Category: Asides

A classic scam went electronic, and you have probably seen some version: you receive an e-mail, IM, social networking message, etc. from a friend who is far away, has had his wallet stolen, and needs you to send him some money. Of course, your friend is not in Istanbul, and he would be surprised to learn that he has e-mailed everyone in his address book.

“Everyone” was driven home this morning when an out-of-state high school (not a high schooler, the school’s business address) e-mailed our state police criminal background check address asking if we could help it get back from Scotland. The Academy was on a trip when its bag was stolen, and wouldn’t you know it, its passport was in that bag, and it needs to pay for the hotel and the flight home.

On behalf of a records help address, we have heard your personal appeal from a generic business address, and our heart goes out to your difficulties overseas.

: Zubon

Melmoth ponders the fading of prominent MMO bloggers, while most of us merely huddle in the dark and wonder if there is life after the closing of The Pink Pigtail Inn.

If the people who are enthusiastic enough about a genre to take the time to write about it, for no tangible remuneration, are slowing down and slowly drifting away, then perhaps these are the ripples at the edge of the pool which reflect a deeper disturbance at its centre.

He later encourages us to engage in jelly-related projects while we wait to see if the next round of MMO includes the savior. Perhaps this is like the end of the Golden Age of Rant Sites, back when Lum and Tweety were angry malcontents rather than industry figures.

And now I feel old.

: Zubon

Google Lobbies Nevada To Allow Self-Driving Cars

The autonomous driving function has been tested on California freeways. I worked in traffic safety for years, and these cars are what I said were about the only way to reach the “0 fatality” vision/goal that so many of our sibling offices had. I keep citing Rainbows End as the clearest vision of our technological near-future, and Sebastian Thrun’s quote at the end is a feature of the book.

: Zubon

via MR

Gamespot 2007: fire reviewer for trashing a game that was advertising heavily on the site. (Side note: 6/10 theoretically looks like “somewhat above average,” but that is really a 6 on a scale from 7 to 9. To get a 2, the game would need to physically damage your console with harmonic resonance, and even then a small ad buy could get you at least a 5.)

The Onion 2011: Dylan Dog gets a D+ rating while basically paying for the site for the month. As I type this, the main Onion AV Club page is running 4 ads for Dylan Dog at once. I don’t know what that does for their advertising revenue, but that sounds like buying a chunk of credibility. (Sadly, I rarely find the AV Club reviews helpful. A post on using reviews productively is coming up.)

: Zubon

Lightning strikes twice! Less than twelve hours after mentioning last year’s pranks, the New York Times has actually published… You know what? I’m not going to spoil the punchline. I will just refer you to Ted Frank.

I mean, sure, he was involved in lawsuits about Grand Theft Auto (you read that right, 5 years over “Hot Coffee”) and NVIDIA, so he sounds like a guy who would be a good source. Ignore the date, cut-and-paste, it’s news!

: Zubon

Follow the links if you are having trouble getting past the paywall. Spoilers allowed in the comments.

Tomorrow is one of the internet’s favorite holidays. I recall my first year in Asheron’s Call, when a fansite mentioned a bug granting a Darktide (FFA PvP server) character a GM flag that effectively gave him godmode. Last year, some friend sites were part of a small conspiracy that was re-blogged at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal after they made up a controversy that was “too good to check” before publishing. Curse that 24/7 news cycle. One hopes that a combination of caution and the new paywall will prevent embarrassment this year.

Read safely this Friday. Consider the comments on this post open for linking your favorite jokes and pranks of the year. Unfortunately, Poe’s Law applies generally: no matter how absurd your joke, we can find apparently sincere examples that are worse. Exaggeration is hard these days.

: Zubon