By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 6/8/2016
I was chatting with someone in PR prior to going to see a screening of Warcraft yesterday and he said in a comforting tone “It isn’t as bad as they say.” Considering it’s at 18% n Rotten Tomatoes, it would have to be pretty bad indeed. Maybe it was my lowered expectations, but I […]
By: Lauren,
on 5/20/2011
Perhaps you haven’t heard, but the world will end tomorrow. That is, according to Harold Camping and the “Family Radio” network, who have been warning us that the rapture will take place at 6 p.m. on May 21st. (I am still unsure…is this for Eastern Daylight Time? Or will it just begin in New Zealand and sweep west?)
I wouldn’t want you all to just be sitting around, bored and waiting, so I’ve come up with a few things you can do in the meantime.
Google ‘rapture’ and watch the realtime results counter. (Is there a rapture countdown widget? I haven’t been able to find one.)
Play World of Warcraft. Go ahead. Here’s why your gaming skills will help you survive.
Try to figure out what the heck Blondie’s singing about in “Rapture.”
Read New York City’s Mayor Bloomberg shares 5 reasons the world can’t end. Yet.
Jump for joy, because if the world ends, so does alternate-side parking.
Remember that the real doomsday is coming: the end of the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Figure out the difference between the rapture and the second coming of Christ.
Catch up with this last-minute rapture reading list. (To which I would like to add Apocalyptic AI.)
Prepare a Rapture Party.
Get your groove on to the Eclectic Method’s “Apocamix.”
Buy the large popcorn at the movies (with EXTRA butter) and don’t even bother flossing.
0 Comments on Linked Up: Possible end of the world edition as of 1/1/1900
By: Lauren,
on 9/13/2010
Read his previous post, 10 Ways World of Warcraft Will Help You Survive the End of Humanity!
Scientific American recently rocked the Internet with its editors’ piece “Death to Humans! Visions of the Apocalypse in Movies and Literature” but, in doing so, have missed half of the fun. In an article where the sublime (The Matrix) meets the atrocious (The Postman), the chief problem that SciAm’s editors suffer is that, to be honest, they do not know what an apocalypse is.
Threats to the world are not apocalyptic. In one of the apocalyptic texts par excellence, the Book of Revelation, the world isn’t just going to end…it’s going to transform in radical fashion (admittedly thanks to the seven seals that FBI and ATF members thought were marine mammals when David Koresh quoted them, the many-headed beast, and the whore of Babylon who will be drunk on the blood of the martyrs). Despite all the trials and tribulations, the end of the world is a good thing: it will end with the establishment of a wondrous new one.
So, how about some more apocalyptic films and books?
R.U.R. (1927; play) – Robots plan on killing us all. But after they’ve finished their noble work, they will explore an earth purged of, umm, us.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968; film and novel) – In Kubrick’s and Clarke’s classic, David Bowman gets sucked into a galactic hotel and comes back a “Star Child” who can toss aside nuclear weapons as though they are paper airplanes. A new world shall dawn in the warm glow of the cosmic baby’s power.
Dark City (1998, film) – After John Murdoch psychokinetically conquers the aliens who have enslaved humankind, he remains stuck in a spaceship but uses its powers to provide himself with a West coast paradise where he will spend the future with a lovely woman whose memories have been tailored to match his own.
The Lord of the Rings (1954-1955 and 2001-2003; novels and films) – When two hobbits (one deranged and well past his prime, the other just twisted and tired after a noble quest) struggle at the flaming precipice of Mount Doom, they inaugurate a new world. In the end, lava purges the forces of evil and the friendly hobbits have a fighting chance to spend eternity blowing smoke rings and cheering for fireworks.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2004; novel) – Cory Doctorow paints us a future where we can spend an infinity in Disney Land, rejuvenating our bodies and, when necessary, restoring our minds to cloned bodies in the case of, well, an accident. And the line at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride won’t matter because you have an infinite amount of time to wait.
Accelerando (2006; novel) – After the machines take over the solar system, predicts Charles Stross, we can always ask a divine
By: LaurenA,
on 4/7/2010
Robert M. Geraci is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College. In his new book Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality, he examines the “cyber-theology” which suggests we might one day upload our minds into robots or cyberspace and live forever. Drawing on interviews with roboticists, AI researchers, Second Life devotees, and others, Geraci reveals that the idea of Apocalyptic AI is strikingly similar to Judeo-Christian apocalyptic traditions. Here, he shares 10 ways World of Warcraft, one virtual reality game, could help us survive the end of the world as we know it.
1. The dangers will be minimal…level 80 priests can provide universal health care.
President Obama plans to insure 32 million more Americans than are currently protected; but the area of effect healing spells of priests can jump from one person to another, healing them as they become sick and injured without need for hospital visits, insurance payments, etc. This approach to medical treatment has obvious benefits over the constant paperwork that federally mandated insurance will require.
2. When aliens come to take over the planet, they’ll get addicted to WoW and forget what they were doing.
Instead of world domination, aliens will hope to complete all four daily cooking quests for The Rokk. After they’ve already eaten Emeril, they’ll spice up their life with Super Hot Stew and realize that people don’t taste all that good after all.
3. Who needs indoor plumbing? You’re already used to peeing into bottles.
Your guild’s “friendly” three day race to level 80 has given you all the continence you need…and the willingness to do what you must when the time comes.
4. After countless hours of farming for minerals, herbs and animal hides, you’re well prepared for life after subprime mortgages collapse the economy.
Let’s face it, the economy is in shambles and no one knows when it will recover. On the other hand, while toxic mortgage securities provide neither housing nor security, a proper skinner can ensure that all the local children stay warm through the winter.
5. Gnomish engineers will program the robots to like you (though they can’t guarantee proper functioning).
It’s not the Gnomes’ fault that Skynet became self-aware…they didn’t think it would defend that off switch so vociferously! And to compensate, they’ll happily upload your mind into one of their inventions so that you can join the robots in their post-apocalyptic future.
6. As the value of the dollar declines, gold and mithril will remain safe investments.
Gold will shine through the darkest of times and foreign governments will always be content to buy it from you at the auction house.
7. Your family pet can take aggro for you while you lay a fire trap to destroy a zombie mob.
A lifetime of treats and petting repaid in one priceless moment.
8. Your potions of underwater breathing will let you grab the a
By: jeff,
on 3/20/2010
The world is facing some pretty big problems: climate change, famine, war, terrorism, poverty… and little old you are just one person. For many people, the immensity of these problems only highlights for them a single person’s impotence against global scale issues.
Video games, however, are different. If you try hard enough, you WILL prevail. You can save the world/princess/lemmings through a series of levels of gradually increasing difficulty. In video games, you can be a winner, with wealth, power, prestige and (virtual) babes, even if, in life, you work at Blockbuster part time and crash on your buddy Steve’s futon. No wonder you would prefer to spend more time online than stocking copies of Twilight.
Extreme cases of this escapism has been in the news, with (usually Asian) gamers dying of dehydration/exhaustion after too much time online. One Korean couple recently let their real life baby starve while they cared for a virtual child online!
These stories are alarming, but it doesn’t end there. It may amaze you to know that we invest 3 billion hours a week playing games! It may alarm you even more to hear a video game expert assert that we need to spend MORE time gaming: she estimates that we should shoot for 21 billion hours a week.
This talk raises some very interesting points regarding the “virtuosity” that is attained by serious gamers. The skills they become virtuosic at are: Urgent Optimism (desire to act immediately combined with reasonable expectation of success), Weaving Social Fabric, Blissful Productivity (recognizing that we are happiest when engaged rather than “relaxing”), and Epic Meaning (attaching themselves to large scale causes and goals).
Great, those sound like fine qualities to have, but they only apply to World of Warcraft, right? You’d be surprised. Jane demos some games that she has deve
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By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 8/4/2009
This morning I stumbled across this piece of disturbing news out of China, which alleged that a 15-year-old was beaten to death in a rehab camp for internet addicts. While we [thankfully] don't have government-run camps for teenage "internet... Read the rest of this post
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By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 7/28/2009
Last night I went to a reading for Benjamin Nugent's American Nerd. In the part-memoir, part-ethnography, Nugent defines the designation of "nerd" by two non-mutually exclusive types. The one marked by obsessive interests and the other social... Read the rest of this post
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By: Nick Green,
on 5/6/2009
I read an article some time ago about ‘Warcraft widows’, the partners of those who are addicted to online games, most notably ‘World of Warcraft’. One can only feel sorry for these individuals, for it made grim reading. The addicts themselves are not kids or adolescents – many are in their mid thirties, like me. Wives and girlfriends complain of up to forty hours a week lost to this obsession, as their partners retreat to an imaginary world full of make-believe people, surfacing only for food and the loo. Often the players only reluctantly engage with real life, forget to do basic chores, become uncommunicative, and generally act as if the people in the imaginary world are more real than their own friends and family.
Sound familiar?
I read it, and my ears were burning. Then I moved away from the fireplace and carried on reading, but uncomfortably. And this in spite of the fact that I haven’t played a computer game for ten years.
One might protest that writing novels is a job, not a silly game. It’s art, right? And you get paid for it, right? (Well, in theory.) But money or not (and sometimes it really is hard to tell) the fact is that, for much of the time, there is no visible external difference between the writer and the poor guy who lives most of his life as Bjorn Bloodaxe, 15th-level warrior berserker mage. Those around him simply have to trust that he is doing something more worthwhile than lopping the heads off a bevy of goblins. Even if he is, in fact, lopping the heads off a bevy of goblins, via the more capable hands of his fictional hero.
Because it’s a freelance profession, and often carried on as a second job (as in my case) it’s easy to stray outside ordinary working hours, writing until your brain is fried and you’re incapable of carrying on a conversation. We talk about how hard it is to sit down and write – it’s harder, sometimes, to call it a day. Stephen King said that writing should be a support system for life – not the reverse. It’s good advice. No matter how important the story is to you, no matter how urgent the need to get it down, it should never reach the point where it replaces your life. After all, if we didn’t have a life, what would we write about?
By: Jenny Levine,
on 7/24/2008
Until a few years ago, the last time I had really played videogames was in college, where I lost a couple of months of my life (in a row) to SimCity on the Super Nintendo system. I learned my lesson from that and since then, I’ve stayed away from games that I know will suck in huge amounts of my time because I’ll probably enjoy them so much. So instead, I stick mainly to casual (and usually social) games, although I do keep a list of all of the ones I’m going to play someday when I have more time, including The Sims, Myst, and World of Warcraft.
Which is why I love the fact that Michael Porter plays WoW and explains it in his presentations and sometimes on his blog. He even started a Facebook group just for WoW librarians, but now he’s gone one better and created a WoW Guild just for libraries and librarians.
The Libraries and Librarians Guild in WoW -the Largest On-line MMORPG Game in the World
“World of Warcraft is the largest “Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game” in the world. It has 10 million plus subscribers and is, in addition to being a blast and a lovely distraction, gloriously fun and addictive to many. And now, finally, WE (Libraries and Librarians) have a guild. If you play WoW and work in, for, or with Libraryland, you can now join the Libraries and Librarians Guild. We are new, but we already have a substantial Guild web site complete with a forum (very good in Wow-land). And a bank. In fact, we have a bank with three tabs and daily pulls for repairs (that is also quite good in WoW-land). Heck we even have an optional free (to you) Guild tabard (sort of like a t-shirt you wear in the game)….
So join us! We’ll be there waiting to show you the ropes…and chat…and kill bad guys! Along the way, you’ll likely grok the whole online community/gaming/libraries thing just a little bit more, and have a blast while you’re at it. In fact, consider this your invitation to do exactly that!
Note: If you want to join this guild you must be on the Aerie Peak -US server. If you are a new player be sure to pick that server! Also, if you are creating a toon (new character) or transferring an existing character to join this guild, be sure you put it on this server (Aerie Peak - US)!!!” [Libraryman]
Michael has already created a parallel community in the new, forthcoming version of WebJunction, as well, which will make a nice complement to the Games and Gaming group that will live in ALAConnect. Gaming is all around us!
community, gaming in libraries, guild, librarians, libraries, libraries and librarians guild, mmorpg, world of warcraft
By: Jennie,
on 8/13/2007
A *mere* five million paid per month players means at least a bililion per year in revenues. And I believe there’s other ways to spend real eorld money within it as well. Not bad ‘tall.
I think this is a film made by a fan for fans. Therefor the reviews by anyone who’s not a fan are pretty much useless. It’s a very devoted fandom as we saw in Jamie Lee Curtis showing up at a premiere as an Orc (IIRC) even though she wasn’t in the film.
I’m guessing it’ll do very well in DVD sales too
Iain,
If you’re making a 150+ million dollar movie, it can’t just be for fans. And films needs to be their own satisfying experience, whether you’re among the most devoted or not.
Duncan Jones begged to make this movie? Danny Cannon begged to make ‘Judge Dredd’ back in 1995, and its failure derailed his career for years.
@Iain
WoW moved off paid subscription, so those 5 million aren’t necessarily paying customers. It’s not small fry, and I’m sure they make a mint, but they left the paid subscription model like everyone else.
It’s not a fan only movie.I had no idea about it and I got immersed in. I really can’t understand the criticism on this and I’ve seen it three times the third one to nitpick.
Only thing I got was:I Want it longer.
@Iain:
“Therefor the reviews by anyone who’s not a fan are pretty much useless”
Not for people who aren’t fans who are curious about the film. Actually, Heidi’s review is the first thing I’ve read that’s made me think about seeing this.
World of Warcraft is not the only Warcraft property. The earlier RTS games that came before are clearly what the games are based off and where more similarities are found. Easy to forget when zero research is done I suppose.
I agree that the cgi character were more compelling than he human actors. Lots of great detail on chi but the props and costumes looked fake and cheesy. Was hoping for better writing and dialogs. It would help to explain to casual fans and newbies why some orcs are brown or green. ,
“having women casually involved in the story would shrivel the genitals of the boys who want to see the film”
There’s a reason Gamergate originated from nerds and not “jocks” or successful men. Nerds hate women more than any other group.