"But as for the subject of "art and videogames", this will be the only controversial subject I am going to deal with for which no specialized knowledge is necessary. It is such a simple, trivial issue that any mildly intelligent person off the street should be able to understand it, even if he has never touched a videogame in his life. It's basically an issue of semantics. The question "Can games be art?" is nonsensical, and therefore any answer one might come up with for it will also be nonsensical. Put another way: the question is not a question and the answer is not an answer. It's kind of like asking if the "sky" can be "sad". When you ask such a "question" you are using language in an improper way, and the only solution to the "problem" posed by the "question" is for you to simply STOP ASKING IT."
You are missing something here.
Many many people get ill as a result from prolonged tobacco use. As a result, medicaid and medicare have to pay out large amounts of money to fund the health care provided to tobacco users. As taxes rise and tobacco users quit and revenues fall, so do tobacco related illnesses. So, revenue goes down, but so do health care costs.
The bonus at the end is healthy citizens who can keep working and paying taxes versus dead people who were taxed more heavily than others for a short time.
Even if bio fuels were to achieve that 80-90 percent efficiency, there are plenty of other uses for oil. The timescale for bio fuel to replace gasoline is probably longer than 5-10 years.
However, assume that might be the case somehow. The price of oil would go down, because supply would outstrip demand, and oil would become more competitive again. Companies would look to use oil more for plastics, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and all the other weird and common stuff we never think that oil is used for on a daily basis. Ultimately, this extends the time for oil rich countries to get off their dependence on oil production and diversify their economies.
Anyways, the algae is supposed to be good in the desert right? Maybe they fill up those empty oil holes with carbon and shit, and export a different kind of fuel. Instead of exporting that terrorist shit, they will make up for it in clean green human fuel shit.
They did a bad job all around. They had hundreds of problems with the Nvidia 8800GT graphics cards. Its not like its an obscure little used card either. The game only runs for me on 1280x960 and I do not have a widescreen monitor. Also, it has to be in windowed mode with dynamic shadows off, or the game will crash randomly. It took hours to find these particular settings, all for a game that does not meet expectations.
In the preview videos, Bioware indicated Mass Effect would have cool tactical battles and an advanced dialogue system over older Bioware games, but this was a huge lie. The enemies will mob you at first chance, and controlling your allies is like controlling concrete pillars. The dialogue is the same as other bioware games, just with less options, and sometimes no options. They just give the appearance of 3 different answers, but he says the same thing either way. Also, not a single decision you make has a significant impact on the story.
Very disappointed user.
First, take the Revolution-Counter Revolution Idea to keep stability after declaring war on different government types. 2nd, I would start minting ducats at a low inflation rate to help pay for the Grand Army that is going to take over the Western Hemisphere. I would need some good diplomat advisors to lower my badboy for all the annexations. Finally, I would move my slider towards free subjects to lower revolt risk.
Oh, life isnt Europa Universalis III after all....
Also, a good reason Americans dont have universal coverage is the Republicans fear that Democrats would get and be able to take most of the credit. If the Democrats were successful some Republicans feared they would lose the White House for the next 50 years. Didnt Bob Dole so much as say that to Clinton in the 90's?
I was looking for a good quote, but I only found this timeline detailing Clinton's Healthcare policy in his first term.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/may96/background /health_debate_page1.html
The Tiger tank's purpose was to be a heavy tank. It never became irrelevant all through the war. Only when it was first introduced were there some mechanical problems, but those mostly got ironed out. The Tiger was never produced in large quantities, but that was understandable considering the Nazi War Machine and all its issues, as well as the fact it needed a bigger gun and more armor to take out those T-34s. And in all those WWII non-fiction book, the allied tankers always talk about their fear of Tiger and King Tiger Tanks.
Mccain lost in 2000 to Bush because he was more moderate and couldnt gain the backing of the Republican party. As a result, he is not going to make the same mistake twice. So he garners support of fellow Republicans so he can win his party's nomination and then be free to do what he wants.
I do not think we can blame the education problem in this country simply on one group or another, ask them to change their behaviour, and hope everything will come out dandy. I believe that the idea of compulsory education is fundamentally wrong. Schools don't encourage individuality, creativity, and motivation.
Think about a day at school. You may really enjoy your European history class, but 55 minutes later, ring ring, on to something else. You can't focus a large block of time on what you are interested in and instead learn indifference. John Taylor Gatto, a former teacher, has written a few books on the subject. I remember a passage referring to a study done in Mass. that showed literacy rates were higher before compulsory education. I live near Detroit, and everyday in the news you can expect to see articles and editorials complaining about the schools (this has been going on for decades). Has anyone ever wondered that maybe our schools can't be fixed? And that schools themselves are the problem? I think society seriously needs to look at alternatives to schools and stop placing such high value on pieces of paper.
I did some adding of the numbers from that link. 406 million bird deaths on the low side and 1.592 billion on the highside. The article didnt have numbers on hunting, disease, and other deathes. How can birds take such massive losses yearly? I didnt think they propogated like bugs, I guess they do...
Some quick looking shows that theres around 100 - 200 billion birds worldwide. I had no idea.
Myth: The Fallen Lords.. You could move your troops out of the way of the onslaught of exploding spells, wights, dwarven handgrenades. IF you want to talk about excruciating and painstaking carefulness, play it on the legendary difficulty setting...
At the Tokyo Game Show 2004, they showed a Metal Gear Solid 3 trailer. Near the end of it, words come up saying this is the final episode in the Metal Gear Solid Trilogy. I expect them to make more Metal Gear games, just not more Metal Gear Solid games.
This game is a prequel, but it does finish the storyline from the previous games, as many things were unexplained. In this case, I think making three games was necessary to finish and complete the story. Each game goes beyond the last and isnt simply an expansion pack.
Gamespot's reviews are generally not to far distant from the large number of reader reviews they get. Also it depends mainly on the author. Some authors seem to like a type of game more than another. In the past couple years I dont think I seen Gamespot give a PC game higher than a 9.4. I have never seen them give a game a much higher score than it deserved. Have you played Halo 2 yet? Play it, then cast your judgement.
Bin Laden would beef up the approval numbers, but wouldn't Saddam do just as much? Bin Laden seems to have completely escaped into that northern Pakistan region, that even Pakistani soldiers won't go into, much less American troops. Maybe American forces cant get Bin Laden without rock hard intelligence, good enough for special forces to go in and pick him up same day.
On the issue of timing, maybe the planning phase for Iraq was terrible. Perhaps they were overly optimistic in thinking that the Iraqi people would be happy beyond belief. It doesn't seem they counted on a guerrilla war at all. Also, Bush's approval numbers were slowly dwindling with time. The longer he waited to start the war, likely, the less support he would have. His approval only jumped up at certain times during major events, but afterwards it always steadily declined (From his election to 9/11, from 9/11 to Iraq major combat operations ending, to now).
Why make up a reason to go to war? This goes back to the planning stage. Completely overly optimistic, perhaps the planners suffered from Groupthink and putting down dissenting views. Being blind to other ideas and doubts, they did not account for much. This also allows for more secrecy, only those trusted similar views are allowed in the group, so you have less to worry about.
As for the oil, its not just oil. All the reconstruction contracts, like the no-bid contracts to Haliburton. Those same Corps. overcharging the government. Again, back to bad planning. They probably thought they could easily get the oil; however, they didn't count on guerrilla warriors taking out oil pipelines and facilities constantly.
I don't know they certain reason Bush decided to go to war with Iraq, but its evidently clear; Iraq was a poorly planned situation that allowed for the initial support of regular Iraqi citizens to be squandered, also foreign militant organizations were not only allowed to enter the country, but setup shop there. The plan only looked at Saddam's Army, not the possibility of Guerrilla warfare. For the reason that this was not planned for, Americans soldiers will die in Iraq for many years to come, regardless of Kerry or Bush being elected.
Actually, even though Woodrow Wilson proposed the League of Nations, the US did not sign on. Congress failed to sign the treaty, and as such the League of Nations was an utter failure.
Although, France's ideas on the treaty of Versailles also embittered and crippled Germany which helped almost exclusively lead to WWII.
I kinda agree with you, though you its important to look at Europes history to not make the same mistakes they did, or perhaps repeat our own mistakes. Mistakes are just as good as successes to learn from.
While current optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM use a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue laser instead, hence the name Blu-ray. The benefit of using a blue laser is that it has a shorter wavelength (405 nanometer) than a red laser (650 nanometer), which means that it's possible to focus the laser beam with even greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly on the disc and makes it possible to fit more data on the same size disc. Despite the different type of lasers used, Blu-ray Disc recorders can be made backwards compatible with current red-laser technologies and allow playback of CDs and DVDs.
Stand Alone Complex is not a movie. GITS:SAC is a TV show in the middle of its second season. Each season has its own plot arch, starting off with a seemingly small incident that turns into a giant conspiracy (sort of). The idea of the Stand Alone complex is anonymous random people all motivated toward a certain cause, but those people seem to have little relation to one another. The animation is top notch. The TV show easier to get into than the movies, because theres a greater amount of character development. Also, while theres still lots of philosophy references, its never overbearing.
There's torrents at Suprnova.org and Laughing man Fansubs has the newest season.
Yeah, but its just a matter of time before the army borrows the railgun technology from the Navy . After that they will come up with the idea of shooting nuclear warheads to get passed enemy radar. Then, they only need to stick it on a tank. Perhaps a walking tank with gears? Perhaps it will be called Metal Gear? A nuclear equipped all-terrain capable walking battle tank.
However, alls the terrorists have to do then is invest in some cigarettes and stinger missiles, perhaps some optical camoflauge as well...
"We expect that by 2010 about half the daily volume needed to meet projected demand is not on production today..."
He could have been referring to refineries and their production. One of the reasons gas prices go up is because the US doesn't have enough refinery capacity to meet demand. Almost all of them work at full capacity now and new refineries aren't being built. So if demand grows, there may be enough crude oil, but not enough gasoline.
As for running out of oil, I don't really know about all that. Some say oil isn't all really made from fossil fuels. Others say oil won't run out till 2075, or that it could run out in 10 years. I don't really know what to believe. I do know that there is a very large supply of oil in the US, and I am not talking about the Strategic reserve. Due to environmental regulations and politics, much oil is untapped in the US. That kind of makes sense too, bleed the rest of the world dry first before we go tearing up our own backyard.
Anyway, if the govt will allow some new, cleaner, more efficient refineries to be built using newer technology, I don't think we will really have a gasoline problem, especially if the country does go into economic downturn as a result of a gas shortage. Furthermore, another problem with oil or gas shortages is the govt imposing price controls. They tried that once before from 1973 to 1979 (I think thats the correct timeframe) and it was disastrous because it led to surpluses in some areas, and mass shortages in others.
Oh and a quick Google search shows the last American refinery was built in 1976.
Did anyone else notice the irony of an infantry marine posting as an anonymous coward?
(no no, I like the marines, but I couldnt pass it up...seeing as how I am a gigantic ass with two arms protruding allowing me to express myself....God, I love Cottenelle..)
Well it just seems to me, that if you have $60 billion in cash, you could kind of speed up the Longhorn process a little bit, hiring more people and what not. On the other hand rushing XBOX 2 when XBOX sales are still strong (especially after the price drop) could be self-defeating. A stronger XBOX that could develop more, gain more market share, and have a better library of games could be better for XBOX 2 because it could be indicative of what to expect from the next generation console. As time goes on as well, the PS2 just seems weaker and weaker compared to an XBOX now that prices are matched. Over time that gap will seem worse, because the XBOX has stronger hardware. Also, previous would be PS2 exclusives are becoming cross-platform games which is also to the XBOX's advantage. Partly, because of the better graphics XBOX offers, but mainly because of the better multiplayer experience XBOX Live offers for these same games. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is an excellent example of this.
Except if you remember OJ isn't in a situation where he can't hope to pay off that debt. OJ has this nice little NFL pension plan that isn't allowed to be touched. In fact, if you ever watched those interviews with OJ over the recent years you can see he is quite happy and living a nice life with his pension. He also claims that people still treat him good and ask him for autographs and such.
Not that I like how things turned out for OJ exactly, but make sure you have large assets in retirement funds so if you have ever lose a civil case, you will still have those savings they cant touch.
Slashdot Mirror
http://insomnia.ac/commentary/for_artfags_only/
Smartest man on the planet says:
"But as for the subject of "art and videogames", this will be the only controversial subject I am going to deal with for which no specialized knowledge is necessary. It is such a simple, trivial issue that any mildly intelligent person off the street should be able to understand it, even if he has never touched a videogame in his life. It's basically an issue of semantics. The question "Can games be art?" is nonsensical, and therefore any answer one might come up with for it will also be nonsensical. Put another way: the question is not a question and the answer is not an answer. It's kind of like asking if the "sky" can be "sad". When you ask such a "question" you are using language in an improper way, and the only solution to the "problem" posed by the "question" is for you to simply STOP ASKING IT."
Most of the HD resolutions from the consoles are fake anyways, as this article points out. http://insomnia.ac/hardware/the_fake-hd_era/
You are missing something here. Many many people get ill as a result from prolonged tobacco use. As a result, medicaid and medicare have to pay out large amounts of money to fund the health care provided to tobacco users. As taxes rise and tobacco users quit and revenues fall, so do tobacco related illnesses. So, revenue goes down, but so do health care costs. The bonus at the end is healthy citizens who can keep working and paying taxes versus dead people who were taxed more heavily than others for a short time.
Even if bio fuels were to achieve that 80-90 percent efficiency, there are plenty of other uses for oil. The timescale for bio fuel to replace gasoline is probably longer than 5-10 years. However, assume that might be the case somehow. The price of oil would go down, because supply would outstrip demand, and oil would become more competitive again. Companies would look to use oil more for plastics, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and all the other weird and common stuff we never think that oil is used for on a daily basis. Ultimately, this extends the time for oil rich countries to get off their dependence on oil production and diversify their economies. Anyways, the algae is supposed to be good in the desert right? Maybe they fill up those empty oil holes with carbon and shit, and export a different kind of fuel. Instead of exporting that terrorist shit, they will make up for it in clean green human fuel shit.
They did a bad job all around. They had hundreds of problems with the Nvidia 8800GT graphics cards. Its not like its an obscure little used card either. The game only runs for me on 1280x960 and I do not have a widescreen monitor. Also, it has to be in windowed mode with dynamic shadows off, or the game will crash randomly. It took hours to find these particular settings, all for a game that does not meet expectations. In the preview videos, Bioware indicated Mass Effect would have cool tactical battles and an advanced dialogue system over older Bioware games, but this was a huge lie. The enemies will mob you at first chance, and controlling your allies is like controlling concrete pillars. The dialogue is the same as other bioware games, just with less options, and sometimes no options. They just give the appearance of 3 different answers, but he says the same thing either way. Also, not a single decision you make has a significant impact on the story. Very disappointed user.
First, take the Revolution-Counter Revolution Idea to keep stability after declaring war on different government types. 2nd, I would start minting ducats at a low inflation rate to help pay for the Grand Army that is going to take over the Western Hemisphere. I would need some good diplomat advisors to lower my badboy for all the annexations. Finally, I would move my slider towards free subjects to lower revolt risk. Oh, life isnt Europa Universalis III after all....
Also, a good reason Americans dont have universal coverage is the Republicans fear that Democrats would get and be able to take most of the credit. If the Democrats were successful some Republicans feared they would lose the White House for the next 50 years. Didnt Bob Dole so much as say that to Clinton in the 90's? I was looking for a good quote, but I only found this timeline detailing Clinton's Healthcare policy in his first term. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/may96/background /health_debate_page1.html
The Tiger tank's purpose was to be a heavy tank. It never became irrelevant all through the war. Only when it was first introduced were there some mechanical problems, but those mostly got ironed out. The Tiger was never produced in large quantities, but that was understandable considering the Nazi War Machine and all its issues, as well as the fact it needed a bigger gun and more armor to take out those T-34s. And in all those WWII non-fiction book, the allied tankers always talk about their fear of Tiger and King Tiger Tanks.
Mccain lost in 2000 to Bush because he was more moderate and couldnt gain the backing of the Republican party. As a result, he is not going to make the same mistake twice. So he garners support of fellow Republicans so he can win his party's nomination and then be free to do what he wants.
I do not think we can blame the education problem in this country simply on one group or another, ask them to change their behaviour, and hope everything will come out dandy. I believe that the idea of compulsory education is fundamentally wrong. Schools don't encourage individuality, creativity, and motivation.
Think about a day at school. You may really enjoy your European history class, but 55 minutes later, ring ring, on to something else. You can't focus a large block of time on what you are interested in and instead learn indifference. John Taylor Gatto, a former teacher, has written a few books on the subject. I remember a passage referring to a study done in Mass. that showed literacy rates were higher before compulsory education. I live near Detroit, and everyday in the news you can expect to see articles and editorials complaining about the schools (this has been going on for decades). Has anyone ever wondered that maybe our schools can't be fixed? And that schools themselves are the problem? I think society seriously needs to look at alternatives to schools and stop placing such high value on pieces of paper.
"The goal should be making free-distribution licenses mainstream, not making it easier to violate licenses."
To go about this licensing scheme I proprose a new manifesto, a Communist Manifesto where the people own everything! oh...forgot..
I did some adding of the numbers from that link. 406 million bird deaths on the low side and 1.592 billion on the highside. The article didnt have numbers on hunting, disease, and other deathes. How can birds take such massive losses yearly? I didnt think they propogated like bugs, I guess they do...
Some quick looking shows that theres around 100 - 200 billion birds worldwide. I had no idea.
Myth: The Fallen Lords.. You could move your troops out of the way of the onslaught of exploding spells, wights, dwarven handgrenades. IF you want to talk about excruciating and painstaking carefulness, play it on the legendary difficulty setting...
At the Tokyo Game Show 2004, they showed a Metal Gear Solid 3 trailer. Near the end of it, words come up saying this is the final episode in the Metal Gear Solid Trilogy. I expect them to make more Metal Gear games, just not more Metal Gear Solid games.
i nd ex.html
Theres trailers for download at Konami's site:
http://www.konamijpn.com/products/mgs3/english/
This game is a prequel, but it does finish the storyline from the previous games, as many things were unexplained. In this case, I think making three games was necessary to finish and complete the story. Each game goes beyond the last and isnt simply an expansion pack.
Gamespot's reviews are generally not to far distant from the large number of reader reviews they get. Also it depends mainly on the author. Some authors seem to like a type of game more than another. In the past couple years I dont think I seen Gamespot give a PC game higher than a 9.4. I have never seen them give a game a much higher score than it deserved. Have you played Halo 2 yet? Play it, then cast your judgement.
Bin Laden would beef up the approval numbers, but wouldn't Saddam do just as much? Bin Laden seems to have completely escaped into that northern Pakistan region, that even Pakistani soldiers won't go into, much less American troops. Maybe American forces cant get Bin Laden without rock hard intelligence, good enough for special forces to go in and pick him up same day.
On the issue of timing, maybe the planning phase for Iraq was terrible. Perhaps they were overly optimistic in thinking that the Iraqi people would be happy beyond belief. It doesn't seem they counted on a guerrilla war at all. Also, Bush's approval numbers were slowly dwindling with time. The longer he waited to start the war, likely, the less support he would have. His approval only jumped up at certain times during major events, but afterwards it always steadily declined (From his election to 9/11, from 9/11 to Iraq major combat operations ending, to now).
Why make up a reason to go to war? This goes back to the planning stage. Completely overly optimistic, perhaps the planners suffered from Groupthink and putting down dissenting views. Being blind to other ideas and doubts, they did not account for much. This also allows for more secrecy, only those trusted similar views are allowed in the group, so you have less to worry about.
As for the oil, its not just oil. All the reconstruction contracts, like the no-bid contracts to Haliburton. Those same Corps. overcharging the government. Again, back to bad planning. They probably thought they could easily get the oil; however, they didn't count on guerrilla warriors taking out oil pipelines and facilities constantly.
I don't know they certain reason Bush decided to go to war with Iraq, but its evidently clear; Iraq was a poorly planned situation that allowed for the initial support of regular Iraqi citizens to be squandered, also foreign militant organizations were not only allowed to enter the country, but setup shop there. The plan only looked at Saddam's Army, not the possibility of Guerrilla warfare. For the reason that this was not planned for, Americans soldiers will die in Iraq for many years to come, regardless of Kerry or Bush being elected.
Actually, even though Woodrow Wilson proposed the League of Nations, the US did not sign on. Congress failed to sign the treaty, and as such the League of Nations was an utter failure.
Although, France's ideas on the treaty of Versailles also embittered and crippled Germany which helped almost exclusively lead to WWII.
I kinda agree with you, though you its important to look at Europes history to not make the same mistakes they did, or perhaps repeat our own mistakes. Mistakes are just as good as successes to learn from.
While current optical disc technologies such as DVD, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM use a red laser to read and write data, the new format uses a blue laser instead, hence the name Blu-ray. The benefit of using a blue laser is that it has a shorter wavelength (405 nanometer) than a red laser (650 nanometer), which means that it's possible to focus the laser beam with even greater precision. This allows data to be packed more tightly on the disc and makes it possible to fit more data on the same size disc. Despite the different type of lasers used, Blu-ray Disc recorders can be made backwards compatible with current red-laser technologies and allow playback of CDs and DVDs.
ROYGBIV - Somewhere between green and indigo.
http://www.blu-ray.com/info/
Stand Alone Complex is not a movie. GITS:SAC is a TV show in the middle of its second season. Each season has its own plot arch, starting off with a seemingly small incident that turns into a giant conspiracy (sort of). The idea of the Stand Alone complex is anonymous random people all motivated toward a certain cause, but those people seem to have little relation to one another. The animation is top notch. The TV show easier to get into than the movies, because theres a greater amount of character development. Also, while theres still lots of philosophy references, its never overbearing.
There's torrents at Suprnova.org and Laughing man Fansubs has the newest season.
http://gits.no-jutsu.com/gits/
Yeah, but its just a matter of time before the army borrows the railgun technology from the Navy . After that they will come up with the idea of shooting nuclear warheads to get passed enemy radar. Then, they only need to stick it on a tank. Perhaps a walking tank with gears? Perhaps it will be called Metal Gear? A nuclear equipped all-terrain capable walking battle tank.
However, alls the terrorists have to do then is invest in some cigarettes and stinger missiles, perhaps some optical camoflauge as well...
SNAKE!!!!!!!
"We expect that by 2010 about half the daily volume needed to meet projected demand is not on production today..."
He could have been referring to refineries and their production. One of the reasons gas prices go up is because the US doesn't have enough refinery capacity to meet demand. Almost all of them work at full capacity now and new refineries aren't being built. So if demand grows, there may be enough crude oil, but not enough gasoline.
As for running out of oil, I don't really know about all that. Some say oil isn't all really made from fossil fuels. Others say oil won't run out till 2075, or that it could run out in 10 years. I don't really know what to believe. I do know that there is a very large supply of oil in the US, and I am not talking about the Strategic reserve. Due to environmental regulations and politics, much oil is untapped in the US. That kind of makes sense too, bleed the rest of the world dry first before we go tearing up our own backyard.
Anyway, if the govt will allow some new, cleaner, more efficient refineries to be built using newer technology, I don't think we will really have a gasoline problem, especially if the country does go into economic downturn as a result of a gas shortage. Furthermore, another problem with oil or gas shortages is the govt imposing price controls. They tried that once before from 1973 to 1979 (I think thats the correct timeframe) and it was disastrous because it led to surpluses in some areas, and mass shortages in others.
Oh and a quick Google search shows the last American refinery was built in 1976.
Yes, it is.
And now Slashdot is going to get sued because of that post and a the RIAA will get an injunction to shut down the site in only moments.
Thanks alot jerk...
but then again, I am a moron...
Did anyone else notice the irony of an infantry marine posting as an anonymous coward?
(no no, I like the marines, but I couldnt pass it up...seeing as how I am a gigantic ass with two arms protruding allowing me to express myself....God, I love Cottenelle..)
Well it just seems to me, that if you have $60 billion in cash, you could kind of speed up the Longhorn process a little bit, hiring more people and what not. On the other hand rushing XBOX 2 when XBOX sales are still strong (especially after the price drop) could be self-defeating. A stronger XBOX that could develop more, gain more market share, and have a better library of games could be better for XBOX 2 because it could be indicative of what to expect from the next generation console. As time goes on as well, the PS2 just seems weaker and weaker compared to an XBOX now that prices are matched. Over time that gap will seem worse, because the XBOX has stronger hardware. Also, previous would be PS2 exclusives are becoming cross-platform games which is also to the XBOX's advantage. Partly, because of the better graphics XBOX offers, but mainly because of the better multiplayer experience XBOX Live offers for these same games. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow is an excellent example of this.
Except if you remember OJ isn't in a situation where he can't hope to pay off that debt. OJ has this nice little NFL pension plan that isn't allowed to be touched. In fact, if you ever watched those interviews with OJ over the recent years you can see he is quite happy and living a nice life with his pension. He also claims that people still treat him good and ask him for autographs and such.
Not that I like how things turned out for OJ exactly, but make sure you have large assets in retirement funds so if you have ever lose a civil case, you will still have those savings they cant touch.