Lord of the Hackers: lame NYT article

Paragon · Mar 8, 2002

We make easy targets. It comes with the territory.

Paragon

Wolfspider · Mar 8, 2002

Like a couple other posters, I didn't find anything particularly offensive about this article. Sure, the author make a few factual mistakes, but overall her attitude toward Tolkien and gaming and geeks seems very positive. I can't look at this article and see anything other than good publicity.

amuller · Mar 8, 2002

Ehh whatever....

I read the article... eh whatever.

Doesn't really slam D&D, Tolkien or computers. She just tries to point out that people use fantasy worlds to escape the real world.

To quote my dear sister "uhhh duhhh"

people have been escaping with fantasy since they started telling the stories of Gilgamesh (sp?) and The Illiad.

To me just more of these social scientists trying to look relavent by pointing out the very obvious.

If, she is implying this is bad, (im not even sure she is) then I beg to disagree. Plato conjected that there is the real and an ideal world. While we live in the real one, we must make and effort (IMHO) to strive toward the ideal. Further, escapism is necessary when the world we live in is painful and hurtful. The key, of course, is to use it in our struggle in the real world, not to fall victem of addiction and get lost in the fantasy.

Oh well my two cents.

AJ

BTW where they hell are there 856,000 web sites dedicated to Tolkien. I WISH I could find that many, what fricking search engine was she using??????

Wolfspider · Mar 8, 2002

BTW where they hell are there 856,000 web sites dedicated to Tolkien. I WISH I could find that many, what fricking search engine was she using??????

Man, this lady was really lazy, and predictably so. After I read your question, I went straight to Google, typed in "tolkien," and ran a search. 856,000 hits. Of course, that doesn't mean there are that many seperate websites. Many are duplicate entries and many are dead links.

This woman is really not as net-savvy as she pretends to be....

CRGreathouse · Mar 8, 2002

Re: Ehh whatever....

amuller said:
BTW where they hell are there 856,000 web sites dedicated to Tolkien. I WISH I could find that many, what fricking search engine was she using??????

All you need is one good site.

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm

ColonelHardisson · Mar 8, 2002

Re: Re: Ehh whatever....

CRGreathouse said:
All you need is one good site.

That's so true. coughsiglinkcough

Anyway, I didn't find anything very inflammatory about the editorial. The insight wasn't particularly deep, and if the point was to try to illuminate a subject that hasn't been explored before, or to illuminate a familiar subject in a new and unique, way, it really didn't do either of those things very well either. Overall, it was just bland.

amuller · Mar 8, 2002

Thanks Wolf

It was a loaded Question I know there are that many sites. Just wondering how she came up with that number.

BTW some other Google numbers:

Harry Potter 3.6 million
The Beatles 1.8 million
u2 1.9 millon
star wars 1.8 million
Britiney spears 1.1 million
Brittany Spears 46k ( I didn't know how to spell her name)
Sherry Turkle 22K

Has anyone thought of dropping her an e-mail??

AJ

PenguinKing · Mar 8, 2002

V-2 said:
Re. women DO play RPGs: Please. Generally speaking, they don't. Dancey cited the latest statistics in one of his recent posts on this site, and IIRC the figure was somewhere below 20%.

That's a bit like stating that "generally speaking, there are no black people in the United States" because the portion of America's population that is of African descent is only about 10%.

- Sir Bob.

P.S. Nih!

Wolfspider · Mar 8, 2002

Yeah, one out of five is a pretty significant portion of the gaming population....

V-2 · Mar 8, 2002

That's a bit like stating that "generally speaking, there are no black people in the United States" because the portion of America's population that is of African descent is only about 10%.

Well, it's saying that women in RPGs and blacks in the U.S. are both minorities. With this difference (among others, obviously): There are way more women than there are women who play RPGs. Their minority status is self-chosen or inflicted... you cannot choose not to be black--but you can choose not to put up with the likes of us. LOL!