Though the tech may be interesting, and one day, someone will make a playable ghost-hunting game (with a PK Meter!), I'm not convinced that a great game will ever be born from it.

Plus the Eyetoy-type application seems really cheesy, where you stare at your own goony, mirrored face as you make hamburgers, and shit. I could conceivably get into that style of game if you could put the camera behind you, but how many great games are played in Second-Person? It's so weird.

I'm not sure how far the term "Augmented Reality" goes, though. Does it cover, like, RTS games made from Google maps? I'm mostly talking about camera-based stuff. I remain unconvinced.

(Also, I've had ideas for AR games for years, and I'm pissed that everyone's 'stealing' them now! Ooo, I just had another. What if there was a dating game based on facial recognition? Like, you'd have to smile at appropriate moments and look sad at appropriate moments, and appear interested as your virtual date blathered on and on about her problems.)

Anyway, what do you peeps think about AR? The future? The wrong tree?

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What the HELL happened to this thread? LOL.

Okaaaaay, let's see here... (You fuckers. It's Saturday, and I'm super-sick. I don't want to have to reply to all of this shit.)

Renjaku said:

There is no tractable relationship between knowledge and happiness. Suppose I refute a strictly negative function for increasing knowledge by supposing someone successfully restricts themselves to knowledge that's beneficial (ie, don't drink the witch's soup). You could choose to neutralize the argument by interpreting the knowledge (ie witches are out to kill me I can't sleep at night T_T), which proves intractability.

Well, I wasn't drawing a logical proof and making all of the obvious assumptions and definitions. I thought you guys would get what I was talking about if I used shorthand. I mean, 'ignorance is bliss' obviously shouldn't be taken to mean 'ignorance of someone that has a gun pointed at your head is bliss' (unless there is nothing that you would be able to do about it, anyway).

But I later clarified what I meant, anyway:

anandxxx said:

@Zero
I genuinely believe that the more you know about the way the world works and the way the people in it think and your place in the whole machinery, the less happy you are.

So there you go.

@Zero
You are not the first person who has told me to read Walden. It seems like a cool book, and it definitely seems in line with my personal philosophy (or behavior, at least), but, for some reason, I don't see the point about reading about other people's take on life. Subscribing to a specific philosophy or religion seems weird and dangerous to me. Wouldn't every human being develop their own philosophy without these kinds of external influences?

Also, I only read comic books.

Anyway, like I said above, that's not the kind of knowledge I was referring to. Obviously, there are certain kinds of knowledge that are harmful at all. It seems like Thoreau would actually agree with the ultimate point that I was making (not that I crave that validation).

But I do agree with you that a happiness that is generated by your actions and behavior is different than an artificially-induced one. I don't think the actual feeling of happiness would be different, but the former is probably more self-sustaining. That's what it seems like, but is it in human nature to be happy all of the time? Is it a 'natural' state? Would the type of person that strove to reach a certain goal truly be happy if they reached it and stopped striving? Is that happiness or just staying occupied, having a reason to exist? (The answers probably change from person to person.)

@Jargon
I am obsessed with the idea of communes. What stops me is my love of modern convenience and electronics. And just comfort and luxury, in general.

@Prevolition
AR? What the hell are you talking about??

@Zero
Man, when I was in college, I had cheap living down to a science. My rent was $150 for one-quarter of a huge apartment (in a not-so-great area, but who cares), we rarely ever turned on the heat or AC, I only bought groceries when they went on sale, and I knew all the cheapest (but still tasty) restaurant deals in town. $1.50 for a Falafel sandwich, $2 for a two-item meal from Taco Hell, $3 for an awesome chicken gyro with extra meat (and an extra pita to split it up with a friend)... My favorite pizza place, Garcia's, had pizza by the slice. My favorite, the Gutbuster, was 3/4 of a pound, and from 11 pm to 1 am, everything was 1/3 bigger. In addition. at the beginning of each semester, the town sent out coupon books with a couple of Buy 1 Slice Get 1 Free coupons. As soon as that coupon book came out, my roommate and I used to visit other apartment buildings and steal them, thereby having enough ammo to get 2 pounds of awesome pizza for $2 for the whole semester. (I'd warm up half or a third of a slice per meal.) The motivation for all of this scrimping and saving?

To buy more comic books.

@Simbabbad
I'm not sure what you mean. It seems like your 'worrying about stuff that doesn't affect you' and 'being a manipulated punching bag' are at odds with each other. I agree that if you want to look out for your interests (and live in a society), you should be a little informed about society, but that information is not necessarily pleasant.


Anyway, this is the problem with TEXT. It's so dreadfully inefficient (yet comfortingly permanent). It takes so long to type out things that would take seconds to say. But it's not like we could all get together in person, so whatever.

Different page, and all. I thought it would be easier to edit it in.

I don't know how many rounds I have left in me, though.

@Zero

Oh, I have no doubt it's cheaper to live than lots of people think. Then again, you have a support system that lots of people don't. You didn't have go into debt just to pay your first month's rent. I'm not slagging you off, just saying its a lot easier to be thrifty when you you have a base to start with, which you built up by living with your parents.

Also, for some global perspective, people work 40 hours a week or more here and make $200 US dollars in a month. And that's people who can find work. And Venezuela isn't even one of the poorest countries.

@Simbabbad
Yeah, probably the flu. It's not a big deal. It just temporarily feels like one.

The stuff you're saying kind of define the way I live, anyway. Cheerful denial and apathy. Except I'd prefer not even knowing stuff that I don't have the power (and/or will) to change.

But I do have a pretty dim view of the nature of the average human, which is something that does affect me, since I have to interact with them at least a bit. It seems like it's a lot easier to get by when assume the worst of people, which is kind of sad, but it's not like I think about it all day, or anything.

The site has been a hell of a lot quicker, by the way. Did you have to remove any functionality?

@anandxxx Yeah but that is why I brought up other forms of knowledge. Hell, schools are FINALLY starting to accept art and music as forms of intelligence, and not just playtime. Simbabbad brings up a good point, most of the stuff you can learn about that is depressing isn't going to affect you personally. I'm all for learning, but to be honest, I barely follow current events, and almost every author I read is from the 50s or earlier (except Pratchett!) My mom has tons of newsletters she reads and is all OMG LOOK WHAT OBAMA IS DOING NOW (and yes, she is "conservative" but she did this with Bush as well, she thinks they're all part of a big conspiracy) (and she may be right...) and all it seems to do is make her paranoid.

Don't get me wrong, for people who are willing to go out and work to make changes, awesome. But for the rest of us, it seems almost silly to get overly caught up in current events if all we are going to do is sit around and talk about how bad things are without doing.

I still like working the brain though.

Anyway, is ignorance truly bliss? It would be in an ideal world, perhaps, but in this world the ignorant are the ones who usually get taken advantage of. Actually I think part of the reason Thoreau was able to do what he did was he was not ignorant, and he had exposure to various learnings that showed him other ways things could be done, whereas most of the people around him were farm folk whose fathers and grandfathers were farm folk and they were taught a certain way to do things and didn't really think anything else was possible. If that made them happy, fine... and we only have Thoreau's account of it so it is a bit one-sided, but he seemed to think they were miserable and always complaining and spending their whole lives fighting against a deck stacked against them instead of changing the rules of the game.

To go back to a modern parallel, I honestly believe that is why a bunch of Americans are in the financial state they are in. They learned one way of living from their parents, etc. and kind of stumbled through life ignorant of how to actually handle finances, and then it all comes crashing down. I (and you, apparently) both know it is very possible to live super cheaply in Chicago, but there are many who think it is impossible. Isn't that a sort of dangerous ignorance?

Now, to touch on the coming up with your own views. Of course that is ideal, but I wonder how many people can truly come up with their own views? I think I'm a pretty intelligent and deep thinking person, but I have still gotten a LOT from reading. Of course it still requires the ability to filter, to compare, to take parts of and throw out the rest, to totally reject ideas that don't make sense, etc. but I have been exposed to a lot of schools of thought I may never have come up with on my own. I think the idea is having the exposure to other's views, whether or not you fit them into your own is all you.

@Simbabbad

Not many people are so lucky. Do you have no desire to help more people be as lucky as you are?

@Simbabbad

Well I assumed you were including yourself in "wars you'll never see." Most people will see wars in their lives, among other things. And those of us who don't see wars, poverty, etc. are affected because we want to help those other people but don't know how. That's how those realities affect us.

I think all he is saying is that the mere knowledge of these things going on in other places doesn't actually have a concrete negative affect in our lives. It WILL get (most of) us down a bit since we have sympathy for other human beings and it hurts to know terrible things are happening to people, but it's not necessarily something we are forced to have negative repercussions from just by knowing. We have the advantage of being able to hear about it, feel bad, and then go on with our relatively not so bad lives anyway.

I mean we generally, as in Americans and other 1st world non war-torn country inhabitants. I'm not exactly in the best position to fully enjoy my life at the moment either.

@Zero

Well, he said "why would it affect us so much?" and I was answering with a rhetorical question. If you have the desire, then it's going to affect you.

I'm not saying anyone's life is easy. But like you say, being American or British or French is pretty lucky, relatively speaking.

@Simbabbad

I'm not making any caricatures. I know enough about you to know that you have consistent access to the internet and the time to spend lots of time on it. I'm also sure you have your own problems, but I don't subscribe to theory that all problems are equal, even if they make you feel equally miserable. For example, there is a difference between Andrew's anxiety, which obviously sucks, and not knowing how you're going to eat the next day. I'm sure he would agree with me. Since you seem to know where you're going to eat the next day and seem to have some sort of shelter, I consider you lucky in those very important regards, even if you're not so lucky in others. You may well disagree.

I understand your points about people not doing anything about it, but you're ignoring the large population of people that are trying very hard to do something about it and still ultimately feel powerless. And the people that want to do something about it, but aren't in a position to do anything but try their hardest to help themselves. I think that was part of Anand's point, that people who don't know anything about those problems don't have to get locked into that never ending battle.

I have no feud whatsoever. I don't know how you can expect there not to be push back against this statement:

"Most of the negative drama inflicted on us have no reality to our level."

That statement is only true for the a small minority of the humans on Earth.

Considering how you used caps and italics, I don't think you deserve to have someone just know what you mean, and you can't clarify by not narrowing down the knowledge field, likewise I can make obvious counters that can be turned on its head via a different point of view. It sounds like you have a fetish for depressing junk.

But I get it. Taking over the world would make you happy. Heroes are the real burden to happiness, consequently a certain game seems to be loved on principle alone.

I think I'm on your case because I get enough of this dreariness from my mother. T_T

Which reminds me... clean your damned room, already. I could've sworn I saw a spider in there the other day.

(Assuming you're talking to me. I can't really tell.)

GameDadGrant said:

People got hooked up to VR simulators and got to experience their wildest dreams come true. It was ecstasy for them - in fact, they got hooked on it. Like, REALLY addicted. So much so, that they never wanted to leave the simulation and return to the real world.

...That sounds pretty awesome to me. Sounds like some people just want to force "NATURE!!!!" on everyone else, as if what you enjoy has to be what I enjoy.

I feel like this whole thread has been a case of misunderstood tone, due to the deficiencies of the written word. Come now, gentlemen. We are all nerds here.

@Zero
Maybe I'm misrepresenting Walden, since I haven't read it, but isn't it kind of strange that Thoreau's heroic, romantic, admirable solution to life was to kind of give up on society and detach himself from it? Isn't that the least courageous solution, in a way? I may turn a blind eye to society, but at least I feel bad about it.

Also, even if you're getting taken advantage of, does it really matter, if you don't notice? Doesn't everyone get taken advantage of, in some ways? It's a continuum, so no definitive statements can be made about it, really. Each situation has to be evaluated separately.

Anyway, I am definitely not against most forms of general knowledge. I don't think knowing how to play guitar or build a log cabin can really have a negative impact on you (unless your log cabin confidence is misplaced, and you die, buried under a pile of logs).

I think you're assigning too much difficulty to coming up with your own personal philosophy. It's not something that you have to sit down and codify in one day. It's not even something you have to consciously acknowledge. It's just how you naturally perceive the world, given who you are and what you go through. It's what's important to you, an expression of your goals and dreams and desires and experiences in the world. People may be religious, but I'm sure that, deep down, they still have their own complex moral code, which is at least slightly different from everyone else's. Some people think stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family is wrong. Some don't. Your upbringing helps shape those opinions, and society does, as well. That's why organized schools of thought (religion, philosophy, whatever) make me kind of suspicious. They seem to interfere with natural behavioral instincts.

What a weird path this thread took...

Anyway, figured it was time to revisit the subject, what with the 3DS, and all. I've revised my opinion. Now that Nintendo is doing it, AR is totally cool. No, seriously.

I want to see where they go from here. It's good that the cards are included in the 3DS package. Hopefully, companies can release downloadable AR games that take advantage of them.

By the way, I read somewhere that Nintendogs will have AR. Your pets will jump around within the boundaries of your room.

Which brings something to mind: I hate Tower Defense games, but wouldn't an AR Tower Defense game be kind of AWESOME? Like, your room would be the level, and the troops could be miniature army men or aliens, or whatever, and you could place turrets on the walls and sofas, and shit, and even join the fight with your 3DS. Or create bases and factories for an AR RTS game. So coooool...

@warerare
Dear god. If advertised right (which it will be, it's Nintendo after all), it's gonna outsell the DS version.

I wonder if both sets of cameras can be active at once? Then the things in augmented reality could react to your expressions. You smile and the dog starts wagging its tail.

Freaky stuff...

@anandxxx

I just saw you bump this thread and looked at some of the replies... and now that the 3DS will have it, it may change a lot of people's minds.

I really hope they take advantage of this with different franchises like Pokemon to make AR cards. It would be so awesome!

That Nintendogs video made me have an idea... what about animal trading cards? That would be pretty cool.