Merus

I think if we had the answers things would be a lot easier. It feels to me like we're still feeling out how society has to work when we're basically all neighbours, and we haven't even reached the stage of trying to convince everyone we know how things should work.

I don't think that's universal: what I'm specifically saying is that as far as I'm aware, in my jurisdiction, contract law also deals with invalid contracts used like valid contracts.

Yeah, Apple Cider has the right of it - the solution is not to be polite either, because what's 'polite' is pretending the other person didn't do anything. Nothing changes, nothing gets done, unless the person who's being the asshole can't stay where they are.

Let me break it down for you: In my jurisdiction, I don't think this would be considered a valid contract, because it's structured in a way where one party only gets something if the other party keeps a promise, but the contract does not compel them to keep that promise. Because the contract is then a fancy way of saying 'you actually don't get anything', I think it'd be considered a misleading contract. So the contract hasn't been breached, I agree, but he could probably still sue. ANYWAY this is an interesting take, and I think kind of the capper to this situation.

I'm surprisingly okay with them rebooting Terminator so that it can work as a franchise, because it is and they'll keep making them and I'm certainly okay in theory with the idea, but Terminator was a one-and-done and Terminator 2 made it clear that a Terminator 3 couldn't work. An Alien reboot, on the other hand... there's no reason why new Alien stories can't be made, it's just that making them good is hard enough that people shouldn't try.

I think basically every response I have to this episode involves Guild Wars 2 somehow. I'm not obsessed, honestly. It's just, well, the idea of it being difficult to actually have people be social and do things for each other, or have moments of discovery that people are constantly trying to rush through so they don't keep others waiting, and how GW2 has built its PvE so that players never have a reason to resent other players being present, not least because they can revive you if you die with an action that's just frictionless enough. The design of a game really influences its community. And then the bit about how AAA games get coverage because it's assumed that the entire audience is interested in that, and then it's basically editor choice, and how Polygon's the only major site that really follows GW2 and that a lot of that decision is based on the preferences of the writers. It's weird that a lot of writers will talk about how the MMO space is moribund, and they'll list off as examples a half-dozen very samey games that all tried to make World of Warcraft and failed and not the ones that have been successful because they've done something different.

It was Hero-U by Lori and Corey Cole.

Oh, this is a somewhat uncommon metaphor - by 'oxygen' I mean things like media exposure and development funding and prestige and support and basically all the things that a career as an artist needs to live. I do not mean that Peter Molyneux is a waste of literal air - at the very least, he has a family, and I assume he's precious to them, even though I wouldn't be surprised if he's been promising his kids they'll go to Disneyland next year for the past decade.

In the deepest matters of the Bazaar, always look to love. The actual circumstances around the fall of London are, I think, my favourite storyline in Fallen London, because it's told almost entirely through the aftermath.

It might not be breach of contract, but at least in Australia you'd be hard pressed to say that it was a legitimate contract if you promise someone income based entirely on a condition you have no obligation to fulfil. I'd imagine the UK would take a similarly dim view on that. I think your other point, that Molyneux is better than a Call of Duty PR person, is a false equivalency. We don't need to choose between these two people: we choose between them, and Anita Sarkeesian, and Sean Vanaman, and Sophie Houlden, and so on and so on and so on. We have no shortage of great, interesting, talented people who deserve oxygen more than Molyneux.

Heh, the Kickstarter I most regret backing is going back for a second round of funding. Good luck to them; they'd better hope they've got a pitch that explains how they spent two years of other people's money working out that they don't know how to make video games in 2015.

that song's in English we've covered this

My contempt is less for the correction and more for the mob, which feels like the middle ground to me: yes, I'm sure they're an asshole, but right now, my friend, you're also an asshole.

I think it's worth remembering that Sacco was apparently spending the entire trip snarking. The satire is more obvious in context. Katherine Cross isn't condemning callout culture in that article - I am, in response to it. If we acknowledge that "offense" is the wrong term for objecting to regressive comments, we're also acknowledging that the problem with a comment is the broader implications of that statement. Take, say, Zach Braff's comment that Pharrell Williams in his bellhop outfit looks like a monkey. About a white man, it's kind of a mean joke, but about a black man it's also perpetuating harmful stereotypes about black people. Pharrell Williams and his friends and family would be right to be offended, because someone they know and love has been attacked. Everyone else, that is responding to Braff's spreading of regressive images? They're not actually hurt by that jibe, but by the broader societal context which manifests itself in its own ways. The joke itself isn't what's hurting you. If it's not hurting you, then, attacking it because it hurt you is wrong, and in that sense it's no different to Gamergate attacking people for perceived imaginary slights, or for people driving a paediatrician out of their home because of fictional child abuse. The mob does not care about accuracy, or appropriateness, and the mob is pleased that its barbarous fuckwittery has hurt someone they've all decided are harmful without any evidence. I don't think you can really hold the moral high ground when you're part of a mob. I've benefited from the increased accessibility of these issues, but I wasn't right to place that at the feet of callout culture. I learnt about feminism through the dickwolves debacle, but I still don't have a particularly favourable opinion of Shakesville even though I ended up agreeing with them more than Penny Arcade.

It's easier in Japanese because phonemes almost never run together the way they do in English. Each Japanese character is one phoneme, as are things like 'ryu' and 'kyo'. (Tokyo's pronounced To-kyo, for instance, not To-kee-yo like English speakers do.)

This is far from an isolated incident, honestly - this thread is called Godus: Don't Believe His Lies because it was obvious, even when he started the Kickstarter, that Molyneux was going to massively oversell the thing. This cycle's been going on for decades now, and people keep giving Molyneux the benefit of the doubt and he keeps abusing that privilege. No other developer has anywhere near the track record of making shit up about the game they're working on, in part because no-one else gets away with making mea culpas after every game they release. And the reason why it's a problem now is not because Godus is busted, because it is, but because everyone remembered that he promised a kid money and never came through. That's not 'development realities', that's straight-up breach of contract.

Oh god I forgot to link it I'm sorry, it's Katherine Cross. http://feministing.com/2015/02/12/i-find-this-offensive-how-offense-discourse-traps-us-into-inaction/ My feeling about callout culture is my own extension of this argument.

If The Dollop's history of SWAT is any indication, part of the culture of SWAT is that raids that are clusterfucks frequently get called successes.

What's wrong with this thread? (it's got a better title)

So I found this argument about the problems with describing spreading harmful ideas as 'offensive' really persuasive. I'm a big fan of being precise about the words one uses. I found it so persuasive that I've changed my mind about callout culture - the vast majority of the people participating haven't actually been injured by whatever's been said, because the problem with what's been said is usually that it's perpetuating a harmful idea about marginalised people, not starting it. In that light, there's very little difference between a callout and a Gamergate attack.

Yeah, if we do well it'll be because Austria put on a good performance. It appears one of the frontrunners for our Eurovision entry is to reform 90s band TISM. Here's some TISM: They may appear to be a novelty band. You would be mistaken; they are literally called This Is Serious Mum. At the very least it'll be better than Kylie.

Don't bother checking if you have an Australian or European Club Nintendo account

I find it difficult to lend digital games to friends, for obvious reasons, so I generally see physical copies as a way I can recommend things, and digital copies as something that's only for me. (Also most Nintendo games are actually more expensive digitally.)

To be briefly fair to SVU, it's characteristic of the show that it ends on a downer.

It seems a shame you can't just forward their applications on to Bob Jones University or something