For A 2005 Game That Sure Crossed The Line

Wow that's just gross. In mid-June 2005, a software patch for the game dubbed the "Hot Coffee mod" was released by Patrick Wildenborg (under the Internet alias "PatrickW"), a 38-year old modder from the Netherlands. The name "Hot Coffee" refers to the way the released game alludes to the unseen sex scenes. In the unmodified game, the player takes his girlfriend to her front door and she asks him if he would like to come in for "some coffee". He agrees, and the camera stays outside, swaying back and forth a bit, while moaning sounds are heard.
After installing the patch, users can enter the main character's girlfriends' houses and engage in a crudely rendered, fully clothed or nude sexual intercourse mini-game. The fallout from the controversy resulted in a public response from high-ranking politicians in the United States and elsewhere and resulted in the game's recall and re-release.
On July 20, 2005, North America's organization that establishes content ratings for video games, the ESRB, changed the rating of the game from Mature (M) to Adults Only (AO), making San Andreas the only mass-released AO console game in the United States. Rockstar announced that it would cease production of the version of the game that included the controversial content. Rockstar gave distributors the option of applying an Adults Only ESRB rating sticker to copies of the game, or returning them to be replaced by versions without the Hot Coffee content. Many retailers pulled the game off their shelves in compliance with their own store regulations that kept them from selling AO games. That same month in Australia, the Office of Film and Literature Classification revoked its original rating of MA15+, meaning that the game could no longer be sold there.
In August 2005, Rockstar North released an official "Cold Coffee" patch for the PC version of the game and re-released San Andreas with the "Hot Coffee" scenes removed (Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Version 2.0), allowing the game to return to its "M" rating. The PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions have also been re-released with the "Hot Coffee" scenes removed in the Greatest Hits Edition, the Platinum Edition, the "GTA Trilogy Pack" for Xbox and PlayStation 2, as well as a Special Edition for PlayStation 2 that includes the documentary film Sunday Driver. The updated game disc has "SECOND EDITION" text under the "M" rating logo.
On November 8, 2007, Take-Two announced a proposed settlement to the class action litigation that had been brought against them following the Hot Coffee controversy. If the proposed settlement is approved by the court, neither Take-Two nor Rockstar would admit liability or wrongdoing. Consumers would be able to swap their AO-rated copies of the game for M-rated versions and may also qualify for a $35 cash payment upon signing a sworn statement.
A report in The New York Times on June 25, 2008 revealed that a total of 2,676 claims for the compensation package had been filed.

Why is this "Essential" to the Game? Is it supposed to be sexy? 'Cause it's not.

As a Grand Theft Auto player, I really liked the San Andrea's game. But that is just obnoxiously gross. Personally I think it's bad enough that you can pay for prostitutes in that game. Period. I don't think it should be there, as part of the game. It adds absolutely nothing to the game. Further more it leads to sexual objectifying of women in that game. It's not okay. The only reason I play that game and others like it, is because I would never do that in real life, I don't even do that on the game. But you see I can remove myself from the game. But there are some people who can't.

Mohawks: They're Not An "Indian Hairstyle"

So to start of with I have a mohawk. I recently got it cut again, and ever since then a lot of people (specifically older people) have told me I look like an "Indian" or they will ask if I am "Indian." First of all if you're going to be an idiot, be politically correct. Second of all saying that I look like an "Indian" due to my hairstyle is axiomatically incorrect. Most people believe that the Mohawks, like some indigenous tribes in the Great Lakes region, sometimes wore their hair cut off except for a narrow strip down the middle of the scalp from the forehead to the nape, that was approximately three finger widths across. However, the idea that Mohawks had "Mohawk hairstyles" is incorrect, and came from Hollywood movies, particularly Drums Along the Mohawk. The true hairstyle of the Mohawk, including the entire Six Nations, was to remove the hair from the head by plucking (not shaving) tuft by tuft of hair until all that was left was a square of hair on the back crown of the head. The remaining hair was shortened so that three short braids of hair were created and those braids were highly decorated.

Also some people have asked me if I had cancer. That just makes zero sense to me. Especially because a haircut is voluntary cancer is not. I don't see anybody going "I volunteer to have cancer"

So seriously please just stop with the Mohawk stereotypes. Go find something better to stereotype, or better yet don't use stereotypes. That's cool too.

"When Was The Last Time You Heard Of A Women Intellectual?"

Wow. I think ignorance has gone above and beyond at Trumansburg. So a good friend of mine stated on Facebook that he couldn't think of any women intellectuals, because there wasn't any. He then proceeded to name Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, and Albert Einstein as only a few of many more male intellectuals.
To that I say Nikola was an intellectual but he was also a very strange strange man.  He developed a hatred of jewelry and round objects, could not bear to touch hair, did not like to shake hands, and became obsessed with the number three—he often felt compelled to walk around a block three times before entering a building, and demanded 18 napkins (a number divisible by three) to polish his silver and glasses and plates until they were impeccable whenever he went dining. If he read one of an author's books, he had to read all of his books.
Tesla, like many of his era, became a proponent of an imposed selective breeding version of eugenics. His opinion stemmed from the belief that humans' "pity" had interfered with the natural "ruthless workings of nature," rather than from conceptions of a "master race" or inherent superiority of one person over another. His advocacy of it was, however, to push it further. In a 1937 interview, he stated:
... man's new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. The only method compatible with our notions of civilization and the race is to prevent the breeding of the unfit by sterilization and the deliberate guidance of the mating instinct .... The trend of opinion among eugenists is that we must make marriage more difficult. Certainly no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny. A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.

Anyway the point of this post was to name multiple women intellectuals so I guess I should get on with it.

Margaret Atwood (1939– ), an iconic Canadian feminist novelist, expresses both the “goddess” and “activist” modes of the mid-twentieth century movement, via a confrontational style that gained converts by avoiding both violence and eccentricity.

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945– ), a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and scholar living under house arrest and many other restrictions imposed by her native Burma’s (Myanmar’s) military rulers, leads a popular political movement and party whose non-violence and civil disobedience offer hope for eventual democratic government.

Karen Armstrong (1944– ), formerly a Roman Catholic nun in her native Britain and widely considered a force for ecumenism, now considers herself a “creative monotheist,” whose many books offer iconoclasm regarding major monotheist religions.

Susan Blackmore (1951– ), a British evolutionary psychologist, developed Richard Dawkins’s concept of the “meme” (a theoretical Darwinian unit of thought that she believes responsible for human behavior) through her many books, articles, and lectures.

Mary Daly (1928– ), an American Catholic theologian who felt that Vatican II did not go nearly far enough, achieved wide recognition for rejecting Christian and what she sees as other “patriarchal” thinking patterns in favor of a spirituality of women’s liberation.

Midge Decter (1927– ), an American editor and writer, was a leftist in her youth but, drawn to observant Judaism and a conservative political approach, has become a leading figure at the flagship magazine Commentary.

Barbara Ehrenreich (1941– ), an American journalist, wrote many books from a socialist perspective, but is best known for her bestselling Nickeled and Dimed (2002), for which she took low wage service jobs to investigate the workers’ lives.

Susan Faludi (1959– ), a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and author, is best known for advocating “power” feminism rather than “victim” feminism, attacking irrelevant “deconstruction” theory, and warning of a coming backlash against feminism.

Susan Greenfield (1950– ), a British pharmacologist and student of consciousness, has held a number of distinguished science posts despite colleagues’ criticism of her controversial theories on the dangers to children of computers and social networking.

Germaine Greer (1939– ), an Australian scholar and journalist whose best known work is the major 1970s feminist text The Female Eunuch (1970), originally advocated sexual liberation but, more recently, has lauded celibacy.

Gertrude Himmelfarb (1922– ), an American scholar drawn to examining the roots of social progress and decay, is best known for her sympathetic portrayals of Victorian society, dealing with similar social problems to those faced today.

Mary Midgley (1919– ), a British philosopher of science, has received much criticism for opposing the growing religion of science and arguing that pre-Darwinian ideas of human nature tell us more than the latest pop-science evolutionary psychology best-seller.

Peggy Noonan (1950– ), an American political historian and journalist, is best known for her emphasis on the character of political and religious figures, rather than their glamour, as her biographies of John Paul II and Ronald Reagan attest.

Melanie Phillips (1951– ), a British journalist and author, has targeted the growing climate of censorship and political and social irrationality in Western countries, for which she has received both livid denunciation as a “conservative” and the Orwell Prize for political journalism (1996).

Naomi Wolf (1962– ), an American author, editor, and essayist, is best known for The Beauty Myth (2002), which portrayed successful women as haunted by the need to look like movie stars

Just to name a few.

Dark Knight Apollonian/Dionysian

After revisiting Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight, viewing the juxtaposition between Batman and The Joker in a Nietzschean context made a lot more sense.

Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, used the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy from Ancient Greece to explain the constant struggle between Apollo’s order (law, beauty, reason) and Dionysos’ chaos (hedonistic appetites, drunkenness, sexual urges, primal instinct). The light side and the dark side. Thus, as this reasoning goes, to totally repress the darkness would be to remain ignorant, and thus misunderstand reality as it as only understood in the Apollonian context. So Nietzsche proposed that these two elements were not opposing, but rather complementary.

Batman, the Dark Knight, represents Apollo. He operates on vitruous principles and seeks law, order and justice above all things. The Joker represents Dionysos: he seeks chaos and ultimately the disruption of order. He doesn’t value material things. When rewarded with a room-full of money, he dispassionately doused it with gasoline and set it on fire. He is therefore a philosophical villain, viewing the order enforced by Batman as a mere illusion. The Joker intends to show Gotham City that these delusions of order, their “system,” is feeble. This is further highlighted when The Joker talks to Harvey Dent (Two-Face) in the hospital.

“Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I’m a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just… do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon’s got plans. You know, they’re schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.”
Harvey Dent is an interesting character, because as the D.A., he values and fights for this same order as Batman. However, as symbolized by the two-sided coin, there was a there romanticized view of chaos, and its complementary role in a truly fair order. So Harvey Dent/Two-Face was the living embodiment of the struggle between the light and the darkness, the order and the chaos. Later in their discussion, The Joker expands on his role:
“Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”
So we see this battle between the Apollonian/Batman force and the Dionysian/Joker force for the heart and soul of Harvey Dent. Everything Dent has fought for came crashing down, and The Joker strikes a chord with him — paving the way for the transition into Two-Face.
What is probably the strongest symbolic imagery the film offers is the scene wherein Batman finally captures The Joker:
Batman and The Joker are facing (The Joker upside down), which makes for a very yin-yang imagery: as above, so below.  The Joker reveals that he doesn’t want to destroy Batman. He needs Batman. And they are destined to partake in this Apollonian/Dionysian duality duel for eternity. Their Nietzschean relationship has come full circle.

The Joker: Oh, you. You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You are truly incorruptible, aren’t you? Huh? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.

Batman: You’ll be in a padded cell forever.

The Joker: Maybe we can share one. You know, they’ll be doubling up, the rate this city’s inhabitants are losing their minds.

Batman: This city just showed you that it’s full of people ready to believe in good.

The Joker: Until their spirit breaks completely. Until they get a good look at the real Harvey Dent and all the heroic things he’s done. You didn’t think I’d risk losing the battle for Gotham’s soul in a fist fight with you? No. You need an ace in the hole. Mine’s Harvey.

Batman: What did you do?

The Joker: I took Gotham’s white knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn’t hard. You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!

The film ends with Batman, who himself has disrupted the order of Gotham City, despite being the Apollonian figure, realizing that he must operate outside of the order, in order to enforce order. This makes him an even greater supernatural figure, rather than simply a crime-fighter. He is a deified force of Gotham and is the Order. He will constantly battle the agents of chaos in an eternal battle for Gotham’s soul. Apollo is thus the Dark Knight.

Stand Alone (Nathan's Story Part II)

Once upon a time there was a peasant named Nathan....blah blah blah, if you guys don't know the beginning story I refer you to http://nathanshaveninvasion.blogspot.com/2013/05/nathans-story.html.

Anyway so Nathan and the Queen are still having some problems. Mainly that Nathan was formerly a girl and most of the towns folk don't like it, or at least they don't acknowledge it. You see Nathan was forced to put it on a rock similar to the stele "finger" of Hammurabi's Code, so that all the towns folk could see it. Nathan was forced to do it because it seemed as though nobody was really getting that he was different, even though he tried really hard to make it very plain, and obvious. However the Queen didn't really like that at all. She thought that the towns folk needed an apologize and an immediate retraction of the statement until Nathan could formally tell the towns folk of his decisions. Now Nathan thought it was a idiotic idea since all he really did was put his true self on the line, so all the confusion would be cleared up, and he didn't have to pretend anymore. Nathan really wanted to know that, although he had announced his alternate persona to everybody, most people still ignored his seemingly simple request, or even worse, refused to acknowledge him at all. The Queen pointed out that because Nathan was living with the King, that the towns folk didn't, and wouldn't respect his choice because he didn't have private conversations with anybody. Nathan thought that the Queen was being unreasonable because if the towns folk hadn't caught on by then, than shouldn't they just take the news in stride and not continue to knock Nathan down. The Queen also pointed out that Nathan needed his family to support him, and if they didn't accept his choice, then he would just have to suck it up and deal. Now Nathan had always been one for fairness and acceptance, but the Queen was not like that. Nathan, up until a few months ago, when the witch doctors noticed that he wasn't okay, had always stood alone (save for a few people here and there, particularly Sir. Alex Solla and his clan of Wonderful People, along with Robin McColley and The Seido Karate Clan.) But for the Queen to try to say that she had his back really irked Nathan because that was far from true. You see when the towns folk would talk smack about Nathan, the Queen wouldn't respond. But when people talked smack about anybody (including  the Queen and the Dragon) he would climb down their throat. To Nathan family went like this "I can talk smack about you, but nobody else can." Because family is supposed to have your back right? Well Nathan thought that was true and still sort of does. But still Nathan stands alone, and when someone knocks him down he will pick himself back up, Nathan is no longer a quitter. And now until forever, Nathan will stand up for what is right.  

Regents Exams Are Ridiculous

Hey all, so for those who live in the super fantastic state of New York you probably know about the regents exams. For those who don't they are incredibly flawed state tests that make up a percentage of your overall final grade. Well I just took the biology regents and if asked how I thought I did, all I can say is I haven't any idea. I could have gotten a one hundred, I could have gotten a six. I have no idea at all. The questions were so oddly worded that I was confused as to the question was actually asking. Simply because the questions were really basic most of the time but some all I could think in my head was "wtf is this?? I don't have the slightest idea what this is, and I certainly don't know to make it less resistant to one thing or another" and it certainly wasn't as though I had a bad teacher. My teacher Mr. Gordon Bonnet of Skeptophilia.blogspot.com was without a doubt the very best teacher I've ever had. Sorry that was my regents testing rant for the day. Have a good day all.

Hekkenfeld

Hey guys just trying to get a little publicity for my friends from the band Hekkenfeld. This guys are great. Hekkenfeld is the European name for Hekla, which is a well-known volcano in Iceland. The name comes from the book Islandsklukkan by the Icelandic Nobel price author Halldor Laxness. His main character in the book, Jon Hreggvidsson, gets the name Jon van Hekkenfeld as he travels in Europe and makes up horrific tales of Iceland and the Icelandic people; for example that Hekla (Hekkenfeld) is the entrance to hell itself.
“All men in Holland knew Hekkenfeld in Iceland where hell lies beneath, and wanted to hear all about this legendary mountain. They called the man “van Hekkenfeld.”

Íslandsklukkan, H.L. p. 109 (just about)
The name has also been used as a swear word. “Go to Hekkenfeld!” witch is even worse than “Go to Hell!”.
The name fits the band well. On a famous Old Icelandic map there is a picture of an erupting Hekla and underneath it says: “Hekla perpetuis damnata estib. et nivib. horrendo boatu lapides evomit” or ‘Hekla, damned with everlasting flames and snow casts up rocks with horrendous noise’. The band Hekkenfeld makes similar if not more noise than the mountain.

•  Birgir Hilmarsson (Vocals 2000- )

•  Jón Þorgrímur Friðriksson (Guitar and backing vocals 2000- )

•  Stefán Sigurðsson (Bass 2002- )

•  Óskar Ágústsson (Guitar 2000- )

•  Unnsteinn Ólafsson (Drums 2001- )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpImlyHKQhE

Check it out guys! They are a great Icelandic Band!