Whamola

@Commando: Yeah, irresponsible people kill people...and it's a lot easier for them to do so when they're allowed to own guns.

Why do people need hollow-point bullets? To kill animals better? Why is that even a hobby? I was once asked to come along with a friend on a hunting trip and I agreed (I like to know about the things I'm developing opinions on after all). After a lot of macho talk about the thrill of the hunt and being in touch with nature, we trundled into the woods, sat quietly in a shoddy little lean-to thing, and he eventually shot a deer. There was no skill involved. Nature is cruel enough without human beings trying to play God with innocent animal's lives.

The meat tasted horrible, and my friend's explanation that he felt good about knowing where his food came from was ridiculous considering he didn't have a vegetable garden. Besides that, I live about twenty minutes away from a store where you can get any type of meat you could want, including weird crap like Emu and Alligator. I know certain animals need to be removed to balance the ecosystem, but why can't we leave that up to the professional game wardens? Take a look at this table:

http://www.ihea.com/news-and-events/incident-reports/incident-reports-2002-to-2007.php

Keeping in mind that a lot of those zeros for fatal accidents are not because no one was injured, but that no accidents were reported. Why do we allow something that's useless in today's society and is demonstrably hazardous?

I mean, if you want to have fun with target practice, go fire a bow and arrow or a BB Gun, why do you need some incredibly dangerous phallic symbol?

The point is, gun ownership is a relic from the early days of America when your average person NEEDED to hunt for food and had need of protection provided by local militia. The idea of constantly needing to protect yourself from murderers and rapists is by and large just baseless paranoia. Believe it or not, Violent crime in America is at an all time low and is continually getting lower. Yes, bad things can happen, but is it really worth succumbing to your baseless paranoia and buying a dangerous weapon that's more likely to end your own life than the life of some imagined super-terrorist? As I've said before, I've been mugged twice, I've lived in bad neighborhoods, I've even spent a night riding along with a drug dealer as he was trying to sell a shotgun (I was writing an article at the time, and the night ended when the person who was buying the shotgun discharged it into the air behind a busy police station). I've learned enough to know that all firearms should be banned if America wants to join the rest of the civilized world. I even believe that street cops should not be allowed to carry firearms.

@believer258 said:

@Whamola said:

@Demoskinos said:

@WilyBoy: Indeed. Guns are tools like anything else. Peoples irrational fear of guns confounds me.

Wait, what? How is a gun a tool?

How is it not a tool? Its primary function is a last resort of self-defense. Same way a hammer's primary function is to nail things.

Okay, so it's a tool to commit murder...why do people need the right to own them again?

The example I always hear is, "Well, what if someone tried to rob my house?" Okay, what if? You lose your TV, hopefully have insurance, and you get to continue living. It sucks, but no one ends up dying. I'd like to see some statistics on how many gun owners have ever been in a situation where they actually HAD to use their guns. How many times in your life have you been threatened with death if you didn't kill the aggressor? I mean, assuming the gun owner is religious, didn't Jesus teach that material wealth is meaningless and that you shouldn't ever kill anyone? If they AREN'T religious, then they should know more than believers that life is incredibly precious and it's never worth it to kill another random person. Not to mention all the school shootings committed with the parent's guns, people accidentally shooting others, and people having their guns used against them, why are people so obsessed with owning firearms?

I honestly don't understand the paranoia. Why do we need EXPLODING BULLETS? If I remember correctly from my insane gun-nut mother, a 22c. bullet costs around 20 cents. So for the cost of a Dover Thrift Edition of A Modest Proposal and other Satirical Works, you can potentially kill ten people. How is it that making yourself a better person costs MORE than becoming a murderer? Why does that guy's friend need a 50cal rifle? Is he protecting himself from elephants? The last time I read about a man who owned a 50cal rifle, he was arrested because he was planning on blowing holes in an elementary school.

When I lived in the city and had to walk through a dangerous area to get to work, I was mugged twice in one year, once at gun point, once at knife point. Both times I just handed over my wallet, went to the police, reported the incident, cancelled my cards and got a new ID. If I had a gun, what would I have done? Shot a guy who already had a gun pointed at my chest? Shot a kid who most likely has no chance at having a good life?

@BrianP said:

@Whamola said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: This type of would-be free-market rules ideology is neat right now when only one developer is doing it is doing it, but it has such a big potential for evil.

The first problem I can see is if this style of funding becomes popular, there's a good chance we'll start seeing big games being held hostage. What I mean by that is, a game with a huge player-base, like Call of Duty can say, "Hey, it's going to take 50 million to make the next Call of Duty, here's our kickstarter, if we don't get enough money, you don't get your game. Start donating!" The player base WILL pay (especially if they bribe the players with some minor incentive, like a free exclusive gun or title), the game will be made at NO cost to the developer, and they'll make money off the people who didn't donate, but bought the game when it was released.

Furthermore, if this becomes popular, there's no point in trying to make the best game you possibly can because there's no risk involved from a business perspective. When someone gets funding from a big game studio, there's massive pressure to make sure the game is as good as it can be because if it's a bomb and undersells and you lose the company's money, you're boned and you lose the goodwill you have and maybe even your job. If a publicly funded game is garbage, who cares? It cost you no money to make, and as is the trend with kickstarter fund raisers, you still more than likely have a lot of money left over from people who over-donated. Sure, you can say that old ridiculous Libertarian stand-by of, "Well the public will have learned their lesson and next time they WON'T vote with their dollars!" But honestly, as much as I hate to say it, gamers are often like abused spouses when it comes to bad games. I knew people who legitimately played Star Wars Galaxies to the end, all the while deluding themselves into thinking that it would become better soon.

So who knows, maybe publicly funded games will stay a rarity, but if they don't, it's foolish not to think that there's a lot that can go bad with them.

This makes no sense. Activision has the money and the manpower to make games like Call of Duty without crowd sourcing funding, and they know that they will make their money back and then some (ok, and then A LOT). They have absolutely no real motivation to move to this system, because they already have very low risk financially and the only outcome would be them looking really bad, and that is bad for business. On the other hand, Doublefine has no other way to fund this game, and would probably not want to risk money and resources for a project they are unsure would be successful financially.

To your second point, I think blowing off the fact that people would not give money a second time to someone who made a poor product because "gamers are often like abused spouses" is really strange. If people didn't like the game, they wouldn't contribute again, or if some liked it and some didn't the developer would naturally scale down the scope of the next project. People buy things they like and believe to be good quality and stop buying things they don't like or are disappointed in (see the American auto industry), that is just kind of how the world works.

Speaking from a pure business standpoint, why spend money to make money when you can spend your customer's money to make money? Yeah, Activision is rolling in money and can easily produce as many Call of Duty games as they like, and they make a ton of money, but there's no real reason why they wouldn't want to make money PLUS whatever it costs to make the game. It's a terrible thing to do, but similar things have been done before. Companies exist to make money so why wouldn't they want to operate at no cost? Microsoft charges you to play games online, when they can easily afford not to, under the idea that you're helping them pay for server upkeep even though you're already paying to play the games when you buy them in the first place. Yeah, it would make them look bad, but they can just say, "well, we'll give you such-and-such downloadable item if you donate to us. You don't HAVE to, we just want to reward our supporters!" and there'd be a lot of people who wouldn't be able to see through it.

As for the second point, look at the Madden franchise. There's no real reason why they need to release a new one every single year and from what I've heard, they've been getting a little worse each year. Fans are paying, over and over and over again for something that could really just be given to them in a ten dollar DLC pack that updates team rosters, and in a new game every couple of years. People keep coming back. Look at Final Fantasy, people are STILL huge fans of that stuff when it's not very good at all anymore.

@Rave said:

@Whamola: Definition of tool

2.anyinstrumentofmanualoperation.

5.anythingusedasameansofaccomplishingataskorpurpose

Seems to fit a few of those.

So of the two that fit, there's the first, where a pinwheel or a sparkler would be considered a tool, or the second, where the purpose is to inflict pain or more realistically, death.

Call me crazy, but a gun seems more like a weapon to me.

@Demoskinos said:

@WilyBoy: Indeed. Guns are tools like anything else. Peoples irrational fear of guns confounds me.

Wait, what? How is a gun a tool?

Joe Strummer cures all.

It's hard to comment on this video without knowing the full story. If he's being honest, then yes, his Daughter is being incredibly disrespectful and is acting like a spoiled brat. But the whole "pouring coffee" thing seems weird to me. Children shouldn't be under direct servitude to their parents. Doing chores is supposed to develop a certain level of self-reliance and responsibility, but serving your parents like a waiter is a bit sickening and all it's teaching the child is to be submissive.

That said, kids are mostly all little sociopaths and complain constantly and are disrespectful and bitch about their parents to their friends. The problem is, these days, what you post on your Facebook goes out to the rest of the world, and in this case, if she had an issue, she should have brought it up to her parents, not the internet. So him responding to his daughter's comment by posting a video on her Facebook page could be a creative punishment only IF he doesn't publicly humiliate her normally, AND if when she inevitably yells at him about how embarrassed he made her publicly, he responds "Now do you understand how I felt when you humiliated me by posting your letter?" Kids literally do not have the ability to comprehend everything and commonly have trouble with empathy, so practical examples can be very helpful, assuming he'll clearly explain to her what she did that was wrong afterwards.

The biggest problem I have with the video is the reckless use of a firearm. Guns are NOT toys, and until they're hopefully one day banned, it's up to gun owners to treat them with the utmost respect. Wildly shooting a gun into a computer using EXPLODING BULLETS (seriously, why are these things legal? They seemed specifically designed for murder) is not a proper use for a gun. Furthermore, I would have preferred that he donated the laptop to a needy family or charity instead of destroying it. There are a lot of less fortunate people whose lives could be made better if they had access to a computer.

I mean, parenting is a tough thing. Some parents think just supplying their kids with necessities is good parenting, but it takes a lot more than that. Kids need parental involvement in their lives to grow up to be successful adults. Sit down with your kids, help them with homework, talk to them about their day, listen to what they have to say. when you're involved with your kid's lives, punishments don't need to be nearly as severe to be vastly more effective.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: This type of would-be free-market rules ideology is neat right now when only one developer is doing it is doing it, but it has such a big potential for evil.

The first problem I can see is if this style of funding becomes popular, there's a good chance we'll start seeing big games being held hostage. What I mean by that is, a game with a huge player-base, like Call of Duty can say, "Hey, it's going to take 50 million to make the next Call of Duty, here's our kickstarter, if we don't get enough money, you don't get your game. Start donating!" The player base WILL pay (especially if they bribe the players with some minor incentive, like a free exclusive gun or title), the game will be made at NO cost to the developer, and they'll make money off the people who didn't donate, but bought the game when it was released.

Furthermore, if this becomes popular, there's no point in trying to make the best game you possibly can because there's no risk involved from a business perspective. When someone gets funding from a big game studio, there's massive pressure to make sure the game is as good as it can be because if it's a bomb and undersells and you lose the company's money, you're boned and you lose the goodwill you have and maybe even your job. If a publicly funded game is garbage, who cares? It cost you no money to make, and as is the trend with kickstarter fund raisers, you still more than likely have a lot of money left over from people who over-donated. Sure, you can say that old ridiculous Libertarian stand-by of, "Well the public will have learned their lesson and next time they WON'T vote with their dollars!" But honestly, as much as I hate to say it, gamers are often like abused spouses when it comes to bad games. I knew people who legitimately played Star Wars Galaxies to the end, all the while deluding themselves into thinking that it would become better soon.

So who knows, maybe publicly funded games will stay a rarity, but if they don't, it's foolish not to think that there's a lot that can go bad with them.

To be fair, Rocky Horror Picture show is the most milquetoast and bland thing I've ever seen. It's like Pink Flamingos for people who put ketchup on everything.

As for the weirdest movie I've seen, it depends on your definition of "weird".

There's "weird" as in surreal. In that category I'd say El Topo, The Holy Mountain, and Fando Y Lis if you can find it. They're fairly surreal, but more importantly, they're incredibly well made and important films.

If you mean "Weird" as in shocking or Nonsensical, then I'd say Pink Flamingos or really, any of John Water's earliest films.

Also, for your own good, don't let anyone know you like Donny Darko. You don't want to be "that guy".

In the dumb fantasy sci-fi world, yes, a lightsabre would deflect a phaser blast.

In real life (assuming you could stop a laser beam and use it as a sword), they'd pass through each other. Furthermore, a light sabre wouldn't cut through things so much as burn through them, kind of like with those green laser pointers.