programmer or serial killer?
Violent video games often bear the brunt of the blame when some loon goes out to kill a bunch of people. Luckily, while some of these loons play video games, none of them are associated with gaming. They're not avid or pro gamers, they're not game designers, and they're not game programmers. People from many walks of life sometimes commit murder, whether it's doctors, or CEOs, or economists. However, unlike these other professions, I think that if someone "in the gaming industry" or "well known in gaming circles" killed someone else, gaming in it's entirety would be in a lot of trouble.
There was a kind of joke "test", which asked you to find if someone was a Programmer or a serial killer. I thought it was fairly funny, because maybe that's how we present ourselves to the outside world. If an economist was a serial killer, people would say "I'm so shocked that an economist would do this"; if a programmer was a serial killer, people would say "I always knew those guys were a little off-kilter." I figured we'd never get to a situation where a well known programmer would kill someone. Then Hans Reiser happened. I've mentioned reiserfs a few times before, and I've always spoken fondly of it. Even though it didn't take off, I still admire the idea. It's really quite bad that the dude's gonna have "murderer" next to his name. The wikipedia entry already has more about the murder and trial than about reiserfs.
Quite sad.