Starwood Accepts Anbang’s Bid for Acquisition
According to Zach Honig from The Points Guy Click here to read more
Amazon should allow shareholder vote on gender pay equality, says SEC
According to Reuters from VentureBeat Click here to read more
A Memo to Starwood Employees from CEO Tom Mangas About the Anbang Bid
According to Zach Honig from The Points Guy Click here to read more
The ‘complete’ PlayStation VR bundle is $500, pre-orders open next Tuesday
This bundle gives you everything you need Sony announced that the PlayStation VR platform would cost $399 and launch this October during the 2016 Game Developer’s Conference, but the company left out the fact that the system requires the $60 PlayStation 4 camera to function. While it may be true that many players already own the camera, the fact it’s mandatory does add a bit to the price discussion.
Sony has now announced that it will be selling a bundle that has every piece of hardware you need, or could want, for playing virtual reality games on the PlayStation 4. The bundle will sell for $499.99 in the US or $599.99 in Canada, and comes with the following:
All contents of the PS VR core bundle:
PS VR headset
PS VR cables Stereo
Headphones
PlayStation VR Demo Disc
PlayStation Camera 2
PlayStation Move motion controllers
PlayStation VR Worlds (disc)
“Starting at 7:00 a.m. PT on Tuesday, March 22nd, pre-orders will open for the PlayStation VR Launch Bundle at participating retailers," the official blog post states.
If you wanted to know the price of everything you will need or could want to play all existing virtual reality experiences, this is the bundle for you. You also certainly get your money’s worth with the three extra pieces of hardware and the PlayStation VR Worlds experiences.
Azeroth prepares for battle in new Warcraft teaser
It’s fighting time Legendary Pictures reportedly hosted a surprise screening of Duncan Jones’ Warcraft film this past week in Los Angeles, but for those that couldn’t attend, the studio has also released a new teaser.
The teaser features Travis Fimmel’s Sir Anduin Lothar, a knight for the Kingdom of Azeroth better known as the Lion of Azeroth, taking on a giant orc. They’re in the middle of what appears to be a desert, with skulls and other various bones scattered among them.
The video focuses pretty heavily on the various characters — both in Lothar’s army of human soldiers and a gang of orcs — as they prepare for war. There are some shots of the different lands World of Warcraft fans will be familiar with, too.
Jones’ movie will follow the orc and human races, once bitter enemies, as they come together to take on a new and bigger threat. Although there are issues within both armies over the newfound comradeship, it’s evident this is the only option the orcs have after being forced to move away from the land they called home.
Warcraft, which stars Fimmel alongside Toby Kebbell, Paula Patton, Ben Foster and Dominic Cooper, hits theaters June 10.
Sony PlayStation VR launch bundle, with camera and controllers, goes on presale March 22 for $500
According to Paul Sawers from VentureBeat Click here to read more
Meet ‘Juan Direcshon,’ the Mexican One Direction
We hang out with the Mexican 1D tribute band taking quinceañeras by storm.
The VICE Morning Bulletin
This morning, an Arizona man has been convicted of conspiring to support an Islamic State attack, North Korea has defied UN sanctions again by launching ballistic missiles, and more.
Daily VICE: We Meet a Drumming Women’s Activist on Today’s ‘Daily VICE’
Then THUMP explores what LA is doing to ensure drug safety at music festivals and Motherboard explains how an entrepreneur plans to bring space tourism to the Coachella valley.
This is why superheroes don’t kill
Guns don’t kill people. The Punisher kills people A few episodes into the second season of Daredevil, the eponymous hero and his opponent — Frank Castle, the Punisher — finally talk out their differences. Well, it’s more like they yell their differences at each other in gravelly voices. One of them is a man who takes the law into his own hands to make sure criminals face the legal repercussions of their actions. The other is a man who takes the law into his own hands to viciously murder criminals with large guns.
“You’re both wrong!" I yelled at the screen. "I mean — Daredevil’s right! But his argument SUCKS!"
I credit superheroes with my opposition to the death penalty; it could be a side-effect of 20 years of Batman fandom. But that also creates a high rhetorical bar: It’s one thing when you have to defend a character refusing to kill the Kingpin, Green Goblin, General Zod or whatever.
Come back to me when you have to defend not killing the Joker.
Meta-textually, there are two simple reasons why superheroes don’t kill:
At his inception, Batman used guns and spouted one-liners like "Death to Doctor Death!" He and Superman were editorially mandated into non-lethal heroes a year or two into their existence, once it became clear that the nascent superhero genre was so popular with children that parents were starting to take notice. Historically, American comics have needed a fig leaf to show that publishers weren’t feeding reprehensible garbage to children. There were congressional hearings at the height of the McCarthy Era that examined a proposed link between comic books and juvenile delinquency. There were literal book burnings.
Editorially, publishers of indefinitely long serial stories need characters to stay around so that they can be used again. Readers like the familiarity, marketing likes the brand stability and writers and artists on a grueling monthly schedule like that they have a well of established characters and character designs to pull from. The "never kill" mandate lowers stakes, but it makes sense. Comics exist in the same sort of continuum as sitcoms (and Greek and Shakespearean comedies): Regardless of the crazy events of the story, ultimately the status quo must be maintained.
But if you’re asking "why don’t superheroes kill," those aren’t the answers you want. You want the in-universe reason, even if the external realities of the comics industry created the question in the first place. You’re not wrong. The best stories have understandable internal logic for the facts of their setting, whether or not those facts were mandated upon creators by whatever sort of outside constraints.
Unfortunately there are still a lot of half-assed attempts to write a superhero who explains why they don’t kill. I’m a Batman fan, and "Because we can’t cross that line," from a character who is routinely depicted as maiming criminals or torturing them for information becomes ludicrous. "Because it makes us like them," from a guy who repeatedly puts mass-murderers into a system that cannot hold them is dumb. "Because all people deserve a second chance." Seriously, dude, the Joker is on his, like, 400th chance.
"Because we don’t." Holy tautology, Batman! It’s not that I think Batman should kill the Joker. I don’t think he should kill anybody, ever. I just wish writers were better at articulating why.
Here’s the good reason why superheroes don’t kill
Whether or not they know how to say it, superheroes don’t kill because they believe the system needs help, but isn’t irreparably broken.
We know this for two reasons: one, they talk about it so dang much. Fixing Gotham. Saving Hell’s Kitchen.
And two: If they didn’t believe the system was ultimately fixable and desirable, they wouldn’t be punching criminals and corrupt officials while befriending the good cops and lawyers.
They’d be tearing that system down. They’d be Nolan’s Two-Face, Moore’s V, they’d be Ra’s al Ghul or Magneto. They’d be the Punisher.
Editorially, Batman is never going to fix Gotham, he’s never going to retire (except in stories where he lives long enough to become physically incapable of being Batman) and he’s never going to stop being needed. But textually, the vast majority of superheroes are trying to create a world in which they are not needed.
The characters who have formed our most standard superhero tropes are characters who ultimately believe in the system while acknowledging that it’s broken. By definition, a vigilante works outside the law — but at the end of the day (or, maybe, at the beginning of business hours), Matt Murdock is still a defense attorney. Bruce Wayne still uses the power of his wealth and influence to support political candidates and outreach programs. Clark Kent and Peter Parker still spend their days working in investigative journalism.
Which brings us to the Punisher. Like Batman, he’s motivated by direct personal tragedy, but unlike Batman (most of the time), the men that destroyed his family are alive, known and active criminals. Like Daredevil, Frank Castle looking to clean up the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. But unlike Matt Murdock, Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent, Frank doesn’t have the skills, influence or education needed to interact with the legal system in any substantive way. Instead, he’s just very, very good at killing people, and very, very motivated to do so. That doesn’t make him right. It just gives him the internally consistent motivation of being a lot less likely to feel like the criminal justice system is worth a damn.
If you kill criminals instead of assisting the proper authorities in apprehending them, you are replacing the criminal justice system. If nothing else, it’s clear that defense attorney Matt Murdock believes that due process should be respected. You’d think a lawyer would be able to present a more eloquent argument for that than a screaming match with the Punisher.
Snoop Dogg Accidentally Posted About Being in Romania and the Entire Country Freaked Out
Snoop, who is on tour in Bogota, Colombia, tagged himself in the village of Bogata, Romania. We went to Bogata to find out what he’d find there, should he actually visit.
Microsoft’s Spring Sale deals include $50 off all Xbox One bundles
Yes, even the upcoming Quantum Break bundle Microsoft is bringing back its annual Spring Sale with deals on Xbox One consoles and games, headlined by a $50 discount on all Xbox One bundles, Xbox director of programming Larry Hryb announced today.
The console discount drops the price of the Tom Clancy’s The Division 1 TB bundle from $399 to $349 and the 500 GB Name Your Game bundle from $349 to $299. It also applies to the upcoming Special Edition Quantum Break bundle, which regularly costs $349 and includes a 500 GB console and controller in “cirrus white," even though the package won’t be released until the week after the Spring Sale ends.
All pre-orders of Quantum Break come with Alan Wake, and the bundle is one of the purchases that will also net buyers a free Windows 10 copy of Quantum Break.
The bundle discounts will go live when the Spring Sale begins Sunday, March 20. Then, on Tuesday, March 22, the Xbox Store will offer more than 150 deals on digital games, PC games, movies and TV shows. The discounts will cut prices by 40-60 percent, and will be available on titles such as Fallout 4, Halo 5: Guardians, Far Cry Primal and Rainbow 6 Siege. The Xbox Store will also have deals on backward-compatible Xbox 360 games like Fallout 3 and Just Cause 2.
This isn’t just an Xbox sale — it’s a Microsoft sale. The company is offering discounts on all kinds of products, including Surface devices and computer accessories, at the Microsoft Store. The Spring Sale ends March 28.