Social DGames Social | V/LA |

[ranmaru]

back from vla. they did NOTHING. just gave me pain pills. gotta see a dentist. ;-;

 

[Kataefi]

Graphics Design, working with Photoshop and Illustrator to create things like advertisements and logos. It can be broader than that and I've also designed Menus, CD Covers, etc.

I want to throw in that there's definitely good money to be made here! The easiest path is to find yourself a design agency as they tend to have continuous streams of work coming through (much like the work you've listed above). Plus you'll get to build up a clientele that sets you up nicely for future work. Advertising is soulless though - it's not very artistic!

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

It's not soulless at all, or at least I don't believe it is. I've made things for art competitions before that would be considered 'advertising'.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

It's not soulless at all, or at least I don't believe it is. I've made things for art competitions before that would be considered 'advertising'.

I call it... The refreshing taste of Coca-Cola!

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Did you just **** on Daniel Wall?

He's like the best artist ever. Holy ****. What are even smoking?

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

 

[#HBC | Dancer]

Xonar's inability to interpret posts correctly is why he's bad at mafia.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

nooo youre right

i blame the time

okay then just enjoy the daniel wall exhibition

 

[#HBC | ѕoup]

I call it... The refreshing taste of Coca-Cola!

It's not like that at all. I wish I was better at explaining things.

I guess that is why I am bad at mafia too.

 

[#HBC | Dancer]

It's not like that at all. I wish I was better at explaining things.

It's like, you know how they sometimes insert hidden penises into Disney movies? Well, Soup's doing the same thing with his art work, except instead of penises he inserts hidden words like "consume" and "obey" into his art work (with the words being in the shape of a penis).

 

[#HBC | Joker]

It's like nobody gets my sarcasm if I neglect to follow it with

Like, the fact that you all, instead, decide to assume I'm just ignorant, is a little insulting. Swords is the only one who understands me.

 

[#HBC | Dark Horse]

It's like, you know how they sometimes insert hidden penises into Disney movies? Well, Soup's doing the same thing with his art work, except instead of penises he inserts hidden words like "consume" and "obey" into his art work (with the words being in the shape of a penis).

So it's like that one coke ad?

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

It's like nobody gets my sarcasm if I neglect to follow it with

Like, the fact that you all, instead, decide to assume I'm just ignorant, is a little insulting. Swords is the only one who understands me.

That's kinda what I do.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

That sounds like you're using the store for something that it's not supposed to be for, though. Like, that'd be like if I went to a restaurant, ate my food, left without paying, then justified it because I can go over my buddy's house and get a free meal every once in awhile.

I mean, yea, there are places you can go and do the thing you're doing for free, but the place you're doing it at isn't one of them. I guess it's the dumb store's fault for letting you do it, but still.

Make no mistake, I use the store to buy books. Even though I have returned books like, 'What I Learned from Goldman's Sachs' there are plenty of books that I wouldn't return such as 'Ender's Game,' 'Death Be Not Proud,' and 'The Great Santini.' I don't really understand the use of your analogy to food other than using it to be patronizing. Aside from food and books being two vastly different items the business models supply each item in the service industry has different rules behind it. A library isn't a free meal at a friend's house and a bookstore isn't a restaurant. Let's not distract ourselves from the simple fact that I will return a book I don't like. I don't return books to game the system, but because I don't believe that I should buy a book that I've decided should be returned. I believe that a good book purchase is when the purchaser understands the book he just bought and how it'll play in the future other than just being a one-read, one-toss bargain.

A bookstore is a place that sell books. If you're unsatisfied with the book, then you return it. If you like the book, then you purchase it. The store has a refund policy, if the book engrosses you long enough to last that period then you can say that its accomplished its mission in grabbing the reader. A book store should be used as a library, if someone is so desperate to get something from it that they need to use it in such a manner. I'm pushing this with respect to testing materials. Let's say that someone goes through the library's SAT study material and still can't break the score they want. Some libraries have lackluster source material. They go to Barnes and Nobles and start taking SAT practice tests from Kaplan and read up on their hints and strategies doing all their work in a separate notebook. It's hard for me to sympathize with 'Barnes and Nobles' or 'Kaplan' in this instance given the level of wealth disparity between the desperate student and the upper level management of either companies. Let's say that the workers at 'Barnes and Nobles' are going to get cut if a certain amount of books don't sell. The only thing is that most workers at Barnes and Nobles are probably being paid close to minimum wage and are not given a sufficient salary to make a real living, likely work two jobs if they are and should be able to find another job in a couple of weeks if they are fired due to downsizing. Regardless of book sales, they will likely be cut due to the increasingly digital nature of books and in particular Barnes and Nobles will be cut because of the poor performance of its Nook in comparison to more popular e-book reader alternatives.

I don't understand why you think its dumb for the store to put a timed return policy on a bought item. The bookstore's management, policy, and upper division sales team are the ones who determine which spreads on books will maximize sales at the store accounting for factors such as returns. Even with planning in mind, they also account for the general income of the population they are addressing and determine whether there will be heavy issues of freeloading as I mentioned previously that will affect their volume of sales greatly. Generally they spend millions on this statistical data before they make a million dollar investment into building a mega-bookstore in a given community. I don't believe that its right to only use a bookstore as a library. But to be candid, I don't care or weep for the mega-bookstore industry as much as I would for the person whose desperate enough to actually use the bookstore for more information on whatever topic they are looking into.

 

[Gova]

I think it's because you make it seem like you read the entire book and then returned it. Clearly it was good enough for you to read it front to back, which I guess most people wouldn't consider that book meriting a return. I mean you might as well just read the entire thing in the store without buying it.

To be honest though, I wasn't even aware B&N took returns. Usually I have to resell them to Half-Price Books.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

Because the way you made it sound, it seemed like you were buying books, reading them, and returning them. Like, that's just how you read the books you want to read. For free, all the time, like a library. I'm not the one who called the bookstore a replacement for the library, you did.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Yeah I can't... respect the book thing at all. That's depriving rightly earned (by your decision to purchase and then read the book) income from an industry that really needs it. You're sounding like those people who watch a movie at the theatre and then ***** at some minimum wage clerk afterward until they get a manager to give them their money back, then go "free movie lol ******s"

Sure it's less overtly meanspirited in how you go about doing it but that just makes it more underhanded; it's just as bad financially, and the rest of it evens out since people can't really do that everytime they see a movie but apparently you do it many times, or all the time, or whatever when you read a book

/thumbsdown

I didn't post a comment on book returns because I wanted to be respected. I shared because it was something that I did and was a pragmatic solution to wasting money on wasted books. If you're insinuating that Barnes and Nobles really needs my $30 then you're wrong. Blatantly wrong. Barnes and Nobles is actually raking in positive funds aside from a few stores that are in the red according to an article back in October 2012 from the WSJ. This rebut doesn't have any relevance to my behavior, but your comment is objectively unwarranted. This is without even touching into the owner of Barnes and Nobles being insulated by the dual income he also receives from the sale of video games through Game Stop.

I don't believe that movies are the best analogy to books. But we both know that your use of the analogy is your most comfortable crutch to be patronizing to my lack of moral compass with respect to my practice of returning books. Much like PJB's example, they are convenient straw man's in which you express disgust at the latter example without bothering to properly touch on the real situation which involves me, my books, and Barnes and Noble.

It's ironic to be called underhanded immediately by someone who just finished a strawman and even blatantly admits to using one after they dedicate half a paragraph to lambasting it. There's a lack of self-accountability on your part if you're going to insinuate that I'm some mellow version of 'meanspirited,' yet admitting to setting up a false pretense that you attacked is not suggestive of the following. Of course the contradiction is easily rectified if there are double standards that are supposed to be applied. Note that after all this goes through my head, I'm expected to believe that in what I do, there is something intrinsically 'underhanded' and 'less overtly meanspirited' in my behavior on book returns. And I'm supposed to take this at face value from someone who I think is full of b.s. at this point and is doing rant-type again to give himself an e-boner. Just like the last time where I personal messaged you on corrections to your last rant that never got a response. Which I believe is because you like to type and express yourself on many things, but there are a few things that you likely care about how accurate you actually are on them.

I'm only telling you this because I want to respect what you type. But I can't because I read a garbage post like this and after reading it I can't help but think that you're full of ****. I'm sorry.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

Because the way you made it sound, it seemed like you were buying books, reading them, and returning them. Like, that's just how you read the books you want to read. For free, all the time, like a library. I'm not the one who called the bookstore a replacement for the library, you did.

I never said that book stores were a replacement for libraries. Let's not b.s. ourselves here. We all play mafia and can read tone. Either you're a ****** or you're lying for no reason. Look at the context of my original post and look at your post. And tell me that you weren't ripping me because you found personal enjoyment at hopping unto something you saw as a stupid comment. And then making it seem stupider and getting even more enjoyment from it. I'm no saint. But why lie. About this. Seriously.

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

The bottom line is that if people are disgusted with my book return behavior, then that's fine. It's when you analogize something that doesn't have any correlation to the original subject material, that offends me intellectually. When it isn't an intellectual analogy that involves some level of human decency to be truly representative of the original, it disgusts me a little bit that there's an active level of misinterpretation being taken on by the writer. Now what pisses me off is when people don't admit to their own misinterpretation and pretend that their misinterpretation is the original opinion that I had. It's really bizarre, but it happens.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

You literally called Barnes & Noble a "sort of alternative library". I don't think calling me ********, or a liar, exactly strengthens your argument when I'm clearly not the only person who interpreted your post the way I did. I'd say you're in the minority here, as far as identifying the meaning of the words you used is concerned.

 

[Raziek]

For what it's worth, I was also under the same impression that you were using bookstores like libraries by purchasing, reading (the entirety) and then returning a book.

I think you were unclear in your original post.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

Like, you called the bookstore "a sort of alternative library", then followed it up with a second post that actually contains the phrase "A book store should be used as a library". Then you call me a ******, and a liar, for thinking that you use your bookstore to read books for free. I don't think I'm the one who is just posting to point at people and call them dumb. That'd be you.

 

[Xivii]

*reads thread*

Bahahahahaha

 

[#HBC | Acrostic]

*reads thread* Bahahahahaha

It is not me who is the idiot. It is you.

I think you were unclear in your original post.

I actually believe in both statements, I think that the situation in which it is justified is conditional. What I don't understand is how I'm staring at the same computer screen and I'm being told that my opinion was misleading when there are two blatant cases of straw men in separate posts. I can see how a weak statement such as 'can be used as a sort of' would be meted out to be a strong authoritative statement such as 'is, an' but I would be lying if that's the elephant in the room. I can concede that people would benignly misunderstand the statement, however I disagree that this is the actual case for EE/PJB when juxtaposed with blatant straw manning. Nabe, I haven't gotten to your post yet which is why I haven't responded to it yet, sorry. I'm staring at PJB blatantly miss the conditional portion to one of my statements and I don't know whether he's being defensive or he doesn't realize that he's pretending to point out a contradiction to my statements while blatantly taking out the portion of the sentence that is known as the conditional statement. This entire post response was about miscontext and he quotes me without the conditional portion of the statement. Who does that.

 

[#HBC | Nabe]

e-readers ewwwwwwwwwww

Honestly? As someone with minor eye problems aggravated by light, I heartily endorse e-readers as the best possible compromise between actual books and reading on a computer. And for students an e-reader is a godsend because a) piracy but b) the cost-to-weight factor means easy commuting or travel and the ability to keep study going without lugging around textbooks or pretending that reading Wikipedia constitutes an education. It's light, and fits anywhere on your person, and with optional side-lighting you can read them anywhere. Probably the best purchase I've ever made. (/productendorsement)


Acro, I've returned books before, doesn't really matter.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

I dunno what else you want from me, Acro. You posted something that I interpreted as "I like to rip off my local bookstore by reading stuff for free and returning it". So I called you out on it, and so did EE.

Then you said "That not how I meant it, you're misinterpreting it. You're a liar and a ******, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Then I said "This is why I interpreted your post the way I did." Followed by some other people coming in and saying "Umm, yea Acro, we all kind of interpreted it that way. I can see why they thought that."

But you're still here insisting "Nobody could possibly have interpreted it that way! PJB and EE are the devil!"

I don't know why you're trying to make this into a personal thing.

 

[Xivii]

It is not me who is the idiot. It is you.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

I just don't know why your panties are in such a bunch over this though. The way you phrased it, I thought you were talking about buying books, reading them, and returning them as a general practice for how you read all your books. This is the premise of the examples EE and I presented. We thought you were stealing, so we compared it to stealing. It's not a strawman, it's just a misunderstanding.

If you say that's not what you do, then that's fine. There's nothing wrong with stores having a return policy, but we thought you were talking about abusing that policy in order read books for free. I don't know why you have to resort to giant walls, and name calling, over a simple misunderstanding.

 

[Evil Eye]

My extrapolation, and apparently my misunderstanding, was based entirely on your own words. PJB repeatedly threw your own precise, in context words at you multiple times, displaying that they communicate exactly what we took from it, and somehow that's a lie, strawmanning, or being a ******. No it's... a misunderstanding based on taking you at face value with what few details you provided. Get over yourself.

By the way, Barnes & Noble may not be hurting for your thirty dollars, but B&N doesn't take the hit when books sell like **** or get returned (and the former is already a very common fate as the general culture becomes less and less reading-inclined). The publishers, and by extension agents and writers, do. Unsold books get sent back and have a direct effect on the process. Yeah yeah, I'm just one guy etc etc, this isn't an intellectual property debate, my point is that the big sellers like B&N kick the hurt down the ladder to the plebes that provide the meat of the industry in the first place.

Though I would consider B&N and Rand McNally and so forth far more valuable large corporations than the oceans of mass produced garbage that gets forced down our throats, like Burger King, or the latest market research call center doing research for Burger King, or whatever. At least these chains are helping to keep books alive. I remember how excited I was when the nearest major mall to me got a massive, multi-floor bookstore right before I went overseas, and they'd gone under before I even got home.

I don't know why but every time you get into an argument you either insert formerly absent details into your prior arguments and call people on not acknowledging them (or, y'know, being a mind reader I guess. Do I look like Hector Hammond to you buddy??) or double over with linguistic gymnastics to bolster your points after the fact whenever presented with a fair contradiction. Usually the alleged core of what you're arguing shifts entirely until the premises you're arguing are almost completely tangential to one another. That's why I didn't reply to your PM. I read your elaborations, considered them, and felt no need to spend time on a reply because your argument had mutated so much. Didn't think you'd take it so personally; I at least considered it a nice, articulate read that wasn't a total waste of my time.

Now you're adding petty insults to your bag of tricks, though, so I guess you're somewhat on the path to more open communication at least. I'm sorry dissenting opinions that aren't argued ad infinitum bother you so much. You posted a set of thoughts on the internet and I posted the thoughts it inspired. Grow up and deal with it, in that order.

 

[Evil Eye]

now with that said I will simply reply to this:

Ender's Game

that's one of the books I bought /thumbsup

 

[#HBC | Joker]

Lol, EE so begrudging with admitting the possibility of a misunderstanding, despite the fault not being on our end

 

[Marshmellowman]

that's [enders game] one of the books I bought /thumbsup

swag

if you enjoy it make sure to read

speaker for the dead

and

enders shadow

specially the former. his progression as a writer is evident in both

 

[DtJ S2n]

If Best Buy pulls through for me I should be getting one of the sweet Animal Crossing 3ds's this morning! If so, I'm gonna need ALL your guy's friend codes.

 

[BSL]

good luck s2

 

[Kataefi]

It's not soulless at all, or at least I don't believe it is. I've made things for art competitions before that would be considered 'advertising'.

I know **** has just gone down over bookstores but... design in advertising tends to be cold and manipulative in a way that makes it the most restricted type of art. It's all money-driven with principles based entirely around this (even as far as the positioning of certain elements on your canvas). Your design is likely filtered through other opinions who have a say in what you do.

It's very interesting but also very different to real art. If you want to keep it as artistic as possible, startup companies will be the way to go as they give you more creative freedom! Or you could just start up your own thaaaang. Or just apply to be a google doodler... omg I can see it already ... you'll get paid ridonkulous amounts and sound cool in every situation!

 

[Evil Eye]

It's kind of funny that we went from "quality of art is subjective" to a discussion of whether something is art, or "real art", or what have you, all of which carrying assumptions of objectivity. Not that I'm objecting to that myself, given my stance on the other conversation 'n' all, I just find it amusing that we managed to close the loop.

A good analogy for how I look at corporate graphic design and the like would be the whole video games as art thing. Definitely not trying to cook up yet another debate here, but let me establish for clarity that I do have a personal delineation for things being "art" and "not art", as opposed to the equally common "it's all art, some of it's just bad". So, on that note, I would reject most video games as being art. However, I would certainly say that most if not all video games contain art. Video games are, after all, an amalgamation of many things that could be considered art on their own, like music, visual art (concept designs for example), perhaps some acting, you name it. I wouldn't consider Gears of War 2 art, but it certainly took art to create the engrossing underworld occupied by the Locust.

By that measure, corporate art jobs might not produce something I'd consider art, but art will be involved in their creation. Maybe you'll muck around with photoshop to evoke a certain sort of atmosphere, or even get to design a logo with your own hands. The works of an artist, to be sure, but at the end of the day the reason you're doing it is "buy Coca-Cola", or "this is Coca-Cola's logo, remember us!" Hell, the level of art can vary too -- see your usual generic DVD cover with floating heads and actor names, as compared to the custom covers in the Criterion Collection, which hem closer to book covers and such. I suppose it helps that in that case it's a supplement to a piece of art. Or is it? Maybe it's Michael Bay's latest thing #closingloops

Actually, typing this out is making me realize how arbitrary it is in some ways, even if it has an internal logic. Perhaps Kata's idea of it all bein' art but varying in its level of "soul" is a more sensible way to describe it, even if it's inherently more subjective in its language.

 

[#HBC | ZoZo]

Honestly? As someone with minor eye problems aggravated by light, I heartily endorse e-readers as the best possible compromise between actual books and reading on a computer. And for students an e-reader is a godsend because a) piracy but b) the cost-to-weight factor means easy commuting or travel and the ability to keep study going without lugging around textbooks or pretending that reading Wikipedia constitutes an education. It's light, and fits anywhere on your person, and with optional side-lighting you can read them anywhere. Probably the best purchase I've ever made. (/productendorsement)

Iunno, I really really really like HAVING something. Books, lil statues, games, everything. E-readers kinda **** on that.

Also I prefer reading on paper. Turning pages, book smell, etc. ;-;

swag

if you enjoy it make sure to read

speaker for the dead

and

enders shadow

specially the former. his progression as a writer is evident in both

Ill keep this in mind cuz Im ordering that book in the near future.

 

[Circus]

If I had a silver eagle for how many times I've landed in the "real art" conversation with irl friends, I'd be the richest man in Columbia.

It never leads anywhere satisfying.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

Much as I'd like to weigh in on this debate, smashboards keeps telling me i'm not logged in.

 

[#HBC | Kary]

well it appears i have resolved this predicament.

I should probably say something topical right now.

but what is a book?