Okay, that was me. I wrote a reply to your most recent post and it is adamant that I do not have permission to reply, so wanted to check if it's a dreamwidth wide issue or it having a strop about that particular post. Seems to be the latter. Fortunately, having been burned by dreamwidth in the past, I always copy and paste replies before I post them, so I think I'm just going to post the reply on this post. Sorry for the spammy test post!
"Yeah, growing up with the internet I learned to never click on banner ads ever. I feel like people are much more prone to doing this now as they're much more targeted, but to us "was regularly using the internet 20+ years ago" crowd, they are a virus plague that is never to be touched!
This reminds me: I mentioned I was rereading Max Barry's Lexicon recently, and that it gets quite philosophical at times. One concept it explores is the categorisation of people based on beliefs, interests, personality etc. Later on, it touches on using this sort of information for targeted advertisements promising people different things, and the linked idea of people who become entrenched in beliefs then only see things that agree with those beliefs and dismiss everything else as being deliberate falsehoods (but the stuff they belief is definitely not falsehood). One thing that comes up amid this is the concept of the online quiz and surveys, which are another thing very much of that era. It points out that you ask for information and people are very resistant to giving it, but if you put it in a quiz, people are tripping over themselves to answer it and categorise themselves. It really is quite an interesting book (also kind of a horrifying book). The banner ads reminded me of the thought!
There's something so magical about videogames when you're a kid, before you really grasp that everything in there was intentionally programmed in, and there's only so much they can feasibly contain. There were whole unfathomable worlds in those discs and cartridges.
When I was a little kid, I was convinced that combat in games was you being secretly matched with some other player and them mysteriously controlling the enemy AI instead of it being, y'know, AI. I used to play games on multiplayer with my neighbour on the playstation which is where I think I got the idea. Also, Pokemon and those link cables on the gameboy, "proving" everything had to be done via other people.
no subject
"Yeah, growing up with the internet I learned to never click on banner ads ever. I feel like people are much more prone to doing this now as they're much more targeted, but to us "was regularly using the internet 20+ years ago" crowd, they are a virus plague that is never to be touched!
This reminds me: I mentioned I was rereading Max Barry's Lexicon recently, and that it gets quite philosophical at times. One concept it explores is the categorisation of people based on beliefs, interests, personality etc. Later on, it touches on using this sort of information for targeted advertisements promising people different things, and the linked idea of people who become entrenched in beliefs then only see things that agree with those beliefs and dismiss everything else as being deliberate falsehoods (but the stuff they belief is definitely not falsehood). One thing that comes up amid this is the concept of the online quiz and surveys, which are another thing very much of that era. It points out that you ask for information and people are very resistant to giving it, but if you put it in a quiz, people are tripping over themselves to answer it and categorise themselves. It really is quite an interesting book (also kind of a horrifying book). The banner ads reminded me of the thought!
There's something so magical about videogames when you're a kid, before you really grasp that everything in there was intentionally programmed in, and there's only so much they can feasibly contain. There were whole unfathomable worlds in those discs and cartridges.
When I was a little kid, I was convinced that combat in games was you being secretly matched with some other player and them mysteriously controlling the enemy AI instead of it being, y'know, AI. I used to play games on multiplayer with my neighbour on the playstation which is where I think I got the idea. Also, Pokemon and those link cables on the gameboy, "proving" everything had to be done via other people.
-timydamonkey"