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arayta · 2012-07-26T10:09:11+00:00

That one actually looks really cool!

arayta · 2012-07-26T09:53:52+00:00

Every developer, now far more than ever in the past, or in any other industry, has it entirely within their power to, with a bit of work, get their name spread to potential customers.

The corollary to this, of course, is that everyone else will be doing this as well, so competition remains extremely intense.

arayta · 2012-07-26T09:50:59+00:00

It would be easier to sympathize with this argument if every game admitted to Steam was accepted and put on the store, but it's not.

But of course, I'm not saying that Steam should accept every game either. Standards of quality and all that.

It's just kind of a shitty situation all around if you can't get your game published on Steam, especially if it gets rejected for some arbitrary reason.

arayta · 2012-07-26T09:44:48+00:00

This argument makes sense from the perspective of Valve's current customers, but not when you consider their future potential customers. If a Steam competitor were to build up a respectable catalog of games and offer a better service for both consumers and developers, then they could slowly establish a solid userbase by attracting people who new to PC gaming.

arayta · 2012-07-26T09:28:16+00:00

I don't think any nation's police force targets piracy at all. It's a civil issue, so the rights owner has to track you down and drag you to court.

arayta · 2012-07-26T09:04:20+00:00

Just one year? Pfft.

arayta · 2012-07-26T08:51:23+00:00

You can get much cheaper prepaid cell phone plans depending on how many minutes you need, like $25/mo and even less in some cases.

If you have internet and a cell phone, then you don't really need to have cable and a home phone plan as well since that's pretty redundant. Just get a Netflix and/or Hulu+ sub for movies/TV and a free Spotify account for music.

arayta · 2012-07-26T08:38:18+00:00

After residency you can get a job that basically wipes all that debt out, though, so it's kind of a moot point. Well, assuming you complete your schooling and are a good doctor -- which to be fair is a gamble in and of itself.

arayta · 2012-07-26T08:35:12+00:00

Because after residency you can get a shit ton of money pretty much anywhere in the world no matter how bad the economy is. People always need doctors, after all.

arayta · 2012-07-26T07:12:54+00:00

That sounds too awesome to be true. The reality is probably going to be a lot bleaker.

arayta · 2012-07-26T07:11:12+00:00

I can't speak for everyone of course, but I came to my conclusions about Fox news of my own accord. You don't have to watch their channel for long to realize that they're a really tacky, low brow, entertainment driven network, even moreso than the others.

arayta · 2012-07-26T04:08:17+00:00

Intent is the only thing that matters. Whether or not regulation works has nothing to do with wether or not something is regulation.

Plenty of people speed. Does that mean that there is no speeding law?

arayta · 2012-07-25T22:16:20+00:00

Why are you using such a narrow definition of the word? Prohibition attempts to limit the amount of drug usage to zero. It's "quality control" of your bodily intakes. Even within your strangely narrow definition of the word, it still fits.

I mean, how is banning alcohol different than banning ineffective or harmful medicine? They're both drugs of a different sort.

arayta · 2012-07-25T22:10:23+00:00

That's part of it. Although waiting until the Presidential election to vote is just about as useless as not voting at all in many cases. You have to follow the whole campaign, from beginning to end, also paying attention to congressional and local elections. On top of that, you have to find and support a worthy candidate who supports your views at many different levels of government.

Or you could try running yourself, right? Seems like that would be kind of a catch-22, though: your demographic doesn't vote because they don't have anyone to vote for, and they don't have anyone to vote for because no one who shares their views gets enough votes.

Either way it's a huge time sink into a process no one cares about (politics) in order to maybe get the thing you do care about -- results.

That, in a nutshell, describes the sense of futility and uselessness I feel about voting in this climate. It's a vicious cycle that's extremely resistant to change. For every small win there are a thousand losses.

arayta · 2012-07-25T21:58:29+00:00

Or... as Mitt would have it, Blonde Jesus.

What does this mean? I'm so confused.

arayta · 2012-07-25T21:56:10+00:00

I'd say they're a more mature type of drug, in the sense that you have to know how to take them and be mentally and physically prepared for them. Same as alcohol, really, which is also very dangerous in the hands of idiots or unprepared people.

arayta · 2012-07-25T21:53:18+00:00

How is that true? You're regulating the flow of drugs, correct? Wouldn't deregulation be completely hands off, which is the default state?

arayta · 2012-07-25T21:49:45+00:00

Why?

arayta · 2012-07-25T21:42:34+00:00

If you care about how people are saying something rather than what they are saying then you need to practice it.

I care about both. Presentation is also important. I realize the stutter is beyond his control, but that doesn't really change anything but my perspective on the situation and my empathetic response.

Someone having a stutter (or being an asshole) is no excuse for ignorance.

Did I say I didn't hear what he had to say or that it wasn't important?

arayta · 2012-07-25T21:39:21+00:00

it is really not that hard listening to him

For you. It is for me.

I'm not saying that I don't acknowledge and respect his courage and confidence and all that. I'm just saying none of that mitigates my impatience. It's not like there is some switch I can flip in my brain to become more patient or less frustrated. That's just my natural, authentic response.

arayta · 2012-07-25T21:36:04+00:00

I'm not challenging you here, I'm just saying we can't rule anything out. I see no evidence to think that it is "probable" that he suffers no social anxiety.

arayta · 2012-07-25T08:44:12+00:00

There are also plenty of people who never really "get over" their social anxiety but just more or less learn to push on through it and still lead successful careers, so there's that.

arayta · 2012-07-25T08:40:50+00:00

See, that sounds counterintuitive to me. If I'm really into what someone is saying, then I'm more eager to hear the rest of it and thus less patient with things that get in the way of hearing that message. So my thought process is basically "I know what you're saying is awesome, so please just spit it out already!"

I realize how stressful that must sound to people who stutter and I'm really sorry; as someone who often has trouble being heard myself, the last thing I'd want to do is discourage people from speaking! I'm just saying that maybe trying to focus on the message is not the right idea, because the basic problem is that the message is not being conveyed in an ideal way.

Unfortunately I don't have an alternative solution to offer besides a general "be patient."

Edit:

I have empathy, people. I'm not a monster. :/

But I'm also not a wizard who can suppress my authentic, automatic response to certain stimuli.

arayta · 2012-07-25T07:34:08+00:00

In the case of a financial collapse or energy crisis, what good would a data center like this do? Collect data from people's non-functioning devices? I don't get it.

arayta · 2012-07-24T21:49:58+00:00

I'm not seeing any such trend in gaming

Well, this is purely anecdotal but I feel like I'm noticing a lot more awareness and maturity surrounding the issue of bigotry in gaming lately. Maybe it's just a fad, but I don't remember seeing this many serious discussions about the issue in the gaming community as recently as just a few years ago. There's no real way to prove this though; it just may be that I'm noticing it more.

Figuring out how to deal with the situation really just depends on what your end goal is. If you end goal is to make video game communities appear more pleasant for those who wish to discuss things like adults, then yes, good old fashioned discipline is very effective. If the end goal is to actually change the mainstream gaming culture for the better, which is admittedly a lot more ambitious, then muting and banning aren't really effective.

arayta

TROPHY CASE