It's how Advance Earned Income Credit worked for several years. So saying "that's not how credits work" is wrong—it's been done that way before.

Honestly I'm pretty damned close to the Medicare limit. But my worry is that people who are well above it will just have a sudden new expense—an end-of-the-year refund increase isn't going to cut it for a lot of people. A per-check prorated credit would work, as would allowing the credit on 2013 taxes and allowing…

Come Jan 1 2014, how long until I can see help paying for insurance?

They could have very easily installed a removable plastic cover and simply sold a plug-in analog stick instead.

I keep hoping that 38 Studios will go into liquidation, and sell off the IP. And the company that hired all the BHG employees buys that IP, and Amalur lives again.

"Life arose only once on Earth"

Yup, that is indeed the picture they showed me twenty years ago in Bible Class to convince me dinosaurs are *gasp* still here!

You know what? I remember having this exact "revelation" in Bible study in Catechism class—in Nineteen-Freaking-Eight-Nine Ay Dee.

...they made several. I don't see your point.

Someone say Blink?

Depends if I'm alone in the house and can crank the sounds or not.

It's almost as powerful as the "silent mew"—all the action and movement of a mewling kitten, but above the range humans can hear.

Well, except in much of the world.

That goes beyond creepy—it's actually chilling. One, that someone would think it; two, say it; and three, hear it and actually laugh and brush it off instead of calling it out as a horrible thing to say.

"do anything illegal OR dangerous OR are tall OR are no-white"

My wife took shop in high school. She wound up doing all the year's assignments in two months, then just building furniture.

EDIT: Extreme sleep deprived super-long rambling follows... apologies up front.

Okay, high-five agree with your first point, completely disagree with your second.

This is America, see. In 'Merikuh, people are "kids" until they're 25 if they're innocent, or law-abiding, or white, or rich, or do something dangerous/stupid/foolish.

What discussion can we really have about a benchmark? Really? Very little. So I was trying to draw it out to a wider discussion, drawing a parallel between this and game design in general. It. Was. A. Metaphor.