Recent content by mikespoff

"It's hard to ask movies to be better than this!" - 4.5 stars.

Visual Studio isn't a company, it's a design environment. That means it's a program that helps you write computer code, in the same way that Microsoft Word is a program that helps you make documents or PowerPoint helps you make presentations.

Woo hoo, a new Shamus post! And it's GOOD! This doesn't work. If I use Visual Studio to write a program, then by your definition I'm playing a game, since a successfully written program can be termed a "win condition". I like Shamus' definition, partly because it doesn't try to be...

Actually, one hopeful indication on the horizon is a seldom-discussed aspect of Skyrim. That is, the guard dialog. Yes, all that crap about "Hail Companion!", and "I don't suppose you'd enchant my sword?" It seems pretty trivial, and it can get a little repetitive, but it's actually an...

Woo hoo! More Shamus! :) Great article, and I see that several people have already made the same logical leaps as me... I didn't mind the radiant quests. The thing is, Skyrim is so incredibly vast that in four play-throughs I STILL haven't actually explored the whole place. So those...

Kate was hilarious in this one. Great episode, guys.

Sorry, but that's incorrect. The word "marriage" is derived from Anglo-French and dates from the late thirteenth century. For the last thousand years of western civilisation, the concept has been pretty much unchanged, and thus the word has always had a clear meaning. Moving from a relationship...

Interesting article, but I have to question this statement: I disagree that civil unions are inherently "unequal" just because they are separate from marriage. If they have the same legal standing, I think that it is a superior option than trying to re-define marriage. It is useful to...

Go see it, it's a fantastic transferral of musical theatre to the big screen. wrt not hearing about the book, I'm not sure what country you went to school in but generally it wouldn't be covered in English class because it is a French book, and translations tend to get passed over in favour...

It's a musical. It's all about the great music and melodrama. I don't know why you would believe Bob's opinion over your own experience. I thought the film was fantastic. Complaining about the musical aspects is like complaining about the action sequences in an action movie or the scary bits...

No, don't take his word for it. See, this is actually a really handy list for judging how a given critic's personal tastes stack up against your own. You thought that DKR was terrible, Bob loved it enough to put it in his top 10 best films. Now Bob says he hates Les Mis, and you're going to...

That is a sweet Hanar hat, but the "Bigfoot McNuggets" was the moment that my coffee went up my nose.

I know "monkey" is a funny word to say, but seriously, is is so hard to say: "It's a love story with giant apes"?

No. As in, no, it's not the case. I have an engineering degree, and I now work in science. Most of the scientists that I work with dislike maths and avoid it wherever possible; most of the engineers that I know have an instinctive affinity for maths sets them apart from the rest of the...

Great article. Hopefully Bob, and other comic geek commentators, can remember these lessons. I'm thinking in particular of the recent attempt to launch a "Wonder Woman" tv show, which ended in disaster and cancellation. When the first stills came out to promote it, everyone (including here...