Bewarethewumpus

In Super Mario World, if you make the right series of moves with the right game objects, you can cause the game to execute arbitrary code. A particularly delightful use of this feature was recently shown by Masterjun, a tool-assisted speedrun enthusiast. He unveiled the speedrun to the world using an unmodified game cartridge and a Super Nintendo Entertainment System with eight controllers connected through a multitap system at the Awesome Games Done Quick 2014 event. Hack A Day explains the technique. Masterjun explains it in more detail.

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You won't see anime locations being remade in Minecraft often, especially not the vivid, colorful ones from Hayao Miyazaki's works. Maybe because it's not an easy task to remake something that's perfect. Yet here's Alan Becker with his Spirited Away project, ready to show us that it can be done.

One thing he did right is definitely the color palette. Check out his comparison pics below, including the Ghost Town, the Bath House or Zeniba's Cottage and you'll see:

Spirited Away in Minecraft [imgur]
Spirited Away Minecraft Recreation by Alan Becker

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

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When we first saw screens of Final Fantasy VI on mobile, I was a little worried. The sprites looked faded, as if they'd been accidentally thrown in a washing machine, and like the FFV port before it, the game had an amateur, RPG Makerish feel.

But who knew it would get this bad? Today Square released the Android version of the FFVI remake/port, and one Redditor has been posting screenshots and impressions throughout the day. While some of the new features seem pretty neat—like Sabin's Blitz feature on touch screen—the aesthetics are killing me. One of my favorite games now hurts to look at. This is an atrocity against my childhood.

I mean, look at that city in the screenshot above. They shrank a realistic-looking model of Figaro and slapped in on the world map, even though it looks nothing like the cartoony, washed-out Locke sprite standing next to it.

Compare to the original SNES version:

The dimensions might be askew, but at least everything fits. Locke seems like he belongs. Figaro Castle's world map landmark is an abstraction, but it feels like part of the world. It doesn't look like someone's half-assed sticker.

You know, some people might be okay with Locke's sprite there. Some RPG fans might not mind the visual update. But if you've played the SNES version of Final Fantasy VI—one of the best games of all time, I have to add—this shot might give you fits:

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Sigh. These characters, once so interesting and animated, now look like they were drawn in MS Paint. And sure, we can ignore this mobile remake. We can pretend it doesn't exist. But it does, and it's painful to see that in 2014, this is how Square Enix treats one of its most beloved games.

Well at least maybe they got the script right...

...

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At least we'll always have the SNES version, my friends. They can never take that one away from us.

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The dance craze featured briefly in ASDFmovie is back with its own video.

"Tell them about the dream, Martin!"

Earlier this week, EFF published a scorecard for rating Obama's NSA reforms. Now that the reforms have been announced, it's time to measure them up. They don't fare well, I'm afraid. Here's a roundup of commentary from privacy leaders around the world, expressing disappointment (if not surprise) at Obama's half-hearted reining in of the surveillance state.

3. No data retention mandate.

Score: 0

Obama’s review group recommended that the telephone metadata surveillance program be taken away from the government, suggesting that a third party or even telecom companies themselves be responsible for maintaining a searchable list of our calling records. This approach—mandating companies act as Big Brother’s little helper—won’t alleviate the serious privacy concerns with maintaining a digital record of every call we make. We had hoped that Obama would make clear that he would reject any form of mandatory data retention. Instead, Obama acknowledged some of the concerns with a data retention mandate but called for “options for a new approach that can match the capabilities and fill the gaps that the Section 215 program was designed to address, without the government holding this metadata itself.” He never specifically rejected the idea of forcing companies or a third party to hold this data, and so he does not receive a point in this category.

...

5. Stop undermining Internet security.

Score: 0

The NSA’s systematic efforts to weaken and sabotage the encryption and security technology make us all less safe. But in contrast to his review group’s recommendations to stop those practices, Obama was silent on the issue. That silence is disappointing, as this is a critical problem that has not just undermined the privacy of millions around the world, but poisoned our collective trust in institutions that depend most on it. Zero points.

Rating Obama’s NSA Reform Plan: EFF Scorecard Explained

Matthew says: "A father in Kansas is outraged by a middle school sex-ed poster which lists ‘anal sex,’ and ‘sexual fantasy.'"

Gonna do some Star Trek comics this week I think. I’m full of Voyager eps and I need to release the spit valve, if you catch my drift.

The latest Snowden leak details DISHFIRE, a joint NSA/GCHQ program to slurp up hundreds of millions of SMS messages from global mobile phone users. Included in the program are text messages to and from Americans, though these are apparently subsequently purged. The UK spy agency GCHQ also makes extensive use of the database. Text messages are stored for long terms, so that spies can do historic lookups on people they target. The DISHFIRE database allows for full-text search.

Vodaphone expressed shock and outrage at the news that its customers' private messages were being harvested without a warrant or due process, characterising the program as outside the law.

“In contrast to [most] GCHQ equivalents, DISHFIRE contains a large volume of unselected SMS traffic,” it states (emphasis original). “This makes it particularly useful for the development of new targets, since it is possible to examine the content of messages sent months or even years before the target was known to be of interest.”

It later explains in plain terms how useful this capability can be. Comparing Dishfire favourably to a GCHQ counterpart which only collects against phone numbers that have specifically been targeted, it states “Dishfire collects pretty much everything it can, so you can see SMS from a selector which is not targeted”.

The document also states the database allows for broad, bulk searches of keywords which could result in a high number of hits, rather than just narrow searches against particular phone numbers: “It is also possible to search against the content in bulk (e.g. for a name or home telephone number) if the target’s mobile phone number is not known.”

Analysts are warned to be careful when searching content for terms relating to UK citizens or people currently residing in the UK, as these searches could be successful but would not be legal without a warrant or similar targeting authority.

However, a note from GCHQ’s operational legalities team, dated May 2008, states agents can search Dishfire for “events” data relating to UK numbers – who is contacting who, and when.

NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep [James Ball/The Guardian]

(Thanks, Sergei!)

Despite a series of disgraceful dirty tricks, the TSA has lost its case against Dr Rahinah Ibrahim, a Malaysian academic who had been wrongly put on the no-fly list. The DHS engaged in witness tampering (denying Dr Ibrahim and her witnesses access to the courtroom by putting them on the no-fly list) and argued that neither Dr Ibrahim nor her lawyers should be allowed to see the evidence against her (because terrorism).

Lowering the Bar does a great job of summing up the ruling, which held the no-fly list unconstitutional because citizens are "entitled to a remedy that requires the government to correct its lists and records... and to certify under oath that such correction(s) have been made."

* The plaintiff has standing to challenge the no-fly listing and practices, and all of the government's arguments to the contrary are overruled.

* Once a plaintiff shows "concrete, reviewable adverse government action" (i.e. not being allowed to fly) has resulted from a government error, she is entitled to a remedy that requires the government to correct its lists and records "and to certify under oath that such correction(s) have been made."

* Because the government's current administrative remedies, such as they are, don't do this, they are unconstitutional.

* He ordered the government to provide that remedy here (take plaintiff off the list and certify under oath that it did so), and/or to disclose whether she is in fact on or off the list. (As you may recall, the government refuses to tell people whether they are on the list or not.)

* Presumably she is or will soon be off it, because "the government concedes [as it has for a while now] that plaintiff is not a threat to our national security."

Judge Rules for Plaintiff in No-Fly Case

(Image: University Putra Malaysia)

"The Times reporter James Risen took his case to the Supreme Court on Monday, asking that his effort to protect his confidential source be protected," writes NYT Public Editor Margaret Sullivan. "It won’t surprise regular readers of this blog that I’m very much on his side, and I fervently hope the court takes on his case and rules strongly in his favor. Mr. Risen has said in the past that he is willing to go to jail rather than reveal the identity of his source." She posts an email conversation with Risen here.

In which Donald Duck teaches kids about family planning. If you've been following the Internet's ongoing fascination with duck sex, you should be very disturbed right about now.

"This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others." — Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (an early predecessor of the DEA).

Artist/programmer Lauren McCarthy has undertaken an interesting experiment in networked romance called Social Turkers. McCarthy sets up dates with men using OK Cupid, and uses her phone to stream a live video feed of the outings to Amazon's Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform. The turkers observe the interaction and text realtime suggestions on what McCarthy should do in order to have an optimal date.

She's documented each date, and published the log of the turkers' commentary.

During a series of dates with new people I meet through the Internet, I will discretely stream the interaction to the web using an Iphone app. Turk workers will be paid to watch the stream, interpret what is happening, and offer feedback as to what I should do or say next. This feedback will be communicated to me via text message.

Through this series of interaction experiments, I will refine the rules of the system — the type of feedback and rating the turkers provide, and the amount and frequency of their influence. I will also keep public logs of the responses of the turkers and my own reflections on what transpires during each interaction.

Coming soon: easy to use app for anyone to start crowdsourcing their own relationships! Stay tuned.

Social Turkers: Crowdsourced Dating (via JWZ)

The Sierra Nevada beer is bubbling (and possibly coming for you).

Remember, 4chan is not your personal army, unless you happen to be one of the world’s most famous porn stars trying to backtrace an ex-assistant gone rogue.

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

It's every bit as dangerous as it sounds.

Theists often ask atheists what sort of evidence they would accept as proof that God exists. I think if all religious folks lived up to their own deeply held values, that would be a true miracle. But there’s little risk of that.

Personally, if I believed that an omniscient, omnipotent and potentially cranky deity was keeping tabs on me all the time, I’d be a lot better behaved. How can a theist expect me to believe in a God when virtually none of them are capable of living as though there was one?

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Nicky Wishart is a 12 year old from Eynsham, a village in Oxfordshire, England, where the local youth club is slated to close due to austerity. He decided to organise a protest outside of Prime Minister David Cameron's nearby constituency office (after all, Cameron once told Parliament, "we need youth clubs, we need things to divert people from crime"), so he posted a call-to-action on Facebook. In response, the Thames Valley Police's anti-terrorism squad visited Wishart's school, pulled him out of class, and warned him that he would prosecuted if the protest led to violence, even if he decided not to attend.

Hundreds more youth clubs in England are slated for closure. 20 out of 27 of the clubs in Oxfordshire alone are set to close.

When Nicky Wishart began a campaign to save his popular local youth club from closure, he might have been praised for showing the type of community-minded spirit that his local MP, David Cameron, has championed since he entered Downing Street. In fact, the 12-year-old's reward for attempting to rescue the centre – a small, brick hall in the leafy Oxfordshire village of Eynsham – was a visit from the police.

After his plans to hold a small protest outside the constituency office of Mr Cameron were spotted by anti-terror officers on Facebook, Nicky was pulled out of a lesson and warned by police that he would be held responsible if any violence broke out. Without his mother with him, he was frightened. "It was terrifying," said Nicky. "I was told that I could be arrested if there was any trouble at the protest. I was also told that I could be arrested even if I decided not to go myself. I didn't know what to do."

'I was told by police that I could be arrested. It was terrifying' [Michael Savage/The Independent]

(via Interesting People)

(Image: Your worry or your life, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from ggvaidya's photostream)

Sometimes when it comes to online auctions what you see is not what you get.

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Hello, dear readers! I hope you enjoy today’s comic. It is about Gayburgers, which as you already know are delicious and tempting and must be made illegal.

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Colorado has legalized recreational marijuana, and now New York looks poised to become the next medical marijuana state. It’s only a matter of time before civilization decays entirely.

Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em!

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