Here’s the video review as promised.
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Browsing Posts published in September, 2008
Jack Thompson, part douchebag, part asshole loses his privileges as an attorney.
If you’re a fan of video games, and find yourself frequently reading up on video game news, then you’ve probably heard the name Jack Thompson before. Jack Thompson is one of these dumbass people that have a personal vendetta against violent video games. He makes these cases claiming the violence in todays video games are what bring kids to go on shooting rampages, (like Columbine) and therefore these games ought to be banned. There have been numerous tests & surveys performed that have resulted in similar conclusions stating that video games have an insiginificant role on the decisions that todays kids make.
To give you an idea on Thompson’s douchebag-ness, here’s an example of a stunt he pulled:
In 1992, a complaint from Thompson led Florida Secretary of State Jim Smith to withhold a $25,000 grant to the Miami Film Festival; Thompson claimed that the festival was using state money to show pornographic films. In response, Thompson was named an “Art Censor of the Year” by the ACLU. The next month, Thompson faced disbarment over allegations that he lied while making accusations against prominent Dade County lawyer Stuart Z Grossman. Thompson ultimately admitted violating bar rules of professional conduct, including charges that he contacted people represented by an attorney without first contacting their attorneys, and agreed to pay $3,000 in fines and receive a public reprimand. **This excerpt is from Thompson’s Wikipedia article**
Judge Dava Tunis recommended permanent disbarment for Jack Thompson, on account for being a complete douchebag against video games… No, really…..
Kidding… He’s been disbarred on account of ignoring the sanction placed upon him from being able to self-submit frivolous filings against video game companies. Thompson ignored this rule and even attempted to submit a file against the referee asking for the report against him.
This whole disbarment started when Thompson was at the Florida Supreme Court February 19th – March 20th and was going through disciplinary proceedings, on account of abusing the legal system by submitting “numerous, frivolous and inappropriate filings”. Despite being warned not to do so. In fact, it was reported that Thompson walked out of the courtroom at the final hearing in this matter because the Judge would not allow him to “to turn the disciplinary proceeding into a press conference.
“Thus, after careful consideration of the underlying facts in the instant cases, together with the Florida Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions, the applicable aggravating and mitigating factors and the precedent case law, this Court makes the following recommendations for John Bruce Thompson:
A. Permanent disbarment, with no leave to reapply for admission.
B. Disciplinary costs currently totaling $43,675.35“
This guy is not a rational thinker. He’s the type that shoots first, then asks questions later; doesn’t ever think about the consequences. As far as I’m concerned, the idiot had it coming.
To learn more about douchebag Thompson, check out the following links:
The National Science Foundation has agreed to give the University of California Irvine a $100,000 towards studying World of Warcraft (WoW). Now the only reason why I can imagine they would choose the University of Irvine is because the campus is closest to Blizzard’s HQ.
Note: Blizzard’s offices used to be literally within walking distance of the University until Blizzard recently relocated to expand their company.
I can’t fathom why somebody would need that much money towards a game that costs about $70 + $15/month subscription. Lemme break down the actual costs here:
- World of Warcraft: Classic – $19.99
- Burning Crusade Expansion – $29.99
- Wrath of the Lich King Expansion (not yet out) $39.99
- Monthly subscription cost: $14.99
TOTAL COST: $104.96 (not including sales tax into the equation)
So where else would the remaining $99,896 go towards? Well assuming you don’t have a computer (who doesn’t now a days) you could spend about $2,000 for a respectable gaming machine that would have more then enough power to run the game at maximum graphical settings.
That brings it down to $97,896.
Ok, ok…. Enough speculation, this is where the focus of the money is going…
According to the OCRegister, the money is going to be used to study the disparity including the cultural and institutional factors. Nardi a WoW fan herself did some of her own studying and had this to say:
The vast majority of Chinese players are not ‘gold farmers’ (people who play to generate game gold, which is then sold for real money). They’re ordinary players like anyone. The media has blown that story out of all proportion. Many people think Chinese play for a job. They play for fun.
Chinese people play the more challenging form of World of Warcraft almost exclusively. They find the less challenging form of the game ‘boring.’ Here, about 50 percent play the challenging form of the game and there, about 95 percent do.
I would agree that the media has blown the whole “all people that play WoW are gold farmers” stories out of proportion, and at the same time I think Nardi’s research is pretty damn accurate. World of Warcraft currently has about 5 million players alone in China which equates to about half of WoW’s subscription.
I think the National Science Foundation could have put that money towards a better cause… I don’t think they’re going to learn anything new that’s going to benefit anybody.
Sources:
The Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote Control
Wanted to give a heads up…
I have an upcoming review coming out (hopefully sometime early next week) on the Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote control.
This is a device I’ve owned for about 7 months now and I’d like to share with you my experience in using probably one of the most unique remote controls out there.
Stay tuned.
Each Nintendo employee generates the company about $1.6 million per year.
This statistic came as a surprise to me. According to Financial Times, “the programmers of Super Mario Galaxy will generate more profit this year then the average Goldman Sachs banker has ever managed.” The average Goldman Sachs employee generates about $1.2 million, each employee at Google about $626,000.
Nintendo employs about 3,000 people – most of which work in game development and R&D. The interesting thing about this is Nintendo actually outsources alot of the production, but has the producers of Nintendo overlook the projects. The results of their profits comes from the volume of sales Nintendo has received from the Nintendo DS and the Wii.
Pretty amazing stuff.
Sources:
