Matt Garber

They are grooming Neil for 2020.

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Designer Warren Spector is now studio director at OtherSide Entertainment, who are currently working on System Shock 3 and Underworld Ascendent. This is a bit of a coming home party for Spector, who worked on the older Ultima Underworld and System Shock games.

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The classic ASCII-roguelike builder sim Dwarf Fortress is notorious for being unforgiving for even the smallest mistake. If you’re not familiar with the rules, it’s tough to build even simple things and not ruin everything at the same time. Still, someone managed to make a playable version of Space Invaders in it.

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Seinfeld clips overlaid with Persona 4's UI? Triggerhappypilot, this is good work.

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“Jeffrey would ask that in lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Donald Trump.”

— Jeffrey Cohen’s obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Republican strategist Rick Wilson, appearing on MSNBC, spoke thusly last night of the online contingent of Trump's racist, sexist support base: "childless single men who masturbate to anime". https://twitter.com/cam_joseph/status/689622097765756928

The growing association between the Alt Right and anime (previously: how anime avatars became a warning) is pretty weird, isn't it?

The "sociology" seems obvious—a generation of angry, badly-socialized adolescent men letting their nerddom and sexuality curdle in public—but that's the too-easy answer.

YUME is a simple musical experience where the songs change as you explore 3D floating islands—just click and drag them to move around. It's restful, easy to get lost, and the evolving tracks are great. The musician is Helios (AKA Keith Kenniff) and his albums are available for download at Bandcamp. [via]

From the newly-released transcripts of conversations between President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Blair: “Yes, Bill. Nice to hear from you.”

Clinton: “I apologize for call you so late in the evening.”

Blair: “That’s quite all right. Cherie and I are driving back from a charity function in Leeds.”

Clinton: “I love Leeds. Leeds Castle is so beautiful.”

Blair: “Leeds Castle is in Kent, Bill.”

Clinton: “Why is Leeds Castle in Kent?”

Blair: “I don’t know.”

Clinton: “Is there a Kent Castle in Leeds?”

Blair: “No.”

Clinton: “If I were in Leeds, I’d be pissed off that Kent has my castle.”

Blair: “Yes. I would too.”

Clinton: “We don’t really have castles here. Not proper castles. The castle in Disneyland is impressive.”

Blair: “Yes it is. I took the family there two years ago. It’s a fantastic castle.”

Clinton: “Yes but compared to UK castles, it’s a beer crate. A beer crate full of shit.”

Blair: “What were you calling about?”

Clinton: “I can’t remember.”

1. Wait until at least April, when the ground softens.

2. Dress warmly (think layers), bring a shovel and a lantern on a stick.

3. Listen. Is someone coming?

4. Cover your lantern with a blanket, wait.

5. Continue. If you’re not used to hard physical labor, wear weight-lifting gloves to avoid excess chafing.

6. You may need a wheelbarrow. You probably should have brought a wheelbarrow.

7. Come back with a wheelbarrow.

8. Try to have the body you’ve always wanted back to your house by dawn.

9. Get online, start shopping for outfits!

10. Your friends may treat you differently now, with your new body, but they are probably just jealous.

You can buy a 1980s era Roland TR-909 drum machine on eBay for about $4,000. Or you can just go here. https://youtu.be/sEFEivTgNVI

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds that 30% of GOP voters favor bombing Agrabah, the fictional country from the animated film Aladdin.

I hope the teacher didn't mark it wrong. [via]

In this video, MonotoneTim converted The Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive to MIDI: the sound of the song, rather than its individual notes.

The result, an endless mash of piano noises, eerily and rather unpleasantly replicates everything in the track, right down to Barry Gibb's falsetto vocals. This is described as an "auditory illusion."

Aside from the fact that the result sounded like a piano factory exploding, I also could have sworn I heard sung lyrics in it, even though the only midi track was a piano. Not sure how the converter works, but I guess the way vocals are recreated via piano is similar enough to the real song for our brains to mentally fill in the words where there aren't any. Maybe? Pianos usually don't talk.

Let me know how well you hear the lyrics, if at all, and what other songs you tried!

It's seems like a vocoder. So many notes are playing that it merges together to becomes a staccato droning noise, which is then modulated by the song's waveform into an audible semblance of the lyrics.

Students at the University of Texas at Austin will protest a new law that will allow more guns on campus.

Instead of signs, the students are protesting by "strapping gigantic swinging dildos to our backpacks," which is in violation of the campus' obscenity policy.

Jessica Jin, who set up the Campus (DILDO) Carry event on Facebook, invokes the argument that allowing more guns on campus will make students safe is a fallacy. She's urging students to send campus leaders that message by strapping on the plastic phalluses.

"You're carrying a gun to class? Yeah well I'm carrying a HUGE DILDO," Jin says in the group's description. "Just about as effective at protecting us from sociopathic shooters, but much safer for recreational play."

“I did sacrifice a goat. I know that’s probably a quibble in the mind of most Americans. I sacrificed an animal to the god of the wilderness … Yes, I drank the goat’s blood.”

— Florida U.S. Senate candidate Augustus Sol Invictus (L), quoted by the Associated Press.

Even if you’re not aware of a group of folks called “Bronies” — mostly male* adult fans who really love My Little Pony — Hasbro is totally clued into the potentially lucrative market. As such, it’s releasing a new line of My Little Pony toys designed specifically to appeal to Bronies, with a price to match.

Hasbro collaborated with Integrity Toys Inc. for a “high end collectible” series dubbed <3 My Little Pony, aimed at adult fans of the TV series, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, reports Forbes.

“There’s a tremendous adult market,” Integrity Toys spokesperson Carol Roth told Forbes, stating something anyone who’s ever been on the Internet probably knows. “Bronies have inspired entire pop culture phenomenon. The reality is most My Little Pony collectors are in their 20s to 60s and possibly even older than that.”

My Little Pony toys for children go for about $5 and $20, but the new line will sell “in the low three figures,” Roth says.

“The entire look and feel of the packaging makes it clear this is not a child’s toy,” she said. “From the quality of the fabrics, to the type of closure used, to the crafting style, they’re designed the same way high fashion is designed with really strong attention of detail.”

Just try to explain that to your kid when they accidentally open that tempting, brand-new My Little Pony figurine stashed in the closet that they thought was their Christmas present but really was being saved to maintain its value on the collectibles market.

*Female fans are known as ladybronies or pegasisters.

Hasbro Cashes In On Bronies With $100-Plus ‘My Little Pony’ Toy Line [Forbes]

You can always trust the newspapers for facts
#teenpregnancy 

Ready to overcome your social awkwardness? Eat a bowl of sauerkraut and face the world! Read the rest

LEGO builder OliveSeon recreated the Battle of Yavin from Star Wars in a very creative way. Instead of building a huge Death Star he focused on its memorable “trench run” scene and made a detailed six-feet-wide version of it.

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Your cat will pretend to love you if you give her a frozen water balloon on a hot day.

During a speech to a conservative group, Donald Trump “said Iraq was a needed buffer against a hostile Iran and that it was wrong for the United States to have invaded Saddam Hussein’s fiefdom,” the LA Weekly reports.

Said Trump: “Instead, we should have invaded Mexico.”

“The remark was greeted with rousing applause, our source said.”

“Well, somebody’s doing the raping, Don. I mean somebody’s doing it. Who’s doing the raping?”

— Donald Trump, in an interview with CNN, when anchor Don Lemon pointed out that a Fusion article Trump cited was about migrant women being raped and not immigrants crossing the border illegal committing rape.

“I do great with Latino voters. I employ so many Latinos. I have so many people working for me. I’m a job creator. I create jobs. I’m a master job creator. No politician knows how to create jobs. They’re all talk, they’re no action. They don’t know what they’re doing. And you know, the Latinos love Trump and I love them.”

— Donald Trump, quoted by Fox News, while giving reporters a tour of his golf course.

“I will be the greatest jobs president God ever created.”

A pretty incredible page.