Profile for X
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | X |
| Member number | 496 |
| Title | Shaper |
| Postcount | 2333 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
Recent posts
Pages
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| here is something to think about in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Saturday, November 15 2003 01:49
Profile
It'll probably just get turned into sideboards anyway. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Republican, Democrat, etc. in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Saturday, November 15 2003 01:46
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Perhaps Aarrow Swift could cite a WORSE president since 1900, or any example of Bush Jnr behaving at all bravely or intelligently. Go on - surprise me. Sure he's just a front man for transparently obvious corporate / ideological interests, but equally it is an indictment of them that they chose such a worthless individual as Bush for this role, methinks mainly for dynastic reasons. As a front man, his personal / presentational qualities are why he is where he is, so it's sort of ridiculous to say we shouldn't criticise these qualities when inadequate. It is also disingenuous to say Bush shouldn't be criticised "as he's president". If he can only be criticised when he's left office--despite richly deserving immediate censure--then he never will. He has crassly exploited ambiguities between himself as an individual seeking personal / clique advantage and as 'neutral' head of state, especially in his capacity as commander in chief of the bogus 'war on terror'. Too few Americans--esp. Democrats, despite being the elected opposition--have called him on this for fear of McCarthyite accusations of lack of patriotism and 'unAmericanism'. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| The Matrix in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, November 14 2003 06:28
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I think Baudrillard's postmodern critiques of simulation and even the likes of Debord and Vaneigem's of spectacularisation are more directly relevant to the Matrix than Plato. Which doesn't mean it still isn't pseudy toss. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Republican, Democrat, etc. in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, November 14 2003 06:19
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I voted for the lemurs in this poll and no one in RL. As in the US, the opposition parties in UK are too much of a joke to give our incumbent ruler decent competition, even if he deserves electoral humiliation. Sort of related to this, they think 40-100,000 will take to the streets when Bush turns up in London next week. I suspect some are taxpayers enraged at the £4m Blair is making the police spend keeping the demonstrators away from Bush - and all those TV cameras. The US electorate mustn't see how the majority of people in UK hate both Bush and his ongoing occupation of Iraq, eh? Wouldn't do to have a INFORMED ELECTORATE or anything, right? My sympathies are with the demonstrators, as board regulars will know. Bush is an unutterably cowardly little pecker who wants huge sections of central London closed so he can cower and hide from public opinion, just like he had all aircraft banned from flying above Rome when he visited there (annoying for me, trying to leave through Fuemanchino international airport at the time!). He must be the most gutless, pampered president the US has had in over a century, Republican or Democrat, as well as being the most stupid (Reagan was smarter, even with his Alzheimers). Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| ESRB ratings, and which ones do you think spidweb games would get? in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Tuesday, November 11 2003 06:27
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The obsession some fundies have with the demonic suggests an unhealthy preoccupation with evil when they should be celebrating all the rest of God's Creation. At least this would cheer them up and take that glazed, starey look out of their eyes. They really do need to sort themselves out before running around censuring everyone else. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| The Matrix in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Tuesday, November 11 2003 06:19
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Some movies are meant to be 'understood' more deeply, like literature, but the philosophising in the Matrix was largely bluffer's stuff, throwing around a few flash names and ideas without coherence in the hope viewers would 'over-read' them. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Graphics or a good story? in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, November 7 2003 07:14
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So much consensus makes for odd 'debate'.Who on SW is going to argue graphix over plot anyway? Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| The Matrix in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, November 7 2003 07:08
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SPOILERS I thought Matrix3 was an improvement on Matrix2 - less vacuous philosophising and less of Neo's 'god character' superheroics (his endlessly 'saving the day' in M2 was tiresome, to say the least). As spectacle, the battle scene in M3 was most impressive, though even then tended to the bitty and unfeasible (esp. Zion's technique for battlefield reloading of APCs - absurd). So what is the Matrix philosophy? It can't make up its mind. Is it the postmodern / existentialist thing (Neo's "I choose to") that gave Matrix its intellectual cachet (shallow, IMHO, but so is pomo) or just good ol' heroic fantasy dressed up rather oddly? They try to resolve this in the last reel, pretty unsatisfactorily IMHO. Neo's existential project is Trinity, which I found insipid. Of course lovers are narcissistic but, like pomo itself, this continuous missing of 'the big picture' grated after a while. Anyway, to break out of this self-enclosure, Trinity is perfunctorily killed off so Neo can get on with his duty / destiny, purging the Matrix of the Smith virus / grey goo, thus bringing peace between the Machines and Zion. The point is that he doesn't actually "choose" to do this. His role is as a Matrix programme doing his purge repetitively, rather than as a free-willed conscious human actor. The unreality of the Matrix is maintained (allowing for future sequels) rather than ended. Zion's freedom is conditional not n its own ability to maintain its freedom but on a Matrix-generated self-sacrificing messiah figure, Neo. As myth, this was most unsatisfactory for me. I also thought the emphasis on style--those shades that never come off and the voluminous clothes I doubt it would actually be possible to fight in--fodder for clueless metropolitan fashionista trendies, inviting ridicule. Keanau Reeves striking resemblence to semi-closet gay Tory MP Michael Portillo was also unconsciously distracting, not that there's anything anyone can do about that. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Scholastic Interests in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, November 7 2003 06:46
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I thought most of Poe's rhyme schemes were based on words like "cat" and "sun". "Jingles", Tennyson called 'em. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Scholastic Interests in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Wednesday, November 5 2003 12:21
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Left uni with social science-based Masters nearly two decades ago. Currently writing something on the social history of comparative anatomy. Dull, huh? Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Rod Roddy in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Sunday, November 2 2003 13:11
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They play that Justin Timberlake literally every half hour on the radio at work. Like yeah - where is that blue touchpaper!?! Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| What was the first game u played? in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Sunday, November 2 2003 13:04
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Like Sylak, Pong. Unlike Sylak, around 1978-79. I was less than impressed. Thereafter Asteroids, Space Invaders, Doom, etc. First SW game: E3, like so many others. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Latin Help in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Sunday, November 2 2003 12:57
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You can't use a translation programme? Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Christianity and the West in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, October 31 2003 07:42
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I'm sort of inclined to agree, though I'd hold the bad behaviour of other political entities against those concerned too, rather than exhonorating the church as being 'as bad as the rest'. From his opening comments, I think Alex would also fault them for Pauline teachings on sexuality, though Roy Porter's 'Flesh in the Age of Reason' was pretty interesting in pointing out that the Church at least valued and acknowledged our physicality in a way other faiths (inc. 'heresies' like Manicheanism) did not. We had to wait for Descartes for a genuinely dualistic view of mind / body according to Poerter's schema. The Church had a healthy tolerance of the laity's 'sins of the flesh' - at least compared to later idealists who HATED such physical realities as a distraction from their 'pure life of mind' or thought the greater part of themselves an irrelevance, which seems terribly world-denying to me. You even get relatively sensible and otherwise free-thinking people like William Godwin coming up with this stuff. As to my own views more generally, I'm for the witches rather than those that burned them (of whichever sect), even if they were just silly old women. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Rod Roddy in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, October 31 2003 07:14
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Fastest gerbil on the planet! At least he went out with a BANG!! What other gerbil gets national publicity, like Britney Spears or whoever? (Britney - elastic bands - big firework - now there's an idea....) Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Is it feasible to think? in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, October 31 2003 07:09
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Which part of the Trilogy - or just using Exile for context? Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| i just noticed... in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, October 31 2003 07:07
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Congratulations! May you long continue to entertain us. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Happy Halloween in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Friday, October 31 2003 07:04
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Er, happy Hallowe'en.  Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Christianity and the West in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Thursday, October 30 2003 09:18
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 You don't want to know, Thuryl. It would bore everyone if I droned on about it here.Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Rod Roddy in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Wednesday, October 29 2003 09:24
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Sandy the gerbil also died that day. Some yobs bought him from a pet shop, attached him to a firework with elastic bands and then BOOM - into orbit! There is a great deal of concern about this over here. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Christianity and the West in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Wednesday, October 29 2003 09:19
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Kakashi is being ridiculous - 'Medieval' was a term coined during the Renaissance to disparage those insufficiently respectful of classicism. It was paired with 'Gothic', implying a crude, barbarian art and culture. Those coining this term were (pre-) Italian Catholics (well, Neoplatonists, but nominally Catholic) in a time before the Reformation, before "Protestantism" and the "Dutch" had ever been heard of. And I have no hesitation criticising the Catholic church where this is historically deserved. The Papacy acually did much to mitigate the effects of European expansion in the New World, but it is hard to excuse the excesses of both the Crusades and the Counter-Reformation, both specifically Papal innovations. In fact, doing so represents a form of historical revisionism that most would find unaccepable. I think the 'modern' worldview largely (if incompletely) attributed to Protestant rationalism also deserves much criticism and if saying this upsets them too - tough. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Christianity and the West in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Tuesday, October 28 2003 08:57
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Ironweed, the medieval Church was an exclusive literate caste that mechanically reproduced classical knowledge (e.g. that of Augustine, a north African Roman, and more significantly, Aristotle) at best, and obscured it with scholastic Christian glosses at worst. It took an explicit appeal to classical sources in the Renaissance to animate any of this with the first inklings of experimental method. This was despite the Church, not because of it, and those that 'went too far' like heliocentrist Giovanno Bruno were burned by pious Churchmen. I am not arguing religious belief is bad here per se, just that the Church had a stultifying effect on European culture. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Daylight Saving Time in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Monday, October 27 2003 10:16
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We went back to GMT here (UK) Saturday / Sunday night. Good to see the dawn cycling back from work this morning for the first time in two months. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Report in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Monday, October 27 2003 10:14
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If you read a book, how would you report on it at school? What was in it, a summary of issues raised. What it taught you, in other words discussion. Maybe even how it made you feel. Context would help for those that don't know about the book - what's generally known about it. Now do the same for Spiderweb games. Simple, eh? A high-prestige career as reviewer awaits... Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |
| Christianity and the West in General | |
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Shaper
Member # 496
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written Monday, October 27 2003 10:08
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Islam, did a heck of a lot more to preserrve Greek knowledge than Christianity did. Conversely, powerwise at least, Christianity is the direct inheritor of the Roman Empire. What I would note--a dirty secret in the history of Western civilisation--is that Rome took its social model from Sparta and not from Athens, hence its militarisation and contempt for the plebians. I suspect this discussion will annoy a lot of people, so I hesitate to add that anti-semitism is more a creation of Christianity than Nazism, a demented mentality not reciprocated by Jews. It is hard to find any defence for this other than to claim the anti-semites aren't 'real' Christians despite anti-semitism being Christian practice for over a millenium. Posts: 2333 | Registered: Monday, January 7 2002 08:00 |