From what I've heard, I concur that the War on Drugs, is probably causing more harm than good.

That said, the goal of precluding human suffering from abusive drug use is still a worthy one IMO. I'd rather see the funding for the war on drugs flowing into alternative approaches to discouraging drug abuse, rather than waiting for addicts to flame out and die. They are indeed addicts and many will never become anything more. But there was a time when they had value to society, and potential to become more. It's still a waste when they are consumed by their addiction.

Perhaps I could have addictive tendencies myself. I don't know, I've never tried addictive substances (though I am pretty strongly attached to my hobbies). Maybe the only thing keeping me from falling to pieces is that I was informed of the negative potential there and decided that the fun of trying it out wasn't really worth tempting fate. Maybe legalizing the drugs, then shifting the funding to drug use discouragement (educating/informing the public) rather than law enforcement would be a better combination.

Agreed, people play games in different ways. There was a time when I would take every opportunity to shoot every scientist in the face just to see what would happen.

But when the game is doing a good job I settle into it. I wonder what my character would be feeling. I look where the game wants me to look, because I want to extract maximum value from the game with the short time I have with it before I get back to work. I'm not always actively looking to break the game. I get that jaffe doesnt like storytelling in games and/or wishes it could be done better. I'm already enjoying it and I want more of it.

Heck, multiplayer is all about gameplay and I don't give a damn about multiplayer modes because there's no story to unwrap (with a few exceptions of games with story nuggets in the multiplayer which are able to coax me online).

There's also a combined gift and estate tax lifetime exclusion of up to $1mil, so he'll still be ok.

A simpler example for a situation where taxes could liquidate the house is one where there the parents already had a huge outstanding tax liability at the time of their death, and no other assets to liquidate to extinguish that tax liability but the house. But the house would never really be given to the son if the estate/trustee was paying attention.

The rich benefit FAR more from society than anyone else.

That business depends on roads so that trucks can make it to customers to make the sales that made that rich guy rich.

The schools educate the employees that work for the rich guy so that he can have a successful business.

The courts protect his business from vendors and customers blowing off contracts at will, so that he can have a stable business environment to make money in.

The police protect him and his money, from simply being carried off whenever someone pleases.

The army protects him from other armies. He doesn't need to pay for his private army to protect him and his wealth from bandits and angry mobs.

Not in this scenario.

http://www.irs.gov/publications/p523/ar02.html#en_US_2010_publink1000200711

Without getting into technical details, in the general case, and under 2011 tax law, a married couple can waive paying federal tax on up to $500k($250k exclusion each) of realized gains on your house. Even if the parents had 0 basis on the house, the maximum realized gain would be $500k, so they don't have to pay anything on that.

Further, the son will take that property with a basis at fair market value(step-up in basis, see link below), i.e he'll have a full $500k basis in that house. It could appreciate to $750mil and he'd still pay no taxes when selling it.

http://library.findlaw.com/1999/Jan/1/126098.html

IAACPA. (Albeit, a financial accountant, not a tax accountant:P)

The summary is wrong. The article isn't claiming that EBITDA is falling (which would imply that profits are being reduced). It's claiming that EBITDA /margins/ are falling (i.e that EBITDA as a percentage of revenue is falling).

So it's as you described, they're selling more, at a lower margin, to get a higher overall profit.

Parents are one influence on their children, perhaps the most important. Teachers are another. There's still more to consider.

The peer group is important as well. The information that people want or need to learn is out there if they care. But how many kids can learn effectively when put into isolation with a computer and told to "learn". Some kids /love/ to learn and will learn as much, and as fast as they are able, without any external urging. But this is clearly not the case for the majority of kids.

They look at each other to figure out what they should be doing. They don't know how much effort to put in, they don't even know how much effort they are capable of putting in. They can study and feel that they've done a good job. But when they talk to their peers, to someone who they perhaps perceived as an equal, they may find that their peer has far higher scores, and has studied far more than they have. Then their eyes are opened to how much effort they really could be putting in, and the possibility that they could achieve far more than they had first believed.

"Keeping up with the joneses" cuts both ways though. If children enter a peer group that slacks off, resents reading, and/or have never experienced pride in academic achievement, then they may never have the positive exposure that pushes them to put in more effort. They may think "Well, 1 hour of study a day is good enough for everybody else, so 1 hour of study is good enough for me". At the same time, everyone in that group is saying the same thing, and they collectively drag themselves down.

How can we change the group's perspective, and resulting peer influence? There are plenty of possibilities, I'm not really sure which methods would be best. But recognizing the importance of this influencing factor is a key step towards identifying the best ways of using this influence to improve the effectiveness of education in our schools.

(There may even be ways to integrate peer influence into remote education as well, who knows?)

Work any job to get food and rent.

Go home and work on your own game. Keep it simple, and polished. If you don't know how to do something, find out how and do it (game developers wear many hats). The resulting game is your resume to get into the gaming industry. It doesn't need to be a widespread hit, just a working example of what you are capable of, both in terms of technical prowess, and in terms of personal passion for the work.

Yes, that means working all day and all night, but that's the kind of work/life balance you're looking for anyway, since it's what you'll have for the first several years working your way up.

The difference between PC and console gaming has always been "control".

Hardware doesn't matter, software doesn't matter, it's who chooses what goes where. On PCs, users have full control to install or tweak hardware and software(even changing the games themselves through mods). On consoles, it's up to the manufacturer. Giving users access to hardware upgrades would erode the difference between PC and console, but it wouldn't eliminate it.

There are obvious advantages to both approaches. I'd like for consoles and PCs to stay separate so that I can continue to enjoy the advantages of each.

What's wrong with waving hello?