Sex in San Andreas

Unfortunately, here is the situation,” Donovan wrote in an e-mail to Sam on Aug. 16, 2004, and proceeded to list the necessary changes.

“Hooker in car blow job — we need to show much less of the critical mouth to penis area.

“Hooker Stand Up Blow Job — this needs to be removed or implied.

“Sex with girlfriend — essentially this is all beyond the bounds of M and 18 ratings, and needs to be removed or implied.

“Sex shop workers need to have slightly more nipple coverage particularly for the States.

“Key to her heart spanking date scene needs to be removed, as it constitutes sexualized violence which is a huge problem.

“Blow job in back room of dealer’s house is cool however.

The Bureaucracy of Videogames: Why San Andreas Had to Tone Down the Sex - wired.com

Writing Portal 2

For Portal 2 the script was written mainly in Word. The Left 4 Deads have so many lines that need to fire under certain conditions; we track it all in database software - Visual FoxPro 6. This results in my often being lazy and writing directly into the tables and then writing a script to output a Word document to take to the recording studio. I think it is safe to say, L4D2 is the only game written in Visual Foxpro. I don’t really recommend it.

An interview with Chet Faliszek, writer at Valve Software

35-Year Old Retakes the SAT

If you’re 35 years old and you’re thinking about retaking the SAT as a kind of blog stunt, I would highly recommend you avoid it. In fact, I would recommend that no one take the SAT ever. It’s a sternly worded dinosaur of a test, graded in an arbitrary manner with outdated equipment, and it blows. The only reason people take it is because they have to. It exists only so that preppy dipshits can brag about their scores well into adulthood if they did well. I hate it. I hope the Princeton Review gets fucked by a cattle prod.

What Happens When A 35-Year-Old Man Retakes The SAT?

Banksy on Advertising

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

Banksy On Advertising

Hey Hey

They quit before it became too embarrassing, and almost immediately their short run of hit singles, plus the TV theme, became oldies radio regulars. Dig deeper, though, because the Monkees’ catalogue is full of gems. Their influence is gentle but pervasive; it’s hard to think of any other group who could have released a song that would be covered by both the Sex Pistols and PJ & Duncan. “Whenever I think of the Monkees,” said the Go-Betweens’ Robert Forster in 1986, “it’s a sunny morning, the brightest colours, and David Jones’s eyes. Their music is perfect, as perfect as pop could ever be. Last Train to Clarksville has been written, and we are left with our own imperfection.

For anyone who dismisses the Monkees as an entirely manufactured pop group, I point them at Head and its impressive subversion of their image. At least Peter Stanley gets it.

Time Spent

Visitors using personal computers spent an average of about three minutes a month on Google between last September and January, versus six to seven hours on Facebook each month over the same period, according to comScore, which didn’t have data on mobile usage.

Whoa. The Mounting Minuses at Google - WSJ.com

Gamification

The problem with Gamification is that it tries to solve a problem that doesn't exist. We already have a universal points system, across all aspects of life, that represents status and is redeemable for real world prizes. **It's called "money."**

Greg Costikyan nails it

intersection of ambition and incompetence

Graffiti happens at the intersection of ambition and incompetence: people want to make their mark on the world, but have no other way to do it than literally making a mark on the world.

Paul Graham on Trolls.

Metafilter

How to describe Metafilter to a novice?

Well, say there’s a video with a guy doing high speed rapping about pancakes: Metafilter is great place to discuss….the spatula.

Metafilter user not_that_epiphanius explains exactly why I love Metafilter

From a Vauxhall Velox

Her mother read her mail

And her Dad was a Policeman

Which I must say worried me

But some things have just got to be

So we passed very fast like ships in the night

Or cars in a contraflow system

– Billy Bragg, From a Vauxhall Velox

Not only is this a perfect simile, it’s goddamned ballsy to drop a term like “contraflow system” into a pop song.