Chris

Idle Thumbs 210: Pro Fish Smart Fish

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I miss them talking about being in Australia and paying twice as much for games.

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You know what I wanna hear some more opinions about? Defense of the Ancients 2

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I miss them talking about being in Australia and paying twice as much for games.

 

We've been getting pretty good deals lately! Splatoon is just AU$59 at a large electronics store (https://www.jbhifi.com.au/games-consoles/platforms/wii-u/splatoon/657694/) including tax! That's US$47. (Splatoon would normally retail for AU$79, JB Hi-Fi goes nuts on new releases sometimes)

 

edit: Oh wait, didn't notice you are also Australian. But hey if you're on the lookout for good deals on Splatoon, look no further!

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Great episode, I loved the deep dive into Twilight Struggle, I am going to look at getting a copy, but seems to be out of stock in the UK :tdown:

 

I generally prefer it when the hosts have an in depth discussion on one game or theme (Crusader Kings 2 is a good example of this), as opposed to when its 4 or 5 small indie games that only one person has played.

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I miss them talking about being in Australia and paying twice as much for games.

 

Australia's minimum wage is more than double the US. Pardon my comparative lack of sympathy for the slight premium on video games.

 

 

I am relistening to all the casts, and I am reveling in the Breckoning of Crusader Kings, as well as Danielle's first appearance on the cast.

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Australia's minimum wage is more than double the US. Pardon my comparative lack of sympathy for the slight premium on video games.

 

I guess you do pay less for games in developing countries; what with the endemic corruption in politics, the brutal and violent police force and multinational corporations coming in and doing whatever they want, you guys have got other things to worry about. I hope you guys get some of the benefits of developed nations one day, like universal health care, or universal paid maternity leave, or the metric system.

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or the metric system.

 

I'm pretty sure that's considered a terrorist threat here. 

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 or the metric system.

 

I'm pretty sure that's considered a terrorist threat here. 

 

LONG LIVE THE IMPERIAL MEASUREMENT SYSTEM. DOWN WITH SCIENCE. UP WITH THE SIZE OF A FORMER KING'S FOOT. DOWN WITH STONES. UP WITH CALLING IT SOCCER. (I added the last 2 so that the British can't join in on this next chant.)

USA #1!

 

(The history of the US rejecting the metric system is really interesting, because basically the British brought over the imperial system, then the French decided that it was going to standardize the metric system. In order to convert to the metric system you had to go to France and make a copy of the standards they were using, and it was kind of a pain to go to France in 1800, so the US was like eff it, we'll just stick with our old system. We will do our money metric style though. Hope that's good enough. Obvi a simplification, but partner that with our USA #1 mentality, and you'll never get us to switch to kilograms.)

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If you play any games that involve space, you are insidiously being taught the metric system at all times. The conspiracy reaches to the government level, where NASA uses metric measurements.

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metric more like met-can't-cleanly-divide-by-three-ric

 

AM I RIGHT

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If we're complaining about American standardisation, why hasn't anyone brought up mm dd year?

 

Woah woah woah. Who's complaining?

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If we're complaining about American standardisation, why hasn't anyone brought up mm dd year?

 

I am drawing the goddamn line. The line is here.

 

ps standardization

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Talking of cracking podcasts, and the imperial system (I don't mean Star Wars, you big bunch o' geeks), Radio 4's More Or Less - which looks at the facts behind numbers often cited in the news - did a great section on the wonderfully bizarre, and surely totally logical, interrelationships between imperial measures. 2m18s of education right here:

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This advice is pretty good when approaching any work of history. I can't think of anything that I would say is the "last word" on some historical period, group or person.

 

I meant to reply to this comment, but I didn't! I know a few, at least in my discipline, but they're incredibly specific works on confined topics with limited source material, and they'll stop being the "last word" the moment that more material is uncovered, although that doesn't happen particularly often in medieval history. I'm thinking Guy Perry's recent biography of John of Brienne, Harriet Flower's Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture, and maybe Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. I don't expect that I'll read anything new on those three topics in my lifetime, but they're all staggering works of scholarship and genius, and that's rare enough that it can't be counted on.

 

Anyway...

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Gormongous, I'm curious as to your perspective of the more recent push for re-interpretive history - specifically "corrective" works like Zinn's People's History of the United States and things like Mae Ngai's Impossible Subjects. I read a lot of that kind of work for my Ethnic Studies minor, to the point where I actually feel like I was exposed to more re-interpretive historical study than actual "mainstream" stuff, but I don't know to what degree that would have been true if not for my particular interests. I don't think anyone in this day and age, for example, is approaching the Columbus story from the traditional perspective.

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I meant to reply to this comment, but I didn't! I know a few, at least in my discipline, but they're incredibly specific works on confined topics with limited source material, and they'll stop being the "last word" the moment that more material is uncovered, although that doesn't happen particularly often in medieval history. I'm thinking Guy Perry's recent biography of John of Brienne, Harriet Flower's Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture, and maybe Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. I don't expect that I'll read anything new on those three topics in my lifetime, but they're all staggering works of scholarship and genius, and that's rare enough that it can't be counted on.

 

Anyway...

 

Yeah, I suppose with medieval stuff there's more possibility for that stuff. Most of the reading I've done has been about the the 17th through 20th centuries and I've never done any primary research that goes back earlier that the the late-19th. There is so much existing material for those periods, and so many different ways of interpreting the existing material, that I can't ever imagine thinking "there's nothing left to be said on this."

 

nattelite, I'll say that in terms my studies, most of the stuff I've read has been from re-interpretive sectors and that's where most of the interesting theoretical work is coming from too. Histories of gender, immigration, Aboriginal peoples, workers - those are what's being looked at, right now, or when other topics are being studied, those are the lenses being used. There's also a lot of talk about moving away from national histories, using transnational or regional frameworks instead.

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I guess you do pay less for games in developing countries; what with the endemic corruption in politics, the brutal and violent police force and multinational corporations coming in and doing whatever they want, you guys have got other things to worry about. I hope you guys get some of the benefits of developed nations one day, like universal health care, or universal paid maternity leave, or the metric system.

 

I usually enjoy your perspective on things, but I've got to say I feel like you hit below the belt when it comes to American posters here. It's hard for things to not feel personal when you consistently get so "chippy" in your responses.

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I usually enjoy your perspective on things, but I've got to say I feel like you hit below the belt when it comes to American posters here. It's hard for things to not feel personal when you consistently get so "chippy" in your responses.

What belt? Once someone brings up minimum wage all bets are off.

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What belt? Once someone brings up minimum wage all bets are off.

 

I think the tone of the response far exceeded the initial jab, but I am obviously biased. Still, it is a running theme in Merus' comments that does tend to get old to me. I think most Americans on this forum are keenly aware of our faults and weaknesses. I mean, I live in Texas... with a disabled son. There's very little education that's been brought by commentary here that I'm not already keenly aware of from my own life experiences. I just happened to be born here. I try to enact change in the best ways I can given my resources.

 

Every time I see a post like the one at the top of the page, I just feel like "Yea, I get it. I think I know it better than you do."

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