I figured it wouldn't take long for someone -- clearly someone who's not a voice actor -- to dismiss the concerns raised in the article. Sadly, I was right.

You've got one thing right: as a voice actor myself, I would never say that voice acting -- in general -- is stressful or dangerous. In fact, it's damn good work if you can get it -- nothing like getting $300 for 10 minutes of work in my booth, frankly. But no voice actor is saying such a thing -- and certainly no one in the article.

But voicing video games is another thing altogether. Being forced to scream over and over, dozens or hundreds of times in a single session, is a very serious issue. When an employer forces you to damage your voice -- the necessary, and irreplaceable tool for your job -- to the point that you cannot work for days, weeks or even months after one job, it most certainly warrants a probe by OSHA.

I understand that ignorance is easy -- but I suggest thinking things through before dismissing this as a legitimate problem for voice actors.

As much as I despise the retch-inducing odor of vinegar, it is tremendously effective at absorbing other odors. Pour some in a bowl and place the bowl in the cabinet. Check in after several hours and, once you start smelling the vinegar over the rotting no-longer-food potato smell, you can pull it from the cabinet and you should be fine.

In my case, it was millions of softball games, which I think caused all the wear-and-tear on my shoulder, though the actual injury (which I've always presumed is a rotator cuff tear) came from throwing a wet football.

Similar story here, Blue. Had shoulder pain in one shoulder... turned out to be a torn labrum. Two years later, the other shoulder ended up being a torn rotator cuff. Spent about 3 months in physical therapy before resorting to surgery in both cases. You can sometimes avoid the knife, but it depends on the severity of the tear. Truth be told, you might have had better luck if you'd tackled it earlier... PT can strengthen surrounding tissues and keep the tear from growing, but if it's a RC tear of any severity, you'll likely be getting cut on. Just schedule it when you don't need to do anything important for awhile... like 12 weeks. Ugh.

Bard wrote on Apr 4, 2012, 23:08:
Sorry, but you're naive to the realities of the user of such laws.

{more conspiracy rhetoric}

It's not 'criminals' we're talking about here - but Nuns - A NUN for Christ's sake, for nothing more than being present at a protest.

{blah, blah, blah}

Protesters are being maimed, poisoned, injured, humiliated, arrested and tortured to 'shut them up' - and to force the gutless to stay home where it's 'safe' rather than hold the assholes who are REALLY behind the war on terror and mass looting of the American people accountable.

Cheers

Actually, I'm far from naive - but I wouldn't expect a conspiracy theorist like you to believe that.

It's clear from your response that you simply do not grasp the clear limitations to strip searches that SCOTUS' decision put in place. We may not be talking about convicted criminals here, but we are talking about people being placed into the general population of a jail - for whatever reason. We owe it to those already being held to ensure their safety - so we allow for a visual-only search to make sure that no weapons or contraband are brought into into jail.

You can go on and on about nuns being arrested at protests all you'd like - but that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Supreme Court decision that was being discussed.

This also has absolutely nothing to do with "shutting people up" - the Court's decision in the Florence case was all about balancing two very specific interests: the state's interest in ensuring the safety of current inmates versus the incoming inmate's privacy interest. The 4th Amendment does not prevent all searches - it simply prohibits unreasonable searches, and making sure someone doesn't bring a shiv into a jail seems pretty reasonable to me.

Get back to me when you've actually read the decision in this case and can discuss it rationally.

I'm a pretty hardcore libertarian, but people are seriously over-reacting here. I've read the decision (Florence v. {insert extremely long name here}), and can tell you that three very clear conditions apply.

First: strip searches can only be performed on someone who is being placed in jail - not merely arrested or detained. So the suggestion that violating a leash law would result in a strip search is utterly absurd and patently false - I know of no jurisdiction that would allow jail time for a leash law violation, do you?

Second: the opinion makes it clear that jail officials are allowed to conduct the strip search only if the prisoner is being placed among other prisoners in the facility. Two justices in the 5-4 majority wrote separately in order to stress this specific point. This is a safety issue for other prisoners - if it were merely about the safety of the facility or the guards, this wouldn't have been at issue in the court's written opinions.

Third: the authority to conduct a strip search was limited to visual only, without any touching whatsoever. It can be performed at the same time the inmate showers and de-louses before being put into general population.

The fact of the matter is that this is simply an example of a balancing act between protecting the security of other prisoners, while also protecting the liberty rights of the accused. A visual-only search is a reasonable part of the intake process.

Finally, it should be noted that if a particular state wants to limit these searches further, they may - this is simply the 'outer limits' of what the 4th amendment allows in this case. It's not SCOTUS' job to legislate - merely to ensure that legislation complies with the Constitution.

{end legal rant}

Damn, this looks promising. From their About page: "We appreciate good art, thoughtful design and engaging story and think there are plenty gamers out there who agree." Uh, yep.

Parias wrote on Feb 21, 2012, 16:21:
This sounds interesting - it's been a long, long time since I've played a decent turn-based Mech combat game. F***, I don't know - the last one I can genuinely remember off the top of my head was Mission Force: Cyberstorm.

I still remember that one vividly - there's a game I'd love to see show up on GOG.

Enahs wrote on Oct 20, 2011, 10:08:
So while it is cool, and I love the science behind it, it is not very useful and will only do as advertised in very limited settings.

Pretty much true; I'm not certain that focusing (no pun intended) this technology on consumers - as opposed to pros - will be successful. As for it ever being useful for pros, the resolution will have to be significantly better. If they can ever get this technology to work with a high-quality dSLR and long lenses (think 400/2.8 like the ones you see on the sideline at an NFL game), then it might be a game-changer. For now, it's just a gimmick - albeit a kinda cool one.

And for sixtoes response, well, if you are going to do post processing of some kind, then why not do as PHJF suggested and put everything in focus and add the focusing effect with the computer in photoshop, etc.

Because, while you can make adjustments to DoF (depth of field) in post-processing, a professional can tell the difference between a Photoshop-created blur (gaussian, lens, radial or whatever) and genuine bokeh created by a wide-open lens aperture.

PHJF wrote on Oct 19, 2011, 23:52:
Seems kind of stupid. Why not just have the camera put EVERYTHING into focus?

Because selective focus is often used to draw the viewer's attention to the subject of the photograph and away from distractions. Having everything in focus is beneficial for some types of photographs (landscapes, for example), but distracting for others (like portraits).

As to the original post, I suspect there's a reason why Lytro hasn't revealed the resolution specs of this camera/toy.

Brian Wood Car Crash Culprits Sentenced…

The article's subtitle says that the two women responsible were given "lengthy prison sentences". The subtitle lies.

Eight years for the driver and five for the idiot passenger who tried to drive from her seat. Figure half that in reality, so long as they don't try to shank anyone in prison - and they'll both be out before Wood's child is in kindergarten.

What a freaking joke.

DanL wrote on May 26, 2011, 10:50:
What's the fuss about? They're prisoners. They're in jail for a reason.

Sure - they're in prison for things like "'illegally petitioning' the government about corruption". What a thoughtless comment.

These aren't armed robbers and murderers being forced to play WoW for the financial benefit of the state (if they were, I'd be in agreement with you). These are modern-day slaves working not for the state, but for the personal enrichment of their prison wardens.

And yet our government sees fit to continue to borrow from these uncivilized cretins.

After reading about this idiotic tax for online retailers, I checked to see what party Gov. Quinn belongs to - and gee, wouldn't ya know? My guess was right.

The real problem here is that the FCC is not directly accountable to us, the voters. It should be Congress, not a 5-member commission of bureaucrats, that makes this decision. When will this nation wake up and realize that the current administration is ignoring the Constitutional system of checks and balances and is essentially legislating through its regulatory activity?

The client runs great; Torchlight and Civ IV complete look and run very smoothly at full res. BIG drawback, though: the client will NOT let me direct where to install the games. I run an 80 GB SSD for a boot, and wanted to use my 3TB RAID data storage drive to hold the files - but it won't let me. While it's not a full deal-breaker for me, I will not be purchasing any additional Steam titles until they change that.

Also - for those of you who are Mac users and considering Steam - you should know that Steam puts its files in the Documents folder... which is another big no-no in the OSX environment. That's what the Application Support folder is for. Guess I shouldn't have expected PC users to know how to design for Mac.

(Before I'm flamed to death, I'm a PC gamer first - but I have a MacBook Pro for when I travel... would have been nice to add to the collection.)

Probably one of the most polished MMOs ever. It was great fun, well-balanced and overall I had a blast playing it. It sucks my kinship basically broke up, can't play an MMO without a good group of friends.

Sorry to hear about your kinship, Caveman - lots of good ones out there, at least on the server I'm on (Landroval). Still, I've been able to enjoy it a great deal while playing 90% solo - though I know that'll change when I get closer to end-game content. If you get back in, let me know and I'll connect you with some good kins.

The other big disappoint was the community. I’d been hearing it was great but the general chat consisted entirely of “How do I perform basic tasks?” and unending discussions of Warcraft.

Zadig, I think part of the reason you get some "how do I perform (insert name of duh-task here)" is because LotRO is very newbie-friendly. In fact, it was my first MMO - though I'm a grizzled gamer, I've always avoided the pay-for-play concept, but finally jumped in on this one. So yeah, you're gonna get a few people out there who've never played and don't know what to do - but that seems to be balanced out (in my humble opinion) by the community that helps integrate new players.

Of course, the community can vary greatly from server to server. Before I logged on, I followed some of the server forums first to get a feel for what the community is like. Landroval is a great (unofficial) RP server with lots of knowlegeable, mature gamers... as well as lore- and rp-based kinships. Give the trial another shot - this time on Landroval - and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Sadly, if you visit this board often, you'll see that's the reaction by some of the people here who don't believe in God.

That is true, banddirector - I should have known better, I suppose. I don't post often, but I've been a reader of Blue's for seven years or so, and I've seen the same uninformed (and unfortunate) hostility quite often. Ah well... {shrug}

Anyone who thinks any major religion - with the possible exception of Buddhism - doesn't have a history of terrorism against mankind obviously needs to read a lot more history.

Cutter, as true as that is, I'm afraid that's not the point - or at least it wasn't my point... . Slippery Jim suggested/implied/flat-out-stated that I was the moral equivalent to a terrorist simply because I hold a particular religious belief. That shows a lack of the following: intelligence, wisdom, class, respect and dignity. Now, does that surprise me? Not in the least... but it was appropriate for me to call him on it.

You're right, every major religion (and every minor religion and every political group, and just about every group of people out there) has its extremists and terrorists. And yes, including Buddhists - just ask any Tamil or Christian in Sri Lanka about that, or any victims of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. But just because a fringe element of a particular religious or political group is willing to commit atrocities in the name of said ideology does not make all followers of said ideology terrorists as Slippery Jim attempted to argue.

Then again, that may not have been the point you were trying to make...

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning the original comparison between being a theist and fundamentalist militants.

I appreciate the clarification, Quboid. And you have my sincerest sympathies regarding the troubles in Northern Ireland of which I can only have the barest understanding. I don't comprehend the resort to violence by either side, and I can assure you there's nothing "Christian" about it.

While I'm responding to you, though...

Why is Easter Sunday the big deal anyway, didn't Jesus respawn on the Monday? I guess it's just because people don't want to have to go to church again.

Respawn. That's actually funny. But to answer your question... no, the resurrection took place on Sunday morning. It's easy to get confused because they talk about "three days" in the tomb. But Christ was taken off the cross and buried on Friday, and when they went to tend to His body on Sunday, well... it wasn't there. The "three days" in question are simply the remainder of Friday, all of Saturday, and a portion of Sunday. But the resurrection definitely took place on a Sunday - in fact, that's why Christians go to church on Sundays, as opposed to the Jewish sabbath day (Saturday).

Okay, enough religion class for tonight. Just thought that info might be useful... especially if one of those bomb-wielding Catholics or Protestants in Northern Ireland come trying to quiz ya.

Really. Was that necessary? You don't know me in the least, so to allege a similarity between myself and the 9/11 hijackers shows a lack of respect, intelligence and class.

Note that I showed no disrespect to those who hold to other belief systems; might you have been able to do the same?

Today is Good Friday, but I don't think you are supposed to wish a "happy" Good Friday, in spite of all that goodness, so please accept whatever wishes are appropriate to the occasion.

Thanks, Blue... how about a "reflective" Good Friday? Those of us who honor this day know full well that there's a celebration to be had on Sunday but today is for somber and genuine reflection upon the great cost of our salvation.

Thanks for the well-wishes, regardless of the terminlogy...

November 1 - Sony stops all trucks delivering product to Circuit City.

I said:

Oooooh. Having been an Operations Manager for a small retail chain, I can tell you that's very, VERY, VERY bad. Circuit City could be gone within a matter of days now...

Here we are, eight days later, and they're filing bankruptcy. I hate being right... really, I do. Good luck to all the folks working there in their search for a new job.

Exactly why, in my mind, we should have legalized unions that afford the same rights and benefits to homosexual couple as to a heterosexual couple

In California, we already have that - it's called 'civil unions' and they get all the state-related and state-mandated benefits.

The problem is that the homosexual agenda isn't served by simply having the same benefits - they desire to have social and moral equivalency... thus the push for gay marriage.

Then you have the activism of the state Supreme Court in overturning Prop 22 - which said the exact same thing as Prop 8 does - which was passed by an over 60% majority just 8 years ago.

That's why so many of us have been pushing for Prop 8 - to simply reinstate what we've already decided.