What Would Matt Do

But I'm not. I'm not surprised the congress is giving the president exactly what he wants, to be able to torture, detain and do as he will with enemy combatants right before election time. I'd really like to say I'm surprised. But I'm not. I'm not surprised that mere months before the 2006 elections and only a couple of years before the next presidential election *cough*McCainrollsoveragaintokeephisrepublicanshappy*cough* that congress will pass a bill into law without a) really understanding what they are doing, b) thinking of anything except politics. Depressing yes, surprising no.

This is a good recap on slate, it covers much of the anger and outrage people should be feeling at this point (I know I am). Though again, and not to much surprise, people aren't.

Quoting from that article:

Last time Congress rubber-stamped a major terrorism-related law no one had bothered to read in the first place, we got the Patriot Act. That alone should lead us to wonder whether there shouldn't be a mandatory three-month cooling-off period whenever Congress enacts broad laws that rewrite the Constitution.

There is wisdom in those words.

Oh, and personal favorite from McCain, supposedly not your average republican.

That brings us to a second stunning aspect of the so-called compromise: Not only do our elected officials have no idea what deal they've just struck, but they also have no idea what they were even bargaining about. In his Face the Nation interview, McCain revealed that he was in fact quite clueless as to what these "alternative interrogation measures"—the ones the president insists the CIA must use—actually include. "It's hard for me to get into these techniques," McCain said. "First of all, I'm not privy to them, but I only know what I've seen in public reporting."

He has no idea what he and other congressmen just voted as acceptable law (and as soon as it passes the House, it will be law).

The president of our united states can now "legally" do whatever he wants in regards to torture, tribunal courts, and more. Great, good fucking job guys. Geneva convention be damned

Really, this is total sham. The Geneva convention was made with the idea in times of war not only do not need to resort to means of barbaric torture, but that our troups, our soldiers that risk their lives day in and day out, would be able to expect the same. But just like any other rule/law/agreement/etc that has stood in this administration's way, we're going to disregard it, consequences be damned. To use a term Tycho shared with us the other day, it's a goddamn retard rodeo in congress these days.

What Would Matt Do: Require that politicians actually do their job. Maybe just on Thursdays, that would be a 100% improvement from now. 

And now they've got it

What Would Matt Do: Watch it quickly, if you're interested, because I hear Blizzard is killing YouTube videos like a madman. 

(as seen on Gamasutra ) 

Is this a good or bad thing?

Why China for Epic, and why now? Wilbur explained that the cost per man month (including overhead) to produce games in North America is around $9,000, and in Europe and Japan, it's $8,500 per man month. But costs per man month in China are less than $4,000 - hence Epic's choice to keep its core team at Epic's NC offices, but outsource significant amounts of art creation for its games.

Ok, lets break down both sides of the argument.

The Good: It saves Epic money and allows Epic to continually employ the people they have and (hopefully) make good games.

The Bad: It gives jobs to people in other countries that don't have minimum wage laws (so the actual artists could be making a dollar a day, who knows) and it does so at the cost of jobs for people here. 

Now if you look at the Good, it might be required for Epic to continue business to outsource business with Chinese companies instead of some local chaps, I don't know. And that would basically be the tipping point for me. If Epic can afford to do business entirely locally, then do it. Don't cut costs by giving money/jobs to other countries works when able and ready people are here.

What Would Matt Do: Completely change the way corporations are allowed to operate from the ground up. No more out of country headquarters for tax evasion, no more going to the cheapest third world country you can find to get your work done and remove their person rights, for starters. 

Remember the last time you were in the market for a Video Card? Or maybe you’re in the market for one now… And unless you keep on the industry, you’re completely lost at this point. Is ATI or NVidia faster now? What does GT mean compared to GTO? Or HT to HTX?

Well, let me be the first to say, I have no idea.

But I know a guy and that guy know some things. So now on What Would Matt Do, we have a whole new page (you’ll notice it up on the top of the site). It’s to help you pick out a video card. It a quick run down of the current state of the video card competition and how they stack up against each other. I supply the formatting and my good man, stusser, supplies the info. I hope it helps you as much as did me when I recently went to buy a card. We’ll probably give an update to this every couple few months, depending upon the industry and how lazy I’m/stusser is feeling.

Take me the the page!

What Would Matt Do: Well, if I needed a video card, I might visit the page. If I didn’t…well, then maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe.

(originally seen on QT3)

I know you didn't think it was possible for Sony to further push it reputation down the drain, but they are working at it… starting with, games with out content! It's a brand new idea that Sony is now pushing. You buy the GT: Classic game for a small fee, then you buy content for the game. No, I'm not sure what you're buying with the original game other than the ability to pay more for the game. Or you can by the premium edition and get a small bit of content to start and buy more. Now that doesn't seem like that big of a deal until you start to add up some numbers… Let me quoteth 1UP:

A complete copy of the game will cost gamers somewhere between $426.50 and $975, and that's without factoring in whatever Sony decides to charge for the menus (since that's all you'll get with GT HD: Classic).

Now maybe that's a bit crazy talk because their numbers seem a bit high, but at the same time, OMG. And Kotaku brings up a good point:

GT4 shipped with 250 games, they were included in the price, not 30. So unless they plan on shipping both games for next to nothing or the single car price is much cheaper than even $0.43 a pop, Sony is trying to create a little money machine for themselves.

This brings up a couple few points. One, this is still checked with a Rumor note, so make of it what you will. Though those are actual quotes of actual Sony people in the 1UP article mentioned above. Two, I didn't buy any previous GT, so I'm not really upset about this, but as soon as they try to do it with something I care about (say, GTA), I'd be outraged. So as a fellow gamer, I'll hold some outrage in my heart for those of you that are GT purchasers. Three, is Sony really this stupid? Really?

Also, a side note, Microsoft too wants to get in on the micro transactions, but they want to do it with "Consumables" , whatever those turn out to be.

Update: This is apparently not a rumor.

What Would Matt Do: Wonder about Sony's mental health. They have been bad PRing themselves to death with the PS3. I have no idea how they can continue the trend after this, but I'm SURE they will manage.