2011 archive
Game On! (Updated) 0
Charlie Booker takes a look at those “blockbuster” video games:
In other words, Modern Warfare 3 would be nothing but a gigantic needlework simulation were it not for the storyline, which is the most homoerotic tale ever created in any medium, including Frankie Goes to Hollywood videos. Behind the military manoeuvrings, the human story revolves around people backstabbing, bitching, making catty asides, breaking off friendships and betraying one another. Ignore the gunfire and it’s like a soap opera set in a ballet school.
I’ll stick with Pysol and Tetris clones.
Addendum, the Next Day:
Brain gamed:
For teenagers, parents, and clinicians to make sense of this finding, we need research monitoring brain structure over time”
Dr Simone Kuhn, one of the researchers from Ghent University in Belgium, said the region is “usually activated when people anticipate positive environmental effects or experience pleasure such as winning money, good food, sex”.
The region has been implicated in drug addiction.
The authors said it “cannot be determined” whether this was a “consequence” of gaming or if naturally larger regions led to a “vulnerability for preoccupation with gaming”.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Young relatives should always play politely.
“My baby didn’t want to play at all,” she said.
She said the gun at her father’s house was under lock and key, but the 14-year-old found the keys to the safe where it was stored, Triplett said.
Her 14-year-old brother called her after shooting the boy and said, “‘Sis, I’m sorry I shot your son.’”
QOTD 0
Dwight D. Eisenhower, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.
The Bankster Business Model 0
Systematic, computerized three-card monte.
If there’s a similar but more flattering sobriquet for folks who’ve made the bank-friendly mistake of overcharging their debit cards, it’s just been changed – to “plaintiffs.”
Last week, a federal judge in Miami approved a $410 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit involving more than 13 million Bank of America customers. It’s a sordid tale that, upon closer examination, looks even more sordid.
The settlement centers on claims that the banking giant – in the news lately for launching then dropping plans to charge customers $5 a month to use debit cards – tinkered with the way it processed debit card transactions in order to maximize the penalties.</blockquote>
If an appliance dealer pulled something like this, selling customers one washing machine and delivering another over and over and over again, the resulting proceedings would not be in civil court.
No Account Accountancy and the Short Term 0
Bob Burnett cites Steve Benning’s description of how Dell Computers gave away their business to Asus when Asus, a manufacturer of circuit boards other components, proposed that Dell outsource manufacturing to Asus:
Like most American corporate accountants, Dell’s financial people had a simplistic, narrow objective: do whatever would improve the current quarter’s bottom line. Because accountants don’t have a strategic perspective, Dell’s number crunchers didn’t realize the cumulative debilitating impact of the ASUSTeK transactions. Denning observed, “Decades of outsourcing manufacturing have left US industry without the means to invent the next generation of high-tech products that are key to rebuilding its economy.” Parasitic accountants have neutered our entrepreneurs.
But it’s not only high-tech companies that are infected by these parasites; American corporations from all sectors have been hypnotized by the promise of short-term profits. It’s the conventional “wisdom” that accountants and executives are taught in business school. This dysfunctional perspective is reinforced by contemporary corporate monoculture where employees live in a bubble, log obscene hours, and vacation with their co-workers. As a consequence giant corporations are dogmatically insular with their own warped code of ethics and worldview.
The other day, I was discussing the differences between yesterday’s robber barons–the Carnegies and the Rockefellers–and todays–the Jamie Diamonds and John Corzines. Though my buddy had a somewhat kinder view of yesterday’s robber barons than did I, particularly as regards their treatment of employees, we agreed on one thing:
Those folks made money by building things to last.
Today’s robber barons are making their money by tearing those things down.
Advice for the Forlorn 0
Ask Dr. Gerry Mander, the Therapist the Stars Trust.
I’m the governor of Texas, running to be the Republican candidate in next year’s presidential election and I’ve got myself three problems.
First, I forgot one of my key policies in a live TV debate. Second, I’m now the laughing stock of the internet. Third… now what was it? Nope, sorry, it’s gone.
Rick Perry
Dear Governor Perry
So you’re an inarticulate, rightwing Texan with no grasp of policy who liberals sneer at – and you want to be US president. Something tells me you’ll be just fine.
Everybody Must Get Fracked 0
Fracked veterans describe their experiences:
Carolyn Knapp and Carol French warned that if North Carolina permits drillers to explore here, residents can expect conflicts with neighbors, lawsuits with gas companies, health complaints, a spike in crime and ruined property values.
Sword Filtched 0
Officials have no idea when this happened, other than sometime this fall:
My guess is that it was taken for its value as scrap. I know of a church that had its copper gutters stolen.
Withdrawn 0
More like this, please.
Santa Cruz Treasurer-Tax Collector Fred Keeley said Thursday evening that the banks, which were handling some of the county’s bond investments, had engaged in unacceptable practices that should alarm any official charged with handling public dollars.
“There seems to be no limit to the greed of some of our nation’s largest banks,” Keeley said . . . .
One of the things that keeps the banksters going is that persons keep going to them. Since all they care about is money, the only consequences that will get their attention must involve money (or perhaps jails).
So far, we have reinforced their recklessness and duplicity: we keep giving them more money for doing the same things all over again once more.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Still holding its own (emphasis added):
The Real Estate Information Network reported that 866 existing homes were sold last month, down 8.2 percent from September but up 12.6 percent from October 2010. It was the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year sales volume increases.
Distressed sales in all of Hampton Roads still played a major factor in the market last month, accounting for 33 percent of October’s sales. Those sales include foreclosures and sales by homeowners whose homes are worth less than the balance of their mortgage.
Facebook Frolics 0
Whatever it turns out to be, I am confident it won’t be stringent enough.
Wars for Lies 0
Asia Times looks at the neocon warmongers who have started a campaign to keep the Great and Glorious War for a Lie in Iraq in perpetuity. A nugget:
Vampirella 0
Biting off more than she can chew.
The woman walked up to a customer, groped him from behind and bit him on the neck.
She then approached a female clerk and asked her for a hug. When the clerk leaned over the counter, the woman bit her in the neck too. After the second alleged bite, the woman left the store with a man in a dark-colored sedan.
The Ultimate Penalty 0
Gasp (emphasis! added!)!
When the only measure is “How much?” there can be no greater penalty.
Facebook Frolics 0
The local rag editorializes about this situation. A snippet:
Read the rest and, as they say on the railroad, be guided accordingly.
Dustbiter 0
The FDIC dined early this week because of the holiday. I almost missed it.
More Masters of the Universe are ISO gainful employment, having failed at the ill-gotten-gainful kind:
One wonders, does Georgia have any native Georgian banks left?