Porn and ‘Puters

It used to be the three Rs; reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic.

For nVidia lately, it seems to be the two Ps: porn and ‘puters.

First, they came up with a pixie named Dawn that was . . . errr . . . quite easy to depixelate. For nVidia cards only (and apparently the creators went stark raving mad when some people figured out how ATI owners could defoliate Dawn).

Now, at their E3 party, to entertain Silicon Valley, they called on Silicone Valley.

More specifically, the silicone valley of one porn star named Catalina.

One attendee provided full disclosure and exposure of the event on a message board someplace. Pretty thorough texture removal, though not complete depixelation.

I guess that’s one way to distract you from counting frames.

I’ve not seen anything like this outside of HardOCP.

Enter The Matrix

Of course, this is sleazy, but then, look at the market. Young men seeking certain . . . experiences.

When you think about it, what do mens magazines and video games and porn have in common? They are all substitutes for life experiences. They all give you inexpensive simulated experiences you cannot realistically get on your own.

So a porn star prancing around is pretty much like a video game promising you a warrior experience. They’re not the real thing, but they’re a sure bet and a lot less risky than the real thing. If you want the real thing but reality is too . . . real . . . for you, this is what you do.

They’re all manipulations of people’s emotions, exploitations of personal desires. And, if you can reinforce one exploitation with another, maybe that reinforces the exploiter’s likelihood of ending up with more of the exploited’s cash.

In reasonably small doses, this can be relatively harmless, but this is like talking about social drinking vs. alcoholism. Most can handle it, but some can’t. This is more like manipulating alcoholics into one more round.

What Is nVidia’s Message?

Seems to me it was, “Wow, I got to see a porn star upclose for free and saved $50. Now I have to buy their $500 video card!”

“After that, then I can buy Enter the Matrix and play a video simulation of a movie about people trying to free humanity from a video simulation.”

Does anyone else see something not quite right here?

In The Matrix Reloaded, Neo gets told that the Matrix is actually the sixth of its kind. Yeah, and what we see today is the prototype for the first.

This is why the appeal of the Matrix to geeks is incomprehensible to me. Geeks want a Matrix. They do everything they can to simulate reality rather than experience it, and they’re getting their cash lifeblood being manipulatively drained from them while doing so.

When they go to this movie, they should be rooting for Agent Smith. They are in real life, and they’re putting their money where their mouths are. They just call him different names, like John Carmack.

The whole point of the Matrix movies is that this is NOT a good idea. Yet even with that anti-technological message, it too serves as a subtle manipulator and life-substitute. The world is a big conspiracy, but don’t worry, you’re just like Neo, you’re too smart to be manipulated like that.

Ten dollars for the movie, fifty dollars for the video game, please. 🙂

Ed