My second Arizona Fall League scouting post went up earlier this week, and I held my regular Klawchat on Thursday.
My review of this year’s Spiel des Jahres winner, the boardgame Camel Up, is up at Paste magazine. I’ll have three more reviews up for them over the next month or so, and my annual boardgame rankings post will go up here on the dish in mid-November.
Now, for the links – and there are a lot this week:
- The “reanalysis” of MMR data has been retracted. That’s the study that purported to show that African-American boys who received the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine at certain ages were more likely to develop autism. The whole thing was a fraud, and now the journal that let this junk slip the through the cracks has admitted its error.
- Speaking of anti-science, in Italy, several seismologists went on trial for failing to predict a massive earthquake that killed 297 people. This was the best long-form piece I saw this week, from the new online-only publication Matter.
- In South Carolina, prosecutors are arguing that “stand your ground” doesn’t apply to victims of domestic violence .
- I’ve been reading more about #GamerGate, the twin scandals that involve harassment of several prominent women in video game development and an attack on conflicts of interest in game reviews. Rawstory published a piece arguing GamerGate is an attack on ethical journalism, while Forbes argues that it’s really a consumer movement. For some more background on the harassment angle, the New Yorker had a great piece in early September on the hate campaign against Zoë Quinn, which set off the whole movement.
- Guy writes chilling post about being a stalker. He seems to think he’s done nothing wrong, which is the most disturbing part.
- A breast-cancer survivor explains why she doesn’t breastfeed – and why it’s rude to ask. My wife couldn’t breastfeed our daughter because of a medication she was taking that shows up in mothers’ breast milk. But really, it’s none of your business.
- A study in the journal Addiction shows results of a twenty-year study into marijuana use, arguing that pot is addictive and has harmful long-term effects. This seems like an argument for education, not for opposing decriminalization.
- The Atlantic posted an amusing/serious piece on how technology is enabling adultery and suspicious partners alike.
- Doctors Without Borders gives a no-bull update on the fight against Ebola in west Africa. All this promised aid hasn’t gotten to the group yet, and they’re also dealing with a smaller outbreak in central Africa at the same time.