Horrible revelations have come out of Cleveland over the last few days, where Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight have apparently been held captive in a house since their teens or early 20s.
In 2004, the ‘popular’ US psychic Sylvia Brown told Amanda’s mother that her little girl was dead on the Montel Williams Show:
On April 21st 2003, 16-year-old Amanda Berry left her part-time job never to be seen again,” the show began. With that, TV viewers across America now know a girl from Cleveland is missing. But Amanda Berry’s mom wanted more than her daughter’s picture on national TV. She wants answers. “Can you tell me…Is she out there?” Berry’s mother Louwana Miller asked. “I hate when they’re in the water,” Browne said. “She’s not alive honey.” It was bad news from the world-renowned psychic. It’s what Miller didn’t want to hear. “So you don’t think I’ll ever see her again,” Miller said. “Yeah in Heaven on the other side,” Browne responded. “I’m sorry.” Montel took a commercial break and Amanda’s mom broke down.
(via Ben Goldacre)
As Goldacre points out, Amanda Berry’s mother died in 2006 of a broken heart, believing her daughter was dead- and never to be seen again. On Monday, Amanda Berry managed to kicked out the bottom of a locked screen door at the home she’s been a prisoner in for a decade and used a neighbour’s telephone to call 911.
Jon Ronson scored a rare interview with Sylvia Brown a few years back. I’m stating the obvious here, but psychics are not ‘a bit of fun’, they make their living lying to the recently bereaved. That’s not just sick, that’s genuinely evil.
But here’s the worst part, Sherry Cole, Amanda Berry’s cousin has come out in support of Sylvia Browne.
Our family in no way blames Sylvia. This doesn’t change anything. We still love her and believe in her.
You may remember my account of Kris Bolz who stole one of my websites. Earlier today he emailed me:
From: Kris Bolz
To: Adam Wilcox
Subject: Good afternoon
Date: Monday, April 18, 2013 17:54
Hello Adam,
I had the privilege of reading the blog post that you dedicated to me lol. You are a little bit of a cry baby aren’t you? I’ve done as you asked and removed the html script from my Tumblr, but apparently I’ve really caused you some major emotional trauma. I do hope that you can find a way to cope with it. I would first suggest getting outside a little more often, living a social life rather then sitting around and stewing about such trivial situations such as the one we had regarding your website “design”
Also, I would recommend getting a pair of balls. They are normally attached to males upon birth, however it seems as though you may be missing a pair. I’m not sure if it’s just a british thing, but it’s worth looking into.
Cheery-o good mate!
Kris Bolz
I also received the following tweets from Mr Bolz, (which he has since deleted):
I am very happy to give Mr Bolz the free publicity he mentions, by sharing with you his unsolicited communications.
An interesting piece in Polygon by David Griner on video game voice actors. Despite bringing life to the stars of billion dollar franchisees, they are still paid by the hour. Increasingly however, game developers are giving the key roles to Hollywood stars for considerably larger sums, eating up budget and parts that could go to professional game actors.
Having A-List actors doesn’t necessarily improve the immersion of a game. One of my favourite games of last year was Dishonoured- a stealthy assassination game set in the fictional steampunk industrial city of Dunwall. Great story, wonderfully textured world with plague and political corruption, yet it’s biggest let-down however was the total lack of ‘life’ in the characters. Yahtzee:
the most (a detailed vision) can do is put your in-game world on the same level as a ghost town. All that is merely evidence of stuff having happened in the past. The next step is to make your world feel like things are still happening in the present, that it’s a living breathing society full of individuals, and that’s where dialogue and character interaction comes in. The characters in Dishonored have faces and costumes that show a great deal of thought and care going into visual design, but when it’s time for dialogue they all turn into robots.
Dialogue was delivered without any emotion or passion, yet here is the all-star Hollywood cast list: Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise), Brad Dourif (Lord of the Rings), Carrie Fisher (Star Wars), John Slattery (Mad Men), Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs), Lena Headey (Game of Thrones), Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick Ass).
I hadn’t really considered it before, but I think of the iconic voice of Max Payne before I think of the ‘look’ of the character. This might be because three different actors have played the body and facial model, yet the voice remained the same and to me James McCaffrey is Max Payne, as Michael Ironside is Sam Fisher of the Splinter Cell franchise.
Which leads me to the reboot of Thief, (without doubt the main influence of Dishonored). Stephen Russell, the voice of Garrett is gone, replaced by Romano Orzari. To me, Stephen Russell’s voice is Garrett, replacing his voice feels more of a risk than changing the look of the character. Maybe it’ll be fine, several actresses have voiced the iconic Lara Croft Keeley Hawes most recently replaced by Camilla Luddington in this year’s reboot.
A pretty skybox, and a fancy physics engine isn’t what makes you invest in a game, it’s the characters and the story… Just like feature films, which is the benchmark the best games justifiably strive for.
Let me introduce you to Kris Bolz. You’re gonna enjoy getting to know him.
Last Friday I noticed one of my websites, fromthepub.com apparently getting over three hundred hits from a specific tumblr site in one hour.
The tumblr site in question was radaratlanta.tumblr.com and when I visited it I was surprised to discover fromthepub.com or rather I saw my entire website copy and pasted onto a tumblr site with a thoroughly unpleasant ‘Radar Atlanta’ logo plastered over the top. Viewing the source of the page, I discovered it was indeed my website, as the aforementioned Kris had copy and pasted everything, including my analytics tracking code. But he’d gone to the effort of removing my copyright notice. Obviously.
After I filed a DMCA Takedown Notice, Tumblr removed the stolen design, but you can still see the fully copy and pasted page, (including my name), on a subpage of the tumblr site.
Because Kris had hotlinked to my .css file, I set the body to display:none; (which blanked out the entire website), and waited to see what would happen. To my amusement Kris made a valiant attempt to work out why his site had suddenly vanished, (I was able to watch this in real time thanks to gaug.es, I highly recommend the service).
Eventually Kris gave up and apparently admitted defeat, having failed to understand how css works, (bless his cotton socks), made another tumblr, radarkris.tumblr.com, copy and pasted my website, and had another go.
This time I thought he wasn’t getting the message, so I added
*:after { content: 'PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY DESIGN' !important }
into the css and contacted Kris via the radaratlanta twitter account. No response.
I also contacted his co-host, Joy Hmielewski who, (I should be fair here), may not actually be party to this, as she said she would ’look into it’
Then, I received the following email from Kris:
From: Kris Bolz
To: Adam Wilcox
Subject: Website Design
Date: Monday, April 01, 2013 8:53 PM
Hey Adam, I apologize for using the website design. I did change it completely, but I can understand you’re frustration, and I truly did not mean to cause any problems for you or Tumblr. If it’s possibly, I would be more then happy to pay you, and give you proper credit for the design. As a fellow podcaster, and fan of you’re program, I really am sorry and hope that we can work this out.
Kris Bolz
My, (polite but firm), reply:
From: Adam Wilcox
To: Kris Bolz
Subject: Re: Website Design
Date: Monday, April 01, 2013 9:11 PM
Hello Kris,
Thanks for the email. Tumblr has plenty of themes you can use, http://www.tumblr.com/themes/ some free, some paid. No, I am not interested in being paid for my design- I do not want you to use it. Given your track record of “changing it completely” is removing my credit whilst hotlinking to my files suggests you did not set out to act honourably.
Sorry- find another design, mine is not for sale.
Adam
Kris’s reply:
From: Kris Bolz
To: Adam Wilcox
Subject: Re: Website Design
Date: Monday, April 01, 2013 9:24 PM
Dear Mr Wilcox,
In all honesty, I wouldn’t exactly say that it was much of a website “Design” to begin with. It really just sounds like you have absolutely nothing else better to do with you’re life. So, if you just want to play hard ball for the fuck of it, go for it. It sounds to me like you are just an asshole..no longer a fan of the podcast. Thanks for everything.
Kris Bolz
Kris Bolz folks! He steals your website designs and when he gets caught out he calls you a hard-balling asshole. Classy.