TheFirstMonk

so should I buy it or what?

If you do decide to buy it, you can currently get a single PC copy for $39.99 at newegg. They already dropped the price $10.00 one day after release: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832130243&cm_re=left_4_dead_2-_-32-130-243-_-Product

I don't know of any other retailer that's done this yet (so far). The 4 pack on Steam might be a little cheaper, but A) you have to find 3 others to split the cost, and it's only a savings of $2.50 from newegg's price. $150.00/4 = $37.50 each. GoGamer.com has it for $39.90, but they tack on a $2.99 shipping charge.

EDIT: I didn't mean to put up that smiley icon. It was supposed to be B with a parentheses.

2ND EDIT: Amazon.com has a low price of $39.99 now too: http://www.amazon.com/Left-4-Dead-2-Pc/dp/B002BRYXRQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1258621959&sr=8-2

Still got the pack Dragon? How much?

$33.75

Maverick' date='30 October 2009 - 12:57 PM' timestamp='1256925454' post='474826']

Lol...crap, that'll teach me to check somewhere else.

 

Is it good on PC as well? Not just a bad port like RainbowSix Vegas?

http://gamrs.co/forums/index.php?showtopic=38868&pid=472376&st=0entry472376

I still need to install this game lol but I feel like imma be so far behind if it's a lvl'ing thing >.<

You could always do this: http://87bazillion.com/2009/10/24/power-leveling-1-30-in-10-minutes/

Has anyone seen the 1983 version and can compare it to this new one? I wonder how much they've changed it. Thanks for posting the video.

This is killing me! I downloaded it through Steam, but it keeps showing "this game is currently unavailable". When's the release date for the PC?

Have you tried restarting steam?

Yeah, most people recommend restarting Steam because of decryption of the files; that was a huge problem they listed yesterday in the forums. If that doesn't work, verify integrity, etc.

Congratulations.

Kittens of the Corn. Coming soon to a theater near you.

And if you disagree with this absurdity of Obama "winning" this award, you are a terrorist sympathizer according to the DNC.

 

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1009/DNC_official_GOP_siding_with_terrorists.html

Personally, I wouldn't award Obama the Nobel Peace Prize at this point; premature as All Killer pointed out, but that's just my opinion. We'll see what happens during his first term.

As for members of the Republican party being similar to terrorists, Woodhouse's comparison is superficial at best: the Taliban criticize giving the prize to Obama because he's not ending the war in Afghanistan to their liking; a number of people, not just Republicans, are questioning why he was awarded for valid reasons. Woodhouse's comment is just as bad as Mitt Romney's claim that voting Democrat is a "surrender to terror" in his 2008 campaign concession speech. Members of both sides need to stop using it; it's becoming as tiresome as Hitler references.

I don't see the proof yet that it's "political," though I'm not sure what that term means in the context you are using it (Biased towards the political affiliation of the committee? Or being awarded based on a high political standing/celebrity status of the individual?). There have already been a few controversial winners of the Nobel Peace Prize before that involved political figures.

Shaft got so excited, he double posted

The battle was so epic, it demandedto be posted about twice.

Lol, Shropshire you should watch Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder (based on your avatar, you may have seen it already). There's a scene where the Professor talks about buying a 300 inch television. It's awesome.

Congratulations.

Does this cost monthly?

Yup, and my guess is that it costs 14.99 a month.

Yeah, I checked their website. It's $14.99 a month, but you can get one or two dollar discounts if you buy more than one month at a time, like 3 months, 6 months, etc. or something like that.

I think it will happen my lifetime. I think we will see it start in the coming months. Maybe I am nuts but I see it starting in the Middle East in one of two ways. Either Iran will attack Israel resulting in retaliation and a massive outbreak. OR Israel will make a preemptive strike on Iran sparking it. I guess the question will be where we will stand under the current administration.

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-42553620090918

 

You toss in the utter weakness of this administration on foreign policy and national defense and you have a recipe for failure. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090918/ap_on_re_eu/eu_eastern_europe_missile_defense_22

I doubt President Ahmadinejad will attack Israel at this point in time; I'm not saying he would never perform such an action, but for now, the chances seem a bit small. He has to deal with fixing Iran's economy and appeasing the significant part of the population in his country that do not see his recent election as legitimate. If he draws his country into war with an unwarranted strike, a bigger backlash among his constituents than the one over his disputed election will occur. Solidifying and retaining his political support would be his primary goal now.

And as for that second article about missile defense: http://www.newsweek.com/id/215841?tid=relatedcl

The Obama Administration should still help Poland and the Czech Republic obviously, but the missile defense system probably was not as viable as originally thought.

In all seriousness, you seem to be experiencing a lot of anxiety, ZeroDamage. Your concerns on the state of the Middle East are valid, and I respect that you take these issues seriously, but I think ruminating on them too much can be harmful. I often have to take a break from the political issues that trouble me and return to them at a later point because they can be frustrating.

I'll be celebrating Day of the Ninja. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_Burger#Day_of_the_Ninja

Oh yeah, I went there.

There is a similar spot on the first level of Dead Air. I haven't played lately so I do not know if it is still there.

 

By the way, the only thing you are guaranteed to get from 4chan is mental retardation.

Thank God I've never visited it then, lol. I read a news article about it a while ago though, so I have heard of it. When I used the term "piledriver," Peeku claimed I made it up or got it from 4chan as an internet meme.

As for that spot in Dead Air 1, it's still there. There's 2 now actually, although one is harder to pull off than the other; one can actually be done without a need for a hunter for an instant kill.

Last night in Versus, I suggested a "piledriver" in Blood Harvest 4. Since you guys didn't know what that was, here is a link that explains it.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=937550

This is what I wanted to do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do1i1I2XXFo

So there. I didn't make it up or get it from 4chan.

 

 

Hybrids had nothing to do with GM's failures. GM has turned into a welfare state. It is paying out billions a year in benefits and to unions. Their quality as do all American made cars pale in comparison to their Japanese counter-parts. The high cost of Hybrid cars are not a factor in GM.

 

This article from 2005 covers it a little. http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2005-06-22-gm-healthcare-usat_x.htm

Makes sense. I remember a lot of people posting here about union benefits as being a cause when the auto bailout was announced, and I believe it. I still think hybrid development was a variable: http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4292379.html

The above article from 2008 lists your reasons for GM's problems (benefit costs and lower quality cars), and it also mentions a shift in demand for certain cars. For example:

"'The first shot was the dramatic rise in energy prices this past summer. That caused a rapid mix shift in vehicles—and had a major impact on profitability.' GM, Ford and Chrysler have relied on SUVs and trucks for the majority of their profits. Those vehicles commanded high sticker prices and by the late nineties made up 50 percent of the U.S. car market. When demand for the big vehicles dropped quickly and customers went for smaller, less expensive, less profitable cars, auto companies had two major issues to deal with: A loss of revenue and a backlog of unwanted trucks. Cole adds, "A big factor is our lack of an energy policy in this country. We just haven't had one. When we do things like corn-to-ethanol that don't have a foundation in economics or technology, you're really kind of teeing up to a situation where you're going to have a problem."

And in that original article from 2004 I posted:

"GM executive Lutz argues critically acclaimed hybrid compacts like Toyota Prius are bad business.

Toyota insists the Prius will be profitable, but Lutz said he believes the only way a company can shoulder the extra cost of a hybrid system is by putting it on a higher-priced, higher margin vehicle such as a pickup or sport/utility vehicle. He argues that developing hybrid SUVs and pickups will have a great positive environmental impact because those vehicles can save more fuel with hybrid technology than can already fuel-efficient small cars.

Lutz also argues that it doesn't make economic sense for consumers to pay several thousand dollars more for hybrid cars that get up to 30 percent better fuel economy. 'Hybrids are an interesting curiosity and we will do some,' he said. "But do they make sense at $1.50 a gallon? No, they do not.'"

No doubt that the benefit and union costs you pointed out were the more influential factors compared to my reasoning. But I think Lutz's hesitation to invest in hybrid compacts and research and development for them might have affected the course of the company slightly at the very least. Thus, my analogy to the news industry in my second post, where a potentially advantageous investment with temporary losses is overruled by a general tendency to minimize costs for the business.

Sorry to hear about your dad, exile. Hope things turn out okay.

 

 

If Profit were the main reason for doing what the old news is doing, then they would be realizing their mistakes and correcting them. It is a combination of ego and a sense of eliteness in that "they are the media and nothing else matters" as well as their ideology. Their numbers are dropping regularly, news papers all across the country to laying off or going out of business. Viewership is way down while Fox News is up. It has to be something and while .fx may have a point in that it is the "entertainment" aspect, it is less that and more trustworthiness. Do you want to watch CBS and not know about Acorn until it is all over or hear from a friend who saw it on Fox News and feel a little stupid and uninformed or would you rather watch a news organization that covers the stories?

In answering your last question, I don't think anyone here is objecting to a higher standard for the news. What I said in my post about profit is that it is a possible reason for a lack of news' depth, coverage, awareness, etc., not a justification for it. I said news organizations were unfortunately focused primarily on profits; they are concentrating too much on the business aspect of media outlets. You would think they would fix their mistakes as you mentioned, but many are probably going to follow their old model of doing things until management decides otherwise or bankruptcy. For example, if GM had invested more in research and development for certain hybrid models earlier, maybe they would not have gotten so far behind (aside from other variables that influenced the state of their company): http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/06/pf/autos/detroit_gm_hybrids/

In that old article, Robert Lutz's reasoning is that it "doesn't make economic sense." Instead of investing in R&D and losing some profits in the beginning, they don't because they think it's bad for their business. Likewise, investing in thorough journalism would probably pay off in the long run, but some organizations are not going to take that risk; some do, others don't. When the concept of 24 hour news was being proposed, a lot of intelligent people hoped that more detailed stories would be allowed in that huge timeframe. Instead, we generally get recycled news stories of little value or ones that lack deep investigation because they don't cost as much to do.

I've read the article and the complete report PDF, but I may have missed something. I understand that the polls/ surveys are asking people whether they believe the press is accurate or not in their reporting, as well as a host of other questions. The article says it's the "public's assessment of accuracy." I'm not discounting the poll's findings, but is it asking individuals whether they think a news outlet has inaccurate reporting without providing a set of criteria? In other words, if I were to ask a person if they thought a news station, newspaper, etc. made accurate findings, but did not ask them what they base their opinion on, I don't know if I would construe that as evidence that a media organization was or was not reporting accurate news. The people being polled may be correct when they say this or that news outlet has accurate/ inaccurate reporting or is biased/ not biased, but I don't see in any of the surveys/ polls in the article that show what they base their viewpoints on. Technically, it may be based on a lot of evidence or a little; the article doesn't really say. I might be wrong, but I interpret the findings as a survey of public belief rather than public belief supported by substantial evidence that confirms their belief. Does that make sense?

I believe that ZeroDamage is correct when he says that some news organizations are lax in reporting certain stories, but I assumed it was a question of profit moreso than bias (although that is undoubtedly a factor as well). News organizations are unnaturally concerned about securing advertisements and generating revenue, as well as garnering viewers. They carve up demographics in order to create a niche for themselves. So and so organization caters to one side to create a substantial following, while the other side drifts to another. My belief is that profit is the primary motivation, and bias might act as the method to secure that profit; of course, I'm not denying the notion that biased stories could also be a secondary motivation.

The section, Partisanship and Cable Sources, may, though not necessarily, back up my claim:

"There has been a gradual widening in the partisan differences in the viewership of both Fox News and CNN in recent years. More than three times as many Republicans (34%) as Democrats (10%) say they get most of their national and international news from Fox. By comparison, Democrats are more than twice as likely than Republicans to cite CNN (29% vs. 13%). A similar pattern is evident for MSNBC, with more Democrats (9%) than Republicans (3%) citing it as a main news source."

Or they omit stories that require too much money to research and follow up on stories that require little work (Michael Jackson's Death, for example) and save the corporation some funds. I'm sure there are a number of variables to consider.

I can't find the part that points out that Fox News and the Wall Street Journal have increased favorable ratings and had the same or lower unfavorable ratings from previous years. I've looked at the Fox Viewers More Critical, Partisanship and Cable News Sources (the closest I've seen to comparing previous demographic numbers to current ones for Fox and CNN), and the Overview Section that analyzes that picture of that one survey ZeroDamage posted specifically while reading the article, but I can't find it. From that one poll, Partisan Views of Leading News Outlets, it has Total %, Republican %, Democrat %, and Independent %, as well as the percentage gap between Republicans and Democrats, but I don't see any dates; I assume they're only the latest numbers. It's late where I am now, so I might be reading that poll weirdly.

From the overview section, "Partisan differences in views of Fox News have increased substantially since 2007. Today, a large majority of Republicans view Fox News positively (72%), compared with just 43% of Democrats. In 2007, 73% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats viewed Fox News favorably." This is all I could find in the article that compared Fox's favorable numbers with a previous set of favorable numbers in 2007. I probably glossed over a paragraph that has the unfavorable and don't know/ can't rate sections and the Independent percentages. The other paragraphs and pictures of polls and surveys don't seem to have that information.

Also, from that same section, "More favorable Republican ratings are reserved for The Wall Street Journal. Within the GOP, the balance of favorable to unfavorable assessments of the Journal is second only to that for Fox News. Democratic and independent assessments of The Wall Street Journal are also, on balance, positive." I think this is the evidence that Zero was referring to about The Wall Street Journal having the same favorable ratings among different groups, but again, I may be wrong.

On a side note, I would have to somewhat agree with ZeroDamage on the difference between pundit programs and news programs. One of the problems with Outfoxed (Robert Greenwald, 2004) that was pointed out to me in a documentary class was that the director did not make a distinction between the clips of pundits and the clips from Fox's news program; he edited them together in order to make his case that Fox was biased, although pundits tend to lean a certain way as Zero pointed out.

Unrelated to any viewpoint, is it me or has the author accidentally analyzed the wrong data in the last paragraph of "Fox Viewers More Critical?"

"Notably, 80% of the online news audience says that news stories are often inaccurate, which is only slightly less than the percentage of Fox News viewers (86%) and greater than the proportions of other news audiences expressing this view."

I thought the 80 and 86 percentages applied to the section of "Deal fairly with all sides/ Favoring one side," not the "Get the facts straight/ Stories often innacurate" part; it's in the Fox Viewers, Internet Users Most Critical of Media picture.

I'm open to correction. I do make mistakes.

Congratulations.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=27969

If there is some kind of attempt at reform, hopefully this part gets fixed.

On a side note, I have reservations on the public option; I would agree with Clueless that the bill needs some revision before being passed.

Happy Birthday.

Wouldn't worry about that python. It'll probably get shanked by a gang of bunnies in pet prison.

There's a lot of new videos on youtube of this game from PAX. Here's the links for two:

I have seen other videos that capture the same footage above and more from the same panel, but the ones I've posted have better sound and image quality. If you want to see the longer version (with lower audio and visual quality), you can check out this guy's profile: http://www.youtube.com/user/FragMonger360

I'm hoping this game doesn't suck. It looks cool, but I've been disappointed before.