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To The Pain
Reedo writes: "If you enjoy gaming and pain, this is for you. Two German designers have developed the Painstation, which is basically a revamped Pong. Except for one major difference - The PEU(Pain Execution Unit), which delivers a dose of pain to your left hand in the form of heat, punches or electroshock, when you mess up."
all i want is to play pong, why must i suffer?! why?!
"you sonofabitch i didn't know!"
In Never Say Never again, like the world domination game. Wasn't that guy a German too.
Screw you all, you're a bunch of hippies. Get it in you!
Oh well, back to dowloading pr0n...
Pr0n K1ng
Imagine a version of this for the old NES boxing game. I don't remember what it was called though, sigh. Hmm, maybe I'm a little punch drunk?
har har
"It's comin' back around again..." -RATM
Ridiculous! If you're a masochism, at least do it with style, man.
It's German, eh?
Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance! Touch my Monkey! Play with my Painstation!
If only we could wire this up to remotely do the same to Bill gates every time Windows crashes...
PoIP (Pain over IP) protocol. Coming to an RFC near you.
fp
first post! what's this 20 second rule?
Why on earth would anyone want to play this? I was under the impression that the playing of games was to make people feel better, not worse.
Still, another case of reality mirroring James Bond... or maybe it's the only case. Hm.
Whee! First! >ouch
Download MAME
Download Pong ROM
Buy Hammer
Thwack self on hand with hammer on death.
Rinse, lather, repeat until hand becomes bloody stump.
TODO: Something witty here...
... but it only plays R&B albums and Burt Reynolds movies. Use of the pain sender is optional during DVD or CD playback.
I know I saw this in a James Bond movie. . .
Almost first, I guess = hey, cut me some slack, ey?
Dear gawd this is mad sick evil. Prist Fo4hst! DEH I got a first post and you didn't. *hopes he didn't miss it* HEH I love wasting karma.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
First non-homosexual post
You can rent me, and ill kick ya in the nuts for free when you screw up ;)
[Speech by Slobodan Milosevich, delivered to an estimated 1 million people at the central celebration marking the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, held at Gazimestan on 28 June, 1989. Compiled by the National Technical Information Service of the US Department of Commerce.]
By the force of social circumstances this great 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo is taking place in a year in which Serbia, after many years, after many decades, has regained its state, national, and spiritual integrity. Therefore, it is not difficult for us to answer today the old question: how are we going to face Milos [Milos Obilic, legendary hero of the Battle of Kosovo]. Through the play of history and life, it seems as if Serbia has, precisely in this year, in 1989, regained its state and its dignity and thus has celebrated an event of the distant past which has a great historical and symbolic significance for its future.
Serbian Character -- Liberational
Today, it is difficult to say what is the historical truth about the Battle of Kosovo and what is legend. Today this is no longer important. Oppressed by pain and filled with hope, the people used to remember and to forget, as, after all, all people in the world do, and it was ashamed of treachery and glorified heroism. Therefore it is difficult to say today whether the Battle of Kosovo was a defeat or a victory for the Serbian people, whether thanks to it we fell into slavery or we survived in this slavery. The answers to those questions will be constantly sought by science and the people. What has been certain through all the centuries until our time today is that disharmony struck Kosovo 600 years ago. If we lost the battle, then this was not only the result of social superiority and the armed advantage of the Ottoman Empire but also of the tragic disunity in the leadership of the Serbian state at that time. In that distant 1389, the Ottoman Empire was not only stronger than that of the Serbs but it was also more fortunate than the Serbian kingdom.
The lack of unity and betrayal in Kosovo will continue to follow the Serbian people like an evil fate through the whole of its history. Even in the last war, this lack of unity and betrayal led the Serbian people and Serbia into agony, the consequences of which in the historical and moral sense exceeded fascist aggression.
Even later, when a socialist Yugoslavia was set up, in this new state the Serbian leadership remained divided, prone to compromise to the detriment of its own people. The concessions that many Serbian leaders made at the expense of their people could not be accepted historically and ethically by any nation in the world, especially because the Serbs have never in the whole of their history conquered and exploited others. Their national and historical being has been liberational throughout the whole of history and through two world wars, as it is today. They liberated themselves and when they could they also helped others to liberate themselves. The fact that in this region they are a major nation is not a Serbian sin or shame; this is an advantage which they have not used against others, but I must say that here, in this big, legendary field of Kosovo, the Serbs have not used the advantage of being great for their own benefit either.
Thanks to their leaders and politicians and their vassal mentality they felt guilty before themselves and others. This situation lasted for decades, it lasted for years and here we are now at the field of Kosovo to say that this is no longer the case.
Unity Will Make Prosperity Possible
Disunity among Serb officials made Serbia lag behind and their inferiority humiliated Serbia. Therefore, no place in Serbia is better suited for saying this than the field of Kosovo and no place in Serbia is better suited than the field of Kosovo for saying that unity in Serbia will bring prosperity to the Serbian people in Serbia and each one of its citizens, irrespective of his national or religious affiliation.
Serbia of today is united and equal to other republics and prepared to do everything to improve its financial and social position and that of all its citizens. If there is unity, cooperation, and seriousness, it will succeed in doing so. This is why the optimism that is now present in Serbia to a considerable extent regarding the future days is realistic, also because it is based on freedom, which makes it possible for all people to express their positive, creative and humane abilities aimed at furthering social and personal life.
Serbia has never had only Serbs living in it. Today, more than in the past, members of other peoples and nationalities also live in it. This is not a disadvantage for Serbia. I am truly convinced that it is its advantage. National composition of almost all countries in the world today, particularly developed ones, has also been changing in this direction. Citizens of different nationalities, religions, and races have been living together more and more frequently and more and more successfully.
Socialism in particular, being a progressive and just democratic society, should not allow people to be divided in the national and religious respect. The only differences one can and should allow in socialism are between hard working people and idlers and between honest people and dishonest people. Therefore, all people in Serbia who live from their own work, honestly, respecting other people and other nations, are in their own republic.
Dramatic National Divisions
After all, our entire country should be set up on the basis of such principles. Yugoslavia is a multinational community and it can survive only under the conditions of full equality for all nations that live in it.
The crisis that hit Yugoslavia has brought about national divisions, but also social, cultural, religious and many other less important ones. Among all these divisions, nationalist ones have shown themselves to be the most dramatic. Resolving them will make it easier to remove other divisions and mitigate the consequences they have created.
For as long as multinational communities have existed, their weak point has always been the relations between different nations. The threat is that the question of one nation being endangered by the others can be posed one day -- and this can then start a wave of suspicions, accusations, and intolerance, a wave that invariably grows and is difficult to stop. This threat has been hanging like a sword over our heads all the time. Internal and external enemies of multi-national communities are aware of this and therefore they organize their activity against multinational societies mostly by fomenting national conflicts. At this moment, we in Yugoslavia are behaving as if we have never had such an experience and as if in our recent and distant past we have never experienced the worst tragedy of national conflicts that a society can experience and still survive.
Equal and harmonious relations among Yugoslav peoples are a necessary condition for the existence of Yugoslavia and for it to find its way out of the crisis and, in particular, they are a necessary condition for its economic and social prosperity. In this respect Yugoslavia does not stand out from the social milieu of the contemporary, particularly the developed, world. This world is more and more marked by national tolerance, national cooperation, and even national equality. The modern economic and technological, as well as political and cultural development, has guided various peoples toward each other, has made them interdependent and increasingly has made them equal as well [medjusobno ravnopravni]. Equal and united
people can above all become a part of the civilization toward which mankind is moving. If we cannot be at the head of the column leading to such a civilization, there is certainly no need for us to be at is tail.
At the time when this famous historical battle was fought in Kosovo, the people were looking at the stars, expecting aid from them. Now, 6 centuries later, they are looking at the stars again, waiting to conquer them. On the first occasion, they could allow themselves to be disunited and to have hatred and treason because they lived in smaller, weakly interlinked worlds. Now, as people on this planet, they cannot conquer even their own planet if they are not united, let alone other planets, unless they live in mutual harmony and solidarity.
Therefore, words devoted to unity, solidarity, and cooperation among people have no greater significance anywhere on the soil of our motherland than they have here in the field of Kosovo, which is a symbol of disunity and treason.
In the memory of the Serbian people, this disunity was decisive in causing the loss of the battle and in bringing about the fate which Serbia suffered for a full 6 centuries.
Even if it were not so, from a historical point of view, it remains certain that the people regarded disunity as its greatest disaster. Therefore it is the obligation of the people to remove disunity, so that they may protect themselves from defeats, failures, and stagnation in the future.
Unity brings Back Dignity
This year, the Serbian people became aware of the necessity of their mutual harmony as the indispensable condition for their present life and further development.
I am convinced that this awareness of harmony and unity will make it possible for Serbia not only to function as a state but to function as a successful state. Therefore I think that it makes sense to say this here in Kosovo, where that disunity once upon a time tragically pushed back Serbia for centuries and endangered it, and where renewed unity may advance it and may return dignity to it. Such an awareness about mutual relations constitutes an elementary necessity for Yugoslavia, too, for its fate is in the joined hands of all its peoples. The Kosovo heroism has been inspiring our creativity for 6 centuries, and has been feeding our pride and does not allow us to forget that at one time we were an army great, brave, and proud, one of the few that remained undefeated when losing.
Six centuries later, now, we are being again engaged in battles and are facing battles. They are not armed battles, although such things cannot be excluded yet. However, regardless of what kind of battles they are, they cannot be won without resolve, bravery, and sacrifice, without the noble qualities that were present here in the field of Kosovo in the days past. Our chief battle now concerns implementing the economic, political, cultural, and general social prosperity, finding a quicker and more successful approach to a civilization in which people will live in the 21st century. For this battle, we certainly need heroism, of course of a somewhat different kind, but that courage without which nothing serious and great can be achieved remains unchanged and remains urgently necessary.
Six centuries ago, Serbia heroically defended itself in the field of Kosovo, but it also defended Europe. Serbia was at that time the bastion that defended the European culture, religion, and European society in general. Therefore today it appears not only unjust but even unhistorical and completely absurd to talk about Serbia's belonging to Europe. Serbia has been a part of Europe incessantly, now just as much as it was in the past, of course, in its own way, but in a way that in the historical sense never deprived it of dignity. In this spirit we now endeavor to build a society, rich and democratic, and thus to contribute to the prosperity of this beautiful country, this unjustly suffering country, but also to contribute to the efforts of all the progressive people of our age that they make for a better and happier world.
Let the memory of Kosovo heroism live forever!
Long live Serbia!
Long live Yugoslavia!
Long live peace and brotherhood among peoples!
I am into the copy and paste.
Goddamn! only the fucking germans would come up with this crazy S&M shit.
This is clearly Germany's attempt to ensure that they will be bathing in Gold Medals when Pong is made an olympic sport. Or maybe they're just going to do more S&M with it; I hear a LOT of Germans are into that.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
Next, will be peripherals to different parts of the body that can deliver all kinds of sensations - warm, cool, wet, dry, all manner of touch... :)
The porn sites will make a killing.
Welcome to the era of cyber-hookers!
At least it's safe sex
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
my friends do this to me all the time, especially when playing videogames.
four-oh-four
Am I the only one who considered for a moment which of my friends would, and which would not, play this with me?
can't be said to cause violence . .. it clearly shows you that pain hurts and that it's bad!
now, if you'll excuse me, I've got next . . .
I am not suprised this is from germany. What the hell is wrong with german people?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
pist hun
Man, this is sweet. Next I want some of those theaters that are equipped with smell, shockers, and all that good stuff. This is what we need, throw away the virtual and bring on the reality!
Why would anyone play this?
Username taken, please choose another one.
The funniest part was about the idiots who stuck to it because they didn't want to back down in front of an audience. This game will be great at separating showy meatheads from people who listen to their inner Pavlov despite their vanity.
"Yeah, but I didn't know you were going to be giving me electric shocks... just what are you trying to prove here, anyway?"
Indeed.
They haven't caused enough pain in history.
Wake me up when they come up with a CounterStrike simulator that murders you when you die in the game. I think we'd see a lot more campers.
only ze germans could come up with something so ridiculous. it'll make a great junior high school party game over there, i'm sure. sure beats playing "deep-throat the kielbasa" and wishing their parents saved some beer for them...
i'm not a racist, i swear...all in good fun, i hope
I don't. I expect you to die!
This might be a problem for some of the more conservative British MPs when their favourite web sites become interactive with the Painstation, specially those with weak hearts.
Mistress Thatcher is very upset at you...
From The Princess Bride
Maybe if you mounted the pain-application-device to the wristwrest of a keyboard and designed the whole thing as a "head-to-head" two-player game-station, complete with high quality flat-panels, you could make this work commercially. As it stands now, I don't think many people will pay to get hurt everytime they lose a ball in a game that's been outdated since hard-drives were too expensive for the desktop, and desktop computers used TVs as monitors. Maybe if people got hurt with every Quake/Half-Life death (or maybe a sting for the first bullet hit in the last 10 seconds?), you could market it. But PONG?!
This
Erm... Maybe I'm mistaken, but isn't Pong already painful enough?
--
Damn the Emperor!
As long as it leaves my opponents ears intact.
They went to all this trouble to invent the "Painstation" and the best they could do was PONG? Talk about rubbing salt in your game-inflicted wounds.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
Or perhaps does pain engender some other sort of emotion for other people?
And the current game platforms are fighting people for being too violent?
I fear that the pain will be a little too much for too many people and too little for others.
Burns, heart attacks, and other problems will stop this from being a cool platform that it could be.
with this system, a broken controller button might piss you off a bit more.
We're just not ready as a society for this yet, we squabble over incompetance in copyrights and intelectual property rights more than we try to improve the world for the betterment of man.
As soon as there are foundations funding and protecting people for their contributions rather than mega-corperations trying to sue them and get their marketshare, then we will be able to accept the responsibility for a game platform like this.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.
I did this to my air hockey table a few years ago. good incentive to win.
Could be really boring if your playing against a masochist. ("Oh, the pain!" - "dude, quit losing on purpose!")
This is the same principle we see when people eat hot chilly peppers or engage in saddism. Pain release endorphins that cause pleasure and the body learns to want the effect. So do you shock the loser or the winner?
Hey, just because WIRED got taken, doesn't mean it's real.
Boring boring boring.
--
What I want to see is a system like this that would let us zap politicians on TV.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
You can't sue us because you got carpal tunnel syndrome. Thats a FEATURE OF THIS KEYBOARD!!! Marketing information has clearly shown that people who work with computer equipment WANT to be in pain.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Research being wasted on silly projects like this should instead be focused on voice recognition, speech synthesis, and other computer interface technologies that will finally allow us to eliminate the torturous tools that are the modern keyboard and mouse. My friend, who once commanded a six-figure salary coding C++ for a large development firm, has been crippled by these implements and now has to struggle with demeaning part-time jobs in order to put food on the table. I would hate to see this happen to somebody again. We must throw off the shackles of the typing paradigm.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
The original "to the pain" quote derives from the Princess Bride (for more detail see another post) and means long-lasting, really bad pain. This gadget delivers weak to mild momentary pain (hopefully!). It's kind of like The Forced-Feedback Enemy-Denial Smackdown Ergonomic Game Chair, without the Quad Damage Simulator.
By the way, I do believe this is the first story I've seen with a new Big F@(!*@ Ad.
This
Chorus
Yeah we here now
Don't get scared now
Ja Rule nigga about to tear shit down
What ya'll thought ya'll was going eat forever
and my dog wouldn't blaze heat for cheddar
We better eat together or meet at the cross road
'Cause the Lord knows it's murder hold those
When your casket close and your should rise high
Remember the dead don't die unless they fuck wit' I
Verse 1
Niggas know who don't you shit
The flow is retched and my gee too futuristic for you hoe's to catch it
I'm a god send the falling angel and I do sin
Far from perfection but still considered a gem
Thank you Lord for given me the wind beneath my wings
When the miracle spittin there shall be no witnesses
To the pain and my ignorance, I charge to the game
So many love and slain by bullets wit dead aim
I weathered the change
Stormed through the streets in the range, can't complain
A nigga live to die in the flames
Casue i torture J to A the Rule
Niggas can't be seriously fucking wit me
What you holla R-U-L-E 'bout, we can hit up an alley and air out
Bullets exit the barrel, holla enter your month
That's how i'm built
Under the floss there nothing but filth
Don't let it fool you
I still let these slugs heat up and cool you off forever more
So help me Lord
Gonna find a way to my grave just because i'm Mur-der-er, whole not part
Cut me open, i bleed for the INC from the heart
When i start it's usually endless
Pop one with gloves on, make u check with forensic, son
In your appendix, son, you got hit up, huh, fucking wit Ja you know it's
murder
Chorus
Verse 2
R-U-L-E spits monotonous
Hot as apocalypse, now you eying this ferocious mic supremacist
Whose limit is endless
This nigga don't risen murderous flows killed suspicion
Niggas is too light in the ass to be shitting
Hollis ave, historical nigga respect tradition
Cause all i see is blooshed and niggas gunning em' down, and you confess
that i'm so who's touching me now
Shipped three hundred with a freestyle fucking you up
And got them hoes in the back rows tossing it up
i got the touch cause' my flow is bananas, bitches can't stand us
We ghetto fabulous, aim when i bust and blast on surprise
If ya'll nigga don't know you need to see me live
I'm like two 45's spitting in every direction
ya'll niggas is hoe's in stelleto and thongs, it's a break of a new day
Maybe you'll get to see vilntly what drives me
Take em' back to the gutter, smother the world in filth
rule's the name and now you're going to see how i'm built, nigga.
Chorus
I am into the copy and paste.
A lot of people have been insulting this, and asking why in the world anyone would play it, but it seems pretty obvious to me. Pain makes your body produce adrenalin, which would definitely heighten the gaming experience. It's not like the pain this machine delivers is extremely intense--but it should be enough to get your endorphins pumping and get your cheeks flushed and make you enjoy the game THAT much more when you win. Sure, it's not for you wusses who wouldn't play the pain game back in grade school, but who wants to play with people who can't take the consequences of losing anyway? :)
Personally, I'd like to see a study that pits the enjoyment derived from regular pong vs. pain-pong. I wouldn't be surprised if people reported a much higher level of enjoyment during pain-pong, even if they lost some of the time.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
It's called carpal tunnel ...
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
At first I thought it was Microsoft changing the name of their X-Box to compete with the Playstation.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
It should come as no surprise that the German's have cooked this up. Is this a terribly biased, slanderous, racist, aryanphobic opinion...yes. But it's my opinion, live with it! :)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - An Israeli incursion early Friday into central Gaza claimed the life of Maj. Gen. Ahmed Mefraj, the highest-ranking Palestinian officer ever killed in a clash with Israeli forces, Palestinian security officials said. Mefraj, 55, a top security commander, died during the sweep into villages east of the city of Khan Younis. Doctors said he was shot with several times. Mefraj, deputy to Palestinian public security commander Maj. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaidie, was also a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, an arm of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. In a statement, the Palestinian leadership said Mefraj was killed during Israel's ``brutal aggression'' in the villages. Three other people were killed in clashes with the Israelis, witnesses and doctors said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. SCORE! I need a big foam finger for times like this...
"someone should make a hot air balloon that is shaped like a giant vagina". --Bill Clinton
Read all about it
Karma whorin' since 1999
FIRST PO- AH!!! DAMNIT!!! THAT HURTS!!!
/. Painstation has succesfully been conducted!
Excellent. The first test of the
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
Sony is so going to sue them for that name...
"Back off, man. I'm a scientist."
not only did they design a version of pong that is painfull, but their web site is unbearable. I've got that horrible green background color burned into my eyes.
I hope you're not pretending to be evil while secretly being good. That would be dishonest.
I believe a few people have mentioned James Bond. This was sort of covered in the thunderball movie. though that game seemed to be a sort of a mixture between battleship and risk.
delivers a dose of pain to your left hand in the form of heat, punches or electroshock, when you mess up.
Usually I get punches when I win, but I think I could get used to this.
--Metrollica
It would be interesting to set up a statistical test to compare the performance of two relatively large groups to determine if there is a significant increase in pong (or any game) playing skills when using a stimulant such as pain. Have any studies like this been performed?
Obviously, Pavlov's experiments with dogs come to mind, but the question is whether this recognition would significantly translate to digital skills, or would increase in skill be matched by non-pained individuals? Would degree of pain matter?
It would be interesting to note the threshold at which pain stops benefitting.
What is Anarchism?
John Zerzan
For decades an unwritten but universally-observed rule required that media avoid using the terms anarchism or anarchist. Such reference would tend to give legitimacy to a doctrine that was anathema to the powers that be. Under this ban only very odious references to these terms could be made. Namely, any breakdown of authority had to be portrayed as resulting in a completely awful situation; for example, the "anarchy" that allegedly reigns, from time to time, in places like Bosnia, Somalia, Beirut, etc.
But lately this has changed somewhat, at least in Eugene. The dreaded A-word has been used several times in the past couple of years and, even though generally applied in a pejorative sense, its political meaning is at least somewhat acknowledged. This usage has mainly occurred by reference to the late great lckv's Tea House in the Whiteaker district, and its coterie of anarchists. It was these anarchists who established a sort of haven for some of society's undesired, who held a benefit for Ted Kaczynski in May '96, who were harassed by police for their activist ways, etc.
For many an unanswered question remains: just what is anarchism?
Most simply, anarchy means "without rule." This implies not only a rejection of government but of all other forms of domination and power as well. This antiauthoritarian principle is generally thought to be grounded in autonomy for the individual. But how is such an outlook fleshed out? Disagreement begins here among anarchists.
Some eschew virtually all organization, as invariably tending toward bureaucracy and manipulation. This tendency emphasizes critique and/or direct action over organization; and it sometimes includes a rejection of the increasingly massified industrial society we find ourselves in.
Others see in mass organization the only realistic hope to achieve a potent anarchist presence. This tendency generally has no basic dispute with modern technological society, and confines its opposition to the strictly capitalistic aspects of society. The most well-known anarchists, Noam Chomsky and Murray Bookchin, fall into this category.
Both points of view, I think, recognize the huge social fact of class division. But as a marxist- dominated leftism has been declining in the world, so has its influence within the growing anti- authoritarian milieu. Two developments have become rather clear over the past ten years or so: (1) opposition to the status quo has become increasingly "anarchist," and (2) anarchists are becoming increasingly critical of technological civilization itself and its hollow refrain of Progress.
It is unsurprising, given its fundamental orientation, that a philosophy of anarchy would find the current, approved political spectrum unattractive. Conservatives call for removing restraints on a system or social machine that is producing more social and environmental disasters every day. Liberals equal this masochism by tinkering slightly with that system, thereby attempting to re- form and legitimize it. More and more people are losing faith in a business-as-usual, paycheck and price-tag arrangement of life that amounts to a gathering assault on humanness and the destruction of nature.
Until very recently it was completely denied that there is a war going on, with the very survival of the individual and the natural world at stake. The blackout on this fact seems to be lifting a bit; public use of the word "anarchist" is a start, a small recognition of what can hardly be covered up any longer.
For myself and, I think, manv other anti-authoritarians, a new message, a new paradigm is overdue. There is more to be challenged than we once thought. The roots of the current crisis go very deep. This season's disaster in Southeast Asia, where the flames of domestication join the poisons of industrialism, is an all-too-vivid case in point. The planet is fast becoming a place of horrors, on the personal, Prozac-for-everyone level as on the ecological plane.
Nearness is being lost, and is a very big part of the solution: nearness to each other, nearness to nature. It may be that our only real hope is the recovery of a face-to-face social existence, a radical decentralization, a dismantling of the devouring, estranging productionist, high-tech trajectory that is so impoverishing.
This has been a thumbnail version of the anarchist challenge as I see it. Thanks for listening.
I am into the copy and paste.
You can tell they are into pain before using the Painstation, the green shouts it at you!
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
If they were going to go all retro with this you'd think they'd at least do an electronic clone of Operation...
I'm not sure if this is scary or funny so I'll have to say it's fuary. I mean this has been the idea of gamers who play way too many games over the years and it's finally come true. A whole new way to let everyone know who rocks most at a game in a very obvious manner.
This reminds me of that one time they tried to bring back the Nester cartoon (as drawn by a guest artist) for a Nintendo Power anniversary issue. He and a younger friend were playing Star Fox 64 with the rumble packs and by the time he left he was shaking from all the rumbling of being destroyed over and over.
Next up, Smell-o-vision CRT montiors. Like you don't all see THAT one on the horizon. "Warning, do not use while viewing Geocities sites!"
Starkle, starkle, little twink.
Nothing new... EQ has been a game of pain like that for years...
--- polarbear
Can you imagine this technology adapted for Q3 or UT, lets hope its not lethal :-)
"We deal in lead" - Roland of Gilead
Does this game come with a Jew mode that kills you if you lose?
I just wanted to use my high karma points to help deteriorate Slashdot, just a little. Here we go.
First of all, I hate the editors. They can all suck my tiny little cock. Those bastards are such greedy, blooding sucking fuck offs. Words cannot even begin to describe how much I hate those guys. I even hate them more than Kenny. They reject awesome stories and then post lots of bullshit and other corporate sponsored crap. On top of that, they flood our faces with lots of stupid, ugly ads. There are really two words that sum them up entirely: "sell outs".
Secondly, Slashdot sucks RoboTroll's balls. You know why? Because for being so "user" and "community" oriented, the editors sure do manage to fuck things up for all of us. Oh wait a minute, this is connected to my first point. Oh well. The users ARE Slashdot. Without the users, Slashdot is just another detnet. Without our input, it's just a failed "news" site run by a bunch of retards.
And what the fuck is up with this subscription? Have you ever taken a shit and then had someone pick that piece of shit up and sell it back to you for $20/year? Fuck that. You idiots manage to pull literally a thousand comments out of your asses every fucking day! These thousands of comments that you shit onto these discussion forums is THE CONTENT THAT DRIVES THIS PATHETIC WEB SITE. And now, Cmdr "Snotting" Taco wants to fucking bill you for it.
For being so pro open source, anti-MS, and other BS, Slashdot is exactly like its arch-nemesis.
What's the solution?
Make Malda, his 0.02$ mexican whore, and the rest of his ass fucking homo lovers appreciate all the hard work we put into making this site meaningful! STOP POSTING COMMENTS TO SLASHDOT UNTIL THE SUBSCRIPTION GOES AWAY! Screw this shit! Let's take OUR content and go home!
The opinions and statements made in this post are entirely for inflamatory purposes only. Nobody's feelings should be hurt and everyone who is shedding tears over this thing should go shoot themselves. Dear RoboTroll: for wasting my valuable karma to get your URL linked on a +1 comment post, please add this stunning example of trollmanship to your library.
Why bother.
Game-related pain was perfected almost two years ago without even needing additional hardware installed.
So it burns you and you dare not pull your hand away. Did anyone else think of Dune rather than Never Say Never Again?
I agree that with my risk for repetitive strain injury, my hands are (almost) the last thing I want extra wear and tear on....
This reminds me of when I lived in Germany -- we used to watch religiously a TV program called Bitte Lächeln (roughly translated, Say Cheese!). I don't know if it's still on, but it used to air on RTL2 at 1800 CET, right after Rück Zuck. It's sort of like that "Germany's Most Disturbing Home Videos" sketch they had on Sprockets once. No matter who was in competition for the DM5000, the winner was always the video in which the {subject|victim} endured the most agonizing pain. Animal bites on the genitals were always a mortal lock.
Anyway, I'm glad to hear that the wonderfully German concept of Schadenfreude is being shared with the gaming world. Incidentally, who wants to quote me some odds on how long it'll take for someone to rewire the PEU to attach to more sensitive bits?
They that would sacrifice their
a winner is me!
I cannot even imagine what kind of uses some people will find for this...
...to dream up something like this.
~shiny
WILL HACK FOR $$$
So in the future we get to talk 16 hours a day? How convenient.
They that quote Benjamin Franklin on liberty and safety deserve neither.
...I am surfing for the regular, not German-style pr0n, when half a dozen ads for "Ilsa's Dungeon" pop up and.... I don't think I like this new technology.
sic transit gloria mundi
my buddies used to run around the local orange groves with bb guns shooting eachother ... lemme tell ya, you learned to play that game well *really quick*. I think the only difference between this and that is theres a computer dealing out the pain instead of little copper balls :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I had an idea for a system like this. Imagine how much faster you could improve your skills at a game with it. If I got shocked every time I took damage in Tekken, or got burned when I lost, I would get real good, real fast. Sometimes when I play video games, I feel like I'm just dinkin' around. I mean, if you spend enough time walking around in CRPG you WILL win. This device (while not really applicable to CRPGs) forces you to push yourself constantly (or develop a higher pain tolerence). So you either become a bad-a$$ at your game of choice (mopping up at the arcade), or you become that guy who can hold his hand over a fire for as long as he wants. I've heard that women go nuts for both (though I haven't been able to verify this hypothesis BECAUSE I AM A FREAK).
What's wrong with just smacking your opponent immediately after the game? It's worked for centuries!
sic transit gloria mundi
All I read here are negative comments! What's so bad about this? In the arcades in the UK, we have a stupid game where you hold a metal bars with your hand, you put the money in, and hold onto them for as long as possible. What they do is vibrate extremely quickly and ends up getting your hands hot, and then it feels like your whole arm has gone numb. Whoever holds longest wins. Same thing.
Now this is one step further, it's not just psychological, it's actually inflicting pain. This is extremely cool! But then again, I always beat everyone at Pong, so I guess I would say that.
I think this would encourage people to play better. Think Quake 3. If you got a kick in the ass everytime you got fragged, I think you'd get better.
mogorific carpentry experiments
I used to have a cheap see-through SNES controller that shocked me when my hands got sweaty.
Me:Ow!...
OW!...
OW!...
Mom(from next room):What's wrong?
Me:My controller is shocking me!
Mom:Well why don't you STOP PLAYING!
Me:That's an interesting thought...
OW!...
OW!...
Yeah. I could have used something like this back then. Oh Yeah...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Oh my god. The Big Picture ads have arrived at /.
I may pay for this.
--Blair
"Yeah, right."
so I guess this would be the next step getting closer to that PS-9 system right?
What the hell is wrong with German people?
A true test would be to give the inventor an interactive slashdotting with the thing. One zap per web page hit should be enough. (Huuh! Will you look at that. 3 seconds and the guy wet himself, must have been a helluva slashdotting.)
RMS, linus, etc. I'd like to get them all in a box and like eat them or some shit. man, this is crazy shit. negros are the best. jam on.
pain is good for you. this is a blessing. you should not be playing games, so if you are, then it should hurt. ooooo. i like pain, but no breasts. no stripey kitties. no no no.
Has nobody made the required:
"hook this thing up to leisure suit larry" s&m joke...
I expected that to be the first post...
Now let's it put on the mouse/keyboard of the guy next to me at work and see if he improves any.
We really need your help
http://www.gofundme.com/help-sherry
Did you hear about the pocket version? It's just as cool, albiet a bit more manual in operation. It requires a 9volt battery and crotch clamps.
The two-player mode is cool too, you just place a certain number of fingers, based on score, in a doorjam and let your friend give it a hearty shove!
------
Today's Top Deals
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
/usr/games/fortune
Why would I believe anything said by someone with the name "Slash Veteran", who has such a new-looking uid? Idiot! Hahhahhaa!
Aren't those laws our fault? I thought after they surrendered, General MacArthur pretty much assumed control of their government and wrote the laws he wished the US had (a terribly hipocritical thing to do, for a man sworn to defend democracy).
Maybe you should get your hands checked out, they sound freakishly big if you have problems.
The fact that these guys went through so much trouble to bring the element of physical pain to the typically less than tactile sport of gaming indicates that they are masochists. They were dissatisfied by the lack of pain in their gaming, so they fixed that shortcoming. Besides their basic engineering skills at accomplishing this feat, they also indicate their intelligence and cynical wit with the clever title of Painstation. This photograph provides evidence that they have the ability to perseverse through adversity.
Now if you combine these qualities, you get a formidable force. If Sony threatens them over over the use of the term "Painstation", I say that they shouldn't back down, and I would be puzzled if they did! Not many people would confuse an archiaic self contained bar-sized electronic table-tennis-torture device with the Sony Playstation line of Home gaming consoles, even with the "force-feedback" option. I say that these clever masochists should stand by their production in the face of the belligerent Sony, and who better to do it! If not for the cause of marketing technological advancement despite questionable Intellectual Property practice, then at least for the sake of art! More than just a proof-of-concept of a phyciological Human Computer Interaction theory, this is an artistic statement regarding the current reality of the gaming and home entertainment industries. All great art comes from suffering artists, and this is no exception!
Of course, I do have a few reservations. The word should not be an issue, but if this is going to be produced for mass marketing, then I might take exception to the use of the Playstation font or visual appearance. I think that bringing this into the world of commerce should impose some IP rules. The fact that most of this is preexisting technology should definitely be considerdd to th benefit of the Painstation.
The most important concern is how sanitary this is. I'd hate to pick up Hepatitis at the local video arcade...
-castlan
www.gaysex.com vs. www.Upmybutt.com.
For one-click barf-o-matic.
I don't even want to think about it.
Only the pain part is completed.
Later the execution part will be added.
FINISH HIM!
God spoke to me
Heat, Punches, and Electroshocks to the hand?
I mean, come on, if you want drastically improve pong skills (as it seems everybody does in today's dog-eat-dog world) then you just have to hook this system up to testicles.
Ping - dot dot - ping - dot dot - ZAAAAP!
I guanrantee you'll see marked improvement in a very short time.
Wow! a 4358 hit rally and it's still going! That is just amazing!
:)
You Are violating the DMCA, your use of a hammer circumvents the need to use the painstation.
Thanks for getting hammers outlawed man.
as you know, the bad guy almost always has a fake-german (or russian) accent. it's a shame american actors are so bad at these accents... that's why the hire dutch guys for it (eg rutger hauer, jeroen krabbe).
:-)
score: -1, informative
-F
The Plea of Nikos Maziotis
to the Athens Criminal Court
First, I do not intend to pretend to be the "good guy" here where I was forced to come. I will not plead for anything, because I do not consider myself a criminal. I am a revolutionary. I have nothing to repent. I am proud of what I have done. The only thing I regret is the technical error that was made so that the bomb didn't explode such that my fingerprint was found on it afterward and I ended up here. This is the only thing I repent. And something else also. All that stuff shouldn't have been at my house. It should have been kept somewhere else.
You must have in mind that although you are judges and sitting higher than me, many times revolutionaries, and myself specifically, have judged you long before you judge me. We are in opposite camps, hostile camps. The revolutionaries and revolutionary justice (because I don't believe that this court is justice, it's the word justice in quotation marks) many times judge their enemies more mercilessly, when they get the chance to impose justice.
I will begin many years ago. We don't have any crime of mine to judge here. On the contrary, we will talk about crimes, but not mine. We will talk about the crimes of the state, of its mechanisms, of justice and police crimes....
The first time I can say I was politicized is when I took part in a demonstration in 1985. It was the 17th of November. I was fourteen then, and one policeman, Melistas, shot and killed a fifteen year-old, Kaltezas. I had not participated in the riots of that night. The same evening after the murder the Chemistry School was occupied and in the morning special forces carried out a police raid on the building to evacuate it and they arrested the anarchists and youths who were inside. The next day five thousand people occupied the Polytechnic School--if I remember correctly because I was young then and didn't have much information. These occupations were precisely a reaction to the murder of Kaltezas by policeman Melistas. "Justice," five years later, in January of 1990, found Melistas innocent.
What I mean by saying this is that in reality you are abettors of crimes, at least according to me. Then, in January and February of '90 I took part in the occupation of the Polytechnic, which occurred as a reaction to the court-decision which found Melistas not guilty for the murder of Kaltezas. There were riots and damages, store windows were broken, stones and molotov cocktails thrown.... I participated in these events. From then on I could consciously say I was an anarchist.
And when I say anarchist, I mean that I am against the state and capital. That our purpose is to subvert the state and the capitalist regime. We want a society without classes, without hierarchy and without domination. The biggest lie of all times is that the state is society. I think Nietzsche has also said this--that the state lies.
We are opposed to the division of society into classes, we are against a separation between those who give orders and others who obey orders. This authoritarian structure penetrates the whole of society and it is this structure that we want to destroy. Either with peaceful or with violent means--even with guns. I have no problem with that.
I will contradict my brother who said before that he didn't want the guns in order to make war. They were for war. Maybe they were just kept there, but the guns are for war. You don't just have them to keep them at home. I might have kept them as they were, but they are to make war and I make war.... The bomb in the ministry was an act of war.
Since 1990 I have been convicted many times for my actions, for multiform actions.
I was convicted because I refused to serve the army. Not because I have any problem with weapons or with violence, I repeated that in the military court. The fact that this time I was arrested in possession of guns means that I have no problem with weapons or with violence. I am not at all a pacifist. Because neither society nor the state are peaceful. As long as I receive violence I will respond with violence.
I spent seven months in a military prison. I have been convicted for deserting the army and for evasion of military services. The second time I was released after 51 days of a hunger strike.
I have been arrested in '94 in the occupation of the Economic university along with 51 comrades of mine, when Giorgos Balafas and Odysseas Kampouris were on hunger strike. This occupation of the Economic School was also an action of solidarity. In conditions where we couldn't gather anywhere, nor demonstrate, we had decided to squat a university and use it as a center of counter-information about the cases of Giorgos Balafas and Odysseas Kampouris, who were then imprisoned.
In '95 I was arrested with 500 other people in the revolt of the Polytechnic in November. That occupation happened because there were many different political prisoners in jail--Kostas Kalaremas, Odysseas Kampouris, Giorgos Balafas who was arrested again in the meantime, Spyros Dapergolas, Christoforos Marinos and four persons from Thessaloniki who were arrested when the demonstration in which they were participating was attacked by the police on the 14th of November--and because there was a prisoners' revolt going on in Koridallos jail. For this occupation I was at last sentenced to one year imprisonment along with many others of my comrades. In all these actions my comrades and myself have taken complete responsibility.
So, during this decade since I can call myself an anarchist, I have used many forms of action. I have written and distributed leaflets. I took part in postering. I participated in occupations, violent or peaceful. For example, the occupation of the Economic School didn't have any violent character but the Special Police Units and the Riot Police invaded and arrested us. There were even policemen of the Special Units wearing ski-masks who entered in order to break the chains on the gate.
In the case of the Polytechnic we didn't pretend to be innocent, still without accepting the specific charges we were accused of. We explained why we went in the Polytechnic. Some time after, when I was court-martialed in February of '98, I personally took responsibility for burning a Greek flag. I said that I burnt it. I consider it to be a symbol of a hostile force. With anyone having the Greek flag I see my enemy, because the policemen have it on their uniforms, and the marshals.... It is the symbol of the enemy.
Our purpose, within the anti-state and anticapitalist struggle, is to connect ourselves with the different social struggles. Our purpose also when interfering in these struggles is to attempt to take things to the edge, which means to culminate the conflict of these social parts with the state and the police. To urge the people fighting to transcend institutional frameworks--the trade- unions, the local administrations and all those manipulators who are enemies of human freedom. Many comrades of mine, with their small forces, were engaged in such struggles. I will tell you about them more specifically.
In 1989, in a struggle of environmental interest in the village of Aravissos, the resi
dents of the area didn't want their water sources to be exploited by the Water Company of Thessaloniki. They clashed with the police and the riot police, the burnt water pumps, set fires and built barricades.... And some of our comrades from Thessaloniki took part in this struggle and were even arrested.
In 1990 the aggression of neo-liberalism began in Greece (an aggression that internationally had begun in the '80s with the Reagan and Thatcher governments), including de-industrialization, workers' dismissals, privatization, restriction of the welfare state, reductions in salaries, pensions and medical treatment.... This attack that started in Europe and North America in the beginning of the '80s only started in 1990 in Greece.
The first project was the "problematic" companies. In that section also, during the period of 1990-91, there were occupations in many factories of the country--in Mantoudi, Lavrio, Patras. Again, some comrades of ours, with their small powers, were there. More specifically in Mantoudi and in the Piraiki-Patraiki factory which is located in Patras.
After that we have the pupils' movement of "90-91 which was a grand one in to my opinion. It managed to subvert the law of the Minister of Education Kontogiannopoulos, who finally resigned. The right-wing government, in its effort to repress the movement, had mobilized its thugs in order to smash the school occupations, resulting in the murder of a teacher, Nikos Temponeras, inside an occupied school in Patras. It was one more crime of the state. Here we will count the crimes of the state, no crime of mine.
Responding to the murder of Temponeras there was a demonstration of thousands of people. We participated too, to sharpen the situation. There were conflicts with the police, the Polytechnic was occupied once again for two days. Flames, barricades, damage.... There was also another crime those days, in the 10th of January "91. During the riots, tear-gas bombs thrown by the police caused a fire in the building of K. Marousi, a shopping-center in Panepistimiou street. Four people died there due to this fire. For this crime nobody has yet paid, nor did "justice" say anything. It was covered up.
One year after, in the summer of 1992, my comrades--not me personally but this doesn't matter--participated in the clashes around Votanikos central bus-station, when the government attempted to privatize Public Transports. There were conflicts between the workers and the police. Then, some workers in the Public Transports went to prison accused of sabotage. They were smashing private buses belonging to the ruffian owners who had bought them. There also, anarchists were present.
Before referring to the struggle in Strymonikos, I want to mention the most recent examples: the jobless teachers the previous year and the pupils' movement in the winter
of '98-'99. We were present there as well. A comrade who testified yesterday, Vasilis Evagelidis, tried to talk about it. He was arrested in the clashes that took place in January of '99 in a pupils' demonstration.
Generally, wherever there are disturbances, wherever there are conflicts we want to be involved--to subvert things. For us, this is not a crime. In a real sense, these disturbances are the "popular sovereignty" that professional politicians keep talking about. That's where freedom is expressed....
Now let's talk about the struggle of the people in Strymonikos. Long before I placed the bomb, other comrades had been in the villages. They had been talking with the people there. They had published a brochure about this revolt, about the clashes in October of 1996. But I will talk more specifically about the struggle in Strymonikos in a little while. First, I want to talk exclusively about the action.
To tell the truth, I was inspired to put this bomb for a specific reason: The people of the villages broke the usual limits by themselves. If it had been a struggle inside institutional frameworks--in the way that trade unions and local administrations try to keep these struggles restricted, if it was confined in a mild, harmless and nondangerous protest, maybe I wouldn't have done anything.
But the comrades up there in the villages--who are not anarchists, of course, but I don't care about that, they are citizens who also want their freedom--had exceeded every limit. They had conflicts with the police three times--on the 17th of October 1996, on the 25th of July '97 and on November 9 '98. They had set fire to police cars and vans of the riot police. They had burnt machinery belonging to TVX, they had invaded the mines of Olympiada and destroyed part of the installations. Some of them also made a kind of guerrilla war. In the nights, they were going out with guns, shooting in the air to frighten the policemen. And I thought, these people are cool. They've gone even further than us.
And then repression followed, especially in '97 when there was marshal law imposed in the area. The Chief of Police in Halkidiki gave an order according to which all gatherings and demonstrations were forbidden. They also sent special police units and police tanks, which came onto the streets for the first time since 1980. Now they were sending them out again in the villages of Halkidiki. So, I thought, we must do something here, in Athens. It is not possible that the others are under repression and we are here staying passive.
The ministry of Industry and Development, in Papadiamadopoulou and Michalakopoulou streets, was one of the centers of this case. The struggle in Strymonikos was a struggle against "development," against "modernization" and all this crap they keep proclaiming. What is hidden behind all these expressions is the profits of
multinationals, the profits of "our own" capitalists, Greek capitalists, the profits of states officials, of the Greek state, of the bureaucrats, of all those who take the money, of technical companies.... There is no relevance between this "development" and "modernization" they are talking about and the satisfaction of popular needs. No relevance at all.
So, I placed a bomb. The purpose was as I said in the letter with which I took responsibility for the action. In the passage of February '98 I said that in placing the explosive device my purpose was to send a double political message. Everything is political. Even if you use such means, the messages are political. War itself is a means of political pressure. In this case, this was also a political means, a political practice. First of all, a message to the people of Strymonikos that "you are not alone, there are also others who may live 600 km away from you but care." Not for personal reasons...I don't know anyone from there personally. Other comrades know people there. I haven't even been there. It was not my house that was threatened, but this is not the point.
Simply, my principle--and generally the principle of anarchists and of other non-anarchist revolutionaries--is that social freedom is one and inseparable. So, if freedom is partially offended, in essence it is offended as a whole. If their freedom is offended, mine is offended too. Their war will be my war, especially in an area where the "sovereign people"--again an expression used by professional politicians--does not want what the state and the capital want: the gold metallurgy of TVX.
On the other hand, I have said that, OK, there would be some damage--I knew that. Yes, I had the intention to cause material damages. So, what damage would that be? On the windows, on that certain place, what kind of damage? Or outside the storehouse where I placed the bomb? In my opinion the damages would be minimal. But even if they were more than minimal, for me it is not important at all. Because freedom can't be compared with the material damage of some windows, on a state car or state property. For me, the ministry is not an institution of common benefit as the charges say. Of state benefit yes, but of social benefit no.
However, even if the device did not explode, I sent my message. I was caught because I made that technical error and I left a fingerprint, but even if there was no material damage at all the message was sent. And you received it, the state received it, but also the people of Strymonikos received it. I know that they are saying I am one of them, even if they have never met me. There is nothing better than that. And of course, I repeat that I don't regret it at all.
I am a social revolutionary, and when you say that it is like talking for the benefit of society. Not like--it is for the social benefit. As I have this principle I couldn't harm any citizen. I could harm a policeman. I consider them my enemies. And you are my enemies too. I separate you. I make a clear class separation. On one hand we have those, on the other hand, we have the others. In this occasion though I intended to harm neither the policeman who guarded the ministry nor anybody else--and of course not a citizen.
The procedure that is used by groups or individuals in general is exactly this: you first place the bomb in your target and then you call to a newspaper. In this case, I called to Eleftherotypia and said: In half an hour a bomb will explode there. Exactly what is written in the evidence: "In 30 minutes there will be an explosion in the Ministry of Industry and Development, for the case of TVX in Strymonikos." By this sense, as it was proven practically and not hypothetically, the police arrived at the place in time. The first of them who went there surrounded and evacuated the area for 200 meters around the building, as the police specialists themselves admitted, so that there wouldn't be any car or person accidentally passing by. And then they waited for the bomb to explode. As they have already said, they were waiting for the safety time to expire, which is the 30 minutes that I had given! Whether the bomb would or wouldn't explode there was absolutely no danger for humans lives. In case that it exploded, there would be only material damages. So, it would happen exactly as was intended to happen. Objectively, if the device had exploded there was no chance of an accident, like exploding before or after the time given.
And exactly because of the message being political and symbolic, it was not in my purpose to cause extensive material damages; that's why I used a small quantity of dynamite. And I had the possibility to put five or seven or ten kilos if I had wanted to.... But I didn't. Since there were such things found in my house, I could have caused great damage, always talking about material damages! But I didn't. If I could have demolished the whole building of the ministry without having killed anyone, I wouldn't have any objection. It is another useless building for the people and for society. As I said before, the only thing I regret is the technical error on the device.
Now, I want to say something in advance. This action was performed only by me, I did it alone, there was nobody else. The message of course said "Anarchist Urban Guerrillas." This doesn't mean that there were other persons aside from me.... It was just an expression to imply which milieu I come from. Of course, I wouldn't use my name "Nikos Maziotis" to tell the newspaper where I placed the bomb. I'd say "Anarchists." That's all. I want to make it clear, finally, that the initiative for this action was mine only, there was neither a group nor an organization nor anything. And also, It doesn't appear even from the evidence that there was a group or an organization, that I would supply any group or organization. I was alone and the things found were only mine.
I want to refer more to what I call solidarity, to the motives that I had. What is this solidarity. I believe that people socialized-- that human society was created--based on three components: solidarity, mutuality and helping each other. That's what human freedom is based on. Any social group in struggle, in different space and time--whether they are pupils or farmers or citizens of local societies, for me and for anarchists is very important. It doesn't have to do with whether I am a worker and identifying my interests with the interests of that class. If someone asks for a higher salary or has a trade-unionist demand for me that is not important. For me, solidarity means the unreserved acceptance and support with every means of the right that the people must have to determine their lives as they wish, and not letting others to decide in default of them, like the state and the capital do.
That means that in this specific case, in the struggle of Strymonikos but also in every social struggle, for me what counts mostly is that they are struggles through which the people want to determine their fates alone. And not having any police chief or any state official or capitalist deciding what they should do. It is of secondary importance if they want or don't want the factory, if the focal point of the struggle is environmental. The important thing is that they don't want the factory because they don't like something imposed on them with violence.
Concerning the matter of political violence now, from the very beginning they tried to present a case of "repulsive criminals" and "terrorists" who "'blindly' placed bombs." Something that doesn't exist.
If theoretically terrorism is exercising violence against citizens and unarmed population, that goes exclusively for the state. Only the state attacks civilians. That's what the repression mechanisms are for: the riot police, special police units, the army, special forces...mechanisms that also rob the people. They finance armed professionals, policemen. Aren't they trained to shoot real targets? Aren't the riot police armed with chemical gas? To use them where? On citizens, in demonstrations and in manifestations. So, only the state exercises violence against citizens. I didn't use any violence against any citizen.
I will say exactly what terrorism is.
Terrorism is when occupations, demonstrations and strikes are being attacked. When the riot police attacked the pensioners who demonstrated outside Maximou four years ago. When Melistas killed Kaltezas. When Koumis and Kanelopoulou were murdered by the riot police in 16th of November 1980. And if I remember well, they were not shot, they were beaten to death. Terrorism is when Christos Kassimis was murdered. But I will refer more specifically to this case.
A group of revolutionaries had then tried to set fire to the German factory of AEG, in Redis. This was also an action of solidarity. I don't know if you are aware of that, but I will tell you about it. Then, in '77, some guerrillas of the RAF had died inside the white cells of Stammheim, in Stuttgart, West Germany. The white cells alone are terrorism. Prison is terrorism. So, then, some Greek revolutionaries went to burn the factory of AEG, as an action of solidarity with the RAF and also as a reaction to the murder of RAF militants in the prisons of Stuttgart. During this attempt, which was unsuccessful, somebody was killed. He was Christos Kassimis, shot by the two policemen, Plessas and Stergiou, who were guarding the factory. And according to what I have read, they didn't kill him because their lives where threatened, they shot him in the back. He died with a bullet in his back.
Terrorism is when special police forces invade the Chemistry School and beat up anarchists and youth. Terrorism is when Temponeras is murdered in Patras. Terrorism is when Christos Tsoutsouvis was murdered in '85. But this case also has something special and I want to point it out. To Christos Tsoutsouvis fits an expression of Thucydides-if you know about him, he is the ancient historian who wrote down the story of the Peloponnesian War--that "dying in the battle is an honor, followed by the acclaim of the citizenry." He may have been killed, but he also took three of them with him. For me, he was a warrior, a militant. I believe that society needs more persons like him.
Terrorism is when citizens are murdered by the police in simple "identification controls." I will mention some examples. I will tell about Christos Mouratis, a Rom in the city of Livadia, who was shot in a police blockade in October of 1996. He was an unarmed citizen. This is a crime. But "justice" did nothing about it, what would it do? It just rewarded the crime.
In 1997, Helias Mexis was passing by the street in front of the Transport Detention Center (for prisoners) and he was shot by the police guard Tsagrakos.
Theodoros Giakas was killed on January 10th 1994 by police officer Lagogiannis of the Moschato police station. This case is also quite peculiar. He was an unarmed citizen. He was stopped in the street for identity control. He ran away and the police shot him. Afterwards they said they found a knife in his possession and other crap. As far as I know, in the beginning he was shot three times. Probably all three shots were fatal. As Giakas was lying on the ground, Lagogiannis shot him another two times and even after that he handcuffed him! Are you aware of what "justice" did about it? Sentenced him to 12 years on probation. That's why I'm saying that your "justice" must be put in quotation marks.
Terrorism is when Ali Yumfraz, a Pomak from Vrilisia suburb of Athens, was arrested for being drunk and afterwards he was found dead in his cell in the police station. The police said he suffered a heart-attack and that this was the reason for his death. I can recall another incident, in January of '91, when a Turkish political refugee, Souleiman Akiar, was beaten to death by policemen. The Minister of Public Order had then said that the man had heart problems. But the medical examination found that there were bruises all over his body.
Terrorism is this court, here. Every trial of a militant, every trial of a revolutionary is terrorism, a message of intimidation for society. I said it before in my statement yesterday, when you called me to ask if I accept the charges, and I will repeat it. Because my persecution is political, the message is clear: whoever fights against the state and capital will be penalized, criminalized and characterized as a terrorist. The same for any solidarity with any social struggle: it will be penalized and crushed. This is the message of this trial and by this sense it is terrorism. Terrorism against me, terrorism against the anarchists, terrorism against the people of Strymonikos, who are also receiving similar messages during this period, as they have similar trials for their mobilizations. This is terrorism.
The fact that I put a bomb as an action of solidarity is not terrorism. Because no citizen was harmed by this action.
Many times, the media--sometimes even more than the police--promote a view of every action taking place (for example in molotov attacks) that "we almost had victims, almost, almost, almost...." But such a thing has never really happened. This is done to create impressions and these things are said so that there will be social consent for repression. So that I, for example, will be convicted with a long-term prison sentence. "We found someone who made the mistake of leaving his fingerprint. We caught him. And he says that he did it? Let's fuck him!" My language is a little vulgar.
I want to refer to the struggle in Strymonikos. Even if I have never been there I will give you some historical rudiments. The mines which have now been bought by the multinational company TVX Gold have existed since 1927. They used to belong to Bodosakis. In these mines, where numerous work accidents have taken place and many miners suffered pneumonokoniosis, there was a big bloody strike back in 1977. The strike had demands such as increases in wages, medical treatment, and security measures in the mines. At that time police tanks sent also sent into the area. There were arrests and convictions, with terrorism imposed in the villages.
In the late '80s the company was characterized as "problematic," like many others. The state, through METVA, planned the installation of gold metallurgy. In '92 the company, as "problematic," passed into the hands of the state and in December of '95 the latter sold the mines to TVX. But the residents of Strymonikos didn't want the construction of a gold metallurgy plant. More than seventy years of mining activity had already caused serious environmental problems.
This struggle has great importance, and that has been proven, for international reasons. The mobilizations started in the beginning of '96. The residents blockaded the national Thessaloniki-Kavala highway, they made guardhouses from which they supervised the mines and stopped any company truck that might try to pass or any machinery that would begin drilling activities. With these activities, the street blockade and the guardhouses, the people demonstrated: "We are here. You are not going to pass."
This way they forced the company to temporarily suspend its activities. On the 26th of October '96, TVX sent an ultimatum to the greek state and to the Ministry of Development, saying that "Unless the works start right now, we are going to leave." Their investment, which is the biggest private one ever made in the country, an investment of 65 billion drachmas, would leave Greece.
When the first clashes took place, on the 17th of October, and the residents managed to violently repel the police forces from the area, Jason Stratos, the president of SEV, stated that "these disturbances damage the integrity of the country abroad." And he was right, because "It's impossible that two thousand provincials (I don't mean this characterization in a bad way, but that's how the minister or the president of SEV mean it; that's how professional politicians and the political parties talk about simple people) will destroy our investments, not letting a Canadian company or any other foreign company come here and make investments. This reaction must end".
So, you can understand that this struggle had no restricted local character. It had international implications, because it created a precedent: "If we can't have an investment in Halkidiki, wherever a foreign investor may go it will not be able to proceed with the investment. If the people revolt and don't want what the state wants, the economy is through."
One year later, there was another attempt to start work for the installation of the gold metallurgy plant. In July of '97 the residents destroyed a drill belonging to IGME and clashed with the police. In November, they gathered and demonstrated at the mines. But some months before--in September, if I remember well--the state had predicted that the people's reactions would culminate and had sent hundreds of policemen from Thessaloniki. They had also sent riot police from Athens, special repression police units and police tanks, which as I said before appeared in the streets for the first time after 1980 when they were used to suppress demonstrations. There was a whole army of occupation installed there permanently. The police knew that there would be riots again so they had prepared a military force to repress the residents. As it happened, of course, it wasn't completely successful because the police were defeated in clashes that took place on the 9th of November. And as I have said before police cars and riot police vans were destroyed, the drill of the company was set on fire and finally guerrilla activities took place, in which shots were fired to frighten the police.
As I have already said, I was very much inspired by these events to put the bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development. On this base I want to repeat that this struggle had no simple local character. It had transcended that.
For us, for the anarchists, social struggles and solidarity are beyond national limits. For me and for my comrades, struggles that take place outside the borders of the Greek state have a great importance.
There is huge importance for me in the Zapatista guerrilla that has burst out in Chiapas in 1994. It is one more struggle against neoliberalism, a struggle that is carried out with guns, with masks, a real war. It involves political violence and I am not against that. I have never made any statement against it and I do not want to pretend to be innocent.
Of great importance for me is also the movement of Brazilian farmers without land (the MST) who occupy the land of the estates in order to cultivate it collectively.
There is also great significance in the movement of the jobless people in France, who made occupations in working offices and clashed with the police during the winter of '97-'98.
Also important is something that took place in Turkey and that is similar with what happened in Strymonikos with TVX. Another multinational company, EUROGOLD, tried to make a comparable investment in Pergamos. And it is very important what I am going to say now. It was in the village Ovancik of Pergamos, if I remember correctly. The residents of that area, Turkish farmers, successfully frustrated the EUROGOLD investment, in the same ways that the people of Strymonikos have used to so far prevent the installation of gold metallurgy. The people of Pergamos made blockades in the Ismir-Istanbul highway. They clashed with military police forces. And, coincidentally, there was again someone who placed a bomb in the offices of the investing company, in Ismir. Like I did here.
So, as you understand, all these practices are part of social struggles, they happen everywhere. And for us, not only are they not crimes, but they are an honor. We are proud of these practices.
Concerning this factory in Pergamos, the Greek media, the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Aegean had been hypocritically saying that if it was constructed it would pollute the Aegean sea. But they are not saying the same for Strymonikos Bay. So the factory in Turkey must not be constructed, but in Greece it is all right. Here the hypocrisy of the Greek state, of the media and of the politicians is obvious.
I don't believe that you really judge me as a "terrorist." I don't believe that you judge me for "having the purpose to cause danger to human lives." This is just a pretext. In fact, you are judging me for what I've said until now. For who I am. For being an anarchist, for believing what I believe, even for my past. Because all of these are aggravating elements: "So, you were in the Polytechnic occupation, you were in the Economic School occupation, you are an objector to military service, you were here and there...." I don't have a "previous decent life," according to you, of course, because according to me I am a very decent person. In reality, you don't judge me for supposedly having the purpose of harming people.
In fact, the state has proven that it does not care for the citizens. On the contrary, when its domination must be consolidated, the state takes away human lives, as I have said in the examples I gave before. The only thing the state wants is to conserve a monopoly, the monopoly that "Only I, the state, can take away human lives."
Only the uniformed police, the secret police, the riot police or the special police can take away human lives. Everyone else who does it is a criminal. But when the state does it, it proves to be unassailable.
Whenever citizens were killed, "justice" has accepted the police allegations. Not because it believed them but for reasons of interest. It always accepts the allegation that "the bullet lost its way," that supposedly "the policeman's gun had accidentally fired," or that he was supposed to be "in legal defense." In reality though, all these examples that I mentioned before, and I have more to mention, are cold-blooded murders. Very few policemen were ever accused and all of them are out of prison and proud of what they have done. Proud!
A witness for my defense said something before about the case of Alekos Panagoulis. And it is true that the attempt of Panagoulis to murder the dictator Papadopoulos was an action applauded by the Greek people. It was an attempt to kill. And so what? Who did he try to kill? A dictator!
Rationally one can oppose the argument that back then there was a status of military junta and that the means of political violence were justified to be used as a means of political pressure in the time of dictatorship, but now we have a "parliamentary democracy." Now we have "freedom" and we have "rights." Well, I don't think it is exactly like that. With all I've said I don't believe there are rights. They may exist on paper, but in reality there is nothing.
I will mention certain occasions of the political reform period, the time of the presumed democracy, where people have been killed within social struggles. It was once again proven that the people still don't define their fate just because the constitution of the state changed in 1974. Specific examples: The first disturbances took place, as far as I remember, in July of 1975. Also in May of 1976 for one more time the police tanks appeared in the streets of Athens. Laskaris, the minister of Employment of Karamanlis' government had then made a new law, Act 330, an anti-worker and anti-strike act. On the 25th of May '76 there was an all- workers' demonstration.
There were clashes with the police, an assault at the offices of "Bradini" newspaper..., molotov cocktails and fire... Then, a police tank which was chasing after demonstrators killed Anastasia Tsivika, a 67 year old saleswoman. Nobody was ever accused of this murder.
In other cases, there were new drafts of laws voted in the parliament without asking anybody's opinion. For example in 1990 there was a revision of the agreement considering the continuation of the American military base operations in Greece. The people of Chania did not accept that... In June of 1990 they had a demonstration which was attacked by the riot police. As a reaction, the people clashed with the police and burnt down the Prefecture of Chania.
In 1991 the farmers of Heraklion province set fire to the building of the Heraklion Prefecture. As you can see, political violence is exercised by everyone. By all of society and by every social segment or class that is threatened.
What the state wants is to deal with everyone alone. You must have heard an expression that Prime Minister Simitis is using a lot, speaking of "social automatism" whenever social reactions burst out. He uses this expression in order to present these social reactions--the blockades in the streets, the squatting in public buildings and all the actions of this kind--as being in contrast with the interests of the rest of society. Something that is a total lie. It is just the tactics of "divide and rule," which means "Spread discord to break solidarity." Because solidarity is very important as anyone who is alone becomes an easy target.
When a workers' strike takes place and there is no solidarity it is easier to attack. They talk about a "minority." This is the argument of the state, that it is "a union minority having retrogressive interests which turn against modernization, against development, against all reforms," and all that nonsense. Well, there hasn't been one social segment or social group that hasn't come in conflict with the state--especially during the '90s, and that hasn't been faced with the argument that "You are just a minority," that "Your struggle is in contrast with the rest of society's interests."
That is exactly what happened in all cases. It happened with the workers in the "problematic" companies who were squatting their factories in '90-'91, with the pupils who occupied their schools in '90-'91 and recently in '98-'99. The same thing happened with the workers in Public Transport in '92, with the farmers who blockaded the national highways in '95 and in '96, with the teachers' mobilizations against the repeal of the calendar and the new exam. The same thing happened of course with the people of Strymonikos.
What is really being attacked is solidarity. And that's what is also attacked--without any disguise--through my trial. The state wants to attack everyone alone. Because when it finds them together things are much more difficult.
Police brutality is, of course, not sufficient for repression. Coming back to what I was saying before, I have concluded with the fact that the difference between dictatorship and parliamentary democracy--or should I better say capitalistic oligarchy--is that the first one is mainly imposed by raw violence and the latter, the presumed democracy, is mostly imposed by the intellectual control of the citizens, through the weapon of the mass media, through deception. Because I don't believe that people voting for their bosses every four years means they have their freedom. They vote for them but when they're not doing what they were elected to do, people can't get rid of them.
In ancient Athens this didn't happen. In ancient Athens everyone could speak in the public assembly. Anyone could express an opinion, no matter how modest his position was. And those having a public position could be removed by the people at any time.
But democracy has also proven that when deception and intellectual control of the citizens are not enough, it has no problem resorting to police violence, killing, torture and terror.
Finally, I am not on trial because I placed a bomb, nor because I possessed three guns and ten kilograms of dynamite. After all, the army and the police have a lot more guns than me and they use them. The one can't be compared with the other.
I have nothing else to say. The only thing I'll say more is that no matter what the penalty to which I will be sentenced--because it is certain that I will be convicted--I am not going to repent anything. I will remain who I am. I can also say that prison is always a school for a revolutionaries. His ideas and the endurance of his soul are experienced. And if he passes this test he becomes stronger and believes more in the things for which he was put in prison. I have nothing more to say.
The judge: Don't turn the cameras to the bench!
Public prosecutor: In the beginning of your plea you said that you had the guns for war. Don't you see a contradiction when you say that there was no danger for human lives?
I made clear that none of my activities is turned against citizens. I already made that clear. Where is the contradiction?
Public Prosecutor: You said the guns are for war.
Yes but not for the people. For my class enemies. Look, I never said that I am a humanist generally. Nor a philanthropist, because the meanings of these words are degraded. In everything that I've written--if you have read--and in everything that I've said I made clear who are my friends and who are my enemies. Not on a personal but on a social level. Who are my social and class friends and who are my social and class enemies. In the letter with which I took responsibility for the action as well as in my defense I said that society is another thing from the state.
I will go on to be more specific for the jury. On the one hand I place the state, state officials, the police, the army, the security forces, capitalists, and on the other hand I place the rest of the people: workers, farmers, pupils, the whole of society, the majority of the people, the oppressed people.
Public prosecutor: You talked about "justice" putting the word in quotation marks. What ground for complaint do you have against justice?
I have been in prison for the last 18 months. I have personally stayed in prison for 18 months and another 7 months in military prison. Simple and close examples. You are speaking of me, personally, are't you?
These laws are made in order to suit your interests. From these laws you are earning your bread. Your job is to send citizens to prison and to oppose the argument that policemen have committed murders but don't go to prison for it. I have already criticized the job of this "justice" you are talking about. That finally there are two weights and two measures. The matter is not what the law says or what the penal code says, but what really happens. Just like in the case of terrorism.
For example, the US consider PKK to be a terrorist organization, but not UCK. In the beginning UCK was considered, by the US, a terrorist organization but afterwards it wasn't because its existence was convenient for their plans. Isn't that right? The US did not consider Contras to be terrorists, when they were going to invade Nicaragua, but they considered all the left revolutionary movements and guerrillas terrorists.
Public prosecutor: I will refer to the danger you said something about. Didn't you know that the bomb could cause danger?
If I knew? I knew that it would not cause any danger. The procedure is stereotyped and it goes exactly like that: you make a telephone call to a newspaper for warning, then somebody from the newspaper informs the police, the police arrive at the place and blockade the area surrounding the target. In my case, they did blockade the area and the police specialists in neutralizing explosive devices who were then present have already testified that the blockade was safe for a range of 200 meters. So there was no danger for human lives. For material damages now, I told you my opinion about them....
I want to complete what I was saying before to the public prosecutor, about terrorism on an international level. In reality, for this moment, the US are the global gendarmery and terrorists, as the only great world power left. Which means it is the worst thing on earth. And according to our perception--as anarchists--the state, all the states and all the governments are antisocial, terrorist mechanisms, since they have organized armies, police, and hired torturers.
I also want to complete what I was saying about having two weights and two measures. For example, the US provides weapons, financing and instigating every dictatorial regime all over the world. And in Greece as well. In Latin America, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Peru.... This is terrorism. Terrorism is to arm dictators, to arm death squads in Argentina or in Bolivia in order to kill people of the left, citizens, revolutionaries. Those who equip the death squads to torture, those are the terrorists.
Terrorism is when they bombard Yugoslavia for ten days, killing civilians....
Excuse me, Mr. prosecutor, but the US is the one which pronounces who is terrorist and who isn't. Its State Department issues official directions, advising Greece about who is a terrorist. In this period of time, it places pressure on the Greek state to make an anti-terrorist law, a model of law which will criminalize those who fight, making laws more draconian than those already existing. This is terrorism.
The revolutionaries and militants are not terrorists. The terrorists are the states themselves. But with this accusation, with this stigmatizing (as terrorism) all the states and governments try to criminalize the social revolutionaries and militants inside their countries--the internal social enemy. In fact, the state, "justice" and the police face me also as this kind of enemy. As an internal social enemy. On the basis of the division I described before. That's the way the state sees it. This is what is ventured in this trial.
Public prosecutor: What do you have to oppose to what exists?
Social revolution. By any means necessary.
It is generally proven, because I am well versed in Greek as well as in international social and political history, that never did any changes happen, never did humanity meet any progress--progress as I conceive it--through begging, praying or with mere words.
In the text I sent to take responsibility for the action in which I said that I placed the bomb and which was published in Eleftherotypia newspaper, I said that the social elite, the mandarins of capital, the bureaucrats, all these useless and parasitic people--who should disappear from the proscenium of history--will never quit their privileges through a civilized discussion, through persuasion. I don't want to have a discussion because you can't have a discussion with this kind of people...
I would like to add something. Precisely because I have studied a lot, (I know that) during the events of July of '65, a conservative congressman of the National Radical Union came out and said about those who went into the streets and caused disturbances when Petroulas was killed, that "Democracy is not the red tramps but we, the participants in parliament," which means the congressmen who are well paid.
I will reverse that. Popular sovereignty, sir judges, is when molotovs and stones are thrown at the police, when state cars, banks, shopping centers and luxury stores are burnt down. This is how the people react. History itself has proven that this is the way people react.
This is popular sovereignty. When Maziotis goes and places a bomb in the Ministry of Industry and Development in solidarity with the struggle of the people in Strymonikos. This is the real popular sovereignty and not what the Constitution says.
I forgot to commemorate militants who have been murdered. Christoforos Marinos was murdered in the port of Piraeus, inside the ship "Pegasus" in July of '96. Michalis Prekas was murdered by the Special Police Units in October of 1987 in Kalogreza. Tsironis was murdered in Nea Smyrni in 1978.
I also want to add something concerning to what Mr. Prosecutor said yesterday, during his speech, on the matter of humanism.
I will mention an event that happened abroad, to prove who are humanists and who aren't after all, who are the real criminals.
The Tupac Amaru guerrillas occupied the Japanese embassy of Peru in December of 1996. They took more than a hundred hostages and these hostages were not just citizens. There were ambassadors, diplomats from many states, Japanese businessmen and officials of the Peruvian regime--which is quite far from being democratic. They were demanding the freedom of their militants, the release of their organization's leader and of other comrades of theirs who were imprisoned in dungeons.
Not only didn't they hurt any one of the hostages but they even released almost all of them--that is to say who are really the humanists. On the contrary, after endless and exhausting negotiations, the Peruvian special forces invaded the embassy and executed every one of them in cold blood. I tell all that in order that we know who are the criminals and who are the "humanists"--in quotation marks, because I don't like this term and that's why I don't use it a lot.
I want also to mention some things that happened here in Greece. I want to speak for Charis Temperekidis, who may not have been a political militant, but for me he was a rebelling penal prisoner. He had been kept in prison for years. He also died with his gun in hand during a chase after the robbery of the Agricultural Bank in Klitoria, Achaia. Despite the fact that he was still alive when caught by the police, he didn't inform against his accomplices. In the past he had taken part in prisoners' revolts, like the one of 1987 in Kerkyra in order to close this place of punishment.
And there is one more case--if we want to discuss crimes once more, the case of Sorin Matei. When Matei kept a policeman as hostage, the police didn't make any move to arrest him. When Matei took civilians as hostages, the police couldn't care less about their lives. In order to strengthen their prestige the police invaded the apartment where Matei had taken shelter, resulting in the death of a young woman. The criminals were more the policemen of the special units than Sorin Matei. As criminal as the manager of Nikaia general hospital, Alexiou, who ordered the transportation of Matei to the prison hospital Agios Pavlos, where he died either from the beating he suffered by policemen or by the drugs they were given to him. That explains who is criminal.
I am into the copy and paste.
It's Inigo, not Indigo.
Sorry for being sensible here, but you also could rig that thing so that you can only use it a certain amount of time before it gets really uncomfortable... Keeping you from developing carpal tunnel and other symptoms.
It also could be rigged to a clock, with a parental override, so that the kids have to stop playing, or suffer the consequences.
Nifty.
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
... since the bad guy was played by klaus maria brandauer, an austrian.u s+Maria
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Brandauer,+Kla
According to articles on Salon and Yahoo, a new syndrom has developed among Slashdot geeks. It is called the anal tunnel syndrom and is caused by inserting oversized dildos in the geeks' behind..
Self-taught as well (writing basic games on my MSX) - I've been using a keyboard for 16 years. About half my time at work I type and click, and its only my eyes that hurt on Friday afternoon. On the other, Sony should sue: the Playstation is in fact the Painstation (analog controllers biting into thumbs...), especially after 7 hours of GTA3.
One of these on every desk, remotely accessible over the network, and it's every(?) sysadmin's dream come true: a minimum effort LART :)
You can't sue us because you got carpal tunnel syndrome. Thats a FEATURE OF THIS KEYBOARD!!! Marketing information has clearly shown that people who work with computer equipment WANT to be in pain.
I already saw something like this months ago here
I don't know whats more painful, the actual device or the background color of their webpage.
-Vic
... this is really a German sex toy
So, is this why the Xbox have started sharpening the edges of the discs you put in?
(Hate subject clipping):
Is this an Acme Forced-Feedback Enemy-Denial Smackdown Ergonomic Game Chair?
In case you don't know what I am talking about, read these links.
Buttercup: Oh, Westley, will you ever forgive me?
Westley: What hideous sin have you committed lately?
Buttercup: I got married. I didn't want to. It all happened so fast.
Westley: It never happened.
Buttercup: What?
Westley: It never happened.
Buttercup: But it did! I was there...this old man said man and wife.
Westley: Did you say I do?
Buttercup: Uh...no. We sort of skipped that part.
Westley: Then you're not married. You didn't say it. You didn't do it.
Wouldn't you agree, your highness?
Humperdink: A technicality that will shortly be remedied...but first things
first.. [He draws his sword] To the death!
Westley: [slowly sitting up] No! To the pain!
Humperdink: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase?
Westley: I'll explain, and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to
understand. You wart-hog-faced buffoon!
Humperdink: [insulted] That may be the first time in my life a man has dared
insult me.
Westley: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you lose will
be your your feet below the ankles, then your hands at your wrists.
Next, your nose.
Humperdink: Then my tongue, I suppose? I killed you too quickly the last
time, a mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
Westley: I wasn't finished! The next thing you lose will be your left eye
followed by your right!
Humperdink: And then my ears...I understand! Let's get on with it!
Westley: Wrong! Your ears you keep, and I'll tell you why; so that every
shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness is yours to cherish.
Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman that cries out,
'dear god what is that thing!' will echo in your perfect ears. That is
what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in
freakish misery forever.
[Or in otherwords, you'll be turned into Cowboy Neal.]
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
I think this is just a subversive tool designed to make John Q. Public even less sensitive to the outrageous abuse being delivered to him by greedy corporations and corrupt government officials...
Of course the S & M folks are gonna just love this... gettin whipped by your Mistress over the net... talk about convenience!!! Hell, this is almost as much fun as using Microsoft Products!!!
Genda Bendte
-- Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me!--
This game could clean up.
Walk into Rufus McHooter's.
Yell "Harleys suck ass and I'm doing your woman!"
Less money, much more realistic effect.
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
disable holodeck safeties, authorization, Worf, alpha-1-alpha.
Warning. Holodeck safeties have been removed.
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
Is this going to be the basis for another game-show on FOX?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Reminds me of one of Brian's great BBSpottings... http://www.bbspot.com/News/2001/06/xbox.html
There are but weeks to go; time to start reviewing other 04/01 RFCs for further inspiration....
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
-J
I love Pain.
David Cole
www.davidcole.net
http://www.novagate.net/~riff42/pong.swf
Free unix account: freeshell.org
As the coldwar progressed, the villains became commies. As the south american drug trade progressed, se saw more of them. In the near future, we'll see more arabs with bad afghanistan accents--though I expect there will always be a token "good Arab" to show that the producer isn't prejudiced . .
hawk
I commend your eviliness!
Bond: No! Not Super Mario Bros World 8! I'll talk! I'll talk!
-jc
...imagine a Beowulf cluster of Painstations...
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
This was already sorta done in a James Bond film..."A View To A Kill" I believe (beginning scene)
One of the problems with the FuckU-FuckMe is that it's so straightlaced. It's good to see technology advancing to address the needs of people who are into S&M.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
at pong, I would be lucky to get to "Game Over" still alive!
Walk into Rufus McHooter's.
Yell "Harleys suck ass and I'm doing your woman!"
no, that's for when you lose on Mortal Kombat
Fatality!
Kilroy was here!
This system seems quite biased against lefties -- not only are they forced to play with their weaker hand, but their dominant hand is taking the punishment.
why not just hire sum bum to smack you wuith a baseball bat every time you die or get hit in Counterstrike or something. Hits to the specific body part could be simulated much easier too.
USA-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
So, does this mean I should wear tight black leather, studded collar, S&M mask, and have a "mistress" with me when I use this device?
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Think about beta testing a new game....
Gives a whole new meaning to, "Thank you Sir! May I have another!"
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
if virtual girlfriend on the PC gave you the Clap.
"Bitch! Who you been Whoring around with?!?!?!"
Ah yes, that strange burning sensation when you peee
WTF? Over?
What's the big deal here?
Couldn't you do the same thing by ripping apart a "rumble pack" and applying the input voltage to your hand instead of to the electric motor?
(With sufficient tweaking to deliver a painful, non-lethal shock of course)
the article mentions they need jews to test this on
When your character in Quake III dies, will this device emit a lethal dose of voltage so the gamer dies as well?
agree to the terms of this EULA? [Yes/No]
No
Ouch!
No
Ouch!
okay, yes!
I agree that "today's computer interfaces are an ergonomic nightmare." However, to some extent they can be corrected now, without going through voice recognition. Change the keyboard to something designed for people, not something designed for a mechanical typewriter. I gave myself a fairly bad case of RSI while working on my Master's thesis. Since changing to a Datahand keyboard, my hands have been slowly getting better rather than worse. Other people I know prefer Kinesis. Even more offtopic: If you have RSI, the most important things I figured out are: 1. Pay attention to your hands. There's a feeling of discomfort before your hands start to hurt. As you get used to being in pain, you get used to ignoring this discomfort... bad idea. An extra hour of typing is not worth several days of relapse. 2. Sit properly. Move your keyboard, chair, monitor, and desk as necessary. If your upper arms are long compared to your torso, like mine, you may want your keyboard in your lap. 3. If your hands tense up when you start using a keyboard, it may be in anticipation of pain. If so, try switching to a differently arranged keyboard (such as a Kinesis or Datahand, for example) to remove that association. 4. Be aware that extended periods of pain can cause depression. RSIs take years to develop, and for me it has taken years to go away. 5. Go see a doctor. Get your RSI documented, so that later if it has gotten worse you have a visit on record saying it has been an ongoing condition. Read books on RSI, in case your doctor is not familiar enough with RSI to provide useful advice. 6. Pain is a warning that you are doing damage. Ibuprofin reduces swelling, which is good, but also keeps you from getting the feedback that you are damaging your hands. I don't take Ibuprofin unless I am not going to be typing for a while. 7. Every half hour/45 minutes, get up and walk around for a couple minutes. Personally, I listen to CDs as I work - when the CD ends, if I haven't taken a break I should. 8. Examine the other activities of your life. I discovered that I hold paperback books in a way which puts a lot of strain on my thumb and pinky, and changed that. 9. Aerobic exercise seems to help me, and is a good idea even if you don't have RSI. Caveat: I am not a medical doctor. I am simply stating the steps I took to go from stopping after a few hours because of pain, to consistently working 8+ hour days writing software. I mention Datahand and Kinesis keyboards because they are the ergonomic keyboards I see most often. My only relation to Datahand is that of an extremely satisfied customer. I don't have a relationship with Kinesis.
There's always one more bu6
... and nex time, I will use "preview". Honest, the original message had carriage returns in it.
There's always one more bu6
The game itself is based on the first-generation PC game known as Pong, or bar tennis, and is followed by both players through a graphics display in the center of the table.
Huh, the author makes it sound like pong was first implemented on a PC. Hello ???
- sigs are for wimps.
No! To the pain. And I'll explain. I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you wart-hog faced buffoon. To the pain means the first thing you lose will be your feet below the ankles, then your hands at the wrists, next your nose. I'm not finished. The next thing you lose will be your left eye, followed by your right. Your ears you keep! I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child who sees your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God, what is that thing?" will echo in your perfect ears. That is what "to the pain" means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever. It's possible, pig, I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. Then again, perhaps I have the strength after all. (struggles to get up) DROP YOUR SWORD!
So, just yesterday I was having a conversation with this guy from the Netherlands, and he was telling me how weird the Germans are. I told him they seemed pretty much like everyone else to me. Today, I'm not so sure.
But hey, if you want to be involved with activities where there is potential for pain if you mess up, may I suggest the following:
- Mountain Biking: Ever seen the "radius" seperated from the "ulna" and sticking "out of the arm"? Mmmm. Compound fractures.
- Rock climbing: You'll probably be saved from most permanent injury by clipping in, but it doesn't always stop people from breaking both kneecaps on a bad fall.
- In-line skating: Actually, ice skating can work too, but gravel or pavement are better surfaces for abrasive punishment on top of impact punishment. They absorb blood better, too.
- Playing with Microwave/EM Cores. What's that smell? Liver? (Don't do this. Seriously. Don't.)
- Dating: Nothing gives good internal pain without permanant damage like dating (well, maybe not permanent).
- River rafting: I'll never forget my dislocated shoulder. Sigh.
Really, I don't know why adding pain to an activity is an accomplishment. Sure, it makes the "stakes" more real, but if you want real stakes, do something real.Tweet, tweet.
Nice!
s _bride.html#Scene_15
Humperdink: A technicality that will shortly be remedied...but first things first.. [He draws his sword] To the death!
Westley: [slowly sitting up] No! To the pain!
Humperdink: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase?
Westley: I'll explain, and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand. You wart-hog-faced buffoon!
http://www.mit.edu:8001/activities/mitcbf/princes
I can actually see, in the not-so-distant future, hardcore gamer kids voluntarily using this sort of device. If you really really want to be at the top of the ladder, anything that forces you to play a better game could be an advantage...
The big question: Does this improve your overall scores at the game? If so, I bet we'll see some sparks fly from the serious FPS addicts, looking to increase their edge. Can you picture a game of Unreal using this? I, for one, think it would be a hell of a lot more exciting!
You drank my drink, you drunk!
ahaaaaaaa
So being born in Austria is a guarantee of...?
What?
Forget about those plain vanilla "virtual woman" programs...now someone can write a "virtual dominatrix" program. And the whips actually work! :)
"It sure was strange to see something on Usenet about me that didn't involve Klingon gang rape." -- Wil Wheaton
This was derived from the Evil Dr. Flaxon's work on the Baseball Bat Haptic Feedback Device, the Peptic Feedback Probe and other projects. The Digitally-Enforced Midi-Operated Neurocontroller (DEMON) was another early project that met with some success.
Be sure to check out the details on his lab location. It is quite an interesting facility.
Germans. It figures.
Pinging 1.1.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out. Ouch!
Request timed out. Ouch!
Request timed out. Ouch!
Request timed out. Ouch!
^C I give up!
Oh wait. You said "pong", not "ping"...
Madness takes its toll. Exact change please.
1) Drive to local store and buy PC game.
2) Install game on PC, enter 157 digit serial code on back of jewel case.
3) (With great anticipation) Start up game - locks up.
4) Reboot, connect to game Web site, download patchs 1 - 5.
5) Install patches 1 - 5
6) (With anticipation) Start-up game - locks up.
7) Go to M$ site, and download latest version of DirectX
8) Install latest version of DirectX
9) Reboot
10) (With resignation) Start-up game - locks up.
11) Go to Video card manufacturer Web site - download updates to video card driver.
12) Install updates to video driver.
13) Reboot
14) (With great resignation) Start-up game - locks up.
15) Go out to "Gaming" Web site - look through FAQ's, message boards
16) Tweak video card configuration settings
17) Reboot
18) (With fear and loathing) Start up game - it runs!
Compared to this "Painstation" is for WIMPS!!
[Insert pithy quote here]
see subject
Your post is an example of our times and the focus of my point. People simply do not get it.
Read the post again:
We're just not ready as a society for this yet, we squabble over incompetance in copyrights and
intelectual property rights more than we try to improve the world for the betterment of man.
Do you see anything in that sentence about pong?
That sentence is about society and their inibility to grasp points that are slightly more complicated than pop tart instructions. And their stupidity and narrowmindedness about innovating for their own profit, not mankinds benifit.
Let me explain the connection:
VR, Reactive Tactile Environment, the combo goes way beyond pong. It can help doctors perform surgery with microscopic robots inside your heart because they get a tactile response from the sensors on the robots instruments and they can see a zoomed in image in 3 dimensions displayed in their VR glasses to get a up close look at what they are working on. This kind of technology is being developed in many areas by many people around the world, and yes, sometimes it starts out with pong.
) Human Kind Vs Human Creation
) It'd be interesting to see how many humans would survive to serve us.