Bewarethewumpus

Author : Connor Harbison

It was a bright and stormy orbit. Wave after wave of solar radiation buffeted the Barracuda, wreaking havoc with her electronics and damaging her solar sails. Captain Aguilar frowned at the display on the bridge.

“Sir, the mainsail can’t take much more of this. We had to bring in the mizzen, and the foresail is showing signs of strain too,” said Lieutenant Chen.

“Can we bring all the sails in? Just ride out the storm on this trajectory?”

“Negative, sir. Our outermost sensors are already fried. If we stay put eventually everything will shut down, first sail controls, then shielding, and finally life support and other crucial systems.”

“I see.”

Not an enviable situation to be in. Aguilar had only been in one other stellar storm of this magnitude. At that time Aguilar had been a midshipman, and there were more senior officers on which to rely. Now it was all on his shoulders; every soul aboard the Barracuda depended on the captain to see them to safety.

“Adjust the mainsail and foresail to catch the brunt of the stellar wind,” Aguilar decided. “Unfurl the mizzen as well. I want a full press of carbon.”

“Yes sir.”

Aguilar watched apprehensively as the carbon nanotube sails unfurled then adjusted themselves. Seconds later the entire ship began to change direction, running before the cascades of high energy particles ejected by the nearby star.

“Captain, we’re getting reports from the crew that the sails are tearing.”

“It’s not coming up on any of the displays.”

“The sensors that feed into those displays went offline hours ago. We’re relying on old fashioned word of mouth from the crew.”

“Very well. Inform them that the sails will stay up. Tell the helmsman to bring her four points to starboard.”

“Right away, sir.”

Lieutenant Chen carried out the captain’s orders, keeping his reservations to himself. Aguilar was unorthodox at times, but he always got the right results in the end. Chen hoped for his own sake, and that of the crew, that the captain knew what he was doing this time.

“Captain, mizzen is in shreds, foresail is almost the same. The mainsail is holding, but I’m not sure for how long. There are a dozen tears in it.”

“Fine, fine. Stow all sails. Get them out of this bombardment.”

Lieutenant Chen never knew how the captain could stay so calm in dire straits like these. He relayed the orders before looking to Aguilar expectantly.

“What now, sir?

“Now? We wait.”

…

The Barracuda was down to basic life support and communications by the time they picked up a friendly signal.

“This is Vanquisher Station, come in Barracuda.”

“Captain Aguilar of the Barracuda. We’ll need help coming in to dock. Our sails were ripped up in the stellar storm and we don’t have much in the way of control. Right now we’re just coasting on inertia.”

“You made it through that storm? A dozen ships must have been lost in that. We’re still repairing the station.”

“Well add another item to your repair list,” said Captain Aguilar. “The Barracuda needs to be made whole.

Via Nashville television station WSMV:

In Portland, TN, a towering billboard quotes a Leviticus passage from the Old Testament: "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination." Ronnie Monday, a Vietnam veteran, is the man behind the message. He commissioned the billboard and paid for it with donations from some friends. It has been up for four months. "When the president came out and indicated that he thought that gay marriage was OK, that was pretty much the last straw," Monday said. Love it or hate it, residents will have to get used to it. The contract on the billboard has been renewed for another six months. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And he says it's wrong. And in my opinion, that's what it is, it's wrong," Monday said.

Dan Savage reacts:

When we bring up God's holy ban on eating shellfish or His loving command to kill your daughter if she isn't a virgin on her wedding night—passages in the Bible that Christians ignore—we're told that those passages are in the Old Testament, silly, so they neither apply nor matter to Christians because Jesus. Leviticus 18:22 goes on to say that men who lie with men as with women should be put to death. (Can't you just feel the love for people, people?) But if someone else were to put up a billboard in Portland proclaiming that all women who aren't virgins on their wedding nights should be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)—or that adulterers like Mark Sanford and David Vitter must be put to death (Leviticus 10:10) or that women should be forced to marry their rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28-29). Basically: It's fair game for them to use the Old Testament to beat up queers, but it's not fair for queers to use that same Old Testament to highlight their hypocrisy.

Think back to playing Goldeneye multiplayer. Or Halo. The absolute worst thing you could do was to "cheat" by looking at your opponent's screen. Well, there's now a video game that's all about that cheating.

It's called, appropriately, Screencheat, which Nathan covered earlier in the year but which I played a bit of over the weekend. It's a fairly simple multiplayer shooter with a very different twist: everyone is invisible. So you have to look at your opponent's screen, since that's the only way you can play the game.

It certainly takes some getting used to, as the way we've been trained to play a shooter is so instinctual that forcing yourself to look away from your portion of the screen is hard work. But once it comes together, it's a blast. Games of Screencheat are utterly chaotic in the best possible way, players flailing around a map shooting into empty rooms and killing people all the time, sometimes on purpose, sometimes completely by accident.

If you're thinking the game sounds impossible, there are a few things helping you out. The maps are divided into clear identifiable sections, either by colour or design, so that you can quickly and easily get an idea of where your opponents are. Your characters aren't entirely invisible, either; every time you discharge or swing a weapon, the muzzle flash/swipe action shows up, giving everyone a precise (if momentary) glimpse at your location.

Screencheat is $10 on Steam. It's out on sometime in October.

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Scottish readers: Undecided about the referendum? Please read Scottish Independence, Power And Propaganda.

Today, Microsoft confirmed its plan to purchase Mojang, the studio responsible for the wildly popular video game Minecraft, for $2.5 billion. The purchase will give Microsoft one of the most popular brands in video games. The acquisition will not, however, secure Minecraft's creator.

This morning, Markus "Notch" Persson announced he will be leaving the studio he created. He posted the following letter onto his website and Pastebin.

I'm leaving Mojang
September 15th, 2014
I don't see myself as a real game developer. I make games because it's fun, and because I love games and I love to program, but I don't make games with the intention of them becoming huge hits, and I don't try to change the world. Minecraft certainly became a huge hit, and people are telling me it's changed games. I never meant for it to do either. It's certainly flattering, and to gradually get thrust into some kind of public spotlight is interesting.

A relatively long time ago, I decided to step down from Minecraft development. Jens was the perfect person to take over leading it, and I wanted to try to do new things. At first, I failed by trying to make something big again, but since I decided to just stick to small prototypes and interesting challenges, I've had so much fun with work. I wasn't exactly sure how I fit into Mojang where people did actual work, but since people said I was important for the culture, I stayed.

I was at home with a bad cold a couple of weeks ago when the internet exploded with hate against me over some kind of EULA situation that I had nothing to do with. I was confused. I didn't understand. I tweeted this in frustration. Later on, I watched the This is Phil Fish video on YouTube and started to realize I didn't have the connection to my fans I thought I had. I've become a symbol. I don't want to be a symbol, responsible for something huge that I don't understand, that I don't want to work on, that keeps coming back to me. I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm not a CEO. I'm a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.

As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I'll probably abandon it immediately.

Considering the public image of me already is a bit skewed, I don't expect to get away from negative comments by doing this, but at least now I won't feel a responsibility to read them.

I'm aware this goes against a lot of what I've said in public. I have no good response to that. I'm also aware a lot of you were using me as a symbol of some perceived struggle. I'm not. I'm a person, and I'm right there struggling with you.

I love you. All of you. Thank you for turning Minecraft into what it has become, but there are too many of you, and I can't be responsible for something this big. In one sense, it belongs to Microsoft now. In a much bigger sense, it's belonged to all of you for a long time, and that will never change.

It's not about the money. It's about my sanity.

Late night host John Oliver discusses both sides of the Scottish independence referendum debate before begging the country to stay part of the United Kingdom in the style of a romantic comedy film.

 

[bluechaircomics/via webtoons]

stand-up-comic-gifs:

Kumail Nanjiani on the Mash Up pilot

With this design, Smash Bros. suddenly looks like a scene from Samurai Jack in Toxodentrail's excellent fan-art.

Here's the full picture with Link and Charizard included:

Be-all and Smash-all by Toxodentrail [DeviantART]

Dayshot is an image-based feature that runs every morning, showcasing some of the prettiest, funniest game-related screenshots and art that we can find. Send us suggestions if you've got them.

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

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Scottish readers: Undecided about the referendum? Please read How the media shafted the people of Scotland and Scottish Independence, Power And Propaganda.

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If you ran a large and prosperous online payments company, you might feel threatened by Apple’s announcement that they’ will start their own mobile payments service, called Apple Pay. Not PayPal, though. Nope. Paypal isn’t scared. In fact, PayPal has started taunting Apple over security issues, mocking the company over the recent public dump of nude celebrity self-portraits that had been stolen and circulated online.

It is rather odd that two Internet companies are taking out ads in a newspaper, but makes sense when you think about it: nobody looks at online banner ads.

Here’s the full-page color ad, originally put online by PandoDaily:

Of course, Apple wants users to know that its systems weren’t breached during the global selfie crisis: baddies gained access to photos never meant for the public through social engineering, most likely guessing at answers to password reset questions such as the account holder’s birthday or the name of the elementary school they attended. (See, there’s a good reason for entertainers to lie about their ages.) Keeping accounts secure is important, but at the same time no online service wants to be so secure that it’s onerous for users to log in. Eventually, they’ll stop bothering.

PayPal surely won’t be the first competitor to mock Apple. Congress wants to learn more about how the attacks happened, and Apple CEO Tim Cook has promised that the company will put more safeguards in place to keep strangers from changing your password behind your back.

No online service will ever be immune to human greed or human stupidity. Baddies try to get PayPal customers’ data all of the time.

“We the people want our money safer than our selfies.” PayPal goes after Apple in a full page NYT ad [PandoDaily]

Goat Simulator, the best game we've played about being a goat, is now available on iOS and Android for $4.99. Developer Armin Ibrisagic promises that it has "all the bugs from the PC version."

Goat Simulator for iOS and Android is coming on 18th of September!

- Price point: $4.99 - We have included all the bugs from the PC version

— Armin Ibrisagic (@Arminposts) September 15, 2014

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Scottish readers: Undecided about the referendum? Please read How the media shafted the people of Scotland and Scottish Independence, Power And Propaganda.

New exclusive comic at The Nib!

Give it Up is a new track released yesterday by Israeli musician and composer Kutiman. The song was created entirely using vocal and instrument tracks lifted from 23 different YouTube videos of mostly amateur musicians, credited here. If you liked this, you’ll be happy to learn this is just the first track off his upcoming album Thru You Too which the artist says will be comprised entirely of unrelated YouTube videos.

In other composing-music-with-videos news, Andrew Huang created a version of the 80s hit 99 Red Balloons… using only red balloons. Included here for your listening pleasure.

(via Adam Savage)

It’s another fine day in Crab City — a fine day for murder.

I’m thinkin’ there’ll be at least one more day of this arc, possibly more — going to figure it out as I go.

Are you enjoying the strip? Please consider becoming a Patreon patron! A buck or more a month from you helps keep the comics flowing.

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Previously: LaVar Burton Reads 'Blue-Ribbon Dad'

[readingrainbow]

The US government's threat that it would fine Yahoo $250,000 per day back in 2008 was bad enough by itself, but declassified documents show that the penalties could easily have been much, much worse. Marc Zwillinger and Jacob Sommer (who were on...

Sometimes boiling down a movie or book to a few sentences can have amusing results.