Hail to the King? Is the King old hat?

With this new Duke Nukem Forever, I know people are complaining about long load times and screen tearing so bad even I can notice it, but they are doing one thing in this game that is light years ahead of oh, COD, Borderlands, BFBC2, Half Life 2, fully half the shooters out there…













If this was Half Life 2 – that would be a floating marker













Man I saw a lot of those doors in Portal 2 – I wonder how the Duke will open it…













Wha… he actually kicks it open – you mean he has feet!??













Hard to convey with a still – but he’s actually pressing individual buttons on that keypad, not many games go to the trouble to animate that – ever pull a lever in Portal 2? That’s telekinesis Kyle!














George Broussard probably can’t see his own feet but at least you can when you play this…













Getting off the ground and dusting himself off.

I know of exactly one FPS game to date with this level of immersion – Mirror’s Edge and once you got used to the controls it was a fantastic experience – you feel like you are this woman leaping around the joint.

Now I know that it's things like this that probably contributed to the colossal Dev time, but I don’t get how reviewers are calling the game a dated FPS when its doing something that 90% of today’s shooters can’t even handle.

The online shopping war starts.... now

I look at this report and just think to myself – it figures.

The post Xmas sales have been ABYSMAL, Pre-Xmas was cheaper, it’s like all the major dept stores have decided to deliver a big FU to consumers for not fattening their coffers in the run up to Xmas, and now here’s the confirmation!

Mark my words – this issue will be the R18+ of 2011 – the sort of grass roots reaction that this will generate will be on par with that.

Online sales will kill jobs: retailers
• Blair Speedy
• From: The Australian
• January 04, 2011 12:00AM

AUSTRALIA'S biggest retailers will launch an advertising campaign aimed at pressuring the government to impose GST on all goods bought over the internet.

Retailers, who will pour millions of dollars into the campaign, have warned that thousands of jobs are at risk if the government fails to act.

Taking a leaf from the mining industry, which lobbied effectively against the resource super-profits tax, a coalition of retailers including Myer, David Jones, Harvey Norman and Target, will today begin taking out print ads in a bid to rescue the flagging sector.

Myer chief executive Bernie Brookes criticised the government's announcement of a Productivity Commission inquiry into the taxation of online purchases as a delaying tactic and said urgent action was needed to stop jobs from being lost.

Sluggish retail sales, heavy discounting in the lead-up to the Christmas sales period and a surging Australian dollar have encouraged consumers to shop over the internet, devastating the retail sector.


Check out the full report at the Australian.

The thing that amazes me about this campaign by the retailers - is that they think that simply adding 10% to the cost of imports is going to turn people off buying online. I'm not shopping online for 10% discount, more like a 50% price cut which should give you an indication of the phenomenal markups on some goods sold in this country.

I don't want to see retail jobs lost - but in some sectors you'd be a flaming idiot to not take up the bargains online.

Interestingly the retailers named - mostly mark up their goods to unsustainable levels IMO. Generally speaking if I see something at Myer or David Jones - there's a good bet I'll find it cheaper at Target or Kmart.

Harvey Norman has room to move on price which is good (I like to haggle) and you would think most of the things they sell would be big ticket items like Whitegoods or furniture which would be prohibitive to import, however they're probably taking a beating on Electronics, I hate to tell them but adding a GST ain't gonna change much...

Join the Band

I know Rock & Roll is powerful but I didn't know it could hold an entire country to ransom.

Last night on the 7.30 report Julia Gillard suggested several times that NATO forces were in Afghanistan to fight the Taliband

Here's the link to the video
Gillard on Afganistan

This is our PM folks...

It's on for young and old

It's on people - what a bizarre night - we've seen party leadership spills, we've seen Prime Ministers rolled before (Hello Bob Hawke) but never in the first term! This is un-fucking-precedented

The vote will be 9am on Thursday 24th June (tomorrow morning)

BTW - Lateline is on at the moment - would somebody tell Howes to shut up - geez he's annoying, get your Labor seat already

Tax increase with 12 hours notice

I cannot think of another example where they announced and implemented a tax rise on the same day - it's unheard of, I could see the tax going on after a certain date (usually 1 July) and there's warning that it would occur - they've obviously gotten some advice from Anti-Smoking "experts" who say that giving people fair warning will cause them to stockpile while the price is cheap - well duh, that doesn't make what they've done right - they are officially governing on the run

On a related note This made me laugh
Buyers fired up over Kevin Rudd's 'unfair' slug
LES Burns spent his entire weekly pay cheque stocking up on his favourite smokes yesterday before the government's 25 per cent rise in tobacco tax kicked in at midnight.

The 50-year-old printer, who smokes two packs a day, bought seven cartons, or 56 packets, of Winfield Blue cigarettes from a tobacconist in Parramatta, in Sydney's west.

Mr Burns, who takes home on average about $630 a week, spent $634.20 on the 1400 cigarettes and said it was "worth every cent".

PM Lacks Guts

I’ve decided to add my own annotations to this Joe Kelly report from today's Australian

Here's the link

TONY Abbott portrayed Kevin Rudd as a leader who lacks the "guts" to fight for his political convictions today after the Prime Minister shelved the emissions trading scheme.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong today blamed political realities for Mr Rudd's decision to delay the scheme until the end of 2012, citing opposition in the Senate and slow global progress on climate action.
She could also cite the fact that it is now an unpopular policy


Ms Wong also said today that Mr Rudd would not go to a double dissolution election on an ETS because he wanted to serve a full term.
It may be his last – better stay as long as he can to maximise the super

The Opposition leader's attack on Mr Rudd's credibility this morning suggests he will go to the election arguing that Mr Rudd lacked policy conviction and was afraid to take the tough decisions.
This has actually been a Liberal line of attack back when Howard was PM – I’m amazed that it still fits Rudd like a glove.

The Australian reported this morning concerns were growing in the government that Mr Rudd was losing control of the political agenda after a series of policy reversals, including the decision to scrap the home insulation program, a charter of rights (huh? Didn’t know this was even happening – you can’t have rights in this country now that free-speech is out the door with Conroy’s filter scheme) and the construction of 260 childcare centres. (even if they built day cares on school grounds it wouldn’t solve the problem that school runs from 9 – 3, work goes from 8.30 to 5 – you’re not solving the problem for very many parents here)

“How can you run around the country for years saying that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time, not just an important issue but no less than the greatest moral challenge of our time. How can you say that for so long and say that the only way to deal with it is an emissions trading scheme and then just dump it?” Mr Abbott asked on ABC radio this morning.
“This was the guy who said it would be absolute political cowardice, absolute lack of leadership, absolute lack of logic just last December not to push on with an emissions trading scheme. He said the choice was between action and inaction and he's chosen inaction. Well, what kind of a Prime Minister is this.”

...

Ms Wong said this morning the decision to postpone an ETS until 2013 was due to “political realities” the reality being that if you fought an election over an ETS you would lose and the fact the government could not pass its legislation through the Senate.

Although a double dissolution trigger would allow the government to seek a majority at a sitting of both houses to push through its ETS, Ms Wong said the Prime Minister was reluctant to do so for reasons of principle. They’ve just cancelled half a dozen policies in the space of a week – what principle?

_______________________________

Lets be real about this; Rudd doesn’t want the double dissolution because of the greens – because all twelve state senate seats would be up the chance of a greens and minor party rush is much greater, trouble for Rudd is – I predict either way – the Greens will hold the balance of power in the next parliament – look at what has happened in Tasmania.

Healthy Smoking!

An article in today's Sydney Morning Herald details a opinion piece in the Jakarta Post written by a board member of the Victor Chang Foundation.

The piece is controversial because it suggests that smoking can be healthy for you, you can read the Herald's write up about it here

What’s awesome about this story is that it proves that Indonesia is still not under government control and, unlike Australia, is NOT a Nanny state!

Sure the message is wrong, but if you’re stupid enough to believe claims like this then I’d like to put you in touch with a Nigerian prince who needs your credit card details in order to launder his money!

Later on in the article we get two cents worth from yet another lobby group - this one is called Action on Smoking and Health (A.S.H. geddit!) you know - I gotta start my own lobby group because this is clearly the growth industry in this country at the moment.