I love my family.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m the youngest of ten siblings. I have nineteen nieces and nephews, two grand-nephews, and a brand new grand-niece. That being the case, it probably doesn’t surprise you much that we have dramatically different ideals, faiths, and political beliefs. We pretty much cover a large swathe of the spectrum of ideology: we have liberals, conservatives, and libertarians; Democrats and Republicans; Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, atheists, and agnostics — and some of those don’t match up the way you’d expect. Anyway: big group, lots of diversity. No surprise there.

What is surprising is the fact that, on the whole, we all maintain civility and respect for one another. Sure, we’ve pretty much learned that there are times that certain topics must be avoided, but we’ve also learned how to interact when those topics do come up in a gratifyingly adult manner…and to extend love and respect in spite of our disagreements. 

So I was very pleased when my oldest sister, Caroline, responded via e-mail to my previous post. She’s a Christian who holds very different beliefs from mine, and also a very smart lady, so we ended up getting deep into discussion about the validity of evolution and the interplay of science and religion. And though we ended up agreeing to disagree—as so often must be the case—I enjoyed the conversation so much that I asked her permission to share it with you.

So here it is, unedited. Let it never be said that adults cannot disagree civilly about fundamental matters.

I read your blog post this morning, and though I don’t expect to change your mind about anything, I do feel I need to respond.

Continue reading “Evolution: A Dialogue” »

The recent news about a former climate-change denier changing his tune — in a study funded by fossil-fuel interests, no less — got me thinking. Well, that and the seemingly endless series of Republican debates. In watching coverage of the debates, something kept nibbling at the back of my mind, something I couldn’t put my finger on. But I finally figured it out.

In talking about global warming and evolution (and in some cases, both at once!) the Republican candidates tend to fall back on some variant of this phrase:

“It’s just a theory.”

Evolution? Just a theory. Global warming? Just a theory.

Let me back up for a second and lay out some disclosure: I believe that — no, wait a minute; strike “believe.” Evolution is real. We know evolution is real because we see it in action. Ever hear of MRSA? Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus has become a serious problem in hospitals and nursing homes over the past few years. S. aureus is a bacteria that usually lives pretty harmlessly on the human skin. Occasionally, though, it can flare up into relatively serious infections. Historically, these infections have been pretty easily treated with penicillin or other antibiotics. Then came MRSA. This nasty little critter dodges most of what we would normally throw at it, forcing doctors to bring out the big guns. Where did it come from?

Evolution. Wide use of traditional antibiotics killed off, by definition, only those strains of staph susceptible to traditional antibiotics. What was left were the ones that had mutated in such a way that traditional antibiotics didn’t wipe them out. New drugs, hardier bugs. Survival of the fittest. Sound familiar?

(As an aside: I happen to agree with Newt Gingrich that recognizing the truth of evolution doesn’t mean you can’t also believe in a divine Creator. Unless you take the Bible as word-for-word accurate, and believe that the world was created in six twenty-four-hour days — in which case, I’d like to ask you some questions about Genesis 1:27 vis-a-vis Genesis 2:22, among others — there’s nothing in evolution that precludes the idea of a Creator guiding the mutations that result in evolution. In fact, I tend to find that idea more elegant.)

So, that’s evolution. Global warming? I’ll say I’m not nearly as up on the science here, but I’m willing to take the word of ninety-seven percent of the people whose job it is to know about this stuff. Because the alternative is a laughable global conspiracy with basically no upside for the alleged conspirators. (But you know what? Even if global warming is a complete fabrication, what the hell is wrong with working to reduce waste? That’s the fundamental goal of proponents of global warming, you know: to reduce waste. Fossil fuels are absurdly inefficient, and thus expensive far out of proportion to the benefits they provide. If we can come up with more efficient, less wasteful, less expensive ways of doing things, why wouldn’t we? I don’t know about you, but my parents taught me that waste was bad. But anyway.)

My point of these disclosures is that I recognize that having these views dismissed predisposes me to not take the dismisser seriously. But you know, it’s a big world, it’s a free country, you can feel free to believe what you want to believe, you know?

The problem is when you try to support your beliefs by saying these things are “just theories.” And that’s the point I want to make here. (I know, it took me long enough.) When you say that global warming or evolution is “just a theory,” you’re either displaying 1.) a dismaying level of ignorance about the way science works, or 2.) a cynical willingness to pretend to such ignorance if you think it makes you more electable.

Here’s why I say that: “Theory” in common parlance and “theory” in the context of science are two very different things. Anyone who took a single high school-level science class ought to know this. Outside of science, we use the word “theory” to indicate an untested idea. It’s the start of the process. If you say “I’ve got a theory: It could be bunnies,”  you’re essentially announcing your intention to explore the idea that bunnies could be at the root of your problems.

But in science, that’s called a hypothesis. A theory is what happens when a hypothesis has been rigorously explored. In other words, a hypothesis becomes a theory only after evidence has been gathered.

Now, this isn’t the end of the process by any means. Scientists are always re-evaluating theories to ensure they still hold up. That’s the great thing about science: You have all these really freakin’ smart people constantly checking to make sure everything works the way we think it does, so we don’t have to. And yes, sometimes new evidence arises that disproves a theory, even a long-held one. But that doesn’t change the fact that theories are based on evidence, not just wild speculation.

So dismissing a scientific theory — especially one as well-tested as evolution — as  ”just a theory” is simply absurd. It’s like saying Earth is “just a planet.” The Grand Canyon is “just a big hole.” America is “just a country.” (U-S-A! U-S-A!) What I’m saying is that it makes you look ignorant. And then we all laugh at you. Because we’re mean.

If you want to fall back on scientific skepticism, we call all discuss things rationally, like adults. Point out holes in theories and sic the scientists on each other. I have no problem with that. There are plenty of things that well-meaning adults disagree on, and there’s just so much we don’t know. But if you try to pretend that you know more than science does — but use words to do so that betray a fundamental misunderstanding about one of the basic precepts of science — well, it makes it hard for folks who know better to take you seriously. You might as well debate the existence of gravity.

You do believe in gravity, right?

I should be working. I’m working on a review, on the Xbox 360 — a system made by Microsoft — a company that probably would not exist if it weren’t for Windows — an operating system that definitely would not exist if not for the Macintosh. Once I’m done playing the game, I’ll write the review (as I’m writing this) on the most reliable computer I’ve ever owned, a Mac Mini.

I very likely would not be doing this for a living if it weren’t for the desktop-publishing experience I had before graduating college. First was high school, where I designed flyers for my first band on an original Mac. (In Zapf Chancery. I know. Shut up.) Then came college, during which I taught myself rudiments of more complex graphical design by laying out my next band’s first CD on a Mac at a Kinko’s. Desktop publishing skills — especially those on a Mac — looked great on a resume in 1996, which probably helped me get my first job out of college, at P.S.X., which later became The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine. And if they didn’t help me get the job, they certainly helped me succeed at it, and keep it for over 10 years. For that entire time, I worked daily on a Mac. It was my livelihood.

But before that, I learned rudiments of programming — something that’s served me well in critical thinking as well as in basic web design — on an Apple IIe in grade school. For my seventh-grade computer project, I hand-coded an interactive version of Steven King’s The Eyes of the Dragon. For my eighth-grade project, the assignment was to write a program that generated a color picture on the screen. I ended up crafting a pretty impressive (for the time, and the technology) image of Gene Simmons’ face, in full makeup — then went a step further than required by animating it: he appeared on the screen, then turned his head and breathed fire. I still have that 5 1/4″ floppy somewhere.

Last night, I was checking e-mail and reading my RSS feeds on my iPad in between texting my wife on my iPhone. I had music going in the background, streaming from iTunes to an AirPort attached to my stereo, controlled by the iOS Remote app. A notification window popped up on my iPad from the AP News app: Steve Jobs had died. Of course we all knew this was coming, and I certainly felt a sadness for all the ideas that might now be unrealized, a certain concern that Apple might lose some of that creative spark that had made it such an interesting company. But I also thought, “Oh geez, ridiculous hyperbole incoming!” I winced in anticipation of all the maudlin blog posts and frothing overstatement of Jobs’ influence on the world.

Then I thought about the work I needed to do today, and the 360, and Microsoft, and Windows. I thought about that Apple IIe and the string of Macs and sitting in Kinko’s at 11:30 at night aligning pictures. I thought about the music I was hearing, the music I’d sold online, the fact that I was sitting comfortably on the couch with an amazingly powerful and usable computer sitting in my lap like a hardcover book. I thought about the fact that I never again have to take a road trip without bringing my entire music collection with me. And I realized that much of what I’d be reading about Steve Jobs might not be hyperbole after all.

No, he didn’t feed the poor or cure a disease or land on the moon. He wasn’t even the person directly responsible for creating the Apple, the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, or the iPad. But he drove those creations. As a result of that drive, my life is better: I can communicate with loved ones more easily, I can work more efficiently, I can enjoy more pleasurable road trips. He didn’t “change the world” in the sense that, say, the inventor of the printing press did. But what he was in charge of has inarguably changed my world for the better, in many different ways. And he’s done the same for millions of others. And that’s definitely something to be proud of. That’s more than the vast majority of us could ever dream to do.

So here’s to you, Steve Jobs. Thanks for taking the lead on so many projects that have improved my life. Here’s hoping Apple will honor your legacy by continuing your vision. But if not, that won’t diminish the impact you had.

If you don’t live in or near Cleveland, what I’m about to say is going to make you laugh. But stick with me for a moment.

Cleveland’s food scene is kicking ass right now.

Yes. Cleveland. The city that everyone else in the country (not to mention a nonzero number of its own inhabitants) pretty much laughs at is undergoing a spectacular renaissance of high-quality dining. I don’t think you can overstate Iron Chef Michael Symon’s influence on this, but that influence would have come to nothing if Cleveland’s chefs hadn’t taken the ball and run with it. But they did, and today a city that was a culinary wasteland as recently as 10 or 15 years ago is becoming a major player in the dining world.

Yes. Cleveland.

There’s a lot of room for improvement, to be sure. As a whole, Cleveland still needs to educate its servers regarding how they’re expected to behave in a fine-dining environment — especially regarding wine service, holy crap. And restaurant owners are still figuring out that whole pricing thing; some of the city’s best places price both food and drink low enough that I’m worried about their continued financial health, while others rival San Francisco or New York for prices. The answer should really be somewhere in the middle, but these are not-unexpected growing pains that will, no doubt, eventually settle out. Overall, Cleveland has a ton of really, really great restaurants, not to mention a healthy and growing assortment of excellent destination-neighborhoods where these places are congregating. Really.

Anyway, the reason I’m talking about this is because a friend of mine recently asked which food blogs I read on a regular basis. It was a timely question, because I’d recently realized that a few of my regulars had started dropping off or going downhill, so I did a little bit of poking around and discovered a nice lineup of local food blogs that should keep me well up to date with the city’s culinary happenings. And in attempting to answer her question, I discovered that Google Reader has this neat “bundle” feature that allows you to easily share whole lineups of blogs.

Therefore, behold!

• Bite Buff
• Cleveland Food and Brews
• Cleveland Foodie
• Eat*Drink*Cleveland
• Exploring Food My Way: Satisfying the Craving
• Fun Playing With Food
• Plain Dealer Food Blog
• Scene Food Blog
• Tasty Cleveland

Not all of these are equally good, but there’s definitely a lot of good stuff therein. Here’s the link to the whole aggregate feed. Enjoy.

As an aside, it’s only recently occurred to me that answering random questions like this publicly is a nice way to keep momentum going on my blog. So if you’ve got something you’d like to ask — anything — please feel free to drop me a line.

Shut up.

Now that that’s out of the way, I wanted to let you know I’m now on Google Plus. This is me. And now that I’ve synced G+ with Twitter and Facebook I’ll probably use that as my main social network, at least for stuff I want to share publicly.

By the way, in case you’re wondering how I did it, I have this article by PC Magazine to thank. After some back and forth with a variety of different options, this seemed like the simplest and most painless method. I’d love to see links and photos get formatted properly at Facebook, but that’s probably being unrealistic.

And now I’m off to crawl back under the rock from whence I came.

Behold the return of the moneyhat!

The esteemed and always awesome Mr. Wil Wheaton put up a post recently about the influence game publishers and PR reps appear to have on the games media. He cites a post from another site, which in turn cites yet another site, both seeming to indicate that videogame reviewers are pimping scores out to the highest bidder and totally misleading you about games because You Can’t Trust The Man.

I spent some time responding in Wil’s comment thread, but it’s way down at the bottom and it’s also quite long, so I figured I’d repost here. I’d love to hear what you think.

Wil, there’s an element to this dialogue that a lot of people don’t seem to be considering, based on the sources quoted and many of the comments here.

Let me preface this by pointing out that in exactly two months I will have been reviewing games professionally for 15 years. Ten and a half of those years were spent at Ziff Davis Media, home of EGM, and later, 1UP. Most of that time was spent at the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (yes! a magazine! made of paper!), and most of that time was spent in charge of the Reviews section. Since OPM went kaput in late ’06 I’ve been a freelance writer, primarily doing reviews for many of the big gaming publications: EGM, 1UP, GamePro, GameSpy, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, OXM…er, I’m sure I’m forgetting someone, but you get the idea. During this time I’ve reviewed well over five hundred games, all for publication in major outlets.

What I’m saying is that I know how reviewing games works.

Over the past decade and a half, I can think of exactly one — one — occasion in which a PR person attempted to directly influence the score of a game before the review was written. It was the type mentioned in this articles: “you can get review code early if you agree the game will be at least a certain score.” We of course turned them down.

On maybe, oh, ten or fifteen other occasions, a PR person called me (in my capacity as reviews editor) to debate one of my reviewer’s scores after publication. And in every one of those occasions save one (in which a memorably loony PR dude pretty much went off his meds) they went away satisfied that their game was given a fair chance. Disappointed it didn’t do better, sure, but satisfied that we were evaluating the game thoroughly and fairly.

And that is, of course, a rightful part of the PR person’s job: to ensure the game is being treated fairly. And in my experience, the vast majority of PR people, and the publishers they represent, are ethical, sensible people who are as appalled by sleazy back-room dealing as journalists and consumers are. Because they know what every publication should know:

If a reviewer isn’t honest about the bad games, no one trusts them about the good ones, either.

Trying to artificially inflate a score is an incredibly shortsighted maneuver; it may bump up the Metacritic rating of the current game, but it kills the credibility of both the publication and the game company. If consumers buy a game that’s been artificially praised, they don’t just resent the outlet that did the praising, they resent the game company, too! And they’ll be that much more hesitant to buy the next game.

This is what I would tell the vocal minority of PR people: If we’re not honest about your crappy game, no one’s going to believe us if we praise one of yours that’s legitimately good. And most folks recognize this. That’s why these kinds of sleazy deals are the exception, not the norm.

But here’s the thing that I find particularly amusing about all this. So many people involved in this discussion (including many commenters here) use this news as justification for not trusting the big enthusiast sites or magazines. You even mention in your post not being able to trust 1UP.

But it’s the big media outlets that are most immune to these kinds of deals! The big media outlets know that the game companies need them more than they need the game companies; they’re big enough that they get their clicks or their subscribers whether one particular game is reviewed early or late; they have the budget and manpower to generate tons of non-review content; and perhaps most importantly, they know that if one particular company is going to withhold review code, they have plenty of other companies willing to fill those spots.

Furthermore, the big media outlets have ad-sales teams completely separate from the editorial teams. I know at Ziff there was an impenetrable barrier between ad and edit; we referred to it as the separation of church and state, and it was inviolable. Oh, we might hear that publisher X was threatening to pull ads — I mean, stuff gets around, you know? — but there was never — ever — any pressure from that side, or from our managers, to change our editorial content in any way as a result.

Now, I do know that hasn’t always been the case everywhere. The Gerstmann/GameSpot debacle is the most offensive example of ad influencing edit, but I can think of a few other stories (or at least rumors) I’ve heard over the years.

And it’s been a bit over four years since I worked full-time at a gaming publication, so I suppose things may have changed a bit. But if they have, it sure hasn’t trickled down to me; none of the publications I mentioned above has ever attempted to influence the score of a review I’ve submitted. Not once. Not even a little bit.

And of course this makes sense when you think about the power these bigger publications hold. If we really need to be concerned about someone falling prey to publisher and/or PR pressure, I think it’s the smaller sites we need to beware of, the ones who have limited access to begin with, limited resources to devote to non-review content, and limited staff to serve as buffers between pushy PR and writers. To be clear, I strongly doubt many of those succumb to that pressure, either. But wouldn’t you agree that they have more incentive to?

One final note before I release my choke-hold on an entire page of your comments section: If we want to point fingers here, we should consider pointing them at aggregator sites like Metacritic. The section you quote mentions that “sites which use letter grades don’t get advanced copies” because of how Metacritic translates them. And if you think of this from a PR person’s perspective, it makes perfect sense: Metacritic calls a “C” a 50 out of 100. If that same reviewer reviewed the same game on another site, it would likely get a score around 75, because most game publications use a number-based rating system that roughly translates to percentage grades in school: e.g., 60 or lower tends to be “failing.”

To combat this, either all publications could adopt the same rating system (ah, no) — or Metacritic could get their heads out of their asses and use some sense when standardizing scores: If a C is 50, fine — but make sure that for sites that only rate 60-100, an 80 is also 50. It’s pretty simple math, you know? Calculate the mean (or is it median?) score for each source, and make that the middle of the scale.

In closing, I’ll say this: It’s fun to bash on The Man; it just doesn’t always make a whole lot of sense. Also, this sort of thing is news because it’s the exception, not the norm. Also, I’m rather hungry.

Your fan,
-joe rybicki

[I have no idea where this came from, and I don't really know what it is. A poem? The skeleton of a song? Not really sure. But I thought I'd share it anyway.]

Sponge the dryness from these lips.
Sour disinfectant burns
the rips and cracks and tears,
the gnawing fears,
the hollow absolutions.

For they do know what they do,
and no pious platitude
can save the unrepentant thief,
or shake belief in unbelief.

See: the needle-dicks of rich men
prick the temple-cloth
of civilization,
and rend us all.
Three hours of night?
A day? A year? A century?

(Their camels balk
and sweat holier waters.)

And history repeats
again,
again,
again,
raised from the dead
to shamble down fear-shrouded streets
in deathless search of spongy treats.

Who bears a spear with edge enough
to pierce those bullshit-swollen guts
and spill that reeking discharge?

(We will know the unfit candidates:
they’ll be the ones raising their hands.)

Behold the science of our time,
a secular faith whose communion wine
is spiked with Rohypnol:
Its apostles spread the call
to put faith only in one creed:

Misology.
Misology.
Misology.

You know, this is the problem with never updating my blog. I completely forget to mention significant things, and then forget that I’ve forgotten.

Case in point: Did you know I’ve put up four new songs for your listening pleasure since last we spoke of it here? It’s true! You can get all the dirty details at johnnyhighground.com.

And don’t tell anyone, but I’m currently working on a new tune that will be very, very different. That’s all I’ll say. FOR NOW.

My wife is working nights at the moment. She’s a nurse, which means that working nights for her entails leaving the house at 6:00 pm, arriving at the hospital at 7, working until 7:30 am, and getting home around 8:30ish.

This schedule flips 12 hours every three weeks. On top of that, she’s a new nurse, which means that her schedule is periodically interspersed with eight hours of classes — in the daytime. Even when she’s working nights.

This messes with the rest of her schedule, such that every so often she ends up working one night, having a day off, then working another night.

This is not conducive to normal human behavior.

As a show of solidarity during this last round of nights, I’ve been doing my best to try to match her schedule, and so last Thursday found her with a night off, and us looking for something to do around Cleveland in the middle of the night. As it turned out, a sushi restaurant I’d been meaning to try is open late on Thursdays. (Sushi Rock, for you Clevelanders; there’s one downtown but we went to the one in Beachwood.)

This excited us, as we’d not been out for sushi in ages. So we got dressed all pretty-like, hopped in the car and drove the 20 minutes or so to Sushi Rock.

Now, I’d known this was considered kind of a hip place, which is normally so not my thing. But it was late and we were feeling saucy, so when we walked in and saw the dim lights, noted the Spartan decor, and heard the thumping dance music, we sort of grinned at each other and followed the hostess to our table.

It was about that time that we realized how loud the music was. The conversation went something like this:

“____ ____ __ ___”

“What?”

“I SAID, THIS MUSIC IS QUITE LOUD.”

We were sitting about two feet from one another and literally had to shout to be heard.

Now, look: I’m 36 and married. I know I’m not the target demo for a swank sushi restaurant for singles. But here’s what I genuinely don’t understand: Assuming your venue does not have a dance floor (as this one did not), what is the benefit of playing music so loud that your patrons literally cannot speak to one another? What am I missing here? Is it so that we antisocial Americans need not feel pressure to interact in anything but exaggerated facial expressions and suggestive gestures?

I say “Americans” because this is something that immediately struck me on my first visit to the U.K.: here you have a society practically founded on pub culture. There as common there as Starbucks are here. (I know that’s hard to believe, but trust me.) And the one thing nearly every pub I’ve been to in the U.K. — and there have been many — has in common is that even when they’re playing music, it’s never too loud for conversation. The result?

People converse.

Shocking, I know. But there, pubs are community hubs, centers for socialization, for making new friends and enjoying the company of old ones. (The one exception I found? The “Chicago Rock Bar,” an American-themed joint in Norwich, East Anglia.)

It drives me crazy, and constantly perplexes me, that so many bars I’ve been to around here seem designed not for interaction, but for shared solitude. It’s sad, but it’s more puzzling.

Can anyone help shed some light on this, one of the great mysteries of our time?

Oh, and if you’re wondering, we of course left Sushi Rock immediately, and headed down the street to my friend Fish’s place, Melt. Tonight we finally got our sushi fix, at the outstanding Pacific East, where I had literally some of the best sushi I’ve ever had — and I lived in San Francisco for five years. So this story has a happy ending.

But I just can’t stop thinking about that crazy-loud music, and what purpose it serves. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety, but I just don’t get it. I wish I did.

OK, I’m going to say those words we all dread to hear on a blog: I’m going to make an effort to post here more.

I know, I know.

But I mean it this time! Really! Here’s an example: I’ve written a review for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12: The Masters for my friends over at GamePro. You can find it here.

It’s funny, I reviewed my first Tiger game for OPM something like 10 years ago, simply because we didn’t have anyone else on staff who could be persuaded to do it, and we didn’t have a freelance budget at that time. I was never really a big fan of golf or golf games, but something about it hooked me in a serious way. So I reviewed the next year’s version. And then the next. And the next.

Now I’m kind of the go-to guy for Tiger reviews. All because of basically random chance.