Amongst the list, the IPCC’s report on climate change that received almost no coverage, the SCOTUS overturning of key provisions in the Voting Rights Act, and more.
“A book is made from a tree. It is an assemblage of flat, flexible parts (still called “leaves”) imprinted with dark pigmented squiggles. One glance at it and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, the author is speaking, clearly and silently, inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time ― proof that humans can work magic.” ― Carl Sagan
FRODO: Good to see you again, Gandalf. Though you do seem distracted.
LOCAVORE GANDALF: I’m confused by that booth selling “The Shire’s Best Beef." As we both know, for a Hobbit, no matter how hearty, to handle anything bigger than a pig—it must have been imported from Rohan, or even Gondor.
FRODO: Right. And last week, you rode a dragon through the Northern Wastes just to smoke a pipe on top of Firdas Mithrir.
LOCAVORE GANDALF: Indeed! It was quite bracing.
FRODO: Have you any idea of the carbon footprint of a dragon?
LOCAVORE GANDALF: I don’t see what that has to do with this.
FRODO: [sigh]
II: SOUTH OF RIVENDELL
FRODO: So then Sam and I go running, fast as our legs can carry us, with our pockets stuffed full of potatoes and carrots and whatever else we can grab. Wouldn’t you know we had a right stew that night, ate so much we filled ourselves near to bursting—
MASTER-CLEANSE BOROMIR: Must you Hobbits always speak of food!
FRODO: Sorry?
MASTER-CLEANSE BOROMIR: [pinches the bridge of his nose] I’m sorry. I just wish this headache would stop.
FRODO: Sure, sure. I understand.
MASTER-CLEANSE BOROMIR: Perhaps if I held that ring for just—
FRODO: I don’t think that’s a good idea.
[awkward silence]
III: THE MINES OF MORIA
GIMLI: Now, my friends, you shall know the meaning of Dwarvish hospitality! Malt beer, meat on the bone, cheese logs, bacon twisties—
VEGAN, STRAIGHT-EDGE ARAGORN: We should not have come to this place.
IV: FANGORN FOREST
PALEO MERRY: So no pork? But chicken and beef and mutton are all fine? It just seems antiquated, with everything we know about nutrition.
KOSHER PIPPIN: Antiquated? Yours is named after an ancient era!
PALEO MERRY: Sure, people were healthier, there was no heart disease, no obesity—
KOSHER PIPPIN: Yes, I’m sure they were right fit. I’m sure they were staying thin as Elf-kings, eating dead moths and wooly-oliphant fur. And they got plenty of exercise, with all those prehistoric beasties chasing them day and night.
PALEO MERRY: Fine, you have a point. But if it’s purely for health, why bring religion into it? You really think it’s necessary to follow each tenet, even after so many have been disproven? No matter the health benefits, you can’t possibly argue—
TREEBEARD: My young masters, I’m terribly sorry to interrupt, but do you see that great mountain, far over yonder, covered with beautiful, ancient trees?
MERRY and PIPPIN: Yes.
TREEBEARD: You do? Good, because if either of you says another word, I will kick you both riiiiiiiiight over it. Like two little footballs.
MERRY and PIPPIN: …
V: WEST OF THE BLACK GATE
GLUTEN-FREE FRODO: What have we got to eat?
SAMWISE: Lembas bread.
GLUTEN-FRE FRODO: Have we nothing else?
SAMWISE: And look! Something else!
GLUTEN-FREE FRODO: Oh, thank heavens!
SAMWISE: More lembas bread!
GLUTEN-FREE FRODO: You asshole.
VI: MORLAC’S BEASTORIUM, NURNBOG, SOUTH NURN
ORGANIC, NON-GMO RINGWRAITH: A Naazgul feasts upon the flesh of creatures that crawl, swim, and fly. His cry strikes fear into the hearts of all living things.
ORCISH CLERK: Mmm-hm.
ORGANIC, NON-GMO RINGWRAITH: [reading label] Magnesium Chelate. Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate. What abominations are these? Have you nothing made from elf-ear or man-heart?
ORCISH CLERK: Perhaps you could try our store in Osgiliath.
ORGANIC, NON-GMO RINGWRAITH: [glowers]
VII: THE CAVES OF GONDOR
FRODO: Do you want to know how Boromir died? He never ate anything! He just wasted away! It happened to him, and now it’s happening to you!
FRUCTARIAN FARAMIR: Take him to the holding cells! I think we have some elvenberry mash and nastirtium crisps in the pantry. See that he eats them, and see that he enjoys them.
VIII: THE DEAD MARSHES
GOLLUM: What’s ‘potatoes’?
VEGAN, DUMPSTER-DIVING SAMWISE: Potatoes? PO-TA-TOES? The only thing I eat, apart from wilted cabbage leaves? Dried-up, mealy potatoes, while everyone else has chicken pie and cheese logs and bacon twisties—
GOLLUM: Never mindses.
IX: THE FOOT OF BARAD-DUR
VEGETARIAN, ORGANIC, SODIUM-FREE SMEAGOL: My… [reaches into FRODO’s shirt, pulls out a packet of bacon]
PopCap Games CEO Dave Roberts will retire and be replaced by co-founder John Vechey, Venture Beat reports.
In an interview with the publication, Vechey described Roberts, who joined PopCap in 2005, as the "business leader to help us bring structure to our creative chaos and set us on a sustainable path." Poised to take the helm, Vechy said that "PopCap's mission right now is to create the greatest mobile game studio in the world, and we're going to do that by only making games that are beloved by players"
The incoming CEO also said that the studio, which recently released Peggle 2 excessively for Xbox One, will focus on creating new intellectual property.
"We have under-invested in new IP," he said. "Getting more new IP out per year is the goal. We want to formalize the creative process and get it to scale better."
Vechey co-founded PopCap in 2000, and the studio went on to create franchises like Bejeweled, Peggle and Plants vs. Zombies. Electronic Arts acquired PopCap in 2011 for approximately $650 million in cash plus $100 million in EA stock.
We've reached out to PopCap for confirmation and will update this story with more information as we receive it.
"Shia LaBeouf hired a skywriter to write an apology to Dan Clowes in the sky over Hollywood. It's important to note that Clowes doesn't live in Hollywood. He lives in the Bay Area."
"LaBeouf responded in what seems to be a mix of original sentences and plagiarism, but his point was that the twenty-first century is about remixing and editing, not about creation."
and hey, maybe that's a good point. but the 21st century has also been a hell of a lot about FUCKING ATTRIBUTION YOU WASTER PRICK
So yesterday, in response to the plagiarism scandal that's been surrounding him for the past month, Shia LaBeouf hired a skywriter to write an apology to Dan Clowes in the sky over Hollywood:
An apology from Shia Labeouf to Daniel Clowes. 5 miles long message from our team The Skywriters pic.twitter.com/zqfWgkMIUZ — Skywriting Aerial Ad (@Worldwideskyads) January 1, 2014
It's important to note that Clowes doesn't live in Hollywood. He lives in the Bay Area.
And last night, LaBeouf apparently engaged in an impromptu e-mail interview with Rich Johnston, founder of comics and pop culture site Bleeding Cool. LaBeouf responded in what seems to be a mix of original sentences and plagiarism, but his point was that the twenty-first century is about remixing and editing, not about creation. The exchange also includes this beauty:
Authorship is censorship Should God sue me if I paint a river? Should we give people the death sentence for parking violations- You’ll not only have less parking violations but less DRIVERS.
On the other hand, I now know how to type the name "Shia LaBeouf" without checking the New York Times for the appropriate spelling, so I guess the joke's on me.
my people; the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun
Police in Louisiana say a 17-year-old boy shot and killed his mother and returned home several times over the next two days to feed two younger half-siblings, telling them their mother was ill and not to disturb her.
Walker Police Capt. John Sharp says a family acquaintance found the body of 34-year-old Tamila Wooley on Wednesday in her bedroom in a gated community.
With all the pieces of my master plan falling into place, Ars will soon be silly with Likes.
Facebook is being sued by two users for intercepting the “content of the users’ communications,” including private messages, with the intent to “mine user data and profit from those data by sharing them with third parties—namely, advertisers, marketers, and other data aggregators.” The plaintiffs argue in a December 30 class action complaint that Facebook’s use of the word “private” in relation to its messaging system is misleading given the way the company treats the info contained within those messages.
Many of the allegations in this case are based on research done in 2012 by the Wall Street Journal for a series of articles about digital privacy. Facebook is far from the first company to use private messages to mint money. Gmail continues to be dinged for creating text ads based off of the content of e-mails ten years after the ads were first introduced. (And Gmail has been sued for that, too.)
This is from 2010, but without the "with" that is no doubt just beyond the crop, it's still relevant.
Facebook goes to lengths to clearly distinguish its messaging feature as “private,” even calling it “unprecedented” in terms of the privacy controls, the filing alleges. “Facebook never intended to provide this level of confidentiality. Instead, Facebook mines any and all transmissions... in order to gather any and all morsels of information it can about its users.”
If we talk about the Women Airforce Service Pilots a lot, it's only because they were awesome. Classified as civilians working for the Air Force as they performed the same job as (and even trained) enlisted men, unceremoniously dismissed at the end of the war, with their actions unnecessarily classified for thirty years and subsequently omitted from history textbooks. It's been a struggle for the aging members of the WASP to find their proper due, but one such effort went off without a hitch this very week.
'There is a small, frightening, non-zero chance that the Arkenstone is a Silmaril.
Maedhros threw himself into a fiery chasm with one of the Silmarils, but they can’t be destroyed, so presumably it just floated around for a while and then drifted up to lodge itself in the Lonely Mountain, waiting for Dwarves to come and dig it out. The Silmarils and the Arkenstone are described in almost exactly the same way, they have the same kind of dangerous pull on people, and when Tolkien translated some of his mythos into Anglo-Saxon, he -
wait, back that shit up
WHEN TOLKIEN TRANSLATED SOME OF HIS MYTHOS INTO ANGLO-SAXON
because he’s Tolkien and oh my god who does that
anyway
when motherfucking Tolkien translated some of the goddamn Silmarillion into fucking Anglo-Saxon, the word he used for “Silmaril” was “eorclanstánas,” which, say it out loud, is clearly the word he used as the origin for “Arkenstone.” (It’s also the word used in Beowulf for “precious stone.”)
Did he mean for the Arkenstone to be a Silmaril? Without any notes from him on the subject, there’s no way to know. Tolkien did a valiant job of keeping his own mythology out of The Hobbit as he wrote it, but he did slip in a few places, and those are the things that allowed him to tie it into Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion later. He obviously hadn’t had the Ring in mind when he wrote The Hobbit, but he absolutely already had the Silmarils knocking around in his head. It’s more than possible that he wrote one into this later-age children’s story to amuse himself.
What does this mean?
1. BILBO USED A SILMARIL AS A PILLOW 2. AND THEN GAVE IT AWAY 3. TO AN ELF 4. IMAGINE THRANDUIL’S FACE 5. ALSO THORIN 6. THORIN WOULD BE SO FUCKING PISSED 7. "THE ARKENSTONE WAS MADE BY ELVES?" 8. "WHAT THE FUCK?" 9. "I DON’T BELIEVE YOU" 10. BUT THORIN IT CAUSED THE DOWNFALL OF ANCIENT ELVENDOM 11. "…WELL THEN I SUPPOSE THAT’S OKAY" 12. AND THEN THEY JUST BURY IT 13. LIKE “LOL WHATEVER WE DON’T NEED THIS SHIT ANY MORE” 14. HAS ANYONE TOLD ELROND ABOUT THIS? 15. IS GANDALF JUST LAUGHING AT EVERYONE THE WHOLE TIME 16. of course he is what am i saying'
SO I was reading the Smaug chapters of The Hobbit at work today (aw yiss I have the best job) (book discussion on January 26th, everyone in Chicagoland is invited) and I had a Thought. And then I checked the Internet, and the Internet agrees with me.
CBS and NBC are making it easy for football fans to follow along this postseason by streaming their NFL playoff coverage online for free. Following the precedent it started in 2013, NBC will be offering both of its wild card match-ups this Saturday, while for the first time CBS will be streaming its four playoff games — including the AFC championship game — as well. All told, the entire AFC side of the NFL playoff bracket will be free online for customers — so whether you're a Broncos or a Patriots fans, your bases are covered.
Of course, the rights to various games are divvied up amongst different networks, and Variety reports that Fox will be hiding its online streams behind the TV Everywhere initiative. Comcast, Cablevision, and AT&T U-verse subscribers will be able to watch online coverage with the appropriate login credentials, but otherwise Seahawks or 49ers fans will have to resort to more traditional means of watching the game. Fox isn't being stingy when it goes to the biggest game of them all, however; it will be streaming Super Bowl XLVIII for free.
Bethesda Softworks announced today via Twitter that it is working to bring back Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics to Steam after the games were removed from sale as a result of the franchise rights changing hands.
The Fallout games were originally developed and published by Interplay Entertainment before Bethesda acquired the IP in 2007. As part of the acquisition, Interplay was granted certain merchandising rights, which allowed it to sell the original Fallout games. A lawsuit between the two companies in 2012 ended this agreement, which led to those merchandising rights expiring on Dec. 31, 2013.
The expiration of rights meant digital retailers like Steam and GOG.com had to remove the games from sale, but Bethesda said today that it is working to return the games to Steam as soon as possible. "We have to remove existing publisher info, legal text, etc." the company tweeted.
The Vikings released a statement Thursday evening defending the coaching staff's decision to release Chris Kluwe. The former punter accused the Vikings of releasing him due to his activism in support of LGBT rights.
The Minnesota Vikings released a statement Thursday evening in response to former punter Chris Kluwe's implication that he was released by the team due to his activism in support of LGBT rights. In an article written for Deadspin, Kluwe called head coach Leslie Frazier and general manager Rick Spielman cowards, and special teams coach Mike Priefer a bigot.
The Minnesota Vikings were made aware of Chris Kluwe's allegations for the first time today. We take them very seriously and will thoroughly review this matter.
As an organization, the Vikings consistently strive to create a supportive, respectful and accepting environment for all of our players, coaches and front office personnel. We do not tolerate discrimination at any level. The team has long respected our players' and associates' individual rights, and, as Chris specifically stated, Vikings ownership supports and promotes tolerance, including on the subject of marriage equality. Because he was identified with the Vikings, Chris was asked to be respectful while expressing his opinions. Team ownership and management also repeatedly emphasized to Chris that the Vikings would not impinge on his right to express his views.
Any notion that Chris was released from our football team due to his stance on marriage equality is entirely inaccurate and inconsistent with team policy. Chris was released strictly based on his football performance.
We will have further comment at the appropriate time.
During his time with the Vikings, Kluwe became well known for being outspoken about social issues on social media. In his Deadspin piece, he alleged that Priefer made several openly homophobic statements to Kluwe, including: "We should round up all the gays, send them to an island, and then nuke it until it glows."
According to Outsports, Priefer has already released statement saying he does not "tolerate discrimination of any type and am respectful of all individuals. I personally have gay family members who I love and support just as I do any family member."
'Because the change is being put off, women will be able to choose which test of upper-body strength they will be graded on in their annual physical fitness test. Their choices:
_Pullups, with three the minimum. Three is also the minimum for male Marines, but they need 20 for a perfect rating.
_A flexed-arm hang. The minimum is for 15 seconds; women get a perfect score if they last for 70 seconds. Men don't do the hang in their test.
Officials said training for pullups can change a person's strength, while training for the flex-arm hang does little to adapt muscular strength needed for military tasks'
Marines delay female fitness plan after half fail Bryan-College Station Eagle More than half of female Marines in boot camp can't do three pullups, the new minimum standard. So the Corps is delaying the requirement. All the service branches are working on devising standards, training and other policies needed to open thousands of ...
The NSA is funding quantum computer work that it hopes will allow it to break virtually any encryption used today, The Washington Post reports — though there's no sign it's managed to crack the puzzle better than any of the other companies or agencies working on the same thing. Leaks from Edward Snowden reveal a $79.7 million research program called "Penetrating Hard Targets," including classified funding to research a quantum computer that could be used for cryptography. The Post says that much of the research is being done at the University of Maryland's Laboratory for Physical Sciences, but not much more is revealed about the program, including how far quantum computing work has actually progressed.
Quantum computing hinges, very broadly, on allowing individual bits (called qubits) to contain superimposed values of zero and one, vastly increasing computing power. Its implications for cryptography, medicine, and research have made it a major goal for public services and private industry alike: DARPA has devoted years of funding to quantum computing research, and Google launched its own "Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab" last year. But while qubits have been stored for a limited period of time under certain conditions, and specialized machines have been built using quantum technology, that's not enough for practical code-breaking applications. Last year, for example,The Economist all but ruled out the possibility that the NSA had a crypto-ready quantum computer.
The NSA's program, part of the larger intelligence community "Black Budget," doesn't actually task anybody with building a quantum computer. According to the memo, it asks researchers to "conduct basic research in quantum physics and architecture/engineering studies to determine if, and how, a cryptographically useful quantum computer can be built." So while the grant fits with the NSA's general mission — and quantum computing could one day pose a real threat to present-day encryption methods — it's a lot more theoretical than the agency's ability to, say, seed malware to computers from miles away.
Polar bears have bigger butts than black or grizzly bears, and their strange weight distribution is an ingenious adaptation to help them maintain balance when seal hunting.
Despite all of the beneficial impacts to the economy that fantasy football provides, there are some concerns about potential economic drawbacks. The addictive nature and widespread popularity of fantasy football, combined with the relative ease of obtaining information about a manager’s team has led to many hours of lost productivity at work. A rough calculation based on estimates regarding the average amount of time team managers spend on their teams, combined with the number of team managers and their average wages puts the estimated impact at about $6 billion in wasted productivity. However, the study admits to being non-scientific and that its estimates are rough.
'Curly Fu and his “cute wife,” Peanut' = Sherlock and Watson
For millions of fans, the agonizing wait for the return of the hit detective show Sherlock is over. The BBC broadcast the first episode of the third season at 9pm (GMT) on Jan. 1. A few hours later, Sherlock hit the Chinese internet via Youku, China’s biggest online streaming site. In less than 24 hours, it’s gotten 4.72 million views (link in Chinese). But US fans half way around the world aren’t as lucky: The show’s US premiere is set for Jan. 19.
Why is the show giving preference to Chinese fans? Probably because Youku and the BBC need to beat the Chinese pirates. Illegal streaming sites in China can upload a just-aired show within hours of its international premier. Once viewed on those sites, users have little reason to visit Youku.
This strategy is actually becoming fairly standard practice. In July 2013, Youku aired Lionsgate’s Orange is the New Black just 24 hours after it went live on US Netflix.
Sherlock’s swift debut was even more critical than the newer show Orange is the New Black. “Curly Fu” and “Peanut,” as Sherlock and Watson are nicknamed by adoring fans, have already won a massive Chinese following, including reams of gay-themed fan fiction, as this Foreign Policy article explains.
Even the speediest pirates couldn’t upload an illegally downloaded recording of the episode in time to draw desperate viewers away from Youku. BBC is likely keen to cooperate because China is a key part of its international licensing strategy; if it loses Youku contracts, there are few other candidates with the money needed to license its shows.
Curly Fu and his “cute wife,” Peanut.
Youku screenshot
That’s an alignment of interests that eludes Hollywood film studios. The government protects domestic films by allowing only 34 foreign films a year to be screened for a percentage of ticket sales. Government-run distributors take a hefty cut of ticket sales (and sometimes refuse to pay) and have no incentive to prevent stores from selling pirated DVDs or merchandise.
The strategy forged by Youku and its foreign TV studio partners seems to be working. The site gets an insane amount of traffic, in no small part because Youku viewers have thronged to shows like Masters of Sex, Downton Abbey, Walking Dead, Homeland and Vampire Diaries. (Besides Western shows it’s also licensed wildly popular shows from Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.)
To attract advertisers, Youku needs to keep that traffic up—even if it hurts margins. “Companies like Youku have spent a lot of money on purchasing American or English TV shows,” Yi Zongting, an analyst at Beijing-based Entgroup, told the Hollywood Reporter, “but the goal is to accumulate the audience [now]—the profit is still a long-term bet.”
And not at all a sure one, particularly given that Youku currently faces little competition. If, for example, China’s rigidly controlled TV content started offering more compelling options, that could change. For now, though, Youku and its foreign partners are in the clear. Chinese TV channels feature sedative array of costume dramas, screwball comedies and usually lame reality shows. Hardly a match for Curly Fu and his cute wife.
For years, gamers have called for reviews to be more objective. Every few months, there is some controversy about a new game that got a score that was too high or too low. Gamers blame the opinions of those who write reviews. Game journalists have their own ideas about what makes a game good or bad, and these ideas influence the score they give to games.
Enter Objective Game Reviews.
We solve this problem by reviewing games without letting our personal opinion get in the way. All of the reviews we write are 100% objective, guaranteed. When you read a game review from Objective Game Reviews, you can trust that what we say is not based on our own biases or opinions.
No more opinion. No more subjectivity. No more controversy.
Here at Objective Game Reviews, you can finally read a review without worrying about the opinion of the author. So, go ahead! Browse our reviews and discover a new game you will love!
