Links and Stuff

Huh ? "Isn't PC gaming dead ?" http://www.isnt-pc-gaming-dead.com/

Sounds like a weird mixture between marketing, provocation and … well, I don't really kow.

Personally, I'm quite sure this "planned provocation" aka "how am I able to ignite the most possible nerd-rage" has something to do with an announcement of a new gaming controller, especially since the "owner" of this site is a known manufacturer of those …

Older Video Games Reviews, made by a non-professional : http://www.youtube.com/PatsNostalgia

Rachel Corrie : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Corrie

The "Mozart Effect" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_effect

And the "Publication Bias" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias
(Positive results are rather to be published than negative or neutral ones.)

http://patrickjmt.com/ — "Just Math Tutorials", a big collection of youtube videos showing how to solve math problems.

Wish I had these in school.

Originally Posted by Fenris
If Quake was done today

A satiric video about modern games…

If Tetris was done today

Wait … it was done today.

Face —> palm.

… Rather "stuff" than "links" :

Typed down from the printed magazine "Retro Gamer" on the decline of flight sim games:

'Space combat games have declined in recent years, […]. David [Wessman] has a theory on why : "The particular skills required are of a higher order than the eye-hand co-ordination and fast reflexes of standard shooters. It also requires quick thinking and problem solving on a very high level of situational awareness. All of this is compounded by the fact that you are in 3D space in which you can move in any direction, and threats come from everywhere. It's a sad, true fact that many people have difficulty navigting a 3D space. Not many publishers are willing to risk the amount of money it takes to make a triple-A game when they know the majority of the public won't buy the game because they're incapable of playing it." '

I haven't seen this video yet, but read a escription of its thesis : It is very much like my heory that there can be a kind of addiction to adrenaline evoked by fast-paced video games.

Philip Zimbardo holds a similar theory : http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/zimchallenge.html

Means that I'm not that crazy, after all, only so much far ahead with my thoughts that most people just can't understand me anymore.

And somehow I still get bored with actiongames and enjoy studying so much that I decided to do so for the rest of my life and even after studying non stop for 6 years I look forward to the next course.

Some stuff : Found a funny soccer-oriented Windows Media Player skin today : http://www.customize.org/wmp/skins/45736

I found this article worthwile to read : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

Because it describes to some degree I call "Technicism", too.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
I found this article worthwile to read : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism

Because it describes to some degree I call "Technicism", too.

Daniel Dennett on Scientism (first guy rambles on for about 5 minutes which is worth listening to since it's what DD responds to). Basically the scientism is a word invented by non-empirical groups to discredit those who value empiricism, a sort of ressentiment. To accuse someone of positivism is a similar behavior. When I encountered such labels they have commonly been used by students (not teachers) who spent most of their time studying humanities and some who study sociology, where as the phenomenon they describe actually existing is the huge question. From my own experience around the labels they seem to be most strongly rooted in building up the identity of those who belong in these fields to make their point of view feel more sophisticated and better. As someone who studied both the humanities, social sciences and psychology, the greatest value in the former are hermeneutics, they strengthen the capacity to interpret complex phenomenon and they can and should be proud over that capacity rather than invent unnecessary polarization with empirical fields.

Personally, I interpret the word rather differently : Scientism is to me the belief in "Science" as if it was a new Religion, and furthermore the belief that everything that is proved by "Science" actually exists, and what can not be proved by "Science", that does not exist at all. Like Emotions, for example.

Like in this quote from the article :

E. F. Schumacher in his A Guide for the Perplexed criticized scientism as an impoverished world view confined solely to what can be counted, measured and weighed. "The architects of the modern worldview, notably Galileo and Descartes, assumed that those things that could be weighed, measured, and counted were more true than those that could not be quantified. If it couldn’t be counted, in other words, it didn’t count." [21]

This is why I interpret "Scientism" as a kind of anti-emotion, anti-human-perceptions movement, something which is for example pushed forward by "computer geeks", extremely put. Only Technology counts, and a rational mind. Therefore, Robots are often considered "the better humans". Which might increase the tendency towards developing "cyborg implants". Just look at the latest Deus Ex game.

The German-language article on Scientism is actually a bit longer and it touches more philosophical concerns rather than the English-language article, which appears to me to be ratherbiased towards current U.S. culture (Creationism vs. Science).

I have read about Mrs. Sherry Turkle a few days ago, and she seems to have had some interesting thoughts, according to the Wikipedia article describing her work : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry_Turkle

The Berlin gold hat : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Gold_Hat
The King's Grave : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King's_Grave

Section "stuff" :

Mike Oldfield on video games :

I’ve read a little online about your MusicVR project started early in the 90’s. I suppose in that situation you were ahead of technology? [MusicVR was a project set up by Mike to create computer games that were a real-time virtual reality experience using imagery and music.]

Yeah, I can’t believe it! When I made it I had this huge, at the time, supercomputer called an Onyx that was the size of a fridge. Now my little kids little laptop can do it no problem. Fantastic really.

Is that project on ice then?

Yes. I’d love to get back involved in it but computer games are just so boring, mostly driving cars fast and shooting people, which I didn’t want to do. I had my version of shooting - which probably sounds ridiculous now – where you’d throw seeds to grow things. It wasn’t very popular. Not enough adrenalin in it.

Source : http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4…-mike-oldfield

Found this via another forum : http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot…98233008_n.jpg

The person which posted this picture claimed that it came from this person : http://www.facebook.com/georgehtakei

There are 2-3 which non-Europeans might not be able to discover …

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Found this via another forum : http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot…98233008_n.jpg

Awesome. And I recognize all of them.


The two dudes on the bottom right quadrant I'm not entirely sure about though.

Answer: Yes.

That's pretty neat actually. It took me a few seconds, but I recognize 6 out of the 8.

I don't recognize the third group in the first row or the last group in the second row.

Took me awhile but;