There simply is no evidence that video games lead to murderous gun rampages.
Guns, however, are involved in every mass shooting.
This post is in: Gamer Dork, Gun nuts
There simply is no evidence that video games lead to murderous gun rampages.
Guns, however, are involved in every mass shooting.
This post is in: Gamer Dork, Movies, Open Threads
Paul Constant, at the Stranger:
There has never been a good movie based on a video game. Think about that for a second. For twenty years, Hollywood has been trying to adapt video games to film; Wikipedia lists 29 adaptations made in that time. They’ve never successfully made a good one. And so I am highly nervous about the news that Duncan Jones is going to make a World of Warcraft movie. Jones’s first movie, Moon, was a home run. His second movie, Source Code, was not very good at all, although it was at least ambitious and demonstrated his craftsmanship. But this is going to require a lot of work…
Read the whole thing (it’s short, but includes some interesting details). Opinions in the Stranger commentariat seem to be all over the grid. Disclaimer: I’m not a WoW player — I’m not even a gamer — but as a lifelong sf/fantasy geek I’m alway open to the possibility that a particular brick of Hollywood sci-fi might be worth watching…
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What else is on the agenda for the remnants of the evening?
This post is in: Excellent Links, Gamer Dork, Open Threads
Somebody had to go there. Josh Gondelman, for NYMag, explains how he “Bought Three Fake Girlfriends on the Internet“:
… The modern ease of catfishing has had the tangential effect of growing a cottage industry of websites offering the services of fake Internet girlfriends. Make an existing girlfriend jealous, they urge. Get your nagging family off your back. None market directly to those garnering sympathy during a Heisman campaign, nor to what I imagine must be a lucrative contingent of deeply closeted gay men. Almost all the sites guarantee discretion — and contain a disclaimer that you WILL NOT meet your fake online girlfriend for in-person sex stuff, no matter how nicely you ask.
To better understand the plight of Manti Te’o, I decided to blow some money on an imaginary paramour. Fake Internet relationships, it turns out, are a buyer’s market…
Bonus marketing points to the site that promises “For an additional hundred clams, your F.I.G. can join your World of Warcraft or Everquest II campaign”!
Apart from surreptitously checking all your guild buddies’ chats for “tells”, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Thursday Evening Open Thread: Trolling for Fake Internet GirlfriendsPost + Comments (123)
This post is in: Excellent Links, Gamer Dork
There are so many reasons why I voted for Obama twice, despite some flaws, but this is definitely one in the “HELL, YES!” column:
The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:
* The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
* The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
* Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?However, look carefully (here’s how) and you’ll notice something already floating in the sky — that’s no Moon, it’s a Space Station! Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that’s helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts — American, Russian, and Canadian — living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We’ve also got two robot science labs — one wielding a laser — roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.
I fully support rule by nerds and dorks over sociopaths.
And since I know that 90% of the internet has Asperger’s is on the Austism spectrum scale, yes, I understand there is a difference between Star Wars and Star Trek.
This Is Not the Petition You Are Looking ForPost + Comments (179)
This post is in: Gamer Dork, Open Threads
I’m playing Star Wars: The Old Republic today. This morning I watched “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” for the first time in about 20 years.
Be excellent to each other.
This post is in: Gamer Dork, Gun nuts, Open Threads
Just as LaPierre was finishing up his flopsweat-fest, wherein he described every single problem with society except the proliferation of firearms, news started rolling in of a multiple shooting in Blair County, PA.
Four dead, including the shooter. At least five persons wounded or injured including apparently at least three PA State Troopers.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/21/16069042-four-killed-including-gunman-in-shooting-incident-in-pennsylvania-three-troopers-injured?lite
If only there’d been trained men with guns who could have stopped this…Oh, dear.
You know, I wonder what games the shooter played for fun. Open thread.
Wayne LaPierre probably thinks he’s the victim of the bad timing herePost + Comments (141)
by John Cole| 45 Comments
This post is in: Election 2012, Gamer Dork
For the horde:
Despite what the Republican Party of Maine might want people to believe, playing “World of Warcraft” does not make a person unfit to hold office.
Or so Colleen Lachowicz proved Tuesday night.
Lachowicz plays “World of Warcraft” as a level-85 orc named Santiaga. She is also a newly elected state senator in Maine.
Lachowicz, a Democrat, beat Republican incumbent Thomas Martin Jr. to become the senator-elect for Maine’s District 25 — this after the Republican Party of Maine launched a campaign to out her love of the fantasy role-playing game.
Maine’s GOP had accused Lachowicz — a 48-year-old health-care worker — of living a “bizarre double life” and set up a website revealing her participation in “World of Warcraft.” Not only did the site show off a picture of the orc rogue assassin character she plays, it also dug up online comments she made about her love of the (sometimes violent) game. The Republican Party also sent out mailers as well as a press release claiming her “disturbing alter-ego” had been “revealed.”
But while the Maine GOP had hoped the “World of Warcraft” outing would sour people on her as a candidate, it seemed to have the exact opposite effect. Lachowicz suddenly found herself in the international spotlight, appearing in headlines and on news programs around the world (check out my interview with her here) as gamers flocked to her defense and showered her with support.
And then, on Tuesday night, Lachowicz beat Martin with the final vote tally at 8,666 to 7,753. Despite the small numbers, it was a big win, especially since the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee had labeled Maine’s District 25 state senate race one of the key battlegrounds in the country.
I still hate rogues, though. If you want to play a class that requires skill, roll a mage or a lock.