firehose

AKRON, OH—Calling the situation dangerous and a rescue operation “very risky,” authorities have confirmed they will now lower a rescue chip into a seven-layer dip to save a broken Tostito that got caught in the party spread approximately...

The questionably useful touchscreen on Google's Chromebook Pixel just got a new reason to exist. An on-screen virtual keyboard has been included with the latest developer build of Chrome OS for the laptop, possibly hinting at a future Chrome OS-based tablet device.

The keyboard can be enabled from the chrome://flags page, and looks very similar to early versions of the Android virtual keyboard. Chrome OS evangelist (and recent Google hire) François Beaufort notes that while the keyboard is functional, it's still in early testing and very much a work in progress. You can check it out in action in the video below, and look forward to what will likely be a very interesting Google I/O conference in a couple of weeks.

• Source François Beaufort (Google+)
• Related Items virtual keyboard Chromebook Pixel Google Laptops

By Jenna Pitcher
on May 04, 2013 at 9:00a

A prominent New Zealand artist, who has deep roots in graffiti and street art, is working with a band of indie game devs to bring to life one of her long running and most popular street art characters: the gothic Holly Melancholy and her monster-filled universe.

Holly Melancholy is a witchcraft-practicing "brave and courageous" goth girl, who is into reading books, "doing her own thing" — especially casting spells — and making potions.

"That will be sort of the main mechanics through the game, collecting these different ingredients to make herself these different potions," Holly Melancholy artist Tanja Jade told Polygon. "Which she can drink to give her super powers. This is the fun part developing the game as we go along, figuring out what is going to happen to her when she drinks these potions and what sort of powers she is going to have."

Holly will also have a "ghost buddy" that will be her companion throughout the game, that will fight alongside her. It isn't decided whether the ethereal character will be "hovering over and using weapons to fight the other creatures or if Holly will control her."

Developed by a team of indie devs pulled together by New Zealand game developer network, InGames, the title is a 2D action platformer, with plenty of blood-soaked hack-and-slash thrown in for good measure.

"Mechanics are primarily platforming through a lively world filled with action and drama," said the project's game designer and developer James Lambourn. "A little bit of environment puzzling will happen, as well as slaying all manner of weird enemies through melee combat and magical abilities."

Lambourn said all aspects of the game's design were inspired by Holly's universe to ensure the gameplay won't suffocate Holly's charm.

"The gameplay is designed with the same quirkiness as Tanja's work in mind, in order to make the player feel as if they are visiting the world her creations came from," he explained. "It won't stand out from the game, but enhance the feeling that Tanja's work inspires."

The current plan is for the game to be eight levels long and will initially see a release on Windows PC and Mac; but Jade has plans to see it eventually ported to smartphones and tablet devices. The team created a pre-alpha demo, as a proof of concept for the core elements of the game, working with Jade to nail the art style.

Alpha build screenshot

"I'm just psyched to see Holly moving around, seeing Holly chop stuff up with a chainsaw," Jade said. "But I really want to focus on getting the whole look of it really sharp and amazing and making that real point of difference in the game.

"I am really quite interested in how stylistically the outcome will be. I would really quite like it to be really painted textured airbrushed sort of style."

Jade's art was "recognized quite quickly" in the graffiti and street art scene, which happens, as she explains, if an artist does something that is a little bit different in the small country. One of her first street art characters was Holly, who was conceived in the early ‘00s and rapidly became an iconic character.

As a result of the popularity, a Holly Melancholy-centric art show was exhibited at a distinguished New Zealand art gallery in 2008, which set the tone for future shows worldwide. Jade explained to Polygon about her drive to pull Holly from the static through into the interactive.

"Holly Melancholy was probably one of the only characters that I've drawn for a really long time," Jade said, who is also known as Misery, her artistic alter ego. "Because I'm really quite an impatient artist, I have heaps of characters and I'm always working on different projects, that I feel that she needs to be more than just a picture."

"It has just been on my wish list of thing that I must do before die, so it has been a goal to find people to make a game."

The original artwork will be ported into the game and brought to life by digital artist, Lianne Booton.

"I can't animate and she is going to definitely help with that side of things, so I'll be doing characters and a whole heap of the background and Lianne will make everything move and will definitely help out with the background," Jade said. "This is where we would do some experimenting, because I want to try to keep it sort of organic and rough and painterly looking."

The team have been catching up once a week for brainstorming sessions, which covers the game design aspects. Jade feels that the next step is to spend time with Rhys Morgan, a writer and director whose "sense of humour is perfect for Holly," to help flesh out the plot. Jade will then storyboard Morgan's work.

Tanja Jade

"It's all sort of come together so quickly," Jade said.

Players‘ feedback will be instrumental during the game's development, but not just to offer playtesting and gameplay feedback, the team wants to crowdsource content ideas so the community can help shape it. This will be conducted through a series of demo events, with the first running around May 15.

"We'll have a game demo and all of the donors and whoever is interested to come along to play the game and give their feedback," Jade said. "So yeah, I love the idea of people submitting their ideas and concepts, like if they have crazy villains or certain scenarios they think should happen. I would love their involvement, I think that would be really cool."

The team is raising game development funds through a new crowdfunding site called Boosted.org.nz, established by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand, with a $50,000 New Zealand dollar funding goal (approximately $42,240 USD).

"Which is really great but I guess the Arts Foundation of New Zealand don't see video games as being art, unfortunately," Jade explains. "So they will only help to sponsor the art side of it, but I think it would be totally worth doing a Kickstarter or something like that as well.

"So we have sort of got to this point where we have this amazing team but we can't go too much further just yet until we have got some more capital to just cover everyone for their time," she said. "Hopefully we will raise enough funds to at least give us a couple of months to dedicate to this project."

As for the future, video games isn't the only medium Jade envisions for Holly; she sees her being in books and animation, she "definitely see her being bigger than being in just one thing." Following the success of launching a clothing line in Japan, she believes that the Japanese market will be perfect match for the Holly brand, and to take the game there "would be incredible."

Holly Melancholy has a broad fanbase, but the game will be aimed at 20 to 30-year-olds, a demographic already reflected by the popularity of Jade's art. And although there will be hack-and-slash elements, Jade hopes to see children "psyched to play the game as well their parents and grandparents!"

"I believe the game will appeal to a wide audience," Jade said "I feel lucky that the style of art I create it seems to resonate with people of all different ages and demographics. People really seem to connect with the characters. My goal is to make Holly's game a visual gem that stands out amongst others as well as being adventure-packed and exciting to play."

Great piece by John Pavlus on why Glass’ body-based gestures aren’t actually getting the technology “out of the way”:

These designers think that the difference between effortless tongue-flicking and Glass’s crude chin-snapping is simply one of refinement. I’m not so sure. To me they both seem equally alienating–I don’t think we want our bodies to be UIs.

Via Jacob Bijani.

∞ Permalink

Two computer security software firms are reporting that a US Department of Labor website was compromised with malware designed to target employees in the Department of Energy — likely nuclear researchers. According to Invincea, a zero-day exploit targeting Internet Explorer 8 was discovered on the DoL's "Site Exposure Matrix Database," a site meant to provide information on the heath risks associated with exposure to radioactive materials. That site contained a redirect which secretly installed malware that could communicate witha remote server, according to Alien Vault.

The strategy of using a website your intended targets are likely to visit is known as a "watering hole," and you may recall that a similar tactic was used to target Apple, Facebook, and Twitter developers. With this current hack, the method used to communicate with the command-and-control server "matches with a backdoor used by a known chinese [sic] actor called DeepPanda," Alien Vault's Jaime Blasco writes, but just because the technique matches up doesn't necessarily mean that the hackers in this case are the same group.

The DoL acknowledged that "a website related to a DoL program appeared to be compromised" in an email to Nextgov, adding that the site had been taken down and that it "will ensure that appropriate precautions and safeguards remain in place to protect our information and information systems." Microsoft, in a statement to Ars Technica, said that it was investigating. In the meantime, using a more up-to-date browser is obviously a good idea.

• Source Ars TechnicaInvincea (1)Invincea (2)Alien VaultNextgov
• Related Items internet explorer malware hack invincia alien vault watering hole zero-day deeppanda

By Michael McWhertor on May 03, 2013 at 10:32p

The Star Wars franchise is heavily discounted on Steam this weekend — one of many "May the 4th" deals targeted at series fans — with substantial savings on 14 classic and recent PC games until May 6.

Individual Star Wars titles are on sale for 66 percent off and a Star Wars Collection bundle is now 50 percent off its regular price, marked down to $49.99. The weekend offer on the following titles ends Monday at 10 a.m. Pacific.

• Star Wars Battlefront 2 - $3.39
• Star Wars: Dark Forces - $1.69
• Star Wars Empire at War: Gold Pack - $6.79
• Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Outcast - $3.39
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2 - $1.69
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy - $3.39
• Star Wars Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith - $1.01
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - $3.39
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 - $3.39
• Star Wars Republic Commando - $3.39
• Star Wars Starfighter - $1.69
• Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes - $6.79
• Star Wars The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition - $6.79
• Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 - $6.79

All titles are available for Windows and four (Jedi Knight 2: Outcast, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Knights of the Old Republic, The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition) are available for Mac with SteamPlay support.

On why coffee is so central to our culture

“I think the answer is we all need a little help, and the coffee’s a little help with everything — social, energy, don’t know what to do next, don’t know how to start my day, don’t know how to get through this afternoon, don’t know how to stay alert. We want to do a lot of stuff; we’re not in great shape. We didn’t get a good night’s sleep. We’re a little depressed. Coffee solves all these problems in one delightful little cup.”

I don’t agree with most of the article, but I do agree with this.

∞ Permalink

actegratuit:

Steven Quinn

jtogel writes "This New Scientist article describes our AI system that automatically generates card games. The article contains a description of a playable card game generated by our system. But card games are just the beginning... The card game generator is a part of a larger project to automatise all of game development using artificial intelligence methods — we're also working on level generation for a variety of different games, and on rule generation for simple arcade-like games."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Photos of the Food and Drink Requested by Famous Musicians Backstage via Peta Pixel

When musicians sign contracts to perform in major concerts, their documents often contain riders (more commonly known as addendums). These are a series of special requests made by the band or musician, and outlines specifics of what they’re expecting when they arrive.

Photographer Henry Hargreaves noticed that riders often contain strange requests for the foods and drinks requested, so he decided to turn the requests into a photo project that offer a glimpse into the lives of famous musicians.

Mariah Carey: “Cristal Champagne, bendy straws.”

Prince: “Coffee and tea setup, including honey, lemon, sugar, cream, fresh ginger root. Physician will be used to administer a B-12 injection.”

Busta Rhymes: “Twenty-four pieces of fried chicken, Rough Rider condoms, Guinness.”

Britney Spears: “Fish and chips, McDonald’s cheeseburgers without the buns, 100 prunes and figs, a framed photo of Princess Diana.”

San Francisco Chronicle

NRA's New President Has Penchant for... ABC News The incoming leader of the National Rifle Association has a long history with the powerful gun rights lobby and a penchant for bold statements that are sure to enflame an already explosive national debate over gun control. James Porter, an Alabama attorney ... Nutty new NRA president Jim Porter still fighting war against 'Northern Aggression'New York Daily News NRA's new president has penchant for bold wordsFOX 29 Meet Your New NRA President-A Man Still Fighting The Civil War From The ...Forbes all 57 news articles »

Valve has announced a beta build of Left 4 Dead 2 for Linux is now live. Left 4 Dead 2 owners should see a special beta version of the game in their Steam library; if not, a client reboot is required.

The Linux beta offers access to the Extended Mutation System, authoring tools and dedicated servers - on par with what's been available to PC and Mac versions of the title. This latest beta build also offers updates for Windows and Mac users, plus cross-play between all three platforms.

Left 4 Dead 2 Linux beta is live originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 04 May 2013 02:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First time accepted submitter carlypage3 writes "Benefits claimants in the UK are being forced to use Microsoft's now obsolete Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 software. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) states that its online forms are not compatible with Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9 and 10, Safari, Google Chrome or Firefox. As if that wasn't unnerving enough, the Gov.UK website says that users cannot submit claims using Mac OS X or Linux operating systems, either." (Note: as we noted not long ago, it's not just the DWP that's stuck using IE6.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes with a bit from the Asbury Park Press: "'Devastated and wiped out by superstorm Sandy, Verizon has no plans to rebuild its copper-line telephone network in Mantoloking. Instead, Verizon says Mantoloking is the first town in New Jersey, and one of the few areas in the country, to have a new service called Verizon Voice Link. Essentially, it connects your home's wired and cordless telephones to the Verizon Wireless network.' So no copper or fiber to a fairly densely populated area. Comcast will now be the only voice/data option with copper to the area."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This robot doesn’t know if it’s a walker or a tank. It’s the brain-child of [Marc Hamende] who works as a mechanical engineer by day and mad roboticist at night. The best place to find full details is by digging into the long thread he’s been posting to for about six weeks. It will give you a pretty good snapshot of his approach, starting with SolidWorks renderings of the project, and adding in assembled components as he brings the project together.

The mechanism for each foot is fascinating. He milled the white pieces which stack together to encapsulate the motor that runs the treads. These assemblies pivot to bring the metal rod serving as a walking foot in contact with the ground. But they also make it possible to adjust the treads to deal with rough terrain. A Propeller chip drives the device, with an Xbee module to communicate with the controller.

Don’t miss the video after the break. You’ll hear some skidding as it makes turns, but [Marc] plans to add code to adjust motor speed in order to compensate for the inside/outside differential issues. He’s also posted an image album over at Flickr.

Filed under: robots hacks

First time accepted submitter PAjamian writes "Maintainers of the Anaconda installer in Fedora have taken it upon themselves to show passwords in plaintext on the screen as they are entered into the installer. Following on the now recanted statements of security expert Bruce Schneier, Anaconda maintainers have decided that it is not a security risk to show passwords on your screen in the latest Alpha release of Fedora 19. Members of the Fedora community on the Fedora devel mailing list are showing great concern over this change in established security protocols." Note: the change was first reported in the linked thread by Dan Mashal.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

looool

Original Source

symbolset writes "Though there were some troubles and worries along the way, Datawind has delivered to India's government the full allocation of 100,000 (1 lakh) 'Aakash 2' Android tablets from their first order. Priced at about $40, these tablets aren't the sort Americans would rave about: 330 MHz, 256MB RAM and so on. But for the last 2,000 units for the same price Datawind supplied Aakash 3 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 4GB Android tablets with SDHC and 3G mobile — for the same price. Such is the progress in mobile today. There was some doubt whether Datawind could deliver, so kudos to them."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Much cuter than their name suggests, Uglydolls make their comics debut with Viz Media on Free Comic Book Day. CBR spoke with co-creator David Horvath and "Uglydoll Comics" artist Ian McGinty about the series.

When archivist Stacey Chandler was combing through one of the “Massachusetts” files recently at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, she stumbled on something unexpected: a letter to Kennedy from an obscure writer named Kurt Vonnegut, volunteering his services on Kennedy’s presidential campaign.

The letter (click the image above to see it larger) was written on August 4, 1960, when Vonnegut was a struggling fiction writer and a failed Saab dealer living on Cape Cod, in the town of West Barnstable, Massachusetts. He had written two novels: Player Piano (1952) and The Sirens of Titan (1959). In a few declarative sentences, Vonnegut outlines his writing experience and offers his help. There is no record at the JFK Library of a reply from Kennedy and, according to Rebecca Onion at Slate, no mention of the subject in two Vonnegut biographies.

“I am thirty-eight,” writes Vonnegut, “have been a freelance for ten years. I’ve published two novels, and am a regular contributor of fiction to The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, McCall’s, and so on. On occasion, I write pretty well.”

via Slate/Archivally Speaking

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3 comment(s)

In the first decades of the 20th century, if you died in a city, one of the ways you might travel toward your final resting place was by public transit.

“In L.A. in the early years, the cemeteries were right next to the churches,” says David Housh, curator of the Pacific Railroad Society. “Then those got too crowded, and they had to move them out to the countryside. And not too many people had cars.”

The result? In certain parts of the country, including the Los Angeles area, dedicated funeral cars were added to the streetcar systems. The only one that survives relatively intact is the Descanso (Spanish for “rest”), currently on display at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California.

The Descanso (originally known as the Paraiso) was part of the Los Angeles Railway, or Yellow Line, which at its peak comprised 20 streetcar lines with 1,250 trolleys. Built in 1909 and available for chartered use by funeral parties at a cost of about $25, the Descanso was one of two funeral cars, designed with a compartment that opened to reveal a special folding casket carrier. The family sat with the coffin in an interior with touches including stained-glass windows. It was all very dignified, designed to accommodate people who wanted to avoid a bumpy ride over unpaved roads in a horse-drawn cart on their way to the lay a loved one to rest.

The Delores of Lorain, Ohio. Image courtesy of the Black River Historic Society

Another city that did a brisk business in funeral trains was Chicago, where the ‘L’ took mourners accompanying caskets to cemetery station stops in specially designed funeral cars at a rate that reached 22 trips per week in 1907, according to a fascinating investigation by WBEZ. Even a smaller city such as Lorain, Ohio, got into the funeral business, as a photo of a streetcar named Delores from the Black River Historical Society documents.

The Descanso was retired from duty in 1924 as private automobiles took over the funeral trade, on their way to dominating virtually all transportation in Southern California. By 1963, the Yellow Line itself was completely dismantled.

The Descanso on the Cajon Pass. Image courtesy of the Pacific Railroad Society

But the Descanso had an interesting second act, serving as a different kind of resting place. In 1940, it was installed at Summit in the Cajon Pass between the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains, providing a place for railfans to hang out as they waited for trains to pass along the mountain tracks. The car was outfitted with bunks and cooking facilities.

That era, too, came to an end, when in 1967 the Santa Fe Railroad closed the station at Summit. But the car was preserved by rail enthusiasts who saw it as a vital piece of the area’s history. Today it is on display at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California, a reminder of a time when every aspect of life — and death — rode the rails in America.

Clockwise from top: Anne Frank, Kaler Abdolah, Vincent Van Gogh

Dutch creative director Raphael Dahan has nearly 20 years of experience as a digital artist and photo retoucher, and he demonstratess his expert hand in a series of images of books that are intended to look like busts... which is to say that you the images are remarkably photorealistic renderings, easily mistaken for photos of actual books that have been carved to resemble faces.

Dahan created several of these images for Bookweek 2011; the digital portrait of Anne Frank features an excerpt from her diary.

(more...)

Knits For The Chill 48.

Sam Cooke.

For the past decade, Leonard Susskind, one of America’s pre-eminent physicists, has taught a series of six courses in Stanford’s Continuing Studies program.  The series ”explores the essential theoretical foundations of modern physics,” helping lifelong learners (like you) attain the “theoretical minimum” for thinking intelligently about modern physics. Over the years, the Continuing Studies program (where, in full disclosure, I serve as the director) has taped the lectures and made them available to a global audience on YouTube and iTunes. We’ve even burned the lectures onto CDs and shipped them to remote locations in Afghanistan and Nepal where connectivity is still lacking.

This week, Susskind’s popular lectures found a new home of sorts with the launch of The Theoretical Minimum, a new web site that presents the six courses in a way that’s neat, clean and easy to navigate. The site also offers a short text summary of each lecture, plus related reference materials. You can jump into the courses and get started on your own intellectual journey via this list:

• Classical Mechanics
• Quantum Mechanics
• Special Relativity and Electrodynamics
• General Relativity
• Cosmology
• Statistical Mechanics

Note: Susskind’s courses, and many others, also appear in the Physics section of our collection of 700 Free Online Courses.

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Leonard Susskind, Father of String Theory, Warmly Remembers His Friend, Richard Feynman

3 comment(s)

consultingavengersintardis:

toujoursbabe:

welcometotiffanys:

OMG

this is so whoa on any blog

i think this is what’s going to happen in avengers 2

cesarethector:

YAHO !

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the congressionally chartered non-profit that helps keep TV and radio programming like “Sesame Street,” “Downton Abbey” and “All Things Considered” on the air, has laid off a dozen employees and is requiring week-long furloughs for senior staff,  the web site, Current.org, is reporting. The organization is also eliminating three vacant [...]