firehose

A collection of sex education videos have just gone, ahem, viral on the Chinese Internet.

Metta World Peace has a reputation as an angry, crazy man, the type of person who can make Tyler Hansbrough do a double take.

But we're thinking of an younger, brasher Metta, the type of guy who might run into a crowd and start punching people -- a Metta that was named Ron Artest.

Now, he's cuddlier. Literally. And that applies even when he does something like getting a flagrant foul for trucking Ramon Sessions.

Metta and Ramon were teammates on the Lakers, which explains the cuddle factor.

Tutorial: Applying a Stroke BEHIND Type in Adobe Illustrator

Let me preface this tutorial by saying that — without a shadow of a doubt — this is my number one most favourite, time-saving, map-making Adobe Illustrator trick ever.

When making transit maps, it’s preferable — for both aesthetics and readability — to not have any labels overlay a route line or other elements. However, sometimes it’s simply unavoidable, as in the detail of my Boston MBTA map redesign at the top of the image above (circled in blue). When you absolutely have to overlay type over another element, it’s a good idea to separate it from that element with a stroke (or “keyline”) around the type that’s the same colour as your map’s background (often white with transit maps).

"Well, that’s easy," I hear you say, "I’ll just duplicate the text, put the copy behind the original and apply a stroke to that duplicate!" 

That’s well and good for isolated examples, but what if you’ve got lots of text that you need to do this to? Or what if you make a typo in the label? Using this method, you’d have to correct it twice - once for each duplicate of the label.

There’s a better way to do it: you just need to know one little trick.

STEP ONE above shows a typical text label and Illustrator’s Appearance palette (Window menu > Appearance or Shift-F6). Note that the text is made up of a black fill with no stroke: the standard appearance for text.

In STEP TWO, I’ve applied a 2-point magenta stroke to the text (You’d probably want to use the same stroke colour as the background of your map; I’ve just used magenta to make the effect easier to see). The stroke sits on top of the fill in the stacking order, and — try as you might — can’t be demoted to sit underneath the fill, where we want it to be: note how the visibility icons for each are greyed out, meaning they can’t be moved. Strangely, the stacking order of text fills and strokes cannot be changed in Illustrator.

(If you’ve ever tried to add a stroke to a text object in Illustrator before, this is where you’ve probably given up in disgust.)

So, here’s the good bit.

In STEP THREE, I’ve drawn a rectangle and given it the fill and stroke that we want the text to eventually have: a black fill and a 2-point magenta stroke. I also like to give my stroke corners a round join — it softens the stroke a little and generally looks better than a mitre join.

Unlike type objects, the stacking order for normal objects or paths is editable, so — while the rectangle is selected — drag the stroke below the path in the Appearance palette. The stroke will now sit behind the fill on the actual rectangle.

STEP FOUR: Open the Graphic Styles palette (Window menu > Graphic Styles or Shift-F5) and drag the rectangle into the palette. You’ve just made a graphic style out of the attributes of the rectangle (stacking order included), which you can now apply to other objects with just a couple of clicks. If you like, give it a descriptive name: I’ve called mine “Keylined Type”.

STEP FIVE: Delete the rectangle: it’s done its work. Select the label text, then click on your newly created “Keylined Text” graphic style. The label now has a stroke that sits behind the fill, just where we want it, as STEP SIX shows in the Appearance palette. Even better, the fill and stroke are now fully adjustable and editable — change the colour, stroke width, or even move the stroke back above the fill!

For new labels that need to look the same, you can either duplicate the one you’ve just made, or simply type the label and then apply the graphic style as needed. No more typing text labels twice, just because you need a keyline around it!

ADDENDUM

There’s always more than one way to do things in Adobe Illustrator. As I’ve had pointed out to me, you can skip the step that requires you to draw and style another object by adding a new stroke to the text in a particular way. If you select your text with the arrow tool, and then use the “Add New Stroke” button at the bottom of the Appearance palette (or the same command via the palette’s flyout menu), that stroke becomes fully editable and stackable. You can then make a new graphic style directly from your text. Why does it work when you add a stroke to text via the palette and not when you add it by simply clicking on a colour to use as a stroke? No good reason I can see!

P.S. If you like this tip, or any others that I’ve posted under the "tutorial" tag, please feel free to reblog or tweet about it — let’s share the knowledge!

Joseph Myers of CodeSourcery has proposed a patch based upon a GCC branch to now mainline support for C11 _Atomic in the GNU Compiler Collection...

Finally, Elijah.

Elijah has been “the nice brother” or “the honorable one” for so long that it's easy to forget how he was introduced—slapping a vampire's head off. He was, well, the ultimate badass. But he was that antagonistic when he was in the service of Klaus, who was even nastier—and proximity to Klaus made Elijah redundant if he was evil. So he became the one who was capable of honor, forgiveness, loyalty, and most importantly, he loved his family. When he refused to kill Klaus at the end of The Vampire Diaries' second season, “love of family” became Elijah's defining trait—in short, he was Flanderized until he became Michael Bluth. “Family first!”

From the beginning, The Originals seemed to treat Elijah as though he were the good and nice one, to the point where it became an ungainly piece of exposition in Elijah ...

Read more

Soren Johnson, best known for being the lead designer on Civilization 4, has founded Mohawk Games through the Stardock Strategic Investment Fund. The founding of the studio was hinted at by Stardock CEO Brad Wardell earlier this year, who will serve as president of the company. Rounding out the trinity of co-founders is Dorian Newcomb, another award-winning alum of the Civilization series, who will act as art director.

"Our goal is to make games that will be played for years, based on elegant, replayable systems that are not limited by finite content creation," said Johnson. "Our development process emphasizes rapid iteration above all else, requiring our games to be playable as soon as possible so that we have time to find the fun."

The Baltimore-based studio is currently recruiting top game industry talent and has begun development on its first game, which will use the Nitrous Engine, created by Oxide Games. Oxide happens to be another studio formed of Civ vets funded by Wardell's Stardock. At least now we know what Wardell did with some of that Impulse sale money.

Continue reading Civilization 4 lead designer starts Mohawk Games

Civilization 4 lead designer starts Mohawk Games originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 05 Nov 2013 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Since late October, Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown's office has received at least five calls or letters of concern over statements by signature gatherers for a proposed Portland ballot measure.

At their worst, the complaints allege blatant falsehoods spread by petition circulators for the Portland Public Water District campaign—claims environmental groups that oppose the measure are behind it, for instance. At their most mundane, the complaints gripe about statements that are strictly true. That appears to be the case with the only formal complaint, filed October 24 by a former city hall staffer.

Many of the communications—obtained by the Mercury from the secretary of state's office—come after the group behind the campaign has already been admonished to ensure signature gatherers are trained to provide correct information. Kent Craford, a chief petitioner behind the measure, called the complaints a "concerted effort" to discredit the initiative "by city contractors."

Craford's measure would transfer control of the Portland Water Bureau and Bureau of Environmental Services to a new, seven-member commission, snatching the services away from Portland City Council.

According to an internal memo, Bob Sallinger—a foe of the campaign and conservation director at the Audubon Society of Portland—called state elections workers November 1 to complain about two interactions with signature gatherers.

"He encountered a petitioner on Hawthorn (sic) who he described as 'out of it,'" the memo reads. "When Sallinger asked the circulator who was backing the measure, the circulator said Friends of Trees and the Audubon Society were backing it. Sallinger asked the circulator if he was sure, and he said that he was."

Sallinger also complained a woman near Portland State University told him the Bureau of Environmental Services wouldn't be affected by the measure. The memo notes:

Those complaints weren't made formally, so probably won't spark an investigation. But if true, they might constitute a breach of ORS 260.555, which prohibits "knowingly" false statements by signature gatherers. Breaking the law is potentially a class C felony, but secretary of state spokesman Tony Green said today the office would investigate complaints as civil violations.

But the allegations were swatted away by Craford. "Clearly, Bob's got a dog in this fight," he said. "The question is: Why is Bob seeking out and quizzing these poor people?"

Update, 9:47 pm: Craford writes to reiterate the Audubon Society—and many other environmental organizations in town—have contracted with the Bureau of Environmental Services in the past. According to a report from the Portland Tribune, Audubon is receiving around $43,300 to carry out a bird count in the city.

Original post: Sallinger's not the only one complaining. Another man called in on November 1 to report a petitioner on Hawthorne "told him the petition was to lower his water rates."

And the same day, Debbie Aiona, who works with the League of Women Voters, sent an email complaining a signature gatherer near Rose City Park claimed the measure "would stop the use of Bull Run water by a private corporation interested in supplying a water bottling plant."

That allegation jibes with an earlier complaint Friends of Trees Deputy Director Brighton West sent on October 20 claiming a signature gatherer had incorrectly claimed the petition would stop Nestlé from privatizing the city's water supply.

That email spurred elections division specialist Jennifer Hertel to warn the campaign to "ensure that any person or organization involved with the circulation of the petition is aware" of the law.

And it appears there may be a new complaint not shared by the secretary of state's office. Craford said he was alerted yesterday to a sixth complaint. Green, the secretary of state spokesman, could not confirm this evening.

Signature gathering for the water district measure is being handled by Encore Political Services, run by Hiram Asmuth, a local activist who helped with this year's anti-fluoride campaign.

"Every communication I get, I've been sharing with Hiram immediately," Craford said. "I'm totally confident that his direction to the canvassers is in keeping with our expectations and high standards."

The petitioner painted the complaints as an effort to discredit the measure by people with ties to city money.

"There's a very concerted effort against this by city contractors that has not been reported," Craford said. "Why are these people complaining in the first place?"

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

The call in de Blasio's favor was made by various outlets immediately after the polls closed at 9 p.m. in the city.

In a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 700,000, Mr. Christie won decisively, making impressive inroads, exit polls found, among younger voters, blacks, Hispanics and women — groups that Republicans nationally have struggled to attract. The governor prevailed despite holding positions contrary to those of many New Jersey voters on several issues, including same-sex marriage, abortion rights and the minimum wage, and despite an economic recovery that has trailed the rest of the country. But he attracted a broad coalition by campaigning as a decisive, even swaggering, leader who could reach across the aisle to solve problems, unlike the bickering politicians of Washington.

@bradneely

www.creasedcomics.com. Old guy thoughts.

167  4

»WEBSTA

darrynek:

I love coffee

In this scenario, the bot was crawling Site A. Site A had a number of links embedded that had the SQLi requests to the target site, Site B. Google Bot then went about its business crawling pages and following links like a good boy, and in the process followed the links on Site A to Site B, and began to inadvertently attack Site B. It’s hard to say if it’s something we hadn’t seen, or maybe it’s just something we hadn’t really paid much attention to, but it makes you really think… Can someone create fake links with malicious keywords and have bots follow them and run malicious strings on another website?

In Rome, Egypt and Easter Island the incubated ruling elites, who had forgotten that we are one interconnected people, destroyed their societies by not sharing. That is what's happening now, regardless of what you think of my hair or me using long words, the facts are the facts and the problem is the problem. Don't be distracted. I think these columnist fellas who give me aggro for not devising a solution or for using long words are just being territorial. When they say "long words" they mean "their words" like I'm a monkey who got in their Mum's dressing up box or a hooligan in policeman's helmet. As I said to Paxman at the time "I can't conjure up a global Utopia right now in this hotel room". Obviously that's not my job and it doesn't need to be, we have brilliant thinkers and organisations and no one needs to cook up an egalitarian Shangri-La on their todd; we can all do it together.

The Guardian

Million Mask March takes to the streets of downtown Denver Denver Post Yes, that large group of people marching in downtown Denver wearing suits and dress clothes Tuesday night were sporting Guy Fawkes' masks. Denver is one of 100 cities around the world where people were scheduled to join in the Million Mask March to ... Protesters Bring Million Mask March to DCWall Street Journal Million Mask March protesters demonstrate in Allentown - See photosThe Express Times - LehighValleyLive.com Anonymous protesters march in TampaTbo.com Springfield News-Leader -KXLH Helena News -International Business Times all 73 news articles »

Marvel comic book artist Paolo Rivera channels Tintin creator Hergé for his geeky wedding invitation, which packs the aisles with his and his wife's favorite fictional characters. See if you can identify them all.

Read more...

As a fan of a team that has recently unveiled some confusing patriotic uniforms to be sold for charity ... I'm still kind of bewildered by this.

Bakersfield Condors (EHCL) will wear "Gettysburg Address" sweaters -> http://t.co/Wo7kojcZwa pic.twitter.com/srTX4Y7NST

— Phil Hecken (@PhilHecken) November 5, 2013

That's the Bakersfield Condors of the ECHL. The first confusing thing is how a league once known as the East Coast Hockey League ended up with a team in Bakersfield, Calif. (No, the league is no longer called the East Coast Hockey League -- it's just the ECHL, in the same way KFC changed from Kentucky Fried Chicken on account of their chicken not being chicken.) Secondly: why is a team from Bakersfield taking a moment to honor the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address? I mean, sure, great moment in American history, but, completely random.

Third, why are they doing it ... you know ... like that? You couldn't even get rid of the little Bud Light swatch? You have Lincoln next to Bud Light?

They do get props for Lincolnizing their Condor:

Seriously, though, as convoluted as the thought process is, money for charity wins.

wafflesthecorgi:

The Many Faces of Waffles The Corgi:

1. Chipmunk
2. Beagle
3. Pirate
4. Happy Yawn
5. Lamb
6. Squishy Face
7. Rabbit
8. Lion
9. SnaggleTooth
10. Greyhound

i-am-momo-senpai:

Because she’s deaf and can read lips/gestures. Which explains why she’s so fearless and how great courage is at charades.

Near the peak of the NES era in the early 1990s, very few video games were allowed to simply exist in game form. Instead, unspoken rules dictated that every video game had to be adapted and repurposed to within an inch of its life—as a crappy TV cartoon, a crappy breakfast cereal, a crappy comic […]

newyorker:

A cartoon by Tom Cheney. For more cartoons from this week’s issue: http://nyr.kr/1anfcsn

tastefullyoffensive:

Kokomo won’t play your silly games. [video]

"For each 1 point increase in symbolic racism there was a 50% increase in the odds of having a gun at home." [Discovery via Gawker]

Poll shows new appreciation for feds after public opinion had hit a five-year low.