I'm not Latino but I'm brown-skinned and plenty of people think I'm Hispanic (e.g. my boys at Ana's, which I am totally fine with because they dish on the hot sauce as a result). Or a terrorist, which has not yet yielded any positive results. I think having problems with the cops is 50% skin color, sure, but 50% attitude.

Also, y u mad bro? Sorry that I failed to distinguish between our fat white officials as I mentioned just previously.

Hah you're entirely right. I spend 2 months out of Boston for business and my ability to distinguish between our various fat white officials disappears.
Good old Mumbles Menino chiming in with a message at the end.

And seriously, I've lived in Boston for several years (post college, thanks) and I've never had an unpleasant encounter with the cops. Most Boston cops seem like pretty decent people and are well liked - certainly not the case in and around DC, NY or LA (where I've also spent plenty of time).

Exports aren't really a fair indicator of innovation though. Factories can and often are located ex-US to avoid the need for hyper-rigorous FDA inspections; the EMA is comparatively less restrictive. The real figure we need is R&D spend as a component of US operations for each major pharmaco.

This is hardly going to resolve anything, but I work at a major consulting firm and have seen this data before - it's overwhelmingly US - in proprietary presentations. However, without evidence, you're free to believe me or not as you will!

The company backing the product is an American biotech. Much of pharmaceutical innovation today is driven by American companies, or American subsidies of European companies, primarily because of the inflated costs of healthcare allowing for the enormous expenditure required for pharma R&D.

Just saying that the next time your European friends discuss socialized health care, you can tell them they're welcome for the products.

I'm Brian Fellows. That goat is weird.
Yeah, we have a treatment for onchocerciasis, but these things evolve resistance faster than we generate new drugs. Plus, onchocerciasis is caused by parasitic worms that basically cause you to gouge your own eyes out; this could be the worms' cousin from up the river that burrows into brain tissue.

Africa has some really fucking weird parasites. It's the Australia of the microbiology world.

Sorry you're on tough times man - I agree that it's hard out there right now.

That being said, pirating is thievery. Period. No lost sale? So you're saying that you couldn't wait 2 years for the game to drop to 10-20 bucks and buy it then? Because all I see when people make this argument is impatient thieves.

Not being able to afford something is no argument for taking it for free. I'd love a Ferrari but there's a good chance I'll never buy one. That doesn't mean I can simply steal one from the factory and drive off.

Cool story, bro.

If you don't like the Gawker network go elsewhere. And if you want to discuss politics and your (apparently) right-wing view of the world, feel free to go to Gawker.com itself. This site's about video games.

RE: the article - Every time Kotaku posts anything else about EVE, I just get that much more scared away by it. People are way too passionate about it and talk far too much about it for it to be anything other than a total life-sink. Fun though it might be...
Haha that is a fair point. Although as a city-dweller above the poverty line, I regard Walmart as a pleasant indulgence on occasion - heresy, I know, but those guns and shapeless jeans won't buy themselves.
Or, Walmart would put the kind of industry that many rural Indians depend on (transporting goods to market) out of business and come nowhere close to replacing the jobs lost. I've seen Indian retail first-hand, too.

Additionally, a chain of stores selling at one price throughout the country with its massive socioeconomic disparities from coast to coast and state to state would be extremely disruptive to local economies (OT: just re-read that - funny how it applies to the US and India both).

Finally, while I am all for globalization, allowing megacorps to yank developing countries kicking and screaming into the 21st century is a sure pathway to exploitation. India doesn't have close to the infrastructure, the spending capacity, or the legislation required to cope with and regulate a company like Walmart. Being retail-protectionist is at least sorta understandable especially in the era of the looming US-China trade war.
Oh, those guys at McSweeney's are always good for a laugh.

Ohhh... wait...
The bombed out rubble of Dresden or Munich as compared to, say, the craters at Ground Zero in New York? Western Europe is anti-war because they can afford to be. They're under the US umbrella and face no serious military threats. Their less-visible support of Israel makes them a less-pressing target for most terrorist organizations (make no mistake: we're the Great Satan because we support Israel).

None of this is about right or wrong but about first causes. There is a reason the US is hawkish today, and there is a reason that France is not - one is a prime terror target, one is not.
I am such a fantastically huge fan of 60-years-later bitter British racism. I'm currently in one of the major UN cities for work where I run across a diverse population, and it amazes me how it's really the Brits who manage to consistently make off-color jokes and fundamentally misunderstand their own role in the world today (not very important).

My dad worked at the World Bank and once noted to me that 99% of the people he worked with remembered his fairly simple (but slightly uncommon) name. The 1% who consistently referred to him as Rajesh or Rajiv? Brits, bien sur.

This is not to tar every citizen of the UK at all, but many of those who work in international development have a definite "poor savages" mentality that's very grating for a first-generation American.
Fun fact: whenever I see Kaya Scodelario's last name, I feel compelled to sing it in place of "Lisztomania" in the Phoenix song.
I just watched the first thirty seconds without sound accidentally, but was perfectly prepared to accept that as some sort of artistic definition undoubtedly made by the shirtless dude who, I was sure, would be credited as writer/director/llama handler in the liner notes.

I guess I'm getting a little cynical about hipster music?
I don't think you have the right perspective on charitable donation. The Foundation does not see itself as "fixing" problems but rather as being the pioneer in disease areas that others - namely governments, who provide the vast majority of charity dollars - can follow. USAID spends $10B per year on global health issues - 20% of the entire Foundation's budget. DFID (the UK version) spends $3B on global health issues. The Foundation spends perhaps $1B but on indications and issues that no one else cared about 10 years ago - guinea worm (you will have nightmares if you look that up), malaria, leishmaniasis, polio, TB...

So yes, giving to charity, supporting foundations like the Gates', and other such initiatives are worthwhile. There is only so much money in the world for charity and so of course not every initiative can be funded, but that's hardly a reason to restrict your giving. While I believe Steve Jobs was a visionary in the field of electronics design, I also believe that he was a cold-hearted person as evinced not only by his not leaving a dime to charity but also by his repeated cruel interactions with his own flesh and blood. Bill Gates will go down in history as the better man.

Jane Genova

Psych.
I'm working on both sides of the French-Swiss border at the moment (there is a joke in here somewhere but I can't quite come up with it). It's actually quite amusing - the French coverage last night (of which I understood only a little, THANKS high school Spanish) was very supportive. Meanwhile, the Swiss coverage, broadcast in English, was incredibly nasty.

Now, understand that I think that DSK is a nasty little man, but it's terrifying that we here (or there) in the US are aligned with the Swiss on something. What's next, yodeling?
After writing all this, I realized that many others have responded to you already. I hope you read my comment - and please understand this is not an ad hominem attack but rather a sincere effort to get you to be more open-minded....

This is definitely one of the most offensive "I'm trying to be sensitive" comments I've heard recently. If we want to have an open inclusive community, we can't keep saying "well, girls are fine, but they shouldn't pull shit all the time."

First off, if women want to bring some intellectual analysis and thought to games, well thank god - every other medium has critics and thought leaders, why not gaming? Secondly, it's hardly just women - try reading more articles on Kotaku. Totilo, Crecente and others have just as many philosophical articles exploring the nature of games and fun.

The author is hardly trying to rob you of your experience - in fact, she clearly can't since I honestly don't think you read and considered her article. She's asking the gaming community to consider her thoughts while fragging on Xbox Live. And since this website is frequently read by developers and other luminaries in the community like the PA guys, I commend her for having the smarts to put her point up here - where it will be read and responded to - as opposed to publishing something 3 years down the line that the media will latch onto as "evidence" that games make people kill other people.
At the risk of the banhammer, +1. I have no desire to spew inanities about my life onto Facebook (or Twitter, or whatever else the kids [my age] use these days). It's convenient if I need to hunt someone's number down, get back in touch, or even identify someone I'm supposed to meet later for an interview. I just don't understand how this could possibly become the hub of someone's life when there's so much actual stuff to get done.
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