Posted on October 17, 2014
Ebola. Now shut up.
It all started with a picture. Well, no. That’s not quite right. It started with an aborted Facebook status that led to a picture. But, no. That’s not entirely true, either. I think it really all started the day the first caveman looked up at the stars and asked, “What’s it all about, really?” Except it came out as, “Grunk, bloof-bloof, hocktack” and ended with a sharpened mastodon tusk sticking out of his friend’s chest. Or sticking into it, as it were.
Which is where Republicans come from. Read More
Posted on September 6, 2014
AOHELL
I just got off the phone with AOL. Yes, you read that right. America Freaking On-Line. In 2014. They’re still around, and they’re still as awful as ever. But why was I on the phone with them, you ask? Pull up a chair; I’ll tell you all about it.
Way back in the early aughts, there was no such thing as hotel broadband. Or maybe there was and I just never stayed anywhere fancy enough to have it; but the point is, if you were going to be traveling and might want to connect to the Internet, you’d probably have to dial in. With a squeakybox modem and everything. And to do that, you’d want a local access number so you wouldn’t have to pay additional long distance charges at check out. You’d just pay for the local calls you’d made. This is where AOL comes in. Read More
Posted on September 4, 2014
Gamergate
It’s called Gamergate. Because every scandal has to evoke Watergate as a shorthand for Something Bad Has Happened. And something bad has happened, only not what the Gamergate people want you to think. Not familiar with this whole Gamergate business? Don’t worry; I’ll fill you in. And I’ll stop saying Gamergate. Because it’s stupid.
You see, “gamers” – some gamers – are really, really upset about the lack of integrity in games journalism. Or that’s what they say, anyway. But mostly, it just looks like they’re mad about vaginas, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. And it’s all because one young woman, Anita Sarkeesian, had the nerve to successfully fund a Kickstarter campaign to produce a series of videos about video game tropes involving women. That’s it. That was the starting point. After that, a female game developer by the name of Zoe Quinn had an angry ex post all sorts of intimate details about their sex life, and about her alleged sex life with games “journalists”. So now her game only got decent reviews because she let game critics stick their joysticks in her squishmitten. Or something. But it’s totally not about being angry at women calling out misogyny in gaming or daring to code when they have boobies. It’s about INTEGRITY!
Except that it isn’t. Read More
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