Bewarethewumpus

Actually, Ganon being lactose intolerant would explain all the world-conquering rage. Life without cheese must be hard.

As you might have guessed, indeed it's Random Encounters that is back once more with a lovely performance, this time based on Wind Waker. It's pretty much par for the course as far as Random Encounters vids go—it's fun, catchy, and filled to the brim with references. Definitely give it a listen.

"Legends of Zelda" - Tales of the Wind Waker [Random Encounters@YouTube]

Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

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VFX studio Big Lazy Robot presents iDiots, a superb CG animation short about a cardboard parallel world where smartphone-addicted robots like to share viral videos, download apps just to fit in and even line up outside the store overnight for the latest next-gen device.

submitted by chochkem [link] [432 comments]

(630): my biography would be titled "haunting truths and dick jokes: a tale of love, loss, and masturbation.".

These animated GIFs provide a surprisingly excellent medium for commentary regarding video game console rivalries.

A new report in the New York Times by James Risen and Laura Poitras details how National Security Agency officials seeking dominance in intelligence collection, "pledged last year to push to expand surveillance powers," according to a top-secret strategy document leaked by Edward Snowden.

In a February 2012 paper laying out the four-year strategy for the N.S.A.’s signals intelligence operations, which include the agency’s eavesdropping and communications data collection around the world, agency officials set an objective to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.” Written as an agency mission statement with broad goals, the five-page document said that existing American laws were not adequate to meet the needs of the N.S.A. to conduct broad surveillance in what it cited as “the golden age of Sigint,” or signals intelligence. “The interpretation and guidelines for applying our authorities, and in some cases the authorities themselves, have not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and target environments, or the operational expectations levied on N.S.A.’s mission,” the document concluded.

"N.S.A. Report Outlined Goals for More Power" (nytimes.com)

And don't miss this earlier report by Charlie Savage in the New York Times, "Warrantless Surveillance Continues to Cause Fallout."

Related, in Ars Technica, the US response: "House intel bill adds $75 million to NSA budget to stop future Snowdens."

submitted by Wadegoerzen [link] [287 comments]

[Video Link via Arbroath]

Here's a new installment in Anita Sarkeesian's Kickstarter-funded, misogynist-enraging, must-watch "Tropes vs Women in Video Games" series: Ms Male Character: a closely annotated, fascinating 25 minutes on the practice of producing a "female" version of video-games by feminizing the lead characters.

The Adult Swim game Giant Boulder of Death takes the trope to ridiculous extremes by gendering a pink boulder with a giant pink bow before she’s stuffed in the refrigerator to motivate the blue boulder to seek revenge.

Now the interesting thing is that these gendered signifiers are really quite arbitrary and abstract. There’s nothing about a bow in and of itself that is intrinsically or essentially feminine; it’s just a piece of colored fabric, after all. But our society currently assigns a very specific, socially constructed and strictly enforced meaning to that piece of fabric. It’s a symbol that conveys the concept of female (and invokes the idea of girlhood.)

The indie game Rogue Legacy has an interesting system whereby you can be randomly assigned the choice of either male or female heirs to play on each run. The characters are essentially identical both mechanically and aesthetically (except for a very minor difference in their breast plate styles). So far so good, but all the female heirs also have a strangely conspicuous and completely unnecessary lavender colored bow on top of their armour. This is a classic example of put a bow on it!

The colour-coding of characters is another frequently used visual element to signify gender. Typically the dominant color used in the design of the female variant is bright pink (although sometimes a purple or pastel palette may be used).

In the 1985 NES classic Ice Climber, player 1 controls Popo who wears a blue parka. If you have a 2nd player they can control Nana who wears a pink parka.

Ms. Male Character - Tropes vs Women in Video Games

No surprise that the NSA is facing its largest-ever increase in Freedom of Information Act requests: up 988 percent. Don't worry, though: the agency has a strategy for coping with the floodtide of queries about warrantless spying: it just denies all of them.

It’s been easy to forget about the Wii U lately, with this month's high-profile launches of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. In fact, it’s been easy to forget about the Wii U in general; Nintendo's console has sold poorly since its release last November, and truly exciting software has been all but non-existent. Until now.

Super Mario 3D World is the best game on the Wii U by far, and arguably the best game to come out this holiday season on any platform. It sees Nintendo finally firing on all cylinders again, at a time when it's needed the most. It's Nintendo at its creative, playful, unhinged best.

Nintendo typically uses its 3D Super Mario titles as a showcase for new hardware, so the design of Super Mario 3D World could have been cause for concern. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, it draws most of its influence from 2011's Super Mario 3D Land, a fantastic 3DS title that took many by surprise. Both games share the same isometric perspective and simple eight-way directional control; by limiting camera and player movement, the two come off as an accessible hybrid between previous 2D and 3D Super Mario releases. While the formula is proven, some will certainly feel slightly disappointed that the Wii U isn't seeing an all-new blueprint.

submitted by wsgy111
[link] [50 comments]

This post is not about the day to day operations of The Old Reader or anything of that nature.  It’s about how our team came to get involved with RSS and how we see the future of this application and technology that we value so highly.

As a long time user of RSS and Google Reader, I’ve long appreciated the benefits of the technology.  Like many people, my use of Google Reader faded a bit as social media platforms took hold.  But, I’d always go back to Google Reader when I wanted to cut through the noise of social networks and focus on things I’m really passionate about.  Google Reader wasn’t my “second screen” application where I’d go to take a break from work.  It filled a much more essential need for me by providing these three features:

1.  Unread items are kept in a queue.  I don’t miss things.  No algorithm chooses what to show me or not show me.

2.  It’s an archive of blogs that I value and posts that I’ve read.

3.  I can follow whatever I want from anywhere on the web.  It embodies the open web.

For my professional career in web research and development, I can’t really live without these features.  I can follow twitter feeds or like Facebook pages, but I’m certain to miss important content from people who I highly value.  I need those items queued, archived, and I need to be able to subscribe to anybody on the entire open web.  I can’t be limited to those authors who choose to enter into private social networks and I don’t want to have to constantly check my accounts for updates.

So this leads me to how we got involved in The Old Reader.  When Google Reader shut it’s doors, my business partner Jim did some research and tried several services and suggested I’d like The Old Reader the best.  So we both moved on over.  I read some articles trying to understand why Google Reader would shut down and one really stuck with me.  It hypothesized that Google had been following the lead of companies like Facebook and Twitter by turning their backs on the open web and trying to build their own private/closed social networks.  It’s frankly hard to argue against this theory.

However, we see this trend of migrating from the open web to private networks as cyclical.  How long will it be before your Facebook stream is so full of promoted content, bizarre algorithmic decisions, and tracking cookie based shopping cart reminders that you won’t be getting any valuable information?  For as little as $60, a business can promote a page to Facebook users.  It won’t be long before your news feed is worthless.  So we jumped at the opportunity to get involved with developing and managing The Old Reader.  We believe in it.

As we’ve been looking to grow our engineering team at Levee Labs and The Old Reader we’ve met with a number of bright young people that are surprisingly unaware of RSS.  They say “I recognize the RSS icon, but haven’t really ever used it.”  Is it possible that there is a lost generation of internet users that are completely unfamiliar with RSS?  Are they unfamiliar with the idea of the open web too?  We believe that’s the case and we’ve been working hard to come up with ideas that’ll expose that generation to RSS, The Old Reader, and the open web.  It’s what made the internet great to begin with and it’s coming back.

Thanks for using The Old Reader!

Norway is the latest US ally to erupt in outrage at the news that the NSA was intercepting millions of its phone calls in total disregard for Norwegian law. A new Snowden leak shows that between Dec 8, 2012 and Jan 8, 2013, the NSA logged 33,186,042 Norwegian phone calls, intercepting an enormous amount of sensitive data about Norwegians' private lives. Last June, the former Norwegian prime minister was assured by senior US officials that no such interception had taken place. In addition to being a NATO member, Norway is a close surveillance partner with the US, part of the "nine eyes" surveillance partnership.

"Friends should not monitor each other," Norway's prime minister Erna Solberg told Norwegian broadcaster NRK on Tuesday. "It is legitimate to engage in intelligence, but it should be targeted and suspect based."

"It is unacceptable for allies to engage in intelligence against eachother's political leadership," added justice minister Anders Anundsen.

Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's prime minister at the time the surveillance reportedly took place, said that he had not been informed of the monitoring when he grilled senior US officials on data collected from Norway after the first NSA revelations in June.

"I have not been informed of the sort of monitoring which is now being described," he told NRK. "The information that is now coming out shows that it is necessary to go a second round with the Americans. It is important to get the facts and then evaluate them."

NSA logged 33m calls in Nato ally Norway [Richard Orange/The Local]

(via Reddit)

(Image: Dagbladet.no)

Question: "Am I free to go or am I being detained?"

Answer: "Duh constitution don't apply at checkpoints."

The cops are desperate to bust this young man. They are surprised to discover that they are being videoed.

(Thanks, Mikea)

The English language has a new preposition, driven by Internet conventions: "Because." It's not clear where this originates, but I like the theory that's it's a contraction of "$SOMETHING is $MESSED_UP, because, hey, politics!"

However it originated, though, the usage of "because-noun" (and of "because-adjective" and "because-gerund") is one of those distinctly of-the-Internet, by-the-Internet movements of language. It conveys focus (linguist Gretchen McCulloch: "It means something like 'I'm so busy being totally absorbed by X that I don’t need to explain further, and you should know about this because it's a completely valid incredibly important thing to be doing'"). It conveys brevity (Carey: "It has a snappy, jocular feel, with a syntactic jolt that allows long explanations to be forgone").

But it also conveys a certain universality. When I say, for example, "The talks broke down because politics," I'm not just describing a circumstance. I'm also describing a category. I'm making grand and yet ironized claims, announcing a situation and commenting on that situation at the same time. I'm offering an explanation and rolling my eyes—and I'm able to do it with one little word. Because variety. Because Internet. Because language. 

English Has a New Preposition, Because Internet [Megan Garber/The Atlantic]

(via Making Light)

Matthew says: "Evan Booth builds weapons with materials purchased in an airport terminal, past the security screening. Here's a frag grenade built with a coffee mug, batteries, and a condom."

Tycho: So, I wrote that sea shanty comic thing, and then Katie Rice drew it, so my life was more or less complete.  But then we got a mail that Ubisoft was going to have a real band actually perform it, which wasn’t anything we’d talked about previously, but obviously I was fine with that.  So pirate rock outfit The Dread Crew Of Oddwood got hold of the lyrics, and then they made this.  Which is fairly (if not utterly) wow.  You can by the track here if you are so inclined, but I thought that was pretty cool. (CW)TB

There are totally no broken or missing features like a lack of buttons to press or anything.

A decade ago, the New York Times prepared the first, breaking story about warrantless domestic surveillance in America. But, at the Bush administration's urging, it delayed publication until after the next election. NYT public editor Margaret Sullivan reviews the ongoing sense of betrayal felt by its readers, and how it made the newspaper an unappealing port of call for whistleblowing sources such as Edward Snowden.

[Washington bureau chief Philip] Taubman remembers his fateful recommendation not to publish as “an agonizing one.” He dismisses any role played by his relationships with members of the Bush administration, including Condoleezza Rice, with whom he shares longstanding and close ties to Stanford University (where they both now teach). As national security adviser in 2004 and secretary of state in 2005, she opposed the article’s publication, he said. But “that did not affect my thinking,” which was that national security would be harmed by publication.

And here's Bill Keller, then-executive editor of the NYT:

“Three years after 9/11, we, as a country, were still under the influence of that trauma, and we, as a newspaper, were not immune,” Mr. Keller said. “It was not a kind of patriotic rapture. It was an acute sense that the world was a dangerous place.”

Nonetheless, the story suddenly became fit to print when its reporter took it to another publisher.

via http://scotchandjazzatdusk.com/

Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer

Billy-Jim Crenshaw was snoozing in his swamp shack when the explosion shook him fast awake. “What th’…?” He scrambled to his feet and, throwing the crooked door open, stumbled out onto the back porch. There, upon a small hillock that had been recently occupied by Billy-Jim’s dilapidated outhouse, sat a smoldering metallic disc.

“Gall dang it,” he said aloud to himself. “That thar flying saucer thingy done o-blit-ar-ated my gosh darn privy!” He stepped back into the shack and procured two items. Reemerging with his squirrel gun in one hand and a big jug of moonshine in the other, he watched as a strange door opened in the still-smoking disc. There was an electric hum and a staircase extended down from the saucer.

Billy-Jim took a long swig as he watched the little green man emerge. Suddenly from the woods, his hunting dog, Brutus sprang forth, teeth bare, growling like a raccoon caught in a rattrap. The rottweiler leapt at the alien. The green man calmly extended a finger and bright lighting flashed forth, instantly turning poor Brutus into a charred, unidentifiable smoking heap.

The hick slammed back another mouthful and cast the jug aside as the alien continued to advance. But before he could raise his gun, another four-legged beast again rushed growling toward the little green man. This time from the swamp came Billy-Jim’s pet alligator, Pork Chop. The six hundred pound lizard moved blindingly fast, but the alien was faster. Again the lightning flashed from its fingertip, again its would-be assailant was turned into smoldering ash.

“Poor Brutus, poor Pork Chop,” sniffled the hick. “This is fer you two!” The alien had been continuing toward him and was now halfway across the patchy back yard as Billy-Jim pulled the trigger. It quickly held out a palm and suddenly there was a muffled explosion as the barrel of the squirrel gun split open. The green man continued to advance unharmed.

Now a strange and eerie metallic voice reached Billy-Jim’s ears. “Please do not attempt to harm me again human. I am here to make peaceful contact with your race.” The alien strolled up to the porch as the confused man stood silently, his destroyed weapon hanging uselessly from his hand.

Billy-Jim finally uttered, “I…I…I won’t sir.”

The alien stopped and stood there staring at him with giant black, pupiless eyes. “Remain calm human. Please, pick up that vessel and continue to consume your fermented substance. I do not intend to make you uncomfortable in any way.”

Billy-Jim relaxed ever so slightly and picked up the jug. “Wha… what do ya want?”

“I need to contact your scientific department as I seem to have had a mishap with my ship back there. It’s quite simple really, I only need to procure a paltry ten or fifteen thousand terawatts of power to recharge my vehicle’s capacitor.”

The swamp dweller hadn’t a clue what the green man had said, but he again tipped back the jug and had a great long swig. Then he leaned forward and let out a mighty belch. It echoed off the trees. Then the cloud of burp-smell reached the alien. For a moment its black eyes bulged out in surprise. Then, its arms flailing, and its mouth gasping wordlessly, a paleness came over its face and it collapsed suddenly to the ground stone cold dead.

Billy-Jim spat between his few remaining teeth and said, “Serves ya right ya dang space invader! That thar was fer Brutus and Pork Chop!” He rocked back on his heels satisfied, and had another long swig of moonshine.

 

 

Great book.