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…a game whose setting can be summarised as “The 1893 Chicago world fair takes off and becomes an American Exceptionalism Death Star.
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Kieron Gillen, over on RPS, with a review of Bioshock Infinite that I daren’t read further for fear of teh spoilzars, but wanted to bookmark for later. And this quote, I mean, I keep finding myself stopping amid the corpses of guys I just shot, and staring round in awe at the beautiful scenery. I even get that uncomfortable tingle in my gooch that standing on the edge of a cliff gives me, whenever I get too near an edge. It’s really slowing down my progress in the game, actually.
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theremina:
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. “
Thomas Jefferson
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So, there’s the Bechdel test.
I’ve got another test that works just as well. The Sexy Lamp test. If you can take out a female character and replace her with a sexy lamp, YOU’RE A FUCKING HACK.
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The Internet’s “anarchy” may seem strange or even unnatural, but it makes a certain deep and basic sense. It’s rather like the “anarchy” of the English language. Nobody rents English, and nobody owns English. As an English-speaking person, it’s up to you to learn how to speak English properly and make whatever use you please of it (though the government provides certain subsidies to help you learn to read and write a bit). Otherwise, everybody just sort of pitches in, and somehow the thing evolves on its own, and somehow turns out workable. And interesting. Fascinating, even. Though a lot of people earn their living from using and exploiting and teaching English, “English” as an institution is public property, a public good. Much the same goes for the Internet. Would English be improved if the “The English Language, Inc.” had a board of directors and a chief executive officer, or a President and a Congress? There’d probably be a lot fewer new words in English, and a lot fewer new ideas.
People on the Internet feel much the same way about their own institution. It’s an institution that resists institutionalization. The Internet belongs to everyone and no one.
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Bruce Sterling. Internet (via killingchivalry via worsethandetroit)
You should also compare the largely unfettered evolution of modern English with that of French, which (in France at least) is carefully moderated, shaped and pruned by L’Académie française in what most English people regard as a Canute-like attempt to stem the flow of loan-words into modern French (in part, because most of these loan-words are English, which the English find hilarious because the old rivalries never really go away). Is French better, stronger, and more relevant for this kind of control?
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Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you’d be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become.
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Beta testers on my new video game: “The boss fight is sort of racist.” “My baby keeps suffocating!” “Do vaginas really look like that?
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…the three conditions that sociologists since the 1950s have considered crucial to making close friends: proximity; repeated, unplanned interactions; and a setting that encourages people to let their guard down and confide in each other…
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I’ve looked at hundreds of Tumblrs; I am very impressed with your age cohorts. Many of them. It’s like phosphorous in the sea, hundreds of voices overlapping, sometimes connecting. But other aspects are pretty frightening. Tumblr is in many ways like an amazing comprehensive historical record of how my generation failed your generation.
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Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.
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During the Hundred Years’ War and many other conflicts between England and France in the Middle Ages, the French came to call the English (and especially their infantry) les goddamns or les goddams after their frequent expletives.
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Wikipedia
Here in England, we are old masters at fucking swearing.
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I’m obsessed with boats. It’s freedom.
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Bjork (via thegrammarnymph)
I have, in the past, gone on lengthy rants on Twitter about how I need a boat and how everything would be just fine if only I lived on a boat, and so on and so on. Bjork says it better.
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Creativity is the residue of wasted time.
