Little Meanderings: A place for rambling about your favorite things, whatever those may be...
The Canadian researchers surveyed 109 boys and girls, aged 13 and 14, about whether they played video games, which games they liked, and how long they spent playing them.
Their findings found that 88 per cent of teens said they played games, and more than half admitted to playing games every day.
Violent games, including games where players have to kill, maim, decapitate or torture another human character, were among the most popular.
The teenagers also filled in a questionnaire designed to gauge their moral development.
For example, they were asked how important it is to save the life of a friend.
Previous studies have suggested that a person's moral judgement goes through four phases as they grow from children and enter adulthood.
By the age of 13 or 14, scientists claim young people should be entering the third stage, and be able to empathise with others and take their perspective into account.
The research found that this stage appeared to be delayed in teenagers who regularly played violent video games.
We’re introducing Star Wars Rebels to television audiences this summer with a movie and a series of shorts on Disney Channel, followed by a continuing series on Disney XD.
According to Lionsgate, the studio behind The Hunger Games series, technology will be used to fill in the gaps for deceased actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who stars in the final two films as Plutarch Heavensbee. Hoffman reportedly had one week of shooting left on the film, including one important scene.
“These days the technology of using someone’s likeness is a whole lot easier to do,” Rob Legato, an effects supervisor on major films including The Wolf of Wall Street, told The Hollywood Reporter. “I won’t say you could generate a Philip Seymour Hoffman with all the acting ability, but you could certainly replicate him for a shot or two.”
A source told The Hollywood Reporter that their plans “don’t seem very complicated,” adding, “You can do digital things, you can have conversations where you’re not focusing on him but the people he’s talking to.”
A Lionsgate executive said that Hoffman’s death will “have no impact” on the film. “His performances in both [remaining] movies will be up to the best of his craft,” the executive stated. “We feel it will be a good tribute to him.”
A day gecko sips nectar from a pitcher plant. (Madagascar - BBC)
If the multiverse idea is correct, then the historic mission of physics to explain all the properties of our universe in terms of fundamental principles — to explain why the properties of our universe must necessarily be what they are — is futile, a beautiful philosophical dream that simply isn’t true. Our universe is what it is simply because we are here. The situation can be likened to that of a group of intelligent fish who one day begin wondering why their world is completely filled with water. Many of the fish, the theorists, hope to prove that the cosmos necessarily has to be filled with water. For years, they put their minds to the task but can never quite seem to prove their assertion. Then a wizened group of fish postulates that maybe they are fooling themselves. Maybe, they suggest, there are many other worlds, some of them completely dry, some wet, and everything in between.
What you certainly won’t be if you decide to check this movie out is bored. Where else can you see the aforementioned chainsaw ass woman (yes we were quite impressed with that one!), people blown up by a massive baby’s head, a giant pair of acid-milk squirting boobs, someone pummelled in the face by detached rocket feet, or a man with a weird bunch of creatures for his nipples and crotch? Mutant Girls Squad is where it is if you want to immerse yourself in copious amounts of blood, violence, and gore with some of the most far out mutants ever to have graced the silver screen. This feature was one of those rare movies you can just get lost in, a definate must, just enjoy, prepare to be baffled and have fun with this splatterific piece of pure indulgence.
MOSCOW (AP) — Several thousand protesters marched through central Moscow on Sunday to call for the release of 20 people who were arrested after clashes between police and demonstrators in May 2012.
Some of them face up to 10 years in prison if convicted for the protest, held on Bolotnaya Square on the eve of President Vladimir Putin's inauguration to a third term as Russia's president.
Putin's return to the presidency saw the passing of new laws aimed at cracking down on anti-government protests and restricting non-governmental organizations.
The protesters marched Sunday with portraits of the jailed protesters and a banner stretching across the street reading: "Freedom to the Bolotnaya heroes, the hostages of Putin."
Some also carried Ukrainian flags to show their support for the anti-government protesters in neighboring Ukraine, where demonstrations have been going on for more than two months.
Of the 28 people rounded up in the Bolotnaya case, eight were recently freed on amnesty. Several defendants have been under house arrest, but most of the others have been in jail for more than a year and a half.
Only three of the cases have been decided: Two defendants received light sentences after cooperating with investigators and a third was sent for forced psychiatric treatment. That man, Mikhail Kosenko, who was convicted of beating a policeman, had a history of schizophrenia, but rights activists charged the court was reviving the Soviet-era practice of using punitive psychiatry against dissidents.
