Oct 25 2008

Virtual Homicide Leads To Real Life Incarceration!

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 3:31 am

Unless you are into your MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), you probably won’t recognise the game MapleStory. I definitely didn’t though a quick Wiki gave me some info.

MapleStory

So, a lady in Japan has been arrested and transported more than 600 miles to Sapporo’s prison, after she was found to have killed her husband. Except she wasn’t married. Nor did she physically hurt anyone.
As you may have guessed by the intro to this post, she killed off her MapleStory husband within the game, after being unceremoniously divorced in-game. The article on this doesn’t mention how she found out his login and password, but she proceeded to pretend to be him, and kill of his in-game character. The actual charge against her is “illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data”. If found guilty, and the judge doesn’t see the absurdity of the situation, she faces up to five years in prison AND a $5,000 fine!

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May 28 2008

Scientology IS A Cult

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 11:58 pm

And a dangerous one at that…

For expressing this opinion (which some country’s courts (including Britain’s) have confirmed is a valid statement), a 15 year old boy was threatened with court action by the City of London’s police force (not to be confused with the larger Metropolitan Police Service). Because he refused to remove the word ‘cult’ from his poster at a demonstration, the police decided he had broken the law, specifically Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986 (harassment, alarm or distress”). They took his placard, gave him a summons, and thought that would be the end of it.
It would appear that he had done his research beforehand, as he quoted a Judge’s ruling that the CoS was a corrupt, sinister and dangerous cult, and therefore his “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult” poster broke no laws. The CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) advised the City Of London Police Force that they were wrong, and should approach these demonstrations in a different manner in the future. This may have disgruntled those officers who are known members of the Church of Scientology, but at least there is now one less avenue for them to try and curtail legal demonstations. Check out the WikiNews article for more information…

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Apr 19 2008

US Starbucks Employees Slightly Less Screwed Over

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 11:01 am

Over in America, the tipping system is a little different to Europe. In most Euro establishments, staff are paid enough (not necessarily a lot by any means, but…), however in America, most waiting staff have to rely on customers’ tips to bring home a decent enough amount of money to live on. This confuses some American tourists, who are surprised that tipping is not mandatory, only considered appropriate if the staff & establishment itself actually deserve it. Whether through attentive service, delicious food, or a good atmosphere, if you enjoy your time, you tip. If the food was mediocre at best, the staff seemed very dis-interested, or you were kept waiting an un-necessary amount of time, you don’t tip.
Starbucks previously used to pool all the waiters’ & waitress’ tips (not uncommon), but then split the pot between all staff, including the management level workers, who didn’t actually wait the tables. A judge in San Diego has ruled this practice wrong, and has told Starbucks to pay back to the workers the amount they were short changed, check out this article for more details…

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Sep 07 2007

Trust Us – This IS Best For You…

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut...,In The Media — ChrisM @ 4:35 am

The technology is amazing. The possibilities can be mind blowing. There is no need to worry.
Only two of the above unfortunately apply in the real world. If we could have complete faith that there were no crooked police officers, scientists or even just lab tech, then perhaps all three would be true…

So what am I talking about? A judge has recently proclaimed that the entire population of Britain should have their DNA recorded and stored on a central database, to ensure that more crimes can be solved, ergo more dangerous criminals locked away, and hopefully rehabilitated.

Sadly, this system is not infallible, and I truly believe that if judges and juries (don’t even get me started on the moves for some cases to be tried with NO jury!) come to rely on DNA evidence as a primary indicator of guilt in more and more cases, that investigators of crimes will take the most efficient path to ensuring prosecutions. This will not mean that guilty people will go to prison, necessarily. I believe it will slowly illuminate more issues with the technology involved. In the same way that fingerprints can be relatively planted on a scene, indicating that someone was present at a crime scene, even when they were counties away, leaving DNA samples from a person is not going to be too difficult.

The principle is sound, in an ideal world. In this world we live in, I can not see this as being a sound move.

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Jun 09 2007

Paris Hilton In Shock

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 2:00 pm

It seems that the publicity generated when Paris Hilton was released from jail just three full days into her captivity has caused her original sentence of 45 days to be reimposed. When she first went to prison, she was under the impression she would only need to server 23 days of her sentence. Then, due to undisclosed medical reasons, she was allowed to be released and put under house arrest, with electronic tagging.
She was said to be crying and shouting out ‘its not right’ when the judge confirmed she would be treated like any other criminal, and not allowed back into public just yet. Traumatic for her I’m sure, but over all, I can’t really feel any pity for her… anyone would get depressed and stressed at the prospect of having their liberty taken away. Just because you have $$$s behind you is no reason to be treated differently.

See here for a previous post on her punishment for repeatedly driving whilst her licence was suspended, after she had been caught drink driving again.

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May 04 2007

Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 12:49 am

Dave Barry Is Not Making This Up – Dave Barry

Although a few of the stories reported in this book have been covered in earlier releases, there is enough ‘fresh’ content in here to keep even an ardent fan happy. Unlike previous books, most of the items covered in this book are reports of true events, from a Judge proudly proclaiming how to reduce wind problems (of a personal nature, not weather) to snakes that have learnt to navigate the plumbing systems used in American houses!
I had better warn Walton to watch out 😉

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Apr 26 2007

Borders of Infinity

Category: Books — ChrisM @ 12:52 am

Borders of Infinity – Lois McMaster Bujold

This is actually a collection of three other books, all pressed together. The books – The Borders of Infinity, The Mountains of Mourning and Labyrinth do vary in their style slightly, and the scenes surrounding the areas betwixt original stories do feel a little strained at times.
However, the very fact that they vary, and touch on such delicate subjects as infanticide make this collection worth reading. The 1st book is a reasonably predictable PoW story, but you’ll still find yourself cheering Miles on, constantly second guessing what will happen next.
In Mountains of Mourning, Miles is sent out into the wild backwards country, where the old laws of nature often take precedence over any decrees from the Regent – Miles’ father. He is sent out mainly to gain some experience, and to appreciate what a heavy responsibility being a judge can be. His own deformed body is a constant reminder that ‘muties’ (genetic mutations) will experience a tough life outside of the cities, if they live that long.
In the last book, we start to discover that playing with sexual preconceptions will become a running theme for Lois’s books, and for this reason, I couldn’t really recommend this particular book for young children. Obviously this is down to the parents concerned, but I wouldn’t want parents to buy this book for their children without reading it first. Anyway, Miles goes on a mission to pick up a scientist whose expertise are in fields with highly questionable ethics. Nothing goes to plan, and Miles has to escape imprisonment with a creature called Taurus.
It has been a while since I read this last book, but I’m pretty sure a quad (last seen in Falling Free) gets a couple of quick mentions.

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