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Mont. judge apologizes for comments in teen's rape - Houston Chronicle
Mont. judge apologizes for comments in teen's rape Houston Chronicle BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A Montana judge on Wednesday stood by his decision to send a former teacher to prison for 30 days for raping a 14-year-old girl who later killed herself, but said he "deserved to be chastised" for his comments about the young victim. and more » |
Isaac Asimov's 1964 Prediction Of 2014 Is Frighteningly Accurate
ignorantarmiesclashbynight: Man with synesthesia creates map of...
New Mercury Comic: Creased Comics
Doods and doodettes who love Brad Neely will cry like doves when they realize we're running his Creased Comics in the paper now.
Remember when Neely's Babycakes, Professor Brothers, and music videos about historical celebrities like George Washington were making our pre-recession lives a wee bit more joyful? Well, we never forgot those days and we're bringing them back with Brad "The-Brain-Fuckler" Neely in the paper.
You're welcome!
Vino Loco, A ‘Crazy’ Spanish Wine Wrapped in a Straitjacket
Creative agency LOLA Madrid is the behind the creative straitjacket packaging of Vino Loco, a “crazy” white wine produced by Bodegas Canopy.
image via Des Del Probador
Why Mario Batali ditched his Fort Point location - Boston.com
firehose"the owner of a nearby restaurant who asked that his name not be used"
Top 25 Corgi Hybrids
firehoseno god satan only shiba corg
1. Corgi/Chihuahua
Via.
2. Corgi/Dachshund
Via.
3. Corgi/German Sheppard
Via.
4. Corgi/Golden Retriever
Via.
5. Corgi/Husky
Via.
6. Corgi/Long Haired Dachshund
Via.
7. Corgi/Westie
Via.
8. Corgi/Jack Russell
Via.
9. Corgi/Chow
Via.
10. Corgi/Dalmation
Via.
11. Corgi/Basset Hound
Via.
12. Corgi/ Toy Poodle
Via.
13. Corgi/ Yellow Lab
Via .
14. Corgi/Black Lab
Via.
15. Corgi/Pomeranian
16. Corgi/Cockapoo
Via.
17. Corgi/Aussie Cattle Dog
Via.
18. Corgi/Papillon
Via.
19. Corgi/Australian Shepherd
20. Corgi/Yorkie
Via.
21. Corgi/Beagle
22. Corgi/English Bulldog
Via.
23. Corgi/Sheltie
24. Corgi/Boder Collie
25. Corgi/Shiba Inu
Puppy Pile: A Card Game about Puppies and Treats
Every time I play Reiner Knizia's Poison, I want to hack it into something a little more robust. But then I realize I'd probably be re-inventing Paul Peterson's Smash Up. Surely there is a middle ground somewhere between the two extremes. After all, the Hearts family of evasion trick-taking games is vast and old, so I bet we could come up with something a little gamery while still keeping it approachable. Here's a first attempt at it.
So the big thing with Poison is that you're trying to have the lowest score after a series of rounds. There are three cauldrons into which you're dropping potions and poisons. If you force the sum in a cauldron to exceed 13, you must take the cards currently in the cauldron and replace them with your new card. In the end of the round, you score 1 point per potion in your possession, 2 points per poison. You score no points for a specific type of potion if you possess the most of that potion, so you might try to "shoot the moon" once you're committed to a particular potion.
Smash Up is much more complicated, but the core of it is relatively similar. Instead of cauldrons, there are bases in which you drop minions. When the sum of Minion ranks exceeds the base's Defense rank, then the base is broken and anyone who has minions scores points as determined by that base. There are additional player-based effects by playing certain minions in certain bases, plus the bases themselves have special effects when they're broken. All this adds up to a very approachable, but distinctly gamer-oriented game.
I'm trying to figure out how we can add more depth to Poison without going so far as to make variable player powers. We can add persistent effects from round-to-round, which would make this a bit more strategic though.
PUPPY PILE
A Trick-Taking Game for 2-6 Players
This game is about piles of puppies chomping on dog treats. It has a deck of cards showing puppies in various breeds and quantities. Each card also shows a number of dog treats.
SETUP
Shuffle the whole deck and deal it all to each player. It's okay if this makes uneven hands. The youngest player takes the first turn in the first round. In each round thereafter, the first player role passes to the left.
PLAY
On your turn, take a card from your hand and place it in the middle of the table, starting or adding to the puppy pile.
- If the sum of puppies is thus greater than the sum of treats, you take all the cards that were in the pile and replace it with the card you just played. Keep collected cards face down in front of you.
END OF ROUND
The round ends when all players hands are empty. Any puppies left in the pile are not collected by anyone.
Count how many of each breed you've collected. You score points equal to the fewest of a breed you've taken.
So in the example above, you score 1 point because the lowest quantity of a breed you have is 1 Labrador.
Make a note of the breed(s) you scored this round, because you'll get a breed bonus for collecting that breed in future rounds.
BREED BONUS
If you score a breed that you've collected in the past, you'll score the following bonus points.
Scored Once Before: Score x2 Points Now
Scored Twice Before: Score x3 Points Now
Scored Four Times Before: Score x4 Points Now
Scored Five Times Before: Score x5 Points Now
END OF GAME
The game lasts for one round per player. The player with the most points wins!
White House picks names for NSA review panel, led by former CIA chief
firehose"As per earlier White House statements, the panel will not officially report to Clapper, but file its findings directly to the president."
" In 2010, Glenn Greenwald wrote an article criticizing Sunstein for his unorthodox 2008 proposal targeting conspiracy theory groups, prompting some to question Sunstein's commitment to privacy.
Richard Clarke is another notable figure, having come to prominence for his role in the 9/11 commission and emerged as one of the central voices warning of Al Qaeda's intentions before the attacks. More recently, he has called for increased federal web monitoring as a way to counter Chinese espionage."
The White House has named its choices for the NSA review panel, charged with investigating data collection practices in the wake of the Snowden leaks. According to an ABC News report, the panel will be lead by Michael Morrell, who served as acting director of the CIA until March of this year. Morrell will be joined on the panel by legal scholar Cass Sunstein, State Department veteran Richard Clarke, and privacy advocate Peter Swire. The group plans to file an interim report to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in 60 days, followed by a full report to be filed by the end of the year. As per earlier White House statements, the panel will not officially report to Clapper, but file its findings directly to the president.
So far, Sunstein's appointment has attracted the most criticism. The Harvard law professor has written widely on public issues ranging from animal rights to modern conceptions of free speech, and served as a close advisor to President Obama since his Chicago days. In 2010, Glenn Greenwald wrote an article criticizing Sunstein for his unorthodox 2008 proposal targeting conspiracy theory groups, prompting some to question Sunstein's commitment to privacy.
A full report will be filed by the end of the year
Richard Clarke is another notable figure, having come to prominence for his role in the 9/11 commission and emerged as one of the central voices warning of Al Qaeda's intentions before the attacks. More recently, he has called for increased federal web monitoring as a way to counter Chinese espionage. "If government agencies were authorized to create a major program to grab stolen data leaving the country, they could drastically reduce today’s wholesale theft of American corporate secrets," Clarke wrote in a 2012 New York Times editorial. Clarke also speculated that the Obama administration had declined to act "because it is fearful that government monitoring would be seen as a cover for illegal snooping."
Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State, is the strongest privacy advocate in the group, having worked as a mediator in federal efforts to promote Do Not Track protocols. He also served as chief counselor for privacy in the Clinton Administration.
- Via The Hill
- Source ABC News
- Related Items nsa surveillance richard clarke cass sunstein peter swire michael morrell barack obama
A Brief History Lesson on the Name "Portland"
We all know our fair city is named after Portland, Maine. "Blah blah blah three pennies blah blah thank god we're not called Boston, OR." But it occurred to me that everything on the East Coast is named after something in Europe, so I decided to learn a bit more about the Portland Namely Tree.
Just as I suspected, Portland, ME is named after the Isle of Portland in the English Channel, but that was a change from its original and much superior name Falmouth Neck. I would WAY rather our town have inherited the name Falmouth Neck, OR but what can you do.
The Isle of Portland is the Portland that started this whole mess, presumably named after the fact that there was a port there and it was some land. Fortunately, "Isle" didn't make the jump across the Atlantic, allowing future cities to have only two geographical words smashed together instead of three.
US cities aren't the only progeny of that Portland. Portland Stone is a kind of limestone mined from the Isle of Portland. Portland Cement, which is used in most concrete, is made from a different kind of limestone but was so named because it looked like Portland Stone. For the same reason, I would have named it Gray Cocaine Cement.
Portland, Victoria in Australia was NOT directly named after the Isle of Portland, but rather took its name from the middle man, 2-peat British prime minister the Duke of Portland.
The good news is we're the biggest (and best!) Portland in the world. Portland, ME has a metro population of half a million while Portland, Victoria and the original Isle of Portland have only 22k people between them. The Duke of Portland had a population of 1.
It's too bad we don't get to do much city naming anymore. But if we did, I think we've learned enough to not name cities after other cities. Cements and dukes, go for it.
Update: Other Portlands
Obviously this list wasn't exhaustive, just my favorite Portlands. There are 20+ other cities named Portland around the world. Some other notables:
* Portland, TX (Named after Portland, ME. Includes #73 on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail!)
* New Portland, ME (Oh shit! I hope old Portland, ME doesn't find out they've been replaced)
* Portland Parish, Jamaica (A leading producer of breadfruit, which is totally a thing)
* Portland Street, Hong Kong (famous for it's red light district, but in China red lights just mean communism)
Sportsgraphic: NFL’s Top 10 Linebackers
firehose"6. Terrell Suggs: Only playing professional football to fulfill a condition in his father’s will to get access to the Suggs family fortune"
    
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Two fires in Somerville under investigation by state fire marshal; no major injuries reported - Metro - The Boston Globe
OnlyMrGodKnowsWhyCrap crap crap. (I heard the sirens on their way to the second one, I think. There were two firefighters at my Starbucks this morning, as well, loading up. “You’re gonna need a venti to get through today.” — one to the other)
A pair of two-alarm fires broke out early this morning about a mile apart in Somerville, causing significant damage and displacing at least two families, fire officials said.
The fires come after a rash of fires that have worried the community. Three house fires in recent months have been deemed arson, and three others are suspicious, city officials said Aug 19. A reward of up to $15,000 has been offered for information that leads to an arrest in connection with the fires.
Officials said this morning that both of the latest fires are under investigation by the state fire marshal’s office, along with Somerville fire officials.
The first fire, at 85 Bromfield Road, was reported to authorities at about 5:30 a.m., Somerville Fire Chief Kevin Kelleher said.
The fire originated on the front porch of a small apartment building and spread to all three floors. An unidentified number of residents, mostly Tufts University students, were displaced, Kelleher said.
Roughly 15 minutes after firefighters arrived at the Bromfield blaze, another two-alarm fire was reported at 313 Summer St., a mile away. At the second scene, a car fire extended to a nearby building, displacing both families in the two-family residence, officials said.
Both fires took about half an hour to control and extinguish, Kelleher said, though crews remain on scene. The fire chief said both buildings can be salvaged.
One firefighter suffered minor injuries, he said.
The recent fires have not resulted in any severe injuries, but caused several millions of dollars of damage, officials said.
Jasper can be reached at jasper.craven@globe.com or on Twitter @Jasper_Craven
Merrill Lynch settles US race discrimination suit for $160m - BBC News
firehosewhoa hey forgot for a second that Merrill Lynch was actively racist
BBC News |
Merrill Lynch settles US race discrimination suit for $160m BBC News Brokerage giant Merrill Lynch has settled a racial discrimination lawsuit for $160m (£103.1m), which could affect as many as 1,200 employees in the US. It is one of the largest sums ever paid in a discrimination suit. "We are working toward a very positive ... Merrill Lynch settles discrimination lawsuitThe Augusta Chronicle Brokerage giant settles discrimination lawsuitTimesonline.com BofA's Merrill Settles Black Advisors' Suit For $160 MillionFinancial Advisor Magazine all 109 news articles » |
Film: Newswire: Hailee Steinfeld to join burgeoning ranks of teen assassins in Barely Lethal
firehoseso half of the plot of Kick-Ass 2 gets its own movie, ok
"Samuel L. Jackson also appears as Steinfeld's mentor, because of his contractual obligation to appear in every single movie."
Hailee Steinfeld, who carried the Coen Brothers' remake of True Grit at the tender age of 14, has joined the storied ranks of young female thespians to play killers-for-hire. (Ranks that primarily include Saoirse Ronan.) Steinfeld will star in Barely Lethal, with Fanboys director Kyle Newman behind the camera and Brett Ratner producing.
Steinfeld plays Megan, a teenage assassin who fakes her death and tries to blend in at a suburban high school, all to try to avoid archenemy Jessica Alba. While all other plot details are still under wraps, one can assume Alba's evil plan is to torture Steinfeld by forcing her to watch the Fantastic Four movies.
Samuel L. Jackson also appears as Steinfeld's mentor, because of his contractual obligation to appear in every single movie.
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Film: Great Job, Internet!: Use the Benedict Cumberbatch Name Generator to become Bandicoot Cheddarcheese
firehose"Fans of the charming British thespian who are too lazy to open up a dictionary and put together two funny sounding words now have a website that will do it for them"
robots are destroying real American jobs
Cumberbitches rejoice, for the Benedict Cumberbatch Name Generator is here. Fans of the charming British thespian who are too lazy to open up a dictionary and put together two funny sounding words now have a website that will do it for them. Each click creates a new humorously multisyllabic name like Billiardball Commonwealth, Blasphemy Crimpysnitch, and Syphilis Cankersore.
In addition to his charity work with The Prince’s Trust and Dramatic Need, Cumberbatch is a trained Shakespearean actor who studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, won an Olivier Award for his onstage performance in Frankenstein, and is currently playing one of the most famous characters in the British literary canon. He also he has a funny name and sometimes looks like an otter.
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wolveswolves: linshial submitted: Photographer Lassi...
firehosethis is the best inter-species buddy story
none of that babies shit, everything loves babies
linshial submitted:
Photographer Lassi Rautiainen recently captured the profound partnership between a she-wolf and a brown bear in the wilds of northern Finland. For days, he witnessed the strange pair meet every evening to share food after a hard day of hunting. No one knows when or how this relationship was formed, “but it is certain that by now each of them needs the other.”
(via la Republica, photo: IBERPRESS)
Sort of a Mowgli moment. “What has the Man-cub done now…?”
Gender and Game Mechanics: Part 3 – How we fare in Care and Justice
firehoseto cut through the sociological lingo, the fundamental design of conflicts, and especially conflict resolution, in traditional tabletop RPGs is an obstacle--overcomable, but still friction-generating--to a large chunk of the potential audience. Systems that allow broader methods of conflict resolution could potentially bring in a more diverse group of players--and, with form following function, could be more representative as a result.
This is part three 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 Series: Part 2 – Care and Justice Mediation.
Last time, I discussed care-oriented and justice-oriented mediation, and had a brief look at how the conflict resolution in traditional RPGs exhibited principles of justice oriented mediation. I ended by asking the questions:
What does engagement with justice oriented systems mean to a woman with care orientation? What does it mean to her relationship to the system, the game, the experience, the people she plays with and the hobby at large?
To understand this, the first thing we have to consider is what being care-oriented means – not in terms of gender, nor in terms of how we prefer to resolve conflicts - but in terms of what we need to do to communicate with those that don’t think the way we do. I think it’s helpful to think of this in terms of language as the two things work similarly. We learn them both in the same stage of development. Both are learned in an iterative process of observation and repetition that teaches us how to be in the world, forming a bridge between our identity and what our community tells us that should mean for us.
The longer we spend exercising our patterns, the better we are at working in them, and the more strongly we prefer them. At the same time, as we get older we obtain more exposure to new environments and learn what they expect from us. When we encounter communities that want different things from us than we have practiced and prefer, we learn (to varying degrees of success) to “code switch” or move between the language and orientation that we have practiced and try to “speak” the new community’s “language” in an effort to fit in. So even though we have learned default modes, we try hard to pick up other modes like second languages, and use them when we need to. However, as ESL speakers could tell you: even when we can become highly skilled in a new language, communicating outside your native tongue is never as easy, natural, comfortable, or as advantageous for you as communicating inside it – it’s fighting what you have learned as a default state.
This is not about capacity, it is about struggle. Any given care-oriented person may learn enough fluency and skill in justice mediation to perform as well as any given justice-oriented person, however they must struggle through and overcome cognitive friction to do so.
So if care-oriented folks can learn to work in justice-oriented systems, why do we care? Well, friction is an essential component here because we are talking about engagement with our hobby. We are not saving ourselves from legal strife, feeding our children, or making our lives out of the practice of RPGs. Rather RPGs are the place we come to play. To explore, create, dream, experience, relax and restore. Energy lost in overcoming friction translates to fulfillment and engagement loss to the participant in a place where fulfillment and engagement is the point. It’s like going for a leisure bike ride with your breaks half engaged.
Fluency gap isn’t just a matter of an individual’s struggle to perform in accordance with the activity, it’s also a matter of the quality of an individual’s interaction with other individuals engaging in the same activity.
Here we should go back and re-visit the definitions of the care and justice orientations from my last post where the value priorities of the two modes are revealed: relationship based communion, harmony and reciprocity (care) vs. individualistic autonomy, agency and fairness (justice).
These value systems as priorities are not just a product of the of each orientation, they are a causative factor of the orientation. Our community builds systems to fulfill goals, and goals are determined by what we value. We latch on to those systems that match values that sync with our identity. If I am a justice-oriented mediator, it is core to my interactional satisfaction that my rights as an individual have been met and respected. If I am a care-oriented mediator, it is essential to my interactional satisfaction that the harmony of our relationship has been attended to. These outcomes are often at odds with each other, and made more complicated in a RPG context where “my” means both me-as-player and me-as-character and me-as-storyteller and “our” means us-as player community, and we-in conflict, and us-as-characters-together.
Where a system favours one mode over another, the person who defaults differently than the one the system supports has their needs met less often. As a result, small beats of alienating interaction will accumulate over time. Strife between the system and the outlier will compound, and satisfaction will wane. Players will need things from the game, and from the community of play that others in the game are getting, but that are denied to us, and this may be acutely felt when the values of reciprocity and communion are core to the outlier.
We can not bring our best selves to, or take away the best experience from an environment that contradicts or denies our core values.
This kind of thing could net care-oriented players less satisfaction of experience, and lowered interest in play. It could mean less willingness to engage with the game-as-artifact, more alienation from systemic interaction and more desire to circumvent the mechanical system altogether. It could mean less engagement in the community, and more friction between her and her fellow players. It could mean less constructive ability to represent at the table because something’s in the way. This would all hold true for justice-oriented players playing in a system that had a strong care-orientation bias.
Where playgroups are composed of justice-oriented players playing games with a justice-oriented bias, none of this may matter at all. That game may fit that play and play-style like a glove. However designers who want their games to appeal to and be played by care-oriented players, communities that desire to be inclusive to women (and encourage their participation), and playgroups that have a mix of care and justice oriented individuals (be they men or women) might want to have a look at what and who their systems are supporting.
Next up: I want to move for a bit away from meta-analysis and towards some more practical and specific examples. I’ll try and highlight some games that that may aim to support care-oriented players, and have a look for games and/or system mechanics that seem to be exploring opportunities to satisfy the needs of both care and justice oriented players as a hybrid model. I’ll likely loot Nordic larps, Powered by the Apocalypse games (like Monsterhearts), and White Wolf games for examples and analysis.
(Gender and Game Mechanics: Part 3 – How we fare in Care and Justice originally posted on Gaming As Women.)
Related posts:
- Gender and Game Mechanics: Part 2 – Care and Justice Mediation This is part two of a series. The previous post...
- Gender and Game Mechanics Series: Part 1 – Introduction Disclaimer: This is the first part of what will likely...
- Game Design and Sexism: Player Feedback Mechanics This is the inaugural post in a series exploring how...
Gizmodo New Monopoly Cat Token Review: Me-Ow | Gawker A Stoned Sir Patrick Stewart Teaches His Girlf
firehose"The best part of the accompanying info, though, was the entire page's worth of tips for welcoming your new Monopoly friend into the fold. The presser emphasizes things like the importance of "[giving] your pets exercise, but when they're out walking, remember to take the $200 for them when they pass 'GO.' Pets should not have money" as well as keeping in mind that these are not real animals. Per the instructions, "if they start barking and meowing, seek help immediately." In other words, keep subordinates penniless to maintain power and talking to inanimate objects is bad. You're now ready to play Monopoly.
Test Notes: We have yet to actually play a game with the cat token or use it appropriately in any way."
Twerking: A Scientific Explanation - ABC News
Miley Cyrus twerks it up at the 2013 VMAs. Photo credit: Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images.
Twerking is such a complex, technical subject, only a Ph.D. researcher can explain how the body does what it does to make it happen.
Twerking is a combination movement involving a deep squat and a pelvic tilt, Michelle Olson, a professor of exercise science and a certified strength and conditioning coach at Auburn University in Montgomery, Ala., explained.
“You take a wide stance with your legs turned out at 10 and 2 so your hips are externally rotated,” she said. “Then you pulse up and down as you thrust the pelvis bone forward and back.”
WATCH: Miley Cyrus VMA Performance Stuns Crowd
Olson said the booty dancing move is a good “twerkout” for your butt and thighs. It also works the deep muscles of the hips and the core muscles of the lower back and abdominals. She said it will definitely shape and strengthen all those muscles as well as give them the stamina to do activities important to most people heavily involved in twerking like say, picking up a screaming child off the floor.
However, over-twerking might throw out the lower back or make the knees creak, Olson cautioned.
Translation? If you’re over 25, twerking may not be for you.
Sing a Song of Portland
firehose"Centered on venue-choked Burnside, the tour is being led not by some salty Portland lifer, but by one Sam Murray, a PhD student at Cardiff University, in Wales, who is writing his Doctoral Thesis on the Portland music scene."
This sounds two parts interesting and one part potentially humiliating: Know Your City is hosting a "Sing a Song of Portland"-themed walking tour on Sat-Sun Sept 7th & 8th, to "learn about the musical history of the Rose City, the issues effecting it today and then join together to sing some of the songs that have helped shape Portland’s music scene." Centered on venue-choked Burnside, the tour is being led not by some salty Portland lifer, but by one Sam Murray, a PhD student at Cardiff University, in Wales, who is writing his Doctoral Thesis on the Portland music scene.
KYC currently has a Q&A with Murray on their site, which helps explain the interest from someone so far away:
It all grew out of interest in Portland music, I listened to records from the likes of Laura Veirs, The Decemberists and Pink Martini and one day it clicked that they were all from the same city. I then came across an online mp3 of a Friday forum by the Portland City Club based around music in the city with Rachel Blumberg, Laura Veirs, Jared Mees and Dave Allen debating how the city can respond to its every expanding music scene. I then thought there’s gotta be a thesis in this so here I am three years later finally pursuing it. It is a privilege to study a city whose music I have been so passionate about for years.
The potentially humiliating part? The tour involves a sing-along element, so... be prepared for that. Tickets to both tours can be had right here ($10 for members, $12 for norms), and they're even throwing in a copy of Northwest Passage: 50 Years of Independent Music from the Rose City with every purchase—whatta bargain!
Facebook Introduces “Social Butterfly Blue” Nail Polish. Thank You?
Shoppers go by 'honor system' at Wayne store that should have been locked - News 12 New Jersey
News 12 New Jersey |
Shoppers go by 'honor system' at Wayne store that should have been locked News 12 New Jersey You need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player to view the video related to this article. Download Now. A group of young men dubbed "honest shoppers" have come forward after they walked into a Wayne store that was supposed to be closed, took ... With no clerk at store counter, honest men still pay for itemsfox4kc.com all 61 news articles » |