I like salmon (my local purveyor serves a version of nigiri-style salmon with a little bit of chili oil and a few slivers of white onion on top), fatty tuna and uncooked sweet shrimp (amaebi) the best, then maybe uni and yellowtail (hamachi), but I'm open to most sushi (other than rolls, which I eat less frequently…

The back-and-forth between Padawan and Master relationship reminds me of my experience listening to Rush's 2012 album Clockwork Angels. As a teenager in the eighties and early nineties, I was a fan during Rush's transition from a band that was at the peak of its powers and relevant to a band that remained a live…

Now, I'm as cynical about internet 'facts' as anyone, but I love to see someone willing to dig a little rather than just deciding to believe or not because of what they prefer to be true. This, in combination with the youtube video posted by someone else does seem to make SenseiMonkeyboy's claims highly plausible.

There was a time when that was definitely true. The original Pinball FX tables are mostly unplayable today, whereas there were some very nice tables in the Gottlieb collection. Nowadays, both groups are putting out excellent tables, and they are having success by filling different niches. Any hardcore fan follows both…

Absolutely, I didn't mean to imply that women are the only ones who suffer from the aggressive gendering. Maybe, if we worked on *one* thing to tell our kids about education, personal ambition and the world of work, we would come up with something better to say. On this, it should be said, there has been much progress…

I don't believe I assessed blame, except for those who refuse to see any problem... and, I guess regarding Sony, in a counterfactual hypothetical. I pretty clearly indicated that at the hiring and promotion level (I do think there are sometimes problems there, but it varies from organization to organization. Many…

Medically, 'narcotic' is a hazy term, but usually refers to opiates. Legally (in the U.S.), the term actually refers to the illegality of a substance or its misuse, not its pharmacological properties. Where I live, used medically and with a prescription, neither use of the word would apply. The "intensity of the…

You know what, a big component of defining addiction/abuse is harm. It sounds like Mr. CandyFLIP is self-medicating where there is no real pharmaceutical drug that addresses his condition. If it is true that his ability to engage with the world has improved (whereas the opposite was true for Mr. Scimeca), then I fail…

Mine, too! Well, my son will be 18 in a little more than 2 years. So I guess not that much older.

I was only giving examples, but yeah there is a whole chain of self-reinforcing factors involved, probably starting with the aggressive gendering of children in terms of what entertainment and toys they are presented with and what they are expected to excel at, all the way up through the education system and ending…

"The reason there were no women on-stage is because the presidents and developers who happened to develop the software being presented happened to be male," wrote commenter hsuadfhaspodhf on Kotaku. "It is not part of some sexist agenda, it just so happens that the people behind the creation of the content being…

I wasn't talking about the value of the material to the work (which I discuss in replies to other commenters... spoiler alert: we pretty much agree), but rather the extent to which the depictions of sex, due to the misogyny and brutality make the work inappropriate for younger viewers (in my case, teenagers, in…

I don't think it's a fault of the viewer if they are unnerved by intentionally disturbing material. Just because you're upset by something upsetting doesn't mean you're morally outraged at its presentation. I think Blue Velvet is an amazing movie. I think Bamboozled is a very good movie. But if you can watch those…

First, I don't think the sexually degrading material, for the most part, especially in the books, is inappropriate. Just that it's disturbing. It's meant to be, and I think it's actually in service to feminism, or at least that that's how Martin views it. One of the huge themes in the book is power: where it comes…

I don't really intend to show my kids (13 & 15) GoT. I was really discussing which material in the show makes that decision the easiest, and why. I do think that the artistic value of something does play a factor in what kids (again, mine are teenagers) should be exposed to. We recently watched The Godfather, because…

I understand why the material is there, and why it actually needs to be disturbing to make Martin's point about how power is distributed, and how people inevitably abuse the imbalance. But it definitely is the key factor in deciding at what point a teenager can 'handle' the material in terms of processing it in the…

My point really wasn't that violence is 'better' than nudity or sexual content, but that the context and the way that either type of content is presented is what makes it more or less appropriate for younger viewers (my kids are teenagers), more or less gratuitous, more or less disturbing, more or less emotionally…

I will say that while much of the violence in Game of Thrones is not that far removed from, say, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings albeit with more red than LOTR's PG13 black orc/goblin blood, the sexual material is a good deal more degrading/deviant than most people are used to from fantasy material. While I don't…

I also am reminded of The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker, and not just because of the graphics, but by how alive the towns can seem, the feel of the sidequests, the stealth section (hiding from pigs!), the expressive animations, the anthropomorphic NPC's and occasional WTF touches. Love this game.

The very reason Kotaku is called Kotaku and not, say Videogames.com or ElectronicGames.com is not simply because those domains were not available, it's so Kotaku defines for itself what kind of content they publish. And that content? Supplemented by our comments? That's Kotaku. Which, yes... is partially defined by…