Matt Garber

5 out of 4

Remember the "Virtual Insanity" music video where Jamiroquai's lead singer slid around the room on conveyor belts? What if that were an action game like Frogger? Wonder no longer.

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An aide to California Attorney General Kamala Harris (D) and two others “are accused of operating a rogue police force that claimed to exist for more than 3,000 years and have jurisdiction in 33 states and Mexico,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

“Suspicions about the Masonic Fraternal Police Department — whose members trace their origins to the Knights Templar — were aroused when various police chiefs in Southern California received a letter in late January that announced new leadership for the group.”

iMages.

2000

(Toady One) While toying around with the art book code and poem/etc. composition, I thought I'd see what happens to an entire form created by an artist mid-world-generation when the only way the form can be passed around is between teachers, students and troupe members. Most of these non-civ forms tend to stay within a single troupe, but sometimes they break out. For instance, in a 200 year small world, we had a human from a hamlet named Usmen decide to run away from home and study goblin poetry. I guess he was troubled by their society, because it wasn't too many years before he introduced a new form of poetry in the year 106: a poetic narrative intended to teach a moral lesson. He and his master Zom Frothhate joined up with a few more goblins and founded the Tan Flies, and Usmen taught the whole group the new poetic form. A hundred years later, forty years after Usmen died of old age, the eight current members of the Tan Flies are still teaching moral lessons to their goblin buddies.

They aren't the only ones though -- back in 113, not long after moral poetry was introduced, one of the founding Tan Flies named Stasost Tongsdemons left the group to go study elven poetry under Narena Packedman, a renowned poet who had over twenty-five students and several major works over a century of activity. After a brief apprenticeship, Stasost went on to have five students of her own before becoming a noble ruling over some goblin pits in 131. Two of these students, Aslot Hatedtangle and Stasost Profaneace, were taught the moral lesson poetic form around the year 120. Stasost Profaneace is still alive, now traveling with the venerable Blockaded Horns troupe (founded in 35), though she has not yet successfully passed on the moral lesson form (her only apprentice to date was murdered).

The other student of Tongsdemons, Aslot, was a one-armed murderous goblin farmer in the pits before becoming a poet at age one hundred eleven, studying under the future Lady for twelve years until she assumed rulership. Aslot was murdered in 162, but he had many students of his own and one of them, a human named Atek Housetactics was deemed worthy of the moral lesson form. Atek was born in 130, 24 years after the invention of moral lesson poetry, and learned the form in the year 150. After losing several apprentices to the perils of goblin living, Atek managed to keep the goblin Osta Wererock alive long enough to pass along the knowledge. They founded a troupe together called the Holy Points and are still performing. Several new members have joined up, so there's hope that moral lesson poetry will continue to spread.

There aren't a lot of games that make me feel like I could play them forever. But since the moment I stumbled upon Ditto's PLANETER, a new one has been added to that list. It doesn't really belong in any genre, or at least, not in the common ones you're used to. However, mainly due to its immense adorableness, everything you see almost works as a constantly renewed invitation to stay a little longer. It's a crossing between an interactive art tool and an endless 2D exploration game, and as such, it's incredibly easy to lose track of time while playing.

The soundtrack is soothing, and it suits the lightheartedness of PLANETER very well. In fact, here you're going to be taking control of a strange little entity as it tries to literally grow its own planetary system through the intuitive game mechanics. There isn't anything that will try to stop you. It's just a peaceful trail of events powered by the shiny colors of the random generation of new planets that you trigger one step at a time.

Creating a new planet is easier done than said. In short, you can essentially do it by locating a strange device (it's a rectangle with short stripes) and then place it on a machine of the same color. Between every generation there will always be one of each, so the only thing you have to do, is to find where are these two elements and get the work done. As your planetary system grows, the task will become slightly more time-consuming. However, the animation of a new planet appearing is so satisfying that makes every second you spent completely worth it.

New planets might come with new life forms, and you can grab them just like the mighty device and bring them wherever you want. To move between the satellites there are two ways, you can jump between one and another, or you can float pressing your Spacebar hoping that the gravity of distant celestial bodies will catch you.

In either case, navigating through your creation is legitimately fun. The deluxe version of PLANETER costs $3.00. It features more aliens than the free version as well as nicer looking planets. Both can be acquired on itch.io for Windows.

klappersacks:

1952-File Photo Digital Archive on Flickr.

“the cartoonist has no idea how net neutrality works”

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- credit to rorus raz (via agoodcartoon)

“Wimps. Snowing in DC and they close the government. Imagine if the rest of the country closed when it snowed.”

— Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), quoted by The Hill.

The post Quote of the Day appeared first on Political Wire.

A client wanted a “high-end, extremely fashionable backpack for celebrities.” This was the complete brief he gave me.

Yes, the drawing is in children’s crayons, and yes, the ‘tail’ was drawn on Snapchat.

You are a spooky, scary skeleton. You take selfies. That is the whole joke. It's fucking fantastic.

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Yuki-taro is known in this part of Japan as the friendly snowbot. (more…)

John Fund notes Sarah Palin’s “meandering and often bizarre” speech in Iowa proved she “clearly lacks the discipline for a full-fledged campaign.” The New York Daily News called it a “multitude of brief nonsensical tirades.”

The Huffington Post has an excerpt: “Things must change for our government. Look at it. It isn’t too big to fail. It’s too big to succeed! It’s too big to succeed, so we can afford no retreads or nothing will change with the same people and same policies that got us into the status quo. Another Latin word, status quo, and it stands for, ‘Man, the middle-class everyday Americans are really gettin’ taken for a ride.’ That’s status quo, and GOP leaders, by the way, y’know the man can only ride ya when your back is bent. So strengthen it. Then the man can’t ride ya, America won’t be taken for a ride, because so much is at stake and we can’t afford politicians playing games like nothing more is at stake than, oh, maybe just the next standing of theirs in the next election.”

The DNC had a brief response: “Thank you.”

The post Palin’s Bizarre Speech Panned appeared first on Political Wire.

Alabama Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Worley “sent a holiday letter to friends and Democrats all over the state describing, among other things, how she got stuck on the toilet and couldn’t get up,” the Birmingham News reports.

madddscience:

Ed Valigursky. For sentient Venusian robots, they sure are bad at picking a friendly-looking member of their race as a diplomat. 

Check out my Maddd Science blog for more commentary and weird science, guys.

There's only a few days left to order your EIT! DVDs for just $10 before the holidays! Visit our store now!

rollership:

Oh shit, 140th century not 14th century! Yeah my ships on fire pfhil could you  put that out for me?,thanks.”

Builder Savath_Bunny shared superb-looking Pokémon center on LEGO Ideas and filled it with the main characters, Pokémon starters and all the gadgets you can find in the games.

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zizibutik:

take it back Samantha

“A display of fried chicken, a melon and a 40-ounce beer bottle had been placed in the street.” Read the rest

90 minutes ≈ 1 week

Jon Hilsenrath writes in the Wall Street Journal how he met his wife Cristina covering Washington, DC Mayor Marion Barry’s crack possession trial 24 years ago.

Barry signed a picture of himself for their wedding with the following inscription:

For Jon and Cristina,
The bitch set us all up!
Congratulations.
Mayor for Life,
Marion Barry

Baked.

sciencefictiongallery:

Dean Ellis - Rogue Golem, 1977.