In the latest story we’re sure anti-gaming trolls will barf up to prove that media they don’t like is bad, a bunch of Chinese scientists submitted a badly done study that amazingly happens to agree with the Chinese government that video games are bad for you and make you prone to making bad decisions. You know, because the problems of China have nothing to do with their corrupt, censorious organ-harvesting government and society still reeling from about three or four centuries of unrest. It’s WoW that’s responsible.

What’s shameful is that publications with actual credibility like Scientific American aren’t immediately laughing this study, which concludes excessive Internet and gaming use results in “reduced inhibition of inappropriate behavior” and “diminished goal orientation.” It’s like that study that said video gamers were more likely to be anti-social stoners, only this time it’s got MRIs so it must be true!

Let’s look at all the problems with this, shall we?
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Telecom worker Wang XiaoKang surprised his coworkers and especially building security when he arrived at the office in Shanghai wearing this homemade, 110 pound armor he built after watching Iron Man.  The 25-year-old spend about 3,000 yuan (US $460) on high-density foam, LEDs, wires, tubes, batteries, etc., and the suit even comes with a custom-build arc reactor light in the chest and a hidden cooling fan.  There’s a video and a bunch of pictures below.

He says it took him three months to build. He also says the security guards initially wouldn’t let him enter the building. Why not? Hasn’t everyone gone to work looking like War Machine?  XiaoKang says he was so happy with his suit that he’ll work on a Mark III replica suit next.  We think we might know what his motivation is:

He claims his armour has proven to be a success, with his bosses praising him and women falling in love with him. [Telegraph, emphasis mine]

I can totally see that happening.  I threw some panties at the screen when I saw this video.  I don’t even know whose panties they were or how they got in my house.  He’s that good.

[Sources: Gizmodo, WangXiaoKang, DP&F, and Telegraph]

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Liu Dali, 54, was imprisoned in China from 2004 to 2007 for the crime of ”illegally petitioning” the government about corruption in his hometown, where he worked as a prison guard.  He was placed in the Jixi re-education-through-labour camp in Heilongjiang province.  During the day, he was forced to do tasks like breaking rocks, digging trenches, assembling car seat covers, hand-carving chopsticks and toothpicks out of planks of wood, and memorizing communist literature.  At night, he was forced to gold farm in online games, meaning he had to spend 12 hours straight doing all the boring, repetitive crap us Westerners try to avoid, all to churn out some coins the prison guards would then sell to relatively rich gamers.

“Prison bosses made more money forcing inmates to play games than they do forcing people to do manual labour,” Liu told the Guardian. “There were 300 prisoners forced to play games. We worked 12-hour shifts in the camp. I heard them say they could earn 5,000-6,000rmb [£470-570] a day. [Ed- US $765 to $925] We didn’t see any of the money. The computers were never turned off.” [Guardian]

Approximately 80% of gold farmers are in China.  An estimated 100,000 full-time gold farmers live in China, although there’s no tally of how many of them are prisoners.  As for Mr. Dali, he says if he didn’t meet his quota during a shift, he was beaten with pipes.  This is absolutely horrible.  Thus proving no human suffering is too harrowing to keep us from photoshopping animals wearing clothes into a banner picture.

Another example of questionable food industry practices in China was reported by The Guardian in an article which opens with:

The flying pips, shattered shells and wet shrapnel still haunt farmer Liu Mingsuo [Guardian]

Settle down, Guardian, the watermelons didn’t molest him.  What happened was Liu and others “mistakenly” applied a growth accelerating chemical, forchlorfenuron, to the watermelons too late in the season and while conditions were too wet.  The chemical is said to shorten the harvest season by two weeks and increase the size of the fruit by 20%.  Liu blames the chemical for the bursting of eight acres of his crop.

Around the city of Danyang in China’s Jiangsui province, the watermelon-bursting problem has affected about 111 acres of farmland owned by about 20 farmers.   Meanwhile, the BBC reports the chemical was not used on several other watermelon fields which also experienced a bursting problem and points to imported watermelon seeds from Japan as a possible cause, which would uphold the longstanding Chinese tradition of blaming Japan.

The picture above doesn’t show the whole story, though.  Here’s a GAMMASQUAD EXCLUSIVE photo series direct from the scene:

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Nooo, don’t do it!  Haven’t you ever heard any farmer’s daughter / milking machine jokes?

When I saw this hand job machine on Reddit, I immediately needed to know more about it. (Uh . . . for a friend.)  After several Google searches that have probably landed me on yet another watchlist, I am pleased to announce I know exactly where you can buy this machine (for a friend).  It’s made by Sanwe Medical Equipment Co., Ltd., who say:

We consistently adhere to the service philosophy of “Customer is friend rather than God” [Ed.- lol wut?] and hope to provide users more benefits, more convenience and more enjoyable healthy life with our superior quality products, thoughtful service and absolute faithfulness.

Thoughtful service and friendliness indeed.  And they sell these for only $2,800 and say they can manufacture up to ten of these machines per week (for a friend).  The video of it operating but mercifully not in use is after the jump (along with a completely relevant video from earlier this month).  There’s no nudity, but it’s probably safe to assume it might be NSFW.   The machine is simply called “Sperm Collector”.  I guess they ignored all my letters where I requested it be named “your mom”.

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Recently a story circulated including a rough translation of a ruling by China’s General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television saying that movies and TV programs based on time travel or on the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature should not “be encouraged anymore”.  The part about time travel was mistranslated, however.  China hasn’t banned time travel movies. In fairness, they’re just getting the Ashton Kutcher magnum opus Butterfly Effect over there, so even if this were a correct translation we would understand.

The true purpose of the ruling seems to be to discourage the misrepresentation of historical figures in films and TV shows, including in time travel movies.  As for limiting the adaptation of the Four Great Classical Novels, that may be out of respect (no crappy adaptations of revered source material) or, more likely, it’s about controlling dissent: adaptations of the Novels are often used to subversively criticize those in power.  Hopefully this won’t affect Neil Gaiman’s adaptation of Journey To The West.

It’s not particularly surprising that a country without free speech won’t let you say whatever you want about a historical figure.  Meanwhile in America (F**K YEAH!),  we’re making a film adaptation of a book titled “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter“.  God bless America.

[Hat tip and one Grays Sports Almanac to /film.]