Big groups can do amazing things with surprisingly few implements, and internet communities can spontaneously become collaborative experience designers. Redditors are playing a new game of sorts with themselves and each other involving a color-changing button and a timer, and the emergent memes are weird and glorious. Read the rest
The Gregory Brothers are best known as the creators of Auto-Tune the News/Songify This, but they also have another series of videos that could easily translate to at-home fun. Read the rest
Do you love retro video games, but find them too easy to play after all these years? Maybe if you played them all at the same time, it would be more challenging. That’s what Pacapong does: it combines Pac-Man, Pong, and Space Invaders into one game that will put your concentration and dexterity to the test.
To increase your score-bar in Pacapong you simply collect as many pills as possible within the time limit. Once fired your Pacman can be controlled to a small degree, but will always be inclined to heading towards your opponents side. To make things a little trickier (and more awesome) you also have to contend with ghosts, hit them and you’ll lose a chunk of your score bar (unless you pick up a power pill). To make things yet even more trickier (and indeed more awesome), you also have to contend with Space Invaders who descend your side of the screen whenever your opponent collects them – with some careful manoeuvring you can even shoot them with the pills you collect with Pacman.
It seems insanely complicated to me, but I still find those old games challenging individually. You can see a video of gameplay at YouTube. Pacapong is a free download. -via Unreality
Coming soon to VHS. (more…)
We get frustrated by a lot of things. Some make sense like our car breaking down. Others, less so, like everyday traffic. To deal with everyday frustrations like these, employ the ABCD method.
Ubiquitous video cameras have put a dent in the jumping-in-front-of-a-car-and-feigning-injury profession.
Martha Lane Fox, the UK's first Champion for Digital Inclusion and occasional Boing Boing contributor, has given a spectacular speech in which she calls on the UK government to create a public-service Internet institution called Dot Everyone, to make the UK the most digital nation on the planet, in a way that promotes "the civic, public and non-commercial."
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The Feminist Frequency videos typically focus on where video games go wrong with gender, but the latest episode by Anita Sarkeesian takes a different angle: the times when they really succeed.
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Super Mario Bros. turns 30 this year. I still love the game, as it was my first Nintendo game, and I spent endless hours trying to beat the stupid thing. Today, I have a treat for you: Eight excellent tips, tricks, and weird glitches in the game.
These are all performed by gaming superstar Robin Mihara, who came in third at the Nintendo World Championships (NWC) in 1990, in which Super Mario Bros. was one of three mini-games performed onstage. Recently, Mihara starred in the documentary Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters (2011)—featuring another game in the NWC pantheon.
I knew a few of these as a kid, but the rest are news to me. Dig in:
If you time the jump just right, on World 3-3 you can jump over the flagpole and...well, you just keep running. There's nothing special over there.
If you're Fire Mario, you can "skate" without moving your feet—at least for a moment. When you exit a tunnel or enter a new World, jump and shoot a fireball (B+A buttons) and press right. The skating effect only lasts ten seconds or so.
This was common knowledge when I was a kid, but I have run into some people who didn't hear about it. When you hit the flagpole, the timer in the upper right stops. If that number ends in 1, 3, or 6, you'll get the corresponding number of fireworks...and everybody knows, six fireworks rules!
First, get to World 3-1, a find a pair of koopa troopas descending stairs. Ignore the first one. When the second one is still on the stairs, jump on it to put it into shell-mode, then stand one step below where the shell lies. Now jump like crazy. Your goal is to get into a rhythm where you're jumping off of (and landing on) the shell over and over, so you get lots of points and 1-UPs.
There's a weird poetic justice to this one. If Mario hits Bowser on World 8-4 at the exact moment he hits the axe (which drops Bowser into the lava pit), Mario dies. But he still wins. This results in an odd scene where Princess Peach gives a speech to no one.
Okay, this is amazing, but complex. Watch the video for an example, but the gist of it is if you are any version of a "Big" Mario, Luigi, etc. (including Fire versions), and you hit any of the mini-Bowsers (anything before World 8-4) at the same moment you hit the axe, a glitch occurs. Long story short, on the next World you need to get a Mushroom (which makes you small!), then a Fire Flower, which of course makes you Small Fire Mario.
The fun part is when Small Fire Mario spits out a fireball—he briefly becomes regular Fire Mario. While you can do this on lots of levels, I recommend World 1-4 because the necessary power-ups are available early in World 2-1.
This just adds some flair to your performance; it doesn't get you anything special. When you reach the top of a vine, keep pressing up, and you'll "dance." I feel that this is appropriate when you're about to steal a bunch of coins from a bonus World. (Note that in this run, Mihara missed one coin—that pesky last one—and let out a groan that I did not record.)
This is epic. If you do a special crouch-jump on World 1-2, you enter a glitched-out Warp Zone that brings you to "World -1," a water world identical to World 7-2. The only difference is that you can't win; you just keep swimming until you run out of time...even if you reach the pipe. Brutal and weird.
For more Super Mario Bros. glitches, check out the Super Mario Wiki list of glitches. You might also be interested in my article Will the Real "Super Mario Bros. 2" Please Stand Up?
Whether you’re a true fan of the genre or not, you have to admit that a good epic Western adventure is pure escape from the trials and trivia of modern day life. This supercut by Robert Jones has only the best ones, featuring John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Redford, Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Charles Bronson, Gary Cooper, and stars from a few Western comedies you know and love, too. Take three minutes for a nostalgia break with this video. -Thanks, Robert!
Through the decades the desire to return to Star Trek's Mirror Universe has remained, enabling the franchise to explore areas it otherwise couldn't and adding possibilities beyond its usual framework. Read the rest
Dig that old VCR out of your closet and plug it in. We’ve got a dusty, worn copy of the classic 80s TV show Breaking Bad. The website Stan’s VHS has cassette boxes for television shows and movies that began long after the VHS era was over. Check out similar covers for Guardians of the Galaxy, Game of Thrones, and Gravity:
-via Geek Art
Yes, it's almost April Fool's Day, the national day of acting like a jerk with impunity, but this is no trick: You can play Pac-Man in Google Maps right now.
Read the restMovies sometimes show characters watching other movies--often completely fake. Some of these are clearly worthy of becoming feature films themselves, as illustrated by this supercut made by Screen Junkies. The editors show the best movies-in-movies from South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, Scary Movie, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Boogie Nights, The Big Lebowski, For Your Consideration, Matinee, Singin' in the Rain, Inglourious Basterds, Home Alone, The Last Action Hero, Grindhouse, UHF, Tropic Thunder, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The Simpsons Movie, Funny People, and Scrooged.
-via Daily of the Day
If The WalkingDead were a comedy, it would be the 2009 film Zombieland. This mashup trailer tries to make that a reality, although they had to look really hard to find a few smiles and quasi-lighthearted moments from five years of The Walking Dead clips. Contains lots of gore. (via Uproxx)
The 90-minute season five finale of The Walking Dead is tonight. The death watch poll is still open for your votes and opinions.
Sure it doesn’t include every great dancing scene in cinematic history, but this joyful supercut is still the perfect celebration of onscreen choreography. (more…)
GhostofAlyeska says he was "simply curious who Fox News' science reporters are. I wanted to know what kind of scientific backgrounds they might have." Read the rest
Youtube's stilted, one-sided dispute resolution system allows game companies like Nintendo to confiscate the earnings of gamers who produce hugely popular "Let's Play" videos. Read the rest
I came for the deadpan snark, but I stayed for the amazing autotuned mashup at the end. (via Memex)
Country songwriter Gregory Todd, a.k.a Sir MashAlot got famous for six songs, all by top Country artists, which he brilliantly cut together into one very enjoyable track that all sounds like it comes from the same band.
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A new Wikileaks-published leak from the secretive Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty reveals a January 2015 draft "Investment Chapter" of the agreement, where the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) mechanisms are set out. They allow companies to repeal nations' environmental, health and labor laws.
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These Moving Photos Capture The Beauty Of Special Needs Cats. Photographer Josh Norem makes them look their best so they may be adopted into forever homes.
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Why Tim Burton's Batman 3 Never Happened. Hint: it has to do with Happy Meals.
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Waxing Moronic: 10 Wrong Facts From Song Lyrics. I immediately thought of three examples, and they’re all there.
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21 Creepy Easter Bunny Photos That Will Haunt Your Dreams. Who was it that decided a fictional rabbit should be six feet tall and scary?
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Four jellyfish that diffract rainbow light like iridescent spaceships. It’s a light show under the sea!
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The New Feminist Thor Is Selling Way More Comic Books Than The Old Thor. An incarnation of the god of thunder as a woman drew lots of criticism, but the numbers tell a different story.
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Why it's naive to expect corporations to be nice to their workers. There’s no profit in that!
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17 Extreme Donuts That Look Like They'll Kill You. I would venture to guess that they taste better than they look.
Nothing beats a great dream sequence in a film. Not only can it do much to lend viewers insight into the inner thoughts and motivations of the characters, but a dream sequence often makes up some of the most artfully shot and compelling moments in the feature presentation. Here is a supercut of dreams in films. How many can you identify, and what is your favorite filmic dream sequence? -Via Gizmodo
TIE Fighter is an incredible example of how truly amazing and painstakingly created a Star Wars fan film can be.
Today, Pixar is releasing a free license to it's Renderman imaging software. This is the same software it uses on it's own films, which was invented in-house, and is used today by all major film and video game studios for animation and visual effects. The free license is for non-commercial use only,
It's more complicated than it seems: the functional elements of a 3D print can't be copyrighted, but they may be blended with decorative elements that can be; what's more, if we err on the side of caution by "open licensing" stuff that isn't even copyrighted, the effort to open up copyright ends up normalizing the application of copyright to new subjects.
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Microsoft has announced a relaxation of its "Secure Boot" guidelines for OEMs, allowing companies to sell computers pre-loaded with Windows 10 that will refuse to boot any non-Microsoft OS.
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