I liked it.

I mean sure, I was eight at the time, but I really did enjoy it. It taught me a surprising amount, too.

The weird pit collision thing, for example, taught me that video games had different physical rules than real life, and that what I was seeing was less important than what the computer was interpreting.

Dropping into pits without warning also honed my reflexes. I became good at levitating before I hit the ground.

The map (in which six screens were arranged as a cube) gave me an intuitive grasp of non-Euclidean geometry, and to adapt to the weirdness and even use it to evade the bad guys. I feel completely prepared if I ever suddenly manifest extra-dimensional mutant powers.

The ever-declining energy stat taught me efficiency. I got good at allocating my time and resources (and I was good and ready for Gauntlet when it came out a couple years later).

And, of course, it taught me to be patient. This allowed me to later beat games like Ninja Gaiden, Battletoads, Zelda II, and Demon's Souls. And college.

Schadenfreude is the best freude.

It boggles my mind, the extent to which U.S. culture only sees two different possibilities. It makes me want to take up smoking and jogging just to see if anyone's ears start bleeding.

*obligatory Apple reference*

It's a classic case of confirmation bias. The human brain does it all the time; if you don't know what it is or how to avoid it, look it up.

Yeah, I'm probably preaching to the choir on that last bit. I hope I am, anyway.

Hobbits.

So long as there are real people killing other real people, games will depict virtual people killing other virtual people.

Through the wall, off the hillside, through the house, into the minivan, nothing but net.

Christ, I think Madison was the *birthplace* of the smelly drum circle.

UW-Stout != UW-Madison

I think I can safely say that there is a large demand for a TMBG edition of Rock Band. Is there anything preventing this from happening?

The cupcake is a fib.

For what it's worth, IAAMT who has worked with ALEKS and Khan Academy.

The Khan Academy videos aren't bad, but they're really just textbooks that move and talk.

The Khan Academy mastery exercises aren't bad, but they're really just worksheets of arbitrary length. The instant feedback is pretty cool, but it's just a faster way of doing a worksheet and then checking against the teacher's key.

The instant feedback for a teacher isn't bad, and it makes monitoring student progress more efficient, and making tasks more efficient is the bailiwick of software engineering. That said, throwing Khan Academy (or ALEKS or other similar program) at students will get you pretty much the same result as tossing them a textbook and some worksheets.

How about restoring the ability to freely install other operating systems on the PS3?

I didn't see any data about blooming or effective range. Any ideas? Is there a physicist in the house?

I wonder if it would be possible to make a prequel showing the rise and fall of Rapture as a PG-13 blockbuster, opening the way for a proper BioShock movie "sequel."