peteer01

If we wanted to follow that logic, we should all use YY/MM/DD, just like we use HH:MM:SS. But we're not computers, and English is hardly the most logical or consistent language. (nor are humans the always logical or consistent) YYYYMMDDHHMMSS would be the format that would make the most sense...but MM/DD is how several hundred million English speakers say the date, and it follows that when "February" followed by "14th" are the order they pop into their head, 2/14 is the way they write that data down. Suggesting that people should think in one order and write the numbers in another seems very unintuitive. Writing dates and times in the same order that we're used to saying them isn't something that needs to be changed. A universal format would be nice, even if just for things like expiration dates, and I'd be all for food manufacturers and distributors agreeing on one...but that decision isn't something that should be made because one way is "right" or another way is "wrong".

I totally disagree, as others have. I don't mean to bring up an old argument, but I feel strongly about this, and for some odd reason clicking on this board took me straight to the page featuring this argument in full swing The 'date' is basically telling us what time it is. If you look at your watch (as long as it's digital), it will display hours, minutes, and seconds. So your digital watch displays the integers based on how long their real-life referent is. Hours are longer than minutes, which are longer than seconds. Your watch would not display hours, then seconds, then minutes- and that is exactly why MM/DD/YY doesn't make sense. It's the same argument. If someone had a watch that did minutes after seconds, it would seem totally pointless. The integer's values should go from smallest to largest- it doesn't matter what the integers themselves do. But wait! With an analog watch, the minute hand is longer than the hour hand...shouldn't we all be in outrage about how that doesn't make sense? The truth is that if you live in a country where people say "February 14th", 2/14 matches the standard spoken form. If you live in a country where "the 14th of February" is the norm, 14/2 matches the standard spoken form. Assuming one is right or wrong because of some arbitrary rule that matches the format you're used to is a silly way of justifying your way of doing things. If you ask an American when something occurred, and they say, "February 14th, 2011" and they write that date as 2/14/11, that format makes sense. If you ask a Brit when something occurred and they say, "The 14th of February, 2011" and they write that date as 14/2/11, that format makes sense. If there was a country were people always told the time as "26 past 11", what would be unusual about a digital clock reading 26:11 in that country? That we agree on a standard format for time and digital clocks doesn't mean there has to be a universal standard format for dates, spoken or written. My issue with the varying formats is that too often it's not clear what format is being used. If I buy a can that says, "Best used by: 10/11/12" and there's nothing else, there's a problem. If a can says, "Best used by (DDMMYY): 101112", I could care less what the format is, because I have enough information to understand the important data. I personally prefer YYYYMMDD (or YYMMDD for anything dealing only with post Y2K numbers) because it's both clear and lists chronologically when sorted alphabetically, but as long as the underlying information is clear to whoever's reading it, that as close to the "right" way as you're going to get.

xX I Rage Quit Xx? IDashboard? AngryTeenageRacist?

Pleased with the number of females (and people in general) posting, and the lack of asshole replies. Then again, the good group of people here is a huge part of why I like this place. Very true. If someone's really curious, they can search this thread and stand a good chance of finding out.

Dammit Dean, you know I don't read video game articles unless they show up in the Newsfeed! I now do remember reading the title of that (or a similar) article in the Newsfeed a few days ago, but didn't read the article, and didn't realize he was tying in the limited number of patches idea to reducing non-gaming time with consoles in general. I imagine he'd be very, very much against mandatory HDD installs.

Sooo...I'm a bit delayed in replying to this, but after thinking about it, I think it'd be a cool idea. It would be cool to see how your friend's previous decisions in ME and ME2 made their ME3 experience different from your own, and it would also be cool to actually use teamwork with another friend (or two) in the game. As for the idea of the Shepard player having the decision making powers in the game, that sounds great. It would be nice if there were some benefits for the co-op friends that would carry over to their own games, but it wouldn't be necessary. Anyway, a co-op option along these lines would be cool. There'd probably be portions of the game that would be pretty boring for co-op players tagging along, but if it was easy to drop-in and drop-out of a friend's game, that wouldn't really matter.

RockyRan had some great questions. As a follow up to the above, I'd also be interested to hear what he'd like to see in the next gen of consoles? - Mandatory HDDs? - Mandatory game installs? - Controls? Accelerometer? Rumble? Motion controls? More buttons? Less buttons? I'd also be interested to hear his thoughts on when he'd like to see new consoles, and why. (As a developer, does he want to stick with this gen as long as software sales support it, or is there a reason, as a gamer or developer, that he'd like to see new hardware? I'd be interested in hearing what the last few games he beat, purely for his own personal enjoyment, were. Part of me would like to suggest you ask the two forum questions, what game did he hate/love that other people loved/hated...but he may not want to answer one, and lack a good answer for the other... Just some ideas off the top of my head. I'm sure some aren't that good, but if there's a good one or two in there, glad to help out, and looking forward to some answers.

Hey, Downingba! Same Dowingba from Kotaku, It take it?

Well this explains where one of my favourite commenter disappeared to Aww....Thank you, Goldwings. You are talking about me, right?

Ding, ding, ding. Alternatively, you can increase your calorie uptake, but that can be a harder road to walk. People come up with all manner of rules, mentalities, and restrictions, but, really, it's just a numbers game. It's only a numbers game c.f. the junk food diets (which, notably, people who did improved their blood panels as well in doing). We are gamers. We are comfortable with juggling numbers to affect goals. Well, at least those of us who are PC gamers. I keep trying to edit the self.ini file so I can change my metabolism settings. Seriously though, eating right and eating at the right time of day are both important. The health benefits of starting the day with breakfast aren't a secret nor are they disputed. Eating more than a few hours before you sleep, you're going to burn more of those calories off while awake than if you eat just before sleeping. Oversimplifying things to "it's only a numbers game" will make you lose weight if you eat less calories than your body needs...but long term eating habits are hardly that simple. A sustainable healthy diet includes paying attention to what (and how much of it) you eat and when you eat it.

Excaliburps, just saw one of your stories on the TAY Newsfeed. It's official, you've made it big.

Will definitely get in 2011: Mass Effect 3 Portal 2 TES 5: Skyrim Games I'm likely to get that I am interested in: Marvel vs Capcom 3 Batman: Arkham City Diablo 3 Games I want more information on: Bulletstorm Deus Ex: Human Revolution Duke Nukem Forever Journey Mortal Kombat Annual Call of Duty title* Battlefield 3** * Despite my last three years of COD being two enjoyable Treyarch games and an IW game that I found extremely disappointing. ** Will it have a "Locale Only" search option and a way of checking the quality of your connection on 360? The lack of those were my biggest two problems with BFBC2.

The hundreds of varieties of tea available from vending machines in Japan? Godsend. Fruit juice with breakfast and mugicha (barley tea), oolong tea, black tea, green tea, coffee and teas and blends can give you a good variety of drinks with no calories and health benefits to boot. I do allow myself a diet soda once in a while, and V8 from Costco is definitely something I usually have in stock at home...but I do a much better job of avoiding empty liquid calories than I do empty solid calories. (I think the most liquid calories I drink in a month are the several Arnold Palmers I drink at CPK when I do go...and I'm not changing that part of my diet. )

Very nice! Apparently, your love life is beautiful, fun, and one of the highlights of this year!

Saw this article in the News Feed: From Rock Paper Shotgun via Deanb's News Feed Reminded me of this Penny-Arcade cartoon and post about the first Dragon Age's DLC: Now, there are games I want to see DLC for, and there are games where I don't mind DLC available at launch...but it seems like Dragon Age could be handling DLC better... Having not (yet) played Dragon's Age, and not paying that much attention to Dragon's Age II, are their DLC issues really as bad as they sound, or are looking for problems where there are none? Are there any other particularly bad recent offenders?

Was hoping they'd ship to Japan. I don't need to rush and grab this...I've got a back log of single player games I want to play...but the next time I'm in the states, I'm going to try to find a cheap copy.

I just don't go any more. Too frustrating. When/If all the kinks are worked out, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to going back, but at this point, I'd rather go through the work of making a thread about a topic here and talk about it with a few rational people here.

Microsoft execs must be high-fiving themselves over that! I mean, you've convinced the guy it's worth $10 to change his gamertag because he's already decided he's going to support your consoles and services until he dies. Wow.

It is? I look at the other hobbies I've had, like golf and photography...and I think gaming is pretty reasonable compared to those. it hurts developers/publishers because old habits die hard. If you pirate because you genuinely can't afford the game, why would you suddenly stop pirating when you're just barely squeaking by? For everything that you might want, including saving more than 10% of your annual salary, there's always something that has to be cut, and choosing to cut something you can't pirate isn't going to be at the top of your list if you've already gotten into the habit of pirating. I get that there are students working their way through college that have student loans and credit card debt that get a console from Mom and Dad, and that they genuinely can't afford games for it. That doesn't make pirating morally or legally OK.

From Major Nelson's blog (as seen on Deanb's TAY News Feed) This is kind of interesting news. If you look at the comments over at Major Nelson's blog, at least a few people think this will be all the dead gamertags from original Xbox users, others are expecting any gamertags that haven't been used in X years... Major Nelson will apparently have more in a podcast this week on the topic. My guess is that this'll be a good bit of easy money for MS, as it's still 800 points to change your gamertag (and some of my Japanese friends do that way too often), and a decent number of people will change their gamertag because of this. Why? Here's one forum poster's logic (emphasis mine): .

D'OH! Bad English...I apologize for being unclear. I meant to say that out of the people hear on this (TAY) board, you are one of the most active commenters at Kotaku. I can keep my mouth shut, but I can also understand you not wanting to have something in writing that you don't want getting out. I'm one of the people here that still has a star at Kotaku that wants to keep it, even though I only access it from the one PC I set up so that it redirects every page to ca.kotaku. (Even then, when I do head back, it's really sad how the quality, and quantity, of commenters has fallen. )