Drumline
Re:Psychonauts 2
on Friday December 04, 2015 @02:22PM (#10678442)
$3.3 million was about the amount Double Fine raised from Kickstarter for Broken Age. They then went on to commit a few million of their own funds. So, if you're trying to calibrate expectations in terms of quality versus funding you should think of Broken Age as being a Double Fine game in the $6 million range.
Re:The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
on Tuesday October 06, 2015 @02:33AM (#10337049)
They are directly comparable as they both measure preventable deaths. If some types of death weigh more heavily on society than others, if there is some sort of X factor to be considered then how do we determine what it is?
Should we say deaths from murders are 1.5x important as smoking deaths? 2.5x?
This line of reasoning, while a tad ghoulish, is important because decisions have to be made, governance has to be picked, and taxes have to be spent. If it turns out we have no rational systematic way of determining a multiplier I believe it's reasonable to go with the information we have which are the basic facts about what's killing us.
Re:The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
on Tuesday October 06, 2015 @01:39AM (#10336915)
I respect the general thrust of your position in that we as a society must evaluate things like death on all axes including social impact. But until thing like social impact become less nebulous and more quantifiable I will continue to base my opinions on the the "raw" numbers because at least I can compare apples to apples.
Re:The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
on Tuesday October 06, 2015 @01:18AM (#10336871)
> You're right though that smoking shouldn't be top. Everbody dies of something but we can't save all old people from old age diseases forever.
The CDC disagrees. If you click through the last link in the post above they list in great big bold letters "Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death." The key word being "preventable". You're right in that there is little value in worrying about unpreventable causes of death but, please, don't make the mistake of thinking smoking is by any means unpreventable. Also, it's worth pointing out that smoking including second hand smoking kills people of all ages
Re:The Most Important Thing: Decline in poverty, illiteracy and disease
on Tuesday October 06, 2015 @01:02AM (#10336832)
> Murder is rare, but it has a very high impact on society and the surrounding people.
How do you know? What metrics are you using to form this opinion? Or are you using the same gut impression that the article alludes to and the GP specifically states?
By my math each murder could affect 10 people as to leave them in a state equivalent to death and still not come anywhere close to the impact as smoking.
Let me put it another way. Odds are that you've never known anyone that was murdered but there is a pretty damn high you've known someone that died from smoking. BTW, the number of people who die from second hand smoking alone dwarfs the number of people who are murdered.