tekHedd – the blog

What I learned about torture this year, is that it is totally OK, even if it gets no results, even if it is done to random innocents, as long as all of the following are true:

1. It’s in a good cause
2. You don’t call it “torture”
3. You pretend it isn’t happening

And there you have it. Torture is completely OK and not morally wrong, as long as you follow these three simple rules.

OUYA is actually pretty neat. But their recent decision to allow apps with no demo-able content of any kind really makes shopping for games a chore. The whole system is built around the idea that if a game seems remotely intriguing, you immediately download it and try out the demo content, to see if you want to buy it. But with the addition of “no-demo” games, this is gone.

It is frustrating to browse for games on the ouya.tv web page. First off, their web store simply has no way to trigger a “purchase.” But why would you purchase from there, anyway? With no text-based reviews, and no prices listed, and no demos, you have no clue if the game is good. And, there is no way to know how much a game costs without going to your OUYA and searching for it. The “Push to my OUYA” button doesn’t seem to work.

So you have to browse games at the OUHA, while simultaneously using a different computer to search for internet reviews.

Oh sure, every game can have a short video trailer and some screen caps. But that’s rubbish: it’s a lot like buying a game in the store based on the box artwork–usually a mistake.

So… once again a decision is made by the OUYA team that can only hurt their success further. Great idea; terrible marketing.

Americans love to complain about government waste. But nobody ever proposes any kind of solution.

“Waste, that’s why our taxes are so high! We could cut taxes if we could get rid of the waste!” cry the Republicans, and then propose cuts to education and other social programs. Are high schools the reason for our huge government debt? No. No other cuts are proposed. No plan is put forth to actually remove the pork and waste from federal programs. Just cuts to education and, if necessary, everything else except defense. The obvious conclusion is that “conservatives” think that everything is waste except for black ops military spending.

Democrats, the so-called progressives of our system, apparently consider bloat and waste to be an acceptable cost.

So, in our two-party system, we have two options for dealing with government waste:

1. Accept it as inevitable, and raise taxes until it hurts to cover the cost.
2. Shut down the government, except for the military. (There is no waste in the military.)

We are so screwed.