The funny thing is that I myself have never played any of these games, because they hold no interest for me. I frankly couldn't care less about the success or failure of them.

I also find it deeply amusing that disagreement and open discussion is being soberly equated with censorship by individuals who want nothing less than to censor an entire art form. The irony is overwhelming.

@ #159:

That is a semi-spurious argument. I don't need to have kids to know that it's wrong, evil and bad when I hear a parent verbally abusing their child.

That's what we like to call a straw man argument. Next.

It is possible and sometimes desirable not to participate in something before condemning it. I certainly wouldn't have given the anti-Semite Mel Gibson $9 just to decide for myself that The Passion of the Christ was a sick propaganda film.

...and that there would be an excellent example of an ad hominem attack.

Thank you for proving my point.

(I posted this in the other thread by accident, mia culpa)

See, I always figured that it made sense to run an encrypted virtual machine for any sensitive data, with trivial data left lying all over the place on the machine.

I doubt that the individuals involved would be technically skilled enough to be able to tell the difference between a 4.2gb ripped movie and a 4.2gb encrypted virtual machine. Especially if the file names were deceptive.

"The movie isn't playing? dang... must have gotten corrupted..."

For smaller virtual disks, the encrypted file could be given a semi-random name and dumped into a folder of web cache files. Good luck sorting that out.

Of course, if you're really concerned, just keep all of your sensitive data on a SD/HD card that's inserted into your digital camera. I doubt they pull them out and check them for non-photographic data.

whoops, i posted that comment in the wrong thread. my bad.

See, I always figured that it made sense to run an encrypted virtual machine for any sensitive data, with trivial data left lying all over the place on the machine.

I doubt that the individuals involved would be technically skilled enough to be able to tell the difference between a 4.2gb ripped movie and a 4.2gb encrypted virtual machine. Especially if the file names were deceptive.

"The movie isn't playing? dang... must have gotten corrupted..."

For smaller virtual disks, the encrypted file could be given a semi-random name and dumped into a folder of web cache files. Good luck sorting that out.

Of course, if you're really concerned, just keep all of your sensitive data on a SD/HD card that's inserted into your digital camera. I doubt they pull them out and check them for non-photographic data.

@Lauren #139: I specified individuals who were self-identifying as Christians. I didn't put that label on them: they did.

I posit that the umbrella of feminism, likewise is wide enough to encompass a wide spectrum of attitudes, opinions and behaviors, and that exclusionary litmus tests are unhelpful.

No, I am not bitter about those experiences during my time at UCSC. I view it as a learning experience, however I do not agree with any implication that the vitriol and loathing I received in that situation were somehow justified because the individuals involved were forced into that role by society, any more than I would excuse the violent misogynistic behavior of a man because he was a victim of child abuse or whatever. I am sure your 1% is reasonable, though I would personally say 5-10% under certain circumstances.

When it comes to humanism vs. feminism, I am familiar with and respect the dichotomy that you speak of, but I do not share that philosophy. To my mind, you cannot achieve equality by overcompensating in the other direction. We saw this in South Africa after the end of apartheid. (Google "necklacing") Inequality begets inequality. Violence begets violence.

@Lauren #147: You are very much missing the point that Decius is trying to make: the medium itself is an interactive one. It is impossible to grok it properly without putting yourself in the position of a player. The magic of games like this is that the story and narrative is created by your own actions: it isn't inherently a tale of violence and misogyny, unless your own actions make it so. When you watch someone else play, it is their narrative being created, not your own.

This is why the idea of such a game being "reviewed" by someone who has never actually played it strikes many of us as ludicrous as a film being reviewed by someone was has not seen it, but is only watching the expressions on the faces of the audience.

#91 - It's not a generalization to say that feminists want people to be regarded as people regardless of sex or gender. Feminism is about gender equality. That is its definition. It has a lot of different strands, but the thing - maybe the only thing - that unites those strands is gender equality. Saying that is a generalization is like saying, "You don't have to believe in God to be a Christian. That's a generalization."

---------------------------------

Well, that is the professed belief, but in my experience a certain percentage of both self-identified feminists and Christians behave in a way that is at odds with their espoused philosophy. (please don't respond with some variation on the "true scotsman" fallacy)

To relate to your analogy, I've met a fair number of self-identified Christians who, when you get down to it, don't believe in any god, even a little bit.

Likewise, I've met (a slim minority, to be sure) self-identified feminists who want nothing better than to humiliate, degrade and oppress anything with a penis attached. Having done some time at UC Santa Cruz as a white male, I found it enlightening to find myself hated--not for who I was, or what I had done--but simply for what I was. (if you're wondering I came out of the experience somewhat more sympathetic to the plight of oppressed minorities.)

I personally would never identify as a feminist, even though I share the same espoused philosophy. I'm a humanist: people are people, regardless of what is-or-is-not stuffed in their pants.

#64: "You will need a special iPod for Windows machines"

Well, depending on when you asked it, this actually used to be true.

@ #51: My comments were specifically and exclusively referring to the post, not the person who wrote it. I am criticizing the tone of the post, nothing more.

Teresa, I was hoping for something with a little more drama, but I imagine it would be quite an evening nonetheless. I am more and more convinced that this is a new golden age for the genre.

...btw, I was obliquely referring to Neal's answer to the question, 'who would win in a fight, you or Bill Gibson?'

His answer was a classic, reading in part:

"... Gibson stopped by to say hello and extended his hand as if to shake. But I remembered something Bruce Sterling had told me. For, at the time, Sterling and I had formed a pact to fight Gibson. Gibson had been regrown in a vat from scraps of DNA after Sterling had crashed an LNG tanker into Gibson's Stealth pleasure barge in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. During the regeneration process, telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson's arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head. ..."

I suspect that what you're running into here is the fact that your post is coming off sounding like a hyperaggressive, digg/fark jerk: something a lot of the demographic here hates with a passion.

Face it, BB is a hipster blog (or at least it used to be). It's (mostly) run by hipsters, about hipster subjects, with hipster regulars. Myself included.

And then this post comes in with one of those fratboy white hats on, and starts calling the macstore people (semi-admired fellow hipsters) douches, complete with fratboy threats of violence. How original.

...and you are surprised that we don't just lick it up?

I'm implying it, perhaps, but I don't know Cory--never met him--so I can't answer the question. (I think just about the worst thing about being in the public eye would be for random strangers to act like they know you, just because they know your work)

Even if he does, well, most of my favorite people have/had big egos: it takes balls the size of cantaloupes to set forth to create a meaningful work of art in this day and age.

@ #18: "Mensa Graduates"

How would one graduate from a club or society? It's not as if it's some sort of correspondence course. Of course, if you were eligible to be a member you would probably have taken that into account already...

For some time I have wondered what it would take to get Scalzi, Charlie Stross, Doctorow, Robert Charles Wilson, Connie Willis and Neal Stephenson locked in the same room at the same time, and then film the interactions.

...I imagine it would be pretty boring, because my impression is that all of these are polite, well-adjusted people. (no Harlan Ellisons, in other words)

On the other hand, often big talent = big ego, so perhaps there would be some sort of awesome fight to the death, like Neal talks about with Bill Gibson. (question number 4)

My money's on Connie. Just sayin'.

Of course, they aren't actually calling themselves geniuses, the company they work for is.

I just feel incredibly bad for them that they have to deal with like, well, you.

You're lucky they would even look at your nasty, tobacco-lung-juice-spattered MacBook. If it were me, I wouldn't get within ten yards of that thing without a hazmat suit. I bet they don't want to work on laptops soaked in urine, either. (there goes your social life)

This whole kerfluffle seems to me to be a sort of "true Scotsman" fallacy.

In other words: lighten up, francis.

The "good" news about most hemorrhagic fever viruses (hanta, ebola, marburg) is that while they spread very easily, they have such a short incubation period that they tend to "burn themselves out" as they kill too quickly to spread efficiently through the greater population.

It is indeed an irony that in order to become a major threat to major population centers, a virus would need to adapt to become "less deadly", so it has a chance to spread before its hosts die. Like SARS or avian flu, for example.

I think it's probably fair to say that there's a certain amount of self-selection here, in that if someone wasn't comfortable expressing themselves in writing and interested in doing so, that person would be unlikely to write in.

You know, not to be a nit-picker or anything, but this is less a "Soviet kids' book about Russia" than it is a "Soviet kids' book about Robots".

Just sayin'.

Well, shopping in the real world is a social experience, which is one of the main things that shopping on the web isn't. My wife and I shop Amazon all the time on two computers, and it's a pretty sterile thing. There's no way to easily share things back and forth without using AIM or the like.

As much as I love OSX (which is a lot), I do have a machine with Vista, and I admit I don't really hate it with the burning of a million suns that a lot of people seem to.

Honestly, I didn't think XP was really that much better: they're both semi-unstable messes, but they seem to work most of the time. (Win2k was ugly, but stable) As I recall, XP was pretty unusable before SP1, so perhaps the same will hold true with Vista.

But yeah, OSX is where it's at if you just want to get stuff done and not go insane in the process.

Well, I can pretty much guarantee they didn't intend this for the end user. Not that it makes it any less horrifying, but stuff like this is used for cheerleading within the sales channel. You won't be seeing this during Flavor of Love.

Not sure about recently, but some of the old Apple in-house promotional stuff was pretty nasty too: Anyone else remember the (Gassée era, I believe) song, "Apple ][ Forever"?

Christopher Moore was heavily influenced by her work, living examples of which have a supporting role in his delightful A Dirty Job.

He mentions her at the end of the book, which was a relief, because I spent the whole thing thinking to myself... I've seen these guys before...

Personally I found the saccharine/vitriolic tone of the video (while perfectly understandable) a bit off-putting. After all, (from my perspective) the likely viewers of such a video are those who are cautious enough about their behavior to watch a 16min video tutorial in order to avoid giving offense.

Perhaps it's because I grew up around transgendered folk, but it all seemed pretty common-sense to me, and I can't honestly say I learned much of anything, though I suppose it's some comfort that I haven't been making some sort of hideous, invisible gaffe.

As for Xeni, I agree that it's a ridiculous putdown in this day and age. She's a quite lovely, brilliant woman by any measure, and either way it matters not in the slightest.
(the only situation I think it might make a difference would be if one were in the position of dating her--which I would imagine is a vanishingly tiny demographic, more's the pity)

@#21: The polite thing to do is to simply use his or her name when referring to them in the third person, rather than a pronoun. In some cultures referring to someone by a pronoun in their presence is terribly rude, whatever the gender.

Not to point out the obvious, but a few years ago you could have written this article and titled it "Why MP# players are a dead end (for now, anyway)."

...and it would have been accurate (for a time, anyway).

From my perspective, there are a number of good devices out there, but no great ones. Many of them do good things, but there's no one device that puts all the great features and interface together in an appealing package.

If Jobs were insane and decided to bring out an entry for this market, I can almost guarantee that it would fulfill 95% of what we all want out of a hardware ebook reader.

It's a matter of time, though.

@ #1
I have to agree with you Sue, the tactile experience of hauling a small paperback around with you is a good one. I myself haul around several books, all the time for various reasons. Unfortunately, I tend to buy hardcovers because I can't stand the 6-month wait for the paperback, so my satchel weighs a ton... and it's a little embarrassing to have everyone knowing exactly what I'm reading, all the time.

If the physical experience of reading a book is better than the physical experience of reading from an ebook reader, that just tells me that the ebook reader isn't good enough yet, not that it never will be.

@#6, #32: "This is not a reasonable 'time place or manner' restriction, it is a blatant government violation of the First Amendment."

Then the solution is obvious: eliminate the service altogether.

Then the airport can contract with a third-party company to come in and offer a fee-based system. At that point it will be a private party transaction without any first amendment implications.

Everybody wins, right? Right?

I'm continually reminded of just how cool David Byrne is. True Stories is my favorite movie in the whole, wide world.

Under the category of "if you don't like something, change it," how precisely would that work in this context? The filter company has a right to market a service, even if we don't agree with their classifications.

Their clients are the ones who are demanding the filtering, and if my business were providing net access in a public space, I would certainly reserve the right to filter it too, for various reasons.

In my opinion, the only course of action here (aside from reporting your displeasure to the previous two organizations) is to start a competing filter company with a more subtle approach to classification, and compete in the marketplace. Am I wrong?

I've met this fellow once, and he is a genuinely odd duck. Ferociously smart, and exceptionally odd. His beard is very impressive in person.

It would appear that he's playing on the Uldum server, according to the Armory:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Uldum&n=Beacker

I think the funny part is that if you didn't know exactly who you were emailing, would you email some random people with details about your WoW adventures? I certainly wouldn't.

Even funnier, those two quests he's talking about (and just about anything before level 70) are pathetically easy. Even asking in-game for help with them would likely open him up to ridicule from more experienced players (which would be just about everyone).

#4, you're right, this is one of the funnier MTs I've ever seen. I don't blame Joel for posting it.

After the story about the lady being arrested at the Starbucks in Saudi Arabia for sitting with a male coworker, I have more or less lost all desire to visit that part of the world. No doubt they feel the same way about the US.

I guess there's always Israel.

I think my nightmares just found a new soundtrack.

@ #14, What you quote there, I was referring to the clients, not the workers.

@ #13, So, if the prostitute is male and the client is female, is it still the female who's "damaged?" What if they are both males? As someone else pointed out, "sex worker" covers a whole industry, not just prostitution.

@ #2, I guess what it is, is that I have trouble picturing this sort of worker being able to attach any deep significance to their work beyond the physical without well, going nuts. That's what I was trying to get across, not an implication that they are emotionally stunted automatons.

Like I said at the beginning, I pass no judgement: if this kind of thing works for people and makes their lives better, well, good for them. I'm sure my own experiences color my view: it seems like the sex workers I've met through volunteer work were all doing battle with addiction, which no doubt gives me a skewed statistical sample.

@ #2, for some reason I don't really have any trouble seeing dancers enjoying their work, as versus more "hands on" situations. I've been to my share of clubs, many of the performers really seemed to really enjoy the work and honestly seemed to be having fun up there. My own personal ethics wouldn't allow me to enjoy the show if I believed otherwise.

I agree that in the end, only an individual's self-image/philosophy really matters.

I guess what really saddens me is the reminder that there are (and always will be) people out there who are so desperate for human contact that they will jump through these sorts of hoops. (and no, I'm not saying that everyone in this situation is desperate... but surely some percentage are.) Again with the projecting, I know.

Without making any value judgments (I'm in no place to comment on anyone else's kinks), I find the whole idea indescribably sad. For everyone involved. I know there are people out there for whom this is probably the best option (on both sides of the equation), but still.
I don't know, maybe I'm just projecting my own emotional baggage on individuals for whom this is nothing more than a physical act.

This seemed like a difficult event to shoot/edit... probably because it would be hard to keep the video SFW, if that's even a consideration.

Well, there are certainly awkward reactions galore here... unfortunately, it was often very hard (the odd lighting probably) to tell exactly what was being reacted to. In short, it was kind of like watching the "grandma's reaction to 2-girls-1-cup" without ever having seen the original: kind of funny, but I felt like I was missing a big part of the joke.

...or maybe it was supposed to be more like the scene with the briefcase in Pulp Fiction: "Is that what I think it is?" "Yeah" "It's... beautiful"

This whole "no, it was a prankster" thing is ludicrous on the face of it: applying Occam's Razor here, the simplest explanation is that the same boats who were harassing the convoy physically were harassing them verbally as well. This hypothesis explains the available facts perfectly well. Forgive me if I don't take the Iranians at their word: these are the same people who were trying to convince the world that the US was trying to infiltrate their country by sending highly-trained, cybernetics-enhanced squirrels over the border. I certainly don't put it past them to fabricate any supporting video that they feels shows them in a more sympathetic light.

@ #8: Those are speedboats, not bass boats. I would like to remind you however of the USS Cole (which was also Aegis-equipped): I can guarantee that every sailor on those ships was thinking about the Cole while these guys were dodging around. Seventeen sailors were killed, and thirty-nine were injured in that tragedy, and it will not be soon forgot.

This wasn't just a patrol: the ships they were harassing are easily identifiable with the naked eye from several miles away; there is no reason to swarm around them like that if there is no intention to tweak the tiger's tail. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they gambled that we wouldn't be trigger-happy. Luck for them, they were right. This time.

@#8: I suppose that I just don't believe that documenting the artifacts of a wasteful society significantly adds to the problem, especially if the wasteful nature of the offending devices is explicitly called out as Joel tends to do.

I realize my original post didn't really make that point, but this sort of oh-discordia-what-hath-I-wrought hand-wringing just seems a teensy bit emo, as the kids say these days. :)

@JJ #7: Of course, that it's your blog and you can do what you want with it goes without saying. You asked for opinions, which is the only reason I posted.

What I am saying is that (imo, naturally) there are already a bunch of awesome enviro-tech blogs out there, and it's a crowded space.

I've always seen BB as exploring the intersection between technology, art and popular(and alternative) culture, and BBG as a more gadgety aspect of that: a celebration of form and function in the same vein as say, ID magazine.

I can't help but think that the most effective way to encourage art-in-gadget-form is to, well, promote and celebrate it, and publicly mock the poorly-designed crap that some of these companies try to schlep off on us.

I know I'm not the only one who ever bought a device I didn't strictly need because it was simply too beautiful or elegant not to own, but that's a very rare thing: far more often just reading about the limitations of a device defuses my incipient lust-to-own. I just don't see this blog as promoting the sort of conspicuous consumption that you see in SkyMall/Sharper Image/etc., if that is what has you concerned.

As the GPS nav systems get better and better, this kind of thing will be a great addition, as versus taking your eyes off the road to check a little LCD.

The bummer thing is that I've never see a car with a usable HUD system, so I'm curious how the illusion would be achieved.

Well, here's the deal: I don't go to my barber for relationship advice, and I don't come here to have someone unload their environmental guilt upon me. There are tons of environmental blogs out there: we don't need one more.

Come on, it's a gadget blog: i.e. gizmo porn. Don't invest it with more meaning that it deserves. The editors of Gourmet aren't responsible for the obesity pandemic either. Like food, the gadget is (can be) an art form.

Frankly I was disappointed that you didn't attend CES, because there's always something interesting to come out of these shows, and the best stuff can get lost in the hype from the bigger players. This is the same reason I attend MWSF every year: the experience of seeing this stuff in person is fundamentally different than reading about it online, and that perspective is valuable to me.

wow, gorgeous. I now know what I want for xmas....

@40: I completely agree. You've clearly stated precisely what I was trying to get across.

In the current example, I am quite sure that history will be the final judge.

Having worked for and contracted with a number of non-profits and industry organizations in my early career, this whole thing has a familiar stink.

@32: While I agree with you in general, I hate to make blanket statements when it comes to a career like Burt's. It reeks of ad hominem, for one thing.

For another, in the sphere of sports, many of the most gifted coaches and managers were mediocre if not terrible players.

Frankly, as I noted above, I would rather have the life of a poor writer taken up by administrative minutia than that of one of the true geniuses of our time.

I am actually somewhat surprised that a publisher would even attempt to print this particular tome in that environment. Did he not see the writing on the wall?

@1: I honestly believe that if those folk had their way, there would be televised hangings of vocal atheists at least once a week. Probably on Sunday.

@4: to be fair, IMO the biggest thing which will keep Turkey out of the EU is a bad case of regional Islamophobia, although this will certainly not help the situation.

I actually really like the look/feel of these characters, although I also feel Sumi the thunderbird is a bit of a weak-tea take on that particular myth. No beak?

I am also the teensiest bit sad that instead of a more home-grown aesthetic, Canada seems to be appropriating a Sanrio-style kawaii-culture, although I suppose there's some relevance given Vancouver's strong Pacific-rim demographic.

Even after discussing this with some friends (all much cleverer than I) last week, I can't help but think that this kerfluffle is the result of a profound misunderstanding of the nature of the universe, combined with the (all too human) desire for free press.

Even were the conjecture correct, I imagine that given the age and scope of the universe, countless other intelligent species would have set this alleged time bomb ticking while our planet was still in short pants, so to speak. (the Fermi paradox non-withstanding)

...on the other hand, perhaps this is the cause of the Fermi paradox? (tongue firmly in cheek)

To quote the immortal Douglas Adams:
"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

It is a typical irony that an administrator of an organization like this--many of whose members are so focussed on the future--seems to be so buried in the past.

I also find it distressing that some of my favorite authors (Scalzi, Stross, Bear and Moon in particular) are/were devoting time (when they could be writing more awesome stuff for me to read) to battling an entrenched, seemingly corrupt, bureaucracy.

I realize that is a selfish viewpoint.

Also, "Scalzi, Stross, Bear and Moon" would be a good name for a band.

I really adored this book, as I love everything Mr. Stross has published (with the exception of Glasshouse; I cannot explain why). For anyone else who enjoys his work, I would also suggest looking into Connie Willis, Robert Charles Wilson and John Scalzi: they each write about very different topics, in very different ways, but these authors seem to share a devotion to the craft and art of writing that (for myself at least) makes each work of theirs a visceral pleasure to read. This is a new Golden Age, and these are the ringmasters of it.

I would also recommend Cory's work, but I figure if you're reading this, you already know about him. :)

Dr. Linda Page (an herbalist) talks about this herb in her book Healthy Healing, as well. I haven't read Weil's book yet, but one of the things Dr. Page seems to believe strongly is that the effect of this herb is multiplied by using it in combination with other herbs, for some kind of synergistic effect.

I'm really not sure how much credence to give studies like this, but I figure it's probably worth trying out.