A Shout Within a Storm by artist Glenn Kaino is a sculptural installation consisting of dozens of bronze arrows suspended in mid-air and converging on a single point. The installation was displayed at The Armory Show in New York City back in March, where it was clearly a crowd favorite (judging by the photo, at least). Kaino is represented by Honor Fraser gallery in Los Angeles.
Indie games and studios occupied the focus of a lot of attendees at GDC 2015. Everywhere you looked, you were faced with an indie developer sharing the games and stories they had been working on. Their excitement at being able to talk with people about their games was nothing short of infectious. I got to demo a few of these games, and I only wish I could have played them all.
The game’s premise is simple. You throw trucks with your mind. Yeah, I know, right? Sadly, the game doesn’t actually give you telekinetic powers, but it does read biometric information like heart rate, eye blink, and brainwaves through a headset peripheral.
These, in turn, inform the game how focused or calm you are. The more focused and calm, the stronger your in-game powers. Once your powers are strong enough, you can start to lift larger and larger objects to throw at other players.
Lat Ware, the developer of the game, shared with me some insight about the initial development with the game, saying, “We designed the game to help with attention and anxiety disorders, copying therapy techniques from traditional neurofeedback therapy.” When asked about whether it can serve as a therapy tool, he said, “We will not do that until we know it works. Validation is the company’s current top priority.”
I had a chance to play this game at Wild Rumpus, a GDC party that features some incredibly imaginative multiplayer video games. The premise is that you’re supposed to work together with your friends to put together some flatpack furniture.
The catch is that you don’t have any instructions, and you can attach any piece to any other piece your heart desires. It’s like taking the worst part of moving into a new apartment and somehow making it a fun party game. The best part was that after a few minutes of building, the hammer showed up.
Now, usually I don’t go out of my way to destroy things, but it was actually pretty fun to knock things over and rebuild them in even stranger, funny ways. A few people wanted to build a pillow fort, so we ended up tearing up the pre-made couch and built ourselves the raddest, most palatial pillow fort ever.
You can fully expect to play this game the way everyone did at Wild Rumpus: with a controller in hand, and a drink close by.
A former math teacher, Seth Alter set out into the indie wilds when he became fed up with the administration. According to his studio’s website, he felt he could teach better through video games, so here he is. No Pineapple Left Behind is a response to the difficulties he faced trying to educate children, and the premise is fantastic.
All the children in school are turned into pineapples by an evil wizard. They essentially become robots, only taking tests and getting grades. Higher grades means the school gets more money. But if you’re not careful, the pineapples can turn back into children. This complicates things as kids have these pesky things called needs and feelings, and could compromise how much money the school is making.
It plays a lot like Theme Hospital or any of the Tycoon-styled games where you have to manage teachers, students, subjects, and the school itself to balance out needs and meet objectives. It was interesting to watch it all play out, even more so when you realized that you had a bunch of pineapples sitting in desks trying to learn about neocolonialism.
Look, I didn’t choose the pug life. The pug life chose me. Butt Sniffin’ Pugs is a game where you can live out your wildest fantasies of being the dream pug-ilist you’ve always wanted to be. As long as by pugilist you mean pug. As in dog.
There’s no real objective or anything, you run around with a park with another dog and you can either eat food that’s been dropped on the ground or you could spend the entire time trying to sniff the other dog’s butt.
The great thing about this game is the controller. The game was featured at alt.ctrl.GDC, which is a section of the GDC expo hall floor where alternative game controllers are demoed to attendees.
It’s basically a large box with an oversized tennis ball that works kind of like a trackball mouse. Underneath the tennis ball is a stuffed toy dog butt that you can tap with your hands to change your abilities. Of course, there were more than a few bolder players who opted to go right for it and tapped the butt with their noses. Watching them dive head first into the controller really brought me a real sense of satisfaction in the end.
For our full overview of GDC 2015, click here. For our review of the #1ReasonToBe panel, click here.
For more on the games featured at GDC 2015, check out the Indie MEGABOOTH website here.
If you want to read more about the games featured at alt.ctrl.GDC, check out the official website here.
Jessica Lachenal doesn’t like talking in the third person, so she hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her. But, if you happen to like the words that she writes, check out her website at www.hipsterchick.net, or any of her writing on The Bold Italic, Autostraddle, Frontiers LA, Model View Culture, and here at The Mary Sue.
German artist Sybille Paulsen has found a beautiful way to allow those undergoing chemotherapy to “keep” their hair with “Tangible Truths,” a line of custom-made jewelry. Many times, people undergoing chemo treatment will preemptively shave their heads to avoid the distress and anguish of their hair slowly falling out. Paulsen takes this hair and combines it with wool threads, gold, silver, and resin beads in the person’s preferred colors to create a unique statement piece.
The themes of change and transformation run like a golden thread through our life. Some we welcome with open arms, while others we begrudgingly accept with a heavy heart. For my project TANGIBLE TRUTHS women who undergo chemotherapy leave their hair to me to transform it into a unique and personal piece of art. The title addresses the diverse experiences which are collected during this time. Each woman is touched differently by the sickness and its treatment. Not only the person concerned but also the people around them pass through a transformation in this period. Her partner, her family and friends experience her sickness in a personal manner as well.
Anyone interested in having a piece made for themselves or a loved one can contact Paulsen through her site and she will send detailed instructions on how to proceed. Donations to Tangible Truths can be made here.
These buildings by Kenzō Tange (1913-2005) look like matte paintings from futuristic movies — but they're actually some of the most unique megastructures in the world. One of the most famous architects of the 20th century, Tange combined traditional Japanese styles with modern architectural solutions and forms.
Determined to ensure its young viewers grow up healthy enough to create more young viewers to sustain its franchises, Disney’s Bob Iger has announced that the studio will extend its policy on banning depictions of smoking to all of the youth-targeted movies under its banner. Iger issued the announcement during a shareholder Q&A in response to a critical care nurse, who cited a 2012 report linking children who witnessed smoking in movies and TV, then started doing it themselves. Iger agreed that the company would refrain from those depictions, allowing children to make their own, uninfluenced choices about the rich, satisfying flavor of tobacco.
Not only does this mean that Disney won’t put cigars in the mouths of any shucking-and-jiving crows for Tim Burton’s Dumbo, thus sidestepping any controversy. Or that Pixar’s Toy Story 4 won’t tug your heartstrings with a tale about the beloved ...
Welcome to the Google Code project exporter. This tool will export a project's source repository, its issues, and its wikis to GitHub.
To get started, simply navigate to your favorite Google Code project and click the "Export" button on the header bar. Or, you can enter the project name below:
If you have files on GitHub and Google Code and want to sync these existing files on SourceForge to take advantage of SourceForge’s distribution know-how, our popular analytics tools, and our extensive Open Source directory, then read on …
GitHub has officially won. Google has announced that Google Code project creation has been disabled today, with the ultimate plan to kill off the service next year. On August 24, 2015, the project hosting service will be set to read-only. This means you will still be able to checkout/view project source, issues, and wikis, but nobody will be able to make changes or new commits. On January 25, 2016, Google Code will be shut down. Google says you will be able to download tarballs of project source, issues, and wikis "throughout the rest of 2016." After that, Google Code will be gone for good.
Fox Grom est un photographe russe né à Kirovsk. L’artiste détient deux magnifiques Husky qu’il s’amuse à photographier dans toutes sortes de situations. Dans cette série, l’homme s’est promené avec ses deux adorables bêtes sur un lac gelé. A découvrir en images dans la suite de l’article.
Title might be slightly misleading. I don't think it's been confirmed that Jones is the lead but people seem to be running with the idea.
Still, X-Wing movie!!!
Quote:
This morning at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, across the street from Lucasfilm, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger hosted a shareholder meeting where he announced news regarding the first Star Wars stand-alone movie as well as Star Wars: Episode VIII.
Rogue One is the title for the first film in a unique series of big-screen adventures that explores the characters and events beyond the core Star Wars saga. Rogue One will be directed by Gareth Edwards (Monsters, Godzilla) and written by Oscar nominee Chris Weitz (Cinderella, About a Boy, Antz). The first actress cast is Felicity Jones, who garnered an Academy Award nomination and critical acclaim for her performance in The Theory of Everything. The idea for the story of Rogue One came from John Knoll, an Academy Award-winning visual effects supervisor and chief creative officer at Industrial Light & Magic. He will executive produce along with Simon Emanuel (The Dark Knight Rises, Fast & Furious 6) and Jason McGatlin (Tintin, War of the Worlds). Kathleen Kennedy and Tony To (Band of Brothers, The Pacific) are on board to produce and John Swartz (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) will co-produce. The film starts shooting this summer in London and is due for release on December 16, 2016.
In addition, Iger confirmed that Rian Johnson will write and direct Star Wars: Episode VIII. The film, which continues the saga after the events of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, is set for release on May 26, 2017 forty years and a day after the release of Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977. Johnson is widely considered one of cinemas most gifted young filmmakers, having directed the modern sci-fi classic, Looper, as well as Brick and The Brothers Bloom. He was also behind the camera for three episodes of the critically-acclaimed TV series Breaking Bad, including Ozymandias, which series creator Vince Gilligan named as the best installment of the show. Kathleen Kennedy and Ram Bergman, producer of Looper, Don Jon, Brick, and The Brothers Bloom, are on board to produce.
No, in fact, the creators mentioned Anubis Gates as their inspiration, for reasons evident when watching it
Started 2 weeks ago on the public television.
The Ministry of Time is an official (secret) part of the government of Spain that controls a building in which several doors lead to different periods of Spain's past. Tasked with keeping history as it is, they recruit public servants (in what seems to be a running gag, more or less having the same problems as all public servants... like, where is my pension, why did they cut our budget, etc) from all ages. We follow a "patrol" composed by a paramedic from 2015, the "first female university student" from the end of the XIX, and a soldier from Phillip II's Tercios, as the get enrolled and go fix attempts to change the time line.
... and it is suprisingly good. For values of "good" that are anchored on Spanish TV, which is more or less all around awful, and produces speculative fiction stuff more or less every transit of the Halley. It has a ton of defects, very Spanish ones (acting is so so, for example), but is very competent, engaging, and not stupid. Frankly, is not going to blow away any international competition, but it is a good program. Of course is also very Spanish in that you both need to know a bit of history and both high and pop culture (the 2015 guy is NOT the brains of the operation, though - that would be the girl from XIX), and well, it is a bit "nationalistic" in the very Spanish genre of "how great we are and how much we suck at the same time"
Unfortunately it seems they will cancel it for lack of an audience, or so rumour say. People are trying to build online campaings to avoid that.
Not sure if this can be seen outside Spain, but if you understand Spanish, you may check for yourself - all chapters will be online on http://www.rtve.es/television/ministerio-del-tiempo/, they have the 3 ones already aired there. You may find it interesting. Or not, but hey, I would like to hear your opinion. Again, it will not blow your socks away, but it may be a bit of fun.
Heidi MacDonald of Comics Beats says: "I was tooling around on the internet the other night, and unexpectedly came across this masterpiece:
Read the rest
Hillary Clinton’s recent private email debacle got Slate columnist Reihan Salam thinking: Are there Democrats who might throw a wrench in Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid?
Although Salam doesn’t expect anyone to topple the former secretary of state for the nomination, he provided a shortlist of hypothetical challengers to Clinton.
Wyden—outspoken about protecting privacy in the digital age and limiting the National Security Agency’s ability to collect data—appeals to civil libertarians, according to Salam.
[Wyden's] steadfast opposition to dragnet surveillance has won him many friends among civil libertarians, and that’s no small thing in a Democratic primary, particularly in dovish, independent-minded states like New Hampshire. A Pew survey from January found that 31 percent of Democrats hold an unfavorable view of the National Security Agency, which is not a bad little foundation for a Wyden campaign. Moreover, Wyden has proposed a universal health care plan more ambitious than Obamacare, and he’s championed the idea of allowing states like Vermont and Oregon to build their own single-payer health systems.
Also on Salam's shortlist: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), former governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
This is the best image we have of the dwarf planet Ceres.
It’s a mysterious place that we know little about. A year ago, however the Herschel Space Observatory discovered that it’s got a tenuous atmosphere of water vapor.
It’s now believed that there are cryovolcanoes blasting liquid water up out of the surface.
Could Ceres host an entire liquid ocean of water? What’s more - if there is liquid water, could there be life?
NASA’s Dawn mission will arrive soon. On January 20th they will release it’s first image of Ceres.
Dawn has now begun the approach to Ceres. It will enter orbit on March 6th.
By the end of the month Dawn's images will be better than those of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Presently, there’s a large amount of speculation about what the “white spot’ on Ceres actually is. The Herschel Space Observatory’s cryovolcano may in fact be the white spot. If so this will be a prime location to search for some form of astrobiological activity.
The mission is getting more exciting - March can’t arrive soon enough.
This is officially the best image we’ve ever gotten of Ceres. From now on every image Dawn takes will then be the best image of Ceres ever taken until it’s finally in orbit. (Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)
Here’s the newest release of images compiled by NASA. We can now see that the mysterious white spot isn’t alone: there are many white spots on Ceres!
This is remarkable. Could these spots be ice deposits? Impact sites that resulted in interior material getting exposed?
We’re only going to continue learning more as Dawn gets closer to this alien world.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)
The images are growing sharper as NASA’s Dawn mission makes its final approach to Ceres. These images were taken from 52,000 miles away. Soon Dawn will arrive - March 6th.
(Image credit: NASA)
The images of Ceres continue to get better. The mysterious white spot is still too small to resolve exactly its nature but despite that, it’s by far the brightest thing on Ceres (and it has a sibling!).
"The brightest spot continues to be too small to resolve with our camera, but despite its size it is brighter than anything else on Ceres.
This is truly unexpected and still a mystery to us." said Andreas
Nathues, lead investigator for the framing camera team at the Max Planck
Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen, Germany.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)
Unfortunately Tumblr won’t support this file size but NASA just released a great gif of a rotating Ceres. Here it is!
I'm good for laptops for the moment, but fuck if I don't really want a 3:2 13" laptop that can run linux with gobs of RAM. stupid googs
The Pixel is a Chromebook in its most perfect form. It's an impeccably designed, damned handsome laptop with a 2560 x 1700 resolution touchscreen, 8GB of RAM and a 5th gen Intel Core i5 processor in the $1,000 base configuration. An even crazier $1,300 version (the Pixel's original price point) is available with a Core i7 and 16GB of RAM. Both are available today from Google's new online store. Both seem like overkill for a machine that's primarily a web browser.
Hillary Clinton’s recent private email debacle got Slate columnist Reihan Salam thinking: Are there Democrats who might throw a wrench in Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid? 
