The Ministry of Shadows

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Gone, But Not Forgotten?
Friday, Jan. 20, 2012

What The Internet Will Look Like Under SOPA
Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012

Fearsgiving Week
Monday, Nov. 21, 2011

Jesus Approves of Waterboarding
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Beware of Asteroids
Wednesday, Nov. 09, 2011

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Calling Out Cheney

Monday, Mar. 23, 2009 3:55 AM

I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney. Not surprisingly. You know, I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests. I think he's drawing the wrong lesson from history. The facts don't bear him out. I think he is... that attitude, that philosophy has done incredible damage to our image and position in the world. I mean, the fact of the matter is, after all these years, how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many... how many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment, which means that there is constant effective recruitment of Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against U.S. interests all around the world.

-- President Barack Obama, speaking to 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft

About damn time someone shot down the 'ohmygodterrorists!' nonsense of the Bush/Cheney Administration and its fire-sale mentality in terms of our laws and image abroad.

The Democratic position has previously been a lukewarm objection so as to court both the 'national security' and 'civil liberties' crowd, without understanding that the former was never about keeping this country safe, but rather an asleep-at-the-wheel president trying to show he was some kind of war hero who couldn't be pushed around.


Sad to say, absent some serious revisions to the code, I'm giving up on Sony's MLB: The Show '09. If there's no indication a fix is forthcoming, I'll trade it in at GameStop.

The most egregious offender is the new baserunning system, which, after a not-inconsiderable amount of play (figure about 36-40 hours), I can plainly state is a piece of dogshit.

The new controls were promoted as being relative - that is, you would have to push the left joystick in the direction that you needed to run to reach the next base. That makes sense - if you want to run from 1st to 2nd, you'd push to the right, then back to the left as you round 2nd and head to 3rd.

Except the programmers goofed, because the controls are relative to the camera, and not to the runner or the bases. Which means you can start for 2nd, the camera angle changes, and 'right' - which was correct when you took off like a jet for 2nd - points you back to 1st base.

Ooops.

There's a concept in cinematography that involves the axis of motion. That is, if your establishing shot has something on the right side of the screen, it must remain on the right side of the screen until you show the point-of-view character/observer actually moving.

So if we see a bank robbery where the bad guys are on the right and the police are on the left, that relationship must be maintained throughout the scene. (See the movie Heat for an excellent example of this.)

And that's what the problem is with MLB: The Show - it's crossing the axis of motion, pivoting from a shot outside the basepaths to one inside the basepaths.



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