I Can Be Just As Capable. Let Me. - <AUTHOR> http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/06/513794/ <comment><USER2> Some women are put in game journalism roles because they are appealing to their audience for reasons other than their gaming knowledge. PR person misunderstood her silence and made a bad assumption. This misunderstanding could have been easily corrected. Saying, "No thanks I'll drive. What type of damage model do you use?" is plenty to show you mean business.

People _shouldn't_ judge books by covers, but they do. Best you can do is give them one good shot at understanding. This will separate the actual jerks from those who just guessed wrong. Most people don't want to offend you, so don't spend your time walking around with silent resentment over something that's done by mistake.

<comment><USER3> It's easy to tell someone to give everyone a shot at understanding when you're not on the receiving end of it all the time. She had this happen multiple times, so she rightly assumed what anyone would: These PR reps assumed she couldn't play their games because she was a woman.

<comment><USER4> What about these PR reps, what if all the other girls they say that day weren't really experienced players of shoot-em-up games, how were they supposed to know she was different right away? Doesn't your comment apply equally to say she assumed things?

<comment><USER5> There's a simple rule of thumb: Would she have gotten the same treatment if she were a guy? If not, then calling shenanigans is the right response.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by calling shenanigans? Blaming the PR people?

The thing is, the guys didn't get the same treatment... but my point was simply that the PR people were _exposed_ to a certain pattern (someone is a girl => they aren't that experienced playing shoot em up video games) and it was repeatedly reinforced through subtle social feedback, that expecting them to just be good at the game was not producing great results for them or for your brand. And since the PR person wants to do their job and give a good impression of the game, they would just assume this girl was like the others, and offer to show her the best parts about the demo, so that she can write about them.

<comment><USER5> The thing is, you're perpetuating the myth too.

"Those poor PR people, how were they supposed to know that a chick plays video games?"

<comment><USER4> They aren't poor, I am asking why she is surprised given that they were very likely to do that, and indeed most of them in her story did do that.

What is the alternative? I am not calling them poor, but you are calling them deluded. And I am deluded. Basically we all believe a myth.

What is more likely is that there is an underlying reason for the PR people and others to believe it. It is the reason that should be analyzed and addressed, not the people who are the product of it.

This is starting to sound a lot like <http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html>

<comment><USER5> _> What is more likely is that there is an underlying reason for the PR people and others to believe it._

You're making the same mistake that the PR guy made ( _Obviously_ women don't play games, therefore it's an understandable mistake). Stop doing that, would be a really good start.

<comment><USER4> first of all he was the one who made the judgment, I simply evaluated his judgment

secondly why do you keep saying that acting based on previously established patterns in one's life is a mistake?

how do you know I'm not a nobel prize winning sociologist, and that you are the one making the mistake

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I didn't even realize it was a female author until the quote about the PR person saying girls not usually being into this stuff. A PR person that is saying stuff like "I think I better play it for you" shouldn't be in that business, no matter who was at the keyboard. She said it happened many times, after a while I'd be compelled to say something to shut them up so I could play the darn game.

<comment><USER7> One female developer I know absolutely hates when male coworkers rip away the keyboard from her. I would too, though other males don't do that to me.

<comment><USER8> Male developers tend to rip keyboards away from other males too though... it takes patience on the part of a human-being to not be in the driver's seat yet still be in control.

<comment><USER9> Yeaaahhhh...it has nothing to do with gender in this case. Anybody who has experienced the agony of pair programming knows what this feels like.

<comment><USER10> Agreed (except for the agony part...I've been pairing for a long time and I enjoy it). In my experience, the people that "rip" keyboards from other folks' hands do so rather indiscriminately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Besides the blatant sexism that's ripe throughout this woman's interaction with various staff members at E3: there's another underlying problem.

You shouldn't have to hold someone's hand through a game demo. And you certainly shouldn't need a PR person there to sell the game to your members of the press. The game should be as inviting and enticing to veterans who have been resting their fingers on WASD since they learned to walk as it is to someone who is just picking up a controller for the very first time.

Draw me in, let me lose myself in your entertainment, and don't make me think. A shining example of this is when first-person shooters stopped hiding the "inverse look" option in the deep recesses of a menu, and instead just asked you to "look up" when you first start a new game. Whatever direction you choose (up for up, or down for up (inverse)), the game then immediately flips the option for you behind the scenes. That's the level of UX and approachability that should be applied to every control and game mechanic in your title. A fact sheet shouldn't even be available. Make me fall in love in the first 5 minutes, like a well-crafted movie or book.

Games get away with so much because they can become addictive and time- consuming. And they'll still sell by the millions.

<comment><USER12> This doesn't take into account the realities of an E3 demo.

For one, the clever tricks that ease you in to the controls generally occur at the start of the game. It's not just the UI of the game that allow a first time player to be able to understand, it's the design of a level to teach you. This is often not the part of the game that an E3 demo wants to show.

The second point is that a lot of the more subtle stuff that hints to new players how to play may not even be in the game yet. These E3 demos are with an incomplete product, but the developers have slaved to create a section of the game that seems polished. However, they know their target audience for the demo are experienced gamers, not members of the general public, so it changes their development priorities accordingly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I only got about halfway through this, far enough to wonder why she didn't tell him that she had to personally play the game in order to review it and, if that had not gotten him to move the fuck out of her way, then just walk off. No need to be "polite" and "respectful" to a dick.

<comment><USER14> I finished it, and wondered why she consented to such treatment over and over, reinforcing the stereotype instead of objecting and demonstrating competence and tearing down the misconception.

<comment><USER15> It can be really hard in a situation like that to stand up for yourself, especially if you don't want to cause a public fuss. I'm female, and at PAX East I was approached a couple of times (at social events, by attendees) and rather inappropriate things were said to me; it's hard to do anything other than just want to get out of that sort of a situation. Something inside you says "I can't believe he really means this", or "Did he really just say what I think he said?" - it is very much l'esprit d'escalier when it comes to standing up for yourself.

<comment><USER16> Though I have never been to PAX East I would still say: I'm sorry.

It's incredibly perverse, the way I was socialized in the US. I was taught essentially that love was always "at stake" in every discussion with the opposite sex, and that if I didn't have love, whether by commitment or conquest, then I was worthless. I ultimately had to resolve the problem that I wasn't treating ladies as genuine human beings by jumping off the deep end, and accidentally inventing a personal religion. Basically I committed to the worthlessness and resolved to make it my own, because it was better to treat others as real human beings. In doing so I suddenly discovered that love isn't static, isn't a substance, and that along that earlier path, real love was in fact impossible. So by embracing worthlessness I accidentally discovered worth.

I can't apologize to those I have wronged before, and those that have wronged you can't apologize to you now, but though it is empty, I would apologize to you on their behalf. I'm sorry; I've learned.

<comment><USER15> I'm not really sure what you are talking about here but, uh, thanks? I think?

<comment><USER16> Sorry, it was a very weird request.

We seriously need a social protocol for situations where A says something which makes B feel very sorry, but the proper recipients of B's apology are no longer available to hear it. It felt way too cheesy to just apologize to myself, so I apologized to you, but that doesn't make me feel any better about my womanizing and discriminatory past. Live and learn, I guess.

<comment><USER15> Ahh, I see. Well, kudos for improving your life. Keep it up! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm finding a lot of the responses to this article disheartening. There's a common trend of "she should've said something," and while many here disapprove of the PR guys' treatment of the writer, they're still quick to defend his innocence or obliviousness. Focusing on how the author could've done better to defend herself against sexism is pretty problematic and indicative of this brand of derailing the conversation: <http://www.derailingfordummies.com/education.html>

<comment><USER18> The problem is that she raises two separate issues, one of which was his fault and one of which was partly his and partly hers. People are following her lead and conflating the two.

1\. The guy was a sexist prick.

This was his fault, and she obviously doesn't deserve any of the blame for his broken worldview.

2\. She didn't get to play the game.

This was partly her doing. He still deserves some of the blame because it's his job to represent his company well to her and he didn't do that. But she didn't so much as indicate a desire to play it, which I don't think is too much to expect from an adult acting in a professional capacity. Non-videogame journalists have to deal with much fiercer opposition to their reporting than some sexist twit making unwarranted assumptions, but somehow political stories still get written (by women, no less).

<comment><USER19> Have you though that maybe she is a video-game journalist and not a non-video- game journalist partly because she doesn't want to deal with what you describe?

Its ridiculous to demand the same amount of experience in dealing with adverse situations to people who choose to review commercial products for a living and to political or war journalists. Specially when you are demanding expertise in approaching a hostile subject in order to get your facts prior to forming your opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maybe this is a consequence of the same problem in that women are not taught to be as assertive, but why wouldn't you just say "Hey, no thanks, I want to play the game for myself. If you expect me to write an accurate review of your game I need to actually play it."

<comment><USER21> The response is irrelevant. The point is that the PR reps made her feel like an outsider in her industry.

<comment><USER20> And I wholeheartedly agree that those are lousy PR reps. But what's the takeaway here? The people who are actually reading this article likely overwhelmingly agree with her.

If you address your complaint about someone's action, not to the person doing that action, but to a large anonymous audience, how do you expect it to be rectified?

<comment><USER21> I take issue with the specific wording in your comment, "...but why wouldn't you just say..." It makes it sound like discrimination is not a big deal, because if you were just "taught to be assertive," you could handle it.

There is nothing she could have done to prevent the discrimination other than being a man. The entire article is set up to emphasize the way that anyone should be able to tell she's a gamer from the way she holds her hands on the keyboard, and yet they still treated her like someone who does not belong in the industry.

The point of the article is to increase awareness of discrimination among the "large anonymous audience." It is offensive to suggest that victims of discrimination should just act differently to prevent it.

<comment><USER20> So, if we're all aware of discrimination it will go away? Maybe, the PR guy she talked to will see her article and make the connection that it was him she was talking about. Maybe.

If she had spoken directly to him about it, we could be certain that he knew his behavior was not appreciated. If he's not hopelessly clueless, he might even modify his behavior in the future. The number of people acting in a discriminatory fashion would then be decreased by one. That is something that could be considered progress.

I'm on your side here. I would also like to live in a world where there's no discrimination. I don't think we get there by "raising awareness" among people who are largely already aware of the problem.

I honestly don't see how it's offensive to suggest something a person could do to bring about the change that they want to see. Yes, you shouldn't have to. Yes, in a perfect world, nobody would ever encounter a jerk. But we don't live in that world. You have little to no control over how other people act. The only control you have is in how you act. Simply acknowledging that discrimination exists is not going to change anything if you don't confront the people who are doing the discriminating.

<comment><USER17> It's offensive because, even if you're on her side, you're displacing responsibility from the offender. It's not her job to individually confront and educate every condescending PR rep. That's a grind, and also only effective on a micro-level. By writing another piece on sexism at E3, she contributes to the ever-growing pool of them; the more the community is aware of such behavior, the better equipped they are to recognize it when it happens.

<comment><USER22> But isn't that just practicality? Stepping completely away from this specific case, I have found that people that are the most effective in changing things are the ones that say 'I think it's your fault, but I'm going to fix it anyway'.

Naming it like this article is obviously important and I also don't think anyone thinks she is in any way responsible or in the wrong (quite the contrary) but the most effective way to make an offender change his (or her) ways is to simply communicate with him (or her).

<comment><USER17> Yes, but there are a lot of factors that play into that communication. We make assumptions that the other party is amenable to change, or that the offended is an effective communicator in these one-on-one scenarios. I think it's unfair to think that these ideal conditions are in place for all of her interactions.

The article shares an experience of being marginalized, and we're focusing on what she could've done to feel more welcome where she felt unwelcome. By continually suggesting that she stand up for herself, we're creating an atmosphere that basically says, "It's on you," which further marginalizes her. Despite best intentions, it's treating her like a problem and distracts from the greater problem of condescension towards women in games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > _"Well, OK." I sensed a disbelief in the guy's voice. "But do you play > shooters?"

I remember the silence that filled this space beyond this question. I was horrified that anyone could even ask such a thing. Here I was, sitting with my fingers spread across WASD, admiring a game world — and somehow, for some obtuse reason, being assumed to be someone who didn't know anything about the world or how to interact with it.

"I think I better play it for you," he said finally, prying my hands away and turning the keyboard towards himself._

If it had been me, I'd have said "Yeah" as I continued playing instead of refraining from both talk and play until the silence was uncomfortable and then going home and writing an article about how oppressed I was. The poor guy was very possibly just trying to do his job and be helpful.

On the other hand, the article she did write made the front page here and it's unlikely that any article about the game itself, however good, would have gotten this kind of circulation. I guess that's why she's a successful journalist and I'm just a gamer.

</comment><comment><USER24> As a reporter, you deal with unsavory people all the time. The writer should use the experience as a way to devise her own methods of creating contacts/breaking the ice at this sort of thing. Or if the game/PR was indeed that bad, write a scathing review.

Contacts don't make themselves - cub reporters have to wear out shoe leather walking the beat, talking to the right cops and the right people on the street. Clueless PR people should be the least of their worries.

</comment><comment><USER25> People keep calling this a professional setting. But it's a press expo. "Booth babes" as popularized by seemingly every video game or entertainment expo evolved out of companies hiring attractive women for their expo booth, to flirt with potential customers. This particular convention one year had a company set up a display of a live "schoolgirl slumber party" that devolved into a lesbian makeout session. Flirting is expected. Sex is shoved in your face.

whether that is a good thing or not is beside the point that standards of professional conduct at E3 aren't the same as a staid business professional gathering.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hell, even if you were a virtually incapable, absolute neophyte, so what? The PR guy should still not be ripping the controls from your hands. These all sound like miserable demos, or perhaps very poorly trained staff.

</comment><comment><USER27> I was skimming this article and thought that the premise was that first person shooters were switching to using the up, left, right, and down arrows instead of wasd. I felt the lede + nut graf (was there even a nut graf here?) was misleading--it was completely about the buttons, not about the identity of the gamer, the game industry, nor society in general.

I am interested in articles about female gamers and how they deal with the unpleasantness surrounding the gaming industry, but I wish that blog posts were held to a slightly higher standard--I am a fairly fast reader, and had to double back to reread large parts of the article to recalibrate as the article started talking about being directed to games with fuzzy animals and facebook games instead of shooters, when I expected the author to be complaining about the wasd keys opening different menus rather than moving around the character.

This seems to be a pretty good argument for paying for better quality journalism. I bought a copy of GQ, not exactly the highest brow magazine in the business, admittedly, and the articles weren't riveting, but it was efficient to read them, because they were written carefully and in the traditional journalistic style, with a lede, nut graf, and transitions. Furthermore, it's a magazine FOR MEN so most of the words were Anglo-Saxon and avoid the errors that Orwell rails against in "Politics and the English Language." I never felt like I was being jerked from one idea to another, and I understood the point of the article if not from the titled or the images associated with it, then at least from the first few paragraphs.

TL;DR: May there be truth in advertising, if bloggers can't write a proper lede, we will have to pay for news.

<comment><USER28> You do realize that opinion pieces don't necessarily follow the traditional lede-plus-nut-graf formula, right? And that some pieces aren't meant to be skimmed?

> _Furthermore, it's a magazine FOR MEN so most of the words were Anglo-Saxon > and avoid the errors that Orwell rails against in "Politics and the English > Language."_

I don't even know what you're trying to say here. I mean, I can guess, but it makes me queasy.

<comment><USER27> Yes, for example Foucault or Derrida is not meant to be skimmed, and part of the point of reading Hegel is to struggle with it. It doesn't make sense to make the reader struggle with an opinion piece, since you are generally trying to persuade someone of your opinion. Although opinion pieces don't necessarily follow the traditional lede + nut graf format, this one appeared to do so, until the actual content was different from the first few paragraphs.

GQ prefers short Anglo-Saxon words because they think it's a style that men prefer to read, and what I am trying to say is that using too many words that were imported from French is generally used to make people sound smart because it was once the language of bureaucracy, but generally makes things harder to read.

Consider, "I don't even know what you're trying to say here. I mean, I can guess, but it makes me queasy." This is an extremely clear sentence, and would be pretty similar if translated into Middle English. This is generally the argument that Orwell makes in Politics and the English Language.

<http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This rant seems somehow familiar.

This kind of "girls not accepted in tech" was something "that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" at first. Now it's just repeating the same stuff, and I don't think it's gratifying anyones curiosity.

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not about curiosity here, and it's posted specifically because it's familiar, not because it is weird or uncommon.

<comment><USER29> That's completely true. HN is about curiosity however and that's why nothing should be educated to HNers by simple repetition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Let me?" Don't ask for permission. And it's not that you "can be" just as capable. You _are_ just as capable. Nobody needs to "let you" do anything, just do it.

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder if this is a at least partially due to the difference between gamers / geeks and the type of people that do PR. Perhaps the PR "normals" may not know the geek culture that deeply.

Not that there isn't sexism in geek culture either. I'm just genuinely curious if the PR types in the game industry are this colorblind.

</comment><comment><USER32> This site's design is annoying. Does it really need to fade in that most commented/most viewed sidebar _every_ time I scroll? Why the hell do I even care about that when I'm trying to read the article? Goddamn marketing monkeys, when will they get a real job?

</comment><comment><USER33> Dress like idiot, be ready to be seen as idiot.

Pink skirt? Face paint? Guy in a suit with comb-over would be treated with similar condescending stance unless he could prove he actually plays.

I know it sucks and I hate it but people profile you by your look.

<comment><USER34> As a woman in tech, I am dumbfounded by comments like this one. It is equivalent to saying, "Well, yeah, she was raped, but look at what she was _wearing_. Maybe if she hadn't been wearing that..." Disgusting.

I can assure you the sexism doesn't change when you stop wearing skirts and start wearing pants. I speak from years of experience. And honestly, as a man, you don't have to even think about whether what you choose to wear would suddenly get you treated as if you were a vapid teenager, or a toddler. You do not have to make a choice about what you wear in order to avoid getting a keyboard snatched away from you by a member of the opposite sex who assumes you are stupid because of how you look.

If anyone ever wonders why there aren't more women in tech, you don't have to look much further than these comments to understand. I am a proud, strong fighter and I have been a successful tech CEO for years. But even I grow weary of battling these types of comments so often.

<comment><USER35> Gamers don't see themselves as _most people_. You have to positively identify with a subculture, otherwise you're part of the "majority" non-gamers.

Rape would be a lack of human decency. Treating someone as a non-gamer is treating them like a "normal" person.

<comment><USER36> > Treating someone as a non-gamer is treating them like a "normal" person.

How is assuming someone is incompetent because of their gender treating someone as "normal"? It's normal in the sense that such attitudes are prevalent, but it is a terrible way to treat anyone.

<comment><USER35> If you have an in-group or "clique", you just assume that most people aren't in it. You learn to identify fellow members of a subculture at a distance: clothes, hair, etc. The male-dominated environment of the expo _caused_ the PR reps to mistakenly exclude women from their "gamer radar". Surely professional PR guys don't think pissing off a game reviewer is good for sales. In other words, the PR reps are _also_ victims of the crappy environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm not sure I even got the point, it was a long text and the author seemed to ponder aloud more than underline the root problem. But what I got was that she was overrun by the representatives because she didn't set boundaries and didn't refuse to accept their help. A simple "No thanks" would've gone a long way.

There's no point in blaming the representatives: they probably try any angle they can find to approach you unless you decline. Suppose you go to a bookstore and the clerk comes over, asking "Can I help you?" and then you answer "No, thanks. I'm just browsing." They don't know you if you're a good gamer or a newbie, so you just need to tell them yourself.

<comment><USER38> The difference here is that bookstore clerks are generally well-trained to not ask questions like, "Are you sure you don't want the romance section?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I don't get these game developer reps. I've been to E3 five times in my lifetime, going back to Atlanta 1998. There were always plenty of women playing shooters.

</comment><comment><USER40> Just wanted to clarify (and not to trivialize the issue here)

More often than not it's not developers who decide to add the achievements for looking up skirts. It's the business monkeys and other people who have "studied" game design but forgot to do hello world some where along the way.

Usually developers who decide the course of a game work their own indie studio. And are smarter then that.

</comment><comment><USER41> I could be totally wrong. Perhaps what the author assumes is an assumption of incompetence based on sexism is actually additional attention due to attraction.

If I was a PR guy hanging out all day with guys playing games in a booth near me, and a girl showed up, the thought of "offering advice" to her would seem appealing.

Just applying simple human logic here.

<comment><USER42> "offering advice" is different than removing her from play and taking over. If someone bumped you off a game and took over treating you like an invalid how happy would you be. Poor tactic even for flirting. And it's a business conference showing off wares, poor and inappropriate time for flirting too.

just no

<comment><USER41> I'm not sure PR guys at a gaming conference are Don Juans. He might be going for this: [http://www.masterfile.com/stock- photography/image/400-047792...](http://www.masterfile.com/stock- photography/image/400-04779255/The-young-guy-learns-the-girl-to-play- billiards)

Yes, theoretically they should all act professionally and give reporters equal attention regardless of gender. But I find that in reality human nature dictates behavior more than guidelines.

<comment><USER43> Which is why we need to be aware of human nature and override it with basic decency.

If a woman is there to play a game and I take the opportunity to hit on her, I'm failing to do my job (which is definitely not to hit on chicks) and I'm treating her like a sex object instead of a fellow professional. Professional spaces demand professional behavior: it is part of being an employed adult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> #FirstWorldProblems. If you want to fight for something, fight for the rights of women who are really suffering throughout the world, through sex slavery or misogynistic cultures/religions. It really bothers me that there is still a "struggle" for women's "rights" in the US - equal liberties were won long ago. Are there inequalities and assumptions made about each sex? Certainly...but nothing worth fighting for. Use your voice where it matters...i.e. not here, not concerning gaming.

<comment><USER45> Really? You're really saying that people should not care about rampant sexism in the gaming industry just because some people have it worse? I suppose we should stop working to help poor families in the first world because people starving in third world countries have it much worse.

<comment><USER44> Actually, that is correct. You should help people in 3rd world countries first. Most of the homeless in America are "voluntarily" homeless, or have drug/mental problems. Even still, as homeless in America, they have it better off than most people in 3rd world countries. The average person in a 3rd world country lives off a few American dollars (equivalent) a day - and that is your average person. Here, a homeless person can probably get that much begging in a day. And calling it "rampant" sexism is ridiculous. We sexualize women, obviously, because that is what sells. There is no shame in sexual attraction (or depictions of it), no more so than the average square jawed, six-pack male protagonists we create. Sexuality is an advantage in this world, not a crutch. Let's stop pretending like its such a bad thing.

<comment><USER46> I assure you there is sexism in developing and undeveloped countries, too.

<comment><USER44> Yes, obviously. It is a question of magnitude. Here, the worst sexism is maybe job discrimination, but usually not even that because most employers do not want to risk lawsuits, and in fact actively _try_ to diversify. Even still, this is a relatively trivial problem. Do we stone women to death here for cheating? Or not allow them to do (virtually) anything without their husband's permission? Like I said, there are bigger wars to fight. Let's not waste breath because someone thinks you can't play a video game, and you assume its because they are sexist.

<comment><USER46> I don't disagree your points, (whether someone wants to expend effort to solve particular problems is up to them), its just I see you are dismissing other's problems as "not important". i.e the "#FirstWorldProblems" tag in your original post. The experience obviously was unpleasant enough for the the original author to write a blog post about it, yet you dismiss it so readily.

"Actually, that is correct. You should help people in 3rd world countries first. Most of the homeless in America are "voluntarily" homeless, or have drug/mental problems. Even still, as homeless in America, they have it better off than most people in 3rd world countries. The average person in a 3rd world country lives off a few American dollars (equivalent) a day - and that is your average person"

Let's say your next door neighbour gets into an accident and becoming disabled in the process, cannot afford hospital bills and becomes homeless, you're not going to _care_ , because you're donating to your favourite charity for third word countries already? Personally I don't see anything wrong with people helping people closer to them. - The helpers can help with more effectiveness than people 5000km away because being closer they will have better perspective. I also see nothing wrong with helping with your siblings mortgages just because they're closer to you, starving children in the 3rd world or not.

If _you_ don't want to "waste" your breath, then don't. I just don't see how _you_ telling people how to allocate their resources will ever work out. How do _you_ know your preferred allocation is the best? How do you know the relative effectiveness of a person voicing their opinion about this issue rather than some other? Maybe they are much better at articulating issues relating to computer games than, food, for example. There's no way you can know that for sure.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Truly intelligent enemies could change the face of gaming - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/26/the-future-of-video-game-violence/ <comment><USER2> Not just enemies either. Strong AI with standard NPCs could make for some interesting game experiences too. Like say, virtual villagers or townspeople who have their own lives seperate from the player and their actions and react in realistic ways in regards to events going on around them.

We can already see elements of that in games now (Zelda Breath of the Wild puts a lot of thought into giving NPCs realistic behaviours for damn near any possible interaction), but it could get a lot better in the future.

As for enemies, there are definitely ways intelligent enemy AI could change games there. However, you have to be careful about one thing when implementing these systems and randomness and what not.

Games generally have to be enjoyable to the player, and making your enemies too realistic can hinder that. They draw on this a bit in the article:

> If you're playing a game and the AI's always completely unpredictable, it > just turns into a frustrating experience for the player because they can't > learn a good strategy to actually succeed at the game

But it goes further than that. A smart enemy with a good battle strategy might be overly defensive, and that itself might not be all too fun for the person fighting against them. Look at the Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword for example. The motion controlled combat was a big part of the game's setup, but the enemies countering and being careful to block your attacks and what not may have actually made the fighting less exciting for the player. They came across as rather unaggressive as a result.

It's sometimes more exciting to have your basic enemies act like Leeroy Jenkins esque cannon fodder.

Either way, it's an interesting area to think about.

<comment><USER3> I'm looking forward to the day games like Civilization will have such a good AI that they wouldn't need to buff the AI with multipliers to make the game challenging

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For me, the interesting problem, as mentioned in the article, is that developers still need to make the AI opponents suck. We want FPS games where the enemies 'feel' real, but we can't make them too clever. Most shooter games put you in control of a lone fighter battling against countless foes. If the enemies were clever, then you'd have absolutely no chance of surviving!

You could improve the AI so that your opponents do smarter things (flanking you, working as a team, etc) and less dumb things (repeatedly popping up out of cover, for instance), but then the game would be immensely harder. To balance that out, you'd have to handicap the enemies in other ways, like make them even worse at aiming, or giving them weaker weapons, but that might make the game less fun.

Perhaps improved AI may lead to different gaming styles? Fewer 'you vs an entire army' scenarios, instead more nuanced challenges with lower numbers of bad guys...

<comment><USER5> Generally the only way I enjoy playing FPS games is using a stealth approach, or failing that, a plan involving mines, distractions, sniping, etc. If an enemy spots me and starts attacking, it's a bit of a failure. If I get hit, it's a total failure. Think base takeovers in the more recent Far Cry series games. All time favourite was the Thief series; Dishonoured didn't quite do it for me.

Games that require or force a Rambo situation with enemies on all sides are just ridiculous. I like to observe, plan and execute, in that order. Randomness can't be controlled; you're just lucky, or your enemy has been hobbled and it's not a fair fight, otherwise.

<comment><USER6> Deus Ex (released 18 years ago) was great in this regard. You could try to fight an army (well, a regiment) in open combat and have a chance to survive. You could build a tank out of yourself for that. Or you could stealth your way through without killing anyone, or even being seen by anyone, being physically feeble but fast and good at hacking things. The game did not force you to use any particular approach; it just put you into a situation to tackle.

Regarding shooting. the game had the best difficulty level menu I've ever seen:

        * Easy
        * Medium
        * Hard
        * Realistic

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you believe in the philosophical position known as Strong AI, then at some point in the perhaps quite distant future, when the AI gets good enough, the use of advanced AIs in computer games will become a civil rights issue. That is, we might need to have limits on how accurately NPCs can be simulated. Because at some point the simulations will be indistinguishable from reality _including by the simulations themselves_.

<comment><USER8> Bits are bits, regardless of how "advanced" they are, they're still bits. "Killing" them (if you can call it that) is fine. If your life depends on someone else's hardware, their rights trump yours.

Of course, no sane developer would ever use something at that level for a game, it'd just be emulating way too much useless stuff. Clever game bots are much simpler than that - simply picking a less than "optimal" path sometimes and giving them the ability to cheat in some ways makes things a lot more interesting.

<comment><USER9> > Atoms are atoms, regardless of how "advanced" they are, they're still atoms. > "Killing" people (if you can call it that) is fine.

<comment><USER10> Your analogy doesn't really say much except that you endorse the idea that bits and atoms are comparable with regard to the "realness" of what they compose, but that assumption is the crux of the debate. One could just as easily say "letters are letters, regardless of how advanced they are, they're still letters. 'Killing' people (if you can call it that) is fine", yet the analogy on it's own fails to enlighten the argument if one already rejects the idea that people composed of text in a work of fiction are real.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you play FIFA you'll know how dumb computer is. Sure it's faster but it doesn't do any "novel" tricks and it becomes super predictable after you play against it enough times.

I'm looking forward to deep learning based FIFA opponents

<comment><USER12> There is a team at Carnegie Mellon who build little toaster-sized automatons that play soccer. Their end goal is for the AI to eventually be good enough to win the world cup.

Their site: [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~robosoccer/small/#Overview](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~robosoccer/small/#Overview)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> ...or more to the point, intelligent enemies unbound by human reaction time, common grade school intellect, and the requisite hand-eye-coordination of rival human opponents in multiplayer games.

<comment><USER14> > unbound by human reaction time

> requisite hand-eye-coordination of rival human opponents

it's totally possible to force an AI enemy to "play" through a harness that simulates human reaction time, limits in human visual processing (a human can't perfectly focus on all the screen at once -- check out eye-tracking data taken on people who are playing an FPS!), and the latency/error that happens when a human uses a mouse to aim in a game.

The whole point of AI enemies isn't to expose them to all the game's state and let them input commands with zero latency -- that's not an AI opponent, that's just a cheat engine. It's only fun if the AI has no more information from the game than a human player would have and can control the game with no better control authority than a human can.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, this.

We've already got opponents unbound by human reaction and with abilities far better than normal humans. They're basically a mainstay of the fighting game genre:

[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PerfectPlayAI](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PerfectPlayAI)

And they're not that fun to fight, because they're too 'good'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> future of violence is in MultiPlayer games, something about virtually killing real people that's quite popular. from the tame'ish Dota2, to war games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, through to open survival games like Rust which really demonstrate how brutal people can be :)</comment>


Facebook May Soon Be Tracking You At All Times - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattmiller/2013/02/05/facebook-know-where-you-are/

<comment><USER2> Eh, disable location services for your facebook app. I assumed they already did this.

And if you don't want facebook to know anything about you, you can still use facebook. Here's the secret: just don't tell facebook everything about yourself. It's not hard to do.

<comment><USER3> The problem with that is your friends indirectly tell Facebook. Facebook can fill in the rest.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious, a lot of my information is snarky (location: Antarctica, religious views: Nihilist, etc) -- I wonder if they're able to realize that I'm obviously being intentionally inaccurate?

<comment><USER3> To put it another way, you don't have to talk to a person to 'know' them to varying degrees of certainty. You can gather bits of information and build your own image with out ever meeting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't see why anyone would treat places that they go carrying a smartphone as private data. The phone has the data and cell phone networks (in the US, at least) do collect the data (or used to)[1]. Giving Facebook the data basically just de-anonymizes it since it seems perfectly conceivable and natural that some of the collectors of this data would take it in aggregate, anonymize it, and sell it to companies, if for no other reason than they can make money off of this data. The solution to this kind of tracking (if it bothers one) is to not use a cell phone. And if you don't want facebook to know anything about you then you should not use facebook (instead of or in addition to, not using a cell phone).

[1] [https://www.propublica.org/article/cellphone-companies- will-...](https://www.propublica.org/article/cellphone-companies-will-share- your-location-data-just-not-with-you)

<comment><USER6> My bank knows about most of my purchases, but it is still considered private data. My health care provider knows about my medical history, but it is still considered private data. Why should a cell phone provider be any different?

<comment><USER5> I see no reason why banks couldn't in principle do the same thing with purchasing data that carriers do with location data. There ought to be a distinction between private as in confidential and private as in "confined to multiple parties each of whom the data's subject knows of". Health data is so sensitive that it is protected under various laws and in most developed countries (the US being the largest exception) health care is run by the government rather than private companies. Unlike with health data, it is possible to avoid having banks and cell phone carriers collect data about you - always use cash and don't have a cell phone. In addition to being a _very_ paranoid course of action, this is impractical for most especially when the privacy trade off is likely to be worth it in most cases. When those who already have your location data is considered, giving up your location data to Facebook oughtn't be too big of a stretch when they already know about birthdays, weddings, funerals, your friend network, etc. Retailers will already piece together private information about you from purchasing data that they can collect[1] and this is the position which apps seem to currently be in - neither Facebook nor Target want to make guesses at the rest of your private life but it is impractical for Target to make a request directly while Facebook has no qualms about doing so.

[1] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how- targe...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target- figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/)

<comment><USER7> > Health data is so sensitive that it is protected under various laws

There is no reason we can't pass laws preventing Facebook from tracking and using such information. We don't have to settle for "don't use a cell phone" or "don't use Facebook."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sigh, I wish I could make a Facebook with just the keep in touch with friends feature, and nothing else. Facebook itself it turning into a 70's horror movie, The Blob.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think Google already does that. There's a Google Map process which runs on Android in the background. It comes back even if you turn it off.

<comment><USER10> At least Google's process has a bit more benefit than Facebook's: you can see the location data they collect from your phone by turning on Latitude and its history app. They also use this data to improve traffic and map data and (if you have WiFi on) to improve their coarse location data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Related story: "People without Facebook accounts are suspicious."

I'm quickly losing respect for Forbes lately.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is why I won't carry a cell phone from which I can't remove the battery.

<comment><USER13> Blocking the location permission or going into airplane mode would be another option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This does not bode well for those people for whom Facebook is a pre-installed (and often unremovable) app on new phones.

<comment><USER15> You can however disable pre-installed apps on newer Android (4+?) phones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Privacy issues aside isn't this going to reduce battery life dramatically?</comment>


A guide to using and customising the ZSH shell - <AUTHOR> http://prashblog.com/2008/07/07/zsh-for-productivity/

<comment><USER2> Interesting</comment>


Tim Ferris: "Silicon Valley also has an insidious infection... McCarthyism" - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/7erct8/i_am_tim_ferriss_host_of_the_tim_ferriss_show_and/dq6zrh1/?st=jacudjbb&sh=b5f8ebc0 <comment><USER2> This. Although it soon will be over. As all the talent flees and all the stuffing arrives we will get stuffed</comment>


Great Noir Lives and Dies On Dialogue - <AUTHOR> https://crimereads.com/noir-dialogue/ <comment><USER2> Noir _film_ , the same deal.

"I know you like a book, ya little tramp. You'd sell your own mother for a piece of fudge. But you're smart with it. Smart enough to know when to sell and when to sit tight. You've got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart." –The Killing (1956; Dir: Stanley Kubrick)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it's pretty hard to write a hardboiled style noir now days without it feeling derivative. The tropes are now cliches and the dialogue can be cumbersome and hokey.

A lot of time it feels like someone imitating noir rather than innovating with the genre and that's sad.

You can undoubtedly do it and I'd love to see some examples of a great modern noir to read.

<comment><USER4> Is Ellroy modern enough? The Coen brothers have done at least two noirs as well, though not in prose.

Patanoir deserves an honorary mention.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, there's definitely good Noir work in films and TV. It's a bit easier there because you can invoke the mood easier in a visual medium even if the dialogue or characters don't reflect the genre as much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great dialog makes any movie, even ones you wouldn't expect.

For example, people love to quote lines from Star Trek TOS.

From TNG, or the movies? Nope. The dialog is pedestrian and forgettable, and the shows are boring.

<comment><USER6> I don't know, I quote this[1] all the time, and it's a great scene.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3RNsZvdYZQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3RNsZvdYZQ)

<comment><USER5> Ironically, Stewart played Ahab in a version of Moby Dick.</comment></comment></comment>


GREATS Is Building The Next Great Footwear Company - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/alextaub/2013/10/03/greats-is-building-the-next-great-footwear-company/

<comment><USER2> Is there a great demand for hipster shoes?</comment>


NetApp Sues Sun for ZFS Patent Infringement and Appeals to Hackers to Understand - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/09/netapp-sues-sun.html

<comment> patrickg-zill Unlikely they will win. Even if they win they lose goodwill.

Prediction: out of court settlement, followed by decline in NetApp revenue and profitability. Four years later NetApp is bought by or merges with another company.

StorageTek was formed in 1969 and started selling their disk systems in the mid-70s. The company was started by former IBMers and they have over 600 patents. Considering they were shipping a virtual disk and snapshots product 4 years before the NetApp patent was filed, prior art seems likely.

<comment><USER2> If it's true that Sun first approached them seeking patent royalties, then NetApp won't lose goodwill for striking back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> NetApp is against the wall. They are quickly losing market share in midrange storage. Their stock is falling. This is merely a ploy to bring them some press. Maybe there will be a settlement in their favor. Though, the victory would be bad PR considering NetApp's view on patent laws and the high regard Sun is held in.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ugly. Seems they have a case here.

</comment><comment><USER5> What a silly move. Upside is so minimal and downside is HUGE!</comment>


Show HN: ChatVoting.com - American Idol-style voting for everyone - <AUTHOR> http://chatvoting.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me know what you think of the site. I've taken a little of the advise offered last time around and implemented it.

Thanks!</comment>


The danger of having system programmers around - <AUTHOR> http://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/sysadmin/SystemProgrammerDanger

<comment><USER2> This, needless to say, is what those people who talk about the virtues of "diversity" are trying to say. And the virtues of a diverse team of specialists is, in turn, the theme of most caper films (e.g.: _Sneakers_ ).

Especially in emergencies, it can be really great to have three or four people attack a problem from different angles. What you need is someone reading the docs _while_ the system programmer is running strace() _and_ the tuning guru is reallocating processes and memory _and_ the customer liaison is on the phone trying to figure out if they really need to be running this particular enormous task on every page load.

The alternative, if you're by yourself, is to try to multiplex the roles, but it can be extremely difficult to pull yourself out of systems engineering mode while you are in there.

</comment><comment><USER3> This reminds me of what my electrical engineering friend once did when his washing mashine stopped working. He got out his multimeter, opened up the back panel, and finally traced everything to an open circuit: the lid was open.

<comment><USER4> Ah, yes. I spent five or ten minutes this year examining a washing machine problem my wife reported. The problem: her husband had turned off the hot water feed while he tightened the connection, then had failed to run it back on. I believe she forgave him his negligence ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a general programming issue, not a system programming issue. Not so long ago at work, I had to implement a regex search over a Lucene document store. Now, the thing is that we used the latest version (at the time) of Lucene, 3.0. All the examples I found online and most of the documentation referred to version 2. Naturally they didn't mentioned they were using version 2, I just had to scratch my head a few times while I tried to realize why the regex API depicted there is not only different, but not even merely existing. Turns out one of the design goals of Lucene 3 was to separate stuff from the core Lucene to external libraries. So, after finally searching through their SVN I found the source files for the regex libraries. I ran into some problems with the way Lucene parses regex queries and relates it to terms and again, as in the article, after hours and hours of searching through documentation I resorted to just reading through Lucene's code, which indeed turned to be fruitful for less the time I invested in finding and reading documentation...

I really was not sure what to learn from that episode. The logical conclusion seems to be to try to read your way through the target source code, if you have it, before investing the time to find and skim through documentation. On the other hand, it feels like a really bad lesson. Time will tell if this moral holds up.

<comment><USER6> I've had this go both ways before, too. I think the point to take away from this sort of experience is that the best you can do is apply your best judgment and re-evaluate as you go along. Often opaque documentation makes sense after you gain some context by reading the source; it works the other way, too. With experience, you gain a sense for what path to go down; sometimes that (subconscious) heuristic is totally wrong, which is why it's important to consciously re-evaluate on top of that. The current approach isn't making you any practical headway, even though you're learning a lot about the system in question? Take a step back and try looking at the bigger picture; what are you _really_ missing? If you can, sleep on it for a bit.

Most of all, if you're getting it right more than 50% of the time (and I'm finding it hard to imagine a way you'd do worse than that) there really is no point beating yourself up about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My friend and colleague lost his job over this type of behavior... He'd simply go of the rails for days trying to figure out a problem. When he got his next job, I advised him to always think about how the company makes money from his labor. Sometimes it makes sense to "go deep", but often it's cheaper to let it go. If you're dead set on figuring it out, do it on your own time, not the company's.

<comment><USER8> The real trick is finding a company and industry where it always makes sense to go deep.

<comment><USER9> "that's what she said."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Despite the "incomplete and frequently wrong" nature of documentation, I still think a careful reading of that documentation is probably the best place to start.

If it doesn't hold the answer, fine, we can look elsewhere. But it does hold the answer often enough that reading that funny manual first all the time will save time over the course of a career.

<comment><USER11> >>I still think a careful reading of that documentation is probably the best place to start.

I used to work like that in the mid-1990s.

When I had a problem, first I thought a bit, then I looked at the documentation -- and as a last option I searched (at the time, mostly Usenet).

A year later I'd become realistic (or lazy), I searched before reading the documentation.

And after another year, I searched before even thinking about the problem... :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> First, there is no such thing as a "systems programmer". This is a useless, career-limiting, HR-invented categorization. When I made the mistake of signing on with a few recruiters on a job hunt a while back, they looked my recent job experience and labeled me a "systems programmer". This was differentiated from things like web design and GUI. It is wrong wrong wrong. We are software developers. It should not matter what layer of architecture we are coding in. Every layer has so-called "business rules"; everything has MVC. Label yourself, and you limit your thinking and your evolution.

This article does have a valuable lesson, in spite of the miscoloring. What we see in this article is an example of overthinking the problem. With experience, your debugging/problem-solving skills will get better, and this kind of mistake will not be often repeated. It took me many years to get out of the habit of speculating and to get closer to actually debugging. I had learned that it was faster to look at what was really happening than to guess at it. It helps even more to come to a detailed understanding of your system, but if you do not have time for that... Never start at the bottom first: start with the symptom.

<comment><USER13> For sure there is. I'd call the group of engineers "systems" hacker/engineer/programmer if they are working on work on OS, database, networking, and distributed infrastructure kernels.

These type of programming requires a distinct skill set and usually more experiences than for example web frontend development (PHP, JSP, etc).

<comment><USER14> Anecdotally, I can recall exactly how to manoeuvre the TSS register in real mode to successfully boot a VMM guest but I couldn't for the life of me recall how to make a speckled background in CSS.

Asymptotically there's no such thing as a systems programmer but that's not really how the real world works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The other critical factor is that "digging straight in" is _fun_, at least for people with this mindset.

Reading documentation, on the other hand...

</comment><comment><USER16> unfortunately it's not always easy to recognize when a programmer is doing the right thing, because then things are running smoothly. it can seem like the programmer isn't special because hey, it's easy to read the manual, etc, whereas going deep to figure something, whoa, good thing we had that guy on the team! same thing with simple and elegant versus complicated designs.

</comment><comment><USER17> Funny, my experience with systems programmers has been that the real dangerous part is the unmaintainable and unportable code they write.

<comment><USER17> Wait, I left out the punchline: _for projects that don't involve systems programming_

You think I'm trolling or trying to be funny, but it's actually a real trend I've noticed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've seen some advice for chemists formulated like:

"With a few weeks of hard work, creativity and dedication in the lab you can often save _hours_ in the library."</comment>


"Eraser law will let California kids scrub online past" - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2013-09-eraser-law-california-kids-online.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting comment made on thread in reddit.

"California's "eraser button" law will require this policy for all websites with users in the state."

All websites hosted in California, maybe. Would they decide to restrict access to sites that don't comply? The easiest way to comply would be to disallow Californian minors. The kids would just change their age or state.

[http://redd.it/1n1zyv](http://redd.it/1n1zyv)</comment>


Chandra, the pre-teen who released a post-punk record in 1980 - <AUTHOR> https://dangerousminds.net/comments/meet_chandra_the_pre-teen_who_released_a_fantastic_post-punk_record_in_1980 <comment><USER2> While we're on the subject of young musical prodigies, I'd like to shine a light on the influential metal band Windir. At age 16, Terje Bakken wrote, arranged, and performed everything on the first album (with the exception of drums): Vocals, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards, and Accordion.

His second album, _Arntor_ , also a solo work, was released 2 years later, and is considered one of the best albums ever of the genre. At age 18.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wasn't familiar with Chandra. Just listened to a few songs. I think she sort of has a Siouxsie and the Banshees vibe. Now I want to go listen to Cities in Dust but it's too late for that today.

</comment><comment><USER4> Also Pete Shelley just passed away, if anyone on HN cares.

<comment><USER5> Yeah I care. I saw them years ago in brisbane. Good band.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting. There's a kid on YouTube with over 5 billion (!) views on his music videos and he's been putting them out since the age of 7 [https://www.youtube.com/user/MattyBRaps](https://www.youtube.com/user/MattyBRaps)

</comment><comment><USER7> She was two years behind me in college and we played together in a group. She played keyboards and never mentioned that she could sing, or anything about this album.

She was incredibly nice and very quiet. I think she transferred the next year.

</comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of Shuggie Otis, who used to play in his father's band wearing a fake mustache to disguise the fact that he was only eleven. Went on to make some great music, putting out his first album when he was 17.

</comment><comment><USER9> I listened to it and it definitely belongs on soundcloud.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, I'm a big fan of post-punk but this work is very amateur. A modern day soundcloud-esque production, where thousands of similarly talented young people post music.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's not that hard to come up with a vanity project that mimics a style wave that just happened, especially if you are from a wealthy family. This is also a common criticism of the Beastie Boys, who were the first white rap styled act not to be ridiculed as copyists. (Vanilla ice being a failed earlier example of cultural appropriation...)

more positively the Avalanches have sampled one of chandra's tracks [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9avnqy/the-avalanches- cha...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9avnqy/the-avalanches-chandra- subways-sample)

<comment><USER12> I'm a bit baffled by this, on a few counts. First, many kids from wealthy families have tried and failed to produce great music, c.f. The Shaggs. Second, the Beastie Boys didn't get big because of money, but because they actually produced some novel stuff; their early music had great flow, despite being very rough around the edges with quite poor engineering. Third, as noted in a sibling comment to mine, Vanilla Ice came about more than 5 years after the Beastie Boys.

<comment><USER13> Whoa whoa there who says the Shaggs didn't produce great music?!!!

<comment><USER12> On this one, I gotta disagree with Zappa. It's great in the same way that Captain Beefheart is; which is to say, it's amazing how much awful can be packed into such a small space. "My Pal Foot Foot" never ceases to amaze me, with the depths of fail it accomplishes. For those who have not yet had the pleasure: [https://youtu.be/XR9d4ESlpHY](https://youtu.be/XR9d4ESlpHY)</comment></comment></comment></comment>