G+_Shane Simmons

Sometimes arguing is counterproductive.

Well, I think he was the victim of racism, but I also think Leo is a tool.

The Apple Watch will either do extremely well, or it won't. Apple doesn't always hit home runs, and anyone who has followed Apple for a long time knows this. The Cult of Apple is getting extremely irritating; take, for example, the recent claims that Apple invented USB C, and the anger that ensued when others said, hey, you know, there WERE engineers from other companies involved...

Dave Trautman Not sure I agree; I detect fallacious logic in Nilay's setup but don't remember enough about that part of my undergrad days to put my finger on it. There's more to it than what you say, but yeah, what you said unfortunately does figure heavily into it.

I don't think Leo would have done that. I mean, yeah, in the past, he's tried to have more women on the show and he goofs by saying sexist stuff, but he's an older guy. The important thing is that he's trying, of course; but because of that, I think he wants to err on the side of not being sexist, even if that means letting the bias happen.

That's when I almost quit listening to the show; I stopped when Nilay gave the synopsis of Gamergate. I'm sorry if this whole thing sounds like "mansplaining" and I know it's overlong and rambling, but I've read up on it, have some personal insight into one aspect of it (depression), have tried to cut through the crap on both sides, and Nilay, being with The Verge, is apparently physiologically incapable of delivering a story without major bias. The thing is...he's not wrong. Sexism plays a big part in Gamergate, as does corruption. Full disclosure: I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I followed it enough to know that Nilay is full of crap here. The sexism on both sides got heated when Anita Sarkeesian threw in public support for Zoe Quinn. The thing is, that's not the whole story, and the fact that Sarkeesian became a part of the story is such a load of crap. The real story here, IMHO, is how destructive the Internet Horde can be, no matter what its political agenda, whether it's sending rape and death threats to keep gaming an All Boys Club, or sending death threats to Stephen Moffatt because Peter Capaldi is an old white guy. In 2013, Zoe Quinn released a Choose Your Own Adventure style game called Depression Quest. It got press attention, even getting pulled out specifically by one outlet when it got greenlighted on Steam. This raised eyebrows. Again, I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I know something about the genre: Interactive Fiction was really popular in the early 80s. I realize retro games have seen a resurgence in the last few years, but IF never really made a strong comeback. Furthher, it's done on a platform called Twine. If you're not familiar with it, it's a lowish-effort platform for writing interactive fiction which spits out a webpage based on TiddlyWiki's code. I have depression, and I've played it. Yes, it reads like my life: I have a series of choices, and I choose not to choose. The main character is just like that. And it's like that: you just keep clicking...and clicking...and clicking...meh. I'm sure it was very cathartic, and it's not like it's bad...but it's not that good, either. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of IF stories released every year, many of them by women, some of them quite good, and they never get any attention. It raised eyebrows. It caused murmurs. And the shitstorm happened when Quinn's former boyfriend accused her of having sex with some of the journalists who gave her favorable coverage. And that's when all rational discourse ended. There are scores of guys who accused her of "fucking" her way into game development, and all manner of shitty ways of handling it. Why was she the primary target? Not many good reasons; the only good one I can think of is that she, if it's true, took advantage of The Patriarchy to get ahead. But why weren't the guys subjected to the same level of grilling? Anyway, for that reason, I just sorta tuned out. It was clear Nilay was doing the same thing outlets like BoingBoing and Gawker are doing, declaring the issue to be 100% about sexism, with Jezebel going as far as labeling gamers as a "hate group". After all that, to a certain extent, I wish people luck when they try to do away with gatekeepers of any kind. Here I am, straight white dude, 39, and I would have loved to have been into Magic: The Gathering, would have loved to have been into roleplaying, LAN parties, and all manner of geeky things, but I can't stand gatekeepers. Look, if I have Magic cards and I want to play, I play to have fun. I don't play to prove myself or to demonstrate how much better my deck is than yours; I want to win or lose, and not have a fight over whether I should be playing this card or that.

"Change is hard, period. +Mike Elgan and +Leo Laporte are trying to transform TWiT into something that doesn't exist in tech podcasts, a destination for original reporting." Okay, admittedly I'm not a broadcast person or even a journalist, but this seems strange to me. Back when I was doing IT I was heavy into RSS feeds and podcasts, not to get things first, but to get them in an easily-digestible format. I like podcasts because I can listen to them while I'm driving, while I'm doing chores around the house, and so on. It's not unusual for, say, All About Android to download on my phone, and for me to listen to it as much as a couple of days later. Are they doing this for the people who are grabbing the TNT feeds live? Because that's not how podcasts are usually consumed imho...people I know who listen to podcasts do so because it gives them on-demand audio, without having to stream it, when they want it. I tuned in to TWiT for the commentary; I get the headlines and breathless enthusiasm from places like The Verge; I get the jaded reasons why stuff won't work from TWiT, and the TWiT crew is usually right. ;-) I know I've complained about how some of the shows had just turned into drunken yelling fests, but honestly? All I thought they really needed was a little more professionalism. Maybe I'm alone in this.

Seem to remember that when Leo got a fancy car, Dvorak said something along the lines of, "Beginning of the end." Personally I only listen to AAA now, and will unless they decide to screw it up.

https://xkcd.com/936/

Ron K Jeffries That's the main reason I don't bother with the main TWiT show much anymore. It's almost entirely chatter. Don't get me wrong, it's often entertaining, but if I wanted to listen to journalists rant while getting sloshed I'd still be working in the newspaper business.

"Regardless if you like Gina or not, she's the only regular host that answer technical Android OS questions with ease." I honestly like Gina better. She knows what she's talking about, and imho the most professional person on the show. And if you're reading this, Ron, hey, I've got a vanity G+ URL, whine some more (just not on AAA, please, ach, enough with the whining)

They've been around for ages, but I still get tempted to pick one up when I see them. That, and the miniature Commodore 64s. I didn't even have a Commodore 64 back when they were popular.

You know, I don't think they'd have to build a Turing-complete bot to replace Dvorak. All they'd have to do is have a bot respond "That's crap" and "It's a scam" once in a while... I like the cranky old dude, though. The younger guys need to have Dvorak there pulling them back. The stats about 6 months of PC sales outselling the entire run of iPad was fascinating--on TWiT, the message tends to be that the PC is DEAD and that they've been REPLACED with tablets and phones. Hey, kids, won't it be fun using Excel on a phone? Won't it be fun typing on an on-screen keyboard?

Just tried it out on a Kindle Fire HD (I have no idea if it's on the Amazon store, I installed it from Play on a rooted KFHD.) Controls are a little wonky but okay. I would say it's weird for Disney to have a FPS but given the number of young kids who play TF2 I'm okay with this. It's not as if they're running around play CTF and mowing each other down with heavy weaponry.

Jim Jam: yes, both. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.disney.ducktalesquackattack_goo

Haven't ever watched Breaking Bad, so I saw that thumbnail and immediately thought, "Why does it say Breaking Bad when this is Under the Dome?"

Depends. Sometimes she comes across as a female version of Dvorak... though to tell you the truth I've been thinking of skipping any episodes he's on, too. It would be nice of they'd do a show about technology when he's on.

Well, yeah, but it was already going down before 8 came out.

Black Books, right?

Hardly any yelling about conspiracy theories or casual racism/sexism, either, unlike TWiT.