Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@ThanosReXXX nice! What doom did you grab?
@hobbitgamer I told you it's awesome, and bimmy as well. It's just relaxing and calming. Smooth gameplay that just flows, ya know? I grabbed it for 5 too, and It's well worth it.
@bimmy-lee i just don't know what possesses them to spring to action for no reason. It Wasnt like there's anything cool going on or music bumping in the background. Just a straight coin block Mario head butt. Maybe people will feel bad and buy more from me 🤔

@NintendoByNature All three of the classics that were on sale, so 1, 2 and 3. Paid 6 euros for the three of them...

@Heavyarms55 I believe it was either the second Rogue Squadron game on the GameCube, or something following after that. Unfortunately, I don't have the pictures anymore, or if I do, they're either hidden in my floppy archive, or maybe I ported them to one of my Amiga computers, which I also did sometimes, to use as backgrounds and so on.

But yeah, somehow, regardless of the enormous amount of patience you needed to have back then, it was still somewhat of an exciting thing. Probably also because it was new. Those dial-up sounds coming from that modem, though...

As for chat rooms: all I ever participated in, was the use of a fun simple chat tool called ICQ, aka "I seek you", because it was definitely used (abused?) for more than just polite and friendly banter. I can't establish with any certainty that there are actually any meaningful real life relationships that came about because of it, but me and a couple of friends and colleagues used it quite regularly to chat when we weren't able to see or visit each other. Kind of like the predecessor to WhatsApp, so to speak.

@ThanosReXXX Yeah those dial up sounds were... unique. I loved the Rogue Squadron games though. I had a blast with them! It's a shame that the studio that made them went under... Of course, if they were still around they'd be part of the new canon and I'd have no interest.

I never really talked with strangers in chat rooms. Just with friends I knew in real life. Or sometimes I guess I did talk to friends of friends a bit. ICQ is a clever name, but not one I recall.

@ThanosReXXX sweeeeeet. I played thru most of doom 2 but got sidetracked. Doom 3 though, wow. What a game. And for that price, you're basically a thief😉. Enjoy and let me know how you like it if this is your first time. @hobbitgamer same with you. I saw you nabbed doom 3, let me know your impressions.

@ThanosReXXX Glad to have you back!
The comic was soooo good!

@NintendoByNature Surprisingly, I’ve managed to make it through the first section and get back to the Marine Comm Center. I like it, but I definitely play it on edge. Little bursts is gonna be the best pace for that one.
@ThanosReXXX I also used ICQ. Still remember those sound effects, too.

I'm completely staying out of the Brie Larson thing. I don't even know who she is really, and like @Heavyarms55 I see actors and actresses in movies as their characters, not the actual people who play them. It still saddens me that the negative ones have to come out of the woodwork when something even mildly controversial shows up. You wouldn't think an article like that would draw such criticism, but....

@ThanosReXXX Ah, thanks, that makes me feel a bit better lol. Unfortunately it's a situation that I've had to adapt to, people misunderstanding my meaning when it comes to text only due to the lack of other nonverbal cues. Granted, this is even a problem in person to an extent.

On the speed of dial-up: Times have changed, haven't they? More often than not nowadays, such speeds would be attributed to network problems and would probably earn a complaint or two to the ISP. XD I can still hear the dial-up tone in my head....

@ThanosReXXX - Yep, anything creative is a perfect outlet, and it can be anything really, from making a big, elaborate meal, to a comic strip or a painting. I do my best thinking when I’m working on a project and have music or a podcast on in the background. If you can pacify a couple of the loud sections of your brain with busy work, it allows the quieter, more thoughtful portions to speak to you.

@Tyranexx - I took a pic of the Ms Pac Man painting, but I still haven’t found a refill for the smoke alarm bracket. I think I’ll have to start fresh with a new brand and bracket, but it looks more like a power pellet when it’s installed:

@NintendoByNature - From my observations it’s involuntary bursts of excess energy. Like, if their bodies don’t release it somehow, they’ll melt down. I bet your lip is huuuge today after sleeping on it. Maybe you can use it to your advantage? Perhaps you tell your clients you fought a mugger off a little old lady.

@Tyranexx
My post about Katy Perry similar clothes with Tom Nook from article about Brie Larson has been deleted by moderator.
I didn't said anything derailing the thread.
I just pointing the similarity of Katy Perry outfits with Tom Nook.

@Anti-Matter If you are wondering when I see post that has nothing to do with the article or the thread I report it as such. And if a mod decides that it is indeed not connected to the thread/article they remove it.

I think that is ok because there are many reasons listed in the report window.

@Tyranexx Church of the Monkey God. Stay focused, Ty. Stay focused.

And yes. He will love TMNT. Because everybody loves TMNT. Cowabunga! If he does not love TMNT it's best to just dispose of the defective unit and look into warranty options. A reaper/replace plan would be ideal.

@bimmy-lee I suppose the pitchfork preparedness thing depends on what she said. If it was, like "Pew-Die-Pie is awesome" then she should be skewered, then set on fire, then re-skewered, then forced to play Starfox Zero non-stop without sleep for 128 hours, then thrown in a sewer. If it was just like "all Buddhists should die" then it's just overreaction and the Internet needs to cut her a break.

@ThanosReXXX Well that's some fancy artwork to avoid a text wall. Didn't know you could draw like that, let alone full scale comics. I recall a conversation between you and Anti about drawing quite a while back, but I hadn't realized you were on that level!

On the other hand, it sounds like you're still an S&M guy. Which means I don't have to treat you as a real human being still. All's well that ends well!

Seriously, though, that sounds like quite the saga. Can't imagine what you were trying to switch to that required all that certification etc....sounds nasty. If that's what you had to do to get in, imagine how ugly it would have been once you were in? Blech.

@Heavyarms55 Yeah, those Rogue Squadron games were pretty good, and also quite ahead of their time, in some respects. I've installed my entire GameCube collection on my Wii, including those Star Wars games, and they definitely still hold up pretty well, both in gameplay and in the graphics department.

As for ICQ, I actually wasn't that surprised that you didn't know it. It's probably too old for you to know, and it's popularity had more than likely all but waned, before you ever actively started chatting. Or maybe it was just a case of it being more popular in Europe as opposed to other areas.

@NintendoByNature Well, I've already played all of them before, seeing as especially the first two games have already been releases on just about any device under the sun, and I own the third game both on PC and I've got the steel book limited edition on Xbox, so I was already familiar with all of them, but for that kind of money, I simply didn't want to miss out on getting them on the Switch.

@Zuljaras Thanks very much. And it's good to BE back...

@HobbitGamer There were SOUNDS?
All I remember is ICQ's message/notification bleeps and so on, so if you mean those then yes.
Other than that, it's too long ago for me to remember. I may have to look it up now, to satisfy my curiosity...

@Tyranexx Feeling better? Mission accomplished...

As for the whole Brie Larson and/or famous actor thing, I can relate to some extent to what some of you have said, not wanting to break that illusion of who what person is or what they do in real life, but on the other hand, I sometimes do want to know a bit more about them, especially if I like their performance, so at the very least, you'd want to know in what other movies or series they star or have starred. And some of them being socially involved in good ways is also never something that I personally frown upon.

In my view, it's actually far better than them remaining seated on the lofty pedestal that so many people and media always want to put them on, making them more human in the process, which is never a bad thing.

As for ms. Larson herself, she really isn't all that bad. To some, her acting may be a bit stiff or forced, so I suppose that side of her is either an acquired taste or a matter of opinion, but as a person, she's just fine. In some media, she either comes across or is presented as aloof and/or distant, and as is so often the case with people in the spotlight saying all kinds of stuff and commenting on all kinds of topics, some things are bound to either be taken out of context or blown out of proportion. But as can be seen in some of the pictures and Twitter posts in that article, she's actually a relatively normal person, and she genuinely likes Nintendo and their games. And from what I can see, that smile in that one picture is also pretty genuine. And it's my job to read people, so either she's a REALLY good actress, or she isn't nearly as evil as some people would like to make us believe...

She's pro-women, but not extremely feminist, and she once made some comment about more women needing to be in jobs in the industry that she's in. Nothing wrong with that if you ask me. If someone makes a black superhero movie with an almost all black cast and all black crew, then people are clapping and cheering and handing out Oscars, but if someone even dares to propose that something similar should happen except with an all women cast and crew, well... then the gates of hell have apparently opened, and someone needs to be thrown to the wolves. It's pathetic, basically.

And also a bit weird, seeing as we've already got movies like Wonder Woman, which basically IS all women, for the most part, and which also has a female crew. All Brie ever said that this should not be an exception but more of a rule, or rather a more common thing, instead of the industry being dominated by men. And what happened with that statement is that it was taken out of context, then changed into "Brie doesn't want to work with men", a statement which subsequently was bastardized/demonized even further, by someone or some medium changing it into something along the lines of "Brie hates men", which is DEFINITELY something she never said...

That is also why I mentioned the pro-women/feminist bit at the beginning. All she wants is more rights for women, which is nothing to get all mad or insulted about. And yet, several years later, she is still judged and/or convicted for that single statement. There's plenty of actors that have both said and done FAR worse over the last couple of decades.

So, now you know why people gather up their torches and pitchforks whenever she is mentioned in an article...

@Heavyarms55 @Tyranexx I hated the transition to broadband. I was stuck on dialup and then cellular up through the first year of the Switch. But even early on websites started to change to all this media rich garbage and I just wanted to go back to text on a white background with a simple 8bit header image. It was the only thing that worked and they were breaking everything for all those broadband people. It was horrid.

Video buffering can still be enjoyed though. Just watch a Nintendo Direct whenever it airs. Relive the magic!

@ThanosReXXX @NotTelevision When did we become a paper driven meritocracy? It's not the world I come from. It's not the world I was raised for. It's not the world I will ever accept or be part of. I'll never understand it or really be cable of of existing in it. I don't do "tests" or "studying" - even in school I was never good at that "skill", as a self contained skill of "doing school" (which is the only skill you actually learn in school) - I still don't understand the concept of "study". Never worked for me. Never will. I either know something or I don't. No amount of staring at a book will give me one ounce of information I didn't have before I opened it. No point. 2 minutes, 200 hours....I'll walk away with no more information than I previously had with no more test passing ability than I did before I started. I'm a great learner, and I have a constant need to learn everything about everything.....but.....I can't "study", "cram" or anything else for predicted questions. I either learn and understand something intrinsically so you just walk in and answer questions from own-knowledge, or there's really no point bothering at all. I was weird like that in schools. It was either A or F. Basically nothing between other than margin of error from guesswork/random answers. I either knew it with complete understanding or didn't. I'd fail open book tests. I either knew it or didn't. The book won't help while taking a test if I don't already know and fully understand it.

That all fell apart when teachers declared they had zero intention of actually teaching (verbally stated when questioned!) and the entire class was just memorizing the book. Really shouldn't have even bothered showing up again at that point. Those people shouldn't get a paycheck.

But the beauty, the true beauty of meritocracy is it's an exercise in incompetence. "Doing school" is it's own skill, and is unrelated to almost any other skill. It rewards short term memorization of trivia without an internalized understanding of concept. Very, very many people are certified for doing things, by means of being able to memorize the right trivia at the right time, that they are wholly incompetent at doing because they don't actually understand it at all, they just know the right words to use at the right time like Pavlov's Theory applied to competence. I regularly encounter, as normal, people far, far more "merit" credentialed than myself who don't even have the slightest grasp of the absolute basics of the entire field. They're good at "studying" and taking "tests" - they just have no idea what the actual material is based on. They can just respond with the right answer to test type questions without knowing what it means. They can apply nothing. They just know how to take tests about it. Could be about subatomic particle theory...doesn't matter, they have a skill of test acing and get far in life. They don't actually understand much of how anything works at all. They coast on a broken system. This applies as far as medical. Which is a special kind of horrifying.

When you realize that the people who run every aspect of the world don't actually know what they're doing at all, but are just really good at taking trivia tests about it, you start thinking Vaultec has the right of it.

It wasn't always like this, but I'm not sure when it changed and when "professional bureaucrat/academic" became the sole measure of success. I didn't notice it as it happened, and then one day it was there.

@NEStalgia I’m the same way about consuming knowledge. I’ll listen, look, do. If I haven’t at least understood the concept by then (since some things are practical knowledge), I’m not going to git gud by rehashing it. I actually got in trouble quite often in school because I would pick up on something, zone out, and do all the paperwork associated with it. So I wasn’t “paying attention “ or I was “working ahead” or “not following instructions”. College was worse; Once I learned what we were doing, I simply didn’t go to class for the remaining duration of that segment. Of course, since college is about being told something as opposed to sharing knowledge, my gpa tanked because I wasn’t a seat warmer. I had it out with an administrator once, politely, after pointing out that by restricting my ability to pursue additional courses strictly because I had to be present they were hindering my educational opportunities. And then I pointed out that they already had my money up front.

@NEStalgia Haha, you give me WAY too much credit. I just downloaded those pictures, rearranged them like panels on a comic book page, and added the script/text. I didn't draw any of them. I could have done a pretty reasonable rendition of some of the more old art, such as the one on the lower left of that page, but my skills are rusty, and it would have taken me way too long to finish the page like that. But even though I didn't do ALL of the work on that page, being busy with it did help me convert some of my negative energy concerning the past week into something positive and creative, which is never a bad thing.

As for the meritocracy thing: yeah, all true. I'm not much of a theory guy either. Put me in an actual on the job situation though, and I'll learn almost any skill faster than the average Joe. That's how I've always managed, and how I've succeeded in climbing up the ranks of sales & marketing, to ultimately ending up being a team lead and going on to work for myself.

But, as they like to say over here, the world has gone "diploma horny", so every bit of paper you can add to your resumé, regardless of whether or not you actually have any practical knowledge and/or experience to go with it, is preferable to people who actually know what to do, or who will be able to apply it quicker. And let's not forget: inexperienced staff with a papers only resumé are FAR cheaper to hire than people like you or me...

I'm not quite ready to talk about the entire experience yet, but the short version of part of it, is that I wanted to switch careers because my current one isn't doing so well, so it necessitated me to update both my skills and knowledge. And because working in the industry I was in wasn't working for me anymore, I decided to change course, and I chose the banking/finance business.

Now, over here, that's all VERY strictly regulated, and any and all companies or industries working in that business fall under the department of finance, so to be able to work in that industry/sector, you need to pass a state-regulated exam, which upon success, grants you a license that allows you to do so. And you also need a proof of good conduct, another certificate, but that's one that you simply pick up at any regional/communal office, provided you haven't been at odds with the law at some point during the last 5 years, otherwise you also won't be able to get a job in finance...

So, now that I failed this f'ing test by a meager half point, I'm kind of in limbo for now: no new job, and no old one to really go back to, because it would simply take me too much time and energy to get that up and running again, because I'd have to do it all from scratch.

So there, that's the business part of the story that the comic alluded to. And then there's a whole bunch of personal issues on top of that, but that's something that I'll keep to myself. Suffice to say that I've got more than enough on my plate to deal with right now.

@Heavyarms55 @HobbitGamer Hey, whaddaya know, ICQ is back!
https://icq.com/windows/en

@ThanosReXXX Well you did what you could. There’s going to be that lingering feeling of what could’ve been, but remember that just a test and not an accurate measurement of your wealth of experience and knowledge in the field. There are greener pastures ahead.

@Heavyarms55 Well I can’t speak for everyone, but there is this really persuasive side of the Internet out that out there that preys (knowning or unknowingly) on lonely, disenfranchised young men (a lot are gamers). The message is that the media is a Marxist, feminist conspiracy that seeks to corrupt your mind with PC information. I’m like you and see celebrities opinions for what they appear to be. Someone clearly out of the loop and not well researched on the topic. But for some people this is the war. The war of information. And they want to give you the straight, unfiltered “truth”.

So that’s where the antagonism comes from for a harmless Marvel movie.

Anyway it’s not worth discussing these sorts of individuals. It’s just Hollywood entertainment. It has always followed the general audiences and cultures views, and now is no different.

@NotTelevision - I fully agree with what you just stated to Heavyarms55, and would only add that the group you mentioned seems to feel a certain, unearned ownership over mediums like comic books and video games, so she really stirs up a passionate, “never forget” response.

@NEStalgia I guess it’s just efficiency. It’s a lot easier to read which candidate got the highest number, than pursuing a more time-consuming route.

You’re right about the teaching profession. That’s the extreme end of the meritocracy because it’s all about studying to get degrees and learning about theories that you’ll never use. Theory could in theory (haha) be worth it, if your particular school committed to an idea was able to see it through. But it always conflicts with the larger goal of standardized testing and having a broad range of curriculum that doesn’t invite critical thinking or creativity. So it ends up being the same old thing in the end with a new theory word labeled to it.