XKCD: It's more than a comic

It has been suggested, on the xkcd forums, that perhaps Gnome Ann is in Ireland.

And it fits the pattern. Gnome Ann is a lesbian, after all.

Gnome Ann's Wharf is the best Dark Souls area

His hobby is rather recent.

Seems it's impossible to escape memes about this Pokemon Go thing these days.

I, for one, welcome our new Pokemon overlords.

Pokemon Go sounds like fun, but it apparently causes issues with loitering people, muggings, and finding dead bodies.

How is that last one a problem? A person (legal adult) found a dead body in a river. Happens all the time. If anything it's a good thing, allowing the deceased's body to be recovered and identified.

It's good that it was found, but I'm guessing that sort of thing would ruin the day for the person who made the discovery.

Actually, it sounded like a stealth Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking. You get harrassed (bad), you get mugged (bad), you find a dead body (your day is ruined, but you actually contributed something good for the society).

I saw a headline on the news today that seemed to indicate (was just passing by the muted TV) that crooks had figured out how to use the app to lure victims to them.

That was explained in one of Redmess' links. Apparently there's a way to create a local in-game bonus of some sort, which muggers were using to lure people to an isolated parking lot or something.

That is exactly the danger of it. Another risk is people wandering into dangerous areas of town because their phone tells them to (remember that people have been known to drive into ditches because their GPS told them to take a non-existent turn). The game should have a feature where you can disable certain locations/regions from being tagged, and a maximum distance from home. Otherwise, parents will soon stop their children from playing it at all.

I just now heard a news story on the radio about police being worried about people not looking where they walk while playing this game.

I would not be surprised if this turns into the next "corrupting the youth" sort of controversy.

But really, the biggest issue is that this thing that blurs the line between game and reality has become so popular so fast that no sort of safety mechanism (whether software or social-based) has yet caught up to it.

edited 12th Jul '16 12:19:37 AM by KylerThatch

It's the general problem with new things and the reason behind the New Media Are Evil trope. When a new technology is created, its dangers are often overlooked and the bad guys start abusing its weaknesses before the necessary safety measures are adapted.

I am not saying it will corrupt the youth, just that it can be exploited by criminals. Which happened phenomally fast for a game which has been only just released, by the way.

I didn't say you were, but some people out there will be thinking along those lines, I'm sure.

On another subject, it would be fun to translate the history of the internet to real world history. What development would connect to what historical event or era? Maybe XKCD could make a comic of it.

Don't worry, being 48% Canadian isn't that bad

Catching Koffing in the Holocaust museum.

More police warnings about Pokemon Go, among which some oddly specific ones, like turning yourself in on a warrant to recharge your phone at the police station.

I feel like maybe there should be some ability to stop people playing Pokemon Go on land you own so the public places issues and the few cases of people who have pokestops really near their homes could be dealt with. Although I guess that would require some way to prove your ownership to Niantic so it could get complicated.

I'm told that PokeStops are based on Ingress portals.

There used to be a period where any player could create portals, which is probably what resulted in this.

And shouldn't this be in the Pokemon Go thread?

I don't want to go to that thread until I can actually get the damn game in my country (I know I could just download the apk but I'm too paranoid for that) but fair enough, it's off topic.

I've always been sort of tempted by those genetic tests. They're all a bit expensive and the ones which are legit pick out some serious things like disease markers as well so that feels like it would kind of dispel the fun part.

It was in XKCD, so there you go. Since the comic is all over the place with its subjects, naturally this forum will be too.

An easy to use system to block certain locations for the game would solve a lot of these issues, but apparently the company is still unwilling to allow this (or is keeping quiet about it, anyway).

That seem like something they should really implement ASAP (I've heard about people getting in trouble because they were playing near a military base) but I don't see how they could prevent abuse (i.e. people demanding to block a larger area than is actually reasonable, or areas they don't even care about For the Evulz).

edited 13th Jul '16 5:07:59 AM by Aetol