Why are video games important?
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Mark Wallace wrote:
At least when kids play computer games they're using their brains,
Barely.
Mark Wallace wrote:
and working at achieving things (IMO, even working on going up a level in a game is far better than sitting like a mindless vegetable watching cretinous garbage on TV).
Hardly an acchievement. Of course it depends what you watch on TV, but you cant dismiss it all. After all, film is an art form, and there is some good comedy, and some good documentaries on TV frequently.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
Mark Wallace wrote:At least when kids play computer games they're using their brains, Barely.
Well, I suppose people who only like first-person shooters can end up as thick as a stick (or something else brown and sticky).
fat_boy wrote:
Mark Wallace wrote:and working at achieving things (IMO, even working on going up a level in a game is far better than sitting like a mindless vegetable watching cretinous garbage on TV). Hardly an acchievement.
Depends on the game (see above). Even the silliest of puzzle games requires focus, concentration, and thinking to achieve the goal, and strategy games can be even more mentally demanding.
fat_boy wrote:
After all, film is an art form
Only if produced by artists -- so that'd be "rarely", then.
fat_boy wrote:
and there is some good comedy
And several shiploads of brainless comedy for each good one.
fat_boy wrote:
some good documentaries on TV frequently
How many under-twelves are interested in watching Horizon? And how many of them would you want to be interested in such adult-orientated programs?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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fat_boy wrote:
Mark Wallace wrote:At least when kids play computer games they're using their brains, Barely.
Well, I suppose people who only like first-person shooters can end up as thick as a stick (or something else brown and sticky).
fat_boy wrote:
Mark Wallace wrote:and working at achieving things (IMO, even working on going up a level in a game is far better than sitting like a mindless vegetable watching cretinous garbage on TV). Hardly an acchievement.
Depends on the game (see above). Even the silliest of puzzle games requires focus, concentration, and thinking to achieve the goal, and strategy games can be even more mentally demanding.
fat_boy wrote:
After all, film is an art form
Only if produced by artists -- so that'd be "rarely", then.
fat_boy wrote:
and there is some good comedy
And several shiploads of brainless comedy for each good one.
fat_boy wrote:
some good documentaries on TV frequently
How many under-twelves are interested in watching Horizon? And how many of them would you want to be interested in such adult-orientated programs?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
How many under-twelves are interested in watching Horizon?
Me for one when I was young, but then I also used to watch OU stuff too. Computer games vary of course, from the inane crap, like platform games, to well, perhaps playing chess on a PC is the best example I have. Films too, from the inane crap produced by the US industry in bucketloads, to the really quite good stuff produced elsewhere, like France for example, where Film is considered and therefore used, like an art form. Comedy too, it varies. To write off TV sop completely like you did is just plain ignorant.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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Mark Wallace wrote:
How many under-twelves are interested in watching Horizon?
Me for one when I was young, but then I also used to watch OU stuff too. Computer games vary of course, from the inane crap, like platform games, to well, perhaps playing chess on a PC is the best example I have. Films too, from the inane crap produced by the US industry in bucketloads, to the really quite good stuff produced elsewhere, like France for example, where Film is considered and therefore used, like an art form. Comedy too, it varies. To write off TV sop completely like you did is just plain ignorant.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
To write off TV sop completely like you did is just plain ignorant.
As a percentage, how much TV meets decent standards of quality? How many shows are "unmissable" A hundredth of a percent, maybe. Try adding up the hours of all channels and working it out; you'll find that it's a shockingly low figure. Then work out how much money cretins are paid for producing garbage for the remaining 99.99%. For me, something that is of such low quality so much of the time IS a write-off. Saying it's not a write-off is being ignorant of reality.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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1.21 Gigawatts wrote:
I hate soaps and talent shows with a passion.
Then reality TV should just about curl your toes.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
"Reality" shows are nothing more than scripted sitcoms with "cheaper" talent for the studios. It's an easier way to make more money, and most people believe they are really seeing unscripted, reality based television....
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At the moment, videogames represent the only activity I can cooperate profitably with my 4 years old son. :)
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles]By the time he's six, he'll destroy you at whatever game you play together... ;P At least that was the case with my son. He's 11 now and about the only game I can actually compete with him on par is with the EA Sports games where I just have a little more background/strategic knowledge of those sports.
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fat_boy wrote:
To write off TV sop completely like you did is just plain ignorant.
As a percentage, how much TV meets decent standards of quality? How many shows are "unmissable" A hundredth of a percent, maybe. Try adding up the hours of all channels and working it out; you'll find that it's a shockingly low figure. Then work out how much money cretins are paid for producing garbage for the remaining 99.99%. For me, something that is of such low quality so much of the time IS a write-off. Saying it's not a write-off is being ignorant of reality.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
how much TV meets decent standards of quality
- Every news channel for one. (OK every as in Fox, CNBC etc) 2) All documentaries. 3) Most humour. 4) Soaps. (Yes, although I dont like them I can appreciate the creative skill and acting that goes into them). 5) 20% of Films. (Yes, it really IS hard to appreciate the creative skill and acting that goes into most of them, especially American ones). 6) Almost all chat shows are crap. 7) Top Gear. Quite probably, the best television program ever made. 8) Travel programs. For the most part they are informative. 9) Cooks on TV. Mostly utter drivvel.
Mark Wallace wrote:
How many shows are "unmissable"
My, you dont set the bar high do you. But: 1) Top Gear does get there. They really are unmissable. 2) Red Dwarf was too. 3) Have I got news for you. 4) Anything by the guy from KYTV was great (Inside Victor Lewis Smith, Brass Eye etc Chris someone or other) 5) Facejack is damn good at times. By comparison, how many video games are 'unmissable'? Well, Duke Nukem was good.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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Mark Wallace wrote:
how much TV meets decent standards of quality
- Every news channel for one. (OK every as in Fox, CNBC etc) 2) All documentaries. 3) Most humour. 4) Soaps. (Yes, although I dont like them I can appreciate the creative skill and acting that goes into them). 5) 20% of Films. (Yes, it really IS hard to appreciate the creative skill and acting that goes into most of them, especially American ones). 6) Almost all chat shows are crap. 7) Top Gear. Quite probably, the best television program ever made. 8) Travel programs. For the most part they are informative. 9) Cooks on TV. Mostly utter drivvel.
Mark Wallace wrote:
How many shows are "unmissable"
My, you dont set the bar high do you. But: 1) Top Gear does get there. They really are unmissable. 2) Red Dwarf was too. 3) Have I got news for you. 4) Anything by the guy from KYTV was great (Inside Victor Lewis Smith, Brass Eye etc Chris someone or other) 5) Facejack is damn good at times. By comparison, how many video games are 'unmissable'? Well, Duke Nukem was good.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
News channels repeat the same content, over and over, and mainly comprise presenters (they're not newscasters, or even journalists, any more) desperately trying to find waffle to say about what they've already said a thousand times. "Most documentaries" are not great. Horizon, Aces. Equinox, right on. Panaorama, the standard to follow. Most of the rest? Badly researched and/or implemented. "Most humour" isn't.
fat_boy wrote:
Soaps. (Yes, although I dont like them I can appreciate the creative skill and acting that goes into them).
Now you're just being ridiculous. And your entry for ""most humour" is Red Dwarf? What, 25 hours up to 1999, and two in 2009. I think you pretty much prove my point with that one. So, you like watching boring shows with grown men acting like "lads" and harping on about cars, and the most educational games you play are FPS. Here's a tip: Get a game that will help you improve your spelling and typing abilities. Top Gear won't do that for you, and nor will ten-year-old comedy shows.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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News channels repeat the same content, over and over, and mainly comprise presenters (they're not newscasters, or even journalists, any more) desperately trying to find waffle to say about what they've already said a thousand times. "Most documentaries" are not great. Horizon, Aces. Equinox, right on. Panaorama, the standard to follow. Most of the rest? Badly researched and/or implemented. "Most humour" isn't.
fat_boy wrote:
Soaps. (Yes, although I dont like them I can appreciate the creative skill and acting that goes into them).
Now you're just being ridiculous. And your entry for ""most humour" is Red Dwarf? What, 25 hours up to 1999, and two in 2009. I think you pretty much prove my point with that one. So, you like watching boring shows with grown men acting like "lads" and harping on about cars, and the most educational games you play are FPS. Here's a tip: Get a game that will help you improve your spelling and typing abilities. Top Gear won't do that for you, and nor will ten-year-old comedy shows.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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By the time he's six, he'll destroy you at whatever game you play together... ;P At least that was the case with my son. He's 11 now and about the only game I can actually compete with him on par is with the EA Sports games where I just have a little more background/strategic knowledge of those sports.
We cooperate, don't compete (at the moment). :)
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles] -
Mark Wallace wrote:
how much TV meets decent standards of quality
- Every news channel for one. (OK every as in Fox, CNBC etc) 2) All documentaries. 3) Most humour. 4) Soaps. (Yes, although I dont like them I can appreciate the creative skill and acting that goes into them). 5) 20% of Films. (Yes, it really IS hard to appreciate the creative skill and acting that goes into most of them, especially American ones). 6) Almost all chat shows are crap. 7) Top Gear. Quite probably, the best television program ever made. 8) Travel programs. For the most part they are informative. 9) Cooks on TV. Mostly utter drivvel.
Mark Wallace wrote:
How many shows are "unmissable"
My, you dont set the bar high do you. But: 1) Top Gear does get there. They really are unmissable. 2) Red Dwarf was too. 3) Have I got news for you. 4) Anything by the guy from KYTV was great (Inside Victor Lewis Smith, Brass Eye etc Chris someone or other) 5) Facejack is damn good at times. By comparison, how many video games are 'unmissable'? Well, Duke Nukem was good.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
By comparison, how many video games are 'unmissable'?
Civilization. I remember when my daughter was in middle school she would always comment on how they were discussing stuff she learned from Civ in her history class. Sad though, she probably got more info from the game than the class.
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fat_boy wrote:
Mark Wallace wrote:At least when kids play computer games they're using their brains, Barely.
Well, I suppose people who only like first-person shooters can end up as thick as a stick (or something else brown and sticky).
fat_boy wrote:
Mark Wallace wrote:and working at achieving things (IMO, even working on going up a level in a game is far better than sitting like a mindless vegetable watching cretinous garbage on TV). Hardly an acchievement.
Depends on the game (see above). Even the silliest of puzzle games requires focus, concentration, and thinking to achieve the goal, and strategy games can be even more mentally demanding.
fat_boy wrote:
After all, film is an art form
Only if produced by artists -- so that'd be "rarely", then.
fat_boy wrote:
and there is some good comedy
And several shiploads of brainless comedy for each good one.
fat_boy wrote:
some good documentaries on TV frequently
How many under-twelves are interested in watching Horizon? And how many of them would you want to be interested in such adult-orientated programs?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Mark Wallace wrote:
people who only like first-person shooters can end up as thick as a stick
Hey, hey, hey, let's not start calling names...
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Mark Wallace wrote:
people who only like first-person shooters can end up as thick as a stick
Hey, hey, hey, let's not start calling names...
Mladen Jankovic wrote:
Hey, hey, hey, let's not start calling names...
heh. You've not had many discussions with fat_boy, then? Insults and one-votes flow from him like water.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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I see you mistake your own tastes for quality. And by the way the rest of the world disagrees with you about top Gear. I wonder who is in the right...
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
I see you mistake your own tastes for quality.
I see that you mistake a general public obsession with cars as a sign that a TV show is quality programming. If it were truly of such great quality, then the same trio could do the same thing with any product, not just cars, and the viewing figures would be as high -- but take away the cars (which have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the writing, production, or performance), and the show would only last a few weeks. A good painter can paint anything, and it will be beautiful. A good composer can compose music on any theme, and the sounds will represent it beautifully. A good writer can write on any subject, and it will be enthralling. Clarkson & Co. can act like lads and talk about cars in the same way that blokes talk about cars in pubs. That's the only draw. Quality TV? Bollocks.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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We cooperate, don't compete (at the moment). :)
If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile.
This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke
[My articles]heh. You've got three years at the most. Then, at the dread age of seven, when he starts rationalising the world, he'll be all over you! But seriously, Folks: The fact that you play co-operative games with him (rather than competitive games) should be a wonderful influence on his development, and help him learn early the details of how to work together with other people (which is just about the toughest life-lesson to learn), so you're doing a great job, IMO.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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fat_boy wrote:
I see you mistake your own tastes for quality.
I see that you mistake a general public obsession with cars as a sign that a TV show is quality programming. If it were truly of such great quality, then the same trio could do the same thing with any product, not just cars, and the viewing figures would be as high -- but take away the cars (which have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of the writing, production, or performance), and the show would only last a few weeks. A good painter can paint anything, and it will be beautiful. A good composer can compose music on any theme, and the sounds will represent it beautifully. A good writer can write on any subject, and it will be enthralling. Clarkson & Co. can act like lads and talk about cars in the same way that blokes talk about cars in pubs. That's the only draw. Quality TV? Bollocks.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Ah, so you are anti automobile, and therefore cant stand Top Gear (despite the fact they built an electric car, whcih was a very funny episode).
Mark Wallace wrote:
then the same trio could do the same thing with any product, not just cars
Well, they like cars. But they have done a lot with bikes (rode the length of Vietnam), trucks, vans, and 'boats' (they crosed the channel in amphibous cars they had made themselves).
Mark Wallace wrote:
Quality TV? Bollocks
And yet the rest of the world disagrees with you...
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
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A minor point that the article missed: Because the main alternative is sitting watching a little box that displays either talentless idiots performing stupid stories written by other talentless idiots, or brainless people whose only interest in life is "being famous". At least when kids play computer games they're using their brains, and working at achieving things (IMO, even working on going up a level in a game is far better than sitting like a mindless vegetable watching cretinous garbage on TV).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
Not reading the original article... I'll say they have saved lives. My manager would come back from meetings at corporate headquarters and announce we were staying late to play DOOM on the corporate network because he needed to kill something and video game monsters were a better alternative to bringing a .45 to work and blasting away.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11
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A minor point that the article missed: Because the main alternative is sitting watching a little box that displays either talentless idiots performing stupid stories written by other talentless idiots, or brainless people whose only interest in life is "being famous". At least when kids play computer games they're using their brains, and working at achieving things (IMO, even working on going up a level in a game is far better than sitting like a mindless vegetable watching cretinous garbage on TV).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Not reading the original article... I'll say they have saved lives. My manager would come back from meetings at corporate headquarters and announce we were staying late to play DOOM on the corporate network because he needed to kill something and video game monsters were a better alternative to bringing a .45 to work and blasting away.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11
I used to like playing DooM in co-operative mode, and using my shotgun to "nudge" the other guy out in front of the baddies.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark Wallace wrote:
How many under-twelves are interested in watching Horizon?
Me for one when I was young, but then I also used to watch OU stuff too. Computer games vary of course, from the inane crap, like platform games, to well, perhaps playing chess on a PC is the best example I have. Films too, from the inane crap produced by the US industry in bucketloads, to the really quite good stuff produced elsewhere, like France for example, where Film is considered and therefore used, like an art form. Comedy too, it varies. To write off TV sop completely like you did is just plain ignorant.
Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription
fat_boy wrote:
To write off TV sop completely like you did is just plain ignorant.
start rant TV Soaps are for those people whose life is so boring that they need to watch mindless drivel - as they are - to find some excitement. These programmes only promote promiscuity, violence, back stabbing and everything else that is wrong with society. They should be banned for contributing to the moral decline that they cause in those with no sense to watch something more interesting instead. end rant
No trees were harmed in the posting of this missive; however, a large number of quantum states were changed.
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A minor point that the article missed: Because the main alternative is sitting watching a little box that displays either talentless idiots performing stupid stories written by other talentless idiots, or brainless people whose only interest in life is "being famous". At least when kids play computer games they're using their brains, and working at achieving things (IMO, even working on going up a level in a game is far better than sitting like a mindless vegetable watching cretinous garbage on TV).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
I don't see a link? My personal opinion is that computer games are a monstrous waste of time. You learn nothing from them. My son and I =used= to play em together when he was like 6. Now, he won't bother playing WITH me. He can't stand explaining stuff. Maybe his dislike for deadlines and learning complex tasks are just innate and not due to video games. But I highly suspect video games. We've done cub scouts, camping and hiking playing "bears" in the woods and the usual things boys do. But I've hated video games since they were born. Sure, I wasted my share of quarters. But it's not the quarters I wish I could get back. There's only so much time you're given in life. You should spend it LEARNING and MAKING things WITH people. There's more on TV than just American Idol. Get the Science Channel and Discovery Channel. You can learn about solar system formation and our deep past. There are some great astronomy shows on lately. There are plays to watch and mountains to hike on. Music to make and books to read. Getting to the next level is a serious waste of your life.
