Thread "2016 Rant/Share/General Discussion Thread" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 11:07PM, Jul. 17, 2016

Amateur Press? As in Independent Comics? Or are those two different things? Before the internet I always found indies to be the most interesting comics to read as they dove into things the mainstream comics companies wouldn't touch. Until years later maybe…

Posted at 11:07PM, Jul. 17, 2016

Lonnehart wrote:
Amateur Press? As in Independent Comics? Or are those two different things?

Two different things but a lot of the same people. It was stuff shared between artists and writers looking to break into indies and getting some critique from peers before submitting. You printed up for one central member to bind and distribute to the other members.

This was back in the 1980s. Computers had just started using 5 inch floppies for programs.

Posted at 1:07AM, Jul. 19, 2016

Heh… I was a teen in the 80's. Would've been nice to own a computer at the time. However, the things were expensive. I had a Famicom in the late '80s though and it was fun as heck. Well… 'til the adapter connection broke anyway…

Gotta love work. Had to keep kids out of my post. They kept wanting to come in to catch Pokemon… I'm probably mean for saying this, but I'd love to see them try and catch a Crash from Subnautica…

http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Crash

I know it's a fictional sci fi creature, but what would be the biological bases for the thing committing suicide to take out any nearby threats? Near as I can tell it's probably trying to protect its eggs which would be hidden nearby…

Posted at 4:07PM, Jul. 19, 2016

Remember when there was a choice between a fully functional word processor or a computer? And you got the word processor because it could do more?

Posted at 10:07PM, Jul. 19, 2016

bravo1102 wrote:
Remember when there was a choice between a fully functional word processor or a computer? And you got the word processor because it could do more?

I still find it amazing that a computer that is outdone thousands of times by an ordinary pocket calculator got us to the moon and back. :)

Posted at 11:07PM, Jul. 19, 2016

Lonnehart wrote:
bravo1102 wrote:
Remember when there was a choice between a fully functional word processor or a computer? And you got the word processor because it could do more?

I still find it amazing that a computer that is outdone thousands of times by an ordinary pocket calculator got us to the moon and back. :)

You don't need calculating power to get to the moon but money and will. Computers do what they are programmed to do faster and more accurately than a human, not necessarily better.

No one has been able to sell a scientific expenditure like Apollo since. Military adventures, certainly, but not scientific ventures. If the money spent on Afghanistan was spent on space, we'd be on Mars.

Screw the war on terror, let's explore the stars. Solve poverty here by colonizing the moon. That's how daffy Sir Walter Raleigh sounded selling the Virginia colony to Elizabeth.

Posted at 12:07AM, Jul. 20, 2016

True enough I think. All the money spend on our conficts could be spent instead on improving space colonization technology. Then the U.S. could just leave the Earth and its problems behind and face new ones. Of course, Humans are not the most logical species out there. We have people who reject the notion that we earned our place on the food chain, saying that we cheated to get up there instead. And then there's those people who believe that Humans are NOT a natural part of Earth…

I wonder how much money, time and tech it would take to turn Mars blue so we can move there instead…

Posted at 12:07AM, Jul. 20, 2016

Hahaha, we don't need any of that, you guys are already space cadets ^_^

…I don't know what I mean by that either.

Posted at 1:07AM, Jul. 20, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
Hahaha, we don't need any of that, you guys are already space cadets ^_^

…I don't know what I mean by that either.

I am not a space cadet. I graduated from the Academy and got my commision.

Posted at 4:07AM, Jul. 20, 2016

We can't go to mars, it's all a lie from NASA and the governbment. We need to cross the great ice wall that surrounds the earth to get to a new world on the other side.

Posted at 12:07PM, Jul. 20, 2016

Arnold's Voice: "Get yuhr Ass to Mahz!"

Posted at 6:07PM, Jul. 20, 2016

Or Pitface doing Ah-nold XD

I means as in his voice…
You dirty minded bah-steads!

Posted at 11:07PM, Jul. 20, 2016

And from Ah-nald to Shakespeare.

The past two years the BBC has done all the Wars of the Roses Shakespeare histories from Richard II through Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI to Richard III. And what a cast! Patrick Stewart doing John of Gaunt's "This Sceptred Isle" speech! And some faces one recognizes from Game of Thrones too.

I'm only on Henry IV part one but it's so much better to watch Shakespeare than to read it. Not meant to be read, but to be performed. And what performances.

Posted at 2:07AM, Jul. 21, 2016

KimLuster wrote:
My understanding is there used to be a ratings system where you could rate a page on a scale of 1 to 5. It fell by the wayside, but people still post a number as a sort of homage to it. While 5 is supposed to be 'the best', I've seen people post a 6 or even a 7 to say your page is REALLY over the Top!! Funny I've never seen a post of 4 or lower - I guess the thinking is, if you don't have a perfect number to post, don't post at all *shrug*

Yeah, it's become pretty much a shorthand for "Wow, that was awesome!".

For some reason people tend not to bother posting "Meh, that was tolerably okay, I guess." xD

Posted at 3:07AM, Jul. 21, 2016

or you could troll sprite comics posting 1's

Posted at 8:07AM, Jul. 21, 2016

Trolling sprite comics! Ah, that takes me back to my early days on the Duck: the excitement, the expectation, the endless possibilities, the anti-sprite flame brigade roaming the corridors…

Posted at 8:07PM, Jul. 21, 2016

People who trolled sprite comics were mostly other spriters. No one hates a spriter like a fellow spriter ;)

Ah the jealously and backbiting!
Back in the day when people had to report comments because they couldn't self delete them 90% of the time it was from spriters and most of the arguments and issues we had to deal with were from spriters bullying other spriters and rival spriter gangs. They were just a little trying.

With the ratings, at one stage that had a very real affect on your rank! So anything bellow 5 could sink you right down and you wouldn't go back on the front page for at least 4 or 5 days… So that had serious consequences! So THAT is the true reason that the 5 only rating trend started, not just social conformity.
The social conformity was a result of that already existing trend after the ranks become untied from the ratings.

The thing was that rating a 1 was downright evil… You could sink someone from ever ranking with enough of them. So nasty passive aggressive little shits would snipe a 1 deep in a person's archives just to get them.

Posted at 9:07PM, Jul. 21, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
People who trolled sprite comics were mostly other spriters. No one hates a spriter like a fellow spriter ;)

Ah the jealously and backbiting!
Back in the day when people had to report comments because they couldn't self delete them 90% of the time it was from spriters and most of the arguments and issues we had to deal with were from spriters bullying other spriters and rival spriter gangs. They were just a little trying.

With the ratings, at one stage that had a very real affect on your rank! So anything bellow 5 could sink you right down and you wouldn't go back on the front page for at least 4 or 5 days… So that had serious consequences! So THAT is the true reason that the 5 only rating trend started, not just social conformity.
The social conformity was a result of that already existing trend after the ranks become untied from the ratings.

The thing was that rating a 1 was downright evil… You could sink someone from ever ranking with enough of them. So nasty passive aggressive little shits would snipe a 1 deep in a person's archives just to get them.

Wow.. sounds.. messy!

I personally am not a huge fan of rating, and am glad they are not a major part of the Duck. If someone puts any type of time and effort into their comic, it's a 5+ in my books. We all know it can be hard to crank out quality pages with IRL stuff; and someone who isn't maybe as artistic or a strong writer as the next person can still put everything they've got into thier work and be incredibly passionate and proud of it.. I would be loathed to give them a 1 (and also, to receive a low rating is just a sucky feeling!). But maybe I am just a big softy??

Posted at 1:07AM, Jul. 22, 2016

Perception of ratings is weird for me too. Let's say there's a 5 star rating. Three stars is supposed to mean that the product is okay. However, I've noticed that lots of people (myself included) see anything less than four and 99/100 stars as products to be avoided. Weird…

Posted at 7:07AM, Jul. 22, 2016

ashtree house wrote:
Wow.. sounds.. messy!

I personally am not a huge fan of rating, and am glad they are not a major part of the Duck. If someone puts any type of time and effort into their comic, it's a 5+ in my books. We all know it can be hard to crank out quality pages with IRL stuff; and someone who isn't maybe as artistic or a strong writer as the next person can still put everything they've got into thier work and be incredibly passionate and proud of it.. I would be loathed to give them a 1 (and also, to receive a low rating is just a sucky feeling!). But maybe I am just a big softy??

5.

Posted at 8:07AM, Jul. 22, 2016

Lonnehart wrote:
Perception of ratings is weird for me too. Let's say there's a 5 star rating. Three stars is supposed to mean that the product is okay. However, I've noticed that lots of people (myself included) see anything less than four and 99/100 stars as products to be avoided. Weird…

Indeed, on IGN people see anything below an 8 as a bad review. It's daft, but that's people for you.

Posted at 3:07AM, Jul. 23, 2016

Hahaha! That sounds like a typical Filipino over the top melodrama XD
Love that heightened reality

-That was a reply to Lonnehart's thing about a crazy TV show with a mad love revenge plot.

Posted at 6:07AM, Jul. 23, 2016

Finished the anime Durarara X2 season 3. The final episode as of March 2016. Man it gets confusing and there are a lot of plots and characters. But they all come together and nearly all have an episode devoted just to them. And even with all the supernatural elements and yakuza and street gangs it's more realistic than the Filipino soap opera described by Lonne.

And am in season two of the Hollow Crown which has the multiple part Henry Vi and Richard III. And even more Game of Thrones guests. The three parts of Henry VI were edited down to two and some characters were dispensed with but overall the reviews were very positive.

Posted at 1:07PM, Jul. 23, 2016

ozoneocean wrote:
Hahaha! That sounds like a typical Filipino over the top melodrama XD
Love that heightened reality

-That was a reply to Lonnehart's thing about a crazy TV show with a mad love revenge plot.

Yep. Filipinos LOVE that sort of stuff…

Sorry I deleted it… not sure why though…

It's about a girl who is forced to run away from her wedding to the man she really loves because of a really REALLY jealous ex-boyfriend who had a sniper waiting to shoot him the moment they took their vows. The ex then demands that she go with him instead or else other members of her family will end up hurt (he murdered her brother and her cousin as well as put her father into a coma). This is a guy who's used to getting whatever he wants…

Posted at 7:07PM, Jul. 24, 2016

Update from newbie pharmacy tech: Sick people, or those who care for them, raise retail to a WAY new level. I knew this before accepting the job, on a cerebral level, but the day in and out is amazing.

And, given that this store is in an upscale town (some NYC network news anchors call it home), I was a tad freaked out when a white-haired, preppy-looking man surnamed Koch picked up a prescription. Best for all that there are cameras every where.