Mr. GOH!

Sure! Sony licensed the rights to Spider-man from Marvel a while ago to make spider-man cartoons (IIRC; might be a different company) and movies. Marvel was bought by Disney in 2006 or so. Disney wants the rights back. Part of the original agreement stipulated that if Sony were not to make use of spider-man, the rights would revert to Marvel or its successor (in this case, Disney). So Sony has to use it or lose it, so to say. Same with Fox vis a vis X-Men and Fantastic Four.

Each lens in 3D glasses filters out a different wavelength of light; it's why the image looks blurry without glasses. And when you filter out light, shit gets dimmer.

I think so, too. And it's gonna be part of a painful change of the traditional Ninty corporate culture of monolithic and centralized control.

Of course Nintendo is trying to introduce the most immediately profitable aspect of modern online connectivity; they are a company in a financial crisis and need to focus on the fastest and least risky revenue. Indeed, allowing DLC is a sort of offering to third party developers; Ninty *used* to have the power to dictate what sort of resources devs *privileged* enough to develop games for Ninty systems could utilize. Well, that's over with now. Ninty has to change with the times. As a company not used to being at the mercy of seemingly external yet huge, trends in the market, Ninty's gonna go after the low-hanging fruit first. Furthermore, I suspect there is a dearth of good ideas and talent with regards to online at Nintendo because they've spent the last decade ignoring it. Now they have to bring their online out of the dark ages and it's gonna be a hard road.

As I said, Ninty had better focus on the market for kids games.

Sure! But hardcore gamers are also willing to play games on their consoles or PC's and don't really need a handheld device. Of course, not *all* hardcore gamers, but the actual market for hardcore handheld games will remain somewhat small. As I said, I think Ninty's gonna go hard after the children's game market. I also think it'll go after downloadable games. Ninty has effectively changed from a hardware sales company to a software sales company insofar as the 3DS is concerned.

I worry about this too. The question I want to know is what % of people have a android/iPhone/WP7? The reason why is that I was going to get an iPod Touch because I refused to pay for a data plan but when the Vita was revealed I decided that for $250 I'd rather have a Vita than an iPod and I think the Vita compares rather well to an iPod. Then my company gave me a Droid X for work and now I don't need one quite as much so I'm not sure if I'm really going to get one. I do know that I hate playing real games on my android and I bet true gamers will get a Vita if there are actually good games for it. iPhone, iPad and android device sales are skyrocketing. During the past quarter when the 3DS sold about 715k units, Apple sold 9.25 million iPads, 7.5 million iPods and 20 million iPhones. And comparable Android devices are selling like gangbusters as well, to the point that there were more total Android devices sold than iDevices, though not all android devices are as entertainment-capable as an iPod Touch or iPhone. In sum: Ninty is shitting its pants in fear, and rightly so. Their handheld casual market is pretty much irrelevant.

I'm happy about it, because reality bore out my predictions. But, seriously, if you want a 3DS it's good news. My caveat would be that if you're a "serious" gamer, Ninty may not be catering to you as much going forward on the 3DS. I suspect they may be targeting kids with bigger games and for adults they'll be focusing on cheaply-developed casual downloadable titles in an attempt to Ape iPhone games.

The bottom line is that the market is radically different than it was a few years ago, even. Aside from kids and serious video game fans, *nobody* really wants or needs a dedicated handheld gaming device, especially if they already have a smart phone anyway. The Vita's gonna get its ass kicked, too.

So it looks like the 3DS is gonna be $169 after August 12 and that Ninty lost a bunch of money this past quarter: http://www.dailytech.com/Nintendo+Announces+Poor+Q1+Earnings+Offers+3DS+Price+Cut+After+Weak+Sales/article22282.htm Makes sense to me. The 3DS is riddled with problems. First of all, most adults have smartphones that suffice as mobile entertainment platforms. That market is likely lost to Ninty. The current market for the 3DS is fanboys and nostalgia gamers willing to drop $300 to play Ocarina of Time again. And while those markets are well-represented on the Internet, they won't make a platform profitable. But the 3DS has a big market in children. But parents don't wanna pay $250 in this economy for a platform that seems like it's merely the cheaper DS plus a 3D gimmick. Ninty's marketing strategy doesn't do enough to differentiate the DS and 3DS as separate platforms. Ninty had better take a good long look at this issue before it ramps up the Wii U marketing campaign, or it will be another, potentially larger, bloodbath.

I believe the term you're looking for is "seems pretty human". The whole point of swear words. The whole reason we have a designation of a particular subset of words as "naughty" is so we have something that's taboo/vulgar/extreme. My personal dislike for the overuse is becuase when you really really need a good word to just sum it all up, all you can do is say "FFFUUUCCCKK" louder than usual. Also when writing, swear words do have a habit of coming up as a good adjectives/adverbs/nouns/verbs to use before most other, more appropriate, words and that gets annoying. Of note: I've only casually glanced over this thread. Thought I'd dip my toes in. Shouldn't we strive to be better than our flaws? There is no objective 'purpose' to swear words. It's a historical development. The English-speaking world's attitude to them is idiosyncratic and based in Victorian sensibilities.

Making something taboo just so it's taboo seems pretty arbitrary and irrational to me.

The versatility of "fuck" is evidence only for the versatility of "fuck." I also don't understand why saying "ouch" instead of "goddamn motherfucker" is better. The stupidity of people is not caused by swearing! Swearing isn't even fucking evidence of stupidity because the vast majority of people swear regardless of intelligence. The smartest people I know swear as much as the dumbest. Folks who are insecure in their social position or who are misguided moralists are the only folks I know who don't swear.

That's a behavioral issue, not a language acquisition issue. If society didn't label swearing as 'bad' they'd act up in other ways to get attention. Also, that video is a famous monologue by the genius comedian George Carlin. And he'd agree with *me* that focusing on swear words as being bad is fucking ridiculous. Attention was hardly the case when after one of her five year-olds stubbed his toe on the playground he yelled out, "motherfucking son of a bitch!" I'm not talking about a bunch of teens with pseudo-drama, we're on the elementary level here. But hey, if you would rather have society be relaxed and say "fucking" instead of absolutely, completely, entirely, fully, utterly, wholly, or even thoroughly, have at it. Judgments will be made and there's nothing that can stop an employer, supervisor, or customer becoming uncomfortable with casual salty language. Or should I say... But fuck, if you'd fucking have society be a bitch and say "fucking" instead of fuck, fucknuts, fucker, fuckwit, fuckass, or even bitchfuck, have fucking at it. Goddamn judgements will fucking be made and there's nothing that can fucking stop a bitch, cunt, or asshole becoming goddamn uncomfortable with fucking casual motherfucking language. Completely reasonable. I've said that it can be inartful at times. My job is language; I wouldn't swear at a client unless the client broke that ground first (and they *have*; I have pro bono clients who like me because I'm "real" with them, and I've had corporate reps who like to shoot the shit). But saying that society looks down on an action isn't an argument that that action is inherently bad. Indeed, I think it's a ridiculous thing to always be concerned about. Indeed, I think it's a remnant of class judgments in the West. Other cultures have quite different and substantially less puritanical attitudes towards swearing than the English-speaking world does. It also seems to me that swearing when one gets hurt is fairly normal and, dare I say, appropriate?

That's a behavioral issue, not a language acquisition issue. If society didn't label swearing as 'bad' they'd act up in other ways to get attention. Also, that video is a famous monologue by the genius comedian George Carlin. And he'd agree with *me* that focusing on swear words as being bad is fucking ridiculous.

I'll address each of your paragraphs in turn. Paragraph 1: Why is it that swearing is a result of refusing to exercise one's, erm, cultural mind? You provide no evidence or examples. Then you assert that you know swear words in several languages and people who swear a lot in those languages because they refuse to think. What does that even mean in the context of this debate? Are you an educational psychologist? Do you know this for a fact, or is this just another baseless assertion? Paragraph 2: The evolution of writing is a fascinating topic. It is only tangentially related to the discussion of swear words, if at all. Verbal language predates writing, though the relationship between the verbal development and written development of a language is very complex. Regardless, I have no idea what you mean by "to say that a word is inherently not good or bad goes against human recognition." Folks who dislike swear words usually imply that swear words are inherently bad. I mean, I agree there are situations where a swear word may not be called for, such as to replace every word in my previous sentence, or at the very least may be inartful, like during a loan interview. But punishing a kid for saying "shit," or saying that the use of swear words is an indicator of a lack of intelligence is complete and utter bullshit to me. Whether or not the sound of a word is nice or foul is based on culture and not on inherent foulness or niceness; German sounds angry to us but not to other Germans. The similarity of words between related languages is because the languages are related and spring from the same ancient language. Paragraph 3: Yes, the focus of writing has shifted from style to content and I bemoan that. But cutting out the use of repetition is unrelated to swearing, as it's true for any word or phrase. The idea of excessive articulation is hilarious, that you use it as an aspiration is doubly so. "Excessive" generally denotes an excess, which is almost never a good thing. I don't assume everyone to be educated; far fucking from it. I do think that the use of swear words does not prevent education or expanded vocabularies in any meaningful way. One must learn many, many different words just to be functional in society. The overuse of some dozen words isn't going to prevent that. I have taught English as a Foreign Language and have learned two foreign languages myself; I don't understand at all what you mean when you say foreign language learners use a swear word to get their point across rather than learn a word. I mean, yes, I can imagine such a situation, but I don't know anyone who would rest on their laurels that way. Indeed, circumlocutions of all types are very common among foreign language learners, and they're almost never based on swear words. Paragraph 4: We have access to more information than ever before, true. So we memorize a smaller proportion of it. But i contend people still memorize in total as much as they ever have; it's just a smaller amount of the hugely increased total. It's a moral panic and not very helpful to get all worked up about it. Besides, if the information can be access easily, shouldn't we focus on higher-order brain functions like analyzation and synthesization of data rather than rote memorization?

Swearing is not the cause of limited vocabulary, though at young ages it might be a symptom. Swear words are not inherently different from any other word. Language sanitation advocates bowdlerize or mince oaths; under your rubric (which I find *highly* suspect), it wouldn't matter if the kid says "shit", "crap", or "um." They're all limiting. Jesus, the use of *any* word in repetition is limiting then. I think it's a pseudo-science masquerade and underneath is good old fashioned Victorian attitudes of decency that are based mostly on class judgments than any actual evidence of lesser vocabularies, skill, precision of thought, etc. It's all bullshit. Sure, memorization is taking a hit in the world of instant reference. But that's unrelated to swearing. And some of the mindspace previously used for retention may indeed be used for other tasks. I mean, complaining about retention is as old as goddamned Aristotle and his dislike of the written word.

Fuck that noise. Most kids know most of the standard swears by the time they're five or six. Fucking swearing never hurt anybody and isn't likely to. Knowing swear words and seeing them normalised by being posted on websites by paid writers is not the same thing. No it doesn't hurt anyone to see a swearword neither does seeing anything ugly - that doesn't mean I want to see it or be subjected to it every day. What makes swears ugly? They're just phonemes.

Fuck that noise. Most kids know most of the standard swears by the time they're five or six. Fucking swearing never hurt anybody and isn't likely to.

I came here expecting a rant about mail delivery. I feel cheated and bit used.

Is that a blowjob or pussy-eatin' going down?