Jmical

An enterprising Hacker News user has built a Raspberry Pi server that's entirely run on solar power, along with instructions on how you can, too.

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Thank you to everyone who has been purchasing Bedbug #1! I appreciate you supporting my stories about the single-father superhero! But there's one story that wasn't told in the comic. How I couldn't have completed it if I hadn't gotten cancer.

I had always wanted to create a Bedbug comic since 2005 when Shooting Star Comics Anthology wrapped up (in fact, the origin story in Bedbug #1 was originally intended for Shooting Star #7) but for one reason or another, I didn't start writing the main story "Invitation" until 2010. I started drawing the pages right around when I changed jobs. Because of the demands of the new job and its sometimes unusual hours, the comic remained half-finished through 2011 and 2012.

In late fall of 2012 I fell very ill and in early 2013 I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma - a cancer that attacks the lymph nodes and lymph producing organs. I was hospitalized for 10 days and after I was released I was told that I had to look forward to disability and six months of treatment.

Chemotherapy, while effective, really wears down your immune system. I received treatment every two weeks and spent one week dealing with the side-effects of chemo while the other week getting my stamina back up to snuff so I could (literally) survive the next week's treatment. It sounds easy - letting your body recover on it's own, but for some reason my body was slow to recover. It got a little scary when I spent a day in the hospital as a result of getting a toe infection.

However, I didn't want to spend my treatment time doing "nothing." (OK, I was recovering but when you're lying there recovering you don't feel like you're doing anything.) Unfortunately my brain was too addled from chemicals to consistently write and my hand would get too unsteady to consistently draw, but I could tackle the project in small dose - a page drawn here, a page electronically colored there, a bit of character bio typed out. Thankfully, I also had many friends and family contributing in their own ways to help reduce the work load.

I have now reached the end of my treatment. I go in for testing in a few weeks to see how effective the 12 sessions of chemotherapy have been. (Fingers crossed) and if I will be able to return to work later this summer. Getting cancer is hard but I can honestly say that I wouldn't have been able to finish Bedbug #1 without it. And for that, I am thankful for cancer.

If you'd like to contribute to Hodgkin's Lymphoma research, please click to donate HERE.

The small studio behind the upcoming first-person exploration game Gone Home say they're pulling their game from the next big PAX show because of their rising discomfort with the show's organizers.

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Just when you’re expecting a satirically goofy take on what makes video games different from other forms of art, Cracked goes ahead and doles out a semi-serious, mostly on-point article about that very point. You’ll laugh but you’ll also nod in agreement, too.

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IT'S HERE!! TODAY IS BEDBUG DAY!!


BEDBUG #1
created by Scott Rogers
32 pages of full-color action! Can Bedbug balance busting crime with family time? All-ages action! Featuring four ALL-NEW stories, pin-ups, character bios and  more!
Art by Rogers, Sam Ellis (Archer), Lane Garrison and Drew Massey
Stories by Rogers, Chad Jones (Wrath of the Titans) and Erik Burnham (Ghostbusters)
Cover price: $3.99
Cover by Scott Rogers
Super Alternate Cover by Mitch Ballard (limited to 1:5)

You can also find the leapin' lawman at the following exclusive LA Area comic book stores! Tell 'em Bedbug sent ya!

Collector's Paradise - Winnetka
7131 Winnetka Ave
Winnetka, CA 91306
(818) 999-9455
http://comicsandcards.net/

Collector's Paradise - Pasadena
319 South Arroyo Parkway #4
Pasadena, CA 91105
(626) 577-6694
http://comicsandcards.net/

Dreamworld Comics

2955 Cochran St
Ste B-2
Simi Valley, CA 93065(805) 581-0409

http://www.dreamworldcomics.com

Earth 2 Comics - Sherman Oaks
15017 Ventura Blvd
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
(818) 386-9590

http://www.earth2comics.com/feedback.php

Earth 2 Comics - Northridge
8967 Reseda Blvd
Northridge, CA 91324
(818) 993-7804

http://www.earth2comics.com/feedback.php

Golden Apple Comics

7018 Melrose Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90038(323) 658-6047

http://www.goldenapplecomics.com/

House of Secrets
1930 W Olive St
Burbank, CA 91506
818 562-1900
http://www.artoffiction.com/HouseOfSecrets/

Meltdown Comics
7522 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046
323 851-7223
http://www.meltcomics.com/blog/

This is my favorite chart. Found by cultural historian Megan Prelinger, it's from a 1963 book where the authors wanted to represent what a binary decision tree looks like. The decided the "decision" should be a teenager deciding whether to be truant or not.

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In a beautiful demonstration of Curiosity's imaging abilities, NASA has just released a stunning interactive 1.3-billion pixel panorama of the surface of Mars, as photographed by the rover's Mastcam.

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Complaining on the internet, I am often told, doesn't amount to much of anything. Clicking "Like" or retweeting for a cause are nothing more than "Slacktivism," a type of problem-solving that only lazy millennials could have come up with.

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A Frenchman visiting Constantinople in the 1500s heard strange stories of locals drawing up fresh water and even fishing from holes in their cellars. Combined with the legends of great underground temples, the Frenchman decided to investigate. 

Upon further investigation, he rediscovered a subterranean marvel, the largest of the long-forgotten palatial cisterns of the Byzantine Empire. Fish swam in an artificial freshwater lake the size of two football fields and the vaulted brick ceiling were held up by 336 thirty-foot pillars scavenged from nearby Roman ruins.

Amazingly preserved despite centuries of conflict and siege, the cistern was built in 532 AD by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I to store fresh water for the palace and nearby buildings. Nicknamed Yearbatan Sarayi, or 'The Sunken Palace' in Turkish, it is known in English as the 'Basilica Cistern' because of its location on the site of an ancient basilica.

When Justinian undertook the building of the cistern, Constantinople was still in the shadow of the devastating Nika Revolt which took place in January of that year. The Byzantine equivalent of soccer riots gone massively out of control, the revolt took place in the wake of a hotly contested chariot race, and culminated in the burning of much of the Imperial city, and the killing of 30,000 rioters by Justinian's troops. The cisterns were built as part of the rebuilding efforts in the aftermath.

In the past, visitors could rent a rowboat to float past the columns in the dripping gloom. Restorations in the late 1980s dredged the silted-in floor, added lighting, elevated walkways, and a cafe for visitors. There are still fish in the now-shallow water, helping to keep the water clear.

The two giant gorgon head pillar bases at the far end of the cistern are an intriguing mystery. It is suspected that they may have been pulled out of an older pagan temple, where motifs of the famous gorgon Medusa were used as a protective emblem. It is possible that the placement of these two faces - upside down and sideways, at the base of pillars - may have been a deliberate display of the power of the new Christian Empire. Or it's possible that the stones were just the right size.

This could be the biggest backtrack in gaming history: Microsoft will reverse course on their DRM policies for Xbox One, dropping their 24-hour Internet check-in requirement and all restrictions on used games.

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Don Mattrick, President of the Interactive Entertainment Business at Microsoft, has made a blog post with an update on Xbox One.

Here is an excerpt from his post:

…today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means:

· An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

· Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.

I encourage you to read the entire post for additional details and how Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console — there will be no regional restrictions.

Thank you for your continued support of Xbox.

Update: Here is the full text of the post:

 

Last week at E3, the excitement, creativity and future of our industry was on display for a global audience.
For us, the future comes in the form of Xbox One, a system designed to be the best place to play games this year and for many years to come. As is our heritage with Xbox, we designed a system that could take full advantage of advances in technology in order to deliver a breakthrough in game play and entertainment. We imagined a new set of benefits such as easier roaming, family sharing, and new ways to try and buy games. We believe in the benefits of a connected, digital future. 
Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback. I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One. 
You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world.
So, today I am announcing the following changes to Xbox One and how you can play, share, lend, and resell your games exactly as you do today on Xbox 360. Here is what that means:

• An internet connection will not be required to play offline Xbox One games – After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc based game without ever connecting online again. There is no 24 hour connection requirement and you can take your Xbox One anywhere you want and play your games, just like on Xbox 360.

• Trade-in, lend, resell, gift, and rent disc based games just like you do today – There will be no limitations to using and sharing games, it will work just as it does today on Xbox 360.

In addition to buying a disc from a retailer, you can also download games from Xbox Live on day of release. If you choose to download your games, you will be able to play them offline just like you do today. Xbox One games will be playable on any Xbox One console — there will be no regional restrictions.

These changes will impact some of the scenarios we previously announced for Xbox One. The sharing of games will work as it does today, you will simply share the disc. Downloaded titles cannot be shared or resold. Also, similar to today, playing disc based games will require that the disc be in the tray.

We appreciate your passion, support and willingness to challenge the assumptions of digital licensing and connectivity. While we believe that the majority of people will play games online and access the cloud for both games and entertainment, we will give consumers the choice of both physical and digital content. We have listened and we have heard loud and clear from your feedback that you want the best of both worlds.

Thank you again for your candid feedback. Our team remains committed to listening, taking feedback and delivering a great product for you later this year.

# # #

Part two on helping your kids avoid online dangers: Gaming and social media

Editor’s note: This is the second post by Andrew Tipp in an ongoing series on how to protect your children in the digital age. The first post was on how to protect your kids from online porn.

Gaming the system

Porn isn’t the only threat to your kids on the web. More and more children are getting into online gaming at a younger age. Gaming itself isn’t bad – it can teach kids to think creatively and strategically, solve problems and learn to work in a team. But it can be a huge problem if kids try and cheat.

What do I mean by ‘cheat’? Well, gaming is a big business, and as huge games require days or weeks of play to make progress and become competitive, a lot of players look for shortcuts to save time or give them an edge. This usually comes in the form of hacks, which can be downloaded from torrent or file-sharing sites.

It’s bad that your kid could be cheating, or being cheated, in the gaming world. But the real danger is that in a lot of these hacks there are small chunks of malicious code or malware that’s designed to infect your computer and steal data. New research shows that up to 90 per cent of files on some torrent sites contain malware.

What’s scarier than your son or daughter downloading some nasty virus? That they’re the ones writing the malicious code and doing the hacking in the first place. Research has also found evidence that kids as young as 11 are creating hacks for games, which can allow them access to other gamers’ accounts. This means they can get at people’s credit card details and passwords, enabling them to steal and probably login into social media profiles.

Social media dangers

Kids are getting into social media and instant messaging at an early age. The same study that found kids as young as six have watched porn online found up to 17 per cent of 10-year-olds are social networkers, and by age 12 around a quarter of kids have at least one social media account.

Like gaming, social media can be a positive force in children’s lives; it can be a great way to learn, understand the world and connect with their friends and other kids with similar interests. But social networks can also be dangerous places for kids. Many are now like an internet within the internet, and almost impossible to monitor. On social sites kids can be exposed to grooming, trolling and cyberbullying, as well as violent or sexual videos and images.

How can you help your kids explore social media safely? First, ask yourself whether they should they even have an account and be leaving a digital footprint at all. Facebook insists that users need to be at least 13 to sign up for an account. Should pre-teens be social networking? Can they comprehend the risks and possible repercussions of having an online presence at that age?

Creating digital footprints

If you are letting your kids use social media, safety is mostly about settings and supervising. Help them make sure your children’s privacy settings are locked down, and educate them on the dangers of sharing too much information about themselves. Make sure your computer has adequate virus protection, and keep it in a social area of the house – so you can monitor who your children are interacting with.

Engaging your kids

The best place to start is by talking to your son or daughter, as early as possible. If they’re doing something they shouldn’t, find out why. If they’re ignorant as to why their behaviour is dangerous, explain it to them.

Eventually, your kids will grow up and use the web independently. You won’t be around or how any control of what they’re doing online. But you can take steps to safeguard them right now, and educate them about staying safer and more secure on the internet.

♦◊♦

To protect against malware and viruses on your family computer, download the latest antivirus software. But there are plenty of other dangers not mentioned in this article. For more information on teaching kids about web safety and protecting your family online, be sure to check out GetNetWise and StaySafeOnline.

—photo by wentongg/Flickr

A series of caverns in the Smokey Mountains provided a perfect lair for bootleggers looking to make some illicit liquor during Prohibition. The government eventually cracked down on these subterranean "moonshiners," but you can still visit their secret underground distilleries today.

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This is Agricola, available now on iOS from Playdek Games. Based on one of German board game designer Uwe Rosenberg's finest creations, it's deep, satisfying and a little complex, but nowhere near as complex as this:

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Familiar political tools like petitions, fundraisers, mass letter-writing, call-in campaigns now have online equivalents. But what about protest tactics like street marches, picket lines, sit-ins, and occupations? Where is the room on the internet for civil disobedience?

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The existence of our solar system's innermost planet has been common knowledge since ancient times, but that doesn't actually mean we've always know much about it. Mercury's proximity to the Sun has allowed it to jealously guard its secrets, and so this NASA video offers an unprecedentedly detailed view of the planet's surface.

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Rob Zidar believes in teaching his sons to act responsibly, rather that attempting, perhaps in vain, to prevent them from acting irresponsibly.

—

I often wonder who my kids are going to be when they grow up.

As a parent, I face a lot of choices. One of those choices is how involved I choose to be in the online activity of my boys, who are now 14 and 15 years old. Their ages are significant because other than needing rides everywhere, they are far more self sufficient than I would have thought possible five years ago. This is especially true when it comes to online activity. They have their own computers and cell phones and we’ve chosen not to install monitoring or filtering software. Their laptops can be in their bedrooms if the homework is done. Their internet is wide open.

Some people think that my stance on this is controversial or just plain wrong but I don’t. Parents who think they are on top of what their teens are doing online often really aren’t. According to a survey of 2,474 youths and parents funded by software maker McAfee, 69% of teens admit to hiding internet activity from their parents, while only 47% of parents are aware of this happening.

I do not find the above stat surprising. Given the fact that my boys have their own devices, if they want to find inappropriate content or do sketchy things on the internet they will, and maybe already have. If I lock down their devices with tracking software, they can just go to a friend’s house to do what they were planning to do. Our choice is to teach them to act responsibly rather that attempting, perhaps in vain, to prevent them from acting irresponsibly. We’d prefer to have a positive impact on their internet activity than attempt to censor it.

There are four main pillars that I rely on to make sure that I’m not making a bad parenting decision on this:

The three Cs: Contact, content and conduct – (i) Since a young age, we’ve impressed upon our kids the fact that there are bad people out there who might try to make contact with you. Be wary. (ii) In terms of content, they might want to look at inappropriate stuff. Some content is just plain inappropriate, and for some there is a time and a place. Know the difference and be careful. (iii) They might be tempted to say or do bad things to others. Not acceptable.

Right and wrong – Parents can’t get unsupervised internet access right without making sure their kids know the difference between right and wrong. Bullying, sexual assault, racism, stalking and badmouthing schools and teachers are all still wrong. The fact that it may be more difficult for parents and teachers to see it online doesn’t make it any less wrong. Doing something positive for someone, even if it is sometimes uncool to do so online, is still good.

The dad factor – My relationship with my boys is much different that that of my wife. If our parental relationship with our boys is a normal distribution with total goofing around in the left tail, laying down the law in the right tail, and just spending regular family time in the middle, fat part of the curve, I spend more time in the tails and my wife does more of the middle. I don’t mind laying down the law, and will do so if the boys get out of line.

Talk about it, get involved in it and really care – The caring part is important. You need to spend some time understanding what they’re doing, or want to be doing, and keep in mind almost every site is inappropriate for some age groups (we’re mostly beyond that now). What sites do they like and what are they doing? At younger ages, before saying yes or no for any given site, figure out how the site works and how it is generally used. A simple Google search or a quick tour of the site’s Terms of Use can accomplish this. If you decide a site is risky, spend some time establishing guidelines with your kid – let him know exactly what you think is safe and appropriate and why. It doesn’t make sense for me to constantly look over their shoulder, but if I’ve done my job right I’m mostly aware of who my kids are communicating with and what kind of content they are viewing.

My last point goes back to the first sentence of this post and may be the most important consideration – who are my kids going to be when they grow up. I hope that they end up being who they want to be. Healthy discovery is a very important part of the education and maturing process, and there is a lot of content worth discovering online. All of their friends are online. With some exceptions that I hope I established up front, I don’t want to tell them what or who is fun or interesting online any more than I want to tell them who to be friends with or who to date.

I do need them to behave and perform in school, be nice to others and keep inappropriate content out of the public eye and away from younger siblings. I need them to be good people. I want them to be happy.

—

photo: gabrielap93 / flickr

They meet more people in an afternoon than most of us do in a year. But what faux pas do human resources pros see again and again during the interview process? We picked the brains of two high-profile executives to find out what you definitely should and shouldn't say, as well as what they secretly think of your résumé.

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Last month, science geek and costumer Emily Finke attended a sci fi convention dressed in a screen-accurate uniform from Star Trek: TOS, where she was met with microaggression, mock-concern and men intent on outing her as a Fake Geek Girl. So she decided to write something, "because I haven't caused enough flame wars on the internet this week."

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Julian Polsler purchased the rights to Marlen Haushofer's novel "The Wall" several years ago but the process of adapting such a seminal and difficult work hasn't been easy and it's taken seven years to bring The Wall to the screen but the result is spectacular; a gorgeous, haunting and energizing story of a woman struggling with nature and herself to stay alive. Shot over a period of 14 months, the film unfolds as an unnamed woman shares the events that have led to her current situation; she's alone in a cabin in the middle of a forest. She recalls the first days of being alone, of trying to understand what happened on the outside, how she finally made the decision that she wanted to survive long enough to be rescued, how eventually the idea of rescue withdrew from her mind, replaced by the simple need to live and provide for her animals and how eventually just living for the newness of tomorrow became her driving force. [Continued ...]

We've talked a lot about the beautiful realism and style of Europa Report, and you saw the trailer — but now here's your first clip from the film, showcasing just how much excitement this movie packs into a "realistic" treatment of outer space.

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What you're looking at could be a planet being born some 176 light-years away from Earth. It’s a small planet, only 6 to 28 times Earth’s mass. But that’s not even the best part. This alien world, if we can confirm it, shouldn’t be there according to conventional planet-forming theory.

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There's one thing a D&D campaign can never get enough of: magic. More spells. Weirder spells. New ways to interact with the magical forces in our favorite fantasy worlds. With Deep Magic, Kobold Press has harnessed some big RPG names (including Ed Greenwood) to give us all the magic we could possibly want.

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Last night’s edition of Comedy Central’s fake news program had cranky commentator Lewis Black ranting about new and upcoming technology. Along with Google Glass, Black takes aim at the Xbox One and its always-watching/listening Kinect camera. It’s pretty funny stuff. (Except that Black doesn’t mention that you’ll have a bit of control over what the upgraded Kinect is able to do.)

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I was sent an email today that told me this was a Game of Thrones rap battle. The description and the video thumbnail had my expectations at rock-bottom. Silly me.

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If the latest models are to be believed, Earth isn't in the midst of the sun's Goldlilocks zone, but on the brink of becoming Venus

I’ve been at this blogger-activist thing less than a year, but I know I’ve said it more than once: I strongly believe we have to hold ourselves and our allies to the same standards we do our opponents. This means we can’t allow ourselves to place anyone on a pedestal where criticism can’t reach them, […]

So far, there’ve only been the tiniest of glimpses at the multiplayer component for Ubisoft’s upcoming techno/open-world game. Sure, you can hack into other people’s games but how deep does that go?

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ArmA developers Bohemia Interactive picked a bad week to announce Take On Mars, a new simulation game that has you rolling, bouncing and cutting your way across the red planet doing all kinds of boring science stuff.

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