firehose

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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Eight months after losing the dubious title of 'Worst Company in America' for the first time in three years, Human Rights Campaign has recognized EA for its commitment to promoting LGBT equality by awarding the publisher a 100 percent score in its la...

HEY OBAMA, I KNOW IT’S A TRADITION AND EVERYTHING, BUT THIS TURKEY PARDONING CEREMONY KIND OF MAKES IT A LITTLE TOO CLEAR THAT THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM VALUES A TURKEY MORE THAN BLACK KIDS???

Original Source

Pretty funny that one of the explanations you can give FB for reporting someone is simply “gamer.” pic.twitter.com/tjZrBVdmvP

— Luke O’Neil (@lukeoneil47) November 23, 2014

Well, technically it’s real, but it’s not some kind of dystopian crackdown on people who play video games participating in society. Images floating around of an option to report accounts for being “gamers” haven’t been doctored, but don’t take them out of context.

It’s likely the inclusion on a complaint list right underneath harassment that is causing some people to have a knee-jerk reaction to the term “gamer,” but this option has actually existed on Facebook for a while with legitimate reason. The option only exists after you’ve already begun a report for an account that is not actually a real person.

Facebook has been very strict with its “real name” account policy, which has problems of its own, but in this instance, it’s just to keep every Facebook account tied to a real person.

After you choose to report an account for Facebook misconduct, this is what you’ll see:

If you choose, “This is a fake account,” that’s when the following dialogue pops up:

The “gamer” option is for fake accounts that have been created for the sole purpose of playing Facebook games and using multiple accounts for in-game bonuses. It’s been there for a long time, and it’s not an across-the-board discriminatory action towards gamers.

It’s also not a way to report “fake gamer girls.” Sorry, disappointed misogynists.

you can report someone for being a fake gamer girl on facebook pic.twitter.com/zCoi3hUUpY — Wrong Opinion Guy (@gewqk) March 17, 2014

With tensions running so high surrounding the word gamer, it might just be better if Facebook found a word to better explain the option so people don’t get so confused.

(via The Daily Dot)

Previously in Facebook

• A 113-year-old woman lied about her age on Facebook, because technology is great
• Facebook wants to help with your healthcare woes
• They’ve apologized for treating transgender users unfairly, too

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What would it look like if these creatures came into the studio and asked to have their portraits made?

In his amusing portrait series “Chattel,” photographer Kevin Horan has visually captured the distinct personality of each Whidbey Island, Washington sheep and goat who posed for his camera, channelling their “inner supermodel” in a strangely anthropomorphic way. In an interview with Slate, Horan, who was recently named to the 2014 Critical Mass Top 50, stated that when he started this project in 2007, he also planned to use horses.

I let the horses go. …It’s the long face. It doesn’t read like a face to me. There is an analogy to human portraiture [in the series], and I just can’t make it work with the horses. People love horses, and I don’t mean to offend them, but I’ve never really gotten them to work.

photos by Kevin Horan

via Slate

Sometimes all it takes to alter the course of history is one pissed-off person. Supap Kirtsaeng wasn’t a crusader or lone nut; he was just an eBay trader who got backed into a legal corner and refused to give up.

No, it's not hipster Cthulhu. Known as "honey fungus," this huge underground organism is the world's biggest living thing. And its life cycle is incredible.

Read more...

Called Topaz, it's located in San Luis Obispo County, California. The plant recently completed its final 40-megawatt phase, making it the first 500-plus megawatt solar farm to come online in the United States — and the largest online plant in the world.

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ryannorth:

unbeatablesquirrelgirl:

Take a peek at Siya Oum's variant cover of UNBEATABLE SQUIRREL GIRL #1, out in January!

SO PRETTY

Squirrel Girl, you guys!  This January!  PRETTY EXCITING, NOT GONNA LIE

Ryan is #1 forever, this is exciting

Here is an itty bitty update on the "reimagining" of the beloved CG-animated TV series ReBoot (or the ReBoot reboot, if you will). Apparently, the new show is still in the works and now has a logo and title.

Read more...

Welcome to our new series, Game Changer! Because it’s important to signal boost the work of women in the games industry (especially lately), we’ll be interviewing the awesome, brave, and talented women who bring their voices to indie and mainstream game development.

This week, we sat down with Anna Megill (@cynixy), who has worked for companies like Ubisoft, Airtight Games/Square Enix, Hasbro, Nintendo, and ArenaNet!

Emma Fissenden (TMS): Can you tell me a bit about your journey? How did you end up where you are today? What prompted your entry into the gaming industry?

Anna Megill: I was a bartender for many years and had a wild time, but didn’t see a future there. I wasn’t qualified for anything else, though. Then one day I was playing a video game with terrible dialogue, and I thought, “I could write better crap than this.” A light bulb flickered on in my mind. “I really could write better crap!” I’d never thought of games as more than a fun hobby, but it seemed like something I could bear doing every day for the next forty years. So I went back to school.

I studied English literature and computer science at (very) traditional colleges and got my first break as a QA tester on Playboy: The Mansion. I worked my way through school with various QA gigs. By graduation, I was QA Lead at Pileated Pictures (now Happy Giant Games). From there, I worked my way up through the ranks to become a writer and narrative designer. Over the years, I’ve worked for Nintendo, ArenaNet, Airtight Games/Square Enix, and Ubisoft, among others. And now I’m making games based on my own original stories.

TMS: Can you describe what your current role is? What does an average day consist of for you? How does it differ from when you’re working at a AAA studio like Ubi?

Megill: No meetings, that’s the difference! I spent a lot of time in meetings when I worked at major studios. But not anymore. Currently, I’m the creative director of a new game project for Brianna Wu’s company, Giant Spacekat. The project is in pre-pre-production right now—if that’s even a thing. That means we’re assessing the project needs, estimating budget and timeline, and [hiring] a team.

At a triple-A company, all those logistics and details would be handled by various departments. HR would hire staff. Production would determine dependencies and set milestones. And so on. And then there would be meetings galore to coordinate. But with my smaller project, everybody helps with everything. We touch base every now and then to make sure we’re on track, but mostly we trust each other to get necessary tasks done.

My average day is spent writing, looking through resumes and portfolios, and trying to work out a realistic timeline for the project. I also spend hours reading and playing games as, uh, research. The life of a game dev is hard.

TMS: What are your plans for the future? (if you can talk about any!) I know you’ve recently been given the go ahead to make your own games, which must be absolutely thrilling and a bit terrifying. Does this change the way you’re approaching work?

Megill: You’re absolutely right; making games based on my stories and my characters is terrifying and thrilling. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of what I’m doing these days is logistical. But once we get those details out of the way, I can start on the fun stuff: world-building, character bios, and plotting. After that, I’ll sit down and write the full script.

So the work is no different than on triple-A projects. It’s the same creative process, but I have fewer external constraints on my ideas now. One of our first steps will be reaching out to people and forming a player base while the games are still in production. I can’t reveal too much, but the players, as a community, will have some say in how the stories unfold. They’ll directly affect the plot. I get excited thinking about the narrative possibilities.

TMS: Do you have any advice for people—especially women—who might be considering a career in games? What’s one thing you wished the younger you would have known?

Megill: The games industry has been a rough place recently. Some tremendously talented people have left our industry because of harassment. I don’t blame them, but I’ll miss their voices. I’d advise young people to enter the industry with their eyes open. Yes, there’s harassment and ugliness, but the industry is also full of creative, brilliant, passionate people. We all share a love of games. Don’t let bullies stop you from being part of that. You’ll make new worlds and fill those worlds with creatures as strange as your imagination can make them. There’s no better feeling than seeing fans enjoy a story that was born from your brain. Don’t let fear stop you from experiencing that.

I’d advise the younger Anna to network more. I didn’t understand the value of interacting with people on social media like Twitter until a few years ago. There are jobs and opportunities that you will never learn about if you’re not well connected. I’d also tell Younger Me to stop wearing so much swag. Stop it, Anna.

TMS: Can you talk about anything really difficult you’ve had to overcome both as a writer and as a woman in the games industry?

Megill: When someone has a problem with me as a woman, it usually affects my career, too. At one company, I was sexually harassed by my lead. When I rejected him, he started sabotaging my chances at the company: ignoring me, giving credit for my work to other people, etc. I saw what was happening and went to HR. (He was eventually fired.) But if I hadn’t caught on to what he was doing, my career would have stalled, and I wouldn’t have known why.

Problems aren’t always as obvious as textbook-case sexual harassment. Gender affects my job in small ways, too. For example, I often have to defend a professional opinion that’s being challenged because of my gender. Once, I objected to a character being portrayed in an overly sexy way and was told that I’m “too sensitive” about the issue because I’m a woman. In reality, the character’s depiction contradicted the way she was written. That’s bad design, and I objected to it professionally, as a writer. But it was easy to dismiss my concerns as “prudish”because women are frequently—and often unfairly—labelled that way in the games industry. For the record, I’m all for sexy characters. With parity and appropriateness, of course.

TMS: You’ve mentioned the draw of Ubisoft was their work in presenting diverse characters, specifically Adewale and Aveline—it’s sometimes difficult for AAA studios and projects to better represent minorities. Is this something you’re actively looking to tackle in the future in your own games?

Megill: Absolutely. One of my goals when I entered the games industry was to create better games for women. The more writing I’ve done for triple-A games, the more I’ve hungered to explore all underrepresented—or misrepresented—points of view. Games like Papo y Yo, Never Alone, dys4ia, and Sunset are important steps toward getting those voices heard in the industry. But I can’t imagine any major studio making those games.

My games will be full of women, POC, and people of all genders and sexualities. I want the characters in my games to reflect the richness and diversity I see all around me in real life. I want the protagonists of my games to be people who never get to see themselves represented as heroes. And I want those people to find a welcoming game community where their suggestions and contributions are valued.

TMS: Okay, quick fire questions! Favourite game you’ve worked on?

Megill: GW2, hands-down. The energy on the project was amazing. ArenaNet made sincere efforts to innovate, and you could feel it in the dev process. All ideas were welcome. Creativity was encouraged. Everyone on the project was invested in their work, and we knew our game was good. It was a fulfilling experience as a creator.

TMS: Three favourite games of this year?

Megill: It’s not just from this year, but Kentucky Route Zero continues to delight me. It’s like playable melancholy. I love Hohokum. Spiritually, it’s the exact opposite of KRZ0. And maybe A Bird Story? If you ask me next week, it might be Never Alone.

TMS: Of all time?

Megill: Asking the hard questions. Great. The first two are easy: Psychonauts and Journey. But the third… How can I choose? The Myst games, maybe? Ico? Pinball? Katamari Damacy? The Last of Us? Or Little Big Planet. No way can I decide.

TMS: Most frustrating sequence you’ve played in a game?

Megill: There were some jumping puzzles in the early Tomb Raider games that almost made me ragequit [gaming]. But the toughest obstacle I’ve encountered in any game was the fire marble dome puzzle in Riven. I spent two months trying to solve that thing, but finally had to give up and cheat. It defeated me.

TMS: Favourite character?

Megill: Me! No, hear me out. I love it when games give me the freedom to fully inhabit my avatar and react to what happens in the game world naturally, through emergent gameplay. Journey is a great example of that.

TMS: Favourite character of yours from a game you worked on and why?

Megill: Well, of the characters I’m free to discuss, there’s Uptown Johnny. He’s a minor baddie in GW2’s early human story. Johnny’s a sleazy, rude, womanizing bandit. He’s over-the-top cocky and obnoxious to everybody in the game. You know his type from real life: a grade-A jerk. When you get to kill him later in the story, it’s immensely satisfying. I’d always overkill him, with fire and poison and minions, then sit back and enjoy his convulsions. ArenaNet cut almost all of his lines for various reasons, so all that’s left now is a faint bat-squeak of the original offensive character. But Johnny taught me how important it is to hate villains viscerally. Players shouldn’t want him dead because intellectually or objectively he’s a bad guy. They should want villains dead because you, the writer, have made players despise them from their guts out.

TMS: First game you played?

Megill: Peekaboo, probably. But the first video games that hooked me were the Myst games.

TMS: Coffee or Tea?

Megill: I lived in Seattle for years, so if I don’t say “coffee,” a team of lumberjack ninjas will visit me in the dead of night to grind my bones into beans. So… yeah. Coffee.

Emma Fissenden is a writer of all trades. When she’s not pushing through her next rewrite, she’s playing too many games and editing fiction at @noblegasqrtly

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Alex Jones is no stranger to conspiracy theories, obviously, but here's a really good one that doesn't come from him — rather, it's about him: Have you perhaps heard that he is actually legendary Texas comedian Bill Hicks, who allegedly died in 1994, but who was actually "recruited by the CIA to become the controlled opposition by the mainstream media" who was "continuously fed approved intelligence by his CIA handlers?"

justice4mikebrown:

November 26

Inmates in Boston write Mike Brown’s name on their window and raise their hands in the air as the crowd of protesters below them shouts “Hands up, don’t shoot!”

pajamaben:

*gets abducted by aliens* thank you. you have no idea how much i hated living on that planet

washingtonpost:

Hand gestures of protest around the world.

Or at least, five different movies are being made, based on Liu's work. China Film Group Corp. is making three movies based on Liu's books: The Wandering Earth, The Era of the Supernova and Micro Era. Add to that two other Liu Cixin films: The Rural Teacher and a Three-Body Problem movie trilogy.

Read more...

soviet-red:

stonekeep:

how he do that

fucking artists man

“Here in Britain, of course, it’s Thank Fuck We Got Those Weird Jesus Bastards On The...

Several people protesting the Ferguson grand jury decision stormed into City Hall in St. Louis on Wednesday, leading police to lock down the building and to call in more than a hundred additional officers. At least two people were arrested after the incident, in which the protesters shouted "Shame, shame" while rushing into the building. Those who made it inside City Hall were part of a group of about 300 protesters who marched and held a mock trial of Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown during an Aug. 9 confrontation in the St. Louis suburb.

vgjunk:

Discworld, PC.

acquaintedwithrask:

thepoliticalfreakshow:

BREAKING: Autopsy Results Prove Police In Utah Murdered Darrien Hunt, Shooting Him In The Back & Hip 6 Times While Hunt Was Holding A Toy Sword

Last month, 22-year-old Darrien Hunt was shot and killed by officers in Saratoga Springs, Utah, while carrying a toy sword. Police claimed Hunt lunged at them, but a new state autopsy released by Hunt’s lawyer finds that Hunt was shot 5 times in the back, and a sixth time on his left hip towards the back.

The autopsy by the Utah State Medical Examiner’s Officer corroborates an earlier private autopsy commissioned by Hunt’s lawyer Robert Sykes that also found he was shot in the back, although Sykes would not initially release a copy of that autopsy. A toxicology report was also released showing that Hunt had no drugs in his body, although officers noted in their original report that Hunt “apparently liked hallucinogens and had taken acid approximately three weeks” before the shooting, according to the Deseret News.

At the time of his death, Hunt was wearing an outfit that bore a striking resemblance the Japanese anime character Mugen, from the series Samurai Champloo. The weekend prior to his death, Salt Lake City hosted the annual Comic Con event at which attendees dress up as comic book characters in a practice known as “cosplaying.”

In the weeks after his death, his family found drawings of a number of Japanese anime characters, including several carrying swords. Friends at his funeral called Hunt artistic, shy, and gentle.

“It shows a familiarity, if not a fascination, with that kind of fantasy world,” Hunt’s lawyer Randall Edwards told the Guardian. “It gives some context – and potentially some explanation – to why you have this kid walking down the street with a samurai-style sword on his back.”

Officers say they received a call reporting a “suspicious” person and believed Hunt was carrying a real sword. His mother said it was a souvenir blunt-edged Japanese sword known as a “katana” from a gift shop. Utah has an open carry law, meaning that residents are permitted to openly carry guns even if they don’t have a permit. Police are therefore likely to encounter other individuals walking down the street with guns, and it’s unclear at what point they would be considered “suspicious.”

Hunt died about 100 feet away from the site of the police car, and police have conceded that Hunt traveled away from the officers during the incident, suggesting he was indeed running away.

Saratoga Springs is 93 percent white and 0.5 percent black, and Hunt’s mother, who is also white, believes Hunt was killed because of his race.

“Those stupid cops thought they had to murder over a toy,” Susan Hunt told the Associated Press. Hunt said she returned to Utah recently after separating from her husband and fleeing an abusive relationship, to start a new life with her children. She said Darrien was coping with the separation and looking for jobs in Saratoga Springs.

Source: Nicole Flatow for ThinkProgress

Saratoga Springs is literally the whitest, most middle-class Utah town in existence, like jack shit happens there, certainly not threats that require someone to be shot.  I see white kids cosplaying with weapons all the goddamn time, no one here can fucking shut up about comic con and shit, everyone knows at least vaguely what cosplay is.  They were just looking for an excuse.

Mileán Ó Raghallaigh uploaded video of a man demonstrating a death whistle, an ancient Aztec instrument used to honor the deceased during Day of the Dead rituals and brought out in large numbers when entering battle. Multiplied by 100, it’s easy to imagine a downright terrifying sound.

And also they used [it] when they fight with other tribes. They played over 100 death whistles [while] marching and make a lot of noise to cause a big psychological effect to the enemy. So this is a very intimidating instrument.

via Digg

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

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This guy used to be a sports photographer. #OdellBeckham @sportspickle pic.twitter.com/6bUIri5xvo

— Robbe Reddinger (@RobbeRedd) November 24, 2014

It was natural to assume this photographer missed what could have been the most important shot of his career. Instead of being behind the lens staring at the action he was left to gawk at Odell Beckham Jr's catch like the rest of us.

There's just one problem with making assumptions like this: We had no clue what was really going on.

Hey @MikeGarafolo WHOA, easy there Twitter! I was caught in no-man's land (Too tight!) Here is my frame! #nyg pic.twitter.com/A0faJaLXEq

— Andrew Mills (@AndyMills_NJ) November 24, 2014

The frame might be a little too tight, but that's a hell of a photo -- no matter how you slice it. Photographer Andrew Mills wrote his story for NJ.com and explained that while he was in the wrong place, he found a way to make it work.

So as I began to lower the 70-200 to desperately grab the wide angle around my neck, the play is unfolding, literally, at my feet. I'm shooting (and twisting the zoom to get as wide as possible) the entire time the camera is being lowered. I was able to capture a frame that's in focus - remember, a picture is not a picture if it's not sharp - of the ball on Beckham's fingertips, but again I'm tight. Way too tight.

Mills makes taking the photo almost as dramatic as the catch itself. Ultimately he had the last laugh, while social media was ready to fire him for his assumed gaffe.