"Am I the only one who thinks..."

[defunctzombie]

Windows Vista has been out for five years now, yet neither it nor its successor can burn a disc like XP. Am I the only one who's annoyed by this?

I hate dragging out Nero for a single zip archive, microsoft.

 

[MDawg]

Windows Vista has been out for five years now, yet neither it nor its successor can burn a disc like XP. Am I the only one who's annoyed by this?

I hate dragging out Nero for a single zip archive, microsoft.

These don't work?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Burn-a-CD-or-DVD
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Burn-a-CD-or-DVD-in-Windows-Explorer

Not that I use either, ImgBurn is my go-to program for disc burning. Not the deformed monstrosity that is Nero and really simple to use. If you need something that can do that and audio discs there's always CDBurnerXP which works quite well too.

 

[defunctzombie]

Nah, Windows only really works with a DVD if you do packet style writing (which I hate doing). Not fixing it must be their way of saying "shut up and do it how we tell you".

 

[cognitofalcon]

Am I the only one who thinks that it is really annoying when there is something remotely strange or unusual about a movie, book, what have you, and people without skipping a beat say "Man, they were on drugs when they made this." It wouldn't bother me If one person said maybe every once in a while, but when it's the default, cool response to something. It drives me insane when I read reviews for Alice In Wonderland, and every other one had the phrase "Walt Disney was on drugs when he made this movie." It isn't funny when everyone says it all the time. It also just sort of ruins anything that's surreal, or otherworldly, like Salvador Dali paintings. My friend said that in a museum once, and it ruined my entire experience.

 

[Classic Speedy]

Am I the only one who thinks that it is really annoying when there is something remotely strange or unusual about a movie, book, what have you, and people without skipping a beat say "Man, they were on drugs when they made this." It wouldn't bother me If one person said maybe every once in a while, but when it's the default, cool response to something. It drives me insane when I read reviews for Alice In Wonderland, and every other one had the phrase "Walt Disney was on drugs when he made this movie." It isn't funny when everyone says it all the time. It also just sort of ruins anything that's surreal, or otherworldly, like Salvador Dali paintings. My friend said that in a museum once, and it ruined my entire experience.

I said the same thing a few pages back.

 

[Storm Eagle]

Am I the only one who thinks that it is really annoying when there is something remotely strange or unusual about a movie, book, what have you, and people without skipping a beat say "Man, they were on drugs when they made this." It wouldn't bother me If one person said maybe every once in a while, but when it's the default, cool response to something. It drives me insane when I read reviews for Alice In Wonderland, and every other one had the phrase "Walt Disney was on drugs when he made this movie." It isn't funny when everyone says it all the time. It also just sort of ruins anything that's surreal, or otherworldly, like Salvador Dali paintings. My friend said that in a museum once, and it ruined my entire experience.

It reminds me of how my friend told me about how he read somewhere that the guy who came up with Tetris was high on weed when he came up with it. Not that Tetris is strange, but it's was just popular for a while. I I felt like I could strangle him for saying that, even if it is true. It seems like anything that's popular had to have been thought up on account of drugs. Next thing you know, we'll be hearing that J.K. Rowling was toked up when she came up with Harry Potter.

Also, if they're going to blame anyone for Alice in Wonderland, it should be Lewis Carroll. He's the original author.

 

[cognitofalcon]

I said the same thing a few pages back.

Whoops, sorry =)

I was just so agitated about it, I swear my friend said the phrase twice the other day, and I read that phrase in a review section countless times. It's the same when people leave comments like "lol, this cartoon is so racist." On old cartoons on YouTube.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

I'm sorry, but I have to advocate for the reality-based community here. What's wrong with saying something that's true?

It reminds me of how my friend told me about how he read somewhere that the guy who came up with Tetris was high on weed when he came up with it. Not that Tetris is strange, but it's was just popular for a while. I I felt like I could strangle him for saying that, even if it is true. It seems like anything that's popular had to have been thought up on account of drugs. Next thing you know, we'll be hearing that J.K. Rowling was toked up when she came up with Harry Potter.

Also, if they're going to blame anyone for Alice in Wonderland, it should be Lewis Carroll. He's the original author.

You don't want to hear it, even if it's true (although as far as I can tell, it's not). C'mon, can't you see that that's a little close-minded? What if I said, "Whoa, the guy that wrote Kubla Khan must have been high on opium when he wrote it?" Because it's true, he was. Or, "Wow, the guy that wrote Naked Lunch must have done a lot drugs?" Because he totally did. Did you know that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde during a furious six day drug bender, with the idea itself inspired by a drug nightmare? Hell, I've read that he wrote it twice, because his wife destroyed the first manuscript. You know how Stephen King pumped out so many words so quickly? Yeah, cocaine. And then there's the whole category of psychedelic art and Basquiat. Lots of art is drug-influenced, you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend it's not true. It doesn't make one pro drugs to accept this fact.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/16/drugs-history-literature

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/20/the-influence-of-drugs-in_n_851643.html#s267145

http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/tag/robert-lewis-stevenson/

Whoops, sorry =)

I was just so agitated about it, I swear my friend said the phrase twice the other day, and I read that phrase in a review section countless times. It's the same when people leave comments like "lol, this cartoon is so racist." On old cartoons on YouTube.

Well, a lot of old cartoons are racist. That's true.

 

[Hordesman]

With regards to Disney's Alice... The movie was not a success during its initial release. Some of the crew felt it lacked heart, that they should have kept in the White Knight as a love interest. But during the 1960s, someone noticed that colleges kept requesting the film for exhibition (at this point in the company's history, they rented out educational films- presumably Alice qualified because of its literary roots). This story ends with a rerelease whose advertising materials emphasized the film's psychedelic qualities and probably helped fuel drug rumors surrounding the film.

 

[Michael24]

The only Disney film I ever thought "they must have been on drugs when they did this" was during the Pink Elephants sequence of Dumbo. Alice In Wonderland (one of my Top 3 favorite Disney films, for the record) I just always found to be surreal in the way dreams are often surreal.

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

With regards to Disney's Alice... The movie was not a success during its initial release. Some of the crew felt it lacked heart, that they should have kept in the White Knight as a love interest. But during the 1960s, someone noticed that colleges kept requesting the film for exhibition (at this point in the company's history, they rented out educational films- presumably Alice qualified because of its literary roots). This story ends with a rerelease whose advertising materials emphasized the film's psychedelic qualities and probably helped fuel drug rumors surrounding the film.

And Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, which is totally about drugs, made the association even stronger.

The only Disney film I ever thought "they must have been on drugs when they did this" was during the Pink Elephants sequence of Dumbo.

Well, pink elephants are the "joke" thing that people see when they're having the DTs, and Dumbo is drunk during the scene, so the trippiness is fully intentional. There you go, a drug trip in a major disney film.

 

[defunctzombie]

Tons of children's movies have drug induced/trippy scenes in them. Willy Wonka, anyone?

 

[cognitofalcon]

I'm sorry, but I have to advocate for the reality-based community here. What's wrong with saying something that's true?

You don't want to hear it, even if it's true (although as far as I can tell, it's not). C'mon, can't you see that that's a little close-minded? What if I said, "Whoa, the guy that wrote Kubla Khan must have been high on opium when he wrote it?" Because it's true, he was. Or, "Wow, the guy that wrote Naked Lunch must have done a lot drugs?" Because he totally did. Did you know that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde during a furious six day drug bender, with the idea itself inspired by a drug nightmare? Hell, I've read that he wrote it twice, because his wife destroyed the first manuscript. You know how Stephen King pumped out so many words so quickly? Yeah, cocaine. And then there's the whole category of psychedelic art and Basquiat. Lots of art is drug-influenced, you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend it's not true. It doesn't make one pro drugs to accept this fact.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/16/drugs-history-literature

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/20/the-influence-of-drugs-in_n_851643.html#s267145

http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/tag/robert-lewis-stevenson/

Well, a lot of old cartoons are racist. That's true.

My point was that it is an overused phrase that people throw around too often. I don't deny the fact that drug-influenced art exists.

And regarding the old cartoons, they in fact AREN'T racist, they are stereotypical, there is a difference =)

 

[Shawn Hopkins]

Tons of children's movies have drug induced/trippy scenes in them. Willy Wonka, anyone?

"What is this, some kind of freak out?"

But not many have the characters actually get high like Dumbo does.

And, no, I'm sorry but I feel that if a cartoon portrays a character in terms of racist stereotypes, such as the slow-witted, shuffling, gambling addicted pickaninny in "All This and Rabbit Stew" or the servile black centaurs in Fantasia, then that is in fact racist. There's not problem with viewing it as a product of its time, but let's not make apologies for it or pretend otherwise. That's probably all I should say on the issue, though, it's a touchy one and I don't want to derail this thread with a big debate.

 

[Storm Eagle]

I'm sorry, but I have to advocate for the reality-based community here. What's wrong with saying something that's true?

You don't want to hear it, even if it's true (although as far as I can tell, it's not). C'mon, can't you see that that's a little close-minded? What if I said, "Whoa, the guy that wrote Kubla Khan must have been high on opium when he wrote it?" Because it's true, he was. Or, "Wow, the guy that wrote Naked Lunch must have done a lot drugs?" Because he totally did. Did you know that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr. Jekkyl and Mr. Hyde during a furious six day drug bender, with the idea itself inspired by a drug nightmare? Hell, I've read that he wrote it twice, because his wife destroyed the first manuscript. You know how Stephen King pumped out so many words so quickly? Yeah, cocaine. And then there's the whole category of psychedelic art and Basquiat. Lots of art is drug-influenced, you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend it's not true. It doesn't make one pro drugs to accept this fact.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/16/drugs-history-literature

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/20/the-influence-of-drugs-in_n_851643.html#s267145

http://quietfurybooks.com/blog/tag/robert-lewis-stevenson/

The thing is that this friend happens to smoke weed, and he happens to think that we'd all be at our best if we do so. Rather typical.

It could be true that some of the best ideas might have been thought up on account of drugs, but it could just give people the wrong idea. Like, "hey, want to come up with the next best thing that change the world and maybe even earn you millions of dollars? Try some weed!". So let's say that the guy who came up with Tetris really was high when he did. I might be appreciative of Tetris, but just in spite of how the idea came about.

 

[Jave]

I honestly don't want to dwelve too much into this subject, but I feel this is something that needs to be addressed. I apologize in advance if anyone feels offended by this.

And regarding the old cartoons, they in fact AREN'T racist, they are stereotypical, there is a difference =)

No, a lot of them are in fact racist. They are products of their time, sure, and a lot of them didn't have mean intentions when they were made (particularly the jazzy ones and some involving African natives). However, this doesn't mean they're not racist, specially when you notice some of the jokes used in these cartoons bear no purpose other than to make fun of a stereotype.

The biggest examples are the MGM shorts (Tom & Jerry, Tex Avery, etc.). A lot of them had explosions gags and such that usually end up with a character getting a blackface and suddenly the character will be talking in a stereotypical fashion. These gags were usually inserted simply for show, because there's no reason for them to be there in the first place. What's even weirder is that Tex Avery didn't use these gags much in his previous work at WB (outside of a few specific shorts like "Rabbit Stew" which Shawn mentioned), so for several years researches have speculated what made the studio put so many of these jokes in. If I had to take a guess, one of the higher-ups probably liked to put these jokes in, regardless of whether he realized the implications of them.

The WWII cartoons are on a different level since they were made on special circumstances, however, some of them really are offensive these days even in context. "Tokio Jokio" is a cartoon that will probably never see the light of day ever again.

Watching these shorts as products of their time and taking into account their historical value and conditions in which they were made is fine. I do that myself. But don't pretend these shorts aren't racist, that's naive at best.

 

[J. B. Warner]

I've been writing fan fiction for years. My writing has improved drastically because of the practice. Now I mostly write in the Supernatural fandom; I've found some excellent writers through the community on Livejournal. FF.N is a mixed bag, mostly of bad work, with the occasional gem (and I've found a few real gems).

I have generally tried to move away from fanfiction in recent years, as I know my time would be better spent on creating wholly original stories with my own characters. But I do occasionally gravitate back in that direction. I did a few RPs on DeviantArt not too long ago, a Pokémon one and a Harry Potter one, that I reworked into fanfic stories which I actually think are pretty good (albeit incomplete; I only wrote a few chapters of each). For what it's worth, I didn't write for pre-existing characters - I created new characters and tried to think of how they'd react in their particular universe. In that respect, I can definitely see how fanfiction is beneficial to original creative writing.

 

[Silverstar]

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when fans of something say to or about non-fans of said thing that "Anyone who doesn't like so-and-so just doesn't get it!"? While sometimes that can indeed be the case (I'll probably never understand the fascination with Adventure Time), too often the expression is used as the rallying cry of the egomaniacal fanboy/girl. It's as if these people can't fathom that everyone's tastes are different and there's no possible conceivable way that someone can not be into something which they're a fan of, so if someone says they don't like this thing, then it must be ignorance or lack of education on the non-fan's part.

There are plenty of things which I get just fine, but I'm still not into.

 

[Scrappy-Fan92]

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when fans of something say to or about non-fans of said thing that "Anyone who doesn't like so-and-so just doesn't get it!"? While sometimes that can indeed be the case (I'll probably never understand the fascination with Adventure Time), too often the expression is used as the rallying cry of the egomaniacal fanboy/girl. It's as if these people can't fathom that everyone's tastes are different and there's no possible conceivable way that someone can not be into something which they're a fan of, so if someone says they don't like this thing, then it must be ignorance or lack of education on the non-fan's part.

There are plenty of things which I get just fine, but I'm still not into.

I think that most applies to video game fanbases; I mean there are tons of series I don't get into.

 

[Peter Paltridge]

Why aren't Blu-Ray drives standard on PCs yet? I looked at what Costco was selling these days and they all still have just DVD drives in there.

Am I the only one who gets annoyed when fans of something say to or about non-fans of said thing that "Anyone who doesn't like so-and-so just doesn't get it!"? While sometimes that can indeed be the case (I'll probably never understand the fascination with Adventure Time), too often the expression is used as the rallying cry of the egomaniacal fanboy/girl. It's as if these people can't fathom that everyone's tastes are different and there's no possible conceivable way that someone can not be into something which they're a fan of, so if someone says they don't like this thing, then it must be ignorance or lack of education on the non-fan's part.

There are plenty of things which I get just fine, but I'm still not into.

It's justified. Most people don't understand smart, savvy, innovative things because they're simply not smart enough to get them. Community is better than 2 Broke Girls. It's a scientific fact.