firehose

San Francisco Chronicle

FBI: No investigation involving journalist Michael Hastings USA TODAY BURLINGTON, Vt. – The FBI is denying reports that journalist and Vermonter Michael Hastings, who was killed in a single-vehicle car wreck Tuesday in Los Angeles, was the subject of a bureau inquiry. "At no time was journalist Michael Hastings ever under ... FBI insists Michael Hastings was not under investigationLos Angeles Times CNN Report Investigates Conspiracy Theories Surrounding BuzzFeed Reporter ...Mediaite Los Angeles coroner IDs journalist Michael Hastings as man found dead after ...Washington Post The Week Magazine -U.S. News & World Report -KABC all 99 news articles »

Two game books worth supporting

Two projects have popped up on crowdfunding sites that I think would be of mega interest to TC readers, since they’re pretty interesting to TC writers!

2KB of Fun by Martijn Koch is a book about handheld games made between 1976-1985!  It celebrates “a combination of the joy these games offered and the magnificent feat that their designers managed to create arcade-like game play in 2kB of memory.” It’s full of beautiful photos and info about rare and unusual vintage handhelds, and I’d like to have a copy. For some weird reason, though, it’s short of its funding goal with 12 days left.

The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers will be the result of John Sczepaniak’s (of Hardcore Gaming 101) trip to Japan in September, during which he will interview at least 40 Japanese game devs with an interpreter in tow. The list of planned interviews goes far away from the usual subjects, and even includes the Kacho himself, Shinya Arino, as well as tons of actual developers from well-known games/companies. A special edition of the book will include a “specially designed front-and-back double cover, by Wil Overton and Jonathan “Persona” Kim. Each artist will be given their own side to create something astounding and unique.” If it’s funded, which as of now it still isn’t, with 10 days to go.

Projects like these and SCROLL are super important to me, as someone who wants more funding avenues for personal game writing. If people are able to secure funding for their passion projects, suddenly the world of journalism/writing about games opens up and becomes way more interesting. And we get cool books.

The disturbing prevalence of violence against women

THE figures are chilling. More than one-third of all homicides of women are committed by a current or former partner. And nearly a third of women report having experienced violence at some point in their lives, either physical or sexual, at the hands of a partner. In linked studies published today*, a regional breakdown shows the wide disparity of violence against women across the world. The first, released in the Lancet, a medical journal, looks at homicide. The authors reviewed published studies and conducted surveys of official sources to gain data for 66 countries from 1983 to 2011. They estimate that 13.5% of all homicides are committed by an intimate partner, and women are six times more likely than men to be killed by their partner.

Two other reports, by the World Health Organisation and one released in Science, a journal, are based on data from 141 studies in 81 countries from 1983 to 2012. They are the first attempt at a systematic study of global data on the prevalence of violence against women. As a result, the quantity of data available varies. Data for central sub-Saharan Africa, east Asia, and southern Latin America, and for women over 49, were scarce. (The regional breakdown by country can be found here.) Still, the findings are grim. Where 30% of women have experienced either physical or sexual violence at the hands of a partner, an additional 7% report sexual violence from someone who is not their partner.

* The Lancet and Science studies were led by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The Violence Against Women report was authored by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the World Health Organization and the South African Medical Research Council.

We all know that it's usually a good idea to not give more alcohol to really drunk people, and many places have made it illegal for bartenders to do so. The authors of this study decided to use actors pretending to be drunk to see how often such laws were obeyed in the Netherlands, and to follow up with the bartenders to find out why they were serving really drunk patrons. Not surprisingly, most of the actors were able to buy drinks no matter how drunk they appeared to be. But the best part

@rosalindofarden

Bird always eats dinner with us. Thought he should have his own setting.

3  0

»WEBSTAGRAM

It is my personal opinion that Black Thought is one of the best rappers to ever step to the mic. You may disagree. But, last night, the Roots’ lead vocalist dropped a set of lyrics dedicated to Super Mario Bros. over a re-arranged version of Koji Kondo’s immortal theme song. That definitely makes him an all-time MVP MC, right?

The performance is part of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’s Video Game Week and the verse is made all the better for being pretty on point with its references to Mario’s history. What’s up with calling Luigi a coward, though? Didn’t anybody tell Thought that this is the Year of Luigi? Reggie Fils-Aime might have something to say about that next time he comes back to the show.

Over the years, the “Jurassic Bark” episode of Futurama has developed a reputation as one of the saddest moments in cartoon history, if not the history of entertainment as a whole. Recently, the mere whisper of a return from Fry’s incredibly loyal dog Seymour in the trailer for the show’s upcoming final season was enough to send fans scurrying, unable to face the heartbreak of losing him all over again. But what if Seymour were voiced by Seth MacFarlane, as Entertainment Weekly reports he will be? Why, then your heart would be safe from breaking, swaddled as it is in MacFarlane’s velvety baritone! And so, thanks to recently enacted federal regulations stipulating that all animated shows must contain a requisite amount of MacFarlane, Seymour will have his “first and only spoken dialogue” in an Aug. 14 episode that takes place solely in Fry’s dreams. And much ...

Read more

Convenience Store | CO, USA

(I work near a campus which is currently in finals-week, so quite a few students come in early to get a pick-me-up before their exams. Five customers are in line; four regulars, followed by an impatient customer at the end. )

Impatient Customer: “Gods! Why can’t this b**** work the cash register faster? I’ve got some important things to do!”

Regular #1: “Calm down, buddy. She’s doing just fine.”

Regular #3: “Yeah. Like what you have to do is important to any of us.”

Regular #4: “Seriously. We’re all in a hurry here.”

Impatient Customer: “Yeah? Well, he’s not!”

(The impatient customer points at Regular #2.)

Impatient Customer: “I’m getting in front of him!”

(Regular #2 is very young, and looks like a college student at first glance. He also always comes in looking like he’s asleep, but gets in and out with no problem.)

Impatient Customer: “This dumb-a** probably stayed up all night cramming for his test! Stop leaving s*** until the last second dumb-a**!”

(The impatient customer starts forcing his way forward. As soon as he touches Regular #2, there is a blur of motion, and the impatient customer is flying towards a display. Another blur of motion occurs, and Regular #2 is standing in front of the display and the impatient customer is on the floor near the door instead.)

Regulars #1, #3 And #4: “What just happened?!”

Regular #2: “I didn’t want him crashing into the display and causing more work for this little lady here.”

Me: “[Regular #2's name] has practiced martial arts since he was eight. He helps out at [local dojo I go to].”

Regular #2: *to the impatient customer* “Also, aren’t you the lead for [name] with [company name]?”

Impatient Customer: “How’d you know that?”

Regular #2: “Because I’m the developer for the product you’ve requested from [other company name]. I’m going to be so glad to tell your boss this product isn’t viable, because his lead is impossible to work with. I do hope you enjoy your wait in line, because I’m going to personally make your workday miserable.”

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk is launching a talent agency for Twitter’s six-second video platform Vine called “Grape Story,” according to Fast Company. “A lot of people who are YouTube celebrities and have crossed over to Vine are not doing well,” Vaynerchuk tells Fast Company. “This takes a very specific skill. So we’re going to be looking for people who aren’t famous for anything else other than they artistically figured out how to storytell in six seconds.” Virgin Mobile is one of the first companies to hire talent from Grape Story, and Vine stars working for the agency will have creative freedom to tell any story while incorporating the company’s message or product.

image via Erik Kastner

Facebook is going to get us all watching television ads again.

Instagram, the photo-sharing app that Facebook acquired last year, just added the ability to share videos, as well. It’s a copy of Vine, which is owned by chief rival Twitter. But whereas Vine lets users upload videos up to 6 seconds long, Instagram has opted for a maximum length of 15 seconds, and the difference is more significant than just 9 seconds.

Facebook was already planning to unveil video ads in the fall as the company—along with many of its rivals—chases the white wale of the digital advertising industry: television. For all the money flowing into the coffers of advertising-supported internet giants, it’s important to remember that nearly twice as much advertising money is spent on television as digital—a projected $196 billion in 2013 compared to $113.6 billion.

Video advertising is already a big part of advertisers’ digital spend, and is projected to be responsible for a significant proportion of the 13.4% growth in digital advertising between 2013 and 2014. Take YouTube: In the past six months, mobile ad revenue for the site tripled, to $350 million.

An Instagram with 15 second videos is right in the sweet spot for Facebook: It’s mobile, it’s video, and at that length, it means that advertisers can drop in their short television spots without even modifying them. This is an important but overlooked feature of online video ads, when compared to other kinds like banner and search: the ability to re-use the same creative on which advertisers have already spent so much money. That’s an extremely appealing advantage to ad buyers.

Previously, changes to Facebook’s terms of service suggested that ads could be coming to Instagram. None can claim to know the mind of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but it certainly seems like he’s setting up Instagram, and by extension Facebook, to be a new home for one of the most lucrative forms of advertising.

Since 2003, the US federal government had a disturbing and anti-science restriction on the allocation of funding to groups combatting HIV/AIDS abroad. To receive funds, the groups had to state that they were anti-prostitution. Now the Supreme Court has struck this rule down, ruling it unconstitutional.

Read more...

Since our last foray into Actual Journalism was so well received (It was? -- Mark.), we’ve decided to give it another go. This time, we take a look at Game Salute, a company headquartered deep in the hinterlands of New Hampshire, a state that somewhat resembles in shape a standard reference pear.

Game Salute styles itself as a new kind of publisher, one that does much more than handle marketing and fulfillment (fulfillment meaning "getting the game out to customers", from receiving, to warehousing, secure storage, picking, packing, shipping, tracking, sales to stores globally and customer service).

Among the flexible services they offer are solutions for other publishers, and, intriguingly, managing Kickstarter campaigns, boasting such success stories as Alien Frontiers, as well as unique titles ranging from Chicken Caesar to Pixel Lincoln.

It was started as a response to the many pain points its CEO Dan Yarrington saw in the board game industry. To find out how the cure compares with the disease, we sent Actual Journalist Mark Wallace off to have a good long chat with Yarrington, and he came back (from a phone call, not from New Hampshire) with this exciting and informative Q&A!

Read More

Director Paul Feig's 2011 hit Bridesmaids shocked Hollywood by demonstrating that people will actually go to a movie that has girls in it, provided the ever-present risk of cooties is balanced out by a talented cast and a good script. The entertainment media breathlessly reported that times had changed, and The Year Of Movies With Girls In Them was upon us. That announcement was, of course, premature, and 2013 thus far has decidedly been The Year Of Movies With Very Few Girls In Them.

Of the 40 top-grossing movies this year, only four (Identity Thief, Mama, The Call, and The Host) have female leads, while three more (Safe Haven, Warm Bodies, Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters) have male and female co-leads. Amid this year's cinematic sausage fest, Feig stands alone as the only person in Hollywood who seems aware that women are both able to star in movies ...

Read more

If we find out that this is a viral marketing campaign for a 'Soylent Green' remake, I'll feel vindicated and I'll wonder how so many smart people fell for such an obvious hoax. If I'm wrong, I have to wonder what it says about our society.

This is happening.

GENEVA—Amid the spread of the deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, virus, the World Health Organization announced today that the only known cure for the fatal infection is, for some reason, the debut fragrance from pop star Adam Levine.

ABC News

UPDATE 2-US House deals shock defeat to Republican farm bill Reuters Thu Jun 20, 2013 6:46pm EDT. * Latest embarrassing defeat for Republican leaders * "No" votes include those who wanted less cuts, more cuts * Ag committee chairman vows: "we'll finish our work" * First time House rejected a farm bill, researchers say By ... House deals shock defeat to farm billCattleNetwork.com House defeats farm bill because of food stamp cutsChristian Science Monitor US House rejects $500 billion farm billUSA TODAY Columbus Ledger-Enquirer -Los Angeles Times -Washington Post all 946 news articles »

Fisa court submissions show broad scope of procedures governing NSA's surveillance of Americans' communication.

Hold on tight. This is going to be a long post. I kept my temper in the video, but here I can just come out and let you know that I’m livid. Every time I start thinking about this, I feel so angry and helpless that my face gets hot and my hands get shaky.  I’m getting ahead of myself though, so lets just back up a little bit and talk about a pretty cool kid named [Thomas].

[Thomas] has muscular dystrophy. This means he’s going to gradually lose strength and control in his muscles over time. He has already lost his ability to stand, and even holding buttons on a game-pad for extended times can be difficult. Gaming, as you can imagine, is very important to [Thomas] and people like him. It offers a release of frustration, like it does for all of us, but also a level playing ground. When he’s in the game, he’s like everyone else.

I did some quick research into what hardware is available. This is where I started to get angry. Something simple like this low pressure switch is extremely overpriced.  Take these two for example. Both are a single momentary switch with a cable and a case.

$70 dollars? $70 F*$&ING DOLLARS? This isn’t the computer interface, this is just the switch. We all know that we can buy those switches at retail prices for under a dollar.   At this point, I thought “man, these companies sure are inflating the price for insurance companies.”

I mentioned the insurance thought to [Thomas'] Mother. She said something that made me want to just sit down and cry right there. She replied “Oh no, the insurance companies don’t usually pay for this stuff. They don’t see it as a necessity.“  Maybe it is because I’m a parent, but this was devastating. I had a hard time even thinking strait after this visit for a while. I was so angry, so frustrated, and feeling so helpless, and I was only tangentially involved.

I made up my mind to do something more than just make a simple controller for [Thomas], I needed to help as many people as possible. More on that later.

[Thomas'] controller.

As you saw in the video, [Thomas] loves to play minecraft. I met with him and talked about what he needed in terms of a controller. At this point in time, [Thomas] doesn’t really need much. He can use an Xbox gamepad, a sixaxis controller, and keyboard and mouse. He has a little bit of trouble holding the triggers for more than a couple seconds, but he gets by.

This meant that I really didn’t have a specific problem to solve so I just tried to build something that would help the most people possible. I jumped from idea to idea, but ultimately fell onto the idea of modular buttons that could be reconfigured as needed.

I used a Teensy with extremely simple keyboard/mouse emulation code. This allows me to give the imputs to the games without the use of additional software.  I should point out here, that this isn’t a new or amazing idea. The super expensive buttons that I mentioned early plug right into something called a “switch box” that emulates mouse and keyboard. Usually the switchboxes even have a ton of features that mine does not have.

All mine does is emulates W,A,S,D, space, escape, E, Q, mouse movement, and right and left mouse clicks. That’s it.  That is all that was needed for minecraft.  I initially started making a system that used headphone jacks, like what I saw on the other systems but then had a better thought. By leaving the headers available, people could literally plug two wires into it and emulate a keyboard press. Need a button that takes very little pressure to activate(very common)? How about no pressure.

Since Thomas can still use a keyboard and mouse, my controller doesn’t help him much. He was a good sport about it, and we’re keeping communication open for the future, because unfortunately, he won’t be able to use the keyboard and mouse forever.

The files

I’m not an engineer. I just looked at what was out there and started doing super quick 3d printed cases. They’re not extremely well thought out, but they work.  Luckily Lulzbot gave me a 3d printer for this project so I was able to prototype and test very quickly. Please download these and improve them.

Here are the parts.

1. low pressure lever activated momentary switch.

Using a dirt cheap 6mm momentary switch, this case uses a lever for activation reducing the amount of pressure required to roughly 15 grams. It works like the one pictured above, and I think even if I include labor in the equation it would be less than $30.  There are several variations mainly because I didn’t have a good hinge idea.

Download the low pressure switch here.

2. The D-pad and quad button

This is simply a case for 4 6mm momentary switches. These have no lever, and require roughly 60 grams pressure to push, which is about the same as an Xbox controller.  They aren’t perfect, but they work.

Some people mentioned that they thought the D-pad needed more buttons to be like the Xbox one. If you disassemble an Xbox controller you’ll see there are only 4 buttons in there. It is NOT an 8 way system.

You can also see the controller shaped block I printed to hold these.

Download the D-Pad file here.

Download the quad button file here.

On a side note, use flexible stranded wire. I have no idea what I was thinking using solid core ribbons here. They won’t last long.

There are a few more files that you can download that came from this project:

The psp thumbstick case

The single button enclosure (unused in the final version)

The blank controller shape for sticking things to.

How can you help?

Like I said. I couldn’t just walk away. I went from thinking I would make [Thomas] a thing, to thinking I’d make a thing that would be perfect for EVERYONE! I even considered doing some kind of kickstarter or something to make a nice little business for myself.  None of those ideas felt right though.

I realized that I don’t need to be the one to help everyone by making a controller. While I did make a thing for [Thomas], my skill isn’t necessarily making stuff. My skill is sharing information, connecting people, and building community.

I have created Thecontrollerproject.com. This is a forum where people can offer their services to build custom interfaces. You don’t need to volunteer your time for free. Even with labor, some of these simple interfaces can be made cheaper at home than the commercial versions.  Many people need customizations that aren’t even available commercially.

Many of you are thinking “oh, the engineers will take care of this stuff”. STOP IT. YOU CAN HELP TOO.

I will personally put up easy to follow directions on how you can make some simple devices for people even if you’ve never soldered or touched a microcontroller. If you want to help, you can. Please do. I’m begging.

What if you don’t want to work, you just want to donate?

Fine, that’s good, but don’t donate to me. Go to Ablegamers.com and donate to the Able Gamers Foundation. They are striving for the same goals as me and have their act together.  They are already helping people all over the place and could use your contribution better than I could.  Check out this video below about the Able Gamers Foundation.

Filed under: Medical hacks

Hong Kong is an alluring place to live for many in mainland China, with its better investment opportunities, schools, and broader personal freedoms.

But becoming a Hong Kong resident isn’t easy for mainland Chinese because of emigration restrictions Beijing puts on mainland citizens. Hong Kong is also hesitant to see a deluge of mainlanders moving in. For wealthy Chinese, the latest scheme to skirt these restrictions involves pitching a tent in Gambia, at least figuratively. (As we’ve written before, Chinese multimillionaires are desperate for passports and residence permits across the globe.)

According to the South China Morning Post, visa agencies in Yunnan and Guangdong provinces in the south of China are advertising deals (paywall) to gain residency in Gambia as a backdoor to a residence permit in Hong Kong. For some agencies, all that’s needed are six head shots and about HK $100,000 (about $12,900); no visit to the country necessary. Chinese citizens who become residents of Gambia can then apply to a Hong Kong capital investment initiative that grants permanent residence in Hong Kong for those who invest HK$ 10 million ($1.3 million) or more. Only Chinese citizens who already have permanent residency in another foreign country can apply, which helps limit the volume of applicants.

In recent years, the scheme has attracted so many Chinese citizens that Gambian residents (many who are Chinese) are now the biggest applicant pool within Hong Kong’s capital investment residency initiative. According to immigration figures cited in the South China Morning Post, since Hong Kong first started the program in 2003, 9,050 people have gained residency in Hong Kong by citing Gambia as their permanent home.

Ray Bradbury left his personal book collection, and some other personal effects, to the Waukegan Public Library, which is planning a permanent Ray Bradbury exhibit. Road trip?

Read more...

netbuzz writes "The National Association of Attorneys General met in Boston this week and one panel focused on the 'safe harbor' provision of 1996 Communications Decency Act. Within that broader discussion, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood cited the autocomplete feature in Google search as evidence the company has more control over content than it contends. 'We know they manipulate the autocomplete feature,' Hood said, with his point being that there should be more such manipulation, not less. His primary example: a search on 'prescription drugs online' presents an autocomplete suggestion of 'prescription drugs online without a prescription.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hammock tub

World domination is all well and good, but sometimes taking over a city is more than enough for one night. That's the feeling that Luke Costanza and Mackenzie Stutzman had a few years back while playing the board game Risk in Boston. So they sketched out a rough map of the metro area, split neighborhoods into six distinct regions, and laminated the pages. Then they invited over a few more friends to test it out — and discovered it was a rousing success.

"That's when it kind of clicked that we could maybe make these for other cities," says Costanza. "It's just tons of fun to be able to play this classic game in a place that you know."

That initial urge to conquer the Bay has since expanded into Havoc Boards: a series of 15 Risk-style games that Costanza and Stutzman are funding through a Kickstarter campaign. Instead of limiting the action to the global stage, Havoc Boards offer a variety of territories for conquest. To date they've created boards for ten cities —Boston, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles among them — as well as two countries, a continent, a college campus, and even the solar system.

"We knew that it was a lot of fun to take over Boston when we played it," says Costanza, "so it was reasonable to think other people in other cities would feel the same way."

Costanza and Stutzman prepare each city board by evaluating urban planning maps, dividing a metro area into six regions for ideal game play, then transferring the design into Adobe Illustrator. Most cities have natural partitions, but Costanza and Stutzman often have to get a little creative with their boundaries. Finding six regions in New York City, for instance, meant adding New Jersey to the five boroughs.

"It's a fine line between making sure the maps play great and making sure they're as realistic as possible," says Costanza.

Havoc Boards achieved an initial Kickstarter goal of $20,000 with a month remaining on the donation countdown. (Their waggish campaign video, produced by Costanza's brother Matt, gives a clever nod to the classic Seinfeld scene in which Kramer and Newman have their Risk board smashed on the subway.) At this funding level Costanza and Stutzman will release full batches of three boards — New York, the United States, and the United Kingdom — and every additional stretch goal of $4,000 will mean one more release.

Even if all the city boards aren't funded for full production, people interested in specific maps have several options. For $10, donors can receive any map they'd like in the form of a coaster, and for $100 they can get any of the 15 games as a laser-engraved wooden board. Fork over $500, and you can even have Costanza and Stutzman create a whole new map of your choosing.

"We're blown away by the positive reaction we've gotten," Costanza says. "We love the idea, but you never know how other people are going to respond."

Costanza and Stutzman take every chance they get to point out that their work is not affiliated with the original Risk, created by Hasbro. In fact, Havoc Boards require a person to own Risk, since they don't come with their own soldier pieces. So far Hasbro has left the Durham-based business partners alone, but Costanza and Stutzman do receive lots of requests from people who'd like to see maps of certain college campuses or individual American states.

The one campus they've made so far is the University of Rochester, where their passion for Risk began as undergraduates. Costanza says it wasn't so much winning and losing that drove their play as the psychological game-within-the-game that occurred — convincing someone to attack someone else, for instance, only to betray that person a moment later. Hence the official Havoc Boards slogan: "a great way to ruin friendships."

"We get a real large kick out of forming an alliance with someone and then completely backstabbing them and watching ruin cover their face," says Costanza.

Images courtesy of Bungles Board Games LLC.