Video game record-setter accused of cheating

Seriously?

One of you has only been here less than a year but @NashRambler is an old-tymer, surely I do not need to explain the editorial selection process of Boing Boing to you.

But thank you for not caring enough to give the story any consideration but still making sure we knew how little you cared by commenting yourself.

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While I understand why Argentina celebrates that victory (revenge for losing the Falklands War), I don’t get why they celebrate that handball over one of the greatest goals ever scored.

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I should have left out “video.”

Then how about the Lego League?

https://firstlegoleague.theiet.org/

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I’m an old gamer (Heck my handle here is a tipoff) and have been playing stuff like this since the 70s. I even recognize that magazine page and I might even have that issue around but I did throw out a ton of magazines last time I moved.

Even with all that I find it hard to care about video game records and even back in the day I thought the whole thing was a bit silly. I guess I do find it interesting how a small culture war can sprout out and you have people depending this stuff for decades despite it all being a bit silly.

Still, If Shadowcat is out there … I damn well finished Spellbreaker before you did… suck it.

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If there’s one thing I learned from King of Kong, these people be crazy.

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That’s a great deal more practical than video games. (At least, I’m more inclined to take it seriously.)

I learned that from twitter.

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Oh man, you picked the right person to bring up that whole scene with! Yes, I have followed the Paul Ryan “I ran a sub-3” marathon lie which he only walked back after SEVERAL publications called him out, and then he tried to act like it was a little mistake, as well as seen most of the good/interesting marathon investigation stories.

One of the best things that marathoninvestigation.com ever did was publish an email interview they did with a lady who repeatedly cheated at marathons, it’s a really good read for anybody who is tempted to get on the morally-superior junk train: https://www.marathoninvestigation.com/2017/01/whyicheated.html . But the reason I bring this story up, is that so much of this lady’s motivation was the praise received by her friends and family via facebook and other social media. The direct, tangible, quantifiable praise from people you want to like you can easily be understood and felt, and I can see why somebody would continue to cheat to maintain that.

But this guy, I mean, it’s not like he’s out there breaking records still today. He probably hasn’t done jack in 30 years video-game-wise, but still he’s clinging to this? Odds are nobody he knew even cared about it back then. Dude must not have much else.

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Oftentimes, and especially in the age of deliberately misleading headlines, it’s difficult to know how worthy an article will be until after you’ve invested a notable amount of time into that article. At that point it’s fairly natural to feel ripped off when the article turns our to be pointless, or trivial, or superficial, or in some other way less than you thought it would be.

Still, I guess it’s more fun to berate readers for being taken in by the deliberately misleading headlines. I have no doubt that that approach will make them feel better about having their time and attention stolen.

Um, have you been following politics over the last 18 months or so?

I like reading about how thorough the breakdowns are. But it seems to me there’s just so many conceivable ways you can muck with the hardware, and possibly get the system RAM into a state that could never be achieved through normal coding. Much has been written about “frying” an Atari 2600 game by flicking the power switch on and off repeatedly.

For those who missed it, this is a truly delightful little rabbit hole.

I hold two medals in Barbies, and a 1st place ribbon in Slinky.

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I just wanted to chime in on that picture. It’s from Joystik magazine. January 83. Man I loved that magazine as a kid. You can still read it on the Internet Archive.

I’m wary of spreadsheets made from analyses of hardware. They are different than the hardware. In the speedrunning community playing on original machines and carts is important because emulation can’t be reliably perfect.

I feel the analysis was probably done in good faith by someone who really knew what they were doing. But it doesn’t show the record is impossible, it shows that either the record is impossible or there is something wrong with the analysis. On the other hand, we have a person who either lied and is continuing to lie or who is flummoxed by an apparent expert telling them that a thing they experienced never happened.

People lie, but people also make mistakes. It was actually hard to fake a polaroid of the screen at the time, not like faking a screenshot today, but people recording video game records probably didn’t identify the solemnity of their work and apply a lot of scrutiny.

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”If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.”
J. Montana

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