02-21-2018, 08:21 PM | #21 | |
Join Date: Feb 2005
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
Quote:
Today you still could go to a library and do hard copy research if you had to. In a few years that probably won’t be the case. |
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02-22-2018, 01:34 AM | #22 | |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
Quote:
If once exactly knows the books he wants, he can find them without any help (thanks to the Dewey Decimal Classification). But as soon as he makes a research on a given topic (like "vampires", for instance), he will have to sit in front of a computer and to enter the good keywords before obtaining those books ("vampire", "novel", "myth", "history", "zoology", "medicine" and so on). Sure, that's not a hard computer operation. But someone who is used to make computer researches will still have an edge. Last edited by Gollum; 02-22-2018 at 01:59 AM. |
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02-22-2018, 01:57 AM | #23 |
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: France
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
About that, after thinking a bit more, I believe that the Complementary Skills rule is really the best one to use. Just because it gives an edge to someone who is very good at Computer Operation.
The Prerequisites rule ("To study the advanced skill, you must have at least one point in the prerequisite skill.") is fine too, but it doesn't make any difference between someone with Computer Operation (IQ+0)-10 and someone with Computer Operation (IQ+8)-18. While the Complementary Skills rule does: the one with Computer (IQ+8)-18 will get the +1 (or the +2) much more often. And someone who lacks Computer Operation will often get a penalty, which is quite realistic: those who don't know how to enter keywords on a searching engine (surprisingly, a lot of people insist on typing complete sentences rather than keywords) often have problems to find what they want. Last edited by Gollum; 02-22-2018 at 02:04 AM. |
02-22-2018, 02:30 AM | #24 |
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Albuquerque, NM
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
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02-22-2018, 04:54 AM | #25 |
☣
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
That would be right, if not for the -80% max discount.
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RyanW - Actually one normal sized guy in three tiny trenchcoats. |
02-22-2018, 07:14 AM | #26 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
Correct. It's an option for the GM to allow deeper discounts on really hopelessly limited traits, mostly to turn them into perks, but for something this useful, I'd enforce the -80% cutoff.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
02-22-2018, 08:03 AM | #27 |
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ronneby, Sweden
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
Computer Operation lets you "call up data, run programs, play games, etc". That might have been a skill 30 years ago, but with our current computers that feels like a skill to tie your shoelaces.
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02-22-2018, 08:35 AM | #28 | |
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Hmm, looks like Earth, circa CE 2020+
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
Quote:
Nowadays, it's hard to find information that's not already on the Internet. A few years ago in the 21st century, I published a summary of 10 years of court cases and the research only took me two or three hours. In the late 20th century, it could have taken me two or three days.
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Kerry Thornley: Dwarf Planet Eris, Discordianism, and The John F. Kennedy Assassination Without Thornley, there would never have been the Steve Jackson Games edition of Principia Discordia Top 12 Clues You're a Role-Playing Old-Timer My humorous (I hope) article that also promotes SJGames/GURPS GURPS Fantasy Folk: Elves My first GURPS supplement |
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02-22-2018, 09:07 AM | #29 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
The vast majority of academic journals are going to have content accessible only through the internet for most university libraries (JSTOR possesses the contents of 2400 journals). If you want to do serious academic research, you need to have access to a service similar to JSTOR, which means using the internet from a university library.
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02-22-2018, 09:40 AM | #30 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: What does a computer really do for you?
Quote:
However, a lot of computer usage (installing programs, uninstalling programs, troubleshooting programs, etc) are still very much skill uses that are difficult. Take for example my Mother, someone who refuses to try to learn how to operate a computer. She turn it on, open Chrome, navigate to Facebook and her gmail account reliably, but beyond this and you've lost her. Despite having watched a handful of movies and read a handful of books on her computer, she still has to ask me to start movies and open her books. Because this isn't a daily usage that she's memorized. Basically it's a skill because we as a culture are still at the point that it's not something everyone simply does. Also, it's occasionally fun to play characters in modern games who can't use computers and find the adventure 'stymied' when the 'techie' is unavailable. Conversely failing to tie one's shoes doesn't often lead to or involve adventure. Last edited by evileeyore; 02-22-2018 at 09:43 AM. |
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