I am surprised that anyone still questions that relationships can form without physical presence, though. Over 30 years ago I met my first girlfriend on a BBS (we dated after meeting IRL, but it started online) and well before computers people would fall in love over the phone or before that, through letters.
Now that I think about it, the fact his parents didn't really know about his online life may have been half the point. Not only did he get to unfurl his wings, he got to do it on his own terms without parental oversight.
It doesn't show him, but I found warming this video [1] of his guild singing together during a video chat with him, as he couldn't join them. It was shared by a guild member under the parents' last post to his blog, which is linked in the article.
> The Steens knew that their son was an avid gamer, but they'd not grasped that for nearly a decade, he had had another virtual life in the game World of Warcraft.
I had to read this sentence a couple of times before it made sense. If you ignore everything after the last comma, "knew that their son was an avid gamer, but they'd not grasped that" is an oxymoron.
For example, you can understand some event putting others in great misfortune, even in detail, and you can go through that misfortune yourself. The latter grants a very different understanding. It's similar to what the rest of that sentence conveyed. I don't know why anyone would understand this any other way actually.
Yeah I understood that, it's just that even when I read it the alternative way they misread it, I get nearly the same meaning and it is sensible, no oxymorons to be found.
Maybe I'm further from native level than I thought and it's just not hitting my ears nearly as bad, I don't know.
Not sure why this is downvoted. It’s the absolute summation of this sort of thing. Anyone who grew up in that time period can immediately relate to both the personal feeling of it, as well as the anonymity and isolation of these things from the “real world.”
Glad he found some normalcy online. Great story.
I am surprised that anyone still questions that relationships can form without physical presence, though. Over 30 years ago I met my first girlfriend on a BBS (we dated after meeting IRL, but it started online) and well before computers people would fall in love over the phone or before that, through letters.
Now that I think about it, the fact his parents didn't really know about his online life may have been half the point. Not only did he get to unfurl his wings, he got to do it on his own terms without parental oversight.
It doesn't show him, but I found warming this video [1] of his guild singing together during a video chat with him, as he couldn't join them. It was shared by a guild member under the parents' last post to his blog, which is linked in the article.
[1]: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2leimccyacl7wlg/With%20Ibelin%20DK...
The question is: for this boy, which one was the "real world" and which one was the "virtual world"?
Do they have to be one or the other?
that is, alas, easy to tell. The real world is where your body hurts.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41749592
In his real life, as a database entry in a corporate s/w platform...
> The Steens knew that their son was an avid gamer, but they'd not grasped that for nearly a decade, he had had another virtual life in the game World of Warcraft.
I had to read this sentence a couple of times before it made sense. If you ignore everything after the last comma, "knew that their son was an avid gamer, but they'd not grasped that" is an oxymoron.
Is it?
For example, you can understand some event putting others in great misfortune, even in detail, and you can go through that misfortune yourself. The latter grants a very different understanding. It's similar to what the rest of that sentence conveyed. I don't know why anyone would understand this any other way actually.
They're saying it’s similar to a garden path sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence - it’s easy to parse wrong at first
Yeah I understood that, it's just that even when I read it the alternative way they misread it, I get nearly the same meaning and it is sensible, no oxymorons to be found.
Maybe I'm further from native level than I thought and it's just not hitting my ears nearly as bad, I don't know.
[flagged]
Not sure why this is downvoted. It’s the absolute summation of this sort of thing. Anyone who grew up in that time period can immediately relate to both the personal feeling of it, as well as the anonymity and isolation of these things from the “real world.”
On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.