Historical_Society

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    34

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Historical_Society

  1. Posted

    What kicks me in the nuts every time is that they just care about those few industrial giants, but where is Adobe ? Who's talking about EA or small Indie game/music/movie makers ? Nobody gives a shit about that, in France they want to pass a law to protect exclusively films and music from being downloaded... Just a few more proofs that the fuckers who make the laws just don't get it.

    This feels foreign to me, as for Adobe, Adobe has spoken in the past saying it doesn't effect them because the consumers who pirate clearly would not have the money to purchase it. EA on the other hand has done things about it. What became of Spore was in more ways than one a direct response to their ongoing concerns. Whether they're vocally saying that they're trying to curb piracy as much as possible or not, they're still taking some initiatives in trying to take care of it.

    I'm not advocating piracy, nor am I against it. Just for the sake of discretion.

  3. Posted · Edited by Historical_Society
    Forgot to link

    I thought a thread like this existed but no one replied to it and got lost in the backlog.

    I'm currently reading a comic by Grant Morrisohn. The Invisibles: Say You Want A Revolution. I've found it to be rather interesting and unique. I get a vibe of A Clockwork Orange meets the Matrix meets the hotel scenes of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

    The book I put down because of the comic but will soon come back to was Godel Escher And Bach. It's a book where a guy proposes about the similarities between those three different men and how their works created infinite loops. I feel I'm giving it a bad description. But thus far it's been quite interesting and I've studied along side of it seeing Bach's more interesting and unique works.

    Lastly, one of the threads here has inspired me to get a book called The Pardox Of Choice. I've been anticipating it for a while, just haven't had money to purchase it.

    Great thread Thunderpeel. Hope to be inspired to get more books.

  4. Posted

    You have a valid point. I guess I take stock in being the douche bag stereotyping. To me the idea of the model guy, I imagined(from my uninformed perspective) would be common. Not in referrance to the drug usage, but the staying excessive hours to meet select milestones. So that idea of feeling under pressure completely scares off my rather laissez-faire mentality. But I feel I've completely derailed this topic twice over.

  6. Posted

    Sorry, I hate to unblow your mind :) but it happened after work hours, not during work. Although that said, I have heard tales of bags of cocaine being tucked away under peoples keyboards... and once an artist I know stayed up for an entire weekend on speed, in order to get the model he was working on finished...

    I really don't see how you've unblown it, since the remaining portion has left me..well you get the gist. I've had really crappy delays at work, and college papers I've put off till that last day, but the thought of resorting to substance just seems I guess a foggy notion to me. I mean maybe it's because I'm not a person that indulges in that way of life, or just a really shelled up american. But the day I propose doing speed and massively damaging my heart to tighten the graphics on level five, I'd consider a different company.

    Thanks for the interesting information, I'll make sure to remember that before considering entering the industry.

  8. Posted

    A purely conjectural generalisation not being true blew your mind? :/ :tdown:

    Keita Takahashi, who devised Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy, doesn't even drink let alone screw around with more potent substances. Game designers aren't stereotypes.

    As Charlie Brooker pointed out in a recent episode of Screenwipe, to suppose that the people who make interesting work do it because of LSD or weed is quite an insult to their actual ability, especially if you've spent any time around stoners or people who take a lot of anything regularly.

    I was being facetious about Takahashi, but my mind being blown was in referrance to the man she was referring to with the cocaine. I was just outstanded that the bluntness of offering drugs within a work environment just somewhat shocked me.

    I apologize if my jest didn't translate through my tone.

  10. Posted

    Not to derail you yufster, and I completely understand the emotional distress that could be associated with such things. But as a person not involved in the game industry, I thought you were kidding for a second when you mentioned cocaine, but you were serious. I assumed weed was at most a drug of choice, and LSD for the Katamari team, but cocaine, at least to me, seems a bit intense. Especially for a guy who either programs or creates meshes. Once again, I apologize for derailing, but that made my mind blown.

  12. Posted

    That is the stance of almost all legal systems, yes (at least in heterosexual intercourse). Like I said, apparently erection counts as consent.

    Southpark did an excellent take on a real case of a female teacher having an affair with an under-age student, and the complete lack of sincerity that this statuary rape was accorded (compared to cases in which the genders are reversed). All Southpark did was make the boy a bit younger still.

    I would like to mention, that I did know a teacher, female, who had sex with one of her students,male. She was fired, but no legal actions were pressed against her.

  13. Posted

    Anyway, I'm not trying to say that it isn't a good rough guide. What I'm trying to say is that the golden ratio happens to fall within a range that people find visually appealing but that correlation does not mean the two are linked. It irks me when people refer specifically to the golden ratio in this context because it implies authority and scientific understanding on the subject that the speaker doesn't have. Which is exactly what the author of the document was aiming for in an attempt to justify their doubtless exorbitant fee.

    I agree with what you said. But, I do feel there is a bit of an overblown authoritarian end all be all mentality when it comes to phi and that which is related to it. But then again, the nerd-ish part of me views works done with that ratio in mind intensely appealing because I'm deeply enamored by unrealistic mathematical proportioned artwork.

    I would like to pose the question of, is it possible that there is an interwoven correlation between the golden ration and the uncanny valley effect? They essentially aim for a perfect representation of human, but yet they fail on their way there. That idea just came to me while reflecting on your thoughts.

  15. Posted

    It can get awkward for any man who's aware of that to balance being sexually forward against doubts.

    Ex-girlfriend once talking to me regarding filthy thoughts I was having about girls: "If they're interested they're probably thinking something much filthier about you".

    I've had similar conversations. I always feel like women are pretty much like an unreliable narrator, so many times I've been told one thing that when tried has backfired with worse implications.

    I've come to the conclusion that playing ignorant will prevent any sense of misinterpration by forcing them to be explicit instead of skirting the subject. Men are essentially caught between a rock and hard place with women it comes to things of that nature by the atricious things men have done as you've mentioned Nachimir when the possibility of sex enters the conversation.

  16. Posted

    I'm personally not necessarily looking forward to the game. But I'd enjoy it intensely if I was gifted the game. But I think to say that it'll be a bad game based on the style of music the Beatles are because it doesn't equate to a challenging game is just ludicrous. My mind was completely altered about music games when I played Rock Band because it's focus wasn't on who can get the highest score pressing a ridiculous amount of buttons, it's playing music you enjoy with friends to create an incredibly unique and interesting experience. Fine, the Beatles game would probably not be as intensed as say playing Slayer on Guitar Hero, but I've equally had a great time just playing Still Alive on Rock Band, and actually had more fun because it wasn't a chore. So I really don't understand why there would be an argument towards this game.

  18. Posted

    It's not so much that there's an argument against it, it's more that the argument for it doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. Proponents of the idea that the golden ratio is something that humans find aesthetically pleasing never explain why it should be so, they just point to a bunch of examples in paintings, architecture or nature and say "Look, it's there. Therefore it is aesthetically pleasing.". If you look at this evidence, excluding the renaissance artists who specifically put the ratio into their works, all of the examples given are either comparing arbitrary lengths for no reason and/or ignoring all of the examples of similar things which aren't in that ratio.

    A whole bunch of bad, cherry picked evidence does not aggregate into one good piece of evidence. It's all just one big feedback loop of confirmation bias.

    I found a brief analysis here. I'll include the last two paragraphs, they essentially say what I am trying to but much better than I ever could.

    I would like to place a big disclaimer and say I'm not an artist and have rather crappy artistic skills.

    But moving on, I feel the argument displayed is probably coming at it from an angle that I guess that was never explained. When they've showed architectures that were built where the golden ratio is visibile, what I personally found aesthetically pleasing is more of it's organized structural appearance. I'm very fascinated by numbers, symmetry, and art that devolves from it. So at least from my perspective, I wouldn't say that golden ratio automatically turns me on, I would say it's more likely to be visual appealing than a disproportioned anamoly.

    Which is kinda where I took issue with the article cause it seemed to be rather just taking that as what everyone is saying. (Or at least thats how I subjectively viewed the article) I would draw the similarities to the golden ratios more to the comparison of pi. Pi isn't the definite equation but it does the job well. The golden ration isn't the perfect ratio to beauty, but it does the job well. I can understand the absurdities of saying, ear lob width divided by eyeball lashes is a definite proof of the golden ratio. But essentially, leg:torso length and arm:forearm, if either of those were disproportioned it wouldn't necessarily disgust you, but the lack of "aesthetical symmetry" would throw you off a bit to notice.

    It's a valid argument, but I personally feel it's overgeneralization. But I digress.

  19. Posted

    When is and isn't sensitisation useful? And why?

    Not simple questions and I'm not sure I have any answers, but it's related to discussion of the word rape in the IGN thread.

    I would say it's useful in the sense of getting the point across. I've had discussions where people skip around the subject. To give an example, a person who hits or attacks someone and says they did it but they were only kidding or they loved the person and they'd never do anything bad to the person. Sensitisation becomes useful by claiming the act at hand, abuse. The person would claim they were only kidding, until they're confronted with what it actually is they're doing.

    The usage of the word rape in the thread was used repeatedly to the point it started to lose it's meaning and became a modifier for humor. I'll admit I laughed while reading the thread, but it was rather ridiculous how rape was overused. Which ties in seemlessly which how this started, the rape jokes and dead baby jokes have somewhat removed us from the fact a tragic event is why we're laughing.

  22. Posted

    Yes, I mean that also--I'm just saying, that if I'm going to feel like I'm "done" with the game after a certain amount of time anyway, I'd like to be done for real, instead of only halfway through it.

    I'm curious what's your take on games like Lumines or something like the new Riddick game? I always get a nagging feeling that I didn't finish a game if I didn't beat the core games that it offers.(not like achievement hunting or anything) In the case of Riddick and even the Bioshock ps3 version, you not only get the game but an extra "story" as well. Do you feel compelled to beat those extra ones as well? Or in case of like Lumines, where it goes on forever, at what point do you feel it's enough? I always have a hard time feeling I get my moneys worth because once I reach a certain level in a game like Lumines I know for sure I can't get there again and just stop playing the game.

  23. Posted

    Except that we are clever enough - we can and do create things with depth and humour. That stuff and the tasteless stuff are not mutually exclusive; they can and do exist within the same culture.

    I agree with you that they are not mutually exclusive. But if you could look at the trend of how humor and other forms of creativity, "Jackass" humor has become more prevelant compared to the depth of say George Carlin. I guess a minisicule example would be. The IGN.COM thread. People like GDf and GrouchoClub attempted to have some unique jokes, whereas after a while it just became a sea of x + rape + y + in a hole = funny. Dead baby jokes to me essentially are the equivilant of that, a sign of a lack of creativity. No offense to any one that posted on that thread.

    I deeply apologize to the person that started the thread. The discussion on desentization has been completely derailed by me.

  24. Posted

    Society has essentially become more and more morally stifled. The irony being that we are in age filled with technological advancement, while we enjoy barbarism at through reality shows, youtube, and even video games. I in no way am taking a holier-than-thou stance, for I do indulge myself in the recess of humor.

    I feel though that as each generation has passed by it's really stopped being a stand for acceptance and more like I'm going to offend you because I want to. What started essentially like more of a discussion of what's acceptable and what's not, really's become more an idea of hey, now that I can say this, I'm going to rebel for you telling me I couldn't when I was young. With comedians like Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, they pushed a proverbial envelope in the depths of Bruce listing off every racial epitaph in hoping to diminish the pain behind racial terms when said to a child. With Bill Hicks taking what he did, and then weaving it logically to essentially counter what he felt was wrong with America in the state of freedom of speech, commercialism and politics. Now, comedians basically have taken the groundwork of what made for them, and now use it as a forum of saying, vagina, dead baby, penis penis penis, if you can't accept that then you are a tight ass who needs to open your mind. Comedians like Jimmy Dore I find to be a perfect example. I do find him funny, but it is easy to see in his jokes that it's built of being censored as a child that he just inflicts demeaning insults as an act of rebellion.

    Before I became heavily entrenched in video games, I was very into film. I always enjoyed films that pushed the boundaries to the point where it just made you uncomfortable and made you question why. But then I just basically noticed that the envelope being pushed wasn't more of embracing an open-mindness towards situation but an acceptance of just sheer deprevatiy. Watching Kubrick's Lolita, there was a sense of questioning if affection seperated pedophilia from any other relationship. Watching Mitchell's Short Bus, watching a man blow into another man's ass like a french horn really wasn't pushing a boundary in the sense of acceptance of sexuality and affection, it was more of how far can you put sex act to the point that people can barely tell the difference between this and porn.

    My last example being a game like GTA, where they essentially took pushing the envelope as far as possibile in the realm of video games. If any company has really just been detrimental I feel to the state of video games being accepted has been Rockstar. Rockstar has no problem pushing the envelope in what can be allowed and also become fun, but they rarely if ever just defend their artistic descisions. Instead they just release footages and allow people to overhype the deviant part of their games, and leave gamers to look as people who fiend over grandma rape simulators. If Rockstar defended their choices the way Geoff Keighley had to defend a benign segnment within Mass Effect, I truly feel there'd be a great understanding and acceptance of video games as a whole.

    So to sum up my unnecessary dissertation on how dead baby jokes parrallel our artistic integrity as a whole, dead baby jokes exist because we're not clever enough to create something with depth and humor.