After Fabian's idea example, here's my "ask Bisqwit" thread. (Despite Fabian's warnings that it might not work out well -- which I realize is a possibility for more than the reasons he listed.)
Ask me anything. I will answer questions honestly and frankly if needed, regardless of topic, if I can.
However, I will not answer questions that will put anyone's privacy at jeopardy. (So I won't answer questions regarding my relatives or secrets the tasvideos members have disclosed to me.)
If I don't have time to answer each question, I will try to priorize those questions which have value for most readers. I will also ignore questions that attempt to make me say stupid things (trick and loaded questions). :)
Please indicate clearly that the question is addressed to me, at least when it might be ambiguous.
Note: This is not a support thread. If you have a TASvideos-related support question, read the FAQ and post in the relevant on-topic threads/forums/ if still necessary.
Dear Bisqwit,
Where does Bisqwit come from? Is it related to Bisquick? Do you know what Bisquick is?
Also, how come your avatar was so tiny on the first post?
Yours inquisitively,
Alden
Do you think middle-aged men watching people playing NES games should get a life?-)
It is a way of life.
People are often attached to their youths; whatever happened when they were young was "right" and they want that to persist. That really applies to many more areas of life actually.
I am biased, of course -- me being a single and almost the same age as yourself, too, and watching people playing NES games.
But I have no regret of the way of life of mine, at least not yet.
Hey Bisqwit,
I'm going to ask a very provactive question. It is well known that the two main admins (Radix and Nate) of http://www.speeddemosarchive.com/ are vocally anti-tas. This is understandable, and has no doubt been discussed many times over.
My question is, what do you think of console speedruns and the speedrunning community? I've never seen you make a post on sda, or m2k2. Besides reading a short passage from an interview, I haven't heard your opinion on this topic.
Where does Bisqwit come from? Is it related to Bisquick? Do you know what Bisquick is?
Isn't Bisquick a cereal brand?
I have previously answered your question; shortly, it is not related to Bisquick.
The long explanation is:
When I started playing with computers and the Internet, I quickly realized that I need a nickname. So I created one. I used that name in some of my productions that were never released in the Internet.
A year or two later, a classmate of mine made me realize that the name that I had chosen had negative connotations, so I had to choose a new one.
On that particular English class in the school, or maybe on some previous one, I made a stupid pun about biscuits and inventing (in Finnish, both are "keksiä" (in sufficiently conjugated forms)), and thus I was suggested the name Biscuit.
Of course, I didn't like it (but I couldn't think of anything else), so I altered it slightly. So it became Bisqwít. Later, it stabilised into Bisqwit.
And my avatar was small because I wanted to express stage fright -- the desire to be small and unnoticed, while the green tone denoted playfulness; I want to see how this plays out.
My question is, what do you think of console speedruns and the speedrunning community? I've never seen you make a post on sda, or m2k2. Besides reading a short passage from an interview, I haven't heard your opinion on this topic.
I have made once or twice some provocative statements about speedrunning, something like "it is a waste of time". However, during the years, my opinion has matured a little, and it has developed two facets:
-- Developing one's skill as a skillful speedrunner at some particular game is a waste of time. You are placing yourself at the whim of the programmers of that game, and training your brain to do something that has no practical use. Furthermore, because of the lack of proper tools, you end up doing lots of redoing, which would be utterly frustrating for a person like me and which I generally don't perceive as "smart".
-- On the other hand, non-assisted speedruns are often very entertaining to watch, sometimes even more so than the TASes. I do not feel any hostility towards non-assisted speedrunning: I want it to flourish as a form of art, alongside the kind of art we make here.
Bisqwit,
When and why did you become religious?
Do you think humanity will go through technological singularity? Do you think humanity will perish or evolve into a different form by the end of this century?
Do you think there is fundamental difference in human motives, or they all can be outlined as a very primitive desire of 'making oneself feel better/not letting oneself feel worse' taking different forms?
What would you like to change in your life?
What was your first computer/console?
What is your favorite game? When did you play it for the first time?
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Dear Bisqwit,
How and why did this site come into being, how did you discover TASing and what about it made you think "Oh, that's cool."?
Edit: I have read the FAQ but it didn't go into as much detail as I'd have liked, so I'd like to know more, if possible.
Dear Bisqwit,
I don't post frequently but I watch and rate a lot of movies. I haven't ever spent much time trying to create any TAS works myself. I'm also not very familiar with a lot of the games which I assign these ratings to.
How do you feel about users rating movies who aren't strongly familiar with TAS techniques? How about those who rate movies without being very familiar with the games? Are these groups generally using the rating feature as you intended?
I haven't ever had a radical change. I cannot label any particular moment that has made me "religious". Some other day, I could even argue that I am not religious, but that really depends on the definition of the word.
I have had some realizations that have firmed my beliefs -- the most profound being when I realized that I have a soul and that what it is.
Once I realized that, there was no going back; I knew that the spiritual world is real. Since then, I have made interesting self-studies such as trying to distinguish the parts of my behavior (human behavior) that are caused by the human body (brain in particular) and which parts come from the spiritual side. I'm afraid that study is still underway, though.
moozooh wrote:
Do you think humanity will go through technological singularity? Do you think humanity will perish or evolve into a
different form by the end of this century?
I think the concept of technological singularity is absolutely fascinating. If I was not a christian, and did not thus believe in the prophesies foretold, I would be a strong supporter of the Singularity institute.
I don't believe the humanity gets the chance to perish or evolve.
Though what you call evolution might be subject to debate. Genetic manipulation may florish. Live may be extended. Artificial organs may become common. I anticipate that kind of changes.
moozooh wrote:
Do you think there is fundamental difference in human motives, or they all can be outlined as a very primitive desire of 'making oneself feel better/not letting oneself feel worse' taking different forms?
Biologically human motivations are driven by the will of both individual well-being and community well-being. In varying proportions. I think it is actually very basic biology.
moozooh wrote:
What would you like to change in your life?
If I were given chance to tamper with my own history, I'm afraid I couldn't think of anything to change. I am me and I have made my own choices.
Though possibly I would have wanted someone to influence me towards the right directions in more than one things. Such as buying a house (I still live on rent.)
moozooh wrote:
What was your first computer/console?
Atari 2600.
moozooh wrote:
What is your favorite game? When did you play it for the first time?
I don't have a favorite game. There have been many games I have enjoyed thoroughly, such as Mega Man II and Star Control II (of those two, SC2 takes the win), but I can't label either as my favourite game as of now. I don't play games that much anymore.
I played Mega Man II the first time in 1990. I played Star Control II the first time in 1996 (though I watched interestedly a friend play it in 1993). These years may be inaccurate; I didn't keep book of those.
That's funny. Bisqwit's nick was explained in the nickname thread. Bisqwit's opinion about regular speedruns was explained already, ironically it was over at m2k2 (though it seems to have changed a bit). There are Desktop Screenshots of his window manager somewhere on offtopic. The history of tas'ing and nesvideos/tasvideos has already been explained as well.
Dear Bisqwit,
does knowing all that make me a stalker? ;)
on that subject: why does my brain remember details about posts that are months or even years old, but regularly forget my parents' birthdays? Do you know anyone else with that.. problem?
I noticed that most humans dislike using the search function. They also dislike reading existing guides/articles, but have no trouble reading it if it's written (or maybe even copy/pasted) into their threads. Do you have any explanations for that?
and how's that movie structure reworking coming along?
sincerely,
Tub
Joined: 11/18/2006
Posts: 2426
Location: Back where I belong
Dear Bisqwit;
What will happen to this site if/when the burden of upkeep starts to outweigh the benefit of it's existence? Will it simply cease to exist and turn into a big 404, will you pass it off to an appropriate and responsible beneficiary, or do you think you'll never grow tired of keeping it updated and clean (since it has to be a source of pride for you).
Also, will the reworking of the member/player ranking system ever be implemented?
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
Tub wrote:
on that subject: why does my brain remember details about posts that are months or even years old, but regularly forget my parents' birthdays? Do you know anyone else with that.. problem?
Hi there.
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
What is the single thing that you find the most annoying from members on this site?
Flocking.
Doing things that everyone else does.
ShadowWraith wrote:
How and why did this site come into being, how did you discover TASing and what about it made you think "Oh, that's cool."?
Someone at IRC linked to Morimoto's SMB3 TAS (moSMB3.wmv), and I watched it, and enjoyed it a lot, and I wanted to know more so I read his website, and I watched the other movies he had made and I just wanted to publish the SMB3 TAS with better quality than that bad-quality WMV was -- and I wanted to publish those other TASes as well.
After a few days, I started inviting submissions -- I was curious to see what people would make or would they at all. Then it just took off, the rest has just been going on its own weight.
FreshFeeling wrote:
How do you feel about users rating movies who aren't strongly familiar with TAS techniques? How about those who rate movies without being very familiar with the games? Are these groups generally using the rating feature as you intended?
The rating feature was actually designed by Warp, so it is not as much "as you intended" as you think :)
However, to still answer your question, I think the ratings work in a from-audience-to-audience manner; it represents the audience's opinions. A typical audience member will interpret the numbers in a similar manner as a typical audience member has issued the ratings. The extremes balance out.
Therefore it is okay to rate even if you are not familiar with the games or techniques -- as long as you're not rating randomly or maliciously.
Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom
Bisqwit wrote:
Note: This is not a support thread. If you have a TASvideos-related support question, read the FAQ and post in the relevant on-topic threads/forums/ if still necessary.
Sorry AKA no bonus
<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs
No, I don't think so. The average human brain is good at remembering things it considers insightful.
Tub wrote:
I noticed that most humans dislike using the search function. They also dislike reading existing guides/articles, but have no trouble reading it if it's written (or maybe even copy/pasted) into their threads. Do you have any explanations for that?
Laziness. Using the search function requires one to manually sifter through all the content and spot the relevant. Spotting the relevant requires understanding the big picture of the general context.
On the other hand, reading replies to one's own question is easier, because the reply is a tailored answer to one's own specifications; you don't need to sift through unrelated information.
Also, it is socially impolite to ignore response directly written just for you, so you are inclined to read it. But when something is written for the masses, there's nothing that binds you to it; you can ignore it without consequences.
Tub wrote:
And how's that movie structure reworking coming along?
It is approximately on the third* position in my waking hour computer activity priority queue. I'll try to get it ahead but probably not in less than four days.
*) Arbitrary number that feels right. Don't ask me to enumerate those things.
What will happen to this site if/when the burden of upkeep starts to outweigh the benefit of it's existence? Will it simply cease to exist and turn into a big 404, will you pass it off to an appropriate and responsible beneficiary, or do you think you'll never grow tired of keeping it updated and clean (since it has to be a source of pride for you).
If I have a choice and reasonable resources, it will never disappear entirely. If it happens that I can no longer maintain it, I will try to get someone else to do it. If that is not possibility either, I will disable the update functions and keep it as a read-only archive in public webspace.
mmbossman wrote:
Also, will the reworking of the member/player ranking system ever be implemented?
Hopefully so. However, no clearly winning proposal has arised yet, or been brought to my attention. I have no intention of keeping the status quo indefinitely.
