Posts

by on

I will post a link to Wil Shipley’s review of the game Fallout: New Vegas that, suffice it to say, does not really see eye-to-eye with my opinion of the game.

The funny thing is, he makes many points I agree with, but none of them were game-ruining for me.

(Hat Tip to Hacker News)

by on

Fascinating article by Chrystia Freeland. The key quote:

“[The rich] are becoming a transglobal community of peers who have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Whether they maintain primary residences in New York or Hong Kong, Moscow or Mumbai, today’s super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves.”

It’s very interesting. Shades of Samuel P. Huntington’s concept of the “Davos man“.

by on

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”–Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

I like this line, but unfortunately it’s the sort of thing that one says sadly, to no one in particular, rather than the sort of thing that can help you win a debate.

It falls into the category of things that are true, but useless. Because each side is capable of presenting some “facts”–numbers, figures, anecdotes–that sound good enough to the layman.

And, of course, they can deride all attempts at fact-checking these claims. For example, anyone who tries to show that the Laffer curve idea is not really supported by data can be dismissed as “liberally biased”.

I was reading a column by Leonard Pitts Jr. from about a year ago that examined this phenomenon in detail. (And introduced me to the Moynihan quote above.) Pitts wrote that he could remember:

 “…a time when facts settled arguments. This is before everything became a partisan shouting match, before it was permissible to ignore or deride as “biased” anything that didn’t support your worldview.

If you and I had an argument and I produced facts from an authoritative source to back me up, you couldn’t just blow that off. You might try to undermine my facts, might counter with facts of your own, but you couldn’t just pretend my facts had no weight or meaning.

But that’s the intellectual state of the union these days.”

I’ve heard other people, older than myself, assert that things used to be as Mr. Pitts describes as well. I’m not sure I believe it. I’m not accusing Mr. Pitts or like-minded people of lying, but I wonder if it’s simple nostalgia on their part.

And if they are right, I wonder what it was that caused the change.

by on

The Writers Guild of America announced the nominees for their video game writing award today. You can view the nominees here.

As you all can probably guess, I’m pulling for Obsidian and Bethesda‘s Fallout: New Vegas to win. Like the article pointed out, I’m also surprised BioWare‘s Mass Effect 2 wasn’t nominated.

However, the overall best writing I know of in a video game in 2010 was in Obsidian’s Alpha Protocol. In a just world, it should probably win for the character of Steven Heck alone.

Really, though, I’m just glad that such an award exists. It’s important that attention be drawn to the art of video game writing.

by on

So, in case you haven’t heard, they’re planning to release a new edition of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn that replaces the “N-word” with the word “slave”.

The reason for this is that apparently some teachers and schools won’t teach the novel because of the controversial and difficult nature of discussing this word with students. So, this edition is proposed as an alternative to not teaching the book at all.

To an extent, this is sound logic. After all, exposing people to the story (minus a few details) is better than if they couldn’t read the thing at all. On the other hand, is anyone really capable of preventing people from reading Huckleberry Finn (or any out-of-copyright work) these days? It’s on Wikisource.

Besides, students are notoriously bad at following what teachers tell them. Therefore, I would guess that the best way to get students to read the book is to expressly forbid them from reading it, or at least emphasize its taboo content.

In my experience, the people who want to read and understand literature will go and do so on their own. Those who do not, meanwhile, will not learn even if forced to. I’d say the easiest thing is to write down the name of the book and the author and then tell everyone they shouldn’t read it because it is offensive. This way, only people who don’t mind the risk of being offended will bother to read it. Those who do mind can read some inoffensive book.

Then, when test time comes, the teacher can offer the students a choice of which book to write about.

by on

Via Private Buffoon, it seems that the apocalypse will soon be upon us. At least, according to one group of Christians, it will come on May 21, 2011.

Here’s another weird coincidence for you: I myself blogged about the, ah… reasoning behind this prediction exactly one year ago today. (And then promptly forgot all about it.)

Okay, so this is probably not a random coincidence. I assume that the news media always puts the Prophets of Doom in the news around New Year’s. Trying to relive the “Y2K bug” days, no doubt.

However, I’m sure that if you’re into numerology, you can make up discover much more sinister reasons for this fact.

by on

I saw it last night on DVD. I was quite impressed by it, frankly. For a film that is intended to be for children and adults, I’d say they managed to balance things for the two audiences quite effectively. And there are a lot of well-done prison break movie references that I found quite enjoyable.

I’d also have to say it was one of the more emotionally mature of all recently-made movies I’ve seen. I’ve heard that some people even cried at the end of it. I can’t see that. (It’s about dolls, after all.)

Nonetheless, it’s definitely true that the people at Pixar take these things more seriously and think them through more than most film directors nowadays are likely to do.

Lastly–and I know I’ll sound silly for saying this–I’ve always thought it interesting that the toys in these movies seem to look more “alive” than the human characters. Presumably, this is because they are the “stars” of the movie, and therefore more effort is put into working on them. However, it does create something of an interesting “the-toys-are-more-human” effect in the viewer’s mind. (Sort of like how HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey has more personality than the human characters.)

This is an interesting effect; but I think in Toy Story 3 it actually hurts the movie, because the human characters play a larger role in it than in the previous two, and for the first time they are somewhat relevant as characters, not just as plot devices.

But perhaps that is simply over-analyzing what is, after all, an entertaining children’s flick.

by on

I saw the Sun Bowl game on TV yesterday. It’s in El Paso, Texas and there was snow on the ground surrounding the stadium. I think they said it was 36 degrees Fahrenheit at game time.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, it was 52 degrees.

There are some people I know according to whose method of science these two facts would simultaneously prove and disprove the existence of global warming.

Some people have a hard time understanding that anecdotal evidence is not reliable. They also seem oddly incapable of understanding the difference between climate and weather.

I admit that I myself am pretty ignorant about climate science. My attitude towards it has always been like that put forth by Christopher Hitchens here:

“If it turned out to be that there was no severe global warming threat… then all we would have done would have been make a mistake in analysis, which we could correct for. But if it turned out that there was and we’d done nothing about it, than it would be too late to do anything at all.” 

This logic makes sense even if you, like me, have no idea if what the scientists are telling you is true or not. It’s a calculated risk.

Let me anticipate an objection that clever Republicans will venture. That is: what Hitchens proposes is nothing less than a modified, secular form of Pascal’s Wager. After all, the Republicans have long been repeating the line that the Climate Change people are nothing more than a new kind of Religious zealot.

This is a clever reply, but it is not a true one. Climate is an average of many readings of weather, and is therefore fairly easy to measure over time. This means that it is much easier to estimate the changing odds on Hitchens’ wager than on Pascal’s, where it is impossible.

I should mention that I wouldn’t expect this to actually work to change any Republican’s mind. The reason for this is that all methods required for dealing with the danger of Climate Change are anathema to both major sections of the Republican party.

First of all, there is what I call the “materialist” (or, if you like, “greedy”) wing of the party. This group is pretty well-exemplified by the Koch brothers, who are businessmen who realize that efforts at curbing climate change causing activities would hurt their profits.

Secondly, and perhaps less obviously, there is the fact that solving climate change would presumably require international co-operation. This is deeply objectionable to the Nationalist wing of the party.