We also know that certain kinds of literature can promote suicidal tendencies in minors.
How well documented is this? I can certainly imagine that a very depressed person might be triggered to commit suicide at a particular time by a particular book. But some fraction of those would probably have found some other trigger if that particular book was not available. So is the book causing suicides or just redistributing them in time?
Why is it that we're always presented research that tries to prove that violent (and sexual) entertainment are some how causing this negative effect on our brains.
They always sight very vague evidence such as imaging to show that "look see... its a negative effect"
Its just an MRI. It doesn't show response, or thought. It doesn't prove that it is a negative response or a positive response.
Very perceptive comment. In fact, the science does not exist to characterize this as a positive or negative effect--it's spin, not science.
I think when we're talking about crime statistics, we need to be very careful with what we control for. I'm no statistician, but I understand the basics. There's a good example of how to set up controls in "Freakonomics", where they attempt to establish causality between various hypothetical factors and violent crime. It's very tough, but they make a good case for the sole important factor being police presence per capita. To arrive at that conclusion, they had to control for geography, economics, demographic changes, and legislature, among other things. Here, I think it's obvious that we have 2 huge factors that may be skewing results that we'd have to find a way to control for before any conclusive statements can be made:
You can still make the statement that I made: Any pro-violence effect of videogames (if it exists) is swamped by other social and demographic factors affecting rates of violence.
1. Baby boomers are getting older, population on the whole is getting older, and so there is a vast number of people that are "retiring" out of violent crime age.
However, this one can be excluded out of hand as a potential factor obscuring a hypothetical pro-violence effect of videogames. If you look at the violence statistics broken down by age, you will see that the fall has been particularly prominent among young males--precisely the demographic most likely to engage in violent crime, and also the major consumers of violent videogames.
2. The possibility that propensity to violence may not manifest until later in life. Suppose exposure to violent content does increase one's propensity to violence. If we believe kids are affected by this, it's entirely plausible to expect those people to be more violent 10 or 20 years down the road, not within a year.
And this one is so implausible on its face that it surely qualifies as special pleading. Essentially, what you are proposing is that videogames do not increase violence over the age range at which people are most susceptible to committing violent crimes, but somehow do increase violence at a later age (conveniently, with a delay long enough not to be reflected in the statistics) at an age when (as you put it) people are "retiring out" of violent crime.
The lowering of crime rates has many factor and people should use cation when using it in comparison
Doubtless. But what the statistics do prove is that any hypothetical violence-inducing effect of videogames must be so small as to be swamped by other social and demographic factors affecting crime rates.
That shows that crime rates are INCREASING since 2003
And 2005 is lower than 2000. But this kind of data snooping is meaningless. If you cherry-pick at these little year to year fluctuations that are down at the level of the statistical noise, you can rationalize any kind of claim you want. I'm not talking about the small and obviously statistically nonsignificant fluctuations over a year or two. With this sort of statistics, only large, consistent multiyear trends are meaningful. And the clear trend over the period when videogames have been increasing in popularity has been downward.
There are to many factors. 1) Maybe violent crime caused by long term exposer to video game has been increasing, but not enough to overtake other factor limiting crime?
Which merely restates my point--the pro-violence effect of videogames if any is negligible relative to other social and demographic factors impacting rates of violence.
2) Maybe the realism need to begin to cross the uncanny valley?
As for the "uncanny valley," the term was coined to account for the fact that people find state-of-the art humanoid computer graphics in multimillion dollar movies where each frame can take minutes to render to be eerie, rather than convincingly human. Are you seriously arguing that the much less sophisticated graphics in games have crossed the valley?
3) Maybe there is no long term effects.
4) that study goes to 2003. People are a lot more realistic in games now then they were before 2003.
This is sheer rationalization. Over the period when games have gone from blocky 2D cartoon characters to 3D human-looking characters with simulated blood and gore, the only clear trend is downward. So you are arguing that it is just about to start trending upward "real soon now?"
I suggest you read up on fMRIs and the current understanding of the brain. It's mind blowing amazing.
I am a neuroscientist, and have been following such studies for years. I stand by my assessment. These blood flow measurements are intriguing, and can tell us a lot about which parts of the brain are being activated under particular circumstances, but we are a long way from understanding what that means in terms of human thought, emotion, and behavior. It is still very much speculative.
According to that chart the homicide rate stopped dropping in about 2003.
Still doesn't looks like an upward trend, though does it? If anything, it seems to have stabilized, and at a much lower level than before videogames became popular. Obviously, a downward trend cannot continue forever, or criminals would at some point be resurrecting the dead. Currently, we aren't that far above the levels that prevailed in the '50's. If videogames had such a powerful pro-violence effect--one sufficient to justify all of this concern and investment in research, then shouldn't there be a clear upward trend?
The issue is you can beat the game on Hard with the Wrench as your only weapon. Just lure a big daddy outside a vita chamber and nail him with your leveled up wrench, rinse and repeat till it suits your fancy.
Indeed you could. Why would you want to? I've never understood why people persist in doing something that is no fun, then complain that it is no fun:
Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this..." Doctor: "Then don't do that."
Besides, if you reread what I wrote, you'll see that I suggested using the wrench in addition to refraining from using the Vita Chambers. This does not require a patch to disable Vita Chambers...simply reload your saved game if you die and end up in a Vita Chamber.
Studies have suggested that the decline in violent crime is pretty much a result of locking up almost everyone that might step out of line. Some people won't be satisfied until all violence has been suppressed (except, of course, violence done by the state or their subcontractors). I don't expect reason will be an impediment to their agenda
"Suggest" is science-speak for "I don't actually have any convincing evidence, but this is what I think."
Not only are they wrong, they overlook a critical piece of information. Games have been becoming more and more realistic. so when they look back and say "When I was a kid, nobody went crazy" it doesn't exactly apply to current games, Also anecdotal evidence is almost always wrong.
So let's forget about anecdotes and look at the statistics. What has happened to rates of violent crimes as games have gotten more and more realistically violent? They've dropped. What's more, they've dropped most dramatically in the very demographic group that plays these games. That doesn't necessarily prove that games prevent violence, but it does prove that the pro-violence effect of games (if there is any at all) is so small as to be utterly swamped by other social and demographic factors affecting rates of violence.
As for brain scans, you can be sure that pretty much any activity that people enjoy and like to do repeatedly alters brain activity, but the interpretation of these changes in blood flow over rather large regions of the brain is still pretty much at the level of "Just-So" stories. At this point, it's a lot more speculation than science.
The basic issue is there was no cost to dying totally undermined the atmosphere, and tension they tried so desperately to create. What fun is a "survival horror" if you're not scared?
They could have simply "fixed" the larger issues by scaling back on all the shit they gave you, like not having a vita chamber every 10 feet (I know you can turn them off now, but that doesn't solve the issue when you seldom die), or less ammo, or less health packs, or fewer/ no health stations or if you can buy health it actually cost you an amount of money you might care about like $400 instead of $10.
I'm always amazed by the people who take advantage of all the things that make the game easier, and then complain that it is too easy. Are people really so undisciplined that they are unable to make their own challenges, and have to have them forced on them? Sure, you can pop away at a Big Daddy with your pistol 'til it kills you, resurrect in the Vita chamber, shoot it a few more times, die, and repeat until the Big Daddy is dead? But why would you want to?
Don't like the Vita-chambers? Don't use 'em! If you die, just reload from a saved game. For a real challenge, don't do any manual saves, and rely on the automatic saves at the beginning of the level. If that's not scary enough, how about making the wrench your default weapon?
Why is it that everyone claiming that bioshock really IS all that is good and right in a game ignores the arguments against that position that actually have substance. Things like the DRM clusterfuck and bloody wierd mouse controls, tallscreen FOV, and the player character's lack of impact on the world.
Because a lot of the complaints are just kind of dumb. For example, the "tallscreen field of view" nonsense started because some people who had wide screens were eaten up with jealousy because the developers, instead of letterboxing the screen for 4:3, opened the display up vertically. Apparently, some people with widescreen TVs are convinced that their purchase of a widescreen display entitles them to see "more" -- not just more resolution (which they got) but more "stuff."
Other people complained that the FOV was "wrong" because it was narrower than FPS games like HalfLife 2. The FOV for Bioshock is about 75 degrees, which provides a realistic perspective at typical viewing distances--realistic meaning that objects appear to be close to actual size, as if the screen were a window into the game, and without the pronounced stretching at the edges that you get with an unrealistically wide FOV. An unrealistically wide FOV is a reasonable compromise to make up for the lack of peripheral vision in a game that is primarily a shooter, but Bioshock is a game that depends upon atmosphere and suspense, so the developers chose to use a more realistic FOV, and to compensate for limited peripheral vision by using audio cues. This greatly enhances the suspense of the game, and probably has a lot to do with its popularity. In any case, the developer is not offering a patch to let people widen the FOV if they want to do so.
As for the DRM complaints, they are valid (although the developer has endeavored to address them), but not really a problem with the game itself. And they certainly don't apply to the XBox 360 version, which has the same level of DRM as any other XBox 360 game.
What? The official word from 2K was that the aspect ratio was "as designed" and there was no problem to fix. What an odd backpedal to come now after all that screaming and yelling (and banning and post deleting) on the forums. I recall people were pissed, but 2K said the FOV in widescreen was as-intended, and they just chose to add "extra" vertical FOV in non-widescreen mode instead of the opposite (and typical) option of extending the horizontal FOV in widescreen vs. non.
They have not changed their position that the aspect ratio is as intended, but they announced months ago that they were working on a patch to allow people who for whatever reason do not like the original aspect ratio to modify it to something more to their taste.
The original aspect ratio is actually quite well chosen, and probably had a lot to do with the game's success. At typical viewing distances, the aspect ratio is such that objects in the game appear close to "actual size," without the edge distortion visible in games that use an unrealistically wide aspect ratio, which makes it very immersive and suspenseful. But some people who are accustomed to shooters with an unrealistically wide aspect ratio found it too claustrophobic, and a few even insisted that it made them motion-sick (oddly enough, I had the opposite reaction; I had less problem with motion sickness with Bioshock than with any other first-person game I've played). But 2K/Irrational has clearly chosen to take a "customer is always right" stance, which clearly makes good business sense. After all, it's not a competitive game, so if somebody wants to play the game in a wider aspect ratio that detracts from the game experience, why should they care, as long as they get their money?
Lamarck and Darwin both had different meme sets. The meme which Lamarck is known for is the inheritance of acquired characteristics, but he believed in other beliefs, like the great progressive chain of being.
The key difference between Lamarckian and Darwinian theories of evolution is that in Lamarckian theory, an animal's behavior and experiences provided the directionality to evolution. Darwin's theory required continual infusions of variation to prevent evolution from "running out of steam." Not knowing about genes or mutations, Darwin speculated that inheritance of acquired characteristics could provide the needed infusions of variability, but in Darwin's theory the new variability does not require directionality, because directionality of evolution arises from differential survival.
Apparently, she deliberately violated the scope and definition of her job.
As the Director of Science Curriculum for the state of Texas, her job was to maintain high standards in teaching of science, as dictated by Texas Science Standards, which require teaching of evolution. So it is more correct to say that she was ordered to stop doing her job.
Whether merely informing people of a lecture by a prominent scientific historian with expert knowledge regarding the evolution-ID/creationism debate, without stating any personal opinion on the matter, constitutes defiance of the command to stop doing her job is yet another question.
One question, though; the reduction of chromosomes, you said, suggests that two merged over time. Would there also be the possibility that one was simply excised altogether? Or would that have resulted in so much information being removed that the human/ape shift would have been far more radical as a result?
Yes, that is a much lower probability scenario. Loss of an entire chromosome is normally lethal, because it is virtually certain that genes for crucial functions will be lost. So all of the critical genes would have to have been individually duplicated on other chromosomes, then the now-redundant chromosome would have to have been lost. A chromosome fusion accomplishes the equivalent in just one step. Moreover, mutants with a fused chromosome would probably retain some fertility with the wild-type, because both of the two original chromosomes could line up with the fused one. This is important, because the original mutant would need to mate with wild-types for the trait to be propagated.
Would it not have been more likely that a chromosome split into 2?
Either could happen, but when all of the related apes have one more chromosome than humans, it is easier to imagine that two chromosomes fused after the human line diverged than that the human line diverged from the ape line, then a chromosome split in a species in the ape line, then all of the other apes diverged from that species. The former scenario is more consistent with the lineage expected based upon other evidence.
Without arguing against Darwinism, I'm pointing out that predictions from Creationist models often overlap with those from Darwinist models. This is one of those cases. Similarity in genetic structure does point to similar or shared origins, which is posited by both evolutionists (shared ancestors) and creationists (same maker / designer).
Modern ID/creationism does not make predictions, because a prediction arises from the limitations of a theory. Natural selection is unable to create an organism with a different genetic code from other higher organisms. It is unable to create a gene that is completely different from genes in other similar species. A designer could choose to use similar genetic codes, or similar genes--but it can also do the opposite. For example, you might find two computers, quite similar in function, yet with completely different cpu's running completely different machine codes. Natural selection is unable to do this.
Darwin was never aware of Mendels' discoveries regarding genetics. When Darwin saw variations in gene expression, he assumed they were caused by random genetic mutations which occurred in each individual. Mandel's work disproved that, showing that differences in genetic structure are caused by mix'n'matching existing genetic data from the parents, with very low granularity (whole chromosomes ata a time).
You should probably read some actual Darwin; it sounds as if you are getting your "information" from ID/creationist tracts. Since Darwin did not know about genes--he studied phenotypic variation, not gene expression. So he most certainly did not make any "assumption" about random genetic mutations--in fact, you will not even find the word "random" in Origin of Species. Darwin did propose that there had to be some mechanism for generating diversity, and also some form of granularity to keep the diversity from simply being "diluted out" as would happen if the basis for phenotypic traits was not preserved in some discrete form--because his theory would not work without these features. So the discovery of DNA, genes, and genetic mutation, which fit perfectly the requirements of Darwin's theory, even though Darwin did not know about them when formulating the theory, is one of the most dramatic confirmations of a theory's predictions in the history of science.
A major difference in scenarios is that if a science director was parading ID around (a most unscientific theory) people would expect them to be fired based on the fact they are in a job they are not qualified for. Firing someone for doing their job and supporting what is theory by science over what is purely faith based is why people are up in arms about this.
You mean somebody like Don MacLeroy, chairman of the Texas State Board of Education?
So, out of curiosity, at this point (given the evidence we have in favor of evolution) what would we have to find to disprove it? Since the ability to be proved false stands at the core of the criticism of ID.
Every time a gene is sequenced, it is a test of natural selection. Natural selection makes numerous predictions in this area--the commonality of the genetic code, close relatedness of genes in higher organisms, even down to the degree of similarity. Failure of these predictions to hold up would force the abandonment of natural selection in its current form.
Of course, creationists have worked very hard to promote a nonsensical "two model" idea that the alternative to natural selection is creationism, but the notion that disproof of natural selection would force a return to creationism is nonsensical. When Newton's Laws of motion were shown to be incorrect, science did not return to Aristotle's ideas of motion--a new theory, Einstein's theory of relativity, supplanted it--one that included Newton's Laws as a special case approximation.
It is worth noting that natural selection is not even the only theory of evolution. Remember Lamarck? Darwin came along at a time when scientists were looking for an evolutionary theory, because the predictions of creationism were inconsistent with the data (unlike intelligent design, which is intentionally vague and more a religious notion than a scientific theory, the creationism of Darwin's time was genuinely scientific, in that it made actual predictions).
Of course, "neutrality" is a code word "supporting ID/creationism without admitting it," since Don McLeroy, Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, has made openly pro-ID statements. Yet merely informing people that a major player in the debate is giving a talk constitutes taking sides. So much for "teaching the controversy" (which is really code for teaching ID/creationism).
Of course, ID/creationists are terrified of Barbara Forrest, because she has meticulously documented how "intelligent design" is merely a rebranding of "creationism." She has become even more dangerous to them since the Dover trial, since discovery gave her access to early drafts of the key "intelligent design" textbook "Of Pandas and People," which revealed how it started life as a creationist textbook, and became an "intelligent design" book by a simple search & replace. Hilariously, at one point, they botched the replace, and "creationists" became "cdesign proponentists."
Apple's stock did not take a hit from the announcement, so the market clearly does not think that this is going to have a big impact on profits (in contrast, it fell quite sharply when Jobs announced the iPhone price cut).
It seems more like a difference in corporate strategy between Apple and AT&T rather than an attempt to hurt Apple. Apple traditionally likes to keep things secret until they spring it on the public. But many other companies like to let investors know where they are headed. And it's not exactly a surprise to anybody that there will be a 3G model, probably in the next year or so. The main issue is fitting it into the case while retaining battery life.
I think that the impact on sales is likely to be minor. "Next year" likely means a year from now, and many people replace their phones every year or two.
So his number one criticism is that the initial release of Leopard is not as stable as his mature version of Tiger. Stop the presses! Who could possibly have anticipated that? Yes, this is indeed a similarity to Vista--and every other major update of every other software package in history. Most people know the adage--if reliability is more important to you than new features, wait for the 2nd, or even the 3rd update to a major revision before making the transition (although to be fair, I've had only one crash of Leopard since I installed it the week after release).
Another criticism is that the settings for the system backup feature Time Machine are in the System Settings. Stop the presses! Who could possibly have anticipated that? He also seems to be having some difficulty figuring out how Time Machine works, but I can't figure out why. He's also upset that Time Machine doesn't do block-level backups, to get around the fact that Microsoft's Entourage, unlike Apple's software, stuffs everything into a single, corruption-prone file, making normal file-level incremental backups (by Time Machine or by the Retrospect software that he praises) impractical.
Pretty much a waste. The few valid criticisms, such as the changes to the dock, or the fact that Time Machine does not yet support network drives as Apple originally planned, have already been chewed over extensively by pretty much everybody else.
Garbage in, garbage out. If you actually look at the primary literature relating videogames to violence, it is pretty much all crap. To begin with, most studies report some measure of "aggression" (and often proxy measures, at that) rather than actual violence. They are two very different things--it is good for a football player to be aggressive, not so good for him to be violent. Then there is almost never an appropriate control that produces similar levels of excitement and overall arousal--some other entertainment, such as a football game, for example, with equivalence evaluated by measurements of heart rate and blood catecholamines. So the studies tend to confound the specific effects of videogames with overall arousal. I cannot imagine that any person who did not approach the issue with a bias against video games would take this stuff seriously.
Moreover, as videogames have gotten more popular and more realistically violent, crime rates have fallen, and fallen most dramatically in the very age group that most plays videogames. That doesn't prove that videogames don't contribute to social violence, but it does prove that any pro-violence effect is insignificant compared to other social and demographic factors impacting violence.
In contrast, the statistical correlation between smoking rates and deaths from heart and lung disease is clear and obvious.
In my opinion, Ico is the single best game for the PS2 and in the running for the best games of all time. Although never a great commercial success for Sony, it has a strong following. I just bought a copy (used, Sony is no longer selling it) to give as a gift. I was surprised how much I had to pay for it. With many other PS2 games of similar vintage going for $10 or so, used copies of Ico are selling just a bit below new game prices, and new copies are selling for more than new PS3 games.
Technically a puzzle/platform game, I think that it achieves the perfect combination of story, art, drama, technical execution, and intellectual and skill challenge.
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How well documented is this? I can certainly imagine that a very depressed person might be triggered to commit suicide at a particular time by a particular book. But some fraction of those would probably have found some other trigger if that particular book was not available. So is the book causing suicides or just redistributing them in time?
Very perceptive comment. In fact, the science does not exist to characterize this as a positive or negative effect--it's spin, not science.
You can still make the statement that I made: Any pro-violence effect of videogames (if it exists) is swamped by other social and demographic factors affecting rates of violence.
However, this one can be excluded out of hand as a potential factor obscuring a hypothetical pro-violence effect of videogames. If you look at the violence statistics broken down by age, you will see that the fall has been particularly prominent among young males--precisely the demographic most likely to engage in violent crime, and also the major consumers of violent videogames.
And this one is so implausible on its face that it surely qualifies as special pleading. Essentially, what you are proposing is that videogames do not increase violence over the age range at which people are most susceptible to committing violent crimes, but somehow do increase violence at a later age (conveniently, with a delay long enough not to be reflected in the statistics) at an age when (as you put it) people are "retiring out" of violent crime.
Doubtless. But what the statistics do prove is that any hypothetical violence-inducing effect of videogames must be so small as to be swamped by other social and demographic factors affecting crime rates.
And 2005 is lower than 2000. But this kind of data snooping is meaningless. If you cherry-pick at these little year to year fluctuations that are down at the level of the statistical noise, you can rationalize any kind of claim you want. I'm not talking about the small and obviously statistically nonsignificant fluctuations over a year or two. With this sort of statistics, only large, consistent multiyear trends are meaningful. And the clear trend over the period when videogames have been increasing in popularity has been downward.
Which merely restates my point--the pro-violence effect of videogames if any is negligible relative to other social and demographic factors impacting rates of violence.
As for the "uncanny valley," the term was coined to account for the fact that people find state-of-the art humanoid computer graphics in multimillion dollar movies where each frame can take minutes to render to be eerie, rather than convincingly human. Are you seriously arguing that the much less sophisticated graphics in games have crossed the valley?
This is sheer rationalization. Over the period when games have gone from blocky 2D cartoon characters to 3D human-looking characters with simulated blood and gore, the only clear trend is downward. So you are arguing that it is just about to start trending upward "real soon now?"
I am a neuroscientist, and have been following such studies for years. I stand by my assessment. These blood flow measurements are intriguing, and can tell us a lot about which parts of the brain are being activated under particular circumstances, but we are a long way from understanding what that means in terms of human thought, emotion, and behavior. It is still very much speculative.
Still doesn't looks like an upward trend, though does it? If anything, it seems to have stabilized, and at a much lower level than before videogames became popular. Obviously, a downward trend cannot continue forever, or criminals would at some point be resurrecting the dead. Currently, we aren't that far above the levels that prevailed in the '50's. If videogames had such a powerful pro-violence effect--one sufficient to justify all of this concern and investment in research, then shouldn't there be a clear upward trend?
Indeed you could. Why would you want to? I've never understood why people persist in doing something that is no fun, then complain that it is no fun:
Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this..."
Doctor: "Then don't do that."
Besides, if you reread what I wrote, you'll see that I suggested using the wrench in addition to refraining from using the Vita Chambers. This does not require a patch to disable Vita Chambers...simply reload your saved game if you die and end up in a Vita Chamber.
"Suggest" is science-speak for "I don't actually have any convincing evidence, but this is what I think."
So let's forget about anecdotes and look at the statistics. What has happened to rates of violent crimes as games have gotten more and more realistically violent? They've dropped. What's more, they've dropped most dramatically in the very demographic group that plays these games. That doesn't necessarily prove that games prevent violence, but it does prove that the pro-violence effect of games (if there is any at all) is so small as to be utterly swamped by other social and demographic factors affecting rates of violence.
As for brain scans, you can be sure that pretty much any activity that people enjoy and like to do repeatedly alters brain activity, but the interpretation of these changes in blood flow over rather large regions of the brain is still pretty much at the level of "Just-So" stories. At this point, it's a lot more speculation than science.
I'm always amazed by the people who take advantage of all the things that make the game easier, and then complain that it is too easy. Are people really so undisciplined that they are unable to make their own challenges, and have to have them forced on them? Sure, you can pop away at a Big Daddy with your pistol 'til it kills you, resurrect in the Vita chamber, shoot it a few more times, die, and repeat until the Big Daddy is dead? But why would you want to?
Don't like the Vita-chambers? Don't use 'em! If you die, just reload from a saved game. For a real challenge, don't do any manual saves, and rely on the automatic saves at the beginning of the level. If that's not scary enough, how about making the wrench your default weapon?
Because a lot of the complaints are just kind of dumb. For example, the "tallscreen field of view" nonsense started because some people who had wide screens were eaten up with jealousy because the developers, instead of letterboxing the screen for 4:3, opened the display up vertically. Apparently, some people with widescreen TVs are convinced that their purchase of a widescreen display entitles them to see "more" -- not just more resolution (which they got) but more "stuff."
Other people complained that the FOV was "wrong" because it was narrower than FPS games like HalfLife 2. The FOV for Bioshock is about 75 degrees, which provides a realistic perspective at typical viewing distances--realistic meaning that objects appear to be close to actual size, as if the screen were a window into the game, and without the pronounced stretching at the edges that you get with an unrealistically wide FOV. An unrealistically wide FOV is a reasonable compromise to make up for the lack of peripheral vision in a game that is primarily a shooter, but Bioshock is a game that depends upon atmosphere and suspense, so the developers chose to use a more realistic FOV, and to compensate for limited peripheral vision by using audio cues. This greatly enhances the suspense of the game, and probably has a lot to do with its popularity. In any case, the developer is not offering a patch to let people widen the FOV if they want to do so.
As for the DRM complaints, they are valid (although the developer has endeavored to address them), but not really a problem with the game itself. And they certainly don't apply to the XBox 360 version, which has the same level of DRM as any other XBox 360 game.
They have not changed their position that the aspect ratio is as intended, but they announced months ago that they were working on a patch to allow people who for whatever reason do not like the original aspect ratio to modify it to something more to their taste.
The original aspect ratio is actually quite well chosen, and probably had a lot to do with the game's success. At typical viewing distances, the aspect ratio is such that objects in the game appear close to "actual size," without the edge distortion visible in games that use an unrealistically wide aspect ratio, which makes it very immersive and suspenseful. But some people who are accustomed to shooters with an unrealistically wide aspect ratio found it too claustrophobic, and a few even insisted that it made them motion-sick (oddly enough, I had the opposite reaction; I had less problem with motion sickness with Bioshock than with any other first-person game I've played). But 2K/Irrational has clearly chosen to take a "customer is always right" stance, which clearly makes good business sense. After all, it's not a competitive game, so if somebody wants to play the game in a wider aspect ratio that detracts from the game experience, why should they care, as long as they get their money?
My bet is that within 5 or 10 years we'll be able to get our complete sequence for the same price. I think I'll wait.
The key difference between Lamarckian and Darwinian theories of evolution is that in Lamarckian theory, an animal's behavior and experiences provided the directionality to evolution. Darwin's theory required continual infusions of variation to prevent evolution from "running out of steam." Not knowing about genes or mutations, Darwin speculated that inheritance of acquired characteristics could provide the needed infusions of variability, but in Darwin's theory the new variability does not require directionality, because directionality of evolution arises from differential survival.
As the Director of Science Curriculum for the state of Texas, her job was to maintain high standards in teaching of science, as dictated by Texas Science Standards, which require teaching of evolution. So it is more correct to say that she was ordered to stop doing her job.
Whether merely informing people of a lecture by a prominent scientific historian with expert knowledge regarding the evolution-ID/creationism debate, without stating any personal opinion on the matter, constitutes defiance of the command to stop doing her job is yet another question.
Yes, that is a much lower probability scenario. Loss of an entire chromosome is normally lethal, because it is virtually certain that genes for crucial functions will be lost. So all of the critical genes would have to have been individually duplicated on other chromosomes, then the now-redundant chromosome would have to have been lost. A chromosome fusion accomplishes the equivalent in just one step. Moreover, mutants with a fused chromosome would probably retain some fertility with the wild-type, because both of the two original chromosomes could line up with the fused one. This is important, because the original mutant would need to mate with wild-types for the trait to be propagated.
Either could happen, but when all of the related apes have one more chromosome than humans, it is easier to imagine that two chromosomes fused after the human line diverged than that the human line diverged from the ape line, then a chromosome split in a species in the ape line, then all of the other apes diverged from that species. The former scenario is more consistent with the lineage expected based upon other evidence.
Modern ID/creationism does not make predictions, because a prediction arises from the limitations of a theory. Natural selection is unable to create an organism with a different genetic code from other higher organisms. It is unable to create a gene that is completely different from genes in other similar species. A designer could choose to use similar genetic codes, or similar genes--but it can also do the opposite. For example, you might find two computers, quite similar in function, yet with completely different cpu's running completely different machine codes. Natural selection is unable to do this.
You should probably read some actual Darwin; it sounds as if you are getting your "information" from ID/creationist tracts. Since Darwin did not know about genes--he studied phenotypic variation, not gene expression. So he most certainly did not make any "assumption" about random genetic mutations--in fact, you will not even find the word "random" in Origin of Species. Darwin did propose that there had to be some mechanism for generating diversity, and also some form of granularity to keep the diversity from simply being "diluted out" as would happen if the basis for phenotypic traits was not preserved in some discrete form--because his theory would not work without these features. So the discovery of DNA, genes, and genetic mutation, which fit perfectly the requirements of Darwin's theory, even though Darwin did not know about them when formulating the theory, is one of the most dramatic confirmations of a theory's predictions in the history of science.
You mean somebody like Don MacLeroy, chairman of the Texas State Board of Education?
Every time a gene is sequenced, it is a test of natural selection. Natural selection makes numerous predictions in this area--the commonality of the genetic code, close relatedness of genes in higher organisms, even down to the degree of similarity. Failure of these predictions to hold up would force the abandonment of natural selection in its current form.
Of course, creationists have worked very hard to promote a nonsensical "two model" idea that the alternative to natural selection is creationism, but the notion that disproof of natural selection would force a return to creationism is nonsensical. When Newton's Laws of motion were shown to be incorrect, science did not return to Aristotle's ideas of motion--a new theory, Einstein's theory of relativity, supplanted it--one that included Newton's Laws as a special case approximation.
It is worth noting that natural selection is not even the only theory of evolution. Remember Lamarck? Darwin came along at a time when scientists were looking for an evolutionary theory, because the predictions of creationism were inconsistent with the data (unlike intelligent design, which is intentionally vague and more a religious notion than a scientific theory, the creationism of Darwin's time was genuinely scientific, in that it made actual predictions).
Of course, "neutrality" is a code word "supporting ID/creationism without admitting it," since Don McLeroy, Chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, has made openly pro-ID statements. Yet merely informing people that a major player in the debate is giving a talk constitutes taking sides. So much for "teaching the controversy" (which is really code for teaching ID/creationism).
Of course, ID/creationists are terrified of Barbara Forrest, because she has meticulously documented how "intelligent design" is merely a rebranding of "creationism." She has become even more dangerous to them since the Dover trial, since discovery gave her access to early drafts of the key "intelligent design" textbook "Of Pandas and People," which revealed how it started life as a creationist textbook, and became an "intelligent design" book by a simple search & replace. Hilariously, at one point, they botched the replace, and "creationists" became "cdesign proponentists."
Apple's stock did not take a hit from the announcement, so the market clearly does not think that this is going to have a big impact on profits (in contrast, it fell quite sharply when Jobs announced the iPhone price cut).
It seems more like a difference in corporate strategy between Apple and AT&T rather than an attempt to hurt Apple. Apple traditionally likes to keep things secret until they spring it on the public. But many other companies like to let investors know where they are headed. And it's not exactly a surprise to anybody that there will be a 3G model, probably in the next year or so. The main issue is fitting it into the case while retaining battery life.
I think that the impact on sales is likely to be minor. "Next year" likely means a year from now, and many people replace their phones every year or two.
So his number one criticism is that the initial release of Leopard is not as stable as his mature version of Tiger. Stop the presses! Who could possibly have anticipated that? Yes, this is indeed a similarity to Vista--and every other major update of every other software package in history. Most people know the adage--if reliability is more important to you than new features, wait for the 2nd, or even the 3rd update to a major revision before making the transition (although to be fair, I've had only one crash of Leopard since I installed it the week after release).
Another criticism is that the settings for the system backup feature Time Machine are in the System Settings. Stop the presses! Who could possibly have anticipated that? He also seems to be having some difficulty figuring out how Time Machine works, but I can't figure out why. He's also upset that Time Machine doesn't do block-level backups, to get around the fact that Microsoft's Entourage, unlike Apple's software, stuffs everything into a single, corruption-prone file, making normal file-level incremental backups (by Time Machine or by the Retrospect software that he praises) impractical.
Pretty much a waste. The few valid criticisms, such as the changes to the dock, or the fact that Time Machine does not yet support network drives as Apple originally planned, have already been chewed over extensively by pretty much everybody else.
I saw a videogame store selling them (list price console; no bundle) on Black Friday, although they were sold out by afternoon.
I bought mine from the ToysRUs web site, taking advantage of the Wii Tracker web site, where units pop up occasionally.
Garbage in, garbage out. If you actually look at the primary literature relating videogames to violence, it is pretty much all crap. To begin with, most studies report some measure of "aggression" (and often proxy measures, at that) rather than actual violence. They are two very different things--it is good for a football player to be aggressive, not so good for him to be violent. Then there is almost never an appropriate control that produces similar levels of excitement and overall arousal--some other entertainment, such as a football game, for example, with equivalence evaluated by measurements of heart rate and blood catecholamines. So the studies tend to confound the specific effects of videogames with overall arousal. I cannot imagine that any person who did not approach the issue with a bias against video games would take this stuff seriously.
Moreover, as videogames have gotten more popular and more realistically violent, crime rates have fallen, and fallen most dramatically in the very age group that most plays videogames. That doesn't prove that videogames don't contribute to social violence, but it does prove that any pro-violence effect is insignificant compared to other social and demographic factors impacting violence.
In contrast, the statistical correlation between smoking rates and deaths from heart and lung disease is clear and obvious.
In my opinion, Ico is the single best game for the PS2 and in the running for the best games of all time. Although never a great commercial success for Sony, it has a strong following. I just bought a copy (used, Sony is no longer selling it) to give as a gift. I was surprised how much I had to pay for it. With many other PS2 games of similar vintage going for $10 or so, used copies of Ico are selling just a bit below new game prices, and new copies are selling for more than new PS3 games.
Technically a puzzle/platform game, I think that it achieves the perfect combination of story, art, drama, technical execution, and intellectual and skill challenge.