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The Voight-Kampf test wasn't installed at Tyrell, Deckard brought it with him. Hell the beginning of the movie shows Brion James getting the test in a lovely cop office.
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Mar 24, 2018 23:18
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 00:09 |
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hey for anyone else who enjoys beating dead horses, Conor from rifftrax and Mike from MST3K made a podcast series ripping apart this piece of poo poo http://372pages.com/
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Mar 24, 2018 23:22
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Wait so if Aech is based on Harry Knowles and his handle comes from the first letter of his first name does that mean that his real name is just Harry. Cuz I could believe that but it also would lead to two different scenarios both completely accurate and plausible for this book and these characters. 1: Aech just said that Harry wasn't his name when Wade guessed because they're internet friends and he wants to keep his privacy due to being an e-celebrity so he just lied to Wade. A scenario I can believe because I know folks like that in our modern internet hellscape. 2: Wade just never guessed that his name is Harry and has guessed other things instead, a plausible possibility because Wade is loving dumb as hell.
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Mar 24, 2018 23:26
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nerdz posted:I mean, I remember watching those movies he mentioned at the cinema on the early 90s, pretty sure they are It's half and half. Late 80s/early 90s.
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Mar 24, 2018 23:28
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JacquelineDempsey posted:So, 15 people in a double wide that's 22 stories up, and there's a laundry room. Uh-huh. I'm in. Nope. No Dr. Pepper thanks. I am wanting to take the express train.
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Mar 25, 2018 00:35
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chitoryu12 posted:Oh hey apparently it's billions of players. Simultaneously. Yeah, but most of them are at malls or doing whatever VR Twitter and Facebook look like.
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Mar 25, 2018 00:48
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Solumin posted:You wouldn't simulate the whole universe in high fidelity, just the parts people are playing in. That saves some computing power. Also, the graphics are probably handled client-side. WoW's graphics are simplified so that older computers can play it, not because it's easier on the servers. I think he makes the point that places like Ludus are pretty much cookie cutter instances, so that makes the system requirements a bit lower.
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Mar 25, 2018 00:50
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Hyrax Attack! posted:Millions of anonymous players in the OASIS and none of them are hovering above the Tomb of Horrors blasting music or spawning trillions of strobe light mosquitoes to crash the server? But...but...but... It's not REALLY their childhood bedrooms and not REALLY their REAL computers, just a simulation! Nothing REALLY counts in simulation, except Halliday's Quest...
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Mar 25, 2018 02:36
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Nipponophile posted:Look, you've got to take some risks if you're ever going to have the chance to touch a virtual titty. You know, they DID mention haptic feedback...
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Mar 25, 2018 03:31
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Orthodox Rabbit posted:I cast Bigby's Locker Shoving Hand at a 5th level spell, allowing it to shove 3 additional nerds. 
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Mar 25, 2018 03:52
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I also love how the book spends a huge section describing all the security features he has in his apartment and fails to mention how utterly useless they would be if the ioi just decided to demolish the apartment just like they did at the stacks
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Mar 25, 2018 04:04
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Samizdata posted:I think he makes the point that places like Ludus are pretty much cookie cutter instances, so that makes the system requirements a bit lower. I mean sure, it would probably reduce the system requirements from "impossible+2" to "impossible+1".
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Mar 25, 2018 04:11
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anonumos posted:Oh good that was good. I'm going to have to reread it. I still have the Independence USA eBook on my Google drive. Hook a brother goon up so I can save a copy to my Drive?
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Mar 25, 2018 04:33
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nerdz posted:I also love how the book spends a huge section describing all the security features he has in his apartment and fails to mention how utterly useless they would be if the ioi just decided to demolish the apartment just like they did at the stacks I was fond of the earlier bit where he's fleeing the IOI and buys a first class bus ticket before scrambling his identity. Because no way could they trace that and figure out he's "hiding" in Columbus now.
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Mar 25, 2018 04:36
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nerdz posted:I also love how the book spends a huge section describing all the security features he has in his apartment and fails to mention how utterly useless they would be if the ioi just decided to demolish the apartment just like they did at the stacks Spoiler Alert, all that security will never come up again. In a good book, it would be a metaphor for how he's building insane walls between him and the rest of the world during his nostalgia fueled quest. In an okay book it would at least lead to a terse moment where he has to perform some sort of task while an opponent is actively breaking through the barrier. Instead it's weird door porn for people who wish they could poo poo out the world and just stream cartoons from their childhood for the rest of their lives.
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Mar 25, 2018 04:43
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Adnachiel posted:I imagine he specifically picked those series because they all either had English dubs that aired on American television (Spectreman, Space Giants) or were probably popular among tape traders in the 80s. (Kikaider apparently had an English following in Hawaii, and I guess the Japanese Spiderman got passed around because it's Spiderman with a giant robot. If you're a Marvel fan, why wouldn't you want to take a look?) But I'm still shaking my head that he mentions those but not Kamen Rider or any of the earlier Super Sentai. (Cline would have been 20ish when the original Power Rangers aired. So older than the target audience, but that doesn't stop a ton of other nerds that age from watching it or its Japanese counterpart.) Or mentioning having any Ultraman in his toku show rotation. Okay, I am an old. Big freaking surprise. But I do remember watching reruns of The Space Giants as a wee Samiz when visiting my Dad in Hawaii.
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Mar 25, 2018 04:45
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PJOmega posted:Spoiler Alert, all that security will never come up again. It does come up again, but in a minor way that isn’t a big effect on the plot.
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Mar 25, 2018 04:46
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Given that the younger Samurai brother got hurled to his death, I honestly thought for sure we'd be seeing some tense moment with the Sixxers trying to get to him given that he went into such insane detail descring his armoured door. I mean it's Chekov's Being Tossed Off A Roof in a nutshell. But no. It's like watching the Onion video where their Austistic reporter is on scene where someone was hit by a train: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjuVVlSgYLc&t=53s Megillah Gorilla fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Mar 25, 2018 |
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Mar 25, 2018 05:14
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chitoryu12 posted:I mean sure, it would probably reduce the system requirements from "impossible+2" to "impossible+1". This is...technically...science fiction. And he has carefully avoided any technology comparisons to any RL tech, so the processors MUST be the Handwavium 9000 series, with RNA based memory systems, and those quantum entanglement based modems...
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Mar 25, 2018 05:22
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Gorilla Salad posted:Given that the younger Samurai brother got hurled to his death, I honestly thought for sure we'd be seeing some tense moment with the Sixxers trying to get to him given that he went into such insane detail descring his armoured door. Well, let's be entirely honest. Even if the sixers did come and attack Wade's hotel fort his escape would last at most a page. "And then my escape shoot opened beneath me, dropping me and my entire rig into the subterranean garage. My car started automatically, a technological marvel only slightly less advanced than KITT, the one from the hit television show Knight Rider starting David Hasslehoff. Only this was armored with a half inch of steel plating. It was also equipped with a state of the art satellite uplink for my rig. Of course all the interior had been removed. With the auto drive enabled I wouldn't even have to split my attention from fighting the suxorz in the Oasis. If they thought they could distract me with something as trivial as a forty man strike force they were shown to be fools. I chuckled as I was whisked to my second, even more fortified bunker. Silly IOI, I'd always keep a step ahead of them, and I'd always be in another castle. Like Princess Peach from Mario for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Only I didn't need to be rescued by any short italians." Only about a tenth as interesting as that vomit.
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Mar 25, 2018 05:28
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PJOmega posted:Well, let's be entirely honest. Even if the sixers did come and attack Wade's hotel fort his escape would last at most a page.  You have a real shot at writing RPO fanfic.
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Mar 25, 2018 05:42
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PJOmega posted:Well, let's be entirely honest. Even if the sixers did come and attack Wade's hotel fort his escape would last at most a page.
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Mar 25, 2018 05:57
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PJOmega posted:Well, let's be entirely honest. Even if the sixers did come and attack Wade's hotel fort his escape would last at most a page. Cline puppet account spotted.
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Mar 25, 2018 06:36
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Good news everyone! Ernie Cline Penning A Sequel Novel To READY PLAYER ONE 
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Mar 25, 2018 06:49
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Memento posted:Good news everyone! It should be called READY PLAYER TWO and be about a 2100-era player's attempt to deal with Wade's own half-assed-1980s-worship will, and the increasing disconnect from any meaning or context in the source material.
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Mar 25, 2018 06:53
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Ernest Cline's writing about video games is so bad that I am not sure he has actually ever played a video game.
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Mar 25, 2018 07:48
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Proteus Jones posted:
The key is to strip any descriptors of actions. And repeat the same sentence transitions. And put everything in past tense, which I can't really do because it is so loving weird. It lays so poorly on the page. Oh god I think I finally understand what passive versus active voice is all about. Is RPO written in passive voice?
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Mar 25, 2018 07:55
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If only you'd written that while 372 Pages was covering this, you could have been featured in their "Real Or Fanfiction" segment.
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Mar 25, 2018 07:59
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It's a good thing the skills required to beat 80's games directly translate to one's ability to play a VR recreation of an 80's game and beat it on the first try. I guess at least it took him 3 hours so he didn't beat any speedrun world records.
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Mar 25, 2018 09:01
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Gnome de plume posted:If only you'd written that while 372 Pages was covering this, you could have been featured in their "Real Or Fanfiction" segment. Amusingly enough, I actually submitted an entry for "Fanfic Or Real" for the continuation podcast they did on Armada and had it read on an episode. Mike Nelson said it was "perfectly Clineian", and I worry that it was as much of an insult as it was a compliment. I had wrote something wretched so well that it impressed an old school connoisseur of crap.
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Mar 25, 2018 09:41
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"Your approval fills me with shame."
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Mar 25, 2018 12:47
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Samizdata posted:Hook a brother goon up so I can save a copy to my Drive? https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B266OPeGFR5Lc1F3MzVZWmE1S28/view?usp=drivesdk Let me know if that doesn't work.
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Mar 25, 2018 15:06
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quote:When I emerged from the gate, my avatar reappeared back inside Tyrell’s office. The Voight-Kampff machine had reappeared in its original location, resting on the table beside me. I checked the time. Over three hours had passed since I’d first entered the gate. The room was deserted,save for the owl, and the security klaxons were no longer wailing. The NPC guards must have busted in and searched this area while I was still inside the gate, because they no longer appeared to be looking for me. The coast was clear. Once again, I'm going to be extra critical here because Rush is one of my favorite bands. They're one of the only musical acts that I've gone Wadelike on, having listened to every single one of their songs (including their early demo tapes) and seeing them in concert in 2012. The big red star is from the cover art of 2112.  quote:2112’s title track is an epic seven-part song, over twenty minutes in length. The song tells the story of an anonymous rebel living in the year 2112, a time when creativity and self-expression have been outlawed. The red star on the album’s cover was the symbol of the Solar Federation, the oppressive interstellar society in the story. The Solar Federation was controlled by a group of “priests,” who are described in Part II of the song, titled “The Temples of Syrinx.” Its lyrics told me exactly where the Crystal Key was hidden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZm1_jtY1SQ What Wade leaves out is that 2112 is actually a turning point in Rush's history. They had rapidly released three albums before this over a 2-year period, with the original drummer John Rutsey being replaced by Neil Peart shortly before their first tour to support their debut album due to his diabetes. Along with being a virtuoso drummer, Peart was a lyricist and amateur poet of sorts, and he quickly took the reins as the main songwriter to free Lee and Lifeson to focus on music. His entry marked a shift in the way Rush made music, going from a sort of high-pitched Led Zeppelin clone to elaborate progressive rock with fantasy and sci-fi lyrics. Their third album, Caress of Steel, failed to make an impact and they had one more chance to make a successful album before they risked getting dropped by their record company and the band breaking up. It had featured a complex two-part epic, and Rush was warned that they should probably make something conventional and marketable instead of going crazy with 20+ minute songs. Rush instead did the musical equivalent of "dying as yourself" and wrote a 20 minute epic that took up the whole A side of the album. Instead of being a failure, it catapulted them to stardom and paved the way for them being one of the most successful rock bands of all time. Wade pulls up a scan of the original album sleeve. The album was originally printed with paragraphs of prose linking each section of lyrics together. quote:I lie awake, staring out at the bleakness of Megadon. City and sky become one, merging into a single plane, a vast sea of unbroken grey. Cline here makes a fatal flaw: by including Peart's liner notes, he shows the reader the product of a much better writer within his own book. Unrelated, I recommend picking up Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road. It's Peart's memoirs of the sudden death of his daughter and wife a short time apart from one another, which he responded to by riding a motorcycle from his home in Quebec all the way down to Belize. Megadon and the Temple of Syrinx are completely deserted. Past the obelisk-shaped supercomputers in the center of the temple, an altar with the red star sits. The whole temple goes silent as he approaches, and Wade realizes that he needs to make an offering. He puts Leopardon on the altar, but nothing happens (loving good). Looking at the liner notes again, Wade realizes where to go: quote:Behind my beloved waterfall, in the little room that was hidden beneath the cave, I found it. I brushed away the dust of the years, and picked it up, holding it reverently in my hands. I had no idea what it might be, but it was beautiful. I learned to lay my fingers across the wires, and to turn the keys to make them sound differently. As I struck the wires with my other hand, I produced my first harmonious sounds, and soon my own music! Near the southern edge of the city where the atmospheric dome forms the border, Wade finds a waterfall (no really, this is almost exactly like Cline's description of finding the waterfall). Inside the cave, he notices one of the stalagmites is worn around the tip. Pushing it, a trapdoor opens in the floor of the cave. quote:I took an item out of my inventory, a wand that could detect hidden traps, magical or otherwise. I used it to make sure the area was clear, then jumped down through the trapdoor and landed on the dusty floor of the hidden chamber. It was a tiny cube-shaped room with a large rough-hewn stone standing against the north wall. Embedded in the stone, neck first, was an electric guitar. I recognized its design from the 2112 concert footage I’d watched during the trip here. It was a 1974 Gibson Les Paul, the exact guitar used by Alex Lifeson during the 2112 tour. I'm gonna be pedantic and note that it's not entirely sure if Lifeson used a 1974 or 1975 Les Paul on the 2112 tour depicted in All The World's A Stage, but the Rush wiki (which Cline probably would have used as his source) says 1975. Wade returns to the temple and places the guitar on the altar. A cacophony of sound emits, like an orchestra tuning up, and the guitar transforms with a burst of light into the Crystal Key. Wade's score jumps to 353,000, putting him a thousand points ahead of Sorrento and back in first place. I have no idea how this happened since it was established before that you got more points for being the first to find a key and the High Five had been completely pushed out of the top ten by a flood of Sixers. Did playing the guitar for a hint give him extra points? Engraved in the center of the Crystal Key's handle is a monogrammed "A", the exact same one Halliday used as his distinguishing mark as Anorak. The only place the Third Gate could be located is Castle Anorak, his impenetrable stronghold that no gunter had ever been able to enter. Wade blasts off for planet Chthonia. He pulls up the news to see if there's any update on Parzival returning to first place, but the anchors are more interested in showing the entire Sixer army encamped around Castle Anorak with a gigantic force field surrounding it. Well poo poo. quote:Several gunter clans were already on the scene, and they were making their first attempts to bring down the shield by launching high-yield nukes at it. Each detonation was followed by a brief atomic light show, and then the blast would dissipate harmlessly against the shield. Let me leave you with my favorite Rush song as a palette cleanser. It's the story of a dancer and writer finding that old age now prevents them from doing what they love, with the implication that everyone will finally suffer from this. Neil Peart referenced this song when announcing his retirement due to tendinitis from so many decades of drumming, and as of January 2018 the band is officially no more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scFykNMqaws
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Mar 25, 2018 15:19
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First off, I like how there's literally ZERO indication that Wade knows anything about music playing whatsoever (which is, for the record, not an easy skill to just pick up like memorizing facts), but of course HE knows how to shred virtually. Also, from the previous update, something hit me after the fact...they make a point of saying that Tyrell buildings are super common and a standard generic world building resource. If there's a voight-kampf machine gate in every single one, why did Wade choose to go to a dangerous PVP world instead of just like, setting one up on Falco or something?
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Mar 25, 2018 15:38
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I wonder if Rush is aware of RPO (they have to be) and their role in it. How do they feel about their music being an important part of a nerdgasm? Maybe it isn't a bad thing if it gets more people listening to Rush. Samizdata posted:I think he makes the point that places like Ludus are pretty much cookie cutter instances, so that makes the system requirements a bit lower. That makes the resources for creating the planet lower, not necessarily the processing power. And the real issue is this undeniably complex software is the centerpiece of a ruined, Mad Max world where cities are nuked on the daily. They shouldn't have the infrastructure to run it at all. And considering the world has been like this for decades, it's not unreasonable to think their computer tech is not much more advanced than ours.
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Mar 25, 2018 15:44
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chitoryu12 posted:
If this was a mystery, this is the part where the detective would be going, "Hmmm, how incredibly convenient. Yet again, everything seems to have worked itself out perfectly for you." He even had a loving guitar pick on hand  Read the Almanac. Don't think, memorise. How can you have a Hero's Journey when you don't go anywhere?
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Mar 25, 2018 15:50
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"I downloaded EPICSHREDZ, a virtual program that allowed my virtual avatar to rock like a god. It was like in the movie The Matrix, which came out in 1999 and isn't part of the 80s but is one of the Holy Trinities mentioned in the beginning of the book for some reason even though the other two Matrixes were firmly in the 2000s and, by all respects, were terrible. "As soon as EPICSHREDZ configured itself to my avatar, I strummed a kickin' rad power chord. "'I know kung-fu,' I said to myself, slyly, referencing Keeanu Reeves' line in The Matrix, which, if you think about it, I was sorta in because this is a virtual simulation and in reality I'm a hairless ape sitting in a sunless, bare apartment, wearing a VR feeback catsuit." Reading this thread makes me want to think of ways this story could be told better. It's not a bad yarn, in and of itself. I remember reading it on a recommendation from someone when it came out. They lent me their copy and I went through it and it was like a literary bag of chips, but just plain chips. There's no flavour here, and Wade is too good at everything, so there's no tension. Like, he gets the copper key and all of a sudden he's the most famous person in the world. The rush that comes with all of this is barely perceptible. Wade is a lonely, emotionally-stunted nerd who has no connection to the present and is obsessed with a time from 60 years ago, by the story's date. All of the demands for attention, the flood of emails and calls, the sponsorship deals, all of that should have been a flood of input that knocked him out for like a week. He handles it so coolly in the space of a couple of paragraphs, but it would have had a huge emotional and mental toll on an actual human being. I also take issue with the main conceit of the villains in that they want to monetize the oasis and fill it was ads. First of all, it's well-established that teleport fees are an issue and that's how the oasis company makes a lot of its money. That, and selling virtual items. But, like, they also control the very thing that society runs on now. They're like Facebook on crack. This company knows everything about almost everyone in the world. How are they being presented as perfectly benign and benevolent? Maybe the old man who ran the thing and his partner are nice enough guys, but the old man is dead and the partner left the company. So, who's in charge now? Are there ads in the Oasis? Like, ones that aren't 80s Saturday morning toy commercials? This is probably more words than this deserves. I'm a bit of a sucker for VR stories and the way that they play with the concept of perception vs. reality. I admit that I enjoyed both .hack//SIGN and Sword Art Online in that sense, but RPO just feels so empty to me.
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Mar 25, 2018 16:51
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Choco1980 posted:First off, I like how there's literally ZERO indication that Wade knows anything about music playing whatsoever (which is, for the record, not an easy skill to just pick up like memorizing facts), but of course HE knows how to shred virtually. For whatever reason, this annoyed me more than almost anything else in the book. The sexism, racism, etc, really pissed me off, but the guitar scene was just like...are you loving kidding me? A little story about Ready Player One. Some months back I went to Adam Savage and Michael Stevens's show Brain Candy Live! (which was pretty fun although geared more to kids than adults but if you can't enjoy a giant cannon of ping pong balls getting shot into the audience you just aren't living life right.) I went and bought an overpriced bottle of water and the guy at the drink counter was reading a book. He had it all folded back so I couldn't see what it was. Me: Ooh, whatcha reading? Him: Ready Player One. Me: Oh, I read that! I hated it. Yes, I told some complete stranger that I hated the book he was right in the middle of. He asked me why and I came to my senses and did not totally go off on it, but I did say that I didn't think Ernest Cline had ever spoken to a real woman in his life.
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Mar 25, 2018 17:15
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Leofish posted:"I downloaded EPICSHREDZ, a virtual program that allowed my virtual avatar to rock like a god. It was like in the movie The Matrix, which came out in 1999 and isn't part of the 80s but is one of the Holy Trinities mentioned in the beginning of the book for some reason even though the other two Matrixes were firmly in the 2000s and, by all respects, were terrible. I'm almost certain that this is what Wade meant when he said he knew how to "virtually shred". Like he never needed to play, because he could run a program that could play it for him. Leofish posted:Reading this thread makes me want to think of ways this story could be told better. I'm sure there are like ten novels you could write about the concepts that Cline leaves out of this novel.
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Mar 25, 2018 17:55
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| # ? Jun 5, 2024 00:09 |
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The youth being literally forced to exist entirely within the confines of recycled Boomer nostalgia, for one.
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Mar 25, 2018 18:03
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