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20100718.144024
website is now in archive mode. visit blog.subnova.com for information.
20080730.144615
i added amazon context links... just because i can... if they're not too obtrusive... i'll leave them
20080114.231544
enabled mod_deflate on andromeda. the site is now seeing an estimated 80% reduction in overall size for clients to download
20080109.022443
added an rss 2.0 feed for the news at http://www.subnova.com/news/rss/. it will show the 14 most recent posts
20070823.031056
updated cq calculations so that if a member doesn't login to the website in the past 77 days, the contribution points start vanishing in a hurry... tanking the irank
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103: Playing Video Games Can Get You Killed
Written by Dr. Dizaster
When Taito released Space Invaders back in the late 70's, it was a huge hit. Phenomonal. Japanese arcades were scrambling for every available unit they could get their hands on, and Taito couldn't keep up by a long shot.
But suddenly, the orders started slowing down. Taito was being asked by fewer and fewer arcade owners for more machines. Yet were one to examine the arcade, you'd see far more Space Invaders machines than Taito could have provided.
The truth was, most of the machines wern't of Taito's make. They had been reverse-engineered and installed right next to the legal versions, making money off Taito's concept but pocketing the money themselves.
Now, you'd think Taito could just go sue, right? Get back at the pirates?
Not when the pirates are the Yakuza.
You heard me right, the Japanese mafia was counterfeiting Space Invaders machines and "suggesting" to arcade owners that they use their machines instead. It eventually got to the point where the machines served to deliniate the different holdings of various Yakuza clans- an arcade owner was begging for trouble to have two rival clans' machines under the same roof.
This mirrors a situation that had happened nearly 30 years earlier in the U.S., where the pinball giants Midway and Williams were, if you went high enough, run by the Chicago Mob. |
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No articles have been posted in the last month.
Slackers.
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