Fatbob

Quirky horror puzzler Year Walk is coming to Steam in early 2014 from developer Simogo. Year Walk explores the lore behind an ancient Swedish myth that saw townsfolk journey to church at midnight, passing through forests filled with beasts ...

(714): Walked into a bathroom stall to pop an addy for my three back-to-back finals today. Felt like Clark Kent walking into a phonebooth.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:


Happy Smissmas 2013!

• All Players who play TF2 during the event will receive a Gift-Stuffed Stocking! Stockings contain goodies for good little Mercenaries.
  
• Added community-contributed winter event items
  
• Added the Giftapult, which can be used to launch gift items to randomly-chosen online players
  
• Added Naughty and Nice winter keys to the Mann Co. Store
  
• Premium Players will receive a Secret Saxton to give to another player
  
• Item grants from previous events (including the Spirit of Giving and the Winter Holiday noise maker) have been re-enabled for all players, including those who deleted their earlier grants

Weapons

• Battalion's Backup
  • Added +20 max HP passive for the wearer
• Concheror
  • Added +2 health per second passive for the wearer
• Crit-a-Cola
  • Reduced consumption penalty from +25% extra damage to +10%
• Diamondback
  • Now also gains a critical attack on successful backstab kills
• Flying Guillotine
  • Alt-Attack now also throws the Guillotine when active
• Short Circuit
  • Attack sped up greatly
    
  • Ammunition cost has been lowered to 5 metal per attack
    
  • Players and Buildings are only targeted if in range and in front of attacking player
    
  • Improved visual effects
• Soda Popper
  • Hype no longer grants mini-crits
    
  • Added Hypemode which grants up to 5 extra air jumps when active
    
  • Hypemode is triggered by Alt-Attack when hype is full
• The Beggar's Bazooka has been updated to use the same taunt as The Direct Hit
  
• Professional Killstreak Mantreads, Splendid Screen and The Chargin' Targe now generate proper effects when on a killstreak. These effects do not stack if another killstreak effect weapon is active.

Cosmetics

• "Head" and "Misc" slots for player loadouts have been converted to Cosmetic slots. All items that were previously Head- or Misc-slot-specific can now be equipped in any Cosmetic slot.
  
• Unusual effect positioning can now be adjusted for all Cosmetic-slot items
  
• Unusual Circling Effects have been given a new origin
  
• Unusual effects for all Cosmetic-slot items are now visible in the loadout panel and character HUD
  
• Fixed the Wiki Cap clipping with the Demoman's head

Mann vs. Machine

• Fixed being able to inspect Blue-team bots
  
• Fixed the mission victory screen not always showing the correct information for each player
  
• Fixed some clipping issues with the stats in the scoreboard

General

• Fixed an exploit where players could move around while using a taunt to attack enemies
  
• Fixed an exploit related to the Rocket Jumper and the Soldier's grenade taunt
  
• Fixed killstreaks attained via healing not being considered for round-end win panel
  
• Fixed the killstreak hud indicator position in minmode
  
• Fixed Taunt Kills strange scores not incrementing properly for the Strange Scorch Shot
  
• Fixed strange scores on cosmetic items sometimes failing to increment
  
• Fixed gift-wrapped items not showing their interior item to the wrapping player in some conditions
  
• Fixed Steam Sale items granted from Snow Globe crafting not being listable on the Steam Community Market
  
• Improved bot navigation in cp_gorge
  
• Improved bot navigation in pl_upward
  
• Updated several materials to fix issues caused by mat_picmip
  
• Updated the backpack to filter to automatically filter for valid items when using a tool

If there's one thing we've learned in 2013, it's that the National Security Agency is always watching. All that snooping surely results in a wealth of information — good and bad — about all of us. So, is it all that hard to imagine the NSA trying to lend a hand during Christmas, the "most wonderful time of the year"? Of course it isn't, but the gesture may not turn out all that well for the NSA.

Santa just can't get on board with the idea.

Image: Mashable, Lance Ulanoff Read more...

More about Comic, Christmas, Funny, Us, and Watercooler

You like to mess with your phone? Unlock that bootloader and flash some ROMs? Soon there'll be another option for would-be tinkers who want to run mods. Google just approved the first ever Android phone to run the ever-popular Cyanogenmod right out of the box.

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“Tampon Flasks” are test tubes which come with fake tampon wrappers, so you can bring an ounce of liquor (per tampon) somewhere and then pour it out of your tampon into your drink. Or just drink it straight out of the tampon! Both of those would be totally normal in a public place.

Nintendo announced Hyrule Warriors during today's Nintendo Direct livestream. Gameplay video for the Wii U action game showed The Legend of Zelda's Link hacking and slashing enemies with an over-the-shoulder camera angle similar to the Dynasty ...

Head over to Indiegogo today and you'll find a particularly wacky (and risky) project bidding for your investment. It's a device that goes by the name of No More Woof, which admittedly sounds like it does horrible things to dogs' vocal cords, but ...

Taco Cowboy writes "Back in 1963, the Beatles did some performances for the BBC and other places. The songs were recorded, but never officially released. Now, 50 years later, Apple has packaged all 59 tracks together and put them up for sale on iTunes for $40. The reason? Copyright. The copyright for unreleased works expires 50 years after the works are recorded. By releasing the 59 tracks on iTunes before the end of December, the songs will be protected under copyright law for 20 more years."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Why pay E*Trade or Scottrade $7 to trade a stock when you could do it for free? That premise helped mobile investment app startup Robinhood raise the $3 million seed round led by Index Ventures it announced today. With zero-commission trading it will launch next month, Robinhood is out to prove that young people do care about trading stocks — it’s just been too expensive for them to invest small sums.

Robinhood’s tech-fueled automated approach could change that.

Wait. Is zero-commission trading even possible? Yes. It doesn’t actually cost a brokerage much money to place a trade. In fact, Robinhood’s found ways to earn money doing it. But decades-old financial companies have been charging their users $7 to $10 a trade to pay for their brick-and-mortar retail locations, army of employees, and big profit margins. Robinhood plans to replace all that with a mobile app and a lean engineering team. While it might not get rich quick, it wants to be the Amazon of stock trading by building a huge audience and making just a little off each user.

Robinhood first launched in April as an iOS app for tracking stocks and sharing predictions of whether they’d rise or fall. You can also see the track record of other people’s predictions and follow those who reliably make the right calls. The crowdsourced stock advice gives users more confidence in their own trading decisions.

At the time the Robinhood app was designed to fill a major hole on mobile, where there was no decent native equivalent of Yahoo Finance or Google Finance’s popular websites. Yahoo has since updated its mobile apps, boxing out Robinhood.

Luckily, in October after eight months of waiting, Robinhood was approved by finance regulatory agency FINRA to become a broker-dealer. That meant it could add the big feature missing in its app: the ability to actually buy and sell stocks. It could soon become the first unlimited zero-commission stock brokerage in the world.

Robinhood will launch free stock trading early next year but you can sign up now to be in the first wave of users granted access. In a Mailbox-esque scheme, tweeting about Robinhood will bump up your place in line. There’s clearly big demand for free trading, as Robinhood’s sign up page leaked to Reddit and hit number 1 on HackerNews, bringing in over 10,000 signups in 24 hours.

Zero-Commission trading could bring a new generation of young investors into the stock market. If you’re an old, rich person investing tens of thousands of dollars or more, a $7 fee is pocket change. But if you’re young, on a budget, and only buying $500 of stock, a $7 fee is a steep price to pay. “You’re losing the amount the stock market appreciates in a year in just commissions.” Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev tells me. By eliminating the fee, it becomes financially viable for less wealthy people to get into trading.

To scale up the zero-commission trading feature, Robinhood needs to hire engineers and designers, so it’s added to its initial funding from Google Ventures. Today it revealed it’s raised $3 million led by Index Ventures, and joined by Andreessen Horowitz, Rothenberg Ventures, and angels like Tim Draper, Howard Lindzon, and more from the finance sector. Robinhood co-founder Baiju Bhatt tells me the startup went with Index because “they were super pasionate about what we were doing. It’s important to share the same enthusiasm for the vision and product.”

These big name investors weren’t just funding the idea, but the Robinhood team. Tenev and Bhatt were allstars in their math undergrad programs at Stanford. Disclosure: I know that because I went to college with them. Tenev even dropped out of the world-renowned UCLA math PhDprogram to start building finance companies with Bhatt.

Since 2009, they founded Celeris, an algorithmic trading trading technology startup, and Chronos Research, which sold financial software to top investment banks. Along the way Tenev and Bhatt learned how to navigate financial regulation, discovered the massive opportunity in mobile stock trading, and learned how to build it. Robinhood’s trades are executed fast with reliable pricing because these guys had already ran an entire business dedicated to low-latency trading.

How will Robinhood make good on its investment if users trade for free? It has a few ideas. First is charging for API access. Once the startup has its trading system humming, it could let other apps build on top of it for a price. Next is charging users to trade on margin — spending money on credit because their own is still locked up in the three-day waiting period that follows a stock sell. Robinhood will also earn money from what’s called “Payment for order flow”. Essentially, stock exchanges want lots of stock trading volume so people can always find a buyer or seller, so they’re willing to pay a little to get trades executed on their exchange versus another. And eventually, Robinhood could earn interest by holding custody of users’ assets.

Code rules the world now, yet the finance sector has been somewhat protected by layers of regulation that discourage startups. Robinhood has jumped through the hoops, and they’re just the beginning of the shift. In ten years, people might think it’s crazy we used to pay to trade stocks when all it takes is a few taps.

Iwata brought Kirby: Triple Deluxe with him to today's Nintendo Direct, showing off some new gameplay including 2.5D gameplay, and a hyper nova inhale ability. Most interesting, however, was the announcement of two new modes to make an appearance.

First is "Kirby Fighters," a four-player fighting mini-game similar in way to Smash Bros. that can played with four local friends or by yourself. "Dedede's Drum Dash" was also announced, which has you playing as none other than King Dedede himself in a rhythm game.

No further release date was announced other than a vague 2014 window.

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[Update: check out our full impressions piece of the DLC here.]

At this morning's Nintendo Direct, Satoru Iwata announced a brand new piece of Sonic Lost World DLC that's exclusive to the Wii U. The game is getting a "Yoshi's Island Zone," which includes pipes, coins, and other bits and pieces of Mario. According to Iwata, it's available right now for free!

Iwata hints at the next piece of DLC -- you can link your Wii U to the eShop early next year. Link? Get it?

Zelda, folks.

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"Doctor Luigi is in the house."

That opening line from Iwata during this morning's Nintendo Direct may have shook the Earth, and I'm still recovering. That's right, Dr. Luigi is still coming to the Wii U on December 31st, just in time for the Year of Luigi 2013.

Miis will appear in the middle in some modes, and Iwata notes that the game will be generally easier than Dr. Mario, which is good news for newcomers.

Giving the gift of a tin of freshly baked cookies is a wonderful thing, and the last thing you want is for your recipient to open it up to find the cookies all dry and crumbled in the tin. Thankfully America's Test Kitchen has a foolproof way to keep them moist for the long haul: Pack them with tortillas.

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NES Remix is a new game collection from Nintendo for the Wii U that takes 16 classic Nintendo games -- from Super Mario Bros. to The Legend of Zelda -- and picks specific pieces of them for remixing. For instance, an Excitebike level is shown as if ...

Well, you had to see this coming right? Someone was bound to connect an electronic cigarette sooner or later. Smokio's bring its e-cigarette to market along with apps for iOS and Android, so you can track smoking, check the battery and regulate the ...

This crow enjoys some play time by taking a lid from a mayonnaise jar and using it as a sled in the snow.  It makes one wonder how much stuff like this goes on that we have no idea about.

Thanks DJ

 

From A Hamburger Today

[Photographs: Rita Connelly]

Fini's Landing may be best known for their beachfront theme and some pretty good fish tacos, but it's their Chubasco burger that's been garnering much attention of late. And with good reason.

The Chubasco burger ($9) came in second in a city-wide burger contest sponsored by the local daily newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star. The contest was set up like the NCAA tourney in that restaurants went head to head against each other, with readers voting weekly until a winner was chosen. The expected winners went out in the first couple of rounds, with two highly unexpected (Fini's Landing and Zivaz Mexican Bistro) choices duking it out for bragging rights as the Best Burger in Tucson. When the final tally came down the Chubasco burger lost for first place by fewer than 100 votes.

What is Chubasco, you ask? Chubasco is Fini's trademarked housemade hot sauce that blends jalapeño, habanero, and serrano chiles, cayenne pepper, and mystery spices. There's a little distilled vinegar somewhere in the mix, but what sets the sauce apart is the kick that all those chiles get from being fire-roasted. The time on the grill adds a subtle smokiness. Some dishes get sauced with straight-up Chubasco, but for the burger the sauce is applied as a mellower, flavored aioli.

The burgers are half-pound, preformed patties with a medium grind from Harris Ranch. Simply seasoned with just kosher salt and cracked black pepper, the 80/20 patty is grilled to order over an open fire. The result is nicely charred edges, a few grill marks, and a juicy, tender inside that makes one wonder how these guys finished second.

Besides Chubasco aioli, the house Chubasco burger is topped with crisp pecan-smoked bacon, American cheese that oozes out the sides, and enough crisp, fried jalapeños to sink a ship. The first few bites startle the tongue but the spiciness mellows out as you get into the burger. Maybe it's the aioli, maybe it's the bacon or the bun, but the fire here doesn't numb your tongue and it balances with the beefiness of the patty.

But if heat isn't your thing there are several other burgers on the menu. The Prickly Pear burger ($9)—a very Tucson kind of flavor—has sweetness instead of fire. Since all good burgers benefit from a bit of crunch there are a couple of perfectly cooked onion rings on top. Here the cheese is a gooey Swiss. Tomato and onion slices are also included. The housemade prickly pear sauce is made up of cactus syrup, a dash of jalapeño, vinegar, honey, and spices. The slightly sticky sauce is ideal for dipping.

Fini's serves their burgers on sturdy telera rolls from La Brea Bakery that get a light toasting on the grill. The rolls soak up some of the meaty juices while keeping their integrity.

Sides are extra. The fries ($4) are pre-seasoned with a light dusting of flour, dried onion powder, garlic powder and other spices and cooked to a perfect crisp.

But I lost my heart to the charro beans ($2). Charro beans are pretty common in Tucson but I haven't tasted any that come close to what Fini's delivers. Pinto beans are cooked with garlic, bacon, onion, and chiles. The potlikker that sits at the bottom of the tiny crock they're served in is heavenly. I recommend using a spoon to get every drop of goodness and maybe ordering a second helping.

A cold beer goes well with a juicy burger, and Fini's has great choices including several from local breweries Barrio Brewing and Nimbus Brewery.

The nearest beach may be several hours drive away in Mexico, but Fini's Landing gives Tucsonans a place to dream and dine.

About the author: Rita Connelly lives, eats, and writes in Tucson, Arizona. In her travels, she has been known to bring home home souvenirs that are usually food related from Canadian maple syrup to the famous Danish pastry known as kringle to handmade pizza. Read about her exploits on her Facebook page, The Well-Fed Foodie.

Love hamburgers? Then you'll Like AHT on Facebook! And go follow us on Twitter and Pinterest while you're at it!

Cellar Door games recently announced an update to Rogue Legacy, the procedurally generated platform game in which players explore an ever-changing castle, one familial generation at a time. It's a really great game, easy to lose hours to, and the new content sounds like it's going to add quite a bit to the experience.

In total, 28 new rooms have been added, which should be a nice bit of additional variety and spice things up for returning players, while also removing the "Diary" rooms which fill in the plot once said plot is fully revealed so that they're no longer a waste of time to travel through. The update also seems to make a lot of things easier, improving the "Haggle" ability to reduce prices more efficiently, reducing the attack capability of some enemies and making some abilities function better in "New Game +" playthroughs. And, finally, it reduced the chances that a character with irritable bowel syndrome will fart whenever they jump, which I'm sure will be a black mark for many.

The patch notes also state that Cellar Door is currently testing Steam Cloud functionality and expects it to be included in a future update .

This is the only game in my Steam library for which I had earned all of the achievements, which should say something for how much I enjoyed playing it. I say, "had," because there are now six more achievements in the Steam version I'll have to earn. Oh, darn.

Patch Notes 1.2.0 – Content Patch [Cellar Door Games]

Real Racing 3's time-shift multiplayer mode was a great addition to the game, but the latest update for iOS makes playing with friends even better. Now, aside from being able to face the car ghosts of your friends' pasts to beat their records, four ...

Today, while at the gym, I noticed a creepy-looking guy watching me. When I got up from the equipment, I noticed that he sniffed the seat. I didn't say anything the first time. After he did it the second time, I asked him to stop. He bent down and sniffed it without breaking eye contact. FML

What happens if you take 500,000 pieces of Lego and 256 pistons, then hand them over to Australians Steve Sammartino and Raul Oaida? This fully functioning, life-size, air-powered Lego car is what.

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