Links of the Day

GameBoy Turns 20 - Hard to believe but the most popular video game system in the world has turned 20. I still own pretty much every iteration the company has developed (except DSi) so the news makes me feel rather old. I even remember the classic commercial below for the system.


85 Million Final Fantasy Games Sold - As part of the acquisition of Eidos, Square Enix released some total sell numbers for its properties. It turns out that the Final Fantasy series (FF13 coming next year) has sold 85 million copies worldwide. Dragon Quest has sold 50 million, and Tomb Raider sold 30 million. Not bad for a bunch of series that started in the NES and PS days.

Miss California Commentary - Apparently the lovely lady from California broke a cardinal rule of beauty pageants which is give her actual opinion then a neutral canned response. She was asked by Perez Hilton, a homosexual her opinion on the subject and the short answer she is against. Since then he and Fox News have been on a tear about it. Now I don't agree with her, I think it’s a violation of the Constitution, but that is her opinion and she has every right to it. The focus should be on Hilton for his behavior and attacks. If he was worried the answer wasn't going to be his liking, he shouldn't have asked it or better yet he shouldn't have been a judge.

Fox Anchor Goes Off On Torture - Currently Bushies are hitting the airwaves trying to parse the definition of torture so that Bush and company can claim that they didn't break the law. It is a much worse version of Clinton's "depends on what the definition of 'is' is". Right now their definition is "harsh interrogation" which they to sell as effective despite being unable to cite any specific examples. You can tell that the talking points have been distributed because this phrase and the effectiveness discussion, which normally would never come up, is being used everywhere. Its classic GOP technique in action. Well, for a change of pace, a Fox News anchor, normally they love those GOP word games, was having none of it. "We are America! We do not f---ing torture!", Shepard Smith. I couldn't agree more.


Video Game Addiction Study Wrong - As a sign that statistics should never be taken at face value, it turns out the video addiction study (really a poll) that said 10% of players are addicted is not correct. The problem is how the study was conducted. It was based on an online sample of people that chose to answer the survey (you know that pop-up box you get when go to some websites). Ironically, since they were online that means they probably were not playing video games at the time which must mean they are not that addicted. Anyway, this "convenience sample" means that only those that felt like answering the survey are part of the numbers. That means the data is not based on a random sample of users but a specific type (say if survey on a video game site probably get younger, male) vs. Oprah's site (where get a whole different set). The link explains it in detail but essentially it means that the data is corrupted. To the point that the +/-x% that you see on surveys cannot even be calculated for these "convenience sample" surveys. Basically the addiction survey is BS.