It quickly becomes apparent that the developers of Harmonix's A City Sleeps are hardcore arcade shoot-'em-up fans. Its screen-filling bullet patterns recall Cave games like Deathsmiles and DoDonPachi, and its multi-faceted mechanics draw inspiration...
Enemies' lists; not just for paranoid 1970s Presidents anymore!
This is an older one for video game journalists:
This one's slightly different. You might notice that the central black box was made by the kind of person who'd make the above image, but someone decided to turn the blacklist on its head and list even more "social justice warrior" developers to check out and support.
Most amusingly there was a third list I found once but could not locate; it was a self-imposed "do not click" boycott of "pro-feminist, anti-gamer" websites.
This has been a public service announcement of potentially cool people to check out sometime.
An anonymous reader writes "Google has agreed pay $19 million to refund customers unfairly charged for in-app purchases made by children without authorization from their parents. The company has agreed to change its billing practices to ensure that it obtains informed consent from customers before charging them for items sold within mobile apps, according to the FTC. "For millions of American families, smartphones and tablets have become a part of their daily lives," said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. "As more Americans embrace mobile technology, it's vital to remind companies that time-tested consumer protections still apply, including that consumers should not be charged for purchases they did not authorize.""
Two years ago, we brought you the story of Figaro, a Goffin's cockatoo that lived at a research center in Vienna. These birds don't use tools in the wild—Figaro's minders even argue that the cockatoo's curved beak makes tool use rather difficult for them.
But Figaro's environment, which features lots of wired mesh, apparently drove him to some novel behaviors. He was observed splitting off splinters from wooden material, and the bird used them to retrieve objects (generally food or toys) that were on the wrong side of the wire. Figaro was making tools.
Tool use had been seen in a number of birds, so this in itself wasn't entirely radical. But the researchers involved realized that it presented a fantastic opportunity to learn how tool use spreads in birds and what that tells us about their inherent mental capacities. Now, two years on, they're back with a description of how, when given the chance, Figaro has started a bit of a social revolution.
Dyson, the maker of bagless vacuums that famously won’t lose suction, is releasing its first robotic model that it vows will be more powerful, effective, and intelligent than Roomba (IRBT) most other smart floor cleaners.
It took 16 years and $47 million to develop the Dyson 360 Eye, according to the company, and a version intended for launch in 2001 was shelved when executives weren’t satisfied with its performance. In the intervening 13 years, the company was able to vastly reduce the number of infrared sensors. Using eight sensors and a quick-snapping 360-degree camera, the 360 Eye can map out a detailed floor plan to navigate a room.
You can use the Cooler/Directional Freezing method to make blocks of perfectly clear ice. But those are big blocks and many people want to make clear ice balls.
Typical ice ball molds make ice that is cloudy in the middle. One reader developed a method to take advantage of directional freezing but it involves using a big pot of water so it's not space-efficient.
The natural next step was to use directional freezing in a small container with an ice ball mold sitting on top.
Thus, the water in the ice ball freezes first, then the cloudy parts are pushed into the water in the insulated container below it, which continues to freeze from the top down. All the water in the ice ball should remain clear.
I attempted this, ordering insulated mugs and coozies online, but never found one that was the right size. Thankfully, two Alcademics readers were able to find insulated containers that are just right- and send me pictures and answer all my questions. Awesomeness.
The hole in the mold must be pointed down at an angle. With the hole straight down, you end up with a clear ice "egg" instead.
I fill the cups to the brim and gently wedge the molds into the cup with a finger over the hole until the hole is under the water. Do this over the sink and the overflow runs down the drain. I keep as much water in the cup as possible, so there is water visible around the edge of the mold.
There is no problem getting the mold out of the cup. I usually give it 24 hours to freeze and there will be an inch or two usable puck of clear ice under the mold. I'll run a little tap water on the outside of the cup and around the inside edge to loosen up the belt of ice holding the mold in the cup. This doesn't crack the balls.
At 12 or 13 hours the sphere is only 80% frozen, but probably more clear than at the 24 hour point.
Plastic Mug with a Stand
Reader James Carroll found another way that works. He found a plastic coffee mug. The ice ball mold sits on a smaller container inside the mug.
He found the plastic, 16-ounce mug at Walmart, but it is also here on the manufacturers website. The smaller container is a small Rubbermaid container that fits inside it.
Instructions:
Put container in mug. Fill mug and container with water up to the brim of mug.
Fill silicone sphere mold completely with water. Put your index finger on the fill hole of the mold, turn upside down, and plunge into the mug. Do this in the sink since the water in the mug will overflow.
So now you have the filled sphere mold sitting upside down on the filled container, inside the filled mug. If you freeze it like this, you will wind up with a clear egg. Because the freezing water around the sides of the mold will squeeze the mold out of shape.
To get an ice sphere, use a straw to suck out the water in the mug until the water level in the mug is just below the rim of the container.
Takes about 20-24 hours to fully freeze. You also get a cloudy big ice cube from the container.
Thank you so much Alcademics readers James Carroll and Doug Elder for being more diligent in solving the clear ice ball problem than I was!
An index of all the ice experiments including best successes and many failures is here.
A Somerville bicyclist was arrested Wednesday evening in Union Square after she allegedly refused to identify herself to a police officer after running a red light.
Jessica DaSilva, 29, of 10 Glenwood Road, Somerville, was arrested shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27, and charged with a bicycle violation, being a bicycle violator refusing to identify self, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, according to police.
DaSilva allegedly didn’t stop at a red light at the corner of Bow Street and Somerville Avenue. She allegedly refused to identify herself to an officer and attempted to walk away before she was arrested.
DaSilva “actively resisted” being placed in handcuffs and screamed at the arresting officer, police said.
Roughly 25% of those with bachelor’s degrees in the US derive no economic benefit from their diplomas.
That’s the takeaway from analysts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The same analysts have argued in the past that the benefits of a college degree, on average, still outweigh the costs. (Other Fed studies have suggested that, on average, those with bachelor’s degrees earn $800,000 more than people who finished only secondary school.) And while median earnings of college students typically remain between 60% and 70% higher than those with high school diplomas, there’s still a surprisingly large chunk of students who don’t do any better than those who never went to four-year schools.
The Fed’s analysts divided the pool of college degree holders into quartiles. They found that people in the lowest quartile earned roughly the same amount of money as those with only a high school diploma.
These figures suggest that perhaps a quarter of those who earn a bachelor’s degree pay the costs to attend school but reap little, if any, economic benefit. In fact, once the costs of attending college are considered, it is likely that earning a bachelor’s degree would not have been a good investment for many in the lowest 25 percent of college graduate wage earners. So while a college degree appears to be a good investment on average, it may not pay off for everyone.
Now in some senses, this isn’t a surprise. There’s always a broader distribution of outcomes that get buried under averages. But it is an important reminder that a college education by no means punches your ticket into the US middle class.
Now, don't get me wrong - Robbie is a fine actress and all, but really? The Japanese main character of a Japanese comic set in Japan can't at least have a Japanese lead?
If you are a particular type of person living in a city, you almost certainly have at least two or three friends who have recently shared the ongoing saga of the Maine Hermit, who was arrested last year and was recently featured in a rather gushing (five-page!) GQ profile. Please do not be impressed by his story; there is no need. There are other heroes more worthy of your distant adulation.
No one who lives in the country is impressed with the Maine Hermit; no one who with an up-to-date hunting license or who owns a rifle or who has slept more than one night out-of-doors in the last six months finds Christopher Knight’s story captivating. His acolytes are largely young urban people who spend most of their days sitting in front of a computer with a picture of their last trip to Yosemite as the background on their smartphone, who enjoyed Hatchet in elementary school and like to think of themselves as the sort of person who would survive a zombie apocalypse, which is a fictional problem.
Thirty years in the woods! That’s a long time. I remember how that kid from My Side of the Mountain learned to build a fire and construct a lean-to that connected to an old oak tree, and teach a hawk to hunt for him, so this guy must have been pretty resourceful –
With an expert twist of a screwdriver, he popped open a door of the dining hall and slipped inside, scanning the pantry shelves with his penlight.
Candy! Always good. Ten rolls of Smarties, stuffed in a pocket. Then, into his backpack, a bag of marshmallows, two tubs of ground coffee, some Humpty Dumpty potato chips. Burgers and bacon were in the locked freezer. On a previous raid at Pine Tree, he’d stolen a key to the walk-in, and now he used it to open the stainless-steel door.
Oh.
Knight stated that over all those years he slept only in a tent. He never lit a fire, for fear that smoke would give his camp away. He moved strictly at night.
Oh.
He confessed that he’d committed approximately forty robberies a year while in the woods—a total of more than a thousand break-ins. But never when anyone was home. He said he stole only food and kitchenware and propane tanks and reading material and a few other items. Knight admitted that everything he possessed in the world, he’d stolen, including the clothes he was wearing, right down to his underwear.
Oh, right-ho.
That works out, by the way, to about 1200 robberies, give or take, of “food and kitchenware and propane tanks and reading material and a few other items” and also “everything he possessed in the world.”
It’s fine to like camping and to not like people. It’s fine to withdraw from society, if that is your particular bag. There is nothing in the world wrong with being socially awkward and feeling ill at ease around other human beings, of being afraid of coming into contact with someone else, of finding eye contact uncomfortable.
Should you desire to spend the majority of your life in the woods, you are free to do so; there is no limit to how often an American may go camping. You can work a summer job and save up enough cash to buy a polar sleeping bag, a few MREs and various basic supplies, and go forth (ugh, you probably have to get permits, though) to live off the fat of the land, and to cultivate a life of solitude and silence.
It is slightly less understandable, and altogether less admirable, to steal candy from children:
At a homeowners’ meeting in 2002, the hundred people present were asked who had suffered break-ins. Seventy-five raised their hands. Campfire hermit stories were swapped. One kid recalled that when he was 10 years old, all his Halloween candy was stolen. That kid is now 34.
Man, if you take only one thing away from this story, it is this: If you must live in the woods in complete solitude, and you absolutely refuse to learn to hunt or fish or build your own shelter, and you have to steal from your neighbors in order to eat, and you’re really in the mood for some candy, please steal just a few pieces of candy from multiple kids, so you don’t completely ruin any one particular child’s Halloween. Don’t make this year “the year the man who lives in the woods took all my treats.” That’s so cruel!
(By the way, it is super messed up to bury empty propane tanks willy-nilly. Please properly dispose of empty propane tanks.)
Knight was ordered to spend about seven months in prison, which is an unbelievably light sentence, all things considered.
The generosity of that prison term in the face of decades of theft must be contrasted with the shooting death of Michael Brown, whose murder by police was later justified because he had previously stolen a box of cigars. Just the once; not on and off for thirty years.
The fact that Knight was never shot by nervous homeowners, that he was arrested safely and without violence, that he will spend less time in jail than he spent stealing other people’s propane tanks, is enormously lucky; it is hard to imagine a man who was not white doing the same thing for thirty years and getting off quite so easily. But perhaps that is neither here nor there!
Nothing seemed to stop him. Or her. Or them. No one knew. A few desperate residents even left notes on their doors: “Please don’t break in. Tell me what you need and I’ll leave it out for you.” There was never a reply.
How sad, that the people in his community were still so willing to help him even after he had entered their homes and stolen from them, and that he was not willing to take them up on their generous offer. Society was ready to give him what he was already taking without asking. Frankly, I want to hear more about the resourceful, ingenious homeowners who banded together to non-violently solve a problem in their neighborhood.
So: what do we have, exactly? An unfriendly man spent twenty-seven-and-a-bit years living in some very cold woods.
“To put it romantically: I was completely free.” (And the article does put it romantically; if you have seen this scene from Seinfeld you have read this article.)
Almost completely free! Except for the part where you literally depended upon the labor and possessions of others to meet your every physical need. It says, you know, kind of a lot about the life you have chosen that “constant stealing” and “independence” are not mutually exclusive.
Hopefully, the man at the center of the myth can avail himself of the help that has already been offered him; hopefully he will not spend another winter walking up and down the length of his tent to keep his feet from freezing off. I do not think Christopher Knight ought to spend the rest of his life in prison or be turned into a local pariah.
But the mythos. The fanboys! The adoring fanboys whose dream it is to live in their own filth in the wood, Nobly Living Alone And Also Eating As Much Fluff As I Want, and Never Having To Talk To Anyone About Awards Ceremonies, And Literally Stealing From Children, the Chris McCandless boys who want nothing more than to live out the last five minutes of Shane on a daily basis, who mistake male-induced anti-social behavior and chronic theft for true independence; what my friend Chris called “the romantic transcendence of listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd for hours while slowly dying from an all-marshmallow diet” — all that must GO.
It is very silly that we live in a country where the conversation about people who rely on government assistance runs generally along the lines of “DON’T TAKE HANDOUTS,” while white men who steal from their neighbors are touted as tragic symbols of noble self-reliance! You can spend as much time in the forest as you like; this is America and no one will stop you. Put aside your needless, trumped-up sense of social persecution (“I MUST ESCAPE FROM HUMANITY, but can I have your magazines?”).
At the very least, whittle something to leave on the doorstep of the people you steal from most often so they have a whimsical gift from the forest in exchange for a brand-new canoe and a brace of fresh steaks.
The mythos must go. Let us puncture it now and watch it deflate.
For your analysis:
“I don’t know your world,” he said. “Only my world, and memories of the world before I went into the woods. What life is today? What is proper? I have to figure out how to live.” He wished he could return to his camp—”I miss the woods”—but he knew by the rules of his release that this was impossible.“Sitting here in jail, I don’t like what I see in the society I’m about to enter. I don’t think I’m going to fit in. It’s too loud. Too colorful. The lack of aesthetics. The crudeness. The inanities. The trivia.”
What kind of colorful, non-aesthetic crudeness do you mean, Maine Hermit?
“I gorged myself on sugar and alcohol,” he said. “It’s the quickest way to gain weight, and I liked the inebriation.” The bottles he stole were signs of a man who’d never once, as he admitted, ordered a drink at a bar: Allen’s Coffee Flavored Brandy, Seagram’s Escapes Strawberry Daiquiri, something called Whipped Chocolate Valley Vines (from the label: “fine chocolate, whipped cream & red wine”).
We covered hundreds of topics while chatting in jail, and nothing received higher praise than Lynyrd Skynyrd. “They will be playing Lynyrd Skynyrd songs in a thousand years,” he proclaimed.
I unearthed a stack of National Geographics with the dates still legible: 1991 and 1992. I also saw People, Cosmopolitan, Glamour,and Vanity Fair.There was even a collection of Playboys.
He also stole the occasional handheld video game—Pokémon, Tetris, Dig Dug—but the majority of his free time was spent reading or observing the forest. “Don’t mistake me for some bird-watching PBS type,” he warned.
I dug through his twenty-five years of trash, buried between boulders, and kept inventory: a five-pound tub that once held Marshmallow Fluff, an empty box of Devil Dogs, peanut butter, Cheetos, honey, graham crackers, Cool Whip, tuna fish, coffee, Tater Tots, pudding, soda, El Monterey spicy jalapeño chimichangas, and on and on and on.
“I went to the woods to live simply. To escape from the hubbub and noise of modern life. To listen to Skynyrd while eating only Fritos and reading the occasional Vanity Fair. Eating Tater Tots and playing some kid’s Pokémon. Are you going to finish that chimichanga.”
It is incredibly telling that GQ‘s “artist’s impression” of the Maine Hermit looks like this:
(Artist Tim O’Brien)
This could easily be a concept sketch of Radagast the Brown from the Lord of the Rings. See the ruggled, grizzled face ennobled by solitude and hardship graced with a manly beard; the sleek, modern-looking backpack with…a handful of twigs strapped to it, for some reason; the long, determined, manly stride; the literal fucking birds swarming about him like he’s goddamn St. Francis of fucking Assisi. This is White Male Solitude at its most cartoonish; this is a drawing of the song “Desperado.”
Re: Adam Baldwin, just look at his Twitter feed and media appearances.
[Trigger warning for harassment and rape threats.] It’s heartbreaking that another article about harassment in the gaming community is necessary, but the escalating and ongoing vitriol being spewed against women and their male allies who dare to criticize gamer culture or work in video games is continuing to take on new and disappointing forms.
Writing about #GamerGate feels increasingly fraught (I feel for the subjects of harassment who might just want some g.d. peace and privacy) and futile (if you can’t understand why it’s reprehensible to send people rape and death threats just for doing their job, then you might be incapable of empathy), but it’s also important to continue saying, for as long as it needs to be said, that violence–and yes, threatening someone over the Internet is a violent act–cannot be status quo.
Last week we posted an article on harassment in gaming in which we recounted the recent controversy surrounding Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, and the treatment they received at the hands of gamers like Firefly‘s Adam Baldwin. This Monday, Jenn Frank, an award-winning freelance game journalist, wrote a piece entitled “How to attack a woman who works in video gaming” for The Guardian that looked at ongoing harassment and addressed #GamerGate’s concerns over ethics in game journalism. Frank outlined the ways in which trolls are harming women who dare to work in the traditionally male-dominated field, and admitted:
For example, someone recently and bafflingly tried to hack into my email and phone contacts. This is all very frightening to write, and so I must disclose that I am biased, insofar as I am terrified. I have worked in this industry for most of the last nine – not always perfect – years and I have never professed to be a perfect person. However, my values, my belief that abuse must not, cannot become “normal”, “acceptable” or “expected” is at odds with oh, God, please, why are they doing this, what’s the point, don’t let it be me, don’t let it be me.
My unabashed love for video games, my colleagues and my work have a conflict of interest with my own terror.
Frank’s article was a call for empathy and level-headedness, and as someone who has seen first-hand the harmful comments and threats that have been directed towards women in the name of “ethics,” I was heartened by her courage. Unfortunately, Frank’s comment on the terror that is almost inherent for some women in gaming is now even more apt.
Yesterday Al Jazeera published an article about #GamerGate, calling the hashtag a trend “alleging corruption and condescension in gaming media.” (That word “condescension” is beyond problematic. Yes, how patronizing of Sarkeesian to suggest that women in video games should be more than just meat! How insulting of so-called “Social Justice Warriors” to suggest that calling for “ethics” is ironic when you’re simultaneously endangering a woman’s life!) The Al Jazeera article linked to a piece written by Milo Yiannopoulos over on Breitbart, “Feminist Bullies tearing the video game industry apart.” I’m not going to link to the article because it doesn’t deserve the clicks; if you’ve been following #GamerGate at all on Twitter, most of his arguments will probably be familiar to you already. On September 1st Yiannopoulos also retweeted the image below, which Al Jazeera published with the comment “Yiannopoulos shared a series of screenshots allegedly highlighting corruption in gaming journalism by showing previous online interactions between Zoe Quinn and a writer who came to her defence.”
Comments on the Al Jazeera story claim that Yiannopoulos has received death threats; Frank has also been harassed since the image began circulating. After the totally-not-at-all-shocking “reveal” that working as a freelance journalist does not mean you are an island and thusly many critics of #GamerGate have had professional contact with each other, the Guardian piece was edited to include this addendum:
Frank posted several Tweets yesterday about the addition to her article:
If anything I am in trouble for, pardon me, insisting on an addendum — for YOU — that establishes a dangerous legal prescendent for op/eds — Just Jenn! (Frank) (@jennatar) September 4, 2014
According to Frank’s Twitter feed, she has decided to step back from games journalism due to the overwhelming amount of harassment and doxxing threats she’s been receiving. Frank isn’t the isn’t the only talent who has implied they may be leaving the industry to preserve their well-being; media critic and game designer Mattie Brice posted on Twitter earlier today:
i will continue to get minoritized people involved with think about play, but i won’t recommend they join the industry — Mattie Brice (@xMattieBrice) September 4, 2014
i’m being harassed because i am allowed to speak outside of the system, which is why pubs are just letting this roll — Mattie Brice (@xMattieBrice) September 4, 2014
otherwise, i won’t be involved with anything tied to the games industry professionally anymore. i put in my time — Mattie Brice (@xMattieBrice) September 4, 2014
The real #GamerGate is not about “ethics in journalism,” (although I’ll admit the severity of the harassment women in my community are facing does raise an ethical dilemma for conscientious journalists; I worry that just by writing as responsibly as I can about an important issue I may increase the vitriol directed at people already impacted on either side of the debate). It is not problematic for a games critic to critique video games through a certain lens; that’s their job. If your response is still “but Kotaku! But Quinn!,” remember that Quinn’s ex-boyfriend has amended a typo in his earlier statements to show that any sexual relations Quinn may have had with writer Nathan Grayson did not coincide with Grayson’s Kotaku coverage on Quinn. Regardless, if you still thought the gaming community’s real skeleton in the closet was “transparency in game journalism” rather than misogyny, then you’ve ignored the double-standard evidenced in the amount of hate directed at Quinn, rather than Kotaku itself. Paste puts it better than I can:
That’s [harassment] the scandal here. Not that some journalists are friendly with some game designers, or that review copies of games are often sent early to critics (an entrenched practice that occurs across the entire spectrum of tech and entertainment journalism, and which is crucial to informing readers in a timely fashion). It’s that a vocal minority of videogame fans who tend to congregate at sites like 4chan and Reddit, who blanket twitter and comment sections with hate and anger, and who adopt the exclusionary identity of “gamer” have united to intimidate and silence videogame fans, developers and writers who aren’t like them or don’t think like them. And the leaders of that movement, the ones who stir up the most resentment and convince their followers that it’s not about hate but ethics, the YouTube “personalities” and condescending Breitbart hacks and, uh, Firefly’s Adam Baldwin, are all well-established opponents of equality and social justice.
While #GamerGate distracts from the real scandal of ongoing harassment, the #NotYourShield hashtag has been adopted by minority groups to represent frustration with “Social Justice Warriors.”
This ongoing uproar in the gaming community is not about journalistic ethics, it’s not really about the gall of Social Justice Warriors (the fact that a moniker like #SJW is pejorative is profoundly f’ed); it’s about systematic misogyny and abuse, the ease with which harassment occurs online, and the fact that publishing an article calling for empathy could engender enough hate to make you want to quit writing forever. I’ll leave you guys with these positive projects from Quinn, because something good needs to result from this terrible, terrible “debate:”
I am starting an organization to provide resources & outreach to victims of online hate mobs run by survivors of them — Zoë ʻTom-Kunʼ Quinn (@TheQuinnspiracy) September 4, 2014
If you have been the victim of an online hate campaign of any scale and are interested in giving feedback, please email zoe@beesgo.biz — Zoë ʻTom-Kunʼ Quinn (@TheQuinnspiracy) September 4, 2014
A reminder to everyone in the comments section: please read and respect The Mary Sue’s official comment policy, as we do enforce it and will delete comments or ban users accordingly. I draw your attention to the following excerpt: “[Comments will be deleted if they contain] personal attacks against another commenter or the writer of the post. This can run from name calling to sentences that include the words ‘people like you’ or statements that begin ‘I bet you’ or ‘you must/probably’ etc. This is regardless of what ‘side’ you’re on.”
Thanks to hidden anti-piracy measures, those who pirate The Sims 4 will find themselves staring at a pixelated mess instead of the colorful, virtual life simulation, reports Player Attack.
The blurring appears harmless enough at first. When a Sim...
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DNC Chief Regrets Invoking Domestic Violence While Insulting Scott Walker The Wire The walk-back was inevitable. A day after invoking graphic domestic violence imagery to attack Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) on women's issues, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said she regretted her ...
Where’s your death stare now?! This great comic comes from John Pading and Daniel Shealey — you can see more of John’s comics and collaborations with Daniel at Crazy Buffet 2.
Speaking of Luigi, I just noticed his beautiful Nendoroid figure is now available to buy at Amazon — ahhhh this thing is too cute.
This is part of a Title XI
investigation. According to the law, schools must investigate alleged sex crimes, whether law enforcement investigates them or not. The school already investigated two of Winston's teammates, Ronald Darby and Chris Casher, regarding the same alleged incident. Darby was cleared in such an investigation this past June.
An attorney named John Clune, who is representing the woman, told the New York Times he was pleased with the investigation, which apparently included more than an hour of university officials asking the accuser questions. He also told USA Today that he expects code of conduct charges to be brought against Winston, but there's no indication otherwise suggesting that will happen.
Why did it take so long for an investigation to take place? Florida State's statement attempts to address those concerns.
FSU's response: "While we cannot comment on any individual case, in general, complainants control the timing in our process."
Bleeding Cool reports an intriguing rumor:DC Comics is actively pitching a Supergirl live-action television show, in the same vein as its other TV properties Arrow, Gotham, Constantine, and The Flash. The report has Michael Green, producer and scriptwriter for several genre and comic-book shows, tied to the project. Green’s even got a slant towards DC characters: In addition to writing the Green Lantern movie, he was a producer for Smallville—which featured Laura Vandervoort as Supergirl—and writes for Gotham. But perhaps more relevantly, he worked on the Supergirl comics in the early days of the New 52.
The question of whether or not a major studio would make a comic-book movie with a female protagonist has been discussed for some time now. Though DC and Marvel have hinted at movies for Wonder Woman and Black Widow, respectively—and Sony has promised a female offshoot of its Spider-Man ...
Remember Twitpic? You know, the thing you used to use to upload pictures and link ‘em to your tweets before Twitter… started actually doing that itself? They’ve been chugging along quietly for the past couple of years, but today announced plans to shut down their site. But not because hardly anyone uses it anymore—nope, apparently it’s all Twitter’s fault.
On the Twitpic blog today, founder Noah Everett states that Twitter contacted their legal department a few weeks ago, “demanding that we abandon our trademark application or risk losing access to their API.” Considering that their trademark application had been in the US Patent and Trademark Office for five years now, this came as a shock to the Twitpic developers. He says:
We originally filed for our trademark in 2009 and our first use in commerce dates back to February 2008 when we launched. We encountered several hurdles and difficulties in getting our trademark approved even though our first use in commerce predated other applications, but we worked through each challenge and in fact had just recently finished the last one. During the “published for opposition” phase of the trademark is when Twitter reached out to our counsel and implied we could be denied access to their API if we did not give up our mark.
“Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark which we believe whole heartedly is rightfully ours,” continues Everett. “Therefore, we have decided to shut down Twitpic.”
Not sure why they can’t just change their name and apply for a new trademark—after all, it seems to be working okay for Yfrog, right?—but it’s still worth noting that Twitter would even attempt to drive out Twitpic in the first place, considering that their service wasn’t exactly that popular anymore in comparison to Twitter’s in-house photo uploading service, or to social network-specific apps like Instagram.
If you’re still a Twitpic user, the site says that there’ll be a way for you to export all your pics in the coming weeks before it shuts down on September 25th.
McDonnell was widely considered a possible running mate for presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012. He was charged with doing favors for a wealthy vitamin executive in exchange for the gifts and loans.
Indiegogo is experiencing explosive growth in our Design & Technology vertical and we’re looking for someone to help build, grow and run that business on the west coast, based out of Indiegogo’s headquarters in the San Francisco office. The core of the role is focused on identifying and driving great campaigns to Indiegogo, working with those entrepreneurs to make their campaigns as successful as possible, and building strong long-term relationships with the hardware/product design/maker communities. The ideal candidate has experience with crowdfunding campaigns, a passion for helping entrepreneurs bring amazing new hardware and technology products to life, and a breadth of professional experience that includes business development, marketing and thought leadership in the technology community in the SF and LA markets.
NEVER HIT THAT SHARE BUTTON SO FAST IN MY GOT-DAMN LIFE
FUCK I SHARE D IT SO HARD THOR FREAKED OUT AND UNSHARED IT BC I WAS TYPING LIKE FUCKKKKK
DIDNT EVEN NOTICE THE FUKKIN GOONIES PIRATE IN THERE
The conclusion of this Dorkly comic, titled “Video Games from the Skeletons’ Point of View” and drawn by Tony Wilson, was enough to make me gigglesnort, but I might have an ulterior motive in sharing this particular post with you. And that is these rad skeleton gifs you need to see:
Steven is an app by pushd that automatically shares locations as emoji. Since Steven doesn’t actually send out precise locations, simply images based on them, the developers consider it a “non-invasive” form of tracking that uses Wi-Fi to update. For example, Steven might update with an image of books when a user is at the library. The app also allows users to share photos.
Steven works by updating your current status as an emoji icon, using auto location technology. The automatic nature of Steven makes it a great way to see what your friends are up to – without having to share exact location.
We think of Steven as a status dashboard that is always up to date. At a glance, you can see what and where your closest friends, family, colleagues are doing throughout the day, in non-invasive, fun emoticons.
Now that she's done with Batgirl, Gail Simone's launching a new Secret Six comic for DC. Simone was the writer of the fan-favorite title for years before the DC universe rebooted in 2011, so it's going to be good to have her and her deeply dysfunctional team back.
It quickly becomes apparent that the developers of Harmonix's A City Sleeps are hardcore arcade shoot-'em-up fans. Its screen-filling bullet patterns recall Cave games like Deathsmiles and DoDonPachi, and its multi-faceted mechanics draw inspiration...
Super Opinionated.
The ToastThe Toast.
If you are a particular type of person living in a city, you almost certainly have at least two or three friends who have recently shared the ongoing saga of the Maine Hermit, who was arrested last year and was recently featured in a rather gushing (five-page!) GQ profile. Please do not be impressed by his story; there is no need. There are other heroes more worthy of your distant adulation.
(Artist Tim O’Brien)
Thanks to hidden anti-piracy measures, those who pirate The Sims 4 will find themselves staring at a pixelated mess instead of the colorful, virtual life simulation, reports Player Attack.
The blurring appears harmless enough at first. When a Sim...
