Genndy Tartakovsky’s Samurai Jack didn’t conclude after its 52nd episode on Cartoon Network in October of 2004. It unfortunately kind of just stopped in the middle of its narrative due to cancellation. Nine years and no new Jack… just jack. That changes this Wednesday, though, as Jim Zub (Skullkickers) and original SJ cartoon series character designer Andy Suriano pick up where the time-displaced warrior’s adventures left off on TV in Samurai Jack #1, the first of a five-issue comic book series from IDW. Tartakovsky himself is even contributing a variant cover, with other covers being illustrated by artists including Chew’s Rob Guillory.
From IDW’s official solicitation info:
Cartoon Network’s hit animated series is back at IDW! The legendary samurai known only as ‘Jack’ is stranded in a strange future ruled by the demonic wizard, Aku. His quest to return back to the past has tested him many times, but now the stakes are higher than ever. Can an ancient relic known as the Rope of Eons finally take him home? Writer Jim Zub (Skullkickers, Street Fighter) and artist Andy Suriano (Character Designer on the original Samurai Jack TV series) begin a new era of samurai adventure!
You can see a selection of pages form Samurai Jack #1 below.
Link
In a more douchebag than usual way, Starbucks has filed a lawsuit and petition of arrest for two brothers that run a small coffee stall in Bangkok.
If David Tran were a more conventional CEO, he would be a fixture at conferences, a darling of magazine profiles, and a subject of case studies in the Harvard Business Review. Yet Tran shuns publicity, professes not to care about profits, hardly knows where his sauces are sold, and probably leaves millions of dollars on the table every year.
The thing that surprised me the most during my playthrough of a tiny section of X Rebirth was the combat. It was, admittedly, a combat focused demonstration with a nippy ship, but when I wasn’t breaking the game by dodging the story and hunting around the station for fun things to do, being dragged into the space battles wasn’t a drag at all. It was fun. X’s usually treacley controls were no more, and some of the combat tweaks means you have to think your way around some of the bigger battles. It was encouragingly spam free. As is the trailer below, which shows off some of the mighty spacebiff’s in Egosoft’s upcoming game.
What I really need to know now is if it can pull off this sort of stuff away from the main story and planned demonstrations. It looks spectacular, but I want it to be this spectacular when I’m thirty hours in, wending my own path through the galaxy, and ignoring the shonky writing and terrible voice acting. If the open-ended structure is set up to give you angry, city-sized fights because of reasons, then I might just cry. Take a look.
Oh my. November 15th is now marked on my Google Calendar.
A growing collection of improper pipetting technique as depicted in movies, television, etc. For anyone who's spent time in a wet lab, thatsnothowyoupipette.tumblr.com will put a smile on your face.
rtoz writes "The US National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting French telephone calls 'on a massive scale,' according to a report published in Le Monde. According to Le Monde, the NSA recorded millions of telephone calls placed by French citizens over a 30-day period last year, including some placed by people with no connections to terrorist organizations. France called in the U.S. ambassador to protest the alleged large-scale spying on French citizens by NSA."
Bruce Campbell has confirmed the existence of an upcoming sequel to 1992 schlock-horror, Army of Darkness. Campbell — the star of the Evil Dead trilogy that includes Army of Darkness — also confirmed that he would be reprising the role of chainsaw-handed protagonist Ash at Wizard World Nashville Comic Con.
Campbell's confirmation came in response to fan questions, and follows remarks made earlier this year by Sam Raimi. Raimi, the director of the original Army of Darkness, 'threatened' Campbell "every six months" with a sequel, and said he'd "kick his butt into shape" to play Ash. As for the delay between films, Bloody Disgusting reports Campbell as saying Raimi had been "a little bit busy making the biggest movies in Hollywood," but that both had found space in their schedule to create a follow-up to the cult success.
Sam Raimi started writing 'Army of Darkness 2' earlier this year
Campbell last played Ash in a cameo role in Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead remake, appearing as an older version of the character. Given the two decades since the original film's release, Army of Darkness 2's Ash will also be visibly older. Campbell joked that his updated version of the character would have to "stop occasionally from chasing some deadite to catch his breath." There's no official word yet on release date, but Bloody Disgusting reports that Raimi was already writing the movie in September.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Register: "The Windows 8.1 rollout has hit more hurdles: the new version 11 of Internet Explorer that ships with the operating system does not render Google products well and is also making life difficult for users of Microsoft's own Outlook Web Access webmail product. The latter issue is well known: Microsoft popped out some advice about the fact that only the most basic interface to the webmail tool will work back in July. It seems not every sysadmin got the memo and implemented Redmond's preferred workarounds, but there are only scattered complaints out there, likely because few organisations have bothered implementing Windows 8.1 yet." Also from the article: "Numerous reports suggest that IE 11 users can once again enjoy access to all things Google if they un-tick the IE 11 option to 'Use Microsoft Compatibility lists.'" And here's Microsoft KB work around.
The Women’s Battalion of Death was an all-female combat unit formed by Maria Bochkareva in 1917. The unit initially attracted over 2,000 enlistees, but the conditions and rules imposed by Bochkareva cut that number down to 300. All women of the were required to shave their heads upon entering the unit. During the Kerensky Offensive, the women were praised by commanders for their initiative and courage.
Marcella sez, "I'm a female middle-school English teacher. For Teen Read Week last week, I braided my long hair into an epic Gimli dwarf beard. I made a tutorial showing how to do it! It would be a great Halloween costume for women with long hair who know how to braid!"
In light of the $5 billion EU antitrust ruling against Google this week, we started noticing a certain classic Ars story circulating around social media. Google's methods of controlling the open source Android code and discouraging Android forks is exactly the kind of behavior the EU has a problem with, and many of the techniques outlined in this 2013 article are still in use today.
The idea of a sequel to this piece has come up a few times, but Google's Android strategy of an open source base paired with key proprietary apps and services hasn't really changed in the last five or so years. There have been updates to Google's proprietary apps so that they look different from the screenshots in this article, but the base strategy outlined here is still very relevant. So in light of the latest EU development, we're resurfacing this story for the weekend. It first ran on October 20, 2013 and appears largely unchanged—but we did toss in a few "In 2018" updates anywhere they felt particularly relevant.
Six years ago, in November 2007, the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) was announced. The original iPhone came out just a few months earlier, capturing people's imaginations and ushering in the modern smartphone era. While Google was an app partner for the original iPhone, it could see what a future of unchecked iPhone competition would be like. Vic Gundotra, recalling Andy Rubin's initial pitch for Android, stated:
He argued that if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice.
Google was terrified that Apple would end up ruling the mobile space. So, to help in the fight against the iPhone at a time when Google had no mobile foothold whatsoever, Android was launched as an open source project.
Chances are good that if you went to college in the United States after, say, 1975, your campus featured at least one imposing, bunker-like concrete building in the architectural style known as “Brutalism.”
IDW
