And to think I thought games were fun BEFORE somebody figured out how to quantify why.
This does lend itself to some interesting new development paradigms -- "Hey, Tom, we really need to raise the average pulse rate of the player by about 2.5 bpms. Get right on that."
I'm sorry, but this "Playing the Wii is EXERCISE" meme really needs to die a painful death. I've played the Wii, I love it, I think the console is great -- but claiming that it equates to any sort of meaningful physical activity is laughable at best. If playing tennis on the Wii is making you sore, you should probably consider a REAL exercise program that doesn't involve video games.
I'm not sure how it is in your town, but X360's are flying off the shelves in my neck of the woods. Everywhere I go, I see people buying them, all my friends have started picking them up since the price dropped a bit, and I even heard a short piece on NPR yesterday about how Microsoft's recieved this huge holiday boost because everybody who can't find Wii's and PS3's for Christmas presents have been purchasing 360's instead.
Nintendo and Sony may have both "manufactured shortaged" themselves into a bit of a predicament.
"Intellectual Property" is just the generic term game executives like to use to refer to their games. It leaves the rhetorical door open for branching a single title out into a series, or a cartoon show, or a movie. It sounds cold and inhuman, but it's definitely the standard these days.
I can't be the only one who was convinced for years that Nintendo of America was run by a goofy, spikey-haired adolescent and his sweater-vested counterpart.
think a key lesson that the game industry could stand to learn is that they don't have to have incredibly complex graphics and endless content in order to make a game look good and get played a lot - Katamari Damacy illustrates this point extremely well. This is another thing that sets prestige movies, which do shun the special effects and whatnot, apart from most attempts at prestiget games that I've seen. Another is that people who pay attention to these games aren't necessarily all that interested in great visuals, anyway. Paying for all of that when your target market doesn't care about it is just throwing money down a well.
Great point. Now let's hope these game companies figure it out before we're left with a market flooded with First-Person Shooters and nothi... er...
I don't know about you, but I would listen to those Cubans who fled that system over my own limited experience in Cuba. I thought it was a beautiful country, but one of the big reasons we still have sanctions is that massive voting bloc from my home state, the Cubans who left to come to America (and are probably the most model americans I've ever seen). If a person said they were going to lift the blockade, I guarantee they lose florida(there are also are Sugar farmers that have gotten very used to not competing with the sugar from Cuba).
of course, I'm sure there are groups of Cubans in the US that want the blockade ended. I'm just saying a vast majority that left Cuba believe Castro is a blight on their mother country and vote in such a way to force him into a corner.
Very true. As a former South Floridian myself, I can agree with this assessment -- There are a whole lot of Cuban-Americans in South Florida from families that were very well-to-do under Baptista and view Castro as a robber baron who federalized their prosperity.
While there are plenty of Cubans who support Castro and his ideology, most of them aren't in the US.
Marks skill was getting rich, but can he juggle 5 balls ? wheelie a bike ? grind a rail on a skateboard ? fly a helicopter ? draw a picture well ?
Dude, Mark Cuban can totally wheelie a bike and grind a rail on a skateboard.
This one time, he was skating and I saw him do a totally gnarly 360 off of some dude's face while the dude was all screaming like "NO WAY!" and then Mark Cuban landed in Bolivia and did an ollie right over these military drug guys with machine guns that were all shooting in the air so he jumped off the skateboard in mid-air and threw it at them and it hit all three of them at once so they were like "WHOA!" and then they got knocked out so Mark Cuban (who was still in the air) landed on a BMX bike and did a vicious wheelie, then some other dude handed him a Flying V and he started playing Cat Scratch Fever while he was totally riding with no hands and some girls in bikinis were all like "YOU ARE HOT" and he was all like "I KNOW" and then he drank a Mountain Dew really fast and then did a thumbs-up.
I mean, honestly - why the hell do people think consoles need their loyalty? The companies behind them are out to make cash, which is what corporations do. They have their own marketing budget, people paid loads of cash to sell games and consoles and so forth. And before anyone mentions 'viral marketing', this kind of crap would only serve to put me off buying a console.
For the most part, here, you're referring to a group of people here who have great amounts of their personal identity onto their purchase of, and allegiance to, a particular product. This isn't anything new -- or relegated to gamers -- think of the grown men you know who would actively define themselves by their brand of truck. I think that when people are in a situation where they feel that they have no ability to carve out their own indentity -- be it feelings of impotence or just a general lack of creativity -- they will turn to external means to establish who and what they are in the eyes of others.
Quite simply, like any other group which defines shared identity as a similar product choice, or belief in a shared ideology, gamer fanbois are, at the root, confused individuals who are searching for a sense of belonging. There's a large population of the "gamer" population that's, quite frankly, socially awkward. Evangelizing a game system (or a brand of PC, or a genre of music, etc) gives these people an easy way to feel a "connection" with a social group that doesn't require any alteration in the way that they deal with the world or interact with other human beings.
When I was a teenager, I was really into hardcore music for the same reason. My skills of actually holding a conversation were fairly limited, but I knew that I could hang out with my "hardcore friends" or log onto a message board and 'communicate' in the way which I was comfortable. This in and of itself is fairly harmless, but the insular nature of these sort of 'product cliques' will almost always eventually turn to "us against them" codifications as the individuals within the group struggle to establish their own socially hierarchy. In my days as an elitist asshole, it was the 'corporate drones' who would 'actually buy this mass-produced music' that were the de facto topics of my rage. For these kids it's the 'idiots' who would 'actually buy [system].' It's the same motivation in both cases -- a desire for acceptance, at its root.
Re:Keywords: Government. Health Care. Disaster
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Biggest IT Disaster Ever?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
Because our government provided health care is an unmitigated disaster because of the fact that it's shoehorned into, and forced to compete within, a "free market" environment which is wholly profit-driven. Removing the health care system from the world of profitability, and placing it into the umbrella of 'state-funded entities', creates an entirely different environment -- one where medical professionals won't be scared shitless to accept government insurance.
I hate to hammer a cliche, but America is the only industrialized country in the world which does not provide some form of universal health care to its citizens. Plenty of people with disabilities leave this country as a matter of necessity. While my opinion as to what the SOLUTION should be is obviously open to argument, these are concrete facts that support the impetus of my statement -- American health care is broken. Whatever your personal situation may be, or mine, there are plenty of examples all around the both of us that point distinctly to that conclusion.
I'm guessing that in your mad dash to spew ad hominem vitriol, you neglected to read my follow-up post which explains in detail our trials and travails with the Medicare system.
Trust me, there is not a single disabled person (or family member thereof) in this country that is not aware of Medicaid, Medicare, or SSI/SSD. The issue isn't knowledge of existence, it's the simple fact that these programs NO LONGER provide the safety net which they were designed to, due to increasing monetary and political pressure from privatized insurance on the AMA and the medical industry at large. There are a lot of things that you CAN'T learn from search engines, and the heartbreak of watching a system completely and utterly fail somebody you love is one them. Look around a bit if you think I'm exaggerating or painting a bleak picture for sympathy's sake -- this is an all-too-common occurrence for those with debilitating ailments in this society. I've yet to speak with ANYONE who's relied on a government health care plan who feels that they were treated comprehensively, let alone fairly.
The simple fact that so many people in this country who are elderly or terminally ill turn to imported Canadian prescriptions for their health care needs is, to me, inarguable proof that there is something very seriously wrong. You can disagree as much as you'd like, but doing so solely from the perspective of personal experience is short-sighted at best.
As to your last paragraph, yes, you certainly can add those ailments to the list of conditions that could prevent one from working full-time. There are hundreds of them that neither of us have mentioned. But I fail to see your point -- I'm not involved in a game of "my disease is worse than your condition" here -- I'm merely providing a real life example here that I'm familiar with. Multiple Sclerosis is not the only, or even the worst, neurological disorder out there, but being a disease of the nervous system, it requires a lot of intensive treatment that, honestly, I do not believe our current system of public assistance provides for.
Re:Keywords: Government. Health Care. Disaster
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My lady's brother had MS and died in a fire because of it. This same doctor's clinic treated him at home for no additional charge, and when he lost his job, they continued to care for him at no cost at their office (we drove him there). The doctors repeatedly tell me that most health care is cheap. I have insurance for emergencies only (with a $10,000 deductible now) and my insurance is cheap even though I am a smoker and have a pre-existing condition of kidney stones -- in fact, my lady and I pay less as a household for a year than most people do in a 6-9 months with their overriding policies.
Interesting that you should bring up MS, since my frame of reference is with the same disease.
My mother is a single woman who was diagnosed with MS when I was around eight years old. Her disease is a progressive one, and as such, she gradually lost the ability to operate for periods long enough to sustain a full-time income. Since she was unemployed (and married) at the time of her diagnosis, she was not covered by any private insurance fund, and thus, after her divorce, she fell into the questionable hands of Medicare.
Since that time, I've witnessed our family tossed into bankruptcy proceedings to cover hospital bills that Medicare claimed were out-of-scope. I've witnessed months and years where she was unable to pay for her medication and fell into serious regression. Most recently, I've witnessed her taking part in a completely bogus marriage to a man she barely knew simply so she could be added to his military insurance plan. These are the sort of things that the poor in our country deal with when they have chronic or terminal diseases.
Your friend and you are very lucky to find the sort of treatment that he did, but that's certainly not a commonality, or even a rarity. I would say that's a goddamn miracle -- and I certainly would not assume that because you were accepted for insurance with kidney stones that somebody with a terminal disease would have an easy of a time as you. I've been gainfully employed for years and have been frantically searching for a 'family plan' that would also covered my disabled mother and have been greeted routinely with incredulity and flat-out "no, we don't do that"s.
So, yes, I think I can justifiably use the "what about the poor" argument since that's the reality I know. I'm not sure how the system appears to those who don't actually need it -- I just know the dismal reality of attempting to get health care without money in this country. Regardless of what the rhetoric states -- it's not easy, or pleasant, and most of the time, it's impossible. I thank the powers that be daily that I'm now in a situation where I can provide financial support to my loved ones instead of expecting them to rely on a broken system to keep them intact.
Re:Keywords: Government. Health Care. Disaster
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Those "three words" together are four words.
And excellent steak analogy, but you forgot to include the circumstances that prompt the need for a government managed health care system in the first place -- what happens when the restaurants sell so many burgers and so few steaks that they need to manipulate their pricing structure until those burgers become the price of steaks? Or when they decide to just stop serving burgers entirely and choose instead to offer a 'name brand equivalent' like maybe some ground buffalo, which tastes just the same, but costs a whole lot more? And what happens to the individuals who desperately NEED those steaks but can only afford a small side salad? There's a big difference between 'subsidizing irresponsibility' and sharing costs to help treat people with terminal and degenerative diseases who are incapable of generating a full-time income.
It never ceases to amaze me that there are people who will apply the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality to those suffering from Muscular Dystrophy, ALS, Leukemia and all of those others afflictions that obviously afflict far more than just the 'lazy' and 'irresponsible'. Is this compassionate conservatism in action?
I had been wondering the same thing myself, Speare -- although I'm more inclined to lean less towards the 'palm-greasing' theory as the culprit and more towards the unstoppable naivete of tech journalists. Much like sports journalists are apt to call every promising basketball player "The Next Jordan", I think that almost every techie write post-Neuromancer is eager for the opportunity to brand any sort of avatar-based pervasive enviroment as the missing key to the Gibson-esque cyberspace fantasy that most of share.
I was alive for the hype surrounding Habitat for qLink, and I remember a ton of the same sky-high rhetoric being tossed around with reckless abandon. This sort of environment cuts very close to the sci-fi dreams of a lot of internet users and, at times, it seems that people are more than willing to champion a sub-par technology if it presents a tentative step closer to achieving a truly 'immersive environment.'
I wonder how the airlines are going to keep inappropriate video (i.e. porn or even just movies like "Snakes on a Plane" or "Alive") from appearing on the seat-back displays."
There's never been any sort of technological advancements to stop people from saying "I HAVE A BOMB" or "I AM A TERRORIST" on airplanes, either, but you don't see it happen too often these days. A combination of self-regulation and the fear of indefinite detainment will probably keep people from screwing around with 'inappropriate material' on airplanes in any way, shape, or form.
I'm not sure of the intentions, either. However, it seems to me that putting a program named "Sucker Free" on MTV, which is by far one of the largest disseminators of throwaway 'consumer culture' in our society, is either the height of irony or a new gold standard of hubris. You make the call.
I have been inspired by this article to patent the specific waveform signature of the distorted electric guitar. As such, this sound is now the private and restricted property of BadassFrigginMusic, Inc. and anybody using this sound -- currently or retroactively -- is attempting to parody or modify my work and capitalize financially on the fruits of my labors, as it took me a really long time to save up for this sweet amp.
In addition to this, the process used to create the dulcet vocal tones for which I am famous (forcing air through the larynx in an expulsion of sound) is a process which I have spent countless hours and funds in a quest to perfect. To hear professional 'speakers' and other 'sound-generators' use this technique glibly and without regard for the source of the material (me) is to listen to the herald's trumpets of catastrophe, as my family sits starving at the table while pretenders usurp the rightful profits of my unique vocal mechanics.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you may have heard, today marks the fifth anniversary of a little game franchise that we like to call Halo.
Wild applause.
And as you undoubtedly already know, we've called a press conference today to announce some big and exciting news concerning the future of the game. Now, I know some of you may be wondering exactly what could be done to perfect this formula -- that is to say, exactly WHAT can be done to improve upon perfection? And to those of you with such doubts, I can point to the development of Halo 3 and say nothing but the following five words:
YOU CAN SEE YOUR FEET.
That's right, after years of grueling research and development, the Halo team has now given players the ability to see their own feet while they move, simply by looking down. This adds a whole new element of realism to the game, and allows us to create a whole new type of gaming challenge within the Halo world -- using the fluid dynamics of our physics engine, inattentive players will now be able to trip over loose gravel, stub their toes into door frames, and, of course, navigate jumping puzzles with ease. The revolutionary "textile fastening engine" will determine how far the player has traveled and convert that data into an actual REAL-TIME loosening of laces -- Leading to inevitable pratfalls for the inattentive player. And, most exciting of all, the players' footwear will be upgradable with custom designs created specifically for the Halo world by Nike, Reebok, and Ecko!
Here at Bungie, we believe that innovation is the key to creating exciting and fresh games that resonate with our audience. As such, it is technologies like this Revolutionary Foot Engine (revFeX) that keep us poised on the cutting edge of game development. Our highly savvy customer base grows more demanding with each release and it's important that we keep the nature of our products in step with what it is that hardcore gamers desire: The ability to add more and more meaningless bells and whistles to the same game that they've all been playing since Wolfenstein 3-d.
I assume this is intended to only play power chords and on top of that there is no way the machine can determine if you intend the third to be major or minor in the chord. Which is interesting because in the video, the chord changes from major to minor with no change in the performer. That's fine, let's then assume that you can select a key and it will adhere to the chords in that key.
There is no third in a power chord. A power chord is a stacking root and fifth interval. It's not inherently major or minor.
Just saying, is all.
So this special is 100% more respectful than what's shown on G4, yet still manages to be about 110% less respectable than late-night Cinemax or professional wrestling.
Seriously, am I the only one who feels like I should lock the door and draw the blinds when I'm watching television shows about video games? There's something about this sort of 'telejournalism' that just seems to echo and amplify the perceived social failures of its audience, and as a result, feels like the dirty little secret you have to hide from your friends.
I like to think that, no matter how much I like a particular company, it's usually prudent to reserve my judgement of a product's "totally awesomeness" until after I've actually experienced it. This is how you avoid the 'foot-in-mouth' syndrome that plagues the type of folks who talked about how the Virtual Boy would be the 'future of gaming' before its release.
At this point, the system has not been released -- Proclaiming its superiority is really not a valid argument. Habeas corpus.
Slashdot Mirror
And to think I thought games were fun BEFORE somebody figured out how to quantify why.
This does lend itself to some interesting new development paradigms -- "Hey, Tom, we really need to raise the average pulse rate of the player by about 2.5 bpms. Get right on that."
I'm sorry, but this "Playing the Wii is EXERCISE" meme really needs to die a painful death. I've played the Wii, I love it, I think the console is great -- but claiming that it equates to any sort of meaningful physical activity is laughable at best. If playing tennis on the Wii is making you sore, you should probably consider a REAL exercise program that doesn't involve video games.
I'm not sure how it is in your town, but X360's are flying off the shelves in my neck of the woods. Everywhere I go, I see people buying them, all my friends have started picking them up since the price dropped a bit, and I even heard a short piece on NPR yesterday about how Microsoft's recieved this huge holiday boost because everybody who can't find Wii's and PS3's for Christmas presents have been purchasing 360's instead. Nintendo and Sony may have both "manufactured shortaged" themselves into a bit of a predicament.
Hey guys, I totally agree with you too!
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The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Posting to myself is my greatest release
"Intellectual Property" is just the generic term game executives like to use to refer to their games. It leaves the rhetorical door open for branching a single title out into a series, or a cartoon show, or a movie. It sounds cold and inhuman, but it's definitely the standard these days.
I can't be the only one who was convinced for years that Nintendo of America was run by a goofy, spikey-haired adolescent and his sweater-vested counterpart.
Come on, fess up.
think a key lesson that the game industry could stand to learn is that they don't have to have incredibly complex graphics and endless content in order to make a game look good and get played a lot - Katamari Damacy illustrates this point extremely well. This is another thing that sets prestige movies, which do shun the special effects and whatnot, apart from most attempts at prestiget games that I've seen. Another is that people who pay attention to these games aren't necessarily all that interested in great visuals, anyway. Paying for all of that when your target market doesn't care about it is just throwing money down a well. Great point. Now let's hope these game companies figure it out before we're left with a market flooded with First-Person Shooters and nothi... er...
Nevermind.
I don't know about you, but I would listen to those Cubans who fled that system over my own limited experience in Cuba. I thought it was a beautiful country, but one of the big reasons we still have sanctions is that massive voting bloc from my home state, the Cubans who left to come to America (and are probably the most model americans I've ever seen). If a person said they were going to lift the blockade, I guarantee they lose florida(there are also are Sugar farmers that have gotten very used to not competing with the sugar from Cuba). of course, I'm sure there are groups of Cubans in the US that want the blockade ended. I'm just saying a vast majority that left Cuba believe Castro is a blight on their mother country and vote in such a way to force him into a corner.
Very true. As a former South Floridian myself, I can agree with this assessment -- There are a whole lot of Cuban-Americans in South Florida from families that were very well-to-do under Baptista and view Castro as a robber baron who federalized their prosperity.
While there are plenty of Cubans who support Castro and his ideology, most of them aren't in the US.
Marks skill was getting rich, but can he juggle 5 balls ? wheelie a bike ? grind a rail on a skateboard ? fly a helicopter ? draw a picture well ?
Dude, Mark Cuban can totally wheelie a bike and grind a rail on a skateboard.
This one time, he was skating and I saw him do a totally gnarly 360 off of some dude's face while the dude was all screaming like "NO WAY!" and then Mark Cuban landed in Bolivia and did an ollie right over these military drug guys with machine guns that were all shooting in the air so he jumped off the skateboard in mid-air and threw it at them and it hit all three of them at once so they were like "WHOA!" and then they got knocked out so Mark Cuban (who was still in the air) landed on a BMX bike and did a vicious wheelie, then some other dude handed him a Flying V and he started playing Cat Scratch Fever while he was totally riding with no hands and some girls in bikinis were all like "YOU ARE HOT" and he was all like "I KNOW" and then he drank a Mountain Dew really fast and then did a thumbs-up.
Using the same reasoning, why do we still have porn mags? Those seem to exist alongside digital media without being driven to extinction.
Cuz we can't all have that wireless internets in our big rigs, city boy.
Madden 07 PS3 is a port of the 360 version. So is NCAA. Sorry, but that's the breaks, I suppose.
I mean, honestly - why the hell do people think consoles need their loyalty? The companies behind them are out to make cash, which is what corporations do. They have their own marketing budget, people paid loads of cash to sell games and consoles and so forth. And before anyone mentions 'viral marketing', this kind of crap would only serve to put me off buying a console.
For the most part, here, you're referring to a group of people here who have great amounts of their personal identity onto their purchase of, and allegiance to, a particular product. This isn't anything new -- or relegated to gamers -- think of the grown men you know who would actively define themselves by their brand of truck. I think that when people are in a situation where they feel that they have no ability to carve out their own indentity -- be it feelings of impotence or just a general lack of creativity -- they will turn to external means to establish who and what they are in the eyes of others.
Quite simply, like any other group which defines shared identity as a similar product choice, or belief in a shared ideology, gamer fanbois are, at the root, confused individuals who are searching for a sense of belonging. There's a large population of the "gamer" population that's, quite frankly, socially awkward. Evangelizing a game system (or a brand of PC, or a genre of music, etc) gives these people an easy way to feel a "connection" with a social group that doesn't require any alteration in the way that they deal with the world or interact with other human beings.
When I was a teenager, I was really into hardcore music for the same reason. My skills of actually holding a conversation were fairly limited, but I knew that I could hang out with my "hardcore friends" or log onto a message board and 'communicate' in the way which I was comfortable. This in and of itself is fairly harmless, but the insular nature of these sort of 'product cliques' will almost always eventually turn to "us against them" codifications as the individuals within the group struggle to establish their own socially hierarchy. In my days as an elitist asshole, it was the 'corporate drones' who would 'actually buy this mass-produced music' that were the de facto topics of my rage. For these kids it's the 'idiots' who would 'actually buy [system].' It's the same motivation in both cases -- a desire for acceptance, at its root.
Because our government provided health care is an unmitigated disaster because of the fact that it's shoehorned into, and forced to compete within, a "free market" environment which is wholly profit-driven. Removing the health care system from the world of profitability, and placing it into the umbrella of 'state-funded entities', creates an entirely different environment -- one where medical professionals won't be scared shitless to accept government insurance.
I hate to hammer a cliche, but America is the only industrialized country in the world which does not provide some form of universal health care to its citizens. Plenty of people with disabilities leave this country as a matter of necessity. While my opinion as to what the SOLUTION should be is obviously open to argument, these are concrete facts that support the impetus of my statement -- American health care is broken. Whatever your personal situation may be, or mine, there are plenty of examples all around the both of us that point distinctly to that conclusion.
Well, it's not suitable for human consumption. Take from that what you may.
I'm guessing that in your mad dash to spew ad hominem vitriol, you neglected to read my follow-up post which explains in detail our trials and travails with the Medicare system.
Trust me, there is not a single disabled person (or family member thereof) in this country that is not aware of Medicaid, Medicare, or SSI/SSD. The issue isn't knowledge of existence, it's the simple fact that these programs NO LONGER provide the safety net which they were designed to, due to increasing monetary and political pressure from privatized insurance on the AMA and the medical industry at large. There are a lot of things that you CAN'T learn from search engines, and the heartbreak of watching a system completely and utterly fail somebody you love is one them. Look around a bit if you think I'm exaggerating or painting a bleak picture for sympathy's sake -- this is an all-too-common occurrence for those with debilitating ailments in this society. I've yet to speak with ANYONE who's relied on a government health care plan who feels that they were treated comprehensively, let alone fairly.
The simple fact that so many people in this country who are elderly or terminally ill turn to imported Canadian prescriptions for their health care needs is, to me, inarguable proof that there is something very seriously wrong. You can disagree as much as you'd like, but doing so solely from the perspective of personal experience is short-sighted at best.
As to your last paragraph, yes, you certainly can add those ailments to the list of conditions that could prevent one from working full-time. There are hundreds of them that neither of us have mentioned. But I fail to see your point -- I'm not involved in a game of "my disease is worse than your condition" here -- I'm merely providing a real life example here that I'm familiar with. Multiple Sclerosis is not the only, or even the worst, neurological disorder out there, but being a disease of the nervous system, it requires a lot of intensive treatment that, honestly, I do not believe our current system of public assistance provides for.
My lady's brother had MS and died in a fire because of it. This same doctor's clinic treated him at home for no additional charge, and when he lost his job, they continued to care for him at no cost at their office (we drove him there). The doctors repeatedly tell me that most health care is cheap. I have insurance for emergencies only (with a $10,000 deductible now) and my insurance is cheap even though I am a smoker and have a pre-existing condition of kidney stones -- in fact, my lady and I pay less as a household for a year than most people do in a 6-9 months with their overriding policies.
Interesting that you should bring up MS, since my frame of reference is with the same disease.
My mother is a single woman who was diagnosed with MS when I was around eight years old. Her disease is a progressive one, and as such, she gradually lost the ability to operate for periods long enough to sustain a full-time income. Since she was unemployed (and married) at the time of her diagnosis, she was not covered by any private insurance fund, and thus, after her divorce, she fell into the questionable hands of Medicare.
Since that time, I've witnessed our family tossed into bankruptcy proceedings to cover hospital bills that Medicare claimed were out-of-scope. I've witnessed months and years where she was unable to pay for her medication and fell into serious regression. Most recently, I've witnessed her taking part in a completely bogus marriage to a man she barely knew simply so she could be added to his military insurance plan. These are the sort of things that the poor in our country deal with when they have chronic or terminal diseases.
Your friend and you are very lucky to find the sort of treatment that he did, but that's certainly not a commonality, or even a rarity. I would say that's a goddamn miracle -- and I certainly would not assume that because you were accepted for insurance with kidney stones that somebody with a terminal disease would have an easy of a time as you. I've been gainfully employed for years and have been frantically searching for a 'family plan' that would also covered my disabled mother and have been greeted routinely with incredulity and flat-out "no, we don't do that"s.
So, yes, I think I can justifiably use the "what about the poor" argument since that's the reality I know. I'm not sure how the system appears to those who don't actually need it -- I just know the dismal reality of attempting to get health care without money in this country. Regardless of what the rhetoric states -- it's not easy, or pleasant, and most of the time, it's impossible. I thank the powers that be daily that I'm now in a situation where I can provide financial support to my loved ones instead of expecting them to rely on a broken system to keep them intact.
Those "three words" together are four words.
And excellent steak analogy, but you forgot to include the circumstances that prompt the need for a government managed health care system in the first place -- what happens when the restaurants sell so many burgers and so few steaks that they need to manipulate their pricing structure until those burgers become the price of steaks? Or when they decide to just stop serving burgers entirely and choose instead to offer a 'name brand equivalent' like maybe some ground buffalo, which tastes just the same, but costs a whole lot more? And what happens to the individuals who desperately NEED those steaks but can only afford a small side salad? There's a big difference between 'subsidizing irresponsibility' and sharing costs to help treat people with terminal and degenerative diseases who are incapable of generating a full-time income.
It never ceases to amaze me that there are people who will apply the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality to those suffering from Muscular Dystrophy, ALS, Leukemia and all of those others afflictions that obviously afflict far more than just the 'lazy' and 'irresponsible'. Is this compassionate conservatism in action?
I had been wondering the same thing myself, Speare -- although I'm more inclined to lean less towards the 'palm-greasing' theory as the culprit and more towards the unstoppable naivete of tech journalists. Much like sports journalists are apt to call every promising basketball player "The Next Jordan", I think that almost every techie write post-Neuromancer is eager for the opportunity to brand any sort of avatar-based pervasive enviroment as the missing key to the Gibson-esque cyberspace fantasy that most of share.
I was alive for the hype surrounding Habitat for qLink, and I remember a ton of the same sky-high rhetoric being tossed around with reckless abandon. This sort of environment cuts very close to the sci-fi dreams of a lot of internet users and, at times, it seems that people are more than willing to champion a sub-par technology if it presents a tentative step closer to achieving a truly 'immersive environment.'
Me, I think it's kind of creepy.
I wonder how the airlines are going to keep inappropriate video (i.e. porn or even just movies like "Snakes on a Plane" or "Alive") from appearing on the seat-back displays."
There's never been any sort of technological advancements to stop people from saying "I HAVE A BOMB" or "I AM A TERRORIST" on airplanes, either, but you don't see it happen too often these days. A combination of self-regulation and the fear of indefinite detainment will probably keep people from screwing around with 'inappropriate material' on airplanes in any way, shape, or form.
I'm not sure of the intentions, either. However, it seems to me that putting a program named "Sucker Free" on MTV, which is by far one of the largest disseminators of throwaway 'consumer culture' in our society, is either the height of irony or a new gold standard of hubris. You make the call.
I have been inspired by this article to patent the specific waveform signature of the distorted electric guitar. As such, this sound is now the private and restricted property of BadassFrigginMusic, Inc. and anybody using this sound -- currently or retroactively -- is attempting to parody or modify my work and capitalize financially on the fruits of my labors, as it took me a really long time to save up for this sweet amp.
In addition to this, the process used to create the dulcet vocal tones for which I am famous (forcing air through the larynx in an expulsion of sound) is a process which I have spent countless hours and funds in a quest to perfect. To hear professional 'speakers' and other 'sound-generators' use this technique glibly and without regard for the source of the material (me) is to listen to the herald's trumpets of catastrophe, as my family sits starving at the table while pretenders usurp the rightful profits of my unique vocal mechanics.
I demand satisfaction.
:: clears throat, drums index cards on podium ::
Ladies and gentlemen, as you may have heard, today marks the fifth anniversary of a little game franchise that we like to call Halo.
Wild applause.
And as you undoubtedly already know, we've called a press conference today to announce some big and exciting news concerning the future of the game. Now, I know some of you may be wondering exactly what could be done to perfect this formula -- that is to say, exactly WHAT can be done to improve upon perfection? And to those of you with such doubts, I can point to the development of Halo 3 and say nothing but the following five words:
YOU CAN SEE YOUR FEET.
That's right, after years of grueling research and development, the Halo team has now given players the ability to see their own feet while they move, simply by looking down. This adds a whole new element of realism to the game, and allows us to create a whole new type of gaming challenge within the Halo world -- using the fluid dynamics of our physics engine, inattentive players will now be able to trip over loose gravel, stub their toes into door frames, and, of course, navigate jumping puzzles with ease. The revolutionary "textile fastening engine" will determine how far the player has traveled and convert that data into an actual REAL-TIME loosening of laces -- Leading to inevitable pratfalls for the inattentive player. And, most exciting of all, the players' footwear will be upgradable with custom designs created specifically for the Halo world by Nike, Reebok, and Ecko!
Here at Bungie, we believe that innovation is the key to creating exciting and fresh games that resonate with our audience. As such, it is technologies like this Revolutionary Foot Engine (revFeX) that keep us poised on the cutting edge of game development. Our highly savvy customer base grows more demanding with each release and it's important that we keep the nature of our products in step with what it is that hardcore gamers desire: The ability to add more and more meaningless bells and whistles to the same game that they've all been playing since Wolfenstein 3-d.
Thank you very much, and good night.
I assume this is intended to only play power chords and on top of that there is no way the machine can determine if you intend the third to be major or minor in the chord. Which is interesting because in the video, the chord changes from major to minor with no change in the performer. That's fine, let's then assume that you can select a key and it will adhere to the chords in that key. There is no third in a power chord. A power chord is a stacking root and fifth interval. It's not inherently major or minor. Just saying, is all.
So this special is 100% more respectful than what's shown on G4, yet still manages to be about 110% less respectable than late-night Cinemax or professional wrestling.
Seriously, am I the only one who feels like I should lock the door and draw the blinds when I'm watching television shows about video games? There's something about this sort of 'telejournalism' that just seems to echo and amplify the perceived social failures of its audience, and as a result, feels like the dirty little secret you have to hide from your friends.
Not a fan, I'd rather be caught watching porn.
I like to think that, no matter how much I like a particular company, it's usually prudent to reserve my judgement of a product's "totally awesomeness" until after I've actually experienced it. This is how you avoid the 'foot-in-mouth' syndrome that plagues the type of folks who talked about how the Virtual Boy would be the 'future of gaming' before its release. At this point, the system has not been released -- Proclaiming its superiority is really not a valid argument. Habeas corpus.