I was of the opinion that charges were not necessary, because this has its own punishment, so thank you for pointing out point number 1. No matter what, this guy has to have some legal consequences to ensure he's lost all privileges to own a gun. That's an absolute must in my mind.

I'm not sure I agree with the rest, at least without knowing more facts about the case. He certainly appears to be too stupid to raise children, but I'd have to be certain of a lot more before I would try to make that happen legally and I certainly wouldn't bring charges to increase media coverage alone. Still, if this man doesn't lose all gun ownership privileges because of this then something is very wrong. I agree that any punishment can't come close to what this family has already had to bear, but they do need to be protected from themselves for the future as well.

There are larger uses of the term that do end up with the limitations you're talking about and I'm all for calling that out, but I do think there is a place in culture to choose to use new definitions for groups/ideas/whatever that try to peel away hurtful histories that make free and open discussion more difficult, specifically for the historically denigrated groups/ideas.

Having an unpopular opinion is not un-PC, even when it's crazy racist or bigotted. We have words that define those things already. PC is simply about acknowledging that language has history and there are times, if for nothing else than for expediency, when certain terms have to be collectively chosen which allow people to reference things without immediate negative connotations. Now, my PC definition may not be what you were talking about at all, but I wanted to point out there is a concept of PC that does not limit what you can talk about it. Its intention is merely to create a framework whereby everyone feels comfortable participating. I would call this Democratically Correct rather than political, as its intention is to give access to every individual to a larger discourse, but Political is fine. This too can be taken too far and I'm the first one to point that out 'cause my language choices are not always unoffensive to everyone (I'll say fuck as much as I like god damn it!). Stll, where there is an extremely sensitive subject, I am more than willing to at least attempt to find the terms that no group involved will be instantly put-off by so that everyone can access the ideas.

Now this has nothing to do with college kids or any kids making fun of each other, so I'll shut up now.

It seems to me that apart from the headline the only objectionable sentence is this:

The rest of TFA is speculative and, to my mind anyway, worth the 30 seconds it took to read. Without this one definitive sentence claiming this as more than a new thread to follow, it's just a piece about a potential new avenue into cellulose batteries.

While I definitely agree that bold claims do hurt their industries with unreal expectations, I know I usually am more forgiving than I would be to large industries like pharma or oil. It's not a fair or educated position, but I often attribute that kind of overzealousness in these articles to optimism and enthusiasm, whereas if it's a press release from a huge corp. I see it as manipulative and marketed. That's probably an unfair ideological position and I try to stay aware that I have that bias, but I don't feel I'm totally out to lunch feeling that way in general.

I always appreciate it when people point out these discrepancies, but I think there is a legitimate reason why it occurs. We should make note where it happens, but I don't feel like getting angry at the people who may have overstated how far along they are in achieving some of these goals. If it takes an outlook that makes them feel they're closer than they are to keep plugging away so they, or the scientists after them finally do make a breakthrough, I'm more than willing to tolerate the fact they tend to minimize the difficulties between where they currently are and where they claim they are heading.

My answer to this is it's time to re-think your scale. Absolutely everything that goes sub 6 on your current scale should get an automatic 0. 0 means too far below industry standards to be considered a viable option. After that re-orient your 6-10 on a 1-10 scale. Nobody reading reviews gives a crap about the differences between a current 1 and a current 4. they are both equally unbuyable products and I see no reason for a reviewer to differentiate between them. However, there are lots of reasons to make small distinctions between a 6, a 6.5, and a 7 and I'd much rather have those difference given more weight so they exist on a 3-6 or 3-7 plane. It's all the little things reviewers know about that would help people make decisions. Are there other similar titles that do it better? Graphics subtleties, small control issues, bugs etc...

Now it's frustrating because if you're the only one using a scale like this your reviews sound incredibly harsh, but to me there's no reason to give a spectrum at the bottom of the scale where the threshold for even considering buying it is way more like 4-5 at the lowest. To me a 1 should be the generic genre game that super fanboys will play and enjoy, but if you don't play like 20 games of the same style every year, then buy a different one. Then work your way up from there. There's no reason anything lower on the scale deserves it's own spot. It shouldn't be paid for under any circumstances and the fact that people can make games even worse than it doesn't mean the've accomplished anything either.