Alternative Fuel Sources Post 2

   I recently found an interesting article that discusses how Obama set a goal for America to reduce oil imports by one-third by the year 2025. While it's nice that President Obama has set a fairly realistic goal for America, it will still be hard to follow through, because he's definately not going to stay in office for that amount of time to make sure that goal is completed. While it's important for America to become more independent on energy sources that we can find, this is not an easy task to complete, because transitioning from oil imports to American resources might not be too predictable, when it comes to prices. One thing that I found interesting about this article was the critism that President Obama recieved by a Republican Senator, and how he reacted to it.


"Republicans have blamed Obama's policies for the rising gas prices, pointing to the slow pace of issuing permits for new offshore oil wells in the wake of last summer's massive Gulf of Mexico spill and an Obama-imposed moratorium on new deep-water exploration.
The president struck back at that criticism Wednesday, saying his administration has approved 39 shallow water drilling permits since new standards were put in place last year, and seven new deep-water drilling permits in recent weeks."

   While making the effort to initiate offshore drilling is important, and possibly crucial, if the Americans are to complete the president's goal, there has to be even more possible energy sources besides oil that can be used. While Obama's plan to cut oil imports may seem like a good idea, the problems with this outweight the benefits. You can't just cut something that we are constantly using. The US has to already be initiating offshore drilling and effectively using that oil before any oil imports are to be cut. If the president does not realize this, then his plan will backfire. It's one thing to have a plan and to set goals, but reducing imports without already using the oil from offshore drilling is not the best idea.
   Besides, even if the US successfully reduces oil imports from the Middle East, there are still cars that use oil for fuel, and not any "hybrid" power. There's no telling that oil prices will continue to increase, but for the people who drive regular cars, it will not be easy to pay for gasoline when the prices continue to rise.


In case you were interested in the actual article, the link is here.

Issue's Project: Alternative Fuel Souces/Alt. Sources of Energy Post 1

   As prices for gasoline continue to spike upwards in the U.S. due to rising conflicts in the Middle East, many have been trying to find other means of obtaining enough oil for cars and other vehicles in the U.S. However, this is easier said than done, because it can be (not always though) very difficult to find other means of energy, whether it is price of those alternate sources, or lack of enough of it to power the whole country.
   But not to worry, because President Obama has the hope and confidence that very few other Americans truly have with finding and transitioning to a "clean energy economy." There was an article on CBS News, called,

"Obama: Growth tied to energy independence"

 that discussed Obama's seemingly encourging words for using cleaner energy. Although I agree with what he wants to do and why, it seems like his execution at actually getting it done may not be effective enough to push his plans forward. One of the more striking things that I found from this article was the statistic that the author threw in.

"Oil prices have been rising because of growing demand in China and continued instability in some oil-producing countries in the Middle East. That, in turn, has pushed gasoline prices to new highs. The national average for a gallon of gas hit $3.619 on Friday, the highest price ever for this time of year, according to AAA and other sources. Prices have climbed 23.2 cents in the past month and more than 81 cents in the past year."
While this price hike is bad, no matter what political side you are on, the solutions for lowing prices may not become effective right away, depending on what sources the U.S. decides to use in place off fossil fuels, and how much of that source reall is available within a given amount of time.

In case you were interested in reading the actual article, you can find the link here

Random video game review: Crysis 2 Multiplayer first impressions

   There's no denying that game publisher companies EA and Activision are in serious competition with each other. Whether it is visible to the gamer's eyes or not, these two companies do whatever they can in their power to buy our small or medium to large game developers and try to control them to make a popular, but not always great game. Many of the campiagns that I have heard about  and have played at least part of (i.e. COD: Black Ops and MOH) have the same issue: short campaigns, heavy emphisis on multiplayer. While multiplayer gameplay is a great feature to have in a game (especially when it well-balanced and an overall fun experience), perhaps these two publishers take "too much" from each other to the point where any game that is advertised on ign.com or gamespot is just a combo of hundreds of other games out there. Crysis 2, developed by Crytec, published by EA (running on the Crytec 3 engine) is no different. In fact, the multplayer is just a more diluted and unbalanced bland version of COD, Halo, and Killzone's  mutiplayer, with maybe on or two twists.
   While it's really cool to have powerups such as extra armor, heat vision, and invisibility, this only works well in theory. The armor powerup, for me at least, has proven to be ineffective against enemies, and the invisibility always starts to wear off whenever I am close to an enemy. Perhaps this is because I am just not good at the game, but these are issue's that take away from my experience as a player.
   I guess I should mention that overall the hit detection is not very good, even with the sticky-aim, otherwise known as "Aim Assist" is on, and proving to be functional. Sometime's an enemy would take 50 shots from my gun to the head, but yet only 20 shots from their gun to my chest kill me write away, leaving him unharmed. Even COD isn't this bad, when it comes to hit detection. There is usually some form of lag in COD, but at least everything else is fairly balanced. I will say that the level design though is pretty good and interesting, and the game itself looks quite incredible on the Playstation 3.
   Even if you disagree with this semi-review, keep in  mind that I am not fantastic at the FPS genre, but I have at least some experience between COD, BC2, MOH, and a few others. This is just my opinion on the very little amount of gameplay time that I have spent on the multiplayer.