They don't ever get to go out and play...
Along with the sand article, this just goes to show how paranoid society is these days. Everything must be "safe." Look, kids are going to get hurt. It's a fact of life. Just let them go play, run around, have fun, and maybe they wouldn't be so fat. If you always keep them inside, or within ten feet of a parental unit, they'll never weigh under 200 lbs.
Give me a break.
So there's this new game by Rockstar Games (makers of Grand Theft Auto and the first Manhunt game) that's been absolutely banned in the UK and Ireland and that Nintendo and Sony say they may not even be able to release. If it was released, it would come with a big ol' "Adults Only" sticker on it, and there's question if even some adults would be able to stomach it.
If you know anything about the first Manhunt game, it involves the player basically killing people in various sadistic ways. Now, there are violent video games out there that involve shooting bad guys and monsters and the like, but it's all for the greater good and the saving of the world. I don't play very many of those games, but in whatever way saving the world must be done, it must be done. Manhunt and its sequel, however, seem to be about the player killing just for the heck of it in increasingly gruesome and sadistic ways.
Yet Rockstar Games calls it a "fine piece of art." You must be kidding.
Just take a look at the article for a second. It features a screenshot of the game, which is blood red, involving a man crumpled on the floor and a man standing over him with a large axe over his head, looking very much like he's about to slice the man in half with it. The player, of course, is the man with the axe. Oh goody. If that's art, I figure I better get out of that business quick...
They say it's a "horror" or a "psychological thriller" game... yeah, no. That's something like the Hannibal Lecter movies, or The Ring, or the like... not this. This seems to basically be about a serial killer. Good fun, I guess...
Now, some people may read this phrase and think "Oh, that just means that sharks aren't very dangerous at all." Others take it to mean "Sand is extremely dangerous!!" Look for yourself:
Oh dear. 30 people around the world have died from "sand related accidents" in the last 20 years. That must mean that sand can't be trusted! We can't dig holes in the sand anymore because someone might die!
Yes... someone might die from digging a hole in the sand. Someone also might die from using a stove to cook dinner, and a few people have. Does that mean no more stoves? No, of course not. It just means people need to be a bit more careful. 30 people in 20 years, compared to the millions of people who go to the beach every month, amounts to absolutely nothing. The beach is not a danger any more than your backyard is a danger. People can get hurt. People die. It happens everywhere. But there's no reason to regulate my sand castle building or sand hole digging just because of that fact.
What world do we live in that people must be kept completely safe from any imagined danger?
...previously held by a JAPANESE man. Come on, if we're going to have the reputation of being the world's biggest gluttons, why not give some proof for it?
Yeah, it took me all of 30 seconds to come up with that title. Cool, huh?
Anyway... I find I'll be writing a couple posts on literary topics. One's today, the next is tomorrow. I find both issues fairly saddening and alarming, and I feel it's important to write on them. First, the one that the title's about.
There lives, in the town of Kansas City, MO, a man who likes books. He owns a used book shop that, until recently, sold books to the masses. His sales have been taking a downturn, and he had accumulated a fair number of books that no one had bought in a long while. He decided to donate them to other local thrift shops and libraries. He was quite alarmed to find that none of them would take them, because they too already had too many. Thus, he decided to send a very clear message about what he calls "society's diminishing support for the printed word." He started to burn his books.
At first, the Kansas City fire department put out his fires because he had no permit. He's planning on getting one, and quick. It seems that no one wants books that much anymore, or printed words in general. The Internet, though it is quite useful, has completely broken down the need for printed words. Why read a book when you can read everything on a screen? Better yet, why not just download an audiobook?
Personally, I find it appalling. I'd never burn a book, unless it was so against my principles that I deemed it to be evil. I've never found any books of such a type quite yet. But I'm truly saddened that a man would need to go to such a length to send a message like this. I like books. I really enjoy reading books. I like online stuff too. I find, however, that if anything I read online is longer than about a couple pages of text, I become highly disinterested in it, and have to work at reading it. It's not just online things, but anything I read on my computer. I have a couple full books on my hard drive that I've never read, because I can't bring myself to read a book on my computer. There's just something about holding a book and turning the pages that makes a huge difference in the experience. Clicking a mouse and pressing arrow keys just doesn't compare. Merely picking up a book and flipping through its pages arouses feelings in me that I can't describe. Scrolling down a wall of text just doesn't do that for me. Having books stacked on a shelf and being able to look at them can give me a similar feeling. I like books, what can I say?
But I seem to be in the minority in today's society. Books, and it seems literary education in general, seem to be going downhill very quickly. I'm a victim of this downturn in good literary education as well, as evidenced by this list:
It's a list of 100 words that all high school graduates should know. I'll be honest, there are quite a few on that list that I've never even heard of. I know many of them, have heard others but am not quite sure how to use them properly, and don't know others at all. The bottom line, however, is that I don't use very many of these in everyday speech. Perhaps in writing... but still, not that often. But I'm in college now, and apparently I should know these. This is what the dictionary writers say, at least. What can I do?
This is just to illustrate the problem of lowering literary standards. Knowing all 100 of those words, at least to me, seems to be a bit much. After thinking about it, however, it seems that a lot of those books that are being burned in Kansas City have those words in them. No one reads them, so no one knows the words. Perhaps no one knows the words, and that's why they don't read the books. Either way, it's a sad state of affairs.
So, read more books. Tomorrow I tackle Web 2.0 .
Another short link from Boing Boing:
A man parks outside a coffee shop every morning and uses their wireless network to check his email. The wireless network is completely open, so it seems that it would be no problem for just anyone to hop onto it and use it for a few minutes. This is what this man did every day. Some saw his behavior as suspicious, because he was parking his car in front of the coffee shop every day, but not getting out of his car. He was apprehended and accused of spying. No spying was taking place, so authorities figured they had to charge him with something else. This is what they came up with:
"A few weeks later Peterson said he received a letter from the Kent County prosecutor's office saying that he faced a felony charge of fraudulent access to computer networks and that a request had been made for an arrest warrant."
Felony? Fraudulent access to computer networks?? I can understand if the manager of the coffee shop got mad because he was using the network and wasn't a customer. You know, you've got to at least buy a doughnut or something to use the network, or at least go inside the place. That would be fine. But... felony charges?? You know, if they only wanted certain people to use it, they could very easily make the network password-protected or something. It was an open network that's not too hard to find/get onto. With wi-fi nets, the only "fraudulent access" that could go on would be to crack the password of one. This one had no password. The most this guy should get is a misdemeanor in my opinion.
Oh, I forgot... it's the government. There's no way they understand anything about technology.
Wow. So... some kids made a video apparently parodying their math teacher. It involves him getting attacked by a rogue teddy bear. The kids originally got expelled from school for it, but then they sued the school. They were duly compensated by the school, but the teacher is still not happy. He thinks the kids made the video to intentionally harm him. As the lawsuit states:
"The defendants intentionally created the 'Teddy Bear Master' and intentionally used the plaintiff's name in such a way that would provoke a reasonably foreseeable emotional disturbance or trauma."
Now, I'm no expert at psychology or litigation... but I figure there was no great plan to cause emotional disturbance or trauma in the teacher. I think they probably did it because they thought it would be funny... but that's just me.
We'll see how it plays out in court.
Yeah, it's been a while since I've blogged last (and by the way, when did "blog" become a verb...?). But it's been because two things: School and this game:
Whenever I haven't been doing homework, I've been playing it. Yeah, I'm such a geek, huh... Either way, it's a fantasy MMORPG that actually does come with a single player option for those with bad or unreliable internet connections (such as myself). Really fun stuff. Gameplay is very open, with three different realms to play in, lots of different races and classes, multi-classing allows for up to three different classes per character, parties of up to six characters, tons of quests, monsters to kill... wow. Nothing impressive graphically, but the graphics are nice. Sound effects are okay, too. The music really impressed me, however. It's amazing for an independant company.
The game itself has a very nice free version, and the full game costs only 30 USD. Cool stuff. I bought it already... But I'll tell you, it's worth the money.
But, due to the fact that I haven't blogged recently, today I've got some extra good stuff... probably...