PRIVATE Corp's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

from the and-i-feel-fine-really dept

Hello everyone. My name is Cory J.G, better off known as Cory of PRIVATE Corp or Cory of PC for short, and I'm a fan-fic writer. I'm really a story-teller, with a wide array of skills under my belt, and I am in the process of trying to get a job. I do like to see myself doing something related to the entertainment business and, after much reading of the stories here on Techdirt, I am hoping that if I do enter the field, I would like to completely change things for, hopefully, the better.

Anyway, today I'm here to share my favorite stories for the week. So I won't waste any more time here, let's get started!

OOO

I found it strangely odd that when I went on Techdirt in the morning, I found two different stories involving the Pirate Party and suing. Granted one of them deals with the Swedish PP doing the suing against banks for their "discriminating" of WikiLeaks, and the other deals with the UK PP leaders getting sued by BPI personally for Internet proxies. I was thinking there was going to be a trend. No, we didn't get that, but we did get something that has the City of London's police force setting up a special copyright task force to deal with those inflicting infringement damage. Yes, I'm sure this will work out oh so perfectly... and that last part was sarcasm.

When I heard about the shooting that happened up in Newtown, I was getting back from school, and I was walking to my room. I was surprised to see a couple of the guys, who are your average sports fanatics, watching a news station until I saw what was going on. It is sad to see so many children injured or killed from such a tragic event (and I even shouted "hang him!" at the shooter, but he's already dead...), and I do wish all the comfort in the world to the families that were hit by this.

With that said, I'm beginning to develop some new opinions on the matter about laying blame. With all of the new studies coming in to say "hey, video games aren't the problem," you'd think that someone would catch on and put two and two together. And allow me to add that I'm a kid with Asperger's, a form of autism, and I've played a few violent video games in my time, including TF2, and I'm a genuinely nice boy!

For someone that spends most of his day in front of a computer and part of it on the Internet, I would hate to come across a block in data because I'm going over my limit. Really I would hate to be in the middle of watching one of my favorite Internet shows and then have my Internet crawling or come to a complete stop because of that limit. So there's a proposal made by one Senator Wyden about doing something about these stupid caps and making things better for those who love to upload and download stuff on their phones and computers, and it's a good first step. To have no data caps that will allow people to freely download as much as they like is great! Now if only I had access to better, faster Internet myself...

Finally... now I'm not one to curse or swear, mainly that's me being a bit courteous, but I'm going to drop it for this moment: what the hell is Kony 2012? No really, what is it? I had no idea what this was when it came on and when people were talking about it, but never once did I muster up the interest to look into the matter, simply because 1) it didn't matter to me and 2) there's are a whole lot of things to worry about other than one evil person. Now I really don't care about it, though I am interested in a short summary of it, but I didn't think a graphic novel would provide that summary... or that said comic would be accused of being a terrorist product.

What.

I, for one, don't read a whole lot of comics. Sure, I do read the stuff that comes out of Japan, but not much here in the US or anywhere else. Comics are one form of media that you can express your own views and tell it in a story format, but this? Well it's one thing to do this, but then to have the government come in and take away all the money you made off of a comic based off of some guy from the Congo. Yeah, and I thought those shouting "video games are the problem!" were bad...

OOO

So that does it for now. If you're getting out of your bunkers (or wherever you were hiding) or reading this because you have a connection, then congrats, the world didn't end and you can still access the Internet... Really, what are the odds of you still being online if the world's coming to an end? Wouldn't there be no power for your computer or connection to allow you to be online? Still, if you are reading this, then you know that you are very much alive and the Internet is still active.

For now, this is Cory of PRIVATE Corp, reminding you all to please support those who are truly in need and not the ones begging for attention. Feed the trolls if needed, and don't forget to feed yourselves this Christmas. Do enjoy yourselves and have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Now if you excuse me, I got some work to get done on my end...
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  • icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 22 Dec 2012 @ 12:18pm

    There goes the next hour.

    TVTropes links should be flagged.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2012 @ 2:29pm

      Re: There goes the next hour.

      Tvtropes: my anti drug.

      Problem; there's no anti-tvtropes

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Wally (profile), 22 Dec 2012 @ 1:00pm

    "With that said, I'm beginning to develop some new opinions on the matter about laying blame. With all of the new studies coming in to say "hey, video games aren't the problem," you'd think that someone would catch on and put two and two together. And allow me to add that I'm a kid with Asperger's, a form of autism, and I've played a few violent video games in my time, including TF2, and I'm a genuinely nice boy! "

    That's it, I'm coming out of the closet here Cory of PC...We all know my brother is Autistic Savant...but I too have a confession to make,and I feel I can no longer hide this from the community...both myself and my wife have Asperger's Syndrome. My first violent video game was Mortal Kombat II on the SNES. My wife (this I found out just 2 days ago) used to play the ARCADE version of Street Fighter 2 all the time (this explains why she whooped my ass using the SNES ASCII arcade stick when playing SF2). We too are some of the nicest people you would ever meet in person.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      NemesisPrime (profile), 22 Dec 2012 @ 2:12pm

      Re:

      Father, I must confess fore I have sinned.

      NAH!!!

      I also have Aspurger's and I play violent games all the time but if you met me in real life you'd say I was the nicest person you ever met!

      The first game I remember playing that involved blood was Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 on arcade in my local theater and I was instantly addicted but that didn't turn me into a murderer wanting to rip people's hearts out!

      This is why I get so fired up when people more specifically politicians say video games are to blame for the recent shooting! It gives gamers like me a bad name and further pisses me off.

      You know my favorite game I like to play nowadays? Mortal Kombat (2011).

      I'm nice to a fault if you ever met me and will go out of my way to make you comterable!

      Watch out NRA! My perfectly harmless game is gonna turn me into a serial killer! Wooooooo...

      Just because some of us have Aspurger's or some other different wiring of our brains doesn't make us dangerous!

      Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go kill Kratos with Sub-Zero...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 22 Dec 2012 @ 1:40pm

    Folks, it's never really been about violent video games. There have been insane people and people that have troubles telling the real world from the world of their imagination ever since swords were the weapon of choice and even before that I am sure.

    As one politician said, "Never waste a good crisis". There are those that some how believe that if you can control the information feel someone sees, you can control their behavior. Now who would want to control people's behavior to conform to their vision of the world?

    Well religious fanatics are always at this point in other forms mostly. Look at the Middle East. There's all sorts of violence because others don't conform to their vision of the world. Somehow I don't acquaint being behind a real AK47 as being in a video game, nor real life terrorism as being inspired by video gaming.

    The problem isn't guns in itself. Lay a rifle in the corner it will be there come doomsday if no one picks it up and will kill no one. If you blame weapons, I want to know how you or anyone is going to control knives. Most folks kitchens have plenty of them. If they didn't sell them at a store, exactly how hard is it to make one? It is not beyond the average skill of the average person to craft one.

    The problem no one wants to address is we aren't funding psychological facilities that the public has access to. Especially those that aren't rich. It's one of the first things cut in tight money times as being a waste of money...until the day comes some unbalanced person shoots a bunch of innocents. When that comes the answer in the US is to throw them in jail as a danger to the public. There they learn they weren't smart enough to get away with it in criminal school. But next time... (if there ever is a next time). Privately operated jails aren't there to rehabilitate the criminal. They are there to keep them in jail for as long as possible because that's how they get paid. As a result, the US is the world's leading jailer with the largest prisoner per capita of any nation in the world.

    But it's all video games because some think the world would be better off with you not living in a fantasy world but rather going out and doing that in the real one.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Richard (profile), 23 Dec 2012 @ 10:04am

      Re:

      The problem isn't guns in itself. Lay a rifle in the corner it will be there come doomsday if no one picks it up and will kill no one. If you blame weapons, I want to know how you or anyone is going to control knives. Most folks kitchens have plenty of them. If they didn't sell them at a store, exactly how hard is it to make one? It is not beyond the average skill of the average person to craft one.

      Actually the problem is with some myths that surround guns in the US. The main myth is that having a gun somehow makes you safer. Unfortunately the evidence says that it doesn't - in fact the reverse is true.

      Now I have no problem with gun ownership for people who have a genuine use for them. Hunting, target shooting etc are perfectly legitimate uses. If legal gun ownership was restricted to people who actively participated in these sports AND arrangements were made to ensure that the gun+ammunition was only available to the registered user at an appropriate venue then most of these problems would go away.

      As has been said here before, knives are not a fair comparison. You cannot realistically threaten more than one person at a time with a knife.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2012 @ 2:09pm

        Re: Re:

        So cops would be safer if they didn't carry guns, right?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        varagix, 23 Dec 2012 @ 5:01pm

        Re: Re:

        As has been said here before, knives are not a fair comparison. You cannot realistically threaten more than one person at a time with a knife.


        Tell that to the guy behind the mass stabbing in China.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          SirThoreth, 23 Dec 2012 @ 7:40pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Or the Osaka school massacre. Or the Akihabara massacre. Chrome for Android paste is failing me, but details are up on Wikipedia, among other places.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Leigh Beadon (profile), 23 Dec 2012 @ 11:14am

      Re:

      While I'm of the mind that reasonable gun control could be helpful, I completely agree with your broader point: the real problem is the mental health / prison situation in the U.S., which is so depressing and complex that you couldn't get a politician to take it on if you put a (legal or otherwise) gun to his head

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Ehud Gavron (profile), 22 Dec 2012 @ 2:13pm

    dude

    Well written. Don't rush to write daily, but if everything you write is of this quality of THINKING, EXPRESSING, and ANALYZING, by all means.

    Also, I don't have any autistic friends or family or I'd say "Oh how cute, you're autistic. I have a XXXXX who's just like you." I don't. They're all sheep.

    Keep on writing.

    Peace

    Ehud

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous, 22 Dec 2012 @ 2:30pm

    I'd never heard of the game Kindergarten Killer until I read about it here. So I decided to look it up and check it out. Man, is that game addictive! I kept playing it over and over until I finally beat Arnie and escaped. I knocked off a few cops but they eventually got me. I hope I can find an invincibility code for the next time I play.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2012 @ 12:27pm

    It's amusing that any contrarian opinion here is regarding as "trolling".

    It seem the regulars here just can't deal with the idea that the majority view in the world isn't theirs.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Rikuo (profile), 23 Dec 2012 @ 1:25pm

      Re:

      No, we regard trolling as anyone posting a viewpoint that doesn't pass the laugh test, of positing a position that takes less than five seconds for someone of average intelligence to figure out what's wrong with it. Or of repeatedly spamming completely unrelated to articles, or of attacking authors/commentators without cause.
      Best examples of trolls are Out_of_the_Blue, who can rarely write a paragraph that actually makes sense as a phrase written in English (several times, I've read what he's written, and I have no idea what he's just said) and who repeatedly spams a link to the Wikipedia article of "The Streisand Effect", despite the fact literally no-one understands why, or what he's trying to say by doing so.
      Another example is Average_Joe, (although he's behaved himself lately) Joe is infamous around here, for repeatedly (hundreds of times) demanding that Mike answer a loaded question, then of accusing Mike of running away, even when Mike did answer, simply because the answer given wasn't to Joe's liking.


      No, we here at Techdirt embrace all sorts of viewpoints. I myself hold viewpoints contrary to Mike Masnick, but I still welcome what he writes. What we don't like are reams of writing that look like no thought was ever put into them.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2012 @ 3:33pm

        Re: Re:

        How do you feel about the fact that this site is regarded as being run by a Google-paid piracy apologist and populated by nothing other than zealots and pirates?

        Because that is 100% the impression that the majority hold.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 23 Dec 2012 @ 3:54pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Regarded by whom? The majority of whom?

          link to this | view in chronology ]

          • identicon
            Anonymous Coward, 24 Dec 2012 @ 1:40pm

            Re: Re: Re: Re:

            him and himself, You see, lobbyists believe they are the center of the world.

            Truth be told, nobody gives a shit about him, the RIAA or his laughable attempts at spreading anti-techdirt propaganda on this site.

            link to this | view in chronology ]

        • icon
          Cory of PC (profile), 24 Dec 2012 @ 1:26am

          Re: Re: Re:

          ... You do realize that a good majority of the world probably never even heard TechDirt, let alone believe it is being paid by Google to be "pirate apologists." (which it is not). And fray, do you have any proof of us being zealots and pirates?

          If you do, where's the proof? If not... then you're just proving a point.

          link to this | view in chronology ]


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