game kings: January 2016

Friday, January 29, 2016

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Magical Hopes

Recent interviews of participants show a striking modesty in their dreams of how to apply the winnings. One soul even mentioned having their car fixed. The scope of the pool, driven by an enormous collective wish, is overwhelming the imagination of the lottery public. In this it resembles the detachment, especially since the crisis of '08, of global finances from what we, in our class innocence, regard as the real world.

This mania, so generally condemned, has never been properly studied. No one has realized that it is the opium of the poor. Did not the lottery, the mightiest fairy in the world, work up magical hopes? The roll of the roulette wheel that made the gamblers glimpse masses of gold and delights did not last longer than a lightning flash; whereas the lottery spread the magnificent blaze of lightning over five whole days. Where is the social force today that, for forty sous, can make you happy for five days and bestow on you—at least in fancy—all the delights that civilization holds?

Balzac, La Rabouilleuse, 1842

I 4 Califfi - ti giuro h cosi - 1966

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Ancient Board Game Found in Looted China Tomb

Archaeologists think this 14-face die was used to play a game called "bo" that hasn't been played in 1,500 years.

Pieces from a mysterious board game that hasn't been played for 1,500 years were discovered in a heavily looted 2,300-year-old tomb near Qingzhou City in China.

There, archaeologists found a 14-face die made of animal tooth, 21 rectangular game pieces with numbers painted on them and a broken tile which was once part of a game board. The tile when reconstructed was "decorated with two eyes, which are surrounded by cloud-and-thunder patterns," wrote the archaeologists in a report published recently in the journal Chinese Cultural Relics.

http://www.livescience.com/52808-ancient-board-game-found-in-china-tomb.html