Author: Steve Murray

Leave a comment Posted on January 6, 2013January 6, 2013 by Steve Murray Link-Off

Sunday Link-Off: Deal or No Deal

After a few rather slim linkdumps, the internet is back up and running which means we have a regular sized set of links today. Since I have some photos queued up that I keep meaning to run at the start of the links, here’s Eva Longoria.

America’s fiscal cliff was solved just in time by the US Congress. It’s just a temporary thing because there is a debt ceiling crisis looming in which the Republicans will play chicken with the world economy again by threatening to default on their debt. Anyway, the bad blood between Democrats and Republicans almost meant that this deal didn’t get done. (Politico)

The folks at Bloomberg did an in-depth recap of this summer’s infamous maple syrup heist. Yes, it was that big a story. (Businessweek)

The hacking group Anonymous scares a lot of people but they’re often a force for good. For example, they uncovered evidence in the case of a rape allegedly committed (innocent until guilty) by high school football players in Stubenville, Ohio. (The Atlantic Wire)

After the jump, Normstradamus has a golf column, Guy Fieri has more crappy food for you and a massive NYE TV fail. Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on January 5, 2013January 4, 2013 by Steve Murray Humour

Caption This: December 29, 2012 – January 4, 2013

Inspired by the Globe and Mail’s caption writing person, we waste our time writing funny picture captions for some of the more interesting photos we come across when blogging. So here are some of the best pictures from the past week with a funny (-ish) caption. Continue reading →

4 Comments Posted on January 4, 2013December 27, 2012 by Steve Murray Video Games

The Economics of Video Game Development

A few weeks back, one of the hot stories in the video game world was that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 reached gross sales of $1 billion in only 15 days. What sounded like good news for publisher Activision was quickly reigned in by writers pointing out that CoD: Blops 2 sold fewer copies to reach $1 billion of gross sales than 2011’s CoD: Modern Warfare 3.

This raised an interesting question in my mind: How profitable are video games to make? Even if Blops2 sold fewer copies, shouldn’t Activision still have covered the sunk costs of development and marketing after paying for the variable costs of each unit sold? Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on January 2, 2013January 1, 2013 by Steve Murray Link-Off

Wednesday Link-Off: Happy New Year

Well, I’d like to say that I had a better start of 2013 linkdump for you but the internet’s pretty much been shutdown since, well, Christmas. I do have a few links but it’ll be a pretty short post. Anyhow, let’s start with Genevieve Morton.

If you live in a Canadian border town, you’ll probably have been the victim of random roaming charges because your phone picked up the stronger American signal. It’s not just happening to you. It happens to a lot of people and the cell phone companies aren’t too worried about being proactive about it. (CBC News)

Scientists believe that garbled text messages could be a sign of serious neurological issues such a stroke. (CNET)

You might not consider pickpocketing a form of magic but the way the world’s greatest pickpocket, Apollo Robbins, does it, it may just be. (The New Yorker)

After the jump, a look inside NBC’s Sunday Night Football, new year’s resolutions for video game journalists and Stephen Harper style. Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on January 1, 2013December 25, 2012 by Steve Murray Randominity

The Lowdown Blog Annual: 2012

With the start of a new year today, let’s take a look back at the last 12 months on the blog. Last year was another massive year for the blog. We nearly tripled our traffic over our 2011 and had more traffic in the last 12 months than the 36 months our blog was around previous to that. That was probably helped by our emphasis on longer posts and columns which got us featured on Freshly Pressed for the first time this year. So let’s look back at the year with our most read posts from 2012, the most read posts overall in 2012 and the best liked posts of 2012. Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on December 31, 2012December 31, 2012 by Steve Murray Entertainment

Worst of Music 2012 Retrospective

There were some highlights in music this year but, as always, those highlights were largely overshadowed by some craptacular music in 2012. While the Worst of Music feature wasn’t on the blog regularly this year, that didn’t mean that music got better this year. Apart from some highlights like Psy and Adele, there was a lot of bad music other than the 15 WoM winners of 2012.

To look back on the year that was in music, both the good but mostly bad, here’s is a collection of mashups of the hit songs of 2012. Continue reading →

Leave a comment Posted on December 30, 2012December 30, 2012 by Steve Murray Link-Off

Sunday Link-Off: Ending 2012

As the year comes to an end, we’ve reached the last linkdump of 2012. I probably should have made this the year-in-review post but there were almost no other links to choose from for last Wednesday’s linkdump apart from the year-in-review links. Mind you, this linkdump isn’t looking too long either. Anyway, start the last linkdump of the year with Nina Agdal. You’ll be seeing her again when I do the annual SI Swimsuit cover odds post.

The courts may have bounced Toronto mayor Rob Ford out of office but it certainly hasn’t solved all of Toronto’s problems. (MacLean’s)

The most interesting story of the US Presidential election may have come two months after the vote. Tagg Romney says his father, Mitt, never really wanted to be President. (Daily Kos)

Wikipedia has finished up its annual fundraising drive. The problem is, though, how Wikipedia uses the money. They don’t seem to need all of it. (The Register)

After the jump, why it’s okay to not lower expectations, plenty of oral histories and some best of 2012 videos. Continue reading →

1 Comment Posted on December 29, 2012December 29, 2012 by Steve Murray Humour

Caption This: January 1 – December 31, 2012

Inspired by the Globe and Mail’s caption writing person, we waste our time writing funny picture captions for some of the more interesting photos we come across when blogging. So here are some of the best pictures from the whole of 2012 with a funny (-ish) caption. Continue reading →

4 Comments Posted on December 28, 2012December 28, 2012 by Steve Murray Video Games

My Twelve Favourite Video Games of 2012

Since we’re doing lists of our favourite things of 2012, I thought I would cover video games. This was an odd year in gaming. New triple-A IPs were few and far between. Sequels were the name of the game this year as developers and publishers bided their time until the launch of the next generation of XBox and Playstation. However, thanks to Kickstarter, indie game bundles and digital distribution on multiple platforms, I think 2012 started to usher in more emphasis on high-quality independently developed games.

So in no particular order, here are my favourite games of 2012. Continue reading →