(Warning; long post)

[Source]

[1] hizamaruu said: "lol any person that complains about what a girl is wearing in an mmo are just butthurt insecure people because they dont look as good as the person they play >.> grow up so what if they look better than you or so what if youre attracted to it but stay in the closet about it cuz youre embarrased get over it and play your game or dont play it its that simple quit bitching publicly over something so little as armor on a fictional piece of polygons kthx"

Tica’s Reply: 

This is so wrong on so many levels, my friend. Let’s break this down; you say that any person that complains about what women wear in mmos are “butthurt” and “insecure” because we don’t look “as good as them”, correct? First of, do you have any proof? Have anyone ever said "I don’t like this character because they look better than me"? And how is that logical, especially in mmos? Normally, when you customize your character, you create someone you want to be, find appealing and etcetera. When female characters are made, they are rarely ever made with a female audience in mind; they’re made to be eye-candy, a sex object, for heterosexual, horny men. We do not find that attractive. We find it offensive. We feel objectified because there was no other thought to her other than “make her sexy”; because psh, who needs an actual unique design, right? (answer: Everyone! Females are humans too! *gasp*) There’s literally nothing to be jealous over, because we DON’T want to be these characters. We feel uncomfortable being portrayed like that. And this is what saddens us. There is nothing we feel comfortable with; but of course, once we express our opinion about this, we come off as “bitching”, which is something you clearly need to think over.

Also, when you tell us to get over it or don’t play it, you are basically saying that you like it and won’t listen to reason. I’m up for a conversation here, where we can discuss, not blatantly ignore what others have to say or think. You’re allowed to have an opinion, but do not try to stop anyone from telling theirs. 

[2] Anonymous said: “like heroes would wear bulletproof vests in action movies or something… same thing”

Tica’s Reply:

No, it is not the same thing. In the past it was seen as easier to draw their uniforms more form fitting. There’s also this thing about flexibility and the ability to hide the suit under the clothes; and this goes for both men and women. Besides, technically there are heroes with bulletproof vests, see the Batsuit, for example. Besides, no bulletproof vests =/= sexulization.

[3] Anonymous said: “A beautful woman does not need clothes or armors… haha”

Tica’s Reply:

Actually, they do, unless you’re willing to sacrifice logic, reason, story, setting and treating both genders as equal.

It probably would be a bit thought-provoking if I said “A beautiful man does not need clothes or armors”, wouldn’t it? Especially when you see men run around naked… all the time.

You can be beautiful, strong, sexy, and everything in between with clothes on and a proper armor. There are some amazing examples out there, and many of us are hoping to see more of that. Who doesn’t love to actually see a design that describes the character or setting? A design someone actually thought trough, instead of just slapping on a bikini. Character designers are limiting themselves by doing this; when there’s billion of different ways to create a character.

And yes, I am aware of that there are some people, female and male, that do enjoy having their character running around naked/half naked, maybe because they feel more powerful that way or they like the outfit as fetish-wear or sexual-roleplay, and that is alright. As long as it’s equal, and treated with care and respect.

[4] Mika said: “May I say this to you all,they said on mmo news that 80 or 85 % that play mmos game are mostly guys so you womans better not be taking us down about this CAUSE THEY ARE MORE OF US THEN YOU IN ALL MMO GAMES.”

Tica’s Reply:

Just, allow me to laugh at this for a moment.

Okay, okay. First of all, I want to tell you something. About 49% of all gamers are female. That means about half of ALL gamers. Are. Female. And the numbers are growing. As for MMO’s only, the numbers are 40% female gamers (this number is increasing quickly as well). Edit: Besides, there are some mmo’s that have more female players, such as LOTRO, for example.

And really. “You women better not be taking us down”? Really? Really? Because last time I checked, you’re not being personally offended every time you even mention that you’re a gamer, or being looked on weirdly when you look at “boy games” aka games where you’re supposed to be a warrior/soldier/fighter etc. Because we, girls, we are “fake geeks” looking for attention. When we get upset or passionate about a game we’re being “bitchy” and “overly emotional”. But when guys rants about something game-related, or are very excited about it, why yes, that’s expected of them. They can complain about the men being overly muscular - but at the same time, there’s so much body variation when it comes to male characters. They can be skinny, sick-looking, fat, old…. Majority of females in games, however, pretty much only have different cup-sizes and height, and, if you’re lucky you might be able to choose between “cute” or “sexy”.

So, it’s either “fake geeks” or we’re seen as rare exotic animals. A girl playing a GAME?! We don’t want any special attention just because we happen to have vaginas. No, really. It makes no sense. The whole “games are for men” is complete and utter nonsense. Why on earth would entertainment be for men only? Do you still live in the 50’s?

"Sigh. I want to play too."

"Just smile and stare, honey, maybe they’ll stop thinking you’re a fake gamer eventually."

Games are entertaining. Humans like to entertain themselves. Believe it or not, but women are human too! *gasp*

Also, on a last note, think this way; you’re a girl. You really like games, right? You’ve been playing tons of board games as a child, and perhaps some facebook games. Now, you want to try something bigger, something more real. Look things up, and look confused as you search around. Why do all the game ads look like porn for straight men? You ARE looking at the SAFE games, right? But it seems like there aren’t any games that interest you, since half naked ladies showing their ass and tits isn’t really your thing. You want a game you feel comfortable with - but the ads make you uncomfortable. You stay away from them. For a LONG time. The urge to game eventually grows back on you. You then go to friends and ask them if they know any good games that you might be interested in. However, some of them say you can’t play because you’re a girl. The games are too violent for a petite little creature like you. You huff at the ignorant, stupid comment. However, there are more that says that, which leaves you confused. Some even say girls have no talent in gaming. The guys don’t take you seriously and you have no girl friends that understands either. Once again you stay away from the games. For a long time more.

Time goes by and you meet a friend who finally suggests you a game. He tells you it’s the most badass thing with great visuals and amazing characters. You try it out, and is very hopeful. As soon as you pick to play a girl, your happiness grows into another confusion and disappointment. Why on earth is she in her underwear? Wait, she’s going to fight in this? Why is her boobs bouncing everytime she moves an inch? You sigh, thinking, maybe it gets better. Maybe the personality is better? Nope. Her personality is nothing but “sexy” - which tells you nothing, because she’s not even sexy personality-wise. Why? It’s just that there’s nothing more that defines her. No development. The character has no character. You walk around in the game, trying to find other good female characters, at least. They look the same. Act the same. You sigh, try desperately to enjoy the game, but you’re distracted by the offensive view on female. Even their walking stance is ridiculous. Standing next to a male character, you feel this sadness and anger flush over you. His posture is one of pride, his outfit is badass, his personality and story is thought through  So are basically every other male character in the game. You? You’re just sexy.

You go back to your friend and rant about the sexism, but he doesn’t understand your problem. You’re just overreacting. He thinks they’re hot, so that’s why it’s no problem. It’s harmless. When you mention “What if all guys were represented the same way” he gets angry at you and states that all men are muscular and sometimes shirtless. It’s not the same thing, you think, besides, you saw all from fat to skinny male characters, still represented strong-minded/looking. They being shirtless had nothing with them being sexy - just t show off their abs that symbolizes POWER - something both men and women likes to feel.

There has to be some game out there, that isn’t for 3 year olds, where the women aren’t objectified and hyper-sexualized. But alas, even the sci-fi chick-robots have cameltoes and double D’s for boobs. Even in the realistic games you are forced an unrealistic cleavage, unrealistic tight-sitting ass-showing “loose” pants, with unrealistic proportions, unrealistic face and unrealistic breasts. Aw, screw this. You’re playing as a dude instead. You have no choice.

So, during the gameplay - when people eventually find out  you’re a girl, you get different, equally offensive reactions. Some try to hit on you, in a not-so-flattering matter. “I’m sorry,” you say, “but I’m here to play a game.” Rejecting these guys only ends up with them calling you an “ugly fat bitch who doesn’t do anything than to play games all day”. Which makes you wonder, since these guys haven’t gone offline for at least 24 hours. Some guys instantly throws insults at you everytime you do a mistake in the games, simply because you have that damned vagina of yours. Did a perfect headshot in the game? It was just luck, duh. Discussing games? Stop bragging about “knowing stuff” about games, you attention-whore. You mention you’re a gamer that happens to be a girl? Faker.

You grow tired. It’s all too frustrating. You eventually give up.

So tell me, who’s taking WHO down?

[5] Mewanna said: “That depends on the game. Some MMOs now have more girls playing them than guys even. Overall there are more women online playing games than men, but that’s just all game types not MMOs. Why do some games have more women than men and others don’t? Well this stupid crap they do with armor is one thing that keeps us away from certain games. And it’s not right to say “We can pick on you and make you feel uncomfortable because you’re the minority.” That’s what bigots do. But if you’d rather have guys running around playing fake women than real women in your games, well enjoy your sausage fest. And guys who want to fight to keep this stuff in games really need to get out and try to date a real girl rather than spend all that time with their own hands.”

[6] another Anonymous said (reply to Mewanna): “like the comment below tries to tell, so you want the girls be covered in fur over and over? i dont think so, you have to admit that women like to play good looking characters in games too”

[7] Anonymous (the “comment below”) said :”stop crying bitches, you want the women to be covered in pelt like a bear? hell i dont think even you prude ugly cunts want that so live with it”

Tica’s Reply:

For your information, I’d love to have my characters walk around in fur. Really, it can look all from badass to adorable. Fur just makes things look cool, design-wise. (also fur is logical when it’s cold weather)

And yes, it’s not unusual, in fact it’s very common, for girls to play characters they find good-looking. However, you’re confusing all this with the Male Gaze. It’s not the same thing. And fyi, we also want to play women that look human, badass, rough and anything inbetween too. (That includes cute and sexy, but not ONLY cute and sexy.) Because we want variety, too. Like every other human being, the human mind has different opinions when it comes what one finds beautiful and/or interesting.

Also, calling us “bitches”, “ugly” “prudes” “cunts” (see what I mean with what I wrote before?) and telling us to “stop crying” doesn’t make your point any stronger. Just saying. It’s all just words that are completely unneeded and will just start wars. All kind of flaming will, in fact, that includes the whole “fake women, real women” deal and telling who should date who for whatever reason. Keep calm, my friends, and we can discuss this and actually come somewhere with it.

*************

More to come! (:

Having presumably already cast its most important character, a ridiculously large pickup truck, the long-in-development movie update of The Fall Guy has moved on to an actor who can match it in both size and charisma: Dwayne “The Rock Is In The Way Of Me Signing The Contract For This Franchise Film, Please Move It” Johnson, who The Hollywood Reporter says is now circling the lead. In the works since that day in 2010 when it seemed The A-Team movie might do something, The Fall Guy, like its ‘80s TV predecessor, concerns a stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter, catching criminals using his conveniently applicable stuntman tricks and by just sort of driving around for a while, until he inevitably runs them over. Unlike the TV show, The Fall Guy will be an enormous, Dwayne Johnson-shaped man (though given Johnson’s musical skills, it’s possible he will at ...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“Wonder Woman LP Painting” (Bette Midler – The Divine Miss M)

Artist Robert Jiménez painted Marvel and DC comic book characters onto a collection of LP record album covers. These original piece of artwork are available to purchase online from his Zerostreet Store.

I was asked to participate in a group art “Analog Art Show” at Sweat Records in Miami. The show is a collection of painted vinyl LP’s. I had so much fun doing it that I worked on a few more.

“Batgirl LP Painting” (Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass – Whipped Cream & Other Delights)

“Batman Catwoman LP Painting” (Albert Hague – Redhead)

“Dr. Strange LP Painting” (Fred Waring & The Pennsylvanians – Showcase)

“LOBO LP Painting” (Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown)

via Boing Boing

In a new interview with Slate (one that, through questions like, “Does the radicalism of noise music feel, let’s say, connected during performances to the political stances you hold?” affirms that Slate is hilarious, and therefore a natural arbiter of comedy), Kim Gordon confirms she’ll appear in an episode of Girls next season. The Sonic Youth co-founder, currently of Body/Head and a million broken indie-rock hearts, didn’t offer (nor is she actually asked about) any further details on her role. Still, it’s seemingly a logical progression for a performer who, in songs like “Swimsuit Issue” and “Kim Gordon And The Arthur Doyle Hand Cream,” has written about some of the same feminist body image issues that Girls and Lena Dunham sometimes like to discuss, before the Internet then talks even louder about them. Also, it’s called Girls, and Kim Gordon has already been on ...

Jeanne d’Arc: the cover of the March 31, 1923 edition of La Vie Parisienne

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

#cantstopscreaming

Steps

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In Set List, we talk to veteran musicians about some of their most famous songs, learning about their lives and careers, and maybe hearing a good backstage anecdote or two in the process.

The artist: Neko Case has generally avoided getting too personal—or at least autobiographical—in her music, but it doesn’t get much more personal than the title of her new album, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You. Its 12 songs contain the most autobiographical music Case has written over her six studio albums, with numerous allusions to family and romantic entanglements that seem to come from a place closer to her heart that on previous records. Surprisingly, she wonders if fans will find that tedious, as she told The A.V. Club for a special, album-specific Set List for The Worse Things Get…

“Man”
Neko ...

Submission - Teeny Tiny Hamburg Transit Map

Submitted by Miles, who says:

When I was at Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg (the largest model railway in the world), I found a tiny rendition of the Hamburg subway map in one of the models. It was  a very detailed map, although my photo is blurry because it was so close up.

——

Transit Maps says:

Looks just like the real thing! It’s probably a tie between this map and this generic one for smallest subway map I’ve seen yet. Unless someone’s etched a Tube Map on a grain of rice with a laser just because they could?

3. Tentative Acceptance: The weather has finally cooled enough for layering. Hellllo, cardigans!

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I’m looking for something better and less infuriating. Suggestions? Has anyone tried Branch.com?

@tyler etc.

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Kent Jenkins, also known as Snubby J, plays “Get Lucky” and a medley of other Daft Punk hits — like “Derezzed” and “Aerodynamic” — on a collection of instruments in this amazing video. The main instrument Jenkins uses is one of his own invention called the RimbaTubes, a series of PVC pipes played with rubber mallets.

via Viral Viral Videos

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

This is the worst idea. :(

Holley Mangold‘s road to the Rio Olympics will go through “The Biggest Loser.”

Mangold, who placed 10th in the super heavyweight division at the London Games, said the NBC weight-loss show reached out to her. Now, she’s a contestant on the series’ 15th season beginning Oct. 8.

“They’ve talked about how I was inspiration for big girls,” said Mangold, 23, in a video on the show’s website (full video below). ”I felt like I never got a chance to be the in-shape, smaller girl. I never had that chance. This is kind of like my second chance to do that. I wanted to show all of them you can do it.”

Her starting weight is 351 pounds. She weighed in at 346 pounds at the 2012 Olympics, 60 pounds heavier than anybody else in her weight class, which is set at 165 pounds and over.

“I feel like that was my limiting factor the last run for the Olympics is I was too big for the super heavyweight,” said Mangold, the sister of New York Jets all-pro center Nick Mangold who played high school football. “I needed to be smaller so I could train harder.”

Mangold said being on the show will help her get back to the Olympics in Rio, that she can be better at a smaller weight.

“I think I finally decided now I don’t have to wait to retire before I get in shape,” she said. “I always had this thought that if I lost weight, I wouldn’t be as good of a weightlifter anymore. I plan on going to Rio. I was very nervous about it. I think, after ‘Biggest Loser’ reached out to me, I thought this is a good idea. I can do this and be the great weightlifter I want to be.”

Mangold said she pulled out of the Pan American Championships in June and the World University Games in July to come on the show.

Original Source

Basically says it all. Last year, Unicycling Darth Vader made a big splash playing the Imperial March on the bagpipes. But this year, he's upgraded to bagpipes that shoot flames. Which is worth celebrating. [via GMA]

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stoneofthehapless:

evanpalmercomics:

Part 1 of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Ainulindalë. Part 2 tomorrow.

This may be one of the most beautiful Tolkien creations I’ve ever seen. 

Morten Myksvoll

The National Security Agency (NSA) and its British counterpart have successfully defeated encryption technologies used by a broad swath of online services, including those provided by Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo, according to new reports published by The New York Times, Pro Publica, and The Guardian. The revelations, which include backdoors built into some technologies, raise troubling questions about the security that hundreds of millions of people rely on to keep their most intimate and business-sensitive secrets private in an increasingly networked world.

The reports, published simultaneously by the NYT, Pro Publica, and The Guardian, are based on newly disclosed documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. They reveal a highly classified program codenamed Bullrun, which according to the reports relied on a combination of "supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders, and behind-the-scenes persuasion" to undermine basic staples of Internet privacy, including virtual private networks (VPNs) and the widely used secure sockets layer (SSL) and transport layer security (TLS) protocols.

"For the past decade, NSA has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies," the NYT reported, quoting a 2010 memo describing a briefing of NSA capabilities to employees of the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. "Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable."

Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

An airman upset at finding the USO at Logan's Terminal closed on Tuesday angrily harangued an airport worker about the situation and, after sputtering about the Marathon, allegedly said he had a pressure cooker in his backpack and asked what he was supposed to do with it, according to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office and State Police.

Neither the worker nor State Police were much amused and after a search across the entire airport, troopers found Jeremy Sawyer, 30, of Cicero, NY, at Terminal E and gave him the chance to experience the inside of a civilian brig. He sat there until East Boston District Court opened on Wednesday, after which he was arraigned on a charge of making a bomb or hijack threat.

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Comes from Crooks & Liars:

Florida Man Cites 'Bush Doctrine' After Pre-emptive Killing of Neighbors at Labor Day Cookout

And yes, that is exactly what it sounds like:

In their motion, Woodward’s attorneys claimed that the victims had called him names and threatened to "get him."

The motion referenced Enoch V. State, which suggests that an "imminent" threat can include something that is likely to occur at sometime in the future.

It may not take hold with this case, but the Bush Doctrine is the logical next step after Stand Your Ground: Get them before they get you. Imagine a future like Minority Report, only instead of Tom Cruise enforcing pre-crime with the help of the world's largest iPad and a hot tub full of psychics, it's just a bunch of average Americans with really strong hunches.

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notbolin:

if october to january isn’t your favorite time of the year you’re wrong

OnlyMrGodKnowsWhy

H/t @shebs

 

before

after

Established in 1995, Yahoo was one of the first internet juggernauts, serving as a portal into the web for hundreds of thousands of internet n00bs. Today, well, it’s big and it has… stuff on it. News, sports, games, other stuff, and then there are its more well rewarded properties: Flickr and Marissa Mayer (CEO and President since July 2012). The latter reinvigorated the former earlier this year with modicum success and now Mayer is trying to bring Yahoo back into the public’s awareness. And boy, she did. Thirty days ago, Yahoo announced it would be changing its logo at midnight today and that in the 29 days leading to it they would put up a new logo. After much build-up the new logo has been introduced and was designed by Mayer herself and Yahoo’s in-house design team.

29 Days of Build-Up

The new logo will be a modern redesign that’s more reflective of our reimagined design and new experiences. To get everyone warmed up, we are kicking off 30 days of change. Beginning now, we will display a variation of the logo on our homepage and throughout our network in the U.S. for the next month. It’s our way of having some fun while honoring the legacy of our present logo.

We also want to preserve the character that is unique to Yahoo! — fun, vibrant, and welcoming — so we’ll be keeping the color purple, our iconic exclamation point and of course the famous yodel. After all, some things never go out of style.

Yahoo! Tumblr post

The reactions to Yahoo’s 30 Days of Change stunt were mostly negative at worst and skeptical at best. No one came out and said “This is going to be great! Yahoo has my undivided attention for 30 days!”. It got a lot of publicity on the first and second days and then it fizzled slowly, even for me — where my job is to keep tabs on things like this, I just didn’t bother checking anymore. But, in contrast to most opinions, I actually thought this was a pretty astute idea: (1) It preemptively warned the millions of people that read Yahoo that change was coming so that there weren’t any surprises; (2) it demonstrated an exhaustive exploration of potential logos, basically shutting down all the usual “Isn’t my Yahoo logo better?” Dribbble posts; and (3) no one, not a single company this size or any size, has ever done this. Whether it was a good or bad idea isn’t the ultimate point, the fact that they did it was ingenious in itself.

Another complaint was that by showing 29 logos that are basically typographic explorations diminished the importance of the logo design process: You don’t just throw 30 logos out in the wind and see which one flies. No, you are supposed to engage in research and delve into the deepest corners of the company culture to emerge with a single, untouchable logo idea that captures every single essence of the company and… well, let me tell you that idealized process rarely happens, especially with companies this size, where it’s not uncommon, at all, for large design firms to show 10, 20, 30, 100 different logos, all equally feasible as logos to adopt. What made Yahoo’s effort more questionable is that it just seemed like a font-choosing exercise but the point is missed: we need to assume the decision was made that Yahoo needed to have a wordmark, not a doodad or an icon or a new illustration, just typography that seemed fun and was an evolution of the old. Then, all the above explorations are perfectly on target. Some suck, yes, but, again, none of them are out of the realm of possibilities as potential logos and most of them are reflective of what the larger percentage of design firms would have explored and shown to Mayer had they been given the same brief.

So, the stunt was mostly just a stunt but it worked in creating expectation and giving Yahoo some momentum into launching its logo. The problem is: the result did not deliver. Showing mildly venturesome graphic approaches throughout the 29 days gave me hope that there would be something radically cool at the end of the process. There wasn’t.

1 Day of Disappointment

On a personal level, I love brands, logos, color, design, and, most of all, Adobe Illustrator. I think it’s one of the most incredible software packages ever made. I’m not a pro, but I know enough to be dangerous :)

So, one weekend this summer, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the trenches with our logo design team: Bob Stohrer, Marc DeBartolomeis, Russ Khaydarov, and our intern Max Ma. We spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday designing the logo from start to finish, and we had a ton of fun weighing every minute detail.

Marissa Mayer blog post

We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo — whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud.

We didn’t want to have any straight lines in the logo. Straight lines don’t exist in the human form and are extremely rare in nature, so the human touch in the logo is that all the lines and forms all have at least a slight curve.

Marissa Mayer blog post

There it is: Yahoo’s new logo. And it’s just… fine. Had the old logo been introduced today it would have been panned for being too silly and child-like and Western-y but we’ve all come to appreciate its quirkiness. From all the explorations to end up with a Humanist sans serif a la Optima feels like such a big disappointment. Not because the wordmark is bad — it’s actually fairly nice — but because of the raised expectations that their new logo could be so radically different that it demanded 30 days of preparing the public. The most daring move Yahoo made was introducing the chiseled execution which is actually fairly daring for an audience that likes new, shiny things not old, musty things like the Trajan Column.

Overall, I am as disappointed as most people will be but I honestly believe there is some merit to the final logo and its subtleties. I also have the strange feeling some people will be disappointed with me for not ripping this logo apart but, let’s admit it, as much as it could have been better, it could have been a heck of a lot worse.

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