Why South Korea is Considering a Gaming Curfew

My friend Florence Chee, who does smart-people theory about communications, mentioned on her twitter feed that there’s buzz in the air again about South Korea’s slow, loping movement toward a gaming curfew. The article she linked notes that it’s not just “extreme cases” (of the same kind that were routinely used to demonize Dungeons & Dragons back in the 1980s — guys kills his mom for being scolded to stop playing and then kills himself, for example) that justify the move, but also the more moderate example of kids who simply play all night, and therefore can’t concentrate when they …

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Ideas Worth Pushing: Post-Snark Era?

Jetse de Vries linked a recent post by Matt Staggs which hails an idea I really hope catches on: that we don’t need no more snark. I don’t know to what degree I’m guilty of it on my own website–maybe a little more than I imagine, but less than so many websites I’ve seen–but I do know I’ve reached the point where snarkiness for snarkiness’ sake is simply no longer a novelty. It’s a very tired, boring, useless exercise, and, finally, I think what can be said is that it’s become a self-indulgence. A tiresome self-indulgence, and one that gets …

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Dealing with Scammers: Memes and Means

There’s a new meme on Facebook, the Name Game. Well, I don’t know how new it really is, but I hadn’t seen it until this morning. It goes like this: you follow the instructions and generate a bunch of “names” for yourself: Replace my answers with yours and tag as many people as you want (but don’t forget to tag me!) 1. Agent-name (the second one of your fist names and the street you live in) – 2. Moviestar-name (grandparent from your father’s side and your favourite candy) – 3. Rapstar-name (first letter of your first name and 3-5 first …

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