tales of an ordinary girl

This season the big news in gaming doesn't seem to be about the record-breaking sales of Halo 3 or even the rash of new video games released in November. It's about the recent firing of game journalist, Jeff Gerstmann.

On November 28, CNet's Gamespot fired Jeff Gerstmann without official comment. Within hours the internet was talking about it and linking his firing with a written and video review of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. The unfavorable review was released on November 13, during a time when the game publisher of Kane & Lynch, Eidos, was advertising heavily on the Gamespot website. Jeff also bagged the game pretty heavily on the November 13 episode of the Hotspot, a podcast sponsored by Gamespot.

CNet's early silence only fueled the rumors. A few days later they announced that they could not disclose the reasons Gerstmann was fired due to legal reasons, but stated it wasn't due to any pressure from a publisher or advertiser. The crew of the Hotspot reacted on the November 7 episode by stating that although they were angry and missed and supported Jeff, his firing wasn't due to just one review.

The circumstances do seem to indicate that the review influenced management actions at the Gamespot, even if it wasn't the only reason. Personally, I think a divide between the parent company CNet and Gamespot has been revealed by not just the firing, but the reactions of the employees who, I'm sure, want to keep their jobs.

And even if the review had nothing to do with the firing, public opinion has called the integrity of the company into question. What does this mean for Gamespot? If they allow an advertiser to pressure them into re-evaluating reviews, even if the reviews aren't changed it doesn't bode well for them. Reviews are meant to be impartial if they are to be trusted. Their reviews will be scrutinized heavily for some time, but does that guarantee impartiality, as the Hotspot crew points out?

And what of the parent company, CNet, who provides reviews on a much broader range of products, including most electronics. I use them myself when I'm unfamiliar with a technology. Will they be harmed by the scandal or is gaming still too small of a niche market to influence the traffic of people shopping for things as mundane as cameras and mp3 players? And with most of the fingers pointed at them, will they end up taking the blame?

Here's some of the posts that I read this week that I thought you guys might enjoy.

I'm not angry -- or am I?
I was going to finish up by saying that I'm not angry at religion, and that most of the time the things that really annoy me are lies -- lies and deliberate obfuscations. I was going to say that when I hear about the bad consequences of religion: war, torture, death by exorcism, ostracism of those outside, credulity and vulnerability to charlatans, slavery and the oppression of women and homosexuals . . . well, most of the time, while I pity the religious who are caught in their false worldviews, and wholeheartedly support efforts to abolish the suffering caused by religious fundamentalism, really I find it very difficult to be angry at anything other than the lies people tell. I'll blame them. I know there are other factors that lead to the evils of religion, and the injustice of this disproportionate assignation of blame might bother me if I had any sympathy for lies, but I don't.

Stages of Grief Over My Loss of Faith
By the end of that first week, I realized that I no longer believed. The Christian literature was contradictory. The Bible was inconsistent. The Christian concept of God was incoherent. The apologetics were logically flawed. I was in emotional, spiritual and psychological shock for several days. I could think of nothing else but my loss of faith and the fact that I would never be able to recover it. I barely functioned at work and at home. I now realize that this period of shock was the second stage of my grieving process.

New Atheist Discussion Group
If you are an atheist, I want to pick your brain about how you manage your life “without gods.” I am forming a cyberspace group where we can chat about how atheists like us can live righteously, passionately, safely and well. I really want to learn from you and learn especially how you handle life events that believers handle with belief.

Seventeen: The Age of First Sex in the West
Teaching kids how to deal with premarital sex involves much more than merely teaching them to use a condom. Among other things, it involves teaching them a whole morality, a whole sexual ethics, and even a sexual etiquette.

34 Unconvincing Arguments for God
Part of Pascal’s Wager states that you “lose nothing” by believing. But an atheist would disagree. By believing under these conditions, you’re acknowledging that you’re willing to accept some things on faith. In other words, you’re saying you’re willing to abandon evidence as your standard for judging reality. Faith doesn’t sound so appealing when it’s phrased that way, does it?

Tonight’s the Night
He then asked, “is there anything else?” I hesitated, realizing that this was probably my best opportunity to be forthright and said, “I don’t think you’ll want to hear this, but I don’t believe in Christianity anymore.” He answered that he’d had a feeling that I’ve been having some questions lately, so he wasn’t surprised. We talked some more about where each of us is theologically (I’m an atheist, he’s a very liberal Christian, can’t quite get to the deist mindset). He revealed where some of his thinking has taken him in recent years, some of which I knew, but he filled in some blanks. I revealed where I am now, intellectually, and a bit about how I got here.

Conscious Thought and the Meaning of Life
“I am not the sort of person who has sex on a first date”, she declares. But a month or two later, she’s on fire to tell you about the new lover she’s met — and you happen to notice they had sex on their first date. Such behavior often indicates the person’s sense of who they are — their self identity — is not derived so much from simply observing themselves, as it is derived from an attempt on their part to find themselves in conscious thought.

The Grinch and the True Meaning of Christmas
It's easy to get disgusted with Christmas. It's this ever-escalating festival of gorging oneself, and then -- like some sort of penance for all the gorging -- getting reminded that you're supposed to be thinking about Jesus. But if Jesus were really the true meaning of Christmas, the clergy wouldn't have to keep reminding people of it. And if you believe in the standard model -- either Christmas is consumerism or it's Jesus -- then you've missed the warm and simple reason why the mid-winter festival of lights has been such a beloved and enduring tradion across so many different centuries and cultures.

Why, as an Atheist, I celebrate Christmas.
Just go see the video.

How Sweet the Sound: Atheism and Religious Music
But since I've been spending so much time writing -- and thinking -- about atheism and religion, my feelings about religious music have become completely different. Not my thoughts, you understand, or my opinions. My thoughts and opinions about religious music are very much what they ever were. It's a purely emotional response. The response is, "This is fucked-up. I don't want to listen to this."

And I don't like it.

Welcome to the finale of America's Psychic Challenge. I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to this post. I would like to say that it's worth the wait, but really, it's probably not.

As the episode starts the host begins with glowing reviews of the two finalists, Michelle and Jackie. He said something completely incomprehensible at the beginning like: Time and time again they've come out on top proving that they have a special gift.

Really? Or maybe neither one of them is all that good, but they're able to out-bullshit the other psychics in the competition. Or, if I were to compete against 15 other average-looking women, maybe I'd win. But that doesn't make me a beauty queen.

Then they went on to describe the finalists as being in a duel of light and darkness. Well, look for yourself. Yes, they both do look a little "dark" and "light".

Of course, both mentioned God. Michelle went as far to say that an angel of God walked with her. I wonder if he's supposed to be her spirit guide. Hey, maybe if he wasn't helping her bullshit her way through this competition he could be like maybe saving babies in Africa.

Anyway, on with the tasks.

Task #1: Find a Man Buried Alive
A "coffin" with a man in it was buried in a 10 acre wilderness. The coffin was a wooden box with some equipment in it (not sure for what except that it looked like he was possibly miked). It was buried about an inch under the ground by shoveling a bit of dirt back on it. Now what happened to the dirt that was displaced by the coffin? Well, later we see backhoe tracks, so perhaps it was spread out about 50 yards away from where the coffin was.

Now, unless this "10 acre" wilderness area can be traversed in less than 30 minutes, I call bullshit. It looks like the psychics had about a 100-200 yard by 100-200 yard area to search. And the man was buried near a prominent landmark, the only landmark marked on the map the show supplied.

A licensed Private Investigator that we've seen in other episodes judged the two psychics based on confidence and accuracy. He could award from 0 - 25 points. The psychics were given 30 minutes to find the man.

Michelle was up first. She walked around for quite a bit of time before finally walking on top of the coffin. But she was unsure so she went back to another spot, then back to the coffin spot, etc., until she finally decided on the exact location of the coffin.

Now maybe there's something to that. It's pretty impressive that she got the exact spot, even if it's a minimal 100 x 100 yard area (larger than a football field). However, she had two people with her as she was deciding on the spot (the host and PI) that were giving her non-verbal clues each time she approached the coffin. Also, with only an inch of soil over the coffin, it's possible she heard it as she walked over it. The man in the coffin said later that he heard them walk over it several times and the show gave the impression that he could hear them talking from within the coffin.

The PI was impressed and awarded Michelle 25 points.

Jackie decided that she wanted to be fast and confident rather than accurate. She stomped around (she mentioned this was a Native American ritual or something of the kind) until choosing a hill of dirt (possibly left by the backhoes) after just 9 minutes.

She ended up being about 50 yards away from the man, but she claimed that it would still be of use to investigators. I think a sonic scanner would be more useful. She was awarded 15 points.

Task #2: Turn a Skeptic into a Believer
For this task the psychics had to do readings on two skeptics and turn them into believers. Each psychic was given a different skeptic to read so that the first psychic wouldn't influence the results of the second.

Lisa Williams was back to judge each psychic. She explained how it's difficult to read a skeptic because they're like a closed door. Or maybe it's because we're not as impressed with bullshit generalizations. Lisa could award from 0 - 25 points based on her impression of the reading from a remote location.

They each had 30 minutes.

Michelle went first. Her "skeptic" said he was cynical, but open minded. She made some general guesses and the skeptic confirmed anything she got close with the specifics. It was a typical cold reading. At the end he said he was not a believer, but he was impressed by some of the things she got right. Lisa awarded her 20 points.

Jackie started in on her voodoo magic by feeling the aura of her skeptic and making some general guesses based on his appearance. She was less scary and more funky and funny than she had be in previous challenges. The fact that she was likable went a long way towards impressing the skeptic and the judge. Lisa awarded her 21 points.

Task #3: Crime Scene
For this task the psychics had to investigate a cold case for the San Bernardino police department. A couple went missing and was found buried in a park after their dead dog was discovered nearby. There were no real suspects and no arrests had ever been made. The case was from 2001 (I think) or about 7 years old.

There were three parts to the case. A reading at the site the bodies were recovered from, a reading at the vehicle at an impound lot that was thought to be involved in the case, and a reading with three friends of the lady killed in the case.

An investigator from the police department judged the two psychics giving from 0 - 40 points.

Michelle immediately claimed that the woman had been violated physically and sexually and the man had taken quite a beating. She also mentioned puncture wounds and a black SUV. She kept talking about how sad it was and got very emotional. She repeated much of the same when giving a reading at the vehicle (a white SUV). And later when she met with the three friends of the murder victim she argued with them about the details when they claimed she was being too general.

Jackie mentioned strangulation immediately and then kept mentioning the DNA, that the investigator would find his evidence in the DNA from the male victim's fingernails. Hmm.. you know, if they hadn't tried that already I'd say they're pretty crappy detectives. She even wrote DNA on the impounded vehicle several times. When talking to the three friends, she was charming, telling them that she'd seen their friend three times. She also mentioned she was seeing a child, which they immediately identified as the couple's dog. He was like a child to them.

She said she was giving them pieces of the puzzle and when they came together it would "mean something". Well, thank you, Captain Obvious.

The Results
Jackie entered the final challenge with 36 points and Michelle with 45 points. The host reminds us though that Jackie's specialty is crime scenes. And Jackie did do better on the last task and was awarded 32 points, for a total of 68. That meant that Michelle needed at least 24 points to win. And she got 25 points, giving her a total of 70, the highest score in the challenge so far (not surprisingly since there were no selection tasks this time).

As we leave the episode Michelle tells us she's so happy that she's shown how light triumphs over darkness. Jackie reminds us that we can never get a full Jackie experience on television and she's not disappointed that she didn't win.

Viewer Participation
At each commercial break they show items and ask the viewers to use their psychic powers to determine the outcome. So how did I do this week?

I only saw two of these this week. Maybe I fast forwarded past one?

At the first break they showed three men and asked which one rides a unicycle. Matt and I both chose the man on the right and we were correct.

At the second break they showed a man and asked if he was a guitar player, a web designer, or a cook. Matt and I both selected web designer, though Matt was slightly in favor of cook. And he was a guitar player (and singer!).

Which makes me 1 for 2 tonight, or 11 out of 23 total. Overall I still did worse than 50/50. Don't come to me for psychic insights!

Related Posts
Americas Psychic Challenge October 12, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge October 19, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge October 26, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge November 2, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge November 9, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge November 16, 2007
Americas Psychic Challenge November 23, 2007