Ever heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Global Warming? We are NOT "OK". For the metric to be "meaningless" you would have to make the case that we can't make probabilistic claims, based on available evidence, as to how likely we are to be annihilated. Furthermore, you'd have to make the case that certain factors are not possible contributors to an increase in such probability - such as sticking your giant blonde head in the sand, and ignoring carbon emissions, while crying big, beautiful, hysterical tears about Muslims and Mexicans.

Obviously, the clock is a metaphor, so your attempt to explain something so intentionally blatant is just another example of the anti-intellectual bias rampant in Trump's America. It's that deep seated belief people hold that they're somehow "smarter than scientists" and all information that runs contrary to their "gut" is to be discarded, no matter how credible the source, that is the root of many of our problems.

Microsoft unrolled a plan that put major roadblocks up to trading or selling used games. Consumers told them to go fuck themselves. ...fast forward...

Sales are 2 to 1, in favor of the company that didn't try to pull this blatantly anti-consumerist bullshit, and rightfully so. Apparently, plenty of idiots were swayed by their last minute reversals.

There are plenty of people that don't believe the things that Hawkins is professing. They think most of our jobs were lost "overseas" to immigrants, and just elected a narcissistic charlatan into office as a firm reinforcement of that belief.

Hawkins professing something isn't, in and of itself, admissible as any kind of evidence in evaluating their argument...but I'm going to strongly counter that it's plenty of evidence to listen to the argument in the first place. He is an accomplished intellectual, and we give him space out of civilized respect for said accomplishments. It's an insane world where Trump, or any of the god damn batman villains he's filling his cabinet with, are supposed to, somehow, be worthy of our attention or respect, given a total lack of said accomplishments. Make no mistake about it, we're certainly going to be debating their points of view, like it not. The problem with information, nowadays, isn't of evidence, but of preference and exposure. It matters - A LOT - what the actual opinions and arguments are that people are being exposed to in the first place, and this is a problem that precedes the veracity of said arguments. This is why we're stuck firmly in the fake news "make up your own facts and believe them" Trump era. People like Hawkins need to come forward with common sense arguments because we should give a shit about our intellectuals, in the public sphere.

This is because they've had a reputation of relying on reason, logic, evidence, etc. to establish arguments through the academic tradition. I disagreed with nearly every word that came out of William F. Buckley's mouth - but you can't deny that he formed coherent arguments utilizing reason, in an overall civilized manner. Nowadays, nobody but "YOU" ("you" being whoever is reading this) knows what the fuck they are talking about, and is is a total fucking idiot. That's basically "argumentation" for the modern age. It doesn't matter what a person's IQ is, bend over and take a huge rude shit right in their fucking face - because, after all, this is "YOU" we're talking about. You probably know better.

First off, criticism of US is not tantamount with objective coverage of Hussein's Iraq, which is what you would have needed to demonstrate in order to "call bullshit" on my example.

Besides, your response is a bit of a contradiction. You claim that "when both sides are held by generally good actors, you report both sides". You seem to be implying that when both sides are not considered "good" then you don't have to cover both sides objectively? I don't think I need to say much to demonstrate why using a word like "good" is entirely subjective, which completely undermines the point of being "objective" in the first place. You can't claim any kind of objectivity, after we have to administer a very subjective screening process, first. Again, that's called a contradiction. The framing of an issue, in and of itself, makes an ethical statement.

How would you even determine the moral status of the actors at hand, in the first place? At best, it sounds like you're simply promoting consensus based ethical filters to predetermine the expected scope of acceptable reporting, as opposed to anything really resembling truth or objectivity. Observe the "objective" reporting around gay marriage, climate change, evolution, and Donald Trump, for further examples of this.

In other words, you're going to have a hard time explaining why journalists have to be "objective" in a conflict like this, but can rightfully lose that objectivity when it comes to conflicts like the Iraq war, all without resorting to ethical arguments. The slightest drop of morality, here, will simply invalidate objectivity as a governing mandate. It has to be an all or nothing concept, like blind justice, or it's basically nonsense.

Thus, it is objectivity that is bullshit, not journalism. If reporters were truly objective, they would have never had the instincts to expose Catholic priests, just to name an example off the top of my head.

It matters 0% what you're "considered", when journalism is concerned. No journalist has a "responsibility" to be objective, because it's a moral and logical impossibility. What matters is the truth, and how accurately you are presenting it. Should journalists have been "morally objective" when reporting on the Iraq war, giving us Hussein's side of the story in equal measure?

Serious question - if not, why not? The short answer would be that doing so would have rightfully been considered a massive betrayal of our country. If we're at war, you don't write sympathetic pieces for our enemies, "objectivity" be damned. You're quickly going to find the level of "objectivity" a journalist is supposed to have, in covering a conflict, is very, very, subjective. In other words, your appeal to objectivity is a bunch of bullshit. Journalists are objective when it won't betray our country, or otherwise cause such controversies. Conversely, when the state is involved, such as in this case, you're supposed to be "objective", lest you get labelled a "mouthpiece".

I understand most of the points you're making, but I think you're on a tangent of sorts. I'm not arguing that Netflix is more important than crucial healthcare infrastructure, or even basic utility services (like my garbage collection example).

My argument is that the relative importance, function, or price, of a service is entirely, utterly, 100% irrelevant, for the same exact reason that it's entirely irrelevant
what the purpose, function, or price, of a consumer good is, in valuing consumer rights.

If you purchase consumer goods, it doesn't matter how "cheap" or "useless' the product is. If your $1 pair of shoelaces is defective - you can take them back and get a refund, unless you bought the goods under specific predetermined conditions (all sales final, etc.).

Even cheap pieces of junk have warranties and return policies. We shouldn't be giving services ANY more slack when it comes to consumer rights.

Ok...it sounds like you're telling me that I should purchase backup media of things I already pay to stream. "Getting what I deserve", in your view, is apparently not getting the service I paid for.

That being said... my point was not that we should be overly critical of Netflix for suffering outages. I wasn't personally affected by this outage, and am not coming from that point of view.

My point was that just because Netflix is an entertainment service, that doesn't mean they should be held to lower standards, than any other service. In my opinion, this attitude let's a lot of companies get away with quite a lot of horseshit, particularly on mobile devices. If I run an important service to your area, such as mandatory private garbage collection, and you run a service like hosting Mmorpg servers, the profits we make at the end of the year are equally "real". The fact that one of us hosts an entertainment service shouldn't make us less accountable for delivering on that service to our customers. Inversely, customers that complain about an interruption of their service are not automatically less entitled to compensation just because the service is for a leisure activity.

The headline was the real object of my criticism, and the editorializing of the news was unnecessary. So long as people are accurate in their criticism, and are being reasonable, there's no good reason to downplay those criticisms out of the gate.

You know...I'm kind of sick of the whole attitude that services we pay for, for entertainment value, are supposed to be held to lower standards of accountability. People are allowed to be displeased if ANY service they pay for faces unscheduled interruption. It doesn't matter if the purpose of that service is a leisure activity, business is business. The snark around "real life" is just a way to downplay the situation due to the presumed lack of importance for the activity itself.

Some people's work schedules, routines, etc. only allow for a bit of entertainment at certain hours of the day, each week, and it could really suck if that thing you paid for in advance isn't working, when you just want to relax after work, or whatever. God help you if you have younger children who often work a certain episode of their favorite TV show into a routine request.

For reasons like these, and countless more, people pay Netflix to deliver content.

Don't like criticism on the Internet?

then don't read it? I don't understand the need to respond.

Guess how much more useful that bullshit is than a 3.5mm headphone jack? That's called a downgrade.

Uh....wait. Why are the arguments "weak"?

The argument for inclusion is that it's an industry standard and extremely convenient port that has no signs of going anywhere anytime soon, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. Headphones aren't going to suddenly stop being 3.5mm, nor are standard audio cables.

The arguments for removal....are what exactly? Maybe you'll get a 0.0001% increase in battery life or processing power? I guess it makes customers have to buy more shit to do the same thing they were already doing, which is good for Apple's bottom line? Or what?

Yeah, fuck that.

First off - no - , you made a claim that you utterly failed to follow up with. I've read their response - they still didn't write an article, or take an official stance, defending bullying, which is the impression the hysteria from your camp projects. Other people chimed in about the tweet, but nothing you folks clutch your pearls about holds water. You were basically farming for something - anything - to try and legitimize your group as being some kind of misunderstood victim, due to the term "sexist asshole" being nearly synonymous with "GamerGate". Nobody bought the act, sorry. You can't get blood from a turnip, and it was just a fucking tweet, not a Wikileaks dump, ffs.

Seriously fuck off with the whole "shitty human being" schtick. As I already pointed out, you GG folks didn't give TWO SHITS that actual female games journalists were getting DEATH THREATS and publicly doxxed - not having to deal with the much more severe problem, apparently, of reading a sarcastic tweet. How the fuck can you even bring up doxxing with a straight face...as though those women didn't have their personal information spread far and wide, all over the Internet in an attempt to cause them harm? Are you really THAT fucking delusional, that you see all the terrible shit that happened to those women as having nothing to do with what you call GG? Like no connection? All just a big coincidence?

The irony here is thick...on Monday you go on and FUCKING ON about how terrible easily offended "PC" culture is, with all of their SJW melodrama...and give us a lot of emo reasons as to why they're ruining your life, or whatever, and then, on Tuesday, you expect us to call in the national guard because some dipshit made a stupid NY-attitude tweet that hurt your little feelings. Yeah fucking right. Do you people not have a dictionary? Do you not know what a "contradiction" is?

The case is real simple, here. You can't bitch about some tweet, that offended you, when you didn't come to the defense of female journalists that were being ruthlessly threatened, and both condemn such cowardly acts and strongly clarify your group's positions in contrast - at the time. That didn't happen. You fucks added fuel to the fire and made these women's lives miserable.

Just for clarity, again, - my position is that you all suck. Fuck Gawker and their public shaming tabloid horseshit, and fuck GG and your anti-SJW mob-mentality bro-time horseshit. You fucks are two sides of the same god damn coin, and frankly I'm glad that both of you are dropping from the limelight. The world will be a better place. Maybe now people can be gay in the privacy of their own home, if they want to, and a woman can use her 1st amendment rights to speak about video games without a bunch of fucking neckbeards having an god damn aneurysm.

The rest of what you say is bullshit too. Like I predicted, you immediately pulled out the "No True Scotsman" card to explain away how GG is never responsible for anything...it's those mysterious "3rd parties". Give me a fucking break. Assholes have been saying shit like this since the dawn of time to scapegoat blame. Again, you'd have us believe that it was all a coincidence? That these "3rd parties" just happened to target female journalists at the same time your "totally legitimate" organization also had a lot of inflammatory rhetoric aimed at them? Sure....Fuck that.

So yeah, no fucking way do you get to start drawing imaginary borders between the things you do and do not want your little anti-SJW crusade to be associated with, and expect others to simply accept your convenient distinctions. Like a SJW, you know a GG jerk-off pretty much immediately.

Oh cry me a fucking river about the tweet. It was a "tweet", not an article, and one that was quickly clarified to be sarcastic joke, albeit not a very good one. I'm not going to deny that people that work for this news organization are a bunch of dicks...but this was a total red herring, with nothing to it. You're not talking about leaked secret emails or state dept. documents here.

Here's a fucking NEWSFLASH for you - people are human beings with opinions, and senses of humor. Gawker media is made of many, many of these entities, who may or may not all agree with each other.

They didn't write some elaborate article pontificating on the merits of bullying, as a news organization. One person made an unfunny joke in a whiny tweet, and the #Gamergate crowd apparently had skin thickness measuring in the sub-microns. FFS. Grow up. Everyone involved in this sucks, all around, and are a bunch of fucking crybaby drama queens. I shudder to imagine the epic meltdown when someone fucks up your Taco Bell order.

This same logic applies to "hypocrisy" you're attempting to point out. That concept only applies here, if we assume that there is one unifying voice that these entities all speak with. The authors at Jezebel and Gawker were obviously different people, with different motivations for what they were doing. At most, you're simply pointing out contradictory viewpoints from different authors, published on two different websites owned by the same company. That's not exactly a case of "hypocrisy" any more than it is for Fox to have their news channel, and run a blatantly left-leaning program like Family Guy, or a newspaper running contradictory editorials. You need more evidence, showing a biased intent, to support such a claim.

If you want to talk about hypocrisy - how about the attempts to crucify some NY dumbass over a tweet, while meanwhile, the #Gamergate crowd was saying and doing some pretty horrific shit, in a lot of the places that they had an online presence. Can you really fucking bring up "bullying" with a straight face, when women were literally receiving deaththreats for the injurious crime of having unpopular opinions, and wanting to voice those in a public place? If you're so against "bullying" in games journalism why wasn't that the focus of your goddamn campaign? I imagine you have some BS definition of "Gamergate" that does the No True Scotsman's shuffle to distance yourself from those folks, and some token "hey guys...chill out" forum post, but seriously - fuck that. You can't remove those parts of your "movement" for being too extreme, and then condemn something like Gawker media, as a whole, without, yourself, being pretty big fucking hypocrites. I'd put the onus of responsibility on YOU to explain why so many terrible fucking people flocked to your banner, and said and did some pretty terrible things in your name - on your forums, in your comment sections, and so on.

Like I said - you all suck. Gawker sucks for what they did to Hogan, and deserved to lose the case. Gamergate sucked, and was a bunch of horseshit that embraced terrible people saying terrible things. Fuck you all.

Uh...I think you're oversimplifying the situation.

Fact #1: A LOT of multi-platform games have abysmal PC launches. Stability, if not overall performance, is obviously superior on consoles. From the recent release of No Man's Sky, to Dark Souls III, to last year's launch of Fallout 4, PC launches are often plagued with crashes, glitches, and nearly unplayable states, compared to their console versions. That's what "just-simply-work" means. You go to the store, put in your disk, and the game will load and play just fine - not crash to your desktop and corrupt your saves. I personally prefer to game on my PC, but I never count on a game's launch being a window to actually get to play said games, reliably.

Fact #2: You're also not factoring in cheats and hacks, which are HUGE factors for multiplayer PC gaming, that almost never effect consoles. Several high-profile AAA titles are sometimes nearly unplayable only because the mp component is on the PC, such as GTA V.

I think you blow off the problem of older games a bit too easily. If a classic game gets relaunched for the PS4 or Xbox, it's going to work, flawlessly. Ditto for Nintendo's virtual console. Meanwhile, Steam Link has trouble streaming some older games to your TV, creating, what is inherently a flawed experience. This is an actual problem for a lot of gamers.

People like consoles because they come with the assurance that someone else has already teased out any potential problems, and you're going to get a pretty seamless end-user experience. Just turn it on and start the game. Even "Mom" knows how to start Netflix, or play some Mario from a quick-launch screen, and that's considering that "Mom" hates dealing with computers (using my own mother as an example...don't infer too much sexist commentary here, please...). If you're just some random person, not too tech savvy, the process for installing and updating a GPU + drivers is far more advanced than simply confirming a mandatory install for a console's OS. For all it's advancements, PC gaming is still seen as a hobby of investment, with specialized technical knowledge as a prerequisite for participation, as opposed to the pure leisure activity that consoles come off as, which are no harder to get started with than a DVD player.

Of course the problem with console gaming isn't PCs, it's that they have to share all these advantages with smartphones and tablets - which also eat the lunch of PCs, by being somewhat general purpose.

This is an issue about semantics, I'll agree, but I don't see why that's a bad thing. You're not going to find a topic that depends more on semantics than the law. "Semantics" implies that there is an issue about the meaning of a word, which is the absolute core of this issue. If you don't know what a word, like "suspect", actually means, in the legal sense, don't use it in a banner fucking headline involving law enforcement officers.

Similarly, don't cry foul when you get called out for it because YOU were ignorant.