jccalhoun

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Posts posted by jccalhoun


  1. I definitely found myself agreeing with Rob's observation that works revising history to give oppressed or marginalized peoples the agency and empowerment that they were denied in truth are often used by mainstream culture to legitimize the preexisting narrative that those people weren't oppressed or marginalized.

     

    I'm reminded of an episode of Doctor Who wherein the Doctor takes his companion Martha, a black woman, back to Shakespeare's time. Martha, being smart, worries aloud that she'll stand out as a black woman, but the Doctor brushes her off, saying that her concerns are overblown and people were a lot more accepting than one might think in sixteenth-century England. Now, I know the intent was playful, imagining a version of history where a white man and a black woman walking together in public as equals wouldn't arouse even the slightest comment, but it's so hard not to read it as racism and sexism not really being as bad as sources and scholars tell us, which is... eh.

     

    It is so funny. I just started watching Stranger Things (a month late, I know) and since I'm from Indiana I was looking for thoughts of other Hoosiers. I ended up on imdb's message board for the show and the top comment at the moment I looked was someone saying:

     

    As far as I remember it, racial relations were far friendlier and more integrated and cooperative in 1983 than they are today. 

     

    I just. I don't even. what? especially in Indiana. 


  2. Interesting that you would play the game without having read the comic or watched the tv show. Did you play the earlier games?

     

    I haven't played Michonne yet since I usually wait until the entire season is out before playing the Walking Dead games. However, the trailer didn't seem too appealing to me with all the quicktime events which I hate and the flashback which seemed cliched to me.


  3. Reading the RPS article made me think: What would Firewatch be without Delilah? How would the game work if it was more sandbox-style where you wandered around without the external directions of Delilah? Technically, I think it would be hard to pull off as it would be hard to make sure the player saw things like the fireworks going off in the distance but if that could be handled I wonder if the rest of the game would have the same impact?

     

    Personally, I was too suspicious of a twist regarding Delilah's role to allow myself to have any trust in her. Therefore, when she was crushed finding out about the kid, I didn't really feel for her. So I wonder how I would have felt if I was just piecing this all together on my own?


  4. I try about once a year, and usually flame out within the first 30 minutes.  I'm not even really sure why.  I think I've heard enough to know it's possible to really screw up a playthrough even at character creation, but I'm loathe to use a guide because it seems like the kind of game I should truck through as blindly as possible. 

    I tried to play through it like 3 times over the years but over Christmas I just said "I'm going to play this" and after a couple hours it took. I think for me the problem was that it is really hard at first and I got tired of dying over and over. Once you get used to it then you figure out how not to die as much.

     

    Honestly, I'm not so sure how good that is. He last few games have been underwhelming.


  5. This is a must-listen/watch if you liked the game.

     

    I found out that my choice to ignore the cottonwood and use my ax to go straight for the fence was something that was a huge pain for them to put in. I also missed on on all the animals and a decent amount of other stuff that I can try to find on my next play through.


  6. That's literally every episode of Scooby Doo though.

    True but it think it would be more plausible that someone could try to scare people in the woods by pretending to be a bigfoot than try to convince them they were part of an experiment. (don't get me wrong, I like the game a lot but I think this is a big flaw)


  7. I'm stuck at work for a few more hours and can't wait to go finish the game (I assume I'm more than half way through but I don't know for sure).

     

    Reading the Tom Chick review, I can see where it might end up disappointing but I simply can't understand his comments about "generic trees, rocks, and bushes" or "All the walking does nothing to create any sense of wonder or even scenery." I just can't imagine he played the same game I'm playing.


  8. I've recently started listening to Tomefoolery which is a book club podcast where the host has the guests read terrible and weird books and talk about them. By terrible and weird I mean books like "Women of the Klan," "Dating for Under a Dollar," "My Parents Open Carry," and "A Christian Response to Dungeons and Dragons."

     

    It is pretty fun because, like most normal people, the guests are usually pretty stunned that books like this exist. The episodes usually start with the guests talking about what they read growing up and then they get into the book of the episode.


  9. I've generally found that I quite enjoy chatting with former/current service members, and abhor chatting with people who need to wear their "pro-military" feelings on a t-shirt even though they never served. 

    To resurrect a thread....

    I find the same thing. At the college I'm teaching at I often have one or two current or former military members in my class and they have always been great. Similarly, I have had tons of student athletes in my classes and only had one or two that didn't try. High school jocks who couldn't make it to college sports though? different story (and of course not all of them)


  10. According to https://support.twitter.com/articles/119135?lang=en#

    Do verified accounts have access to extra features?

    Yes, verified account holders have access to the following extra features:

    • Verified account holders have access to filters in the Notifications page that let them display their Notifications via one of three options: All (default), Mentions and Verified.
    • Visitors to verified account profile pages can select between two timeline options: No replies or All. No replies, which is the default setting, displays Tweets that are not direct @ replies to fans or followers. All displays every Tweet, including @ replies.
    • Verified account holders have access to account analytics, including data and characteristics about Tweet engagement and followers.
    • Verified account holders can elect to opt out of Group Direct Messages via the Security and Privacy settings page on Twitter.com.

    If I were cynical I would think that what a sensationalistic "journalist" really cared about was the analytics to see how well his tweets did and not some sort of "censorship."


  11. regarding trolling: another thing is that what is supposed to be "trolling" and what is supposed to be legitimate criticism changes constantly depending on whether or not the person gets called out on being wrong. If someone says something wrong and gets called out on it then the person can claim "I knew that. I was just trolling" which is quite similar to what people would do when I was a kid and say "I knew that. I was just testing you to see if you did." However, back when I was a kid and someone said "I was just testing you" it was usually not believed. Now it seems as if being right is one thing but even if you aren't you can use "I was just trolling" as a way to claim victory because you got a reaction out of someone.

     

    regarding that Kimmel clip: It is interesting to me that the clip seems to be using what I would have thought as stereotypical dudebro language which is not really what I think of when I think of MRA extremism. While there is certainly some overlap I don't really think of them in unision.


  12. I saw Hateful Eight over the weekend and liked it a decent amount. I'd probably rank it as a mid tier Tarantino but if Kurt Russell and an Ennio Morricone score sounds like a thing you'll like, this has those in spades.

    I wrote on facebook that Hateful Eight should have been called Reservoir Django. Tarantino has always been derivative - that was one of part of what made him Tarantino - but now he's just recycling his own characters and plots.

     

    And it has the worst of Tarantino's tendencies. Every time he approached making some interesting statement he would undercut it and there are just weird things that someone should have stepped in and said, "Why are you doing that?"

     

    I would love to have Tarantino really push himself out of his comfort zone and do something very different for him but I doubt he will. How weirdly awesome would it be to hear that Tarantino was doing a romcom (without criminals) or a scifi movie?


  13. I just don't even get what this MRA nonsense is supposed to even be about. From their actions, it seems that their mission is to make sure that everything in the world eventually just ends up as a white penis.

    The people on reddit's MRA board love to throw out stats about how men are more likely to go to jail, commit suicide, and be homeless. All of those are serious problems but in reality what they mostly talk about is false accusations of rape (which include when women choose not to prosecute which they see is a sure sign they were lying) and child support.


  14. I thought that study was about conspiracy theorists not working off a logic, but that they have a mental affliction that disables their ability to be convinced of their fears being wrong.

    I think "mental affliction" is stating it too strongly. I would just say that they are immune to changing their ideas. Their worldview is unshakable regardless of facts. The guy that is one of the authors of the study has a blog post where he notes that when Obama's "long form" birth certificate was released birthers decreased in numbers but since then their numbers went back up. http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2012/07/new-surveys-show-the-persistence-of-misperceptions-.html 

     

    Relating tjis to gamergate, I can't tell you how many times I've tried to dispel the myth that Digra is funded by Darpa. Even when I explain why that myth is wrong, some people will just change their story to something like "Well, people involved in digra get funded by darpa!" as if that is the same thing.