Mr. Popiel, I'm in trouble...

This sort of in-game advertising sounds like a bad idea to me. As per the MMO bit, call me a geek but if I'm buying a sword and the game asks "do you want Coke to buy this for you?" not only am I going to be upset with the game studio and Coke, I'm probably not going to play the game any more. They just killed any kind of emersion they had. I find it hard to conceive of any way that this could work out happily; the closest I get is some kind of a modern-day MMO or something, and I can't see "do you want Burger King to buy this Sawed-off Shotgun for you?" as going over well.

"Well, the bad news is we're being over-run by a hoard of zombies. The good news is that Pepsi has offered to outfit you with the latest in zombie-fighting gear..."

Yeah. I'm not feeling it.

Page-boys and Politics

I heard this morning on the news that, due to the recent Senate scandal, they're talking about closing down the page program entirely. "We can't subject young men and women to this kind of thing," someone was quoted as saying.

I think this is a bad idea. Not just bad, stupid. I have no political ambition myself (ask me again in, say, 30 years and I may have changed my tune, but...), but I know people who have, and one of the biggest obstacles they face is getting their foot in the door. You have to know people to get anywhere, but usually that means you have to know people before you can know people. it's a catch-22 type thing (a reference I don't fully understand, as "Catch-22" is still number 12 or 13 on my list of To-Read books). The page program gives aspiring politicians an opportunity to get known early on, to be exposed to the political workings of things and such.

Taking that away will only hurt the pages (and page-aspirants). It would be denying a symptom (pages being solicited) without addressing the problem (sick old men). And the problem would persist and find outlet elsewhere, but there would never be another page. It's dumb because it's punishing the victims (or potential victims) without affecting the culprits much at all.

I suppose it would be a visible sign that The Powers That Be are "doing something"; they seem to be very interested in looking like they're doing something without ever really doing anything. Now as before, as long as it looks good, nothing really has to change.

(no subject)

"Hubble hints at billions of planets in Milky Way " the headline reads.
So how come Pluto isn't one of them, I ask.