This has to be just about the best parody of the movie 300 that I’ve seen so far.
Categories
Category: Uncategorized
Categories
Kotaku disects Jack’s lies
In the wake of the massacre at Virginia Tech many so called experts such as Dr. Phil stepped forward linking the killings with the playing of violent video games before the authorities had even released any details about the perpetrator of this atrocity.
As you might expect Jack Thompson was amongst these yet again exploiting tragedy to push his agenda. The gaming site Kotaku have an excellent article analysing Thompson’s televised statement and dissecting the lies contained within it.
Ars Technica have a similar article about the media’s knee jerk reaction of linking the shootings to video games before the facts are in.
In fact according to GayGamer.net not only did the police not find any games amongst Cho Seun Hui’s belongings but his roommate says that he’d never ever seen Cho play a video game.
Categories
Grindhouse Rapist No. 1
I have a lot of respect for Bitch Ph.D and read her blog regularly but I think she may be overreacting about the Rapist No.1 action figure from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s new movie Grindhouse.
As well as the Rapist figure (which is the likeness of Tarantino as he portrays said character in the movie in one of his customary cameo appearances) action figures of other characters such as Cherry and Dakota are available to buy.
She seems mostly concerned that it is being marketed by the name Rapist No.1 doll but that is just the name of the character in the movie and to my mind is no different than a Freddy Krueger action figure. It’s not as if the figure is even depicted in an act of rape and can hardly be considered glorifying rape or fostering an attitude that rape is acceptable.
I haven’t seen Grindhouse yet but I would imagine if Tarantino’s previous movies are any indicator that this rapist character meets a gory and well deserved end. I think there is a debate to be had about the depiction of rape in movies and on television and the trend for the sexualisation of female victims of rape in them as opposed to the depiction of male rape victims. Also there is a disturbing trend (in comics it is referred to as the Women in Refrigerators Syndrome) for using violence against women as a plot device and motivating factor for the hero protagonist of the story to whom the victim is connected.
I think that Bitch Ph.D has picked upon the wrong thing for her argument here.
I don’t see the appeal myself for these action figures designed for adults and they are very much a niche product that as opposed to movies have little to no impact on society at large. I believe that had she not written about it then virtually the entire readership of Bitch Ph.D would never have known that such a thing as a Rapist No.1 action figure even existed.
Categories
Alfred Cunnington’s Phone
I recently discovered that my home town of Devizes was the site of the first commercial telephone system, made and used by an Alfred Cunnington in 1878 to connect his business with his home.
Categories
1/3 Scale model of a Ferrari
Pierre Scerri of Avignon, France took 15 years and more than 20,000 hours to build this 1:3 scale Ferrari 312PB.
This marvel is the real thing in every sense, from its operating 12-cylinder engine to the exact scale operating Ferrari gauges which are calibrated precisely to indicate rpm, oil pressure, water temperature and oil temperature.
Find this video and thousands of others at vSocial!
It is an astonishing piece of work.
A study carried out by Bristol University [via] and published in The Lancet ranks both alcohol and tobacco as being more harmful than many illegal drugs such as cannabis or ecstasy.
Professor David Nutt, lead author on the paper, said:
Drug misuse and abuse are major health problems. Our methodology offers a systematic framework and process that could be used by national and international regulatory bodies to assess the harm of current and future drugs of abuse.
There is however no political will to actually change policy in the light of this and other studies that have shown that our current system is flawed.
Categories
We’re bachelors, baby.
Starts off very one note then gets boring then becomes NSFW and ends sublimely.
Categories
Fingerprinting children
Britain, a nation that has sleepwalked into a surveillance state is considering a proposal to fingerprint children aged 11-15.
This is to tackle the danger posed by teenagers that might otherwise be able to avoid the all-seeing eye of the British Surveillance Society because they will have child passports free from biometric details. [via]
Categories
Game: Sprout
Sprout is a cute fun game to waste a quarter of hour at work with. [via]
Categories
What would Richard Feyman do?
Wellington Grey knows the answer and presents it in a handy little flowchart.