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AI presents 'risk of extinction' on par with nuclear war, industry leaders say
A group of high-profile industry leaders has issued a one-sentence statement on the risks of AI, equating it to pandemics and nuclear war.
Trump is prepared to start a nuclear arms race
Yesterday president-elect Donald Trump tweeted, "the United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." This is direct conflict with the policies of former presidents both republican and democrat. Both sides of the aisle have worked to dismantle the world's nuclear stockpile. In the 1980s president Reagan made it his mission to have a "world free of nuclear weapons." Today, Trump double downed on his tweet.
The Perfect Ten: MMO cataclysms
Today sees the launch of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which represents a destructive "reboot" button on the world of Azeroth. The old has been made new by virtue of fiery explosions that have rent the very earth in twain, and WoW gamers will have to find their footing all over again. As you might imagine, it's made one big-ass mess, which is compounded by the fact that there are no janitor classes in the game to sweep it up (the next hero class, perhaps?). However, the notion of an in-game cataclysm is hardly the sole domain of Activision-Blizzard; on the contrary, large-scale apocalypses pop up all the time in MMOs. After all, nothing grabs the attention like the end of the world (but hey, you still feel fine)! In a list that in no way is meant to capitalize on any expansions that may or may not be on the market, we're going to strap on our Kevlar suits, slather our arms with 1000 SPF sunblock, and take a brief tour of 10 worlds that have dated cataclysms -- and lived to tell the tale.
Spiritual Guidance: Cataclysm and the shadow priest's day of reckoning
Today's shadow-centric edition of Spiritual Guidance is brought to you by high priest of the shadows, Fox Van Allen. The holy-fearing Dawn Moore will be back to share more non-shadow wisdom ... eventually. For now, though, she's being detained by authorities in Stormwind. Apparently, they got this anonymous call about her turning traitor in Cataclysm ... In terms of whether or not the human race would go extinct, 1983 was a nail-biter. On Sunday, Sept. 26, 1983, a fluffy cloud set off the Soviet Early Warning Missile System. The system misread some data and reported that the United States had initiated nuclear war. Thankfully, a Russian technician was able to do some on-the-fly logical reasoning (the U.S. wouldn't just launch just one missile, right?) and decided to ignore that warning. And the four other erroneous warnings to follow. It was pretty much a real-life version of 99 Luftballons. Some stupid little computer error almost leveled the civilized world. Of course, the Cold War being what it was, you didn't hear about it on the nightly news. The world didn't end. Knight Rider still aired that night, right on schedule. There were an awful lot of changes to the Cataclysm shadow priest build over the past week. A few were good, a few were "OK," and one nearly led to the shadow priest world's being reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. Follow us after the break for more Cataclysm shadow priesting information. And for those of you who feel ignorance is bliss and don't want to be spoiled ... we now return you to Knight Rider, already in progress.
The Daily Grind: What do you want to see in a post-apocalyptic MMO?
Sure, you could point to my heavy Fallout 3 playing lately, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think the genre was long overdue for a post-apocalyptic MMO. The good news is that there are companies working towards that end, like Icarus Studios' Fallen Earth, for example. This got me to wondering - with so many different spins on what a post-apocalyptic future would be like (the only thing they seem to agree on is that there's a lot of rubble strewn about) what kind of things would you want to see in a post-apocalyptic MMO? Would you like to see interesting mutations to irradiated humans? Perhaps you're looking for civilzation to be more Thunderdome and less Megaton? Would there be high-tech weapons to scavenge in underground vaults, or would everything be put together from scraps and creativity? How about transportation?
