Phil Fish, the creator of celebrated indie video game Fez, is notorious for voicing angry, controversial opinions about the state of video games and their development. Today, however, he seems to have ragequit on the entire video gaming community, and has taken the sequel to Fez down with him. On his Twitter account and on developer Polytron's website, Fish has announced that Fez II has been canceled.
Polygon and Joystiq both independently confirmed with Fish that it's not a joke: the game is no more. Developer Polytron also confirmed the cancellation in a tweet to its followers, writing "we apologize for the disappointment."
"Compare your life to mine and then kill yourself."
What happened? It's not clear, and Fish writes that it "isn't the result of any one thing," but the game's cancellation did come at the end of an unprecedented tussle on Twitter. GameTrailers host Marcus "AnnoyedGamer" Beer and Fish got into an argument after Beer called Fish a "hipster," a "tosspot," a "wanker" and a "fucking asshole" on yesterday's episode of Invisible Walls, a GameTrailers video podcast, after Fish refused to answer questions about Microsoft's decision to allow indie developers to self-publish on Xbox One. Fish then lashed out at Beer, claiming that the GameTrailers host had assassinated his character, telling Beer to "compare your life to mine and then kill yourself," and asking him to apologize on camera.
The argument culminated with Fish writing "im done. FEZ II is canceled. goodbye," and locking his Twitter account.
Phil Fish's struggles with the video game industry to bring the original Fez to market were chronicled in Indie Game: The Movie, a documentary film which debuted last summer.
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Watching Terms and Conditions May Apply (TACMA) is sort of like watching Ars’ tech policy coverage—but in an 80-minute feature film.
The documentary, released last week, will particularly interest your smart (but less tech-savvy) friends who shrug at things like the most recent NSA metadata surveillance scandal. American technology law and policy can often feel too niche, despite the fact that the issues in question apply in some way to nearly everyone on the Internet, as American companies are so dominant online. But this film might just be the most fun and accessible way to learn about what’s been happening to all of us, online, over the last 15 years.
Filmmaker Cullen Hoback adeptly uses a combination of cutesy animation, archival footage, and even guerilla journalism to make a movie that’s informative, frightening, and compelling to watch. Hyrax Films provided Ars with an advance copy—it opened in New York earlier this month and is currently being screened this weekend in Denver. In late July and early August, TACMA will screen in tech hubs San Francisco and San Jose, as well as Phoenix, Portland, Dallas, Richmond (Virginia), Toronto, and San Diego.
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So I read the other day how much Wil Wheaton loved the new Star Trek movie, and well, this happened….
YOU GUYS YOU GUYS YOU GUYS.
(chuckle)
please stop sending or submitting messages about this topic
firehoseyay Francis
boo haters
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Lower Manhattan Plan of 1966
What was supposed to be a small traffic plan for a single building that didn’t even get off the drawing board soon ballooned into something much more ambitious. Inflated by the same energy that had just began building the original World Trade Center this plan set out to turn the tip of lower Manhattan from a forgotten section of the city with rotting piers into a futuristic 24 hour mixed use neighborhood. Superblocks of housing and offices would ring the tip of the island from Canal St to the Battery and up to the Brooklyn Bridge. New underground highways would move traffic off the streets which would be returned to the pedestrian.
Things didn’t turn out exactly as planned. The World Trade Center, meant to bring rebirth to the area, opened in the middle of an economic decline for the entire city and actually made things worse by gobbling up the few tenants left in many of the antiquated pre-war office buildings. The first phase of the new mixed use neighborhoods built on made land in the river languished for a generation before Battery Park City was reorganized along more traditional urban planning theories.
The dream lives on, however, as Mayor Bloomberg recently announced plans for a Seaport City along the East River.
Tantei Jingūji Saburō (Data East - Famicom - 1987)
25th anniversary wallpapers for Tantei Jingūji Saburō, a.k.a. Jake Hunter for us yankee doodle dandies. Happy Swagiversary, Jake Hunter. We wish more of your games came out in the West (Though your new 3DS game, Rondo of Vengeance, ain’t looking too hot visual-wise, nahmean? That’s cool tho. At least we got these wallpapers.).
At first I thought my mind was going. My wife and I, on vacation recently, had just settled in for an episode from the final season of 30 Rock. I had purchased it from Amazon Instant Video for a couple of bucks because Netflix didn't have the final season yet, and if there is one guaranteed benefit to not being a dirty pirate, it's studio-quality audio and video, right?
Imagine my surprise, then, when the volume began subtly modulating. For 30 seconds, Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey were shouting at me; for 30 seconds, they were whispering. Well, crazy things happen—perhaps the version of the episode shipped over to Amazon had been mastered poorly by some summer intern.
My wife and I watched another episode. The volume shenanigans continued. Surely NBC couldn't cock up two entire episodes of a hit show? I began to think dark thoughts about Amazon and its video service, and I would have continued thinking those dark thoughts except that, a day or two later, I dialed up a Daily Show episode on Hulu. Yet again, the volume fluctuated.
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Daily Mail |
Massive jailbreak near Benghazi, Libya, lets more than 1000 inmates free
CBS News TRIPOLI, Libya Libyan security officials say more than 1,000 detainees have escaped from a prison near the eastern city of Benghazi in a mass jailbreak. A government security official in Benghazi, Mohammed Hejazi, said the jailbreak happened Saturday at ... Inmates Escape From Libyan PrisonWall Street Journal 1000 prisoners escape from Libyan jailTelegraph.co.uk Libyans protest killing of activistHouston Chronicle The News International -CBC.ca all 31 news articles » |
firehoseMoebius beat
firehosevia saucie
fuck yeah grassroots
A new stretch of bike lanes debuted in Brooklyn this week, but this time they're not being met with outrage or protests.
The physical distance between a famously contested Prospect Park West bike lane in Brooklyn's upscale Park Slope neighborhood and the city's newest lane, on Brownsville’s Mother Gaston Boulevard, is only about three and a half miles. But the economic gap is huge. Brownsville remains one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City, with a stubbornly high crime rate.
All the more reason, says longtime Brownsville resident Bettie Kollock-Wallace, to provide better infrastructure for the many area residents who ride bicycles for transportation and exercise, and for the many more who want to but are scared to try.
At 75, Kollock-Wallace has the posture and muscle tone of a person half her age. She credits a lifetime of physical activity that began when she was a girl in South Carolina. “I have been an athletically inclined person from birth,” she says. “I think I came out kicking.”
After retiring as an educator, Kollock-Wallace threw herself into a variety of fitness pursuits – becoming a certified physical trainer, learning how to swim and teaching others to do the same as a volunteer at the local recreation center, and riding her trusty 20-year-old Royce Union bicycle.
But the attitude she got from drivers on the street bothered her. “People do not respect bikers,” she says. “They have a tendency to resent them.” Friends and neighbors who might have been interested in riding with her were put off by the hostile environment. “A lot of people have fear of the traffic,” she says.
Bettie Kollock-Wallace worked for two years to bring bike lanes to Brownsville. (Sarah Goodyear)
So she set out to do something about it. Kollock-Wallace serves as the chair of the local community board, a position that has allowed her to advocate for improvements in the neighborhood she's called home for 40 years. One of the improvements she wanted to see was bike lanes. So, back in 2011, she started pushing.
“You see, some of us bloom when we’re old,” she says with a mischievous smile, referring to her role as a community advocate. “You have to either have to have a lot of energy or be a little bit crazy, and I’m some of both.”
The new bike lanes are just one of many efforts by neighborhood partners to increase opportunities for healthier living in Brownsville, including walking groups for seniors and a program that brings fresh produce to the neighborhood.
The Brownsville Partnership worked together with the city’s departments of health and transportation to get community support for the bike lanes, an effort that took two years. A host of other partners, including the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives and the local business improvement district, were also part of the effort.
“It took two years of love, perseverance, and collaboration,” said Rasmia Kirmani-Frye, director of the Brownsville Partnership, as she stood outside the Brownsville Bike Shop on Mother Gaston Boulevard. “Now Brownsville is no longer disconnected.”
Several speakers at the ribbon-cutting emphasized that the lanes would provide a link between the long-isolated streets of Brownsville and the rest of Brooklyn.
In her speech to the modest crowd that assembled for the ribbon-cutting, Kollock-Wallace issued a challenge.
“It is a pleasure to be a model for all of you who are younger than I am,” she said to cheers. “And if you have not yet chosen to be a model, let’s do so today. Everybody’s watching you – everybody’s watching you. So let’s do something that will make people a better people.”
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firehosevia saucie
St. Jack cocktail program is A+ so this should be at least B-
firehoseMohawked Storm autoshare
firehoselook on the bright side, completing that is going to knock at least two rows out of the middle of your heart and make it look way more like a butt
firehoseMarina Abramović beat
Sixty-five-year-old Marina Abramović, widely regarded as the most successful performance artist living today, is asking for $600,000 on Kickstarter to complete the initial design phase of a new breed of art museum. The artist says she was inspired to create the Marina Abramović Institute, or MAI, during her last performance, an emotional 736-hour marathon in which she sat in a chair and invited visitors to sit across from her and look into her eyes.
The institute will host performance art in which the audience participates, as well as lectures and a library of "time-based and immaterial works." Enter, and you'll be asked to sign a contract promising to stay at least six hours. Then you'll don a lab coat and noise-canceling headphones, and put your belongings in a safety deposit box. You'll then be led through a series of exercises including some Abramović favorites, such as sitting across from a stranger and making extended eye contact, and meditating in a cave of crystals.
Abramović may catch some flak for the Kickstarter since she is very wealthy and could presumably raise the money through patrons, but asking for donations is a fitting way to start a project that depends so heavily on audience interaction.
firehosenever go
ABC News |
Police chief details tense moments of hostage rescue
MiamiHerald.com With six people already shot dead and crazed gunman Pedro Alberto Vargas holding two hostages in a bullet-riddled Hialeah apartment building, Police Chief Sergio Velazquez made the decision every top cop dreads: Send in the SWAT team to bring an end ... Florida gunman spoke of his angerTribune-Review Florida gunman kills 6 in standoff with policeNew York Daily News Florida hostage siege: Seven killed in HialeahBBC News The Oshkosh Northwestern -KAJ18 Kalispell Montana News -Watertown Daily Times all 233 news articles » |
firehosevia saucie
Toxoplasma gondii strokes its hive-goatee
Scientists at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom have discovered the receptor protein in human cells that triggers cat allergies. They anticipate that new drugs will be developed to bind the protein and prevent people from having an inflammatory response. More on Yahoo!: Cat Nurses Abandoned Puppy “It has long been known that cat allergies are caused by people reacting to cat proteins secreted by the salivary or scent glands being transferred to the fur," Dr. Clare Bryant, lead researcher, told Yahoo! Shine. “Other allergen—for example house dust mite allergy protein—trigger a receptor protein in host [human] cells and we wondered if cat allergen would have similar effects. We did not expect this to happen because the cat allergy protein is very different to the house dust mite protein, so we were very surprised to find that it triggered inflammation through the same receptor.
Alright, I’ve got another visual reference question. I hope you don’t mind. What book series was Nita’s Manual based on? I’ve tried looking around online but can’t find anything close enough to what was described in SYWTBAW to make sense as a reference point. Apparently the author for the book is a literary reference, so nothing to be found there, and searching the publisher didn’t help either.
You know, for a few moments there I was truly freaked. I did a little Googling earlier in the morning and found no references to anything but my own book, and a little while later found myself wondering, “Holy shit, did I imagine those?"… But it wasn’t possible. I’d held them in my hands, checked them out of the library: they were real. Just a bit old, from this end of time, and older books don’t always appear well in Google searches.
So I went to the Library of Congress website, which of necessity (as a depository library for professionally published books) would have had copies of the books, and cataloging info. And sure enough, they did.
You’re quite right, the “Hearnssen" cited as the book’s author in So You Want To Be A Wizard is a hoary old in-joke: a reference to Herewiss Hearn’s son, the main character in The Door Into Fire. But in the original "So You Want To Be A…" series on which I was riffing, the authors varied from volume to volume.The publisher was Harper & Row (previously Harper Brothers) in New York, and the books seem to have started coming out in the late 1950’s, with a burst of them following in the early 60’s. They seem to be aimed at what we think of as “the professions".
See the following URLs at the Library of Congress site:
Also in the series are …Doctor, …Lawyer and …Professional Officer, though I didn’t go as far as picking up the LoC URLs for those.
…Something that charms me in retrospect is that the “Alan E. Nourse" who wrote or cowrote on …Physicist, …Surgeon and …Nurse is in fact the excellent adult and YA SF writer responsible for Star Surgeon (a book that I dearly loved, and which set me up to appreciate James White’s work later).
The original So You Want To… books would seem, by the evidence of Google, to be almost forgotten now, despite having been the source of the “So You Want To [Be A]…" verbal meme which has set itself moderately deeply into US usage. It’s funny, sometimes, how ephemeral even the printed page is. And getting more so every day…
Meanwhile, used copies are still to be found at AbeBooks. Interested parties should check these urls:
…And now I can go back to being relieved that the foundation pun for my best-known work is not based on a hallucination. :)
firehose"Eidos Montreal has given us a lot of freedom in terms of story; they want this movie to be Blade Runner. We want this movie to be Blade Runner."
"When people ask me if there's ever been a truly good video game movie, I always say: 'Yes, Mortal Kombat.' And they say: 'but that was 20 years ago.' And I say: 'Yeah, it was.'"
nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope nope nope nope
The live-action film adaptation of the Deus Ex video game series will be a cyberpunk movie, not a video game movie, according to co-writer Robert Cargill.
Films based on video game universes have in the past left a lot to be desired — many have been characterized by bad scripts, poorly-developed characters and a lack of care for the IP. Cargill said during San Diego Comic-Con last week that he'd originally been less than confident about the Deus Ex film when he was first approached to co-write the script, but Eidos Montreal's willingness to hand the reigns of the story over to the writers gave confidence.
"It's not a video game movie, it's a cyberpunk movie," Cargill said. "Eidos Montreal has given us a lot of freedom in terms of story; they want this movie to be Blade Runner. We want this movie to be Blade Runner."
Cargill expressed his desire to make a video game film that isn't mediocre, adding: "When people ask me if there's ever been a truly good video game movie, I always say: 'Yes, Mortal Kombat.' And they say: 'but that was 20 years ago.' And I say: 'Yeah, it was.'"
Coverage of Cargill's Comic-Con talk can be viewed at Screen Rant.
Polygon's Comic-Con coverage about the future of movies based on games can be read here. In our piece, we round-up opinions from various directions and writers who are adapting some of gaming's most-loved franchises into live-action films.
firehosevia otters: "must-read"
why women who write memoirs are memoirists, but men who write memoirs are journalists
This past fall, I went with seven other third-year nonfiction MFA students from the University of Pittsburgh to New York to pitch editors and agents. Incidentally, we are all women. All young women…
firehoseTW, obviously; notable since ICE were watching them for 18 months while the girl was captive and did nothing. Unclear whether ICE knew the girl was being held captive.
