Problem Machine

I think Tycho nailed all this down pretty well above, but just regarding it being a toothless insult: Certainly, in this context, divorced from actual invective, it doesn't offend. In fact, most things which are intended to be offensive are toothless. Nevertheless, I'm SURE you can think of something you could say to someone you know, or that someone you know could say to you, that would be completely out of line and obviously an offense to say. The idea of anyone saying that it's entirely the listener's domain to regard or disregard anything that is said to them is so obviously disingenuous I find it hard to believe anyone who espouses the idea has really thought it through. That's probably why I responded with a one-line quote, even if it perhaps wasn't the best approach -- it still clearly shows where the idea breaks down.

Ah, but it not offending you is entirely premised on you not caring about what the person is saying. If the choice between being offended and not being offended is strictly the choice between caring or not caring what someone has to say, that still puts responsibility on the party who wishes to communicate.

You are a bad enough rat to save the president.

Perhaps, but attempts to ape that aesthetic can have their own appeal

"There was a time when I thought "offence is taken, not given" but anyone who believes that is a fucking cunt. tell them that to disprove it."

I respect any game that knowingly and willfully disregards the commonly accepted tenets of 'good game design' to achieve a specific artistic intent. Doesn't necessarily mean I want to play it, but I wouldn't feel comfortable calling any game with that level of self-aware player abuse bad just because I didn't find it fun. Treads a little bit too close to the territory of people calling Gone Home and the like bad because it doesn't scratch the particular itch they want from their video games. More directly on topic, the 'bad' theme actually seems like a really solid basis for a jam to me: Specific enough to inspire creativity, but broad enough to be open to interpretation.

Wow

This is an incredible thread. I was worried, when I saw it was 12 pages, that it would be full of, well, the sorts of posts that were popping up in the first couple of pages. This is all amazing and insightful discussion though. First, I'd like to add my voice to the chorus saying Danielle is a fantastic guest and I'd love for her to be a regular on the cast. I think this is especially worth mentioning in light of the aforementioned posts on the first couple pages. I've been reading the discussion on the intent and moral onus behind easily misinterpretable work with great interest. This is something I think about a lot and, frankly, worry about a lot. I won't go into any detail, but as a hobby/side line I do some work which could easily be (mis)interpreted to have a vile message -- and that is completely not the message I intend, but I know for a fact that if I put it out there then that is, without fail, what certain people who are predisposed to receive that message will get from it, and will subsequently parse as support for their gross beliefs and/or attitudes. As well, it can be assumed that certain people will believe that I myself endorse and engender beliefs which are antithetical to those which I hold in real life. This really bothers me, sometimes, if I think about it too much. I can't change the work to be less easily misinterpreted without undermining its honesty and quality, since its merits rely to great degree on its visceral impact. This is one reason why I have tremendous respect for Dave Chappelle and his decision to stop doing lucrative and high-quality work because he observed a troubling social impact, and I sometimes wonder if I should stop as well. At the same time, I feel like it's worthwhile, like any art that prods at sore spots and feels wrong is worthwhile, because it's shows us where the wounds that are raw lie. In the end I always decide to keep at it, but I'm never sure if it's because I believe that it's the right thing to do, that I think it's helpful and revealing, that I believe it is, in the grand scheme of things, a greater good, or just because I'm not ready to stop yet. I think, maybe, it's good just to think about these things, and to talk about them. The more discussions about things like this occur, the more readily we can see beneath the surface of a work, and see it for what may be, beyond the obvious. I don't know. Sorry if none of that made sense. Just, as I said, something I've been thinking about a lot, and something I've been working through. Incidentally, anyone else interested in the troubling ways intent intersect with the end results of art may want to read Kurt Vonnegut's 'Mother Night' -- one of my favorite books, even before I started thinking about this stuff in relation to myself.

My favorite thing about this site so far is that it's punctuated so regularly with apparently completely un-ironic ads for books on how to improve communication

Another thing which I don't think has been mentioned is that some of these terms literally only exist as pejoratives until they're reclaimed. Slut, nerd, geek, these are all fairly unique terms when used to the things they refer to -- using adjectives such as 'promiscuous/sexually open', 'intellectually obsessive', etc may be useful to describe the same kind of person, but aren't really the sort of thing that someone can form an identity around. If someone self-identifies as a term that they only ever hear used pejoratively, or generally so, that's a constant assault on their sense of self-worth and place in the world. In order to affirm that place, a similar term of identification must be found/invented or the formerly pejorative term has to be reclaimed. So, sometimes people really have no choice whether to reclaim a term or not: It's that or abandon their identity.

Even aside from active attempts at reclamation, I've certainly seen it used playfully between friends before. I guess it's uncommon to see it used without pejorative bias by someone from an outside group?

Okay, I actually think that's kind of really awesome? I mean, it's obviously freakish and disturbing, but I find that bizarreness pretty interesting and evocative.

Yeah personally I don't find the high contrast look especially evocative because, as I said, it's becoming something of a cliche at this point. The low-contrast version goes a bit too far in the other direction, but I actually think I'd prefer it anyway... in black and white at least, the low-contrast color version looks pretty terrible. None of them really set my imagination on fire, though.

I'm sure it's probably as easy as you say, since the algorithm shouldn't be especially difficult in any case, it's just that someone has to actually provide those values... and values that look good for an image of, say, a pond, may not be the same values that work well for an image of a burning building or a ghost eating a slice of pie. So, then, is it the level designer's job to place triggers that change the values based on the area? Should the programmer develop an algorithm to determine the best settings based on the color balance of the picture? All I'm saying is that solving problems like this for a still image isn't really the same field of endeavor as solving them, satisfactorily, as a general case. Frankly I think that's more of a problem with the other shaders, since it seems to favor the high-contrast low-saturation style that's in vogue and making everything look kind of shitty nowadays.

It's pronounced giff

Except it wasn't a clear example at all. It doesn't have to be worded like a programmer, but if you can't state something as "this looks bad, it should look more like this" I don't think it's particularly valuable criticism. The fact is, it's way easier to tweak a single picture than it is to develop a procedural algorithm to do it in real-time, so unless eot can provide examples of another GAME that does it well it seems like needlessly harsh and, perhaps, ill-informed criticism. I may just be reacting a bit harshly, though, because it feels like people are taking Sean's problems with the game as excuse or encouragement to insult or dismiss it, which is pretty not cool.

Okay. How would you approach writing the fragment shader code to procedurally generate a more optimized example?

Yeah I know about the whole lossless thing, It's just that, as you say, that's not really relevant to consumers. It only matters if you want to archive a master copy. Otherwise you're using a bigger file for nothing. Anyway, I mostly use max quality VBR mp3 for my music stuff. Gets the job done.

That Halo sniper rifle talk sounds amazing. Is it available anywhere?

Less so for me, since due to licensing issues .ogg can be a good format for game resource files, whereas I kind of dislike FLAC as bloated and impractical and tend to avoid it as much as possible.

Which one plays Kevin McAllister?

It may be, indeed. I'm just wary of tarring groups of people with a broad brush. Frequently, even if the characterization is valid, it can throw the discourse off track, from "you're doing a shitty thing" to "you are a shitty person". Anyway, just a thought.

Okay that was the main thing I wanted to point out too. That's basically gold. Sometimes life is its own best satire. But, anyway, the other thing that kind of bothered me was the blanket characterization as 'misogynists' in Merus's post. I'm not super familiar with the circumstances, and though the position of this group is certainly gross is misogynist, as a statement of position, actually accurate? I worry that terms like this sometimes get tossed around too easily and unnecessarily polarize debates... Oh but hey here's another interesting and thread-relevant thing: Brenna Hillier on Deep Down's lack of female player option

Miranda IM also supports an IRC protocol. You'll see me idling in there from now on. I may even talk once in a while!

Interesting how closely Jake's kneejerk reaction to Jazzpunk mirrored the internet's kneejerk reaction to Flappy Bird.