Another Hump-day Crushed!

[silveradept]

Or something like that. Today was surprisingly productive, half at work, half spent rummaging around, watching silly videos, cooking microwave and stovetop meals, seeing Fred "Piro" Gallagher at the local library giving a talk on creativity (MT Book #2 sketched in - only one to go for now). The panelists were good, keeping mostly to topic, and also asking for a little bit of a drawing demonstration. Sketched a bit myself, but I still can't quite capture his style even close.

But I did do some things that were okay. Nothing that I'd put up and let you guys shred, but it was playing with expressions. Some of them turned out well, although for one I think I needed to add the apron before it worked. Anyway. The Threat Level of LJ may have risen a bit while I was out and about, but I think things have settled again.

Lending more credence to the idea that preference is a gene thing (if you read between the lines of this argument), it appears that genes play a bigger role in deciding mates than we thought. It might not be the kind of thing that swings the argument all the way to one side, and the researchers are cautioning against over-interpretation. Still, that suggests that it's not necessarily completely a matter of choice in deciding who to partner up with. Let the battles continue.

We knew this was coming, we knew this was coming. We hoped that people would prove to be more intelligent than this, but the lure of money and infamy is too strong. An individual is suing Rockstar over "Hot Coffee". A game that he bought for his fourteen-year-old grandson. An M-rated game, intended to be played by those seventeen and up, for a fourteen-year-old. Now, he may have been a mature-in-mind fourteen-year-old, but GTA really does deserve the rating. Naturally, the grandfather was unaware of the mod, and is now suing Rockstar, claiming that they were deceptive in advertising.

Okay. Once more, for the idiots. Fact: The sexual minigame was cut out of the final game. Fact: It requires modification of the executable code through third-party software to access this minigame. Fact: Based on the game submitted, GTA is an M-rated game. The rating was changed because the mod became popular. Which is stupid. Suing Rockstar because someone else made a mod is also stupid, and makes no sense. If you're going to sue someone, sue the guy who mad the Hot Coffee mod - he's the one who permits the kids to be exposed to the porn. But you shouldn't really sue him. Rockstar could, claiming he broke his EULA by making modifications, but you really don't have much business suing him. The ESRB changed the rating because the mod became popular - the government was breathing down their necks. Then again, the government was going to take this as an excuse to get involved anyway.

For those up on their gaming lore, does this sound familiar? Doom, perhaps? The government was just about to get involved there, and the ESRB was created to avoid that fate. Now, even with them, the government is going to do what it wanted to anyway. The question is whether this means just effective ratings or that video games will forever be stuck as children's fare, suitable to be grown out of at age 10. In the name of decency, the government will censor everything they think they can get away with. If they think they're stopping the school shootings by doing this, they're wrong. If they think they're stopping people from becoming violent, they're wrong. If they say they're preventing untold amounts of violence by children, they're lying.

There, now that I've expunged that vitriol, I feel like going to bed. Tomorrow may yet be as productive as today.

Comments

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

I really love this, I'm waiting for Rockstar to start sueing people back. They illegally modified the game and are trying to sue the manufactuere as a result? If I modified a Ford so that the car gave an electric shock to whoever touched the stearing wheel you couldn't sue Ford.
fucktards

[silveradept]

Remember, there's a lack of Common Sense in America, so there's a good chance this lawsuit will go through, succeed, and force Rockstar to stop producing GTA in its entirety as part of the deal.

EEEEdiots.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Nah GTA makes too much money. Money is the one thing the current evil overlords love more than moralistic bullshit.

[silveradept]

And if the government/jury takes enough of that money, then Rockstar may have to wait a very long time before thinking about producing another GTA, because of the legal ramifications in case someone decides to mod it again.

I'm surprised nobody sued id when people were making mods for Doom and Quake that had questionable content.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Well I'm thinking Rockstar may try to sue the Mod maker and from now on you can be damn sure that each game will have a big warning screen pointing out that moding games is against copyright or invalidates their cupability or something like that.

Never mind that they've actually proved that kids who listen to lots of music that talk about sex actually do it less and kids who play lots of video games are often less agressive.

Liars and theives are all we have as leaders.

[silveradept]

Yeah. Ineffective measures. Like "Winners Don't Do Drugs."

I'd like to see this study about how kids are less likely to be violent and such because they listen and play stuff that has a lot of it.

And it does look like there's a lot of liars and theives in government. It's one of the best places to be one.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

You want me to do research and stuff? I read it on the BBC somewhere. You should be able to find the statistics online pretty easily. Teen sex and violence are both near 30 year lows right now. Over all in fact violence is at a 30 year low. Columbine and the copycat events that happened after it are really just a blip on the screen. A very big blip, but still statisticly the average kid is safer at school than almost anywhere else.

The most recent sruvey of kids found that they're screwing less and less. Teen pregnancy and abortions are at low rates too. Apperently all these singers talking about sex constantly has taken all the mystery away and now kids aren't is such a rush to find out what all the fuss is abouyt. In fact the only place their up is among the uber-religious who never never admit sex exists.

[urbankotq.livejournal.com]

o.o!

YAY!!

*Also spins*

[silveradept]

There we go. Synchronized spinning... it's the next Olympic sport!

[rimspace.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not even sure whether to be angry or utterly, hideously amused about the whole sorry episode.

I mean, here's a game where you roam the streets mowing down people in all sorts of vehicles, blowing things up, beating seven shades of crap out of NPCs, pimping and all sorts of other things and OMGWTFBBQ Someone Modded IT So It Has SEX!?!?!? ARGHOHNOES THE HUMANITY!!11eleventy!!

So large-scale murder is acceptable but sex isn't. Mmm mm. Really good basis for peaceful, stable and comfortable society that one...