 | Kim Yoo-chul, 41, and his partner Choi Mi-sun, 25, fed their three-month-old baby only on visits home between 12-hour sessions at a neighbourhood internet cafe, where they were raising an avatar daughter in a Second-Life-style game called Prius online, police said. Leaving their real daughter at their home in a suburb of Seoul to fend for herself, the pair, who were unemployed, spent hours role-playing in the virtual reality game, which allows users to choose a career and friends, granting them offspring as a reward for passing a certain level. The pair became obsessed with nurturing their virtual daughter, called Anima, but neglected their real daughter, who was not named. Eventually, the couple returned home after one 12-hour session in September to find the child dead and called police. The pair were arrested on Friday after an autopsy showed that the baby died from prolonged malnutrition. |
✖ Via Telegraph.co.uk: “Korean couple let baby starve to death while caring for virtual child” Mar. 5th, 2010 |
↳Shareskandalon
Mar 15 link notes
technology
communication
kids
parent
family
Internet
addiction
death
existence
computer
user
interface
 | Once when I was a little boy I received as a gift a toy cement mixer. It was made of wood excepts for its wheel—axles—which, as I remember, were thin metal rods. I’m ninety per cent sure it was a Christmas gift. I liked it the same way a boy that age likes toy dump trucks, ambulances, tractor-trailer, and whatnot. There are little boys who like trains and little boy who like vehicule—I like the latter. |
✖ Via The New Yorker: “All That” a short story by David Foster Wallace (Dec. 14, 2009, pp. 76-81) “David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008) was an American author of novels, essays and short-stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He was best known for his 1996 novel Infinite Jest, which Time included in its All-Time 100 Greatest Novels list (covering the period 1923–2006).” (Wikipedia) |
↳Shareskandalon
Dec 27 link notes
art
communication
literature
author
book
short story
kids
Christmas
gift
toys