Passion and Charity Go Together

Something I have noticed is that very often passion and charity goes together, which is not surprising. Our passions give us happiness, and when we are happy, we like to share the happiness. What better way to do that, than by helping a charity. This weekend the Extra Life charity event was held, which had many gamers stream for 24 hours, trying to bring in donations from other gamers, to help children.
Playing games and helping kids. Great combination.

Is it Really the Best Policy?

They say honesty is the best policy, but my suspicion is that fitting into cliches will get you farther. Who really appreciates honesty anyway? Who even expects it? I can't say because I can't think of anyone I know who would not prefer pleasantries over frankness. Every now and then it is worth throwing into the mix, to stir up the pot. Maybe it will open up somebody's eyes. More likely it will just give you a short diversion from reality, to life.

Just. Keep. Playing!

Recently Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor released and I decided to review it. I must say that I did have fun reviewing it because I found it to be a very fun game. Even after I completed the review, I kept playing, which is not something I can say of many of my reviewed games. Often I complete the game and then only leave it installed until the review is posted, or until I complete one or two things in it. Shadow of Mordor though is just fun and I am really enjoying putting more time into it. I'm completing side missions, dominating everything, and even running some of the trial challenge modes. The latter I find nice mostly because they essentially give a blank version of the game, with you at your appropriate level, and set you the task of exterminating so much of the orc army. The only benefit from it are runes to enhance you and your weapons, in the base game. On its own, that may not sound like much, but they did a good job with it. The game remembers where you were if you leave the trial early, and leaves unclaimed runes on the map too. Very well-designed, I must say.
Definitely looking forward to investing some more time into it.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

So many places and people have been making the point recently that Obama is such a great president because just look at the new low 5.9% unemployment rate. Isn't he wonderful!? (Insert dreamy swoon.)
Well, let me see. As I recall 2-4% is considered normal, so this is still bad for a supposedly recovered economy. Also that 5.9% only considers those who count as unemployed, and not underemployed or out of the labor force. Those numbers are still very high. Disturbingly high really, when you consider how many people those numbers represent. People who cannot get the satisfaction of putting their skills and passions to use. People who feel like they have been banished from the economy. People who probably don't care about the unemployment rate because it isn't helping them or their situation. It's just a number some people get to through around to their benefit.
The 'lies' of these numbers do not end at being failing fully representative of the time though because they also cannot be compared to much of the past. One of the things this administration accomplished was changing how unemployed was measured, or at least how the official number is reported. I don't quite recall which it was when, but I do remember that one method relied on the number of jobs business reported adding while the other surveys households for employment. Changes in metrics like that make direct comparison impossible, without a lot of thick math to compensate for the change, which will also introduce new uncertainty and that may make the final result useless anyway.
Nobody is quite sure who said the saying first, but they were right, whoever they were.