Bewarethewumpus

Author : Gray Blix

Addressing a darkened convocation of world leaders, with images projected behind him, Dr. Spitz began, “To summarize events over the last seven months, a meteor-like object exploded about 6 kilometers above China’s Wenchang Launch Center, flattening it and leaving a zone of destruction encompassing nearly 2,000 square kilometers. Tracked by telescopes and satellites as it approached our planet, it was not a military weapon originating on Earth.”

“What about the Moon . . . the lines?”

The chairperson said, “Please hold your questions until the end of the presentation.”

Dr. Spitz continued. “Wenchang was roughly equal to Tunguska in 1908, and since we expect an event of that magnitude every hundred years or so, we were not immediately suspicious. But the appearance that night of a nearly 300km gash in Mare Serenitatis, visible to anyone with good eyesight or cheap binoculars . . . well, some thought the two events might be related. And then, exactly a month later, when a second object exploded over Spaceport America, in New Mexico, and a second gash appeared in Mare Serenitatis . . . identical circumstances . . . with the exception that the second line on the Moon was across the previous one, forming a plus sign.”

“Or a cross.”

“Please,” the chairperson pleaded.

“Yes, many found religious significance in the explosions and the ‘cross.’ We all saw press reports of the thousands who occupied a so-called ‘tribulation’ tent city in New Mexico. Actually, it was one of those, a former geology student, who found a possible fragment of the object. NASA confirmed the sheer-fractured and partially melted rock as likely part of a larger, perhaps 30-40m, object, but NASA did not disclose the origin of the rock. I can tell you today that it was a Moon rock.”

After a gasp from the audience and much cross-talk, Dr. Spitz continued, “If it came from the Moon it was either ejected by a previous impact only to later fall to the Earth, or given the coincidence of two explosions destroying spaceports, we suspected it was launched from the Moon toward a target on Earth by . . . by an unknown power.”

More gasps and cross-talk, and a question, skipping ahead of the summary and in a sarcastic tone, “Did the FIVE subsequent explosions confirm your suspicions?”

Not a word from the chairperson.

“Yes. All seven explosions targeted spaceports. More fragments were found, analyzed, and identified as Moon rocks. And experts in language and mathematics have studied the seven markings in Mare Serenitatis,” tracing the projected image with a laser pointer “the cross with two diagonals and lines across the top and two sides, and their consensus is . . .”

A cell phone brayed a musical ringtone and its owner fumbled with it.

“Well?” said the exasperated chairperson.

“By destroying seven of the world’s most advanced spaceports, the ones that can launch craft beyond satellite orbits to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and beyond, they have set us back by several years. We think they are telling us to cancel those projects altogether, to confine our species to Earth.”

“And if we don’t?”

“We think the arrangement of the seven markings will be finished off with a line across the bottom, creating a square, with eight segments within. Eight lines and eight segments. We think it is a representation of their numeral system, an octal system, and that they have been counting off. The last line, the one that would finish the count, could finish us. If they have the technology to cross space and toss Moon rocks at us, then they probably have the technology to scale up and throw a mountain top at us. Or maybe the whole Moon.”

Author : Jae Miles

I’m sitting on a rock on Hezbolla XIV. It’s a damn comfortable rock, overlooking an expanse of tundra without salient feature between me and the horizon in all directions. This is why I chose it. After four months of headlong flight, I can stop and have a cup of tea.

A rock situated at the remotest point of the least-inhabited planet of the furthest and most anti-Dominion star system at the distant edge of the outer rim, which is on the far side of the frontier systems.

They said I’d never escape. They said that eluding them was impossible. She said that even if I ran, I would be my own downfall.

A phone rings.

After I land from the jump that hurls me and my tea from the rock, I look about frantically. There is nobody in sight, no vessels in the skies.

The phone rings again.

I creep forward and peer under the edge of the rock. In a little depression, there’s a Nanga Starcom. Tucked into the survival bag next to it is a Leroo Rothfruit bar. I straighten up with the bag in my hand and a sigh gusting from my lips as they curve into a smile.

The phone rings for a third time.

“Yes?”

“Hello Curtis. You certainly got there faster than I expected.”

“How did you find me, Gloria?”

“You’re OCD, darling man. You couldn’t just hide. You had to hide at the exact point that is furthest from Dominion influence.”

There wasn’t really an answer I can give to that.

“So here’s the deal. I know you’re there. No-one else does. When you get bored, give me a call.”

“Why?”

“Well, firstly to have someone to talk to. Secondly, I may have a job offer. Either covert, or things may have changed. You were right, after all.”

“If I was right, why am I hiding by a rock over a million light years from home?”

“You’re always right. You always notice things. But, darling, you have the most appalling timing and no discretion at all.”

I’ve got no answer to that one either.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes, Gloria.”

“Do you have – no, of course you have everything you need. That would have been a silly question.”

“I have a question.”

“Go on then.”

“What if they find me?”

“They could only do that if they – oh, damn. Scrambled comms but unscrambled office.”

“Gloria, my love. I brought a two-man envirodome.”

“But they know where you are.”

“Leave now. Leave fast. Head for the last place that I stopped at before I came to this planet.”

“How can I be sure where that was?”

I grin: “Because I’m OCD, attentive, indiscrete and right. Move, woman.” I close the connection. She’s lovely. Scatty at times, but lovely. It’ll be good to share my cave with her.

Cave? Yes. The rock was only a stopover. Because I knew that they knew that I’m a little bit fixated.

Author : TJMoore

At 4:53 EST Ben Freen flicked the switch.

An instant later the little sphere of quantum foam, gallium oxide and carbon began to get hot. It started to glow red and then white. It was power! Unending, unwavering, ever-increasing power! He had created a source of power unlike anything ever known! Unexpectedly, the ceramic points it was resting on began to crumble and melt. Ben quickly placed a bucket of water under the table. Realizing the possible results, he turned and fled. The little sphere was now so bright and hot that it dropped through the table in a flash and into the bucket, which immediately exploded into a room full of super-heated steam. The garage hissed for just a moment and then exploded outward from the intense pressure of the steam. Then it started to burn. As soon as the structure immediately over the sphere had vaporized, an intense light filled the sky as the sphere became a miniature sun burning an every widening hole in the back yard of a small Cleveland home.

Meanwhile, one quantum layer away,
At 4:53 EST Ben Freen flicked the switch.

An instant later the little sphere of quantum foam, gallium oxide and carbon became jet black and then covered with frost. Not understanding what was happening, Ben reached out and touched the darkening object. His finger became instantly numb and then black as the skin froze and then evaporated in a mist of little crystals that swirled to the table top as they fell. The little sphere became colder an blacker and the air began to swirl around it as energy was sucked from the surrounding environment into the sphere. The ceramic points on which the sphere rested began to crumble as their molecules began to sublime into cold, powder vapor. Sensing impending disaster, Ben turned and fled. The sphere landed with a dull thud on the table which began to crack and vibrate as the atomic bonds within the atoms that made up its surface began to break. A light breeze began to blow through the door and the interior of the garage became opaque with fog from the condensing air. A pool of water formed around the perimeter of the garage while a tornado of evaporating mist rose from the frozen pool beneath the table. When the sphere dropped through the table and onto the frozen pool it made a loud crack that tore the ice to tiny crystals that rushed toward the sphere but evaporated before they ever touched its now ebony black surface. A gale force wind was now blowing directly into the sphere and the garage imploded with a muffled crumpling sound. The rubble seemed to bend and then vanish into the place where the sphere had been. The sphere now appeared to be a point into which everything around it was receding. The sky began to darken and snow began to blow toward the point which was slowly sinking into an ever widening hole in the back yard of a small Cleveland home.

Author : S. P. Mahoney

There is an utterly absurd amount of mineral wealth sitting in Sol’s asteroid belt. Was. Whatever. A nickel-iron asteroid of middling size contains enough mineral wealth to choke a multinational, if you were to bring it back to Earth. Not to mention so expensive that none of those aforementioned multinationals, much less the national governments, could look more than five years down the line and see the advantages in building a civilization out there.

It was almost a relief when the message came in from the Great Beyond: “Hello, we’re aliens, and we need half of your asteroid belt. You can’t do anything about this, however, we are going to pay you for it. The down payment is in FTL drives, of which we will be giving at least one to every regional power on Earth.” That’s paraphrased, but basically the jist of it.

They were pretty clever, those aliens (we never learned their name for themselves). They figured we’d be out of commission, squabbling, for long enough. They’d looked us over and decided that, yup, those Humans have a real talent for tribalizing against each other, they’re going to be arguing about who gets how many drives for years. They knew it would take us a while to find a trading outpost where we could find out how badly we were being ripped off. And if that failed, they thought they’d skate by on our good feelings towards the race that gave us a path to the stars.

They were almost right, but they underestimated Humanity’s ability to think big when it comes to who’s in and out of the tribe. And they were completely off-base on that last thing. Polls still suggest a 90% approval rate on nuking their mining colony. A significant fraction of the population even think we shouldn’t have waited for them to give us the money at the end of the term, although that seems a little wasteful to me.

It was maybe eighteen months before we were pulling into a dozen systems to run the same con. We did it better, of course; we didn’t let the victims know what was up until we were actually done. And then two of them, it turned out, were our old pals’ colony worlds. So much the better. Those poor guys became further reinforcement to a message for their folks back home:

Don’t kid a kidder. Don’t trick a trickster. Don’t scam the Humans.

Michael writes, "Watching Australia's Attorney-General try to explain why tracking Australians' web histories is not such a big deal resembles listening to a dirty joke told by a ten-year-old, i.e. it leaves one with the distinct impression the speaker is trying to seem like they understand something they've only heard about secondhand."

Indeed the A-G, George Brandis, is rumoured not to own a computer or mobile phone, which might explain why he seems to think there's a significant difference between tracking what web sites Australians visit and just tracking the addresses of those sites.

I suspect Mr Brandis, being a parliamentarian, is in the position of not needing the internet at all: other people distil the news for him, pay his bills, book his flights, make his appointments and so on. So perhaps, as this interview suggests, he's never even seen it. And to be fair, there are plenty of lovely people who have never used the internet. To be even more fair though, we'd be pretty worried if any of them were making policy to govern web use, too.

(Thanks, Michael!)

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

Tuesday, August 12 — 12:00 AM

NO GIFT, NO CHAT.

Pop quiz! How well do you guys know your Nintendo history? If you recognize the character from this strip, give yourselves a pat on the back.

Time’s up: it’s Ness, from the SNES cult classic, EarthBound!

Joking aside, I’m glad to finally make a comic referencing one of my favorite childhood games, EarthBound StarTropics! And while the odds of Mike bringing his yo-yo, bat, and psychic powers (hey, a third thing) into Smash Bros are slim, he’ll always have a special place in my heart…as the guy who made me dip my real-life instruction manual in water to find a password to progress in-game. Man, some NES games were obtuse as heck…

This is one of the more meta comics, isn’t it? I like how cheesy Ness’s joke is, I think it really drives home Mike’s frustration.

Business-owners, listen up! Do you have a retail store? Perhaps one that sells game (or comic)-related merchandise? Because we’ve still got plenty of BitF Volume One books down here, and I’m willing to part with a good number of them if you want to buy wholesale. Launch an email to me at staff (at) brawlinthefamily.com, and maybe we can make a deal. As expected, they’re cheap in bulk.

-By Matthew

A near-production model of TrackingPoint's AR 556, the 5.56mm NATO precision guided firearm.

Lee Hutchinson

Since first running into TrackingPoint at CES 2013, we’ve kept tabs on the Austin-based company and its Linux-powered rifles, which it collectively calls "Precision Guided Firearms," or PGFs. We got to spend a few hours on the range with TrackingPoint’s first round of near-production bolt-action weapons last March, when my photojournalist buddy Steven Michael nailed a target at 1,008 yards—about 0.91 kilometers—on his first try, in spite of never having fired a rifle before.

But big, heavy, bolt-action rifles were only the beginning, with the underlying idea being that the company would scale its weapons both up and also down in size. And, last month, we day tripped back out to the Best of the West range just outside of Austin in Liberty Hill to lay hands on TrackingPoint’s newest set of PGFs, the TP AR 556 and TP AR 762. Unlike the big XS-series long rifles we fired last time, these newest PGFs are semiautomatic carbines—the type of weapon that the media usually (and incorrectly) refers to as "assault rifles."

But the smaller form factor wasn’t the only thing that TrackingPoint had on tap for our demo that day. Last trip out, the highlight was hitting targets at 1,000 yards; this time, we’d be aiming at targets a bit closer in… but aiming through a tiny wearable screen while looking backward, over the shoulder.

Read 38 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Author : Suzanne Borchers

I polish the sterling silver door handle for the 103rd time this morning. I have been a master’s valet for more years than that. My duties have been reduced but my importance to him has never waned. His father’s father said to me, “Alfred, you are my most special invention.”

I wish I could smile.

Then that pesky microbot, Fred, whirs into the room. Of course he crosses the floor in a master’s heartbeat and stops in front of me.

I peer down at him from my superior position. “I suppose you will begin the usual argument about old versus new and large versus small,” I say. I am ready for him. I have spent 102 swipes of polish posturing new angles and configurations of opinion. I have him this time.

He shakes his tiny head.

I focus on the details of his face. Does he look sad? Microbots cannot look sad, but he does. Perhaps he knows he will lose the argument for the first time. That would make him sad. He likes to win.

I wish I could laugh.

“I am ready for you, Fred.”

I wish I could puff out my chest.

Fred murmurs at my shiny feet. “Master gave me orders to decommission your service.”

My circuits rage with heat. “Never!”

“I will miss our chats, old boy,” Fred says.

“I shall too!” I stomp down a foot where Fred stands. When I raise my foot and scrape at the bottom with my finger, nothing is there. Where is he?

There is a tingle within my chest.

“I am so very sorry,” his voice fades.

I wish I could cry.

Modern Seinfeld

via

Thanks Bill J

Guardians of the Galaxy actor Chris Pratt’s now viral rendition of Forget About Dre sounds even better when it’s synched to the original track, courtesy of Redditor Treytech.

DARGON Quest IV. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

Dargon Quest IV is pretty good, BTW, and I imagine it'll be worth checking out when it does hit iTunes in North America, which should be soon. (It launched in New Zealand today.) Hopefully Dargon Quest VII 3DS comes to the U.S. soon too.

(via Wario64)

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

"You don't have time to think up there. If you think, you're dead."

The spectacular flying seen in this clip—directed by GTA Wise Guy— is done by GTA Online collective The Originals Crew. As you can probably tell, they're very dedicated to looking awesome way up in the sky. And, tricks and stunts aren't all they do, either. They cut you down from clouds, too.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

There is a school in Denmark that teaches through Live-Action Role-Play. Or, LARPing. Amazing.

This isn't actually a documentary; it's part of a larger film called Trapped Treasure, which is all about LARPing. We featured another excerpt from it last year. Can't wait to see the finished product.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.

First-person shooters have come a long way since we called them "DOOM clones" back in the nineties. After Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War, most have class-based gameplay, role-playing game elements, regenerating health, cover systems, and/or ironsight aiming. Toxikk from Reakktor Studios (kkool naming kkonvention bro) wants to return to the genre's roots.

The trailer above does a good job demonstrating Toxikk's mission statement (including a great bait and switch regarding free-to-play). Without any of the more recent trappings of the first-person shooter genre, it looks to be fast-paced with a good amount of verticality. Removing the need to reload seems like such a strange concept today, but what really takes it back in time is the ability to hold every weapon at once. Rad.

Toxikk is planned as a PC release, and will hit Steam Early Access this winter. Since it is designed with mouse and keyboard in mind, Reakktor has no plans to release on consoles.

Russians play around with a half-assembled microwave to see what the dangerous electromagnetic radiation is capable of.

Author : George R. Shirer

Noir York. V9.7.

The rain fell, neon droplets painting the city’s stark black and white streets in a kaleidoscope of liquid color. Sitting in Smiley’s, propping up the counter, Dashwood stared through the window at the technicolor weather.

“Shit. Would you look at that? What the hell’s the world coming to?”

“Geez, Dash. Don’t drez on us or nothing.”

Dashwood glanced at the NPC standing behind the counter, rubbing a grubby rag over the grubby surface.

“But its color,” said Dashwood. “Color! In Noir York, Smiley!”

“Probably just a glitch,” said Smiley. He shrugged. “Don’t get your jockeys in a bunch. You want some more coffee?”

Dashwood scowled and pushed his cup away. “Tastes like chalk.”

“I’m gettin’ better at makin’ the crap, then,” noted Smiley.

“Aren’t you even a little bothered?”

“Nope. I been around since the first version, Dash. I seen it all.” Smiley threw the rag across his shoulder, jerked a meaty thumb in the general direction of the weather. “This? This ain’t nothin’. I survived the Big Hack of 6.3! Now, let me tell you, pal, that was somethin’!”

“It’s not a glitch.”

Smiley quit talking, mid-remembrance, and Dashwood turned to stare at the woman seated at the end of the counter. She was a looker. Tall, slender, with silver-white hair and onyx eyes. Her lips glistened.

“What do you know, doll?” asked Dashwood. He reached up and automatically straightened his tie.

“Marilyn,” said the woman. “Not doll, gumshoe.”

“All right. So what do you think you know, Marilyn?”

“I know that’s not a glitch.” She turned to stare at the colorful streets. “It’s a paradigm shift.”

“What?” Smiley wasn’t smiling. “Ya mean they’re gonna put us in color?”

“You stand here all night and don’t hear the news?” asked Marilyn.

Dashwood moved over a seat. His eyes flitted to Marilyn’s endless legs. “What news?”

“They’re shutting us down.”

“What?” shouted Smiley.

“They can’t!” said Dashwood, furiously. “They wouldn’t dare!”

“They can and they will,” said Marilyn. “You ever check the stats? Less than a thousand users a night log into Noir York. We’re below the minimum threshold.”

“But they can’t shut us down!” said Dashwood. “We’re AIs! That’d be murder!”

“Yeah!” said Smiley, hotly. “We got rights!”

Marilyn nodded. “You’re right. They won’t shut us down. They’re just taking us off the grid, dumping Noir York into a self-sustaining junk server. The same one that houses San Futuro and the Magik Kingdoms and a dozen other obsolete game-worlds.”

Dashwood and Smiley stared at her, reeling from her words. Marilyn fished in her clutch for a cigarette and a lighter. She fired up the cancer stick and began to nurse it.

“We’re scrapped, boys,” said the dame. “But look on the bright side. No more users. No more stupid, pointless deaths or dumbo quests. Hell, we’re already getting some color in this dump. Maybe, soon, we’ll even get to see a real sunrise.”

The diner fell silent. The three of them sat at the counter, considering the unknown future, while outside, the neon rain continued.

Animator and director Mikey Please of Parabella Animation Studio just released his latest stop-motion animation project, Marilyn Miller. The film screened at numerous festivals like Sundance and SXSW over the last year, picking up plenty of accolades along the way, and is now available online for the first time. Marilyn Miller is a followup to Please’s BAFTA-winning animation The Eagleman Stag, and makes heavy use of tediously sculpted styrofoam models and complex long-exposure lighting to tell a story of creation and destruction. The film was photographed and animated by Mikey Please and Dan Ojari. And you can see a bit of behind-the-scenes footage here. (via Colossal Submissions)

Update: There’s a great writeup by Jason Sondhi about Marilyn Myller over Short of the Week.