Ben X

Yeah exactly, it just leads to me telling them little made up stories, it doesn't help them or me. And no matter how many I prepare, there's always a new stupid anecdote request, so all they're really testing for is how good I am at lying to their faces on the spot.

Had an interview today, went pretty badly. I'm sick of shitty meaningless tests that I do badly at despite being good at the things they're presumably testing for, and stupid shitty questions like "tell me about a time when you were given negative feedback by your manager and how you reacted" that are difficult for me to answer (due to lazy managers or freelance work where that kind of thing didn't really happen or generally only getting good feedback because I'm a good fucking worker) and yet this tells them nothing about how good I'd be in this position. I'm constantly baffled by people who are looking for someone to fill a role that will affect their work significantly and seem to have no specific, pertinent questions, only bullshit Generic Interview 101 stuff. The entire thing could be done by a member of HR staff who knows nothing about the role. I AM A GOOD, EXPERIENCED WORKER WHO WANTS TO MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER. STOP PUTTING HURDLES IN MY WAY!

Agreed on the inventory. U-G-L-Y. As far as I can tell, there aren't any plans for a boxed version. I know they aren't able to release merchandise or a soundtrack due to rights issues, so perhaps that's also why there'll be no box.

I saw a trailer for the new one and it actually looks quite cool. The characters have translated really well into 3D, and it looks fun. Avid Spongebob fans may think differently, though!

What is the first thing you'd say?

I woke up with not only the song "What Makes You Beautiful", but also the realisation that it's a shitty patriarchy song telling young girls that they have to be insecure to be attractive, stuck in my head. THE PATRIARCHY IS EVERYWHERE AND NOW I CAN'T STOP SEEING IT.

Can everyone keep their Whiplash discussions spoilered up, please? Thanks to those already doing so!

Look at the little white things falling from the sky! (They've got plenty of motion blur on them.)

No no, that's hipsters. Ha ha, but seriously, Aliens is an excellent action film, which cleverly starts off with a vibe very similar to its predecessor but gradually becomes a completely different film in a way which allows both to be appreciated on their own terms. Agreed on the Queen feeling weightless in a few shots, but the first film has some wonky stuff in there too. [EDIT: I disagree on the characterisation as well. Alien gets more credit because they went for Altman-esque naturalistic dialogue and performances. Aliens' characterisation is just as deep, it's just that Cameron went with a pulpy, theatrical style. It's no worse, it's just different.] Alien 3 is an unimaginative move back towards the first film with a load of interesting ideas that never come together. Resurrection has a couple of cool set pieces and loads of ace character actors but also a load of dreadful, franchise-killing elements. (And dammit they didn't even frame that basketball shot properly!)

For the record, Alien 3 is weak (even the director's cut) and Resurrection is at least half bad! But anyway, here's a cool little article about some unused Alien 3 concepts, some familiar (wooden planet, William Gibson), some not. It even mentions the comics (though it says they were Dark Horse)!

It's snowing in Cambridge! Christmas 2015 has officially arrived!

I've got an interview for a job which required me to do psychometric tests in my own time, then another test on the day of the interview. It's ridiculous. The psychometric tests were numerical and verbal analytical reasoning skills and incredibly frustrating. I'm pretty good at both those things, but I just got constantly thrown by the format and timed element of the test. I don't know what they're supposed to show except for how good someone is at these exact tests. Companies are pissing money away on these things and being led to give jobs to people who may not actually be any good at them unless they consist of doing stupid tests all day.

War on Christmas! It's happening!

Channel 4 have a one-off thriller screening at 9pm tonight called "Cyberbully". It's a single-room thriller starring Maisie Williams (Game Of Thrones) about a girl who is threatened with the release of a nude photo of her. It will be interesting to see how a mainstream channel deals with these relatively new issues, in a timeslot that seems aimed equally at tweens, teens and parents.

Traitor.

No, not Jumpman. Again, the character was simply a small square with a smiley face (presumably an ASCII character).

My immediate, purely apocryphal reaction: While I agree with most of the problems you've listed about social media interactions, I don't think they're damaging or eroding the way we communicate face to face. For someone to interact with people in person in the same way they do on Twitter or even on these forums would point to autism or severely retarded social skills, I think, due to the differences you point out such as body language and increased empathy. I think the most important thing is to be aware going in of these differences and limitations and adjust our expectations and behaviour accordingly, just as everyone should be aware that, say, porn is unrealistic and news media is biased. For instance, on these forums a lot of debates will go on and on, "deep diving" into the semantics or ramifications of every sentence typed by the other participants, whereas this wouldn't happen discussing the same subject in a pub because face to face it will get too heavy and threaten to overshadow the evening. The people in the pub will, if they have good social skills, agree to disagree and move onto discussing other things, whereas a forum thread can, if conducted well, continue indefinitely and concurrently with other conversations without overshadowing the entire board. So I think that good conduct includes being aware of that difference and not getting sucked into the temptation to try and 'win' a forum debate, and also clarifying stuff that might otherwise be communicated by body language ("this is only a minor quibble, but...", "I'm not confident of my view here but..."). It's also very easy to slip into sarcastic responses as default, as it feels more interesting than simply and sincerely stating your opinion and social media lends itself to quipping and a pressure to be entertaining; while it would be easy to judge when one has reached one's acceptable douche level face to face by the other people's facial expressions and tone, and immediately dial down the snark, on social media you have to self-police a lot more.

So what are everyone's favourite Christmas films? Mine is... Die Hard! You may not think of it as a Christmas film because it's an action film and not about Christmas, but it's set at Christmas and so technically can be called a Christmas film! (Also, Scrooged.)

It's pretty much the same graphical fidelity and style, and it even has either the same or very similar pink smiley square, but my game was a side-on platformer very much in the vein of Super Meat Boy (single-screen, lifts, spikes, split-second jumps).

Damn. I'm starting to wonder if it was Jason, as that garners no results...

No, the graphics were even more basic than that. The character was simply a tiny square/oblong (may have had rounded off corners) with a five-pixel smiley face.

Thought so, thanks!

I want to remember the name of the platformer I used to play on a shitty IBM-PC back in the late 80s/early 90s where iirc you control a little pink square with a face navigating single screen levels with all the platforms made up of similar small squares on plain backgrounds, only a step up from ASCII graphics. It was kind of a Super MeatBoy predecessor and I think it was called Jumping Jason or something like that.