Author Archives: Raizen

Will PS Vita be Sony’s last handheld?

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Handheld gaming platforms have been some of my favorites. Because of this, I like seeing handheld gaming platforms succeed. And they are, if one is looking at Nintendo’s 3DS and mobile platforms.

However, not every gaming platform does well, and one such example is the Playstation Vita.

It’s predecessor did well. In fact, people were ready for the Playstation Portable to take the world by storm. I remember, after hearing that Sony was working on a handheld gaming console, one magazine predicted the end of Nintendo’s dominance of portable gaming. While this doesn’t seem unusual for a guy expressing his opinion, what was unusual was that it was being expressed in a review for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Gameboy Advance. (By the way, if you’re wondering what a magazine is, it’s like an iPad made of trees.)

Of course, that didn’t happen. Nintendo released the Nintendo DS, and it outsold the PSP by far. However, the measure of a console’s success isn’t necessarily expressed by it’s sales numbers, but Nintendo clearly dominated handheld gaming, to the point that just about anything that competed with Nintendo handhelds didn’t stand a chance. Remember the NeoGeo Pocket Color? It was a very interesting system, but there wasn’t much marketing for it, and there wasn’t much of a variety of games. The Wonderswan handheld did okay in Japan. It had potential, but it wasn’t released in America.

So Sony, the company that upset Nintendo’s dominance of console gaming, was coming to handhelds. As people saw it, if anyone could put a dent in Nintendo’s dominance of handheld gaming, it would have been them. The PSP did very well due to a combination of marketing and the awareness of the Playstation brand. At the time the PSP launched, sales of the Nintendo DS were slow, so it looked like a possibility that Sony would release Nintendo’s grip on handheld gaming, as they did with console gaming. However, Nintendo DS’s software library improved, while things were more steady for the PSP. The DS ended up selling about twice as much as the PSP.

However, Sony still did something very significant. Even if they didn’t become the leader of the handheld market, when a game system sells over 80 million units, it’s usually considered a success.

Again, a console’s success isn’t necessarily expressed by it’s sales numbers. Sony didn’t have to become market leader to come away with a major victory: demonstrating that they had what it takes to compete with Nintendo, and take away a significant share of the market.

Even so, PSP’s story also had it’s downs. Sony sold it’s systems at a loss, with the strategy of recovering losses with software sales. This isn’t an unusual strategy. Console manufacturers have been doing this for a while, and they have been staying competitive. In the PSP’s case, however, the handheld initially cost far more to produce than the MSRP, and around the time the PSP launched, Sony’s gaming division was losing money, and the company overall was having financial troubles.

When the PS2 launched, the DVD was a new media format. A significant part of the PS2’s initial success was the fact that, for many people, the PS2 was their first DVD player. When the PSP came around, however, Sony had the idea that people would want to watch movies on their proprietary UMD format that (as far as I could tell) only played on PSPs. That didn’t work out. However, the PSP went on to sell millions, doing very well in a market that was dominated by Nintendo. Later, Sony released the PS3 with the ability to play BluRay disks. Some bought up PS3s because it seemed to be a better value than new BluRay players at the time (even though a new PS3 cost about $600 at the time it launched!). However, BluRay didn’t take off very well, and neither did HD DVD (which the Xbox 360 supported), it would seem that this was because the two had the bad timing of having to compete with streaming and digital downloads. This was likely another determining factor for the Wii’s success: the Wii wasn’t expensive due to lack of a DVD, BluRay, and HD DVD movie player feature, and owners could just use Wii to watch YouTube or Hulu on their TV.

When the PS Vita was revealed, I could tell that it wasn’t going to do well. Yeah, it did have what it takes to succeed as a handheld game console: a meaty processor, game cards instead of a disk drive, internal and removable memory, and some high-profile games. However, it just seemed like it wouldn’t do well.

For one thing, I didn’t like their proprietary memory cards (memory sticks?). Did Sony have something against SD cards? Even Nintendo’s 3DS had a slot for SD cards, even though that was unexpected. Therefore, I could swap files between my computer and a 3DS easily. I don’t know whether Sony did release a Vita memory card adapter for PC. Considering that they’re a huge media company, it’s hard to imagine that they would want to prevent a person from swapping files between a Vita and a PC.

For that matter, there wasn’t much marketing for Vita outside it’s launch period, and even that wasn’t very pronounced. That was a problem considering that Vita looked so similar to the PSP, that aside from some slight difference in dimensions, a casual observer wouldn’t see much difference. This was also initially a problem for the 3DS when it was new, but when the 3DS’s price dropped, gamers were much less hesitant to buy one. And when the 3DS XL model was introduced, the 3DS took off. Vita’s price wouldn’t drop until the next year. As a result, Nintendo’s 3DS ran circles around Vita, and by the time Vita’s price dropped, Sony had already dropped the ball.

Nintendo 3DS and Sony PS Vita are very different, so why compare them? Because they compete, so the success of one may depend on it’s ability to take a large part of the other’s base away. This has been a problem for PSP considering that many PSP owners also had 3DS systems, but the same wasn’t always true the other way around. Therefore, there were a lot of PSP owners out there that may not have viewed their PSP as their primary portable gaming system. Mobile gaming became huge during the PSP and DS’s lifetimes, and many gamers, if they had to choose two portable gaming platforms, would choose a mobile platform and a Nintendo platform. This seems to be the case again as 3DS and PS Vita compete.

Me, I had actually gone a while having forgotten that there was a PSVita. Later, I saw that they were still available for purchase at Gamestop, and I saw that Sony was still going at it. There still doesn’t seem to be a lot going on with the PS Vita, however.

It’s been over three years since the PS Vita has launched, and the system has only sold about 10 million units worldwide. That’s not very good.

So, will Sony continue to bother with handhelds after this? It would seem that Sony is considering a redesign of Vita, perhaps a minor version 3 revision. E3 is just next month, and perhaps it will be announced there. However, it doesn’t seem likely that Sony is doing another handheld soon. Sony has been in financial trouble for a while, and it might be that they’re cutting back on projects that have been costlier for them.

Will things turn around for the PSVita? I don’t know. The market for video games has been very fickle. But one thing that seems consistent is Nintendo’s success in portable gaming, and that’s likely to continue. That doesn’t mean that Sony couldn’t be profitable in the area of portable gaming, but they’d have to improve their strategy quite a bit. They’re not doing very much to market Vita, though it could help them a lot. Perhaps they could also benefit from a clearer focus, competing with either Nintendo’s 3DS or mobile gaming, and in so doing possibly winning a few sales in the process. As it’s doing now, however, it’s like the PSVita is barely there, not making much of an impact.

Considering how it’s been performing, perhaps it would be better for Sony to just let the PS Vita go, and instead focus on their next project.

Aegislash still banned, says Smogon

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Since it’s ban from OU before the release of ORAS, Smogonites have contested the controversial decision by Smogon to ban Aegislash from the OU tier. The vote passed narrowly, and with changes that came about with the release or ORAS, fans have called on Smogon to do another suspect test for Aegislash.

The fans have gotten what they wanted; Smogon did another suspect test for Aegislash. And Aegislash is still banned. In fact, the community so overwhelmingly favored keeping the ban in place, that just days into the vote, 72.8% of qualified voters had voted in favor of keeping the ban in place, and a release of the results was made well before the Friday deadline. For Aegislash to have been unbanned, there would have to have been a 60% majority favoring unbanning. However, the vote didn’t come close to that.

When you consider what Aegislash can do, it’s hard to disagree with the results.

Steel and Ghost are both excellent defensive typings, together granting nine resistances and three immunities. Aegislash has both those types. Not only that, Aegislash has some excellent versatility.

For one thing, it can change between two forms during battle. It starts out in a defensive form, with very excellent defenses that allow it to make more of it’s typing. During that time, it can set up with Swords Dance. Right before using an attack move, it changes to an attack form, with very high offensive stats. It hits hard with Iron Head, and has a priority move with Shadow Sneak. To turn back into it’s defense form, it uses it’s attack, King’s Shield, which in addition to changing Aegislash’s form, also protects Aegislash from attack moves for the turn, and sharply lowers the Attack stat of whatever tries to use contact attacks on it during that time. Also, it works well with Weakness policy so those super-effective moves that don’t do much to it in it’s defense form result in Aegislash increasing it’s Attack and Special Attack by two stages each.

It’s easy to see why Aegislash has a lot of fans. It’s a sword pokemon, which is a pretty cool concept. Not only that, it’s very strong. It’s hard to fault someone for liking something that can win. Aegislash is a practical choice in many competitive environments, because it’s good at winning. If you hear someone say that they have a high winning streak in the Battle Maison, he probably had Aegislash on his team. Or Greninja. Or both.

So, to those who wanted to see Aegislash suspected tested again so badly, you got what you wanted. However, it wasn’t unbanned from OU. Those who recognize Aegislash as a pokemon that would severely unbalance OU see this as a good thing. If Aegislash were unbanned, we might have seen teams include Aegislash and one or two pokemon that can take it on just to be competitively viable.

There are likely complainers out there who are saying things like, “Smogon always bans pokemon I like” or “Smogon bans everything” or “I just don’t understand what Smogon is doing.” Sound familiar?

If you like having an environment unbalanced by Aegislash and don’t like what Smogon does, you can just play in a different competitive community than Smogon. Smogon’s decisions only apply to the Smogon community. Smogon doesn’t make it’s rules to impose on other communities.

You might be asking, “So then, what about Serebii, who does it’s Pokemon of the Week feature based on Smogon’s rules? What about Pokebeach and numerous other communities out there that play by Smogon’s rules?” They do this because they choose to. It should be widely known that Smogon isn’t official, and it’s rules only apply to it’s own community. However, there is still a widespread notion that Smogon can be trusted to decide what pokemon are too strong for a balanced competitive game. Much of this comes from the fact that Smogon has perhaps the most sophisticated system in place to help them make such determinations. That Smogon is also very popular is another reason it’s trusted.

If you want to use Aegislash in link battles with your friends, you can still do that. There are probably plenty of communities out there that still permit it’s use. As for Smogon, they made the decision that they deemed necessary to keep their OU environment balanced, and this time around, I think it’s easy to see that their decision is pretty sound.

I’ve obtained my own Aegislash and used it in battle, and it’s easy to see why it would have to share an environment with the likes of Primal Groudon, Xerneas, and Mega Mewtwo Y to not seem unbalanced. Even in relatively inexperienced hands, Aegislash can be a terror.

So, what gets suspect tested next? Currently ranked S on Smogon’s OU Viability Ranking Thread are Mega Altaria, Clefable, Keldeo, Landorus (I), and Mega Metagross. Of those, Mega Metagross has recently been suspect tested. That it wasn’t banned, I found to be a little surprising. Whatever they decide on, there’s likely to be someone out there that’s upset by it.

DJ Dimwits: Failing at a Gathering Near You

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If you’ve spent time in malls, cities, or college campuses, you’ve probably run into a DJ dimwit.

What is a DJ dimwit? It’s someone who plays music loudly from their phone as they walk about or do other things around other people. I chose the word “dimwit” to keep this post somewhat family-friendly, but you can probably think of a number of other pejorative adjectives that also start with the letter “D”.

People who listen to rap aren’t the only ones who do this, but they seem to be far more inclined to do it. Another thing I’ve noticed about people who listen to rap is that they seem to spend a lot more money on earbuds and earphones, but not use them (a lot of them complain that they’re broke, though).

There seems to be a positive correlation between how often you hear music from the phones of DJ dimwits and how bad the music is. To demonstrate this correlation, I’ve made a chart:

DJ Dimwit Graph

The trend appears to be that DJ dimwits actively avoid playing anything of quality from their phones. It’s hard to know what to make of this, aside from that they do this as part of a concerted effort to demoralize our society with substandard garbage. Unless their idea of singing is to either talk or bark to a beat.

On the rare occasion that you hear a DJ dimwit play a song that’s good (probably accidentally), they still upset people because they don’t want to hear that song played by a DJ dimwit.

For the most part, DJ dimwits are bad judges of what the rest of us want to hear. It’s kind of like how most streakers at sporting events are male, even though the typical viewer of sporting events are also male. Like the streaker, the DJ dimwit is making an assumption about whether the rest of us care for what they have to share.

A few things I learned while looking at computers

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I was curious as to what was on the market, so I decided to look around at new computers. It would probably be a short while before I purchase a new computer, but because I have a technology major, it probably wouldn’t hurt to be aware of what is out there.

While shopping around, both online and at retail locations like Walmart, there were a few things I learned that I found surprising.

For one thing, I was surprised to learn that the computer that I have now is not considered obsolete.

Yeah, that was a surprise. The laptop I use now was purchased around December 2009 to January 2010. It was a floor model of a discontinued laptop that I saw at Staples, and I got a discount on it. It has two 2.10GHz processors, 4 GB of RAM, and a 286 GB hard drive. I only spent a few hundred dollars on it.

What I find interesting is that, even though my laptop is over 5 years old, it’s comparable to what’s out there today (though perhaps on the lower end).

About a decade ago, tech was advancing so rapidly that what was purchased new was considered obsolete pretty fast, usually within a year-and-a-half of being purchased. It was actually kind of alarming. Many consumers were going out and purchasing newer computers, only to discard them about a couple years later and often because they took a few more seconds to boot up compared to when they were brand new.

In tech, one of the things to watch out for was “planned obsolescence”, which was a phrase that suggested that tech companies were aware that the products that they were making would one day be obsolete, even if they were, at the time of their manufacture, considered top-of-the-line. Some of the more cynical among us suspected that companies like Microsoft made their newer operating systems and updates to existing ones to consume more system resources in an attempt to encourage consumers to purchase more PCs. Whatever the cause, many computers fell down in the stampede of progress.

We’ve reached a point that tech companies have a much harder time doing more with the space available to them. At this point, it seems like they can only feasibly fit so many capacitors in such a small space, so the forward advancement in CPU processing power seems to have slowed.

So, what’s being used to encourage consumers to purchase more PCs? That leads to another thing that I discovered while shopping around. At one point, the processing power and storage of a computer were considered their main selling points. Today, it seems like tech companies are enticing consumers with features.

Some of these features are pretty cool, such as touch screens (though I don’t like smudges on my display screens), and detachable screens that would allow the displays to function as tablets (durability might be an issue).

One problem I’ve noticed with newer laptops is that some of them look really cheap. While features and technical specs are something to consider when shopping for a new computer, there is a certain form factor which is considered preferable. If I were to purchase a computer that’s cutting edge, I’d prefer for it to look slightly edge, rather than something with a Fisher Price look to it.

To make matters worse, Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 8, isn’t very attractive. Their new home screen is particularly garish and overly simplistic, like something that a person could make in MS Paint in a few minutes. I’m not sure why Microsoft is so proud of it’s new home screen, but apparently they are, because it’s seen on many Windows 8 promos. A newer version of Windows 8 brings back the desktop, which is something that people seem to prefer. Microsoft has a tendency to attempt to fix things that aren’t broken, which is one problem, but do they have to phase out features that people like?

And speaking of phasing out features people like, I’ve noticed that some newer laptops are missing drives for optical media, such as CDs and DVDs. I understand that media is making the shift to digital downloads, but it seems to me that optical media is still relevant, so it would be too early to phase it out. People still have DVD collections today, and BluRay is still new.

And when it comes to missing features, netbooks are famous. Many people buy netbooks because they’re so cheap and many consumers suspect that they’d be getting the same experience with them as they would with a laptop. Me, I don’t take netbooks very seriously.

The laptop I have now might be on the lower end of what’s available, but for now, it seems to suffice with what I do with it. That may change in the near future, however. But it seems like I got a pretty good value with the laptop that I have now.

Stupid T-shirts, and what they say about the people that wear them

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Each person has an image that they’re in charge of. Let’s look at a few T-shirts that demonstrate that they don’t know how to manage it.

math t shirt

Nothing says “herp derp” quite like a shirt which tells the world that you detest simple problem solving.

loud t shirt

In apartments, particularly ones in cities, among the most frequent complaints are noisy neighbors. When a person wears a shirt like this, what they are saying with it is that they make a lousy neighbor. The fact that the heart has a stoner face says the rest of what you need to know.

mirror t shirt

A person might find this shirt clever for a few moments, and that’s all the time that they’d need to purchase it on eBay. Afterwards, they’d probably figure out just how unclever it is to buy a T-shirt with a gag that’s incomplete without a mirror in close proximity. But not everyone.

t-shirt fbi

The words: “FBI: Female Body Inspector”. The message: “Please stop questioning my sexuality.” Interestingly, when I found this image, “unisex” was among the tags.

school shirt

Not everyone wants to work for Walmart. The ones that do may as well be the ones that aren’t motivated enough to become qualified to do something else. The message on this shirt is also available on hoodies, so one can nap face-down in class with added isolation or conceal the earbuds that they’re wearing while thinking the teacher doesn’t notice.

Why would anyone want to wear T-shirts like these? And if someone would make T-shirts like these, why wouldn’t they also make T-shirts that advertise that the wearer doesn’t wash his hands? It seems like there are plenty of people that would wear such a thing.

If you tell enough people that it’s possible to be the worst at something, you’ll see some of them race to the bottom. Perhaps it’s because they’re eager to stand out for anything, and they imagine that there’s less competition to be mediocre. However, if you see some of the T-shirts people are wearing, it becomes evident that this is not the case.

EDC: Stuff that I carry around

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EDC

Above is a picture of a few things that I carry about from day-to-day, just about every day. This isn’t necessarily everything I carry from day-to-day, and I might decide to stop carrying a certain item or start carrying something new. From the picture above, you might see that some of these items are worn. That’s because I really do carry them around a lot.

By number:

1. Comb
Sometimes wind can mess up the hair. Having a comb on your person is convenient for doing your hair back up again.

2. Carabiner
The carabiner pictured here is not considered load-bearing, which may be a reason to trade up for one that is. However, this one functions well for what it does: it’s easy to add keyrings to it or remove them, and can even hold some of the other items on this list.

3. USB flash drive
A very handy item in this digital age, it allows one to carry files about. If a friend finds a cool picture that you think would be a neat desktop background, you can copy it to a flash drive and take it home with you. Or you can use it to take work around with you, such as class assignments if you’re a college student.

Among the things I keep on my flash drive:

  • Music
  • A copy of my resume
  • A folder with pictures
  • Sermons in MP3 format
  • School assignments
  • Some freeware games, which can come in handy if I’m bored and my own computer is not around
  • Several books in PDF format
  • Some charts which can be handy for electronics technicians
  • PDF copies of booklets produced by my church
  • And other things

By the way, my flash drive is actually a Micro SD card adapter, so the content is actually stored on an SD card, which makes the combination compatible with more electronics, such as cell phones.

4. Mini roll of Gorilla Tape
Gorilla Tape is like duct tape, but with a much stronger adhesive. I folded a paper clip so it would have a loop, and I wrapped some Gorilla Tape onto it. This configuration makes it much easier to keep it on a keychain. The Gorilla Tape pictured is the white variety, which holds up better in sunlight.

I have used it before. A young girl’s slipper broke, so I used some of it to hold it together so she could keep wearing it that day. Her older sister happens to be a woman I’m fond of, so it was nice to have the Gorilla Tape on me for that opportunity.

5. LED flashlight
Some businesses offer this kind of flashlight as a freebie, which is really nice considering how useful these things are. I’ve used this in dark places and while it was dark outside. It’s a handy item.

6. Chap Stick
Survivalists might have some uses for lip balm, but I find that this is nice to use for it’s intended purpose: to prevent dry, cracked, or sunburned or wind-burned lips.

7. Mechanical pencil, G2 gel pen, and blank cards folded in half
The mechanical pencil is a Pentel Twist-E Click, which is currently my favorite mechanical pencil. Most mechanical pencils have a small, stubby eraser that wears down quickly. The Pentel Twist-E Click has an adjustable eraser that lasts a while. The G2 gel pen looks like a red pen, but I added black ink to it. The idea was to discourage pen theft, as most people prefer black or blue pens to red ones. As for the blank cards, I find them handy for writing down things like reminders and schedules. I carried a pocket notebook around before, but the cards take up less space, and reminders written on them are more apparent.

Not pictured:
Leatherman Squirt
A nice multitool that can also fit nicely on the carabiner. However, it has a knife on it, so I decided not to take it with me to school.

Cell phone
Right now, I have an inexpensive pay-as-you-go phone. I primarily use it to make calls and send messages. It has a tendency to accidentally dial people while it’s in my pocket, and I’ve lost a lot of minutes because of this already. I often keep this phone in my dorm. However, I also have a Blackberry Torch that is not connected to a wireless network, which I sometimes use to listen to music.

Those are some of the things that I carry about day-to-day. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments section. If you’d like to share what you carry around from day-to-day, you can share in the comments, either by listing them off there or linking to your own list.

Butter in Coffee: Bulletproof or Not?

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I’ve heard about this thing in which people were putting butter in their coffee. The idea comes off as some sort of life hack that, when done, allows a person to lose weight and live healthier. Supposedly, a person who does this gets more out of their coffee by feeling alert longer and feeling fuller and more energized. Some even say that they can pretty much skip breakfast by drinking this so-called “bulletproof coffee”.

It sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a bit of a try to see whether the claims are true. I was a bit skeptical. Wouldn’t that be a little fattening? Wouldn’t such a thing be of little nutritional value?

The results? I’m not sure whether it’s connected, but for the time that I’ve been trying it, I haven’t been feeling very good. Actually, I’ve felt bloated and somewhat sluggish while trying it (which, for me, might be a little hard to imagine).

As it turns out, I was doing it wrong. To truly drink “bulletproof coffee”, I had to use grass-fed butter. Also, the coffee had to be a certain variety. Specifically, the same kind of coffee sold by the company that primarily encourages the fad of adding butter to coffee.

I don’t mean to say that a person can’t lose weight by having only buttered coffee for breakfast. If that buttered coffee is a replacement for bacon and eggs, it’s possible that such a diet could result in weight loss. However, that might have more to do with a person eating less of what they were eating before than a supposed benefit of an alleged miracle diet.

Could it be that many people have been had? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.

Decades ago, the Beechnut corporation had large quantities of pork belly. Pork belly was viewed as discards, but it was also the usual ingredient for bacon. Beechnut hired Edward Bernays, the man credited as the father of public relations, to market bacon to an American people who, while it may be hard to believe today, largely didn’t want it. Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, so he knew a few things about how people think, including that people tended to put a lot of trust in professionals. The usual breakfast at the time was a slice of bread and a cup of coffee before rushing out the door to work in an increasingly industrialized America. Bernays sought out doctors in an effort to find some that would agree with him that Americans would benefit from a heavier breakfast. He would then use this as the basis for his push to market bacon. How successful were his efforts? America seems to be much heavier for it. Bacon, which is usually mostly pork fat, appears in many food items and many consider bacon and eggs to be breakfast staples. Many even came to think of breakfast as being the most important meal of the day. Beechnut made off well, as they found that an effective way to dispose of pork belly is straight down the throats of millions of impressionable people, and they even convinced them to pay them for it!

Fast-forward to today: Dave Asprey, CEO of Bulletproof Coffee, wants you to believe that he “learned about the power of butter at 18,000 feet of elevation near Mt. Kailash in Tibet”. His corporate logo appears to be a man in meditation with a round symbol on his chest that might bear resemblance to some kind of far-east mystical symbol, which may be an indication of the kind of people that he’s looking to take advantage of.

May I have my coffee without the implied mysticism?

May I have my coffee without the implied mysticism?

In the article linked to above, Asprey cites a fictional character when making his point that cheap coffee steals a person’s mental edge and “makes you weak”. He links to the Wikipedia article for that fictional character, but he doesn’t provide scientific or scholarly citations to back up his claim. What he does link to is his online store.

Incidentally, as I was looking at his online store, I found this warning:

California Proposition 65 WARNING: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.

This may sound a little picky, but I prefer to drink coffee without being concerned about whether it damages my parts.

I went back to normal coffee, without the butter. And it tasted far superior. Still, I think that, like many fads, this fad of putting butter in coffee might last a while, even though it seems pretty weird to see someone do. Kind of like wearing one’s pants under their buttocks so their boxers are showing. From what I can tell, that was a trend that started about two decades ago, and people have since then found out how ridiculous it looks (but not quickly enough), but there are still a few people who do it anyway. Maybe if there were more occurrences of wedgies, they’d stop doing that.

How to Fail at Making Pizza

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cheap pizza

To make food for someone else is like an expression of love. However, some people try really hard and fail. Others fail without the effort. This post offers advice on how to fail at making pizza.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone needs the advice in this post, but a lot of people put it into practice, anyway.

Step one: Go cheap.
If you’re trying to make the worst pizza, you can do as NASA does and purchase the cheapest product of what’s available. You may have to poke around at the freezer section quite a bit to find the cheapest pizza, considering that the cheapest pizza package may not be the cheapest pizza per pound. To go really cheap, go for the cheapest pizza per pound. Some supermarket chains display the price per pound. The cheapest pizza per pound tends to be made from less quality ingredients, and more can possibly go wrong while baking.

Step two: Go cheese.
It seems to me that the most popular variety of frozen pizza is cheese pizza. I think that this is because cheese pizza is like a blank canvas, whereon one can put whatever ingredients they please. To make the least of your cheese pizza, just put it into the oven as it is. To take this further, go for the cheese pizzas that, for whatever reason, don’t even have tomato sauce. I’m not sure why I’m seeing more cheese pizzas without tomato sauce. Does anyone enjoy it that way?

Step three: Or pepperoni.
The only way to make a pizza duller than a cheese pizza is to instead go with a pepperoni pizza. I don’t know how pepperoni got to be so popular as a pizza topping. What I do know is that what we call “pepperoni” in America is not actually pepperoni. The word “pepperoni” is Italian for “peppers”. Pepperoni is the most cliche, stereotypical, boring pizza topping. I actually prefer cheese pizzas to pepperoni pizzas.

Step four: Burn the cheese.
You’ll know you’ve left the pizza in the oven for too long when the cheese is dark brown. To make a real failure of a pizza, overbake it so the cheese is the hardest part to bite through, so that when someone attempts to take a bite out of a slice of pizza, they end up taking the rest of the cheese from the slice with it, possibly getting tomato sauce on their chin. This wouldn’t happen if the tomato sauce were omitted, however, so there’s a bit of a trade-off there.

Step five: Only slice the cheese.
Once the pizza is out of the oven, take the pizza cutter across the surface of the cheese. It’s permissible if the pizza cutter does make it through the dough, as long as the pizza maintains it’s overall integrity. But do cut the outer crust. The idea is to make it appear as though the pizza has been cut, so that when someone tries to take a slice of pizza with the expectation that the slice will come free, the person ends up having to slice through the pizza with a spatula to finish the job you started. Truly bad pizza isn’t just sub-par, it’s spiteful.

Step six: Set on middle of table to serve, then sit in the other room to watch soap operas.
At this point, you probably won’t be interested in partaking of your own handiwork. There are still many cafeterias you’d be well qualified for, however.

While we’re on the topic of pizza, here is a list of pizza toppings I like:

  • Hamburger – I consider this the best pizza meat topping.
  • Pineapple – This may sound strange, but it’s actually tasty.
  • Jalapeno peppers – Or habaneros.
  • Mushrooms
  • Onions – Fresh is preferred over frozen. Onions that were previously frozen are usually soggy and gross.

Have you had a bad pizza before? Please share in the comments section.

More pros than cons to providing citations and staying on topic

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I’ve decided to provide a critical analysis of a student essay by the name of “More Pros Than Cons in a Meat-Free Life” authored by Marjorie Lee Garretson, and published in the student newspaper of the University of Mississippi in April 2010. Those who wish to read the essay may do so here.

In her essay, Marjorie makes the case for a vegetarian lifestyle by stating that there are health benefits to adopting it. She also makes a moral appeal, citing the treatment of livestock used as food sources. At some points in her essay, Marjorie makes some statements that are quite emotionally charged.

The title of her article, “More Pros Than Cons in a Meat-Free Life”, is somewhat misleading, as it would lead the reader to expect an enumeration of both pros and cons to a vegetarian lifestyle. Instead, Marjorie makes a one-sided case for vegetarianism that leaves little doubt as to her position. What’s more, the title leads one to believe that the focus of the article would be the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, when in fact much of the article consists of moral appeals, such as criticizing the treatment of livestock used as food sources, even though the treatment of livestock has no direct impact on the lifestyle of a person who is either vegetarian or prefers a conventional diet.

Persons who argue for a vegetarian lifestyle typically begin on a rational-sounding note, though much of the time, their arguments quickly degrade into emotional appeals and ad-hominem attacks against anyone who would dissent. Marjorie, however, wastes little time getting to accusing adherents of the conventional diet of overlooking or ignoring for convenience the multiple benefits that she claims the vegetarian lifestyle provides.

Of course, she was only getting started. She lists the supposed benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, which she says includes:

  • lower body mass index
  • significantly decreased cancer rate
  • longer life expectancy
  • avoiding Alzheimer’s disease
  • avoiding osteoporosis

There is a problem, however. She provides no citations. Marjorie’s claims are not considered common knowledge. They challenge conventional thinking. As such, citations are important in backing up her claims. Without citations, she is allowing her audience to assume that these claims are conclusions reached as a result of years of study by educated professionals, and it would seem as though she expects that her claims will be accepted by her audience without inquiry.

This is a trend that continues in Marjorie’s writing. She goes on to claim that “It takes less energy and waste to produce vegetables and grains than the energy required to produce meat.” Do you see where this is headed? She goes on to cite the statistic that it takes 16 pounds of grain and 5000 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat. This statistic is among the most repeated among those advocating a vegetarian lifestyle. However, the statistic is false. She provides no citations, however, so she is apparently banking on her audience not being particularly inquisitive, and accepting her claims on the basis of “sounds like it’s probably true.”

However, just because something sounds eye-opening doesn’t mean it’s true. A study by the Council of Agricultural Science and Technology in 1999 has found that 2.6 pounds of grain is used to produce a pound of beef in developed countries, while in developing countries the number is 0.3 lbs (for anyone wondering, this is what a citation looks like).

Vegetarians claim that the land that is used to raise cattle and other livestock could be more productive if that same land would be used to produce vegetables and grain. However, not every plot of land is suitable for growing grain. Livestock is typically raised on marginal lands that are not suitable for growing vegetables.

Marjorie goes on to claim that the runoff of fecal matter from meat factories is the single most detrimental pollutant to our water supply. She provides as her only citation in the entire article the Environmental Protection Agency, even if she doesn’t mention a specific study, leaving her readers with the task of verification. Perhaps Marjorie was employing some psychology, intentional or not; people tend toward the path of least resistance, so they’re likely to accept her claim rather than do their own research (such as with a simple web search) to verify.

The most significant source of pollutants according to the United States Department of Agriculture is nonpoint sources. Agricultural pollutants are among the pollutants that fall under this category. However, the EPA lists among these pollutants “Excess fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides from agricultural lands and residential areas”. So, ironically, Marjorie’s only citation in her one-sided case for vegetarianism is for a study that states that runoff from growing vegetables is among the most significant pollutants for water. Other sources of nonpoint pollution include urban runoff, salt from irrigation practices, and other sources.

The following charts show the ratio of pollutants in water supplies. Interestingly, as much as industry is demonized for being a significant polluter, it comes nowhere close to non-point pollutants, to which agriculture contributes heavily:

Percentages_sources_of_pollution_that_impair_water_bodies

Source: United States Department of Agriculture, Public Domain

Marjorie goes on to cite inhumane treatment of livestock. While there may be a problem with the treatment of livestock, vegetarians seem to idealize life in the wilderness. Anyone who thinks that life in the wilderness is idyllic has not spent a significant amount of time outdoors. Most people don’t have to. It’s typically done for a refreshing change of pace or to enjoy scenery.

For animals, however, it’s a different story. Animals live there. And for them, it’s a constant battle for survival. Nearly every organism in the wild is surrounded by predators and scavengers, many of which would happily accept them as their next food source, and not care about their objections or opinions on the matter. When animals do die, it’s usually a painful death as a result of predation.

Humans give livestock a pretty sweet deal. Livestock get to live with no fear of predation. They get enough to eat, whether it’s enough to sustain them or plenty to prevent them from getting too lean. When the time comes to make them into our food, we make things much quicker than predatory animals do.

Marjorie also voices objection to the practice of using livestock to obtain dairy products such as milk and eggs. She likens the practice to that of puppy mills, and accuses adherents of the conventional diet of looking the other way when it comes to livestock.

Again, the title of Marjorie’s work is “More Pros Than Cons in a Meat-Free Life”, which leads the reader into believing that the potential cons of the decision to go vegetarian would be considered. However, Marjorie doesn’t list any. It shouldn’t be a surprise by now that Marjorie was not interested in providing an objective analysis of the options. It should be easy to guess what her position is.

If Marjorie were to touch upon the cons of living a meat-free lifestyle, she’d have a fair amount to discuss. For example, those who are strictly vegan have no sources of iodine or essential B vitamins, a deficiency of which can lead to mental retardation and irreversible neurological damage. However, that’s a potential for discussion that she ignored.

Due to the deficit of citations and the overall level of professionalism in this piece, I do not believe that Marjorie’s essay is University-level work. The University of Mississippi should have felt at least a little hesitant in posting it on their web space as representative of their student’s work, and if this work is reprinted in any textbook (as it is in mine), students would be right to critically analyze it to identify Marjorie’s mistakes, and avoid making the same ones themselves.

Works Cited:

“CAST Animal Agriculture and Global Food Supply.” Publications. CAST, 1 Jan. 1999. Web. 22 Jan. 2015. <http://www.cast-science.org/publications/?animal_agriculture_and_global_food_supply&show=product&productID=2836&gt;.

“What Is Nonpoint Source Pollution?” What Is Nonpoint Source Pollution? EPA. Web. 22 Jan. 2015. <http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/nps/whatis.cfm&gt;.