The Bard

Dude. What the fuck...are you talking about?

Congrats man, I'm having second thoughts about my master's right now, so from here a PhD looks like Everest

You would assume that to be the case, but often it isn't. Danny made the point that him and a friend share symptoms yet have been offered two disparate diagnoses; autism and anxiety. Well, anxiety disorders are a problem of activation, whereas autism is more to do with the brain being structurally composed slightly differently. If you look at an image of the brain of a person suffering from panic or anxiety disorders, there's a high likelihood that amygdala activation (a part of the limbic system that, amongst other things, deals with emotional conditioning and fear) will occur more frequently, and that the area will likely be engorged, while the bundle of fibers that connect the prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain will be thinned. In autism (and in almost diametrical opposition, in dyslexia) you have slight idiosyncrasies in what are known as "microcolumns"; small interconnected computational groupings of neurons in the brain's input analysers. In autistic people, the axon lengths of neurons within these microcolumns are reduced. In dyslexia, the axon lengths are greater, meaning that the individual neurons have a greater ability to interconnect with other systems, but at the expense of the speed at which action potentials (electrical signals) travel down them. You can almost infer from the structure, the perceptual traits of people with these two fairly awesome in their own way "disorders." Autistic people tend to have a swifter processing speed than most - perhaps at the expense of metaphorical understanding, whereas dyslexics tend to have an increased ability to process in a "top down" way, ie. contextualise and apply a principle or idea to a very wide variety of phenomena. As for diagnostics - obviously I'm not really sure about the extent to which our current imaging technology can even detect things as specific as axon length, but we should still try to look at the causal in conjunction with the behavioral - a diagnosis isn't a small thing to throw around, it can affect a person's entire conception of who she is. Rambled for a while there - sorry, you invited it

This looks so good, thank fuck Watch Dogs got delayed, I only have time for one open world game this Christmas

Just had a dissertation idea based on persistent misdiagnosis of psychological "idiosyncrasies" such as autism, depressive disorders and ADHD entirely because they're seen through behavioral symptomotology rather than through looking at the causal mechanisms (through brain imaging and other techniques). For example, a missed dyslexia diagnosis in an above average student with co-morbid depressive/anxiety disorders easily presents as ADHD-PI symptoms. Want to look into an alternative testing methodology for these within distributive healthcare based on things such as frontal cortical thickness and axon length - empirically verifiable traits that are far more epistemically conclusive than "kid doesn't do homework - give him ritalin." Putting this here so I don't forget

They can't really afford that. With both Drive Club and Watch Dogs out of the launch picture, the choices for people looking for new experiences are depressingly scant.

Master's is going pretty well, not quite as tough as I was expecting, but the workload is a total bitch. I've just had to read the entirety of Jerry Fodor's "Modularity of Mind," Seventy pages of abstruse Epistemology and a couple of papers on "Quality Adjusted Life Years" (or "The Attempt to Whittle Ethical and Economical Issues in Distributive Healthcare Down to a Number) in the space of one week, while having no former formal education in either Philosophy, Politics or Economics. Also, today is the first time I've spent more than two hours in my own house this week. I feel so energetic and buzzing with cool ideas. So great

So is this better than GTAIV, or shall I wait for the perspective that a few month's distance bestows before I ask?

Dude, if she did that, she's a dick. And the thing about dicks is that they tend to make themselves well known as dicks before the act of major transgression, so I don't really buy that it came out of the blue. You must have perceived some at least slightly dickish behaviour from her before now, right?

I'm more like

Nah the sticks are horrendous. They have colossal dead zones, literally bigger than any console you could care to name with analog sticks, and are far too loose. They make the whole controller feel tacky, and substantially reduce the accuracy you're capable of.

My preorder hinges on this: are the analog sticks still deadzoned dinghies floating in a barrel of oil?

That sucks, it can't have been up for more than an hour - I'm weirdly compulsive about checking that site. Looked around and apparently they had similar gaffes with the 3DS and Wii U, and honoured them. Looks like I got myself a bargain

Woah, I just bought a PS4 for £280

I'm intrigued about the idea that running Steam OS will result in improved gaming performance. Which would make sense; it's an OS optimised for gaming, and if it's true, it has me really fucking excited.

This has a very potent utility as a viable alternative for waterboarding.

The chin strap suits you amigo.

I thought it was hilarious. Wish they'd done more (or anything) with the anxiety attacks.

I definitely think it's up there. I think perhaps Ninja Gaiden is a bit more responsive and the enemy behaviours are better telegraphed, although that might be because there's a little less visual clutter in the original Ninja Gaiden. The enemies in Ninja Gaiden are also a lot more lethal (even the standard mobs) but you have all the tools you need to keep them at bay, and if you do, you feel like an absolute champ. I haven't played the DMC reboot, but I can tell you that Bayonetta is better than DMC4 for sure, which had brilliant mechanics, but Capcom didn't end up creating a compelling game around them. The level design and the enemy encounters were a bit mediocre.

I never got into ten, there was something off with the tone. I really hope they do the same for twelve though, that's still my favourite FF from the last 15 years.

I guess someone finally drove a stake through his heart. R.I.P.

Nothing more terrifying than a brown person wielding a shoe. Also, you don't hit someone with a shoe, you smite them.

Viola Marx? Dude, she looks like she could do mocap for a Pixar rodent. Looks like some sort of small woodland creature.