ThunderPeel2001

Well you don't have to watch them all the way through, it seems

I personally find that Guerrilla Girls stuff really... embarrassing. And I do consider myself a feminist (although maybe I'll not be considered one, after what I'm about to say...) Here's my opinion, I'm sure people will disagree. Let's take the Guerrilla Girls poster that was previously linked to in this thread: "DO WOMEN HAVE TO BE NAKED TO GET INTO US. MUSEUMS? Less than 3% of the artists in the Met. Museum are women, but 83% of the nudes are female." Is this a valid point? Well, according to their website, the Metropolitan Museum of Art attempts to cover a 5000 year period of human history. By my calculations women only got the vote about 80 years ago, and they only got legislation regarding equal pay about 30 years ago... and it still isn't really equal even now. (Just last month Republicans blocked a bill to help guarantee that women would receive equal pay, and some estimates say that it will take until 2050 before wages are truly equal.) The Guerrilla Girls poster infers that, despite having little opportunity to create great art in the past 5000 years, that 50% of the artists being displayed at the Metropolitan Museum should be women. It further infers that, by not being equal, the co-ordinators of the Museum itself are sexist. They then make the leap to talking about the artwork on display itself: 83% of the nudes (so not all artwork in the museum, just the artwork featuring nudes) are women. The reason why there's such a huge amount of female nudity in art history (in the paintings that feature nudity) has more to do with the cultures that produced them, than it does with anything else. In Ancient Greece, for example, it was nearly entirely male nudes -- women were almost always shown clothed, but in the past 2000 years, in most cultures, it changed towards depicting female nudes. Yes, it's unbalanced, but it says more about the society that had a taste for them, and the artists producing them, than it does about the people who run the Metropolitan Museum. You can see that neither of these two figures have anything to with each other, or, indeed, anything to do with how present-day artists are being represented by established institutions. They also do very little to answer the question originally posed: Do women have to be naked to get into US. museums? Which, to me, just makes their whole argument... embarrassing.

Demonising artistic achievements by simplifying and perverting a normal human desire... that isn't even necessary present in the art in the first place. No, you should not.

Well, TTGs site it down... did they just release something? Or is it an unrelated technical issue.

Possibly Red Dead Redemption, simply because it's the only game I think I totally played to 100% completion all year. (I could be wrong.) But looking at what Vimes said, it seems I should have played Limbo... Games NOT played this year: Sam and Max: Season 3 DeathSpank Puzzle Agent Limbo and lots more!

This is the opposite of those two. I think the researchers could have tried harder.

That's heartbreaking!

Wow. I've got stacks of Region 1 DVDs, never had to rip and reburn (thankfully!). I used to hack my DVD drive BIOS, though. It's a pretty simple procedure... but there's a danger of bricking it if you do it wrong. Can't remember if I've done it with this computer, though. There's also AnyDVD, a bit of software that you can buy that sits between everything and says, "Ok to play!". Works with Bluray, too. (Might be of use to anyone interested in this conversation ).

If that shrink-wrapped copy of Oblivion is for the PC, then I think you can mod it to remove all the level scaling. At least I think you can.

The site is running really slow for me, so here's the games incase you can't see them: Braid Machinarium Osmos Cortex Command Revenge of the Titans I've only heard of the first two games, although Osmos is iPad Game of the Year, apparently -- which I'd highly recommend... in the unlikely event you don't already own them. Cortex Command and Revenge of the Titans are both still in beta, but you'll get all future updates. My thoughts, based on the videos (yeah, not really fair, but...): CC looks pretty bad, to be honest. It's a 2D platformer that looks like it was born from someone's stoned dream ("woah! wouldn't it be weird to be in a war where you remotely controlled the soldiers!") and focused entirely on all the wrong details -- graphics, sound and weapon selection. Basically it looks like Metal Slug with a physics engine... which sounds ok, except it also has ingame menus that would make most RPG games blush. It looks zero fun to play. RotT looks a lot more promising, if you ask me. It's an RTS, like Command & Conquer, but with retro stylings. It sort of reminds me of Darwinia, and makes me wonder if it had come out in 1998 if it'd look cool or terrible. Anyways, the video quite made me want to play it.

Hilarious!

? Just noticed this. Surely just using VLC player is an easier solution to ripping and reburning a DVD?

That's Nigel Tufnel Day!

? Was that in this thread, or are you referring to one of the 135 videos on the TED site that features the word "happiness" in the description?

This is all pretty interesting... I saw the hardcover of the Screw on Head, but it was too expensive to justify a whim purchase, despite how incredible it looked. It was in with the new releases, so I assumed this was a new character. I remember thinking, "Wow! Mignola's somehow improved." But now it sounds like it's something that came out a while ago that's just been reissued? And also turned into a TV show? And also abandoned by its author... It's all too much! (I'll look it up, I guess!) Edit: Found it. What a great Adult Swim cartoon this would make. I guess it was too expensive. Now I need that comic book before I can watch the rest of this... _64GdGhuOkU

Sure, they sounded like fun guys, but it's just my idea of hell... Probably why I never liked the podcast. Not any issues with Chris, Nick or Jake, just my own personal resistance to undisciplined rambling. I saw Amazing Screw-On Head in my local comics shop and it looked beautiful. I really wish I'd picked it up.

This Is Spinal Tap

You're kidding! I can't believe I never knew that. Don't suppose you know of a clip?

I guess it's just me, but listening to averagely funny people make each other laugh is my idea of hell (unless I'm one of the averagely funny people). Rodi: Where's your avatar from? It looks like a Mike Mignola drawing, but I've never come across it.

File under super awesome: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbvr0m_shortfilms

Not comical. File under awesome. H5OtB298fHY

And has boobs like a... Oh wait, they got that part.

Yep, she better be invulnerable. Like a real person.

Lame. *sigh*

I wish I'd noticed this before I started watching.