if you're looking for an alternative to using your hands when you think "internet porn" and you think of this... you should get out more.

actually, i was just thinking the same thing. would you be able to think "capital T" or would you somehow have to simultaneously think "hold shift key" and then "type T"?

i don't disagree, but your point really doesn't have anything to do with mine.

i'm pretty sure "let's call it the internet" and "we could use it to share stupid memes" weren't uttered in the same breath.

i'm also pretty sure karl benz first thought after inventing the modern automobile wasn't "you know what, i'd really like to get shitfaced drunk and give this baby a crash test" either.

yes, because what we need is more twitter.

whenever i hear about groundbreaking advancements in the neurosciences, i for one automatically think about how it can improve my twitter feed.

sigh.

Your number one priority in a Tiger Park is... to maintain the tiger population. How the fuck do you let 24 tigers die in 36 months? Am I the only one that thinks that maybe after the first 12 months someone should have said, "wait a minute, we've got less tigers now than 12 months ago" and tried to figure out what the fuck was going wrong? How the fuck do you not notice anything is wrong in three years? Surely 24 tigers did not die in the past few months, right?

Maybe I'm assuming too much; I was sick the day they taught tiger maintenance at tiger school.

Or you could, you know, stick the thing in the microwave for ten seconds.

Enough to zap the chip, not enough to toast the paperwork.

Done and done, job well done.

Honestly, does it really fucking matter?

It doesn't matter if 100 used games are traded each year or 100 million. GAME COMPANIES GOT THEIR CUT WHEN THEY FUCKING SOLD IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I don't give a shit if it takes 5% or 95% of their 'potential revenue' away - JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE ENTITLED TO IT.

In the puntastic words of someone funnier than me, it's not rocket surgery. Geez.

You know what your first clue was?

The name.

Pocky gets its name from the sound the snack makes when you bite it and it snaps... "Pocky! It's one of the many onomatopoeic phrases that the Japanese use. But I digress. When a snack's most prominent feature is the way it SOUNDS, you know you're in trouble when it comes to flavor.

Another example of the Japanese obsession with a food's non-flavor-related traits: Konyaku. A completely bland gelatin-like food praised almost entirely for its texture rather than taste.

Quick! Before the server gets eaten by a grue.

Here's a novel idea:

For every example you gave, I don't see one that could not be achieved with more accuracy and less hassle than having a mouse in each hand with a different colored cursor. Except for maybe public access, which let's face it is served very well with current touch technology already.

But selling people another $5 mouse just wouldn't be as cool, hypeworthy or anywhere nearly as marketable now, would it?

Perhaps now we'll be able to see those massive floating garbage islands in the Pacific Ocean that we're always hearing about.

You mean New Zealand?

The dumb public will be just fine with it riiight up until the first lawsuit from some person who's relative died because they couldn't dial 911.

My two cents.

Great game. Totally got me hooked after trying the demo. However:

- Way too easy. Or should I say, way too short. I finished the full game in just over 4 hours. And 1 of those hours was when I got stuck trying to force the intended solution for one level, finally got angry and came up with my own solution (One of the rocket levels, ended up not using the rocket). - No, I was right the first time; way too easy. Once you find out you can pin stuff and lift the ball just using small 'lifts', it ends up being pretty easy and you don't need to conform to a lot of the preset layouts. Hell, a lot of the solutions don't require any of the preset 'furniture'.

- SPOILER ALERT - Last level is disappointing, simple and short. Was expecting it to go out with a bang but all I got was a whimper.

Overall, definitely worth the money but really needs to be tweaked a little.

How curious. :) Tell me, did you in any way "miss" the out-of-doors (I'm asking this not knowing whether you are normally an out-door kind of fellow)? I suppose a big factor would be how much actual sunlight you were exposed to, even through glass.

Well I don't hike out in the woods with a tent or build fires without matches like your average outdoorsman (I like being able to take a shower regularly), but I do run a little league soccer association with skills training and the like and play a lot of organized sports.

But to be honest, no I didn't miss the outside. But I am very dedicated to work and when I'm in work mode, I tend not to focus much on anything else. I usually work 6 days a week and don't 'switch off' until that last day of week. When I was on those trips, I was working every day, so I think I was just in 'work mode' for the four weeks.

Then again, it was winter. Winter in Tokyo is particular vicious, seeing as all the concrete retains no warmth and the highrises everywhere tend to create wind tunnels out of every street.

Interesting story about self-contained/sheltered living.

I live in Osaka but my company used to send me to Tokyo for weeks at a time for liaison work. The company had a Hilton HHonors thing going so naturally, they put me up at the Hilton Tokyo, located in Nishi-Shinjuku. However, the office I had to commute to every day was in Ginza; on the other side of the city and give or take, about twenty minutes away by subway.

Now the Hilton Tokyo is a little unusual being that it is one of a handful of hotels in Tokyo that has an escalator that goes directly down into the underground subway commuter paths from the hotel lobby. Many hotels/buildings are very near said escalators/stairs/elevators but only a few actually have access to the subway without having to step outside in some form.

In addition to this, as anyone who's been to a city in Japan can attest to, nearly all the subway stations have, in addition to the normal exits to ground level, various extra exits that lead directly to the nearby office buildings and department stores.

Ten days into one particular trip, something suddenly occurred to me. I was staying at the Hilton, taking the elevator down to the lobby, taking the escalator directly down into the subway system, taking the subway to the other side of the city, ascending straight from the subway into my office building for work...and then doing the exact opposite at the end of the day to get back to the hotel... all without stepping foot outside. I'd end up going to restaurants and going shopping at stores all located within or connected to the subterranean maze of Tokyo. So effectively, I was living my entire day-to-day life completely contained in a giant stretched-out arcology. I was somewhat stunned. So much so, that after I realized what I was doing, I decided I'd try to keep the streak going.

For just under four weeks, I was able to keep it going. The only thing that stopped me was when I finally took the shinkansen back to Osaka; JR and shinkansen platforms are nearly all above-ground. Sadly, (gladly?) my normal day-to-day life here in Osaka is not as 'sheltered'.

It somewhat reminded me of the Trantor I envisioned from Asimov's Prelude to Foundation where it was actually RARE for people to actually see the outside world, spending their entire lives in the endless subterranean levels of the planet. I can see how some people mind think it a little creepy, but I thought it was kinda cool. The Tokyo thing, not the Trantor thing.