firehose

NASA says it lost communication with the International Space Station at 9:45AM ET this morning while flight controllers in Houston were working on updating the software for the flight computers onboard the ISS. The space agency says that a data relay system malfunctioned during the update, and that the primary computer controlling "critical station functions" had to default to a backup computer -- preventing the station from communicating with NASA satellites. NASA says the crew and station are in good condition, and Mission Control was able to send messages with the crew with the help of Russian ground stations. The crew is currently connecting a backup computer to help restore communications, which should be of great relief to astronaut Chris Hadfield, who's probably been holding back a really good tweet this whole time.

• Source NASA
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alancronin writes "Similar to Fabien Sanglard's previous code reviews of other games such as the Quake and Doom line of games comes a review of the code base of Duke Nukem 3D (split out over 4 pages). This will be a very good read for anyone interested in understanding the mechanics of a highly addictive game or anyone that wants to learn more about game design."

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anyone who says “just internet friends” is a fucking douche okay

my internet friends have wiped my tears dozens more times than my “real life friends”

Any friendship, on line or not, is still a bond, no? Whether you be a mile away, or a thousand miles away—it’s still a friendship. Something brings us all together; a string of fate, if you will? We’re friends. I love mine. No matter where they are on this planet. And I don’t see the difference than living ten minutes away or eighteen hours away. Friendship is friendship.

A number of reputable psychologists and sociologists seem to agree with the populace that claims internet friendships are just as strong and healthy as the face-to-face ones. Here are just a few quotes obtained from a scholastic library of essays written by said psychologists and sociologists. 

“Many friendships have been formed online. A national survey of adolescent Internet users in the United States reported that more than half of the sample conversed with people whom they did not know face-to-face through various online communication channels such as chat rooms and email. Twenty-five percent of the adolescents developed casual online friendships, and 14% of them had developed close online friendships.” 

“We propose that those who feel that they can better express their true selves
on the Internet than they can in their non-Internet areas of life will be more likely
to form close relationships with those they meet on-line.”

“…not only do UK housewives spend more of their downtime online than anyone else in the whole wide world, but also that – shock, horror – people are increasingly open to turning “online” friends into people they’d deign to call real life friends.”

“However, it may be hard to find others who share one’s interests in one’s local area, and when people get to know one another in the traditional manner, it generally takes time to establish whether they have commonalities and to what extent. But when someone joins a newsgroup devoted to, for example, aging ferrets, he or she already knows that there is a shared base of interest with the others there.”

 “Some researchers argue that people can develop close online relationships because the Internet enables individuals to pass through obstacles that may prevent potentially rewarding relationships from developing through face-to-face interaction.”

“Depending on the root of the friendship, on where the conversation started, the benefit is clear – you cut out the tedium of small talk. What could be better? There’s no trying to slowly work out whether you think similarly or have the same kinds of life experience, or whether you really do have enough in common to sustain the friendship – all that is done by the time you meet because you’ve read their comments or their emails or their blog. “

So, tl;dr?

Anyone who would dare talk down on close, internet relationships is ignorant. 

The 9-year-old beat out thousands of other potential young actresses for the role of Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild. Now, she's juggling being the youngest ever nominee for the best actress Academy Award with the equally challenging job as a fourth-grader.

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Johnathan Lee Iverson is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus’ youngest and first black ringmaster. (PHOTO CREDIT: EOS Marketing/Feld Entertainment)

Johnathan Lee Iverson is the luckiest man in show business. For 48 weeks a year, he is in a different U.S. city in front of bright spotlights, wearing a radiant smile underneath a top hat, entertaining alongside a diverse cast in lively costumes and doing what he loves most – singing.

“I’m a fierce advocate for living out the best life you possibly can. There’s no glory in living beneath yourself,” says Iverson.

And rightfully so. The 6-foot-5 performer is the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus’ youngest and first black ringmaster.

The New York City native’s stellar voice – since the 129th edition – has been a staple in the 143-year-old Greatest Show on Earth’s celebratory, mystic and family-friendly production. Iverson’s innate ability to mesmerize audiences is rooted in eight years as the Boys Choir of Harlem’s lead tenor. He trained extensively across various genres. He circled the globe to perform for various entertainers, politicians and world dignitaries.

When Iverson performed for Lena Horne, he earned second prize in the entertainer’s vocal jazz scholarship. “She was such a gem, such a lady and so down home,” says Iverson. “It was one of the highest points in my life.” (via Johnathan Lee Iverson: Ringling Bros. First Black Ringmaster | The Burton Wire)

Adam Goldberg is best known for memorable roles in films like Saving Private Ryan and the TV sitcom Friends. But since the age of 14 Goldberg has also been a director, crafting experimental films that pushed the traditional use of sound, editing and imagery to its limits. And with Vine, the new micro-video service owned by Twitter, Goldberg has found his medium. His six second clips have exploded in popularity, earning him the title The King of Vine. "It’s funny I’ve been on Twitter for years, and with Vine, I’ve gotten three times the followers in in just a few weeks," says Goldberg. "Something just clicked."

Like its parent company, the strength of Vine is the rapid metabolism it creates through strict limitations. For Twitter, users get only 140 characters to express themselves. With Vine, users get only six seconds for their film. And users must capture their Vines on the fly, without shooting a lengthy video and then selecting the best parts later, as they can with competing apps like Cinemagram. "That’s one of the big strengths of Vine. It’s like shooting on film. You have to nail it live," says Goldberg. "I love it the way it is. My fear is that eventually they will acquiesce to Mashable or whoever and dumb it down with things like filters and post production editing tools."

On Cinemagram, teens have begun learning the tricks and techniques of early silent cinema, a response to the app’s lack of sound. On Vine, which encourages users to edit rapid montages, experimental film techniques seems to work best. "Its hard to get a traditional short film into six seconds," says Goldberg. "Jump cuts and a more fractured narrative are a good way to work with that limitation."

Goldberg’s Vines revolve around a tangle of relationships between himself, his girlfriend Roxanne, her friend Merritt Lear, and a blonde wig. Goldberg is sometimes himself, and sometimes in drag with a blonde wig which seems to have an addictive power over him.

Their home life has the flavor of a David Lynch film. "It was so obvious to me what it was for," Goldberg told BlackBook "It’s a horror app. When you break it down, with its stop-action camera and everything, it’s just perfect for these little horror movies."

For Goldberg, the most intriguing aspect of Vine has been the use of hashtags. While they’re most commonly associated with Twitter, hashtags are really a linguistic device — like the @ symbol for email — that sprang from the QWERTY keyboard and can be used to organize media on any platform with text. Goldberg hoped the hashtags would let people follow the story, which is spread out in six-second installments across a number of characters and accounts that offer different perspectives on the same events, Rashomon style.

"Strictly speaking only my account is mine. But my account sort of ate Merritt Lear’s account," he explained. "It seemed only natural that Adam, this sycophantic, fractured protagonist, bleeds across accounts.”

"Overt imitation just seems boring."

What Goldberg wasn’t prepared for was quite how many perspectives would emerge. Dozens of users began jumping on the hashtag #MerrittZandu144 to signify an experimental or absurdist Vine. Others crafted scenes that seemed to fit into the strange interplay emerging between Goldberg, Merritt, Roxanne and the blonde wig. Some of the copycats rub Goldberg the wrong way. "Overt imitation just seems boring. I’m not sure what’s appealing about that to the artist or the audience." But overall, Goldberg is excited to see what the Vine community does with his characters and newly formed aesthetic. "Just like with a script you’re writing or song you’re producing, the story begins to inform itself. The same goes for the interactive nature of the Internet."

By Jenna Pitcher on Feb 19, 2013 at 1:30a

A team of Italian game developers are currently raising money to fund the development of an 8bit riot simulator "based on the actions of real riots happening around the world,' aptly named Riot.

"The main purpose of this project is to create a game that will get people to be interactive with two opposing forces during clashes between rioters and police while showing the moral aspects and viewpoints of both sides," its Indiegogo page states.

Gameplay includes "hot seat" versus mode and single player campaign. The simulator will launch on iOS and Android devices first with an eventual Mac and PC releases.

The team notes that they need to raise money for "software, licenses, a means to have every member of our team eat and sleep under a roof," since it is almost impossible to source game development funding in Italy, in its current state. At the time of writing, the flexible funding campaign has raised $1,500 of its $15,000 goal with 26 days left.

Police: Man raped woman he met on Christian dating website CNN International (CNN) -- A California man is accused of raping a woman he met on a Christian dating website -- and police fear there may be other victims. Sean Banks, 37, met the victim on the matchmaking website Christianmingle.com, where he went by the user name ... and more »

A page from The Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror 1 (art by J. Bone/colored by Bellaire)

To think there are people in the present-day comic book industry that fail to respect colorists is hard to believe. Yet, as we noted late last month, colorist Jordie Bellaire wrote about her work being minimalized when an unnamed convention refused to name colorists as guests. The post resulted in an impromptu #ColoristAppreciationDay on Twitter as well as a larger conversation about the important value of colorists.

In the wake of that discussion, I chatted with Bellaire about the post, as well as her work as a whole. The timing turned out well, as despite her busy schedule, she was able to do an interview. It seems as if every week there’s a new comic released that features her as colorist. This week it’s Captain Marvel #10, while next it’s the debut of The Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror miniseries written by Roger Langridge with Bellaire coloring artist J. Bone. Bellaire saves the best for last in our Q&A, revealing that she hopes to get back to illustrating — and that she has dabbled in writing.

Tim O’Shea: In all of the reactions from your initial Tumblr post in praise of colorists, what pleased or surprised you the most?

Jordie Bellaire: The response itself was extremely surprising! I didn’t expect anything to really come of my angry little blog post. I try to keep my “internet persona” pretty humorous and silly. I don’t really get “for realsies” worked up over anything online (unless it’s something Star Wars-related). When I posted this at 7 a.m. on hardly any sleep (I was in a tough deadline week, of course), I expected maybe three people to see it and those would have been just friends. Somehow, though, the letter spread fast. I was just thrilled. Given, keeping up with the response during the day totally killed my productivity, I was too busy watching the internet explode in the name of colorists.

Had that post been mulling around in your head for awhile and the encounter with the convention was just the final straw? Or did you just compose it inspired by the convention organizer’s ignorance?

I think I can get frustrated, much like anyone in whatever job they have, but normally I just complain to my boyfriend Declan Shalvey. I tend to keep my woes to the studio because it’s all just work, anyway. I guess when that convention just so blatantly “snubbed” Matthew Wilson and myself (I also found out other well respected colorists were turned down years ago as well) I kind of lost it. Things that had definitely been on mind finally surfaced. I was coming off a very horrible deadline week and was so excited about my trip to the con … so getting that curt e-mail was just the last thing I wanted.

Have you heard back from that particular convention since that post went viral?

I received an apology, but really, it only explained the “rules” and still stated why I wasn’t permitted anything. Not really much of an apology to me.

One last question on the Tumblr post. You wrote: “Colorists work hard to help get comic books in on time.” How hard is it to enjoy your job when it is seemingly so stressful (under the gun, trying to help get a book out on time)?

Bellaire colors on artist Ming Doyle’s Mara

I think if you care about your job in comics, you’re probably stressed out at this very moment or you can get easily stressed out. There are lots of people who are super relaxed and amazingly zen about the entire job but I definitely sweat the small stuff. It’s not an attractive quality but I try and take my work seriously. I recently made a promise to myself to just relax though. I have a great job and I guess I get so worked up about somehow possibly ruining my good fortune and opportunities, but I have to remember that I’m just so lucky and I should definitely enjoy it while I have it!

As I said when I contacted you for the interview, I had wanted to interview you even before you wrote your Tumblr post, given that within the span of one week two artists (Ming Doyle, Valerio Schiti) had praised your work in discussions with me. My first question is a simple one: How the heck do you juggle all the monthly books that you color?

It gets pretty hectic. I don’t get to do everything I wanted to do, I recently really wanted to sign up for a screen printing course in the city just to flex my art muscles … but realized it would conflict with deadlines. I think taking on too much work is easy for me because I like it but then when the reality of everything sinks in it gets pretty gruesome. No drinks out in town for me pretty much ever! And Fridays..what are those? I’m also very fortunate to have an assistant, Jordan Gibson. He’s a talented artist himself and really helps me get books out on time. He helps me flat pages, flat last-minute pages or covers, color-corrects using my older issues or color-corrects “rainbow flats” from a flatter — he’s just great. Normally, if I’m working on a book that’s coming in last minute he’s pulling all the same late hours I am to help prep the pages for coloring.

For folks not in the know about the creative process, what does it mean to “flat pages”?

Flatting a page is basically separating shapes in the lineart with different colors so a colorist can grab each item/shape individually. So, jeans would be flatted blue and a jacket would be flatted brown — I can easily grab a jacket and change its color to red and the pants to gray if I’d like. Flats stay underneath the lineart layer and are never merged until the finalization of a file so a colorist can always rely on these basic “seps” to help speed work along. Rather than say, painting an entire page or cover and finding a really hard time “grabbing” those jeans or jacket to recolor.

An example of the process that Bellaire & assistant Gibson go through on a J. Bone Rocketeer page

You color a variety of artists. When taking on assignment how do you go about deciding the best way to approach a certain tone or palette? Do you see input from the script or from the artist or the editor (or is it a combination of factors, depending on the assignment)?

Whenever I get a new title the very first thing I do is contact the artist. I like to figure out what the artist hates, likes, loves, what they thought about when they drew the issue, what movies or photos they were looking at, etc. I take all this on board and grab whatever resources I can from their ideas. After that, I read the script and check for any color notes from the writer. I pay attention to the setting and tone of a book and hope that the color work is expressive of that. I also just try to think about movies when I color. I talk about film a lot and also do a small Tumblr post, whenever I have down time (I originally wanted to do one once a month) called Hey, Nice Palette. I break down a film in a few palettes and then explain maybe why the filmmakers made the color decisions they did. Once you start thinking of that type of stuff, thinking about color and noticing color in everyday life, it just becomes more natural to try and imitate all those same nuances and care. I just want to bring that kind of thoughtfulness to my work on each project for variety.

In your response to getting named one of the best colorists of 2012, you wrote a post naming your favorite colorists: “Dean White, Bettie Breitweiser, Matt Hollingsworth, Matthew Wilson, John Rauch, Dave McCaig, Dave Stewart, Nolan Woodard, Nathan Fairbairn and Bill Crabtree.” Without asking you to spell out what you love about each of them, what are some of the elements or qualities you admire about these folks’ work?

Wow! Great question. I love all these dudes. Dean White, for his amazing painting skills. Bettie B. for her ridiculous, always-perfect moody colors. Hollingsworth is simply legend and extremely sophisticated. Matthew Wilson was my mentor when I began, so I just love everything he could ever do. John Rauch, such tone and flavor, love it. Dave McCaig, another legend I really shouldn’t have to explain, he’s amazing. Dave Stewart, GUH! Nolan Woodard has really got some magic going on. Nathan Fairbairn is so elegant but down to earth with his color choices, I love it. BILL CRABTREE, let me try to summarize … I want to marry his color work on Sixth Gun. And a few other awesome folks, Rico Renzi and Javier Rodriguez — wow, wow, those dudes are like the dreamiest of colorist dudes.

Ultimate X-Men (art: Mahmud Asrar/Juan Hernandez; colors by Bellaire)

Is there a comic or a page in a comic that you look back upon and say, “Wow, that is some of my best work”?

Guh, it’s hard for me since I hate pretty much everything I do (sorry artists, I still don’t understand why you even like me) but I’m REALLY happy with the stuff I just did on Ultimate X-Men with Mahmud Asrar. We’re doing a small run on the book with Brian Wood writing. It’s great, Mahmud and his great inker Juan Hernandez are so talented I don’t think I could even hurt the work if I tried. I also love Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom and Rocketeer: Hollywood Horror (Hollywood Horror comes out at the end of February) but again, Chris Samnee and J. Bone are so talented, I just don’t think anyone could even hurt their stuff.

Many colorists at times have branched out and pursued writing or drawing opportunities (in parallel with their ongoing coloring wor k– a herculean task in and of itself). Do you have any interest in that regard?

I’m actually writing a few things myself and I have an illustration degree which I’m not even putting to use these days, which is pretty horrible. I’ll begin drawing again one day … when I stop getting offered such great books with great artists that keep me too busy!

Eisner-winning writer Mark Waid has put his muscle behind a new college course — and everyone is invited into the classroom.

The course is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled “Gender Through Comic Books,” and it will feature interviews with Brian Bendis, Scott Snyder, Matt Fraction, Gail Simone, editor Sana Amanat, and a host of other comics creators and insiders.

This isn’t just coming out of the blue: Ball State University adjunct professor and doctoral candidate Christina Blanch has already taught the course in the traditional format, as she explained in an interview at Wired’s GeekMom blog, and last semester Ball State asked her to teach it as a MOOC. The course is offered via the Canvas Network, and it’s free; the only cost is the textbooks, i.e. comics, which, if you’re reading this, you may already own. Blanch is answering questions and responding to comments about the course on Twitter.

Waid put out a call for students on his blog Sunday, and the response was so enthusiastic, he revealed on Twitter, that it temporarily crashed his site. Everything seems to be working fine now, however. And he’s not the only high-profile comics creator who is helping with the course — the promotional video is narrated by none other than Stan Lee. The course kicks off on April 2, and you can enroll here.

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In 2008, the last year with complete data, US companies reported $938 billion in pre-tax profits abroad (pdf, fourth page). That same year, total pre-tax corporate profit by US companies was $1.36 trillion (see section 6.17D). In other words, a very large share of the profits that US companies earned, they earned outside the US. Is this a testament to their remarkable success in global marketes, or are they just very good at financial engineering?

The Congressional Research Service released a report (pdf) in January that suggests the latter explanation. The author collected government data on non-bank American companies in two groups of countries: Five small countries with low taxes and tight bank secrecy laws, and five major US trading partners. First, you can see that most of the profits come from the secrecy jurisdictions:

Perhaps, then, American multinationals just outsourced lots of their operations and investment to these small countries? That might explain why they represent such a large proportion of total profit. But that theory turns out to be false:

In fact, 43% of overseas corporate profits in 2008 came from those five small states, despite hosting only 7% of total investment and 4% of total employment. It turns out that there’s something going on that makes investments and employment in those tax havens incredibly productive. US companies have been making up to 160 times as much profit per employee and 60 times as much profit per dollar invested in these little countries as in the big markets where most of their customers are. Hmmm.

They’re so productive that US profits in those countries represent more than a third of those countries’ GDP, and rising rapidly:

It’s actually starker than that in some places: In 2008, US corporate profits in Bermuda were over 1000% of GDP, and in Luxembourg, they were 208% of GDP. It’s hard to imagine that US companies are making more money in those countries than their citizens produce each year.

What all this data implies is something we already know anecdotally: US corporations are using financial engineering to shift profits abroad, not out of business necessity, but to avoid US corporate income taxes. This is economically inefficient, and also hurts public coffers, but corporations insist they need to use these measures to stay competitive with global rivals. Estimates quoted in the CRS report suggests that the US lost out on $57 billion to $90 billion dollars in revenue in 2008 thanks to this kind of tax avoidance. To put that in perspective, the amount of money due to be cut from the budget next month in the “sequester”, for which President Obama and Congress can’t agree on a replacement, is $110 billion.

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Oh, Internet. 

You’re the best.

Wat Rong Khun: A Buddhist Temple Inspired by Sci-Fi Movies

Wat Rong Khun, more well-known among foreigners as the White Temple, is an unconventional Buddhist temple in Chiang Rai, Thailand. Designed in 1997 by noted Thai painter-turned-architect Chalermchai Kositpipat, this magnificent temple is a bizarre blend of traditional Thai architecture and the surreal. The main building is painted white to symbolise Buddha’s purity, and is covered in mosaics of mirrors, sparkling in the sun. All around the complex are intricate sculptures of demons, skulls, severed heads handing from trees and other bizarre objects.

To reach the temple you have to walk over a bridge over a moat filled with innumerable sculptures of out-reaching arms, apparently symbolizing desire. Once inside, you will be greeted not by traditional Buddha life scenarios but by contemporary scenes and icons of popular culture. Instead of paintings of heroes fighting demons, the artist decided to take contemporary manifestations of good and evil and put it into a Buddhist context. Murals of Batman, Superman, Predator and even Keanu Reeves as Neo from The Matrix are seen in the interior. In one unfinished wall dominates image of a plane smashing into the Twin Towers. In another wall there are paintings of spaceships and a scene depicting a cataclysmic event annihilating planet earth.

dsjodin writes "Last year, LotrProject brought us extraordinary statistics on the population of Middle-Earth. Now, they have released an interactive tool for analysis of the Silmarillion, the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. With keyword frequency search, character mentions, sentiment analysis and network diagrams of character interactions it is a beautiful set of data visualizations and fascinating for fans and non-fans alike. The site can for example be used to find out that bacon is mentioned seven times in the Hobbit while only two times throughout the entire the Lord of the Rings."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

does he like the movie “metal gear?” next time you go to have sex, hide for 7 hours. When he stops looking for you, break his neck.