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You're right; his writing style is juvenile. I've seen his letters in more than one place. Every time I have read one I wonder how on earth he managed to get a license to practice law in the first place. Then, I feel as if my own personal IQ has dropped a few notches.

Something I found to be insightful when trying to understand Jack Thompson is the whole situation with Penny Arcade. Start with the Wed, October 12 2005 - 10:49 AM entry and keep reading. Not only is it amusing, it is very eye opening.

Instead, stop seeing your child as "just plain evil", and start looking for solutions to his problems.

Three months ago slashdot ran a story about this letter regarding a child just like that. What would you have done in place of the kid's guardian?

is how many false charges of "sockpuppet" or "troll" are put in by the abusive administrators that run the place.

Whoops. Did I say something less then complimentary about the quantum fucking encyclopedia, where info may or may not be correct based on which second of the day it is, and where you can be assured that the moment someone tries to fix it, they'll be beat down by an army of socially inept retards who have nothing better to do than accumulate hundreds/thousands of edits per day in hopes that they, too, can become administrators and ban anyone they disagree with?

World of Starcraft will suck, but not at gameplay. It will suck the life out of you. Penny-Arcade already predicted this. :P

Indeed. Penny Arcade's Gabe will also continue to be able to see his family.

i believe this is utterly appropriate at this time.

Twice!

Gabe said it best.

O RLY? http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/10

If you replace "Crystal Chronicles" in this comic with the word "Halo" then you'll get, basically, your post. I hope you realize how ridiculous you sound.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/19

Ah yes, posts from 2002 and 2003...let's see, the current year is...2007?...last time I checked :-P My powerbook is right now about 3 years old (that would be since 2004) and it's been my main computer since then. I DO still use XP at work, and my FreeBSD desktop CAN--should the need arise--dualboot. you got me there!! I'm crazy and rabid!

Referencing a Penny Arcade comic followed by a wink emoticon is rabid to you? That's scaaaaary!! http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020722h. gif

p.s. if you were curious, my powerbook uptime is 16 days at the moment, and a freebsd server i manage is currently at 212 days! w0000!111!1one!11 -- bragging (sarcasm in case it wasn't obvious.. ;)

You know--you've done background searches on me, analyzed past posts, etc--who in this situation TRULY looks rabid?

Welcome to Slashdot, where the boundaries of reality are subject to the necessities of making exaggerated points about fairly meaningless topics.

Hell, for that matter, welcome to the internet. Here is your guidebook: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/ Paying Player vs Free Player

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2007/20070511.j pg

I stick by all the posts I've ever made, some may have been incorrect or my opinion may have changed since I wrote them, but I stick by the fact that for that time in my life they were correct for me.

Absolutely. If I didn't mean what I said, I wouldn't have said it. Of course, this might fall into the "nothing to hide" argument vs. privacy, and it gets sticky.

Still, it's amazing what people do or say when they think they're anonymous.

Even more likely

Can someone say "Tormented, Science Fiction Youth"?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20040922l. jpg

... will it have an ending?

Never gets old... ok I'm sure it gets old, but I live in the past.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19

The only penny arcade I think I've ever found funny. Thanks for the reminder.

I see you're familiar with Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

heh, reminds me of a recent PA concerning staying true to source material.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/05

Sorry, dude. There's already prior art.

Nah, that's just people hiding behind a veil of digital anonymity.

Or, to put it another way, this is just another example of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

From today's news post: Penny-Arcade

And here is the relevant quote, "I'm sick of people claiming parity between the online offerings of these systems so that they can appear above the fray. One of them is awesome, and one of them is dogshit. I don't know why they should ever improve it if you fuckers have already given them the Gold Star." Good points I think. Just because Sony is making online free doesn't mean that it's good, and they have no real incentive to improve it with their faithful already enraptured.

however this entire thing smells like FUD to me.

Or, as Tycho & Gabe once put it, sometimes things cost money.

This is nothing we haven't seen before and nothing we won't be seeing again. The Chinese government will go to great lengths for its powerlust and especially to protect itself from the people, and every year the march of technology hands them more power. So what can we do about it? Making brooding, cynical posts is the usual M.O. and the generated online badwill has no doubt brough them to their knees. How can we do what little we can to end this obscenity?

Run Tor?
Join Amnesty International and buy some of their nifty hoodies?
Hold a public protest?
Boycott Chinese goods (yeah, right)?
Organize a fuck-off massive online attack and hammer on the Great Firewall? ("one of the most important projects for ensuring its political power..." indeed.)

Help me out here.

Taunts like that are fun. Keep it up, M$ marketdroids!

Check out today's post, primarily this pic series of more Jeff rip offs:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/thdg.jpg

full page
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/04/25

Check out today's post, primarily this pic series of more Jeff rip offs:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/thdg.jpg

full page
http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/04/25

Green is the new purple, completly off topic but a scary resemblance.

You might remember Tycho mentioning Todd Goldman and a story about him stealing some artwork from a web cartoonist. We covered it in a comic and a post and our point of view was essentially “yeah it sucks but you can’t sue the guy for being a douche bag.” I would have left it at that except, well the latest development in the whole ordeal is actually super funny. It’s important to point out that Todd’s initial response to the article about his thievery was to call Dave Kelly a Pedophile. I’m not joking here he actually said “Here’s my inspiration! Every month I paint the works of a pedophile.” The letter goes on and it’s obvious that he’s just being a smart ass and blowing the whole thing off. Honestly I chuckled at the letter when I read it because (being a professional asshole myself) I thought it was a funny way to respond to the accusations. However, if you call someone a pedophile in a public forum you can’t turn around a few weeks later and threaten to sue that same forum for slander.

Todd’s lawyers sent Fleen a mail last week that threatened legal action if they didn’t pull down all the stuff about Todd. The letter actually said “We have acquired articles posted on your website which contain defaming, derogatory and malicious statements about Mr. Goldman.” Yeah no shit, the guy isa thief what the hell do you expect.

This sort of legal bulldogging is especially lame after Todd’s initial reaction to the story. If you want to play the arrogant asshole and call people pedophiles I respect that. I really do. I’ve been overcompensating for my low self esteem by calling people names for twenty years. I know how it works and the only rule is if you can’t take it, don’t fucking dish it out.

Picked on by his peers?-Check
Sexually molested when he was a child?-Check
Incoherent ramblimbling directed at social groups-Check
Irrational persecution of minority groups -Check
...Holy shit! Jack Thompson is going to be the next school shooter! Somebody call the police ... nevermind, he already did.

We absolutely have a lot of work to do but I'm convinced we have the right strategy - and recent announcements like Home and Little Big Planet have resonated very positively with our audiences around the world, including some commentators who had been previously critical of us.

We absolutely have a lot of work to do but I'm convinced we have the right strategy - and recent announcements like Home and Little Big Planet have resonated very positively with our audiences around the world, including some commentators who had been previously critical of us.

So if I have a unsecured wireless access point in my home, and some 16 year old drives by with his little pda ...

Better the PDA, than the PSP.

At least with a PDA, a teenager can feign productivity (look officer! contacts AND calendar!), but if you have a PSP, then you're just up to no good. :)

But frankly, I'd be perfectly happy to have things be a bit more European around here, with less tolerance for violence in the media and also less prudish reserve about sex. So long as I'm quoting humorists, I direct your attention to George Carlin's statements on the subject: "People much wiser than I have said, 'I'd rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one another.' I, of course, can agree. It is a great sentiment, I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but I'd like to take it a step further. I'd like to substitute the word 'f**k' for the word 'kill' in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. 'Okay, Sherrif, we're gonna f**k you now, but we're gonna f**k you slow.'"

Here

http://www.angrynesnerd.com/

His reviews, while comically over-the-top, put the lie to the notion that the 8-bit era constituted a mythic golden age or edenic period at the dawn of the videogame industry, largely populated by auteur game designers who produced output in line with the bohemian values of truth, beauty, and good gameplay.

A considerable number of the NES era titles, even those published by major companies like Konami, were utter shite, and would not make it past the comparatively rigorous QA standards of even cynical, moneygrubbing behemoths like Shit-A. Even titles beloved of kids at the time, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the first NES game, not the arcade game), contained level-design gaffes approaching Daikatana levels of awful, like "that is so stupid, no freakin' way you'd expect a little kid to figure that out".

So no, the videogames were not better by any meaningful objective standard way back then. There were the standouts like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and later Mario and Zelda, and then there was the long tail of crud. Crud that even managed to earn the Nintendo Seal of Quality by being minimally non-shitty. We just think it's better for the same reason some people think Men Without Hats were better than Nirvana: it's what we grew up with.

I can sympathize: Comic

He asked for a display you COULD read in sunlight, not that you HAVE to read in sunlight. Seriously, have you ever tried to use one of those?

No kidding. It's like Mario Party.

Congress made changes that are now being abused. USPTO is just implementing them

Yes, Software Patents ahould be eliminated, but it is not the USPTO that makes that decesion.

1-Click falls within the definition of a patent type. I believe there are three patent types.
Amazon used the aptent system, and 'obvious' in the definition used by the patent system does not apply here.

Stop being angry at USPTO. Start using that energy to help enact change.

Ranting on a message board does nothing, Changes nothing, creates no action. It is empty.

this puts it nicely:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic

after 4/12 here:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/04/10

Congress made changes that are now being abused. USPTO is just implementing them

Yes, Software Patents ahould be eliminated, but it is not the USPTO that makes that decesion.

1-Click falls within the definition of a patent type. I believe there are three patent types.
Amazon used the aptent system, and 'obvious' in the definition used by the patent system does not apply here.

Stop being angry at USPTO. Start using that energy to help enact change.

Ranting on a message board does nothing, Changes nothing, creates no action. It is empty.

this puts it nicely:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic

after 4/12 here:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/04/10

I agree with your analysis, and as an added bonus offer this Penny-Arcade strip.

Actually, methinks both are blinded by their own "I'm so great because I have a blog" ego trip.

E.g., Jarvis seems to think it's some media agenda or conspiracy to judge all blogs by the worst examples. Guess what? So is everyone else that can be squeezed in one category. Big surprise that it applies to blogs too.

E.g., one thing I remember being told in the army was that, basically, when you're in uniform, pay attention what you're doing, because people won't go "oh, Moraelin is drunk again and making a nuissance of himself", they'll go "oh, great, so that's what the _army_ is doing." Every single soldier or cop will be judged by the actions of the worst soldier or cop.

Same here. Once you fought to be seen as some monolythic "blogosphere" that challenges all the traditional sources of information in some virtual two-front Schlieffen Plan... Guess what? You _are_ seen as a monolythic entity and judged by the worst examples. Whop-de-fucking-do. Big surprise there.

The traditional media faces the same problem, which is why they all try hard to maintain a facade of impartiality or of only reporting. Yes, I'm sure someone can jump in with a "hah, the media and impartial, that's rich. Well, I remember <insert anecdote when they weren't impartial>," Well, that's the whole point. The worst fuck-ups are taken as representative of the media as a whole.

And _especially_ die-hard self-proclaimed advocates of the blogosphere are quick to latch on every single media fuck-up and fashion a battle banner out of it. Well, then don't be surprised if it's a two way street, then.

From there, both are equally deluded in some utopian view of it, if in different directions. Basically:

- O'Reilly: guys, we need to police ourselves and become some kind of utopia where everyone plays nice, is responsible, etc. (Yeah, right.)

- Jarvis and the like: nooo, people are smart enough to see who's right and wrong on their own, check the credentials of every blog page they read, know who put their real name behind their opinions, etc. (Yeah, right. As if I have the time to check if, say, Jarvis himself exists or is his real name.) And the unspoken rules that exist for a real community, surely work flawlessly for an anonymous online group. No, really, they'll start working any day now. (Equally: yeah, right.)

The former is bogus because it obviously can't work, the latter... for the exact same reason. I'll point out at what Penny Arcade called The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. There'll always be someone who thinks that "anonymity + an audience = an oportunity, nay, a _duty_ to be a complete fuckwad."

One fact that all the "it'll work like a real community" utopians miss is that, medically speaking, about 1 in 30 people are sociopaths. (Well, in the USA at least. I don't know what the statistics are for other countries.) Most are kept in check IRL because, while they might completely lack empathy and consideration for their fellow man, they do realize that there are consequences for their actions. There is a name and a face on each such action, and that might come back to bite them in the ass. So they proceed to be normal members of society, for lack of a choice. Take away the "action => consequence" feedback, and they revert to being the assholes they always wanted to be. Even if you got them to maintain a name and a face attached to their blogs, they'll use sock puppets and astroturfing for their trolling.

So neither of the two extreme point of views even work, or have anything even vaguely resembling the world-saving qualities that their advocates claim.

So choosing between the two is like having to choose between an enlightened dictatorship utopia, and an anarchist utopia. Those too have had their own share of apologists, and whole tomes written about how and why they'd work better than the current society models. Too bad they don't work in practice. Well, now we see basically the same extremes appli