Culture

Game Over

Crime, Culture, Internet, Policing
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Chilling news for online gamers, or for anyone who identifies themself online, really:

Gamer arrested over computer link to knife murder of Matthew Pyke
David Brown

A German computer gamer is being questioned by police over the murder of a university student after an apparent argument on an online discussion site.

Matthew Pyke, 20, who was found stabbed to death at his home in Nottingham, ran a website with his girlfriend dedicated to discussing the computer strategy game Advance Wars.

Days after his body was found, a German gamer calling himself David Heiss sent a message to Mr Pyke’s girlfriend apologising for “having caused so much trouble lately”.

Though it hardly matters now if you are pseudonymous; even the neophyte knows how to use network tools and resolve an IP address these days, witness the continual harassment of left-wingers by Michelle Malkin’s troop of flying buttmonkeys and of antifascists by website Redwatch [no link; you want it, google].

I see the amount of sheer blinding rage unleashed in some online gamers when they play and I can well imagine that to feel such extreme anger could carry someone with a lot of their ego invested in the game (forum, blog or comment thread) right over the edge.

But aren’t online communities self-regulating by consensus? Well no, of course not, no more so than RL. Other gamers may have been egging this dispute on, in which case they also bear responsibility for Matthew Pyke’s death:

Detectives are investigating if another fan of the game may have fallen out with Mr Pyke in cyberspace and then taken extreme revenge in real life.

Mr Pyke also published science fiction on the Wars Central site using the name Shade, and Mr Heiss, 21, contributed to the discussion forum under the name Eagle the Lightning.

One anonymous poster on the site forum suggested that other members may have known who was behind the killing. “We may know a lot of what was going on prior to the killing, but I, for one, am not going to say any more,” he said.

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Why I’m a Pirate Refusenik

Culture, Internet
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Just as a matter of interest and if you hadn’t noticed the sudden outbreak of blogospheric “oo-arr”s and “avast ye lubber”s, It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day yet again, not that I celebrate it.

I don’t need to do a sad imitation of Joe Grundy’s Mummerset to join in teh general hilarity: I’m from the West Country, I talk like that all the time.

I’ve a good mind to get all offended.

According to Martin this is what I actually sound like:

Life, Art; What’s The Difference?

'08/12 Election, Corruption, Culture, US politics, Wingnuts, Women
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Sarah Palin’s sudden rise to political prominence reminds me sharply of Nicole Kidman’s fanatically ambitious smalltown US weathergirl in the sadly underrated movie “To Die For”.

She’s a solipsistic provincial beauty queen who backstabs, (literally and metaphorically), manipulates and double-deals her way to power and fame on the back of anyone she can use to advantage:

Watch this:

That is scarily like.

Suzanne Stone (Maretto) knows exactly what she wants. She wants to be a television newscaster and she is willing to do ANYTHING to get what she wants. What she lacks in intelligence, she makes up for in cold determination and diabolical wiles. As she pursues her goal with relentless focus, she is forced to destroy anything and anyone that may stand in her way, regardless of the ultimate cost or means necessary.
To Die For (1995)

Family friends, colleagues, husbands; it matters not. All that matters is that she gets what she wants. The trouble is her lies become so blatant and so obvious there has to be a reckoning.

So far Palin’s narrative matches the movie too. She’s got everything she ever wanted and now she’s a rigged election and a flatlining EKG away from the presidency. We’re building up to the big denouement.

In the movies Kidman’s lies and manipulations begin to catch up with her. However, unlike ‘Suzanne Stone’, Palin can’t just physically get rid of inconvenient obstacles and people (not that that hasn’t been known in gubernatorial politics before) – there are laws against that sort of thing. But she may well be thinking she can up and off back to the frozen wastes when it all gets too difficult.

If her fallback position is to drop out of the race, return to Alaska in a blaze of almost-was-vice-presidential glory to reign as the undisputed Matriarch and Bitch Queen of all Wasilia, then she’s got another think coming. The thing about shitting on people on your way up is that unlike in the movies, you’ll see them again on the way down.

Enough of the drama
Submitted by Sylvia Plath (not verified) on Fri, 2008-09-05 08:23.

There are those who say that we should fully support McCain just to get Palin and her “me first” dramas out of here so that the Karl Rove, Republican machine can groom her into what they want, which may include fresh dialog on ANWR and America First populist rhetoric. Many think that she help us more in that way. Yes, perhaps, but only if for once she takes the advise of others over her stubborn “don’t tell me what to do” attitude. There are those who said in 2006 that an “R” is an “R” and when the Republican party fully supports her to help her to Juneau, she would be beholding to the Republican party. They (we) were wrong in 2006. Why would she conform to expectations of a party now? McCain needs to dump her now. She needs to come back here and face the music of the mess she has left us. Is she planning to jet off to media star status land and expect zombie rat Frank Bailey take the blame and consequences for her? Or will she blame Todd or others? Expect anyting from her as she advances herself. We as citizens must not expect her to do the right thing. We must make her. Or else, Thomas Paine will be rolling in his grave.

And that’s a Republican supporter.

It’s always satisfying when the villainess gets their comeuppance in the movies, but it doesn’t happen so often in real life. Usually they just walk away and die quietly and comfortably in bed after a lifetime of treating people like crap. This time Palin may well get hers, if pissed off Alaskans have any say in it.