Posts made by Arkandel

Y'all are fools. The guy is just bidding his time, mastering more fundamentals before he truly hits his peak.

@Thenomain said:

In the case of most sports, I am a casual fan at best. For instance, I heard someone in basketball retired and a lot of people were sad.

Here, I'll give you a freebie sports tip you can reuse forever.

Father Time has yet to be defeated. All great players retire (*) and make a lot of people sad.

(*) Except for Tim Duncan of course who is an immortal and has yet to hit his peak.

@Misadventure said:

Newp. Nerds know their team, and it's stats. Geeks, like their carnival forebears, make a spectacle of themselves by painting their bodies, dressing head to toe in team colors, etc.

You are clearly wrong. I will put it in the bin with the bad Daredevil and Elektra movies. History will remember your crimes.

You are even wrong when you're agreeing with me, how is that even possible? You've truly sank to a new depth.

So nerds know their team, stats, etc. They go deeper, they become experts. Geeks are there to look the part, they know more than the casual fan but they care more about the trappings than the essence (so they'd recognize Curry's brilliance but they'd not know the evolution of small ball).

Also I will now make fun of you for typing "it's stats" in order to further invalidate everything else you said or will ever say. Hah-hah.

@Thenomain For me the difference is simple: fanboys won't admit fault. Everything about the object of their affections is perfect, 10/10 all the time!

On the other hand I'm a comic book nerd (geek?) but I can look at say, Batman vs Superman and admit it has big flaws even though I love the characters. I love the Fantastic Four but their only good movie ever made was by Pixar. Etc.

As for @Misadventure's terms I disagree on the definitions. A geek loves something, collects cool quotes, knows about trivia, etc... but a nerd becomes an expert in it, they might not go as wide but they go deeper. So for instance a Linux geek might have penguin stickers for their laptops and know anecdotes about Linus' early steps, they've probably set up more than a few systems using a GUI installer, but a Linux nerd will know how to edit grub or have strong opinions on whether systemd is evil or not.

@Thenomain Yeah, and nerdism categories overlap. Stereotypes are just for TV shows, we're all over the place.

@Kanye-Qwest said:

Because my hatred for that series goes beyond your usual "oh this book is crap I am going to forget it and move on with my life."

I hate read all 9 of those books, and each of them was the worst book I've ever read in my life.

Uhm, I can understand one book ("I didn't know better"). I can see two books ("I was curious to see if it was going somewhere/would get better").

But seeing as these are some really long-ass very densely written novels, why on earth did you read nine of them if you hated each so much?

@Admiral said:

Lord of the Rings? A book about walking and sometimes singing to midgets.

<gasp>

You need to be put down, if only for your own good.

@Kanye-Qwest said:

Basically all I do on Goodreads is scan for other people who hated the Malazan series even half as much as I did.

There are thousands of books people don't like (but others did) due to $reasons. Why focus on those?

Double post!

My absolute favorite function of Goodreads is its mobile app. It lets you scan a book's barcode and add it to any folder you tell it to.

So I can easily scan my bookshelves (which is convenient) but way more importantly it lets me walk into a bookstore, peek at books I might like, take a quick scan then later on at my own convenience look them up to see if they were actually good or just well marketed/with a cool cover before I commit.

My to-read folder is ever-growing but that's a good problem to have.

@dontpanda I rate the work, not the author. So for example I'd rate Ender's Game highly.

As for Goodreads, it's led me to discover several of my favorite series since I can look at what other people who like the same stuff I'm in have rated highly as well - it also has an "if you liked <X> then you should check out <Y>" function but it's iffy at best.

Another issue is so many people are plugging their own sites/blogs in the comment section it's sometimes annoying to wade through the noise and get to the actual review. Animated gifts, memes... I don't want to see that crap, dammit.

I just need to know (if possibly in a spoiler-free way) what the novel is generally about and if it's good or not.

No, people on Goodreads. Rating novels which haven't been written yet (let alone read) with 5/5 is not how it's supposed to work.

You're destroying the credibility of the entire system with the stupid fanboy idiocy.

@Deviante Just in time for Monday morning!

Now quick, someone do something crazy and/or stupid then post about it.

@Wolfs And the Spurs' perfect home record ruined.

@Coin said:

If someone tells you groping is bad, and you see groping, you step up and help the person being groped. That's all it is. Stop trying to find the specific instances that are bad and try to perceive the bigger picture.

That is absurd. I don't need to be told groping is bad. I am saying I don't see it, but since it does happen, I want to figure out how to do something about it.

Not to mention that all these testimonials have examples. You're not asking for more information, you're asking for someone to comb through all the information and line it up for you, which frankly strikes me as something profoundly beneath you; you are more than capable of parsing testimonial information without someone making a list for you.

It's like solving a math problem presented in paragraph form instead of formulaic--break it down.

And I am refusing to provide the list for you because parsing it and reading for it comprehensively will help you understand.

@Roz said:

@Arkandel Honestly, just accept the possibility that maybe there's been stuff that's happened that you haven't noticed -- maybe not the most egregious stuff, as you've said, but stuff -- and just say "Okay, I'll try to keep these possibilities in mind in case there's stuff maybe I haven't noticed." @Coin is right: these articles are already telling you what experiences people are having. I get the sense that it's really frustrating for you to hear about really shitty things and feel like you're not in a position to intervene because you haven't seen them, so you're asking for more and more information because you want to help.

No. Seriously, no. You are reading what you want to read, not what I am typing. That is far more frustrating for me than issues I explicitly came here wishing to discuss.

I have zero issues accepting that this happens, which I mentioned repeatedly. When I say I don't see it happening it's not to discredit the incidents or to shred responsibility but because the fact I don't although they do happen perhaps means I am not looking hard enough, or for the right things, or in the right places. And that I would like to know what the case is and why.

Now, when @Roz says that part of the problem is a loss of agency I can stand behind it; that's fair enough.

I am beginning to regret getting involved in this conversation. I think it's best if I step out of it. Thanks for sharing, all.

@Coin said:

To be fair, dude, I learned what to look for by listening to women tell their stories and taking them as truth. So if a woman says "this dude did [thing] and it made me feel super uncomfortable and unsafe", then I will notice that thing and identify it as something potentially (or definitively) harmful.

You don't need a bullet point list of "things that are harrassment". Just listen to the people who were harrassed and spoke up.

So what is the [thing]?

I've been reading this thread and I'm not disputing anything. For instance when people say they've been groped I believe them because, among other reasons, I can't afford not to. But I can't stop such groping unless I can see it happen, so I need to know the how, where, when of it.

I'd like to think being able to step up and tell a guy who physically molests a woman to keep his damn hands to himself will do more than offer a sympathetic ear afterwards. It doesn't mean I won't do both but the former holds more value.

So yes, I do need a bullet point list. I need more information.

@Derp In this case you don't know for example that there

I must concur that it's counter-productive to tell people they are part of the problem while they're actively trying to learn more about that problem, and simply state they haven't personally witnessed it happen to others.

My interest here is to figure out why that is. I completely exclude the possibility that it's all a big exaggerated lie - there are too many testimonials, not everyone is some sort of attention-starved drama queen. So that's done.

The only other possibilities I can see are these:

• harassment/molestation doesn't happen where I usually play. I'm a middle-aged white guy, maybe I just pick safe friendly venues for my gaming. However someone in this thread already mentioned they are doing their research ahead of time trying to assure the same thing, so maybe that's not a big factor.

• it doesn't happen where I am under fear of retribution. Maybe predators like to isolate their targets, which does make sense. But again there have been testimonials here that it does take place out in the open sometimes... still I'd like to keep this possibility open.

• I don't notice it when it happens either thinking it's not a big deal or not wanting the social negative effects of standing up for others. This... is hard to fathom - perhaps it's possible to not pay much attention to some minor forms of flirting to understand it's unwanted but there's no goddamn way someone would make a comment as crude as "if you can bleed you can breed" under any circumstances, any at all, and not make me pissed off. But as for negative effects... what are those? I have no friends who wouldn't back me up on that (probably by design), the police would certainly do as well if it came to it, etc.

This is obviously an emotionally charged issue and a sensitive one to discuss. So help me - maybe others in my shoes - see how we can help. Assume we want to help and that we believe this is a real problem, but we can't do something about it unless we can spot its signs.

The where, how, what to look for, that's what I wanted going into this parts of the thread.

But please don't tell me I'm part of the problem. Because that's part of the problem. I will be the moment I participate or condone this kind of behavior, but not before.

I own FO4 on the Xbone... I should actually play it. Meh.

@Ganymede You know Darth Vader is going to be in Rogue One, right?

@Templari [SPOILER WARNING] Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star. Sorry.

@Kanye-Qwest If we start sanity-checking the Walking Dead we'll run into plenty of weird plot holes only there to advance the story. The sheer number their super-capable veteran group has been ambushed and caught flat-footed is something I roll my eyes at, for example.