How nerdy are you?This week Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, died. A whole generation of pasty dice-obsessed nerds owes him big time. Me included.
So, in his honour, how nerdy were you? Are you still sunlight-averse? What are the sad little things you do that nobody else understands?
As an example, a B3ta regular who shall remain nameless told us, "I spent an entire school summer holiday getting my BBC Model B computer to produce filthy stories from an extensive database of names, nouns, adjectives, stock phrases and deviant sexual practices. It revolutionised the porn magazine dirty letter writing industry for ever.
Revel in your own nerdiness.
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chthonic, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 10:32)
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Misreported ScienceDoes anyone else here get really annoyed and frustrated when scientific laws or principles get misquoted or misused in the media?
And when I say really annoyed, I mean annoyed to the point of wanting to write in to correct them. ("Scientifically Offended of Tunbridge Wells") This is why I shouldn't be allowed near things like the BBC Have Your Say website...
EDIT: On the same theme, is anyone else as upset as me when a Horizon program looks really interesting on the advert, and yet, when you watch the damn things it actually tells you nothing you didn't know already?
(, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:39, 9 replies)
Yes, yes, yes and yes...And I'm not a scientist - just tolerably well-read.
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Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:47,
closed)
Oh yes!Ever seen the film Armageddon?
Full of scientific inaccuracies, flaws and total fallacies.
I couldn't enjoy what little plot there was for pointing out all the inconsistencies.
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K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 10:49,
closed)
Yes!And when there are total innaccuraies in fils as well. I watched King Arthur (the one with Ioan Gruffudd and Keira Knightly) recently. At the first fight scene I was asking "Why did he get off his horse? He could do more damage to the soldiers on foot by trampling them" and it got worse from there. A Roman auxilliary leading a band of untrained celts against the saxons, using disiplined Roman tactics including trebuchets and greek fire? I almost couldn't take it.
(, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:06, closed)
"Ye cannae change the laws o' physics, Jim"said Scotty, in a spaceship travelling faster than light, which was therefore violating a law of physics. Always amused me.
Of course, it may be that in years to come, new theories will be developed which will allow for FTL travel. Indeed, current theories do include such concepts as warping of spacetime, wormholes etc, albeit requiring enormous energies, and also being unsuitable for the transport of macroscopic objects.
So you can change the laws of physics. We've been doing it for millennia. God used to have them all to himself, but he's lost out badly!
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K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:20,
closed)
i don't mind a bit of inacuracy...... if it's vital to the plot, or character, or to keep things simple, etc.
What really offends me is when they get it wrong for NO BLOODY REASON AT ALL except stupidity and laziness. Depressingly, this is by far the most common scenario.
(, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:23, closed)
A recent oneDexter doing DNA work in his "lab" in the corner of a busy police office is just wrong wrong wrong
Mrs Duck says it's only made up get over it
(from someone who cried real tears over the deaths of ethel in eastenders and vera in corry
(, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:41, closed)
More on King ArthurThat film annoyed me too. It started when Arthur's boys turned out to be using stirrups a few centuries too early and escalated when a Saxon army with crossbows started swanning about north of Hadrian's Wall.
And on the subject of Horizon et al...Yes I know you have to make science accessable to the plebs but do you have to keep repeating the same bit of info three or four times? I got it the first time, thanks. Argh.
(, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 11:53, closed)
Speaking of DexterIt must have the record for pre-episode re-capping. It annoys me a lot.
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whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 12:20,
closed)
Yes to the Horizon thingChannel 4's Dispatches is a worse offender, though.
I could rip that program apart for the way it'll make a point in the first 5 minutes, then re-word and repeat the same point for the next 55.
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Thinker, Fri 7 Mar 2008, 13:12,
closed)
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