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Expert: 40 Percent of World of Warcraft Players Addicted | TwitchGuru

Ah, yes, another “Games are The Ruin of Society” expert. In this week’s episode, the good Dr. Maressa Orzack. Dr. Orzack is the founder of Computer Addiction Services, which in no way compromises her objectiveness. She is “swamped” with addicted gamers coming into her addicted gamer treatment center, which is a hell of a coincidence.

World of Warcraft takes center-stage in this interview with TwitchGuru, a shocking turn for the press as it finally shifts its focus from the glamorous world of Hello Kitty console games and handheld, stand-alone Yahtzee units. Shining a dim light on the underbelly of the gaming world, Dr. Orzack absolves the gamer and places the blame squarely where it belongs; on the game company.

They design these MMOs to keep people in the game. I do think the problem is tied in with other things like family issues, but the games themselves are inherently addictive. That’s ultimately the cause of the problem. [emphasis mine]

Those poor victims of Blizzard’s dastardly plan to rule the world via subscription. Ah, then we get to my favorite part of the show; the numbers.

Well, let’s take World of Warcraft as an example. Let’s say there are around 6 million subscribers for the game. I’d say that 40 percent of the players are addicted.

Wow, 40%?  2.4 million people are addicted to World of Warcraft? Can any other drug, game, or activity claim a 40% addiction rate (besides the crack they are apparently handing out to researchers)? And how did she arrive at this  statistic? We have no idea. There are no citations, no studies mentioned, just some number plucked from the air by a doctor with much to gain by propagating the idea of widespread, highly-contagious addiction to an entertainment media.

Now, do I think people can be addicted to video games? Sure, why not. People are addicted to the oddest things: food, gambling, spray paint. But, do I think that 40% of WoW players are addicts. Hell no. Of course the game is designed to pull you in, that’s its purpose. No one would pay $15 a month to play something that wasn’t compelling. But, at it’s heart, it’s a game and if you can’t let go of the game, the problem is you, not the game.

… but, it was close. 17 votes.
I voted against this proposal. Why? I didn’t understand the benefit. I read the article in the paper and my reaction was “there is no added value to me for voting this through”. Most of Chelsea lives less than 5 minutes from a fully-staffed firehouse and the services have been outstanding. We have a full-time chief. This Proposal felt like an accounting move, not something that would make us all now live less than 3 minutes from the fire house.

More than anything, I didn’t understand the need. As a business-type person, no one took the time to explain to me what issue was being solved with this proposal, with more of my money.

And then, the kicker; that last line: “A small portion of the revenue collected may be required to be distributed to the City of Chelsea Downtown Development Authority.” Please, someone, tell me what that’s supposed to mean? How did the DDA get a cut of a Fire Authority proposal? What’s that money for? How much of the $1.4 million dollars do they get?

If there’s a compelling reason to give the City more money, that’s one thing. But slapping a ill-defined proposal with “Fire Authority” and trotting out missives like the last line of the Proposal just doesn’t cut it.

Update: I didn’t link to the results page. It’s here.

New Orleans parishes are in the process of choosing the planners that will guide the rebuilding of the city. These are people who will be tasked with urban planning, clean-up, and spending millions of dollars in federal aide money.And they’re choosing these people via an online poll. You read that right, an online poll. It gets better. Want to qualify to vote in this election? Guess what, since you’re online, you already do! Oh yeah, the only qualification to vote is a valid email address.  And, the kicker, the poll is being run by a local architectural firm. Hm, wonder if they stand to gain by, say, having one of their own become the planner for the old French Quarter?

This is a travesty of a election, hardly worth the use of the word. Between this website, my ISP, work, and Google, I could easily vote over 50 times in an election for New Orleans. No one would ever be able to verify that I was, in fact, a resident of Michigan. No one would ever be able to verify that onlinepollssuck@youknowwhatpart.com isn’t being used by a legitimate New Orleans resident (hey, I just host email accounts for displaced residents). And worst of all, the poorest and hardest hit of residents aren’t likely to have email addresses, internet access, or even computers. Where is their voice in this process?

This is your money, your tax dollars, that are going to be spent to rebuild New Orleans, not just the residents of Louisiana or New Orleans.

The word needs to get out. Tell a friend, call a paper, submit this to every political site you can. Digg the story, it’s been submitted to Slashdot, hell, go read the original article yourself.

So, I found an interesting thing today; my site has been scraped, my content stolen. The last post here has been posted, in it’s entirety, on two spammer website. Both WHOIS lookups go through proxies, one Tor and one at Carnegie Mellon University. You can see both stolen posts here and here (yes, I’m linking to the spammers). So, aside from the image I’ve replacee (since they deep-linked to my image), what else can you do about this? There’s no contact links, obviously, and the poster is hiding behind proxies.

Ideas?

This post is in a new category, “Spot the Sarcasm”; guess why.
Windows has a wonderful feature for Internet Explorer users called Trusted sites. Trusted sites are described as “Web sites that you trust not to damage your computer or data.” Pretty straightforward, right?

But, as they say, the devil is in the details. Let’s say you have a web application that lives at www.webapp.edu. www.webapp.edu uses a central single-signon service for authentication; let’s call that www.signon.edu. Both www.webapp.edu and www.signon.edu are listed in the Trusted sites zone for Internet Explorer.

If you now attempt to log into www.webapp.edu via www.signon.edu, you get a security warning.

Considering it’s Microsoft, I let a little slide. But this rates as one of the stupidest security errors I can think of. Let’s break it down.

Both sites listed are on my Trusted sites list, a list I had to manually edit to add the sites. That means I spent time and effort to verify that the sites were trusted, find the zone, and then enter the sites. The warning states “If you don’t trust the current Web page, choose No.” Why would I ever choose No? Both sites have already been trusted. Both sites are obviously known to me. Why am I even given this dialog box?

Then, let’s look at the dialog box. For “security”, the focus is defaulted to No, the option I don’t want 999,999 out of 1,000,000 times. It’s also lacking, for security, a basic of standard dialog boxes: hotkeys. This one? No way. I have to either click Yes or arrow over to Yes. Dismissing the dialog results in.. ? Anyone, anyone? That’s right, a 404 error; very intuitive to the average Internet Explorer user.
But let’s think about what sites go on a Trusted site list, since Microsoft did not. It’s highly likely that sites manually added to that list are put there because I a) trust them and b) go to them a lot. I want them on that list because that security zone is more open, allows more browsing freedom, maybe requires it for functionality (yes, Web apps use pop-ups). Why do I have to confirm every single visit to a “trusted” site, but not to any other random site not listed as a trusted site? Logically, if I don’t trust a site, shouldn’t I need to verify that I do, in fact, want to go there? (Note to IE team, please, for the love of God, don’t implement this hypothetical.)

And, the best part of all? It is not optional for me or my team to use either IE or have our sites listed as Trusted sites. Our division administrators have placed both www.webapp.edu and www.signon.edu in the Trusted sites list and Webapp requires IE for certain administrative functions.

To all our users, Firefox is supported (thank goodness); I would recommend it for you. To Microsoft, please hire more user experience engineers. When you see posts like “Deleting a Shortcut In Windows Vista Takes How Many Steps?” on Gizmodo, you have issues.

Seriously, headlines don’t have to be Pulitzer-worthy, but at least try.

Heavy people may collapse more in heat – Yahoo! News

Up next:

Anorexics weigh less, drift in wind
Cancer is bad, cure to be discussed
Computers are getting faster, used by “nurds”

For any Farkers out there, please forward Ric Romero‘s number.

I doubt I’ll ever get this down, but I’m going to try.

Link

ABC News: Deputy Hopes Gibson Thinks About DUI

Ya think he will?

This sucks. Sleeman brewries, the third largest in Canada, is looking for a buyer. I don’t drink Sleeman’s regularly (and hence, I am the problem), but this is one more independent brewry down the tubes. You just know Molsen or Sapporo will buy them out and pirate the company for their lucrative distributorships; (Guinness, Sam Adams, and (surprise) Sapporo).

Just goes to show, buy local, buy often. It’s hard out there for the small guy. I raise a glass of Red’s Rye to the independant brewer. (Note to Founder’s.. call me. We need to fix your website.)
Link [via mister anchovy]