firehose

explore-blog:

How to dress to travel the world like pioneering Victorian journalist Nellie Bly, born on May 5, 1864, a trailblazer for women in media.

A former FBI counterterrorism agent claims on CNN that this is the case.

The Great Deceiver.

Patrick Moberg patrickmoberg.com/


Patrick Moberg patrickmoberg.com/


Patrick Moberg patrickmoberg.com/


Patrick Moberg patrickmoberg.com/


Patrick Moberg patrickmoberg.com/


Patrick Moberg patrickmoberg.com/


Patrick Moberg patrickmoberg.com/

Lessons from a Dog

The Designer Says

All in my hands now

I don’t really know how to be a good mayor — as soon as I arrived in this Animal Crossing: New Leaf town, the game just threw me into the role. I hope I can meet their expectations.

Even though Buttocks is their home, it’s my ass that’s on the line.

PREORDER Animal Crossing: New Leaf, AC:NL guide, upcoming games

By Megan Farokhmanesh on May 05, 2013 at 4:00p

GTFO, a documentary about sexism in the video game industry from New York-based filmmaker Shannon Sun-Higginson, surpassed its $20,000 funding goal.

The film's intent is to expose "the harassment of women in video games" though developer, blogger, player and scholar interviews. Sun-Higginson, who self-identifies as a casual gamer, wrote on the Kickstarter page that she was "shocked" at the amount of abuse female gamers take on a daily basis and began researching and filming GTFO as a result.

"The purpose of this documentary is to reveal the experiences of women in the gaming world, both good and bad, as well as to provide steps we can take to change the environment for the better," the Kickstarter page reads.

GTFO reached its goal May 1 and will continue to raise funds until May 10. Those interested can donate in reward tiers ranging from $10 to $500. Funding will go toward shooting expenses, post-production, licensing rights for gaming footage and images and promotional materials.

The fundraising campaign for GTFO launched March 26. At the time of this posting, it has raised more than $22,000 with the help of 800 backers.

ryface:

IT’S OKAY TO USE “SAID” A WHOLE DAMN BUNCH.

IT’S OKAY TO USE PRONOUNS REPEATEDLY SO LONG AS YOU STRUCTURE YOUR SENTENCES SO AS TO KEEP IT FROM BEING CONFUSING

FUCK, IT’S EVEN OKAY TO USE COMMON SAYINGS AND CLICHES SPARINGLY.

DON’T PURPLE UP YOU PROSE JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK IT’S NOT OKAY TO DO THESE THINGS BECAUSE IT IS

DON’T TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR PLOT TO MAKE ULTIMATELY UNIMPORTANT DETAILS OF YOUR NARRATION LOOK FLASHIER.  

Yep. Please.

Emboldened by the egalitarian opportunity of Internet distribution and its promise of an exciting new future for entertainment, the Sony-backed streaming network Crackle has revealed its next step into the wild digital yonder by developing Joe Dirt 2, a sequel to David Spade’s 2001 comedy about wigs. Crackle made the announcement at this year’s “NewFronts,” an upfront-style presentation dedicated to exploring “new frontiers” in digital distribution. And what better way to, as Crackle put it, “break new ground” there than with “the first made for digital movie that is a sequel to a hit motion picture”—specifically, a sequel to Joe Dirt, a movie in which David Spade had a mullet and fought with Kid Rock. The pioneers at Crackle will delve even deeper into that story by picking up “where the last one left off,” thus reminding us of how far we’ve come by returning us ...

Read more

When two different Black Flag iterations each announced their intention to tour this year—one as Black Flag, one as FLAG—smart punks knew to expect some sort of friction between them. And that anticipation has paid off, as the bands have finally started firing verbal shots at each other.

Yesterday, Black Flag (Greg Ginn, Ron Reyes, and Gregory Moore) released a new single, “Down In The Dirt,” the first from a new LP due out sometime this summer on SST. In the press release, Black Flag calls out FLAG (Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Bill Stevenson, and Stephen Egerton), deeming it a “fake” band “covering the songs of Black Flag in an embarrassingly weak ‘mailing it in’ fashion.” (Black Flag Burn!) And meanwhile, Henry Rollins remains at home, waiting for the red phone of justice to ring and looking at his tattoos.

Provided this doesn't escalate further, both versions ...

Read more

Adding cold statistical data to a hot Internet topic to reach a rather lukewarm conclusion, a new study shows that 49 percent of Americans surveyed believe movie trailers these days give away too many of the film’s best scenes—not that this will stop them from seeing that movie anyway. The poll found that nearly half of respondents believed they’d already seen all the good stuff in a movie’s preview, with 16 percent “agreeing strongly,” presumably by using swears. On the other hand, only 32 percent believe that trailers give away too much of the plot. Another 48 percent disagree with that, while the remaining 20 percent believe movie screens are magic portals into the lives of beautiful, 11-foot giants, whose whims are clearly unpredictable.

But even with these relatively large numbers of people who believe they’ve been spoiled on plot twists or standout scenes, overly ...

Read more

Earlier this week we reported that users had been complaining about a certain feature from the app Path: namely, that its default behavior was to automatically send text messages out to people a user may know when they first signed up with the app. The Path app has now received an update that removes the ability to find Facebook friends altogether, and TechCrunch reports that it's due to Facebook restricting Path's access to its API. Users can still share any items they post to Facebook, but any friend-associated activity has disappeared.

The spamming behavior first went into effect with a March 6th update to the app. It gained traction when a digital marketer named Stephen Kenwright signed up with the app, and discovered that multiple individuals from his contacts received Path text notification early the next morning — even though he'd subsequently deleted the app on his own device. In that particular case, some of the texts manifested as robocalls due to the way local phone companies dealt with text messages sent to landlines.

It's not the first time this kind of thing has happened

It's not the first time Facebook has pulled the plug on the friend-finding API for an app. Something similar happened with MessageMe earlier this year, and everything from Vine to Voxer has faced similar problems. As it currently stands, the Path app allows users to find friends through three different means: their device's contacts, through Twitter, of via their Gmail account. It's important to note that during the sign-up process finding friends through one's contacts still defaults to the "send to all" behavior, and users will need to be cautious when signing up with Path to avoid sending alerts if that's not their intention. Finding friends via Twitter does not default to this behavior — though Path will send a Twitter direct message to any user you choose to invite.

• Source TechCrunch
• Related Items path facebook friends social network

“

As Time Warner Cable made evident in Austin recently, upping Internet connectivity speeds is a viable alternative, as are lower prices, so what’s preventing Charter, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable from enhancing their respective services? No need, at least for now. All three of the cable big boys enjoyed year-over-year growth in their Internet businesses in 2012. Charter saw an 8% jump in Internet customers in 2012, and both Time Warner Cable and Comcast increased Internet revenues in 2012 compared with the prior year, by 13.7% and 9.2%, respectively.

With those kind of results, along with margins as high as 97% according to a Bernstein analyst, getting the cable industry to change Internet strategies wasn’t likely — until Google Fiber entered the picture, that is. Now, in spite of what cable executives like Britt are saying, their actions tell another story.

For consumers, Google Fiber is a no-lose proposition. Either customers will see continual improvements from cable providers — as Austin and Kansas City have — or will wait for Fiber or Fiber-like alternatives to become available and jump ship. Based on annual customer service rankings, Britt and his cable industry cohorts should stop pooh-poohing Fiber and start implementing a comprehensive strategy to retain their customers. But don’t count on it.

”

-

Google Fiber Has Time Warner Cable Tripping All Over Itself (GOOG, TWC)

all carriers suck forever

After nearly a year of selling ebooks free of DRM copy protection, Macmillan subsidiary Tor Books UK said that it has seen no increase in piracy on any of its properties. The company's editorial director elaborated in an extensive reflection on the decision earlier this week, writing, "The move has been a hugely positive one for us, [...] we’re still pleased that we took this step." The science fiction and fantasy publisher officially made the change last July alongside its American sister company, noting that their audiences were too technically savvy to be forced to deal with the limitations of DRM.

Though Tor Books UK's editorial director noted that the decision was met with significant support by its authors and customers, it hasn't seen the same positive response from its competitors. Ars Technica points to a Publishers Weekly article on an industry rival that reportedly tried to have Tor reverse its decision. A subsidiary of Hachette Book Group allegedly suggested that some Tor Books authors should pressure the company to once again use DRM — the reasoning being that it could hurt sales in other regions where different companies owned the book rights. Tor Books seemingly has no intention of backing down, but it doesn't look like its position on DRM is catching on with the rest of the industry.

• Via Ars Technica
• Source Tor
• Related Items tor forge ebooks tor books drm drm-free

“A pit bull saved a woman from a fire in her Long Island, New York home on Friday, barking to alert her as the flames began to spread from the front to the back of the house.”

- Pit bull saves New York woman from burning home - U.S. News

By Porpentine on May 5th, 2013 at 1:02 pm.

THIS WEEK: Scifi survival sim. Dark Souls but with friendly ghosts. You threw 100 candies on the ground…? (;_;)

Global game jam Ludum Dare 26 is over, with a staggering 2347 games. For a sense of scale, last time we had 1327.

The theme was Minimalism. The results are amazing.

As always, this is a tiny selection from a sea of brilliance. I strongly encourage people to look around for themselves, and we’ll be posting many more on freeindiegames in the weeks to come.

Gods Will Be Watching by Deconstructeam

Deconstructeam’s last Ludum Dare game was an intriguing interrogation sim with a compelling blend of story and mechanics. Sadly it was a little rushed and didn’t quite come together.

Gods Will be Watching is the realization of that potential, a scifi-survival narrative strategy game that spends 40 days contemplating a single shot: a group of survivors camped on the shore of a purple lake. The scenery evokes both the bleakness of winter and the uncertainty of an alien planet, frost-swept aspens under a two-moon sky.

Survive 40 days while staying warm, fed, safe from predators, free of infection, repairing the radio, and keeping everyone sane. No big deal.

You have 5 actions a day. Each character has at least 2 skills, along with Kill. The ability to shoot any of your team is ominously present throughout the long freezing wait, and it wasn’t for several playthroughs that I finally grasped why.

Killing gives you a lot of meat. The robot turns into ammunition.

The death spiral is perfect. For example, if the Doctor dies, no medicine can be made. If no one can be cured, they’ll die from the Medusa virus (which pops up every now and then to infect a random character). The chilling implication, of course, is that their toxic meat will have to be burnt and they won’t be available as a food source later.

That’s the kind of sexy mechanic that really gets me going.

The lovely art doubles as a resource display. Everyday concerns like food or fire are reflected in dwindling flames, in cuts of meat hanging from a stick.

The character assets do an excellent job of conveying their personalities, especially when they get stressed. The soldier stares paranoidly into the wilderness with his gun held high, the psychiatrist rocks back and forth shaking, but the doctor is subtle–he just taps his foot, betraying little emotion–somehow more worrisome than all the rest.

It’s really hard. 40 days is a long time and you need to understand every nuance to have a chance. But I can’t stop playing.

OFFICIAL RPS STRATEGY GUIDE POWER TIPS

-Keep everyone’s mood above 0, preferably much higher

-The robot can scan everyone’s mood (in order of soldier/doctor/engineer/psychiatrist)

-Don’t forget to set the fire or stock rations (1 ration per person per day)

-Have enough bullets to fight off wild animals or you’ll lose instantly (5-7 seems the average amount, at least from my playthroughs)

-Talking adds 1 mood

-Group therapy increases each person’s mood by a random amount (and is extremely useful)

Candy Box! by aniwey

The ASCII spawn of Progress Quest and Frog Fractions, some will say. I know the grim reality.

So you start out with a candy. Maybe you eat the candy. Perhaps you drop the candy. All perfectly acceptable actions, if you have total ignorance of candypitalism.

You discover lollipops. They’re delicious, yes, they’re made of sugar, yes, that’s obvious ape thinking. The taste of the candy is immaterial. The only constant in this equation is power.

The question you should be asking is: What can you get for a lollipop?

I was like you once. What a fool I was to purchase 1 lollipop for 60 candies when in truth, I could grow a hundred on my own…per second.

Welcome to the sugary heart of darkness.

App Escape by Leon Arnott

Trapped inside your phone, running through a deadly ecosystem of apps all ponderously indifferent to your existence. Like all Leon’s past Ludum Dare games, they reward reflex, cunning, and strategy. Only a true gamer stands a chance. The rest–will be vAPPorized…

Mondrian’s Frogger by doobdargent

Frogger but with Mondrian’s minimalist geometric paintings instead of cars. Way to get some culture, frog! Good job, frog! Time to die, frog!

Rainwalkers by Nuprahtor

Nuprahtor’s last multiplayer experiment was a floating island full of mysterious phone booths. This is a lonely city of night. The story is that certain people meet after dark, in the rain, and they’re called rainwalkers.

You can’t see the other rainwalkers but you can draw runes on the ground. “I’m here”, “Hello”, “Rain”, “Farewell”. Good things to say to fellow ghosts.

I didn’t find anyone. Maybe it doesn’t work, maybe it just needs more people logged in at a time. Either way, the kind of atmospheric experiment we need in online games.

Everyone Together by Dan Lin

You start as a little rock. You can touch other rocks. If you do, they become part of your mass. You need to be touching all the blue spaces at the same time to advance.

This has a good feel, like herding a bunch of pebbles. They turn gold when you touch them. The pingling sound they make helps too. Solutions feel messy, not exacting.

TOOM by Mike Kasprzak and Derek Laufman

TOOM opens with a metal room on stilts in a mysterious forest. It offers no explanation, just invites you to explore your surroundings. In true adventure game style, that may involve combining objects with scenery until something clicks.

 Somsnosa by Mason Lindroth

Wander through Mason’s distinctive melted landscapes and gorgeous perspectives. In the words of the author: “This is a sort of extended doodle with occasional battles and secret magic.”

Stargazers by Cake&Code

Connect the dots but with constellations. Immaculate presentation, from the imperious gestures of the star child princess, to the timer of the moon’s waxing shadow.

Broke Down by saguaro

Stylish fuckstorm of violence done up in Twine–orange and white text fragments–casinos, hotel rooms, carnivals–total death trip.

Each page has a + sign. You press the + sign to make the text more verbose. Press – to dial it down, a prose microscope.

A Thing About Nothingness by Pierrec and Sy

Pretty point n click adventure about a Cynic who travels around in a barrel. His teacher hands him a rock and sends him on a quest for true wisdom or whatever. I guess we all have our “rolls” to play in life…Ha Ha Ha Kkkkcchh–

You have one item the whole game (starting with the rock), and it’s up to you whether you keep or use it in each scene. Each choice branches the story, and there are “9+1” endings.

Dream Fishing by Sophie Houlden

Fishing game with a smart control scheme (uses the right mouse button for movement instead of WASD). Makes you realize how most controls use too many buttons (reminded of how Christine Love’s Even Cowgirls Bleed and other games get away with no buttons or clicking whatsoever)

To catch a fish, cast at the ripples, reel it in, and open your heart to the possibilities of dream fishing.

Tendril by Greg Power

Abstract snake charming. Get the snake from one square to another, crafting a song with your free-drawn path.

Obstacles are gradually introduced, shaping the hypnotic music. Threading a tight space is a rapid flurry of notes compared to the languid ease of open space.

Four Scepters by Benjamin

Four Scepters boils the dungeon crawl down to arrow keys. Each room is a choice, another node in a maze of locked doors, monsters, shopkeepers, and treasure. There are multiple ways to win, depending on how you plan your route/pick your classes, and it feels like the game permits a wide variance?

There are four classes. When one dies, you pick another. If they all die, you lose.

The warrior can use shields. The wizard can use scrolls. The assassin strikes first and starts with an extra coin. The thief can activate stealth once (as long as they’re in a hidden room), then steal a treasure or unlock a door.

Should I permanently kill the skeleton in the second room with the wizard’s undead blasting scroll (otherwise the skeleton will regenerate and be a problem for later heroes), or do I unlock the door in the first room instead? This is a game that has you crunching strategies in your head with each failure, theorizing over new paths, improving with every run.

Milton by ZYXer

Each level has two phases: set torches, then run through the maze in the dark, guided only by the torches you placed. Meanwhile the clock is ticking.

Every level shares the same pool of torches, so you need to think long-term and make sure the 50 torch supply lasts all game.

What this means is that Milton lets you set your own challenge.

Good at memorization? Don’t use as many torches.

I’m imagining a sequence in an action adventure game where you climb a mountain and there are two paths. One is a leisurely path up the curving mountainside, sparse flowers waving in the high winds. The other is a bunch of floating rocks or some shit that lets you bypass a chasm.

You don’t get a tangible reward for taking the tougher route. No achievement pops up to wink at you with a mindless pop culture reference. You don’t find 500 gold in a chest that someone left on the central rock. Your Rock Jumper meter doesn’t go up.

You feel good because you challenged yourself and that’s enough. It will always be enough.

Dragon Drop by Tom 7

Like playing Solitaire on an old PC, but goes a bit deeper than that. If you start to smile really wide, you’ll know you’ve found it.

World of Minimalism by VDZ

Online world where everyone can draw anywhere they want.

Starts in a city-like area, but as you progress outwards, reality begins to crumble…

10 Second Language by Loren Bednar

10 seconds of typing-generated imagery set to soothing chimes. A pleasure to understand which characters create which shapes–recipes of letter, number, and punctuation.

Drug Hunt by kill0u, Gnux, LeoL

Bad trip minigames with the flawless rhythm of a great music video. The trick is hitting space at the climax of each animation–when the jaws shut, when the tides rise, when the monster attacks.

LOOP by vandriver

The best familiar to an evil sorcerer simulator I’ve ever played. You’re a crow. He’s a sorcerer. He wants you to steal things from the forest. Pretty classic dynamic.

Lovely, wordless story conveyed through the passage of time and the tasks you’re set to.

Flying around is a lot of fun because LOOP gives you bird verbs to play with–it lets you do what a bird does, like caw and perch and fly.

Soaring through trees sends up flurries of leaves. Perching has a satisfying snap of talon to scenery. Cawing is–every game should have a button that just makes fun sounds.

This is going to change the way you play with yourself. What if every time you got a little bored you reached for your belt rather than your smart phone? [Cunning_Fellow] may be doing that more often now that he finished this slick-looking video game belt buckle which plays the classic Asteroids game.

It isn’t just an intriguing concept. The build was pulled off at a very high level of quality… this thing should have no problem standing the test of time. First off he had to figure out if it was even possible to run the game at a respectable frame-rate. Cheap 320×240 LCD screens don’t have a frame marker (think of it as a vertical sync signal with can be used as an interrupt for the microcontroller). But he thought it was possible that the frame marker pin just wasn’t connected like on more expensive screens and he was right with at least one model he acquired.

With that out of the way he laid out and etched a beautiful double-sided board to house all of the electronics. But he still needed a case. To get a one-of-a-kind look he masked and etched a sheet of brass. Once cut out and folded ti gives a wonderful look and protects the electronics inside quite well. 

Filed under: wearable hacks

rachel shared this story from Modern Books and Manuscripts.

---

Known for his contributions to logic, set theory, and semantics, Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) stands among the most influential American philosophers of the twentieth century. From 1956 until his retirement in 1978 Quine held the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard University, and his papers and library are now held by Houghton Library.

Professor Quine’s library numbers over 600 volumes and over 5,000 offprints (reprints of journal articles).  The collection includes numerous editions of Quine’s own works, as well as books and articles by his contemporaries in philosophy and mathematics. A significant number bear Quine’s own annotations, often written with the same wit and candor for which his published works are admired. Together with the W.V. Quine papers (MS Am 2587), the recently cataloged books and offprints represent a windfall to scholars wishing to know not only what the celebrated logician was reading, but what he was thinking as he read it.

While the subject matter of Professor Quine’s library may seem arcane to the non-specialist, there are nonetheless items which evoke the personable side of “Van”, as he was known to his friends. “The Logician’s Christmas Card” pasted to the rear flyleaf of J.H. Woodger’s Biology and Language is one such.  Poking fun at the seeming complexity of the propositional calculus, Dr. Woodger has illustrated the card with a lengthy, but elegantly hand-lettered theorem, and included a translation in plain English beneath it: “Wishing you a well distributed Christmas from J.H. and D.E Woodger and an equivalent New Year.”

 

W.V. (Willard Van Orman) Quine. Methods of Logic. New York: Holt, 1950. With the author’s annotations. AC95.Qu441.Zz950q (B)

J.H. Woodger. Biology and Language. Cambridge University Press, 1952.  With a Christmas card from the author and his spouse pasted to the rear flyleaf. AC95.Qu441.Zz952w

Thanks to Bibliographic Assistant Noah Sheola for contributing this post.

 

	rachel shared this story from ZooBorns:
	<3

---

Vor ein paar Wochen fuhr das F.A.T.-Lab als Teil ihrer Gold-Ausstellung mit einem gefakten selbstfahrenden Auto von Google durch New York, jetzt haben sie ein Tutorial auf Instructables online gestellt, mit dem man sich so ein Fake-Auto selber bauen kann. Zumindest den rotierenden Scanner auf’m Dach.

Vimeo Direktfake

LieDar is a fake lidar sensor that you can attach to the top of your car to instantly turn it into a self-driving vehicle. Whereas some companies have spent millions of dollars developing the technology to have conversations about the future of transportation, you can butt in for a mere fraction of the cost. To join the multimillion dollar conversation all you need is a 3D printer, and a little gumption.

When your car sports fashionable technology you can experience first-hand what it is like to be a leader in innovation. Everywhere you go people will stop dead in their tracks in wonder and admiration. Children will look back and remember the day they first encountered a self-driving car — your self-driving car! Overnight you can go from merely being a terrible driver to a well-respected and beloved ambassador of the future.

Impress your neighbors. Meet new people. Become more attractive to members of all sexes.

LieDar (via New Aesthetic)

Jason McKittrick crafts elaborate prop sets based on H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories. Grab yourself a cultist's kit and you'll be summoning Cthulhu in no time!

Read more...

Pour l’Empire II by lizardking_cda on Flickr.

If you've ever worked in an office you probably know the ubiquitous K-Cup machine, made by Keurig. It quickly and painlessly dispenses single-servings of the hot beverage of your choice. Even, it turns out, if that beverage is 100-proof.

These targets are on display at the OPSGEAR booth and some can be ordered online.

Announcement

ABC15.com (KNXV-TV)

Arizona law bans destroying guns purchased in buyback programs Los Angeles Times TUCSON — City- or county-sponsored gun buybacks — often used in larger cities to entice people to give up their handguns — have become effectively pointless in Arizona with legislation signed by Gov. Jan Brewer. The bill prohibits cities and counties from ... Phoenix gun buybacks set before law forces salesHilton Head Island Packet all 19 news articles »

MojoKid writes "Google has its hands in every other aspect of the tech industry, so why not gaming, too? It appears as though the company is eyeing a run at the gaming market by hiring Noah Falstein as its "Chief Game Designer". Falstein's LinkedIn profile has been updated to reflect his new title, which is the latest in a long career. He started out in 1980 and put in time at (the recently-defunct) Lucasfilm Games as well as 3DO and Dreamworks Interactive."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“

Hostess Brands LLC — Metropoulos & Co. and Apollo Global Management LLC’s new incarnation of the baking company that liquidated in Chapter 11 — is reopening four bakeries in the next eight to 10 weeks, aiming to get Twinkie-deprived consumers the classic snack cake starting in July.

Chief Executive C. Dean Metropoulos said the company will pump $60 million in capital investments into the plants between now and September and aims to hire at least 1,500 workers. But they won’t be represented by unions, including the one whose nationwide strike sparked the 86-year-old company’s decision to shut down in November.

“We do not expect to be involved in the union going forward,” Mr. Metropoulos said in an interview Wednesday.

”

- Labor clashes likely to follow return of Twinkies | WashingtonExaminer.com

An anonymous reader writes "According to Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla and the creator of JavaScript, ORBX.js can decode 1080p HD video and support low latency remote graphics entirely in JavaScript, offering a pure JavaScript alternative to VP8/H.264 native code extensions for HTML5 video. Watermarking is used during encoding process for protected IP, rather than relying on local DRM in the browser. Mozilla is also working with OTOY, Autodesk and USC ICT to support emerging technologies through ORBX.js — including light field displays and VR headsets like the Oculus Rift." Writes reader mikejuk: "The problem with all of this is that orbix.js is just a decoder and there is little information on the coder end of the deal. It could be that OTOY will profit big time from coding videos and watermarking them while serving virtual desktops from their GPU cloud. The decoder might be open source but the situation about the rest of the technology is unclear. In the meantime we have to trust that Mozilla, and Brendan Eich in particular, are not being sold a utopian view of a slightly dystopian future."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.