firehose

"The man was brought in to the square. His eyes were blindfolded. I began shooting pictures, one after the other. It was to be the fourth execution that day I would photograph."

CHARLOTTE, NC—Newly engaged couple Tom Kerry and Jessica Tompkins unveiled their wedding website on Tuesday, helpfully posting the page online for the benefit of guests attending the upcoming October nuptials to mock, ridicule, and repeatedly insult...

Every day, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by a new movie coming out that week. This week: Just in time for The Family, starring Robert De Niro as a mobster who enters the Witness Protection Program with his wife and kids, we’re recommending five tales of crime and kinship.

The Happiness Of The Katakuris (2001)

Few familial units have ever been quite as demented as the one at the center of Takashi Miike’s The Happiness Of The Katakuris, a truly bonkers tale of a clan compelled to bury multiple bodies near their remote hotel because, for one insane reason after another, everyone who visits their establishment winds up dying. No stranger to weirdness, this 2001 effort by Japanese provocateur Miike (Audition, Ichi The Killer) is part comedy, part musical, and all madness, as is apparent from the opening clay animation scene of a pint-sized winged creature eating ...

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Do you like booze, fruit flavors, and cute cartoon cats with disturbingly large heads? Then you'll probably love the new line of Hello Kitty beer just released in China. They're only half the alcohol content of regular beer, and come in six fruit flavors, including lemon-lime, passion fruit and banana.

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As hinted at by a marketing strategy that’s seen three separate “appetizers” served in as many months, Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac is a feast that’s meant to be savored, across multiple tastings of psychosexual drama and celebrity penis. But if a report on the Norwegian film site Montages can be believed, that feast will be a five-hour steady gorging, until you stumble away from the table unable to stomach even the most wafer-thin metaphor for the emptiness of human intimacy. According to that article, each of Nymphomaniac’s two dangly parts reportedly runs two and a half hours, making for five hours total of watching one woman’s erotic journey spread across several decades and untold numbers of whoring beds.

And because, as with lovemaking, five hours is barely enough time to really get into it, producers are also contemplating adding a Nymphomaniac TV series as a ...

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popculturejunkieloudmouth:

To celebrate the coming of the Halloween season, I thought I’d share this collection of photos of some of the Hollywood’s greatest monsters. Caught in candid moments, we’ve got Count Dracula sharing his life story with some of his co-stars, The Frankenstein Monster enjoying his afternoon tea, The Mummy Imhotep having his hair -or whatever it is that mummies have in place of hair- restyled, The Gill-man enjoying a set-visit from his best girl, The Wolfman having his fur touched-up, and Quasimodo ironing out some contractual details with his agent and a studio rep.

I'm loving the "Doing Stuff with Crazy Aunt Lindsey" series of hands-on science YouTube videos for kids. I can't find the host's full name on the YouTube page or her website, but she's a fantastic presence and so are the kids that appear with her. The result is a series of videos that are adorable, high-spirited, creative, and fun &madsh; full of great, simple projects that pack a surprising amount of science "oomph" behind them.

Video Link

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Rhode Island is preparing to sell the Kingdoms of Amalur IP, with a website offering its assets going live this month, 38 Studios' court-appointed receiver Richard Land tells WPRI. 38 Studios collapsed in 2012 after launching Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, taking $90 million of Rhode Island taxpayer money down with it.

The main piece of Amalur up for auction will be Project Copernicus, the studio's MMO-in-progress.

"If someone is thinking that Rhode Island is going to sell this for millions and millions of dollars, I would have a very difficult time believing that," Joystiq News Editor Alexander Sliwinski told WPRI in a Skype interview.

Land is optimistic about the sale: "The bulk of the game and intellectual property I don't believe is stale because the artwork is current, the tech used to develop the artwork is current, the concept is a current concept." Sliwinski warns that the fantastical world of Copernicus may be outdated as the industry shifts into the next generation.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the $75 million loan that Rhode Island provided to 38 Studios. Rhode Island taxpayers have already begun paying back the loan.

Amalur IP heads to auction this month originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 12 Sep 2013 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday, nearly a year after The London Taxi Company (LTC) halted production of its iconic black cabs and six months after the business was bought out by China’s Geely Group, the auto manufacturer got back to building cars.

Production of London’s iconic black cabs was halted last fall, much to the chagrin of traditional anglophiles. The company issued an emergency recall related to a disastrous steering fault in its vehicles, which made it difficult for drivers to properly maneuver their cars. The recall, hardly LTC’s first—LTC was forced to recall 5,000 cars in 2008 after a number of them caught fire—compounded the carmaker’s existing problems. The Manganese Bronze, which began making black cabs back in 1948, hadn’t turned a profit in six years. That’s partly because the UK government gave London cab drivers permission in 2008 to drive the Mercedes Vito, which broke Manganese’s longtime monopoly.

But Geely, which owns Volvo, swooped in and bought LTC in February for £11.4 million ($18.03 million) and made big improvements. It streamlined LTC’s manufacturing facilities in Coventry while creating 66 new jobs that boosted its workforce to 170. The vehicles, purported to be the most sophisticated cars ever produced by the company, promise better quality; Geely has committed £150 million to the development of new taxi models, including ultra-low emission versions.

The company is hopeful that the UK will continue to embrace its iconic taxi cars. “We are on target to deliver over 200 vehicles this month into London alone. Consequently we are going to increase our UK production and we will be building an additional 75 vehicles this year on top of the 424 that we had originally planned,” vice president of UK operations for LTC Peter Johansen told the Daily Mail.

LTC’s ambitions extend beyond London. The business plans to sell almost 2,000 new black cabs globally in its first year; it has already won export contracts to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

More than 130,000 black cabs have been built at the Coventry facility over the past 60 years. If LTC has its way, thousands more will be built in the years ahead.

The Batmug

The four books that comprise the DC Adventures RPG present you not only with a tried and tested superhero RPG, but also an incredibly deep roster of DC characters and the most comprehensive overview of the DC universe I’ve ever seen.

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Gray (D) announced his veto in a letter to Council Chairman Phil Mendelson delivered Thursday morning that explained his opposition to the bill and disclosed his intention to seek a minimum-wage hike for all employers, not just large retailers. “If I were to sign this bill into law, it would do nothing but hinder our ability to create jobs, drive away retailers, and set us back on the path to prosperity for all,” he said. "This bill did not represent a choice between low-wage jobs and better jobs; it represented a choice between jobs and no jobs."

Eligibility for homecoming court ballot designation will be reviewed, but Richland school board leaders warned they want to consider all ramifications. The promise for re-evaluation did not please Richland senior Kasey Caron, the transgender student who was born female but wants to be listed on the homecoming king ballots. “I am disappointed,” Kasey told reporters after the discussion at Monday’s school board meeting. “I thought they were going to have a change of heart. I am still hoping for one.” Kasey said he was told he could not be listed on the male ballot because his driver’s license identifies him as female. He presented documentation showing the license has been changed. But Leventry said the legal standard is higher, noting that there is no question Kasey is female. “Mentally and emotionally she believes she is male,” he continued. “The law defines whether a person is male or female. If you want to change legally to be a male in Pennsylvania, you have to have be certified by a physician who is qualified, and you have to have your birth certificate changed.” That doesn’t mean Kasey will have to complete the legal change to be listed on the male ballot, however, Leventry said. “Administration, based on advice of counsel, believes as a female, you have to be on the female ballot,” he said. “If the school board wishes to change that, they have the right to do that.”

Costa Coffee, near Beijing’s Lama Temple, is the kind of place that attracts the type of latte-sipping young professionals who flocked to buy new iPhones two years ago. In fact, a fair number of its customers are still using older iPhones, but they expressed mixed feelings about whether they’ll stick with Apple (AAPL) in the future—or opt instead for the larger Android-powered Samsung (005930:KS) Galaxy smartphone, which is fast gaining popularity here. The iPhone 5C is routinely mocked as “not attractive.” Slumped in a brown sofa, Susan Li, a prim, middle-aged teacher, toggles between the iPhone 4S she bought in 2011 and her work-issued IBM (IBM) ThinkPad. Both are “good enough,” she says, without enthusiasm; she’ll wait until her phone dies before replacing it. Zhang Ao, another iPhone 4S-user and a young cameraman for Beijing Television (BTV), looks up from the meal he brought in from a nearby KFC (YUM). He says the “wow factor” of owning an Apple product wore off long ago. He dismissed the new, brightly colored iPhone 5C as looking “like a cartoon.” He’s not sure what kind of phone he’ll buy next.

Jeremy Whitley’s Princeless is the story readers they want: a kid-friendly tale of a strong girl who defies authority and has swashbuckling adventures. Centering on Adrienne, a princess who breaks out of her tower, befriends the dragon who is supposed to be guarding her, and heads off to rescue her sister princesses, it’s funny and [...]

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Considering we've been freaking out over the possibility of Katee Sackhoff joining the Marvel Universe, we're glad someone decided to ask her to clarify her recent comments. But is the news good or bad? Hit the jump to find out! 

Entertainment Weekly revealed the covers to a fun project from Guillermo del Toro I was unaware of (he's got about a thousand going at once so this doesn't surprise me). As we all know very well, del Toro is a huge horror fan so he teamed up with Penguin Classics to produce a set of his favorite horror stories! EW says the covers are all designed and illustrated by Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley and del Toro will be writing introductions for each. The titles should be available starting later this month.

Running into battle armed with a broadsword, bow, and quiver of arrows was perfectly acceptable if you were fighting in the Hundred Years’ War or fending off some orcs on Middle Earth. But when it comes to World War II, such medieval weaponry looks like child’s play next to the technology of the time.

Girl Fight will finally fill the void of games featuring scantily-clad women beating each other up when it comes to Xbox Live Arcade on September 25. Majesco first announced the 3D fighter with a to-the-point press release back in February 2012.

Developed by Kung Fu Factory, Girl Fight features local and online multiplayer for two combatants, and online leaderboards, too. It's also coming to PSN sometime this fall.

Girl Fight hits XBLA this month originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 12 Sep 2013 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Using Makey Makey — a kit that can turn everyday objects into computer inputs by attaching alligator clips — Pizza Hut Canada plays “Dip Hop” by dipping pizza slices into various sauce cups.

via Betabeat

The Seahawks sent a warning to their fans: If you're considering threatening that guy in the Patrick Willis 49ers jersey to a fight, there's a chance he's going to boot you out of the stadium and have your season tickets revoked. Seattle announced that they will have undercover police officers roaming the stadium wearing jerseys of opposing teams this season, in order to detect unruly behavior and take proper action. "We have great fans," Seahawks president Peter McLoughlin said in a statement. "Our goal is to ensure a safe environment for all in attendance, including visiting team fans."

Hartmut Esslinger knows a thing or two about industrial design and what it’s done for Apple. He worked directly with Steve Jobs to establish a “design language” that was used on the Macintosh line of computers for over a decade. Esslinger’s iconoclastic firm had already designed over 100 products for Sony when he signed an exclusive, $1-million-a-year contract with Apple in 1982.

But that Apple is mostly gone, says Esslinger in an interview with Quartz. The Apple of today resembles Sony of the 1980′s, says Esslinger, who witnessed the succession process at Sony first-hand: The visionary founder has been replaced by leaders who aren’t thinking beyond refinement and increasing profit.

“Steve Jobs was a man who didn’t care for any rational argument why something should not be tried,” says Esslinger. “He said a lot of ‘no,’ but he also said a lot of ‘yes’ to things and he stubbornly insisted on trying new things.”

One reason Esslinger is willing to recount his time with Jobs is that on October 9, at the Frankfurt book fair, he will release a design and management memoir recounting his time with Jobs, called Keep it Simple.

The origins of a design-led culture at Apple

By Esslinger’s own account, when he started working with Jobs in 1982, Apple was a fractious company in which designers reported to engineers and many in Apple’s corporate structure were openly hostile to the founder’s influence. (By 1985, Jobs had been forced out; he returned in 1996.) At the start of his work with Esslinger, Jobs knew that design could help define Apple’s brand in a way that no amount of marketing could accomplish, and from the introduction of the Macintosh SE, Esslinger’s “Snow White” design language defined the appearance of the Macintosh, visually integrating its outer plastic shell with the software it contained.

As early as 1982, Jobs had already conceived of a “book-like computer,” though the project was not discussed outside the company. That vision eventually led to the Apple Newton, a tablet that failed, and the iPhone and iPad, which made history. That kind of vision is now lacking at Apple, Esslinger says.

“As soon as you can copy something [like the iPhone,] it’s not smart enough anymore,” he says. “I think Apple has reached in a certain way a saturation—the curve [of innovation] was really steep seven to eight years ago […] but now my iPhone is so full I am deleting apps because I want to keep it simple.”

What the next Apple might come up with

So if a disruptive new company—the Apple of today—were to emerge, what kinds of products might it make? Esslinger, who retired from Frog design, the company he founded, in 2006, now teaches all over the world and especially in China, and he says that his students are primarily focused on three-dimensional interfaces as the “next big thing.” Their inspiration? Video games.

“Our students in China and in Germany, they come from the video game culture, and the video games are 3D,” says Esslinger. “I did a workshop a couple of years ago in Switzerland, and even MBAs said enterprise software should be like a video game.”

Just as important to the future of human-computer interaction, says Esslinger, will be a re-thinking of the integration of hardware and software. One example he gave was concept designs Frog did in collaboration with MIT, for flexible computers that responded to squeezing and other types of unconventional touch input.

“I think flat screens have reached a level of saturation,” says Esslinger. “Screens don’t have to be all right angles—the cheapest way is not always the best way. […] Not every country on earth likes square shapes, The cache and the memory makes it easier to have a rectangular screen, but it doesn’t have to be like that. There is much more freedom than we think we have.” (1)

Asia, young upstarts in the wings

Some of that radical thinking could come out of China, where Esslinger currently teaches. “What’s happening in China right now is a paradigm shift where they realize they have to innovate, and can’t just make cheap products,” says Esslinger. “The first generation of entrepreneurs just wanted to make money, but now you have a guy like Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei, announcing in public, ‘I want to beat Apple and Samsung.’”

Wherever the next big thing comes from, it’s likely to be from entrepreneurs and designers who are not steeped in existing ways of thinking in Silicon Valley, in part because they’re young—Steve Jobs was 28 when he began working with Esslinger. ”At Frog, our best ideas came from our youngest designers, fresh out of school,” says Esslinger. In part, he says, this is because of a willingness to fail—something that is, at least, still part of American culture. “In Europe you learn not to fail, and in America you fail to learn. You need failure.”

Footnote

(1) Esslinger speaks from experience: When developing the design language for early Macintoshes, he had to convince Jobs to adopt a more expensive manufacturing process in order to get the sides of the cases for Apple computers to be perfectly straight. (Injection molding processes demanded a 1 degree angle to otherwise boxy cases, so that molds could pull away from the cases easily.)

Subtle touches like that are now an Apple trademark, but refinement can only take a company so far, and the conservatism inherent in how design groups within companies must answer to their bosses means that companies tend not to innovate, says Esslinger.