Author: Joe Rybicki

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Personal Recommendations, From Me to You

I’m kind of slow sometimes.

People often ask me for recommendations for things like games and books and music and other things we humans need to survive. So a couple weeks back, I spent an afternoon putting together a huge collection of lists of my favorite games, music, movies, books, and even food…and then promptly forgot to mention it here on the main page.

So, hey, lookie there in the left-hand sidebar! It’s a Favorites page! It has all sorts of recommendations of stuff I happen to enjoy a whole lot. I hope you’ll find them useful. If not, feel free to leave a comment on that page. As long as you’re okay with me telling you how wrong you are.

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New Previews: InFamous and MAG

1UP has just put up two new previews of mine. One is for the gritty super-slash-antihero game InFamous from Sly Cooper developers Sucker Punch. And the other is the 256-player (!!) first-person shooter MAG, from SOCOM devs Zipper. Both games look great. Check out the previews and see if you don’t agree.

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We’re All Gonna Die!!

deep1…but probably not from swine flu.

[Photo by Jane Coleman. Used with permission only retroactively, because I’m a dumbass.]

And so it begins, this year’s health scare, and already it’s looking to beat out SARS for the quickest spread of misinformation. It’s on every news site and front page: SWINE FLU! SWINE FLU DISCOVERED IN THE U.S.! SWINE FLU DISCOVERD IN OHIO!

Hmm, I wonder why. Perhaps it’s because, like during any other fad, the people who create “report” the news are making decisions based on what will generate the most readership, thereby converting into ad sales, which converts into money in the pockets of the people who make descisions about what news to report.

No, I see no problem with that process, why do you ask?

By way of perspective, some numbers: Continue reading “We’re All Gonna Die!!”

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Quick Note re: E-mail

So, apparently Gmail has been having issues for the last four hours or so. And most of my various e-mail accounts rely on Gmail. So if you’ve been trying to reach me with anything urgent, please be patient — I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks.

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Stealing Music

stealmusicThe other day, awkwardly named technology site TechCrunch ran an editorial by founder Michael Arrington asking, “Stealing Music: Is It Wrong Or Isn’t It?”

First, a definition: In the article, Arrington says, “Let’s put the law aside for a moment – this post is about doing the right thing.” OK, so the question Arrington is actually asking is, “Is stealing music ethically wrong?” That’s helpful, because it makes the answer particularly easy:

Of course it’s wrong, you fucking idiot. Continue reading “Stealing Music”