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Tim Schafer. All screen shots via Youtube

Tim Schafer talks while he types—and does both loudly, as if to make sure I understand he is a Very Busy Man. Like I didn't already know: His studio, Double Fine Productions, has the high-def remaster of 1998 adventure classic Grim Fandango ready to roll, and then comes the small matter of the second "act" of Broken Age, the point-and-clicker that broke Kickstarter records at the time of its crowd-funding drive in 2012.

And there's plenty more going on at Double Fine. The San Francisco–based studio has another Kickstarter-backed project in the works with Massive Chalice, which moved to Steam Early Access in late 2014. They've also confirmed that a special edition of Day of the Tentacle will appear sometime this year. Schafer worked as co-designer on the 1993 original, one of LucasArts' most rapturously received adventure titles.

While at LucasArts, Schafer was also heavily involved in a design capacity on 1990's The Secret of Monkey Island and its 1991 sequel, LeChuck's Revenge, before stepping up to project leader for 1995's Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. After that, LucasArts canned its adventure titles—so he left to found Double Fine and focus on making games that weren't Star Wars cash-ins.

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Schafer playing Grim Fandango

Today, we're toasting two achievements: the first being the imminent Grim Fandango release for PlayStation, Mac, and Windows platforms; the other the uncommon longevity of the original Monkey Island, a game that the passing of 25 years can't dent the appeal of. Personally, the latter remains one of my favorite games of all time, and one that I can't bring myself to delete from my iPhone (in its special edition form), just in case the urge (re)takes me on a commute. And it frequently does.

Our connection drops once, but rather than leave me hanging when I call back, as some might, Tim's quick to pick up, albeit without breaking the inexorable drumming of fingertips on keyboard. Sometimes the pounding threatens to overpower his answers, but for 40 minutes he's an amiable interviewee, always with a half-chuckle in his responses, expressing warmth that, despite a crackly line and the small matter of 5,385 miles between us, comes over palpably. He's an old pro, obviously, but still speaks with terrific excitement—that he's doing what he absolutely loves is unquestionable.

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'Grim Fandango' retrospective—the HD remaster is available on January 27.

VICE: Looking back at the elements that make up Grim Fandango—the film noir stuff colliding with the Aztec influences, for example—it's a smorgasbord of things that perhaps shouldn't stick together. But they did. What do you put that down to?
Tim Schafer: I'd like to act as if it were a brilliant plan, like I knew deep down that these elements of film noir would gel perfectly with themes of Mexican folklore and the afterlife, and that I had this grand vision of it all coming together. But really it was just what we were into at the time. We loved the art and folklore of the Day of the Dead, and I'd studied some anthropology at college, and I was also reading a lot of Raymond Chandler and watching old Humphrey Bogart movies. As I did that, some connections emerged. And also, the four-year journey of the soul really screamed "adventure game" to me—how you must go on this treacherous journey through the afterlife. It sounded like a big, epic quest.

The crime and corruption of film noir aren't inherently part of the Day of the Dead, but I liked the stories about how people in the afterlife had to worry about money, so relatives would hide some in the lining of their coffins so it wouldn't get stolen. So it's not like heaven—it's this other world, where you still have troubles and corruption and crime, and that was interesting to me. Also, I just wanted to do something that simply hadn't been done before, and one of the best ways to do that is to look into cultures that are not usually represented in games, and to juxtapose these two things that maybe shouldn't go together. In this case, it touched off this explosion of creativity—every day we were coming up with crazy ideas.

I remember Grim getting several "Game of the Year"–style accolades, but while you've said it sold "enough" copies, the genre had lost a lot of commercial appeal. What do you think went "wrong" in gaming at the time that damaged Grim's sales?
If you're a publisher, you have to look at the size of that audience versus the one for a Star Wars game, or something that was just a shooter—these games that you know would represent money in the bank. It's not like adventure games wouldn't sell, and I'm really excited to release Grim now, but the money they'd make wouldn't have represented the maximum take possible for a project at that time. They're just looking for a return on their investment.

It's great that we have tools like Kickstarter now, as fans of adventure games don't care about returns on the investments—they just want the games they love. So when Broken Age happened, that was great. We also have these communities on forums who spread the word about hidden gems.

Community's been a strong factor in keeping Grim Fandango alive, hasn't it?
Yeah, there's a community of adventure games players who've kept all of those old LucasArts adventures playable, using ScummVM and ResidualVM, as otherwise you'd have to pirate these games, or find them on eBay. We really rely on the fans to keep that stuff alive. The new versions give you the point-and-click interface that the original didn't have, but that the fans made, and that will make it more accessible because the original tank controls weren't so easy for everybody. It'll also have direct-drive control, the kind you'd expect in a modern 3-D game.

We often like to think of gamers as being quite monolithic, maybe only liking one type of game—but, really, everyone has these completely different profiles when it comes to what games matter to them. Adventure games appeal strongly to people who care about story, originality, and who actually don't mind being stumped for a while because they love that feeling of finally figuring it out. I don't think everyone likes being stuck, so that's the challenge adventure games have. You have to make that "stuckedness" entertaining.

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Tim Schafer plays 'Grim Fandango': Part I

With Grim, how did the remastering process even begin?
We've been doing a lot of digital archaeology. LucasArts provided us with all the assets they had, and we dug and scrounged and turned up these original, uncompressed frames for cut-scenes—and we found a bunch of those. We found the original Pro Tools file for the audio, which enabled us to remaster the score with an actual concert orchestra, which was amazing. And we could also go back in and repaint all the characters, all the textures, and make them look so smooth and pretty—and now we've got dynamic light, so when someone lights a cigarette, it casts a shadow on their face.

The original Grim cost in the region of $3 million to make. If you were to build it from scratch, right now, presumably that figure would be so far below what you'd need?
Probably—but it depends how we did it. As you may have heard from the internet, I'm not very good at guessing budgets.

Did you have to remain restrained with the remastering process? Do you think going too far—making Grim too contemporary—might actually spoil the spirit of the game?
I feel like we trusted ourselves to stay true to the original. Since we made this game in the first place, and have a lot of the same people working on this remaster, we were thinking of the new version as being like the Criterion edition. We wanted to improve the fidelity of everything, without changing the story, or the presentation—by which I mean the order of the puzzles, the actual way in which the characters perform. I think if a fan heard a voice they didn't recognize in the remaster, that'd be really unsatisfying. And we've put a button in there anyway, so you can turn off all the improvements, if you want to.

If this Grim takes off and finds a new audience that demands more, where does that leave you in terms of a sequel?
I've had ideas for sequels of every game I've done, and what I've said before is that I'd love to do Grim as a proper 3-D game, with dynamic backgrounds, so that the city of El Marrow would actually be simulated and you could punch out that clown and walk through his tent to visit that festival behind him. That's something I've always dreamed of doing, but no sequel is planned, at the moment. It'd be a challenge, as I think we gave the characters satisfying endings, and it might seem weird to revisit the world with new characters, but... maybe.

In terms of Monkey Island, I know you weren't the Guy on that game—that being Ron Gilbert—but that you were heavily involved. So with it reaching its 25th anniversary, I wanted to ask you about its amazing longevity.
I'd like to think its longevity is simply down to us having so much fun making it. I mean, imagine coming straight out of college and going to work at Skywalker Ranch. It was great! It was crazy, and exactly as much fun as you'd think it'd be. Star Wars was everywhere, and here we were making this new game. The internet wasn't a thing in 1990, so we were pretty isolated up there, and we were really trying to entertain each other when writing the dialogue for Monkey Island.

I'd write stuff, and then Dave [Grossman, co-writer] would try it out, and then Ron would too, and we'd see if he laughed or not. We'd be inspired by each other, and then go away and write something else. Everyone up there was funny, and that's why the game turned out funny.

I guess it's no different to, say, a show like The Simpsons, where writing sessions are collaborative and read-throughs used to gauge how funny an episode is.
It's funny you mention The Simpsons, as that started while we were making Monkey Island. We were like: "Have you seen this?" We'd spend half of our meetings just talking about The Simpsons. I know that show was a big influence on me while we were writing Monkey Island.

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In terms of your input in Monkey Island, what part of it can you look at and say, "That's mine. I did that."
It got split up quite a lot. Ron did the ghost ship, and Dave did Herman Toothrot and the Men of Low Moral Fiber. I did a lot of work on Stan, the used-ship salesman, and the villagers [the cannibals]. I was really stuck on the villagers for a long time, and then Ron said, "Why don't you make them really health conscious?" And it was just like, bing!

You mentioned the need for these adventure games to be entertaining even when the player's stuck, and I think that really came through for the first time with Monkey Island. Were you confident that the game's humor would carry the players through, even while they were gnawing their fingers off?
Oh, we knew we were tormenting them—like, "Wink wink, you know the solution's here!" Part of the puzzle design was to give you a really obvious solution, but to make sure that wouldn't work. Like, you have to hammer a nail. Sure, here's a hammer, and here's a nail. Wrong! That's a rubber hammer. You have to make a metal mold, and kill a cat, and do all these things. OK, we probably wouldn't kill a cat.

Did you follow the Monkey Island series after you left LucasArts?
Y'know, I think they did a good job on Monkey Island 3 [The Curse of Monkey Island], and I was halfway through that when the crunch time came on Grim Fandango, so I lost track of it. Then I started Monkey 4 [Escape from Monkey Island], and didn't finish that, but I did play all of the Tales games that Telltale made. They were funny.

Cheers, Tim.

Follow Mike on Twitter.

A lot of artists try to escape the shittiness of human existence with their music, but Philadelphia MC Ryshon Jones wallows in it with the hope of finding some sort of greater truth. His latest track, "What iDesire, iProtect" is a perfect example of his penchant for staring directly into the void. He kicks off the song with, "Uphold my stability, cuz society killing me, and anxiety filling me..."

The intense and claustrophobic song will appear on Jones's upcoming full-length, You're Safe Now.Like "What iDesire, iProtect," Jones's new album lyrically investigates why we're all so fundamentally fucked up.

Preorder You're Safe Now here.

Before releasing his masterful Syro in September, electronic music legend Aphex Twin had been "silent" for 13 years. Once regarded as electronic music's guiding light, his absence in part let the genre wander into some questionable trash-pop territory, garnering a largely negative reputation in the music community. Its sound became more associated with Skrillex and his brand of EDM than with its founders.

But that has only primed audiences for Aphex Twin's return. Critics widely regarded his album as one of the crowning musical achievements of the year, with some specifically positioning it as a loving and human alternative to the excesses of modern EDM. Really, the album is just another flawless representation of the highly textural and elusive electronic music Aphex Twin has been pioneering since 1991. Read More

compromisedanalintegrity:

thespiritfox:

We lost Earl Ragnar, our favorite Beta fish. 

& we were sure to give him a viking’s funeral as such a magnificent fish as he deserves. 

See you in Valhalla my friend. 

Sail, Ragnar. Sail. 

you set your little girl’s dead fish on fire in front of her eyes this is incredible

Why should ladies and rappers get all the fancy jewelry? John Biagiotti of Metamorphosis Design believes men should be able to get in on the expensive gifts and signs of baller status too. Men like you and me. Men who dig science, the solar system, things that come crashing to Earth from outer space. Here he's folded some of that masculine enthusiasm, plus something shiny and something spinny, into his Nine Planets ring.

Now the Nine Planets Ring has 3 trump cards over the fat rock on the fat finger of the lady slurping her coffee next to me:

1. A complete band of Gibeon Meteorite framed and mounted in its 18k gold band.
2. 9 different gemstones scaled to represent each of the planets (Pluto gets a break!) set in the meteorite band.
3. Rotational dominance. The meteorite band spins independent of the gold ring, so when in place, the planets actually rotate around the wearer's finger, thus proving to his wife that he is in fact the center of the universe.

Nine Planets Ring meteorite has been etched with nitric acid to bring out the unique patterns of iron meteorites, called Widmanstatten figures. Planet stones include:

• Mercury: orange Sapphire
• Venus: golden Sapphire
• Earth: irradiated blue Diamond
• Mars: Ruby
• Jupiter: Opal
• Saturn: Cats Eye Chrysoberyl with inlaid 24k gold ring
• Uranus: green Sapphire
• Neptune: blue Sapphire
• Pluto: black Diamond

This Nine Planets Ring weighs 26 grams and measures 10.5mm wide. It can be custom made in any size, and is also available in an 8.5mm wide version so that ladies, begrudgingly, can get in on the stellar action too.

Muchas danke to David S. for the Dude Product Tip.

You had a feeling this was going to happen. After returning last year from more than a decade of light activity, Richard D. James is back with his second Aphex Twin record in four months. If Syro was a masterful summation of the sound James pioneered on his classic 1990s releases, Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 is a reminder that there was always a lot of low-profile experimentation going on alongside the canonical LPs. Rather than cobble together Syro leftovers (it’s fair to assume there are many of these), James draws from a different aesthetic altogether. It’s all there in the title: whatever the process for actually assembling these tracks, the individual sounds do indeed seem to be physical objects vibrating in space, as if James had marshaled a battalion of robots to realize his latest compositions.

Texturally, the music bears some similarity to bits found on Drukqs, specifically the prepared piano tracks that contrasted with that album's more frenetic breakbeat excursions. "Jynweythek Ylow", "Strotha Tynhe", and "Penty Harmomium" are clear antecedents to the music found here, but Acoustic Instruments takes those ideas further. Piano, prepared and otherwise, features heavily, but so do various drums and wood and metal percussion instruments. And where James used to offer his electro-acoustic pieces as a showcase for lyrical melodies, about half the music here consists of crisply arranged beats, with loping drum lines that occasionally veer toward funk.

The most striking thing about Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 (the title is a typical James puzzle—no word of where Pt 1 may be) is how directly his musical concerns can be mapped on to another context. The grooves, the de-tuned melodies, the bridges, the way rhythms can lag a split second behind the beat—all are signatures of his electronic work and all are found here intact. A good point of comparison demonstrating how difficult this must be is Acoustica: Alarm Will Sound Performs Aphex Twin, an album from a decade ago that found the new music ensemble tackling some of James’ better-known compositions. The skeleton of tunes like "4" and "Meltphace 6" was there, but the sense of movement was way off. Here, we can hear the person and the sensibility behind the sounds.

On some tracks, you can almost hear their electronic counterparts. "diskhat1" features clipped drums with a steady hi-hat and a prepared piano riff that sounds dissonant to the point of seeming alien. "hat5c 0001 rec–4" is constructed with similar tools but uses a piano motif from the bass clef to give it the anxious feel of a tightly-sequenced synth. "piano un10 it happened" can be filed with James’ most delicate and beautiful pieces, one of those effortless melodies that vanishes into the air right around the time you start thinking about the Windham Hill catalog. Indeed, brevity is key: Acoustic Instruments is the perfect length—28 minutes long, 13 tracks, with about half fully fleshed out and the others serving as sketches—for this sort of treatment. James has a handful of ideas, he comes in and executes them perfectly, and then he gets out.

If Syro was a re-introduction for James, a way to put his music in front of people who didn’t know or follow along with his earlier work, Computer Controlled Acoustic Instruments pt2 is a release for established fans, people who want to know what his pieces would sound like in an altogether different setting. So while the EP feels like it can be connected to other music (it’s easy to draw lines to gamelan music and kinetic film scores), the greatest pleasure comes in knowing where it came from and how it came to be. It’s an Aphex Twin EP more than just an EP, and as those go it’s very good.

beewhirl:

the-vortexx:

Some of the funniest office pranks ever pulled

Jim Halpert’s dreams

celtic-forest-faerie:

{Male Spanish Moon Moth} by {Daniel Morel}

violetways:

"Otters have a skin flap that forms a pocket so they can keep their favorite rock with them. They use this rock to break open mollusks when eating. Some otters go their entire lives carrying the same rock!” source

jenisgay

Resident Evil's original voice acting was atrocious. The lines were cheesy and the delivery wooden. "Jill, here's a lockpick. It might be handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you." But it has a fond place in my heart. I didn't blame Capcom for writing and recording new material for REmake, but I'm so glad someone's modding the game's trashy origins back in.

Read more...

Plants and Animals

In his 1879 account of wanderings in the Orient, the travel writer James Hingston describes how, in West Java, he was treated to a bizarre experience:

I am taken by my kind host around his garden, and shown, among other things, a flower, a red orchid, that catches and feeds upon live flies. It seized upon a butterfly while I was present, and enclosed it in its pretty but deadly leaves, as a spider would have enveloped it in network.

 

Ignacio Canales Aracil is a Spanish sculptor who’s very interested in the possibilities of botanic elements used in artistic creations. These vessels, made from dried pressed flowers, are some of his first works, where he tries to celebrate spring and preserve it.

Ignacio created these flower sculptures in collaboration with some famous European landscape designers, who allowed him to hand-pick every flower from their private and public gardens and then place those bouquets in big molds until they’re dried. They also had to use some varnish spray to protect the pieces from humidity. Although the finished sculptures look gorgeous and rigid, in fact, they are so fragile that they can be easily crushed with the lightest touch.

More info: el-nogal.tumblr.com (via: colossal)

Day of the Dead

Playing music is supposed to be fun! Remember? Sometimes electronic instruments we choose to play are so complicated that using them is a chore, or at least requires a ton of practice. It doesn't have to be that way.

Read more...

It didn't take long for those "Will it Blend?" videos to get long in the tooth. You can only watch so many smartphones being torn to shreds before the novelty wears off. But to celebrate the birth of his 40th grandkid, Tom Dickson tosses a mountain of magnetic Buckyballs into the blades and the results are as spectacular as they are incredibly dangerous to try at home. Seriously, don't try this at home.

Read more...

Hi everyone. I kind of forgot about this blog until someone reminded me about it. I felt like maybe I’d said enough about these cats, because there are other problems in the world. But I met some people who said they thought it was really important, so I’ll put up some more pictures of terrible cats.

In case you only like to look at cats and not at drawings of cats or cookies shaped like cats I made a tag so you can do that. The tag is, “#cats”.

Anyway here is a cat on his way somewhere looking all self-important and egg-shaped and covered in straw, of course.

MEOW

IM EAT A BREAD

svaggity-svat-i-can-do-zat:

THIS IS THE ONE GIF SET I HAVE WAITED MY ENTIRE LIFE FOR

goatman-the-third

With every promise of inclement weather comes a new batch of people just trying to feel something meaningful in this literal cold world. Here are their stories, links included when still available, in case someone strikes your fancy with their cries for sex under the guise that they will deliver you a very special, weather-specific time.

Read more...

Last weekend, Santa Monica's Copro Gallery debuted their exhibition "Conjoined V," guest curated by artist Chet Zar. True to Zar's own dark, surreal aesthetic, the annual sculpture show features a variety of emerging and established artists with a penchant for all things creepy, curious, and bizarre. Kazu Tsuji's gigantic, silicone bust of Salvador Dali, Jessica Joslin's metal-adorned taxidermy animals, and surreal imaginings by Craig LaRotonda and Jim McKenzie are among the myriad of bold and pop culture-inspired works in the show. Take a look at some highlights from "Conjoined V" below and see it in person through February 14.

Faith No More will be back in L.A. for the first time since 2010—when they played at the Hollywood Palladium! In addition to working on a new album, the follow-up to 1997's Album of the Year, Faith No More has...

Petyr Baelish THUG LIFE

code-name-duchess:

Stay warm, northeasterners.

On Sunday afternoon, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned residents that "one of the largest snowstorms in the history of this city" could hit early this week.

He wasn't joking. The National Weather Service is currently expecting a massive snowstorm to make its way up the East Coast from Monday to Wednesday — with potentially 20 to 30 inches of snow falling on New York City and Boston. (The current record in New York is 26.9 inches.)

(National Weather Service)

The NWS has issued a "blizzard warning" for the entire coast from New Jersey up to the Canadian border — an area encompassing some 29 million people:

29 Million people under #Blizzard Warning: http://t.co/Encl3uyc2s | http://t.co/Zqhxk6AFlR pic.twitter.com/1zfP8PP3x6

— NWS (@NWS) January 25, 2015

That's serious. A blizzard occurs whenever there's lots of snow, strong winds of at least 35 miles per hour, and visibility of less than one-quarter of a mile for at least three hours. The snow and wind can combine to create "whiteout" conditions — making it dangerous to drive. Powerful gusts can also knock down trees and power lines.

The blizzard warning for New York goes into effect at 1 pm on Monday (and 7pm for Boston). City officials have already closed after-school programs and are warning people that commuting could become dangerous by nightfall. The NWS's regional office calls the blizzard "crippling and potentially historic."

"Assume that you don't want to be out in this storm," de Blasio said. "Stay off the roads. Make plans to travel another day and try with everything you have to avoid being in the middle of this storm."

Where did this storm come from?

21z WPC surface analysis shows system crossing OH valley this evening that will evolve into major #winterstorm for NE pic.twitter.com/jIuwJAqfXI

— NWS WPC (@NWSWPC) January 25, 2015

It started as an "Alberta clipper," a low-pressure weather system that traveled down from Canada to the Midwest and over the Ohio Valley. That system may bring a small bit of rain and snow to the Washington DC area on Sunday night.

Then things get interesting. A few days ago, forecasters figured this clipper would wander harmlessly out to sea and that would be the end of it. Over the last few days, however, that forecast has changed.

Thanks to a jolt from the jet stream, the system is now expected to strengthen rapidly, transform into a powerful "nor'easter," and travel north, pulling moisture from the Atlantic Ocean and dumping it on cities along the East Coast.

How bad could the storm get?

Back in 2006, a nor'easter dropped 22 inches of snow on New York City (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Here are the most recent National Weather Service forecasts for New York and Boston (as of Sunday afternoon). Keep in mind that things could change as we get closer:

New York: The NWS is saying that a "crippling and potentially historic blizzard" could affect the New York City area. The blizzard warning is in effect starting 1 pm on Monday until midnight Tuesday.

Snow is expected to begin falling Monday morning, with accumulations of up to 1 to 3 inches possible by the evening. The snow will then pick up intensity between Monday night and Tuesday afternoon. All told, some 20 to 30 inches could fall, on average. Winds could reach 30 to 40 miles per hour, with gusts of up to 65 miles per hour possible in some regions.

Latest snowfall expected via @NWSNewYorkNY. Blizzard Warning for greater NYC Metro area now through Tuesday night. pic.twitter.com/2KBtltV0G9

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 25, 2015

The NWS is blunt in its warnings: "Life-threatening conditions and extremely dangerous travel due to heavy snowfall and strong winds... with whiteout conditions. Secondary and tertiary roads may become impassable. Strong winds may down power lines and tree limbs." Areas near the ocean could also see storm surges and coastal flooding.

In his press conference on Sunday, de Blasio said that New York City schools would stay open Monday, but after-school activities would be canceled. He advised workers to go into the office early or avoid commuting altogether, since travel would be hazardous by nightfall on Monday. (The city is planning to deploy road salt before the snow falls and bring out the plows, though that won't help with whiteout conditions.)

Boston: The NWS issued a similar warning for Boston and the surrounding area, with the blizzard warning in effect starting 7 pm on Monday and lasting until 1 am Wednesday.

The current forecast is for 20 to 30 inches of snow around Boston, with possibly more in surrounding regions, as well as gusts over 35 miles per hour.

"Travel will be impossible and life threatening across the entire region," warns the NWS office in Taunton, Massachusetts. "Also snow will be wet enough to result in downed trees and power outages in addition to the hurricane force winds."

Could this snowstorm end up being a bust?

24-hour probability of more than 18 inches accumulating. (National Weather Service)

Right now, the betting line is that there will be lots of snow. As Eric Holthaus points out at Slate, the National Weather Service currently estimates there's a 67 percent chance of at least 18 inches in New York City and 75 percent odds of that much snow in Boston.

Still, nothing is ever for certain — and snowstorm forecasts can often fizzle out, since the conditions have to be just right. One wild card, as Linda Lam points out, is whether the the nor'easter will stay close to the coast or push further out to sea. If the latter happens, then some cities could end up getting far less snow than expected.

Will this storm set records?

We'll have to wait and see. Right now, forecasters are calling for 20 to 30 inches of snow in New York City and Boston.

The previous record for New York City was 26.9 inches, set in 2006. And the previous record for Boston was 27.6 inches, set in 2003. So the potential is certainly there:

And here are the 5 top biggest snowstorms for #NewYorkCity. Current fcst : 18-24" pic.twitter.com/hLVwDyzRvy

— Greg Diamond (@gdimeweather) January 25, 2015

Here's the top 5 snowfall events for #Boston on record. Current @weatherchannel fcst: 27" pic.twitter.com/wllkQsKAUC

— Greg Diamond (@gdimeweather) January 25, 2015

By the way, here's a pic of New York City's 1947 blizzard, still second place on the record books — for now:

Times Square NYC amid Blizzard of 1947: #Kauffman pic.twitter.com/PeKKFdR9Jj

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) January 25, 2015

Further reading

-- The National Weather Service's Twitter account has frequent updates. You can also follow the regional offices in New York or Boston.

-- Over at Mashable, Andrew Freedman has a very nice explanation of how meteorologists' forecast of this storm changed over the past few days.

-- Road salt is terrible for the environment. Are there better options?

The next episode of Discovery Channel's MythBusters — the show in which rumors, urban legends and myths are tested with a scientific approach — will explore an aspect of video games that most first-person shooter fans take for granted. The question the show will attempt to answer is: "Is it possible for someone to lug around a half-dozen guns, grenades, a chainsaw and a bunch of health packs, while also fending off demons from Hell (or their closest equivalent)?"

Using id Software's Doom games — specifically Doom 3 BFG Edition — as a template, MythBusters' Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman will do their best to bust myths about first-person shooters. In a video posted to Bethesda Softworks' YouTube channel, the publisher says that id...

Continue reading…

The Santa Ana winds are wreaking havoc on parts of the L.A. area this weekend, including North Hollywood where one driver had a close call. [ more › ]