James

But isn't that the popularity of Marilyn Monroe? That pre-existed the artwork. I won't deny that it's possible to do a piece of art that's about its own popularity (or lack thereof), but that would be very much confined to the domain of conceptual art, I think. Your taste is your taste. As long as you're not making value judgements, anything's fair game. A direct reaction to popularity just seems to suggest a preoccupation with others' opinions and your place in relation to them that I guess some of us aren't too impressed by. Avoiding popular things would be one thing, but actually disliking them because of their popularity just seems like popular opinion has some kind of tainting effect, which I can't help but find smug and condescending. Perhaps that's my problem. You wouldn't be able to use me as a barometer; as I said, my hypothetical tastes would be in reaction to yours. That's the point. It's not that you've found someone who happens to have opposing tastes; it's that you've found someone who has decided that there's something about you that puts them off everything you like. If you like it, hypothetical me doesn't any more. Other than that point, I think your response actually sums up a fair portion on people's feelings on hipsters: they question their sincerity (accusing hipsters of being more interested in proving their superior coolness than the actual value in anything they're doing), and they find them funny (generally as the target of mockery). The main thing your hypothetical response is missing is annoyance; perhaps your ego isn't fragile enough to be irked by this rejection of your whole aesthetic world-view (although your mission to reclaim the word "hipster" might suggest otherwise). Questioning sincerity and patronizing smirking is probably unfair, but perhaps your reaction to my stupid hypothetical can at least illuminate how people would arrive at that point. For what it's worth, while I still find basing your opinion on others' opinions in such a straightforward way quite silly, this has been an interesting discussion and has caused me to examine my own thoughts on the matter.

If I recall correctly, you can change it, but for a small fee.

It's pretty cool that both Idle Thumbs and Firewatch have typewriters as semi-official logos, anyway. You could pretending it's a nod to the Thumbs association or something.

I think this needs clarification. My first reaction was that you were saying that it's racist to think that a song about a man's preference for big bums is silly, but on reflection it occurred that what you might mean is that the problem is that people are selectively choosing to cover frivolous black songs in a more serious white style, implying that white music is more serious and that black lyrics are absurd in any other context. The latter is something I could potentially get behind; the former seems incredibly patronizing to black people. I don't have the same dislike for the idea of authenticity as those people, so perhaps I'm not the best person to be responding to this. But here I go anyway. Firstly, I think we're getting kind of lost in qualities and meta-qualities here. Inherency, in the context of this conversation, is a property of the properties of the artwork, so right away that distinguishes it from everything else. The art may be authentic or inauthentic or the concept of authenticity may be meaningless; regardless of which of those things you propose, you're saying something about the art. But we're talking about properties being inherent to the art, not the art itself being inherent (whatever that would mean), so it's not an equal comparison. No, popularity is a relationship society has with the object, and a property of the society, not the object, and is something that we perceive in society, not in the object. I don't think any of that definitively undermines your overall position, necessarily. Still, I think it'd make a lot more sense to dislike things for being unoriginal than for being popular, unless what you really yearn for is an entirely fractured culture. Or perhaps to be uninterested based on popularity. Out of interest, if I told you I disliked everything you liked because you liked it, how would you feel about that and about me?

I don't know a great deal of jazz (perhaps this thread will help remedy that fact), but, as I posted in the music thread some time ago, I do think Jan Johansson was brilliant. He made a name for himself in Scandinavia with his jazz interpretations of traditional tunes, as in these first two videos: Jazz på svenska ("Jazz in Swedish") http://youtu.be/CdVUh7mQjWI From Jazz på ryska ("Jazz in Russian") That wasn't all he did, however, as evidenced by this live session featuring a variety of stuff (Västkustjazz means, unsurprisingly "west coast jazz"):

Yesssss! Finally, the time has come! Come, my automatic overlord, my puny human skull is brittle and ripe for crushing.

I would posit that a great many people, possibly even the majority, thinks neither of these things, or at least wouldn't identify as doing so.* Are all non-hipsters squares, or are squares a group as specifically-defined as your definition of hipster? * Of course, there are psychological phenomena that cause people to frame their perceptions in terms of social context, and these are unavoidable, even to hipsters. Nevertheless, I encounter plenty of thoroughly forthright opinions counter to the norm from people with pretty much zero stake in any ideas of counter-culture or authenticity or whatever.

Hey, at least they filled the relevant area with blood.

Hahahaha, even better. My delivery is being held hostage pending payment of almost £15 in customs fees. That was expected, though, so it's OK.

I found the guy a bit annoying at first, but the idea is pretty brilliant in its simplicity (to the point that my immediate reaction was "that would never work"), and some of the behaviour it produces is great. Pausing immediately before losing Tetris is so brilliant and hilarious. It just walks away. EDIT: Parts two and three are pretty great, too:

Hahahaha. Great.

Three thumbs up.

I guess that's pretty much what I was getting at. Anyway, it's beside the point, really. Ignore me.

Should that read "any oppressed group", or something similar? I'd feel pretty uncomfortable about a white-only "safe space", for example. (To be clear: I'm not at all questioning women's right to men-free safe spaces.)

This is a very simplistic and well-worn approach to this kind of issue, but would there be any confusion over the offence if it had been caused by racial insults? It would certainly be compatible with these thugs' bad nature, and in that sense 'realistic', but I imagine everyone here would feel quite uncomfortable with its inclusion, particularly if the issue wasn't addressed in any other way, either directly or indirectly. Sure, not all games have to tackle serious social issues, but I do have to wonder whether those which don't are in a good position to be invoking them as scenery. Normalization aside, does that not run the risk of evoking a the heavy and grim mood of a more serious piece for those personally affected by the issues in question? If you don't want the game to seriously tackle the issue of sexism, why confront the audience with something that might affect them seriously? I'm not sure there's a simple rule for when art (or creative media or whatever you want to call it) can justifiably include things like aggressive discriminatory language and so on. I guess the main thing is that it's done so mindfully, and not as just some sort of atmospheric window dressing. The latter is crass and excludes unnecessarily.

While playing Titanfall recently I've been declaring pretty much everyone a fucker. (Not on voice chat. Just to myself.)

A pure delight. And that "no" ferret, too.

I'm nearly thirty but any attempt at beard growth ends up looking pitifully adolescent.

Enchanting.

Welcome! Thank you for sharing this important robot news. As it happens, a trailer for this video is already one of a great many horrifying visions in the slightly less obviously-titled thread The Threat of Big Dog. I hope you'll join us over there in our three-year stream of alternating terror and delight at these portents of the ever-looming automated apocalypse.

((to an unrecognisable pulp))

Glorious.

I've heard the Monty Hall problem several times before, but since a) I actually worked it out rather than being given the answer, and we seem to have moved on, I feel justified in stepping in here. I'll put it in spoiler tags in case anyone still wants to work it out for themselves, though. Since you say it's essentially the same as the Monty Hall one, I'd assume the answer is that they should continue, but running through it myself it seems like they should stick. There are six possible sequences the hotels could be in before they start, in terms of quality ("1" signifying the best): 1 2 3 1 3 2 2 1 3 2 3 1 3 1 2 3 2 1 Once they determine that the second hotel is better than the first, they can eliminate any scenario where the number in position two is higher (i.e. worse) than the number in position one: 1 2 3 1 3 2 2 1 3 2 3 1 3 1 2 3 2 1 This leaves two scenarios wherein the hotel they're currently at is the best, and only one where the final hotel is. On a more intuitive level, it makes sense to me: we know nothing of the quality of the last hotel – it could be best, worst, or between the two – but we know for sure that the middle hotel isn't the worst, because it's already better than the first. It doesn't seem quite as counter-intuitive as the Monty Hall problem. It still seems at first glance like it should be a toss-up, though. God dammit, I was getting really excited reading through two pages'/five hours' worth of posts without anyone getting it, only for you to have posted your answer five minutes before I had a chance. I then spent apparently about half an hour putting this stupid post together. I'm slow. Congratulations, though.

Morbid and stupid. (I'd heard the second stupid/morbid riddle before.) I quite like riddles that don't require the characters within to be completely off their trolleys. (Not having a go at any riddle-setters in this thread. I can't think of any good ones either. I just think that perhaps when people devise these riddles they should work out some way for them not to involve people immediately resorting to deadly force as soon as they're confronted with a moment of confusion or adversity.)