Bewarethewumpus

Author : Bob Newbell

“Throw the switch!” Dr. Victor Frankenstein yelled to his assistant over the roar of the wind and the incessant peals of thunder.

“Yes, master!” replied the diminutive lackey as he pulled down on the enormous knife switch on the wall of the laboratory.

The low hum of the motor that lifted the platform containing the body was inaudible over the sound of the storm. The scientist watched as the oblong table was hoisted higher and higher until it reached the top of the exposed turret of the castle. The metallic platform was now positioned so the electrical contacts connected it to the lighting rod bolted to the turret’s brickwork.

Just a matter of time, thought Frankenstein to himself. A minute passed. Two minutes. Three. Suddenly, a bolt of lighting struck the metal rod. The massive discharge ran into the table as well as into the eight foot tall conglomerate corpus that rested upon it. Sparks flew and the entire apparatus in the turret rang like a bell.

“Lower the platform!” Frankenstein commanded.

The servant obeyed and brought the table back down to the floor of the lab. The platform was charred by the lighting strike. A few wisps of smoke rose from the massive figure that lay there. The scientist rushed over to the body and auscultated the chest. He heard a faint heartbeat. He observed the creature’s chest beginning to slowly, rhythmically rise and fall. The monster’s right hand twitched and rose from the table.

“HE’S ALIVE!” shrieked Frankenstein with delight.

The creature slowly sat up on the table. It looked around the laboratory, then its gaze fell upon the scientist and his minion. The giant patchwork man’s lip curled into a sneer as a low, deep growl came from his throat. The thing swung its legs off the table and stood up. It extended its arms toward Frankenstein and started walking stiffly and awkwardly toward the doctor.

“Stop!” commanded Dr. Frankenstein. “Stop! Go back to the table! I am your creator! I order you to stop!”

The monster kept advancing. Frankenstein’s small assistant picked up a chair to use as a makeshift club, but the creature sensed what the man was about to do. The giant grabbed the fellow by the shirt and hurled him at the mad scientist. As the stunned pair scrambled to their feet, the great homunculus raised its arms menacingly and roared. Frankenstein and his lackey ran out of the lab.

Just then, a glowing sphere of energy descended from the sky and moved down the turret of the castle and into the lab. It hovered in front of the monster.

“What are you doing?” the luminous ovoid asked via a modulated radio pulse.

The monster glowed with a green phosphorescence. A strange light moved away from the giant and collected itself into a sphere next to its counterpart. The creature immediately collapsed to the ground.

“Just having some fun,” the newly formed energy-being responded. “I saw these silly corporeals trying to animate this dead aggregate of organic tissues they’d patched together. I rode down on one of this planet’s atmospheric electrical discharges and indwelled that cadaver. You should have seen how they reacted when I made it move about.” The immaterial alien laughed.

“Well, if you’ve finished frightening the local fauna, the survey team is ready to move on. There’s no intelligent life on this world. The system has a couple of gas giants that are likelier abodes for civilization. Let’s get back to the ship.”

Author : Logan Smith

Zach glanced at the time flashing in the corner of his vision. 3:58 am. Class in five hours, and he hadn’t caught a wink of sleep. He took his glasses off, setting them on their charging dock before turning back to his computer. The newest Tesla design had hit the market the morning prior.

It was only a matter of time before it hit the torrent sites. Zach swiped through a few different tabs, mindlessly refreshing the pages in the hopes that something would appear. Just before he was about to call it quits and crash for the night, a new seed appeared.

It wasn’t posted by a team he recognized but he grabbed it anyway, selecting his family’s garage printer and enabling the ‘build as you go’ option in the torrent client. Only a handful of seeders, so it would take a awhile, but the new car should be done by the time he got back from class that afternoon.

***

Waving goodbye to his girlfriend and promising to call her when he got home, Zach stepped off the TransLoop car. He sprinted the last block home. An incoming call appeared before his eyes just as he reached the door and he opened the chat with his girl as he fumbled with the house key. Bursting in and tossing his pack aside, he hurried to the garage, linking the visual feed of his glasses to the call.

***

Emily cupped her hands over her brow, trying to ward off the fluorescent glare of the tunnel lights cutting through the loopcar window. The top right corner of her field of view was filled with a shaky feed of Zach’s hallway. Didn’t look like his parents were home. She wished she’d went home with him.

When Zach stepped into the garage, it took a moment for the feed to adjust to the low light levels. Two hundred miles apart, Zach and Emily frowned in unison. The garage was dimly lit, but it was obvious there was no shiny new Tesla roadster sitting in the printer. She was about to say something about download speeds when she heard Zach yelp, in fear or pain or a mixture of both. The feed jolted and cut out for a few seconds before resuming upside down with a few of Zach and something else a few feet away.

Zach was being forced into submission by what looked like a full-sized glossy plastic version of a painter’s posing model, all cylindrical limbs and knobby joints. It was so fresh off the printer that it still had bits of plastic shavings stuck to it’s form. The robot drone model thing was zip-cuffing Zach’s hands behind his back, evidently unphased by his terrified screaming. Zach scrunched his body up and tried to push himself upright but the drone reacted almost instantly, slamming him back down and planting a knee in Zach’s back. The sudden movement triggered the old motion lights in the garage, illuminating the scene for Emily to fully witness.

Etched into the drone’s shoulders, breast, and otherwise featureless head were the letters “TESLA”. The drone rolled Zach over so he could see his captor for himself, and then it spoke.

“Zachary Marquez. You are hereby subject to detention for violation of the Defense of Commerce Act for the theft and illegal manufacture of Tesla Motors property. The terms of your detention will be defined within six to eight weeks pending case review. Please wait. You will be transferred to a Temporary Detention Site shortly.”

Stuart Brown's fantastic YouTube series A Brief History Of Graphics starts in just about the most perfect way imaginable: "They say graphics aren't important...but every game I've ever played has had them".

Running over five parts, the series takes an in-depth (but also accessible) look at the evolution of video game graphics, from the very beginnings of the medium through to today's complex 3D visuals.

If you care at all about the history of video games, or even just want to learn exactly how things have evolved (and what some of the most important titles have been), it's a must-watch.

Note that only episodes 1-4 are available. Episode 5 should be out tomorrow.

Pixel Pioneers [YouTube, via Fast Co]

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A Fox Amiibo—as in, a CPU-controlled version of a character housed in a tiny action figure—took third place in a Smash Bros tournament against real humans. It was a Fox Amiibo. Of course it was Fox.

Twitch streamer dazee recounted the tale in a series of tweets (as spotted by NeoGAF). At a local Smash tournament in Richmond, British Columbia, a Fox Amiibo named WaveShine rose through the ranks and nearly took the whole thing. He (or she? I don't know how Amiibos process gender in their cold, plasticine circuits) made it all the way to the losers finals, taking on one of the best Smash players in the region in the process.

Just look at it, sitting motionlessly in front of a controller, scheming. Has science finally gone too far? Robots already took chess from us. Now this? Does humanity's future lie not in the lap of technology-borne luxury, but rather in the clammy iron grip of an army of elite combat action figures, our own metaphorical Final Destination (no items, naturally)?

I'm joking, of course. And it should be noted that high-level Amiibos get some pretty serious boosts to damage and other stats. This wasn't really a fair fight. Even if an Amiibo's AI isn't perfect, it still packs a mean(er than normal) punch.

Still, it's pretty funny. I also find it fascinating, because we continue to see Amiibos being used in ways I doubt Nintendo intended. I have to admit, I wasn't sold on the concept at first. All I saw was a cheap Ninty knock-off of a concept Skylanders turned from cheap to plastic to pure gold.

Conceptually, though, these things pair pretty perfectly with Smash. Fighting game players frequently refer to "their" version of a character—the unique fusion of that player and character's identities—and Amiibos are a physical extension of that. I finally gave into my "alright, this is kinda neat" impulse when people started customizing them. I gave into my nightmares about Animal Crossing's villager shortly after.

Now, to add to that, we have an instance of an Amiibo doing its own thing... shockingly well. I think it's time for an all-Amiibo tournament next. Seriously! I think it'd be really cool if people tweaked and tinkered with Amiibos specifically to make them compete against each other. And then we'd see professional Amiibo trainers, Amiibo gyms all over the world, a series of badges you'd earn for defeating them and wait I just described Pokemon. But the first thing I said—the tournament stuff—that'd be dandy.

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neptunain:

who is this person

The Amiibo Samus figure Redditor Adam "Adamantium126" Truesdale received from Best Buy might not be able to enjoy a cup of coffee or open manual doors, but who cares when you've got double the firepower?

According to a Gamespot interview with the lucky owner of no-hands Samus, he didn't even realize the figure had two cannons until a friend pointed it out. Luckily he was able to procure a "normal" Samus, and her awesome twin remains encased in her plastic shell, to show up on eBay a few years from now as a super-rare variant.

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the lammily doll goes on sale next week for $25

The brainchild of 26-year-old graphic designer Nickolay Lamm, the “Lammily” doll will begin shipping next week with the sales pitch that “average is beautiful.”

Lamm based the physique of his doll from statistics provided by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), calculating that the “average” 19-year-old was five feet, four inches (163.3 centimeters) tall, weighed 150 pounds (68 kilograms) and measured 33.5 inches (85 centimeters) around the chest. (x)

i like this, but i’d make one change: rather than “average is beautiful”, i’d say “realistic is beautiful”.

Solar Flare from a Sharper Sun

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Pokémon fans are having a field day with IGN’s latest review of Omega Ruby & Alpha Sapphire for Nintendo 3DS after the gaming review site listed “too much water” as one of its drawbacks.

In a branding combination that goes together like Bob Marley black light posters and college students, the late musician’s family says it’s starting a new line of Bob Marley marijuana. If you need someone to explain the relationship between Marley and Mary Jane, go ask your 19-year-old niece/nephew/son/daughter living in the basement.

The family has partnered up with a private equity firm that focuses on the cannabis industry called Privateer Holdings. The two have struck a 30-year licensing deal, reports Fast Company, to create Marley Natural (what, not Marleyjuana?!), a pot brand that will have a slew of products on the market at dispensaries around late 2015.

The line will come plastered with the new Marley Natural logo of a lion, which is an important symbol to Rastafarians, anchored with two leaves. Products include topical things hemp-derived lotions and the like, as well as six “heirloom” strains of marijuana that were personal favorites of Marley.

“We really want the products to be rooted in Bob’s life and in his message, and be authentic to his Jamaican roots,” Privateer CEO Brendan Kennedy told Fast Company. “We’re doing everything out of respect for Bob and out of respect for his vision.”

The deal had to be worked out in secret ahead of today’s announcement, seeing as the company’s headquarters is in New York City, where recreational pot is not legal.

MOVE OVER, AIR JORDAN: CELEBRITY-BRANDED WEED IS HERE [Fast Company]

It’s taken the media at large many months to catch on, but Amazon reviewers have been up in arms over a book from Mattel’s “I Can Be” Barbie series, I Can Be A Computer Engineer (Mattel created a Computer Engineer Barbie in 2010 as well) for months now. Why? Because Barbie doesn’t seem to actually do anything a computer engineer does, only has the skills to design a game and needs the help of men to code it and heck, she can’t even reboot her computer right.

Let’s set the scene, as noted by Pamie.com yesterday and subsequently posted to Reddit: Barbie is working on her laptop one morning, eating yogurt as one does in front of computers, and Skipper asks what she’s up to. She’s busy computering, it seems.

“I’m designing a game that shows kids how computers work,” explains Barbie. “You can make a robot puppy do cute tricks by matching up colored blocks!”

Right on, girl power! Wait — designing adorable puppies is one thing, but they need to be coded.

“Your robot puppy is so sweet,” says Skipper. “Can I play your game?”

“I’m only creating the design ideas,” Barbie says, laughing. “I’ll need Steven and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game!”

Yes, really.

She then proceeds to give her computer a virus while failing to email her design ideas to the boys who must help her, and can’t figure out to reboot her computer. If that’s not bad enough, she also puts a virus on Skipper’s laptop, losing all her important homework files.

And yes, there’s more — a whole lot, including a scene where the boys tell Barbie she can fix things faster if they help, and the end where Barbie takes the credit for all the work she didn’t do and gets extra credit to boot: ” ‘I guess I can be a computer engineer!” says Barbie happily.’ “

Those are not the messages parents say they want their daughters to hear, as reviewers have been noting on the Amazon reviews of the book since January. It’s part of a two-pack offering along with I Can Be An Actress.

Of course there’s been an avalanche of negative reviews since yesterday, but the bad reviews stretch back 11 months.

January 31, 2014:

I found the sexist drivel that this book portays[sic] to be especially inflammatory, so much so that I’ve placed it near my fireplace for emergency use during a power outage. The demeaning words add extra fuel as they certainly come from the fire of hell itself.

Also wonderful for starting your backyard grill.

February 11, 2014:

I just read this book, and it’s incomprehensible how misogynistic it is. I wouldn’t be surprised if it got removed from the shelves soon.

Still on virtual shelves by February 13, 2014:

An appalling representation of how women act in the world of technology.
Lessons you learn from “I Can Be a Computer Engineer”:

A girl needs a boy to do anything of value.
Women are not able to fix their own computer problems.
Girls need boys to do their work for them but can simply take the credit and no one will worry about who really did the work since, duh! a girl couldn’t have done it by herself.

Basically this book enforces all the bad stereotypes about women/girls not being capable enough to compete with men/boys when it comes to careers in technology. Fantastic.

November 17, 2014, people are catching on even more:

To add insult to misogynist injury, the depiction of “computer engineer” has nothing to do with either engineering or computer science. As far as I can tell, this story seems to think “computer engineer” means being utterly ignorant of how computers work, and not actually using them to write software.

Do your daughter a favor, and just download the past year of @SwiftOnSecurity’s tweets, instead. She’ll learn far more about computer security, engineering, and girl power from a real fake girl than from this waste of tree carcasses.

Which brings us to today:

Wow, and here to think I’ve been foolish enough to do my own work all these years when I could have just found some boys to do it for me. Where were Steven and Brian when I had to write my dissertation?

Seriously, with all the hard work so many are putting in to make sure that girls know that computing can be a great career for them it’s absolutely appalling to see something like this out there to reinforce the gender stereotypes.

I wish I could say this is the first time we’ve seen a major company send a message like this, but of course there was “Math is hard” Barbie, followed by a slew of bad retailer decisions that, intentionally or not, tell girls they can’t do something boys can do, or should like only stereotypically girl things like shopping and the color pink.

We’ve reached out to Mattel for comment and will update this post if we get a response.

When a Tennessee graphic designer decided to move an hour away, Comcast originally told him that he could move his business-class service and even set up an appointment for installation. But when the Comcast installer never showed up, the company finally told the man that (A) his new address wasn’t served by Comcast and (B) he owes the company nearly $3,000 in early termination fees.

“I was just blown away,” the man tells Nashville’s WSMV-TV about the $2,789 in fees from Comcast. “That’s way too much money for somebody like me to be able to pay.”

Comcast told him that he was in a 3-year contract for his business broadband service, and per the business-class terms of service [PDF] he owed a fee equal to 75% of the amount he would have eventually paid over the balance of the contract.

“They kept telling me the same thing,” he recalls. “‘You’re under contract, that’s what the contract says.’”

The former Comcast customer, who said he’d never had any problem with the company until this incident, says he understands that there’s an early termination fee for those who cancel service, but he wasn’t attempting to get out of his contract. He’d tried to relocate his service and he’d been told that Comcast could install service at his new address.

“I didn’t think that was fair, to pay an early termination fee, because I wanted to keep their service,” he explains. “And due to them not offering it in my area, I feel like I was being punished because they don’t offer the service here.”

A rep for Comcast confirmed the early termination fee to WSMV but said there were extenuating circumstances in this case and that the fee is being waived.

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Day Four of Sciencemaster Adler’s Science Rampage finds him saving the day in a major way. What will happen on Friday? Probably something!

My Patreon has fallen off a bit in recent weeks, would you consider becoming a patron and supporting SFAM? If we can hit $3000 a month I’ll increase my comics output. We’re only $340 away from that!

Last week, Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas attempted to slam the notion of net neutrality, dubbing it “Obamacare for the Internet” and claiming that it would result in prices and services being set by the government. But over the weekend, Minnesota Sen. Al Franken called Cruz’s claim “baloney,” pointing out the fact that we’ve had net neutrality for years and cable companies have been doing just fine.

“He has it completely wrong,” said Franken on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley. “He just doesn’t understand what the issue is.”

The Senator clarifies that neutrality has existed throughout the Internet age. It’s the ISPs, led by Verizon, that successfully sued to gut the rules so that they can add fast lanes and charge more to companies that can afford to pay.

So the move to keep the Internet neutral is intended to maintain the status quo. It just requires new rules because the cable companies don’t want to abide by the old ones.

On the other hand, points out Franken, Obamacare is a program that created something new. Whatever your opinion of the Affordable Care Act, it’s in no way analogous to net neutrality.

“This would keep things exactly the same as they’ve been,” says Franken of neutrality.

The reason that the FCC is even considering the idea of reclassifying broadband as telecommunications infrastructure — as opposed to its current designation as an information service — is because it’s the only way in which the government can effectively tell ISPs to not create fast lanes, and there are some who contend that even reclassification may fail a legal challenge.

“It’s because these ISPs, which have been getting bigger… they essentially have an oligopoly,” says Franken about the need for FCC-enforced neutrality. “They have been talking about a fast lane — they have been talking about charging big, deep-pocketed corporations extra money to go faster, meaning everyone else goes slower.”

As for the claim that reclassifying broadband would cripple innovation and investment, Franken says, “That’s baloney,” and that a truly neutral Internet won’t be the end of investment.

“All this stops them from doing is making a whole bunch of extra money,” says the Senator. But this is not going to stop them from wiring the country.”

For an even better rebuttal of Cruz’s “Obamacare for the Internet” claim from someone without any sort of legislative agenda, check out this hilarious response from The Oatmeal.

[CNN.com]

OH MAN. There's a Lone Wolf boardgame kickstarter. SQUEE.

Can you remember the last time you used a payphone? Neither can we. Public telephones are an outmoded piece of our communication infrastructure, and NYC is ready to replace them. The city has been toying with the idea for years, and today it finally...

Tekken, the Japanese comedian named after the fighting game, is back with another flipbook animation. This time, it's for Disney's Big Hero 6.

The spot is part of the movie's promotional campaign. But, like Tekken's other work, it's surprisingly touching and sweet.

『ベイマックス』鉄拳「パラパラ漫画」オリジナルPV [Disney@YouTUbe]

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

Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.

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And it's not just the snowy setting. These similarities—five really serious ones— presented by Dorkly are much much deeper.

And most of them work with other RPGs as well.

5 Reasons Winter Is Just Like a Bethesda Game [Dorkly]

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

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President Barack H. Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear President Obama:

It was late in the evening when we first learned of your decision Friday to deploy an additional 1,500 troops to Iraq. Sorry, we were catching up on the latest episode of “Lilyhammer.” But, seriously, is that a tradition in the States? Releasing such news late on a Friday with the fatuous hope people would forget by Monday? But on second thought, after perusing the American media, it’s possible such schemes may be effective. There appears to be more concern over one Ebola patient— in a country of 316 million people— than the news that your administration is invading Iraq all over again.

Did you forget the words you spoke in Chicago on October 2, 2002? “What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. . . That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics”. Were those your words or merely the pandering musings of a state senator with grander political ambitions? If so, you succeeded. Because in 2011, as President, you announced the “end” of the Iraq War, and you boasted “The tide of war is receding”. Was that a twisted joke? You have bombed 7 predominately Muslim countries. That’s not to mention the thousands killed because of your imperialist policies or the Americans you have targeted with military drones, and without due process.

Did you also forget your speech on that crisp December day five years ago next month? “Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do, and isolates and weakens those who don’t.” You certainly haven’t followed said standards; it doesn’t appear you ever even intended to. After all, your expansion of executive war powers will be the biggest stain on your floundering presidency. Worse than George W. Bush.

You are the most undeserving Nobel Peace Prize winner since the odious, war-mongering Henry Kissinger. What company you keep! We were delusional dupes for giving the Peace Prize to him and you both. That is all. Now, back to “Lilyhammer.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee
Drammensveien 19 NO-0255 OSLO
Norway

Photo: Susan Walsh/AP

The post A Letter from the Norwegian Nobel Committee to Barack Obama appeared first on The Intercept.