Hey, let's not be like that - I don't mind anyone getting a kick out of a sitcom and I'm not going to rant on them if they don't like say, Seinfeld. But let me get a little more specific as to why I feel the I.T Crowd hasn't really worked.

I agree those eps had their moments but you're probably looking at the very, very best bits there. The Outing relied on broad, farcical humour which you can't use to sustain a series and had nothing to do with the situation of the show (which is supposed to be where the humour comes from).

But mostly I don't see where the gags are most of the time. Having a bloke pretend like he's from The Matrix and not giving him any jokes means you're putting A LOT on the actor. And most of the time this show does not get the balance of jokes and performances right.

In The Final Countdown Roy doesn't want to be mistaken for a window cleaner by an aquaintance. But because the antagonist is so sketchily drawn along there isn't anything at stake nor is there a payoff. And like most of the principals the guy playing Roy doesn't have the comedic acting chops to pull this off. A similar situation in Seinfeld would have worked because Jason Alexander (this would be a George situation) can turn average material into gold. And I'm beginning to wonder what Katherine Parkinson is supposed to be doing - her character doesn't develop and her storylines are as flimsy as can be.

It's interesting that Linehan co-wrote Father Ted which was much better than the I.T Crowd and is solely responsible for this.

I'll say this again - the best thing about the show is Matt Berry. He's clearly having fun and has a character that could go places. The show should be about him or some similar nutcase and the guys in the basement should be peripheral characters. I'm glad that Noel Fielding and Chris Morris appear to be gone as they were bloody awful.

In reply to this comment by kymbos:
Haven't seen the new series, but there are a few episodes of the earlier series' that are as close to perfect comedy as it gets. The one where they go to see Gay - the Gay Musical is brilliant, and the one where the boss starts going out with the woman who used to be a man. And the one where the old boss dies and they have his funeral.

If you don't find it funny (in general), I honestly pity you.

Mm. Problem is that your explanation, if you can call it that, is only slightly more likely to be true than ghosts are. The hypothesis that people who claim to see ghosts are hallucinating, delusional, mistaken, prone to pareidolia, or simply lying, is far more likely than either "ghost" or "eye resonance".


>> ^joedirt:

What that means is that neurons fire at a certain rate to transmit data, communicate, change state, whatever. The neruon paths fire in the tens of Hz or slower, so maybe the visual cortex or visual nerve cells have a certain frequency they fire at and if you in an environment with EM or visual stimuli that is at certain frequencies, it makes sense this could have impact on what you "see", much like modulating and to create FM communication. Though you might call it more of a pulse stream shift keying.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:
>> ^Farhad2000:
I read some shit a while back that said the reason we experience paranormal events in certain environs is because of resonance factors that resonate with the same frequency as our eyes thus creating peripheral visions.
Seem interesting as a theory.

That's not a theory. A theory has to contain an actual explanation of the cause of the phenomena. What you gave is pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.
Our eyes resonate? WTF does that even mean?

What that means is that neurons fire at a certain rate to transmit data, communicate, change state, whatever. The neruon paths fire in the tens of Hz or slower, so maybe the visual cortex or visual nerve cells have a certain frequency they fire at and if you in an environment with EM or visual stimuli that is at certain frequencies, it makes sense this could have impact on what you "see", much like modulating and to create FM communication. Though you might call it more of a pulse stream shift keying.


>> ^Drachen_Jager:

>> ^Farhad2000:
I read some shit a while back that said the reason we experience paranormal events in certain environs is because of resonance factors that resonate with the same frequency as our eyes thus creating peripheral visions.
Seem interesting as a theory.

That's not a theory. A theory has to contain an actual explanation of the cause of the phenomena. What you gave is pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.
Our eyes resonate? WTF does that even mean?

>> ^Farhad2000:

I read some shit a while back that said the reason we experience paranormal events in certain environs is because of resonance factors that resonate with the same frequency as our eyes thus creating peripheral visions.
Seem interesting as a theory.


That's not a theory. A theory has to contain an actual explanation of the cause of the phenomena. What you gave is pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo.

Our eyes resonate? WTF does that even mean?

It is pretty easy to poo poo this stuff after a rather poor history of peripherals such as the Power Glove or worse the Sega Activator and Nintendo U-Force. The Sony EyeToy was a similar concept back in the day... hindsight is 20/20 and it will really come down to whether they make useful games for this. Alot of people bought the Wii just for Wii Sports alone initially and didnt give fuck all a care about anything else.

I think the coolest part though is they give each other a high five at the end and their on screen characters mimic the same. There will likely be some sort of lag that is inevitable from frame storing and the fact some TVs lag behind the input signal anyways.

I read some shit a while back that said the reason we experience paranormal events in certain environs is because of resonance factors that resonate with the same frequency as our eyes thus creating peripheral visions.

Seem interesting as a theory.

Procedural error. If you want to discuss something only peripherally related to a video, post a sift talk post, not a * discuss. Discuss is for when the video in question may break the rules, this clearly does not.

*return

I have a 3x1 and I love it. Once you're in the game you really don't notice the bezels anymore.

Visual advantage of 3x1 is mainly focused on immersion. Having peripheral vision in a game is a pretty cool experience.

Yup, 3x2x22 inch (assuming 1680x1200 odd rez) = 5040x2400 resolution

Bump that up to 1920x1200 (some 22's and all 24's) and you get 5760x2400 resolution.

Pretty useless for FPS with the bezel's covering the reticle but for racing games/3rd person (where the bezel is less intrusive, as seen above) it's pretty solid.

The current highest hi def tv runs at 1920x1200 rez (16:10 ratio, full HD) iirc. Most people wouldn't tell the difference of course but theoretically, as long as the display has displayport to input and the card could drive it, you could have 6x60 inch big screens... =)

HardOCP has some good video reviews of an early build showing how you can wrap the monitors slightly (for in car games) to give a proper peripheral view. Similarly you can change the FOV on FPS to show more area to the sides and angle in the side monitors to give you a better peripheral vision.

On the open vs. closed debate:

First of all, the macintosh itself should be excluded from that debate entirely. The unix back end gives mac os much more credibility in this department than any offering from MS. Sure, it doesn't come with DC++ preloaded or whatever, but dude, what do you want? Azureus is but a click away.

With regards to the tablet/iPhone, if you really care, jailbreak it or buy another device. The API is available for download. You can write your own software, and install it on your own device. The fact that they make stealing content hard is not a legitimate gripe. Frankly, I'm more concerned about a future in which artists are not compensated for their art (including the peripheral staff such as studio technicians, book editors, lighting guys, etc). Further, on a scale of 1 to manufacturer owns your soul, I'd say Captain Open himself, Google, is the champ. Their whole angle is that you don't even own your software. You freaking rent it from them and use it as a "service." In exchange they learn everything there is to know about you, and sell it to the highest bidder.

I'm actually more impressed by the new Kindle DX. I'm no reader by any stretch, but the specs on that thing are impressive, most of all the fact that it's connected 24/7 for free via global 3G wireless so you can download/re-download books any time almost any place on Earth for a week straight on a single charge.

As lame as the iPad appears, I'm sure lots of know-nothings and all the Mac lemmings will buy it because Steve Jobs says it's magic. I myself can't imagine trying to use something so featureless if I have a laptop or tablet available. If I have to carry something so large around (meaning it doesn't fit in a pocket), then why would that something be a device on which I cannot install any programs (except thru the iStore), use any peripherals (like a keyboard), or use any Flash (potentially)? It doesn't seem a useful product for me if I'm going to be so iCrippled (patent pending) out of using all the normal things I'd be expecting from of a computer.

>> ^budzos:
I wonder if this could make a good substitute for a cintiq? It lacks pressure sensitivity, but aside from that... and if it accepts USB peripherals (does it?) then a pressure sensitive stylus could be employed. Boom, you got a Cintiq that's lighter, sturdier, more portable.
Hell, even if it doesn't accept USB peripherals, it could interface with a pressure sensitive stylus over Wi-Fi or bluetooth, the way AirMouse2 does.


It wont have the resolution to do annything of the quality that you would get with Evan the cheapest of wacoms.
lol if it was capable then apple would take the touch pad market over night.

cinteequ is like £1200 and needs a stand to hold it , evan the small cinteequ looks like a clumpy old school 14" TFT . apple could actualy do a good job wacom is a bit shitty on the design side of things , well untill recently annyway.

I wonder if this could make a good substitute for a cintiq? It lacks pressure sensitivity, but aside from that... and if it accepts USB peripherals (does it?) then a pressure sensitive stylus could be employed. Boom, you got a Cintiq that's lighter, sturdier, more portable.

Hell, even if it doesn't accept USB peripherals, it could interface with a pressure sensitive stylus over Wi-Fi or bluetooth, the way AirMouse2 does.

One argument that he deconstructs is the "cells are replaced so we're not even the same body" argument. Surprisingly, he doesn't mention that brain cells have traditionally been held NOT to do so, though this may have been an abandoned argument in light of recent studies that suggest some regrowth\repair may be possible.

Cells are indeed replaced quite quickly at the periphery of our body, like the limbs, the stomach/intestine (remember that they technically face the exterior!!), but cells in mission critical organs like the brain and the heart are not repaired when they die, most of the time. Yes, in the brain cells are replaced and pathways are rewired, although with inevitable change, but the heart remains mostly the same, always beating. Thus even a minor heart problem can be crippling and irreversible. That's also why bypass surgery is sometimes the only solution when an artery attached to the heart becomes clogged (a recent study showed 40% regeneration of heart tissue over 70 years, while we thought 0% some years ago).

It's also been suggested that consciousness is all post-hoc. That everything we experience has already happened, even if it's fractions of the second later. That we "feel" like we've made decisions but really we're just experiencing the machinations of the brain's processes after the fact. This works pretty well for dualism, because then you no longer have to account for influence on the process. (However, it blows a hole through the theories of most dualists, who are arguing for a soul and the free will that accompanies it.)

If we look closely, we can see it cannot be otherwise. What you call "consciousness" here is really "conscious awareness", the intertwining of consciousness and awareness. Consciousness is intentional, though not really causal, and awareness is plainly passive. Consciousness is really like a recursive loop program, which has a variable (the object that is aimed at) which can refer to any kind of object in the world, be it the mental world or the perceptual, outside world. Consciousness cannot then be said to be responsible of the actions that follow it aiming at an object, nor can it be said strictly to be choosing what to aim at, but what we know is that this is where our illusion of freedom comes from: the selecting of objects to be aimed at intentionally. No doubt part of it is unconscious, like when you turn your head after seeing something move on your peripheral vision, but since consciousness is recursive, it must be able to change the reference of its own variable. That does not mean it has absolute freedom in choosing the new reference, in fact it can't be since we're not omnipotent, but it must have a means to do so, otherwise the very existence of self-awareness would be useless. If consciousness was strictly determined by the "outside" i.e. by external processes from elsewhere in the brain, then consciousness + awareness would not give rise to the kind of self-awareness that is evident in higher mammals. As we know, evolution does not do things for no reason, i.e. it must have a purpose, which gives an adaptation benefit. Here the adaptation benefit could be that by doing this we can reflect on some of our own thought processes and can influence their course (by "concentrating" on them, making them the aim of our intentional consciousness). It may also be that we can broaden our intentional objects to things which are not in our immediate senses/memory, i.e. imagination.

You are right though that dualism is not that easily dismissed, but it is always in the end shown to be either naïve, unfounded or plainly superfluous (i.e. useless per Ockham's razor).

Philistines don't understand my disturbing art. (Edit: But yeah, even I know when I've gone too far.. and this one was probably too far.. )

NeuralNoise, you're great. I have nothing against you, but your muttonchops look like shit. Get a shave, you hippie.
This is what I've been reduced to.. muttonchop jokes! Oy vey! It's hard to make friendly jabs at someone you're only peripherally acquainted to.

I did stumble over this in the pre-roast interview

"List your five most cherished possessions.
my books, my mp3s, all limbs, a statue of an owl and hair"

And I chuckle to myself that he loves his hair more than his daughter; she'll love that too. (Side-note is a daughter a possession? or is it only the tobacco and oil companies that can own people?)