criticism
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Most bizarre thing you'll read today: Mass Effect's 'virtual orgasmic rape'
We feel a little awkward pointing the way to a horribly researched criticism of Mass Effect by "conservative" blogger Kevin McCullough, but it's probably just about the most flat-out crazy thing you'll read all day. GamePolitics discovered the article entitled "The 'Sex-Box' Race for President" where McCullough just pulls out of the vacuum of space various criticisms against Mass Effect which are "pushing our next generation of young men through the gates of hell as fast as is humanly possible." McCullough's issues include, but are not limited to: Mass Effect is marketed to fifteen year old boys. That may be possible, but the game is rated M (17+). He says players engage in "the most realistic sex acts ever conceived." Sorry, but there are much better sex simulators. That players can customize an avatar's body and breast size -- that's just not true in the slightest. The piece de resistance: Players can "hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of." As we've gone over before, there's no love for our gay brothers in the game, sex is straight or between the ladies. Not to mention players can only have sex with a few characters -- it certainly isn't the Baskin-Robbins interstellar sex club of 31,000 flavors. Those are McCullough's issues in just the first two paragraphs! Happy facepalming gentle readers.[Via GamePolitics]
Rumor: Apple to increase .Mac, iDisk storage to 30GB at Macworld
MacDailyNews uncovered a digg post that contains some interesting video 'proof' that Apple could soon update the storage size of their .Mac and iDisk storage space to a whopping 30GB. Granted, we all know how easily stuff like this can be faked these days, but the video demonstrates mounting a user's iDisk both through Mac OS X and then using the Apple's iDisk Utility on Windows (via Parallels). When the iDisk is mounted on Windows, its total capacity is reported as a surprising 30GB, significantly greater than the standard 1GB (upgradeable to 2 and 4GB for extra yearly fees) it currently includes. Considering the surmounting criticism .Mac is falling under these days, this massive boost in size - and of course the obvious speculation of the new features that would accompany it - could be a significant boon to .Mac membership and sales. At the least, you might want to make sure you print out a Keynote Bingo card with a .Mac slot, as I think *some* sort of update, per our predictions, is a shoe-in for Tuesday's Keynote.
The love/hate relationship with Apple
You probably wouldn't be reading this if you did't enjoy working on your Apple computer. Now ask yourself, "why?" The answers are as varied as the users. Now ask yourself what really irks you about working on your Mac, or Apple as a company... Again, we've all got something that grinds our gears,for insntace, AppleMatters just put up a list of best and worst Macs. Think you'll see that for Gateway, Dell, or even Sony, with their computers named after robotic serial numbers? As Apple's market share and brand name expand we're seeing an increase in Apple haters, and they are becoming more vocal. Mac zealots, while becoming slightly less shrill, are also in the mix helping put nothing in perspective. So what's to make of all this? As a user of Apple products for almost 30 years I wanted to take a look at the love/hate relationship between Apple, its fans, and detractors.In the iPod space people love to hate Apple for the reasons Microsoft tells them to: your choice is limited. You can only use the iPod with iTunes. This is seen as the Mac OS "problem" all over again by people like Dvorak. Personally, part of the reason the iPod sells so well, in my opinion, is that for the average consumer there may be too much choice. The average person doesn't want to search all over creation for the latest brain-dead beats. They want to plug in their doohickey and have it automagically do things (like think) for them. This isn't Think Differently, it's just brilliant execution of the idea that consumers want stuff, and they want to get it easily. Plays for Sure? Whatever. People know if they can't put diesel in their car, and they know the iPod works with iTunes. So far, that's been a winning combo.The Mac platform become a hot topic again way back in the go-go 90's (remember that decade?) after Master and Commander of the Far Side of the Computer World, Mr. Steve Jobs, introduced the iMac . We're beyond all the translucent plastic knockoff items you used to find in Target, and we're down to this: it's easier to make things on a Mac and it's safer to use a Mac. At least one of these is easily arguable. Granted, if I want to make Machinima, the PC is a better platform. In fact, there is way more software for PC's than Mac's, but how much of it is easy to use? It might sound like a Yogi Bearism, but everything's easy when you know how. Obviously someone who can sit at home in grandma's basement and figure out every little button in WinAmp is going to have an advantage over an iTunes noob. But again, the average consumer can't be bothered with registry hacks and driver issues. At the end of every day a person likes to put their machine to sleep, secure in the knowledge that all their hard work will be there another day. And that they'll be able to do something about it. Which brings me to the safety issue...
