NERD NEWS

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NERD NEWS

THE WORLD AT WARCRAFT

Jackie Chan did what he did best after the release of the Warcraft m ovie： be obnoxious. Jackie Chan—a man who m ade a career out of getting hit by m ops and then, in turn, hitting people w ith other mops or, failing that, item s common ly found on the walls of a TGI Fridays—looked at the success of the Warcraft movie and said, “Warcraft m ade 600m RMB in two days. This has scared the Americans. If we can m ake a film that earns 10 billion, then peop le from all over the world who study film w ill learn Ch inese, instead of us learning English.” That is, except every other country in the world thought the m ovie was c rap. However, loathe as one m igh t be to adm it it, the hum an punching bag filled w ith m oney and Party shill is somewhat right, though, as is his custom, in the m ost annoying way possible. Yes, the movie has about a 27 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating, and yes it's basically this generation's Super Mario Bros. movie—but it m ade m oney, pots and pots of m oney delicious Chinese m oney for what basically am ounts to a m ultim illion-dollar screen filled w ith random colors and sounds （and that isn't even the worst review it's gotten）. For m any, this sounds the trum p for Chinese sci-fi blockbusters of the highest—though, again, unbelievably crap—quality. Yet, let he who is w ithou t sin cast Ben Affleck as Batm an. - TYlER RONEY

BJCC BRINGS NERDS TOGETHER

You cou ldn't m ove for the sheer num ber of Deadpools and Harley Qu inns at Beijing's first-ever Com ic Con, held over Dragon Boat Festival weekend and draw ing more than 16,000 participants to Shunyi to dress up, hear talks, and—according to m y girlfriend—spend a “truly absurd” am ount of m oney on “picture books”. The big ticket item s wou ld see fans spending 1,900 RMB a piece for those first day events, which included a cosplay event, virtual reality video gam es, m eetings w ith Ming-Na Wen, and all m anner of nerdy artists, local and international, displaying their wares. China is a rich m arket for com ic book tat, especially considering that of the few foreign m ovies allowed in China a year m ost are anim ated or com ic book based. Despite c laim s that the event was run by Com ic Con In ternational, the BJCC actually cam e courtesy of ReedPop, wh ich runs the New York Com ic Con, and while it wasn't the first （SHCC in Shanghai went off w ith a bang in May of last year）, it certain ly set the bar high for another one next year. - T.R.

GETTING A HEAD

We've spoken abou t Dr. Ren Xiaoping in Nerd New s before—oh, how we laughed at his silly, though successful, experim ent of swapping rat heads onto differen t rat bodies. Then, he did it to a m onkey and we laughed a little bit lighter and w ith a great deal of fear in our eyes. Plans, according to a report from The New York Tim es in early June, for a human head （or body depending on your philosophical bent） transplant are underway. Now, no one is laughing. Many have pointed out, including paralyzed 62-year-old Wang Huanm ing, that this surgery could give m any the pow er to walk again； others, however, have pointed out exac tly how com plete ly insane this is. Dr. Huang Jiefu, form er depu ty m inister of health in China, has called it, “Ethically... im possible.” Cong Yali at Peking University said, “I don't want to see China's scholars, transp lant doctors, and scientists deepening the im pression that people have of us internationally, that when Chinese people do things they have no bottom line—that anything goes.” But, Dr. Ren Xiaoping can't be discounted out of hand； he did, after all, com plete the first hand transplant in the world in 1999, and so far h is c reden tials for passing heads around is well founded. If anyone in the world cou ld do the operation, it's Dr. Ren Xiaoping. But, should he？ - T.R.

NO IPHONE 6？

Leave it to Beijing's intellectual property courts to m ake you feel sorry for App le. In m id-June a Beijing court ruled against the electron ics giant, w ith the presum ed effect that it would stop all iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus sales throughout China. So, who is the com pany that wou ld bring this international m ega-beast to its knees？ Baili and their almost entirely unknown 100C phone tucked away in Shenzhen. The weird part of the situation is that the phone isn't beating Apple in court based on processing power or even the iPhone's world famous one-hour battery life. No, it's just the look of the th ing. For now, App le is appealing to a higher court for a ruling to try to keep the phone from being prohibited for sale, and things are up in the air. So, why is Baili banking so m uch on this？ Because App le w ill probab ly have to settle for a gigantic sum of money—right around the tim e it becomes cheaper to buy off this little com pany than it does to m uddle their way through the Chinese court system. But, for Apple, this is a big deal. China is their second largest m arket and they're being annoyed. As everyone knows, China respects all international copyright and intellectual p roperty laws. I read that on m y iFonne. - T.R.