Ξ May 12th, 2008 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
In the Sunday NY Times, there was an article citing Susan E. Rice talking about Barack Obama’s policy towards Iran. Here’s the relevant bits:
Susan E. Rice, a former State Department and National Security Council official who is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic candidate, said that “for political purposes, Senator Obama’s opponents on the right have distorted and reframed” his views. Mr. McCain and his surrogates have repeatedly stated that Mr. Obama would be willing to meet “unconditionally” with Mr. Ahmadinejad. But Dr. Rice said that this was not the case for Iran or any other so-called “rogue” state. Mr. Obama believes “that engagement at the presidential level, at the appropriate time and with the appropriate preparation, can be used to leverage the change we need,” Dr. Rice said. “But nobody said he would initiate contacts at the presidential level; that requires due preparation and advance work.”
However, that is completely false – I can’t think of any way to spin it other than that. Obama has famously said, repeatedly, he would meet with Iran without any preconditions – heck his own website even says it.
Now, if you want to argue that holding direct, unconditional talks with Iran is a good idea, that’s one thing. Just don’t don’t tell me that black is white and up is down and dismiss me for being “political” for calling a spade a spade – it’s insulting. It’s also typical of the rhetorical nature of the Obama campaign. His inexperience digs a hole, and he uses rhetoric to blame the opposition for putting him in a hole.
Ugh.
Ξ May 10th, 2008 | → Comments Off | ∇ Games, Technology |
I was looking forward to the PC release of Mass Effect this month, then I read about the draconian DRM present with the game. Oh well, I guess I’m going to download the game rather than buy it. Turns out, however, that EA isn’t nearly as tone-deaf as I thought they were, and reversed course, limiting the copy protection to authentication-at-install style. Great, so I hopped over to Amazon (which, BTW, is giving $10 off if you pre-register for the title, making it $40, as opposed to the XBox 360 version, which is $60) and ordered it.
I was sort of interested in the story, so I poked around a few threads on the matter, and eventually someone brought up reference to Stardock and their no-DRM policy. Stardock has released two very successful games, Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire. When SoaSE was released, Stardock posted a very eloquent explaination of their marketing philosophy – they design products around the consumer base they’re targeting, not the user base. They know very well that their products are going to be pirated – but pirates don’t enter in to their calculations. They are interested only in the people who are willing to pay for their products, and design products for them.
When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number of users if they’re not going to buy your game? And what good is a market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10 million if the target audience isn’t likely to pay for the game?
If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won’t buy your game, then why support them? That’s one of the things I have a hard time understanding. It’s irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you’re in the business of selling games that is). It’s only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.
Stardock doesn’t make games targeting the Chinese market. If we spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or would you think “Duh.”
Interesting thoughts.
Ξ May 8th, 2008 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
I feel the need to preface this by saying that I’m no hugely enthusiastic McCain supporter. I know his position on a wide range of issues, and I am not comfortable with a number of them. I also don’t know if I can really call him a Conservative or not. But all that aside, I’m probably going to vote for him in November because while he might only be a 60% candidate, the other choices are close to 0% for me.
I make that preface in an attempt to make it clear I’m not schilling for McCain. When he’s wrong on an issue (like campaign finance reform), I’ll gladly point it out. But, on occasion, absolute gold comes out of his camp. And if the memo from Mark Salter (a long-time McCain aide) is any indication of the rhetoric that we’ll be seeing from McCain this election, I’m prepared to be blown away. (more…)
Ξ May 1st, 2008 | → Comments Off | ∇ Humor, Interesting |
A friend linked to a couple great YouTube videos of a traditional Japanese orchestra (well, hybrid, as it was both traditional Japanese and Western orchestra) performing Smoke on the Water and We Will Rock You. Really funny and impressive.
