Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

There are trillions of them and they fly in layers.

The larger ones at the top interlock together during mating season, puzzle-piece continents drifting above us. The whalescoops dive down to feed on the krillsparrows below them. Turtlehawks and wolflocusts prey on rabbitdoves and deergulls. Hummingbird piranhas flit and nip at the turkey squids, producing dark puffs of ink-cloud pollen.

Insects, plants, mammals, reptiles and unclassifiable combinations of the four. All flying. The inhabitants of this planet’s entire ecosystem are airborne and they never land because there is no land, only dark, sterile ocean thousands of miles below.

Small birds roost and nest on the bigger ones. There’s a hierarchy food and waste chain based on altitude, gravity pulling leftovers down through each layer, filtering evolution. The huge ray gliders drift through schools of brilliant parrot squirrels bursting with colour. The entire world is a continually shifting miasma of hues and sound.

At night, they glow. Flourescing horse pelicans trailing long tails of feather lights. Firefly minnow finches exploding with colour en masse looking for mates. Peacock trout cry out as they display fireworks of neon-shimmering leaves along their spines. Jellyfish Condors drip glowing willow-tree stingers to attract the mothgrouse. Deep-sky angler dragons trail ribbon-like through the lower atmosphere, dangling their lures like intelligent flares. Eel geese honk in giant arrow formations, stripes running across their bodies in synchronized communication. And the fissures underneath the massive air-island floaters above us glow with algae all colours of the rainbow.

I cannot see the ocean below or the sky above. I am a scientist and my name was Walter. My research mission ended six years ago but I elected to stay. There are skytribes here. I researched them and befriended them. Their name is birdsong that I have painstakingly learned to reproduce with my whistling.

My research helped classify them as a non-threatening, level-four primitive civilization. Tagged for quarantine non-involvement until such time as they develop the technology to explore space.

Personally, I see them as stalling at a sweet spot in their evolution that needs no improvement. There has been little to no change in them in millions of years, much like crocodiles or barracudas back on Earth.

I theorized that they started as a symbiotic relationship, remora-like with larger birds. Eventually, they started steering the birds to the best food. In time, that control made the remoras dominant and the larger birds the underlings. The remoras had to band together in schooltribes to hunt. Communities formed. Societies followed.

They have insect-like iridescent chitin armour skin. They reproduce by back spores seasonally like dandelion seeds. They hatch from eggs and go through larval stages in huge tadpole flocks. They mature into their final three stages as warm-blooded and gradient from male to female to genderless over their lives.

I’ve named the second-stage one next to me Rebecah. Her legs blend and clutch with the neck of her mount perfectly, forming the illusion of a swantaur. Her mane ripples out behind her.

She looks over at me with smile that I saw as terrifying years ago with all those eyes and beak teeth but I see as endearing now.

My mount is a ravenshark. My body is smeared with the fluorescent paint needed to mock Rebecah’s chitin skin. I have proven myself to them. They are fascinated by my ability to hold onto my male ‘stage’ for longer than usual. I have entered into their oral tribal history.

Rebecah screams the hunt scream and raises her spear. I copy her and we both dive. The hunt is on.

I live here now.

Author : Roger Dale Trexler

They heard the sound of the approaching vehicle and looked at each other.

“That can’t be,” said John Hemington, “the rover’s been gone for three weeks. It’s programmed to stay gone for two months.”

He looked quizzically at Daniel Hepford, communication expert.

Hepford looked out the viewport. The wind was blowing at its usually one hundred miles per hour, blowing debris and dirt all over Cantza 3. The filth in the air was so dense that the rover’s searchlight could not cut through it.

“It is damned peculiar,” replied Hepford. The rover was programmed to survey the alien planet’s landscape, then return when its batteries needed recharging. They shouldn’t have needed a recharge for quite some time.

“You think there’s a malfunction?”

Hepford nodded. “Has to be,” he said.

He looked at the computer in front of him and punched in command codes for the rover. “That’s odd,” he said.

“What?”

“The rover….it’s not responding.”

Hemington stood and walked to Hepford’s side and looked at the display. “May I?” he asked. Hepford nodded and let Hemington sit. Hemington punched a few buttons and the console displayed new information. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“What?”

“The command codes…they’ve been overwritten,” he said.

Hepford looked confused. “But…we’re the only people on this planet,” he said.

“Apparently not,” replied Hemington as he punched a few more buttons. Another screen displayed and, on it, he saw a language that he did not understand.

“What the….?”

Outside, the rover struck the building. The entire building shook. Both men ran to the window and looked out. The wind and debris hid most everything, but the rover was so close now that they could see.

Both men gasped.

On the rover, wrapped around it like an octopus, a grayish-skinned creature, rode. As they watched, its arm, which more closely resembled that of a squid than an octopus, lashed out and struck the window. A thick, gooey mucus covered the window where the arm fell.

“My God!” Hepford shouted. “Do you realize what that is?”

Hemington looked at him. “What are you talking about?”

Before Hepford could reply, another wet slapping arm struck the window.

“It’s a Lamfir?”

“A Lamfir?” asked Hemington said. Then, slowly, an expression of realization crossed his face. A Lamfir. A mystical space creature rumored to travel across the void of space. It attached itself to a spacecraft and traveled across the void. Once the creature made landfall on a planet, its sole purpose was to consume any and all organic life.

With the exception of a small spaceport a few hundred miles to the south of them, Hemington and Hepford were all the organic life on Cantza 3.

“Oh my God!” Hemington said. “Get on the radio and contact the spaceport.”

Hepford ran to the radio just as another wet slap smacked the window. A long crack appeared in the glass.

“Space port 1,” Hepford said into the microphone. “Come in, spaceport 1!”

No reply came.

Then, when Hepford switched to the auxiliary channel, he heard the slow ting of the automated distress call.

The Lamfir had been there already. It had headed in the direction of their base and, along the way, come across the rover. It had, somehow, taken control of the rover, attached itself and gotten a ride back to base.

Another wet slap cracked the window further.

Hepford looked at Hemington. Both men were afraid.

Hepford turned to the radio again, grabbed the microphone, and shouted: “S.O.S. To anyone near Cantza 3. We need immediate assistance. We are under attack!”

Then, the window broke inward.

The Lamfir slid inside.

Later, when it was done, it lay dormant on the floor, awaiting the rescue ship.

Author : Bob Newbell

General Vlank walked along the corridor toward the Research and Development Lab, his motors whirring quietly with each step. Quietly, but perhaps not as quietly as they once did. He’d been neglecting routine maintenance. A lot of the High Command had as the war dragged on. Sometimes, standing in his recharge alcove at night, he wondered if the conflict would ever end. Day after day, the damage and deactivation lists kept growing. It seemed like the whole world was becoming an enormous junkyard.

Finally, Vlank reached the lab and entered. “Lieutenant,” he said, “make it fast. I have a very important meeting to–” Vlank ceased talking the moment he saw…it. The thing was roughly shaped like a person: it had arms and legs, a torso, and a head. But its housing was some strange, pale, elastic material. White glistening globules were where visual sensors would normally reside. Twin cavities on the undersurface of a protrusion on the thing’s face dilated and contracted slightly; this bizarre movement appeared to correspond to a rhythmic expansion and contraction of the thoracic region. And under the protrusion where one would expect a vocalizer was a horizontal linear gash in whatever it was that covered the surreal being.

“What,” Vlank asked, “is that?”

“That, General,” said Lieutenant Nelk, “is what’s going to bring this war to an end.”

“It’s a machine of some sort?”

“Yes, General. But it’s like no other machine that’s ever existed. Look at these schematics.”

Nelk showed Vlank images of the thing’s internal structure and video records of how it worked. Vlank looked on in amazement at the depiction of a weird soft pump in the device’s thorax pushing fluid through tiny flexible pipes throughout the body of the creature.

“What are those bag-like structures in the thorax?” asked Vlank.

“Those respiration units deliver atmospheric oxygen to the nutritive fluid to help power the drone.”

“Drone?”

“Drone, General. That’s what it is. We’ve built this experimental prototype from the molecular level up.”

Vlank poked the thing with an extended finger. The surface was firm but yielding, somewhat like rubber.

“It seems rather flimsy.”

“Oh, yes, General. It’s made of organic compounds. It’s less sturdy than a person. And it would be utterly vulnerable to projectile weapons. But it has no electronic components. Even its processor” — Nelk gestured at the thing’s head — “employs an organic cellular network and a purely electrochemical process for cognition.”

Vlank studied the odd creation. “So, it’s not alive?”

“No, of course not, General. ‘Organic life’ would be a contradiction in terms. We 3D printed the drone’s flesh layer upon layer.

“Flesh?” said Vlank quizzically.

“FLexible Electrochemical SHeets. ‘Flesh,’ for short,” explained Nelk. “Surely you see the tactical advantage? Fire from electromag rifles would have no effect on the drone’s organic processor. You could detonate an EMP bomb right next to the thing and the same EM pulse that would kill both of us would do nothing to it!”

Vlank was impressed. “When can I see a demonstration?” he asked.

“Next week, sir,” Nelk responded.

Vlank nodded and walked out of the lab. As he strode to his staff meeting, he imagined squadrons of organic drones storming enemy positions, totally invulnerable to EM field ordnance. Why, he thought, organics could even be equipped with EM pulse generator vests like those the enemy’s suicide bombers have used to spread terror. And the drone would be totally unharmed and could continue to operate.

Somehow, Vlank noted, the world seemed somewhat less grim. After the meeting, I might even stop off for a little maintenance, he thought.

Author : Gray Blix

“The universe is holographic? Surely you’re joking.”

“I am not joking, Dr. Feynstein. But I did not say THE universe. I said YOUR universe. Your universe is a simulation. Pay attention. There is not much time.”

The young man appeared jittery in the flickering light. Feynstein glanced at the overhead fluorescent fixture.

“OK. You’ve obviously wandered into the wrong building. This is Physics. Science fiction would be in English, across the quad.” Offering a campus map, “Or maybe you’re looking for Psychology? Student Counseling?”

“Shake my hand, professor,” the man said, extending it across the desk.

“I’m not touching you.” Pointing the map toward the open doorway, “Please leave. Now.”

“Just shake it. Then if you want me to leave I will do so immediately.”

The man went out of focus momentarily. An intriguing thought crossed Feynstein’s mind. He attempted to touch the man’s hand with the map, but it went right through. He swiped through the hand several more times.

“What the– You’re a hologram.” Slumping into his chair, “And not a very good one.”

“A crude avatar, so we could talk. For the record, Dr. Feynstein, would you agree that whatever flaws there are in the simulation of your universe, they have not interfered with the development of human civilization?”

“Huh?” Looking around his office, “Look, I don’t know how you’re projecting a hologram, but that doesn’t prove we’re in a holographic universe.”

Pointing to a laptop, “One of your colleagues is remote observing through the Gran Telescopio in the Canary Islands. Bring up the VPN.”

Feynstein logged in.

“What do you see?”

“WR 104. Could go supernova at any time. Dr. Gambel is trying to determine if the gamma ray burst is likely to hit Earth.”

“If Earth took a direct hit, what effect would it have on life?”

“It would cause a mass extinction.”

“Well then, fortunately for you, I am erasing WR 104 from the simulation.”

The star disappeared, leaving its larger binary companion strangely unaffected. Feynstein could neither speak nor breathe.

Finally, he gasped, “The other star, make it disappear.”

It disappeared.

“You’re just messing with the video feed.”

“In a few hours it will be dark enough here for me to take you outside and make more stars disappear, or entire galaxies and constellations, but I think you already know I am telling the truth.”

The phone rang and seconds later people ran past the door in the direction of Dr. Gambel’s office.

A graduate student poked his head in, said, “Dr. Gambel says he needs you right away,” and joined the others.

“So, I am a hologram?” Looking at a picture on his desk, “My wife and daughter? Everyone on Earth? Why?”

“You and they are what passes for ordinary matter according to the laws of your physics. But you are in a simulated universe.”

“But why did you do this? And why tell me?”

“You have always been skeptical that dark matter and dark energy make up 96 percent of the universe. You’re right, of course. I botched some of the physics.”

“But…”

“And you wrote a paper on the possibility that your universe is holographic, although I know you were not serious, Dr. Feynstein. You were just poking holes in quantum theory.”

“But…”

“And now you’re about to begin that Holometer study. It could ruin everything.”

“WHY?”

“You stood out from the others, Dr. Feynstein. You deserve to know the truth before I wrap up the experiment.”

Another intriguing thought crossed Feynstein’s mind. And again he was correct.

“My graduate thesis in anthropology depends on this simulation not being discovered by its subjects.”

Christ, what an asshole. Idaho Republican Rep. Vito Barbieri. Courtesy Idaho State Legislature website.

A complete idiot who managed to get elected to The Idaho House of Representatives received a female reproductive anatomy lesson today.

Republican state Rep. Vito Barbieri asked if it were possible for a woman to swallow a small camera so that doctors could conduct a gynecological exam remotely, using telemedicine, before performing an abortion.

He asked this utterly stupid question Monday, revealing his total ignorance of basic grade school human biology, while the House State Affairs Committee listened to some three hours of testimony on a bill that would prohibit doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing meds using telemedicine.

The lawmaker later said that the question was rhetorical, and he was just trying to make a point. In other words, he was trolling.

I don't buy it. Trolling takes more intelligence than this knuckledragger possesses.

From the Associated Press report:

Dr. Julie Madsen, a physician who said she has provided various telemedicine services in Idaho, was testifying in opposition to the bill. She said some colonoscopy patients may swallow a small device to give doctors a closer look at parts of their colon.

"Can this same procedure then be done in a pregnancy? Swallowing a camera and helping the doctor determine what the situation is?" Barbieri asked.

Madsen replied that would be impossible because swallowed pills do not end up in the vagina.

"Fascinating. That makes sense," Barbieri said, amid the crowd's laughter.

The committee approved the bill (banning doctors from remotely prescribing abortion-inducing medication) 13-4 on a party-line vote.

The bill now goes to the House floor for a full vote.

Barbieri sits on the board of a crisis pregnancy center in northern Idaho, and voted in favor of the legislation, because he is an ignorant dipshit. We should just put him in charge of All Of The Things.

Perhaps you would like to make a donation to Planned Parenthood, to fight this sort of thing and help prevent women from dying because they can't access safe and legal abortions.

[HT: Susie Bright]

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If you're a popular League of Legends eSports player, who actually owns streams of your matches? That's a complicated question, but in the case of ultra-popular pro Sanghyuk "Faker" Lee, the answer seems clear cut. Another streamer, however, found a loophole that's thrown it all into question. And controversy.

Twitch streamer StarLordLucian runs a channel that automatically streams all of Faker's solo-queue matches. Competitive LoL matches run on Twitch all the time, but Faker's shouldn't be. The SK Telecom T1 player has a deal with streaming platform Azubu that grants them exclusive rights to his matches.

So naturally, Azubu lobbed a DMCA takedown notice at Lucian's stream and figured that was that. But it wasn't.

Thing is, StarLordLucian isn't swiping footage from Azubu's streams. Instead, he's watching Faker's matches in League of Legends' as a spectator using a third-party client—that Riot supports—called OP.GG and passing that along to his stream.

Now, here's the bit that's probably of interest to you even if you're not a LoL pro with major companies playing tug-of-war for your table scraps: LoL creator Riot—not a third-party company, not you—owns all of your shit. Their game, their in-game assets, their rules. As PCGamesN points out in their post on the matter, Riot's terms of service read:

"You acknowledge and agree that you shall have no ownership or other property interest in your account, and you further acknowledge and agree that, other than your limited access to use the account, all rights in and to the account are and shall forever be owned by and inure to the benefit of Riot Games. You acknowledge and agree that you have no claim, right, title, ownership or other proprietary interest in the game assets."

Lucian is running his stream with that information in mind. He explained: "Right now nothing my stream does is illegal or against the League of Legends terms of service. Riot can always change their terms. And Riot can DMCA my stream at anytime, as they have the power to put any League related IP or Project to an end."

OK then, what does Riot think about all of this? Well, the stream is still up, but Riot president Marc Merrill isn't pleased. Not one bit. He posted a response to Lucian's actions on Reddit:

"You are rationalizing and trying to justify the fact that you have singled out a player against their will and broadcasting their games in a way that he can do nothing about. That reeks of harassment and bullying - Azubu vs Twitch is irrelevant in my view."

"If you can't see how this potentially harms Faker and/or anyone else in this situation, then that is more reinforcement that we need to take the appropriate action to protect players from this type of unique situation."

"As to the comments about our API, of course we want 3rd party devs to do cool things with spectator. But when people utilize one of its components to harm / harass an individual, then we need to potentially re-evaluate our rules."

It's a bit of a curious response given that a) I'm not sure how an auto-stream of solo matches constitutes bullying and b) Azubu and Twitch are obviously interested parties when it comes to big streamer business; they are very relevant here. Still, this situation might lead Riot to make confetti out of their current rule book and come up with something that guards against similar situations in the future. Services like OP.GG might have to change too. As for how, well, that's up in the air right now.

Lucian, however, argues that Faker himself has yet to express that he's in any way upset with the stream. Until Faker/SK Telecom take aim directly at the stream or Riot issues a DMCA notice of their own, Lucian said, the show will go on. "'Harassment and bullying'? Yeah no. I am a big Faker fan. If Faker himself personally ever requested my stream to be shut down, I would oblige instantly."

UPDATE: Faker's team, SK Telecom, has issued a statement requesting that Lucian's stream be taken down. Lucian, however, plans to keep it going despite this. He explained his sudden about-face in one "last" post on the matter:

"I know some people will disagree with this and bring up ethics, but I think this whole issue is about a lot more than Faker. It's about Riot not enforcing their own legal terms of service. It's about a co-owner of Riot Games being completely out of touch with esports and the spectator mode. It's about a company (Azubu) issuing a false DMCA claim for content they didn't even own. These are issues that will affect the future of the game and the spectator mode. All of this needs to be debated for the future of League of Legends and esports."

As of now, the stream is still up. As Lucian pointed out, Riot can have it taken down at any time—and they might just do so soon. So far, though, they've yet to change their current rules, let alone enforce the old ones. I've sent a mail to Riot to find out what their next step is in this situation. I'll update this post as soon as I hear back.

To contact the author of this post, write to nathan.grayson@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @vahn16.

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President Terminator Skeleton wants the best for your planet! He is brave and shiny.

I did FIVE bonus comics last week! Go read ‘em here.

In case you missed last week’s field days on 4chan and 8chan in the backlash against “Intimidation Games,”, a cringeworthy episode of Law & Order: SVU loosely based on #GamerGate, check out this epic montage of photoshopped parodies based on the especially memorable scene emulating the first-person-shooter point of view.

In this latest episode of Shred of the Week, a Will It Blend-esque promotional web series by SSI Shredding Systems, the Oregon-based machinery manufacturer puts the legendary durability of Nokia’s 3310 cellphone to the test by tossing eight of them into a heavy-duty indsturial shredder.

An important industry analyst who had previously placed decent odds on Comcast being allowed to spend $45 billion to acquire Time Warner Cable is now looking at the deal in a less-sunny light, downgrading the likelihood of the merger succeeding.

Variety reports that MoffettNathanson Research, which already reduced the odds of merger approval to 70%, has now cut that figure again to 60%, “to reflect stiffening political headwinds.”

“If anyone doubts the hostility of the regulatory climate in Washington now, imagine how clear it would be on the morning after a rejection,” writes analyst Craig Moffett. “These risks must at least be acknowledged.”

At the same time, the report downgraded the stocks of Comcast, TWC, and Charter — which stands to swap a few million customers with the other two companies if the merger goes through — to “neutral,” also because of cord-cutting customers and what Moffett sees as darkening regulatory clouds.

While the FCC has expressed no interest in regulating broadband pricing, Moffett appears to be spooked by the mere possibility that the feds may someday meddle with what ISPs can charge for service.

“It would be naive to believe that the imposition of a regime that is fundamentally about price regulation, in an industry that the FCC has now repeatedly declared to be non-competitive, wouldn’t introduce risk to future pricing power,” Moffett explains, according to FierceCable.com.

(JKehoe_Photos)

In their blog post explaining how transcription works, Samsung assured the public that the company “takes consumer privacy very seriously,” and that they use “industry-standard security safeguards and practices, including data encryption, to secure consumers’ personal information and prevent unauthorized collection or use.” Many people understood this to mean that the voice data and transcribed text sent to and from smart TVs is always encrypted, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Perhaps “we encrypt consumer data” is true, but doesn’t include smart TVs.

We know this because a security researcher in the U.K. spent some time yelling at a Samsung smart television while monitoring the traffic going back and forth from the remote transcription service. David Lodge of Pen Test Partners wanted to check, since the statement from Samsung implied that customer data is encrypted. Here is what he saw being sent to Nuance, that third-party service:

That’s most likely audio data, but the important thing is that information about the device’s MAC address and operating system isn’t concealed in any way. The service sends back what it thinks the speaker said in plain text.

What danger does this pose? As things stand right now, none. The TV only listens when you tell it to, either by saying “Hi TV” or some other preset phrase, or by pressing a button on the remote control. The problem is that it could become a problem if what Lodge calls “rogue firmware” infected the TV, perhaps listening in to your conversations all the time or sending your data somewhere nefarious.

IS YOUR SAMSUNG TV LISTENING TO YOU? [Pen Test Partners]

Welcome back to Perilous Research, DailyMTG.com's exclusive Magic Online column. Standard has been in a state of constant change since the release of Fate Reforged. With each passing week, there seems to be a new format favorite. As the dust settles, it seems there are more competitive strategies popping up at a faster rate than archetypes are dying. In fact, this is shaping up to be one of the most, if not the most, diverse Standard environments in history. Today, we'll be taking a look at the most successful Standard strategies from the last week on Magic Online.

Valorous Stance | Art by Willian Murai­

The Rise of Red-White

Standard has reacted to the overwhelming amount of Valorous Stance we were seeing last week. Initially, Valorous Stance felt like it was a split card where one half was Terminate and the other half was Negate. Now, the threats we're seeing are a lot less heavy on the backend. Goblin Rabblemaster and Monastery Mentor are being favored over Brimaz, King of Oreskos, and Ashcloud Phoenix is being favored over Polukranos, World Eater. Valorous Stance pushed a lot of people onto the red-white decks, and the incredible power of those strategies has a lot of people proclaiming red-white to be the next big thing. Let's check out a decklist!

Crywolf102190's Red-White (4–0)

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Sort by: Overview Color Cost Rarity

Creature (16)

2 Ashcloud Phoenix 4 Goblin Rabblemaster 1 Monastery Mentor 4 Seeker of the Way 1 Soulfire Grand Master 4 Stormbreath Dragon

Sorcery (4)

4 Hordeling Outburst

Instant (10)

3 Lightning Strike 4 Stoke the Flames 1 Valorous Stance 2 Wild Slash

Enchantment (6)

4 Chained to the Rocks 2 Outpost Siege

Land (24)

4 Battlefield Forge 1 Evolving Wilds 11 Mountain 4 Plains 4 Temple of Triumph

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Ashcloud Phoenix 1 Soulfire Grand Master 1 Outpost Siege 1 Valorous Stance 3 Arc Lightning 2 Glare of Heresy 4 Hushwing Gryff 2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

White (19)

1 Monastery Mentor 4 Seeker of the Way 2 Soulfire Grand Master 4 Chained to the Rocks 2 Valorous Stance 2 Glare of Heresy 4 Hushwing Gryff

Red (32)

3 Ashcloud Phoenix 4 Goblin Rabblemaster 4 Stormbreath Dragon 4 Hordeling Outburst 3 Lightning Strike 3 Outpost Siege 4 Stoke the Flames 2 Wild Slash 3 Arc Lightning 2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

Colorless (24)

4 Battlefield Forge 1 Evolving Wilds 11 Mountain 4 Plains 4 Temple of Triumph

75 Cards

1 (6)

4 Chained to the Rocks 2 Wild Slash

2 (13)

4 Seeker of the Way 2 Soulfire Grand Master 3 Lightning Strike 2 Valorous Stance 2 Glare of Heresy

3 (16)

4 Goblin Rabblemaster 1 Monastery Mentor 4 Hordeling Outburst 3 Arc Lightning 4 Hushwing Gryff

4 (10)

3 Ashcloud Phoenix 3 Outpost Siege 4 Stoke the Flames

5 (6)

4 Stormbreath Dragon 2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

51 Cards

Common (19)

1 Evolving Wilds 11 Mountain 4 Plains 3 Lightning Strike

Uncommon (21)

4 Seeker of the Way 4 Hordeling Outburst 4 Stoke the Flames 2 Valorous Stance 2 Wild Slash 3 Arc Lightning 2 Glare of Heresy

Rare (23)

4 Battlefield Forge 4 Temple of Triumph 4 Goblin Rabblemaster 4 Chained to the Rocks 3 Outpost Siege 4 Hushwing Gryff

Mythic (12)

3 Ashcloud Phoenix 1 Monastery Mentor 2 Soulfire Grand Master 4 Stormbreath Dragon 2 Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker

75 Cards

Deal Another Hand

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Red-white decks have become Standard's new tier 1. The deck has access to all of the strongest angles of the Jeskai decks, but by cutting blue the deck gains access to Chained to the Rocks, which is probably the best spot-removal spell in the current Standard. The numbers in red-white are very malleable, and it's rare for two players to end up on identical lists. It's not uncommon to see Brimaz, King of Oreskos, four copies of Valorous Stance, or more aggressive creature setups. When playing against red-white, it's important that a player recognizes his or her role in a given game; the deck can easily win an aggressive game when the opponent gets too brazen, and it's well-suited to a longer game if opponents aren't applying pressure. The best advice I've heard for playing the matchup is to simply imagine we're playing a game of Limited where the opponent has a ton of removal spells. This should be the most important archetype to beat for players looking to test and practice the current Standard.

Rethinking Jeskai Strategies

Last week, Jeskai strategies seemed to be competing for the title of tier 1, but they've quickly fallen out of favor as players recognize the strength of the red-white strategies. There's little to no cost for dropping blue out of the deck at this point, and the added consistency and access to Chained to the Rocks have pushed Jeskai out of the picture.

What other strategies have continued to perform well in the face of so much red-white? Let's check out some of the other decks to put up undefeated records in daily events over the last few days.

DerrickJones's White-Blue Heroic (4–0)

Decklist Stats Sample Hand

Sort by: Overview Color Cost Rarity

Creature (16)

4 Battlewise Hoplite 4 Favored Hoplite 4 Hero of Iroas 4 Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest

Instant (13)

1 Ajani's Presence 4 Defiant Strike 1 Feat of Resistance 4 Gods Willing 1 Triton Tactics 2 Valorous Stance

Enchantment (9)

3 Aqueous Form 2 Ordeal of Heliod 4 Ordeal of Thassa

Land (22)

4 Flooded Strand 3 Island 1 Mana Confluence 8 Plains 4 Temple of Enlightenment 2 Tranquil Cove

60 Cards

Sideboard (15)

1 Ajani's Presence 2 Ordeal of Heliod 1 Valorous Stance 2 Disdainful Stroke 1 Erase 2 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer 3 Stubborn Denial 3 Treasure Cruise

White (29)

4 Favored Hoplite 4 Hero of Iroas 2 Ajani's Presence 4 Defiant Strike 1 Feat of Resistance 4 Gods Willing 4 Ordeal of Heliod 3 Valorous Stance 1 Erase 2 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer

Blue (20)

4 Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest 3 Aqueous Form 4 Ordeal of Thassa 1 Triton Tactics 2 Disdainful Stroke 3 Stubborn Denial 3 Treasure Cruise

Multi colored (4)

4 Battlewise Hoplite

Colorless (22)

4 Flooded Strand 3 Island 1 Mana Confluence 8 Plains 4 Temple of Enlightenment 2 Tranquil Cove

75 Cards

1 (24)

4 Favored Hoplite 2 Ajani's Presence 3 Aqueous Form 4 Defiant Strike 4 Gods Willing 1 Triton Tactics 1 Erase 2 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer 3 Stubborn Denial

2 (22)

4 Battlewise Hoplite 4 Hero of Iroas 1 Feat of Resistance 4 Ordeal of Heliod 4 Ordeal of Thassa 3 Valorous Stance 2 Disdainful Stroke

3 (4)

4 Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest

8 (3)

3 Treasure Cruise

53 Cards

Common (35)

3 Island 8 Plains 2 Tranquil Cove 2 Ajani's Presence 3 Aqueous Form 4 Defiant Strike 1 Feat of Resistance 4 Gods Willing 2 Disdainful Stroke 1 Erase 2 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer 3 Treasure Cruise

Uncommon (23)

4 Battlewise Hoplite 4 Favored Hoplite 4 Ordeal of Heliod 4 Ordeal of Thassa 1 Triton Tactics 3 Valorous Stance 3 Stubborn Denial

Rare (17)

A Runescape player was recently swatted while 60,000 people watched. When he tried to record a video about it, he broke down crying. A 19-year-old in Las Vegas was arrested for coordinating a swatting in Illinois. What motivates someone to take this dangerous step? I tracked down a self-professed swatter to find out.

How I got to that point requires a little setup.

One of my first stories at Kotaku was about a couple recounting their terrifying experience of being swatted while their three children were home with them. Swatting, if you don't know, involves a call being made to police about a violent but imaginary crime. That incident shared a common thread with other swattings: the use of someone else's personal information without their permission. To avoid being swatted, you'd want to keep your personal info offline as much as possible. As a follow-up, I researched ways to learn what parts of our lives are already online, and I published a piece outlining how to remove those items from the Internet.

When that second swatting piece went live, it wound up on the Twitch subreddit. A commenter by the name of ZeroExFF spoke up and said he helped organize several swattings in the past. He then described how he and others had used various techniques to obtain detailed personal information about folks using the customer service departments of PayPal, Amazon, and others.

The techniques ZeroExFF claimed to use are more commonly referred to as social engineering, as it requires tricking a human being to reveal information. Everything he said lined up with what I'd reported about social engineering in the past, and his admission piqued my interest.

When we discuss swatting and other forms of harassment, we understandably focus on the feelings and reactions of victims. We often forget to question the motivations of the harasser. I wanted to know more about that, and I hoped ZeroExFF could explain.

I messaged this self-professed swatter, and he quickly got back back to me. He created a new account on Skype, and we talked for about 90 minutes. What he told me was surprising and revealing about the psychology driving those who spend their time tormenting others on the Internet.

I do not know this person's name, but he claimed to be 16 years old, and he sounded young to me. He said his descent into the Internet underground began when he was 14 years old. Due to, he said, fears over potential legal action for events he was involved in over the past few years, ZeroExFF would not reveal specifics about his actions or disclose details about his life. The irony is not lost on me.

So there's a big caveat to all that follows. I can't prove its true. I can't prove that the stories he told me about how he'd deceive people to get personal information are real. I nevertheless believe it's important to try to understand this murkier side of one of the most notorious and dangerous forms of modern harassment. What follows is an attempt to get a more clear picture.

I ran excerpts from this conversation by several cybersecurity experts, all of whom told me ZeroExFF very much sounded like an individual who knew what they were talking about.

In his own words, here's what he told me.

Warning: There is some strong, potentially offensive language ahead.

The Reason You Invade Someone's Personal Life

Being able to intimidate someone is really fun, whether someone will admit it or not.

I'd get bored and wanted to see if I could trick X service into giving me Z information by doing Y type of call. It was a game to me. I found it fun. I never really released doxxes. I didn't see the point of it. I didn't care. I found it fun tricking the system into giving me information. I felt all-knowing, which is a feeling that a lot of people crave. I felt like I was something special. Not everyone could do this. And it's true! Not everyone can. You're gonna get someone who's just got a fucking terrible knack for it that can't do it, but I'm definitely not special for being able to.

I had that craving of feeling like the smartest person on the call or the smartest person in the room. I had that craving for it. I'm like that in real-life. Honestly, I surround myself with people who are actually really smart. My best friend in the world right now is probably one of the smartest fucking people I know. Again, it's that superiority thing, that you want to be better than people. I thought that would make me better than them. When, in reality, it put me quite a few pegs down. I was this immature kid who wanted to be known. Someone's going to be like "Well, they got bullied in their own school." No. Most of these people were probably the fucking class clowns and loved in their school.

Becoming Part Of The Doxxing Scene

I was learning Python [a programming language] about two years ago, and I ended up in this IRC [channel]. I don't want to call it the scene because that's what everyone's calling it, and it's not a scene. If it's a scene, it's a scene full of retards—self-proclaimed retards, too.

I had a question about the streamer I was watching at the time. I forgot how long it was. This was when Twitch.TV still had their old site design. They just added me to this group call with a few other people, and they were calling an ISP [to get information]. And I went, "OK, that's cool. That's interesting how that happens." I was already aware of it, but I had never been in a call with someone who did it. Honestly, I didn't care. I thought it was petty and stupid, and it is petty and stupid.

I guess they needed another one called in, so they were like "Hey, wanna do it?" And I was like "Sure, I'll do it." It was really easy, and it was fine.

It's like asking a girl out when you don't care, which is also something I did in high school before I left. A lot. My friends would give me $10, and I would just run around asking girls out, who I know would say no. Or breaking up with girls that I'm not going out with publicly. That's funny.

Having the voice is a big part of it. You need to be able to have a representative voice, right? You need to have the proper voice inflection. And I was just-so-lucky to work for DirectTV [through an external third-party service] for a year or two. All I did was talk to retards all day. I don't know if you've ever had a job where you answer phones, but the inflections that you use in your voice are much different than your everyday talk. It's that you want to appear as though you give a shit. Once you have the inflection down, and once you have what tools they use—which are public—you do anything.

I was calling COX for a friend. I called it in at four in the morning my time. The girl was like "COX chat support is currently closed, sir." I was like "Yeah, I'm residential, I take my work really seriously." And she was like "Oh, okay." And I got it [the info] anyways. It was so dumb.

I think COX or Time Warner started to implement this fraud protection, where if someone asks for any information over the phone, they'll just supervisor.exe, which is what we call getting a supervisor on you. If you get supervisored, you're fucked. You're not getting anything. You need to call back.

You can fuck with a supervisor. I got a Filipino supervisor once, and I fucked with him a little bit. I didn't get any information from him, but I offered to suck his dick for the account number. The guy started laughing. I basically fucked with him for 20 minutes about how I'd give him a hand job. I was just sitting there. Everyone was at my house and was just listening to me. "I will suck your dick for the account number." My brother's just looking at me going "What the fuck are you doing?" Maybe he wanted the dick sucking. I don't know.

Even With Fancy Passwords, We're Not Truly Safe

The exploits are anywhere you give your money. Those are the holes. Anyone you give your money, anyone who has your phone number, anyone who has your address—they're exploits. If their support line is based on human interaction, it's super easy.

I can call any ISP in the world, or I can get on chat support with any ISP in the world. We can get the tools they use. That's what you need to do before you call an ISP. You call them, and you say "Hi, my name is Richard, I work out of this region. This is my first day. I wasn't really listening to what my manager had to say. What is the tool to look up modems? Modem activity?" Stuff like that. Most of the time, they'll just give it to you. You ask them for their name and employee ID [EID], just to verify they're an actual employee is what you say. Most of them will believe it. "Oh, it's just this guy's first day. He doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. What's he going to do with my EID?" But then you call and say "Hi, my name is Elizabeth Wallace. My EID is 20657. Can I please get an IP lookup done? My workstation's having issues."

Most agents, I know more about the program than they do. I have to guide them through it in order to look up an IP. You don't need to be megamind, basically. That's the entire point of what I'm talking about. You can be retarded to do it.

People Think You're A Hollywood Hacker

It's really fun. Not to mention, to people who don't know any better, it's impressive. You can make money off it because they don't know they can just go and do it themselves. You can call any ISP left and right for $10 each. You can give them the information. I had a stipulation, though. If I called anyone's ISP and gave them their information and they had a SWAT team at the house within the next month and I was contacted by the police, I would give them their information—the person who bought it.

I didn't always condone swatting. I always thought it to be really immature and really kind of petty. That's why I didn't participate in it as much. The only times where I did—and I haven't done it in a while—was when I just had this uncanny hatred for them.

The first person ran around Minecraft servers getting kids on Skype, promising to give them items. Once he got them on Skype, he would dox them, get their parents on the phone, and basically try to trick their parents into sending them money. [pause] He was exploiting 8-year-olds for their parents' money. I didn't consider myself the fucking Batman of swat teams, but at the same time, he was getting recognition for it, which also bothered me. What's the police department going to do? No one knew his name at the time. Very few people actually go down. You don't get recognition for exploiting eight-year-olds. I'm sorry. You're not getting that, that's not gonna happen. There's no way. On top of that, you're exploiting eight-year-olds. That's so unfair.

Sure, it's one thing to mess with a teenager girl or a young, adult woman. That's one thing that's kinda fucked up. They're old enough to understand what's going on. They're old enough to understand that they can get past it. But an eight-year-old? Sometimes it was an eight-year-old girl. They're crying. That little kid thinks their life is over. They're done. Their Minecraft account's stolen. He would basically just exploit their parents—exploit them to exploit their parents to get money. It would work.

Your voice doesn't matter when you're swatting people. I mean, it matters to an extent, but the amount of shits police departments give is so fucking close to zero. Most people use the same story. "I'm in the basement with hostages at this address." If the place doesn't have a basement, just say in the master bedroom. "I have them tied up, back-to-back in chairs, I have bombs rigged to each window and door, I want a plane out of the country." You just create a hostage situation. Personally, I would say that and get the fuck out. That's how they catch people—people taking credit.

People argue that people can die when they're swatted. People can get shot. Which is true. People would say this on the call with the department: "If I see a police officer without the money, I will shoot him on sight." Once you start threatening police officers, they're more likely to fucking shoot someone. A swatting can work just the same when you say "I'm in the basement of this address with hostages. I'm done. Bye." That would work.

Will it get their door kicked in? Eh, maybe. But the SWAT team is gonna go, which is your main reasoning behind it.

A Few Safety Tips From Someone Who Knows Better

You have to get an ISP that people don't have methods for. And by methods, I mean what tools they use and what they're used for. People can get methods for it easily. Really easily. But a lot of people don't know how to get methods.

Put a lock on your account and make it so no one can call in about your account—at all. They can't call in, they can't even get your first name, they can't get the first digit of your account number, they can't call in about any issues. Once you have your ISP setup, call those motherfuckers every day until they do it. And if they say they've done it, make them do it again. You call them and say "I want to set up a password on my account and I want to verify my identity with the last four digits of my social security number whenever I call." They have a note section when they pull up the account on their tools that, in big bold letters, "get this fag's social security number." Do that.

On top of that, call your police department. That's pretty simple. If you're a streamer, if you have 500 followers, it doesn't matter. Call your police department and say "Hi, my name is so-and-so. I live at this address. This is my cell phone number. This is my home phone number. This is my email address. I do things on the Internet where it involves me being a public figure. My information might get released." Then, you politely ask them if they know what swatting is. If they say no, you're fucked. But they won't. Everyone knows what it is now.

The Cost Of Being A YouTuber

People think that getting swatted is the end game of the Internet. You're done for. It doesn't matter. As long as you don't have anything to hide, it really doesn't matter. If you have weed, put it under your bed or something. It doesn't end your life. You're fine. Are people gonna tweet at you and say "oh, your door got kicked in?" Yeah. Sure. But, I mean, you're still gonna go on about your day like you would have the day before. Once a month, are you gonna have to take take 30 minutes out of a Saturday night to make sure that your door's not getting kicked in? Sure. But that should be the cost of streaming. That should be the cost of being a YouTuber.

13 year olds can fuck up your night. Don't give a shit about it. Even if you care, pretend not to. That's gonna make you the joke. That's gonna make you someone they can go back to next Friday when they don't have to go to school in the morning. The best thing you can do, even if you're scared shitless—which, honestly, I'd call you a pussy for—but even if you're scared shitless and a SWAT team is going to come to your house, you need to play it off like you don't give a shit. A lot of people are put in this situation where they get tweeted at with "SWAT coming!" And their chat blows up. "You're getting swatted, holy shit!" You need to call the police right then and there, even if the team's already dispatched.

Sometimes, Even Swatters Grow A Conscience

Recognition and credit. That's the reason why it's done.

Can I steal your Netflix? Can I call in your Comcast? Can I break down your door? Yeah, sure. And? Should there be something special about that? No. It's [being] a glorified liar. It's all it is. I think a lot of people who are doing it understand it. I think they know, in their minds, they're nothing fucking special. But they have these people who follow them and they know who they are. They think they're special. Those people think that these people are really legitimate.

I have no doubt in my mind that, three years down the road, I'm still going to get questioned for shit I did this year. When I say this year, I do mean 2015.

I recently took a step back from all this from the big picture. I'm 16 years old, okay? I don't want to be risking my life. That's what I would be doing. I would be risking my life. I'm done with high school. That doesn't mean I'm smart—that means I did Internet school. Don't misconstrue that. All I have to do right now is save money and go to college. I can't go to college for another year or two, which is fine. That's all I have to do, and then I'm 20, I could literally fuck all of that up by continuing to do what I was doing. All of it. That just didn't seem reasonable to me.

It just didn't seem like I was getting enough pleasure from it. I was sitting there and this girl just got her door kicked down. She's crying.

I've been swatted before. All I have to say about it is that I didn't care. I told the police officers "This is his Twitter username, he tweeted at me. This is the IP I resolved from Skype. This is this, this is that." They wouldn't do anything with it, and they'd be on their own. I just didn't care. It was a minor inconvenience for me. It's not like they kicked down my door.

I explained this to my real-life friends, too. "What's swatting? Why are you in cuffs? Why are the police always at your house?" And I explained it to them. "Why do you do that?" That was when I questioned myself. My friends are like "What the fuck are you doing? Why are you doing this?" I was like "It's fun." "It's fun to ruin someone's night? What do you mean?"

At the time, I was like 15, and I was like "Yeah, I'm trolling 'em!" They're like "No, you're not. You're not trolling anyone. You're being a dick." And I was like "Damn, dude. Fuck. He's right."

I think trolling is a big part of this. That's this kind of era. It's just fucked up in [and] of itself. Is it fun to troll around with people and fuck with them in a video game? I'm not saying to drop [release] their dox, but is it fun to try and antagonize? Yeah, it can be. Is it fun to spam 8chan with Rick Astley? Sure, it's pretty fun. That's trolling. That's the innocent "Ha ha ha! Got you!" kind of shit. And these people, like I did, are considering this "Ha ha ha, your door's kicked down and your dog is dead! Gotcha!" type of thing.

It's just escalating. It's going to continue to escalate. It's stupid.

The reason why this is such an issue is because everyone seems to care about it on Twitter. These public figures, senators and stuff. They seem to give a shit, right? But what are they doing to stop it? Everyone needs to ask them. They aren't doing anything.

That's really all I have to say about why it's done. They want everyone to know what they are and what they do, and they want people to be scared of them.

Illustration by Tara Jacoby

You can reach the author of this post at patrick.klepek@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @patrickklepek.

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Here's a short but intense Half-Life 2 fan-clip by animator Nathan Hibberd. His version of the game's annoying little enemy steals airboats, uses machine guns and acts like a crazy cartoon character.

It even scares itself when suddenly realises that it doesn't know how to drive.

To contact the author of this post, write to: gergovas@kotaku.com

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Had League of Legends been released in the 90s, it might have been released on a floppy disk. Okay, make that a ton of floppy disks.

Here's a funny take on what a League of Legends commercial from the 90's might have looked like. In a word: cheesy. Very cheesy. But that's exactly what makes this rizenvisual trailer so great.

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(AZFamily.com)

Not only did he purchase the watch for far less than its value, but he got change back at the Goodwill store in Phoenix for handing over $6 for a $5.99 total, reports AZFamily.com.

He’s not just any browsing shopper, however, as he has an eye for vintage watches and has been collecting them for some time [pun intended] and thus was able to pick out a rare 1959 Jaeger-LeCoultre diving watch. He says only about 900 of the watches were ever made.

“I didn’t even want to give it to her to scan,” he said of when it came time to pay. “I was like, you can scan it in my hand if you want to. I just didn’t want to let it go.”

So how could Goodwill miss something so valuable? Anyone could make the same mistake, in his opinion.

“Sometimes they just miss it, they don’t know,” he explained. “It’s not a very fancy-looking piece. You have to know what it is.”

He sold it for $35,000 on a watch collectors website, and also got a $4,000 Mega Speed Master watch to boot. He’s planning on using the dough for his upcoming nuptials — and also donated some of the profits back to the Goodwill.

Phoenix man finds rare watch at Goodwill store [AZFamily.com]

[unable to retrieve full-text content]

“An old white lab thinks it's his responsibility to walk the dachshund.” (more…)

Tingle, map-seller in The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask, is a man in his mid-30s who wears a green fairy suit. Presumed by some—incorrectly, it turns out—to be gay, he is one of Nintendo's most unusual characters. I recently asked Nintendo's top Zelda creator what Tingle's origins were.

"I guess the heart of the character there is a little bit of a gag kind of feeling to it," longtime Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma told me through a translator during a New York-Kyoto telephone interview last week. We were talking about Tingle's debut in Majora's Mask back in 2000. The game has just been remade for the 3DS.

"The way the design of the character started is that we needed to think about how the character—the player—would get access to maps in this game. Of course, you could go with a situation where, as soon as he sees an area, you just open up your map and it fills in for you, but we wanted to do something a little bit different.

"So, we thought, what if you had to buy maps? Then suddenly we needed a character that you would be buying maps from. We ultimately ended up with a character here that had a little bit of humor to him that [came from] thinking of...'What sort of person would sell a map?' And, well, we decided it would be the kind of person who makes a map. And the way that he makes a map is by floating through the air so that he can see the contours of the land and draw them.

"But as soon as we got that far in the process, we realized anybody that would fly through the air making a map has got to be a really weird person. So at that point we decided, okay, we'll go with this and make him a really weird guy."

The Zelda Wiki notes that Tingle is more popular outside of America than in it. In 2004, IGN's GameCube site launched a "Die, Tingle, Die! Die!" campaign, dubbing the character far too annoying for the Zelda series. Tingle would star in his own game, the silly Zelda parody adventure Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, but that game never came to America—even though it was translated into English for its European release. (I played it, was fascinated by it and dubbed it the meanest game Nintendo ever made). In 2006, GayGamer named Tingle as the gayest character in video games.

He has shown up in several Zelda games since then and was most recently released as part of a downloadable character pack for the Wii U Zelda spin-off game Hyrule Warriors.

This is what Tingle says when you shoot him out of the air in Majora's Mask. So, yeah, as Aonuma said, he seems different and is pretty much portrayed as a man-child.

I asked about Tingle dressing up as a fairy and where all that came from.

Aonuma continued: "So when we made the character, we had this notion that one of the ways he might be a little bit weird is that he had this notion that he never wanted to grow up. And so I think, to that extent the clothes do fit this image of him. And the whole thing comes together as a very Peter Pan kind of visual. You know, if you think about it, it's this guy in his 30s in a green suit and is flying and never wants to grow up, it all sort of comes together around that."

All well and good, but I had to ask: Is he gay?

Aonuma: "He's not gay. He's just an odd person."

For more from my conversation with Aonuma, check out this story, which delves into how Zelda dungeons are made and how Majora's Mask was designed for adults.

To contact the author of this post, write to stephentotilo@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @stephentotilo.

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We want to trust our friends and family, but sometimes they lie to us. Sometimes, they troll us. What follows are the funny (and tragic) stories people shared with me about gaming gone awry. No one will be surprised to learn many happen to involve a big brother being a jerk.

This all started when I was scrolling through the Dark Souls subreddit and found this gem:

Immediately after sharing this story on Twitter, a follower shared a similar story of deception:

In Metal Gear Solid, smoking cigarettes slowly depletes your health over time. Poor guy!

The game was afoot. I put out the call for more of these stories and was rewarded by learning some of my followers are total monsters and others may need to look into therapy sessions.

I frequently stream horror games on the Internet, and one of my biggest fears is my wife will burst into the room and scare the crap out of me. So far, this hasn't happened, but she keeps the threat alive. One day, it will happen. One day, the Internet will watch me cry on a livestream.

This one's so cruel because it's so damn believable. In Eternal Darkness, players expected the game to mess with them. In fact, one of the sanity effects is where the TV appears to turn off!

Justin, you have bad friends, but I have to respect their commitment to the joke, especially since there's an implication this happened multiple times, and you went on hours of pointless quests.

You, sir, are one of history's greatest monsters. Thank you for doing what you do. That said, I'm surprised people had the dedication to head back to shore. Don't you have to tap a button to swim at full-speed, too? Does that mean people were tapping a button for eight minutes? Dude!

Truly a classic. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure I fell for that during Counter-Strike one time.

I believe I've saved the best for last, though it comes with a caveat. There are spoilers for Earthbound. If you haven't played one of the greatest JRPGs ever played, you might want to skip this one. Then again, it's so damn funny, I'd recommend you just keep on reading anyway.

Last warning! Spoilers for Earthbound are coming! Alert! Alert! I'm no longer at fault!

Okay, here we go.

So, you know how the final battle requires you to finally use the "pray" option? It's a mostly useless battle tool for healing a few HP, but you quickly forget it even exists. Thing is, it's the key to finishing Earthbound, and part of why the ending's so touching. Please keep this in mind...

Please continue, Donald.

This is all I can think about while reading this tweet.

Step up, Kotaku! How have you been trolled? Or, more likely, how have you trolled others?

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In 1982, the much-loved and sadly now defunct BBC TV show Tomorrow's World took a look at "one ordinary finger and one rather extraordinary TV screen." The result are touching, in more than one sense of the word.

Marvel, as this chap's finger renders ASCII text onscreen before your very eyes (QPR, for what it's worth, are the initials of an English football club). In fact, as is explained in the video, this was one of the first IR touchscreens, which measured where your finger was using beams of light rather the resistance or capacitance within the screen. Remember them? Things get even weirder when he gets to possible applications, though—but I won't ruin that surprise (spoiler: it's not an iPhone). [BritLab]

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The new Jeff billboards posted at a bus stop in Montevideo, Uruguay.

In response to an L.A. Times article on the Oliver mocking — which not only introduced the new Marlboro Man, Jeff The Diseased Lung In A Cowboy Hat, but also the wildly popular hashtag #JeffWeCan — Philip Morris issued a statement that tries to minimize the seriousness of the claims made in the story while simultaneously acknowledging that the company’s products kill people.

First off, the statement takes the approach of trying to negate the 18-minute, thoroughly researched report by pointing out that it dares to come from someone with a sense of humor:

“’Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’ is a parody show, known for getting a laugh through exaggeration and presenting partial views in the name of humor. The segment includes many mischaracterizations of our company, including our approach to marketing and regulation, which have been embellished in the spirit of comedic license.”

Okay… so this should be where the very serious folks at Philip Morris go point by point and explain where Oliver exaggerated and embellished, but they don’t. It’s a classic non-response in which the accused tried to undercut the accuser’s argument by claiming he can’t possibly be providing the truth.

Philip Morris does not deny using threats of lawsuits to keep countries Uruguay from enacting tougher regulations on cigarette packaging.

It does, in an after-note, link to a 2014 explainer post from Philip Morris International saying that Uruguay was violating a trade agreement with Switzerland by requiring a warning label that covered 80% of the packaging.

Then there’s this brief gem from the statement:

“While we recognize the tobacco industry is an easy target for comedians, we take seriously the responsibility that comes with selling a product that is an adult choice and is harmful to health.”

The tobacco industry is an easy target for comedians because it has a long history of risible behavior. And how can Philip Morris expected to be taken seriously when it readily admits that the products it sells are “harmful to health”?

Philip Morris doesn’t need to blame comedians when it makes statements like this:
“We support and comply with thousands of regulations worldwide — including advertising restrictions, penalties for selling tobacco products to minors, and substantial health warnings on packaging.”

First off, the tobacco industry doesn’t support these regulations. It only supports the ones it can’t fight in a courtroom. Once it loses a battle — or realizes a battle can’t be won — then suddenly Big Tobacco, just like every other heavily regulated industry, claims to support and abide by the rules.

For example, Big Tobacco went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to fight graphic warning labels — which were mandated by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act all the way back in 2009. And even after SCOTUS rejected the industry’s appeal, Philip Morris’ partner-in-carcinogens Lorillard stated that “there will obviously be a good deal more litigation to come on this topic.”

It’s been nearly two years since that rare tobacco industry legal loss and we still have no idea if or when the labeling provision of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act will be enacted.

So no, the tobacco industry has absolutely no respect for attempts to educate and inform consumers. They just have respect for the few regulations they haven’t been successfully able to defeat in court.

Philip Morris would also have you believe that after more than a century of selling cigarettes, it suddenly cares about customers’ health:

“We’re investing billions into developing and scientifically assessing a portfolio of products that have the potential to be less harmful and that are satisfying so smokers will switch to them.”

Finally, in its closing sentence, Philip Morris gets into some actual specifics of why it takes such drastic actions to protect its products — aside from the billions it makes by giving people cancer and lung disease:

“And, like any other company with a responsibility to its business partners, shareholders and employees, we ask only that laws protecting investments, including trademarks, be equally applied to us.”

That’s honestly the best Philip Morris and Big Tobacco can come up with — We’ve spent a lot of money and have a lot of investors so please don’t mess with our packaging because it might cause us to earn smaller profits.

It’s an argument that might be tenable if cigarettes did anything other than poison the people who buy them — or live in the same house with them.

Anyway, here is the full Last Week Tonight piece that has already been seen watched nearly 2 million times since yesterday morning:

4gifs:

Be sure to rotate your owls every 6,000 miles. [video]