Scripted events are killing gaming

Somebody needed to say it. A decade ago, looking forward to the future of gaming, we could see it - dynamic, highly-interactive adventures, ambitious as Hollywood blockbusters or as moving and subtle as art flicks to be played out on our TV screens, never the same way twice. We anticipated, expected a fusion of story and player choice that would become possible with the new technology we saw on the horizon. What we got in all too many cases was something else entirely.

In retrospect, it's easier to understand the proliferation of scripted events, or moments planned by a title's developers to be triggered at a particular point in a story or upon certain character actions. When used sparingly, some of these moments can be thrilling - for example, triggering the lights to dim at a particularly tense point in a horror game or scripting an ambush of Axis tanks and soldiers as your squad attempts to cross a river. Certainly some of the most memorable moments in all of gaming were written in by the developers, and nothing's going to change that.

But all too often these events become the easy way out, a way of limiting interactivity and diverting attention (and all-important budget) from the difficult parts of game design and toward sheer polish. Too much scripting turns a game into a Universal Studios ride - it makes the experience inherently artificial and kills immersion, the mental bond a user feels with a title when it creates a dynamic, fulfilling experience.

We need look no further than the venerated gods of the medium. 1998's Half-Life used scripted events early and often - for example, a headcrab would burst out of a ventilation shaft with a loud shriek or an impromptu alarm would send a squad of government soldiers running into a room with guns and explosives. Such scripting pushed the player into new and unexpected situations and often forced them to react quickly to avoid a restart.

But some of the moments were a little. . . off. Hours into the adventure, a soldier is attacked behind bulletproof glass, the player unable to save them. A scientist is snatched from a dock and dragged into the water by an enormous sea creature. Wait - they survived this long only to die at a moment calculated for maximum impact? Why aren't there bodies everywhere? How much influence can a player carry by their mere presence before it feels inescapably artificial?

Six years later, in Half-Life 2, we were still doing the same thing: Waves and waves of troops would throw themselves at you as you attempted to escort survivors across a battlefield, only to stop the moment you crossed through a door. Enemies would attack you at regular intervals as you struggled to set up security turrets to save yourself, only to stop attacking you when an ally finally managed to open a nearby door.

Did you just flip a switch? Get ready for a half-dozen wailing zombies to pop out of the murky water around you. Did you just learn something important over the radio? Here comes a tank and some soldiers! Did you just pick up the key you needed? Get ready for the ground to collapse around you and drop you into an electrified lake you have moments to escape from!

In short, it's difficult to place the logical link between picking up a new gun and summoning a missile-bearing helicopter.

When pulled to the extreme, these types of games make the hero an absurd catalyst for trouble. If every action of the hero, no matter how minor, results in attacks, story events from out of nowhere and doom to random nearby characters whose sole reason for existence is apparently to demonstrate the method of attack of a new monster, gaming isn't happening. Story isn't happening. It's an "experience" only in the clinical sense: A bunch of things happen and then you go home. Roll credits.

A little game called Deus Ex came out in 2000. While it wasn't as flashy or as popular as Half-Life, it did something a little different - it gave you choice. From the beginning you had a choice of taking out enemy troops discreetly or flamboyantly, and it would matter. You could run into a facility guns blazing, or hack the building's security from afar, and it would matter. Sometimes these decisions had no direct effect on the gameplay, but they still mattered because they allowed you to be creative or barbaric, play around or take things seriously. In short, and at the risk of sounding sarcastic, you were playing a game.

Characters lived or died based on your decisions, not just while you were there. Unlike Half-Life's roller coaster of arbitrary and inexplicable events, Deus Ex gave you some control over your character's role in the story. Though the game's plot proceeded more or less the same regardless of your actions, the game's best story elements weren't scripted, but were emergent from the player's personality. Whether you were a pacifist who preferred to lurk in the shadows and secret passageways and resorted to guns only when necessary (like me) or a soldier who devastated entire installations, you felt like more than a bystander. You felt like a participant. When you broke into your old facility for information and had to make the choice of either killing the security guard you'd known for the whole game or trying to outrun his weapons, the decision felt real and genuine though it wouldn't matter to the overall story. Choices like that made the game more than just a series of events and explosions.

Playing through Dead Space last week, I was surprised by how transparent and lazy the scripted elements were. The thirtieth time an enemy ran around a corner, out of sight, as you opened a door, or a character interaction with the environment caused something "unexpected" to happen, the impact just wasn't there. Despite Dead Space's virtues (and there were many), I felt as if the game couldn't have cared less about my participation in the story, and was perfectly happy to go on without me. The only thing that really mattered was whether I had enough health and ammo to get to Deck 19 and recalibrate the main whatchamajigger until the next crisis came up and I had to do something else. While fun, this unfortunate tendency to disrespect the player's ability to do anything other than accumulate items and shoot baddies left the experience oddly bland and unmoving.

Heavy scripting is easy, but it's a thematic dead end which creates unfulfilling experiences. Gaming's greatest strengths involve the ability of an individual to influence and interact. Let's not forget that.

We don't support the private option, just high rates and bad care

Let's see who's really for individual freedom and private sector choice: The New York State Insurance Department is twisting the law to force an NYC doctor offering affordable health care to raise his rates. When will we accept that these bureaucracies aren't even in the business of health?

And when have trade groups or bureaucracies ever looked out for consumers?

"I want everybody to remember WHY THEY NEED US!"

(No, my frame of reference for tyrants does not end at this movie, but the visual appeal is undeniable.)

So yes, now it's pretty much official that the Bush Administration pressured Tom Ridge to raise the terror alert for Bush's reelection. If the potential for this sort of thing to happen (and the fact that it did happen) isn't Exhibit A in the case for the uselessness of this manipulative system, nothing oughta change your mind. Bush already capitalized on American fear of the foreigner and perceived weakness to bust pretty much anybody he wanted to connect with trrrism, but there's never been clearer evidence that manipulation was so conspicuously hard-coded into his policies.

No matter how angry we get at Obama for trying to insure the uninsured, remember this.

Copying your own DVDs is a personal right, but also illegal. Wait - what?

In Chapter 573 (or maybe not, I lose count) of the gradual erosion of consumer rights in the name of corporate profits and control, judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has ruled that DVD-copying software is illegal.

As making personal copies of your own software, music and DVDs is completely legal, you'd expect that software intended to fulfill that purpose should also be legal. Not so. Patel's justification:

"While it may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally-owned DVD on that individual's computer, a federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies."

The law in question is a tenet of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the circumvention of copy-protection (such as that found on DVDs), regardless of whether or not any copyright infringement has actually taken place.

Judge Patel is a good judge. She's not rewriting law to suit her own opinions (whatever those may be). I personally like a little activism in my judiciary, but she's in her 70s and I'll cut her a little slack.

The law itself is the real matter. It's clear that we've moved in a bad direction as a society. When media conglomerates actively move toward restricting the legal right of consumers to copy their own media, and actively seek to rewrite law to make it illegal to bypass these restrictions, these corporations are actively working by definition as oppressors, seeking to restrict the freedoms and legal rights of individuals in the singleminded pursuit of profits. As the passage of laws like the DMCA shows, the United States has proven particularly susceptible to the arm-twist of these megacorporations and trade groups who work hand-in-hand with our elected leaders to restrict consumer freedom. When copyright law is viewed as a two-way agreement, it's tough not to argue that these corporations are themselves infringing copyright, and ought to be kept in check for the public good.

The RIAA and MPAA already control much of the discourse on this issue, and for all of their sanctimonious prattle about "artist's rights" it's clear that they couldn't care less about the actual talent behind the industry.

Labels are already becoming (but haven't quite become) irrelevant as new technology allows consumers to learn about and share media more efficiently than ever and artists to take a higher and higher share of the profits reaped from the music they produce. But as it becomes clear how rabidly anticonsumer these labels have become, pushing for stricter and stricter controls and punishing legal applications of their product without any recourse for citizens, it's difficult to pity them.

They're a reactive organization, not a proactive one, and new media and channels of information will quickly bypass them and leave them in the dust, unless they find a way to shackle every device we own. Can you imagine a world in which media giants had successfully blocked the release of the VCR due to copyright concerns? (They tried.) What about MP3 players, or recordable CDs, or independent music and movie players for computers? These corporations aren't fighting for artist's rights, or intellectual property, or anything quite so noble. They might think they're fighting for their bottom line, but all they're doing is killing the proverbial golden goose and sealing their own demise. Let's make sure that they don't seal our own with it.

Marred

I recently ordered a book from an Amazon.com retailer. The book arrived with a black marker streak across the bottom - the actual bottom edge, where the pages are. (It also arrived with moderate water damage, but we won't get into that right now.)

After leaving a slightly negative review I noticed this page folded into the packing sheet, lovingly titled:

About the black marking............

You may find a black permanent marker line on the bottom or top of your book, commonly referred to as a "Remainder Mark."

This is not somebody being careless.

And it does not mean that your book is not new - it is brand new.

This is placed on the book by the publisher. The publisher puts this here to ensure that the book, once sold to you, at a significant price discount, is not then taken back to a store for credit or exchange. The mark protects the publisher and the retailer, so it is very important.

Books with these marks are generally either overstocked books, or books that have been returned to the publisher, or distributor, by a store for credit.

You will find that nearly all new books sold on Amazon by marketplace sellers have a black line, or a remainder mark. (sometimes, it can be a red or a black dot, a yellow line, you get the point.........).

We used to state this clearly in the listing description, but Amazon recently changed their listing policy.

Yes! The publisher intentionally reduces the value of their own books so that bookstores dumb enough to accept returns without receipts don't get scammed! Furthermore, Amazon has changed their policy so that bookstores aren't allowed to tell people about this stupid practice until the book actually arrives! That makes perfect sense! I'm inclined to think that somebody is being dishonest here.

The practice is bull, of course. I ordered another book from the same author, and it arrived in a protective plastic case, in pristine condition and with no ugly marker swipe across the spine.

Innocent Uighur Gitmo detainees released to Bermuda, plan to open restaurant

Four former Gitmo detainees were released after seven years to one of the few countries willing to take them - Bermuda, where they plan to open the first Bermudan Uighur restaurant. America (meaning of course the Bush administration) had determined that these prisoners constituted no threat to the United States, clearing them of all wrongdoing, and in fact asserted that they shouldn't even be called "enemy combatants."

Cue the reams of bulletheaded, ignorant conservatives who will claim that these prisoners must have been guilty or they wouldn't have been arrested, and that Obama is releasing terrorists to tropical vacations. These individuals fled oppression from their governments only to be captured by the U.S. in Muslim nations as terror suspects. The least we can do after holding them illegally for nearly a decade is put them somewhere where they can't undergo the same treatment.

Oh, and those people I mentioned attacking the president for releasing innocents - the ones with a disrespect for the rule of law, an inability to interpret reality, irresistible racist, fascist compulsions and partisan Tourette's syndrome? Get Parkinson's, stick your arms in a wood chipper, move underground - anything to keep you from typing. I have this thing against ignorant, hateful creeps. I hope you understand.

"Gitmo Four" released to Bermuda (DailyMail)

"Ketchup" equals "American," unless it's Heinz

Somehow I missed this last month - Conservative "pundits" (including the desperate liar Sean Hannity) attacking Barack Obama for ordering a hamburger with "fancy" dijon mustard and no ketchup. We expect this from Sean, who has of late become more and more of a puppet for the ramblings of the syphilitic dementia that will eventually take his life, but what's Laura Ingraham's excuse?

Link

Sigh. . . unless he does something newsworthy (like offer to be waterboarded), I promise that I will ignore Sean Hannity from now on. Watching the guy isn't so much like watching a car crash as experiencing an unusually painful bowel movement, and about as relevant.

But I offer the following unscientific Google-ing:

Results for "Sean Hannity is a tool": 660
Results for "A screwdriver is a tool": 186

Adorable Authors' Guild wages futile war on text-to-speech technology

Few things are more adorably self-righteous or toxic to policy and discourse than a misguided, uninformed organization with the utmost confidence in their cause. In matters of intellectual property, things gets even crazier when artificial concepts of ownership of information get pushed into the real world.

The Roy Blount-led Authors' Guild is no stranger to this sort of thing - in October of last year they sued Google for their revolutionary Book Search feature, a service which allows users to search for keywords within books without having access to the full text. Never mind the benefit of the service or the fact that the full text of the books were still unavailable (meaning that, barring some review, Google most likely qualified under Fair Use law and encouraged users to seek out the books rather than just read them online) - the Guild threw a legal temper tantrum and eventually agreed to a megamillion-dollar payout, a small percentage of which were given to authors. I guess when massive amounts of cash are concerned, it doesn't matter when enforcing copyright law and protecting writers' profits are not the same thing.

Now the Guild is making an adorable stink over an online service that reads e-books aloud through text-to-speech technology, BoingBoing Gadgets reports:

Kindle 2's flagship feature is the reading of text out loud, in the same way as software that's already built into desktop computers and Prof. Stephen Hawking's famous voice box. This has caused a "stir." Paul Aiken, executive director of the Author's Guild, told the Wall Street Journal that you have no right to use this feature. It's a free audiobook, see.

They don't have the right to read a book out loud," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. "That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law."

An Amazon spokesman noted the text-reading feature depends on text-to-speech technology, and that listeners won't confuse it with the audiobook experience. Amazon owns Audible, a leading audiobook provider.

What's the point of fighting a pointless fight just for legal technicalities? Limiting convenient consumer options for absolutely no reason (a computer voice does not duplicate nor replace the role of an audiobook) when people are eager to add free functionality to your product is shortsighted and miserly, less like protecting your rights than spitting in somebody's coffee. Rob Beschizza sums up the concept nicely:

Ideas grow to fill the containers they imply, and the problem with bad ideas is that their containers are leaky and misshapen. Even if you firmly believe in broad copyright laws, intellectual property is a bad idea because it recasts a legal device as its own philosophical justification. This journey from the utilitarian to the exalted creates a sublime monster that can't help but govern not only the duplication of things, but every aspect of their expression and the culture that makes them meaningful.

The alternative is a set of obnoxious, unintuitive loopholes the like of which I found online in this totally real example:



Authors' Guild claims text-to-speech software is illegal (BoingBoing)

Obama to continue secret CIA "renditions" - secret abductions and transfers of prisoners

NOTE: READ UPDATE BELOW

Well, I was excited about the closing of Guantanamo Bay and other reforms (I still am, actually, very much), but Obama's recent decision granting approval to the CIA for the continuation of their "extraordinary renditions" program has me thinking he may just be rearranging the deck chairs on our nation's moral Titanic.

Renditions - secret CIA abductions and transfers of government prisoners to "friendly nations" (where they are sometimes tortured) have been understandably controversial. When torture occurs following a rendition, it allows our government to avoid directly participating in the torture process while looking the other way and allowing it to happen. As a commenter said following DailyKos's report that members of Bush's rendition team were heading Obama's intelligence transition team : "We've got someone who can make our torture look better. That's the change we need, right?"

If we really believe in God-given human rights, we will do our best to make certain that people aren't tortured on our watch. The fact that we won't always be the ones doing it is of dubious comfort.

Obama preserves renditions as counter-terrorism tool (LA Times)

Related links:

The agonizing truth about CIA renditions (Salon)
Americans in opposition to torture
Why torture is ineffective

UPDATE: When writing this post I did not make a distinction between the practice of openly shuttling a prisoner to another country for purposes of law enforcement - also termed a "rendition" - and renditions in which subjects have been secretly shuttled away for long periods or tortured. The term "extraordinary rendition" connotes torture and the Obama Administration has explicitly banned renditions which may result in torture. Of course we are not the only nation on Earth which has stake in prosecuting terrorists, and there may be a variety of reasons that a prosecution in another nation may be more appropriate. Nevertheless, we are responsible to assure that prisoners we transfer or allow to be transferred are treated humanely.

The Loudness War and Audio Quality

Wikipedia has a good rundown of something I hadn't been aware of in the music business - the tendency to mix up the volume of an album to compete with other records (particularly in lo-fi formats like radio where a "louder" record sounds better. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of some of the dynamic range of the music, when elements that would usually define the highs and lows of the record lose their edge. I'd noticed that that the drums in many older recordings sound crisper - now I know why.

You know the annoying difference in contrast between television shows and commercials? That's the same thing - turning up everything in the mix so that even the quiet bits of tracks seem loud.



Dubbed the "loudness war," this practice began in the early 90s and is now practically the standard. I think that some albums have managed to sound good despite this tendency (mid-period Soundgarden and Faith No More records, for example), but it's never necessary - by turning the volume up on your stereo you can listen to a record at any volume you like without sacrificing crispness. In other words, this practice always results in inferior quality. Unforunately, I don't need another cause right now so I'll leave much of my righteous indignation up to audiophiles.

The Loudness War - Wikipedia
Rolling Stone article on the topic

Musicians to press Obama on end to "sonic torture"

Hey - whatsa matter? You some Moozlim-lovin pussy?

Man, there's so much to fix with the upcoming administration. Why does it feel like a sheepish sort of revolution, with talk of secret prisons closing and abuses of government being corrected?

According to the copyright restrictions it so zealously preserves, the United States still owes royalty payments on the hours and hours (and hours) of music it has used to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. But their lax enforcement of U.S. law while breaking international law is more indicative of their bad attitude than the main focus when torture is concerned.

From Wired:

Reprieve, a British human rights law group that represents over 30 Guantanamo Bay detainees, is planning to work with musicians to lobby President-elect Barack Obama to end the practice of sonic torture by military interrogators.

Earlier this month, Reprieve and the U.K. Musicians Union launched Zero dB, a "silent protest" over the use of music in interrogations. According to Reprieve, many of its clients have been subjected to hours of music played at deafening volume -- sometime for days or even weeks on end. And the BBC has reported on a particularly insidious practice: using the theme songs from Sesame Street and Barney [as well as to break the will of prisoners.

This has musicians furious. Last week, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails even suggested he might pursue legal action to stop the practice.

A partial list of some of the interrogators' favorite tracks is telling (emphasis added):

• “Enter Sandman,” Metallica.
• “Bodies,” Drowning Pool. [Whose idiot bassist said "I take it as an honor to think that perhaps our song could be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that."]
• “Shoot to Thrill,” AC/DC.
• “Hell’s Bells,” AC/DC.
• “I Love You,” from the “Barney and Friends” children’s TV show.
• “Born in the USA,” Bruce Springsteen. [I guess "Kidnapped to Cuba" isn't as catchy]
• “Babylon,” David Gray.
• “White America,” Eminem. [Way to be subtle, ya little skinheads] • “Sesame Street,” theme song from the children’s TV show.”

I prefer the term "sonic torture" over "music torture" or whatever idiot term our guvmint has probably invented (probably something like "aural interrogation") because it's not music these people are familiar with, or "music" in any way that you'd normally experience music. It's just sound blasted at a body, and after a half-dozen hours I'm certain it all coalesces into a thick sludge of despair and tuneless garbage that destroys you more than it makes you want to cooperate with anybody.

Anybody who says that this isn't torture obviously hasn't ever felt their body, mind and soul fall apart from stress or lack of sleep. It's much, much worse than having a fingernail pulled out.

Hey - so maybe "Drowning Pool" isn't such a bad choice after all!

Rockers to Press Obama on Music Torture (Wired)

Blackwater Killers to Face Charges

image by Latuff2, click to see more clearly

I expected the lies, the irresponsibility and rationalizations from Blackwater for the reprehensible actions of the employees referred to in the story below, but I never expected them to stand trial. I won't lie - they sound very, very guilty - but I hope this case is treated like any allegation of an unprovoked mass killing would be treated in the U.S. The Iraqi government wants Blackwater to leave Iraq. Right-thinking Americans with any understanding of the rule of law are disgusted by the idea of gun-toting mercenaries (sorry - "independent contractors") in the country, and repeat incidents like this cannot be overlooked. Somebody hold this company responsible for aiding and abetting employees who act like terrorists.

However, it should be noted that while Blackwater says that they are "disappointed" that one of their employees plead guilty, they stress that this is because the employee gave false information to the company regarding the incident in the intervening months (though you'll notice the press release does not indicate there was an internal investigation). The first story pulls this unfairly out of context.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Blackwater Worldwide security guards opened machine gun fire on innocent, surrendering Iraqis and launched a grenade into a girls' school during a gruesome Baghdad shooting last year, prosecutors said Monday in announcing manslaughter charges against five guards.

A sixth guard involved in the attack cut a plea deal with prosecutors, turned on his former colleagues, and admitting killing at least one Iraqi in the 2007 shooting in Baghdad's Nisoor Square. Seventeen Iraqis were killed in the assault, which roiled U.S. diplomacy with Iraq and fueled anti-American sentiment abroad.

The five guards surrendered Monday and were due to ask a federal judge in Utah for bail.

"None of the victims of this shooting was armed. None of them was an insurgent," U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said. "Many were shot while inside civilian vehicles that were attempting the flee from the convoy. One victim was shot in the chest while standing in the street with his hands up. Another was injured from a grenade fired into a nearby girls' school."

The guards were charged with 14 counts of manslaughter and 20 counts of attempted manslaughter. They are also charged with using a machine gun to commit a crime of violence, a charge that carries a 30-year minimum prison sentence.

The shootings happened in a crowded square where prosecutors say civilians were going about their lives, running errands. Following a car bombing elsewhere in the city, the heavily armed Blackwater convoy sought to shut down the intersection. Prosecutors said the convoy, known by the call sign Raven 23, violated an order not to leave the U.S.-controlled Green Zone.

"The tragic events in Nisoor Square on Sept. 16 of last year were shocking and a violation of basic human rights," FBI Assistant Director Joseph Persichini said.

Witnesses said the contractors opened fire unprovoked. Women and children were among the victims and the shooting left the square littered with blown-out cars. Blackwater, the largest security contractor in Iraq, says its guards were ambushed and believed a slowly moving white Kia sedan might have been a car bomb.

"We think it's pure and simple a case of self-defense," defense attorney Paul Cassell said Monday as the guards were being booked. "Tragically people did die."

Prosecutors said the Blackwater guards never even ordered the car to stop before opening fire. In his plea agreement with prosecutors, former guard Jeremy Ridgeway, of California, admitted there was no indication the Kia was a car bomb.

continued at Breitbart

More evil plans. . .

Sorry for three Orwellian posts in a row, but this scary stuff is all around. This one from Kotaku is just as evil but far more trivial in its application:

Downloadable content as a weapon against second-hand resales is, nothing new, but Epic's Mike Capps has heard other ideas for how it can be used with devastating effect. If you hated the idea of DLC weapons in Bad Company, well, you're really going to hate this.

“I’ve talked to some developers who are saying ‘If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free’. We don’t make any money when someone rents it, and we don’t make any money when someone buys it used - way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it.”

Any such game would ship as an incomplete copy, forcing you to download a crucial part of the experience online, essentially screwing over anybody who doesn't buy a new copy. So why not sell a record that forces you to give a license code and download the last four tracks online? Why not sell a textbook whose glossary is restricted to an approved download?

Rather than reiterate my old arguments I'll just link them here and summarize my main point, not that I know anything:

Whaddya think? It seems to me that the give-and-take of the market takes care of any issues that secondhand sales create. For example, if Halo was only worth $30 to a consumer but retails for $50, then that individual might buy it and later resell it after getting their money's worth of playtime. The buyer understands that the game is a used copy and pays less than they might for one from the factory. It's a central principle of capitalism.And do I have to mention that every used copy that somebody buys creates one less used copy, forcing somebody who might have bought a used copy to buy the game new?

But that's not even the main issue at hand: Mere "lost sales" (of new products) cannot be equivocated with theft or ripping off creators. Whenever an individual buys something other than Halo, they're spending money that might have been given to Bungie's developers. That doesn't mean that anything needs to change. Every time something perfectly natural happens that's good for consumers but less-than-optimal for creators and publishers of material, industry heads bitch and whine about lost profits. Who cares? Why must the advantage fall by default to suppliers and not to consumers? Maximizing profits by butting into the rights of others is inexcusable. I hope that for every higher-up who sweats over every lost opportunity there's somebody who respects consumer rights.

Feds Refuse to Identify Over $2 Trillion in Illegal Loans

Anybody who thought the $700,000,000,000 bailout was the end of massive misguided government handouts to failed businesses under the cloak of helping our economy should prepare to be disappointed - according to Bloomberg, the Feds have squirreled away nearly $2,000,000,000,000 of our tax dollars and, as usual, don't feel any particular need to share the specifics with us. (And don't worry - Barney Frank plainly doesn't feel penitent for his hand in this.)

Here's a mere $315 billion for reference (from here):

The miniscule dot near the corner of the stack is a person. The larger shape is a car. This stack is 450 feet tall (38 stories) and 25,000 square feet in area. To turn it into 2 trillion dollars, either imagine 6.4 stacks just like this, or enough dollar bills to wrap around the Earth's equator 5.1 times. That's how much your government is taking (actually, let's just call it "stealing").

Alternatively, you could use $20 bills and merely imagine a football field buried in sixty-three feet of cash, or 300 dollars for every single person living on this Earth. That's not quite as bad, right?

The stack depicted in the image represents only the cash spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, money the president is legally authorized to approve (I won't get into the ethics of this spending today). This $2 trillion, on the other hand (let's write it out again: $2,000,000,000,000) is not only unethical and shortsighted, but completely unconstitutional.

And does anybody really think that this type of thing will stop under any administration?

A Brief Guide to Infuriating Personality Types

A Brief Guide to Infuriating Personality Types, Modern Edition, 3rd Revision

(NOTE: Previous personality guides have focused on codification of all human beings, leading to skepticism and often rejection of the personality color-coding system as a whole. I feel that this problem can be solved by focusing only on personality attributes that deserve scorn and contempt. Every human being possesses some level of dysfunctionality, so identifying dangerous or shortsighted behavior may be one of the first steps to a cure. Despite similarities with other models, the following represents only my opinions and may not map onto the real world in any significant way):

We start with a relatively pleasant personality type and move on to the bad ones:

Blue Non-confrontational and good for friendship. Though they may appear introverted, Blues are observant and emotional people. Blues don't treat other people like enormous prats, ergo they are generally seen as weak and unambitious. A Blue is not generally prone to attaching him/herself to new ideas, causes or organizations unless he/she sees a particular reason to do so, so they are often in passive-aggressive conflict with the next personality type:

Red A natural leader. Aggressive and shortsighted, very talented at deflecting blame. The Red's confidence and insistence upon following an irrational personal code creates the illusion of competence and inevitably leads to social capital and success. Reds get itchy and discontent if they aren't drafting a plan or a system for something, for which they inevitably create a slogan and a banner. If a Red doesn't remember something, it didn't happen.

Grey A dead-eyed, reactionary individual. The color "Grey" represents a diversifying of the pejorative "White Trash", as ignorance and anger know no racial or geographical bounds. A Grey's world is very small and is experienced very passively, so Greys inevitably expand their world by attaching themselves to rash causes and opinions. Greys can often be found in supermarkets yelling at their children for trifles, determined to perpetuate their anger and ignorance onto the rising generation through vindictive punishment and irrational behavior. Greys are fond of ascribing ulterior motives to anybody different than themselves, leading to hatred of (among other things) immigrants, entire political parties and anybody who reads books. Greys are incapable of thinking without attaching labels to each and every person and idea they encounter. A Grey/Red is one of the most dangerous human beings on the planet Earth.

For information on the "other" personality types (green, atomic tangerine, chartreuse and russet, the really bad one), send a SASE to the Foundation For a Better Life. They'll hook you up.

Time to go. . .

Whoever your current pick is for the next president (tomorrow!), if you're like the vast majority of Americans you won't miss the current one very much. It took war, death and destruction to keep Bush's poll numbers up from 2001 to 2003 - poll numbers which quickly dropped when it came time for him to actually govern and the American people got a glimpse inside his head. Finally, we arrive at five years of sub-50% polls that culminated in the lowest presidential approval ratings of modern history, and for good reason.

Bush hasn't had much time lately to work on what his team calls "legacy stuff", so let's do a little recap for his benefit:

• A 58% increase in the federal budget, the largest since the last two-term "conservative" president, Ronald Reagan.
• Little to no transparency in government, defense of cabinet members who have committed felonies and made gross errors in judgment, and a belief that going with your "gut" is the same as doing the "right" thing. This leads to excuses, redefinition of words and outcomes, demonization of countries and individuals who don't prescribe to your worldview and a dangerously shortsighted view of the world at large.
• A massive increase in the American military industrial complex all over the world, with all of the lapses in responsibility that this entails. Equivocating the deaths of soldiers with a jingoist fight for "freedom" that results in hundreds of thousands of dead on their side, thousands dead on our side, and a huge economic and moral burden on our country, all while undermining American freedoms and liberties at home.
• Dragging irresponsible Blackwater goons into war zones and New Orleans.
  
• Doing much to undermine the moral character of our country by endorsing and authorizing torture methods prohibited by international conventions and basic decency, performed on people in secret prisons who have had no charges levied against them, all in the name of freedom and liberty. Assertion of the States Secrets Privilege whenever your actions are questioned, effectively removing any recourse your citizens or other branches of government might have to question your methods.
  
• Secret unconstitutional wiretapping programs undertaken with private corporations, massive unconstitutional powers given to the TSA and a million-name-strong terrorist watch list that burdens the lives of ordinary Americans, most of whom are innocent and have had no formal charges pressed against them.

Most of us should agree that, whatever their faults, neither McCain nor Obama will do as much to damage our country as Dubya managed. Still, it worries me that both candidates seem very, very sure of themselves and their moral prerogative toward election (arguably W's greatest failing). Whatever DailyKos might say, Election 2008 isn't really a choice between an unambiguous nincompoop (four more years of Bush!) or a perceptive, miracle-working Golden Boy sent from above to assuage the memory of Bush. (As much of the tired Obamessiah rhetoric you hear from the Right, it's hard to deny that Obama seems that much more appealing to America after a failure like Bush.) Still, it's a testament to the appeal of Bush that despite his knowing participation in modern travesties of liberty and due process, I still like the guy personally.

EA is watching. . .

The Digital locks EA put on Spore last month got a few folks mad - it was, after all, a process a company set in place for limiting your access to your software. (Apparently EA considered it fair for consumers to be forced to ask for permission to run the software they had purchased. Sounds fine to me.)

Now EA is stepping up the standards of behavior for its customers; from now on, any users locked out of EA's online forums for misbehavior will be locked out of all of their games which require logins.

"Your forum account will be directly tied to your Master EA Account, so if we ban you on the forums, you would be banned from the game as well since the login process is the same. And you'd actually be banned from your other EA games as well since its all tied to your account. So if you have SPORE and Red Alert 3 and you get yourself banned on our forums or in-game, well, your SPORE account would be banned to. It's all one in the same, so I strongly recommend people play nice and act mature."

Now, the obvious solution is just not to buy any more EA games, ever, the way many of us boycotted EMI when they shackled so many of their releases with crippling copy-protection a few years back. EA appears determined to slowly morph into some of the villains from their own games.

UPDATE: The higher-ups at EA have quashed this rumor. They will not, it seems, ban you for misbehaving. They just could.

Halo Developer Wants To Profit From Sales of Used Games

Clothing manufacturers don't get royalties from sales of used clothing, and record labels certainly don't get paid for sales of used music. It's just a happy side effect of the fact that we live in a free market society; people are free to trade and sell objects that they own without getting corporations involved.

But due to some outrageous legislation and licensing we don't actually own the music, movies and electronic games that we buy - we license them from the folks that make them. This means that hundreds, thousand of dollars of the stuff we have worked and paid for are not really ours, but subject to the whims and conditions of ever more powerful corporate firms whose technology and resources show no signs of wavering either. Ridiculous license agreements restrict how individuals can use their own software, their own music. Can resale regulation be far off?

Marty O'Donnell, a developer for Bungie (the makers of the ever-so-popular Halo series) thinks that the rules of resale should be different for gaming:

"It's hard to gauge the effect of used game sales on Halo, but I'm sure it's big," O'Donnell commented. "Complaining about sales when you have a multi-million seller is somewhat difficult to justify, but it seems to me that the folks who create and publish a game shouldn't stop receiving income from further sales."

"It will be harder for smaller titles to be successful in the future if they can't fully realise [sic] a return on investment," [Marty] explained.

Whaddya think? It seems to me that the give-and-take of the market takes care of any issues that secondhand sales create. For example, if Halo was only worth $30 to a consumer but retails for $50, then that individual might buy it and later resell it after getting their money's worth of playtime. The buyer understands that the game is a used copy and pays less than they might for one from the factory. It's a central principle of capitalism.

And do I have to mention that every used copy that somebody buys creates one less used copy, forcing somebody who might have bought a used copy to buy the game new?

But that's not even the main issue at hand: Mere "lost sales" (of new products) cannot be equivocated with theft or ripping off creators. Whenever an individual buys something other than Halo, they're spending money that might have been given to Bungie's developers. That doesn't mean that anything needs to change. Every time something perfectly natural happens that's good for consumers but less-than-optimal for creators and publishers of material, industry heads bitch and whine about lost profits. Who cares? Why must the advantage fall by default to suppliers and not consumers? Maximizing profits by butting into the rights of others is inexcusable. I hope that for every higher-up who sweats over every lost opportunity there's somebody who respects consumer rights. Go ahead - legislate and DRM me to death. I'll switch to word searches or something.

(gamesindustry.biz via Kotaku)

Jon Stewart on Henry Paulson and the Corporate Bailouts

Jon Stewart once again does a pretty good job of summarizing the news. In these clips he takes on the corporate bailouts and subsequent legislated coup of the federal government, finally topping the cake with a summary of Bush's wonderful legacy. Let's all welcome our new Federal Reserve overlord, Baron Von Moneypants.

Watch the first clip for its points, and the second clip for the punchline. I won't spoil it for you, but John Oliver's final line is shocking and cathartic.

President Bush doesn't get another State of the Union address, but I think we all know what he would say:

"My fellow Americans, the corporate bailouts have been a great and terrible success. Both parties, by their general inaction, have come together and united the country on the side of sheer pants-on-head idiocy. Republicans have agreed to massive, unprecedented government control over the private sector, and Democrats have agreed to do it in the stupidest way possible.

But America still has some money left. So I propose a missile. A big missile, the size of the moon. I am absolutely, unwaveringly dedicated to proving that I’m totally stupid before I leave office."

American's Immigration Process Explained

If I had a nickel for every time that an immigration opponent struggling to appear openminded told me that they have "no problem" with immigration as long as it's done legally, I'd have died by now of some kind of copper-nickle alloy poisoning. It's an old trope but I'm sure that the people who say it really believe it.

Never mind the fact that neocons who don't really get too worked up about lawbreaking suddenly find this border dispute terribly important, the one law that must never, ever be broken, under penalty of deportation. Those who don't feel that illegal immigrants should be deported at least want to make their life a living hell for a long, long time; even McCain's waffling on the issue, pretending to worry about brown people to keep his base comfortable. Remember, it's okay to burden the lives of Americans, as long as you do it while speaking English. If we celebrate "legal" immigration while keeping it a very, very difficult and time-intensive activity, all while throwing out illegals, we get the benefits of looking open-minded while keeping People Who Are Different far, far away from our homes. And what's more All-American than a little good, old-fashioned doubletalk?

All while our leaders are attempting to implement the most socialist, authoritarian, freedom-hating thing that has ever been done in my country. I had a casual respect for the Republicans back when they were all about cruel economic efficiency, but totalitarianism just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But never mind that (actually, mind that very much, but let's move on for now).

Jumping back to the immigration issue, this nice flowchart from Reason.com gives you a good look at just how easy and humane our immigration process really is. Take a look at the amply-titled What Part of Legal Immigration Don't You Understand? and maybe shed a little light on the issue in future debates. Remember, a lie repeated enough times becomes truth and eventually common knowledge. . . unless you reject it.

Flowchart: What Part of Legal Immigration Don't You Understand? (reason.com via BoingBoing)