Killing of the Real-time Strategy game

Real time strategy (RTS) game is often defined by what it is not, rather than what it is.  When looking up real time strategy game, you'll often find it described as a strategy game that is not turned-based.¹  I find this tendency as funny.  Normally, something is defined by its characteristics, not the lack thereof.  A real time strategy game is a strategy game played in real time (hence the name) between two or more opposing teams.  Elements of real time strategy games typically include fighting units used for attack, harvesting units used to gather resources, structures of various functions, terrains of various properties that aid or reduce defense, unit spawning, hidden map areas until explored (fog of war), etc.

Command & Conquer
(famous RTS)

Generally, real time strategy games allow the player to control position of units on a field of play (map) with various types of terrain. Units can be assigned to act on specified targets.  For example, harvesting units can be assigned to collect resources at a specific location on the map.  Another example, fighting units can be assigned to attack (cause damage) on specified opponent's units.  Typically, units without specified targets will act autonomously in how they attack nearby opposing units or collect nearby resources.

One of the first real time strategy games is The Ancient Art of War, which was initially released in 1984.  I played this game for many hours.  I even also designed many of my own levels for this game.  Many games have followed.  Dune II is often considered the break-thru title that popularized real time strategy.  Prior to online gaming, many releases of real time strategy games supported diverse game-play possibilities.

An alternate viewpoint about real time strategy games can be found in the article What is a real-time strategy game? An exploration and definition.

Currently, real-time strategy games are looking like the proverbial red-headed step child of gaming. Fairly few RTS are being made any more (for a variety of reasons, but that is a topic for another article perhaps) and they tend not to sell particularly well, nor do most of them hold on to viable communities for considerable periods of time...

The author of this article laments that real time strategy games have not been particularly common or successful in recent years.

I found another article, Did the multiplayer online battle arena kill real-time strategy, that claims to explain why real time strategy games aren't be developed anymore, from a perspective of a Blizzard fan.  In this article, the cause is passively blamed on the popularization of massive multiplayer (MMO) online games.  I think this author is wrong.  He references events long after real time strategy games began to falter.  However, the popularization of online gaming is related to the demise of the real time strategy genre, it wasn't related to MMO's, such as World of Warcraft.

Real time strategy games seemed to be an excellent fit for online gaming.  Instead of being pitted against the limited AI, players are able to play against other humans.  However, instead of valuing the challenge of playing against humans with various strategies, a vocal set of players didn't want other humans to use other types of winning strategies against them. They wanted to limit all human players to the same strategies that they chose for themselves.

Developers unfortunately listened to these vocal users too much and reduced real time strategy games down to frantic rushes to resources and frantic rushes on opponent's bases with very repetitive build order of units and structures.  Instead of adding capabilities to increase the number of possible strategies (to better match the real world), developers reduced game play down to focus on one strategy.  The games were still tactical in how you faced units against each other, but they lost all sense of strategy.  With reduced game play possibilities, developers lost their ability to be innovative and bring in new inspiration into the subsequent real time strategy games.  Without the ability to expand playable strategies of real time strategy games, the genre has atrophied.

Significantly higher rate of foodborne illness and death in cities with plastic bag bans

In 2007, San Francisco, CA became the first county in the US (or anywhere) to ban plastic bags at grocery stores. A 2012 study titled Grocery Bag Bans and Foodborne Illness by Jonathan Klick University of Pennsylvania and Joshua d. Wright of George Mason University stated the following,

We find that the San Francisco County ban is associated with a 46 percent increase in deaths from foodborne illnesses. 

The study not only links deaths to the plastic bag ban, but also the additional costs of illness for those who get sick, but do not die.  What is the reason for more people getting sick?  The study claims it is because we are reusing our reusable shopping bags without cleaning them between uses!

The study goes on to point out that similar increases in illnesses from foodborne diseases have been seen in other communities that have since also banned plastic bags.

Ick!

I pointed out this potential problem about six years ago in my Tuesday Two/Epoch-Fail series, where I stated,

And what of reusable canvas bags? Heh. Guess what. You have to buy them. They get very unsanitary very quickly. Wanna guess how many patrons are not washing them regularly? There are reasons behind our strict food handling guidelines, and canvas bags now represent a very weak link in food safety

The Grocery Bag Bans and Foodborne Illness study isn't perfect, but it does coincide with my statements.  However, it's not just about keeping bags washed.  The study finds that we store the reusable bags in places that tend to breed bacteria, such as car trunks.

The study also points out that the overall cost of the ban doesn't come close to breaking even with the benefit seen to the environment as a result of the ban.  In other words, the cost of plastic bag bans is substantially greater than the cost benefit to the environment!

The problem is that we have local governments making rules about society without proper research in vain attempts at social engineering.  Before the plastic bag bans went into effect, these governments should've found and implemented safe alternatives.  It's been eights years since that original ban, and we still do not have safe alternatives even being proposed!  What we do have is more cities and counties pushing for expansion of the ban, despite the harm it causes us and the lack of actual benefit to the environment.

Lack of reproducibility of scientific papers getting attention

A lack of reproducibility of published scientific studies is finally getting recognition by the corporations (that seems to me to that could lose millions from bad research).  Academia seems a bit resist.  Source article:
 Reseach uncovering unreproducibility faces backlash 

I know English is evolving when I hear these words in a courtroom

I was recently snared into Jury Duty in Massachusetts.  This isn't so much an article about that.  Instead, this is about something I noticed while listening to the case before me and my 5 other jurors; word choices.

The first interesting word was uttered by the Prosecutor quoting the defendant who was fighting a DUI charge. The Prosecutor stated that the defendant pleaded with the arresting officer to cut him a break because he was not cocked.  This word cocked was used in a mocking manner by the prosecutor several times in his opening and closing arguments.

The second word that stood out was spoken by the Defense attorney.  While questioning the arresting officer, the Defense attorney asked about the likelihood of something-or-another.  What caught my attention is that he used the prolly, instead of prob'ly or probably.  The use of this word in such a formal manner struck me, since the word is still considered by many to be of the mythically inferior not-a-word status.

The last spoken element I picked up on was the Judge's use of the idiom begging-the-question.  I've written about the idiom begging-the-question quite recently.  There are two official definitions for the idiom.  The traditional definition is based on a logical fallacy.  The modern definition is an alternative for raises-the-question; this was Judge's use that day.  It is interesting to note that both definitions appear in dictionaries now.

There is increased awareness of general problem with #scientific studies right now, with #preclinical at the crux

Over reliance on study conclusions and flaws within scientific studies is a troubling problem that is recently getting more attention, finally.

The Economics of Reproducibility in Preclinical Research study states,

Flawed preclinical studies create false hope for patients waiting for lifesaving cures; moreover, they point to systemic and costly inefficiencies in the way preclinical studies are designed, conducted, and reported. Because replication and cumulative knowledge production are cornerstones of the scientific process, these widespread accounts are scientifically troubling.

The problems go beyond preclinical studies.  I've approached this topic before in two previous articles.

• "To good to be true" - Criticism of scientific studies grows
• Reason why I'm skeptical of Skepticism

As more studies and data are revealed about this issue, the problem seems to be far worse than some may have believed.  This most recent study suggests that 50% of preclinical studies are plagued with errors which prevent their results from being reproduced.  As any high school graduate should know, reproducibility of a study's result is the cornerstone of the Scientific Method.  Anyone must be able to use the same methods of the study to find similar results.  If results cannot be reproduced, the study has no scientific value and cannot be used as a reference or source for further discovery.

To sound the alarm even louder, Nature's article Irreproducible biology research costs put at $28 billion per year cites that as much as 89% of studies may have irreproducible results.  They state,

Overall, the team [study researchers] found that poor materials made the largest contribution to reproducibility problems, at 36%, followed by study design at 28% and data analysis at 26%. The team estimates the overall rate of irreproducibility at 53%, but cautions that the true rate could be anywhere between 18% and 89%. That puts the potential economic cost of irreproducibility anywhere from $10 billion to $50 billion per year.

This is a problem that needs to be tackled.  It is costing billions of dollars, and perhaps putting lives at risk.

The stars can affect your life...well, one star in particular may help trigger strokes

There is a lack of respect in skeptic circles regarding Astrology and the ability of the stars to affect our lives.  Skepticism is sound, for the most part.  However, one star in particular cannot only affect our lives, it can kill or maim us, and not in a way that many expect.  There is growing evidence that links geomagnetic storms from our Sun to an increase number of strokes within the human population.

There is now growing concern about the frequency of first-time strokes and correlation with geomagnetic storms.  A study was released last year, titled Geomagnetic Storms Can Trigger Stroke - Evidence From 6 Large Population-Based Studies in Europe and Australasia (link is to abstract).

An article about this study by Medscape Medical News had the following additional comment,

Dr. Feigin told Medscape Medical News that geomagnetic activity has also been associated with increased rates of heart attacks, suicides, and acute psychiatric admissions."We have known for ages that geomagnetic storms can shut down electrical stations across many regions and affect satellite navigation equipment, so it is logical that they can also affect human health," he commented.

The geomagnetic storm study (source) itself found that,

...high levels of geomagnetic activity (ie, those accompanying geomagnetic storms, predominately during solar maxima years) are important predictors of stroke.

What does this mean for the average person?  I don't know.  I haven't found any sources that convert this new found knowledge into something actionable for us laypersons.  It does leave the mind to wonder and speculate, though.  If someone is in a high-risk group of stroke susceptibility, should they chill out for a couple of days for geomagnetic storms to pass? If so, how so?

Begs the question is the idiom that you aren't using wrong, but some think you do

Are you begging the question?  What is begging a question?  Well, it depends.  There are two different terms that are very similar, but have very different uses.  The first is beg the question fallacy.  This is the traditional use of the term. This is a type of fallacy where a premise includes the claim or assumption that its conclusion is true.  (This is covered in some brief detail at Fallacy: Begging the Question (backup link).)

For example, "All cats are evil, otherwise you would not see cats do evil things."

The premise of this statement is that cats are evil, and the justification is that you see cats do evil things.  The statement forms a circular argument.

But, there's another common use of the term that often appears as , "begs the question", as in, "your statement begs the question of who will do this work".  It means that there is an obvious or ignored question that arises from a statement.

There are grammarians and logicians that will argue that this is somehow the wrong use of the term, such as the website begthequestion.info (backup link) (which dedicates itself to this topic).  Ironically, these individuals often employ logical fallacies to disregard the modern usage of the term.  There are people that seem gleefully unaware of how English works.  Common usage is correct usage. Dictionaries now list the modern usage on equal weight as the logical fallacy definition.  See idioms area on freedictionary.com (backup link).

There is often a claim that using the phrase in the modern sense is somehow confusing (see some of these claims on QuickAndDirty.com (backup link) by Grammar Girl). However, common usage is so prevalent, there is no confusion as to when the term is being used one way or another.  If someone wishes to distinguish between the logical fallacy and the assertion of an obvious/ignored question, then they do so with context, just as they would for the use of any other common terms with multiple meanings.  This begs the question, why is denial of the validity of the modern definition so important to some people?

"To good to be true" - Criticism of scientific studies grows

It is almost ironic, the other day I posted this article Reason Why I'm Skeptical of Skepticism which criticized over reliance on many study conclusions without actual supporting or valid data within the studies.  Now, just a few days later, there is a new published "study of studies" which reinforces the idea of being skeptical of scientific study conclusions, Excess Success for Psychology Articles in the Journal Science.  This study exposes that many studies in Psychology have issues, where the declared conclusions are simply "to good to be true" based on the strength of the data.  The inference being that there may be a general problem with all fields of science.

"Not every experiment is methodologically sound, and some experiments (even if methodologically sound) do not clarify the status of a theoretical idea. There is little reason to publish such experimental results, whether they are statistically significant or not. Unfortunately, in day-to-day scientific practice it is quite easy to interpret an unsuccessful outcome as being irrelevant to the theory or as being methodologically flawed and therefore not worth reporting."

In other words, data is cherry-picked in support of the theory rather than attempting to take contrary results into account.  This is basically throwing out the Scientific Method when it doesn't result in data this supports a theory.  In other cases, data collection is just too imprecise to form a suitable theory.  Kind of like garage-in-garbage-out.

I have a feeling a growing criticism of the current system is going to force changes into the process of study publishing and utilization.

Reason why I'm skeptical of Skepticism

There is a plague on modern science and Skepticism.  That plague is over reliance upon research reports.  Research report is a gathering of pre-existing data (the "re" in "research"), repurposed to find patterns.  The problem is that many research reports are created to find correlations in support of predetermined conclusions (assumptions).  Research reports are often formatted as scientific studies and published in science journals along side scientific studies that use the Scientific Method.

What is the Scientific Method?  First, wonder about a phenomenon and ask a question.  Conduct research on that question.  Then, construct a hypothesis (a proposed explanation for the phenomenon). A hypothesis must be formed in such a way to be tested for being  false (falsifiability). The subsequent test must be done in such a way as to try to disprove your hypothesis.  Only after all of this can you analyze your data and form a conclusion from that data.  The final step is to share your results for others to review and check, often in the form of their own studies.  For a study to have value, its results must be replicated by others.¹

The Scientific Method is valuable because it helps eliminate incorrect explanations for a phenomenon.  For example, say someone as a hypothesis that lemons are yellow because someone paints them with yellow paint.  You can test this in any number of ways.  You can go to an orchard and watch the lemons grow, changing color as they mature.  You can buy a lemon at a store and cut it, looking for a layer of paint.  You can peel the lemon and send the skin to a lab to search for significant amounts of paint.  Any of these tests would prove the hypothesis false.  Someone else could create a new hypothesis about why lemons are yellow, knowing that the cause is not paint.

The limitation of an unscientific research report is that it only requires you to visit a grocery store to see that the lemons are yellow in order to confirm your assumption that they've been painted yellow by a person.

Research reports often lack several crucial steps compared to Scientific Method.  First, the purpose of a research report is often to collect data in support of a pre-existing assumption.  An assumption is different than a hypothesis because an assumption is not a proposed explanation for a phenomenon; rather an assumption is that there is a phenomenon ("someone is painting those lemons yellow", instead of asking "why are lemons yellow?").  Second, no test is performed in support of this assumption.  Data is unscientifically collected from different studies, reports and other sources rather than being the results of a direct test.  There is certainly no falsifiability test.  Third, the results of the collected data are often correlated to the original assumption rather than standing on their own within the conclusion.

What's wrong with correlation between data sets?  Correlation is an indicator, but it is not a identifier. The common phrase is "correlation is not causation."  It is extremely easy to correlate unrelated things.  There is a website dedicated to just this.  This is why the Scientific Method requires a falsifiability test.  It eliminates the reliance on correlation.

Now, this is not to say all research reports are bad.  A research report that uses the Scientific Method to analyze data in a way that can be demonstrated with falsifiability does have value.  But, it is very hard tell good reports apart from bad reports using quick Twitter or reddit title links.  You have to read the report to know if it has value or if it is pseudoscience.  You have to read the whole report because the report's title and conclusions often do not even match-up the data within the report.

This is where I run into issues with Skepticism.  Skepticism tends consider any conclusions of a published research report (in support of presumed consensus) to be the same as studies using the Scientific Method.  Opinions regarding concepts outside the presumed consensus are immediately rejected (even if they are published) without regard to the quality of the report or study.  I cannot count how many times I've read a promoted research report, only to find that the evidence in the report is based correlated cherry-picked data.  Blind acceptance of research report conclusions is a big problem with Skepticism, especially as it grows in popularity among Atheists and other non-religious folks.  I've seen seen sources such as "skeptic" magazines that site unscientific research reports as though they are undeniable fact.  It is a problem being exacerbated by the ease with which (mis)information flows on the Internet through various social media and various other media outlets.

Other reading

In researching this topic, I found a very interesting "study of studies" about the flaws in most studies, Why most published research findings are false. Nothing in my article here is based on this study, so take this as a completely different source.  It is worth the read, and more fuel for the fire to be skeptical, not just of Skepticism, but of anyone trying to use a "study" to promote a notion.

I learned a little bit about travel this weekend

Allie and I went to the Southern New England AAA Travel Show this weekend at Twin Rivers Casino.  I learned that for some types of trips, it pays to plan early but book late.  Other types of trips, it pays to book early, period.  Balancing flights with the rest of the trip seems to be a bit of an art form.    We didn't go to the expo to book a trip.  We just went for ideas...and ideas are to be gained!

There were a lot of travel vendors at the expo, and a lot of AAA agents available for booking trips immediately. One lacking thing I noted is that most of the vendors didn't have swag.  The ones that did pretty much just offered candy.  A couple offered pens.  Eh.

Some people have goals or accomplishments where they've been/plan-to-go to every country.  My sites are not so grandiose.  I simply want to at least visit each of the continents.  So far, I have Asia, North America and Europe.  That leaves South America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica.