British computer maker Piixl has a new SteamOS gaming box on the way that can go sight unseen in living rooms thanks to a design that latches onto the back of most flatscreen TV sets, walls, and underneath tables. The computer will run Valve's SteamOS, though according to Pocket-Lint, will also be able to run Windows or Linux. Users can also install whatever graphics cards they want with what Piixl says will be "universal" GPU compatibility.
The computer disappears
In order to fit the hardware into multiple places, it's been designed with an expandable chassis that can stretch out to latch on to larger areas using a standard VESA mount. That will work on TV sets between 32 to 70 inches, the company says. It's essentially a follow-up to the Piixl's EdgeCenter computer, which aimed to turn older TV sets into media center machines with apps and games.
The Jetpack will be available in multiple configurations beginning next month, though Valve's SteamOS is still in development. Piixel tells The Verge that it's is in touch with Valve and wants to make the hardware "deeply optimized" for SteamOS. That free operating system is built off of Linux, promising features like game sharing between family members, game streaming from other computers, and online music and video services. It's joined by a growing number of so-called Steam Machines, computers designed with SteamOS in mind.
The UK Home Office has added language to its firearms rules, making clear that it's generally illegal to make, own, or sell 3D-printed guns. A revised version of its licensing policies says that guns like the Liberator, designed by Defense Distributed and released to the world in May, are covered under and forbidden by the Firearms Act 1968 — manufacturing 3D-printed guns or parts is effectively already banned because of rules against manufacturing guns or gun parts except under certain exemptions, but the guidance now includes explicit text to that effect. "3D printed weapons are potentially lethal barreled weapons and must be viewed as such in law," it reads. "The method of manufacture is not material to this consideration."
In a section of frequently asked questions, regulators say they're still working through the wider implications. "If someone were to possess, purchase, manufacture or sell a firearm or its component parts otherwise than in accordance with the requirements of sections 1, 3 and 5 of the Firearms Act 1968, they would be liable to prosecution," the guidance says. "We are working closely with our partners, including the police and firearms experts, to assess other implications." So far, the change is more symbolic, a pushback against Defense Distributed's assertion that affordable printers will make gun control impractical. "3D-printed guns were illegal before and are still illegal, but we felt it was appropriate to have specifically refer to them in our firearms licensing guide," said a spokesperson for the UK Home Office.
The UK's decision to add language about 3D-printed guns contrasts with that of US lawmakers, who recently renewed the "undetectable guns" law that requires a certain amount of metal in any firearm. While Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) promoted his renewal bill by discussing printed guns, the House version of the bill made no changes to the old law and no mention of 3D printing. Schumer has since warned that the House bill doesn't go far enough, leaving a dangerous loophole. "Under current law, it is legal to make a plastic gun so long as it has some metal in it, even if it is easily removable," he said in a statement earlier this week. "The bill we'll try to pass in the Senate would fix that."
The Occasional Magazine is Done with Newsstand
I subscribe to few periodicals in Newsstand for iOS, so it's not terribly surprising that my favorite is abandoning the platform. The publisher of The Occasional by Funny or Die has decided that the iOS-only publishing model is a dead-end and they are moving the periodical to the web instead.
This is from the end of the last edition:
The Occasional has consistently provided an interesting reading experience through enhanced, yet intuitive, navigation as well as subtle animations. It will be interesting to see how well this transitions to the web.
I wanted to make a really ancient-looking, beat up sword to give it more realism and character – I think it turned out good for my first attempt at ‘breaking down’ something. Now i’ll show all you awesome Zelda fans how you can make your own Ordon Sword!
Portland, Oregon artist Michelle L. Nguyen, also known as Kubits, has created a comic about different “Ways to Pet Your Cat” like the Brain-Eater, the Butt-Muncher, and the Kali Ma.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Georgia Tech and a team from Microsoft Research have developed a low-cost method of printing circuits using an ordinary inkjet printer using a technique called Instant Inkjet Circuits.
The hack is quite literally as simple as injecting a refillable printer cartridge with a commercially available Silver Nano-particle Ink. This allows the printing of circuits onto many different flexible substrates including paper, transparent film, or basically anything you can fit in the printer. Typically if the medium is designed for printing it will work. Some exceptions to this include canvas cloth, magnetic sheets, and transfer sheets.
The researchers chose a Brother inkjet printer because they typically have nozzles that eject higher volumes of ink than other printers. The exact model they used was the Brother DCP-J140w. To maximize ink deposition, all cartridges are filled with the ink, and printed using photo mode where the C M and Y cartridges are simultaneously used to create black. No special software is required to print.
The full article is well worth the read and shows many examples of the different applications this could be used for — including instant prototyping using nothing but scotch tape.
We get this one role. So we’d better hope it’s a good one. Because –
They could make 10 shitty Batman movies, and we’ll always see more Batman movies.
But if Wonder Woman isn’t top of the pops for every second she’s on-screen in Snyder’s film, they’ll burn the character down and salt the earth and the topic won’t come up again for another 30 goddamn years. Wonder Woman will be poison on the lips.
And that’s the danger of putting Wonder Woman in Batman Versus Superman.
Some publishers may be justified in worrying about Facebook's News Feed changes, which are aimed at privileging smart articles over pictures of puppies. In an interview with All Things D, News Feed manager Lars Backstrom says that for now, the company is judging the quality of content by looking at its source.
"As we refine our approaches, we’ll start distinguishing more and more between different types of content," Backstrom says. "But, for right now, when we think about how we identify 'high quality,' it’s mostly at the source level."
Backstrom declined to say specifically which sources Facebook has deemed low quality or high quality, but that designation is based in part on comments, clicks from mobile users, and user surveys.
"Our goal is to provide user value," he says. "We’re trying to do that algorithmically, and if people find ways to game the algorithms that we have, then we have to adapt."
TW: Mocking sexual assault, Florida's justice system, Floridians
'The second half of Meggs' press conference devolved into a laugh-fest. After a line of questioning about the relationship between Winston, the accuser, and the third man, a reporter asked yet another ridiculous question. "I guess, was there a sexual assault?" the reporter asked. Meggs flippantly responded, "Well, that's kind of why we're here." '
'A man who once made an album so crude that a federal judge ruled it was too obscene to sell thinks you're being disrespectful, elected official. This is a sign you're doing it wrong.'
'And if you weren't offended by the callousness of everyone involved in this activity before, some FSU bros standing behind Jansen are here to make sure you will be now' by doing the FSU Tomahawk Chop (also racist)
'If it wasn't enough of a circus, six guys in cutoffs with "JAMEIS" written across their chests held the day's third press conference.'
After a day of press conferences, tomahawk chops, and general unprofessionalism, the Winston investigation comes to an end.
State Attorney Willie Meggs announced his decision not to indict Florida State quarterback Jameis Winston Thursday, concluding an investigation of the likely Heisman Trophy winner.
Meggs' decision set off a theater of absurdity, in which elected officials were cracking wise about sexual battery and Heisman Trophy voting, state senators and frat boys were sneaking into the background for moments of infamy, social media accounts of prominent broadcasters demonstrated some had lost their minds, and Florida State fans breathed a sigh of relief over the end of a case that never looked particularly strong to begin with.
Word began spreading of Meggs' decision not to charge Winston about 30 minutes before the press conference officially began:
BREAKING: Jameis Winston will not be charged in connection to sexual assault accusation source tells @JCameronShow.
Given the potential credibility issues presented by the contradicting stories given to police, and the lack of evidence of intoxication or so called "date rape" drugs in the complainant's system to perhaps explain the inconsistencies, the complainant's credibility could be an issue.
And sources indicate those issues, along with a lack of overall evidence, are compelling.
There are other factors pointing to charges not being brought, as well. Winston's attorney has indicated that he has two exculpatory eye-witnesses who gave affidavits to police. Tomahawk Nation has learned that neither witness' DNA was matched to the second DNA sample obtained from the complainant.
At 2 p.m., Meggs took the podium to make the formal announcement, and a day full of amazingly stupid questions began.
"Is this vindication for Jameis Winston or is this just not enough information to file the charges?" was the jumping-off point, and it only went downhill from there.
Meggs said that the presence of an unknown person's DNA in the samples taken after the incident was a significant reason for the delay in announcing the decision not to prosecute Winston. He later indicated that the third person's DNA was from the accuser's boyfriend. Meggs also indicated that the accuser's blood test included a low level of alcohol and no indication of drugs, which might eliminate any claim that she was not capable of providing consent.
While Meggs admitted that it would have been "somewhat better" if his office had been brought into the investigation earlier, he had no significant criticism for the Tallahassee Police Department's handling of the initial investigation. He said that there was no evidence that TPD investigators tried to "brush it aside," but that the delay clouded the memories of those interviewed as part of the investigation.
State senator Al Lawson, Jr. was standing behind Meggs throughout the press conference. When asked why he was there, he gave a sprawling answer that eventually settled on support of the State Attorney and his constituents. Lawson is apparently a Seminoles fan, according to his infrequently updated Twitter account.
The second half of Meggs' press conference devolved into a laugh-fest. After a line of questioning about the relationship between Winston, the accuser, and the third man, a reporter asked yet another ridiculous question. "I guess, was there a sexual assault?" the reporter asked. Meggs flippantly responded, "Well, that's kind of why we're here." Soon, it was two-for-one night at the Laff Shack. Deadspin put together a highlight reel of the yuks.
There was laughter. There were jokes. There were smiles. The news conference of Florida state attorney Willie Meggs announcing that Jameis Winston was not going to be charged with sexual battery was an extremely light-hearted affair.
Everyone seemed so damn happy to be talking about an alleged sexual assault.
ESPN reporter Samantha Ponder took to Twitter with the consensus opinion:
Anyone else uncomfortable with the amount of smiling/laughter in this press conference?
A man who once made an album so crude that a federal judge ruled it was too obscene to sell thinks you're being disrespectful, elected official. This is a sign you're doing it wrong.
If there was anything more distasteful than Meggs' stand-up routine, it was the response by whoever was manning NBC Sports Radio's Twitter account:
The prosecutor's press conference ended, and the assembled media reconvened outside the courthouse to hear from Winston's attorney, Tim Jansen.
And if you weren't offended by the callousness of everyone involved in this activity before, some FSU bros standing behind Jansen are here to make sure you will be now.
students gathering at courthouse doing the tomahawk chop @jcameronshow
The FSU students in the background also tried to display a sign on magenta paper, but did not understand how signs worked. To the television cameras, they appeared to be simply holding up a piece of magenta construction paper. We can all likely be happy that was the case.
If it wasn't enough of a circus, six guys in cutoffs with "JAMEIS" written across their chests held the day's third press conference.
I want to thank my family, friends, coaches and teammates for standing by me during a difficult time. I also want to thank the State Attorney's Office for examining all of the facts and reaching a decision in a conclusive manner. It's been difficult to stay silent through this process, but I never lost faith in the truth and in who I am. I'm very relieved I'll be able to continue my education at Florida State and I'm excited I can now get back to helping our team achieve its goals.
There was also a statement by the victim's family:
Leave it to the two primary parties to make serious, sober statements.
After three hours of immaturity by elected officials, well-paid professionals, and the assembled media, leave it to the two primary parties to make serious, sober statements. It was high time someone did.
-----
The Winston investigation comes to a close, and, barring any revelatory new evidence, will not return.
In the end, it played out how many legal commentators believed it would: Winston admitted that he engaged in a sexual act with the victim, but said she had consented. The accounts of eyewitnesses did nothing to contradict Winston's story, and holes in the victim's memory of what happened -- exacerbated by the 11-month delay and evidentiary issues -- made the case unwinnable for the prosecution.
The media fixated on whether Winston is "vindicated" by the decision not to pursue the case, but vindication never enters the State Attorney's calculation. He could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt with this victim and on these facts, and he was not going to spend the state's money fighting a case he could not win.
Jansen hinted that a civil suit could be launched against the accuser, most likely for defamation. Such a lawsuit would raise significant problems for Winston, however. This is for the simple reason that truth is an ultimate defense to defamation.
If Winston files a civil suit against his accuser, claiming she falsely accused him of sexual assault, her defense will be that the sexual assault occurred. Not only would that defense be subject to a far lower evidentiary standard, but it would be Wiston's obligation to prove that the assault did not, in fact, occur. It would have been nearly impossible for the prosecutor to prove a sexual assault occurred in a criminal trial, but it could well be equally impossible for Winston to prove it did not occur on the same evidence.
The risk to Winston's public reputation from losing such a case -- the risk of a jury saying they could not definitively say an assault did not occur -- could be nearly as great as the investigation itself. He and his lawyers are too smart for that. This drama is likely at an end.
The US National Reconnaissance Office, which is responsible for America’s prodigious fleet of spy satellites, launched a secret satellite into orbit on December 5, and this is its mission logo. The official twitter account of James Clapper, principle advisor to US president Barack Obama on intelligence and national security, dropped it in public view on Dec. 5.
Ready for launch? An Atlas 5 will blast off at just past 11PM, PST carrying an classified NRO payload (also cubesats) http://t.co/ll7s0nCOPg— Office of the DNI (@ODNIgov) December 05, 2013
The NROL-39 and its payload are classified, but its launch trajectory puts its satellites into the same orbit as previous spy satellites used for radar imaging. If that’s the case, it would make the primary contents of NROL-39 the latest satellite in a series designed to salvage the radar component of an otherwise largely failed spy satellite program, called Future Imagery Architecture, which the New York Times called “perhaps the most spectacular and expensive failure in the 50-year history of American spy satellite projects.”
For years, Ambiguous New York Media Person par excellence Rachel Sklar has maintained a private email list for her close friends. It's a power cluster of well-connected-on-paper women in media, technology, and the blurry outskirts of each, a ceaseless mill of congratulations and networking. Now, you can buy your way inside for just $850 every year.
rear bicycle wheel with integrated electric motor that intelligently activates when it's needed, probably by using its connection to smartphone accelerometers to figure out if it's going up a hill or pushing more weight
The Copenhagen Wheel is actually totally brilliant.
An aerosol painting by the anonymous British street artist Banksy was just sold for $209,000 at auction in the largest yet US auction of his work. Called “Flower Girl,” it was only on the market because an enterprising (and also anonymous) gas station owner had the section of brick wall it was stenciled on removed entirely.
Workers remove “Flower Girl” from a California gas station.
Julien's Auctions
Four other works by the artist were also on the block. In total, Banksy’s work brought in $457,250.
In addition to “Flower Girl,” Julien’s Auctions also sold “Black Bobby” for $37,500, “TV Girl,” for $137,000, assorted installation panels for $23,750, and “Umbrella Rat,” for $50,000.
Interestingly, none of that money, unless the owners of the works decide otherwise, will make it’s way to the anonymous street artist.
Julien’s Auction executive director Martin Nolan told Quartz that Banksy used to accept payment for his works up until 2009 when he stopped working with Steve Lazarides’ gallery, but that more recently the artist has more actively cultivated the mystery surrounding his anonymity. Instead of taking money for his work, he has become a bold voice against art criticism and monetizing his work. In October, during his stay in New York, he (still anonymously) offered his art in a Central Park kiosk for just $60.
“It’s all part of the mystique and the intrigue,” said Nolan. “His stenciling and his artwork itself is one message,” he said, but there’s also the “whole phenomenon” of Banksy. “People are shelling out big money to own a Banksy, because, you could buy Banksy work in true galleries [in the past] and pay for it and all of that,” he said. “But now it seems to be he’s evolved, and with social media, that’s really propelling [him] to a whole new level. He’s in the news. He’s relevant. That’s why he’s so sought after.”
The winning bid, Martin told Quartz, did not come from one of the numerous international bidders the auction house received from interested parties from Germany to Saudi Arabia. The winning bidder was based in Los Angeles.
The DNA analysis company 23andMe will comply with a recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) directive and halt all health-related genetic testing until further notice. The FDA recently ordered the company to stop selling its DNA test kit, citing concerns over "the potential health consequences that could result from false positive or false negative assessments." Although it's not the only aspect of 23andMe's testing — the company also provides data on ancestry — the health screening is seen as a large reason for its success.
Following the FDA's directive, 23andMe swiftly halted all marketing for the health tests, but has now ceased health-related testing entirely. Customers that purchased kits on or before November 21st will receive health-related analysis, but anyone buying a test from November 22nd will only have access to ancestry information and raw test results without analysis. 23andMe notes testing will stay on hold while "the company moves forward with [the FDA's] regulatory review processes."
23andMe is "committed to finding the right regulatory path."
In a blog post announcing the decision, 23andMe co-founder Anne Wojcicki says she's "highly disappointed" to have to halt testing. Wojcicki adds that the company is "committed to finding the right regulatory path" for its customers, and will "work cooperatively with the FDA" to return to health-related testing. It's not clear if or when such tests will return to 23andMe's repertoire, but until then the company is offering a full refund to anyone that purchased a test kit on or after November 22nd.
A beautiful early map for this system, clearly showing how much of it was planned from the start. Apart from a few name changes (the proposed “Old Fold” station became Gateshead Stadium, for example), this is recognisably the same map that existed as far into the future as the year 2000, when the proposed extension to Sunderland made its appearance.
The outlined route lines to show proposed/future extensions work wonderfully well, making an excellent contrast to the existing coloured routes. The approach is even carried through to outlining the names of the proposed stations — a lovely and deft design touch.
Another interesting feature is how small and low in the visual hierarchy the ferry across the River Tyne is: in later maps, the ferry symbol has become very large and overpowering.
Our rating: The original and the best. Simple, stylish, uncluttered design that sets out a clear vision for the future. Four stars.
These two men are near polar opposites. Alex Rodriguez is much better at baseball than Nelson Mandela, but -- call us crazy -- not as influential when it comes to ensuring human rights for the downtrodden.
Elysium Gravity The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Iron Man 3 The Lone Ranger Oblivion Star Trek Into Darkness Thor: The Dark World Pacific Rim World War Z
And now there are 10 — the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today narrowed the competitive field for this year's VFX Oscar to just 10 films, announcing the slate that was decided upon by the Academy's Visual Effects … more »
However, a person at Bulls-Heat Thursday night put a new spin on it.
The lady sitting in the chair is Ariana, a member of the Bulls' dance team -- the Luvabulls, get it, its like they're lovable but also the word "Bulls" is in it -- and the person walking towards her is an inflatable version of Benny the Bull. OR IS IT:
No, it was her boyfriend Shane, now her fiancé Shane. Smooth, the way he struggles to remove the costume from his feet before confidently popping the question.
Nothing says romance like "I'VE BEEN INSIDE THAT GIANT INFLATABLE BULL COSTUME THIS ENTIRE TIME!" But what if she actually wants to get married to giant inflatable Benny the Bull and not Shane?
You'd think there would be somewhat of an exception to the "DON'T PROPOSE AT SPORTING EVENTS PLEASE DON'T PROPOSE AT SPORTING EVENTS" rule because she's on the dance team, but in a way, it's even worse. That's her place of work! You're supposed to propose someplace special, not the place where you do your job!
The one winner, though: the real Benny the Bull in a suit.
"There is one in there, for example, that was literally a spoof of the old Lockharts comic strip, where the sloshed husband returns home to a toe-tapping angry wife, only set with cavepeople. The source material was stereotypical, so the spoof was too. That one turned out to be too intricate to redo."
In celebration, I thought I’d share some images of what it looks like now. I really couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. All glossy and hefty, it feels very substantial and classy. And I have trouble going back to look at the black and white now, having grown used to color everywhere. Read on for some before-and-afters on the imagery, some looks at the text additions, and how I tackled the issue of revising away some of the sexism in the cartoons!
The first thing, of course, is the layout. Yes, it’s in a portrait layout now, instead of the horizontal format. Not only will it fit better on shelves, but it also means that the book shouldn’t fall out of stock as much, because we selected this layout because we can use Print On Demand to constantly keep hard copies available. Before, copies had to be manually ordered.
Ironically, the actual size of the book is almost exactly the same. The new edition is actually just slightly larger.
Here is an example of how the interior layout has changed. Not only are all the pages glossy throughout, but the font is more readable too. You can also see that we are using new fonts for the captions throughout — these are actually based on my handwriting, and are the same ones that you can see in the “Ten Years Later” presentation I gave at GDCOnline. Of course, the acknowledgements section has gotten a little larger now…! A whole host of people kindly offered to read the original version of the book and offer up their critiques of it. Their comments powerfully shaped the revisions in the new edition, and they are all thanked here. You might recognize some regular blog readers and commenters!
This is another view of how the layout works now. I had to edit many of the cartoons to work better as vertical layouts. In the process of redoing the captions, I also pulled them all off the image (since they were hand-inked before) and inserted them digitally as text with the custom font. That lets us in theory do translated versions much more easily, since image editing won’t be required for hand-drawn text all through the images.
Many of the cartoons were much harder to translate into vertical than this. There are a few that I had to basically leave intact and just center on the page. Others had a lot of white space, and I was able to crop the white away and just blow up the whole image.
The hardest ones to deal with were those that were laid out horizontally but were in panels or the like. Those, I actually physically re-laid-out, with careful cutting and pasting. This was done after they had already been colored horizontally, because the decision to shift to a vertical layout came relatively late in the process.
Some cartoons, I went nuts on, and basically added whole backgrounds to. This was probably overkill, but it was kind of fun anyway. The tricky bit here was actually trying to keep to the spirit of the original cartoons. I have mentioned this before, but the originals were done rather hurriedly. Because the deadline was tight, I chose a deliberately naif style, something with very little elaboration in it. Figures had basically no relationship to actual human anatomy in most cases, and hardly anything was drawn from reference. I just didn’t have time to do a better or more detailed job.
Well, opinions on the cartoons are certainly divided! But plenty of readers tell me they are “charming” or “quirky” and I didn’t want to lose that quality of them having been doodles in a notepad (as suggested by the cover). So coloring them introduced an interesting problem: how to color them without it being either pure flat-shaded (which would have conveyed corporate cartooning) or overly elaborated? I ended up trying to mimic the original style, only with some custom Photoshop brushes. I tied hue to pressure sensitivity, giving a slightly more painterly look — and then stuck only to largish brushes, so that I couldn’t work in any great detail.
The book does have new material, of course. Here’s some of it. I was pretty conservative in adding pages of new material. For one, in the original, it is possible to simply read just the cartoon pages straight through without referencing the text, and vice versa. This meant that inserting material in the middle was a challenge — it had to work well between two pages of text and between two pages of cartoons. Most revisions were carefully constrained so that page breaks were preserved exactly between the two editions, for this reason. I also got the feedback loud and clear from many readers that “the book shouldn’t change too much” in terms of tone.
This page on alternate ways to play is something I wanted to include, though, because especially lately I have seen my positions on games be represented as rather more rigid and fundamentalist than they actually are (in fact, re-reading the book, I was struck by how much more rigid some of my recent essays seemed than some of the stuff in Theory of Fun… that was an interesting thing to notice!). So I wanted to make clear that there are lots of ways to enjoy games other than what is defined as “fun” in the book. (And yes, of course, for a videogame enemy, the monster under the bed is a player…!)
One of the things that has increasingly popped up as a critique over the years is that many of the cartoons seemed sexist; the player was all too often a guy, and there was a “hostile female” sort of vibe to too many of the punchlines. This was hard to address. First off, it’s hard to see about yourself or your work, of course. None of the cartoons were intended that way, but that’s how the impression came out, and what’s more, the impression seemed to intensify over time as more people pay more attention to the issue.
Secondly, there were big constraints on what I could do to address it. Redoing cartoons wholesale was something that was rather tricky given the book’s deadlines (one suggestion I got was to redo all the cartoons with nonhumans… alas, maybe next time!). I had to make a call image by image on how to, and whether to, fix the cartoon. There is one in there, for example, that was literally a spoof of the old Lockhornscomic strip, where the sloshed husband returns home to a toe-tapping angry wife, only set with cavepeople. The source material was stereotypical, so the spoof was too. That one turned out to be too intricate to redo. A lot of the cartoons entail a somewhat violent punchline, and with those there’s just no way to win; if I flip the sexes in the cartoon, either it’s violence against women or it’s the hostile female trope. The only real solution would be a whole new cartoon, and avoiding the violent punchlines.
In some cases, like the one about designeritis, I was able to just rewrite all the captions in the image to portray the woman in the cartoon as an expert gamer. In the end, I hope I managed to move the line towards a more equal gender balance in terms of who ends up being the butt of the joke and who ends up being seen as the game expert.
This applies to the text as well; there are many who disliked some of the material on brain differences between the sexes, and the science has moved on quite a bit in the last ten years. (There’s a lot of dislike of evolutionary psychology in general, I have found. Likely because it is so easily misused by those with an agenda). So that chapter saw quite a lot of careful revisions to emphasize that games in general were not at all always destined to be the province of males, or that women were in some way inferior as gamers. In the end, whether differences are inborn or not was never really the point of the material anyhow — it’s clear that some are, and some aren’t, and far too many of them are socially constructed. But whether or not a given person ended up with preferences through nature or nurture is immaterial compared to the fact that preferences do exist, and games have shown notable power to rewrite those preferences and confer new skills. That was what I always found exciting and fascinating.
Anyway, that’s just a very brief tour of some of what is different between the old and new editions. I know ebooks are where all the excitement is these days, but I couldn’t be more thrilled with how the dead trees version came out. It feels right for this to be the version on the shelf for the next ten years — and who knows, maybe then we’ll be doing yet another revision. (In hardcover? And the ebook, maybe animated? Who knows…!)
It’s available now and you should be able to get it before Christmas, if you plan to gift it.
"King Harald bade these memorials to be made after Gorm, his father, and Thyra, his mother. The Harald who won the whole of Denmark and Norway and turned the Danes to Christianity."
It’s also interesting in a historical context as this was during a time when the Vikings were expanding and had a great deal of contact with peoples on other continents-which is how Harald Bluetooth ended up a Christian in the first place.
In fact, the only 100% confirmed pre-Columbian Viking Settlement in the Americas at L’Anse aux Meadowsdates only 50 or so years later.
This Norsified version of Christ resembles Byzantine and Coptic Christian images moreso than those from other parts of the world.
But at this time, Jesus was more or less consistently depicted as a person of color regardless of where the art was made. Christs from Belgium were looking like this:
I'm looking to make some extra cash this holiday season, so I'm offering you and anybody you know my services. I'm looking to deliver you your groceries and Xmas Trees via cargo bike. For Xmas trees i'm charging 25 dollars for delivery + the price of the tree. And for the groceries, I will go to any store of your choosing and get everything on your list. I'm charging 30 dollars for this service. I'm pretty open with delivery range west of 82nd. For more info send me an email at pdxxmastrees@gmail.com.. Thanks!
