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A Life Well Wasted: Big Ideas

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I have to say, the last segment made me squirm a little.

Still a fantastic show though.

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I started listening thanks to this, nothing like I expected.

On one hand I want to stop because I am really taken aback by how bizarre the show is but on the other hand there is something about the frankness with which the people talk that really interests me. The guy who talked about the list of things he wanted to do before he died was incredible, it was something that really struck me as I listened to it.

No matter how much I analyze it I still don't know what to think about A Life Well Wasted, does anyone have anything to say that might help me come to a conclusion?

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It has more production, thought, and planning than any other gaming podcast I know. The producer's band does the music and their album is great (I Come to Shanghai.) It's Gaming's equivalent of radio like RadioLab and This American Life, which I enjoy immensely.

He has 6 episodes, and we've all listened to hundreds of podcasts, so why not.

It's easy to neglect the existential consequences of devoting so much of your life playing video games. Do we play games because we desire a life different than our own? What are the lasting effects of video games on us, on the world? What could (or would) we accomplish with all the time we have spent playing games?

We're on a forum when we're not playing video games to write about conversations about video games which we listen to when we're not playing video games. Is it well wasted?

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Oh man... I've been waiting for what feels like a year for another episode of this, thanks fer the heads up!

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I started listening thanks to this, nothing like I expected.

On one hand I want to stop because I am really taken aback by how bizarre the show is but on the other hand there is something about the frankness with which the people talk that really interests me. The guy who talked about the list of things he wanted to do before he died was incredible, it was something that really struck me as I listened to it.

No matter how much I analyze it I still don't know what to think about A Life Well Wasted, does anyone have anything to say that might help me come to a conclusion?

There are only 5 other episodes, and they're not long. I definitely recommend going back to the others. They're all worth a listen. I recommend episode 3, but you might as well start at the beginning if you're looking for some context.

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Does Robert Ashley have a dayjob? I appreciate his work on these shows, but I don't think he's ever going to get a job at NPR like he probably wants this way.

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Robert Ashley is a freelance writer. He worked for years with CGW/GFW and was a regular on their podcast, and has written for various other gaming and cooking publications. He's also got his band, which I think has been his focus mostly since GFW closed shop.

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Wow, I actually can't wait to go back to work after a week off to listen to this. I've been waiting so long for this, I think I listened to the rest of the episodes like 4 times each.

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I finally got around to listening to some of these episodes the other day, and they're excellent. Thanks for the pointer Forbin :tup:

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The last segment made me laugh out loud a couple of times... but the most interesting part imho was the interview with Henk Rogers. It made me think about my decision of leaving cancer research to make money in business consulting (it hasn't happened yet, but I hope it does next year).

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The best part about the interview with Jonah Falcon were the quotes from George Takei.

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It made me think about my decision of leaving cancer research to make money in business consulting (it hasn't happened yet, but I hope it does next year).

Jeez, that image makes you seem the worst person ever, I can see that decision though.

I have always wondered this, isn't it frustrating being a cancer researcher? I mean all day every day you just try and try to find a cure with no success, i'd find that infuriating.

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I have always wondered this, isn't it frustrating being a cancer researcher? I mean all day every day you just try and try to find a cure with no success, i'd find that infuriating.

I think he means the charity.

Also that is what all science is, trying to find out how something works/fix it.

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I know researchers who hate cancer research. They say it has a much bigger profile than anything else and thus sucks up funding that could go into other projects that are also important :tmeh:

Jeez, that image makes you seem the worst person ever

... but nonetheless a better person than all of us that have never tried to cure cancer? :grin:

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I know researchers who hate cancer research. They say it has a much bigger profile than anything else and thus sucks up funding that could go into other projects that are also important :tmeh:

... but nonetheless a better person than all of us that have never tried to cure cancer? :grin:

Nice work taking a quote out of context. :tup: (Not being bitchy, damn you non-expressive medium of text.)

I certainly see that other researchers might feel slighted but can they honestly say that anything (Excluding the following: Anything that could kill everyone on Earth like meteors, things that kill more people than cancer per capita and things that would, if invented, discovered or solved, revolutionize the way humans exist within our universe.) is more important than cancer research? Most other things probably fall under one or more of the following three categories:

Theoretical sciences. (I realize these have their uses but are not necessarily vital for the furthering of mankind.)

Out of curiosity/for fun/pointless.

For money.

Of course I don't agree with making the general assumption that cancer is the single most important field of study for the betterment of mankind but I certainly do believe that it should be extremely highly funded and only superseded on a case by case basis.

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I think their projects were less important than cancer research and they were being pissy over it.

Having been involved with several sectors that rely on funding grants though, I can fully believe that decisions made aren't particularly rational though (or at least, have bureaucratic rationality) and some buttons are much easier to push for funding bodies than others.

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I know researchers who hate cancer research. They say it has a much bigger profile than anything else and thus sucks up funding that could go into other projects that are also important :tmeh:

About the funding, in the US it's way easier to get funding for projects that can be readily translated to disease treatment, such as cancer. But one thing about cancer is that it involves most of the basic cell machinery going awry, so you can justify your basic research linking it to some aspect of cancer formation for example. In the end, it's all about how you're selling your work.

And there probably isn't a "cure for all cancers", due to the very different nature of mutations from patient to patient. However, what has been discovered in the last decade is very promising, I bet that more and more patients will be cured or live much longer than they do now.

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About the funding, in the US it's way easier to get funding for projects that can be readily translated to disease treatment, such as cancer. But one thing about cancer is that it involves most of the basic cell machinery going awry, so you can justify your basic research linking it to some aspect of cancer formation for example. In the end, it's all about how you're selling your work.

And there probably isn't a "cure for all cancers", due to the very different nature of mutations from patient to patient. However, what has been discovered in the last decade is very promising, I bet that more and more patients will be cured or live much longer than they do now.

It's like the X-Men, but less cool.

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So i've listened to every ALWW now and i'm incredibly impressed.

The honesty and frankness of the interviews and even just the way the host conducts the interviews is refreshingly different.

It has made me think a lot more about games as a medium and why I play games, I could go into a long self-absorbed ramble but i'll restrain myself.

In short, this podcast has made me question gaming in general, my own motivations and goals for life and how/why games play a part in said life.

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I find ALWW incredibly frustrating. The interviews are always great - he finds some very interesting people and gets a lot out of them - but the presentation drives me up the wall. All the little edits and sound effects are painfully literal and repetitive (if someone says "over and over" you can guarantee he'll loop that soundbite for far too long, probably speeding it up towards the end; if someone talks about making money he'll loop a cash register sound for the next three minutes) or just pointless and random slowing down of words. Half of the bed tracks he plays this over are incredibly annoying (though the other half are really nice and match perfectly), and he puts on a really stupid hipster voice when he's presenting, that you can hear is different to his relaxed interview voice.

I will listen to any new ones for the interviews, but if they came out more regularly I don't think I could stick with it...

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Ashley definitely drew his inspiration from NPR's This American Life for ALWW, and your criticism about the sound effects definitely has some merit. Hopefully if he continues the show, he finds the right balance like TAL does.

It's a known fact that the first five episodes of every podcast suck, so I'm willing to cut him a break on that until he finds the right flow. Sadly, I think he was using the show as a way to get a job with NPR, and I don't think he's committed enough to keeping it going anymore.

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