xkcd

by **dhokarena56** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:28 am UTC

I learned today that when my dad was a student at UVA in the '80s, the library was open 24/7 but it wasn't fully staffed- which meant that large portions of the library didn't have the surveillance they were supposed to. As a result, there was this weirdo, who was never caught, who would go around in the wee small hours and find girls who had fallen asleep at their desks studying, and cut off their ponytails. Presumably, he kept the ponytails for less-than-wholesome purposes. It sounds like the sort of thing I would do, although I wouldn't, since both ponytails and their owners are cuter when not separated. It would make a funny mystery story, tho...girls keep losing their ponytails and the detective has to figure out who's cutting the ponytails off...

And that's why my search history includes the phrase "university of virginia mystery ponytail fetishist". I'd like to flatter myself that I'm the first ever person to have gogled for that, but I know, disturbingly, that that's not the case.

by **UniqueScreenname** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 4:02 am UTC

That was actually a recent episode of CSI. A creep went around cutting off girls' ponytails and then he killed them and dressed them up to look like his dead mother. He left in their mouths a braid made up of hair from all like 26 ponytails he stole. Probably the weirdest Psycho-inspired thing I've seen. But then again, I haven't done much research into that. And by much, I mean any.

by **Cathy** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:36 am UTC

At the most recent cliffhanger from Oregonaut's story:

dun dun DUN! DUN DUN!

>.> seriously, eek!

by **SecondTalon** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 4:24 pm UTC

UniqueScreenname wrote:That was actually a recent episode of CSI. A creep went around cutting off girls' ponytails and then he killed them and dressed them up to look like his dead mother. He left in their mouths a braid made up of hair from all like 26 ponytails he stole. Probably the weirdest Psycho-inspired thing I've seen. But then again, I haven't done much research into that. And by much, I mean any.

Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs (among others) were all inspired by one very real person - Ed Gein.

/TheMoreYouKnow

by **Van** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:00 pm UTC

Wow. I probably should have seen it coming, but that's a disturbing ass-wikipedia article.

by **You, sir, name?** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:46 pm UTC

The Scyphozoa wrote:
You, sir, name? wrote:And like 90% of all good video games were made between '96 and '00. Tru fax.

Objectively subjective. And by that I mean that it's subjective due to circumstances beyond many people's control. More specifically, the 2000's ushered forth the era in which video games were produced that wouldn't make me sick looking at them.

*le me after just having bought Half-Life and not being able to look at it for more than half an hour at a time*

That's because you're trying to play old 3D games. Play old 2.5D games instead. Fallout 1, for example, is objectively the best game ever created and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

by **meridian** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:49 pm UTC

Van wrote:Wow. I probably should have seen it coming, but that's a disturbing ass-wikipedia article.

Woo! Not the only one who went to look that up!

by **Dason** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 7:26 pm UTC

I remember reading an article a while back about game development and in it they mention that there should be a relatively large change in the gameplay (for single player games) approximately every 15 minutes to keep the user's attention. I can't seem to find that anymore - does anybody have any ideas where something like that would be posted? I vaguely recall getting to the article from the xkcd forums.

by **SecondTalon** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 7:55 pm UTC

That.. may have come from the Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie! column or database. Link goes to the database, but you should be able to find the column from there.

And if it wasn't from there... then hey, new reading material on game design.

by **I Am Raven** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 8:55 pm UTC

SlyReaper wrote:<picture of Bavaria 0.0%>

Even the non-non-alcoholic version of that tastes terrible!

I am trying to cut back on my alcohol usage, albeit not as drastically as you, but the best tasting, non-alcoholic beer I have had so far has to be Weihenstephaner Alkoholfrei. (Funnily, both Bavaria and Weihenstephaner are originally from Bavaria.) It hasn't got that sweetness you describe. It tastes even better than some of the "regular" beers I can get around here (Amsterdam). You may have a very hard time finding it though...
(Side note: it's 0.5%, so not completely alcohol free.)

EDIT: I made this the other day, but nobody seems to appreciate it. How about you guys? A tad lame?

by **UniqueScreenname** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 10:35 pm UTC

SexyTalon wrote:
UniqueScreenname wrote:That was actually a recent episode of CSI. A creep went around cutting off girls' ponytails and then he killed them and dressed them up to look like his dead mother. He left in their mouths a braid made up of hair from all like 26 ponytails he stole. Probably the weirdest Psycho-inspired thing I've seen. But then again, I haven't done much research into that. And by much, I mean any.

Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs (among others) were all inspired by one very real person - Ed Gein.

/TheMoreYouKnow

TRIGGER
I don't know which is worse,

Spoiler:

by **Роберт** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:06 pm UTC

UniqueScreenname wrote:I don't know which is worse,

Trigger warning could be appropriate.

by **Zarq** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 11:18 pm UTC

You should mention it's a trigger warning, now people might think it's just a spoiler. Also, mention it's about Ed Gein, I kept looking at Raven's picture trying to see what the hell you were talking about.

by **Felstaff** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 12:25 am UTC

I hope my old job's IT people never look up my internet history - I became fascinated with fictional and IRL serial killers ever since reading Red Dragon many years ago. I tried to decipher one of the Zodiac letters at work one day (it was 2007) and I stumbled upon TruTV's Crime Library, which I guess most people would, as it's got very high SEO ranking. The sheer amount of detail that goes into each serial killer's actions, past, and victims is morbidly fascinating, and what some of these inhuman monsters are capable of is page-turningly macabre. With each case given up to 40 chapters, I'm sure my hit rate of that site was higher than a lot of others. Also, because it's so tantalisingly bloody, it's one of the few sites where you find yourself reading every word, rather than netskimming.

As I recall it was a very swift Wikicrawl from Truth or Consequences to David Parker Ray. That's one of the more horrifying ones I read. The more recent they are, the more worrying! Jack the Ripper, Albert Fish and Charles Manson et al seem a world away, from a different time that is so unlike today as to be unrecognisable.

by **Shivahn** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 12:58 am UTC

Weeks wrote:Well, sunny days get old too.

Aaah, I am now talking about weather! Deary me, I think I've caught the brits!

More like the Japanese. Weather is so culturally important that when practicing letter writing, our teacher instructed us that the first line should be a greeting and the second should probably be "How's the weather?".

Well, tenki ga dou desuka but you get the idea.

by **poxic** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 1:07 am UTC

SexyTalon wrote:Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!

Not quite as ferociously clickable as, say, TV Tropes, but ... ST? I hate you now.

/'k, over it

by **farnsworth** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 1:33 am UTC

Van wrote:Wow. I probably should have seen it coming, but that's a disturbing ass-wikipedia article.

Ass-wikipedia is fairly disturbing in and of itself.

by **e^iπ+1=0** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:05 am UTC

Thank you Ted, that was the joke.

by **farnsworth** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:11 am UTC

by **Magnanimous** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:12 am UTC

poxic wrote:
SexyTalon wrote:Bad Game Designer, No Twinkie!

Not quite as ferociously clickable as, say, TV Tropes, but ... ST? I hate you now.

/'k, over it

Not as addictive as TVTropes, because of the lack of examples. Still great, though.

by **Felstaff** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:07 am UTC

Interesting to see just how far this guy gets. I say season 10.

by **UniqueScreenname** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:23 pm UTC

I once had to do a paper on Charles Manson. Nowhere near as interesting as I thought he would be. Shoulda chose BTK.

by **emceng** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:25 pm UTC

Felstaff wrote:I hope my old job's IT people never look up my internet history - I became fascinated with fictional and IRL serial killers ever since reading Red Dragon many years ago. I tried to decipher one of the Zodiac letters at work one day (it was 2007) and I stumbled upon TruTV's Crime Library, which I guess most people would, as it's got very high SEO ranking. The sheer amount of detail that goes into each serial killer's actions, past, and victims is morbidly fascinating, and what some of these inhuman monsters are capable of is page-turningly macabre. With each case given up to 40 chapters, I'm sure my hit rate of that site was higher than a lot of others. Also, because it's so tantalisingly bloody, it's one of the few sites where you find yourself reading every word, rather than netskimming.

As I recall it was a very swift Wikicrawl from Truth or Consequences to David Parker Ray. That's one of the more horrifying ones I read. The more recent they are, the more worrying! Jack the Ripper, Albert Fish and Charles Manson et al seem a world away, from a different time that is so unlike today as to be unrecognisable.

And this is why I stopped reading Dexter books. There are enough horrifying crimes and disturbing people out there. I really don't want to spend any time inside the head of a fictional one.

by **elminster** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:02 pm UTC

Every once in a while I look at my phone and think "Damn... how can anyone NOT be amazed with this level of technology". Knowing quite a bit about the aspects of hardware and software that go into them only makes it seem more amazing. I remember getting the original playstation as a kid, now you can even emulate it on a phone.

Doesn't matter how much power comes out of a ships engines, if the captains steers a ship to the rocks, it's going to crash. [/metaphorical Angst]

by **Garm** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:47 pm UTC

I think the same thing with my phone every time I use it. I can't help but be amazed.

by **SlyReaper** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:56 pm UTC

I found this on the Internet:

HeadPhones on, Lights out... Have fun and a spare pair of pants!

http://www.mediafire.com/?5cadimaeo004aee
http://www.mediafire.com/?xb22f84tau46exm

by **Box Boy** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:58 pm UTC

That the stairs one?

by **SlyReaper** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:02 pm UTC

by **UniqueScreenname** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 3:32 am UTC

This is an unacceptable amount of time not posted here. I will hold myself somewhat responsible, as I could have ended it hours ago, but I had nothing to say then. Of course that hasn't stopped me now.

by **mmmCatSoup** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 3:55 am UTC

"Red pandas can taste artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, the only known non-primate to be able to do so."-Wikipedia
How do you know if an animal can taste something? And why was someone feeding aspartame to a red panda? Are there scientists somewhere feeding aspartame to every animal and listing which ones taste stuff?

by **Magnanimous** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 5:47 am UTC

I assume they monitor the taste receptors on the tongue somehow. Ultimately you'd have to see what their brain is doing, but that's probably more complicated than it's worth.

Random Thought: This essay about the Zelda series and its faults. I agree with most of it, though it's a little hard on OoT and MM.

by **Menacing Spike** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:26 am UTC

by **phlip** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 6:34 am UTC

Magnanimous wrote:Random Thought: This essay about the Zelda series and its faults. I agree with most of it, though it's a little hard on OoT and MM.

From what little I was able to read before becoming thoroughly bored, his thesis seems to be "Zelda is bad because it never changes; they should fix it by making new Zelda games more like old Zelda games". Also, as someone who started Zelda-ing with the new OoT rerelease on 3DS, and later tried to get into the original Zelda and found it to be excessively challenging without the nostalgia necessary to get through the Nintendo-Hardness, and mostly impenetrable as to what the hell you were actually supposed to be doing... seeing him hold up the original Zelda games as an ideal to go back to at first made me think "blinded by nostalgia", but then seeing him hold up these specific faults as virtues makes it clear we have very different ideas about what "fun" is...

by **Angua** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 8:47 am UTC

mmmCatSoup wrote:"Red pandas can taste artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, the only known non-primate to be able to do so."-Wikipedia
How do you know if an animal can taste something? And why was someone feeding aspartame to a red panda? Are there scientists somewhere feeding aspartame to every animal and listing which ones taste stuff?

An easy way to do it would be to link the taste to a reward, and then see if the animal can figure it out. You can teach that sort of thing to a pigeon, so I imagine most other animals would not be too difficult either.

by **Magnanimous** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 9:17 am UTC

phlip wrote:From what little I was able to read before becoming thoroughly bored, his thesis seems to be "Zelda is bad because it never changes; they should fix it by making new Zelda games more like old Zelda games". Also, as someone who started Zelda-ing with the new OoT rerelease on 3DS, and later tried to get into the original Zelda and found it to be excessively challenging without the nostalgia necessary to get through the Nintendo-Hardness, and mostly impenetrable as to what the hell you were actually supposed to be doing... seeing him hold up the original Zelda games as an ideal to go back to at first made me think "blinded by nostalgia", but then seeing him hold up these specific faults as virtues makes it clear we have very different ideas about what "fun" is...

I'm hoping there's a little hyperbole, because "check every pixel of every room for secrets" was one of the worse parts of early games... On the other hand, the new Zelda games have definitely entered Press Button Receive Cake territory. (Going so far as to make a game about actual railroads.) I thought the N64 games were a perfect balance, more or less.

by **OBrien** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:57 pm UTC

There's three of things I agree with; that the quality of the games is, in general, decreasing at the moment (but not to the extent he's arguing, not even close), that they need to introduce more new items rather than recycling old ones and that it would be much more fun if you could explore a bit more and die because you've tried a dungeon too soon.

Apart from that he seems to just keep repeating that the first Zelda game is the one, true religion and all others are pitiful offshoots, not worthy to call themselves by the same title. I mean, he even starts to bitch about puzzles. Puzzles for fucks sake! They add an extra dimension to the game. The hilarious part is he claims he doesn't want a game that just repeats the same thing over and over, then complains that the game isn't just fighting over and over. He also complains that since A Link To The Past some bombable walls are visible. So, you don't like repetitiveness, but you're happy hitting every single part of every single wall to see which ones you can blow up?

All in all, I didn't read the whole thing, I gave up after the bitching about puzzles. It's badly written and with all the contradictions that are crammed into the tiny part that I read, I think it's more than, as phlip said, him having a different definition of "fun". I think he just has a lot of nostalgia about the old game and wants to denounce the new ones with whatever "justification" he can pull out of his arse.

EDIT: With the amount of effort and anger that went into this, I was really surprised that this wasn't the rant thread.

by **Xeio** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 2:21 pm UTC

Magnanimous wrote:
phlip wrote:From what little I was able to read before becoming thoroughly bored, his thesis seems to be "Zelda is bad because it never changes; they should fix it by making new Zelda games more like old Zelda games". Also, as someone who started Zelda-ing with the new OoT rerelease on 3DS, and later tried to get into the original Zelda and found it to be excessively challenging without the nostalgia necessary to get through the Nintendo-Hardness, and mostly impenetrable as to what the hell you were actually supposed to be doing... seeing him hold up the original Zelda games as an ideal to go back to at first made me think "blinded by nostalgia", but then seeing him hold up these specific faults as virtues makes it clear we have very different ideas about what "fun" is...

I'm hoping there's a little hyperbole, because "check every pixel of every room for secrets" was one of the worse parts of early games... On the other hand, the new Zelda games have definitely entered Press Button Receive Cake territory. (Going so far as to make a game about actual railroads.) I thought the N64 games were a perfect balance, more or less.

I think the problem is both nostalgia and retrospect. Because at the time, OoT and MM were amazing, awesome, everything. OoT is basically the highest rated game of all time (I think, it may be second or third nowadays).

Except... it's 13 years old. Newer games (Zelda and non-Zelda alike) have obviously improved upon the mechanics and gameplay in the original. But the newer 3D Zeldas are still basically playing off the same formula, you're still basically playing OoT 2.0 or 3.0. It's better than OoT, but only in direct comparison, if you ignore the entire context in which the game exists (as a subset of video games, and in the particular time frame around it).

In summary, calling any game "the best game ever" is moronic. "The best game at the time", maybe.

by **Armadillo Al** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 2:29 pm UTC

You, sir, name? wrote:And the '90s had new, unseen episodes of: Star Trek TNG, Twin Peaks, Babylon 5, The X Files before it sucked.
The '00s just have old, already seen episodes of those shows.

Alas, I was slightly too young to really appreciate TNG when it was still new. I do, however, have fond memories of watching first-run Voyager.

Xeio wrote:In summary, calling any game "the best game ever" is moronic. "The best game at the time", maybe.

Nonsense. Nothing will ever be better than SMB3. (And it's technically a game of the '90s in North America, even!)

by **TimelordSimone** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 2:53 pm UTC

Xeio wrote:Except... it's 13 years old. Newer games (Zelda and non-Zelda alike) have obviously improved upon the mechanics and gameplay in the original. But the newer 3D Zeldas are still basically playing off the same formula, you're still basically playing OoT 2.0 or 3.0. It's better than OoT, but only in direct comparison, if you ignore the entire context in which the game exists (as a subset of video games, and in the particular time frame around it).

And then, of course, Ocarina of Time was basically playing off the formula of Link to the Past.

Seems like the guy hasn't really liked Zelda since Link to the Past, and it just took him 20 years to write an article about it. I like open world adventure games too, but that doesn't mean that's what I want Zelda to be.

I basically agree with what OBrien said, but I did actually read the whole thing.

by **SecondTalon** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 3:12 pm UTC

Armadillo Al wrote:
You, sir, name? wrote:And the '90s had new, unseen episodes of: Star Trek TNG, Twin Peaks, Babylon 5, The X Files before it sucked.
The '00s just have old, already seen episodes of those shows.

Alas, I was slightly too young to really appreciate TNG when it was still new. I do, however, have fond memories of watching first-run Voyager.

TNG was more Late 80s anyway. Now DS9... that's where it's at.

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