Zero Punctuation: No Longer Good?

So last week Zero Punctuation was featured at the Game Developer's Conference. It was also announced that Zero Punctuation would be featured on G4's X-Play.

This week the jackoffs in the Kotaku comment thread are ripping the new Zero Punctuation review apart, claiming that they were offended, and generally hating on Yahtzee.

While I have not seen this review for myself (I can't watch it at work) I'm pretty sure it is like every other Zero Punctuation review.

So how many of you think that the fresh hatred of Zero Punctuation comes from Yahtzee's "selling out" moreso than any actual failure on his part to do what he's always done?

Obama is not a Terrorist.

I just thought I would take a moment to point out that despite what Bill Cunningham said on Hannity & Colmes, the picture leaked by the Clinton Campaign, Steve Doocy's fake news, and all of the other jackass stupid claims floating around on the internet Barak Obama is not, in fact, a terrorist.

And if you are one of those individuals who think that a black man with the middle name Hussein is a de facto terrorist, or a likely terrorist, or at all terroristic then please just shut the fuck up.

Sure, we can't prove a universal negative. So we cannot prove that Barak Obama is not a terrorist given how proof works. But by that same logic we cannot prove that Clinton is not a terrorist, that McCain is not a terrorist, that Huckabee is not a terrorist, that you are not a terrorist.

So cut out the passive, racist bullshit and just shut the fuck up.

Things found on Facebook

This is why i have a facebook account. This showed up in my general RSS feed. I don't know if the link below will work, even with an account.

Link

I Hate Yeager (not the drink, the man.)

I Hate Yeager (not the drink, the man.)
Type: Student Groups - General
Description:

This is a group designated to express the extreme hate that many students have towards Dean Yeager. It seems as though his whole purpose as an official of Hanover College is to ruin the "college experience" of Hanover's elite students. Now, we all know the point of going to college is to receive a higher education enabling us to function in the work force; but are you fucking kidding me? College is about getting shitfaced hammered at 2 in the afternoon on a Monday, then miraculously pulling off a B+ on your exam the next morning. But...no, Dean Yeager disagrees. It is his point to expell as many partying, fun-having students as possible from a so-called "esteemed institution" and place probationary statuses on all that he is unable to expell from the institution. So, if you share the same hate for Dean Yeager as we do, join. Comments are more than welcome.

Contact InfoEmail:
ihatepartyinghanoverstudents@hanover.edu

Office:
Dr. David Yeager
Street:
517 Ball Dr.
City/Town:
Hanover, IN

Recent News
Last Week: Danny Berger, banished from Hanover College.

Early January: Josh Juett and Jordan Hobbs, placed on probationary status with the institution. Action on Hobbs, still pending.

November 2007: Bryce Handy, banished from the institution.

2006-2007: Zach Van Huss and Chad Paden, banished from the institution.

Democratic Drinking Debate Discussion

STOP BEING A BITCH, HILLARY!

Crap, Shit, and Poop

George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say on Television" provides a delightful analysis of our idiotic segregation of language and the notion of a "bad word". The heart of the rant, I think, is the following:

"Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them that you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to seven. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous, to be separated from a group that large."

While I have some friends (or at this point they may just be "people I knew in college who no longer talk to me") who do not use certain words I've never heard a reasonable explanation for why some words are socially acceptable, good and proper words for use in daily conversation while others are dreadful abominations of language. I understand that I cannot say "fuck" at work, but I've never been given a sensible reason for why this is. It is just one of those aspects of society that our mommies and daddies taught us. As I am still confused, though, I shall present my question in the following condensed manner:

What the fuck is the difference between crap, shit, and poop?

Take, for example, the exclamations, "Oh crap!", "Oh shit!", and "Oh poop!". What are the differences between these three exclamations?

Oh poop!: This seems to be a more juvenile and childish exclamation.
Oh crap!: This seems to be a socially acceptable exclamation that one could say inside of, say, a church.
Oh shit!: This seems to be an exclamation that which is not socially acceptable.

Fundamentally, though, they are all the same. They are variations upon the exclamation "Oh no!"; they are exclamations uttered when something bad happens. But what is the difference between the three? Crap, Shit, and Poop all reference the same thing: excrement. So what is the difference between these words? What makes "crap" socially acceptable while "shit" is not?

For that matter what is the difference between "fucked" and "screwed", "darn" and "damn", "gosh" and "god", "hell" and "heck"?

Each of these expressions fulfill the same utility within our speech. "I'm fucked" and "I'm screwed" mean the same thing, convey the same notion. So why is "screwed" acceptable while "fucked" is not? Why would someone say "heck" rather than "hell"?

Obviously our problem is not with the communication of any given situation or idea. If an individual is in a situation in which they are screwed/fucked we have no problem with them communicating their predicament. The concern we have is for how they communicate. If a person were to say "What the heck?" there would be no problem yet "What the hell?" is somehow problematic. But, again, what is the difference?

The answer is not "the words themselves". There is not some link between the noise we make when we say "fuck", the letters used to compose the word "fuck", and the dreadful nature of the word "fuck". The words shit, crap, and poop are not somehow dynamically different so denoting the degree to which either is appropriate in any given situation; one could not objectively analyze any of these words outside of the social context in which they exist and somehow discover which is socially acceptable and which is not.

So what the god-damned fucking hell is the difference, then?

Wittgenstein described language as a language-game. Wittgenstein dismissed the idea of words as boats, of a fashion, which are used to transport ideas from one's mind to the mind of another and rather discussed language in terms of the language-game, the social construct.

This, I think, is the answer to the question of difference. There really is no difference between shit, crap, and poop unto the words themselves but rather the difference is found in the arbitrary rules constructed by those who use the language. "Shit" was decided to be less acceptable than "crap" which is more mature than "poop". "Heck" was created to fill in for "hell". "Screwed" takes the place of "fuck". "Gosh darn" serves the purpose of "God damn" without making anyone uncomfortable.

And when you think about it? When you realize that the only difference between crap, shit, and poop is that arbitrary designation? You relize that it's all incredibly god damned re-fucking-tarded.

Oops. I ought to have said, "gosh darned re-frickin-tarded" so as not to insult the shitheads.

Err..."crapheads".

There we go.

Sein und Zeit und WoW.

In Being and Time Heidegger describes various attitudes Dasein (beings of the human variety) have towards the things with which Dasein interact. Specifically, Heidegger makes a distinction between ready-to-hand and present-at-hand. The attitude usually maintained by Dasein towards things in the world is that of ready-to-hand. Ready-to-hand is an interaction with the view of achieving some desired end. Present-at-hand is an interaction in which Dasein stop and theorize about the object.

A common example is that of a car. The ready-to-hand attitude would be the normal attitude one has towards a car in which one drives the car to some location. One does not analyze the car or theorize about the car but rather one utilizes the car as a means of achieving some goal. A present-at-hand attitude towards a car would be the attitude one has when the car breaks, when the car stops working. The malfunctioning car draws our attention away from the goal of driving to the grocery store when we instead focus on the car itself.

This weekend my raiding guild in World of Warcraft effectively disbanded and collapsed. While I was ruminating on the collapse of the guild and pondering how I ought to respond I realized how the ready-to-hand / present-at-hand distinction influences the manner in which I, and presumably many others, understand and play World of Warcraft.

In many ways a guild, the members thereof, and the game itself are ready-to-hand, a means of achieving some end goal. When one embraces a goal within the game (obtaining loot, maximizing one's pvp ranking, etc.) then the guild to which one belongs, the characters with whom one plays, and the game itself become ready-to-hand, equipment used as a means of achieving the goal. The guild and its members flow with one's experience and become part of one's weekly schedule.

In this way World of Warcraft enters into one's sense of normalcy and one's weekly routine. As can be the case with a job, a girlfriend or boyfriend, or any other aspect of one's life one ceases to question or analyze the object or activity itself but rather accepts it as ready-to-hand, a means.

When something interrupts the normalcy as when a guild disbands, a server crashes, etc. the experience of World of Warcraft itself ceases to be ready-to-hand and becomes present-at-hand. This shift may allow a player to reassess the experience as a whole and question how one spend's one's time.

All that to say I think it is interesting how one can be engrossed in a game, a relationship, a hobby yet when one's attitude shifts and that object becomes present-at-hand rather than ready-to-hand one's overall view of the object can significantly change. While the thing itself may not change (WoW is still WoW) the attitude one has towards that thing can significantly change how one views the thing. When a raiding guild collapses and one's means of obtaining phat lootz is gone one loses the ready-to-hand guild, the means by which one raids, and is instead presented with a present-at-hand game. One may see the thing for what it is rather than what one previously understood it to be.

I do not think "better" applies to either present-at-hand or ready-to-hand; each have utility in their own way. Rather than fixate on which view is best I think it important to understand how significant one's attitude is in understanding the world in which we live. Also, it behooves us all to recognize another instance in which Heidegger is correct. Because Heidegger kicks ass.

On Cake Being a Lie

Still Alive (from portal) is being added to Rock Band sometime soon.
Here is a video of Jonathan Coulton, Leo Leport, Merlin Mann and Veronica Belmont playing some rock band.


Jonathan Coulton performs "Still Alive" in Rock Band from Joy Stiq on Vimeo.