We're not exactly what you'd call sanctimonious -- we try not to take ourselves or what we're doing too seriously -- but we feel obligated to call BenQ out for using an image of a crumbled World Trade Center in an ad for its new MusiQ campaign. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they don't understand how wrong it is to use the imagery of 9/11 to push products, but ultimately what they're doing is simply not acceptable. BenQ, do us all a favor, focus on your namesake ("Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to life") and don't ever try to be this kind of "hopeful" again.
In August 2003, two Michigan pastors, T.D. Turner Sr. and son T.D. Turner Jr., took a stand against sorcery by burning a Harry Potter book outside their Jesus Non-Denominational Church. The younger Turner, Tommy, says that while he hadn't read the book, the cover alone showed him it promoted wizardry, adding that Potter-related Web sites were gateways to harder stuff. The last straw came when a local girl tried to perform a magic spell. (She was unable, as far as we can tell, to turn anybody into a newt.)
"Parents [have to] realize this is more than a fictional book," says Turner. "It's attached to the occult."
The fire so inflamed parishioners' passions that, according to the Detroit Free Press, some of the 50 spectators proceeded to burn the Book of Mormon, a non-King James edition of the Bible, and even the Dan Aykroyd movie Coneheads. Turner regrets that things got out of control, but adds, "Since the burning, our ministry is growing and can seat another 400 members," he says. "God has been blessing us."
In their disdain for Harry Potter, the Turners are not alone. The boy wizard has inspired fundamentalists all over the U.S. to destroy his books. There have been half a dozen Potter book burnings in the past five years.
In some cases, though, the books weren't actually burned. In two towns, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Lewiston, Maine, local fire stations denied book-burning permits. One pastor, Douglas Taylor of the Jesus Party in Lewiston, undeterred, slashed and destroyed 12 Potter books instead.
"The city warned me they would intervene if I burned [the Potter books]," says Taylor, who held the cuttings in 2001 and 2002, "because of the toxic emissions used by the ink." Taylor points out that he only burns books he purchases. Also, he, like the Turners, is against the government censoring of the books; but unlike the Turners, he read most of one. He takes pride that at both book "cuttings," he allowed his opponents to speak at his microphone and question him. Some protesters even destroyed Bibles. "It didn't bother me at all," he says. "It's the message, not the print on the page."
As to why Taylor chose J.K. Rowling's books instead of something more sinister, the reason is clear: publicity. "Rowling has a world platform. I though I'd step up and share it with her," Taylor says.
Ray Bradbury, however, thinks that Taylor is deluded. The 86-year-old author of the anti-censorship novel Fahrenheit 451 is a passionate advocate of free speech and believes Taylor and his ilk are at best clueless about their actions.
"He [Taylor] doesn't know what witchcraft is," says Bradbury. "It's about wits. There's nothing wrong with the Potter books, because they're not promoting witchcraft. They're promoting being wise."
Regarding Taylor himself, Bradbury is succinct: "He sounds like a stupid man. He just shoots off his mouth, and he should just go somewhere, sit down and shut up."
It's hard to know exactly how many books are burned in the U.S. each year. The group that keeps the best tabs on this, the American Library Association, updates an anti-book burning Web site with links from around the country, but it resists a hard count of books burned. Indeed, Third Reich-style bonfires have never been popular in the U.S., says Judith Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom of the ALA. "Setting bonfires is either viewed as just stupid or amusing," says Krug. "It's amusing, because [book burners] are too dumb to find other outlets. We get hysterical about sex, yet the general feeling is, 'I won't let some yahoo tell me what to read.'"
However, that is exactly what Americans did through most of late 1800s and early 1900s, when Anthony Comstock reigned supreme as the nation's self-appointed censor. In 1866, Comstock started the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, which had as its seal a picture of a top-hatted man burning a pile of books. Incensed by "lewdness," Comstock worked the halls of Congress and in 1873 got passed the "Act of the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use," otherwise known as the Comstock Act. Soon thereafter, Congress made Comstock a special agent of the Post Office, giving him the power to arrest distributors of lewd or unwholesome materials, as judged by him.
Comstock--in a career that didn't end until his death in 1915--claimed he'd destroyed 160 tons of obscene literature and arrested some 3,600 purveyors of prurient material.
Though Comstock's influence has waned, outside the U.S., book burning is still in fashion. In May of this year, protesters in the Philippines and Italy burned copies of The Da Vinci Code to coincide with the release of the film version. In a tragicomic note, the Philippine Daily Inquirer pointed out that due to the high cost of the book, protesters likely only burned three copies of it, adding photocopies to make the pyre higher. In Ceccano, Italy, only one copy of the book was burned, even as protesters hurled tomatoes at the burners.
Perhaps the most famous burning of all time occurred at the Royal Library at Alexandria, Egypt, one of the great repositories of learning in the ancient world, which held 40,000 manuscripts, many irreplaceable. Accounts differ about who ultimately burned the library; some say it was Julius Caesar in 47 or 48 B.C., who torched it inadvertently during battle with his arch-enemy Pompey. Others say the decisive burning occurred in A.D. 642, overseen by Omar, Caliph of Baghdad.
What is not in dispute is that the library burned, taking many of the great works of the ancient world with it. In particular, the playwright Aeschylus' work suffered when the great storehouse burned. Today, just seven of his plays survive, though he wrote 90. The reason? Just one copy of his completed texts existed--they were never reproduced--and they were housed at Alexandria.
But even Aeschylus is lucky compared to the Greek poet Sappho, who lived circa 600 B.C. Famed for her revolutionary approach that expressed feelings of romantic longing, her work was destroyed first by early Christians around the year 400 and later by Pope Gregory VII in 1073, leaving just one complete poem existent.
Of course, the Bible has offended those in power for centuries, and it has been frequently burned. William Tyndale is perhaps little remembered today, but in 1526, he printed the first-ever New Testament in English. The Bishop of London, not happy to see the Word so easily put in the hands of the laity, hunted Tyndale and his books down, burning them where he could. The plot almost worked, as just two copies of the book survived. But survive, and eventually thrive, the books did, even though Tyndale himself did not. He was burned at the stake in 1536. His last words: "Lord, open the eyes of the King of England." But perhaps a more fitting epitaph could be his most famous turn of phrase: "Let there be light."
It appears very likely that taxation of online games assets is inevitable. Quote: 'That's because game publishers may well in the not too distant future have to send the forms — which individuals receive when earning nonemployee income from companies or institutions — to virtual world players engaging in transactions for valuable items like Ultima Online castles, EverQuest weapons or Second Life currency, even when those players don't convert the assets into cash.
Left-handed people can think quicker when carrying out tasks such as playing computer games or playing sport, say Australian researchers.
Connections between the left and right hand sides or hemispheres of the brain are faster in left-handed people, a study in Neuropsychology shows.
The fast transfer of information in the brain makes left-handers more efficient when dealing with multiple stimuli.
Experts said left-handers tended to use both sides of the brain more easily.
Study leader Dr Nick Cherbuin from the Australian National University measured transfer time between the two sides of the brain by measuring reaction times to white dots flashed to the left and right of a fixed cross.
This seems to go with evidence that left-handers use both sides of the brain for language
Dr Steve Williams
He then compared this with how good participants were at carrying out a task to spot matching letters in the left and right visual fields, which would require them to use both sides of the brain at the same time.
Tests in 80 right-handed volunteers showed there was a strong correlation between how quickly information was transferred across the left and right hemispheres and how quickly people spotted matching letters.
But when the tests were repeated in 20 left-handed volunteers, the researchers found that the more left handed people were the better they were at processing information across the two sides of the brain.
Extreme left-handed individuals were 43milliseconds faster at spotting matching letters across the right and left visual fields than right-handed people.
More efficient
Dr Cherbuin, research fellow at the University concluded: "These findings confirm our prediction of increasing efficiency of hemispheric interactions with increasing left-handedness."
But he added that it wasn't a clear-cut pattern as there were subtle differences between strongly and mildly left-handed or right-handed individuals.
Dr Cherbuin explained that people tended to use both hemispheres for tasks which are very fast or very hard and which require interpretation of a lot of information, such as computer games or driving in heavy traffic or playing sport.
Chartered psychologist, Dr Steve Williams said left-handed people tended to be better at using both sides of the brain.
"It's certainly very interesting. It's always been said that left-handers are different from right-handers in that the are less consistent with their left-handedness.
"This seems to go with evidence that left-handers use both sides of the brain for language - that they are more bicerebral. They get faster at it because they're having to use both sides of the brain more," he said.
Does this put him on the naughty list then?
'Police in Rock Hill South Carolina arrested an eager teenager for opening his Game Boy Christmas present early. The 12-year-old kid had taken the present that had been placed under the Christmas tree by his 27-year-old mother. On Sunday, the mother and the boy's great-grandmother couldn't find the present and threatened to call the police.
The boy fessed up, but the mother called the police anyways. Two Rock Hill police department officers arrived and arrested the boy for petty theft. While most people would say that it's impossible to steal a gift, the mother argued that the gift hadn't yet been given and still belonged to her. He wasn't taken to jail and was released to his parents.
The mother and grandparents say the kid has had previous disciplinary problems and wanted to teach him a lesson. Police Lieutenant Jerry Waldrop told the Rock Hill Herald that, "In a case like this, if the parents and grandparents are adamant about it and they feel the child has a serious problem, I can't second-guess what the officers did," Waldrop said.' source
Amusingly the police report is up for reading on this one as well, you can read it here
The Financial Times reports that the German states of Bavaria and Lower Saxony have drafted legislation the would lead to fines and jail time for developers, distributors and even players of games that involve "cruel violence on humans or human-looking characters." The proposed laws, which would affect nearly 19 million Germans, come in response to a recent school shooting by a masked, 18-year-old German Counter-Strike fan that has turned public sentiment in the country against violent games.
Bavarian Interior Minister Gunther Beckstein is leading the effort to pass the legislation, arguing "it is absolutely beyond any doubt that such killer games desensitise [sic] unstable characters and can have a stimulating effect." Despite complaints by German gamers, 59 percent of Germans at large support such a ban, according to a poll cited by the Financial Times.
Germany has a long history of tough restrictions on violent games from Doom to Gears of War, and an outright ban would likely affect high-profile PS3 launch games like Resistance: Fall of Man and Call of Duty 3.
Some photos and details of the upcoming Order of the Phoenix action figures have just been released on Action-Figure.com. You can see a number of photos here, depicting the Harry figurine along with his Patronus, and a short description below:
I can't give you the full details of the line yet, but what you won't be able to tell from the pictures below is that the line is 3.75" scale! Yeah, I saw the sculpt and gasped as well (and I can tell you that the preapproved Ron and Hermoine I've seen in private look just as good!) This scale gives the line a lot of possibilities, a LOT of possibilities, that have me very excited and wanting to tell you more.
David Yates, director of the fifth Harry Potter film, spoke in a new interview about what direction he's putting the movie in. Yates' prestige has increased in the UK after producing hits such as Sex Traffic and The Girl in the Cafe, but it has been questioned why someone who makes "gritty, hyperreal socially conscious films" is directing Potter. Producer David Heyman answers that question, saying, "Well, this movie is bit of a revolution."
Yates had this to say: "The ministry is this bureaucratic authoritarian regime trying to impose a fundamental doctrine on this liberal wacky school. The ministry isn't very good at accepting the beauty of differences. Everything has to fit in a box, and if it doesn't fit, it must be removed. The wonderful thing this story tells kids is that it's OK to be different."
OOTP presents Harry with his toughest experiences yet, and that's what Yates is focusing on. "I've stretched Dan quite a bit. He's a very intuitive person, very bright, quite sensitive. I'm just helping him wake those things up. You can see his determination and ambition, and he can switch things on a sixpence, so I can't wait for people to see what he's achieving."
Jo Rowling updated her official site today with a new diary entry and a new addition to the rumors section. In her diary, Jo fills us in a little on Book 7's progress - she's currently "writing scenes that have been planned, in some cases, for a dozen years or even more" - and says, "I both want, and don't want, to finish this book (don't worry, I will.)" She also details a recent dream in which she was both Harry and the narrator.
I was searching for a Horcrux in a gigantic, crowded hall, which bore no resemblance to the Great Hall as I imagine it. As the narrator I knew perfectly well that the Horcrux was jammed in a hidden nook in the fireplace, while as Harry I was searching for it in all kinds of other places, while trying to make the people around me say lines I had pre-arranged for them. Meanwhile waiters and waitresses who work in the real cafe in which I have written huge parts of book seven roamed around me as though on stilts, all of them at least fifteen feet high. Perhaps I should cut back on the caffeine?
Could this dream have some bearing on an event in the seventh book? JK also wrote in her rumors section: "Harry will NOT merge with Voldemort to become a single entity, nor would Harry ever wish to command Death Eaters/Dementors/Inferi," debunking the theory he would.
Slash Film has a new interview with Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuaron and another film director Guillermo Del Toro. In it, Cuaron discusses whether Harry could possibly die in the final book:
"I don't know, I had this same conversation with someone the other day about that. In one hand it makes sense, in the other hand - how do you finish Harry Potter if you kill Harry? What is the resolution of the tale? How is she going to finish the seven books and not have an temptation to do an eighth book? I don't know. And that kind of stuff, I have a really good relationship with JK but I don't mess with that."
He goes on to mention a recent phone call he received from Jo congratulating him on his film Children of Men:
"She really loved Children of Men. And we started talking and I said that it was a tough process doing the movie because of the brutality of what you're doing, of what we're picturing. And then she conveyed to me, 'yes, yes, it's been hard for me because when you do writing about hard stuff, you have to sleep with that.' But I don't go into details."
JK Rowling has on her site given a Xmas Present to all her fans and fans of Harry Potter worldwide. to get to the name you have to go through a rather complicated process, but heres a handy video to learn you the way through:
The evil Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter himself are leading the field in betting on who will kill the schoolboy wizard in the last of the popular book series, British bookmaker William Hill has said.
Author Joanne "J.K." Rowling said last Thursday that the final instalment of the adventures is to be called "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", sparking speculation that the hero will meet his end.
"J.K mentioned that Harry might be killed off and the general consensus seems to be that... to ensure that Voldemort dies he will need to be sacrificed," said William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams on Tuesday.
"Most of the early money has been for Harry, who has been cut from 10-1 to 6-1 and Voldemort remains the odds-on favourite (at 4-5)."
The first time William Hill opened a book on a "whodunnit?" was for the US television series "Dallas", with betting on who shot Texas oil baron J.R Ewing.
That proved so popular that wagers on the possible culprit outstripped money placed on horse racing in the last days of betting.
Also at 6-1 to pot Harry were his nemesis Draco Malfoy and his ginger-haired best friend Ron Weasley.
The bookmaker has pledged that all bets will be void and stakes returned if Harry survives.
It also revealed that money has been placed on Ron Weasley and school swot Hermione Grainger getting married with Harry as best man; Ron and Hermione to have a child called Harry; and Ron to kill Draco Malfoy in a duel.
The first six books in the Potter series have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide and been translated into 63 languages, making Rowling Britain's highest-earning woman.
The first four books have been adapted into hit films starring Daniel Radcliffe as the bespectacled boy wizard.
"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", the fifth movie in the series, is currently being filmed and is due for release next year.
They told us it was bullet-proof, unbreakable. Yet in a mere eight days, a hacker by the name of Muslix64 has managed to single-handedly break the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), the standard that Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and others developed to protect HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. The BackupHDDVD software is posted online on a Doom 9 forum thread along with the volume and title keys needed to decrypt Full Metal Jacket, Van Helsing, and a few other popular HD DVD titles. Time to, er, back up those movies.
The actor who plays Snape in the HP films spoke recently in an interview about his new movie, Snow Cake, and a little about Order of the Phoenix. You can see a video of this interesting chat here --> http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1216
