Idle Thumbs 125: Eyes of the G-Man

[Berzee]

Also, I'm 90% sure you all confused her with Madeline L'Engle, which confused me for years too.

 

Possibly, but I only know her by the Earthsea books I read as a kid, so I can see where the notion of her as a writer of books-about-chillens (if not books-for-chillens) comes from.

[RubixsQube]

Hearing Jake et al. discuss Super Mario 3D Land is like hearing a foreigner (who went to Disneyland as a child) discuss his recent trip to Disneyland with his foreign buddies back home. 

 

ALSO they announced that Steam Controller today, and Chris also posted this on twitter, but in the podcast he does a FANTASTIC JOB PLAYING DUMB. "Oh golly jee it'd be neat if it were a controller" WINK WINK

 

(Oh wait the G in G man stands for Gullible and it describes us, for believing your subterfuge)

[sclpls]

As GFW demonstrated, being on a video games podcast is the ticket to candy.

 

Sean mentioning the jumping thing in video games reminded me of an article I was reading about some study that found that people who play video games have improved specific types of motion perception compared to non-gamers. It turns out this is because in first person games you spend a lot of time walking backwards, which is something that you almost never do in your actual life. Thanks, s key.

[Chris]

As GFW demonstrated, being on a video games podcast is the ticket to candy.

 

Sean mentioning the jumping thing in video games reminded me of an article I was reading about some study that found that people who play video games have improved specific types of motion perception compared to non-gamers. It turns out this is because in first person games you spend a lot of time walking backwards, which is something that you almost never do in your actual life. Thanks, s key.

 

It wasn't due to Idle Thumbs, they came to Double Fine and some of us used it.

[Patrick R]

Whenever I see the acronym "GFW" I picture some weirdly precocious middle-school bully being all "more like GAYvid Foster Wallace".

[Badfinger]

Congrats Jake and Sean, on the nerds rope!

 

 

 

 

Also on starting a company holy crap.

[sclpls]

It wasn't due to Idle Thumbs, they came to Double Fine and some of us used it.

 

Hahaha I think there is some confusion. I wasn't referring to the Steam controller as "candy", I was referring to the actual nerds rope candy mentioned in the episode!

[mikemariano]

I wasn't referring to the Steam controller as "candy", I was referring to the actual nerds rope candy mentioned in the episode!

 

Nerds Rope Controller for SteamBox confirmed.

[sclpls]

The rope is from the barnacle... it is strangling the G-Man.

[SecretAsianMan]

Nerds Rope Controller for SteamBox confirmed.

 

Comes packaged with the special Candy Box edition of the Steam Box.

[Flynn]

I don't really think that a Star Wars displaced serious sci-fi any more than Flash Gordon did, so I'm not sure how Le Guin makes that argument (unless it's "Star Wars made new readers expect my novels to be like Star Wars")

 

I googled what she said.  It was in 1985.  The article does mention that science fiction was enjoying a 'heyday' so maybe what was coming out between 1980 and 1985 was a bunch of  star war knockoff stuff that is long forgotten as goofy 80s crap.  Though she calls out Spielberg too!

 

''They have taken the genre back 30 years,'' Le Guin said. ''There's no imagination in these big Spielberg epics. I resent the way he pulls everything onto an incredibly childish and predictable level and reduces it to something between violence and cuteness.''

 

Nevertheless, fueled by Star Wars and derivative successes, the science-fiction field is enjoying a heyday, though without Le Guin's approbation.

 

''I don't like to be categorized as a science-fiction writer. It's a ghetto,'' she said, complaining that science fiction is reviewed separately and en masse. ''This is ignorance and bigotry.''

To the intelligentsia, she said, ''it's relegated to something that odd young people read.''

 

Le Guin's generation of science-fiction writers, including Gene Wolfe and Philip K. Dick, largely came of age in the 1960s.

 

''We were expressing serious concerns through the metaphors of science fiction and fantasy, as Tolkien did,'' Le Guin said. And the times were amicable to their vision. ''In the days of flowerdom, we were going to make the future better.

'Instead of a cold, sterile futuristic place full of Star Wars, there was a feeling for a while of making the world more livable, more human. My kind of science-fiction writer fit right into this.''

In a Le Guinian universe, Western industrial society is the archvillain and civilization is a negative concept, encompassing the ills of weaponry, overpopulation and the practice of male and class supremacy.

A formerly pipe-smoking feminist and an active pacifist, Le Guin is capable of erupting on the subject as surely as Mount St. Helens, which juts up on the horizon behind the house.

''There is no ideal Western society. We've gone too far. Our children will have a less good world. It's going to change, who knows in what way. I hope it doesn't crash.''

 

She said more recently:

 

Atwood: "What about Star Wars?"

Le Guin: "There have been really few science fiction movies. They have mostly been fantasies, with spaceships."

 

It sounds like she doesn't like how Star Wars has displaced what people used to put in the category of 'science fiction' in the public consciousness.  So if she was self-identifying as a science fiction writer, she felt like they were cheapening the category and making her feel like she was stuck in a 'ghetto'.

 

[Jake]

Chris didn't tell anyone about the controller until after the ep was recorded. He spent that conversation being all NDAd up and exclusively discussed gman.

[sclpls]

I think her point should be well taken about Star Wars. However you actually feel about those original movies (for most people, that is extremely positive), I think it's much harder to make the argument that it inspired better science fiction.

[Flynn]

As an aside, I think I read every single Le Guin book when I was younger.  Both the younger fantasy stuff and the science fiction.  The Dispossessed was my favorite.

[CaptainFish]

  Wasn't JP's theory that it was a controller, who is also at Double Fine? 

 

The controller looks really interesting. Only real issue, assuming the sensitivity is good and the haptic stuff works*, is that it isn't a viable controller to use for fighting games, or d-pad platformers.

 

*I am assuming it does work, and can simulate a mouse. I've seen a lot of people looking at it and saying it obviously is going to be bad, but I can't see Valve releasing a product like that.

[Justin Leego]

Comes packaged with the special Candy Box edition of the Steam Box.

The track pads have cookie decals and the haptic magnets feel like chocolate chips.

[metuk]

  Wasn't JP's theory that it was a controller, who is also at Double Fine? 

 

Patent filings for the controller were lodged and discovered a while ago, I think it was something of an open secret.

[kickinthehead]

I just made an account because after listening to this episode I just HAD to make this video for the Thumbs' discussion about how the third Steam reveal should've/could've gone down. Enjoy!

 

[SecretAsianMan]

That is fantastic.

[Patrick R]

I love stuff like that so much. Good work. 

 

Now get to work on a video of Sean tackling Bobby Kotick out of an airplane.

[elmuerte]

that's amazing

[Flynn]

Really well done.  Love it.

[Twig]

Holy shit.

[clyde]

There was something so illuminating about watching the visual realization of their non-chalant banter.

[RubixsQube]

When I first listened to this, I thought: "I really hope that someone makes this" and then someone did, and it's great! Thanks! For realizing dreams.