firehose

Last week, Ceyda Sungur was an academic in Istanbul. On May 28th, she became the "Lady in Red" — an unwitting symbol of Turkey’s anti-government protests, and the disproportionate force used to quell them.

Sungur, a research assistant at Istanbul Technical University’s school of urban planning, was among the hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Istanbul’s Gezi Park last week, where environmentalists and others had been staging a peaceful protest against government plans to convert the area into a shopping center.

By the time Sungur arrived at the park last Tuesday, the scene had devolved into violence, with police attempting to disperse protesters with tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannons. The clashes at Gezi Park have since sparked larger movements across the country, with demonstrators taking to the streets in protest against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who many see as increasingly authoritarian and socially conservative.

Dressed in a red cotton dress and carrying a white tote bag, Sungur soon found herself nearly face-to-face with a policeman’s pepper spray canister. That’s precisely when Osman Orsal, a photographer for Reuters, captured what may be the defining image of this month’s unrest — Turkey’s small-scale equivalent of the tank at Tiananmen.

With her stance relaxed and face downturn, Sungur, through Orsal's lens, is the epitome of passive resistance. As onlookers cover their faces and turn away, Sungur keeps her shoulders nearly squared to the officer, whose gas mask and crouched stance seem almost comically disproportionate to his target. With a barricade of shields framing the action with ominous uniformity, she stands alone and absorbs the spray.

Paul Hansen, a Swedish photojournalist who won the 2013 World Press Photo of the Year award, says Orsal's image derives much of its power from the stark dissonance between its principals.

"For me, it's the contrast between the aggressive posture, gear, and action by the policeman, and the young woman in a red dress, looking like she would be on her way to a celebratory event or something," Hansen said in an email to The Verge. "A little bit of Beauty and the Beast, to put it in Disney terms."

Istanbul-based NarPhotos captured this shot of Sungur amid the mayhem at Gezi Park

Orsal's photo spread like wildfire across Twitter and Facebook, with Sungur's likeness spawning a meme of its own. Across Turkey, artists have appropriated her red dress, handbag, and swirling black hair to create posters, graphics, and, in at least one instance, a cardboard billboard in Izmir, where people are invited to place their face above a drawing of Sungur's body.

Observers, too, have pointed to it as a bold rebuttal to Erdogan, who earlier characterized Turkey's protesters as "extremists" and "looters."

"There’s something jarring about seeing a policeman deploy such casual and one-sided force," writes Max Fisher of the Washington Post, comparing the image to a 2011 photo of a police officer pepper spraying UC Davis students with chilling nonchalance.

On a thematic level, Sungur’s image bears a remarkable likeness to another photo of a woman being sprayed with a water cannon in Istanbul. The image, captured from different angles by the Associated Press and Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, shows an unnamed "Lady in Blue" standing proudly in front of the cannon, her arms outstretched as water cascades down on her.

In each case, Sungur and her anonymous counterpart succumb to police force, albeit in different ways. Whereas Sungur’s stance is casual and unassuming, the Lady in Blue seems to dare the police to hose her down, extending her arms in a defiant show of non-aggression.

It’s also somewhat fitting that two of the most powerful symbols of Turkish resistance would be women. Although Turkey's protests stem from a wide range of issues and government policies, some of the most hotly contested are those with a direct impact on the country's female population.

"One of the truly remarkable aspects of the recent protests in Istanbul and around the country has been the level of participation and visibility of women," says Anna Wood, an American freelance journalist living in Istanbul. "Easily half the crowd at any given protest that I've seen has been female."

Wood, 24, says the response from female protesters likely stems from a series of controversial policies implemented or proposed under Erdogan's 10-year tenure. On previous occasions, the prime minister has urged every woman to have at least three children, and has pushed legislation restricting access to abortions and birth control.

"very real and very serious threats to female autonomy in Turkey."

"In the past year alone, abortion, voluntary cesarean sections and the morning-after pill have all come under attack," Wood said in an email to The Verge. "These are very real and very serious threats to female autonomy in Turkey, where women — particularly better-off, better educated women — have long been a prominent and liberated part of society."

Sungur, for her part, seems reluctant to embrace her newfound fame and national symbolism. Save for one interview with a Turkish media outlet, she has declined to discuss the photo or the circumstances surrounding it with the press. Repeated emails and phone calls from The Verge went unanswered.

Instead, she has downplayed her significance as a galvanizing force across Turkey, saying her story is no different from the thousands of others that have emerged from this month's protests.

"Every citizen defending their human rights, every worker defending their human rights, and every student defending university rights has witnessed the police violence I experienced," Sungur said in an interview with Turkish press this week.

"A lot of people no different from me were out protecting the park, defending their rights, defending democracy," she continued. "They also got gassed."

Sure, a cup of coffee in the morning can add a little pep to your step. But it might very well do much more than that, according to a growing body of research into the potential health benefits of moderate java consumption. Most intriguing? The prospect that coffee could help stave off dementia.

Several studies, on both animals and people, indicate that caffeine alters the biochemical environment of our brains in a manner that actually thwarts neurodegeneration. In an overview of that research, The New York Times points out one particularly fascinating 2012 study on adults with early signs of Alzheimer's disease: after following that group for several years, researchers found that those with three cups' worth of caffeine circulating in their bloodstreams were significantly less likely to have developed the illness. Of course, the findings are by no means definitive — nor do they determine whether coffee itself is key, or whether any caffeine does the trick. Still, for those looking to justify an $11,000 coffee pot, preventing dementia is a pretty good way to do it.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown developer Firaxis accepted delivery late this week of a pair of matched, custom-built XCOM arcade cabinets. The cabinets, custom-built for 2K Games, were originally deployed as demo units for the Rezzed PC and indie game show in Brighton, UK, and have now come home.

Inside are a pair of Xbox 360 units with flat-screen monitors. The control buttons and joysticks correspond to the Xbox controls, making play somewhat intuitive, if a bit complex. Solomon said it controls well, but the cabinet does not, contradictory to lead developer Jake Solomon's tweet about it, accept quarters.

We caught up to Solomon as he was inspecting the cabinets.

"This was just delivered today. It's pretty sweet," Solomon said.

Solomon has been busy recuperating from the chaotic development of XCOM, which lasted close to a decade, all-told. Polygon chronicled the game's development (and the rise of Solomon's career) earlier this year.

When asked how many hours he had put into playing XCOM after finishing it, Solomon let out a huge sigh of equal parts frustration and disbelief.

"It's funny, because I'm actually playing through again right now. It's very useful to ... put myself in the shoes of the people who have played and beaten the game multiple, multiple times so that their frustrations can become my frustrations ... and I can say 'Yes, I see what you're saying. That is irritating.'

"Every map I know so well. I remember these maps from when they were just grey boxes in a row."

Release of XCOM was followed for Solomon by the birth of his daughter, who was born premature and spent the first several days of her life in the NICU ward. She is now six months old and doing fine, but she struggled for her first ten days.

"She had a really hard time," Solomon said. " After that she came home and she's like the biggest, strongest tank in the world. It made her stronger.

"If we were, like, in medieval times, I would be a king. It's a sign of wealth to have a big, fat baby."

Solomon feels stronger as well, after enduring the tortuous ups and downs of development on XCOM, his first game as a lead designer, he feels that the experience has also made him stronger.

"I don't think I'll ever again have that experience where everything is as intense."

"I have a little more space now," he said. "Now I look back on everything very fondly. Everything's got the Instagram filter on it now.

"Now I see it for what it is: such an awesome opportunity. It's never going to be like that for me again. It's such a blessing. That one for me ... I don't think I'll ever [again] have that experience where everything is as intense."

Solomon said that during XCOM's development, he told his wife they would have to move away from Maryland, where Firaxis is based, so that he could work at another studio. He believed the game would fail and that he himself was a failure.

She reminds him of this now, whenever he's stressing about something else, although these days, after launching XCOM to near-universal acclaim, that happens a lot less often.

"My wife would tell you, it's completely changed my personality. I'm so much more laid back about things. ... Once you have a couple of those under your belt you realize how much you love what you do."

Solomon said that overall, however, game development, however complex, can't compare to the experience of watching your child suffer in the hospital.

"It's those experiences, they actually remind you how much you take everything for granted," he said. "When things work out, and you come out of those ... those are the things that make you a much better person because it's very hard for other things to rattle you."

Google CEO Larry Page has again moved to reassure shareholders over the privacy implications of Google Glass. Speaking at the company's annual shareholder meeting, Page told investors that privacy fears will fade as people begin to integrate wearable technology into their lives, noting "it is not that big a concern." Comparing Glass use to taking a photo or video on a smartphone, the Google chief said "you don't collapse in terror that someone might be using Glass in the bathroom just the same as you don't collapse in terror when someone comes in with a smartphone that might take a picture."

In the past month, Google has been forced to address privacy concerns surrounding Glass, which have grown louder since it was introduced last year. In May, the company clarified that the device was built to alleviate concerns before it even shipped and said it will not approve apps with facial recognition features — although it left open the possibility that such features may be allowed in the future. Congress also wrote a letter to Page asking the CEO to clear up whether Glass "could infringe on the privacy of the average American."

"It is not that big a concern."

"Obviously, there are cameras everywhere," Page said at the meeting, when asking attendees who owned a smartphone capable of taking photos. The difference with Glass is that it requires its owner to stare at the subject — resulting in some potentially awkward social situations.

1. Ok fellow Americans, don't get your undies in a knot. This goes for all governments. If this story was about Iran, it would be the same travesty. ↩

Acclaimed and often controversial director Takashi Miike's first English-language movie will star The Dark Knight Rises' Tom Hardy, according to Deadline Hollywood. Miike, who gained international recognition with extreme movies such as Audition, Ichi The Killer, Gozu, and Visitor Q, has over 50 cinematic releases to his name, but has never directed a non-Japanese feature.

Beyond Hardy's starring role and Miike's directorial duties, little is known about the movie. Dubbed The Ousider, it's based on an original story idea from Sons of Anarchy executive producer John Linson, and was scripted by Andrew Baldwin. The movie will center on a former American G.I. and ex-prisoner-of-war who rises through the ranks of the Japanese Yakuza.

Every disc-based Xbox One game will also be available to purchase from Xbox Live on its release date, Microsoft confirmed yesterday.

It's a very different policy from the situation on Xbox 360, where select disc-based games may eventually show up as downloadable titles in the Games on Demand section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, sometimes not months until after their retail release.

All Xbox One titles must be installed to the console's hard drive, so game discs essentially serve as little more than game delivery mechanisms — although installing a game from its disc will likely be faster than downloading it, depending on your internet bandwidth. Microsoft said when it unveiled the Xbox One last month that users will be able to start playing games as soon as the installation process begins.

The disc can be put aside once a game is installed: The Xbox One must check in with Xbox Live every 24 hours to ensure that a user is licensed to play a game, Microsoft confirmed yesterday. Disc-based games can be permanently given to friends through a license transfer process that can only occur once for a particular copy of a game, as long as the recipient has been on a person's Xbox Live friends list for at least 30 days.

Physical retail games can also be traded in at "participating retailers" and resold by those stores, and while Microsoft will not charge a "platform fee" to retailers, publishers or consumers for that practice, publishers may decide to charge for trade-ins or choose not to support them at all. Loaning or renting of games will not be supported at launch, although Microsoft said it is "exploring the possibilities" of allowing those practices in the future.