Miscellaneous Links for the Miscellaneously Inclined: 2011 Edition!!!

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/01/do-we-have-ahmadinejad-all-wrong/69434/

[superaielman]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/01/the-rise-of-the-new-global-elite/8343/

A pretty cool article about just what it sounds like. Swiped this from Ciato.

[Grefter]

I thought MW2 didn't count as Main part of the CoD series (even though MW1 was...).  Black Ops certainly isn't bearing a number on it with pride.

Playing little nonsense games won't stop it entirely or anything, but giving them some games is a damned good start.  If you want an American book burning you won't get people turn up to burn the Bible, but you might for others.  If you want to destroy games EXCEPT for the ones you like then your argument becomes that much more tenuous.  The people hardcore into it might not see the logical fallacy, but some will and that is all I want.

[Niu]

http://www.hikaku.com/shopping/category/500200/

Yuri Lowell is the best selling bishoujo figurine. So no one is treating Yuri as a man I guess?
Though is this the evil deeds of yaoi fan girl or is there more yaoi fan boy than I thought?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Japan finally makes a tolerable main character after 25 years of trying and still people out there try to fuck it up.

[Dark Holy Elf]

However cool or not Yuri is, she's certainly a woman.

[Captain K.]

Forget number 1, what is up with number 4?  JAAAAPPPPPAAAAAAANNNNN

[Niu]

Queens Blade, that is what's wrong with no.4

[Xeroma]

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertBoyd/20110113/6784/The_Zeboyd_Games_Approach_to_JRPG_Design.php

An actually fairly interesting and respectable look at JRPG game design from an American indie developer.

[Niu]

I think the keyword is density and less grinding.
Why FF13 should been made into a Blazblue.

[Talaysen]

Blazblue has more grinding than FF13.

Just sayin'.

[Grefter]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/14/reading_fonts

Harder to read fonts showed better rates of recall in some studies.  Interesting.  Kind of wonder what teaching types think.

[Lady Door]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/14/reading_fonts

Harder to read fonts showed better rates of recall in some studies.  Interesting.  Kind of wonder what teaching types think.

That intuitively makes sense. The more neural pathways you create for a piece of knowledge, the greater the length of retention and, likely, depth of understanding (within reason, of course).

There's also likely an attention/focus bias. If something's hard to make out, you're going to necessarily spend more time figuring it out, especially for something like schoolwork which is required regardless of how difficult you find the material or presentation. 

In other words, COMIC SANS = LEARNING.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I will pull your legs into the depths of the earth in your sleep.

[Captain K.]

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0113/New-zodiac-signs-2011-Why-astrology-is-even-sillier-than-we-thought

I am no longer a sexy Scorpio. 

I am a FABULOUS Virgo now.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I don't give a fuck, I'm Capricorn and not Scorpio. Fuck the new astrologists.

[Lady Door]

I really don't get it. Why now?

Besides which, I am Scorpio. What the hell do they think they're doing, making Scorpio last 6 days?! And adding in another constellation the ancients deliberately omitted?

Boo.

[Bardiche]

I don't consider myself Ophiuchus for even a moment.

[hinode]

I don't give a fuck, I'm Capricorn and not Scorpio. Fuck the new astrologists.

This wasn't devised by astrologists, but rather astronomers.

For classification purposes, astronomers divide the entire celestial sphere into 88 grid-base areas named after constellations, which include more than just the area covered by the classic 'shapes'. Using these areas, the ecliptic (the path on which the sun 'travels' throughout the night sky) traverses through 13 different constellations, including one (Ophiuchus) that isn't part of the traditional zodiac - although various works of fiction like FFT have indeed included it as the thirteenth Zodiac sign, often under a different name.

What happened is that the Minnesota Star-Tribune interviewed a Minneapolis-based astronomer, who explained why the traditional zodiac is complete bunk scientifically and gave the dates that the sun actually processes through the real world ecliptic, which naturally isn't divided so nice and neatly and has been influenced by thousands of years worth of procession. The headlines 'new zodiac' caught on meme-like throughout the internet by people who don't seem to care to read the article closely and never understand much about astronomy in the first place.

[Taishyr]

I just consider myself to have two signs now.

Because my conclusion makes as much sense as astrology did to me in the first place.

hinode ninja: In that case the astrologers are gonna get frustrated trying to explain to their clientele what's going on, so I still win.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Blazblue has more grinding than FF13.

Just sayin'.

You also have to move in more directions than FF13.

[hinode]

You might as well throw in a chinese zodiac sign and make it three, Tai.

Then again, I'm Chinese so I pay more attention to that one than the western zodiac.

[Fudozukushi]

Boo.  I lose the awesome ability of being on a cusp day.

12 Zodiac 12!

[Lady Door]

You might as well throw in a chinese zodiac sign and make it three, Tai.

Then again, I'm Chinese so I pay more attention to that one than the western zodiac.

I'd pay more attention to the Chinese zodiac if I hadn't gotten stuck with such an uninspiring part of it. Wood ox?!

Thanks for the explanation about the brouhaha, hinode. I kept trying to find some reputable news source that mentioned it...

[Grefter]

There is indeed an attention bias there, the results make perfect sense.  I just wonder how difficult it is to get people to actually use difficult to read documentation in course work though.

In other breaking news, Astrology makes for bad science!  Naturally forming phenomena don't disperse themselves evenly through out the universe from the earth's constantly shifting view point.  Meme!