Shared posts

19 Mar 16:06

This Notorious B.I.G./Dinosaurs Mash-Up Video Is My New Happy Place

by Charlie Jane Anders

I apologize if you've already seen this, since it's a couple days old — but I had to post this amazing music video, featuring Earl from Dinosaurs "lip"-synching to "Hypnotize" by the Notorious B.I.G. Because it is the most amazing thing I have seen in ages.

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18 Mar 17:52

Hangover-Free Wine Could Be on Its Way to Shelves — Food News

by Kelli Dunn
Pin it button big

Instead of waking up with a pounding headache after a few too many glasses of wine, imagine waking up feeling sharp and refreshed.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

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17 Mar 16:58

This Is What It Would Be Like To Dig To The Center Of The Earth

by Ria Misra

If you've ever encountered a sinkhole, dug a hole, or even just picked up an old Jules Verne novel, you've probably wondered idly what it might be like to travel to the earth's core. This interactive visualization lets you get a sense of the scale, without ever having to pick up a shovel.

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17 Mar 00:46

Berserkers

by Arnold K.
HD 1  AC 11  Oversized Weapon 1d8
Speed as human  Morale 12  Immune Fear, pain

Diehard.  After being dropped to 0 HP, there is a 50% chance that this creature continues to fight for another round before dropping dead.


Types of Berserkers
  1. Insane.  A overdose of talakeshi jelly, or the product of too many exotic neurotoxins spread across too few nerves.  Twitches, hallucinations.  Ragged clothing, stained red from self-harm.  Bare feet leave bloody footprints wherever they go.  Attack with hammers, straight razors.  Shouts: "I wanna eat your babies!" "Show me a bucket, and I'll show you a bucket!"  "They bounce if you throw them hard enough!"  "I'm sorry!  I'm so sorry!  You'll forgive me, won't you?"  "Harold!  Harold, how have you been?  How about those twenty silver you owe me?"
  2. Ensorcelled.  Supernaturally beguiled into becoming the soldiers for some enchanter.  Their veins glow red under their skin, and steam rises from their panting mouths.  They scream the name of their enchanter when they spot an enemy, when they attack, and when they die.  These are the only three things they'll ever do, and so the name is the only word they'll ever need.  Attack with glittering swords, or a single fingernail, glowing and impossibly long.
  3. Viking.  They're here for gold, a specific magical item, or simple to make a name for themselves.  Often it'll be a group of teenagers, striving to kill a noteworthy opponent or die trying.  They'll froth at the mouth and bite their axe hilts.  In the battle-rage they scream like animals, and forget the use of speech.  (They're quite reasonable the rest of the time.)  They wear braided bracelets of their spouse's hair (or their mother's if they are unwed).  Attack with greataxes and greatswords.
  4. Deathsworn.  Shorn heads, plastered with chalk dust.  Prayer beads shackled to their wrists.  Penitent's robes.  In exchange for the forgiveness of their sins, these men and women have received their third baptism from the Church--the baptism for the redemption of the damned.  This is effectively a geas spell, with one goal: to seek the greatest sources of destroy them without hesitation or forethought.  (They usually die pretty quickly.)  You'll often find themselves in the darkest corners of the world.  In these places, they attack everyone they see, reasoning that no decent person would ever stumble into such a hellhole.  Attack with huge hammers and spiked staves.
  5. Laughing.  Servants of the pain god.  Beneath their black leather armor is an elaborate filigree of scars.  Bottles on their waist are filled with blood, which they drink to slake their thirst.  Around each one's neck is a trussed-up vampire bat, whose saliva they use as an anticoagulant (so their blood doesn't curdle).  They delight in causing pain, but not in prolonging death.  They grin when they are struck, and always die laughing.  They fight with spiked chains and razor glaives.
  6. Otherworldly.  It's easy to be careless with your body when you know its only a rental.  Blue skin pebbled with yellow bumps.  Beneath a bandana is a third, empty eye socket.  Wear rags covered in yellow dust.  Speak no known language.  Attack slowly, carelessly.  They fight with glass spears, like elongated icicles.

Berserker Encounters
  1. Dungeon Chase.  4d6 berserkers appear, yelling and gnashing their teeth.  They are numerous enough that fighting them is ill-advised.  They intend to chase the party out of the dungeon, killing only the one member who is slowest.
  2. Rorshach Test.  2d6 berserkers are attacking some disgusting but benign creature (or creatures), made dangerous by its injuries.  They will urge you to join them in attacking it.
  3. Awakening.  2d6 berserkers have located a magic spear (+3 vs angels) and learned the location of a graveyard spirit.  They're going to go wake it up and kill it.  Left to their own devices, they will succeed at the first have of this goal before being killed by the graveyard spirit and the spear trampled into fragments.  This will replace the berserkers on the random encounter table with the much more dangerous graveyard spirit.
  4. Trophy-takers.  2d6 berserkers have killed another entry on this (dungeon's/hex crawl's) random encounter table.  Roll again to find out which one.  They appear covered in trophies from their last fight and have 1 special piece of equipment relevant to the thing they just fought.
  5. Enemy of My Enemy.  Roll another random encounter and begin that one as normal, preferably with a monster or enemy that would normally go straight to combat.  After 1-2 rounds of this combat, 4d6 berserkers bust into the room and begin screaming how they are going to kill everyone and wear their guts.  This would be a good time to ally with your former enemy.
  6. Berserk Animal.  They are accompanied by a big-pissed off animal.  A dire wolf or huge boar (HD 4 each) is traditional.  The berserk animal attacks a random person each round.

Wrinkles
(because no encounter exists in a vacuum)
  1. Berserkers are accompanied by a bard, who will not fight.  He is here to record their brave deaths.  He can promise you good compensation if he is delivered to a nearby city.
  2. Berserkers are loaded up on all sorts of drugs, especially Talakeshi jelly (lets you always win initiative).  This is stolen, and a local drug lord will want compensation if she hears about it.
  3. When you go back to town, you'll hear about the berserkers being lauded as brave heroes who killed lots of monsters.  You'll be expected to join in when honoring their memories.
  4. Berserkers were servants of someone else.  They'll expect you to pay compensation for killing them.
  5. Berserkers were known and hated.  You'll be rewarded with friendship, connections, and favors.
  6. Berserkers were were known and especially feared.  If you can prove that you killed them, you'll be rewarded with 500s.  This will probably involve recovering all of their bodies, which may have been moved by predators or risen as undead by now.


16 Mar 20:17

Link About It: Google Feud

Google Feud
A simple browser-based game is taking advantage of those unpredictable (or predictable, depending on what you search) Google search suggestions. The Family Feud-style game is pretty straightforward: you earn points by accurately guessing terms that......
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11 Mar 19:20

Link About It: The Optimal US Road Trip

The Optimal US Road Trip
Self proclaimed “data tinkerer” Randal Olson has computed the optimal road trip across the United States. Using an algorithm that he previously applied to finding the best search path for locating Waldo in a “Where’s Waldo” book, Olson targeted must......
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11 Mar 16:16

Contest of the Day: Maine Inn Giving Away Property Through Essay Competition

by TDW

031115maineinn_fi

The owner of the Center Lovell Inn and Restaurant in Western Maine wants to retire, and she’s giving her entire business away to anyone who can woo her with words.

It’s a bit like Willy Wonka, only your golden ticket will be demonstrating your mastery of the English language and the art of persuasion.

Anyone interested must submit a 200-word essay explaining why they are the right person for the job along with a $125 entry fee.

Owner Janice Sage says she is hoping to receive at least 7,500 submissions, which would bring in $900,000, or the equivalent of the listing price of the 12-acre property.

“I’ve never been known to do anything the normal way,” she told the Portland Press Herald. “I just want to pass it on for someone else.”

All entries must be postmarked by May 7 and she will announce the winner on May 21.

Sage herself took over the inn in 1993 through an essay competition held by the previous owners Bil and Susie Mosca. She only paid $100 for the opportunity at the time, and the contest made national news.

The inn was built in 1805, and it has views of both Kezar Lake and the White Mountains. There are 7 guest units, two dining rooms and a screened-in wrap-around porch.

Image Via: Google

The post Contest of the Day: Maine Inn Giving Away Property Through Essay Competition appeared first on The Daily What.

09 Mar 18:09

Airbag video: the difference 7/100ths of a second make

by Mark Frauenfelder

[via]

05 Mar 14:59

You Can Play This Music For Your Cat (And Your Cat May Actually Like It)

by Robbie Gonzalez

Cats seem pretty apathetic about a lot of things . You might think music is one of them. But according to a new study, it's not that cats don't care about music – it's that they don't care about YOUR music. So what kind of music do cats appreciate? We're so glad you asked.

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04 Mar 13:58

THUG BUGS

by noreply@blogger.com (Patrick Stuart)


Here is a teaser page from Fire On The Velvet Horizon, Scrap and I's stat-less monster manual/art book.

The Bugs were one of my favourites because they ended up so bonkers and because scrap arranged them tearing apart their own description, which is exactly what they would do.

(Posting has been light recently, I think probably because I feel dead inside and that might be because my job is eating me but its highly likely that I will be fired tonight sooo, thing might improve?

Anyway, FOTVH is still good because I wrote it before the job ate my soul.)

Here is the trailer again:





I should try to say something intelligent and penetrating about this work that we have done.

It is unlike other things and it was made unlike them too.

Scrap would draw things, then I would look at them, then I would write down what I thought they were, then I would try to get the writing good, then she would assemble them into an image with things that she photocopied or stole and sometimes (often) hair or blood. There were also  strange scanning and glitch artifacts that sometimes we tried to get rid of and sometime incorporated into the design.

The whole thing is kind of a glitch artifact built on strangeness and mistakes, there are characters in there who appeared and made one comment then slowly grew throughout the entries until they have an entire life lived in the background of the monsters.

There is a setting in there too (everything we make ends up being half a setting book) with its own geography and strange history, perceived also though the background of the description of monsters.

Here is the blurb I wrote for the back. I couldn't be bothered doing a normal one so did it as a riddle instead:

"I am like no other thing,
A gem not famed for brightness.
Dead, but only listen and I live.
Voiceless, I speak.
Thoughtless, I lie.
Deeper than dark water,
Sharper than a swift sword,
Stranger than a drugged dream,
I serve in ordered ranks that never change.
Till night,
When a gallery of shadows paints your thoughts,
with more colours than a careless artists hand.
Lose me or be lost in me.
I am a place you may not go,
Once there I will not let you leave.
Though made of broken things I am yet whole.
And guard one hundred murders.
Lets kill your friends for fun."




Oh, hey, heres my intro for the front, that should simplify things:

Who writes the Monster Manual? I mean exactly who? Anyone who has read a D&D monster manual (especially some of the early ones) will be familiar with an assumed point of view that is best described as omnipotent-dementia. The writer of the D&D manual sometimes seems like a scholar reading from a range of sources and describing a creature in the manner of a medieval bestiary, sometimes they appear to possess the knowledge of god, someone observing an entire world from outside the flow of space and time telling you, for instance, what a Gnoll is likely to have in their pockets or on their mind, sometimes disclosing the secret origin of a forgotten deity, or the nature of reality itself in an idle aside, yet in the same breath they will point out  a mystery, the answer to which 'no-one knows'.

Not only that, but the same voice will often cite 'Sages', apparently academic sources from inside the described world, describing what they do or do not know, or disclosing what they suppose to be the case.

Added to this, in many Monster Manuals are fragments of what are supposed to be first person and third person recollections of actual events.

This imagined point of view makes perfect sense when creating a monster manual, it gives players and DM's exactly the right balance of hard information, soft suggestion, inspiring possibility and potential mystery that they need to create a monster in their own mind and use it in the game. It makes sense in no other place or time.

I have taken to calling this unique fictional voice 'M'th Person'.(As in 1st Person or 3rd Person.) So if you want to be really fucking pretentious, if someone asks you what you are reading, you can say "A new form of experimental fiction written in M'th person, the point of view Barthes described as 'Inconsistent Omnipotence' or that Robert Mckee called 'The Unreliable God Voice'", and you will be almost telling the truth. (Apart from the bits about Barthes and Mckee, I just made those up.)

There was a long description here of the events leading to the creation of the book but I condensed it into this thrilling one-act drama.

SP - God this is dragging on. Promise me when this is done we can do a simple easy monster book where I draw the monsters and you write them.

PS - Sure. Hey, you have drawn some monsters.

SP - Just pick the ones you like.

PS - Lets do exactly 100!

SP - It is now 6 months later.


Over time what was intended to be simply a list of animals generated its own cast of sages, with their own careers, life paths and stories, and its own geography, it created around itself a suggested world, from the black towers of Jukai, up the golden Or, through the Melanic Moors and the Pyrrhous Plains, with hints of its own history. As well as a strange obsession with colour.

Almost all of the colour is in the words and it bleeds through onto the page in the monsters or in a halo around the monsters. So they are bright things in a very dark, rich world.

I will let Scrap talk about the art because I suspect she will do it better but I would encourage you to look not just at the monsters or the rich treacly strange backgrounds that are like blurred windows into another world but at the combination between the two and the relationship between them over the whole of the work.

Writing is easier to write about than art, or seems to be so for most people because it is made of words and we assume that the blocks of its being can be converted easily enough into the blocks of its analysis. So people will probably talk about my contribution more than they should, and pay less attention to Scrap than they should.

I hope this makes you feel a little like you felt when you opened a Monster Manual for the first time and saw arranged in neat block, a world of strange encounters and a compilation of living things, each carrying its own fragmentary history, a little like a story and a little like a tool lying in a box, with its handle arranged towards to, asking to be picked up and used in some work of your own.


For an OSR book there is a sad lack of tables, therefore let me both remedy that now, and also address any worries and critical queries you may have about the writing style.

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THIS SENTENCE (roll a d6)

1. It is a brilliant piece of grammar-twisting experimental writing that you simply fail to comprehend. (roll again on sub-table A)

2. successive arguments over they use of commas and the exact arrangement of words have lead to an uneasy truce and a no-mans land of both punctuation and meaning.

3. The proof readers missed this bit.

4. The proof readers caught this bit but the writer carefully undid all their alterations (roll a d3)
1. For deep artistic reasons (roll again on sub-table A)
2. Out of rage and spite
3. He can't really remember why

5. The proof readers caught this bit but probably shouldn?t have.

6. No-one really knew what they were doing.


(Sub table A)
DEEP ARTISTIC REASONS YOU FAIL TO COMPREHEND (Roll a d6)

1. The rhythm of the sentence lends a deeper structure that punctuation would not (THE STRUCTURE OF SOUND, OF ORAL TRANSMISSION, OF HOMER AND SHAKESPERE YOU IGNORANT GRAMMAR-OBSESSED FUCKING COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS!)

2. The sentence was better with an apparently-inconsistent mish-mash of words which produce a powerful poetic effect when combined rapidly in the mind (AN EFFECT MUCH GREATER THAN YOUR MERE 'REASON' COULD EVER COMPREHEND!)

3. It is clarified by the context in which it is placed. (A WORK OF ART MUST BE CONSIDERD AS A WHOLE YOU DISGUSTING SURGEONS OF THOUGHT, THERE ARE NO DIVISIONS IN NATURE BUT ONLY AN ENDLESS FLOW OF ONE THING INTO ANOTHER!)

4. It is an impish provocation or grammatical flight-of-fancy, indulged in for the pure joy of it, in the same manner that a happy boy would skip down the street. (A JOY YOU WOULD NO DOUBT STRANGLE FROM THE WORLD WITH YOU 'STYLE GUIDES' AND ENDLESS WHINING YOU MEEK DRONES!)

5. The word-progression, taken as a whole, creates an impetus of moral, aesthetic or imaginative force which piles into the next sentence in an onrushing flow of words. (YOU FUCKING GOT THE GIST OF IT ANYWAY DIDN'T YOU?)

6. See result six on the previous table.

03 Mar 13:13

Jon Stewart Just Kicked Seth Rollins In The Dick

by Timothy Burke

That ain't kayfabe.

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24 Feb 13:24

Animal of the Day: ‘Gotcha’ the Cockatoo Runs Around Screaming Like a Crazy Person

by TDW

This bird has either completely lost his mind or has something very important to tell us all.

Watch Gotcha the 11-year old Moluccan cockatoo run frantically around the house screaming a bunch of gibberish.

To anyone concerned that he might be some sort of cry for help, his owner Katie Vannoy says this is just a typical day for her crazy pet and that there is no need to worry.

“He is a wild, energetic bird and just loves to run on the floor and be loud,” she writes in the video’s caption.

For example, here is Gotcha recently dancing to “Wild Thing.”

He also enjoys throwing bottles of water around the room like some kind of animal.

And don’t even think about trying to reason with him.

You can check out more of your new favorite crazy bird on their YouTube channel.

The post Animal of the Day: ‘Gotcha’ the Cockatoo Runs Around Screaming Like a Crazy Person appeared first on The Daily What.

20 Feb 13:23

This is the Platonic ideal of Russian YouTube videos

by Mark Frauenfelder

ECards says this video may be the Platonic ideal of Russian YouTube videos.

It has every element necessary:

  • A bear.
  • Someone engaging in reckless behavior around a large animal.
  • People speaking calmly in Russian while faced with certain death.
  • Bleakness.
  • Raw meat.
19 Feb 16:53

Giant Shrieking Raven Occupies Levi's Stadium, All Is Lost

by Barry Petchesky

The entire Western seaboard is being evacuated today, after an NHL webcam captured what appears to be an enormous bird the size of a football field interrupting the rink construction for Saturday's Kings-Sharks game. It is too late for humanity; surely the black death shall devour us all. Should the coal-winged skydestroyer come for me, please tell my family I love them and tell Todd McLellan to stop jerking everyone around with this captaincy thing.

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18 Feb 18:02

These NFL Helmet Concept Designs Are Definitely Bold

by Barry Petchesky

Some of these alternate helmet designs, created by artist and graphic designer Dylan Young, are cool as hell. Others, not so much. They're all really fun to look at, though, and isn't that what matters?

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09 Feb 21:55

The disappearance of a once-famous 1920s child novelist

by Mark Frauenfelder

Barbara Newhall Follett was eight years old when she began writing her novel, The House Without Windows. Read the rest

09 Feb 21:43

Werner Herzog's brutally honest motivational posters

by Mark Frauenfelder

Who needs life affirming bromides when you can have fatalistic, abyss-plumbing truths straight from the mouth of filmmaker Werner Herzog Stipetić? Here's a sampling from the Herzog Inspirationals Tumblr.

02 Feb 15:58

saved by the bell hooks

by David Pescovitz
tumblr_nj22ztFoZP1u9nolao1_500 A brilliant combination of images from teen sitcom Saved by the Bell and words culled from the work of postmodern writer/activist bell hooks: Read the rest
29 Jan 21:41

America and scientists: we're proud of them, but we don't believe them

by Jason Weisberger
The Pew Research Center tells us Americans like science and think our scientists are great, but we disagree with them on things like science.

PI_2015-01-29_science-and-society-00-01

29 Jan 13:18

Key & Peele Will Make You Laugh With More Fake Football Names

by Tom Ley

This is the third time they've done this sketch , and it is somehow not yet completely tiresome. This latest edition is aided by the presence of a few guest stars.

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27 Jan 18:26

15 unique illnesses you can only come down with in German

by Mark Frauenfelder

sad-pretzelHörsturz is a sudden loss of hearing caused by stress. Frühjahrsmüdigkeit is "spring fatigue," the opposite of spring fever. Putzfimmel is an obsession with cleaning. Read the rest

22 Jan 18:40

Bad Lip Reading returns; Tony Romo, Cam Newton, more look plain silly

by Jay Busbee

At this point, we have to laugh at the NFL to keep from crying. Thankfully, that's where Bad Lip Reading comes in. Just click and enjoy Tony Romo's confusion, Cam Newton's storytelling abilities, and the very creepy proclivities of several of your favorite head coaches. Great stuff.

____
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.

Follow @jaybusbee

And keep up with Jay over on Facebook, too.

20 Jan 14:35

Can You Crack One Of Car Talk's 'Toughest Puzzlers'?

by Robbie Gonzalez
Zackc43

I think it's the lead box.

Can You Crack One Of Car Talk's 'Toughest Puzzlers'?

For years, the radio show Car Talk challenged its listeners with a weekly "Puzzler." According to the show's archives, this is one of the toughest Puzzlers to ever air. Can you solve it?

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18 Jan 17:45

Want More Women In Gaming? Make Better Shit.

by noreply@blogger.com (Zak S)
"No school due to ice today. My six year old daughter spotted Red and Pleasant Land on the table and was drawn in by the blonde girl in a pretty dress and also the possibility that that might be blood dripping down in the background. 

I don't usually share my gaming books with her because of all the murder and horror. But I spent a short while this morning telling her all about R&PL. She loves vampires and Alice in Wonderland, she was very happy to see all the girls in interesting dresses through out,


...although equally interested in the green pigs....

....I realized just how perfect this book is for her. the contents are what she is all about. It all makes sense to her, crazy gravity, inside out rooms, lakes of blood on the ceiling. Best of all it inspires her. Which is what a good DIY D&D book should do. So we spent awhile this morning drawing vampires. 

Her vampires are a mother and two daughters, although the one with the ears is secretly a gremlin. They had to move out of the small castle (which is far away) and move into the large castle (which is close up) because "That place got all jacked up by gremlins". The squiggly lines are roads and or roller coasters that move people around and it doesn't matter if the vampires fall off the roller coasters because they can fly.

I'm going to tell her about the Vampire Brides who can change into kittens when she gets home."
See, ladies love quality.

16 Jan 13:19

The Packers Got Everyone In Green Bay Playing Settlers Of Catan

by Tom Ley

The Packers Got Everyone In Green Bay Playing Settlers Of Catan

The Wall Street Journal's Kevin Clark, who has been pumping out fun, off-color NFL stories all year, has another good one today. It's all about how a handful of Green Bay Packers got hooked on Settlers of Catan, the board game that all of your buddies who are bearded craft-beer enthusiasts are addicted to.

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16 Jan 13:05

Each state's most disproportionately popular cuisine

by Andrea James
YelpMap

According to a survey using Yelp data, Marylanders and Virginians love Peruvian food, Ohioans love soup, Coloradans love gluten free, and West Virginians love hotdog. Other trends: Read the rest

15 Jan 17:46

Good Morning, Internet! bunnyfood: (via lazydrumroll)



Good Morning, Internet!

bunnyfood:

(via lazydrumroll)

13 Jan 15:21

50 years of David Bowie's hairstyles

by Jason Weisberger

Bowie's hairstyles by Helen Green

Helen Green drew and compiled this fantastic GIF of Bowie's hairstyles. (h/t Kottke.org)

09 Jan 17:07

Link About It: Internet Archive Releases 2,400 Games

Internet Archive Releases 2,400 Games
Thanks to Internet Archive, your favorite childhood games like “Sim City,” “Oregon Trail” and 2,400 other MS-DOS games are now available to play straight from your computer, all for free. The MS-DOS emulating software running the games is a new and......
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08 Jan 13:17

Downton Against Humanity: "Downton Abbey" stars play Cards Against Humanity

by Xeni Jardin

"Here's what happens when Lady Edith, Mrs. Patmore, and Mrs. Hughes play a raunchy American card game." (more…)