Weird News Stories

[obyknven]

PlayStation Phwoar! Russian couple use webcam to broadcast live sex session viewable by anyone with a PS4
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2548104/PlayStation-Phwoar-Sony-slammed-anti-porn-campaigners-couple-use-consoles-webcam-broadcast-live-sex-session-viewable-PS4.html

‘But when I turned on the system, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was so shocking. The Playroom is really a children's game.
‘Some guy and his girlfriend, I think they were Russian because the zoom button was in Russian, were naked and going at it like rabbits.
 
‘It went on for so long as well, at least 20 minutes. It just goes to show that nobody at Sony is paying attention to what is being broadcast.’

She said: ‘Dear God, this is terrible - and yet another example of why we can't be too vigilant.’



"It was shocking" "It went on for at least 20 minutes" So, not shocking enough to turn off though huh....

lol. PS4 has no games

[Mor]

 
A mysterious illness has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of starfish. Dubbed "sea star wasting syndrome," the arms of an infected individual will twist into knots, develop lesions, and finally crawl away in opposite directions until they tear away from its body, allowing its insides to spill out. [link]

[Lexx]

That's so super creepy.

[Serrano]

Zombie arms, they're real!

 

[Raithe]

Dungeons and Dragons at 40 years old

 

 

 

At 40 Years Old, Dungeons & Dragons Still Matters

 

Ethan Gilsdorf looks back on four decades of pen-and-paper role-playing tradition.

Dungeons & Dragons, that ground-breaking role-playing game, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

 

Specifically, the game's big "4-0" comes this month. It was in January of 1974 when the game's co-creator, Gary Gygax, officially announced in a newsletter that "the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association has now released its set of fantasy campaign rules (Dungeons and Dragons)." In that announcement, Gygax invited folks to drop by his Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, home some Sunday afternoon to experience Dungeons & Dragons themselves.

 

But lo, those four decades ago, when D&D first debuted, no one knew what to make of it. D&D was intended to be a new twist on traditional war games. New, because "role-playing" games as a category did not exist. Newcomers found D&D to be weird and complex and confusing and trippy. You want me to "play" a dwarf fighter named Frowndorf? You want me to tell you how my hobbit thief is going to kill the gang of orcs? These dice have how many sides? WTF?

 

But to those who were intrigued, the “Huh?"s of doubt quickly turned to “Hey, this is fun.” No one guessed Dungeons & Dragons would be revolutionary.

Never before had a game asked players to assume roles of individual characters and jointly imagine the world where those adventures would take place. With D&D, you don't beat your fellow players, you cooperate. Sure, there were war games with miniature figurines and maps. But here was a game that said that there's no "win"—there's just the ongoing story, and the next adventure.

 

I first played D&D back in the 1970s and 1980s. Like millions of mostly male and young American proto-geeks, I too got sucked into the game's vicarious derring-do and heroics, playing wizards and warriors —idealized versions of myself — who wielded incredible power, acquired cool stuff, killed nasty monsters, cast spells, and inhabited fantastical places.

 

Today, deep in the digital age, I'm happy to report that the game still exists. In fact, the new edition of D&D's rules is slated for release this August. And only now, as a 47-year-old who still plays the game, can I appreciate why Dungeons & Dragons still matters in 2014.

 

To be sure, there's lots to say about how D&D was a game-changer and eternally influenced geek culture. Much has been said about how the game practically cemented the foundation for the modern video game industry. D&D pioneered concepts like avatars, characters, and levels. It measured armor, health, and personal attributes numerically—hence, my elf's 17 charisma makes him hotter (and a better leader) than your 11 charisma loser. Each iteration of D&D, and its many copycats and variations, also made ubiquitous that "dungeon crawl" experience that so many electronic games—from Doom, Quake and Myst, to World of Warcraft, Halo, Portal and Call of Duty—have all employed to such addictive effect. D&D also encouraged the popularization of Tolkien and fantasy. Dress-up "cosplay" and story-based live-action role-playing came from roots steeped in D&D. The game inspired the first interactive fiction.

 

Like a 3rd level Spell of Suggestion, D&D generated subtle repercussions through the culture. The role-playing game opened new pathways for creativity, new ways for kids and young adults to entertain themselves. The game led a DIY, subversive, anti-corporate revolution, a slow-building insurrectionist attack against the status quo of leisure time and entertainment.

 

The conceptual space that D&D organized was infinite. Suddenly, for kids who "got" the game and understood how it worked, options for "play" were no longer limited to basic board games such as Risk or Monopoly. The game “board” was limitless. This game was played with words scribbled on character sheets, and books, even as its world existed largely in your head. Like a new movement in theater or literature, D&D invented not only a venue for homegrown storytelling, but a new game genre: the role-playing game.

 

The lesson of Dungeons & Dragons has always been this: make your own entertainment. By sitting around a table, face to face, and arming yourself with pencils, graph paper, and polyhedral dice, you can tap into what shamans, poets and bards have done all the way back to the Stone Age. Namely, the making of a meaningful story where the tellers have an emotional stake in the telling, and the creating of a shared experience out of thin air.

To go on this new adventure, you don't absorb a movie or TV show passively, on the couch, or merely "read" a book. Nor are your options for “interacting” with a fantasy experience limited to collecting merchandise or playing with action figures. Best of all, the essential quality of this unique, narrative gaming experience can't be co-opted as commercial entertainment. Role-playing games like D&D are a way to experience unstructured free time while imposing upon it a structure, a story.

 

The rules books are guidelines, not stone tablets. Don't agree with how much damage a long sword should do, as listed in The Dungeon Master's Guide? Make up a new rule. If you want more of this swords and sorcery world, the tools are there to build addenda and archipelagoes yourself. Try that with Clue or Stratego. D&D became not just entertainment, but an art form.

 

Along the way, D&Ders like me learned about stuff. We discussed hit dice and saving throws, ballistas and halberds. We studied, without encouragement from our parents or teachers, arcane subjects such as architecture, history, languages, and statistics. I learned how to draw and map. I learned battle tactics, how to bargain, how to empathize and negotiate with those not like me—be it undead kings or jocks. And a lot of introverted, socially-inept kids found friends and fellowship. I got socialized, and I learned how to be a leader. Bored and dissatisfied with my real life, I created a more exciting one, again and again, where I got to save the day and have agency.

 

The tools of D&D gave me permission to imagine a better me, and a better story for myself. They gave me the courage to imagine a different future. And taught me how to change myself. Not happy with lowly Level 1 Ethan, I worked hard to level up to my better, stronger, faster level 17 version today.

As a result of the many millions who logged countless hours with their Monster Manuals in dungeons dark and deep—with nary an iPad, iPhone, or screen in sight—Dungeons & Dragons created a generation of dreamers, do-ers, and writers. Would-be actors and historians and programmers flocked to the game. Those who "got" D&D were people who were curious about the workings of the world—but also other worlds.

 

Today, we're proud of how sophisticated and immersive electronic games have become. But D&D beats digital hands down. Video games are limited to what the programmers can program. In D&D, the virtual game board and the place where is all takes place was always the players' collective imaginations, huddled around a table in a living room, den, or basement, fueled not by venture capital or terabytes, but Mountain Dew, Doritos, and banter.

 

D&D is still my springboard into dreaming. Me and four other guys, all in our forties, embark upon these imaginary adventures on Sunday nights. How can I give this up? I leave my computer behind and dip into an amorphous, enigmatic current of magical thinking that humans rarely swim in: something epic and unknown. The other night, my character, Renn, revealed to his compatriots that he is not fully human, but a half-elf in hiding. In a world where elves are outlawed, this is not only a plot complication, it's a big deal for my character, his group, my group, game, the world.

 

We need D&D and role-playing more than ever. If for no other reason than to help us take back our creativity, our storytelling mojo, from the things that take them from us: Hollywood, publishing, even social media.

Just choose your enemy, roll a 20-sided die to hit, and then, tell us what happens next.

 

Edited February 2, 2014 by Raithe

[Gorth]

As the old saying goes: Don't throw rocks if you live in a... house!

 

 

Boulder smashes through Italian farm

 

Nobody was injured. More pictures in BBC story, including the second rock that almost flattened the main house (not visible from this angle).

 

[ShadySands]

Kansas sperm donor to appeal ruling that he must pay child support

 

(Reuters) - A Kansas man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple so they could have a child plans to appeal a judge's ruling that he is the legal father of the girl and must pay child support, his lawyer said on Thursday.

 

William Marotta, 47, was financially responsible for the child because under state law sperm for artificial insemination must be donated through a physician, a judge ruled on Wednesday, siding with the state of Kansas.

 

The couple, Jennifer Schreiner and Angela Bauer, had found Marotta by advertising on Craigslist and did not use a physician in the donation process, according to court records. They signed a contract agreeing that Marotta would have no financial responsibility to the child.

 

When the couple encountered money difficulties and one sought state benefits, the state petitioned to have Marotta declared the child's father and financially responsible.

 

"A parent may not terminate parental rights by contract ... even when the parties have consented," Shawnee County District Court Judge Mary Mattivi ruled.

 

Marotta's lawyer, Ben Swinnen, said his client would appeal the ruling, which raised the question of whether a man could only be considered a sperm donor in Kansas if he goes through a physician.

 

"It takes a very sweeping reading of the statute," he said.

 

Swinnen said Marotta and his wife have no children of their own but have fostered a daughter, adding he was simply trying to help a couple who wanted a child.

 

Cathy Sakimura, family law director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said Kansas is among numerous states with laws that require physicians to be involved with artificial insemination, but other states have found legal ways to protect the father from financial obligations.

 

"Certainly there is a concern that someone who wants to be a donor to help a family may not want to do that now," Sakimura said.

[Mor]

I can't begin to imagine what went through the guys head when he received that news...   doesn't seem to begin to describe it ...

[Walsingham]

That's so super creepy.

 

I never thought I'd feel sorry for starfish. But I do now.

[AGX-17]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25330947

 

Tattooing is on increase: Habit not confined to seamen only

Edited February 5, 2014 by AGX-17

[ShadySands]

I didn't know this was even a scandal but...

 

Red Hot Chili Peppers Did Not Plug in Their Guitars for Super Bowl Halftime Show

[Gfted1]

^I didn't even notice the guitars were unplugged during the performance. And Flea is surprisingly eloquent.

[Malcador]

http://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2014/02/05/u_of_t_student_loses_bid_to_avoid_class_with_women_because_hes_shy.html

 

 

Sexual politics have erupted again in Toronto’s ivory tower as another male student has lost a bid to be excused from a class with women without losing marks, this time because he’s shy.

The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has dismissed a complaint by University of Toronto student Wongene Daniel Kim, who accused his professor of discriminating against him as a male when she docked him marks for not coming to class because he was too shy to be the only guy.

The second-year health science major arrived at the opening of a Women and Gender Studies course for which he had signed up in the fall of 2012 — “It had spaces left and fit into my timetable” — only to discover a room full of women and nary a man in sight.

“I felt anxiety; I didn’t expect it would be all women and it was a small classroom and about 40 women were sort of sitting in a semicircle and the thought of spending two hours every week sitting there for the next four months was overwhelming,” said Kim, 20, adding he manages a part-time job with women because there are also other men.

“I’m generally a shy person, especially around women, and it would have been a burden if I had had to choose a group for group work.”

He didn’t stay for class — that day, or ever — but continued in the course and asked Professor Sarah Trimble to waive the 15 per cent of the mark earned by class participation and attendance.

She refused.

Kim got poor marks on assignments and ended up failing the course, which he said he found frustrating after spending the money on course materials.

He asked Trimble to reconsider his mark. When she refused, he complained to the Human Rights Tribunal that she was penalizing him because he was male.

Kim said he had been unaware how poorly he was doing until it was too late because Trimble didn’t post marks on the course website. She handed assignments back in class.

“We live in a digital era, why couldn’t she have posted the marks online?” Kim said in an interview. “I believe if you want to attract more males to these courses, you have to work with them. My request for accommodation was reasonable.”

However the tribunal ruled his complaint did not warrant a hearing.

“The applicant has not satisfied me that his claimed discomfort in a classroom of women requires accommodation under the (Ontario Human Rights) Code,” wrote adjudicator Mary Truemner. “He admitted that his discomfort is based on his own ‘individual preference’ as a shy person . . . and stated he thought they (the women) would not be willing to interact with him because of his gender.”

This was “merely speculation as he never gave the class, or the women, a chance,” wrote Truemner, vice-chair of the tribunal.

Kim had no evidence of being “excluded, disadvantaged or treated unequally on the basis of” his gender, she said.

The case comes weeks after York University came under fire for not supporting a professor’s refusal to let a male student be excused from face-to-face group work with female students in an online sociology course because it would violate his religious practice.

Professor Paul Grayson argued that to allow the request would have let “religious rights trump women’s rights . . . and tacitly accept a negative definition of females. That’s not acceptable,” he told the Star.

But York’s administration said Grayson should have excused the student from group work because York had earlier excused an overseas student from group work in an online course.

The controversy sparked a national debate about how far universities should go to accommodate students, from religious belief to personal preferences.

“The heart of the Human Rights Code is to make sure people are treated fairly and accommodated for grounds protected by the code, like race, gender, disability — but shyness around women is certainly not one of those grounds,” said Jim Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association for University Teachers.

“There is no reason whatsoever to accommodate personal preference — what if I didn’t like redheads? — and when people try to use it for personal preference undermines the basic values of a post-secondary education dedicated to diversity and not treating any class of students as subordinate to others.”

U of T spokesman Michael Kurts agreed the university accommodates student requests based on any grounds protected by the Ontario Human Rights Code, “but those human rights obligations do not extend to individual preferences.”

 

Why on earth he'd sign up for a women's studies course then, I dunno.   Hm, a woman should try that with Engineering classes

[Walsingham]

I would suggest that refusing to participate in the class betrayed either a ludicrous failure to understand women, or a very great understanding of the same.

 

Possibly both at once.

[Cultist]

Clothing being sold as cashmere actually contains rat fur, it appears, as Italian police arrest 14 people and seize more than a million garments.

The Chinese-born suspects were arrested in the Italian cities of Livorno and Rome after a year-long investigation, and have been cautioned for fraud, the Italian news agency ANSA reports.

The clothes claiming to be made of cashmere contained a mixture of acrylic and viscose, as well as "fur from rats and other animals", judicial sources say. Bogus merino wool, silk and pashmina garments were also seized.

Counterfeiting is widespread in China, in domestic and export markets, leading Beijing to step up its efforts to crack down on the practice. Taiwan's Want China Times says fake goods are a "way of life" in many rural areas, with people having "no choice but to accept counterfeit and defective goods".

China's reputation for peddling fake goods may be hurting its legitimate industries elsewhere in the world. According to the Arab News, Saudi consumers may be put off by the "Made in China" label, even on popular brands, because they're worried the goods might be fake.

[Lexx]

I am working in a team of 12 women. I am one of 5 men in the whole building and It's awesome.

 

Being young and in school (or something similar) and the only male in class sounds even more awesome, to be honest.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Lexx

[Meshugger]

Clothing being sold as cashmere actually contains rat fur, it appears, as Italian police arrest 14 people and seize more than a million garments.

The Chinese-born suspects were arrested in the Italian cities of Livorno and Rome after a year-long investigation, and have been cautioned for fraud, the Italian news agency ANSA reports.

The clothes claiming to be made of cashmere contained a mixture of acrylic and viscose, as well as "fur from rats and other animals", judicial sources say. Bogus merino wool, silk and pashmina garments were also seized.

Counterfeiting is widespread in China, in domestic and export markets, leading Beijing to step up its efforts to crack down on the practice. Taiwan's Want China Times says fake goods are a "way of life" in many rural areas, with people having "no choice but to accept counterfeit and defective goods".

China's reputation for peddling fake goods may be hurting its legitimate industries elsewhere in the world. According to the Arab News, Saudi consumers may be put off by the "Made in China" label, even on popular brands, because they're worried the goods might be fake.

 

The chinese desperately needs to have an honor-system in their culture. Selling fakes? Family honor has been revoked, the only way to restore it is to commit seppuku. I give it a generation or two and things will improve immensly. 

[Cultist]

I'm mostly amused at using rats' fur for clothes making. It's not a kind of animal that produce a lot of fur.

[Amentep]

But they can be prodigious reproducers, so I'd imagine that might offset the size issue.

[Malcador]

http://www.boston.com/yourcampus/news/wellesley/2014/02/realistic_statue_of_man_in_his_underwear_at_wellesley_college_sparks_controversy.html

[Walsingham]

 

Clothing being sold as cashmere actually contains rat fur, it appears, as Italian police arrest 14 people and seize more than a million garments.

The Chinese-born suspects were arrested in the Italian cities of Livorno and Rome after a year-long investigation, and have been cautioned for fraud, the Italian news agency ANSA reports.

The clothes claiming to be made of cashmere contained a mixture of acrylic and viscose, as well as "fur from rats and other animals", judicial sources say. Bogus merino wool, silk and pashmina garments were also seized.

Counterfeiting is widespread in China, in domestic and export markets, leading Beijing to step up its efforts to crack down on the practice. Taiwan's Want China Times says fake goods are a "way of life" in many rural areas, with people having "no choice but to accept counterfeit and defective goods".

China's reputation for peddling fake goods may be hurting its legitimate industries elsewhere in the world. According to the Arab News, Saudi consumers may be put off by the "Made in China" label, even on popular brands, because they're worried the goods might be fake.

 

The chinese desperately needs to have an honor-system in their culture. Selling fakes? Family honor has been revoked, the only way to restore it is to commit seppuku. I give it a generation or two and things will improve immensly. 

 

 

Also, Aston Martin will be ceasing use of Chinese firms after counterfeit materials were used.

 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/02/05/uk-autos-astonmartin-recall-idUKBREA141T420140205

 

IMO this is exactly why you need rigorous enforcement of both contractual and legal standards at a national level. Or ordinary people suffer as investment and trade suffers. 

 

Not going to happen in China, though.

[Amentep]

Mamoru Samuragochi (who was credited for music on the Dual Shock version of RESIDENT EVIL and OMNIMUSHI: WARLORDS) considered by some to be Japan's Beethoven has announced that he actually had a ghost writer write his music as he was too deaf to do more than suggest themes.

 

The ghost writer came forward (apparently distressed that their music was being used by one of Japan's figure skaters) and said that not only did Samuragochi hire him to compose music, but that Samuragochi can't compose music himself.

 

Oh and that Samuragochi isn't actually deaf.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/arts/music/renowned-japanese-composer-mamoru-samuragochi-admits-fraud.html?_r=1

 

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/02/winter-olympics-japan-figure-skating-composer-daisuke-takahashi/

[Malcador]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/world/middleeast/suicide-bomb-instructor-accidentally-kills-iraqi-pupils.html?smid=re-share

 

 

BAGHDAD — A group of Sunni militants attending a suicide bombing training class at a camp north of Baghdad were killed on Monday when their commander unwittingly conducted a demonstration with a belt that was packed with explosives, army and police officials said.

The militants belonged to a group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which is fighting the Shiite-dominated army of the Iraqi government, mostly in Anbar Province. But they are also linked to bomb attacks elsewhere and other fighting that has thrown Iraq deeper into sectarian violence.

Twenty-two ISIS members were killed, and 15 were wounded, in the explosion at the camp, which is in a farming area in the northeastern province of Samara, according to the police and army officials. Stores of other explosive devices and heavy weapons were also kept there, the officials said.

Eight militants were arrested when they tried to escape, the officials said.

The militant who was conducting the training was not identified by name, but he was described by an Iraqi Army officer as a prolific recruiter who was “able to kill the bad guys for once.”

ISIS militants drove into Falluja and the nearby city of Ramadi, both in Anbar Province, earlier this year with heavy weaponry, taking control of key intersections and offices of local authorities.

Local security forces and tribes have since re-established control in Ramadi.

But Iraq is developing a plan, with help from the United States, that would have Sunni tribes take the lead in ending the standoff with ISIS in Falluja, with the Iraqi Army in support, a senior State Department official told Congress last week.

The official, Brett McGurk, said that ISIS had about 2,000 fighters in Iraq, and that its longer-term objective is to establish a base of operations in Baghdad, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has been officially designated as a global terrorist by the State Department.

In other violence in Iraq, a roadside bomb detonated in the northern city of Mosul alongside the convoy of the speaker of Parliament, the Sunni leader Osama al-Nujaifi, security officials said. Six of his guards were wounded, but Mr. Nujaifi was unharmed, they said.

In Baghdad, a doctor was found dead with bullet wounds in his head and chest two days after he was kidnapped from his house, medical officials said.

In the Baya district of southwestern Baghdad, a bomb left near a cafe killed four people and wounded 11, according to a police official.

[ShadySands]

dunno if this was already posted or not

 

'Deadly' Pot Brownies Prompt 911 Call

 

While many 911 calls are a terrifying matter of life and death, others turn out to include outrageous circumstances that nonetheless turn out with happier endings. In this exclusive sneak peek from TLC's new show Outrageous 911, we feature one of those calls -- placed by a man who reports overdosing on a batch of pot brownies!

"I think we're dying," the man is heard telling a 911 dispatcher after explaining that he and his wife had ingested a whole batch of brownies laced with marijuana. "How much did you guys have?" the dispatcher asks repeatedly before getting an answer. "I don't know we made brownies -- and I think we're dead."

 

The caller adds: "Time is going by really, really slow. Just please send rescue." When asked whether he had done this before, the caller says no, but he later confesses that he too is a police officer and the pot used in the brownie recipe was confiscated from a crime scene. 

 

[ShadySands]

to follow that up

 

Does a more equal marriage mean less sex

 

Marriage is hardly known for being an aphrodisiac, of course, but my boyfriend was referring to a particularly modern state of marital affairs. Today, according to census data, in 64 percent of U.S. marriages with children under 18, both husband and wife work. There’s more gender-fluidity when it comes to who brings in the money, who does the laundry and dishes, who drives the car pool and braids the kids’ hair, even who owns the home. A vast majority of adults under 30 in this country say that this is a good thing, according to a Pew Research Center survey: They aspire to what’s known in the social sciences as an egalitarian marriage, meaning that both spouses work and take care of the house and that the relationship is built on equal power, shared interests and friendship. But the very qualities that lead to greater emotional satisfaction in peer marriages, as one sociologist calls them, may be having an unexpectedly negative impact on these couples’ sex lives.

 

A study called “Egalitarianism, Housework and Sexual Frequency in Marriage,” which appeared in The American Sociological Review last year, surprised many, precisely because it went against the logical assumption that as marriages improve by becoming more equal, the sex in these marriages will improve, too. Instead, it found that when men did certain kinds of chores around the house, couples had less sex. Specifically, if men did all of what the researchers characterized as feminine chores like folding laundry, cooking or vacuuming — the kinds of things many women say they want their husbands to do — then couples had sex 1.5 fewer times per month than those with husbands who did what were considered masculine chores, like taking out the trash or fixing the car. It wasn’t just the frequency that was affected, either — at least for the wives. The more traditional the division of labor, meaning the greater the husband’s share of masculine chores compared with feminine ones, the greater his wife’s reported sexual satisfaction.