firehose

French journalist Stéphane Bouley created a modernized version of the movie trailer for the 1975 British comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

via Digg Videos

Depending upon what date is chosen for the starting point, the Northern Wars comprise:

• The Russo-Swedish War (1554–1557) (“First Northern War” according to Arvo Viljanti)^[2]
• The Livonian War (1558–1583, “First Northern War” according to Klaus Zernack)^[2]
• The Northern Seven Years’ War (1562–1570, “First Northern War” according to some Polish historians)^[2]
• The Russo-Polish or Thirteen Years’ War (1654–1667, “First Northern War” according to some Russian historians)^[2]
• The Second Northern War (1655–1660, “First Northern War” according to traditional Anglo-Saxon, German, Russian and Scandinavian historiography)^[2]
  

Link

a long time ago - Sorcerian (Falcom/Sega - Mega Drive - 1990)

requested by kikkonfessions

An anonymous reader writes "With the LLVM/Clang migration, FreeBSD developers have now disabled building GCC and the GNU C++ standard library (libstdc++) as part of the FreeBSD base system. GCC and libstdc++ have been superseded by LLVM's Clang and libc++, respectively, on primary architectures for FreeBSD 10.0." You can still flip a few switches to get GCC, but the system compiler will still be clang. Update: 09/11 14:50 GMT by U L : Reader Noryungi noted that the What's Cooking for FreeBSD 10 page is also worth a look, adding "I have to say, this is shaping up to be a very interesting release. Bhyve [the BSD hypervisor], in particular, sounds very promising."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthony Weiner's ill-fated mayoral campaign ended with a string of final embarrassments: He mustered a mere 5 percent at the ballot box. One of his sexting partners tried to crash his primary night rally. And Weiner was caught making an obscene gesture to reporters as he was driven away. Another politician with a sex scandal, Eliot Spitzer, lost the Democratic primary contest for city comptroller to Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president. Stringer took 52 percent of the vote to Spitzer's 48 percent.

The questions have been all over the place, and so have the answers. The actor rightly has accused this reporter of "zigzagging." I, in turn, have suggested he obfuscates in his answers. /// "You're saying that I'm using hollow symbols, which I'm not," he says. /// Me: "I didn't say, 'hollow symbols.' " /// Cumberbatch: "Well, 'obfuscate' is a distraction from truth." /// Me: "It doesn't go that deep into truth." /// There's an uncomfortable silence.

Manuka the 15-day-old piglet oinks and grunts excitedly as it meets two cats named Gracie and Hector in this 2010 video.

video via littlepigfarmuk

via Have you seen this?!

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Writer Mark Waid and artist Dean Haspiel discuss the upcoming series "The Fox" and how they plan to bring the character to the universe of Archie Comics' "The New Crusaders."

Sydney Morning Herald

8 massacres by Syria regime and 1 by rebels since April 2012, UN war crimes ... CBS News GENEVA Evidence confirms at least eight massacres have been perpetrated in Syria by President Bashar Assad's regime and supporters and one by rebels over the past year and a half, a U.N. commission said Wednesday. Calling Syria a battlefield where ... Syria's Assad: An accidental heir proves resilientBeaumont Enterprise Assad supporters caught out by offer of chemical-weapons concessionThe National Bashar al-Assad: A Tyrant in FullNational Journal UPI.com all 87 news articles »

This is part four of a series. The first post can be found here: Gender and Game Mechanics Series: Part 1 – Introduction and the previous post here: Gender and Game Mechanics: Part 3 – How we fare in Care and Justice. In the previous posts I talked about how sociology and sociolinguistic studies on gendered communication styles could be useful heuristic tools to evaluate game systems and mechanics. I began with discussing two conflict resolution styles that trend differently by gender (care and justice). I looked at how traditional modes of RPG conflict resolution seem to be justice-oriented, and had a look at how that might affect the experience of care-oriented players at the table. In this post, I’d like to look at mechanics or systems that might have a stronger care-oriented bias, and at hybrid models which seem to combine elements of both.

As a reminder, care mediation is focused on relationship management. It  assumes: connection between individuals,  prioritizes modes of resolution that are internal to the community (rather than external rules or laws) and emphasizes the need for reciprocity. Tolerance, empathy, and active listening are encouraged and each conflict is seen as particular and contextual (rather than universal). Also, in pretend play, it was noted that girl playgroups generally used care mediation through the fiction rather than stepping outside of it.

So in terms of RPG conflict resolution, what would this look like? I think we could assume that a “pure” care-oriented system¹ would likely not depend on an external arbitrator  like a dice roll. We would for certain expect that the system would help make it clear how the relationship of the participants (possibly including any and all of:  the characters in conflict, any characters observing the conflict, and all players involved in the game) changed as a result of the resolution. We could assume that conflicts would resolve through a process of talking where being heard is prioritized, and all the participants’ needs are understood, and met equitably well. The conflict in question would likely be understood and considered by participants as a particular conflict (examining context) rather than a “genre” of, or universalized conflict. And ideally, given the tendency to play through the fiction, players should as much as possible be able to reach a resolution on conflict without stepping out of character, or at least out of the fiction of the game.

Are there systems that employ something like this? Recently I played in an all-feme Nordic larp in Sweden called Mad about the Boy². The larp was (for the most part) a 360 degree immersive drama game set in a real-world near-future post-apocalypse involving strong emotional themes. The in-game play spanned two full in-character days and the vast majority of  conflicts were not governed by mechanics. at all Conflicts between individuals not involving a weapon were handled naturalistically.

When characters came into conflict, they resolved it through discussion in character, much like one would do in real life with another person.  Characters did not have stats or abilities, players did not roll dice, roshambo, or do anything but talk. Any player in the vicinity could weigh in as an interested party. No GM/Storyteller/Producer monitored, mediated or interfered with the conflict’s resolution. There was no way for one character to force another character to do anything that they didn’t want to do without the support of, or consequences of the community, unless the character was armed and ready to use explosive violence to do it. Even where weapons were involved (limited to three guns present in the fiction of the game), the rules governing their use were extremely simple:

• One person pulling a gun assumed control of the room.
• A second gunholder pulling a gun on the first before the first could train the gun back overtook control of the room.
• Where two people with guns ganged up on a third with a gun, numbers ruled.
• A person shot at would be hit, but had the right to determine the severity of the wound received.

Is this care mediation? Let’s see: This system is based in talk. It allows players through their characters to negotiate their needs and the needs of others. Meta-techniques in the game like windowpaning (drawing a window to make a dramatic aside to your fellow players) are even present to ensure that where your character is unable to ensure their needs (or your as a player) are articulated, the player can still enter them into the fictive space for consideration. It encourages active listening and tolerance of other players (even when not their characters). It places a strong emphasis on, and provides a strong approval power to the community of play and it’s self-regulating skills (both in and out of character).  Because all fiction is expressed naturalistically, the players must confront the changes evident in the relationship as a course of play, or not, as to the dramatic action.

It certainly supports a lot of care-mediation values, or put more aptly: it does not constrain them. It does constrain some justice-mediation values. While characters in the game could logistically appeal to the authoritative body in the fiction to be a point of resolution the conflicts (there is a government entity in the setting but one that does not have immediate martial power to exert) the game does not provide a source of systemic resolution that clearly determines outcome. Autonomy and independence are constrained by the need to garner and maintain community support to keep power. Reciprocity might equal out to fair but it might not; rights of any individual may not be respected as a matter of community interest inside a charged situation powered by a collective.

Is it surprising to find a structure which has a care-mediation bias written in large part by women  (2 of 3 larpwrights were women) for an all-female cast that prioritizes themes about women and their values and communities? I don’t think so.

Also, it’s worth noting to find that this kind of structure is not uncommon among art larps coming out of Nordic countries, all five of which rank in the top 10 in terms of gender equality³.

Just sayin’.

Next up: Hybrid Care and Justice in Powered by the Apocalypse games.

(Gender and Game Mechanics: Part 4 – Care in Action? originally posted on Gaming As Women.)

- Barack Obama Glitch Gif

A Song of Ice and Fire has been a book series and a TV show, and now thanks to Abel Alves it's an 8-bit video game, too. Download it for free here and play as four different characters—Jon, Daenerys, Arya (?), and Tyrion (?)—each using their own attacks to try and keep them from going the way of one of Game of Thrones' many dear departed. Not convinced by the trailer above? There's a game play video of 8-bit Jon Snow under the cut. Happy playing!

Divekick is as much an homage to the world of fighting games as it is a love letter to the greater Fighting Game Community - a light-hearted, self-referential work of parody that exists in this goofy purgatory between a novel joke and a tournament-ready (albeit unorthodox) fighting game.

And like any work of parody, Divekick sends a message about its subject material, and it is in this regard that the combo was dropped, as it were. Divekick was the perfect opportunity to de-glamorize some of the FGC's more prevalent issues through the scrutinizing lens of satire, but like failing to punish a whiffed super, it was unfortunately a missed opportunity.

Continue reading Opinion: How Divekick missed a chance to help the FGC

Opinion: How Divekick missed a chance to help the FGC originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 11 Sep 2013 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(via Fairfax County library revamps system, discards books, reduces librarians - The Washington Post)

Hearing complaints that the Fairfax County Public Library was throwing away tons of books, County Supervisor Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence) decided to peer into a Dumpster.

Twice, she found stacks and stacks of high-quality books, bought by the taxpayers, piled in the trash. The second time, she filled a box.

… as Sam Clay, Fairfax’s longtime library director, launched a plan to revamp the county system, no books were given to the Friends of the Library for seven months this year, and more than 250,000 books were destroyed, Smyth said.

The discarded books have opened a broader discussion about the library’s long-term plan, which would eliminate the requirement for fully trained librarians, reduce branch staff and cut the amount of time children’s librarians spend helping families inside their libraries.

Worship music

This is a content summary only. Click on the story to read the whole thing at InvisibleOranges.com

I'm writing this piece because I wanted someone else to do it and no one else had (that I know of). I wanted a living document of the events that seem to be unraveling one of the oldest and greatest comic book publishers.  I love DC Comics, though I fear you'd never know it looking at this website. I've expressed my disappointment with the company many times here, and unlike a lot of fans, my complaints aren't about them wiping the slate clean with the New 52, but about the public appearance of a hostile, poisonous working environment for comic book creators. I'm really hoping the ship rights itself. I'm hoping that I can stop updating this list because DC's creators are happy and the books are healthy.

[ By Steve in Global & Travel & Places. ]

Subway sandwich: good if you’re hungry, bad if you’re a female commuter. These 8 women-only transit cars offer groups of gals a grope-free rail road trip.

Japanese Rail & Subways

(image via: Wikipedia)

Japan first introduced women-only subway cars in 1912, though their usage was sporadic and isolated. Modern usage of train and subways carriages specifically restricted to women dates from the year 2000 with the Tokyo Metro succumbing to popular demand for such cars in 2005.

(images via: Apple Daily, The Japan Times and The Grid)

They may have been late to the dance but the Tokyo Metro now serves as a model for other city’s and nation’s transit systems on how to do women-only transit right. Designated cars are consistently color-coded (pink, naturally) to avoid confusion by the visually-impaired, signage on the trains in in the stations is profuse, and transit police are on hand to enforce the rules.

Rio de Janeiro Metro, Brazil

(image via: RAYRAY IN RIO!)

Brazil’s first gender-specific subway cars first appeared on São Paulo Metro in October 1995, but the scheme was discontinued in September 1997 after the Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM) received complaints from married couples. There was also the possibility that Article 5 of the Brazilian Constitution, which guarantees equality among citizens, might be inadvertently flouted giving rise to an expensive legal challenge. Curiously, the Rio de Janeiro Metro was untroubled by these sticking points and introduced women-only subway passenger carriages in April of 2006.

(images via: NBC News and Andén 2)

The official policy regarding women-only carriages dictates that for trains with six passenger cars, one car must exhibit predominantly pink colors and signage denoted the car to be for the exclusive use of women. It should be noted that pinkness notwithstanding, the women-only restriction only applies on weekdays during the morning and afternoon rush hours (3 hours each). Metro police enforcement is provided to ensure non-women (also known as men) stay out of the cars and station platforms have signs in pink, white and yellow on their floors indicating where women should assemble for boarding.

(image via: Wikipedia/Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz)

The recent introduction of Rio de Janeiro’s “Women’s Exclusive Cars” has allowed the system to borrow from other successful subway networks around the world: note the “Mind The Gap” warning on the platform, lifted from the London Underground circa 1969.

“Kereta Khusus Wanita”, Indonesia

(images via: CharlesKKB, The Jakarta Post and Tempo.co)

If the Indonesian commuter train you’re about to board is trimmed in pink & purple and bears the legend “Kereta Khusus Wanita”, back off Jack… unless you’re a Jill.

(image via: Korean Lecture Heeya)

Indonesian women have taken to the women-only services provided by the nation’s commuter train lines, and if such service is withdrawn they don’t take the loss lying down. Such was the case in May of 2013 when PT KAI Jabodetabek Commuter decided to discontinue the exclusive cars on its women-only Electric Railway Train (KRL) line running the Bogor to Jakarta route. “”

Next Page:
Transits Of Venus 8 Women Only Subway Train Cars

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[ By Steve in Global & Travel & Places. ]

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If you love our collection of 25 Swiss Mid Century Package Designs, check out this collection of 20 Vintage Dutch package designs. Again, here we see a heavy use of typography, bold colors and graphics - substraits were mainly paper boxes and tin canisters. Let us know what you think and comment below! 

 

 

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