OT: Lefties caught out again!

ge

f the

ient

upin,

I took it as a Harry Potter reference. (I read the first to my daughter and then read the rest for myself.) Fun light fair. Spellotape and any flavor jelly beans, what's not to like. :^)

George H.

Reply to
George Herold
Loading thread data ...

Unlike some people, I've made a family and raised three children. Harry Potter kind of shows up, you see.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

People who don't watch television have time to read.

For a serious horror story, try this one:

formatting link

We know one little girl that has, so far, read all the HP books 47 times.

Interesting kid. Her dad is interesting too.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

:

page

of the

ncient

Remus

e

o?!

=srch

I've said this before. (so excuse repeat) but you should check out Dan Carlins Hard core history.

formatting link

Great for car rides and when doing mindless house work. I was thinking of buying the large compilation for my daughter for Xmas. I have no idea's about clothes or shoes..

(and then I could listen too. :^)

George H.

Reply to
George Herold

Stepping into the homes of many younger people I know is like stepping into a home from 1900. None of the grey or black box consumer widgets I recall from the 1980s and 90s are around anymore. No TV. No landline phone. No DVD player, or VCR, or record player, or stereo, or desktop PC, or printer, or fax machine, or...

The only media such as it is is books and a laptop stowed under the coffee table. and a cell phone

Reply to
bitrex

I liked the sword-and-sorcery genre quite a bit and read quite a lot of it. When I was 13...

Yep.

Reply to
bitrex

617 pages.

Good observation. However, you have to do some archeology to find where the electronics is hiding. Every home seems to have a game console stashed somewhere, usually in a closet. In the garage or loft, are several generations of previous game consoles, usually in various stages of disintegration.

Similarly, most homes have at least an Android or iPad tablet, which nobody uses unless they are desperate. There are no blank power outlets on the wall. All are monopolized by chargers and power supplies for gizmos that are either well hidden or long gone. Any random drawer will contain at least one accessory or charging cable for the computers, tablets, or phones. Such cables and chargers are considered "ugly" and are therefore hidden from view. When my neighbors son went off to college, I was asked to go through the pile and try to identify what cord belonged to what device. This turned out to be somewhat of a challenge as there were four bankers boxes of "stuff".

Computers for kids are usually laptops or Chromebooks. The laptop they carry is usually in tolerable condition, but the one's stored in the garage usually have broken hinges, screens, keyboards, and/or power connectors. (If it moves, it breaks). Again, these are not visible and require archaeology to unearth.

In the not so distant past, I would carefully inspect the contents of people's bookshelves. From the type and quantity of books, I can usually guess(tm) their interests and intellectual level. Around 20 years ago, the collection was supplemented by CD's and DVD's. Today, the bookshelves are still there, but the books, magazines, and DVD's are missing. Instead, the bookshelves are crammed with junk and used for storage, which doesn't tell me much about their interests and intellectual level.

The kids rooms usually has a tiny TV, or they use a laptop to watch streaming videos. However, the TV in the living room supports all the black boxes and gadgets. Game consoles, Comcast gateway, Ooma phone system, cordless phone base, alarm console, VR headset, weather station console, Alexa, charging station for smartphones, NAS storage server, etc. This mountain of IoT devices are all connected with a tangled mess of cables, power adapters, and power strips. The only time the mess is cleaned up is when I'm asked to do it, or when there's an electrical fire. The gadgets are still there but are compressed into a smaller volume held together by a Gordian knot of cables.

Chuckle. I've seen the laptop under the coffee table quite often, usually when I'm asked to diagnose why the laptop doesn't charge any more. Invariably, it's a broken power connector caused by someone tripping over the power cord, stepping on the power cord, or using the laptop as a foot rest.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

As a kid I went to the Imperial War Museum. The model dioramas of WW1 made an indelible impression on me. I wonder if they are still there, half a century later.

The only comparable thing is stereoscopic slides, e.g.

formatting link

Reply to
Tom Gardner

One reason over here is that "Generation Rent" moves flats frequently, and so many possessions are a positive hindrance.

(I've just moved my daughter from London to Cardiff, and had to hire a "large van". Amazingly we found convenient parking at both ends!)

Reply to
Tom Gardner

Processing power is such and video game budgets are such that you can make games look nearly as good as films, unfortunately on average that type seems to mostly be designed by committee, by a committee who knows little about ether crafting a story anyone would want to watch, or a game anyone would want to play...

Reply to
bitrex

Could you put the REAL URL in here so I can dissect it and find it ? Fuck tinyurl, sure put it in here but include the real URL.

And now that it looks like Solshit doesn't like it I figure it must be good.

Reply to
jurb6006

The market for games and movies is international, so they use the multilingual, multicultural themes of violence, shooting, and primitive emotions.

It's amusing to compare Hollywood anti-gun actors to their history of shooting guns to make money in movies.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

American movies are weird. No matter how futuristic the setting and how sophisticated the weaponry, the hero always wins -in extremis- in a bare-fist fight. Violence and death in large quantities are OK, but nudity and sex are absolutely forbidden.

Weird.

Jeroen Belleman

Reply to
Jeroen Belleman

Sure, many English idioms and nuanced dialog probably don't translate well to Mandarin.

On the bright side game-creation tools have evolved enough that you don't need to be a pro game-development house with a million dollar budget to create a game that people will enjoy pay money for, just a couple people and some skill/time is sufficient, similar to how it was in the mid 1980s with e.g. the Commodore 64.

You don't need to write the "engine" completely yourself you just license it and engineer the content. It also means there's a lot more crap to sort through but a lot more inexpensive well-designed gems created by independents. "Minecraft" was engineered almost entirely by one guy it's probably at a quarter billion sales by now, though the developer of that title doesn't seem the "type" to do a not-designed-here.

They're still primarily selling product to Americans sounds like they "know their audience" if you will. If peace and love were what we were buying on average that's what they'd sell

Reply to
bitrex

"Summer action blockbuster" is pretty much its own genre at this point with its own tropes and history, you kind of have to play to the genre because it's what people expect to see when they see that kind of film.

Creativity or "subverting expectations" is not something that's often rewarded by the filmgoing public in major budget summer popcorn-munching films. They do do test audiences prior to releasing films and have their own statistics on stuff after all.

Smaller budget pictures that are offbeat and have-few-to no characters one would describe as stereotypically "heroic" often do okay with American audiences as well so the situation isn't at all monolithic, e.g. "Logan Lucky":

Reply to
bitrex

Not to worry. For every incremental improvement in processor horsepower, there will be an equal and opposite reduction in performance cause by software complexity and screen detail. A good example is the current state of the art 4K 60Hz Ultra-HD video for games. A few game consoles support it: It looks great on the screen until you run a multiplayer game and everything on the screen is moving almost simultaneously. The glorious resolution and detail are lost in a sea of buffering, smearing, pixelation, and blurry edges. Eventually, the game consoles of the future will be able to handle this, but not this week. If you want it now, it takes a gaming PC to deliver the needed horsepower.

As for story lines, they're all insane, which is not surprising because everyone wants their influence visible in the game. The sponsor want his product shown. The lawyers want nothing controversial. The distributor wants overlapping episodes so he can sell essentially the same game several times. The scientists want everything to obey known physical laws. The child psychologist wants no violence. The ad agency wants subliminals. The promoter wants maximum sex, explosions, and violence. The story writer wants the worlds longest chase scene. The fashion consultant wants everyone to look according to their eggagerated vision of the past or future. If you're expecting a coherent, realistic, artistic, original, and sellable story line from this mob, you will be disappointed. While each member of the committee knows all about their specific specialty, it's up to the project director to deal with the necessary compromises and clashes. Some do it very well, others not so well.

Partial disclosure: I've never written a video game, but have spent some time listening to a friend unload her frustrations. She is very much involved in the video game business and very critical of how things are managed. Like sausage, you really don't want to know how video games are made.

"Do you want to write video games?"

Video game writing

Linus Tech Tips He has something like 4,000 videos, including a bunch on gaming:

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

The Sherlock Holmes franchise particularly "Crimes and Punishments" was a fun ride for anyone who wants a more thinking-type game with a "feel" like the recent UK TV show, but set in the novels-appropriate 1890s:

Reply to
bitrex

No matter how sophisticated the atomic blaster guns, they almost always miss.

Too much sex makes a movie unsellable in China.

Hollywood makes whatever sells. The audiences get what they want.

--
John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  
 Click to see the full signature
Reply to
John Larkin

It's more rubbish from ZeroHedge.

formatting link

Right-wing propaganda designed to appeal to people who are as right wing and gullible as Cursitor Doom. Less flattery than would appeal to John Larkin, who is our other gullible twit.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
Reply to
bill.sloman

I hardly go to movies anymore... Christmas time with family. And I went see the 2nd incredibles animation, I'm still a sucker for animation. I grew up on Bugs Bunny, Daffy and the road runner.... Well and as a nerd, my fav. has got to be

Wile E. Coyote. Genius Grin, George H.

Reply to
George Herold

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.