French refurbishing company Lekki is now selling newly made-over and re-colored Nintendo 64 consoles bundled with a copy of Super Mario 64, created with second-hand systems that have since been put back into service.
Each bundle is available to purchase for €120 from its website, roughly $165, and includes a customized and refurbished console and matching controller along with the game. Beyond a series of revamped mobile phones, Lekki's roster of refurbished systems also includes Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color and Super Nintendo, along with a handful of retro titles, Mission: Impossible, 1080 Snowboarding, ISS 64 and Wave Race 64.
"By customizing revamped second-hand mobile phones and handheld video game systems, Lëkki makes a commitment to sustainable development and recycling, trough putting iconic objects from the past into service," reads a statement from the company.
You can check out the modernized game systems here, available in four different colors.
The bulk of Assassin’s Creed III’s story DLC was rather silly (though disappointingly self-serious about it), but Assassin’s Creed IV has its eyepatched sights set on much grimmer subject matter. There’s still plenty of pirating to be done, but this time the backdrop is a St. Domingue (Haiti nowadays) ruled by savage slavery. As a former slave himself, new player character and former Black Flag sidekick Adéwale naturally gets involved – though not without some initial reluctance. Given that gaming’s often wont to gloss over this sordid truth of our world, I am hopeful that Assassin’s Creed IV: Freedom Cry will tell a worthwhile tale. The fact that Assassin’s Creed: Liberation scribe Jill Murray is involved doesn’t hurt, either.
The DLC episode, which will run you $9.99, should be out and buckling swashes any moment now. Here’s a brief synopsis:
“Set 15 years after the end of Black Flag, Freedom Cry stars an older Adéwale, who has since stepped out of Kenway’s shadow to become a seasoned Assassin and valued member of the Brotherhood. When the DLC begins, Adéwale is shipwrecked in St. Domingue (modern-day Haiti), where he comes face to face with some of the most brutal slavery in the West Indies. As he makes his way through St. Domingue, Port-au-Prince and the surrounding seas, Adéwale will counter the abominable cruelty festering in the region with his own ruthless justice, delivered via bloody machete, powerful blunderbuss – and while aboard his fearsome brig Experto Crede.”
Murray was also sure to note that, while slavery is obviously quite key to this story, it’s not the be-all, end-all of it. On that note, Ubisoft isn’t aiming for some mighty, overreaching takedown of slavery as a concept. It’s frighteningly multi-faceted (not to mention still existent) brand of terror, and Assassin’s Creed is, well, a videogame about stabbing men in the neck. Hooded men, sure, but not those hooded men.
“I always think it’s important to keep in mind that a character is first and foremost themselves,” Murray said in a blog post. “When I write them, I hope they’re never just a stand-in for an issue, and the idea isn’t just to confront this thing. Adéwale’s not standing in for every black man who was ever a slave in the 18th century. He’s Adéwale.”
Against all odds, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag was actually quite good. I applaud Ubisoft for taking what seems to be a critical yet level-headed approach with this subject matter, so here’s hoping Freedom Cry follows in the peg-steps of its piratey predecessor. Then again, this is Assassin’s Creed we’re talking about. Rare is the grounded tale that stars men who gleefully leap from stories-tall roofs, land in hay bales, and emerge without a scratch. Also, there’s all that sci-fi silliness, largely inconsequential though it might have been in Black Flag. I will hold onto cautious optimism for Freedom Cry, but with a quadruple helping of caution.
Everyone loves a free t-shirt. This is why NBA teams launch free t-shirts into the stands. Everyone loves a free t-shirt. There are few better ways than to manufacture crowd noise than to tease fans with free t-shirts. Everyone loves a free t-shirt.
Even Paul McCartney. The legend tried hard to cop one at the Nets' game against the Sixers on Monday. The GIF, via r/nba, shows that he failed.
"You would potentially be eligible for this grant if any of the following apply: you're American, and qualify for the earned income credit, you've qualified for food stamps and/or Medicaid for a significant period of time, you live paycheck to paycheck, your parents did not go to college, you rely on payday loans, your children qualified for free school lunch, you're currently being raised in a single parent household, you're supporting yourself and paying your own way through college, you've lived at or below 200% of the poverty line for your state for at least one year, you've experienced stretches of time when food was not readily and easily available."
Working class, blue-collar, poor, and homeless writers have been historically underrepresented in speculative fiction, due to financial barriers which have made it much harder for them to have access to the writing world. Such lack of access might include an inability to attend conventions, to purchase a computer, to buy books, to attend college or high school, to have the time to write (if, for example, you must work two jobs simply to pay rent and feed a family, or if you must spend all your waking hours job-hunting for months on end). The SLF would like to assist in finding more of these marginalized voices and bringing them into speculative fiction.
You are eligible for this grant if you come from a background such as described above, if you grew up (or are growing up) in homelessness, poverty, or a blue collar / working-class household, or if you have lived for a significant portion of your life in such conditions, especially if you had limited access to relatives/friends who could assist you financially. We will give preference to members of that larger pool who are currently in financial need (given our limited funds).
There are of course more details at the link above.
I don’t think it would come as much of a surprise that I think this grant is a good idea. Writing is easier when you have a little bit of headspace to do it in — a headspace that’s not crowded with worries about work and bills and whether the super-old computer you write on is about to implode, taking your work with it. That’s what I see that grant offering: That little bit of headspace to let creativity happen.
Again, details at are the link. Check it out and share it with folks for whom it could be useful.
Google and HP are recalling power chargers for the Chromebook 11 after receiving nine reports of them overheating and melting. One minor burn and one minor incident of property damage resulted from the heating issues, and owners are now being told to cease use of the charger and contact Google for a free replacement. According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, about 145,000 units of the charger will have to be replaced. HP previously told us that for the time being, Chromebook 11 users can use "any other Underwriters Laboratories-listed micro-USB charger" in its place.
HP and Google initially halted sales of the Chromebook 11 last week, pulling it from Best Buy, Amazon, and their own websites. Though Google will be issuing a new charger to current owners, there's no word on whether the laptop will head back on sale. On the Chromebook 11's website, Google writes that interested parties should "check back soon" though, so we may see the Chromebook again once these issues have been sorted out. We've reached out to Google and HP to learn more about the recall, and will update if we learn more.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, are developing an algorithm that aims to identify whether you’re a hipster, a goth or a punk, just from the cut of your social media jib.
The team has been analysing pictures of groups of people in an attempt to place them within one of eight sub-cultures according to their appearance. These included hipsters, goths, surfers and bikers.
By looking out for trendy haircuts, telltale tattoos and jewelry, the algorithm is being trained to make assumptions about you based for example on your social media pictures.
Websites can then offer you a more tailored experience. A surfer might be given recommendations about holidays and a punk updated on gigs for their favourite band. And what better way for a hipster to make sure they stay ahead of the curve than to be updated on the very latest in organic, fairtrade coffee products, as and when they come on the market?
How it works
The researchers are using what is known as a multi-label classification algorithm. These are widely used in vision analysis to draw conclusions from clues that are found in images. It takes a set of photos, each with their own label, such as “cat,” “car,” “emo,” and then finds the features in the photos that best predict the label of a new photo. The algorithm leverages the assumption that pictures with a similar set of feature values are likely to have similar labels.
So if it looks at a picture, sees a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, a waxed moustache and a lumberjack shirt, and is told that it is looking at a hipster, it can move on to a new photo and identify a quinoa lover just from their look.
The researchers say the algorithm is 48% accurate on average, while chance would get answers right only 9% of the time. If you were to guess the content of a picture (without seeing it), then you will guess the correct answer once every 11 times on average. This machine can do better than that but not as well as a human using the full power of their street savvy.
The algorithm uses a “parts and attributes” approach, by breaking down each picture into a set of feature values. In this case, features such as the head, neck, torso and arms of each subject were scanned for attributes such as tattoos, colors, haircuts and jewelry.
Which is your tribe? Jacobs School of Engineering UC San Diego
The algorithm then uses the labelled pictures to learn a classifier. This type of learning problem would be perfectly suited to the machinery of Google, in that it might be possible to find the features indicative of particular social groups without needing to manually state the types of features such as face, head, top of the head (where a hat would be), neck, torso and arms.
What it’s for
The idea is that if an algorithm can identify the kind of person you are from how you look, sites can offer you a more personally-tailored experience.
There are some problems to this approach though. For a start, a 48% accuracy means that a Facebooking goth would be fairly likely to get ads for fixed-wheel bike repairs cropping up in their feed by mistake were the technology be deployed in its current state. While 48% is better than chance, the researchers want their algorithm to perform as well as a human would and plan to keep working to improve its accuracy.
But then comes the deeper question of whether you can really make assumptions about what a person is interested in based on how they look. Just because a goth likes to dress in black doesn’t necessarily mean their taste in hobbies isn’t more closely aligned to those of a surfer.
We have to ask ourselves if we want our internet experience to be tailored in this way. Ads and search results that have been tailored according to our gender can already be irritating. Often is seems that Facebook thinks that just because a user is a woman, she will automatically be interested in news about celebrity diets.
While it may be useful to identify a user’s tribe to understand them better, how that information is used depends on certain assumptions about what that tribe likes. As any hipster will tell you, that can change in an instant.
SonicSpike writes "2013 may be a turning point for red-light cameras across the United States. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), a non-profit largely funded by auto insurance companies, this year is the first time in nearly two decades that the number of American cities with red-light cameras has fallen — the systems were installed in 509 communities as of November 2013. While a single-year drop may not ultimately mean much, legislators across the country are increasingly agitated about the cameras. Bills are also pending in Florida and Ohio that would ban the devices entirely. A state representative in Iowa has also twice introduced legislation to ban RLCs (he was not successful). Part of this backlash has to do with the (sometimes accurate) perception that RLCs are a moneymaking scheme, pure and simple."
Fulfilling one of Al Plastino’s final wishes, DC Entertainment announced it has acquired his original art for the 1964 story “Superman’s Mission For President Kennedy” for donation to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. A prolific Golden Age artist who passed away Nov. 25 at age 91, Plastino was surprised to [...]
In a world of seemingly infinite connectivity, we’re constantly hearing about how all of this technology is in fact forcing us apart — whether we're spending more time instant messaging than interacting or looking at our phones instead of the human being on the other side of the dinner table. Spike Jonze’s Her examines one man’s relationship with just such an electronic device. Far from being a cautionary tale, it highlights how technology itself can not only fulfill our emotional needs, but also clarify our relationships with the people it’s meant to connect us with.
Set in an unspecified future just a few years from now, the film stars Joaquin Phoenix (The Master) as Theodore, a talented correspondence writer at a website called BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. Still nursing the pain of his failed marriage to Catherine (Rooney Mara, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Theodore mostly keeps to himself, save for occasional interactions with his neighbor Amy and her husband Charles (Amy Adams and Matt Letscher). But after purchasing a new artificially intelligent operating system that calls itself Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), he develops an unexpected rapport with the device as it evolves into a bona fide companion.
Jonze is no stranger to stories about the weird ways in which technology affects our lives
Initially, Samantha seems like a sort of ideal personal assistant; in addition to streamlining Theodore’s inbox and keeping him on top of his responsibilities, she offers occasional comfort and reassurance when he retreats into his head. But Samantha’s programming allows her to grow as she learns, and she becomes as involved with him as he is with her — taking inspiration to explore the world, even if it’s through Theodore’s eyes. But Samantha’s curiosity quickly evolves beyond the common sensory experiences of her human counterpart, and she begins contemplating deeper philosophical ideas. Soon, she is yearning for the same kind of intellectual and emotional gratification she provided for Theodore, forcing him to confront the possibility of losing her as she embarks on her own journey of self-discovery.
Jonze is no stranger to stories about the weird ways in which technology affects our lives, but Her is resonant in a completely different way from his earlier work. It eschews the weirdness of Being John Malkovich and the melancholy of Where The Wild Things Are to explore ideas that are specific and intimate yet shockingly universal. Indeed, Her is only incidentally science fiction — its interactive, reciprocal artificial intelligence is seemingly less possible than inevitable — while Jonze examines the nature of companionship, and the ways in which we define and maintain the relationships that are most important to us.
the film observes how easy it can be to substitute or mistake technology for real human interaction
Notwithstanding the increasing normalcy of internet dating, this is a film that makes the argument that any online relationship can be meaningful, even when it stays online. Where movies like Catfish underscore the potential for these interactions to be phony or facetious, Jonze’s film argues that virtual interaction is valid and meaningful even without physical consummation. In his construction of Her’s “tomorrowland” future, Jonze predicts that these relationships will not just become prevalent, but socially acceptable, and with few exceptions the characters around Theodore eagerly legitimize the bond between him and Samantha. It not only normalizes Theodore’s behavior, but allows the audience to see the essence of his relationship with Samantha as a natural byproduct of integrating technology into virtually every life experience — in much the same way that sharing one’s aspirations, insecurities, fears, and dreams makes any relationship that much deeper and more meaningful.
Beyond Jonze’s detailed world building, Phoenix and Johannson do an incredible job making us believe that they are two equal entities, and that their relationship is authentic. On screen, the two of them interact via Theodore’s cellphone (which serves as her eyes to his world) and an unobtrusive Bluetooth-style earpiece, but after the initial awkwardness of their introduction it’s easy to forget that she isn’t “real” — or at least as real as he is. That Jonze presents Samantha as a sort of unseen commentator or companion makes us at ease with her physical absence, but Phoenix’s body language — a heroic one-man show of vulnerability — underscores how deeply he cares for her, and how strongly he’s affected by the twists and turns in their relationship.
Simultaneously, the film observes how easy it can be to substitute or mistake technology for real human interaction. When Theodore buys Samantha, it seems pretty clear that he’s looking for something, or someone, to be his partner, even if it’s only virtual, and she quickly becomes the first and often only person he goes to with his experiences. That hermetic bond enables him to avoid interaction with the outside world, not just ignoring possible problems but retreating from the messy unpredictability of the human beings around him. In a strict sense, Theodore is vaguely aware of the risks he runs by dating an OS; he recognizes the limited feasibility of doing things like double dates with Samantha. But he also fails to consider how consuming his relationship becomes, and the film delicately highlights how he achieves a state of normalcy for himself that estranges him from those around him, such as his friend Amy.
But Jonze seems to think through just about every aspect of his idea, and executes it in such a poetic way that it only ever feels like the story of a relationship, as opposed to, say, a technophobic fable or science-fiction conceit. There’s an amusing, recognizable honesty in Theodore and Samantha’s exchanges that highlight moments in “real” relationships: the awkward morning-after conversation that follows their first sexual encounter, the bemused daydreams that accompany a day trip to the beach, the desperate fear of not being able to reach, or find, a person whom you fear is drifting apart from you. And given that Samantha is a computer that learns about the world through her interactions with Theodore, it seems inevitable that she changes to incorporate the experiences she has — just as with a relationship between two people.
'Her' only ever feels like the story of a relationship, and never a technophobic fable or sci-fi conceit
At the same time, Theodore’s insecurities and his ingrained pathological responses create the same sorts of conflicts they would with another person, and the evolution of their relationship unfolds both with the awkward humanity of fumbling efforts to communicate and the clarity and perspective of a machine capable of assessing those efforts psychologically. On two occasions, Samantha attempts to compose music as a way of articulating her reaction to their shared experiences, and it’s telling that the second is more complex than the first — snapshots of specific moments that encompass the tone of their relationship and the experiences that led up to each one.
As with Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, Her wraps itself up with an ending that feels indefinite, but complete. The difference between this film and others more openly critical of technology is that the character’s interactions with his operating system would ordinarily stunt or inhibit the ones with the humans around him, but in Her the opposite proves true; ultimately, he’s better able to deal with the failures of his past and understand how not to repeat them in the future.
Ultimately, Her possesses the epic sweep of a science-fiction opus that speculates where we’re going as a species and how we might get there, and yet applies its discoveries to the individual. All of which is why it’s a modest sort of masterpiece, a truly great film that manages to make an unconventional relationship seem enormously rewarding, but mostly because it accomplishes in Theodore’s life what we wish real ones did in ours: teach us about ourselves, and help us to be more — not less — open to love.
Her opens in limited release on Wednesday, December 18th.
We just heard Tears For Fears add to their pile of modern indie covers with a take on Animal Collective’s “My Girls.” Now here are some modern indie musicians covering Tears For Fears. The team of Matthew Dear plus Tegan And Sara has tackled the 1983 single “Pale Shelter,” a shimmering New Wave gem with a foundation of groovy bass. Dear’s version is even more shimmering, with the reverberations rippling all the way to the low registers, and as you’d expect after Heartthrob, the Quin sisters can do justice to just about any ’80s hit. On balance it’s an immensely pleasurable tribute. Here are statements about it from Sara Quin and Dear:
"The instant I turned off Bluetooth on my Air, connection speeds became the same as my wife’s (who never turns on Bluetooth). I know that Bluetooth can conflict with 2.4GHz signals, but it also fixed the 5GHz connection. I have no idea why. Turning it back on again did not change the speeds, it just needed to be toggled off once."
Caress this chipmunk's cheeks with your pointer? Facebook wants to know about it.
Facebook is due to announce the launch of video advertisements in users’ news feeds on Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources.
The newspaper added that the new program, which has been anticipated for some time now, is set to launch on Thursday on mobile applications as well as on the desktop browser. The ads apparently are designed to play automatically—a move that is surely bound to irritate many users of the social network. Ad Agereported in September 2013 that Facebook video ads had been originally slated for October 2013, but were then delayed.
The Journal, which added that Facebook would charge $2 million per day to let advertisers reach its data-rich user base, noted that a teaser for the Lions Gate film “Divergent” is expected to be one of the first ads.
Last night, a cyclist nearly hit a van blocking the L Street cycletrack and decided to report it to the police. That's when he met Fred and Fran Smith, the husband-and-wife heads of a conservative think tank who started berating him for "minding other people's business."
“And Jesus spoke unto the Republicans, “If a healthcare plan is extended to the poor, you must shut down the government. I only help the rich. Heal yourselves, you dirty lepers. #YOLOSWAG””
a lot of schlock (the top vote getter: "When a traditional Midwestern woman suspects her husband of infidelity, an amateur investigation unravels"; there's TWO different scripts fictionalizing the making of JAWS, and TWO different scripts about Fred Rogers; inevitable zombie, alien invasion, hacker, modernized Shakespeare, and twee time travel pitches) but some interesting ideas:
THE GOLDEN RECORD Aaron Kandell, Jordan Kandell The true story of how Carl Sagan fell in love while leading the wildest mission in NASA history: creating a golden record to encapsulate the experience of life on Earth for extraterrestrial intelligences. Agency: Paradigm Agents: Tanya Cohen, Rob Herting, Adam Levine Management: Hopscotch Pictures Manager: Sukee Chew Producer: Hopscotch Pictures
GAY KID AND FAT CHICK Bo Burnham Two high school misfits become costumed vigilantes and take out their frustrations on the students who have bullied them throughout high school. Agency: CAA Agents: Jason Heyman, Greg McKnight Management: 3 Arts Entertainment Manager: Dave Becky Financier: Paramount Insurge
POX AMERICANA Frank John Hughes In the Old West, a group of soldiers go on a mission to slaughter a peaceful tribe in retaliation for another tribe’s attack on a white settlement, only to suffer at the hands of a devastating disease. Agency: UTA Agents: Peter Dodd, Charles Ferraro Financier: Code Entertainment Producer: Code Entertainment
SUPERBRAT Eric Slovin, Leo Allen Temperamental tennis champion John McEnroe is sucked into a dangerous and ludicrous law enforcement sting during Wimbledon in 1980. Agency: CAA Agents: Greg Cavic, Matt Martin, Gregory McKnight Management: Generate Manager: Kara Welker Producer: Ruby Films
INK AND BONE Zak Olkewicz When a book editor visits the home of a horror writer so he can complete his novel, she finds that all of his creations are holding him hostage. Agency: WME Agent: Daniel Cohan Management: Caliber Media Manager: Will Rowbotham Financier: Dimension Films Producer: Prolific
THE KILLING FLOOR Bac Delorme, Stephen Clarke A war veteran slaughterhouse worker and his friend discover a small fortune in heroin hidden inside a processed cow and maneuver to hold onto their find and cash out to save his grandfather’s house as the bad guys come looking for their wayward stash. Agency: WME Agent: David Karp Management: Fourth Floor Productions Manager: Jeff Silver Producer: Le Grisbi Productions
(^^^ If this is Home Alone in an abbatoir, it could be brilliant)
RANDLE IS BENIGN Damien Ober Follows a woman in the ’80s who works at an IBM-like company and is at the forefront of national intelligence research. When her project (named RANDLE) hits a major milestone indicating that she may have actually achieved AI, it is unexpectedly hijacked by the agenda of the company’s mysterious CEO. As she dives deeper into the corporate agenda, she learns that there may be a connection between her project and the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan. Agency: WME Agents: Simon Faber, Solco Schuit Management: Echo Lake Entertainment Manager: Zadoc Angell, Dave Brown, James Engle Financier/producer: Echo Lake Entertainment
THE POLITICIAN Matthew Bass, Theodore Bressman A disgraced governor and his underachieving accomplice go on the run from the FBI, U.S. Marshals and a gang of hardened drug dealers. Agency: WME Agents: Rich Cook, Solco Schuit Management: Circle of Confusion (Bass), Principato-Young Entertainment (Bressman) Manager: Julian Rosenberg (Bass), Peter Principato (Bressman) Financier: Sony Producer: The Mark Gordon Company, Point Grey Pictures
This year's "Black List" is out — a compilation of all the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood selected by a secret panel of insiders. We've hand picked our favorite genre scripts (including Clarity "What if the world woke up tomorrow to scientific proof of the afterlife?"). Take a look at our list, and try to guess which movie will be the next Inglorious Basterds and The King's Speech (both former members of the Black List).
a brand new, $3 pack called "Filth" that replaces all of the text with innuendo, including lines such as "Man-meat," "Furious penis," and "Always were a cunning linguist."
Typing of the Dead: Overkill is half off right now in Steam's Daily Deal, which actually runs for two days, through 1PM ET on Wednesday. Typing of the Dead: Overkill snuck up on everyone in October, when it hit Steam from publisher Sega.
Since that ...
Typing of the Dead: Overkill is half off right now in Steam's Daily Deal, which actually runs for two days, through 1PM ET on Wednesday. Typing of the Dead: Overkill snuck up on everyone in October, when it hit Steam from publisher Sega.
Since that ...
