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| Idiots |
13th October 2009 07:48:37 PM |
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OK, perhaps idiots is a bit of a harsh word for this. Gullible might be a better choice.
Let me explain.
I was at dinner with a fair few friends, at my table I was seated with some people I am not that close to. However, we talked, as you do, about various things. I was talking to Wen-May about what food we were going to order, and I saw a picture in the menu that looked like parsnips, so the conversation shifted to parsnips. Cynthia, who was also on my table, remarked that she had never eaten a parsnip. So then one of the other chaps on the table (I won't name him because I'm not a dick like that) pipes up and says:
"Have you eaten McDonald's fries?"
At this point I cringe, I know where this is going. Basically the gist of this conversation is that this chap convinced everyone at my table (excluding me of course), that McDonald's fries are "about 70% parsnip" because "it is cheaper", and you can't tell because "all you taste is oil".
This is a prime example of people not thinking for themselves and just spreading "facts" without validating their authenticity. There are, of course, far worse examples than this, I doubt that thinking McDonald's fries are made of parsnips (which they are not) will have a huge impact on anything.
The thing that annoys me the most, though, is how painfully easy it is to authenticate things now days. Let's take the parsnip example:
BAM!
2 seconds with the Google machine and it is clear that McDonald's fries are not parsnips.
It's pretty amazing how stuff like this spreads. Obviously the guy at my table had heard this from someone, who had heard it from someone etc, etc, and now all the people at my table will (potentially!) tell it to someone else! I mean, at some point did some guy think "Hrm, I'm going to spread a rumour about McDonald's fries, yes, this will be hilarious".
Yeah whatever, rant over. It was a good night all in all.
In other news, I've found a new game to play at work! I've become pretty damn good at Spelunky, I've unlocked all the secrets and won the game several times now. So the thrill has kinda of worn off (though it did last a very long time by comparison to other games I've played). I was looking on Derek's (Spelunky guy) site, and stumbled upon another cool game he worked on, it's called Eternal Daughter (scroll down a but), and it is hard. Excellent! The graphics are all pixely too! Which is exactly what I like. I think I'll be spending a good many months trying to complete this game to the max.
I also drew another comic, because God knows I don't want to spend my time doing actual work!
It's a bit of an in-joke I have with Mei-Ling. Basically I was telling her about this pretty girl who works at this place in Morley that sells really nice roast duck and pork and stuff, eventually she ended up making a joke about payment for the duck being strokes of my beard, rather than actual money. I thought it was a funny concept.
Yes...
Not a whole lot else to report I guess. I've been working on my graphics assignment, and it's turning out to be really easy. I didn't realise OpenGL could do all this cool stuff for me!! The only problem now, is that I find it a bit too easy, and I know how to complete the rest of the assignment, therefore actual motivation to do it is very low. I suck like that.
My DDR cabinet is pretty much full-on ITG now! The pads work terrific, I can actually hit all 4 arrows with 2 feet and very little effort, so that's cool!
So yeah...
Later, I guess.
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| 13th October 2009 10:29:17 PM |
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Yo Cam,
Haven't seen you in ages. Your first story in here is pretty cool - studying the philosophy of science, ideas, apparent logical invalidity of inductive reasoning, theory making and finding etc. Your post really highlights the ignorance of people in general and how little it takes to convince many people of things.
I find the most amazing thing is when people who are fairly intelligent and quite knowledgeable in one area are completely mislead by false ideas in other areas, even if they were debunked decades ago, just the news hasn't gotten out into the general community yet.
Of course, maybe chips ARE made of parsnip and the people on the internet/McDonalds are lying to us! The chips could even be filled with mind control drugs!
Combine your two pieces of news and create a new game where you make up stories and convince people of utterly incorrect but believable lies. Arguably though that is a very old game that people have been playing since before recorded history =P
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| 13th October 2009 10:39:28 PM |
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Response to comment made by Liam on 13th October 2009 at 10:29:17 PM
Machine Record #1
We have a new high score for comment awesomeness.
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