I'm told that Tito wanted schools to teach both Latinate and Cyrillic, to keep the Croatians happy, but in practice it turned out to be one or the other.

My wife was the daughter of academics and descendant from old royalists and Orthodox, so she learned the cyrillic, mainly.

I'll tell you, Belgrade is one interesting place. That country has seen a lot of trouble, and there's a great deal of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, but through the eyes of someone like me who grew up in the US, it's a complex stew, and so different from other European capitals.

The time I've spent there has taught me how complicated most of the world is.

Four games, in two years.

I understand Hotline: Miami was a critical success, because lo-res, 2D games equal coolness with indie developers, but it's nothing but a twitch game for hipsters.

And the same Rock Paper Shotgun hipsters who have a ball slaughtering prostitutes in Hotline: Miami are lecturing us on why AAA games are sexist and too violence oriented. Irony will only take you so far, you know?

Hotline: Miami is gaming for fashion victims.

Wait, you mean they're not going to need Ruby on Rails programmers in the post-apocalyptic, post-industrial future?

Shit. They guy at the career fair gave me his assurances.

Don't laugh. He has a point.

Since this is Slashdot, I'm sure most of us believe that post-apocalyptic society will want to keep us alive for our impeccable genes.

Though some of us might have to hide our eyeglasses and try not to squint. Because you know what they did to Piggy and his ass-mar, right? You don't want go out like that.

This story is BS. "Crowdfunding", early access and F2P are killing gaming. Developers have learned that they no longer have to complete a game. "Game development" is no longer something you do in order to make a game, it's something you do in order to make your next game, which is also never completed. Why would you ever actually deliver a complete game experience when you can charge $20 and up for a practically empty game engine and a slick trailer?

And don't get me started on F2P games. They're creepy, sad and even the best of them leave you empty. The only grand vision is, "Get a bunch of people playing and hope there are enough 14 year-olds with the password to their parents PayPal account to make it pay. Enjoy the kickstarter money and move on to the next project.

The last 2 years have been the worst for PC gaming since I started playing games on my Commodore 64. I can count the number of actual AAA titles in the past 2 years worthy of the name on one hand.

And console players shouldn't get smug. You're in the same boat. You want to pay $60 for six hours of gameplay? How many hours did you pour into the games of the past? Corporate gaming has figured out that like cereal, you can make a bunch of money charging the same price for a shrinking product. It's why consoles are being sold more for their "entertainment center" features (really a "consumption center") than for the possibility of playing a continual stream of first-rate games for them.

The platforms are fine. It's the gaming industry that is moribund, getting fat and lazy on an increasingly locked-in income stream that has nothing to do with good games.

Considering the political makeup of this country, you'd be better off playing Day-Z or Rust, and prepare to be naked and facing the barrel of a gun.

What matters now is sowing the seeds of reform.

"Reform" is such an interesting word. The Latin roots of "reform" means, "grab your ankles".

The neoliberal "reform" you're touting would be even more disastrous than the current disaster.

I'm pretty sure that if we ever see "reform" it will not come from anyone who is currently holding elected office in America today. And it certainly won't come from anyone on the far Right.

If you want your blood chilled, take a look at what the corporate elite who comprise ALEC define as "reform".

Right! To be fair, it's really hard someone to find someone for your board of directors who isn't a war criminal.

The choice was between Condoleeza Rice and Slobodan Milosevic and he backed out due to health reasons. I understand they sent feelers out to Joseph Kony, but he thought they were children's arms, so he cut them off.

Welcome Condi! Maybe a little more money will help you sleep at night, because you're looking a little tired, girl.

In other news, Dropbox has announced that their appointment of Joseph Goebbels to their board of directors will not change their stance on Jews.

I'll bet this does not mean that if I'm suing a corporation, that I'll have access to all their private records.

Laws giving the elite power over ordinary people are being passed at an alarming rate, even in countries that purport to be a little more progressive like Canada. Because corporate wealth has that much power. I've been reading some of the exegesis of the financial collapse of 2008 that Yves Smith has written, and when you see the way every single move our governments have made since then have been giving even more latitude and power to corporations to do whatever they want to us, you really start to get a feel for the direction of our society. Of course, it's been going on longer than that, but never this blatant. It's like they don't even care who knows any more, because they are that sure of their entrenchment.

We're so fucked. The next few decades are really going to be dark. I'm old, and I never expected dystopia to happen this fast.

The funny part is that our financial elite really seem to believe they can outrun their own destructiveness. Maybe it's some belief in a transhumanist future or that they're going to be able so remove themselves from the condition of the rest of us by insulating themselves with wealth and power. Somehow, they believe, this time will be different, and we won't end up with our heads through a guillotine. Funny.

it's a city state

the policies that work for one small rich densely populated tightly controlled area does not apply to large areas of rural and urban, rich and poor

singapore offers no lessons about how to run real countries

Oh stop it. You want to see how bad a news aggregation site can be? Go check out this "vox.com" site, put together by people from the NYT and other big-time media outfits. It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen, works like shit, and is insulting to boot. It's like Buzzfeed for a new generation of hipsters who hate Buzzfeed. They must have read somewhere that headlines get more hits if you put a number in them, like, "17 Ways To Watch Game of Thrones More Effectively" or, "9 Secrets To Having a Happy Life".

It the most unpleasant experience I've had with a big new web property. It's not very often that just the design of a web site sets off my gag reflex, but adding in the nonsense and I believe it actually shortened my life to view that mess.

I like the approach AdBusters takes. It's not going to tear down any walls by itself, but it does a nice job of presenting an option.

Their new "#mindbombs" campaign to put anti-consumerist commercials on television is interesting. No idea what effect it will have, if any, but it's still a good idea to let people know it's possible to be cool without buying into consumerist culture.

https://www.adbusters.org/blog...

My Serbian wife gives that a thumb's up.

She and my daughter were in Belgrade visiting her aged mother when Clinton started the bombing. She lives across the street from the opera house downtown, so most of the CNN pictures of the Belgrade bombing showed exactly where my wife and daughter were. It was a surreal moment for me, watching my own country trying to kill my family. They couldn't get out because of the no-fly zone and I tried to get over them to try to get them out overland, but that was also impossible because of the NATO checkpoints. All I remember is the helpless fury I felt, and the sick fear for their well-being.

I've been to Belgrade lots of times since then, and I wonder how different Americans would feel if they really knew the lasting damage that's done to a place and people when Americans decide to start dropping the freedom bombs.

instead of using it to organize and fight the system, they post cat pictures and jerk off.

Don't discount the fear factor. Whether they admit it or not, knowing that the NSA and Google and others are recording your every move online. When you're under crushing personal debt, your tolerance for risk goes way down.

The millennials I encounter are extremely uneasy about their futures.

As to the cat pix and pron, remember the entire purpose for "bread and circuses" is to distract and deflect. March Madness or Game of Thrones, the idea is protect the elites and encourage consumption. And advertising is designed to influence behavior and attitudes at a very deep level. They're not spending billions on advertising because it doesn't work. They do it because it's the most effective way to modify behavior on a mass scale.

I'm pretty sure the French Revolution doesn't happen if they had TV and the Internet.