But they *are* inflatable. Or, at least, Otto is.

"No, I was thinking of that mountain goat over there."

^^^^^ THIS.

The online material for textbooks is how the textbook publishers assassinated the second-hand market. The one-time-use codes for Mastering Chemistry/Mastering Calculus/Mastering Physics/whatever are the biggest racket these criminals could have added to their already-a-racket.

Textbooks are turning into extortion.

"It's on the boundary between the impossible and possible"

I call it... the possimpible.

http://www.barneysvideoresume.com/

Guitar Hero, etc. are not guitar simulators. They are rock star simulators. People play guitar rhythm games for similar reasons to playing e.g. flight sims or military games -- immediate access to a role that would otherwise take years of training and luck to get, combined with the ability to use resources that even learning "The Real Thing" wouldn't get you to.

You can take flying lessons on your own, but you're never going to get to fly an F16 and blow shit up. You can enlist in the Army and be trained as infantry, but you're (very likely) not going to get to go on covert missions on a disputed island stealing Russian tanks to use against them.

You *can* learn how to play the guitar, but the vast majority of people who know how to play are never going to stand in front of a crowd of 30K people and wow them by tipping your guitar up at the right time.

The wide array of rhythm games have very little to do with music. The sooner that elitist amateur musicians like yourself get over that fact, the sooner you can accept that these games can be *fun* while not diminishing your hobby at all. Those who don't accept it can continue to feel threatened by these games and make the same tired argument you posted.

I'd say about 20-30 minutes of work. I sure hope my employer never figures it out.