firehose

Men wearing a simple T-shirt look more attractive to women, according to new research.

The South China Morning Post reports that Lau Kar-leung—also known by his Mandarian name, Liu Chia-liang—passed away Tuesday morning at a hospital in Hong Kong. As a fight choreographer and later director at Hong Kong’s famous Shaw Bros. studio, Lau helped define the look and tone of the martial arts genre, combining authentic martial arts styles with a sense of good-natured showmanship and humor. He was 76.

Born into a martial arts family in Guangzhou, Lau studied under his father, who had in turn studied under a disciple of the Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung. It was through a series of popular films about Wong that Lau got his taste of the movie business, working as a stunt man and bit actor while still in his teens. In those days, fight choreography wasn’t taken seriously, and trained martial artists were treated like day laborers by the ...

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teadrunktailor:

austinotaku:

Here’s a martial art from the other side of the world. Lysts on the Lake is an international jousting tournament held just outside of Austin in Taylor, TX every year.

Sarah Hay, who is, quite possibly, the world’s top female jouster. Apart from the tornado scare, that was a heck of a tournament.

There's a new pest invading many American towns, and it's about as menacing as it sounds: the Asian tiger mosquito.

Dating Tip #217: Imply that she doesn’t use her brain.

Now we have a bit more clarity on what Edward Snowden meant last week when he said, “The US government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped.”

It turns out Snowden has given copies of the files he purloined from the US National Security Agency, his former employer, to “many different people around the world,” according to Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published some of the materials provided by Snowden. But the files are encrypted, so the people who have the documents can’t read them. “If anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives,” Greenwald told the Daily Beast.

How might that work? Snowden could be using any of a number of complicated cryptographic gambits.

Cryptography is a gatekeeper. It allows us to check our bank accounts, sign into email, and browse Facebook without worrying that any of that data can be intercepted by others (the NSA surveillance revealed by Snowden notwithstanding).

The simplest form of cryptography that Snowden and his allies could be employing would involve one person keeping an encrypted copy of the files and someone else holding the key necessary to decrypt it. But that method is vulnerable, relying on the trustworthiness of the person who has the key, and it doesn’t sound like what Snowden has done.

More complex, more secure, and more interesting would be a form of “secret sharing.” Essentially, the files can only be unlocked if each member of a group shares his portion of the encrypted information; or, alternatively, if several people are given encrypted portions and a combination of, say, any three of them is sufficient to unlock the files. For instance, this illustration represents the data shared by three people as intersecting planes; the point where they intersect represents the secret that is unlocked when they’re shared:

It’s obviously more complicated than that, and there are other methods Snowden could be using. How well he knows advanced cryptography also isn’t clear, but he’s receiving assistance from Wikileaks, which is skilled in it. Wikileaks has also used its own form of “insurance files” in the past.

Snowden remains in diplomatic limbo in the transit area of Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. As to what his insurance file contains, beyond what has already been revealed by the Guardian, Washington Post, and South China Morning Post, we have yet to find out; Greenwald told the Daily Beast that just the non-encrypted material Snowden gave him consists of “thousands of documents.”

The Ouya launched for the public today, and things at retail appear to be going pretty well - Amazon, at least, sold out early on. But Ouya founder Julie Uhrman is "pissed" because some Kickstarter backers haven't yet received their consoles, and she promised they would arrive before the retail version went live.

Uhrman says she delivered the backers' consoles to her distribution partner in May, but some orders remain unfulfilled.

"I am pissed," Uhrman writes in a Kickstarter update locked to backers only, seen by Games Industry. "Some of you have not yet received your Ouya, and to you, I apologize. I did not promise to ship to most of you before we hit store shelves. I promised to ship to all of you. I've been reading your comments, and we are working to solve this."

Ouya Head of Operations Ken Stephens says backers should expect their Ouyas in 15 to 17 days, as they're shipped from Hong Kong.

Joystiq Reviews Editor Richard Mitchell got his hands on an Ouya Kickstarter model in April, and he found it to be worth the price - noting that it costs $99. He's now playing with the retail model, and he says it's an improvement on the initial version.

Ouya founder on unfulfilled Kickstarter orders: 'I am pissed' originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 25 Jun 2013 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Naughty Dog has apologized for the unauthorized use of an unofficial Boston subway in The Last of Us. The map, examined intently by protagonist Joel above, wasn't made by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority or Naughty Dog. It's the work of a Portland-based artist named Cameron Booth, who posted earlier this week that it was used "without permission or payment."

e attacked Naughty Dog for stealing the work, and wrote (in a since-deleted post version) that he believed it unacceptable "to casually appropriate someone else's work and incorporate it into their game without any discussion."

Since Booth revealed his complaint, Naughty Dog has reached out to him and Booth has now deleted his initial post, replacing it with the news that an agreement has been made. "It seems as if matters will be resolved to everyone's satisfaction shortly," Booth now says. Booth also apologized for his "initial vitriolic post," adding that both sides share "a lot of mutual respect for each other's creative work."

Subway map artist and Naughty Dog settle The Last of Us complaint originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 25 Jun 2013 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Molyjam Deux will blow your mind - but in an entirely different way than it did last year. Molyjam is a game jam spawned from the Peter Molyneux parody account, Peter Molydeux, which tweets out ridiculous game ideas that wouldn't be out of place in the real Molyneux's feed. Last year, developers used Molydeux's tweets to create exciting games with absurd premises, but this year they'll build games based on quotes from the real Molyneux, provided without context.

"Molyneux is a man who needs no assistance when it comes to parody," the organizers of Molyjam Deux write. "His own words are strong enough. Who but Molyneux has the strength to say things like, 'Pull the right trigger to see The Most Interesting Thing In The World.' Or, 'It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate.'"

Molyjam Deux offers 22 Molyneux quotes for developers to use - inspired by Molyneux's studio, 22Cans - including, "If you love your dog, we're gonna mess with your mind, man. You're not going to be able to go to bed," and, "I still have nightmares about holding German sausages over my head."

Molyjam Deux runs from July 5 - 7 in a range of venues worldwide. Check out the regions on the Molyjam map.

Molyjam Deux to use real Molyneux quotes as inspiration for games originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 25 Jun 2013 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“YouTube comment threads are the taint of the Internet!” (x)

Do. Not. Read. The. Comments.

“

Espionage charges usually describe someone with classified information leaking that information to powers hostile to the United States government.

We, the people, are those hostile powers.

”

- A Look At The Charges Against Edward Snowden

This redditor’s duck is wearing a tuxedo.

This redditor’s duck is named JEFF.

This is Jeff the duck, in his … duxedo.

bulletin.io

PROS:

• Interface is snappy as all get-out. Almost Feedly fast, but looks better.
• Manual feed refreshes are quick; automatic refreshes are frequent.
• Readable, usable, extremely responsive design, even in desktop browsers.
• Flexible mark-as-read (all, older than a day, older than a week).
• Some third-party sharing support (Twitter, Facebook, App.net).
• Good read-it-later support (Instapaper, Pocket, the elusive Pinboard).
• Generally good rendering of difficult feeds (ie. Tiny Cartridge); handles embeds.
• GReader/vim-style standard keyboard shortcuts, including shortcuts to read-it-later and sharing options.
• API comes in both GReader-style and OAuth flavors.
• OPML import.
• 10-day trial, competitive pricing ($2/mo is the same as Feedbin and NewsBlur; $16/yr is less than either).

CONS:

• NO SOCIAL FEATURES. I’m mostly reviewing this one because its author asked. (Honestly, I’m glad I did, as it’s a good vanilla hosted RSS webapp.)
• NO SEARCH (but it’s a priority on the roadmap), NO TAGGING.
• NO “NOTE IN READER" EQUIVALENT, NO BOOKMARKLET.
• No OPML export; starring, but no GReader Takeout JSON import.
• Barfed on a few feeds that other services didn’t (but not nearly as many as NewsBlur). 
• Font size on items may be small for some (14px on desktop; text in blockquotes runs at 13px) and can’t be customized.
• Post dates and times on some feeds were pretty far off on initial import. (All entries of one comic appeared to be posted today.)

COULD GO EITHER WAY:

• Text and some images use the full width of list view—not great for readability for text but nice for large images.
• Some otherwise hidden Feedburner crap, like tracking images, end up rendering as the text of the filenames in the feed items.

UPDATES: OPML export is in the works; base font size in items bumped up to 15px.

The US Supreme Court will unleash its ruling in two monumental gay-rights cases within 24 hours. According to Chief Justice Roberts, SCOTUS Blog reports, "Tomorrow at 10 a.m. will be the last day and we will release all the remaining opinions."

The cases concern the Defense of Marriage Act (United States v. Windsor) and California's Prop 8 (Hollingsworth v. Perry). Here's an excellent flow chart from the New York Times on how the court could rule in those two cases. Tune into pretty much any website on earth—at 7 a.m. Pacific Time tomorrow for the decisions.

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bemusedlybespectacled:

if you ever think mythology is boring or serious business or whatever shit

just remember that cerberus, the hell-hound and guard dog of the underworld, comes from the root indo-european word ḱerberos, which evolved into the greek word kerberos, which got changed to cerberus when it went from greek to latin

ḱerberos means “spotted”

that’s right

hades, lord of the dead, literally fucking named his pet dog spot

sparkytheandroid:

HELP SOME ONE

icelandwantstobeyourfriend:

Halló friends, 

Here is a photo-graph of me, Iceland, eating a house. 

Bless, bless

tamarrra3:

Abandoned cottage in Iceland.

Having apparently determined that no Japanese actors would dare be a part of the Jonathan Liebesman-directed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, presumably given the original text’s importance to the Shinto religion, producer Michael Bay has been forced to make a decision regarding the reboot of a nostalgia property that will potentially upset people, just this one time. The previously announced William Fichtner has confirmed he’ll be playing Shredder—a villain whose real name, Oroku Saki, and back-story mark him as decidedly Japanese (when he’s not being played by Kevin Nash or Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air), yet who is now, decidedly, not. 

And yet, such are the sacrifices one must make when Japanese actors fear being reborn as wrathful spirits for profaning the sacred, even if it garners more accusations of racism toward Bay for whitewashing both of the Ninja Turtles' most recognizably Asian roles ...

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THIS ARCADE STYLE NEO GEO /19" SCREEN GAME MACHINE IS OPERATIONAL, AND IS IN USE AT THE TIME AT THE OREGON FLEA MAKET 18340 SE.STARK, PORTLAND OREGON 97233 HOURS OF OPPERATION ARE: THURS & FRIDAY 12:30-6:PM! SAT & SUNDAYS FROM 9:30 AM - 6:00 PM! THE OWNER OF THE FLEA MARKET IS AWARE OF THE SALE, BUT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SALE!

Thunder Blade (Sega - arcade - 1987)

Disney has announced July 8, 2016 as the release date for a third unnamed Marvel Studios Phase Three film.

The popular network will bring back all 90 of its current sun-soaked shows about spies or lawyers or something.

Ho ho, you are no match for the mage-knight and her enchanted spellblade! Best accompanied by some fitting 8-bit music.

(*secretly hopes someone busts out RPG Maker and turns this into a real thing*)

Midsummer is a good time to order a hat for fall so that it is ready to be worn shortly after Labor Day (straw hats are of course another thing altogether), and I found myself looking for inspiration from Stephen Temkin's Leon Drexler site with that in mind. Stephen has been making hats for me for several years now and I have always been happy.

During that browsing I noticed Stephen's Stroller model , which is a less formal homburg without the rolled edge. In San Francisco you see we have our summer in the spring and fall, before and after straw hat season, and that means beaver felt instead of straw. I have also taken to wearing more light colored warm weather suits these past few years. That combination got me thinking about a lighter-in-color Stroller that would look like something a would-be boulevardier might wear about town in the sunshine. Not to mention that I just like homburgs.

When I emailed Stephen about the thing, I said that a limestone version like the hat in the top photo might be just the thing. I thought it was a creamy sort of color but limestone turns out to be the same light gray of my Burgunder country hat and my pork pie. So I asked for something creamier and he pointed me towards what he calls tusk, a version of ivory. Bingo.

Next we discussed the ribbon that is the second most prominent feature of any hat, and Stephen initially recommended either the grosgrain in the second photo, a color he calls Blazer. It is a blue-grey that shows different hues from blue-green to indigo to blue-violet depending on the light or a straight-up neutral grey.

I felt the Blazer a bit flashier than I am, and the gray lacking in contrast so we settled on the dark gray ribbon in the third photo along with an edge binding that is similar to the ivory of the hat.

After only four emails the choice is made. It only remains to wait for September.