ZIZZY’s blog

After the abysmal ABC debate, most of the media as well as huge numbers of internet users attacked ABC, with talk of boycotting them (although that obviously won’t work)  and numerous sites writing about how and why it was a total failure. I noticed it most prominently on Digg.com because I spend so much time there, and there were multiple stories about the debate hitting the front page every day.

To put it simply, the ABC debate has become a huge topic of controversy and negativity, overshadowing many of the other more important current issues. Which is exactly what everyone is acting so mad about - “unimportant” issues being focused on instead of the ones we really need to know about. In the internet’s mostly collective effort to bash ABC and complain about the debate, it seems everyone has failed to notice that making such a big deal out of the ABC debate is, to a much lesser extent, exactly what ABC did - blowing specific, sometimes trivial events and details way out of proportion and focusing on them instead of the issues that really matter.*

If you look at the number of Digg stories on the economy or the Iraq war or torture since the debate I’d bet that they are outnumbered by those talking about the debate itself.

There are over 19,000 comments on ABC’s story about the debate, and stories on much more important issues rarely achieve that much discussion (in the short time I looked, I didn’t see a single story on ABC that even managed to get a quarter of that number of comments).

Google Trends shows what people seem to care about most even more clearly, with the search term “abc debate” outranking “iraq war,” “recession” and “torture” by a large margin for three straight days.

Granted, internet users and even some of the journalists who have criticized the debate do not have as much of a duty to be fair and focus on the important issues as those actually entrusted with running a crucial debate. So while it’s not near as bad and more expected, it’s still ironic for so many to treat the debate the same way ABC treated non-issues in their questioning. The media and plenty of internet users (myself included) need to make sure we’re not sinking to their level, and put most of our efforts into bringing attention to the real issues instead of dwelling on the media’s inadequacies. The debate sucked, the hosts handled it horribly and were biased, now can we please move on and do what ABC failed to do by focusing on the real issues?

*And I admit, I’ve been just as caught up in it, digging the stories like everyone else, but now I’m realizing there’s a problem

(And yes, I do realize the irony in posting a story about the debate criticizing people for posting stories about the debate, but someone had to say it)

While gaming may not be one of the Mac’s strengths, it’s about to get two very important games - according to Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 are coming to Macs. You can see the video where it’s revealed on GameTrailers.com, or watch the important part which I’ve embedded above.

Gears of War had been an Xbox 360 exclusive until recently when it was announced for PC - and now Apple, one of Microsoft’s biggest competitors, will have it too. While details may be sparse, and there are plenty of questions (Will it include the extra content? When will it be available? What will the requirements be?) just the fact that one of Microsoft’s biggest games is coming to the Mac is a pretty big deal.

[Via TUAW]

While we still have quite a few months to wait until it actually airs, the first promo for the Battlestar Galactica: Razor movie is out. Telling the story of the Pegasus, it will include the entire cast of BSG and happens before the events of Season 3 - setting up for the official beginning of Season 4.

Airing on Sci Fi in November, it looks like it’s going to be awesome - so if you haven’t grown tired of my ramblings and watched the promo already, check it out above (or higher quality at SciFi.com) for a taste of the beginning of the end.

So, what do you think? Are you excited for this movie, or do you just want to get back to the main plot where Season 3’s crazy finale left us hanging?

In their continuing censorship of all that is good (or all that is anything, for that matter), the Chinese have edited out parts of Pirates of The Caribbean: At World’s End with Chow Yun-fat because…well I can’t think of any reason besides them being racist against Asians, which is absurd. For some reason they decided he didn’t deserve to be in the movie:

According to local media, more than half of the scenes featuring Chow as a Singapore pirate, have been cut, including his recitation of a poem in Cantonese.

A spokesman for Disney said auds would see a Chinese version of the movie and there had been cuts, without elaborating.

China Film initially said it had made no cuts, then declined to comment on a Beijing News report that it had cut scenes involving too much violence and horror.

The worst is yet to come. As if the movie wasn’t confusing enough already, the edits supposedly make it even more difficult to follow. Do they actually think they’re doing a service here?

The Church of England is threatening Sony because a cathedral was used in the “ultra-violent computer game” Resistance: Fall of Man without their consent.

Resistance: Fall of Man, which has sold more than one million copies, sees a virtual shoot-out between rival gunman with hundreds killed during a gun battle inside the cathedral in an orgy of blood

Church leaders see this as a “desecration” of Manchester Cathedral, and think Sony’s use of it is “sick.” They aren’t just complaining though, they are threatening legal action if their demands are not met:

The Church say Sony did not ask for permission to use the cathedral and has demanded an apology and the removal of the game from shop shelves - otherwise legal action will be considered.

So far Sony has only ignored them, but they’ll have to deal with it eventually. Personally I think the Church is making a big deal out of nothing, and so this is one of the few times where I’m actually siding with Sony.

Bungie’s latest Weekly Update talks about everything from changes after the beta to custom Forza Motorsport 2 cars. However, the part I found most interesting was the final details on the various packages Halo 3 will be available in. When Halo 3 releases on September 25th, there will be the two Editions besides the standard one - and here are the details on everything you’ll be getting depending on which one you buy:

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A brief case was left unattended near some tables and chairs in Wilshire, and since everything these days must be a bomb, the authorities were called. Helicopters arrived, yellow tape was set up, people were advised to stay away from their windows, and a dozen police cars were there at the ready. What made this briefcase so special, and why did it deserve enough of a police force to take out a small mob?Because according to Variety, this brief case was “threatening.” I’m unsure what makes a briefcase threatening, but this one must have somehow been menacing and terrifying and therefore warranted special treatment.

After over half an hour of analyzing the situation and deciding what the best plan of attack was, the police struck - and opened the briefcase. However, the contents of this case weren’t really all that dangerous. They weren’t really anything at all - the briefcase was empty. The day had been saved, and another bomb was narrowly avoided.

There are plenty of Firefox plugins that do everything from blocking ads to helping you make grocery lists. However, this list focuses on plugins that do much simpler tasks, but can also be just as useful, if not more. Here they are, 5 plugins for the simple things.

Fission

If you’ve used Safari on Mac OS X, you’ll be familiar with this. Fission “makes the progress bar more visible and allows for a nice visual effect,” so as a page is loading the address bar fills up, and is basically just a loading bar for the page. It is useful to see how much more needs to load, and is a nice, simple, and unobtrusive way of doing it.

Smart Link

You know when someone posts a URL, but doesn’t actually make it a link? Instead of simply clicking on it you’re forced to copy and paste it into your address bar, making it more difficult than it should be. This solves that problem. If there is a plain text URL, you merely select it, right click, and Smart Link adds an option to either open it in a new tab or a new window. It can be quite useful, and saves a little bit of time and effort every once in a while.

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Fans of Jericho, your prayers have been answered. After 22 days, over 40,000 pounds of nuts, well over 100,000 signatures, and countless hours of hard work and dedication to saving Jericho, we have won. Jericho is coming back.

CBS has announced that Jericho will be coming back for 7 episodes, and maybe more if the number of viewers rises. This isn’t a half-assed response that only hints at a resolution like last time though, this is a real promise to the millions of fans:

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Jorge Romero, a man from Chicago, downloaded the first four episodes of 24 Season 6 because they had leaked onto the internet before they aired. However, once he had them he didn’t just watch them - he decided to re-distribute them an another site, LiveDigital.com. He uploaded the first two on January 6th, and the next two the following day.

Now, the FBI is charging him “in the criminal complaint with uploading copyrighted material to a publicly accessible computer network knowing the work was intended for commercial distribution.” The episodes he had uploaded were discovered by News Corp. (which owns FOX) on January 8th, only one day after he had finished uploading them all, and they eventually sent a subpoena to LiveDigital.com to find out who he was. On April 4th he admitted that he had uploaded the episodes, and now he could face up to three years in a federal prison.

Twentieth Century Fox TV sent a statement to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office thanking them for putting piracy above more important issues:

“We hope it will serve as a powerful warning that uploading copyrighted TV shows and movies to the Internet can be a crime with significant penalties and will be prosecuted as such. Video-hosting sites such as LiveDigital.com and YouTube are not copyright-free zones, and individuals like Jorge Romero who post episodes of television shows, particularly before they are even broadcast for the first time, will face harsh civil and criminal sanctions.”

David Doak, the co-founder of Free Radical, says that Haze won’t hold anything back as far as cursing and berating the player go:

I don’t think you will see in any other game points in the narrative, in cut-scenes or cinematic gameplay moments, where people are calling you a pussy - telling you that you’re not with the program, that you’re a liability to the team

Basically, they’re taking the online gaming experience of people shouting an endless stream of curse words, insults, and complaints that you aren’t doing good enough and injecting it into the single-player. In Haze, you don’t get a moment of silence no matter what you’re doing. At least it won’t be seven year olds who don’t even know what the words mean, right?

There have been rumors for some time that Battlestar Galactica was going to end after the 4th Season. Two of the main actors even said that it would end, but the executive producer came in and claimed their statements shouldn’t be taken as the final word.

Now, however, there is no doubt that the next Season will be the last. Executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick issued an official statement about the end:

This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and, finally, an end. Over the course of the last year, the story and the characters have been moving strongly toward that end, and we’ve decided to listen to those internal voices and conclude the show on our own terms

They have always said that Battlestar would finish “on [their] own terms,” and so hopefully they manage to reach a satisfying resolution without it being rushed or drawn out for too long. Moore said that he “wouldn�t want to be in a situation where the story is not completed in the way we want to,” so this way almost everything can get wrapped up. However, the producers also say that it will end “with a bang,” so it will hopefully be thrilling up until the very last minute.

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Last week I brought you some pictures of one of Battlestar Galactica’s hottest actresses, Grace Park. Fortunately, she is not the only hot actress on the show, and isn’t the only hot cylon either. This week, I bring you Number Six - or as she is known in real life, Tricia Helfer. If the human race was going to be enslaved, having these two as your captors would make things so much easier to bear.

Hit the jump for plenty of sexy pictures (although many of them are slightly censored…but if you’ve been on the internet for more than 10 minutes you should be able to find them in all their original glory pretty easily):

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Early this morning a multitude of new information was revealed about Halo 3 due to an article in Gamepro. The user who found it included plenty of pictures, but unfortunately they were very low resolution and not great quality.

However, more have now been posted, and this time they are full scans, and are much higher quality. Halo 3 is shaping up to be a very good game, and every new bit of information makes it look even more awesome.

Here they are, 14 glorious pictures of the biggest game this year (click them for high resolution):

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A user by the name of Go32111 has gotten the newest Gamepro (Issue 226, July 07), and it is full of information on Halo 3. Fortunately, he posted it all for everyone to see. There is plenty of information on weapons, vehicles, maps, and customization, and even some that was until now unrevealed.

First, the weapons:

Magnum - The Magnum is much improved since Halo 2, dishing out slower, more punishing shots. But it’s still not back to Halo 1 strength, as the clip currently carries just eight rounds and you can’t zoom in. Still a nice, precise choice for dual-wield combos.

Energy Sword - The infamous Sword gets two tweaks aimed at balancing its overwhelming power. One change is a brief weapon-switch delay. The second adjustment is more controversial: the Energy Sword now has an ammo meter that depletes with each attack, which keeps players from hoarding it indefinitely.

While those weapons certainly aren’t new, they have changed and will be very different in their new forms. Vehicles is where it really starts to get interesting though:

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