First, let me state at the outset that I don't own any of the current-generation home consoles, although I do own a Nintendo DS. My Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx 16, and Game Boy Player for the GameCube offer a superior library of games. So I have no stake in who wins the current console competition (let's leave the phrase "X wars" in the '90s where it belongs). Instead, I simply consider sales data from market research group NPD, as reported in the latest issue of Game Informer -- and as hand-checked by me (5 of the 20 data were errors!).
The list only includes the top 20 best-selling games (in units sold) of May 2009; obviously it would be better to have a more complete list. Still, this will do. They include 6 games for the Wii, 5 for the DS, 6 for the Xbox 360, and 3 for the PlayStation 3.
To get a better feel for a game's true, underlying quality, I excluded all games that were released in that month. The reason is simple: when a game is just released, its initial sales are mostly determined by the advertising budget, the hype it gets on the internet, and word-of-mouth exuberance in anticipation of its release. It's only after it's been out of the gate for a month or so that actual game players have had time to familiarize themselves with the game and talk about it to each other, post their opinions on the internet, and so on. Only then can we tell whether the game can survive on its merits rather than pure hype and PR.
If an overhyped game turns out to stink, people will talk about this, and its sales will crash in the next month and remain low. On the other hand, if an underrated game gets enough word-of-mouth praise, it can enter the best-selling list after its release month.
Doing this leaves 12 of the original 20 games, showing that nearly half of all best-selling games in a month probably benefit only from the producer's PR and fanboy hype, and that they likely fall off a cliff almost right away. Some of these games released in May could in fact prove strong, but the release dates from the list overall don't offer them much hope.
Of the 12 that have proven themselves over time, 5 are for the Nintendo DS (0 were cut), 4 are for the Nintendo Wii (2 were cut), 3 are for the Xbox 360 (3 were cut), and 0 are for the PlayStation 3 (all 3 were cut). The surviving Xbox 360 games are all below the original top 10, while 3 of the surviving Wii games and 1 of the surviving DS games are in the original top 10. The oldest game on the list is Mario Kart DS, which came out three and a half years before, and the second-oldest is New Super Mario Bros for the DS, which came out three years before. Imagine a Hollywood studio producing two movies that were in theaters for three years and counting!
In a world of fickle consumers who ruthlessly heap scorn on shitty games and gush over the great ones, the staying power of Nintendo's DS and Wii games, and of Microsoft's Xbox 360 games, is as reliable of an indicator of quality as we can imagine. For the same reason, the pathetic showing of PS3 games explains why its hardware sales are in last place by far -- no one wants to play the software for that system. Their game sales benefit only from pre-release hype and PR -- once people get around to playing them, and talking about them, their sales take a nose-dive.
As I said before, I don't care who wins, and that's probably why I'm not blinded in the whole matter. It was just an issue of looking up some numbers in a magazine I happened to be flipping through. On an objective basis, we conclude that Nintendo currently puts out the best games, although the Xbox 360's games are not terribly far behind, and the PS3 is the present-day reincarnation of the overhyped Neo Geo home console from the early 1990s.
As an older-minded video game player, it's heartening to see that all 5 of the best-selling handheld games have proven themselves over time -- none were due to hype and PR of that month -- and for quite some time. It just goes to show that one system's superior hardware capabilities don't mean shit if the games for it are boring. This allows a mostly 2-D handheld system to crush a 3-D home system that has more realistic graphics. I hesitate to say "better" graphics, since maybe the average person doesn't want straight-up realism and dark shading, but rather prefers vibrant colors and a fantasy look. But innate human preferences and video game aesthetics are another topic altogether.
July 30, 2009
The decline of kids' rough-house play, as shown through Nickelodeon
With the adoption of cable TV during the 1980s, channels could target themselves toward a narrower niche than before, and one obvious way to carve up the previously heterogeneous audiences was by age. Nickelodeon aimed itself at kids roughly aged 5 to 13, I'd say. By taking a brief look at how its programming has changed, we can track changes in what parents find acceptable for their kids to watch and imitate.
As with video games, the golden age of Nickelodeon lasted from about 1986 to 1994, and a large part of that was their game shows. Now, they don't even exist -- just have a look at their current vs. previous programming by genre. The physically oriented ones more or less stop in the mid-1990s. This could be part of the larger civilizing trend that began then, whereby violent crime and child abuse started plummeting -- no more wild and crazy kids.
It's not as if physical challenges between individuals or teams are a fad, like America's Funniest Home Videos was. Game shows like Double Dare were were wacky and different enough -- and short enough -- that kids could tune in for a half-hour and get into the competitive excitement. They were sports shows, just for kids. But today's helicopter parents are probably too worried about their kids trying to recreate what they see -- especially for a game like Finders Keepers where the kids go on a rampage tearing up a staged house looking for prizes.
It would be interesting to see how far this extends -- are little kids today deprived of the joy of building forts out of cardboard boxes and couch cushions? If you've been to a park recently and seen how close the parents stand next to their kids -- as opposed to being somewhere else altogether, or not even being at the park to supervise them at all -- then it doesn't sound so crazy.
Oh, go back and look at the differences in the "educational" genre of Nickelodeon's programming. In the '80s, the most popular show by far was Mr. Wizard's World -- I still vividly recall waking up each morning at 5am (I believe) to catch it. This was a general science and technology appreciation show -- show the kids how buoyancy makes some things float and other sink, what acids and bases are (using examples from around the house), and if memory serves, he even showed kids how to build some kind of toy rocket to launch in the backyard. Just try showing that on Nickelodeon today.
(Update: my memory rules, at least for cool things like setting up a rocket in your backyard -- there's a video clip of this demonstration on the DVD webpage. Check out the info pages for all of the volumes and note the several demonstrations dealing with fire, explosions, etc. Ah, it was another time.)
Now the educational programs are just a bunch of environmentalist propaganda. So much for science and education -- just try to brainwash the poor little bastards. There was a transition period during the early or mid-1990s when Beakman's World and Bill Nye the Science Guy were popular -- and Beakman's World was broadcast on Saturday morning, competing against cartoons!
Kids these days are doing basically as well as kids from previous days did as far as science and math achievement in school. So lacking these shows isn't harming them in that way. But being deprived of role models could affect how pumped they are to enter the math, science, and technology fields. I don't mean "role models" only in terms of people they look up to, but as someone who shows that a science or tech person can make it and get respect in popular culture. If kids think that the field or job is for losers, even the ones who could hack it will turn to something more glamorous, like working for Wall Street or the ACLU.
As with video games, the golden age of Nickelodeon lasted from about 1986 to 1994, and a large part of that was their game shows. Now, they don't even exist -- just have a look at their current vs. previous programming by genre. The physically oriented ones more or less stop in the mid-1990s. This could be part of the larger civilizing trend that began then, whereby violent crime and child abuse started plummeting -- no more wild and crazy kids.
It's not as if physical challenges between individuals or teams are a fad, like America's Funniest Home Videos was. Game shows like Double Dare were were wacky and different enough -- and short enough -- that kids could tune in for a half-hour and get into the competitive excitement. They were sports shows, just for kids. But today's helicopter parents are probably too worried about their kids trying to recreate what they see -- especially for a game like Finders Keepers where the kids go on a rampage tearing up a staged house looking for prizes.
It would be interesting to see how far this extends -- are little kids today deprived of the joy of building forts out of cardboard boxes and couch cushions? If you've been to a park recently and seen how close the parents stand next to their kids -- as opposed to being somewhere else altogether, or not even being at the park to supervise them at all -- then it doesn't sound so crazy.
Oh, go back and look at the differences in the "educational" genre of Nickelodeon's programming. In the '80s, the most popular show by far was Mr. Wizard's World -- I still vividly recall waking up each morning at 5am (I believe) to catch it. This was a general science and technology appreciation show -- show the kids how buoyancy makes some things float and other sink, what acids and bases are (using examples from around the house), and if memory serves, he even showed kids how to build some kind of toy rocket to launch in the backyard. Just try showing that on Nickelodeon today.
(Update: my memory rules, at least for cool things like setting up a rocket in your backyard -- there's a video clip of this demonstration on the DVD webpage. Check out the info pages for all of the volumes and note the several demonstrations dealing with fire, explosions, etc. Ah, it was another time.)
Now the educational programs are just a bunch of environmentalist propaganda. So much for science and education -- just try to brainwash the poor little bastards. There was a transition period during the early or mid-1990s when Beakman's World and Bill Nye the Science Guy were popular -- and Beakman's World was broadcast on Saturday morning, competing against cartoons!
Kids these days are doing basically as well as kids from previous days did as far as science and math achievement in school. So lacking these shows isn't harming them in that way. But being deprived of role models could affect how pumped they are to enter the math, science, and technology fields. I don't mean "role models" only in terms of people they look up to, but as someone who shows that a science or tech person can make it and get respect in popular culture. If kids think that the field or job is for losers, even the ones who could hack it will turn to something more glamorous, like working for Wall Street or the ACLU.
July 29, 2009
More moronic antitrust actions to follow
The antitrust bureaucracy, having few real threats to take on, is once again just making shit up in order for them to keep their cushy jobs. First they busted up the Hollywood studio system -- and output did not shoot up, and prices did not fall. (See Arthur De Vany's Hollywood Economics.) So that's one they got wrong. Then they busted up AT&T, and Bell Labs along with it -- and the output of major new innovations virtually stopped the next year. And they really let their cluelessness show in the Microsoft case. (See Liebowitz and Margolis' Winners, Losers, and Microsoft.) I've included both of these must-read books in my Amazon frame above.
I don't pretend to know everything about every industry, but that would make me a better antitrust enforcer than the idiots who run things. They assume that they know the ins and outs of an industry that they are quite ignorant of -- Hollywood and Microsoft being the two greatest examples. Still, I know enough just from reading newspapers that I can outsmart the dolts in the antitrust division. For example, here's a description of their worries about wireless phone services:
Oh no, a sharp increase in prices -- it can only be due to a rising monopoly! Because these idiots didn't pay attention in freshman econ class, I'll remind them of the law of supply and demand: all else equal, when demand increases, so does price. It's incredibly simple. Price could also increase if supply decreased (as when a monopoly restricts output), but it sure doesn't seem like text messages are becoming a scarcer and scarcer resource. So, just going with the basic laws of economics, rather than assume something unusual, let's ask if demand for text messaging is increasing. If so, then that's it, and the government should just butt out.
From an article just two days later about the dangers of driving while texting:
What do you know, a tenfold increase in three years! There's your answer for why texting rates are shooting up -- the demand for them is too. It's probably a demographic change, in that more and more of the cell phone-owning population come from the more recent cohorts who prefer texting over talking. Or it could be due to something else, but we sure don't need to invoke monopolistic forces.
This same retarded view dominated during the housing bubble too -- the skyrocketing prices could not possibly have to do with skyrocketing demand, namely from the irrational exuberance that everyone was under. "OMG, I like have to buy a second house, or buy one and flip it -- prices only go up!" No, instead we heard a bunch of malarky about the decreasing supply -- not due to a monopoly (at least the story wasn't that stupid), but because we were supposedly running out of land everywhere, not just in the fashionable places like usual.
In the minds of the elite, there is no such thing as the effect of real, breathing human beings' demand -- i.e., their hopes, fears, and desires. They only grant causal powers to producers who can restrict supply to drive up prices -- the Big Evil Corporation screwing the little guy -- or flood the market with supply to make it cheap -- the Big Evil Corporation trying to get people hooked on cheap crap (fast food, Wal Mart furniture, whatever).
Unfortunately, the antitrust division looks like it still doesn't have a clue. At least for the one case that I could check with no more investigation than reading a few newspaper articles a day, training their crosshairs on the cell phone industry is completely bogus. All they need to do is to leave an industry that they don't understand alone, and go get a life.
I don't pretend to know everything about every industry, but that would make me a better antitrust enforcer than the idiots who run things. They assume that they know the ins and outs of an industry that they are quite ignorant of -- Hollywood and Microsoft being the two greatest examples. Still, I know enough just from reading newspapers that I can outsmart the dolts in the antitrust division. For example, here's a description of their worries about wireless phone services:
The division's wireless inquiry is looking at, among other things, whether it is legal for phone makers to offer a particular model, like the iPhone or the Palm Pre, exclusively to one phone carrier. It is examining the sharp increase in text-messaging rates at several phone companies. And it is scrutinizing obstacles imposed by the phone companies on low-price rivals like Skype.
Oh no, a sharp increase in prices -- it can only be due to a rising monopoly! Because these idiots didn't pay attention in freshman econ class, I'll remind them of the law of supply and demand: all else equal, when demand increases, so does price. It's incredibly simple. Price could also increase if supply decreased (as when a monopoly restricts output), but it sure doesn't seem like text messages are becoming a scarcer and scarcer resource. So, just going with the basic laws of economics, rather than assume something unusual, let's ask if demand for text messaging is increasing. If so, then that's it, and the government should just butt out.
From an article just two days later about the dangers of driving while texting:
Over all, texting has soared. In December, phone users in the United States sent 110 billion messages, a tenfold increase in just three years, according to the cellular phone industry's trade group, CTIA.
What do you know, a tenfold increase in three years! There's your answer for why texting rates are shooting up -- the demand for them is too. It's probably a demographic change, in that more and more of the cell phone-owning population come from the more recent cohorts who prefer texting over talking. Or it could be due to something else, but we sure don't need to invoke monopolistic forces.
This same retarded view dominated during the housing bubble too -- the skyrocketing prices could not possibly have to do with skyrocketing demand, namely from the irrational exuberance that everyone was under. "OMG, I like have to buy a second house, or buy one and flip it -- prices only go up!" No, instead we heard a bunch of malarky about the decreasing supply -- not due to a monopoly (at least the story wasn't that stupid), but because we were supposedly running out of land everywhere, not just in the fashionable places like usual.
In the minds of the elite, there is no such thing as the effect of real, breathing human beings' demand -- i.e., their hopes, fears, and desires. They only grant causal powers to producers who can restrict supply to drive up prices -- the Big Evil Corporation screwing the little guy -- or flood the market with supply to make it cheap -- the Big Evil Corporation trying to get people hooked on cheap crap (fast food, Wal Mart furniture, whatever).
Unfortunately, the antitrust division looks like it still doesn't have a clue. At least for the one case that I could check with no more investigation than reading a few newspaper articles a day, training their crosshairs on the cell phone industry is completely bogus. All they need to do is to leave an industry that they don't understand alone, and go get a life.
July 28, 2009
Hypocrisy about sugar consumption among upper and lower status people
I don't care about uncovering the boring kind of hypocrisy, where someone has goals that they occasionally fail to meet. That's for Gen X-ers who are still stuck in their middle school goth phase. But the real, two-faced kind does irritate me -- i.e., when someone advises everyone else to do one thing, and deliberately does something else when they're not looking.
Over at my low carb blog, I just put up a post on this regarding how we treat sugar-gulpers of low vs. high social status.
Over at my low carb blog, I just put up a post on this regarding how we treat sugar-gulpers of low vs. high social status.
July 25, 2009
Video game weekend
- If you buy loose cartridges or CDs that don't come with the manual, have a look at this site. They've scanned manuals into free PDFs, some even in color.
- My big complaint about the newer consoles is that they've turned video games into movies. I want to play, not watch. A lot of responses to that post on various discussion forums said that the movie comparison was wrong. Of course it's not -- it's obvious that video games are trying to substitute or compete with movies, since the late '90s anyway. In fact, here's the creator of Sony's PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, on his vision, from a 2001 Wired interview:
So there you have it -- proof that it was the 3-D era that marked the end of video games as games, especially when the graphics became good enough in the late '90s to substitute for passable CGI effects from movies.
- Assuming that you still prefer playing games to watching bad movies, you should get a Game Boy Player for your GameCube. I've put a link to it in the Amazon box at the top, under the video games section. It goes for about $10, and it allows you to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games on your TV.
For people like me who tuned out of the video game world in the mid-late '90s when the direction toward movies began, this is a godsend. There are a lot of great games in the non-movie style that came out then, but they were mostly released on the handheld systems, since they didn't have 3-D graphics and therefore didn't even bother to compete with movies. Even better, they all feel fresh because I've never played them before.
Playing Double Dragon II for the thousandth time is still pretty fun, but I already know everything about that game. However, the average video game player probably didn't get around to the Game Boy games since playing them on a tiny screen isn't nearly as exciting as playing on a TV. There are three incredible Zelda games for the Game Boy, all in color (Link's Awakening DX, Oracle of Ages, and Oracle of Seasons), three Castlevania games for Game Boy and three even better ones for the Game Boy Advance, a great color sequel to Bionic Commando, a stunning enhanced remake of the original Metroid on GBA (Metroid Fusion is a lot more boring, though), a string of great Kirby games -- and the most highly rated Metal Gear game is for the Game Boy Color.
So if you're looking for a fresh gameplay experience in the classic non-movie style, you can't go wrong with a Game Boy Player. Most of the games for it are fairly cheap, and the Player itself is only $10. If you don't have a GameCube, it's cheap too -- you can probably find a used one for $20 or $30 now since it wasn't as popular as the PS2.
And of course, you could always buy the full consoles from the golden age -- circa 1992, not 1982 -- but the games can be a bit more expensive for them, at least the great ones. Some are available for download on the Wii's Virtual Console, but not even a good fraction. I'll probably start reviewing some of the ones worth buying, but I want to wait until my TurboGrafx-16 gets here on Monday. Don't think I'll be getting a Neo Geo, though -- how many different Street Fighter clones could you want?
- My big complaint about the newer consoles is that they've turned video games into movies. I want to play, not watch. A lot of responses to that post on various discussion forums said that the movie comparison was wrong. Of course it's not -- it's obvious that video games are trying to substitute or compete with movies, since the late '90s anyway. In fact, here's the creator of Sony's PlayStation, Ken Kutaragi, on his vision, from a 2001 Wired interview:
My initial goal with the PlayStation was to expand the game experience by expanding the available entertainment content. With PS2, one of my goals is to take entertainment even further, from games to a fusion of games, music, and movies.
So there you have it -- proof that it was the 3-D era that marked the end of video games as games, especially when the graphics became good enough in the late '90s to substitute for passable CGI effects from movies.
- Assuming that you still prefer playing games to watching bad movies, you should get a Game Boy Player for your GameCube. I've put a link to it in the Amazon box at the top, under the video games section. It goes for about $10, and it allows you to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games on your TV.
For people like me who tuned out of the video game world in the mid-late '90s when the direction toward movies began, this is a godsend. There are a lot of great games in the non-movie style that came out then, but they were mostly released on the handheld systems, since they didn't have 3-D graphics and therefore didn't even bother to compete with movies. Even better, they all feel fresh because I've never played them before.
Playing Double Dragon II for the thousandth time is still pretty fun, but I already know everything about that game. However, the average video game player probably didn't get around to the Game Boy games since playing them on a tiny screen isn't nearly as exciting as playing on a TV. There are three incredible Zelda games for the Game Boy, all in color (Link's Awakening DX, Oracle of Ages, and Oracle of Seasons), three Castlevania games for Game Boy and three even better ones for the Game Boy Advance, a great color sequel to Bionic Commando, a stunning enhanced remake of the original Metroid on GBA (Metroid Fusion is a lot more boring, though), a string of great Kirby games -- and the most highly rated Metal Gear game is for the Game Boy Color.
So if you're looking for a fresh gameplay experience in the classic non-movie style, you can't go wrong with a Game Boy Player. Most of the games for it are fairly cheap, and the Player itself is only $10. If you don't have a GameCube, it's cheap too -- you can probably find a used one for $20 or $30 now since it wasn't as popular as the PS2.
And of course, you could always buy the full consoles from the golden age -- circa 1992, not 1982 -- but the games can be a bit more expensive for them, at least the great ones. Some are available for download on the Wii's Virtual Console, but not even a good fraction. I'll probably start reviewing some of the ones worth buying, but I want to wait until my TurboGrafx-16 gets here on Monday. Don't think I'll be getting a Neo Geo, though -- how many different Street Fighter clones could you want?
July 22, 2009
No one will care about Henry Louis Gates' run-in with the cops
I'm sure you've heard the story by now -- famous black academic breaks into his own house, police question him about it, and he freaks out about their supposedly racist mindset. And like the suburban wigger who finally gets pulled over by the cops, he's so ecstatic about an actual encounter with the police that he plans to make a movie about it (from here):
Borrrinnng.
Back here I showed that Google searches for various phrases associated with identity politics show downward trends over the past several years, which I take to show less and less interest in such topics. In particular, the alleged racism surrounding Hurricane Katrina, the Jena Six, and the Duke lacrosse hoax didn't catch anyone's attention. They made the news for a little bit (the lacrosse case for a little longer, just because the trial lasted longer than a hurricane), but once the event itself was done, everyone went back to business as usual. Importantly, there were no massive riots as there were during the social hysteria of the early 1990s when the "not guilty" verdict in the Rodney King case sparked the disastrous L.A. riots of 1991, or the other L.A. riots of the late 1960s. Therefore, no one will care about Gates' run-in with the police in 2009.
In fact, here's a graph showing the frequency of the term "racial profiling" in the NYT from its first appearance in 1994 up through 2008:
In the late '90s and early 2000s, there was a hysteria about this term, but it was short-lived, and it wasn't large enough to trigger riots. If Gates plans to make a documentary about "racial profiling," he will be dealing with a nauseatingly unfashionable topic -- although you figure he'd market it to Gen X and Boomer dipshits anyway, among whom it's still a favorite buzzword. But don't expect it to catch on -- blacks have shown very little enthusiasm for taking it to the streets lately. There will probably be another massive social hysteria in the middle of the next decade, so if he wants a big audience, he should wait until then to release it.
The charge against him was dropped Tuesday, but Gates said he plans to use the attention and turn his intellectual heft and stature to the issue of racial profiling. He now wants to create a documentary on the criminal justice system, informed by the experience of being arrested not as a famous academic but as an unrecognized black man.
Borrrinnng.
Back here I showed that Google searches for various phrases associated with identity politics show downward trends over the past several years, which I take to show less and less interest in such topics. In particular, the alleged racism surrounding Hurricane Katrina, the Jena Six, and the Duke lacrosse hoax didn't catch anyone's attention. They made the news for a little bit (the lacrosse case for a little longer, just because the trial lasted longer than a hurricane), but once the event itself was done, everyone went back to business as usual. Importantly, there were no massive riots as there were during the social hysteria of the early 1990s when the "not guilty" verdict in the Rodney King case sparked the disastrous L.A. riots of 1991, or the other L.A. riots of the late 1960s. Therefore, no one will care about Gates' run-in with the police in 2009.
In fact, here's a graph showing the frequency of the term "racial profiling" in the NYT from its first appearance in 1994 up through 2008:
In the late '90s and early 2000s, there was a hysteria about this term, but it was short-lived, and it wasn't large enough to trigger riots. If Gates plans to make a documentary about "racial profiling," he will be dealing with a nauseatingly unfashionable topic -- although you figure he'd market it to Gen X and Boomer dipshits anyway, among whom it's still a favorite buzzword. But don't expect it to catch on -- blacks have shown very little enthusiasm for taking it to the streets lately. There will probably be another massive social hysteria in the middle of the next decade, so if he wants a big audience, he should wait until then to release it.
July 20, 2009
My new subscription-driven blog and forums
Basic rationale: Starting next week, I'll be posting on the highest-traffic day -- Monday -- only at a companion blog that will be run by a $5 per month subscription. (I'll post here too, but not early in the week when demand is high.) These new posts will be the ones that I put the most effort into -- not where I recount how it went at the teen dance club, but where I present something that no one's found out before, or where I popularize something that few know about.
To give newer readers a feel of the original stuff I've done before, I've given examples in the section below, but I've already decided what the inaugural post is about -- turnover rates in many genres of popular music. Basically, I went through the Billboard charts as far back as they go for the genre, and asked, "For a given week, how many weeks was the #1 song at the top of the charts?" and plotted this over time. Some periods show lots of turnover, while others are marked by stasis. Are there any patterns, and does genre make a difference? Subscribe and find out.
Aside from a weekly top-notch post each Monday, the blog will host forums of sorts throughout the week. The way the blogosphere works now, a comment section largely turns into a discussion board, but the momentum is always halted due to the commenters having to run from one day's comment section to the next's. At the other blog, there will simply be an open thread for the entire week where commenters can go nuts within the same post. There will be one open thread per topic of interest -- race, gender / sex, generational topics, technology, health / nutrition, or whatever else interests the subscribers.
More about the blog posts
First, there will be no ads of any kind, and comments will NOT be moderated. Everyone knows how annoying it is to participate in a comment section with moderated comments -- you can't help but feel insulted by "your message is being held and will appear when the writer approves it," and it slows the discussion down, when all you want is a quick and steady fix. But when access to the site is free, retards and flamers will inevitably show up, as bums flock to crowded malls, so that ownership and control of a comment section is needed to keep it from turning into worthless chaos. Only by restricting access can these rules be loosened up, just as law-abiding children don't need a curfew.
I'm choosing Monday because that is always the highest-traffic day. If you subscribe, you'll get your fix when you want it most, while there will be only a teaser link here to start the week off.
Although blogging doesn't eat up a lot of time, the more data-intensive posts do. This is not something that most bloggers do -- most are linkers or gasbags, with some entertaining and others boring. I actually do a bit of investigation, provide data, and put it into an easy-to-read visual. Not everyone will agree with my interpretation of what I've found, but at least I've done lots of homework that others will benefit from, and that's something you find at very few places on the internet, especially if it's a new finding.
As such, it only makes sense that I get something out of it. For those entries that don't require lots of time, I'll continue to post them here for free. But if they are more original and time-draining, I need better motivation than merely having a gigantic internet following.
However, since the other site will be by subscription, I'll be much more open to reader requests. Right now, I ignore them because if I'm researching and writing something up for free, the only thing that counts is what I'm curious about. But if I'm being remunerated, I'll look into just about anything. If there are topics you're interested in, or parts of posts I've written that you wish I'd looked into more, just say so, and you'll have a bright and resourceful numbers guy on top of it. We all know how pathetic most journalism is -- if what you read isn't covering it, I will, where feasible.
Otherwise, I'll focus on the same issues I do here -- race, generational changes, health and nutrition, sex and gender, technology, video games, pop culture, and so on.
Examples of previous original and data-intensive work I've done:
The death of silly academic theories such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, and even postmodernism, using JSTOR archives. This story was picked up by the Toronto Globe and Mail, Arts and Letters Daily, and a few others I'm forgetting. (Here's a follow-up.)
How different social classes react to adolescent sex, using the GSS, and proposing a life history account of these differences.
How much different generations enjoy various music genres, using the GSS. This provides pretty clear data that you imprint on the popular music from when you were about 15 and stay that way for the rest of your life.
How the American diet has changed over the 20th C., using pretty fine-grained data such as red meat, fish, poultry, etc., rather than just "meat." There's also data showing that heart disease and obesity has only gotten worse as we've switched to a more carboholic diet since the 1970s.
How the blondness of Playboy Playmates has changed over time, as well as some speculation about why it changes the way it does.
The stagnating pace of revolutionary technological innovation, linking it to the decline in monopolistic bodies like AT&T's Bell Labs or the Defense Department.
And there's plenty more where that came from. Just browse my archives here, or search GNXP.com for "agnostic." Stuff you won't read anywhere else. To reiterate, next week's post will look at the dynamics of pop culture by using Billboard chart-topping data. Soon after that (perhaps the next week, unless there's subscriber demand for something else), I'll present data on whether or not there has been a "decline in formality" over the 20th C, or if that is even possible. You know -- jeans and tennis shoes replacing jackets and ties.
More about the forums
While part of the reason that people read blogs is to see what the writer has to say, an even larger part is to join in or listen to the ensuing discussion. At a given blog, there are a handful of topics that people are most interested in, and comment sections inevitably become discussion boards about these topics. But by being split up over multiple posts, the momentum of the discussion will be killed because there's a new post today and a new comment section to migrate to.
By having a single open thread on some topic (women, race, science, video games, whatever), commenters will be able to go at it to their heart's content and not have to worry about lost momentum. Should things slow down, I'll pop in often enough to stir the pot -- maybe something little like posting a link to a conversation-starting news story. Again, I'll start off with an initial group of threads, but if enough people want an open thread on a new topic, I'll start it up right away. Each Sunday, I'll post a new set of open threads, since this type of yakking has a weekly (not daily) rhythm: the momentum always dies over the weekend anyway.
Another huge benefit from this format is that you can engage in discussions on a variety of topics each day, all day. The way things are now, you talk about sex when there's a post about sex, or affirmative action when there's a post on that. I know that you all want to talk about lots of things every day, so this will allow you to do that. You could follow a bunch of free discussion boards, but by bringing everyone together under a single umbrella site, it will be closer-knit and you'll know that you have much more in common than just one interest. Plus you all sort of know each other already.
It'll be a regular Algonquin Roundtable, and you'll be able to relate ideas from various areas together. It'll be as participatory as a discussion board, but as broadly focused and free-ranging in content as the comment sections of your favorite blogs.
And again, comments will not be moderated, so there will be a much more natural pace to the discussion. Quite simply, if someone acts like a classic flamer, I will remove them without giving a refund, and they won't be allowed to re-join the site. Every meeting place that could attract losers needs a bouncer -- and lord knows that includes an internet comment section. By the same token, nightclubs that cost money to get into are generally better than those that don't charge -- it weeds out those with bad attitudes.
How to join
There is a "Subscribe" button at the top of this blog. You will need a PayPal account, and PayPal automates everything, billing you $5 every month. (You can cancel anytime via PayPal, although I won't refund money that you've already paid.) You will also need a Google account -- they're free, and you just provide them with an email address. When you subscribe, leave me a message via PayPal with the email address associated with your Google account. I need this to invite you to the blog. If you don't say so, I'll assume it's the one attached to your PayPal account. If you forget to mention it, you can always send me a correction through your PayPal account.
Once I invite you, you'll get an email that has a "join this blog" link that you click on. And with that, you're all set. You will need to be signed into your Google account, but you can stay signed in forever. I've already put up some open threads, so you can get going right away.
I expect that most subscribers will not be trolls or flamers -- they want to harass people for free -- but again, if you exhibit classical flamer behavior, you'll be kicked out with no refund. It just takes a couple people like that to ruin the vibe, so I'll be strict about that.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment here or email me at icanfeelmyheartbeat at the hotmail-ish site.
To give newer readers a feel of the original stuff I've done before, I've given examples in the section below, but I've already decided what the inaugural post is about -- turnover rates in many genres of popular music. Basically, I went through the Billboard charts as far back as they go for the genre, and asked, "For a given week, how many weeks was the #1 song at the top of the charts?" and plotted this over time. Some periods show lots of turnover, while others are marked by stasis. Are there any patterns, and does genre make a difference? Subscribe and find out.
Aside from a weekly top-notch post each Monday, the blog will host forums of sorts throughout the week. The way the blogosphere works now, a comment section largely turns into a discussion board, but the momentum is always halted due to the commenters having to run from one day's comment section to the next's. At the other blog, there will simply be an open thread for the entire week where commenters can go nuts within the same post. There will be one open thread per topic of interest -- race, gender / sex, generational topics, technology, health / nutrition, or whatever else interests the subscribers.
More about the blog posts
First, there will be no ads of any kind, and comments will NOT be moderated. Everyone knows how annoying it is to participate in a comment section with moderated comments -- you can't help but feel insulted by "your message is being held and will appear when the writer approves it," and it slows the discussion down, when all you want is a quick and steady fix. But when access to the site is free, retards and flamers will inevitably show up, as bums flock to crowded malls, so that ownership and control of a comment section is needed to keep it from turning into worthless chaos. Only by restricting access can these rules be loosened up, just as law-abiding children don't need a curfew.
I'm choosing Monday because that is always the highest-traffic day. If you subscribe, you'll get your fix when you want it most, while there will be only a teaser link here to start the week off.
Although blogging doesn't eat up a lot of time, the more data-intensive posts do. This is not something that most bloggers do -- most are linkers or gasbags, with some entertaining and others boring. I actually do a bit of investigation, provide data, and put it into an easy-to-read visual. Not everyone will agree with my interpretation of what I've found, but at least I've done lots of homework that others will benefit from, and that's something you find at very few places on the internet, especially if it's a new finding.
As such, it only makes sense that I get something out of it. For those entries that don't require lots of time, I'll continue to post them here for free. But if they are more original and time-draining, I need better motivation than merely having a gigantic internet following.
However, since the other site will be by subscription, I'll be much more open to reader requests. Right now, I ignore them because if I'm researching and writing something up for free, the only thing that counts is what I'm curious about. But if I'm being remunerated, I'll look into just about anything. If there are topics you're interested in, or parts of posts I've written that you wish I'd looked into more, just say so, and you'll have a bright and resourceful numbers guy on top of it. We all know how pathetic most journalism is -- if what you read isn't covering it, I will, where feasible.
Otherwise, I'll focus on the same issues I do here -- race, generational changes, health and nutrition, sex and gender, technology, video games, pop culture, and so on.
Examples of previous original and data-intensive work I've done:
The death of silly academic theories such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, and even postmodernism, using JSTOR archives. This story was picked up by the Toronto Globe and Mail, Arts and Letters Daily, and a few others I'm forgetting. (Here's a follow-up.)
How different social classes react to adolescent sex, using the GSS, and proposing a life history account of these differences.
How much different generations enjoy various music genres, using the GSS. This provides pretty clear data that you imprint on the popular music from when you were about 15 and stay that way for the rest of your life.
How the American diet has changed over the 20th C., using pretty fine-grained data such as red meat, fish, poultry, etc., rather than just "meat." There's also data showing that heart disease and obesity has only gotten worse as we've switched to a more carboholic diet since the 1970s.
How the blondness of Playboy Playmates has changed over time, as well as some speculation about why it changes the way it does.
The stagnating pace of revolutionary technological innovation, linking it to the decline in monopolistic bodies like AT&T's Bell Labs or the Defense Department.
And there's plenty more where that came from. Just browse my archives here, or search GNXP.com for "agnostic." Stuff you won't read anywhere else. To reiterate, next week's post will look at the dynamics of pop culture by using Billboard chart-topping data. Soon after that (perhaps the next week, unless there's subscriber demand for something else), I'll present data on whether or not there has been a "decline in formality" over the 20th C, or if that is even possible. You know -- jeans and tennis shoes replacing jackets and ties.
More about the forums
While part of the reason that people read blogs is to see what the writer has to say, an even larger part is to join in or listen to the ensuing discussion. At a given blog, there are a handful of topics that people are most interested in, and comment sections inevitably become discussion boards about these topics. But by being split up over multiple posts, the momentum of the discussion will be killed because there's a new post today and a new comment section to migrate to.
By having a single open thread on some topic (women, race, science, video games, whatever), commenters will be able to go at it to their heart's content and not have to worry about lost momentum. Should things slow down, I'll pop in often enough to stir the pot -- maybe something little like posting a link to a conversation-starting news story. Again, I'll start off with an initial group of threads, but if enough people want an open thread on a new topic, I'll start it up right away. Each Sunday, I'll post a new set of open threads, since this type of yakking has a weekly (not daily) rhythm: the momentum always dies over the weekend anyway.
Another huge benefit from this format is that you can engage in discussions on a variety of topics each day, all day. The way things are now, you talk about sex when there's a post about sex, or affirmative action when there's a post on that. I know that you all want to talk about lots of things every day, so this will allow you to do that. You could follow a bunch of free discussion boards, but by bringing everyone together under a single umbrella site, it will be closer-knit and you'll know that you have much more in common than just one interest. Plus you all sort of know each other already.
It'll be a regular Algonquin Roundtable, and you'll be able to relate ideas from various areas together. It'll be as participatory as a discussion board, but as broadly focused and free-ranging in content as the comment sections of your favorite blogs.
And again, comments will not be moderated, so there will be a much more natural pace to the discussion. Quite simply, if someone acts like a classic flamer, I will remove them without giving a refund, and they won't be allowed to re-join the site. Every meeting place that could attract losers needs a bouncer -- and lord knows that includes an internet comment section. By the same token, nightclubs that cost money to get into are generally better than those that don't charge -- it weeds out those with bad attitudes.
How to join
There is a "Subscribe" button at the top of this blog. You will need a PayPal account, and PayPal automates everything, billing you $5 every month. (You can cancel anytime via PayPal, although I won't refund money that you've already paid.) You will also need a Google account -- they're free, and you just provide them with an email address. When you subscribe, leave me a message via PayPal with the email address associated with your Google account. I need this to invite you to the blog. If you don't say so, I'll assume it's the one attached to your PayPal account. If you forget to mention it, you can always send me a correction through your PayPal account.
Once I invite you, you'll get an email that has a "join this blog" link that you click on. And with that, you're all set. You will need to be signed into your Google account, but you can stay signed in forever. I've already put up some open threads, so you can get going right away.
I expect that most subscribers will not be trolls or flamers -- they want to harass people for free -- but again, if you exhibit classical flamer behavior, you'll be kicked out with no refund. It just takes a couple people like that to ruin the vibe, so I'll be strict about that.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment here or email me at icanfeelmyheartbeat at the hotmail-ish site.
July 19, 2009
Women still living beyond their means to try to look better
Here are two brief press releases from the marketing research group NPD, which show that the recession hasn't made most women re-prioritize their spending on beauty products, and that the more expensive brands' sales are actually increasing: one and two.
Unfortunately, women are junking higher-end skincare products in favor of higher-end make-up, eye make-up, and fragrances. At least skincare adds moisture to the skin, and the higher-end products tend to have vitamin A (retinol) or other things that ameliorate the effects of aging.
I cannot believe that there's an eye make-up that costs $38 and is named after Hello Kitty.
Unfortunately, women are junking higher-end skincare products in favor of higher-end make-up, eye make-up, and fragrances. At least skincare adds moisture to the skin, and the higher-end products tend to have vitamin A (retinol) or other things that ameliorate the effects of aging.
I cannot believe that there's an eye make-up that costs $38 and is named after Hello Kitty.
July 17, 2009
Video game weekend: a brief history of video games
Since Fridays and Saturdays are low-traffic days, I'm devoting them to lighter material that I know lots of the readers here are interested in -- video games. (Hopefully this will recapture the feeling of being done with school and renting a video game for the weekend.)
They're a huge player in the entertainment industry, yet they haven't been studied very much. At some point, movies became a serious thing to talk about, so why not video games too? And just as the evolution of Hollywood businesses tells us a lot about the cultural products they made, we can learn a lot about the quality of video games by examining the history of this industry's businesses.
I'm in the middle of reading two histories of video games from academic sources, and I'll probably post on that later. But for now, I'll simply re-direct you to a four-part YouTube series by The Gaming Goose:
Part one, part two, part three, and part four.
Most of the info can be found on Wikipedia and a few other sites, but it's a pretty good synthesis, and there's a lot of personal insight from someone who grew up experiencing the birth of video games. Plus, unlike virtually every video game reviewer on YouTube (or elsewhere), he comes across as a normal person, not an autist.
One thing he mentions is that it's nonsense that the improving quality of home console games was what killed off the arcade games -- i.e., that people could now fairly well substitute home for arcade games. That's a point that I've made before by just noting the timing of the rise and fall of arcade game sales, in relation to home console sales. Arcade games started disappearing already in the very late 1980s, years before arcade-quality graphics were available and affordable at home.
He also emphasizes that going to video arcades was a social experience that you can't duplicate by playing people online today. That's true: you're out of your house, probably at a mall or movie theater surrounded by tons of people, and you're interacting face-to-face. There's all sorts of non-verbal stuff that's missed by playing online, such as that look of excited relief that you give each other after you beat what seemed an unbeatable boss. It's a superficial bond that only lasts as long as you're blasting away a common enemy, but that's still closer than the interaction between two random mall-goers.
Also, especially for younger boys, there was the thrill of getting to hang out with the cool older kids -- one of the few places where they would tolerate your presence. Unlike sports, a younger kid can actually fare pretty well against a teenager in video games, so that you could easily prove yourself to them and earn their respect. "Damn, look at that little dude go -- he just smoked your ass!" I don't know that there are many places left now that allow this partial breaking down of the age barrier.
And just for the record, Golden Axe is the best arcade game, just ahead of Ninja Turtles and the Simpsons.
They're a huge player in the entertainment industry, yet they haven't been studied very much. At some point, movies became a serious thing to talk about, so why not video games too? And just as the evolution of Hollywood businesses tells us a lot about the cultural products they made, we can learn a lot about the quality of video games by examining the history of this industry's businesses.
I'm in the middle of reading two histories of video games from academic sources, and I'll probably post on that later. But for now, I'll simply re-direct you to a four-part YouTube series by The Gaming Goose:
Part one, part two, part three, and part four.
Most of the info can be found on Wikipedia and a few other sites, but it's a pretty good synthesis, and there's a lot of personal insight from someone who grew up experiencing the birth of video games. Plus, unlike virtually every video game reviewer on YouTube (or elsewhere), he comes across as a normal person, not an autist.
One thing he mentions is that it's nonsense that the improving quality of home console games was what killed off the arcade games -- i.e., that people could now fairly well substitute home for arcade games. That's a point that I've made before by just noting the timing of the rise and fall of arcade game sales, in relation to home console sales. Arcade games started disappearing already in the very late 1980s, years before arcade-quality graphics were available and affordable at home.
He also emphasizes that going to video arcades was a social experience that you can't duplicate by playing people online today. That's true: you're out of your house, probably at a mall or movie theater surrounded by tons of people, and you're interacting face-to-face. There's all sorts of non-verbal stuff that's missed by playing online, such as that look of excited relief that you give each other after you beat what seemed an unbeatable boss. It's a superficial bond that only lasts as long as you're blasting away a common enemy, but that's still closer than the interaction between two random mall-goers.
Also, especially for younger boys, there was the thrill of getting to hang out with the cool older kids -- one of the few places where they would tolerate your presence. Unlike sports, a younger kid can actually fare pretty well against a teenager in video games, so that you could easily prove yourself to them and earn their respect. "Damn, look at that little dude go -- he just smoked your ass!" I don't know that there are many places left now that allow this partial breaking down of the age barrier.
And just for the record, Golden Axe is the best arcade game, just ahead of Ninja Turtles and the Simpsons.
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