Harper's Index for May 2005

[fajrdrako]

I always love these things. The best:

Annual cost of all sixteen U.N. peacekeeping missions currently underway : $3,870,000,000[United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (N.Y.C.)]

Monthly cost of the U.S. occupation of Iraq : $4,100,000,000[U.S. Department of Defense]

But the clincher is:

Amount a Chinese online gamer made last year by selling a virtual sword he had borrowed from a friend : $850[Shanghai Zhen Xing Law Firm]

Months later that the friend retaliated by stabbing him to death with a real knife : 6[Shanghai Zhen Xing Law Firm]

That should teach him to steal a virtual weapon. If he were alive to learn the lesson... though I suppose now, in some afterlife, he maybe has a new appreciation of the difference between real and virtual weapons?

Comments

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

I'm pondering how one can first "borrow" and then sell a virtual sword...

Am tempted to do an Asterix-style tap tap tap of the head, accompanied by "These gamers are crazy!". *g*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I wonder if gamers tend to be crazy to start with, or if being gamers makes them that way....