Between this and Davinchi's Demons, I'm starting to wonder if someone at STARZ is an obsessive fan of Ubisoft. I mean, I'm not kidding, I really think they're stealing from our friends in Montreal. The fact it's a Michael Bay pirate-production has been sold, though. I don't go to Michael Bay for plot, commentary, or historical accuracy. I go to him for guns, girls, and explosions and by GOD that fits with pirates.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Business Insider reports that protesters have stopped a bus filled with Apple employees in San Francisco and a Google bus in Oakland. Tech companies like Google, Apple, and Facebook provide free buses that take their employees from San Francisco to their headquarters in the suburbs. Protesters are mad at the tech companies because the wealthy tech employees have driven up the price of housing in San Francisco, which is pricing out some people. The buses also use public transit stops, and some protesters think that's wrong. Between 70 and 100 protesters gathered for the blockade of Apple private tech shuttle to protest evictions in the city of San Francisco. The activists in San Fransisco were from Eviction Free San Francisco, Our Mission No Eviction, Causa Justa /Just Cause. Protesters stood in front of a white shuttle bus holding banners and signs. Some peeked through cardboard signs fashioned in the shape of place markers on Google maps, with "Evicted" written across the front. Meanwhile violence occurred in Oakland, according to reports from IndyBay, as protesters unfurled two giant banners reading "TECHIES: Your World Is Not Welcome Here" and "Fuck off Google" and "a person appeared from behind the bus and quickly smashed the whole of the rear window, making glass rain down on the street. Cold air blew inside the bus and the blockaders with their banners departed." Two weeks ago, protesters stopped a Google bus."
"Pope Francis warned Vatican administrators Saturday that their work can take a downward spiral into mediocrity, gossip and bureaucratic squabbling if they forget that theirs is a professional vocation of service to the church."
Pope warns against mediocrity, gossip in Vatican Kansas City Star VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis warned Vatican administrators Saturday that their work can take a downward spiral into mediocrity, gossip and bureaucratic squabbling if they forget that theirs is a professional vocation of service to the church. Pope Makes Great ChangeHuffington Post (blog)
' The response ot her success from the gaming world was was mixed. Many people celebrated her wins. But a loud minority of fans attacked her gender identity at every opportunity. Hostyn herself rarely talks about this aspect of her life, even going so far as to say it’s disrespectful to even acknowledge the fact in online encyclopedia entries about her.
“I have always tried to make it a complete non-issue,” she wrote, “and including this [in my player page] is subverting that and akin to mentioning someone is the best gay/black/etc player; something that has absolutely no relevance on how they play.” '
In a game typically dominated by South Korean men, how did a 20-year-old Canadian transgendered girl come to become one of the best?
'There's something wrong about liberating 500 slaves to get a "secret prize" and finding out it's Uplay money.'
Hey, just got done finishing this DLC.
A rough list of my thoughts.
* I now understand Spike Lee's thoughts that any movie dealing with slavery should be handled like a movie about the Holocaust.
* It is a very-very DARK game.
* This darkness contrasts so much with the main game, I suffered Mood Whiplash.
* Ubisoft is one of the most progressive developers in gaming (Mohawk, Black Woman, and Arab protagonists) but Adewale kind of feels a little like a Barrett stereotype in this game.
* The Blunderbuss and Machete are shit weapons.
* The Templars are almost completely absent from this game and I don't miss them at all.
* The Penultimate level is AWESOME and HORRIBLE at once.
* NOOOOOO! NOT THE JACKDAW!
* Liberating slaves is both awesome and (mentally) exhausting.
* There's something wrong about liberating 500 slaves to get a "secret prize" and finding out it's Uplay money.
* The Plantation liberation missions are awesome.
* Attacking Slave Ship Escorts? Far less so.
* Adewale talks a lot of shit about pirates. It's like Ubisoft wants you to feel guilty for Black Flag.
"Of course a rich tech guru wants Silicon Valley to get its own government"
"Draper has conjured the perfect blend of Seasteading's offshore tech nirvana lawlessness, boilerplate Tea Party antiestablishmentarianism, and good ol' secessionist chutzpah"
Daniel_Stuckey writes that venture capitalist Tim Draper has mooted a plan "to split California into six separate states, he told Tech Crunch, with Silicon Valley emerging as the richest and most powerful of all. The mockery is already pouring in. Of course a rich tech guru wants Silicon Valley to get its own government, so it can be freed from the dusty laws and regulations of California 1.0. Of course a deep undercurrent of self-aggrandizing narcissism runs through the proposal — only one other state-to-be gets an actual name, (inexplicably, 'Jefferson') and the rest are lazily affixed with topographical descriptors: West, South, Central, and North California...Yes, in shaping his doctrine, Draper has conjured the perfect blend of Seasteading's offshore tech nirvana lawlessness, boilerplate Tea Party antiestablishmentarianism, and good ol' secessionist chutzpah."
The NeverEnding Story doesn't need a darker reboot in the least, but Nicolas Francoeur's concept art, imagining a more "mature" version of the classic films, are still quite lovely. Let's just hope they don't give film executives any ideas.
Steinhafel said "the issue has been identified and eliminated" and that shoppers’ PINs, birth dates, and Social Security numbers were not stolen. Still, he empathized with customers for the stress and confusion caused by this situation. He said Target will be in touch with all impacted customers, but that the store has heard “very few reports of actual fraud.” Even so, Steinhafel made a point to note any customers who were affected “will not be held financially responsible for any credit card or debit card fraud.”
As for the difficulty some customers have experienced when trying to contact Target through both the Web and its call center, the CEO chalked up wait times and unresponsive pages to “unprecedented call volume.” Steinhafel said Target is “working continuously to build capacity” for these resources.
Oh ho, the plot thickens! Or rather, it congeals from thin air, because I suppose there wasn’t much of a plot before this. EA yanked the cord on Warhammer Online’s servers (and then presumably bit it in half and bathed in its blood), and that was that. The end. Roll credits. But now a former Mythic developer who’s currently working on Camelot Unchained has revealed the existence of a single-player, server-free version of the sadly short-lived (by MMO standards) game, and he’s pleading that EA release it for history’s sake.
The developer, City State Entertainment co-founder Andrew Meggs, explained in a blog post:
“In every unreleased, internal-only developer build of the Warhammer client, there was the option to run without a server. As the lead client engineer I spent a good amount of time doing that. There were no login or character selection screens. There were no NPCs or other players. There was no gameplay of any kind. It was just you and the entire world spread out before you. You could fly around like Superman, or teleport anywhere at will. You could watch the sun rise and set over Altdorf, and see the smoke rise from fires forever burning. And you could see the thousands upon thousands of hours of work and craftsmanship that went into creating a world that has now been unplugged.”
This release, then, wouldn’t be for players to reclaim and rebuild. Rather, Meggs wants EA to consider his request for the sake of posterity in a medium that often deletes its links to the past without batting an eyelash. It’s kind of a shame that the game’s days as a bustling, player-driven kingdom are well and truly over, but Meggs’ sentiment is an admirable one.
“It won’t be WAR; that only exists with other players,” he stated frankly. “But it’s a double-clickable museum exhibiting much of what WAR was, so it won’t be forgotten completely. It’s an effort by all of us, as developers, to preserve a living record as our transient medium is created and destroyed. I can’t do this; I left behind the code when I left EA. But there are people inside EA who can easily make this happen.”
Let us hope that they do. To be perfectly honest, though, I’m not holding my breath. I feel terribly sad saying that, but this is EA we’re talking about, and it is what it is. That said, I do hope other developers and publishers consider this route when toppling their respective MMO titans. Meggs makes a very good point about gaming’s all-too-malleable history, and it’s doubly disappointing in light of the fact that our museums could be such near-perfect representations of the real thing if they existed. If only.
Brian Provinciano has continued fine-tuning Retro City Rampage for its 3DS release, pushing the final version into 2014. There’s plenty to play this year anyway!
So, good news:
The 3DS version’s going to be $10 instead of the $15 the other versions cost (when they’re not on sale, which they always are!)
All versions will be out in Australia and New Zealand concurrent with the 3DS release
The whole game’s been tweaked for 3DS
"Every mission has been reworked for the 3DS, the frontend and UI rebuilt for two screens, and touch features added where it makes sense. I spent a good amount of time on R&D playing with the touch screen to see what worked and what didn’t, ensuring every use of it felt natural and added to the game."
It’s no secret that the world’s best peppermint comes from Oregon. Gently hand-screened for perfect leaf size, it infuses a full, creamy flavor with distinct chocolate notes and an intense finish. A great after dinner treat or midday breath freshener.
And on the subject of tea… Steven Smith’s No. 45 has been making me extraordinarily happy.
Mobile phone shop in Lusaka. Photo by Curious Lee (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In autumn of 2012, the Zambian government issued a new policy requiring citizens to register their mobile phone SIM cards, using their real identities. Now they are threatening to deactivate services on mobile phones with unregistered SIMs.
Mobile service providers in Zambia mainly offer pay-as-you-go services, meaning that mobile phone customers can acquire SIM cards anonymously and pay for air time as needed. Many Zambians also rely on their mobile phones to access the Internet. This is critical, given that dial-up and broadband services are not only expensive but poorly distributed throughout the country.
Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority (ZICTA) stated that citizens must register their SIM cards by December 31, 2013, or they will begin to lose certain services. Phones will be fully de-registered by February 15, 2014 if owners do not comply with the registration order.
An MTN call to its subscribers to register their SIM cards.
Citizen media website Zambia Reports quoted Communications and Transport junior minister Colonel Panji Kaunda saying subscribers would have a window of up to February 15 when their SIM cards would be completely de-registered.
Kaunda reportedly said that 5,360,093 SIM cards were registered as of December 16, out of a total of 10,343,527 mobile phone subscribers in the country.
On Facebook, media worker John Chola, apparently after receiving a promotional message from one mobile phone service provider, wrote:
“Your number will be disconnected if it is not registered by December 31, 2013. Visit your nearest MTN Agent or Zampost to register your SIM card today!”
Isn't this appaling and silly coming to one who has done so more than twice and even made several stopovers to verify with a particualr service provider? Go ahead cut them off, am out!
One comment on Chola’s post by Mwamba Kanyanta reads:
[…] I have been opting out on as many promotional messages as possible from these carriers. Receiving a message like the one ba (Mr) Chola got can be very irritating considering that he had just done the needful.. Does the law oblige a subscriber to disseminate the ZICTA message? If I register my sims, I shouldn't be made to preach to my neighbour about sim registration. In fact, campaigns of threats never yield tangible results. By January, no single sim will have been blocked. Bet?
When ZICTA announced SIM card registration last September, the agency warned that failure to register SIM cards after the deadline would result in SIM deactivation, leaving subscribers unable to communicate. The action by ZICTA was in apparent compliance with the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) Act No.15 of 2009 and the Statutory Instrument on the Registration of Electronic Communication Apparatus No. 65 of 2011.
When ZICTA initially faced resistance from mobile phone users, it explained that the mandatory registration of SIM cards was being done to create a security data base for users.
Pull-to-refresh is by now as familiar a part of interface design as anything that can be found on mobile devices. Is it time to put it out to pasture? FastCo.Design pondered that question after the recent release of Instagram Direct, hinging its argument on the fact that most devices today are powerful enough to handle background updates. After all, seeing a steady stream of tweets would be far more useful than having to refresh over and over again. Elsewhere, apps like Jawbone's Up app has moved to a "pull-to-action" model that provides the user with valuable, glanceable information that makes the vertical swipe worthwhile. Some might call that innovation. Might a paradigm shift create some fragmentation and even user confusion? Maybe. But, for FastCo, that's be a risk worth taking.
WinterFest 2013 is the “festival of artisanal software for writers.” Tinderbox, Scrivener, Scapple, DEVONthink Pro Office, and Nisus Write Pro are on sale for the holidays.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (updated daily).
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