I Had A Random Thought...

[Badfinger]

Working example - the Left Shark Meme.

 

Hundreds of millions of people were watching the Super Bowl Halftime show. They all saw Left Shark, and it was instantly a meme. There was no instance where it was restricted to a scant few who were in on it before it blew up.

 

There could be a thing like that, but cool, right? Workshopping this.

[Ninety-Three]

I saw Left Shark live, I liked it for the five second broadcast delay before it was cool.

[Dewar]

I always took a forest to be enough trees that when you look through it you can't see the other side.

 

What officially constitutes a forest depends on where you live, though. In finding this out, I saw a definition of a forest as an area with trees that supports its own ecosystem, which is a better answer than mine, to be honest.

 

So one tree if you stand close enough to it?

[Merus]

So one tree if you stand close enough to it?

 

One of the many problems with my definition

[Dewar]

One of the many problems with my definition

 

A definition that I generally agree with by the way, even if it's inexact. I just loved the image of someone pressing their nose against a tree trunk and saying "Yup, it's a forest!"

[N1njaSquirrel]

Working example - the Left Shark Meme.

 

Hundreds of millions of people were watching the Super Bowl Halftime show. They all saw Left Shark, and it was instantly a meme. There was no instance where it was restricted to a scant few who were in on it before it blew up.

 

There could be a thing like that, but cool, right? Workshopping this.

[syntheticgerbil]

Best part of my day, someone sends Steve Purcell a link to a Mad Max/Sam and Max T-Shirt crossover at TeeFury and he calls them, "shameless little dickweeds." How a site like Teefury stays in business makes no sense to me. Why do they even accept fan art pieces of copyrighted characters in the first place when they clearly know they don't own the rights.

 

I'm sure in this entitled fan culture we live in, someone most likely feels Steve Purcell should be thankful for the "free advertising." :rolleyes:

[Patrick R]

I never feel too sad for the media conglomerates whose copywritten work gets ripped off, but I do feel sad that "Calvin and Hobbes, except they're [Random Nerd Shit!]" is apparently a catnip formula for so many people.

[syntheticgerbil]

That's who gets targeted the most though, since everyone knows not to do the same with Mickey Mouse.

[Markson]

I think that often for a company like Teefury, the penalties for getting caught are not as great as the potential reward for getting away with it. So naturally they choose to try and get away with it.

 

It's pretty gross! Also just another chapter in the long saga of artists not being respected for their work.

[Vasari]

I never feel too sad for the media conglomerates whose copywritten work gets ripped off, but I do feel sad that "Calvin and Hobbes, except they're [Random Nerd Shit!]" is apparently a catnip formula for so many people.

 

Sometimes I think the easiest way to make money is any to combine any two things that nerds like on a tshirt. My Little Pony/Ghostbusters. Mass Effect/Batman. Predator/Jurassic Park. Star Wars/Back to the Future. Doctor Who/Dragonball Z.

 

They don't even have to be funny or clever combinations, just a picture of Darth Vader sitting in a DeLorean would do it. You could make a living doing these if you didn't have any shame!

[clyde]

I was reading something about kitsch as art and they were talking about artistic value (the historical influence a piece has on art as a whole that can't be accurately judged at the moment of inception) and aesthetic value (which they defined in an algebraic formula of unity, complexity and intensity). Actually, their definition of aesthetic value was kinda interesting. They argued that aesthetic value could be explored by changing aspects of a painting. So there are three types of possible changes:

A. Changes which would make the painting better than the original.

B. Changes which would have no effect on the painting's aesthetic evaluation.

C. Changes which would make the painting worse than the original.

So then they defined unity as C-A

They defined complexity as A+B+C

(I think)They defined intensity as (A+C)/B

I like this idea a lot. I was using it while making music yesterday. So what that means is that I would adjust parts until I gave up on trying to improve them to create unity and I would try to remove parts that could be changed to anything without affecting the piece, or changing parts I was ambivilent to until changing them back made them worse in order to increase the piece's intensity. I've been using these techniques in writing and game-development for a while, but seeing it formulized with such clarity was helpful. Also it's interesting to see many of my problems with 60-hour games be described as "A lack of intensity in a sea of complexity" (my quote, but I felt I was channeling the author of the book).

[Patrick R]

 

 

This is so upsetting to me. Is anyone here super into roller coasters? My fear of heights generally keeps me away. Are roller coasters at all scary for people who are into them or is it just pure fun?

[Bjorn]

I'm usually genuinely scared the first time I ride a new roller coaster, but once I have a frame of reference of what to expect, it's mostly fun.  The one exception are coasters that feature the initial giant plunge.  Climbing the incline, and then watching the cars in front of you disappear (assuming we're not in front) pretty much gets me every time.  Anticipation is the worst.

 

Related to that, I've done the Ripcord type ride once, and it remains one of the most fun things I've ever done at an amusement park.  And I will never do it again.  That buildup of anticipation was almost too much, I was practically hyperventilating when we got to the top.

[Spenny]

Mostly fun, with a little bit of satisfying anticipatory fear. I have an iron gut, so the general sensation of my body being thrown around in extreme ways is always a unique interesting sensation.

 

Also, yeah rip cord is awesome, especially you get a brief moment of free fall at the start.

[Mangela Lansbury]

Roller coasters fall into a weird space for me. Part of how I've come to cope with my anxiety about nothing is by projecting it onto other things -- like how I'm super into horror movies and games because they let me be anxious about that and have it resolve instead of being anxious about nothing/everything and having it linger forever. Roller coasters have that same kind of cathartic effect for me. I don't feel great while I'm riding them, but boy is it awesome to get off at the end.

[SecretAsianMan]

I'm really only afraid of coasters that have a lot of spins, and that's because I feel dizzy for the rest of the day.  Drops don't bother me, loops are fine, corkscrews I can handle but if it involves lots of 360 turns I probably won't like it.  Most of the time they don't phase me.

 

The ONE exception to that was a coaster called Son of Beast.  It set several world records at the time of opening, including tallest wooden roller coaster, fastest wooden roller coaster, longest wooden roller coaster, and the world's only looping wooden roller coaster.  The combination of being tall, fast, and wood meant the ENTIRE thing shook like crazy.  That loop was maybe the scariest second of my life.  The ride later got shut down and dismantled.

[Zeusthecat]

I don't really care for roller coasters, mostly because if you ever want to ride on one, you have to wait somewhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours. Waiting in line for something that only lasts a fraction of the time you waited in line is something that really annoys me.

[JonCole]

Do you just... not go to theme/amusement parks? Because that's all that really is.

[Zeusthecat]

Do you just... not go to theme/amusement parks? Because that's all that really is.

 

I avoid them as much as I can. If I wanted to go on all the cool "waiting in line" rides I could just go stand somewhere in the comfort of my own house without people sneezing their diseases all over me. When I do go to an amusement park, I always try to go during the off season.

[JonCole]

It's apparently National Fried Chicken Day. Should I go with KFC, Popeyes, or Church's Chicken?

[jennegatron]

It's apparently National Fried Chicken Day. Should I go with KFC, Popeyes, or Church's Chicken?

 

Now I'm just looking up where/when the next time I can get Raisin' Canes is, aka the best chicken fingers I've ever had in my entire life.

[Griddlelol]

I don't really care for roller coasters, mostly because if you ever want to ride on one, you have to wait somewhere between 30 minutes and 3 hours. Waiting in line for something that only lasts a fraction of the time you waited in line is something that really annoys me.

This Is the same reason I hate cooking for myself. An hour to make something delicious and 10 mins clean up isn't worth the 30 seconds it takes for me to eat.

[JonCole]

Now I'm just looking up where/when the next time I can get Raisin' Canes is, aka the best chicken fingers I've ever had in my entire life.

 

Ugh, I was just in Colorado and my wife was telling me about how good Raisin' Canes was but I just now realized that we forgot to go to one that was like 5 minutes from our hotel.

[SuperBiasedMan]

This Is the same reason I hate cooking for myself. An hour to make something delicious and 10 mins clean up isn't worth the 30 seconds it takes for me to eat.

You're eating too fast and cooking too slow my friend. (though admirably fast at washing up)