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Game development sim combats real-life piracy with in-game piracy

By Griffin McElroy on Apr 29, 2013 at 12:15p
Game Dev Tycoon, a Windows PC simulation game that tasks you with managing a successful game development studio, features a clever method for battling real-life piracy: By sinking pirates' companies with in-game piracy.
Developer Greenheart Games' Patrick Klug revealed on the studio's site that he had uploaded an altered version of the sim to a torrent site, where it was quickly downloaded by a number of unpaid users. The game operated like the legit version of the title, save for one difference: After a few hours, the prompt seen in the image above appears, informing players that their studio was going bankrupt due to piracy.
Klug collected a few of the more humorous responses to the game-ending piracy, including one forum user who said they could look into enabling DRM for their fictional products. The impact on Greenheart's sales have been significantly less amusing — according to the post, one day after the game's release, 214 players had downloaded the authentic version for $7.99, and over 3000 players had grabbed the cracked version of Game Dev Tycoon.
"We are not wealthy and it's unlikely that we will be any time soon, so stop pretending like we don't need your 8 dollars," Klug wrote. "We are just two guys working our butts off, trying to start our own game studio to create games which are fun to play."
Boston Terrier Drives a Car in Brooklyn
firehoseBoston drivers
Mac the Boston Terrier drives a Volkswagen Beetle down Avenue U in Brooklyn, NYC in this video uploaded by Anthony Di Virgilio.
via BuzzFeed
And now, a wedding cake made of skulls
firehoseautoshare
"I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay. I didn’t set out to be..."
I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, “I’m different.” If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I’m raising my hand.
My journey of self-discovery and self-acknowledgement began in my hometown of Los Angeles and has taken me through two state high school championships, the NCAA Final Four and the Elite Eight, and nine playoffs in 12 NBA seasons.”
-
NBA player Jason Collins says he is gay - The Magazine - SI.com
A college classmate tried to persuade me to come out then and there. But I couldn’t yet. My one small gesture of solidarity was to wear jersey number 98 with the Celtics and then the Wizards. The number has great significance to the gay community. One of the most notorious antigay hate crimes occurred in 1998. Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student, was kidnapped, tortured and lashed to a prairie fence. He died five days after he was finally found. That same year the Trevor Project was founded. This amazing organization provides crisis intervention and suicide prevention to kids struggling with their sexual identity. Trust me, I know that struggle. I’ve struggled with some insane logic. When I put on my jersey I was making a statement to myself, my family and my friends.
Jason (right) and Jarron Collins were both drafted in 2001 after attending Stanford.
AP
The strain of hiding my sexuality became almost unbearable in March, when the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for and against same-sex marriage. Less then three miles from my apartment, nine jurists argued about my happiness and my future. Here was my chance to be heard, and I couldn’t say a thing. I didn’t want to answer questions and draw attention to myself. Not while I was still playing.
I’m glad I’m coming out in 2013 rather than 2003. The climate has shifted; public opinion has shifted. And yet we still have so much farther to go. Everyone is terrified of the unknown, but most of us don’t want to return to a time when minorities were openly discriminated against. I’m impressed with the straight pro athletes who have spoken up so far — Chris Kluwe, Brendon Ayanbadejo. The more people who speak out, the better, gay or straight. It starts with President Obama’s mentioning the 1969 Stonewall riots, which launched the gay rights movement, during his second inaugural address. And it extends to the grade-school teacher who encourages her students to accept the things that make us different.
Music: Newswire: Metal group Ghost B.C. is selling branded sex toys now, complete with a dildo that looks like the group's frontman

Masked metal group Ghost B.C. is taking a page from Rammstein’s playbook and selling its own branded sex toys now. The band’s new Phallos Mortuus Ritual Box Set comes complete with a T-shirt, brushed metal charm, a “divorce scroll” with gold Ghost seal, and both a buttplug and a dildo. The sex toys are also Ghost-related, in that the plug has a “moulded Grucifix logo base,” and the dildo is shaped like the group’s frontman, Papa Emeritus II. (Seriously. Look at the photo.)
All this branded sex fun will cost fans just $199.99, while the whole goodie pack comes in a box that looks like a Bible, has embossed artwork, and is lined with dark red velvet. Patrons not interested in T-shirts or ass-play can also order just the dildo. It’s $75 and comes packaged in a black velvet drawstring sack.
Read moreC2E2 | ‘Elfquest’ returns to print at Dark Horse
firehosemeanwhile, in Milwaukie, OR
paging OMGKW
Dark Horse Comics announced at C2E2 this weekend that they’ve reached an agreement with creators Richard and Wendy Pini to bring the long-running cult hit Elfquest back to the printed page. The first release arrives in the fall and will be the prologue to Elfquest: The Final Quest, which is currently being serialized on BoingBoing. Following that, Dark Horse will release The Final Quest alongside all-new editions of previously published material.
“Dark Horse is a company I’ve admired ever since it sprang on the scene in the 1980s. Somehow, as large as they’ve grown, they’ve retained an independent spirit that Richard and I totally identify with. The quality of their offerings is legendary and I’m extremely happy that Elfquest is part of their lineup,” Wendy Pini said in a press release.
“Mike Richardson and Dark Horse come from the same publishing DNA as our own company, Warp Graphics, and he retains that gut-deep love of getting comics out into the world. We’re jazzed at all the plans, both traditional and new, they have for Elfquest,” added Richard Pini.
Elfquest first appeared in 1978, in a comic called Fantasy Quarterly published by a company called IPS that went on to publish the first issue. With the second issue, the Pinis formed their own company, WaRP Graphics, which published various Elfquest titles into the 1990s. Marvel’s Epic imprint also reprinted about 30 issues of the original series in the 1980s, while DC picked up the license in the early 2000s. The Pinis have made the entire series available online at Elfquest.com.
In addition to the Elfquest announcement, Dark Horse also announced this weekend that they plan to publish comics based on the video game Halo, a new Hellboy OGN and new The Shaolin Cowboy comics.
Wolfram Alpha details gender differences in Facebook usage
firehose"Some of this is rather depressingly stereotypical"
The Facebook analytics service introduced by Wolfram Alpha last year has yielded some fresh insights, as detailed in a blog post by company founder Stephen Wolfram. Among them: men and women post about very different things. The chart-heavy piece shows that men post more about sports, technology, and pop culture. Women post more about pets, family and friends, relationships, and health.
"Some of this is rather depressingly stereotypical," Wolfram writes. "And most of it isn't terribly surprising to anyone who's known a reasonable diversity of people of different ages. But what to me is remarkable is how we can see everything laid out in such quantitative detail in the pictures above." Some of Wolfram's findings do appear to confirm stereotypes. But by training a "computational telescope" on Facebook, he writes, we can discover new phenomena about the ways we connect to one another.
- Source Wolfram Alpha
- Image Credit Wolfram Alpha
- Related Items facebook wolfram alpha stephen wolfram big data
Wikipedia and the dead Russian film director who never lived at all
On March 5th, a Wikipedia contributor foiled an incredible hoax. Two British filmmakers had invented a Russian film director, painstakingly crafting evidence of his existence, his genius, and his murder over 50 years ago, in order to promote an upcoming documentary about piecing together the man's final film.
"Imagine a documentary about events you've never heard of-that no one's ever heard of-but that are meticulously chronicled in online sources many people trust implicitly. Imagine the confusion. Imagine the buzz. Imagine the publicity," writes the Daily Dot. Read about the incredible plan to make "Yuri Gadyukin" famous at our source link below.
- Source Daily Dot
- Related Items wikipedia hoax yuri gadyukin nitrate gavin boyter guy ducker
We're mighty sick of Doctor Who stories where time travel is magic
firehose"The Doctor can't just go to New Jersey in 1934 and then take a train to Manhattan to grab Amy and Rory, because there's a magical time thing."

Ever since Steven Moffat took over as head writer of Doctor Who, the show's been trying to be a "dark fairy tale." And the main sort of magic in Moffat's fairy-tale Who has been time-travel, with its arbitrary rules and get-out-of-jail-free cards. But after tonight's episode, I'm finally tired of "jargony-wargony" writing.
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Oculus Rift already has a Virtual Boy emulator
firehoseYES
YESSSSSSSSSS
While the Oculus Rift is currently the world's great hope for a future lived inside digital spaces, it's not the first stereoscopic box developers have asked us to cram our faces into. For most of us, that honor goes to Nintendo's Virtual Boy, herald of vectorized headaches (in 3D!) to 700,000 or so hopeful people with $180.
If you're one of the lucky people with an Oculus Rift development kit, however, you can now recreate that ol' black-and-red magic with VBjin-ovr, a freeware Virtual Boy emulator for the Oculus Rift. As seen in this video from YouTuber Cymatic Bruce, wherein VBjin-ovr is used to play the obscure first-person survival horror game Insane Mouse Mansion, the Rift primarily functions as a head-mounted display, as Virtual Boy games have no use for the device's various bells and head-tracking whistles.
Still, the experience seems about as accurate as one could hope for without the real deal. Is there an Excedrin emulator out there?
Oculus Rift already has a Virtual Boy emulator originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
vorpaldinger: This was my favorite scene in all of The...
firehosevia jonmunger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlZGguSrp18
Drops and Drops in London-Town
Submitted by: Unknown
Tagged: gif , London , cityscape , big ben , rain , destination WIN! , g rated Share on Facebook"But more than anything, Fricchione is optimistic, buoyed by a recent trip to New Orleans with her..."
“Talking to that man was wonderful!” Fricchione said. “He said it takes time and you just have to have hope and know it will all work out eventually.””
-
6 months after Sandy, thousands homeless in NY, NJ
curious that they spoke to someone in New Orleans who isn’t still homeless from Katrina
Screw Princesses -- Disney Villains Are the Real Role Models
firehose"Villains are goal-oriented, while princesses are content with a puffball dress and Ken doll beau. Villains don't put virginal love on a pedestal. One could even argue that villains provide an opportunity to teach your children about making the right choices.
Princesses are only princesses because of who their parents are or the man they marry. Villains don't get it that easy. Villains shape their own lives."
Exotic fighting game locales become animated GIFs in this tour of the 16-bit world
In the background of flurries of punching, kicking, and special moves, fighting games have a long history of taking players on an exotic tour of the world. Reddit user RudeBootie has put together a collection of 125 retro fighting game backdrops depicting locations everywhere from training gyms, to the Serengeti, to hot springs — all as animated GIFs that recreate their bumpy 16-bit animations. The settings are pulled from nine different games, including three titles from the Street Fighter series. Though many of the locales have mystic or ancient vibes, the more modern-day settings are often filled with wonderful details hidden and animated in the background.



- Source Fighting GIFs (imgur)RudeBootie (Reddit)
- Related Items video game game street fighter background gif 16-bit fighting game
"The Vikings selected UCLA punter Jeff Locke in the fifth round, perhaps paving the way for the..."
firehoseprotip, apprently: don't have opinions
”I’m hoping I get a chance to compete,” Kluwe said in a phone interview. ”If not, we all get cut eventually and I’ll just have to go and find another job.”
Kluwe averaged 39.7 yards per punt, which was the best net average of his career but ranked 17th league-wide. He didn’t always see eye-to-eye with straight-laced special teams coordinator Mike Priefer, who said late last season that he was getting tired of Kluwe’s public stances after the punter was fined for covering a Hall of Fame patch on his jersey with a sign that read ”Vote Ray Guy” to protest the lack of punters in the Hall.”
- Vikings draft punter in 5th round, Kluwe out?
A Worse Affliction Than Bieber Fever
firehosevia Christopher Lantz
attn: multitasksuicide
More music humor over at Music!
Submitted by: Unknown (via Unbelievable-Facts)
Tagged: disabilities , addictions , heavy metal , Music FAILS , g rated Share on FacebookArmed drones flown remotely from Britain air bases prompt protests - GlobalPost
firehosedrones beat
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GlobalPost A Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft is pictured at the Farnborough International Airshow in Hampshire, southern England, on July 22, 2010. Amid the rush to buy commercial planes at the Farnborough airshow this week, aerospace ... and more » |
A photographer's quest to appreciate (and catalog) the best escalators in the world
It's easy for city-dwellers to overlook the escalator, but Japanese photographer Miha Tamura is working to highlight the functional beauty and engineering achievements of the moving staircases. Her site, Tokyo Escalator, serves as a database of sorts featuring hundreds of the machines from around Japan as well as the rest of the world. In an interview this month with PingMag, Tamura spoke about her odd project, and explained "I don’t publish pictures of escalators that are just 'average'... A really nice escalator, like the one by Richard Rogers at Lloyd’s of London [below], means to really understand the appeal of escalators and then take advantage of that to the maximum in the design."
Her photos typically highlight either unique designs or those that are particularly suited to their environment, like one with a narrow escalator wedged between two others due to space constraints. The most exotic escalators may be the difficult-to-make spiral versions (see above), which save space and, according to Tamura, are only made by Mitsubishi. Tamura doesn't call her work art; instead, she explains that she chooses "the photographs where you can best understand the whole picture and what is special about the escalator."
![]()
- Via Kottke
- Source PingMagTokyo Escalator
- Related Items escalator miha tamura photography japan mitsubishi electric Mitsubishi
Beijaço do Laerte
firehosevia Tadeu
Beijaço é um movimento iniciado por Laerte nas tiras de 25/04/2013 na Folha para lembrar da primeira sessão da Comissão Extraordinária de Direitos Humanos, que é, por sua vez, um protesto e uma recuperação das discussões abandonadas pela Comissão quando o Pastor Marco Feliciano assumiu.
Para saber mais sobre o evento, clique aqui.
A seguir a lista de todos os beijoqueiros do pôster.
Proféticos - profeticos.net
Vida de Suporte - vidadesuporte.com.br
Os Levados da Breca - oslevadosdabreca.com
Nabunda Nada - nabundanada.com
RyotIras - ryotiras.com
Peixe Aquático - peixeaquatico.net
Juventude Perigosa - juventudeperigosa.com.br
Will Tirando - willtirando.com.br
Tiras da Jeh - tirasdajeh.blogspot.com
Talco e Show - talcoeshow.com
O Diário de Virgínia - odiariodevirginia.com
Chairim - chairim.com.br
Mulher de 30 - mulherde30.com.br
Mentirinhas - mentirinhas.com.br
Como Eu Realmente. - comoeurealmente.com
Tirinhas do Zé - tirinhasdoze.com
Esboçais - esbocais.com.br
Clara Gavilan - claragavilan.com.br
Lobo Limão - lobolimao.com.br
Maurício Rett - cartunista.com.br
Meus Nervos! - meusnervos.com.br
Sapo Brothers - sapobrothers.net
Whiskey and Hot Fudge Milkshake
firehosevia Tadeu
omfg give now "breakfast treat" thank yes you kthxplzkthx yes

Now, wait until I tell you what's in it first! Put down the mug and let me describe Barbara Kiebel's breakfast treat. It has Maker's Mark bourbon, vanilla ice cream, scratch whipped cream made with bourbon and scratch hot fudge made with espresso and coffee liqueur. Okay, now you can drink.
Link -via Tasteologie
anzu-ai: needlesslydefiantwithtea: ishmaeldreaming: evilsouthe...

The Alnwick Poison Garden
Alnwick Castle, Northumberland, England
The Alnwick Poison Garden boasts some of the world’s most dangerous plants, hence the name. Behind big black gates, the carefully curated garden contains about 100 varieties illegal narcotics including poppies, which are used to make opium, the poisonous Atropa belladonna (also known as deadly nightshade), Strychnos nux-vomica (used to make strychnine), Coca (from which cocaine is produced), hemlock (used to kill Socrates), cannabis and more.
The current Duchess of Northumberland decided to revamp the gardens when she became mistress of Alnwick Castle. The project began around 2000, but she did not begin the Poison Garden until five years later. Inspired by the garden near Padua, Italy which was once used by the Medici’s to find better ways to kill their enemies, the Duchess decided to build a garden that was filled with narcotic, poisonous and deadly plants. The initial design included some medicinal plants, but she had them removed to maintain the concept of the Poison Garden.::uncomfortable sounds of longing::
WHY WOULD YOU LABEL IT SO CLEARLY IF YOU DON’T WANT ME TO MOVE IN THERE? OH GOD
The current Duchess of Northumberland isn’t anyone I’ve ever given any thought to before but she sounds fucking awesome oh my god
i’m so glad this wasn’t here when i visited Alnick with the school because i guarantee only half of the students would have made it back alive
DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW NERVE-WRACKING IT IS TO WALK THROUGH THIS THOUGH??? I BRUSHED AGAINST A LEAF AND I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE.
Zach Braff's new film hits Kickstarter goal as director attempts to retain creative control
firehose'While Braff "would love, more than anything, to have it be [backers] get an equity stake," current laws prevent that'
Last month, the creators of Veronica Mars took to Kickstarter to fund a movie adaptation of the cult TV hit. It was perhaps the most high-profile example of a well-known creative entity using Kickstarter to mobilize a fanbase to get a semi-independent project off the ground, and actor / director Zach Braff (best known for the TV show Scrubs and his film Garden State) took notice. Earlier this week, he launched a Kickstarter with a goal of $2 million to help fund his latest project, Wish I Was Here, and the project just met its funding goal after only three days.
The big question around Braff's plans is why he needs to go to Kickstarter to fund his movie, rather than doing it through more traditional funding sources. Braff (who plans to star in and direct the film as he did with Garden State, says that while the Kickstarter money won't be enough to fund the movie's production entirely, it will be enough that he won't have to be give away his rights to critical creative decisions like locations, stars, and even the movie's final cut. "I want to bring you, my fans, the truest representation of what's in my brain," Braff said in his project's video overview.
"I want to bring you, my fans, the truest representation of what's in my brain."
"I'm doing this so that one negative audience comment in a test screening won't force me to change the end of my movie," Braff told Contact Music. As he said in the Kickstarter video for his project, "after I saw how the amazing Veronica Mars fans rallied around that project in a mind-blowing way, i couldn't help but think... maybe this could be a new paradigm for filmakers who want to make smaller, personal films without having sign away any of their artistic freedom."
While the film currently has no distribution partner, Braff says that selling foreign distribution rights will further increase his budget, and he'll be putting up money of his own to make up the budget difference from there. Despite that, some find it off-putting for a millionaire to be reaching out to the public to crowd-fund a movie, a disconnect Braff willingly acknowledges. "The people who would say, 'Fuck him, he should pay for it himself,' I don't expect those people to be the supporters of this project. I get it, Braff told Buzzfeed. However, he does feel that is he giving back as much as he reasonably can to the fans of his that back the project. "There will be videos and content, and people who are interested in the behind-the-scenes of the making of a movie will go on this ride alongside me — I think that's cool for 10 bucks."
"If I wanted to make dough, I'd go back and be on another TV show."
While Braff "would love, more than anything, to have it be [backers] get an equity stake," current laws prevent that, so instead he's tried to come up with "any and every incentive you can think of." Indeed, $30 will get backers a live streaming screening of the movie when it's done, followed by an online Q&A, plus a sneak peek at the soundtrack as it is assembled and other perks like a PDF of the script and the production journals that all backers will have access to. Jumping up to $100 will get you to a live pre-screening and Q&A in a number of different cities (most of which have already sold out).
At the end of the day, Braff doesn't appear worried about his critics, so long as he gets to make his movie just as he wants to. "It's not a scam," he told Buzzfeed. "If I wanted to make dough, I'd go back and be on another TV show." While Braff's plan does have its detractors, the fact that his Kickstarter already met its goal means he's likely just focusing on his movie. Filming for Wish I Was Here is slated to start in August, and Braff hopes to have the movie ready to debut at the Sundance Film Festival next January.
- Source buzzfeedContact MusicWish I Was Here (Kickstarter)
- Related Items kickstarter wish i was here zach braff funding financing independent films movies movie making backing


































