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JXQ,
When playing Metroid Prime 3, did you ever experience your TV being particularly dark?
If so, did you try increasing the brightness on your television set?
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Swedishmartin wrote:
Dear Fabian,
How am I supposed to write like you and Bisqwit do?
I understand everything you two say, but I still can't come up with the proper words when I write and end up using a "standard, bordering on uneducated" vocabulary. I wanna write pretty* too :(
I am madly interested in this Google tech talk. It's about software exploits and programming.
I'm only 15, but I want to learn this as fast as possible (that is, I want to at least know programming** in a year or two) since I find it awesome.
Should I teach myself by the internet (Quick result, but possible gaps in knowledge),
or wait for university (Foolproof when it comes to knowledge, but I have to wait for several years)?
*I think that the proper word here is "prettily", but I don't know.
** In a language that isn't BASIC
Hey I hear you. It is frustrating to feel limited in what you're able to express. I feel like that all the time when using English, everything feels so much smoother when you read a text a native speaker has written.
Your English seems to be very good for a 15 year old though, so try not feeling too bad about it. You're certainly better than most of your peers. The key to getting better is simple, though it's a boring answer. You have to use your English, that's it. I bet you read a lot already, which is great, but if you start writing (or talking though that's trickier) more you will definitely see results, even though it can take a while for you to notice. What you should do is to really focus on getting better. This means forcing yourself to use difficult words or more advanced sentence construction. It means being conscious about using weird (non-intuitive) grammar just for the sake of learning to express yourself beyond the standard "I like cats. I am bad at English".
It's tough. I try very hard to not screw up when it comes to grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes, and I also try very hard to choose more difficult ways of expressing myself, so as to not sound like a 7 year old. It pisses me off to no end when some douchebag native speaker goes on like "lol this guy can't tell the difference between is and are hahaha :) :) :)" when they couldn't write even the simplest sentence in ANY other language to save their life and have no idea what kind of effort it takes to not sound like a 4th grader when using a language you're not used to and don't know extremely well. I read and reread every single sentence I write in English to spot mistakes, even when talking casually on IRC or whatever. Everything gets a double (and triple) take because I want to learn and improve, and I also don't want to inconvenience the people I talk to by making them guess what the hell I'm trying to say.
About the programming thing. I think it's great you're interested in something and want to learn and get better. I definitely think you should start right away if you have the motivation to, however I think you shouldn't set the bar too high. That is, you probably can't expect to become super awesome within a year or two, unless you're really driven and very enthusiastic about this stuff. But definitely give it a shot, then when you eventually reach university you'll have a head start on those who didn't think like you when they were 15. The knowledge you already possess at that time will also be a great help to get a deeper understanding of the things you'll be taught in class.
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Boco wrote:
Dear Fabian,
I pronounce and spell the word "weapontry" with a t, and I have done this all my life. It was recently brought to my attention that this is an incorrect spelling. Where did that "t" come from and why do I say it? Should I keep saying it or make a conscious effort to remember the correct pronunciation each time I use the word?
More seriously, how close are your close friends? Do you have a single best friend, or do you have a group of close friends that are about equally close? Do you feel you can talk about anything with those people or do you tend to keep some things to yourself?
The reason you're spelling it weapontry instead of weaponry is because you were taught that way, why, I have no idea. Shocker I know. You should definitely make a conscious effort to correct it now that you know you've been taught wrong. If you were unable or unwilling to change when you find new information (this goes for pretty much anything) telling you that you should change, what would the point be in learning stuff at all? I think you'll find this particular change to be rather easy, it shouldn't take much effort at all.
I don't have many close friends. I did a few years ago when I was still in school. Since then, I've kinda lost track of most of them, and I haven't met many new people to replace the old ones. A lot of this has to do with moving to new cities where I don't know anyone and not being great at making good first impressions, as well as not putting myself in many situations where I would meet new interesting people to begin with.
I have two very good friends I still keep in touch with on an almost daily basis, who I've known since forever. We've all moved away from each other, but that's what the internet is for. I can talk about everything with these guys, although it's pretty rare that I do. Actually I talk a lot more about "everything" with JXQ. As for people in real life I can talk to about anything, that would be my little sister, who I'm close with. No one else though.
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mr_roberts_z wrote:
This is hella fun.
1. A guy wants to buy a DVD player/TV/PC/useful electronic device and wants to get the best model, but it's too expensive. He waits for it to get cheaper, and by the time it does there's a new product out that he wants that's too expensive, and the cycle repeats itself.
Can you explain the best way to solve this paradox?
2. How many IKEAs are there in Sweden? In Finland?
3. Do you at all mildly regret making this thread?
4. Who are your influences?
1. I completely fail to see a paradox here. Seems like a totally standard consumer situation to me. "Solving" this would obviously be to settle for stuff worse than absolute top quality, or start spending more money.
2. www.wikipedia.org or www.google.com
3. Yes. Not in general because I think it's been great, but when asked 10 non-serious questions in a row or something I might feel "this is stupid why am I bothering?". Also, the thought of a few of my friends or old friends stumbling across this and reading it isn't very exciting. Not too worried about that though.
4. Tough one. My parents and sisters of course, subconsciously at the very least. Also friends I had throughout adolescence, those guys helped form who I am no doubt. Nowadays I can't think of many I actively look up to and try to be more like. Certainly there are character traits in others I wish I could steal from them and stuff, but if that qualified I could mention pretty much everyone I know.
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Raiscan wrote:
Dear Fabian,
Would you care to divulge your naughty secrets of the perfect poker face? Is the trick to think of something boring like the colour grey or an object like cardboard (the paper product, not the lovable forum member)?
Also, if you had to give 1 word to sum poker up, what would would it be?
I have no secrets, naughty or otherwise, about this. I don't play poker live, so I don't have much experience with poker faces.
In general though, a lot of it probably just comes down to experience. If you're playing in a huge pot that's really important to you because the difference between winning and losing it means paying next month's rent, you're going to have a hard time keeping an emotionally detached face. If you've played for a while and have been successful though, another $300 pot won't have any significance to you. You've already been in this spot hundreds of times, it's just another one of those times. Being able to see past the value of money when playing is really important, otherwise you'll probably go crazy losing those pots over and over again. Obviously, being this emotionally invested is probably going to show.
Of course, online, poker face is not important apart from the small consideration of maybe clicking too fast if you're bluffing because adrenaline is running high, or trying to fake weakness by waiting 10 seconds before pushing all your chips in with a great hand. It's not an important part of playing though as their are plenty of other factors deciding how quick you will act (how many tables you're playing, chatting on AIM/MSN, watching tv, surfing the web etc etc), and most people probably don't let these "timing tells" affect their decisions that much.
Poker in one word is rollercoaster. Actually maybe that's two words, roller coaster. Both financially (your results are going to go up and down a lot no matter what) and emotionally (you're going to feel like crap some of the time and like god some of the time).
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Baxter wrote:
Is poker a sport? (why?)
Comes down to the exact definition which I'm not really sure about and can't say I care about either. Having semantics discussions is like stabbing yourself in the eye with a pencil.
Poker is a game of skill with a large element of chance. People enjoy watching it on TV, that's for sure. I can't really answer your question other than "I don't know", but I kinda think that answer is good enough here.
Edit: Darts is a game of skill with an element of chance people kinda enjoy watching on TV. At least in the UK. It qualifies as a sport using my awesome definition.
Chess is a game of skill without elements of chance and with perfect information. Hm hm. You certainly don't see random guys at home in front of the TV with a beer watching a good chess game after a long day's work. So I'm going to say it's not a sport.
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mr_roberts_z wrote:
Dear Fabian:
1. If f and g are both even functions, is f+g necessarily even? If both are odd, are their sums necessarily odd? How about if one is even and one is odd?
2. I have this friend named, uh, mr_boberts_z. This friend has been having suicidal thoughs ever since Pluto was demoted to "dwarf planet" (pfft, dwarf planet, his ass). This friend has repeatedly written letters to the International Astronomical Union begging for changes, to no avail. Can you recommend anything to soothe mr_boberts_z's pain?
3. Blu-ray vs HDDVD?
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DK64_MASTER wrote:
Confirmed.
Also, one of the few that me and you agree on is Mariah Carey <3.
I can't remember ever saying Mariah Carey is hot actually. Well I guess, but kinda meh as far as celebrities go. Sorry :)
I do remember singing along to an awful lot of Mariah Carey songs though. Well just one but lots of times.
Cardboard and DK and skamastaG and maybe JXQ (don't remember which guys were online) can confirm that JUST TWO DAYS AGO I told them she would be on my top 10 hot celebs list!
Great minds!
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Tub wrote:
Dear Fabian,
of course I'm curious. Did you manage to form an opinion about me or would I get the same "who the fuck are you?"-reply the last couple of guys got?
What helps you fall asleep at night? Just going to bed, closing your eyes and dropping off, or is there something different?
(I've tried music, audio books, watching movies / speedruns / tases.. anything to occupy my brain, to keep it from carrying on grinding everyday's problems. Maybe you've got a different approach?)
greetings,
Tub
Unfortunately it's mostly who the fuck are you? I'm not great with names of people I'm not actually interacting much with, plus I don't read that many discussions on this forum any longer. I guess I have figured out you're smarter than most, but I'm not totally sure about it and I'm not sure you're a nicer guy than most either. So yeah it's really neutral/indifferent at this point.
Funny you should ask, because not much helps me fall asleep at night. I've had trouble falling asleep ever since I was like 7, and especially the last 5 or 6 years. I've tried a lot of the stuff you mention, and nothing is really making a difference. It's actually at a point where I'm considering seeing someone about it, even though I'm generally terrified of prescription drugs. Naturally, I don't have any good tips for you, sorry.
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Cardboard wrote:
Dear Fabian.
What do you think of Donut Plains 2?
And is it true that you don't visit Burger King?
And should I let you know when I am at Surbrunnsgatan tomorrow, or before I arrive at the earlier named street?
Yours truly, Cardboard.
Donut Plains 2 is awesome. It's probably the best level of my (currently published) 96 exit SMW run. It's also a major gigantic pain in the ass to do/redo though, and that's the reason I've been stuck there for months for the improved version.
It is true I very rarely visit Burger King. This is because of the "healthy" clause I mentioned earlier about what food I eat.
You can probably get here and start doing whatever it is you're doing, call me and I'll stop by for a while. Also thanks for telling everyone where I live :) Not that it matters, but you know.
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alden wrote:
Dear Fabian,
What was your favorite Magic expansion set? (or there could be many...)
-Nerdy in Alta California
I loved the Invasion block. Invasion/Planeshift/Apocalypse. My first tournament was the Invasion pre-release, the day before I turned 14. It was around that time I enjoyed playing Magic the most probably, when I was just starting out.
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Warp wrote:
Fabian wrote:
I don't really think it's fair to call women shallow if it implies men are less shallow. Let's face it, we're all shallow. Who doesn't enjoy staring at some good looking boobies?
That may be true. The problem is that men and women are shallow in different ways. My vision of an attractive woman is quite different from the typical womanly vision of an attractive man. With this I mean, for example, that women look at things like clothing and hair, while I don't. Clothing can have a big effect on the attractiveness of a woman, but it's in no way the main thing I look for.
As for women's hair, I have a weird taste for that, and none of my male friends share it. See, I think short-haired women are more attractive than long-haired ones. This seems to be a rather rare thing among men. (And, unfortunately, it seems that short-haired women are a very rare species as well.)
[23:20:03] <jimsfriend> Fabian, it might also be good to let warp know that failure doesn't mean he should give up, just that he should try again
[23:20:12] <jimsfriend> if he is socially awkward he might take rejection a bit hard
This is actually true. I have actually dated a whopping 2 women during my life. Ending the relationship was in both cases really painful. The post-effects lasted for quite long time. I'm not very eager to repeat the experience for a third time.
I hear you. It's an entirely different thing, the games men and women play, definitely agree. I kinda hear you on the short haired chick thing too. Well I guess I don't have a specific preference. Natalie Portman though, am I right?!? Some people like to make fun of me for that, but I don't care.
Yeah it sucks about relationships and love going down the crapper. Like I said earlier at some point, I'm generally pretty pessimistic about my chances of finding someone it will work out with long term. You just have to try and keep your fingers crossed though, right?
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alden wrote:
Dear Fabian,
My girlfriend just got back from Seattle and commented on how much people say douchebag there. We almost never hear it here in Santa Barbara. Is that a common Swedish thing too, or is it Internet? Or maybe you never use it at all normally...
-Bored in Santa Barbara
For me, it's internet. It's tough to accurately translate the meaning of a curse word/insult from English to Swedish. I don't think there's a Swedish one really meaning the same thing, at least that's not how I think about it.
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OmnipotentEntity,
I've only been able to come up with one really bizarre situation in my life, and it's probably not a great example of what you were looking for but here goes.
When I was 16 I was playing a card game called Magic a lot, on the internet. There was this entire Swedish magic community etc. So I met someone in our IRC channel who was really cool, a chick (not many magic playing chicks obviously) a year older than me. We started talking a lot, like hours every night. She was really special and extremely awesome and I really fell for her, more than I have with any other girl/woman.
She lived several hours away from me though so we didn't meet up or anything. After a few months I was going to the city she lived in, to play in a magic tournament. I didn't meet her but I did meet her friend, this 40 year old guy who I had talked to briefly online and was actually really cool too. I had a good time.
So we kept talking and I thought of her more and more. I went to another tournament two months later and met this guy once more, again hanging out with him quite a bit and had fun.
So to cut a long story short, eventually the chick moved to Japan, and gradually I started to suspect, and eventually figured out the chick of course did not exist. It was the 40 year old guy. It was a pretty elaborate hoax, once I kinda got over it I was pretty impressed by it.
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Phil wrote:
Dear Fabian,
I did many timeattacks, I did encoded movies, uploaded .torrent at suprnova.org and some other sites, uploaded movies at internet archive.org, created some FAQs, edited some pages, published movies, active at the forum , the first to use x264 video codec which was revolutionary for this site and I did this all for this community. How can you say I am selfish when I did more than most guys for this community?
Fabian wrote:
That is, I don't see you as the type of person who likes giving straight and honest answers to questions, especially not when they are difficult.
The irony is that many people thinks I am direct and probably too much. Why are you saying the opposite?
This is a pretty simple example of logical reasoning. You have done a great deal of things for tasvideos, and I'm sure most people are grateful for it. Just because you (not you specifically Phil, I'm talking you in a general sense) do lots of stuff for a community doesn't necessarily mean you have an unselfish personality. To clarify, you can't use your past actions to determine what kind of person you are. Your personality could be completely different. I'm sure you've done selfish things as well as unselfish things at some points in your life, as have we all. We can't tell based only on that what kind of person that makes us.
I understand what you mean about a direct, confrontational personality Phil. I think it applies to you, like you say. However, I don't think it applies very well when you're up against the wall and someone's is telling you why you're wrong about something, or asking you a question you can't answer without looking bad. In those cases, I believe you will instead ignore the question, answer a different question or throw something else back to shift focus from the question to this other thing.
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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Dearest Fabian,
Why is it, do you think, Phil asks you questions seemingly designed to illicit a negative response from you?
Also, what's the strangest, most "Twilight Zone"-esque situation that you've ever found yourself in?
Finally, I see myself as pretty forgettable and my lurking habits of late don't help, what do you think of me?
I think Phil likes to act provocative and stirring up some drama, and he can't do that if no one says anything negative. This is true for plenty of people of course, not just Phil.
I'll have to think about your next question some more. What happens in Twilight Zone, not familiar with it?
Yeah I have to be honest apart from recognizing your name and your avatar I don't have any idea who you are or if you're awesome/a douchebag, sorry.
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Warp wrote:
Fabian wrote:
I think forcing yourself to change in this situation is really really tough to be honest. Trouble is, while it's all generally kinda sucky because you never meet any women and have almost no friends, on a day to day basis it's kinda alright, right? What I mean is, the feeling of emptiness isn't THAT unbearable during a given day, because you have stuff to kinda occupy your time with, even if they're things you don't really want, long term.
Can you read minds? Or is my life really *that* obvious?
To sum up. Make yourself look presentable. Start losing weight if you need to. Start working out if you need to. Don't look like a hobo (nice clothes, nice hair, nice nails), women pay attention to this.
That's one thing I hate about women. They always claim that they want men to be themselves, even though they mean the exact opposite. They *don't* want men to be themselves, but they want them to suit up and act to please the woman.
That seems to be the difference between a woman and a true friend. The latter doesn't care what you look like, what you wear or if your hair is ok. The friendship will not be in any way diminished by shallow mundane things like those. A true friend accepts you as you are and doesn't expect you to change nor to perform for them. A true friend doesn't need nor want you to act all posh and formal and good-mannered with them. In fact, if you did that it would be more awkward than anything else.
Why must women be so shallow?
I think one thing you will have to pay extra attention to is your personality. You come off pretty bitter (no need to get defensive, I do this too) and grumpy some of the time.
I only act like a jerk online. IRL I'm pretty quiet and seldom express my opinion on anything, and even when I do it's only if people are willing to listen.[/i]
I don't think we're very different you and I, in spirit.
Here's the thing about women though. You need to grab their attention. I'm talking unknown women, picking women up if you will. You do this by making yourself look attractive. A lot of this is just basic behavioral psychology based on evolution. Once the bullshit phase of a relationship is over though, a lot of that shit goes away. Let's say after like two weeks. The problem is, you won't ever reach that stage if you don't make an effort to bagging the chicks in the first place. There's no easy way to get around this as far as I know, you just have to suck it up and act engaging and confident for the first couple dates.
You get past the bullshitting reasonably quickly though. After that point, you will start developing solid friend-/relationships, generally speaking. I don't really think it's fair to call women shallow if it implies men are less shallow. Let's face it, we're all shallow. Who doesn't enjoy staring at some good looking boobies? After a week or two the boobies (or the awesome personality women want men to have) kinda stop mattering (at least mattering less), and you're heading towards a less shallow relationship hopefully.
Edit:
[23:20:03] <jimsfriend> Fabian, it might also be good to let warp know that failure doesn't mean he should give up, just that he should try again
[23:20:12] <jimsfriend> if he is socially awkward he might take rejection a bit hard
This is an extremely important point I completely forgot to mention. Doesn't matter much if you're socially awkward or not, still needs emphasizing.
Hitting on chicks is a numbers game. If you don't get rejected 50 times it means you haven't tried enough. Learning to deal with this can be extremely tricky (I haven't mastered it yet so I don't talk to chicks I don't know, not having great results with this method), you just kind have to force yourself.
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Phil wrote:
Fabian wrote:
If we meet in America, I will give you permission to call me Fabby.
It reminds me of some discussions I got involved. For you, what is America, a country or the continent? And why?
Do you like me?
Do you think I should create a "Ask Phil" thread?
What kind of person do you think I am. If possible i want you to describe me.
America (North America) is Canada + US. Not including Mexico+etc.
See here's the thing Phil. A lot of the stuff you do is based on selfishness, and you're not very considerate of others. You go around calling people gay and homo, and I'm sure sometimes it's just a joke lost through the language barrier but I'm reasonably sure it's not even that sometimes. You are pretty close-minded, by that I mean you have trouble considering other people's viewpoints and you have a hard time accepting (or admitting) when you're wrong or being unreasonable. This is a lot of criticism and I'm sorry about that, but I'm sure if you made a more conscious effort you'd become a lot more likable.
I don't think an Ask Phil thread would be a good idea for many of the reasons I didn't think an Ask Bisqwit thread would be either. That is, I don't see you as the type of person who likes giving straight and honest answers to questions, especially not when they are difficult. I think that's pretty important for something like this.
