§ In Japan, a woman has been arrested for killing her husband. But it was only a MMORPG character that died, and the charge is computer hacking:

A 43 year old woman in Japan has been arrested on suspicion of hacking. She is suspected of ‘mudering’ an avatar of her virtual husband after they apparently divorced in the extremely popular MMORPG Maple Story. The woman allegedly used the login information taken from the virtual ex-husband, a 33 year old officer worker, when they were happily virtually married. If convicted she faces a jail term of 5 years or a fine of $5,000.

§ Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, a high school librarian’s pride over a manga Shakespeare adaptation illustrated by his daughter went too far, when he promoted the book in an unseemly manner: giving away copies for free and slipping a mention into the newsletter he edited.

On Monday, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board announced it had settled a case it had brought against Mr. Grandt for promoting his daughter’s work. He agreed to pay a $500 fine and admit in a three-page stipulation that he had violated the city ethics code.

Mr. Grandt, who said he was an unwitting villain, was disappointed the board did not see things his way.

“There are so many things going on they could investigate,” he said in an interview, “and they had nothing better to do than allege that my daughter would have gotten 20 cents in royalties if someone bought the book. But nobody did. I gave out free copies. I was just so proud of my daughter for writing it.”


Indeed, if the diligence applied by the Brooklyn library system were applied to, say, the rest of the government, imagine the world we’d live in.

1 COMMENT

  1. Amateur… First you destroy his online reputation, then you go postal, all through an anonymous server.
    I wonder if the penalty includes a restraining order that keeps her from using any the internet?