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From Matthew Borgatti, the mind that brought us the Guy Fawkes bandanas, comes a very clever design in form and function; stylish Lock Pick Earrings that can come in handy for those unfortunate times when you’ve forgotten your keys.

An elegant accessory perfect for quick escapes, late nights, and lost keys. These acid etched stainless steel earrings are lightweight and feature a selection of picks, rakes, and a tension bar. They’re decked out with silver plated rings and ear hooks – a perfect companion for Maker Faire, impressing the folks down at the local hackerspace, and DefCon shenanigans.

The earrings can be purchased at the Giant Eye Etsy Store.

images via Giant Eye Etsy Store

via Boing Boing

When I heard the BBC was making a 90-minute docudrama about the early years of Doctor Who, I expected lots of magic and nostalgia. But I wasn't prepared for how emotionally intense An Adventure in Space and Time actually is.

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Jordan Mechner's classic adventure game The Last Express keeps popping up in new places, which makes its title a bit misleading but is also a pretty cool thing. The Last Express' latest stop is Steam, where the Gold Edition is now available for PC for a discounted price of $5.25 through December 7.

The Last Express launched in 1997 for PC, Mac and DOS, and it takes place aboard the luxury Orient Express in July 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I. The game follows American doctor and French fugitive Robert Cath as he attempts to reach his friend in Constantinople. Things on the train get pretty intense, Downton Abbey style.

The Gold Edition includes an advanced hint system, a new UI and inventory, fresh achievements, cloud saves via the Steam Cloud, and in-game extras.

Mechner's pre-WWI adventure, The Last Express, pulls into Steam originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The newest comic by Buzz Hoot Roar, “We Got the Beat,” explains the correlation between heartbeat, metabolism, and life span, and illustrates the heartbeats of animals over a period of ten seconds. The blue whale’s heart only beats once every ten seconds, but the hearts of smaller animals like the shrew and hummingbird beat many, many times that amount. Check out the full comic on Buzz Hoot Roar.

image via Buzz Hoot Roar

You pick me up at around 8:30 AM at 12th & Sandy, right after my appointment each Friday. Today after exiting the bus I realized that I won't be having those appointments anymore, and will likely never see you again.

This is a damn shame, because you have to be the nicest person in the world, and I wish I'd thought to tell you that this morning. You're Gandhi-level nice. You smile at everyone and welcome them aboard, then tell us all to have good days when we leave. You stop and wait for people who would otherwise miss the bus, and nobody resents the hold-up because you're too thoughtful to resent. You smile the entire time you're driving, and it's a beautiful, genuine smile. I don't know how you can have such a positive attitude with your job (driving and other humans are two things that seriously stress me out), but it improves my day every time I see you, and I actually look forward to catching the bus each Friday because of you.

I doubt you'll ever read this, but I hope you know how amazing and beautiful you are. You inspire me to be a kinder person.

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georgetakei:

Font!!!! http://ift.tt/1aMET9n

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It wasn’t long ago that every digital game came with its own manual, just like board games do today. An excited new game owner would pour over the manual, learning how to play the game before ever putting it in a computer or console. It was an expected part of the whole video game experience.

Today, few digital games have manuals. Some have online databases full of information for players willing to dig through them, but most games teach you how to play through tutorials and level design.

I’m currently working on a digital game in addition to multiple board games. In order to test those games, I have to teach people how to play, so I deal with both writing rules and programming in-game guidance. Seeing the process from both perspectives has me thinking, what’s so much better about interactive learning experiences? Why have they almost totally obsoleted written rules for digital games? And perhaps more importantly, how can we leverage strategies from tutorials and level design to make learning board games less work and more fun?

Superior Interaction

Today, it would be absurd for a digital game to expect the player to learn how to play before starting the game. Written rules have all but disappeared. Now, the game teaches the player how to play during play, either through tutorials or subtly through level design and psychological cues. Why? What advantages does interactivity have?

Learning in context. Learning while playing the game puts the player in the context where the information will be used. She doesn’t have to translate from words to game pieces-she can see and hear them. There is no disconnect between single dimensional writing and the two or three spacial dimensions and temporal dimension of the game. Teaching where the lessons will be used reduces the number of mental jumps the player has to make.

Different learning styles. Different people learn in different ways. Some are visual learners, some audio learners, some learn by doing. I believe most traditional gamers learn by reading and understanding abstract systems. If you want your game to be more widely accessible and appealing, make it easy to learn for people with different learning styles. Conveniently, your game probably involves visuals and doing–why not leverage those to help teach the game?

Learn when you’re ready. Usually, reading rules involves reading all of the rules before trying any of them out. Players are presented with advanced rules before they get the opportunity to fully understand the basics. By learning while playing, players get a chance to master one concept before being introduced to another. They are also only introduced to a concept or rule when it’s relevant.

This is especially important for edge cases. When described in rules, the player will often not understand when an edge case would come up, why it needs a special rule, and what the relevance of the edge case is. During an interactive experience, the player can be put in a situation where the edge case comes up, making sure the player recognizes why it matters.

Immediate feedback. When reading a rule book, it’s easy enough to think you understand something, only to find out when you start playing that your grasp is more tenuous than you thought. By learning as you play, you can rest assured that it will be immediately apparent if you don’t understand something, so you can correct your understanding while the concept is still fresh in your mind.

Motivation. Your player wants to play the game, right? By teaching the player while she plays, she’s getting whatever reward your game offers (experience, unlocked levels, points, story progression, bragging rights, etc), which is a much more direct motivation than eventually being able to play the game.

Stuck in the Stone Age

Digital games have abandoned written instructions, but they are still standard for board games. Is there any way for board game designers to leverage the strategies employed by digital game designers to make their games easier to learn?

I’m not proposing that all of the following strategies were inspired by digital game tutorials, but I do believe they take advantage of many of the same strategies.

Stack the deck. Often employed for demos, if the deck is stacked, or the scenario is carefully controlled, the new player will encounter rules in an orderly fashion. Simple encounters can precede complex ones, so players get a chance to learn the basic rules before being exposed to advanced rules.

For some games, namely scenario based games, this works great. Unfortunately, many games are not so orderly, so controlling them is much more trouble than when a computer can take care of most of the work. Asking your player to order the cards (or learn how to set up a scenario) before trying to play is asking a lot.

Hide some content. Many games advise first time players to ignore certain rules or remove certain game components when learning the game. This way, complex content can be saved for a later play session, and the game can grow with the players.

Risk Legacy takes this to unprecedented levels, actually keeping content sealed until players have completed specific tasks in game. This not only offers a fun reward, it ensures that players are ready before being introduced to more complex rules.

Expansions. A natural extension to omitting some rules the first play through is to not buy all of the game when you try it. Game expansions hide complex content from new players by not providing all of the content when the game is first opened.

In game progression. Some games employ different decks of cards or other components that players encounter sequentially while playing (think ages in 7 Wonders). When using this strategy, game designers can save complex content for later stages of the game, after players are familiar with the base rules.

If you can’t beat them, join them. Perhaps copping out a little, digital versions of board games can just employ tutorials and clever level design to teach a player, who can then translate the rules to the cardboard version. In a world where everyone has computers in their pockets and access to thousands of games at the tap of a finger, spending a few minutes letting the computer teach you how to play a game has never been easier.

Reviews and online videos. Reviews aren’t only a great way to validate and get word out about your game–they can also teach a good portion of your game to anyone with an internet connection. I also recommend creating your own how-to-play and game-in-action videos, especially if you’re running a Kickstarter.

Examples. A tried and true strategy, including examples in the rules gives an excuse to use images to help visual learners. They are also a great way to emphasize unusual rules and edge cases.

Graphic design. While cardboard can’t be animated, highlighted, or hidden at will, graphic design can still be employed to make a game easier to understand. Spatially group related elements together. Use typefaces, colors, and icons to convey meaning. Have a natural progression on your board for your players to follow. In this way, players can focus on what’s relevant at a given time and ignore everything else.

Quick references. Having an abridged version of the rules for players to quickly reference is a great way to make them easier to digest. Players then only have to reference the complete rules when confusion arises.

Similarly, giving each player a reference card is a great way to highlight important information and group related rules, such as allowed actions and scoring.

Theme. Not exactly borrowed from digital games, employing theme is one of the most useful ways to make a player understand how something works. For games with well executed themes, players can often anticipate how a game piece will work without needing to reference the rules. Giving a rule a thematic justification makes it more meaningful and gives your players an extra way to remember it. I recommend giving thematic justifications to unusual, important rules and edge cases whenever possible.

Learning from the Future

While board games can’t fully leverage the tutorials and level design employed by digital games these days, many of the underlying strategies can be employed.

Today I’ve shared all the ways I’ve come up with. Did I miss anything? How else can non-digital games break free from the shackles of front-loaded textual rules?

Facebook has had wild success with its push into emerging markets.

Now Jana CEO Nathan Eagle is predicting that it will only be months before India supplants the US and becomes Facebook’s largest market in terms of users. Eagle earlier this month had forecast that most of the social networking company’s revenue could come from emerging markets by 2015. Today at the Paley International Council’s IC Summit 2013, he discussed his predictions for India.

India will be #1 Facebook market in a matter of months, overtaking US says Nathan Eagle of @Jana at #PaleyIC http://t.co/hSsHXd8iC2—
Rich Greenfield (@RichBTIG) November 22, 2013

As Eagle’s chart included in media research analyst Rich Greenfield’s tweet above shows, India is just over 30 million Facebook users short of the US, but growing at closer to 40 million users a year, nearly eight times the rate of the US.

Eagle’s projections are calculated in spreadsheets using Facebook’s current revenue by region and extrapolating into the future, assuming current growth rates. (Eagle’s mobile surveys business reaches about two billion people in the developing world.) Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

There’s no guarantee that this will indeed play out as Eagle predicts. But, even if it doesn’t precisely, this latest prediction highlights the remarkable pace of Facebook’s growth in the developing world. It also likely points to potential challenges Facebook could face in raising its average revenue per user, particularly since so much of Facebook’s usage in India is on mobile phones.

Eagle predicts that revenue will follow as advertisers learn how to better market their products via mobile platforms. The company’s most immediate priority should probably be to get as many of India’s more than one billion people to use it before a competing social network gets to them. “Convincing people to switch over [to Facebook] is a lot harder than simply getting them to join,” says Eagle.

John Carmack, co-founder of Doom developer id Software, has left the company in order to pursue new projects outside the field of game development, reports IGN.

"John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio," id Software studio director Tim Willits told IGN. "John's work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id's tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well."

Carmack joined up with Oculus VR as Chief Technology Officer in August, but remained with id in the months afterward, serving in a leadership role for unspecified projects.

Carmack's resignation follows up on former CEO Todd Hollenshead's recent departure from id, ending a 17-year tenure with the company.

John Carmack departs id Software originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 22 Nov 2013 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last night, Wildfang held the launch party for WILD.LIFE., the new private label put out by the tomboy-branded, Portland-based store that opened its brick 'n' mortar on SE Grand earlier this year. It's only four pieces, each emblazoned with the new wolf mascot logo (which they were offering to tattoo you with for free at the party, and no I didn't get one), but it's a start, and the embroidered wolf on the black sweatshirt is beautiful up close. They're also loosely based on different Wildfang-style archetypes: the the jock, the prep, the rebel, the "urban." It was all manufactured in Canada (better than overseas, not as great as USA, but ok), and as is Wildfang tradition, they made a video featuring tough girls and lofty pronouncements that serves as a more stimulating lookbook than static photos. And this time they added a couple adorable pets, too:

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North Korea has its own restaurant chain. It’s good, even if the sea cucumber liquor and dog casserole are overpriced.

hodad

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In 1998, viewers of MTV’s The Real World: Seattle all looked on in disbelief as a beloved stuffed animal went flying off a Seattle dock and Irene McGee became the recipient of “the slap heard ’round the world“. Now, 15 years later, Irene has slapped back in a in a article she wrote for Vulture.

I got into my friend’s car to go to a hotel, and as we drove away, Stephen opened the door and slapped me hard in the face. I don’t remember laughing, even though I see myself doing so on the tape; I think I was just in shock. I remember crying a lot. The side of my face where he hit me was red for hours. I had terrible nightmares for weeks, seeing a huge hand coming at my face and then staring at the camera crew who did nothing more than film while a female got assaulted in front of them. I get that Stephen was just pushed to a point of extreme anger, but the crew, the crew just stood there and watched. What kind of men just stand there while a female gets assaulted?

Since The Real World, Irene started No One’s Listening, a podcast about the American media. She has also been an advocate for education about Lyme Disease, having appeared in the documentary, Under Our Skin, The Untold Story of Lyme Disease..

People always ask me if I regret being on the show. I don’t know, I can’t say. I was on the show, and my life is forever changed because of it. Even though the show was not for me, I’m really proud I walked off it. That was very brave back then, and if it will be forever misunderstood, so be it.

image via Vulture

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

I love Lois more than Mouse loves cheese.

If you have any sense, you do, too.

There’s a Lois Lane  one-shot coming out in February and it looks great. If you ask your shop to order you a copy, it will make a difference, shops will order more, and it will show support for the most badass of badass female characters.

Lois is not a supporting character. She had her own book ages. She is an essential part of the Superman myth, the DCU, and comics in general. She showed more grit and determination in her first few appearances than many modern female characters have in their whole careers.

I have lost count of the women who told me that Lois was a role model to them. If you look at the best retellings of the Superman story, nearly every single one had Lois front and center. I think she’s vital, no, I think she is indispensable, to Superman’s story.

Buying this book says you love Lois and you want her to have a prominent place in the DCU. If the numbers are good, it sends a loud message, and they have already said that more Lois comics are on the way if this does decent business.

If you are ever going to vote with your pocketbook, this is a good time.

In some countries, such as New Zealand, reference checks are conducted by the police, in person. Officers question the applicant’s partner or a parent in a separate room. My references were, on the other hand, contacted by some public servant in a call center, who ran through a list of yes-no questions. That year 99.8% of PAL applications were approved.

The recent rise in logos is in part a rejection of the anti-capitalist, grunge, no-logo 1990s.

Michigan libraries will no longer be able to regulate firearms on their property after the state’s supreme court declined to hear an appeal on the issue.Michigan Open Carry, a Second Amendment rights group, challenged the Capital Area District Library’s ban on open carry of handguns in February 2011, alleging that it violated state law as well as the Michigan and U.S. constitutions. A trial court upheld the ban, but in October 2012, a Michigan Court of Appeals panel ruled that the library system lacked the ability to regulate firearms on its property because of the state’s regulations on where the
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Japanese embroidery artist Hiroko Kubota was in the process of making custom sized clothes for her smaller-framed son when he made a small request: could some of the shirts have cats on them? Kubota explains her son was somewhat obsessed with cats and had collected a small library of adorable images found around the web.

After making a few cat shirts shirts the artist posted photos of the pieces online and unsurprisingly they quickly went viral, spurring Kubota to open an Etsy shop under the brand Go!Go!5 where she started selling the shirts at an impressive price tag of around $250-$300 apiece. But price was no object for internet cat fanatics and the shirts have been snapped up almost as quickly as Kubota embroiders them.

You can see many more shirts here. All photos courtesy the artist. (via Spoon & Tamago)

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Sherman needs to be wired for every game. If his unedited commentary during games was available for subscription, we'd pay up immediately.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4Wyquoqlp8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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The Hill

Health Law's Enrollment Period Is Extended by 8 Days New York Times WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that it would give people eight more days, until Dec. 23, to sign up for health insurance coverage that takes effect on Jan. 1 under the new health care law. White House: Politics aren't pushing back start date of 2015 Obamacare enrollmentCNN Obamacare enrollment deadline for 2014 extended a weekCBS News White House Extends Enrollment Deadline for Health InsuranceU.S. News & World Report The Atlantic -Fox News -Wall Street Journal all 157 news articles »

Food Stamp Cuts Leave Rural Areas, And Their Grocers, Reeling:

In communities grappling with high unemployment, customers rely on the assistance program to get by.

pleatedjeans:

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