What about Solitaire? That's easy one of the most popular computer games in the entire world and it's freaking called Solitaire. I mean, a key component of a game like that is the ability to "trance out", and even though there can be a social aspect to gaming as well I believe this component is something timeless that will never fade away. Even the most popular multiplayer genres are based on this principle anyway. MMOs, FPSes, all of them have this "trance out" effect. The most popular games out there involve abstraction and repetition and reward, not getting together with twelve people and discussing how to run a virtual city. Other players are an interesting addition to this, but they're not fundamentally vital to the experience. At least for games huge numbers of people play, which is all I'm saying.

Unfortunately, since his staff didn't mail his soul until Monday, it's not going to get to where it's going until Thursday. Until then he's still technically alive.

Why did joystick buttons switch sides? On old sticks like this one, the buttons (in this case button) are generally on the left side (in this particular case it's easily re-positionable if you run the cable from the right side rather than the back, but the general design of old joysticks has buttons on the left), but for modern arcade sticks and joypads all the buttons are on the right. It's kinda weird, isn't it? One would think that since most people get better fine motor control out of their right hand it never would have changed...

Jokes on them. I'll just piss and shit in my seat.

From airplane to subway with one bad idea.

Video game designers have a hard enough time creating hunger, disease, and poverty. At least realistically. You don't see part of Liberty City get poorer as drug lords thrive. You don't see the bums lunge at the hot dog carts. In X zombie game you don't see the virus spread through an un-inoculated population.

Maybe that's why the game looks a lot more like a comic book with a bulletin board system...

Uh, actually, 3.00, as might be indicated by the "point oh oh," was a pretty massive overhaul. Any PS3 owner noticed this at bootup, it's not that big a secret. The thing already has all the DRM it needs, this was probably a failed bugfix or something. Still, they seriously need to learn from their mistakes: the PS3 has a pretty good firmware backup system, and botched versions have already slipped past it twice. Not much of a failsafe... Is the difference between configs/models that hard to account for?

That's the part I don't understand. The Joker, specifically the one depicted, is certainly a "well-known" character, but he's not a socialist. He's pretty clearly portrayed as at best an anarchist, and at worst completely insane with no real political views whatsoever. The artist seems to have gone out of his way to choose provocative, rather than relevant, imagery. For instance, a Stalin mustache would have fit this alleged "point" better, and not have garnered nearly as much controversy. I'm not attacking his right to do so, I'm just saying the end result is transparent and cheap, manufactured for the sake of shock rather than any real critical message. That doesn't necessarily have to do with racism, either, he's being compared to a murdering psychopath. I don't recall seeing that too much, even with our last President. A Stalin comparison would at least reflect other ideas, about power gone wrong, etc., but with the Joker there's not much to the guy: he's a raving, homicidal lunatic. What are you supposed to think the message is? Does anyone really, truly agree with that, if you take a second to de-polarize from any political bias? That the President = the Joker? I disagree with this being taken down but I also disagree with the knee-jerk response that this is high art and shouldn't be scrutinized. My mind was open to this image, I thought about it, and came to my own conclusions. Free speech is worthless without free thinking, if that makes any sense.

Actually, that's kind of funny, even if everyone disagrees with me I'll feel like I got my point across...

I was talking about the moon, though, and how that in particular is being portrayed in the media as a "second space race." I don't see the benefit in "racing" China back to it. Even if we "win" we've backtracked, and if we "lose" we've somehow cultivated this weird notion that we "lost." Better to avoid it entirely and move forward.

I hate the mentality of "space race again." We were already there, forty years ago. The race is long, long since over. In what kind of race is 1st place lost if you don't claim 2nd place too? National pride is no longer on the line. Spend accordingly. Go to Mars.

Weren't you a child once?. Presumably these things helped your parents, and directly benefited your life. It sounds like you want to pull the rope ladder up behind you now that you're an adult. I'm all for ending them if there's a legitimate problem with these benefits, but they're actually designed to help every child (i.e. everyone), not a select few who become parents, so that doesn't seem like a valid concern to me, just a mistaken perspective.