firehose

NYT Leads Obit For Brilliant Rocket Scientist With A Nod To Her Cooking And Parenting:

the headline is up front with her being a rocket scientist, but yeah, weird lede

JACKSON, MI—Citing a wish to maintain the quality of life for residents across the state, the Mississippi Senate on Thursday passed a bill outlawing the sale of soft drinks in containers smaller than 20 ounces.

A UK judge sentences a man to write about the "dangers of marijuana," or go to jail.

Rick Ross’s half-assed apology for his date-rape song is just like ones offered by conservative radio hosts. And that’s not the only thing they have in common.

Free-to-play mega-machine simulator MechWarrior Online will exit beta and launch by late summer. The game is currently playable in open beta. Asked to narrow down that launch window a little more, Russ Bullock, president of developer Piranha Games, noted it'll be "no later than" September 21 (the official close of summer).

Since the game is wholly player-versus-player, we asked if the company plans on implementing a player versus AI model. We were told at GDC that it's not in the plan and Piranha hasn't explored the option.

There are currently three major features the studio is planning to add before launch as they maintain their updates for the game every two weeks. The first is upping the number of mechs on the battlefield from eight versus eight to 12 versus 12, this will happen in "the next 60 days." They are also doing another complete revamp of the user interface. Finally, the "granddaddy feature," is community warfare that incorporates the lore from the BattleTech universe and allows players to pledge allegiance to houses.

MechWarrior Online to fully launch by end of summer originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 29 Mar 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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During his GDC panel, "One Man, 17 SKUs: Shipping on Every Platform at Once," Retro City Rampage creator Brian Provinciano provided a clear breakdown of the game's fiscal performance across various platforms.

PSN was where Provinciano saw most of his profit come in: over $600,000 earned across over 35,000 units sold on PSN. These numbers do not account for PlayStation Plus downloads and the period of time during which RCR was offered for free with membership.

The PC platform yielded the second-highest revenue for Retro City Rampage, earning over $400,000 from over 40,000 copies sold - the majority sold on Steam. Xbox Live Arcade came third with around $200,000 earned across 15,000 units sold, and WiiWare earned under $10,000 with fewer than 2,000 units sold. After the panel, Provinciano told me sales currently sit around 97,000 total, and that he anticipates total sales will exceed 100,000 next week.

Provinciano said he spent the most development time on the Xbox Live Arcade port, on a platform he called the most expensive. "Knowing what I know now, I would've skipped it," he said. Though he considered the WiiWare version a $20,000 gift to fans, the XBLA port ended up costing more.

Update: Brian got in touch to tell us some of the numbers in his panel were a bit off thanks to an Excel issue. "Looks like Excel didn't line up the bars up correctly." The WiiWare version sold under 2,000 units, he tells us. "It's also sold significantly more than 35K on PSN, 40K on PC and 15K units on each of the other platforms."

Where Retro City Rampage made its money originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 29 Mar 2013 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Calvin and Hobbes

Google's has always been a public affair: applications were submitted using a hashtag on Twitter and Google+, and winners offered the opportunity to be among the first to purchase Glass started receiving notifications in the form of public replies earlier this week. Stanford computer science Ph.D student Andrej Karpathy has accumulated data on winners who entered using Twitter from the publicly-available data, and it provides the opportunity for a bit of analysis into how winners were chosen.

In the wake of the competition, it became apparent that not everyone who had been selected embodied the spirit of the competition, and Google has since announced that it will rescind some of its Google Glass offers after taking a closer look at the applications. Google told New York Magazine that "an independent panel" waded through the applications, and some have argued that the selection process was based merely on an algorithm — ignoring some of the carefully constructed applications that were submitted. The data may not back that up, however.

Firstly, there's a noticeable number of celebrities — including Soulja Boy, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, video game designer Cliff Bleszinski, and singer Brandy Norwood. There also looks to be an unsurprising focus on users with a fairly significant number of followers. Google's rules for the competition, in fact, say that influence and reach would be taken into account. That's not to say that users with few followers didn't get chosen as well: some 602 users on Twitter with 100 or fewer followers were selected out of the 2318 Twitter winners included on Karpathy's list, including one with just seven followers.

• Via Betabeat
• Source Andrej Karpathy (Stanford)New York Magazine
• Related Items glass winners competition project glass google glass ifihadglass Google

12-year-old girl: I don't want kids when I grow up.
Society: You'll change your mind when you get older. You're only 12. You're too young to know what you want.
16-year-old girl: I'm pregnant.
Society: How could you be so stupid? Do you know anything about safe sex? You should be ashamed.
20-year-old woman: I'm a single mother with an infant son.
Society: You should've gone to college first. You need a stable career before you can support a child.
33-year-old woman: I'm married and my spouse and I both have stable careers. I have two young daughters now.
Society: You're not staying home? Who's going to take care of them? You're just going to put them in day care while you work? That's selfish of you. You can't expect to raise decent kids with a full-time job.
45-year-old woman: I just had my first child.
Society: Why would you have a child when you're that old? Do you realize the health risks of being pregnant at your age? When your kid is a teenager you'll be a senior citizen. That's inconsiderate of you.
60-year-old woman: I haven't had any children.
Society: Your life must be so unfulfilling. Is there something wrong with you? Why didn't you want kids? How strange.

“If you look into your own mind, which are you, Don Quixote or Sancho Panza? Almost certainly you are both. There is one part of you that wishes to be a hero or a saint, but another part of you is a little fat man who sees very clearly the advantages of staying alive with a whole skin.”

-

George Orwell  (via stephybs20)

(…And the tension between these two is one of the things that makes great characters.) :)

Image by Ieylush

“…We are still at a point with women’s rights where all sadness about centuries of ingrained female denigration must be met with a man hoping to upend protest by claiming he is more wronged.”

- Grace Dent in the Independent, writing about the musical “The Book of Mormon”

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Guru Meditation

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MakerBot has been the trailblazer when it comes to bringing 3D printing to the masses, but another company may beat it to the punch before it can do the same for 3D scanners. Matterform is looking to produce a simple, low-profile 3D scanner, and it's launched an Indiegogo campaign in support of the effort. The Photon 3D scanner appears to be about the size of a simple printer when shut, and then unfolds to reveal a scanning surface when being used. A circular tray rotates the object being scanned, while a camera and lasers collected data on the object over the course of about three minutes. It can scan objects as large as 9.75-inches tall and 7.5-inches wide, and it's being offered to backers for about $392.

Matterform is also building software that works alongside the Photon to facilite scanning. The company's emphasis is on making a scanner that's simple to use, which could help to make 3D printing more accessible. Consumers who aren't able to customize existing objects or create their own with modeling software may find limited use in a 3D printer, but owning both a 3D printer and a 3D scanner could allow replication of household or handmade items. Matterform estimates the earliest Photon deliveries will go out in July, but only if the company meets its nearly $80,000 goal — with 32 days remaining, the company still has about $60,000 to go.

• Source Indiegogo
• Image Credit Matterform (Indiegogo)
• Related Items photon 3d scanner indiegogo 3d printing 3d scanning crowdfunding matterform photon 3d scanner

By Brian Crecente on Mar 30, 2013 at 8:00a

Just under $40 is a pretty hefty price tag for a traditional six-sided die, but the people behind this high tech version of the 5,000-year-old random number generator believe all of the bells and whistles built into the Dice+ warrants the cost.

The blue and white plastic and rubber Dice+ die is packed with six multi-colored LEDs that can flash, glow or pulse a number onto the side of the die, an accelerometer, a magnetometer, a thermometer, Bluetooth for delivering roll results to computers or mobile devices and built-in anti-cheat detection.

When a player rolls the die, the numbers flash red if the die isn't rolled hard enough, is stopped mid-roll, lands tilted or is changed after a roll completes. If the roll is considered bad, the die also won't automatically send the roll result to whatever computer, tablet or smartphone game that is being played at the time.

"The basic concept is to power board games and bring people back together in the living room so they can play together, see each other and have social interaction," said David Gatti, marketing director for Dice+. "Playing online is fun, but we think playing with other people is much better."

While Dice+ could be used to play regular table top games, it's really designed to interface with the board games that have made the leap over to tablets, smartphones, and one day, smart televisions.

The developers believe players would rather have the heft and feel of rolling a real die when playing a game like Monopoly on the iPad, than use a built in number generator. And because the die has built tech to detect motion, the die can also be used as a physical motion controller. In one tech demo, I held the over-sized die in my hand and gently tilted it to control a plane flying through a virtual city scape on an iPad. But the core experience is that of simply rolling a die.

Tearing down something so simple, an evenly weighted cube with six different numbers represented on its six sides, and reinventing it as a technological device is a surprisingly difficult task. The die uses an array of LEDs that project fixed numbers on each side of the cube. The numbers can be displayed in different colors and pulse. The die itself can detect movement, has a battery that delivers about 20 hours of play and has that in-board basic programming to know when someone is cheating. And of course, the Bluetooth is there to pass the data on to your device automatically.

All of that tech has to be crammed into small cube and then, perhaps the biggest challenge, the entire die has to be perfectly weighted.

Janusz Bossy, the software development manager for Dice+, said that the team used proven statistical methods to see if the die rolls were truly, fairly randomized. That mean getting the dice out to a bunch of people, including 50 or so in the office, to have them roll, re-roll and re-roll the dice until they logged and tracked 18,000 rolls. Then they used software to analyze the data, to ensure that the numbers were truly random and they hadn't just created a high tech set of loaded dice.

These die, a combination of electronic and old-school, seem a bit extravagant, but the team say they're confident there's a market for the devices.

"For a player, you can be 3 years old or 93, this is a unique product that everyone knows how to use," said Steven May, head of Dice+' global launch. "It's the first controller you were ever given."

May says according to his research there are about 11,000 registered board games in the world that use physical dice. Of those, he said, about 4,000 have been converted to some form of digital play. All of those games could, in theory, one day support Dice+.

"It's the first controller you were ever given."

While the technology could be built into a variety of dice shapes — think 20-sided — the team decided to start with the most frequently used, the classic six-sided die. May said most games use a single die as well, which is why they designed around the idea of a single die. Though the technology could support as many as 10 dice at the same time. It just might be hard to cram that many of them into your hand at once.

May's chief job is reaching out to the likes of Mattell and Hasbro and selling them on the concept. While the team hasn't landed any deals yet, he says they seem interested.

When Dice+ launches this summer it will come with seven games and some simple technology to track dice rolls and provide statistics to players. The games are all developed in-house, designed to be simple and fun, but also to provide a demonstration of the dice's tech. Eventually, the team hopes to have a portal filled with games that people can find and purchase that will support the die.

There's an admittedly large part of the vision for the device that relies on what developers will do with all of the tech packed into that durable little cube, there's also an expectation that game makers and game players will prefer a physical roll to a virtual one.

When I tried the die out on a closed laptop sitting in my lap, the die felt solid, albeit a little large. The over-sized die tended to need a bit more wrist action to get it moving, then you'd expect, but it tumbled across my case as you'd expect. Because the die is biggish, and the anti-cheat software looks for deliberately short rolls, I did find that I had to re-roll the die more than I would have expected to, to land a roll considered fair. Used on a large table, this probably wouldn't be an issue.

One challenge that the bit of tech faces is the audience they are chasing. People who like to play die games with real die, are pretty picky about what they roll. This die, even with all of its anti-cheating software and statistic tracking, may have a hard time winning those hardcore gamers over.

Google has joined Twitter in declaring that it will only use (parts of) its patent portfolio in a defensive way. What the patent wars can learn from the Cold War.

Researchers are desperately trying to keep up with new threats to the plant caused by global warming.

By Alexa Ray Corriea on Mar 30, 2013 at 9:00a

Preserving video games presents an unique challenge: while physical products deteriorate over time, newer games are increasingly made digital-only and technology rapidly evolves, how do we archive them?

Speaking at the 2013 Game Developers Conference today, a panel of industry personnel, professors and museum curators spoke about these challenges. The panelists discussed what is currently being done to archive games and what can be done in the future to successfully preserve them.

Indie developer Loot Drop's CEO John Romero said we need to archive the creative process, citing older games including Chrono Trigger and early Final Fantasy titles as products the industry has been unable to replicate in past years. Recording interviews with developers and discussions on their work is key to leaving behind information for future developers to work with.

Jon-Paul Dyson, director for the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at The Strong, oversees the preservation of video game hardware and software, as well as published media about games such as magazines, video captures and other archival materials.

"What happens when you don't have a physical product anymore? What happens when everything is born digital?"

"What happens when you don't have a physical product anymore?" he posed, noting that game elements such as World of Warcraft servers will one day no longer function. These servers themselves are difficulty to preserve, because they do not contain code or information that can easily be migrated or emulated. "What happens when everything is born digital?"

Stanford University Libraries' curator Henry Lowood said the biggest problem with archiving video games is keeping software "alive" and in a usable format. Once we figure out how to safely copy, move and archive functioning code, we will be able to keep more older games around. This has already worked well for RPG Chrono Trigger, originally published for Super Nintendo in 1995 and since ported to a variety of downloadable content platforms and handhelds, including mobile phones.

"There is already a pretty long tradition at this point of doing this kind of work."

John Sharp, associate professor of Games and Learning at Parsons The New School for Design, believes in preservation through curation, noting that exhibits like the Museum of Modern Art's game design installation has assisted in making games preservation mainstream.

"MOMA did not acquire these games as art, they acquired them as design — they are in the design and architecture department, which is also a very important point," he said. "I think this sort of work is a little bit more in the public eye, and we're giving it more exposure. There is already a pretty long tradition at this point of doing this kind of work."

Sharp said the industry needs more people who care about older games need to "put their money where their mouth is" and help preserve the "cultural heritage" of video games. He said more developers should think about preserving their, documenting their work as they go.

In This Storystream:

• Mar 30 2013, 9:00a

  Game archiving faces challenges as technology evolves, digital-only media prevails, say experts

• Mar 29 2013, 8:23p

  2013 Game Developers Conference news recap

• Mar 29 2013, 8:00p

  SimCity pedestrians 'teleport' to keep the game fun

• Mar 29 2013, 7:26p

  Gas Powered Games may be renamed Wargaming Seattle, working on a free-to-play MMO

• Mar 29 2013, 4:00p

  The early misses of Fortnite's building system

• Mar 29 2013, 3:21p

  Fruit Ninja studio almost sliced itself in half with experimental prototype

• Mar 29 2013, 1:55p

  Tomb Raider intended to be a direct sequel, launching in 2012

• Mar 29 2013, 1:00p

  Mobile Watch List - GDC 2013 Special

• Mar 29 2013, 12:30p

  MechWarrior Online leaves beta 'late summer,' adding guild and faction combat, 12v12 battles and new UI

• Mar 29 2013, 8:30a

  DmC: Devil May Cry's art director explores the series' 'visual rebirth' at GDC

• Mar 29 2013, 12:00a

  Journey's vast desert setting was chosen to help players connect on a 'human level'

• Mar 28 2013, 11:45p

  How Bungie shaped Destiny from fantasy to 'mythic sci-fi' world

• Mar 28 2013, 11:30p

  Jane McGonigal on the good and bad of video game escapism

• Mar 28 2013, 11:00p

  The Kickstarter darling comes home: hands on with the Ouya

• Mar 28 2013, 11:00p

  Mass Effect 3 live producer says multiplayer modes are a service, not a 'ship and forget' package

• Mar 28 2013, 9:00p

  Hitman: Absolution AI developed to create story-driven yet spontaneous combat scenarios

• Mar 28 2013, 8:48p

  Infinite Crisis is a friendlier, more approachable MOBA

• Mar 28 2013, 8:30p

  Ubisoft Montpellier developers discuss 'Reinventing Rayman'

• Mar 28 2013, 7:30p

  The creator of Just Cause 2 on running a next-gen sandbox developer

• Mar 28 2013, 7:00p

  Activision Blizzard researchers talk next-gen characters and believable performances at GDC

• Mar 28 2013, 6:00p

  Authenticity vs. reality: designing DayZ

• Mar 28 2013, 5:30p

  Crytek talks tech, educational outreach with CryEngine 3 at GDC

• Mar 28 2013, 5:29p

  IGDA apologizes for dancers at GDC party, hopes to reconcile with resigned members

• Mar 28 2013, 4:50p

  Game designer Jason Rohrer designs a game meant to be played 2,000 years from now, hides it in desert

• Mar 28 2013, 4:30p

  QWOP creator says developers can learn lessons from real-life sports at GDC

• Mar 28 2013, 3:30p

  How inexperience and failed pitches led to Tokyo Jungle

• Mar 28 2013, 3:03p

  Total War: Arena announced at GDC, will be free-to-play, multiplayer-focused

• Mar 28 2013, 3:00p

  Dragon's Dogma was originally twice its current size

• Mar 28 2013, 2:30p

  If you don't go, you don't know: Why Dishonored's art director traveled to build Dunwall

• Mar 28 2013, 2:00p

  Tenya Wanya Teens is a game about saying 'I love you' and peeing, and not confusing the two

• Mar 28 2013, 1:46p

  IGDA draws backlash, member resignations over female dancers at GDC party (update: IGDA responds)

• Mar 28 2013, 12:30p

  Women in the gaming industry share their number one reason to be in the business

• Mar 28 2013, 9:00a

  Killer is Dead's episodic structure explained

• Mar 28 2013, 8:30a

  Game industry veterans discuss how to motivate developers

• Mar 28 2013, 8:00a

  Total War: Rome 2's Battle of Teutoburg Forest puts players on the losing side

• Mar 28 2013, 1:00a

  Assassin's Creed 3's cross-studio work 'holds the keys to next generation development'

• Mar 27 2013, 11:43p

  Journey sweeps the 13th annual Game Developers Choice Awards

• Mar 27 2013, 11:00p

  Nintendo hopes to win app and web devs to Wii U with JavaScript tools

• Mar 27 2013, 10:30p

  Tropes vs. Women creator says we need to understand motivations behind online harassment in order to prevent it

• Mar 27 2013, 10:00p

  Finding feature inspiration at CD Projekt Red

• Mar 27 2013, 9:00p

  Dishonored co-creative directors advocate attracting players, not dictating their actions in GDC panel

• Mar 27 2013, 8:45p

  Injustice: Gods Among Us app launching for iOS

• Mar 27 2013, 8:30p

  Media perception of video games can be changed with diversity, say industry veterans

• Mar 27 2013, 8:00p

  Rune Factory producer on why not all RPG heroes have to save the world

• Mar 27 2013, 7:58p

  Miiverse to come to smartphones and PC by May, 3DS version in the works

• Mar 27 2013, 7:30p

  FarmVille 2 director encourages developers to 'never insult your players'

• Mar 27 2013, 7:22p

  Game Composers Get the Shaft, Argues Rights Attorney

• Mar 27 2013, 7:00p

  Full Sail study explores the value and hidden weights of Metacritic

• Mar 27 2013, 6:00p

  Developers should 'think like a fan,' be transparent when pitching on Kickstarter, says Double Fine producer

• Mar 27 2013, 5:30p

  Halo 4 designer chronicles building the Prometheans

• Mar 27 2013, 5:00p

  Kojima Productions L.A. building campus in Playa Vista, the 'Red Fox' to Tokyo studio

• Mar 27 2013, 4:33p

  PlayStation 4 specs detailed further at GDC

• Mar 27 2013, 2:11p

  Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain revealed, preceded by Ground Zeroes (update)

• Mar 27 2013, 2:00p

  Opinion: Battlefield 4 totally eclipses the heart

• Mar 27 2013, 1:00p

  Vendetta Online iOS port will allow players to transition seamlessly from desktop to tablet

• Mar 27 2013, 12:25p

  Limbo on PS Vita won't feature touch controls

• Mar 27 2013, 2:23a

  Battlefield 4 executive producer Patrick Bach on the next-generation of 'human, dramatic and believable' Battlefield

• Mar 27 2013, 1:31a

  Battlefield 4 17-minute trailer hits, game arrives on PC, PS3, PS4 and Xbox 360 this fall

• Mar 27 2013, 1:00a

  Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z's anti-hero is part cyborg, part foul-mouthed comic book killer

• Mar 27 2013, 12:20a

  Spec Ops writer thinks violence is too easy

• Mar 26 2013, 10:30p

  Blizzard GDC panel elaborates on the challenges of localization

• Mar 26 2013, 10:00p

  Character diversity means better games, says Microsoft Studios writer

• Mar 26 2013, 9:30p

  Look to LucasArts adventure games for exploration cues, Blizzard AI engineer says

• Mar 26 2013, 9:00p

  How Halo 4 developer 343 Industries made Forward Unto Dawn on a 'threadbare' budget

• Mar 26 2013, 7:30p

  TowerFall brings the bow and arrow craze to indie games

• Mar 26 2013, 7:00p

  Harmonix narrative designer discusses authorship 'myth' and challenges of narrative

• Mar 26 2013, 6:04p

  Magicka: Wizard Wars streamlines the PvP experience of the original and makes it 'twitchier'

• Mar 26 2013, 5:30p

  Warren Spector says gaming can only borrow and steal so much from other narrative media

• Mar 26 2013, 5:00p

  Dust 514 narrative and beta structure designed to encourage player-driven stories

• Mar 26 2013, 4:25p

  Piracy and plush counterfeits key to Plants vs. Zombies' surprise success in China

• Mar 26 2013, 3:31p

  Sex, religion and violence: The big concerns for international game ratings

• Mar 26 2013, 9:00a

  Cut the Rope developers expanding with four new games this year, focusing on quality over quantity

• Mar 26 2013, 8:00a

  Wideload Games on the difficult transition from console to mobile development

• Mar 25 2013, 11:00p

  Assassin’s Creed 3 is a marriage of narrative and mission design

• Mar 25 2013, 10:00p

  Game AI should evolve through gameplay to better serve players, says Blizzard dev

• Mar 25 2013, 9:56p

  Limbo coming to PlayStation Vita later this year

• Mar 25 2013, 9:43p

  Spelunky coming to PlayStation 3 and Vita this summer

• Mar 25 2013, 9:34p

  The time to evolve emotional game content is now, developers say

• Mar 25 2013, 9:33p

  Blacklight: Retribution and Primal Carnage: Genesis coming to PS4

• Mar 25 2013, 7:30p

  ZombiU's permadeath mechanic built to move narrative forward, says writer

• Mar 25 2013, 7:00p

  Authentic games require the 'flavor' of an experience, not the whole package, narrative designer says

• Mar 25 2013, 6:30p

  Mark of the Ninja devs explain 'the theory of failing quickly' at GDC

• Mar 25 2013, 3:50p

  Oculus Rift developer kit hands-on: As advertised

• Mar 25 2013, 3:50p

  Some of the best virtual reality experiences will come from indie devs, Oculus Rift developers say

• Mar 20 2013, 3:00p

  Open Me! heading to PlayStation Vita in North America, playable at GDC

• Mar 20 2013, 2:00p

  GameStick shipping to developers next week, will make first public appearance at GDC

• Mar 19 2013, 12:30p

  Square Enix's Japanese arcade shooter Gunslinger Stratos will be playable at GDC

• Mar 15 2013, 1:00p

  GDC Experimental Gameplay Workshop returning for 11th year with Journey, Uncharted developers

• Mar 12 2013, 7:15p

  Among the Sleep headed to Kickstarter and GDC this month

• Mar 8 2013, 1:00p

  GDC 2013 Game Design Challenge will be the last one

• Mar 4 2013, 3:45p

  GDC to run 'bootcamps' for iOS developers, animators and producers

• Mar 4 2013, 10:15a

  GDC Play 2013 announces 'Best in Play' winners

• Mar 4 2013, 6:01a

  Sony to host 'Overview of PS4 for Developers' at GDC 2013

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"We are the Explorers," an Indiegogo campaign that aims to create a 30-second trailer about the US Space Program, reached its crowdfunding goal of $33,000 this morning, just five days after launching. Created by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) of America, the campaign was inspired by a nearly three-minute video that NASA released last year.

The clip, embedded below, gives a brief overview of NASA's history and its latest developments in spacecraft technology, but federal law prohibits the agency from purchasing advertising time to air it. That will soon change, though, now that AIA — an aerospace trade group not affiliated with NASA — has reached its goal. The organization plans to convert NASA's film into a 30-second trailer that will run in theaters across major US markets, beginning with the premiere of Star Trek: Into Darkness on May 17th.

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On its campaign page, AIA said it hopes the trailer will educate young viewers about the value of a robust space program, at a time when government spending cuts are threatening to weaken it. "This is more than a fundraiser, the organization said. "It's a demonstration of support for space exploration programs."

AIA also hopes the ad buy will inspire today's students to pursue careers in science and space exploration, by reminding them of NASA's illustrious history as a leader in innovation.

"By backing this 30 second trailer in the top movie theater markets around the United States, you can show our students and young people that we're in an exciting new era of space exploration," AIA said. "Now is the time to reach them — to remind them that an inspiring space program awaits, one that is worthy of their ambition."

• Source We are the explorers (Indiegogo)
• Related Items star trek science video movie film trailer nasa space indiegogo star trek into darkness we are the explorers

X-COM's cast of alien characters could have looked vastly different. During a postmortem at GDC, X-COM creator Julian Gollop showed some of the alien design mock-ups that were created by one of the game's artists, John Reitze. "This is the visual piece de la resistance of my entire presentation, because it is the only surviving concept work from the whole game," said Gollop. Many of the aliens are variations on the familiar X-COM enemies we all know today. There are different takes on Sectoids and Ethereals, for example. And then there's the giant bunny monster, which you can see in the first row of the image above. Probably for the best that one didn't make the cut.

Another interesting tidbit is that Chryssalids, one of the toughest enemies in X-COM, was something of an accident. "You'll notice that the Chrysallid is right next to the zombie character," said Gollop (third row, far left). "John didn't really imagine them to be connected in any way, but I very quickly had this idea that a Chryssalid would infect your soldiers, and this would turn them into zombies, which would then sprout new Chryssalids, and probably created the most annoying monster in the entire game." We're not sure "annoying" is really the right word - we'd probably go with "terrifying."

During the same panel, Gollop also revealed that X-COM was briefly canceled in 1993, when publisher Microprose was acquired by Spectrum Holobyte. See a larger version of the menagerie in the gallery below.

Gallery: X-COM alien concepts (GDC 2013)

X-COM could've had bunny monsters, Chryssalid was a happy accident originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Decatur Daily

Just retired Alabama Athletics Director Mal Moore dies USA TODAY Legendary Crimson Tide athletics director with the university for more than half a century. Moore 3-31-13. University of Alabama athletic director Mal Moore was responsible for hiring coach Nick Saban, who restored the Crimson Tide football program to ... Longtime Alabama AD Mal Moore passes awayHuffington Post Former Alabama athletic director Mal Moore passes away at 73al.com Former University of Alabama Athletic Direcor Mal Moore dead at 73Tuscaloosa Magazine SB Nation -CBS42 -NBCSports.com all 19 news articles »

theodp writes "Responding to an earlier request by the estate of Aaron Swartz to disclose the names of those involved in the events leading to Aaron's suicide, counsel for MIT snippily told the Court, "The Swartz Estate was not a party to the criminal case, and therefore it is unclear how it has standing, or any legally cognizable interest, to petition for the modification of the Protective Order concerning others' documents." In motions filed on slow-news-day Good Friday (MIT's on spring break), the DOJ, MIT, and JSTOR all insisted on anonymity for those involved in the Swartz case, arguing that redacting of names was a must, citing threats posed by Anonymous and LulzSec, a badly-photoshopped postcard sent to Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann and another sent to his Harvard Prof father, cake frosting, a gun hoax, and e-mail sent to MIT. From the DOJ filing: 'I also informed him [Swartz estate lawyer] that whatever additional public benefit might exist by disclosing certain names was, in this case, outweighed by the risk to those individuals of becoming targets of threats, harassment and abuse.' From the MIT filing: 'The publication of MIT's documents in unredacted form could lead to further, more targeted, and more dangerous threats and attacks...The death of Mr. Swartz has created a very volatile atmosphere.' From the JSTOR filing: 'The supercharged nature of the public debate about this case, including hacking incidents, gun hoaxes and threatening messages, gives JSTOR and its employees legitimate concern for their safety and privacy.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Animal New York hat ein schönes Interview mit Christian Alexander, der einen Fotoband über geheime Clubs auf der ganzen Welt veröffentlicht hat, die ihre Wurzeln in den Mondscheinkneipen (Speakeasy) während der Prohibition haben.

Almost a century after the dark days of Prohibition, so-called speakeasy culture lives on — though you might not know it. „The Secret Society: Modern Speakeasy Style and Design“ takes readers on an indulgent, voyeuristic tour of a secret world that exists all around us, where the nightlife elite revel in their exclusivity, hidden in plain sight.

From a converted synagogue where Parisians can enjoy late-night sacrilege and debacle, to luxurious members-only clubs that cost thousands of dollars annually and require finger-print scans for admittance, nightlife connoisseur Christian Alexander takes you through back alleys, pawn shop basements, refrigerator doors, and neon-lit sex shops, past the man asking for the secret password, and into the decadent underworld of the night.

THE SECRET UNDERWORLD OF NIGHTLIFE’S ILLUMINATI

I was building a website for a funeral home, and one of the sample screenshots was on an unclosed tab on my computer. 

My next client was a spiritualist, who happened to see the picture. She grabbed her materials and ran out the door. She said there was “bad energy” on my PC from the funeral home website.

Oh boy, get ready for an explosion of wrath from Sheldrake-ians, woomeisters, and other pseudoscience boosters who are ready at a moment’s notice to cry “censorship.” My inbox is yearning for the hate mail!

Alert reader Jay just informed me that TED has revoked the license for the entire upcoming TEDx West Hollywood event, that is, the execrable parade of self-help and numinosity called “Brother can you spare a paradigm?” (See my posts on it here, here, and here.)

The official notice is on this site, and is announced as follows (note the new name and plea for dosh):An angry pro-PSI blog has published excerpts of an email from a representative of TED to organizer Suzanne Taylor, explaining their decision (Taylor’s credentials included making a video about how aliens produce crop circles):

…) And when we look at your speaker line-up, we see several people who promote — as fact — theories that are well outside what most scientists would accept as credible. We’re not saying all the speakers are off-base. Perhaps you could make a case for each of them individually. But when we look at the program as a whole, it’s clear that it doesn’t meet our guidelines.The problem is not the challenging of orthodox views. We believe in that. We’ve had numerous talks which do that. But we have rules about the presentation of science on the TEDx stage. We disallow speakers who use the language of science to claim they have proven the truth of ideas that are speculative and which have failed to gain significant scientific acceptance.

More than 2000 TEDx events will take place in the year ahead.  If your program is allowed to proceed, it will truly damage other TEDx organizers’ ability to recruit scientists and other speakers. (Indeed many in the TED and TEDx communities have already reached out to us to express their concern.)

We have reluctantly concluded that your program is not appropriate for TEDx, and we have to therefore terminate your license. You are of course welcome to still hold an event with these speakers. You just can’t associate it with TEDx. We are happy to work with you to figure out how to smoothly transition it into an event under a different name.  I’ll be happy to speak with you directly to facilitate this.

This is a nice victory for rationalism, and big plaudits go to TED and TEDx for making this decision. They’re gonna catch a lot of flak for this, and many accusations of “censorship”, but what they did was to stand up for science.

And don’t forget to keep an eye open for TEDx events in your area (there are hundreds worldwide), and report it to the TEDx organizers (and me) if you see anything really wonky, including pseudoscience or antiscience.

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By now, you’ve likely read about the whole Woman in Tech Tweets About Sexist Dudes in Tech. Dude Gets Fired. Internet Meltdown Ensues. thing involving Adria Richards and two brogrammers at PyCon.  Just in case you haven’t, here is run-down from Gayle L. McDowell:

At PyCon, a python developers conference which purports to have a relatively large percentage of women (only 20% still), two guys made some jokes to each other laced with sexual innuendos (something about the word “dongle”). Adria Richards, a Developer Evangelist, was bothered by these comments and took some a picture of them. She then reported it via Twitter (with their picture) and asked PyCon staff to speak to the men, which they did. Then, she followed up with a blog post. As a result, one of the two men was fired. The internet got mad and then Adria was fired.

The “as a result…” bit from McDowell makes it seem as if Richards’ actions lead directly to a firing.  Humph. Maybe it’s more like Amanda Blum states:

She didn’t get the developer in question fired… Play Haven did that and there are probably details of that transaction we aren’t privy to. It is a tragedy, but one that isn’t her fault.

Notice that Blum wrote “…but one that isn’t her fault”.  Well, you know what that means.  Something else is Richards fault.  Here is Blum detailing what is Richards fault in this whole PyCon thing:

She committed one single offense: not approaching the men like an adult and saying “hey. guys- cmon, that’s offensive to me.”.  On her own blog, she states “it only takes three words: ‘That’s not cool‘”, which I agree with. She should have said them to the developers in question. If she was that uncomfortable doing so in a full room, she could have contacted PyCon officials privately, there were certainly channels to do so.

Let me get this straight. Two people, in the fairly public forum of a professional conference, make unprofessional comments and those within earshot shouldn’t call them out in public, because, you know, it’s embarrassing to be called-out in public for making unprofessional and/or offensive remarks?

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

We’re supposed to afford people who engage in unprofessional conduct at a professional meeting a higher level of respect than they afford those with earshot of their asinine conversation?  Why is that exactly?  Golly gee, is it because they just couldn’t have known they were being offensive?

Get. Fucking. Real.

They knew exactly what they saying was inappropriate for the setting and they did it anyway because they felt totally free to do so.  It’s called ‘privilege‘.

You want the privilege of “censure in private” without the muss-and-fuss of earning that privilege.  You want us ‘sensitive’ folks to grow thicker skin and treat you like a delicate flower.  Well, I want a unicorn and a lightsaber.  Guess what? We’re both going to be disappointed.

If you act like an asshole in public, expect to be called-out in public.  I do, I have, and I am confident I will in the future.  Likely because I don’t have the privilege of being free to say or do whatever the hell I want without any unpleasantness.  Neither do you.

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— Flaubert