
...just what sort of a biblical failure they are about to produce? Nothing they do will be adequate. Nothing they do will satisfy. Nothing they do will be enough. At this point in development, if we can call it that, if there's even an official 'point in development' for a game that's been under construction for ten years, 3DRealms can't even have normal marketing for their game. Worse yet, anything they say becomes some strange and surreal form of anti-marketing in which everyone the world over that knows about this game's history gets a good 10 minute laugh after debasing them for an equivalent period of time.
Who exactly are they trying to sell this game to? God knows it can't be any of us.
I don't buy games out of pity, do you?
...is that the market where these things are being sold at is right beside the base.
What that tells me is that these things aren't being sold with the thought that they may hold valuable information and that the insurgents will pay a high price for them. It's that they're just another product and the Afghans who happen upon them are selling them as such. I guess small miracles save lives.