Month: July 2025

Collective Shout

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Recently, there has been heated discussion about the NGO group Collective Shout causing some Steam and itch.io games to be removed from the store. However, the perspective is mainly on the victims such as game developers, so it is necessary to look at CS’s own statement on this matter.

This incident originated from CS’s request to remove No Mercy because CS believes that the game uses descriptions of rape and incestuous pornography as entertainment, which promotes the objectification of women and sexual violence. Steam does not have reliable age verification to ensure that minors are not exposed to it. Therefore, they first sent an email to Steam, but Steam ignored these emails. Two months after the incident, CS began sending emails to payment processors to exert pressure.

It seems that CS’s behavior is still somewhat polite. However, No Mercy was removed from the store shortly after the incident. Steam’s silence on the matter seems to have angered CS, so CS supporters began demanding that Gabe Newell delete all rape/incest games.

CS’s idea is of course absurd, because age restrictions can never be perfectly implemented (even in the People’s Republic of China), so CS will always have a reason to demand the removal of content that is not suitable for minors. The question of whether works with criminal themes will lead to crime is merely CS’s value judgment. Even if all films, novels, and games with criminal themes are banned, it should not have a positive impact on the crime rate.

So, what CS has done is just self-satisfaction. The originally niche No Mercy game has become well-known because of CS’s noise, and there are related resources available for download on various pirated websites. And when legal fictional works that do not harm anyone disappear, will those who are interested in this type of subject matter go to the dark web? Using cryptocurrency that CS cannot monitor by email to “support” real criminal content that harms people…

P.S.: The first editorial on the homepage of CS’s official website is “Ban Porn on X”, and the banner below introduces its achievements, including removing billboards that promote the objectification of women, removing sexy children’s clothing (hot pants, slightly hollowed-out tops, clothing with chest pads), removing sexually violent games, etc. The founder, Melinda Tankard Reist, is an anti-abortion feminist and anti-pornography activist.

Take Medication in Arrow Order

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If you have seen estradiol valerate, also known as Progynova, you will notice a circle of arrows on the blister pack. Some instructions require taking the medicine in the order of the arrows. Why?

First, the conclusion: this is to prevent missed doses and to form a habit. The FDA approved the first oral contraceptive in 1960, but this drug, packaged in a bottle, made it easy to forget whether it had been taken the day before. Moreover, the cycle was complex, requiring continuous use for 20 days, followed by a 5 -day break. This changing medication schedule was obviously not user-friendly and could lead to missed doses, resulting in unpredictable outcomes.

David Wagner noticed that his wife always forgot whether she had taken her contraceptive pill the day before, so together they placed the pills on a paper calendar so that they could know if she had taken the medicine on a certain day without counting the number of pills left in the bottle. However, this was not efficient enough, so Wagner designed a circular dial in the shape of a rotary telephone dial and applied for a patent.

In the 1960s, almost all contraceptive pills adopted this design. There was just a little episode in between. Wagner sold the patent to Ortho but was rejected, but Ortho then used Wagner’s design privately. Fortunately, Wagner obtained a settlement through legal channels.

Regarding the problem of the need to stop taking contraceptive pills, the easiest way is to add nutritional tablets that have no medicinal effect, so that users can maintain the habit of taking medicine every day without violating the rules of stopping the medicine. Perhaps this design is too deeply rooted in people’s minds, so drugs with contraceptive functions must also be designed in a circle, just like the old rotary dial.

Japanese Country Doctor

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Before Japan entered modern national reforms, people did not have the freedom to migrate. For example, Ryoma Sakamoto had to obtain the permission of the feudal lord before he could go to the big city of Edo to study. However, because the flow of people and economic exchanges was not as strong as it is now, there were “essential workers” in various places, that is, each village should have pharmacists and others who can provide medical assistance.

However, with urbanization and the regularization of the medical profession, young people began to concentrate in cities. Considering that in rural areas, most of the people are middle-aged and elderly people suffering from various intractable diseases, not many clinics and hospitals are willing to open in such places, which has resulted in a lack of doctors in rural areas.

After all, it is already modernized, and people cannot be imprisoned on the land again to forcibly restore the “essential worker” system, so neither human rights nor efficiency can be guaranteed. In response, Japan has established a Remote Area Healthcare Plan to subsidize doctors in remote areas. (Similarly, there are subsidies for teachers in remote schools)

Of course, financial support alone is not enough (because the income is only 1.5 to 2 times that of the city), so there is also the Jichi Medical University. This is a university jointly funded and established by all prefectures in the country, mainly recruiting 2-3 students from each prefecture and providing tuition loans. If they agree to work in a designated hospital, the loan can be waived.

Although there are many measures, Japan still has not achieved full doctor coverage, and some areas still lack medical resources. In the event of an emergency, there may be no professional emergency resources.

Laser Hair Removal

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For aesthetic reasons, people without body hair can be seen on ancient Egyptian murals from 3000 years ago. This aesthetic was also popular in ancient Rome, where people used pumice and razors to remove body hair.

Later, sleeveless clothes became popular in the 20th century: vests, so people had a need to remove hair from their arms. The nuclear-level swimsuit that appeared later: the bikini, brought women’s hair removal needs to a climax, but also brought huge social pressure to women. But that’s another story.

However, blades are inefficient; depilatory creams can cause skin allergies and are not cheap enough; waxing can be very painful, so people are also looking for other methods. Finally, in 1996, laser hair removal was commercialized. The principle is to use specific wavelengths and pulse durations to heat the dark hair follicles, causing them to be partially or completely destroyed.

Although it mainly heats the hair follicles, other nearby tissues also absorb some heat, so it will produce a burning sensation. If the hair is light-colored, then the device will be difficult to work, and dark skin requires special equipment: Nd:YAG laser and a module to cool the skin.

Later, there were also devices that use intense pulsed light for hair removal and skin rejuvenation, but the principle is similar to laser hair removal, so it is also called laser hair removal. And this device can be miniaturized to the size of a power bank, so some people thought of making it into a personal device.

However, it is necessary to pay attention to the energy density J/cm² performance index, which usually needs to be above 5 J/cm² to destroy the hair follicles, which is also the energy density that will cause pain to the skin (perhaps similar to the pain caused by the electric arc generator of a lighter). Therefore, there is a need for a solution to relieve the pain, such as installing a cooling module (called ice point) on the light head that touches the skin, which can have a cooling and analgesic effect.

However, as long as there are performance indicators, there will be various false claims. Someone tested a large number of hair removal devices sold in online stores, and found that there were a lot of false claims, and few devices could reach 5 J/cm². This may be related to the lack of industry standards for emerging products, and the fact that target users are easily fooled by such false advertising…

A Special Reward

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Companies and organizations usually receive monetary compensation for serving the country, but sometimes, due to financial difficulties or other reasons, the state provides special rewards, such as granting certain monopoly privileges.

A monk certificate was a document required for ordination in some ancient countries. This could both limit the number of monks and serve as fiscal revenue, as the issuance of monk certificates was controlled by the government. During the Song Dynasty, monk certificates became a kind of alternative currency. For disaster relief, the Huanqing Pacification Commissioner was given a thousand monk certificates; for military expenditure, Yue Fei was granted monk certificates; for the construction of the Su Causeway, Su Shi requested the court to grant monk certificates, and so on.

Similar things may have also happened in postwar Japan. At that time, foreign exchange was limited, so some imported goods were subject to monopoly, including sugar. When Japan tried to support the shipbuilding industry, it gave the sugar monopoly to shipyards. This matter is recorded in 《The End of Japan’s Economic Miracle》, but there seems to be no other source, so the authenticity of this event is uncertain.

At the end of the Soviet Union, the government and state-owned enterprises lacked cash, so factories could only give products to workers. In order to exchange for the necessities of life, the workers went to the black market to sell or exchange the single items they had in abundance.

A Unique and Relatively Rare Narrative Device

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Note: The following content contains spoilers for the core plot twists of 《Shutter Island》, 《Mr. Robot》, and 《Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai》.

Excellent suspense works basically need to design some unexpected reversals. The most common reversal is that the protagonist investigates a suspect, and after their suspicion rises to 90 %, it turns out that the suspect is actually innocent. But this is too common, so that now viewers who see someone with high suspicion are prepared for a reversal.

However, there is a special type of narrative trick that is difficult for viewers to guard against, that is, the personality or memory of the main character changes at the end of the story. For example, in 《Shutter Island》, the audience only discovers at the end that the protagonist has schizophrenia, and the real protagonist is very different from the previous story.

The audience first sees the character after they are mentally ill, thinking this is normal, but at the end of the story, they see the character recover from their illness and restore their original personality or memory. The impact is indeed significant. Works that use the same trick include 《Mr. Robot》 and 《Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai》, both of which restore personality, but this also makes the audience feel sorry for the disappearance of the more familiar personality.

Perhaps in the future, this trick will also become popular, then viewers who see a character with any signs of mental disorder will have to suspect that the character’s important memory or “master personality” is dormant. At this point, creators will have to look for more unusual reversal designs.