chickenontheceiling

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Posts posted by chickenontheceiling

  3. Posted

    It's disgusting how disturbing people capitulate to authority. This reminds me of the Milgram experiment (http://en.wikipedia....gram_experiment). Real police get away with abuses of power for exactly the same reason, seeing a uniform and a title makes people compliant.

    there is a really interesting radiolab episode about this http://www.radiolab.org/2012/jan/09/whos-bad/

    they talk to a guy who reckons (quite angrily) that the experiment proves people don't respond to authority, but follow through by choice - which is kind of worse in a way.

  7. Posted

    i'm proselytising a little here about adam curtis but this is a really interesting - if a little disjointed - interview:

    http://shiftrunstop.co.uk/2009/12/31/episode-7-new-years-special-adam-curtis-and-avery-edison/

    at 46.15 he starts talking about games being mired in nostalgia. what he calls 'content' is probably not as relevant to video games as he would like to think but it's an interesting point. the interviewer guy tries to counter the point and fails kind of miserably, but i would think someone here would have a better idea of a game with radically new content that isn't mechanical? originally i considered cyberpunk stuff like watch dogs but even that (gibson's neuromancer) is an 80s idea.

  10. Posted

    resurrecting this thread just to point out that Dan Carlin's Hardcore History is published by... WIZZARD MEDIA

    my podcast library is so huge now. thanks for all the recommends.

  12. Posted

    While we're talking about all the stuff that makes us superior to other, lesser, humans;

    acceleration is what gets me. there are a bunch of tunnels here in amsterdam, and if you get to the front at the lights and tear off ahead you can have them all to yourself.

    i would love a cubby. they look like heaps of fun. "the bike that freed the third world" i've heard it called. and indestructible:

    (try to ignore the douchebag presenter)

    on a side note, my germany run has been postponed. sad face. friends decided to stay in town for gay pride day.

  13. Posted

    Catch 22, by Joseph Heller jumps immediately to mind. Very dark humour. Very cynical. Set in WWII. You probably know about it already.

    Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut. I read this so long ago I can't really summarise it but I remember it being brilliant and weird.

  15. Posted

    I just feel like you play on a different field than "normal people."

    i absolutely agree. being on a bike, and being a video game protagonist (at least in single player mode) you are always the exception.

    road rules and speed limits don't really apply to bikes (they do but not really - i particularly love lane splitting for this reason: "oh, you're stuck in traffic? pity." vrrooom)

    and in games you're always playing the only dovahkiin in existence, or the only guy with bullet time ability, or at the very least the only guy who can be shot a hundred times and still be fine.

    the way you play a game is the way YOU play a game.

    i feel like this is a different idea. it's the difference between breaking out of a system and free agency within a system. playing a game how you want you are still within the parameters of the system, but riding off the interstate is breaking it entirely and grinning at it's shattered fragments. i guess the equivalent to me would be if you could walk out of skyrim and see what was over the mountains.

  16. Posted

    hello.

    i'm new here. can't wait for the book podcast: the book podcast. just started the sense of an ending and am really liking it so far.

    the only far cry 2 dream i ever had was not so rational: i was a local (unarmed) trying to find my fellow villagers while desperately avoiding the local militia and crazed mercs. it was very scary and very lonely and my old dog had something to do with it too. i never even finished the game because i got about two thirds in and the save corrupted. i started again and got about halfway before it did it again. one day.

  17. Posted

    more of an adventure game then? open world sandbox?

    maybe this is the difference between a cruiser and a sports bike? would you own a sports bike?

    at some point i'm going to have to get me a cruiser and do some proper road trips. that guy going through yosemite(?) made it look awesome.

  18. Posted

    also i wanted to ask you guys whether you think there is a connection between bikes and video games?

    my bike friends (that sounds like the worst mc ever) are all video game people. i was hugely in to wipeout back in the ps1 days and a lot of non-bike friends ask something along the lines of "it must be just like a video game."

    mr. remo mentioned the book 'finding flow' once a long time ago (by the guy with the absolutely mental surname) and my theory is along those lines: bikes and video games both have a consistent flow of events that chain together - sometimes with astounding grace - that really appeals to me. it's a balance of skill with challenge over time (very interesting book by the way)

    any thoughts?

  19. Posted

    *Drooling over CBR*

    Is there any reason to own a different street bike? I would probably upgrade to the 1000 Repsol, but still.

    i'd probably drop it in a heartbeat for a street triple. mmm street triple. 1000 would be a lot more fun but pretty thirsty.

  25. Posted

    AH, well that I don't have a good answer for you. I rode my bike all winter (had to, no car) and while Norfolk, VA is a FAR cry from Finland, it got pretty cold a couple of days. There's pretty good heated gear on the market that can supposedly keep you riding as long as you have traction. My problem wasn't so much cold, as it was the visor on my full-face fogged up if I breathed at all. Which was a problem, if you can imagine.

    Oh man do I hate a foggy visor. Can anyone here recommend a solution? I've tried the spray stuff you get from bike shops but it only lasts about a week (if that). Obviously there are big flashy helmets but they cost an arm and a leg.