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Ethics: The Missing Manual

To answer this particular question, I advocate using your Weird Idea Radar, constantly saying yes to new experiences until you stumble upon something that you can really sink your teeth into.

But equally important is a tool with which to measure the value of your experiences, an instrument that will not only give you readings of “Bad”, “Good”, “Better”, and “Best” but that also explains why this is so. That instrument is ethics.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that illuminates the path to right action. It is not just about determining which actions which should be legal or illegal; any evaluation of bad, good, better, and best, whether on a personal, social, or societal level falls within the concern of ethics.

If your moral code is based on Marxist ideas, your life goals are going to be completely different from someone whose moral code is derived from Objectivism. Likewise, a hedonist’s ethics will result in a completely different day-to-day experience compared to someone whose moral guide is the Bible.

And here’s the thing: not all moral codes are created equal. If your moral code is broken, it doesn’t matter how you answer the goals question, because the answer will always point you in the wrong direction.

Ethics is the primary deliverable of philosophy. The rest-metaphysics (the nature of reality), epistemology (the nature of knowledge), and esthetics (the nature of beauty)-is interesting only because it all lays the groundwork for understanding how to conduct our lives.

And while an entire book on ethics is at the core of most contributions of those we consider great philosophers-Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, and Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason come to mind-the subject of ethics is conspicuously absent from self-help literature.

In most cases, it is conspicuously ignored.

Excerpt from Why you should study Philosophy,

List of commercial games released as freeware

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“List of Commercial Games Released as Freeware”

“We know that 41 percent of pe…

“We know that 41 percent of people admit to using the same password on every web site and account that they access” Graham Cluley Sophos PLC

Most-played Live Titles of 2008 (based on unique user data).

1.  Halo 3
2 . Call of Duty 4
3 . GTA IV
4 . Gears of War 2
5 . Gears of War
6 . CoD: World at War
7 . Guitar Hero III
8 . Battlefield: Bad Company (Demo)
9 . Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (Demo)
10 . Rock Band
11 . Fable II
12 . Mirror’s Edge (Demo)
13 . Madden NFL 09
14 . Battlefield: Bad Company
15 . Rainbow Six Vegas 2
16 . UNO
17 . Castle Crashers
18 . CoD: World at War (Multiplayer BETA)
19 . Forza Motorsport 2
20 . Too Human (Demo)

Forza Motorsport 3 screenshot



Images leaked by a design company that has worked with developer Turn 10 and Microsoft have apparently confirmed the existence of Forza 3.

First spotted by forum posters on Forzacentral.com, four sample Forza Race Event posters popped up on the website of Kaarbo Design, a design studio that specialises in PC and next generation console user interfaces.

According to its website, Kaarbo worked on the original Forza, and lists Microsoft as well as Turn 10 as its clients.

Predictably, the posters have been pulled by Kaarbo. However, someone over at Forzacentral cleverly took a screen grab, meaning you can check them out here.

The posters provide the strongest indication yet that the game is not only in the works but also has Turn 10, the studio responsible for the excellent Forza and Forza 2, directing development – news that is sure to please the series’ army of fans.

This isn’t the first Forza 3 related leak the internet has drummed up. Back in June 2008, the infamous Intellisponse leak, which broke the existence of Xbox Avatars before they were officially announced at E3, also brought word that Forza 3 would ship on two discs, have some sort of “assist system”, will come with 400 cars and 100 tracks and will have car deformation.

There’s no reason to suggest Forza 3, which now looks like a dead cert to hit stores this year, will be anything but brilliant too.

Audible’s 31 Days To A Better You

Audible has come up with an ingenious offering that writers may enjoy. On each day of January, Audible will offer an excerpt from one of its audio books on some aspect of self-improvement. Today, for example, one can listen to Brian Tracy read an excerpt from his book Flight Plan about goal setting and one’s point of view on life. It’s a brief listen, and it’s thought-provoking. Learn more at the site’s 31 Days To A Better You. You can sign up for a daily reminder about that day’s free reading.

Audible benefits by showing off 31 of its titles. Of course, listeners are offered the option to buy the entire audiobook online. Be assured, however, that purchase is not required. Your daily readings are indeed free.

The writer who follows this daily regimen during January will encounter encouragement to take steps to imporove your life. Furthermore, the writer is exposed easily to a range of samples from audiobooks, an experience that might open one’s eyes to yet another avenue to pursue with getting your own writing out to the world.

I personally have been a long-time member of Audible. The service is especially useful to anyone with vision problems. But many commuters also download books to listen to on their Ipods on the way to work. Every day, I get my audio subscription to the New York Times, which presents not only front page news, but also book and movie reviews, along with other feature stories that I generally find very interesting.