Dylan Northrup

New submitter DigitalParc writes "RadioShack recently launched a promotion for 6 months of free Netflix service with the purchase of a laptop, tablet, or phone. This ended up being a fantastic deal, until the shoddy redemption site they were using for the Netflix code redemption was exploited and many of the codes were stolen. 'Users on slickdeals, a deal-finding and sometimes deal-exploiting website, found that the URL of the redemption website could be changed upon trying to enter a code, resulting in a valid Netflix subscription code being generated. Within hours, many of Netflix codes that were allocated to this promotion were stolen and some were redeemed or put up for sale on eBay.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“Look at the difference: In 1977 I bought a small house in Portland Oregon for $24,000. At the time I was earning $5 per hour working at a large auto parts store. I owned a 4 year old Chevy Nova that cost $1,500. Now, 36 years later that same job pays $8 an hour, that same house costs $185,000 and a 4 year old Chevy costs $10,000. Wages haven’t kept up with expenses at all. And, I should point out that that $5 an hour job in 1977 was union and included heath benefits.”

- an anonymous online commenter on the current economy. (via han-nara)

Back in May, when the news broke that Michael B. Jordan (star of The Wire and Fruitvale Station) was being considered for the role of Johnny Storm in the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, let’s just say the internet wasn’t too happy about it. At the time, my friend and former editor Justin Aclin tweeted about it and then wrote about it on his blog. I’ve cross-posted the rest of Justin’s thoughts after the jump.

And come back later in the day as Justin will be my special guest on Hard N.O.C. Life where we’ll discuss his latest book for Dark Horse, S.H.O.O.T. First.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say I'd be fine with making ALL the superheroes in movies non-white. Bring it on.—
Justin Aclin (@justinaclin) May 02, 2013

As a white dude, I think I can safely say we're well enough represented in all sorts of media. We've had the lock on 70 years of superheroes—
Justin Aclin (@justinaclin) May 02, 2013

There is NO problem with stepping aside and letting these characters reflect the world we live in today.—
Justin Aclin (@justinaclin) May 02, 2013

I’m Sick of White Dudes

by Justin Aclin | Originally posted May 2, 2013

When The Wrap broke the scoop this morning that actor Michael B. Jordan (who’s African American) might be cast as Johnny Storm in the new Fantastic Four film, I didn’t even bother waiting for the whiny tweets to start up before posting the tweets above. I knew they’d be coming, like clockwork.

Here’s the thing. I understand fearing change. I wouldn’t want to watch a Spider-Man movie where the character is a homicidal maniac, because that is contrary to the spirit of the character. But, and I’m going to put this in italics so you can tell I’m serious…

THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT THE CORE HUMAN TORCH’S CHARACTER THAT PRECLUDES HIM FROM BEING BLACK. AT ALL.

The only argument against Human Torch being black is that he wasn’t conceived as black. But guess what… NO superheroes were conceived as black when Human Torch was created. That is not a valid reason that he should be Aryan for the rest of eternity in every possible medium.

There’s nothing wrong with white dudes per se. Iron Man 3 opens tonight and it is an excellent movie chockfull of white dudes. (Even notorious Asian villain The Mandarin is played by Sir Ben Kingsley, but trust me when I say this is a good thing in every possible way.) [EDIT: It's been pointed out to me that Ben Kingsley is part Indian, which I didn't know. The Mandarin is still way awesome.] There are no shortage of superhero films fronted by white dudes. I’m ready to see something different.

And the fact is, it’s not just in my consumed entertainment. I’m tired of writing white dudes. At least, white dudes as default main characters. I’m not a black woman, or a transgendered person, or any other number of identification combos. But I’m interested in exploring the commonalities and differences I have with these people way more than just dropping in another white dude because I’m a white dude and I know how white dudes live.

I always joke that the reason there are so many advertising guys as protagonists in movies and TV is because advertising is the only day job that writers can picture themselves doing because it’s kind of like writing. As writers, we should be trying to move outside ourselves, at least a little bit. You know every character is going to be you in some way anyway. Isn’t it more interesting if they’ve at least got some major differences from you that you can explore?

So please, for the love of humanity, if you’re going to complain about a fictional character’s race being swapped on-screen… don’t. Don’t be that guy. Ask yourself, is the core of the character being compromised… or is my own sense of comfort and familiarity?

POW!

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You’ve gotta love a good origin story. And you’ve gotta love a good poster. So you’ve gotta love The Ninja Bot‘s series of illustrated origin stories, featuring comic book heroes and villains and the occasional cartoon character, twice. Except now I have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme running through my head.

(via: So Geek Chic)

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Based on some recent trends online, Kelly decided to share her experience of sexual harassment in academia. Please give it a look.

cognitivedissonance:

Accurate.

We watched Alfonso Cuarón's new film Gravity yesterday and enjoyed it immensely. Fantastic to watch -- especially in 3-D -- tensely edited and that rare combination, a vivid action flick that is also an actor's movie.  Sandra Bullock took us by the throat and gut and held on.

I hope that Cuarón will become a supremely powerful voice in Hollywood, so long as he stays away from the cocaine that has fried 90% of the directors and producers, whose few remaining neurons actually believe that mindless remakes and poisonous dystopias constitute "creativity." Gravity is the kind of inspiration that might start changing that.

While watching Gravity, I succeeded yet again at my mental trick of filing away quibbles for later while enjoying a film.  If you are  either a scientist or a professional storytelly (I'm both) you have to do that or you'll never enjoy another flick -- and you'll be murdered by the person sitting next to you in the theater!  In this case the mental quarantine was easy.  Lots to enjoy and the quibbles were bearable.

 Still, you came here for insights and details and scientific cavils, so I won't scrimp. Time to reach into that bag where I stuffed the carps and quibbles. Let's pull them out and see if there are any real scientific boners. I hear that Neil deGrasse Tyson has offered a series of critical tweets on this matter.  I have not read them yet, though I'll look them over, after compiling the following list.

SPOILER AERT --

* The Hubble Telescope orbits WAY higher than the Space Station. Past repair missions could barely reach it.  Should have made it a different-future scope. The premise situation is scientifically broken... and I don't care.

* Two stations would not remain orbiting close to each other, even if they started with identical parameters.  The orbits would precess apart.  In fact, Gravity (the movie) makes Low Earth Orbit (LEO) seem about the size of Los Angeles County... but it's way, way bigger. No fix for this. Just grin & bear it.

*  The biggest flaw others have mentioned is that if both astronauts are at rest with respect to the ISS, one could not be pulling the other away from it.  There is a fix! Clooney should have said "the station was set rotating by a hit. We're at the end of a swinging bola. Let me go or you'll be torn loose."  But to do that, the station should be shown slowly spinning.  That would've done it.

(Side note: Clooney might have done what one of my characters did once. Taken off the now useless jet pack and thrown it away from the station, possibly emparting enough momentum to send himself toward it. Still, his fading away reminded me of Talby's departure with the Phoenix Asteroids, in Dark Star. The dream sequence was perfectly done.

* Had I been advising, I'd have added a couple of lines about how Bullock would aim the Soyuz capsule NOT at the station but away from it. "Up to drift back..." starts the nursery rhyme taught to all students of orbital dynamics.  If she had recited that, it would have looked and sounded cool to 99% and 1% would have nodded YESSSSSS!

* All right, the effects of debris were amplified maybe FOUR orders of magnitude.  No possible combination of mere satellite parts could have done all that... and I couldn't care less. It was sooooo cool.

* Still, they would not see clouds of approaching supersonic debris. Again, poetic license, but if it's slow enough to identify stuff, then it is too slow to smash a space shuttle to bits. (Still, Clooney's astronaut's crisis mode descriptive monologue is exactly what a test pilot or "right stuff" astronaut is supposed to do.  Well-portrayed.)

Nevertheless, let me editorialize: the debris problem in orbit is getting dire and it's about time some attention was drawn to it.  I portray something being done about it in the first chapter of my recent novel EXISTENCE. (You can see an image here.)

* I did wonder why Clooney and Bullock didn't try to replenish oxygen from the shuttle, which would have plenty of undamaged gear lying about. Like spare oxygen packs? Clooney could have said seven words about that being impossible now. Ah well.

I've got a dozen others but they all fall into the realm of acceptable things I'd have suggested in a meeting… then shrugged when refused.  What matters is that no kid learned something horribly dumb.  It put techies and scientists and science in superb light.

Those who say "but it made space look dangerous!" are dolts.  Of course it's dangerous! That won't deter the brave, it will attract them!  Um, ever heard of 10,000 years of soldiers? This terrific film shows the great allure of the Final Frontier. Its explorers must bear the same skill and courage and honor of war… without the evil deeds or vile consequences.

Turning away from our petty bickerings.  Looking outward. It's exactly what we need.

== The quibbles of Neil deGrasse Tyson ==

All right, now I'll look at Neil's famous twitter jibes about the film.

No it should NOT have been named "Zero Gravity."  There's plenty of gravity in orbit.  It's part of the problem.  Bad buzzer sound for Neil on that one.

I agree that Sandra Bullock's character servicing a telescope from her background as a medical doctor is iffy.  Kind of like "Armageddon's" rule: it is easier for oil drillers to learn to be astronauts than for astronauts to use a drill. Um, sure, right.  Still, shrug it aside.  Maybe she's just an irreplaceable, polymath genius. That's certainly consistent with the rest of the film, and more power to her.

Neil doesn't glom onto my solution for why Clooney would be tugged away from ISS -- because of rotation from an earlier hit.

Alas, his tweet about being unimpressed with zero-gee effects was just -- well -- kinda churlish. C'mon they were great!

Yes, Neil, all satcoms are not in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). But neither are they all at geosynchronous orbit (GEO).  TDRSS and GPS and most of those used by NASA for LEO comms are much lower down… but still likely immune to a LEO level debris blast.  True… folks would not "lose their Facebook." Tyson got that buzzer-penalty right.  Yellow flag!  (But scaring folks about Facebook might get millions to agitate for space debris cleanup!)

Funny thing… I offered about twice as many real physics quibbles as Neil. (So there!)  Still we both agreed, it's a terrific flick!  All of these little cavils only go to show what a large fraction of this hugely ambitious film Alfonso Cuarón and his team got right.

Now... if only we take the hint.  Stop the petty squabbling over picayune inanities that enemies of civilization want us to fight over.  Resume being a forward-looking people who take seriously our duty to future generations.  And who see the universe as beckoning us. Forward.

maxistentialist:

National Journal:

Here are all the times since this spring Senate Democrats tried to negotiate with Republicans by sending their budget to a bicameral conference committee. Every time, Republicans blocked the move:

1. 4/23 Senator Reid requested unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator Toomey blocked.
2. 5/6 Senator Reid requested unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator Cruz blocked.
3. 5/7 Senator Murray requested unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator McConnell blocked.
4. 5/8 Senator Warner asked unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator McConnell blocked.
5. 5/9 Senator Murray asked unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator McConnell blocked.
6. 5/14 Senator Warner asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator McConnell blocked.
7. 5/15 Senator Wyden asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator McConnell blocked.
8. 5/16 Senator Murray asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator Lee blocked.
9. 5/21 Senator Murray asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator Paul blocked.
10. 5/22 Senator Kaine asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator Rubio blocked.
11. 5/23 Senator McCaskill asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator Lee blocked.
12. 6/4 Senator Murray asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator Rubio blocked.
13. 6/12 Senator Kaine asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator Lee blocked.
14. 6/19 Senator Murray asked unanimous consent to go to conference, and Senator Toomey blocked.
15. 6/26 Senator Murray requested unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator Cruz blocked.
16. 7/11 Senator Murray requested unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator Marco Rubio blocked.
17. 7/17 Senator Murray requested unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator Mike Lee blocked.
18. 8/1 Senator Durbin requested unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator Marco Rubio blocked.
19. 10/2 Senator Murray requested unanimous consent to go to conference, Senator Toomey blocked.

"For six months I’ve tried to enter into formal budget negotiations with Paul Ryan, only to be repeatedly denied permission to negotiate by Ted Cruz and the tea party," said Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash.

As the New York Times has noted, Republicans have planned this shutdown for months.

kuran2010:

dnotive:

missatralissa:

I honestly didn’t think this was real, so I googled it.

Apparently it is.

I fucking LOVE this man.

First he comes out in defence of teaching evolution over creationism, and now this. 

GO GET ‘EM, BILL!! 

Holy shit what a BAMF.

ALL MY YES

“

So, Imagine that the company you work for held a poll, and asked everyone if they thought it would be a good idea to put a soda machine in the break room. The poll came back, and the majority of your colleagues said “Yes”, indicating that they would like a soda machine. Some said no, but the majority said yes. So, a week later, there’s a soda machine. Now imagine that Bill in accounting voted against the soda machine. He has a strong hatred for caffeinated soft drinks, thinks they are bad you you, whatever. He campaigns throughout the office to get the machine removed. Well, management decides “OK, we’ll ask again” and again, the majority of people say “Yes, lets keep the soda machine.” Bill continues to campaign, and management continues to ask the employees, and every time, the answer is in favor of the soda machine. This happens, lets say… 35 times. Eventually, Bill says “OK, I’M NOT PROCESSING PAYROLL ANYMORE UNTIL THE SODA MACHINE IS REMOVED”, so nobody will get paid unless management removes the machine. What should we do???

Answer: Fire Bill and get someone who will do the fucking job.

Bonus: Bill tells everyone that he was willing to “Negotiate”, to come to a solution where everyone got their payroll checks, but only so long as that negotiation capitulated to his demand to remove the soda machine.

Bill is a fucking jackass.

”

- Brian Krewson (via themetricruler)

Walt Disney World is adding enough hours to its part time workers' rosters to allow them to qualify for Obamacare, helping their workers to get healthcare. They're hardly the only ones; a recent survey of CFOs at large firms shows that they've got a lot of company. But it's important to note because a) it's a good, honorable thing they're doing and b) it runs counter to the scare-stories that emphasize the tiny number of sleazy, greedy companies that are using Obamacare as justification to screw their workers by cutting hours and benefits.

Disney already offers a level of health coverage that is acceptable under Obamacare to its full-time employees. But part-time workers, including those who work at the 30-hour cutoff set by the health law, receive more limited benefits. Instead of rolling back these workers’ hours to avoid expanding their health coverage, Disney is choosing to promote them to full-time status.

“Disney wants to be proactive,” said Ed Chambers, president of the Service Trades Council union that represents tens of thousands of Orlando Disney employees, in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Disney is way out in front on this.”

Under Obamacare, Disney World Will Promote Its Part-Time Workers To Full-Time Status [Sy Mukherjee/ThinkProgress]

(Thanks, Ari!)

(Image: Grand Floridian, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from the-consortium's photostream)

geekishchic:

gay-men:

Grandpa sticks up for his gay grandkid [via]

Beautimous

Starting today, PopularScience.com will no longer accept comments on new articles. Here's why.:

Starting today, PopularScience.com will no longer accept comments on new articles. Here’s why.

[…]

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to “debate” on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.

jellybabiesandjammiedodgers:

Via Amy Schley

basilton:

In the early years of space flight, both Russians and Americans used pencils in space. Unfortunately, pencil lead is made of graphite, a highly conductive material. Snapped graphite leads and particles in zero gravity are hugely problematic, as they will get sucked into the air ventilation or electronic equipment, easily causing shorts or fires in the pure oxygen environment of a capsule.

After the fire in Apollo 1 which killed all the astronauts on board, NASA required a writing instrument that wasn’t a fire hazard. Fisher spent over a million dollars (of his own money) creating a pressurized ball point pen, which NASA bought at $2.95 each. The Russian space program also switched over from pencils shortly after.

40 years later snide morons on the internet still snigger about it, because snide morons on the internet never know what they are talking about.

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You may be able to name a few DC characters who have very similar skill sets and costume themes to Marvel characters, and vice versa. Boomerang and Captain Boomerang, Swamp Thing and Man-Thing, and of course the stretchers: Mr. Fantastic, Elongated Man, and Plastic Man. But Rawlsy on DeviantArt has done a whole series depicting these pair ups in adorable best friend activities. We’ve brought some to you here, but you should check out the rest in their gallery.

(via Tumblr.)

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davidlafuente:

christiancgtomas:

ungoliantschilde:

Cliff Chiang ~ ’80s Album Homages.

The Janet/Ororo album cover ALWAYS gives me life

Cliff is the real deal

deadreckon:

Disclaimer: I’ve worked on many projects with over a dozen different studios. None of the following content is meant to implicate any one in particular, and it is not a strictly linear narrative.

There’s been a lot of anger creeping into my corner of the internet:  Anger about the unequal or insensitive treatment of women and minorities, specifically within the game industry. 

As a woman working in games since 2007, I’ve felt hurt, discouraged, and isolated by various forms of discrimination. Most of it came from people who were in no way intending to be hurtful. Anger does not accurately describe my true feelings, and so I don’t feel angry.

Really, I don’t.

Story time!

 

Let’s say you’re a guy who’s just entered the game industry right out of college. People joke about you being all young and fresh-faced, but then after a couple of months they get tired of the joke, or some new blood moves in and you’re not the “young guy” any more.

Now let’s say you’re a woman who’s entered the game industry right out of college. People joke about you being all young and fresh-faced, and after a couple of months they still haven’t tired of the joke, and no other young women have been hired, so you’re still the “young girl.” Oftentimes you’re the only woman in a packed conference room. Oftentimes you’re the only one under 40.

You work hard on several good projects, even though some people tell you or your boss that you’re “unqualified” to work on them because you’re “only 22.” You travel to work with developers. Sometimes when you meet a new colleague and extend your hand to shake theirs, they hug or kiss you instead, after having shaken the hands of your male colleagues.

At some of these studios, there are literally no other women in sight. There’s a women’s bathroom, but the light is always off, because you’re the only one who uses it, and you have to fumble for it in the dark. If it’s nighttime and you’re walking down the vacated hallway of a shared office building in an unfamiliar city to a bathroom only you use, you feel afraid you’ll be cornered.

Every year, you like to go to the Game Developers Conference because it’s interesting and energizing. You’re hanging out at GDC, conversing with a group of people, and you mention your love for Warcraft III. A male presenter looks at you incredulously and asks, in earnest: “You play games?”

Years pass. You’re constantly meeting new people and working on new teams. You’re not fresh out of college any more, in fact you’re reviewed well and ranked highly, but you’re still the only young woman in the room, and nobody’s tired of the joke yet. Now, if someone wants you out of their way, they say you’re “unqualified” because you’re “only 24.” Or 25. Or 26. When there’s a decision to be made about who from the company will go visit a developer to discuss a new project, you are told that they really need to send “a guy’s guy… Someone who can hold his liquor, drink a lot with the developers, and earn their trust.” Definitely not you.

You have a nice window office. One night, you’re working late. Most people have already gone home. A drunken coworker, also staying late, leans across the doorway of your nice window office and makes slurred conversation with you for about 20 minutes. He starts to make comments about your appearance. He’s still blocking your doorway. You feel afraid, because you don’t know how to get rid of him. Your heartbeat is fast; you glance at a big stupid corporate plaque on your desk and wonder if, in case of need, it could knock this guy unconscious. A friend drops by at the right time and the drunkard scuttles away, but after that, you feel anxious every time you work late.

You feel lonely, you feel like a novelty, you feel like a fraud. You feel like you don’t deserve a seat at the table. You’ve had long hair most of your life, but you cut it short in hopes that people will take you more seriously.

When you investigate new jobs, the men interviewing you ask how old you are. In one interview, the HR staff warn you that at their company, you’d better be able to “take a joke.”

You’ve met a lot of great people, and you have a lot of friends that you like to work with. Sometimes you don’t feel lonely or like a novelty, like when you’re sitting around the lunch table, cracking jokes with your coworkers. You feel happy and included. But when one of your coworkers makes a joke that is crude, even though it doesn’t offend you at all and you haven’t even had time to laugh, he turns to you and apologizes, because you are the only woman at the table and your delicate sensibilities must have been affronted. You feel lonely again. You feel like you’re not supposed to be at the table.

After that, when you meet new people in the game industry, sometimes you go out of your way to swear or say something off-color as quickly as possible, so your new male acquaintances will feel comfortable and won’t feel the need to walk on eggshells. You feel unnatural.

It’s been several years since you were fresh out of college, but still, every time you meet someone new, the odds are good that they’ll make a joke about your age, and even the people you’ve worked with for a while never seem to let it go. You beat yourself up for feeling hurt and defensive about it, because you know they don’t mean any harm – except for the occasional person who makes it clear that they do.

One day a coworker leaves an unsolicited, romantically-charged gift on your desk where everyone can see it. You didn’t ask for this, and you feel deeply embarrassed as you hide it away out of sight.

On a new project, a certain lead wants to be the only one allowed to communicate with the developer so he can “manage the relationship.” You’re on the team, but miss his memo and send a short, friendly email to the developer that says you’re looking forward to working with them. In response to this violation, the lead writes a very long email with an absolutely volcanic assessment of your personal failings – including your age – and emails it to your boss, the project’s producer, and two other coworkers that you like and respect. Your boss shows you the email, then sits with you and comforts you while you sob in an empty conference room for half an hour.

Over the years, other people’s words and actions pile onto your shoulders. You feel enormous pressure to pretend that nothing bothers you, because you don’t want to give others more power to hurt you, or upset people you care about or make them feel uncomfortable.

So you don’t say anything, you try to ignore it, and the result is an ever-present sense of isolation that chills your enthusiasm and makes you defensive.

You feel that the things that hurt you would never have happened if you weren’t female, and on a certain level, you feel that you deserve it.
 

Many of my female colleagues have similar stories. Some of these experiences made me feel angry when they happened. If similar things have happened to you, or to someone you work with or love, you’ve probably also felt angry.

The psychologist Thomas Gordon posited that anger is never a primary emotion. It is a secondary emotion, experienced after an earlier feeling. He says that anger is

 “a posture deliberately and consciously assumed … for the express purpose of blaming, punishing, or teaching a lesson. … Whenever you get angry at another you are putting on an act, playing a role to affect the other, to show him what he has done, teach him a lesson, try to convince him he shouldn’t do it again. I’m not suggesting that the anger isn’t real. It is very real and makes people boil or shake inside. I am suggesting that people make themselves angry.”

So I want to submit that what we ACTUALLY feel is fear, disappointment, isolation, sadness, resentment, and self-doubt. Anger is just the outermost layer, like an onion’s skin. You have to peel the first layer, and then the next, to find out what’s buried at the center.

When I see rants and accusations about who did what and why it’s very bad and why they need to change and stop being very bad, right now, I feel annoyed and frustrated because I know the only result is that everybody’s gonna feel just a little bit more uptight. How do you feel when someone assumes a posture of anger toward you? Does it make you more or less inclined to listen to them? 

Most people have good hearts and really DON’T want to offend. But when men feel terrified of offending the women they work with, it only contributes to our sense of isolation and inequality. And when particularly motivated and well-intentioned people try to champion my problems and become an Ally in the Great Struggle for Equality, they risk assuming there’s a problem when there is none, and reminding me to feel isolated and powerless in moments when I was just fine. They are often the ones who tense up at the lunch table first and express hope that I wasn’t offended by something. Their efforts make me uncomfortable, and I wish they’d simply listen.

So let’s everybody peel our onions, and name what we’re actually feeling, and what we’ve actually, personally experienced. It’s a much stronger position to start from, because you can’t debate feelings the way you can debate arguments or comic strips or abstract principles.

Peel your onion. And then talk.

Disclaimer, part II: Over the past six years, I’ve had plenty of good times. I’ve met kind, supportive, creative people, and made friendships that I treasure. Thanks to all of you.

Illustrations by @Lechooga.

From Youtuber jeonghoon95:

This is my Mario Paint arrangement of Get Lucky by Daft Punk. Enjoy!

Best part starts at 2:22!

[Via Reddit | jeonghoon95]

tommy-tomcat:

zingbang:

This post is making me laugh, which is upsetting my cough, so I’m in pain, but I think it’s worth it.

Quality twitter posts

Bill Watterson is the artist and creator of (in my humble opinion) the greatest comic strip of all time, Calvin and Hobbes. I was a bit too young to appreciate it while it was originally published from 1985-1995, but I started devouring the book collections soon after. I think my brother had a few of the treasury collections and I must have read those dozens of times. I was hooked, and I remember copying Watterson’s drawings relentlessly as a kid (Calvin’s hair was always the hardest to get right).

To me, Calvin and Hobbes is cartooning perfection – that rare strip that has both exquisite writing AND gorgeous artwork. A strip that managed to convey the joy of childhood, absurdity of humanity and power of imagination all through the relationship between a boy and his stuffed tiger. And most importantly, a strip that was consistently laugh-out-loud funny. I flick through my Calvin and Hobbes books a few times a year, not to read them cover to cover anymore, but just to get lost in Calvin’s world for awhile and to remind myself what comics are capable of.

Besides the fact that Calvin and Hobbes is the comic I cherish above all others, Bill Watterson is my biggest creative influence and someone I admire greatly as an artist. Here’s why:

• After getting fired as a political cartoonist at the Cincinnati Post, Watterson decided to instead focus on comic strips. Broke, he was forced to move back in with his parents and worked an advertising layout job he hated while he drew comics in his spare time. He stayed at this miserable job and submitted strips to comic syndicates for four years before Calvin and Hobbes was accepted. About this period Watterson wrote: “The only way to learn how to write and draw is by writing and drawing … to persist in the face of continual rejection requires a deep love of the work itself, and learning that lesson kept me from ever taking Calvin and Hobbes for granted when the strip took off years later.” (Also see the Advice for Beginners comic.)

• Watterson sacrificed millions (probably hundreds of millions) of dollars by never licensing and merchandising Calvin and Hobbes. He went through a long and traumatic fight with his syndicate over the licensing rights, and although he eventually prevailed, Watterson was so disillusioned with the industry he almost quit cartooning. “I worked too long to get this job, and worked too hard once I got it, to let other people run away with my creation once it became successful. If I could not control what my own work was about and stood for, then cartooning meant very little to me.”

• Luckily Watterson didn’t quit and took a sabbatical instead. Eager to reinvigorate his creative mojo on his return, Watteron proposed a radical new layout for his colour Sunday strips. For those not familiar with comic strip lingo, each week a newspaper comic will have six ‘daily’ strips (usually black and white, one tier, 3-4 panels) and one ‘Sunday’ strip which is larger and in colour. Previously, the Sunday strip was comprised of three tiers of panels and looked like this. The layout was restrictive and the top tier had to be completely disposable because a lot of newspapers would cut it and only run the bottom two tiers in order to save space so they could cram in as many comics (or puzzles, or ads) as they could.

Watterson was sick of the format restraints and wanted more space to experiment and push his storytelling ability so he (with his syndicate’s support) gave newspaper editors a ballsy proposition. They would have to publish his Sunday comics at a half-page size with no editing, or not publish it at all. By this time Calvin and Hobbes had been running for over five years and was extremely successful so Watterson had the clout needed to pull this move off. Despite fearing many cancellations, he was pleasantly surprised that most newspapers supported the change. Free of the shackles of tiers and panel restrictions, Watterson gave us visually exciting and beautiful strips that hadn’t been since the glory days of newspaper comics in the 1920s and 30s. He was free to create strips like this, and this and this. “The last few years of the strip, and especially the Sundays, are the work I am the most proud of. This was close as I could get to my vision of what a comic strip should be.”

• After working on the strip for 10 years, when Calvin and Hobbes was at the height of its popularity and was being published in over 2,000 newspapers, Watterson stopped. He had given his heart and soul to one project for 10 years, had said all he wanted to say and wanted to go out on top. “I did not want Calvin and Hobbes to coast into half-hearted repetition, as so many long-running strips do. I was ready to pursue different artistic challenges, work at a less frantic pace with fewer business conflicts, and … start restoring some balance to my life.” Since retiring the strip, Watterson has pursued his interest in painting and music.

It’s pretty incredible when you think about. Could you say ‘no’ to millions, I repeat, MILLIONS of dollars of merchandise money? I don’t know if I could. Would you stop creating your art if millions of people admired your work and kept wanting more? I don’t know if I would.

Reprints of Calvin and Hobbes are still published in over 50 countries and the strips are as fresh and funny as they were 20-25 years ago. It has a timeless quality and will continue to entertain comic fans for generations to come. Great art does that.

- The quote used in the comic is taken from a graduation speech Watterson gave at his alma mater, Kenyon College, in 1990. Brain Pickings has a nice article about it. The comic is basically the story of my life, except I’m a stay-at-home-dad to two dogs. My ex-boss even asked me if I wanted to return to my old job.
- My original dream was to become a successful newspaper comic strip artist and create the next Calvin and Hobbes. That job almost doesn’t exist anymore as newspapers continue to disappear and the comics section gets smaller and smaller, often getting squeezed out of newspapers entirely. I spent years sending submissions to syndicates in my early 20s and still have the rejection letters somewhere. I eventually realised it was a fool’s dream (also, my work was nowhere near good enough) and decided webcomics was the place to be. It’s mouth-watering to imagine what Watterson could achieve with webcomics, given the infinite possibilities of the online medium.
- My style is already influenced by Watterson, but this is the first time I’ve intentionally tried to mimic his work. It’s been fun poring through Calvin and Hobbes strips the past week while working on this comic and it was a humbling reminder that I still have a long way to go.
- The quotes I’ve used in the write-up above are taken from the introduction to The Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection, which sits proudly on my desk.
- Thanks to Marlyn, Emily, Joseph, and Suchismita for submitting this speech.

grrspit:

taskscape:

thejordanator:

yourackdisciprine:

A bit of perspective on the sentencing of Bradley Manning. 

If this doesn’t get a million notes, all you social-justice bloggers need to leave the fucking internet.

Humans suck

A bit of perspective on the sentencing of Chelsea Manning.

flavorcountry:

I have a plan that will stop street harassment for all time. It goes like this:

• All women are now allowed to carry swords.
• All women get 20 free hours of sword training.
• All women are allowed to cut a fool without suffering legal consequences once per calendar month.

Fine points and clarifications:

• For the purposes of this scheme, any bladed weapon 20” or longer that comes with a sheath is a sword; anything shorter or without a scabbard is out of bounds.
• Legal “cut a fool” passes do not stack; if you cut no fools in January, you don’t get to cut two fools in February. Conversely, you are not required to cut a fool at all — just know you can if you want.
• Legal “cut a fool” passes are good for any sword wound up to and including fatalities.

And but so:

• I realize the first couple of years after this plan is implemented will be a bloodbath, but think of the society we’ll be building and remember the !
• I picked swords because it’s really hard to take one away from someone if you don’t have one yourself.
• Do you think a small industry might pop up around sword fashion? Stylish sword belts and scabbards? Hello Kitty and Lisa Frank sword gear? Am I alone in wanting to see what that would be like?

Look, I’d be happy if we lived in a world where we didn’t have to hand swords out to women in order to scare dumbass men into keeping their fool mouths shut, but this clearly isn’t that world. I’m ready to see this happen.

Sometimes, you get lucky and opportunity just drops into your lap. Most of the time, though, opportunity is the result of hard work.

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