Very true, but you also don't want to give them a conceptual definition that is plain wrong, like you did.
I get the impression (not only from this thread but also from other threads) that you are trying to troll me, for whatever reason. Cut it out, will you?
Not at all. I'm a scientist by work and education, so I was interested in the confusion surrounding the concept of entropy. (Which is a fascinating subject) Believe me, it has nothing to do with you or any other member.
Then again, this also isn't the first time I've noticed you suffering from persecution complex, either. The world doesn't revolve around you, Warp.
Nope, dead serious. Camping out in front of the theater for a week to see a film indicates the person has severely fucked up priorities in life and/or is neglecting employment, school, and family.
Could you possible be any more judgemental?
A lot of people use "judgmental" as a dirty word nowadays. It's not. In many instances, "judgmental" simply means "using your fucking brain, instead of turning it off, and putting blinders on for fear of offending someone".
Kyrismys wrote:
Some people go on holidays, you know. Sometimes for weeks or even months! I can't even imagine what you must think about those negligent bastards. And even if someone doesn't care about employment, school or family, so what? Just because their priorities aren't the same as yours or the majority's doesn't mean they're somehow screwed up.
You're kind of proving my point. Anyone who equates a week-long vacation (whether by themselves or with family) with camping out on the streets in front of a movie theater is fucking nuts. Unless you're a homeless bum.
Warp wrote:
I couldn't have said it better myself.
You can't just write "if you believe 2 plus 2 makes 4, then you're an idiot!" You actually have to provide a reason.
Sir VG wrote:
Dear Princess Celestia:
I learned today that by destroying people's personal property, harassing them constantly, and stalking them will turn anybody into your friend for life! It's an amazing lesson in friendship!
Party with my new friends!
Pinkie Pie
Haha. I definitely think the show would be funnier with more of a self-deprecating, ironic streak!
I haven't played a lot of games with achievements myself, but I can understand how they could take the fun out of coming up with your own achievements when there's already an official list of them. To use MegaMan X as an example again, many players will eventually say "Forget turning into that Mary-Sue Zero! I'm a bad enough dude, I'm gonna beat the whole game as plain vanilla X!" And that would be exciting, since it's something you're not really expected to do, and at certain points you may have to re-evaluate how feasible it is, get some discussion going about what's possible. But if it were on a list of achievements, you might be saying "Oh, great, so I have to go through the whole game all over again, but forgo all the upgrades this time, just to complete my list of tasks? This is gonna be torture..."
I think there could be some Mark Twain theory of work vs. play going on here.
I think the most rewarding approach might be to treat achievements as "suggestions". Some achievements I find interesting, and obtaining them really forces me to push my skills to the limit and get more out of the game. Other achievements are brain-dead and repetitive and thus, I simply ignore them.
It's distinctly geared toward adults, yet has never depended on gratuitous violence or sex to boost its ratings (in fact, I'd argue that most episodes with explicit sex or violence are among their worst).
To quote the Princess Bride, "this word...I do not think it means what you think it means." While you're at it, feel free to look up "gratuitous" in the dictionary as well, as you're misusing that word, too.
Bobo the King wrote:
IronSlayer, on the other hand, seems to demand we justify why we like the show,
Uh, no. I merely noted that the excitement and interest of MLP fandom far outstrips the show's actual quality. That was it. Then you made a post peevishly arguing with me about it, stating that MLP was simply the best. Immediately after I responded, you then wrote that you didn't want to argue about it. Even Pinkie Pie herself would be annoyed by your contradictory airheadedness.
Also, you might want to brush up on your poor reading comprehension along with those weak vocabulary skills.
Bobo the King wrote:
IronSlayer be trollin'.
Nope, dead serious. Camping out in front of the theater for a week to see a film indicates the person has severely fucked up priorities in life and/or is neglecting employment, school, and family.
The problem with mathematically accurate definitions is that they are very hard for laymen to understand. That's why more informal and understandable definitions are necessary, even if they might not be fully accurate or might lead to misunderstandings.
Very true, but you also don't want to give them a conceptual definition that is plain wrong, like you did.
Warp wrote:
or when explaining quantum mechanics you could lay out the Maxwell equations,
Huh? What do Maxwell equations have to do with quantum mech? Maxwell's equations are just classic E&M. You're probably thinking of Schrödinger's equation and/or de Broglie wavelengths.
Edit- p4wn3r beat me to it...
There are three things in gaming that seem to be very popular but which just don't interest me almost at all: Achievements, real-time strategy games and online multiplayer games.
Jeez, these are three of my favorite things in games. Online multiplayer is probably my overall favorite. Single player is usually tremendously easy and offers no real challenge.
What I love is playing people from all over the world, and gradually improving at the game. At the beginning, there will be many that are far superior to me, and will squash me like a bug. Over time, I learn new skills, discover new strategies, improve my play, and become good at the game.
For me, there is nothing more exciting and rewarding in a game.
I also love real-time strategy, although I prefer turn-based strategy as I'm simply better at it.
Warp wrote:
I have never understood the charm in achievements. Some people seem hooked to them, searching every single useless item in the game just to get some kind of "all items found" achievement, and so on. I don't see any reason to do so.
It depends how well the achievements are set up, but usually, I like them. It offers me a challenge more difficult and interesting than merely beating a game on the highest difficulty, which is (again) relatively easy these days.
Oftentimes, beating a difficult challenge is more rewarding and causes me to expand my skills far more than obtaining the best ending.
I don't think the writing of My Little Pony is necessarily average; it's just not written for you. I found the episode Look Before you Sleep to be a good example of this. The dialog was boring and predictable, the characterization simple and unbelievable. As an adult, I felt my intelligence was insulted by watching it... except that I wasn't being written for. It was written for the seven year old girl who I was babysitting at the moment, and on that level, the writing was actually pretty good! It'd be like dismissing a children's book on the basis of not being Shakespeare.
I completely agree. That's also why I wrote that by the standards of children's animated series, MLP is good. Is it the absolute best within that genre, even among Western cartoons? From my own youth, I prefer Animaniacs and Conan the Adventurer. But it's good, and certainly way better than most 90's cartoons that I watched growing up. It accomplishes what it wants to.
But as you noted, it is made for little kids. And thus, certain adults loudly proclaiming its high quality by adult standards is that much more suspect.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
I an also see where Bobo is coming from with regards to adult themes and entertainment. Sometimes, as adults, you want to get away from all that "mature" stuff and settle down with something good, clean, and wholesome, something you wouldn't mind showing whatever young children are in your care, but can enjoy without them being around.
I completely understand and appreciate this. I'm the same way. However, if we're going down that road, I feel that, once again, there are so many dozens, if not HUNDREDS of better alternatives.
Watch a Leo McCarey comedy. Or a Danny Kaye film.
I loved their movies as a kid and I still love them now. They're innocent and care-free, and so much funnier, better written, and more interesting than MLP that even comparing them in the same sentence is an insult. Again, I dare anyone who has seen their pictures to disagree.
Even if one has a certain aversion to "mature" material, they can still do way better in terms of content. Again, it's why I believe the joys of fandom are the main appeal for the MLP community. I definitely understand and appreciate how fun it can be to call oneself a "Brony" and all that it entails.
Ferret Warlord wrote:
Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. -CS Lewis
I'll ignore the fact that CS Lewis was a horrible hack writer and that I hated reading his books as a kid, while simultaneously adoring large collections of both Western and Oriental fairy tales, "The Hobbit", "The Wizard of Oz" series, etc. (Oops, too late)
The quote contains a good degree of truth, but again, more emphasis should be placed on the "moderation" part. Personally, I watched 7 full episodes of MLP, and am not ashamed to admit it to anyone. However, let's also not go too far in the other direction, and celebrate MLP solely for being childish.
And let's not confine every bit of our consumption of movies, books, and television shows to the same "carefree, childish" stuff, and then defend it as something intellectual and worthwhile, like so many people nowadays do. In a broader sense, I do feel that there's a heavy strain of infantilism in Western culture these days; many people want to "escape" back into their childhood instead of dealing with the cruel, difficult adult world.
My friend highly recommends Archer. Futurama's latest episodes were extremely disappointing and I'd unhesitantly say that season 1 of MLP is more entertaining minute-for-minute than last summer's Futurama episodes.
I don't know about the series reboot; I've only watched the original. Regardless, it's amusing that a self-professed Brony has to compare the absolute worst of Futurama against the very best of MLP in order to even state (by his own tastes!) that MLP has a limited edge.
I mean, if that's the best thing you can say about the quality of your beloved show...
Bobo the King wrote:
I can't personally speak to the quality of The Goode Family, but its reviews were mixed and it was short-lived.
It might be more honest to type "I know absolutely nothing about it" here, instead of vaguely citing some reviews. The show was created by Mike Judge, the genius behind "Office Space", Beavis and Butthead, and King of the Hill, and it's easily the funniest thing he's ever done on television. In fact, I would probably take the lone season of The Goode Family over any season from any animated comedy ever.
Bobo the King wrote:
And all of those shows seem to have very adult elements, whether it's Beavis and Butthead's crude humor or the occasional far-reaching plot of Futurama or the strong themes of sex and violence throughout Archer. Those can be nice, but sometimes you just want to kick back and enjoy ponies for a half-hour.
I thought we were just talking about comedic, carefree, animated shows here, no? I don't remember you mentioning that we were also confining it to "shows with no adult elements".
But if we were, your position is even more confusing. As an adult, how is a show having "adult elements" a bad thing? I understand that for a small child, MLP is more age-appropriate than Metalocalypse or Archer, but for an adult? Why does it matter? Also, if you recall, "television entertainment for adults" is the standard which I judged MLP against and called "average at best", and which you so strongly disagreed with. Yet here, you're using an argument that is strictly to do with "television entertainment for children".
And why, as an adult, are "adult elements" such a negative thing for you? Is it a desire to escape into infantilism? A general aversion towards any content that is sexual, violent, or "indecent"?
Bobo the King wrote:
I'm not looking for an argument. To each his own.
I don't mind arguments myself, but it's strange that you type this after quoting my post and stating how strongly you disagreed with it. You basically start an argument (in a civil, reasonable manner, but still...), and then say you don't want one?!
To a limited extent, you're right, but I strongly disagree with your second paragraph. We live in a time with outstanding adults-oriented entertainment... if you like dramas and reality TV. For the rest of us, who want something more carefree, MLP is perhaps the best show out there.
Really? So you've never heard of Archer, The Goode Family, Beavis and Butthead, Metalocalypse, and Futurama? (And that was just off the top of my head?)
The idea that the only modern-day "outstanding adults-oriented entertainment" is drama or reality TV is completely ridiculous. The overwhelming majority of television shows out there are carefree comedic fluff, including every single series I mentioned above. (Which are animated to boot)
And that's precisely why I called MLP strictly average; comparing it to any of those shows, not only is MLP far from the "best", it's like one or two whole levels inferior. I'd love someone to claim with a straight face that they think MLP has funnier jokes, more interesting storylines, and/or more original characters than those in Archer or Futurama, for instance.
As Ferret Warlord already mentioned, MLP fandom is way more about the excitement of proudly proclaiming oneself a "Brony" and all that it entails than it is the actual quality of the show.
The series itself is good by the standards of a children's animated show, and strictly average (at best) by the standards of a normal adult-oriented show. But even by the most generous standards or wildest stretches of one's imagination, it's not remotely good enough to generate such intense fandom....if the fandom itself weren't so damn fun!
So yeah, it's one of those weird shows/movies/books where the fandom part is way more interesting/attractive than the actual work that spawned it. Oddly enough, it reminds me of Star Trek, although The Wrath of Khan is a hundred times better than anything MLP-related. And not even Trekkies are as annoying as Bronies...
The second definition (which I'm most comfortable with) is the log of the number of microstates of a system corresponding to a given macrostate.
Yes, this is the standard definition of entropy given in all the basic quantum, thermal, and statistical mechanics textbooks. It's usually written as (s), where Ln is the natural logarithm, and s the number of states.
Meanwhile, Warp's "informal" definition of entropy appears to be vague and very likely wrong.
According to the pw3ner's posts, it's a completely separate physical property.
Absolutely incredible. I've seen this four times already and cracked up laughing each time. However, that was nothing compared to my girlfriend's reaction; I was afraid she would hurt herself after she howled with laughter for 4 straight minutes non-stop.
Focus-
This is awesome.
Link to video
I still quote this video regularly, even though I first saw it like 5 years ago. "I'm real steak and potatoes kind of guy!" says Don Rickles' much uglier, creepier twin, scrunching up his face.
I do not think I am wrong. The examples you listed are not effective to dismiss what I said.
You're completely missing the point. Any game with decent depth and interesting mechanics will have tactics and strategies the developers never envisioned. If the game was so simple that the developers figured out the optimal strategies in beta testing, then it's probably not very good.
You know the best example of a legendary game that had hundreds, nay THOUSANDS of tactics/strategies its creators never envisioned? Chess.
VirtualAlex wrote:
Starcraft, and general RTS are developed in a particular way much like Magic the Gathering. The developers provide the player with tools, the player's job is to use the tools to create a stronger force than the opponent. In this case it is the dev's job to provide nice tools, but not necessarily to test every combination. You are not outsmarting the developers when you use the tools as intended.
Uh, no? In many instances, on a high level, the tools are being used in ways the developers never intended. Not just in terms of pairing them together in a different way, either.
And the idea that developers can simply provide "nice tools" and then sit back and relax is ridiculous. Ever heard of something called "balance"? It's absolutely vital for a game with a serious multi-player component. If the developers don't provide safeguards against someone using tools in a manner different than they intended (and it happens), the game can become severely unbalanced or even broken.
It's also why every serious multi-player game has numerous patches.
VirtualAlex wrote:
Also if you DO end up outsmarting the developers and create something that is too powerful it is patched out of the game.
I don't see how the existence of patches supports your original point that "outsmarting the game when the developers didn't intend it is simply bad game design". In fact, you're actually arguing against yourself by saying this.
Since every good multiplayer game gets patches, then according to you, they were all poorly designed upon launch.
VirtualAlex wrote:
I am not sure what you mean about fighting games unless you be specific, but each character in a fighting game only has a finite number of moves, all of which where intentionally put in. I can't even imagine what a player could do to outsmart a fighting game unless he found some awful exploit. I know in one of the street fighter games there is a glitch which lets you perform an invincible move if you do it right when you come out of a roll. It became a standard element of the gameplay however it is undeniably a glitch.
I wasn't even talking about roll-canceling in CvS2, which is what you're referring to. There are dozens of such glitches which the game developers never intended, by the way.
However, I'm talking about basic things, like Sagat's ridiculous zoning in vanilla SF4, or any of hundreds of tactics in MvC3. Most of these were never imagined by the developers.
VirtualAlex wrote:
I can see how you can be right about puzzle games. If you outsmart a puzzle with an off-beat solution then you did indeed outsmart the game, it was unintended, and it didn't break the game and it wasn't a poor design.
Your statement mentioned nothing about breaking a game. Only that anything not conceived of by the developers which is effective automatically implies "poor design".
Which, once again, is just plain wrong.
That wasn't my objection. If someone thinks that a MLP reference is lame and pathetic, that's understandable. What crosses the line for me is when they start belittling and even outright insulting people who make such references.
You're surprised that upon observing behavior that you admit is "lame and pathetic", some people will "belittle", and horror of horrors, even "insult" the childish idiot in question? Really? Are you pulling our leg?
Warp wrote:
As I said, that's not the issue. If someone made a (completely off-topic) reference to almost anything else (such as Transformers, Star Trek or Doctor Who)
People make frequent off-topic references to Star Trek, Transformers, and/or Doctor Who?! I've honestly never seen a single example of the last two. I'm curious what wacky forum this is.
Warp wrote:
It's only when someone makes a MLP reference that people start attacking for no good reason.
I really do think that the difference comes from a sense of masculinity and contempt towards (male) people who seem to go contrary to its tenets.
I would say it's a case of memetic saturation, and not of masculinity. Something experiences a massive surge of popularity, some people check it out and see nothing all that special, but see how people in circles they are part of get obsessed with it, talking about it for no good reason. It is viewed as invasive and unwelcome; these people have pony topics elsewhere, quite talking about it here! Add to that the fact that My Little Pony has been a franchise aimed squarely at little girls for nearly 30 years, and the amount of confusion and irritance only increases.
So yeah, I can understand how people may react violently. They don't think it's funny, just annoying.
Exactly. When I see random people mentioning Ponies in an unrelated Internet discussion, I just think they're really lame and pathetic.
Not because they like something that's not masculine, but because they think their fandom is such hot shit that they can't wait to mention it to every random stranger. The utter irrelevance of this to the target discussion doesn't stop them.
It's like an excited little kid that can't stop talking about his favorite shitty superhero cartoon.
For normal people, there are thousands of books, movies, TV shows, songs, comics, and animations they love. They also don't feel to randomly bring them up at every opportunity.
It is a different matter entirely when you outsmart the game and the developers did not intend it. That is simply poor design, and although you can be proud of yourself, it isn't the same situation. Usually when its unintended, whatever it is you discovered, will likely ruin the gameplay and likely break the game.
Wrong.
Even the best designed games will have effective tactics and strategies (I'm not even talking about glitches here) that the designers never dreamed of. Take any advanced Starcraft strategy, a bunch of high-level stuff in fighting games, tactics in FPS's, or alternate solutions in virtually any decent puzzler. (Portal was mentioned already)
That's not "bad design" but rather an inevitably when you create a deep, interesting game.
VirtualAlex wrote:
That is the feeling games need to provide. Less tutorials! So many games beat you over the head with their "genius" mechanics because they are too afraid you might miss something.
As Warp correctly noted, that's just a product of the current gaming marketplace. Back in the day, little kids would spend weeks and even months playing a single game.
Nowadays, adults play games and want to get through them in a few days.
Not the developers' fault.
Because Tom Brady made fun of Buffalo, and if there's anything I learned from Lebron James and Dwayne Wade, is that you shouldn't make fun of someone, like they did to Dirk Nowitski.
Actually no, he didn't. What happened is that during the 2-week long media circus before the Super Bowl, a bunch of so-called "journalists" (really, they're mostly just gossip columnists these days) took a quote of Brady's completely out of context.
Brady was talking about how much his parents loved and supported him, and that they would travel everywhere to attend his games. That included Buffalo, which "if you've seen the hotels in Buffalo, is saying a lot!"
It was obviously meant as a joke about run-down hotels, but as soon as Brady said it, he realized it would be taken out of context as "arrogant, rich quarterback callously talks shit about an entire city!" Thus, he quickly added "But Buffalo is a wonderful city, don't get me wrong..."
And people wonder why athletes today give only the most generic, vanilla responses to every question under the sun. It's because any mildly interesting response (or worse, a joke) will be twisted into some gaudy, insulting headline used to get more page views.
And judging by Captain Forehead's post above, plenty of people will believe it.
Focus-
The excuse of "commercials" also doesn't work this year because the adverts were almost all crap.
Complaining about being "friend zoned" is pretty childish, I'd say.
I partially agree. However, if you get the "let's just be friends" speech a lot, chances are you're doing something wrong.
Anyways, I have received very few "let's be friends" speeches when it comes to dating. Either the girl stops taking my calls and avoids me like the plague. (Vast majority of the time) Or else we have a sexual relationship.
I think the point is to make it clear what you're looking for with the girl. That doesn't mean verbalizing it so much as showing it with your body language and general behavior around her. If you act like just a Platonic friend, then there's a very good chance she will treat you that way, too.
If you act like someone interested in a romantic relationship, she will make a choice about you as such.
In all honesty, this was painfully dull. While I appreciate the effort that went into making this and the amusing submission text, I have never been this bored by a five minute TAS video.
No vote.
This run made me curious enough to download the game and get the bad and good endings on it. Overall, it's a fun little puzzle platformer with cute visuals and nice music. Occasionally frustrating with some of the jumps and getting all 240 gems, but nothing too bad. So thanks for that!
That being said, the speedrun was neither exciting nor impressive. Actually, I think the 100% run would be even worse on both counts.
Voting no.
I've been having a lot of dreams lately.
My "good dreams" are presented in the same way a film is. The genre is either adventure, action, horror, fantasy, mystery, or science fiction. Regardless of type, they're all ridiculously violent, brutal, and vicious. The horror ones are easily more terrifying than any movie I've ever seen. They make "Hostel" or even "Imprint" seem like children's cartoons by comparison. There's also an absurd amount of sex.
I generally enjoy those ones.
The "bad dreams" don't have any violence or sex in them, but they're the ones that actually frighten or depress me. They deal with certain people and events in my life. I try to banish most of them from my mind.
Recently though, I've had less violent and sexual dreams, by my standards. So much so that I can probably share them!
Last night, I dreamed that there was a weird porn shoot recruiting for some male talent. The female was a brain-dead blonde starlet. Some good-looking douchebag showed up. I disliked this guy for some reason; he tried to be a smarmy, cheerful guy, but I could see through his facade.
Once the shooting wraps up, a Boston Irishman, with close-cropped, reddish blonde hair shows up. He is clearly going for the "white gangster" look, complete with huge overcoat, plain white T-shirt, and a gold chain around his neck. I notice in my dream that I actually wear the same clothes a lot, too. But not for those reasons.
Anyways, this guy starts making fun of the male porn star, hurling all sorts of insults at him.
At this point, my own character shows up. I like this Irishman; I laugh at his jokes, and egg him on. He is having none of it, though; he turns to me and starts making fun of my name.
I start insulting him too, and since we're apparently both ninjas, we decide to have a duel to settle this. The male porn star and the braindead blonde follow us.
This isn't a duel to the death, though; just to settle who is right. Once the fight starts, it becomes very clear that I am faster and physically stronger than my opponent. However, he does a good job of running away, and despite being a weaker ninja overall, has one very scary ability I don't.
Namely, he can summon gigantic stuffed animals that appear out of thin air and start pursuing me. The more I run away, the more he summons. There are teddy bears, grotesque giraffes, and lions with shaggy manes.
The one trait they all have in common are their sick, sadistic smiles. They want to see their victim suffer. They're a combination of the stuffed animals in Akira and the circus procession in the "Pierrot le Fou" episode of Cowboy Bebop. I haven't watched anime in years, and those particular works in a decade.
Once these stuffed animal abominations get their hands on you, they're way more powerful than any human. They're essentially killer golems, except creepier.
I try my best to avoid them, but they manage to manhandle me and almost rip me apart. Eventually though, the Irishman's magic runs out. At that point, I smile, because I know I've made it. I pursue and catch up to the fleeing rascal. After beating him for a while, he makes a plea for his life; "didn't you want to be friends?!"
"That was before you tried to kill me with those monstrosities."
"Ah, but if you let me live, I can teach you the magic that allowed me to summon them."
The Irishman is clever. As I ponder his proposition, I wake up.
Like every other math and science nerd on the planet, I read and loved "Ender's Game" as an adolescent.
However, I was so disappointed in "Speaker for the Dead" that I never even finished it. I've heard good things from a few other friends about "Ender's Shadow", though. Perhaps I will check it out.