Family Guy Tennis Family Guy Go-Kart Racing Family Guy - Stewies Quest for World Domination RPG and Family Guy: Apocalypse, using the super uber cool Half-Life 2 engine.
I only knew of them from reading about their actions in various newspaper articles and they were usually cited synonymously with "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" Thus my assumption. After writing that post I realized that I was probably confusing the two. (hinsight is 20/20) So I went to their website and discovered they're a rightwing watchdog group. (So my example is still technically correct!)
The political groups (Democrats and Republicans) have been doing this for years. Setup a "think tank" with an innocuous sounding name ("People for the American Way" (an anti-Religion group), "The Heritage Foundation" (a Conservative/Republican group) ) and then start spewing "research" and press releases.
Microsoft does this itself. (Running a campaign of sending out letters to newspapers across the US as a "grassroots" effort)
Wal-Mart is running a "counter-campaign" to try to save it's image.
Is it wrong? It's under the table to be sure. if it's not putting out lies or misrepresenting it's information I don't think so. Maybe their view is right and the only way they'll get their message heard is if they use a messenger that doesn't automatically generate a prejudiced response. I mean, how many people would read the article: "Phone Company research shows that Municipal Wireless is a bad idea" without thinking "Ah, the phone company's just pissed that they're not getting money. (and no, I don't think the phone company's right here...I'm just sayin')
fixed their japanese launch problems (like "launching" disks and the flakey square button) I don't feel the need to preorder... I'll wait for the 2nd generation.
How long can they keep this up? They're a publically held company and eventually they're going to get entrenched like every other "smart" company. Then they quietly stop giving away millions and start selling their address lists...
Even Ben and Jerry's had to drop its "no executive makes more than 10 times the lowest level employees salary" rule when Ben and Jerry looked for a new CEO.
I'm all for stuff like this, but how do you sustain it over the long term?
(Where The Phone Company tries to take over the world by implanting a phone in everybody's skull so they can make calls any time and any where... and be tracked...)
Like Windows, it's all allowed because it opens up a previous non-existing market. The SOP for video distribution in the west at the time was: Nobody but kids will buy "cartoon shows" so why should make a US release? Once the market becomes real though, that vector into the market becomes "evil" and must be stopped. Now that the market is tightly controlled so we can be forced to purchase shoddy subtitled DVDs of Ghost in the Shell 2 and thousands upon thousands of versions of Dragonball Z (both censored and uncensored) These uppity fansubbers are getting in the way of REAL business. (Like forcing them to FIX Ghost in the Shell 2 or that Manga does a lousy job of DVD transfers)
Futher ironic because Fansubbers have a "code of ethics" in that if a title gets picked up for distribution in the west, they stop distributing it.
They only need to look at Sci-Fi's success with Battlestar Galactica (which has been bittorrented everywhere from the UK where it was shown over the fall). Guess what. It's STILL popular and still has more viewers than any other show on the Sci-Fi channel AND beats Enterprise. (And the Uber geeks have already seen it.)
The moral of the story is: People like stuff that doesn't suck. And they'll pay to see it again and again.
"When it comes to kids buying games, it is RARE that I see a child purchase a game..."
This is also like saying "4 out of 5 dentists" How many kids do you watch when you go into a store? When do you go into the store? What stores do you go to? I know the cliche is that parents care about what their kids buy, but in fact I've seen many kids buy games WITHOUT their parents present or buy M rated games with their parents not even batting an eye. (I watched parents bring their 6 year old kids in to see both South Park the movie and then promptly take them right back out during the 2nd musical number.)
I'm not saying that parents aren't responsible. What's offensive to one person isn't offensive to another. It's a very complex issue and why I was against the ratings system to begin with. It's an arbitrary system of saying this or that is a violent act and X number of those equals a more mature rating.
But what I think we can all agree on is that people want a higher quality of game that doesn't pander to the more banal interests. (IE The NPR or Public Broadcasting of the common media)
An M rated game isn't an automatic best seller (there's plenty of evidence of that) What I said is that it's easier to make a successful M rated game based on sex and violence than it is to make an E rated game like Civilization, M.U.L.E. or Myst.
That you have to fall back to Sports games (which I point out in my post) proves my point. You only need to look at the shevles of the stores to see that there's far more games based on violence and scantily clad women then there are constructive purpose ones... and most of those are in the Nintendo camp.
I applaud you in your parenting efforts. I think that's the way it should be. I'm also not supporting the censorship of games via the rating system (which is why I'm against THAT). But I do sympathize with those parents that desire a better selection of games for their kids (or themselves) than the likes of Mario Party 6.
I would much rather Gaming Media work on accurately portraying the games in their reviews rather than the slick non-informational hypefest's that they are.
If anything, it is their portrayal of the industry that has made the stereotype. Not the gamers themselves.
(Except for those of us who played D&D wearing our cloaks to school. We brought that upon ourselves!)
Oops... shoulda been "reading tea leaves". Like the others (and Tarot cards) it can be used to get a reading of the drinker's current personality state. I just googled for it and turned up an actual name for it: Tasseography.
Bill Gates' psychological analysis using the science of Numerology, his tea leaves from his last sushi dinner and a phrenologic reading of his cranium.
Now personally, I think ratings are all fluff and a giant political boondoggle to argue about silly stuff while ignoring real issues (like a poor education system). A parent should be able to look at a game like Playboy Mansion or Grand Theft Auto III and determine that that's not a good thing. Instead of claiming to be faked out by a bad rating system.
But it's hubris for the ratings board to be saying "oh look, M games make up only a small percentage of all the games available because there are also sports titles too!" The big money makers ARE M rated games because, face it, everybody bought DOAX because they love to play video game volleyball...
The scientific evidence is "overwhelmingly" true and we should not deny the "scientific" evidence. When the scientific evidence shows the carbon dating was potentially done on a patch of the shroud of turin, it's because it was made from the "bigfoot" suit (happy face).
But then it just goes to show you that there's more to religious beliefs than religion...
I wonder if a 40 bit key is a power-related problem with the key (IE can't adequately transmit a longer key with the small amount of power available) or just a "40 bits is enough security for anyone" problem or "law enforcement says don't use anything they can't crack" problem...
The power glove could sense forward motion as well as directional motion. And you could equate those to button presses. So the forward motion could become the right punch and an up-down motion could become a left punch.
Slashdot Mirror
They always come out square!
Family Guy Tennis
Family Guy Go-Kart Racing
Family Guy - Stewies Quest for World Domination RPG
and
Family Guy: Apocalypse, using the super uber cool Half-Life 2 engine.
I only knew of them from reading about their actions in various newspaper articles and they were usually cited synonymously with "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" Thus my assumption. After writing that post I realized that I was probably confusing the two. (hinsight is 20/20) So I went to their website and discovered they're a rightwing watchdog group. (So my example is still technically correct!)
The political groups (Democrats and Republicans) have been doing this for years. Setup a "think tank" with an innocuous sounding name ("People for the American Way" (an anti-Religion group), "The Heritage Foundation" (a Conservative/Republican group) ) and then start spewing "research" and press releases.
Microsoft does this itself. (Running a campaign of sending out letters to newspapers across the US as a "grassroots" effort)
Wal-Mart is running a "counter-campaign" to try to save it's image.
Is it wrong? It's under the table to be sure. if it's not putting out lies or misrepresenting it's information I don't think so. Maybe their view is right and the only way they'll get their message heard is if they use a messenger that doesn't automatically generate a prejudiced response.
I mean, how many people would read the article: "Phone Company research shows that Municipal Wireless is a bad idea" without thinking "Ah, the phone company's just pissed that they're not getting money.
(and no, I don't think the phone company's right here...I'm just sayin')
I picked the wrong day to stop drinking Dew...
"female users and older markets"
"female users and penetration of new markets..."
together like that?
fixed their japanese launch problems
(like "launching" disks and the flakey square button)
I don't feel the need to preorder... I'll wait for the 2nd generation.
How long can they keep this up? They're a publically held company and eventually they're going to get entrenched like every other "smart" company. Then they quietly stop giving away millions and start selling their address lists...
Even Ben and Jerry's had to drop its "no executive makes more than 10 times the lowest level employees salary" rule when Ben and Jerry looked for a new CEO.
I'm all for stuff like this, but how do you sustain it over the long term?
(Where The Phone Company tries to take over the world by implanting a phone in everybody's skull so they can make calls any time and any where... and be tracked...)
Like Windows, it's all allowed because it opens up a previous non-existing market. The SOP for video distribution in the west at the time was: Nobody but kids will buy "cartoon shows" so why should make a US release? Once the market becomes real though, that vector into the market becomes "evil" and must be stopped. Now that the market is tightly controlled so we can be forced to purchase shoddy subtitled DVDs of Ghost in the Shell 2 and thousands upon thousands of versions of Dragonball Z (both censored and uncensored) These uppity fansubbers are getting in the way of REAL business. (Like forcing them to FIX Ghost in the Shell 2 or that Manga does a lousy job of DVD transfers)
Futher ironic because Fansubbers have a "code of ethics" in that if a title gets picked up for distribution in the west, they stop distributing it.
They only need to look at Sci-Fi's success with Battlestar Galactica (which has been bittorrented everywhere from the UK where it was shown over the fall). Guess what. It's STILL popular and still has more viewers than any other show on the Sci-Fi channel AND beats Enterprise. (And the Uber geeks have already seen it.)
The moral of the story is: People like stuff that doesn't suck. And they'll pay to see it again and again.
in Pennsylvania. Not the whole state.
"When it comes to kids buying games, it is RARE that I see a child purchase a game..."
This is also like saying "4 out of 5 dentists" How many kids do you watch when you go into a store? When do you go into the store? What stores do you go to? I know the cliche is that parents care about what their kids buy, but in fact I've seen many kids buy games WITHOUT their parents present or buy M rated games with their parents not even batting an eye. (I watched parents bring their 6 year old kids in to see both South Park the movie and then promptly take them right back out during the 2nd musical number.)
I'm not saying that parents aren't responsible. What's offensive to one person isn't offensive to another. It's a very complex issue and why I was against the ratings system to begin with. It's an arbitrary system of saying this or that is a violent act and X number of those equals a more mature rating.
But what I think we can all agree on is that people want a higher quality of game that doesn't pander to the more banal interests. (IE The NPR or Public Broadcasting of the common media)
An M rated game isn't an automatic best seller (there's plenty of evidence of that) What I said is that it's easier to make a successful M rated game based on sex and violence than it is to make an E rated game like Civilization, M.U.L.E. or Myst.
That you have to fall back to Sports games (which I point out in my post) proves my point. You only need to look at the shevles of the stores to see that there's far more games based on violence and scantily clad women then there are constructive purpose ones... and most of those are in the Nintendo camp.
I applaud you in your parenting efforts. I think that's the way it should be. I'm also not supporting the censorship of games via the rating system (which is why I'm against THAT). But I do sympathize with those parents that desire a better selection of games for their kids (or themselves) than the likes of Mario Party 6.
I would much rather Gaming Media work on accurately portraying the games in their reviews rather than the slick non-informational hypefest's that they are.
If anything, it is their portrayal of the industry that has made the stereotype. Not the gamers themselves.
(Except for those of us who played D&D wearing our cloaks to school. We brought that upon ourselves!)
Oops... shoulda been "reading tea leaves". Like the others (and Tarot cards) it can be used to get a reading of the drinker's current personality state.
I just googled for it and turned up an actual name for it: Tasseography.
Wow... learn something new every day...
Bill Gates' psychological analysis using the science of Numerology, his tea leaves from his last sushi dinner and a phrenologic reading of his cranium.
The problem is that many games rated T contain gratuitous sex and violence, M contains straight out sex acts and A (Adults) isn't used at all.
In addition MOST kids are buying and playing M titles.
http://www.lionlamb.org/factsheet1.htm
http://www.lionlamb.org/E_T_M_rated_games.htm
Now personally, I think ratings are all fluff and a giant political boondoggle to argue about silly stuff while ignoring real issues (like a poor education system). A parent should be able to look at a game like Playboy Mansion or Grand Theft Auto III and determine that that's not a good thing. Instead of claiming to be faked out by a bad rating system.
But it's hubris for the ratings board to be saying "oh look, M games make up only a small percentage of all the games available because there are also sports titles too!" The big money makers ARE M rated games because, face it, everybody bought DOAX because they love to play video game volleyball...
The scientific evidence is "overwhelmingly" true and we should not deny the "scientific" evidence. When the scientific evidence shows the carbon dating was potentially done on a patch of the shroud of turin, it's because it was made from the "bigfoot" suit (happy face).
But then it just goes to show you that there's more to religious beliefs than religion...
Okay, who had 3 months on the betting pool!
I wonder if a 40 bit key is a power-related problem with the key (IE can't adequately transmit a longer key with the small amount of power available) or just a "40 bits is enough security for anyone" problem or "law enforcement says don't use anything they can't crack" problem...
The power glove could sense forward motion as well as directional motion. And you could equate those to button presses. So the forward motion could become the right punch and an up-down motion could become a left punch.
Still more hassle than it was probably worth...
On Her Majesty's Secret Service is older than Live and Let Die... Why letterbox it, but not the others... or Moonraker for that matter?
Is still remembered and mourned in the US. Tiannamen Square is a "non-event" in China.
I'll buy something else. (Oh wait... I already have... It's called the DS)
I like whiz bang interfaces. But I'm not sure if I want them in "workhorse" software like video editing, Office, etc.
scans your system.