Jack Thompson turns on Facebook
$40m now the going rate for getting slagged off online
Long-time anti-gaming lunatic Jack Thompson, the man who very, very unsuccessfully tried to turn the world against Grand Theft Auto and all manner of other violent video games, is now suing Facebook.
Claiming the social network has been giving users a platform to harass him and enabling the issuing of rude threats, Thompson wants an astonishing $40 million in damages.
The group 'Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600', for example, which has a modest 312 members at time of writing, is one target of his complaints and a group he's demanding Facebook closes. Membership has risen since Thompson's complaint, of course.
ICONIC LUNATIC: Also wants £5 from man who looked at him in a funny way (Image credit:
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It's worth remembering what happened to poor Jack in 2008 - he was struck off by the Florida Bar, resulting in him no longer being able to practise as an attorney. The reason? His endless submission of ludicrous legal cases.
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...and the messages of insignificance
Author JK Rowling, whose childlike ramblings about magic and playing pretend are oddly popular, has joined Twitter - the conversation portal full of childlike ramblings about playing pretend and, at the current time of writing, Google Wave invites and Freeview boxes not working any more.
"Pen and paper is my priority" she says, no doubt hoping some publishing bigwig will offer her £500,000 to serialise her forthcoming Tweets to make it worth getting out of bed for.
LIES: Surely she's got enough money to afford a PC to write with?
While the country reverberates to the angry sounds of people trying to retune their Freeview boxes, it's worth remembering exactly what's in it for us – pretty much nothing. 500,000 people will get channel Five (that's "get" as in receive, not as in understand why it exists), but, in return, 400,000 people lose ITV3 and ITV4 in the switch around.
BLAH BLAH BLAH: In return you get to watch Five News with Natasha Kaplinsky
The promise is that the digital reorganisation frees up bandwidth for future high-definition telly, but you'll need to buy a new digibox to make that happen. In reality, all it's doing now is annoying 500,000 people by giving them another channel full of primary-coloured quizzes to skip.
Give an arm and a leg for one
The must-have toy for Christmas 2015 is going to be the Dual-Arm Power Amplification Robot. Also known as the Power Loader, this monstrous combination of fake robot arms and fake robot legs empowers the feeble-bodied end user to lift 220lbs, or the equivalent of two small ladies or one fat man.
It's real, is being made by a development "arm" of Panasonic, and the plan is it'll be commercially available for factory owners and bored millionaire sci-fi cosplayers in 2015. If you're reading this on a platform that lets you play YouTube clips, here's a YouTube clip.
GET AWAY FROM HER: Now hold my tea and carry me to the toilet