Tuned into CBC radio today to hear the end of a broadcast expose called "Head Games" dealing with computer game addiction and it's affect on families.
One mom talked about how her son pretty much stays up all night playing games then sleeps well into the day, missing weeks or months of school.
She comments that since he paid for the computer with his own money then there's not much that she feels like she can do. But she does seem to think that it's better knowing that her kid is in front of a computer rather than skateboarding late at night.
Hmm... is it really all that better?
I tried looking for a transcript of this broadcast and came across this previous article. Apparently, some guy shot himself with a rifle because of EverQuest last year.
Sony, of course, is making billions of dollars from EverQuest so a life lost here and a family ruined there doesn't seem to be of their concern.
Another person in today's broadcast talked about how he's made $50, 000 in the past two years from competing in online gaming tournaments and wants to go pro. (paraphrased: "I don't need no college education.") His dad use to frown upon his gaming addiction but now that the money is coming in, the dad is proud.
So what happens when the money stops?
This scenario reminds me a lot of professional sports. And look at that industry now... They use to be on top of the world but now they're restructuring their marketing in order to bring in more youth to make up for the aging sports fan population.
I'm all about the multi-user internet experience but this... I don't know... There's something seriously gone wrong with society.
The wonders of ICQ birthday reminders... :)
This one was from Charmie
More and more people seem to be getting these 'non-browser related pop-up messenger boxes of advertisement crap' lately so I thought I should re-post how to get rid of them here.
Contrary to the misinformation that's been passed around, this is not a spyware issue that can be cleared up using AdAware (though I recommend scanning your computer with AdAware every week anyways to get rid of all the other ad crap that's lurking around on your harddrive).
Netsends are actually coming from your internet provider network. Or more specifically, people who take advantage of open ports that are suppose to be used by your internet provider.
So if you're running w2k or XP, suggestion is to:
1. go to your control panel > administrative tools/services, search for messenger, go to it's properties, press stop, and then select disable from the drop down choices. (that should be enough to stop those messages.)
2. scan for and close off any open ports. (Google "portscanner" or choose the "Probe my ports!" option* from ShieldsUP!.)
3. you'll more than likely find that your Port 139 is open so go to control panel > network connections. Pick whatever you use to connect to your internet provider > choose properties > select Internet Protocol(TCP/IP) and look at it's advanced properties. Under the WINS tab choose Disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP.
* I've already pointed out the wording for this portscanner elsewhere but seriously... first it was Metroid erotica (re: my Oct 26th entry about Art System) and now there's port probing going on... there's some serious sexual repression going on with some geeks, I tell you.
I went with my roommate to check out I Am Robot and Proud aka Shaw-Han Liem tonight. It was definetely a night to remember.
This event turned out to be a UofT art show fundraiser with a pretty interesting crowd. For example, we ran into this girl (in the bathroom, of all places) and we talked for about 10 minutes about various things and even the topic of nanotechnology came up.
Unfortunately, when we arrived we only heard/saw the last couple of tracks. It was a wicked setup though... Liem was sitting cross-legged on the stage floor, his synthesizer on the ground in front of him, doing this live PA of funky ambient tunes.
He's performing again at Oasis (294 College) Sunday evening (Dec 8) along with hellothisisalex for the Pinhead Christmas fundrasing benefit party so I think that I'll have to check that out.
Anyways, there was an intermission and this electro/punk/something band called Russian Futurists comes on and it was totally scary/awesome/bad/funny/something.
The female vocalist was jumping into the crowd, getting into people's faces, rufflling peoples hair, crazy stuff -- kind of reminds me of Bif Naked. They played this number called "Tidy Up After Yourself" which went a little something like:
guy: "After you use the rice cooker..."
girl: "TIDY UP AFTER YOURSELF!"
guy: "After you have your dinner..."
girl: "TIDY UP AFTER YOURSELF!"
It is now mine and my roommate's "song". :)
http://www.hometransfer.org/
- technology and it's use in the home
http://www.limiteazero.com/
- rhizome approved... check out the carnivore project/Quicktime video
http://www.limiteazero.com/wana/index.html
- uses MU NowServer (http://www.nowcentral.com/)
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashcom/
- site for Macromedia's Flash Comm server
http://moock.org
- Unity MU server... also check out showcase links
http://electrotank.com
- another MU flash xml server
http://www.sulake.com/
http://habbohotel.com
- MU servers from Fortress and FuseLight using Director/Lingo. (Check out the free light version.)
http://www.hi-res.net/sites/jump-tomorrow/
- MU Avatar navigation/exploration by the folks at http://www.hi-res.net
*MU = Multi-user, EC = Electronic Cities