kate

TV version to add scenes such as Girge vs Spartans; OVA to show Delphine's creation

Sanzigen, Liden Films animate 1st new film for August 23 opening

It’s been nearly 10 years since college students first opened their Facebook profiles. And in that time, it has expanded out of college dorms nationwide to a multi-billion dollar juggernaut that connects everything in everyday life. But while Facebook has enriched consumers lives — providing a launchpad for reform and allowing us to keep relationships afloat long after their shelf-life — it has breached privacy boundaries unlike any other technological advancement.

It took months to spread from campus to campus after it first launched at Harvard University a decade ago today. Within weeks of joining, students were connected to lab partners, college and high school classmates and maybe even a few childhood friends. But since those early days, Facebook has been at the center of protests and scandals, sparking political reform or fervent debate around key social issues.

Democracy In Action

Tech-savvy activists have been using social media to both broadcast and organize their reform efforts. Facebook was instrumental in organizing Egypt’s protests against then President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Because of its unique ability to aggregate the internet and the world according to our personal connections, Facebook is essentially “democracy in action, or at least the closest thing we see in our daily lives,” CNN wrote of how Facebook was used in the Tunisian and Egyptian protests. That same year, Taiwanese medical professionals used Facebook to share their concerns about the country’s overcrowded emergency rooms in the wake of Japan’s 8.9-magnitude earthquake that triggered several tsunamis for the island. Reform for Taiwan’s health system was stagnant until the health department’s minister took notice, making rounds to hospitals and scheduling talks to garner more resources to aid them. Facebook’s knack for political and social organization is largely why it’s banned, or severely limited, in several countries, including North Korea, Iran, Cuba and China.

Facebook has had no small impact on democracy here in the United States as well, proving to be integral in the political process. For example, the site’s interactive traffic has been touted for its ability to predictelection outcomes and boost voter turnout. The radiating effect that encourages users to vote by donning “I Voted” badges on friends’ profiles has the potential to encourage other kinds of social action. It has also facilitated participation in organ donations. Facebook’s feature that allows users to list their organ donor status spurred nearly 40,000 new people to sign up for the program, according to a study from the American Journal of Transplantation.

A Decade Of Lawsuits

But what makes Facebook perfect for spreading awareness and fostering social organization can also be disconcerting when it comes to consumer privacy.

The sheer volume of data Facebook collects from its users — including status updates that were never posted — coupled with the company’s history of lax and confusing privacy policies has made it the center of the privacy debate. Facebook has dealt with dozens of lawsuits over its privacy tactics. For example, two users have sued Facebook for mining their “private messages” and selling them to third-parties. The company faced a class-action lawsuit in 2011 for using members’ pictures and information to promote “sponsored stories” on the site. The profile data was used without the users’ permission and allowed other companies to use it in their branding. Facebook eventually paid $20 million to settle the suit. The social network, which went public in 2012, is constantly being sued for trampling privacy rights. But despite having to dole out millions in settlements, the company consistently pushes the boundaries of where technology can and should go into consumers’ lives.

Big Data Is Watching

Companies can home in on details of your life and your spending preferences based on what you have in your profile. In fact, because its database reveals so much about users, intelligence agencies and law enforcement partner with Facebook. Beyond that, Facebook has empowered companies, potential employers and retailers alike, to pick and choose their audience. What you post can be used to assess your character. An off-color remark or provocative or inappropriate pictures have kept job seekers from landing a new gig. Even your friends’ social media choices — as minor as as typing in all caps or all lowercase — can affect you, as some lenders use a person’s Facebook connections to see whether or not they should get a loan. For small businesses, lenders look at their interactions with customers and number of ‘likes’ to determine whether to extend a line of credit. The Internal Revenue Service even scours the site to find anyone who may be cheating on their taxes. And even those Facebook-organized protests could be quelled as police increasingly search for inklings of criminal intent on the site.

What’s Next?

It’s Facebook’s pervasiveness in linking every aspect of your daily life — from the music you listen to on Spotify at work to (possibly) using facial recognition software to tag you in a picture — that make it both intrusive and ingenious as a resource. But like it or not, Facebook has made the world more connected and reshaped the public’s expectation of privacy. In the next 10 years, it will likely get harder to freely express yourself on Facebook without fear of repercussions.

Despite an increasing infringement on consumers’ private lives, Facebook acts like a barometer, testing how far it can probe into users’ personal data before inciting backlash from its users and governments. As a result, businesses and tech companies will get smarter, learning from Facebook’s privacy blunders — and successes. They will get smarter at appealing to only you. And by staying one step behind Facebook and in its shadow, companies can explore privacy territory Facebook easily eroded without controversy and let it take on public discontent for going a step further.

The post How The Facebook Decade Changed The World, For Better And For Worse appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Poor Tex Avery just can't seem to win. He's getting his own day in Texas next month, while his protégé Chuck Jones will be the subject of a six-year nationwide museum exhibit that begins this summer.

Thanks to one Mr. Ed Chavez I was recently informed of an unusual shoujo manga called Pochamani. It’s short for “Pocchari Mania,” which translates into something like “Chubby Chaser.” It’s a pretty rare concept in manga but especially shoujo manga where characters are generally known for being thin wisps, be they male or female. The series also earned a mention in the annual These Manga Are Great! (Kono Manga ga Sugoi!) 2014 edition, while the author Hirama Kaname mentions that her own preference for chubbier folks was the impetus for this series.

The main character of Pochamani is a chubby girl named Tsumugi who begins to date a handsome classmate who has a thing for larger ladies. While on some level wish fulfillment, the manga does a number of notable things. First, is that Tsumugi is not “fat” in the way Yomi from Azumanga Daioh or Hiro from Hidamari Sketch are “fat” (meaning visually indistinguishable from other characters in terms of weight and relying solely on text and speech to make this point), but is drawn differently from other characters. Though the art is inconsistent with how big she’s supposed to be (perhaps due to the artist being unfamiliar with how to draw such a body type?), it generally gets the point across that she’s small and round.

Second, while the manga, at least from the first volume I read, is not super progressive or tactful in every way (one of the most common scenes is the boyfriend rubbing her underarm flab with excitement), it does point out that the boyfriend is into her not simply because she’s chubby. Instead, it has a lot to do with her personality and demeanor, namely that whereas the girls he’s dated in the past have been depressed about their weight, Tsumugi is comfortable with how she looks.

Third, it covers those moments where they’re walking down the street and getting stares because people simply can’t believe that a guy like him is with a girl like her. Tsumugi is confident but not unshakable, and seeing her strength even through this is admirable.

Probably the strangest thing to come out of Pochamani is its official website, which is designed to be a fan club for people who like their partners on the large side. It has a list denoting the “charms of chubby people” and even an interview with a handsome male voice actor (seen above) about how he likes chubby girls (and also the manga of course). They also have a female Osakan comedian named Babazono Azusa as their somewhat corpulent spokesmodel. I’m not 100% behind the site because it seems to veer more towards a more simplistic fat fetishism compared to the actual manga, but I know Japan of all places is not known for its acceptance of fat as a type of beauty, so I see it as a kind of marketing decision within this context.

It happens every year: Despite the best efforts of authors, publishers and publicists, there are smart, funny and downright entertaining comics that fail to get their proper due. It’s a truth made more manifest every year as production and publishing costs are lowered and more and more people find ways of getting their work on [...]

Death, taxes and new comics. Those are just a few things we can expect in the New Year (not YOUR death necessarily, just death in general). Anyway, lots of comics will be published this year. Here are six I’m really looking forward to and that I think you should be excited about as well. Feel [...]

fuckingrecipes:

DO YOU HAVE STRAWBERRIES TRYING TO CONQUER YOUR HOUSE? TIME TO FUCK SHIT UP, BECAUSE WE’RE GOING TO MAKE SOME GODDAMN DELICIOUS STRAWBERRY PIE!

I’M A LAZY SHIT RIGHT NOW, SO JUST FUCKING GRAB A PRE-BAKED PIE CRUST FROM THE STORE! OR MAYBE YOU’RE TOO METAL FOR THAT, THEN YOU CAN FUCK EVERYONE AND MAKE A GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST FROM THIS RECIPE.
WHATEVERTHEFUCK YOU WANT

TAKE 2 CUPS OF STRAWBERRIES AND THROW THEM AT YOUR KNIFE COLLECTION UNTIL THEY ARE PERFECTLY SLICED. PRACTICE YOUR NON-EUCLIDIAN GEOMETRY, THEN PUNCH A VAMPIRE IN THE FACE AND BUTTERFLY KICK THEM INTO THE PIE CRUST

TEACH SOME ORPHANED GOLDFISH HOW TO PLAY SOCCER, THEN KICK ANOTHER 2 CUPS OF STRAWBERRIES INTO A FINE PASTE. THE JUICES SHOULD REMIND YOU OF PAST BATTLES AND THE TORN FLESH OF YOUR ENEMIES.
SMELLS LIKE SWEET VICTORY.

BREAK INTO A STARBUCKS AND RETRIEVE ALL THE SUGAR PACKETS, OR QUEST INTO THE WILD UNKNOWNS OF YOUR CUPBOARDS TO FIND SOME. SWEET-TALK 1 CUP OF SUGAR INTO JOINING IN HOLY MATRIMONY WITH YOUR STRAWBERRY MASH, THEN UNCEREMONIOUSLY DUMP THE TWO OF THEM TOGETHER INTO A SAUCEPAN.

IT’S ABOUT TO GET HOT AND STEAMY UP IN HERE!
TELL THEM IT’S THEIR HONEYMOON AS YOU FLICK THE HEAT UP TO ‘MEDIUM’ AND STIR SLOWLY. WATCH AS THE SUGAR AND FRUIT FLESH DISSOLVES UNDER CONSTANT WAVES OF RISING TEMPERATURES. SMIRK AT THE INEVITABLE DOOM.

WHEN IT STARTS BOILING AND FLINGING BITS FUCKING EVERYWHERE, TURN THE HEAT DOWN TO ‘LOW’ AND TURN YOUR ATTENTIONS ELSEWHERE.

GET OUT YOUR RITUAL SKULL, BECAUSE YOU NEED TO MIX TOGETHER 3 TABLESPOONS OF CORN STARCH AND ¾ CUPS OF WATER!

USING TWO HANDS LIKE A TALENTED MOTHERFUCKER, STIR THE STRAWBERRIES WHILE YOU ADD YOUR DAMN CORNSTARCH WATER. HOLD ON TO YOUR ASSHOLE, BECAUSE THIS REQUIRES PATIENCE!
THE ‘ADDING’ PROCESS SHOULD TAKE NO LESS THAN 1 MINUTE! DROP SOME IN, STIR, REPEAT. NONE OF THIS DUMPING SHIT.

AFTER IT’S ALL SWIRLED TOGETHER AND SMELLING LIKE HEAVEN JUST SQUATTED IN YOUR KITCHEN AND RUBBED ITSELF ALL OVER YOUR FACE, COVER THE FUCKING POT AND LET IT SIT FOR ANOTHER 10 MINUTES ON LOW HEAT.

GO WRITE SOME EXPLICIT FANFICTION ABOUT ME AND THAT PIE MAKER WHILE YOU WAIT. GODDAMN BEAUTIFUL MACHINE! FUCK!

AFTER YOUR TIMER HAS A HEART ATTACK, POUR YOUR STRAWBERRY SAUCE ALL OVER THOSE SLICED ASSHOLES STILL CHILLING IN THE PIE CRUST LIKE NOTHING’S WRONG IN THE WORLD.
PROVE THEM WRONG AND SHOVE THEM IN THE FRIDGE FOR 3 HOURS! COMPLETE ISOLATION, THEY’LL NEVER BE THE SAME!

IF YOU WANT TO BE A FANCY MOTHERFUCKER, YOU CAN ALWAYS ADD EXTRA STRAWBERRIES ON TOP, AND SERVE WITH WHIPPED TOPPING.

THEY MADE STUFFED ANIMALS FROM THEIR STORIES KISS. Ok, maybe there wasn’t actual unicorn to direwolf lip contact here but it’s damn close. Thank you for being adorable, Peter S. Beagle and George R.R. Martin.

(Nerd Approved, image by Sarah Allegra)

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The Postal Service (USPS) could spare the most economically vulnerable Americans from dealing with predatory financial companies under a proposal endorsed over the weekend by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

“USPS could partner with banks to make a critical difference for millions of Americans who don’t have basic banking services because there are almost no banks or bank branches in their neighborhoods,” Warren wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed on Saturday. The op-ed picked up on a report from the USPS’s Inspector General that proposed using the agency’s extensive physical infrastructure to extend basics like debit cards and small-dollar loans to the same communities that the banking industry has generally ignored. The report found that 68 million Americans don’t have bank accounts and spent $89 billion in 2012 on interest and fees for the kinds of basic financial services that USPS could begin offering. The average un-banked household spent more than $2,400, or about 10 percent of its income, just to access its own money through things like check cashing and payday lending stores. USPS would generate savings for those families and revenue for itself by stepping in to replace those non-bank financial services companies.

Those companies are among the most predatory actors in the money business. Payday loans with annual interest rates well north of 100 percent suck billions of dollars out of poor communities every year, with the average customer paying $520 to borrow $375. After decades of operating in a regulatory blind spot and ducking state-level reforms, the payday lending business now faces a crackdown from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The threat of new rules for short-term cash loans in general has caused traditional banks to stop offering deposit-advance loans with similar features.

But while ending triple-digit interest rates and fine-print tricks is a good thing for consumers, it doesn’t reduce the demand for those financial services. The USPS could slide into that space and meet that need without preying upon those communities. “Instead of partnering with predatory lenders,” David Dayen writes in The New Republic, “banks could partner with the USPS on a public option, not beholden to shareholder demands, which would treat customers more fairly.” America’s post offices are an ideal physical infrastructure for furnishing these services to communities currently neglected by banks. Roughly six in 10 post offices nationwide are in what the USPS report calls “bank deserts” — zip codes with either one or zero bank branches.

Doing business in those communities in more ethical fashion would still be profitable enough to inject about $9 billion into the struggling federal mail agency’s books. The USPS is dealing with a fiscal crisis, one largely manufactured by Congressional choices. The agency gets no taxpayer money for its operations but is still under Congress’s authority, and lawmakers have used that authority to impose arbitrary financial requirements and service constraints that have the post service on the verge of bankruptcy. USPS is legally obligated to hold assets in its pension funds that cover the next 75 years of projected pension costs, a unique and crippling requirement that Congress refuses to lift despite evidence that it is almost solely responsible for the agency’s financial woes.

The post Elizabeth Warren Proposes Replacing Payday Lenders With The Post Office appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Q: Why is it that Robin has endured as Batman's teen sidekick, but Jimmy Olsen hasn't as Superman's? -- @doubting_tom

A: I don't know why, but for some reason, I got a lot of questions this week about sidekicks in general and Robin in particular, but this one stuck out for a pretty obvious reason, which is that I really, really like to talk about Jimmy Olsen. It's weird, though, Tom, because you're absolutely right: As much as I might love the guy, he's often ignored in and minimized in superhero stories, something that doesn't happen a lot to someone who was once a fixture of the cast who was popular enough to hold down a solo title for 150 issues. Meanwhile, we're up to our pointy bat ears in Robins, ex-Robins, dead Robins, potential Robins and Future Robins. It seems a little imbalanced.

But at the same time, there's definitely a logic to it, and there are a lot of reasons that those two characters have ended up how they did. It has to do with when they showed up, the role they fill in the story, how they've changed over the years, and the idea that maybe Jimmy Olsen isn't really a sidekick at all.

Continue reading…

Mutants, monsters and warriors adorn our pick of the best covers of January 2014 as Best Comic Book Covers Ever returns. Check out amazing work from Kris Anka and Jared K. Fletcher, Darwyn Cooke, Wes Craig, Rafae

Continue reading…

Q: What's your take on Wolverine and his many girl sidekicks? Do you think it's important for their stories, and who's best? -- @manuel_mc89

A: I think it's been well-established over my time here at ComicsAlliance that I have a whole lot of affection for the X-Men, and Wolverine in particular. I love that guy, mostly because it was basically unavoidable that I would end up becoming a fan of a dude who could punch you with knives and rode around on motorcycles and didn't play by the rules, man. I mean, I was ten years old in 1992. That I didn't also enter my teenage years as a huge fan of Cable and Shatterstar (his sword has two blades!) is basically miraculous.

Point being, Wolverine's great, and on the list of things he does that I'm always eager to see, mentoring younger characters is right up there with stabbing hundreds of ninjas. And folks, I like Wolverine stabbing ninjas a lot.

Continue reading…

“I think my clients should be aware that I worked as a male model in Paris before!”

-

A client’s response when I asked why they need to include this information under the company logo on every single employee’s business card.

The company offers home remodelling services.

“Can you make the arrows less masculine?”

Yes, you read that headline correctly.  Disney has optioned a pitch written by award-winning commercial director Robert Rugan (who is apparently most famous for this condom commercial) and produced by Mandeville Films/TV for a live-action + CGI Chip ‘n’ Dale movie about the origins of our favorite Rescue Rangers. Mandeville, of course, is behind the new Muppets movies, so this news isn’t entirely terrifying.

While Chip ‘n’ Dale have been around a long time, they really became beloved for many because of Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers, the animated show that was a part of the Disney Afternoon in the 1990s.  Surely many of those fans who were children in the 1990s now have children of their own that they’d love to share the Rescue Rangers with, so this isn’t a terrible decision in regards to timing. Unfortunately, many of the live-action/CGI remakes that have been created lately to cash in on nostalgia are just not as good as the originals they’re based on.  As ScreenRant put it:

Nowadays, live-action takes on nostalgic cartoons are generally lucrative, but they’re a very iffy proposition quality-wise. Part of the problem is that these recent live-action/CGI franchises like Alvin & the Chipmunks and The Smurfs have loaded on adult irony, at the expense of the innocence and irreverence that made previous incarnations so charming; the other problem is that photo-realistic CGI versions of hand-drawn characters from the 20th century tend to turn out, well, awkward (see: CGI Garfield, etc.).

Let’s not pretend that the words “live-action Chip ‘n’ Dale movie” didn’t just make you a little queasy.  For people of my generation, there are a lot of fond memories of afternoons spent in the company of Chip ‘n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers and while a new animated version of the show would be welcomed happily, the idea of a movie along the lines of The Smurfs makes me really sad.  Give me animation, comics, etc. but why, why in the name of all that is holy, would anyone think that the world needed a live-action/CGI combo movie about Chip ‘n’ Dale?!  Hopefully Mandeville producing the film will keep it more in line with the charm of the newer Muppets films then with the lackluster Alvin & The Chipmunks or The Smurfs films, but only time will tell.

(via the Hollywood Reporter)

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I certainly enjoyed the Chip ‘n Dale shorts I’ve seen but I’ll have to admit, their late 80s TV revival with Rescue Rangers passed me by. I may have played a NES game for a couple of hours, maybe?

I’ll get my chance soon enough, it seems, as The Hollywood Reporter have learned of plans inside Disney for a new, live-action movie derived from the Rescue Rangers premise, or near enough.

The show saw Chip, the brains behind the pair, and Dale, the goofball, running a detective agency and helping animal clients… It is from Rescue Rangers that the new project would spring as it tells an origin story of sorts.

I wouldn’t be sure that “origin” necessarily means “Rescue Rangers” but that might just be fuzzy writing on THR’s part.

There’s no doubt that the success of Chipmunks films must have been considered while Disney were mulling this prospect. There’s a fourth Chipmunks film in production right now.

Ah well. The Chipmunk movies are a pretty low hurdle for Chip, Dale and their new director, Robert Rugan, to jump.

And talking of Rugan – and so we should, it’s on his shoulders to make something of this one – here’s a few of his commercials. Expect cute animals… but not necessarily in a child-friendly fashion, just yet.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Disney Planning A Live Action Chip ‘n Dale Movie And It’s Going To Be Rescue Rangers Flavoured

On Saturday, Nicholas Kristof's blog at the New York Times published an open letter by Dylan Farrow, the adoptive daughter of celebrated filmmaker Woody Allen. The letter describes, in horrifying detail, sexual assault she claims to have suffered at the hands of Allen—when she was seven years old. As Kristof notes, this is the first time that Farrow has written about this in public.

Here's an excerpt:

What's your favorite Woody Allen movie? Before you answer, you should know: when I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house. He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we'd go to Paris and I'd be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.

[...]

What if it had been your child, Cate Blanchett? Louis CK? Alec Baldwin? What if it had been you, Emma Stone? Or you, Scarlett Johansson? You knew me when I was a little girl, Diane Keaton. Have you forgotten me?

Woody Allen is a living testament to the way our society fails the survivors of sexual assault and abuse.

(You can read the rest of her letter—which isn't easy to get through—here.)

Allen's representatives did not immediately respond to Mother Jones' request for comment regarding the letter. I will update this post, if that changes.

Update: Allen's attorney Elkan Abramowitz sent Mother Jones the following statement on Sunday afternoon:

It is tragic that after 20 years a story engineered by a vengeful lover resurfaces after it was fully vetted and rejected by independent authorities. The one to blame for Dylan's distress is neither Dylan nor Woody Allen.

Update 2: Allen's publicist Leslee Dart emails the following on Sunday afternoon:

Mr. Allen has read the article and found it untrue and disgraceful. He will be responding very soon...At the time, a thorough investigation was conducted by court appointed independent experts. The experts concluded there was no credible evidence of molestation; that Dylan Farrow had an inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality; and that Dylan Farrow had likely been coached by her mother Mia Farrow. No charges were ever filed.

Accusations of the abuse surfaced in the early 1990s, shortly after the relationship between Allen and long-time girlfriend Mia Farrow ended after she discovered Allen had been having an affair with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow and composer/conductor André Previn. Allen denies the allegations, and has never been prosecuted in this case. Allen and his defenders say that Dylan was coached to make the allegations by Mia Farrow. Discussion of the alleged assaults was renewed following a recent tribute to Allen at the Golden Globe Awards.

Update 3, February 7, 2014, 9:09 p.m. EST: On Friday, the New York Times published Woody Allen's response online: "Of course, I did not molest Dylan."

Update 4, February 7, 2014, 11:49 p.m. EST: On Friday, Dylan Farrow responded, in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, to Allen's piece in the New York Times: "His op-ed is the latest rehash of the same legalese, distortions, and outright lies he has leveled at me for the past 20 years."

Unicrunch by Pinteezy is available at Redbubble

hiddlespinebatch:

rox712:

This is a dream come true! Thank you PBS!

UM YES PLEASE

You don't realize just how much more powerful graphic technically has become, until you see a side by side comparison. Yesterday, Hideo Kojima posted an image on Twitter that did just that by putting Solid Snake's character model from the original Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation next to Naked Snake's character model in Metal Gear Solid V. The difference is amazing.



See more: Snake: Then and Now

Back at the beginning of January the official Transformers Collectors Club revealed that part of the BotCon exclusive box set would involve pirates, but left the rest to speculation. Not quite a month later the other half of the set has been revealed to be knights!

The cover for the next issue of the club magazine coming in February shows off the faction symbols. The pirate symbol is that of the Star Seekers, first seen on the Transformers Prime Thundertron figure, rather than the symbol seen in the teaser preview linked above. The other symbol is a more knightly version of the classic Autobot symbol. 

Inside the pages the magazine will also preview the first figure in the set: Canonball. His inclusion as captain of the Star Seekers rather than Thundertron indicates that this is a different continuity from what we've previously seen. There has been a lot of speculation as to what the knight figures will be since there aren't a lot of knight themed Transformers. A lot of eyes are looking towards recent Beast Hunters repaints as an obvious source for figures. 

I actually like where they're going with this theme. It's nice to have something original to BotCon again rather than rehashing previous toy lines as modern repaints. I probably won't be willing to spend the money on them, but they should be fun to look at. 

Read more...

Thanks to listings by Brazilian website Distribuidora de Brinquedos Hobby we're getting our first look at a new series of Mr. Potato Head Transformers figures unexpectedly based on G1 rather than the upcoming TF4: Age of Extinction movie. The variety of figures include two versions of Grimlock, three Optimus Primes, a Starscream, and a Bumblebee. 

The biggest set is the big Grimlock with Optimus Prime. Or is it Optimash Prime? Grimlock is in dino mode and towers over Prime. Looks like he'll have some hip articulation thanks to the way Mr. Potato Head figures work and an articulated jaw. Prime is all new rather than a re-release of the original and has some 'neck' articulation, basically sliding on the peg that connects to the body. He also comes with a shield and flame sword. 

The next listing is for a three-pack of figures consisting of Bumblebee, Grimlock, and Optimus Prime. Bumblebee is interesting because of his inclusion of a battle mask. Grimlock is in some sort of weird t-rex mode, but it just looks like Mr. Potato Head is wearing him as a hoodie. Prime looks to be a translucent version of the one that comes with the bigger Grimlock, or at least that's what the Photoshop seems to be indicating. 

Lastly we've got 'transforming' versions of Optimus Prime and Starscream. Transforming is a very loose way to describe them. Basically you're just moving the potato from a bot body to vehicle parts, it doesn't seem like any other parts are being shared between the two. 

I'm pretty happy with these. I really want the Grimlock and Optimus Prime set, I might get the rest if I can get them cheap enough. Hasbro has been making a lot of Mr. Potato Head figures, but this is easily my favorite run. 

[via Seibertron]

Read more...

Less than 24 hours after House Republicans released a “principles” document that outlines a piecemeal approach to immigration reform, undocumented immigrants have been cautiously optimistic about the prospects of living in America legally and without the threat of deportation. The document specifically provides an opportunity to apply for legal residence and citizenship for undocumented youths brought to the country as children. It also suggests that other undocumented immigrants would be eligible for a lesser form of legal presence, “legal status,” after enforcement triggers have been met. But the details of what a proposal would look like remain unclear, and which immigrants are eligible for citizenship is one of the biggest points of contention among some House Republicans who have already condemned any path out of the shadows as “amnesty.” Yet such a provision could be one of the best, long-lasting investments to the American economy.

Legal status and citizenship are similar for a few reasons. Both types of statuses would mean that immigrants can no longer be subject to deportation solely because they’re undocumented, that they would have work authorization, and that they could have international travel authorization. But these are also several differences. For one thing, naturalized citizens can participate in American civics by voting. They also can’t be deported if they commit crimes, unlike immigrants with legal status. And they would be able to apply for some restricted jobs not open to non-citizens. The issue of not having full rights, but rather a policy that says “you are permanently one of them and can never be one of us” as immigration advocate Frank Sharry writes, is at the core of why citizenship is so important to undocumented immigrants.

But citizenship has also been associated with economic growth. Though the exact details of the House Republican immigration legislation are still unclear, expanding legal status with a citizenship provision beyond just so-called DREAMers could grow the economy.” The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the Senate immigration bill, which will not be taken up in conference, would reduce the budget deficit, so that by 2033, the U.S. federal budget will shrink by about $900 billion. Under the Senate bill, immigrants must pass a 13-year process in which they have to clear numerous hurdles like paying fines, penalties, learning English, and first qualifying as a registered provision immigrant status before they can apply to become citizens.

If the House proposal to give a path to citizenship to people who “meet certain eligibility standards, and serve honorably in our military or attain a college degree,” is anything like the federal DREAM Act proposed last year, estimates suggest it would contribute an estimated an additional $329 billion in gross domestic product (GDP), help to create 1.4 million new jobs, and increase federal revenues by $1.7 billion over a ten year period.

Legal status would boost the economy, but the resulting productivity and wage gains would be much higher if the vast majority of the undocumented population are granted citizenship. Researchers found that immigrants who are only eligible for legal status, but not citizenship, would contribute about $832 billion to the economy in a ten year period, add 121,000 more jobs per year, and pay $109 billion in taxes over a ten-year period. Compare that to a scenario where undocumented immigrants are granted legal status and citizenship at the same time, the U.S. GDP would grow by $1.4 trillion over a ten year period, immigrants would help to create an additional 203,0000 jobs per year, and add $184 billion in tax revenue. In another scenario where undocumented immigrants are granted legal status and citizenship after five years, the GDP would grow by $1.1 trillion, there would be an additional 159,000 jobs per year, and add $144 billion in tax revenue.

Still, although House Republicans are not uniformly in support of legalization, what’s clear is that the less obstacles to a pathway to citizenship, the greater the gains, with the optimal waiting period for citizenship at about five years, according to a Center for American Progress report released on Monday. That report found, “the number of years that an immigrant can work for higher wages as a naturalized citizen declines, and immigrants have fewer incentives to invest in training and new skills as they age. Also, the best and the brightest immigrants may leave for their home countries or other, more welcoming countries.”

For his part, President Obama remarked in a CNN interview on Friday that he wouldn’t “prejudge” a deal that doesn’t include a pathway to citizenship. He said, “I do know that for a lot of families, the fear of deportations is one of the biggest concerns that they’ve got. That’s why we took executive action, giving my prosecutorial discretion, making sure we’re not deporting kids who grew up here and are Americans for all practical purposes, but we need to get that codified.”

The post Why Citizenship Is Better For America Than Legal Status appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Character goods maker Cospa will soon be offering a reproduction of the sukajan (bad-ass embroidered jacket - a sort of Japanese take on American World War II jumpers, famously worn by toughs in plenty of media) worn by Ryuko in the beginning of Kill La Kill. The polyester item is being offered in four unisex sizes for 16,200yen, with pre-orders taken ahead of a May release.

 

 

 

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Scott Green is editor and reporter for anime and manga at geek entertainment site Ain't It Cool News. Follow him on Twitter at @aicnanime.

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My favorite part of paloma-nevada’s Game of Thrones/Disney mashups is the obvious care taken to pair each Game of Thrones character with their perfect animated counterpart. Of course Roose Bolton’s Cruella, because they’re both all about flaying things. Theon is Ariel: They’re both connected to the sea, they both lose things in the below-the-waist area (though Ariel gets something in return), and they both grew up feeling like outsiders. Or maybe I’m putting too much thought into the fact that Theon is totally the Ariel of Westeros. Good luck unseeing it.

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Apparently, a Back to the Future musical stage show has been in the works for the last decade. I suspect time travel. 

According to the official Back to the Future website:

Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale are currently working with Universal Stage Productions (Wicked and Billy Elliot), London-based producer Colin Ingram (Ghost – The Musical) and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment to develop a stage musical version of their film Back to the Future. It will be produced with Donovan Mannato and CJ E&M.

But wait…we need to know important details, like, will Huey Lewis & the News be involved:

The new musical will have a book by Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale and Jamie Lloyd, and new music and lyrics by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, with additional music from the film by Huey Lewis & The News, Chuck Berry, Pat Ballard and Curtis Williams, including ‘The Power of Love’ and ‘Johnny B. Goode’. The production will be directed by Jamie Lloyd, with set and costume design by Soutra Gilmour, illusions by Paul Kieve, lighting design by Jon Clark, and musical supervision by Alan Williams. Andrew Willis will be skateboard consultant.

Skateboard consultant!!! This is going to be the coolest musical ever.

One of the other great things about this announcement is it reinforced Zemeckis’ stance of not doing any more Back to the Future films/remakes.

“The Back to the Future Musical is a project that Bob Zemeckis and I have been exploring for almost ten years. We’re thrilled to be at last in partnership with a creative and producing team that will create a show that is true to the spirit of the film without being a slavish remake,” said Gale. “With all of us working together, we know the integrity of the material will be preserved in a production that will be a wonderful companion to the Trilogy. We intend to use music from the movie along with brand new songs to make a version of Back to the Future that is fresh, entertaining, and takes advantage of all the amazing things that can now be done on stage. We can’t think of a better way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film.”

The musical is set to premiere in London (harumph.) sometime in 2015 before making it’s way to the US on Broadway (yah!). So. Daniel Radcliffe for Marty McFly? Make it happen, people.

(via Geekosystem)

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I don’t know a lot about American football but I probably know less about the World Cup, or whatever. Talk to me about Quidditch and we’re cool. Anyway, Sirs Stewart and McKellan are having a bit of fun with the Super Bowl here. I approve.

(via SirPatStew on Twitter)

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