Israel-Gaza conflict: Long-term ceasefire agreed, says Hamas Belfast Telegraph Hamas has claimed "victory for the resistance" with an open-ended ceasefire reportedly agreed with Israel that could end the seven-week war in Gaza. Related Articles. Gaza fighting amid rumours of talks · Gaza cease-fire agreed, says Hamas · Blogs: Gaza ...
While BitTorrent may be best known for its peer-to-peer file transfer protocol, the company has also been trying to find a simple and secure way to share large files without relying on the cloud — and the storage constraints that come with it. In fact, the company has been working on killing off sneakernet for a while now. Earlier efforts, like BitTorrent Share and SoShare, never really took off, but the company finally thinks it has something with BitTorrent Sync. Publicly launched in beta last July, the service lets you select and share folders with any number of recipients, with the folder's contents sent directly between devices and kept in sync.
Sync is beginning to find an audience (more than 10 million installs and 80 petabytes transferred thus far), but it hasn't always been the most user-friendly process. BitTorrent is trying to change that with the launch of Sync 1.4 — a complete and much-needed visual overhaul and refresh of how users will share files. Technologically, Sync is still the same, but instead of using lengthy, "secret" alphanumeric codes to grant access, users can now invite others to view their folders using by sending an email or simply sharing an HTTPS link.
Once the person on the receiving end clicks the link, the original sender can see who is connecting and grant or deny them access. Another nice refinement includes the ability to simply right-click any folder in Windows Explorer or the OS X Finder — from there it brings up a quick dialog box that lets you generate the email or link you want to use to share the folder. The app also generates a QR code, which mobile users can then scan to add a folder directly to the Sync app for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone (a feature that's been present since Sync 1.3 launched).
It's worth noting that Sync is primarily a file-sharing service, not a backup solution — there's no cloud to speak of here. Instead, files are directly transferred between computers; if you're sharing a file with multiple users, you'll all benefit from increased speed when syncing files thanks to BitTorrent's peer-to-peer technology. However, the plus side of not using the cloud is that you can send any file or folder, regardless of how big it is. Dropbox, Google Drive, and the like all make it easy to share files and folders, but you're constrained by the amount of space you have available — that's not the case with Sync. Ultimately, the company believes it has put together the tools necessary to kill things like trading files on flash drives or mailing external hard drives.
For most users, however, the free space in Dropbox and Drive will probably be sufficient (and comes with the added benefit of backing files up in the cloud), but BitTorrent believes there will definitely be a segment of the market interested in this service. The company is mainly targeting users who need to send multi-gigabyte files like multimedia creators, as well as users concerned with security and don't want their files in someone else's server. With Sync 1.4, BitTorrent thinks it has added the necessary polish and fine-tuning too make the service a mainstream success. You can download Sync 1.4 for Windows, Mac, and Linux now, and updated mobile versions of the app should roll out today as well.
Fans of Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, like The A.V. Club’s A.A. Dowd, will be interested in the new video from White Hills, streaming exclusively below. The group appears in Jarmusch’s vampire love story and, for “Spirit Of Exile,” combined exclusive footage from the filming of the movie with footage from the London, Paris, and New York premieres. It’s all done to luxurious and lush effect, setting up fans for the group’s new album, Glitter Glamour Atrocity, which is out August 26 via Thrill Jockey.
In the wee hours of the morning on March 2, 22-year-old Victor White III was shot while in the custody of Louisiana's New Iberia Sheriff's department and was pronounced dead later that day at a local hospital. The case has been of particular interest to me for the past few months because of who the law enforcement officials fingered as the triggerman. They alleged that White III shot himself—in the backseat of a police car, while his hands were cuffed behind his back, with a gun that mysteriously appeared after they had searched and arrested him.
According to initial information offered by Trooper Stephen Hammons to the press back in March, Victor III was stopped under the suspicion that he was involved in a fight at a convenience store near his home. Hammons claimed the unnamed deputy involved searched White III, found unidentified narcotics on his person, and arrested him. When they arrived at Iberia Parish Sherrif's Office, they said Victor III refused to exit the cruiser and became "uncooperative." That's when he allegedly "produced" a handgun and fired off one round into his back, killing himself.
Other than those basic details, it's been radio silence for months in terms of official information from the local authorities, who've cited an ongoing investigation into the shooting by the state police as their reason for not sharing any more details or answering any questions about Victor White III. I know—I've reached out to everyone from the local to state police, not to mention political officials like New Iberia's Mayor Hilda Curry, only to fall on deaf ears or get the line about an on-going investigation.
However, late last week some new information eked out via the Iberia Parish Coroner's Office. Victor III's autopsy was performed the day he died by local forensic pathologist Christopher Tape, who has yet to return my calls for comment. The report itself offers fresh insight into what happened that night, while fueling the only natural suspicion that we still don't know the full story of this incredible backseat shooting.
First off, the cause of death according to the report was a suicide, which is drastically different from the seemingly accidental shooting initially described by police officials. According to Victor III's family, he had no history of mental illness or depression. And even if he did, the back seat of a cop car at one in the morning is a strange place to decide to snuff it.
Despite initial statements made by authorities that said Victor III was shot in the back, the report describes no back wounds at all. Instead, his cause of death is described as a gunshot to his right chest that perforated his left lung and heart, exited through his left armpit, and lacerated his upper arm. It was reported in initial local accounts of the shooting that Victor III was handcuffed behind his back. So in order for him to have shot himself in the chest, he would have had to pull himself through his cuffed arms in the backseat of that cop car—and of course, have a gun in the first place.
The report also lists two abrasions on Victor III's upper left face and around his eye, which seems to be in line with what White's father, Victor White Sr., told me a couple weeks after his son's death: "I know they beat him before he arrived at the station," he said, "because those who were with him before he was arrested said he didn’t have a mark on him.”
I spoke again with Victor Sr. after he'd spent some time looking at the report. The man was in a state of bewilderment and exhaustion, because after more than six months, he still has no idea what happened to his son and the explanations just don't add up.
Authorities have kept Victor Sr. in the dark since the very beginning. He was never alerted by officials that his son had been arrested and died in police custody in the first place. Instead, he found out from his son Leonard, who had been questioned in connection with Victor III's death. When Victor Sr. went to New Iberia, at first the police refused to even let him see his son's body. Then, when they allowed him see his son, it was only from the neck up. The police wouldn't even reveal to him how they thought that his son died. He ended up finding out that the police were claiming his son shot himself in the back by way of a public Facebook post published by the department.
Now, he's got the skeleton of an autopsy report that begs more questions than it provides answers. Did Victor III actually have gun residue on his hands? What kind of gun fired the shot and what kind of bullet was used? Based upon what new information did this shooting suddenly become a confirmed suicide? And how do the police reconcile this report with their initial account? All of these are ringing in his head with all the old, unanswered questions, like who were the officers involved? Is there a weapon or a bullet? And, maybe most important, was this incident caught on videotape?
So much has happened across this country since I first reported on Victor White III's shooting in March: An unarmed, asthmatic father named Eric Garner was strangled to death by the NYPD in Staten Island. An unarmed teenager named Michael Brown was shot six times—once in the head—and killed by his local police in Ferguson, Missouri. And an unarmed, mentally ill 25-year-old named Ezell Ford was shot three times in the back and killed by two LAPD officers.
Righteous anger and frustration at these all too familiar occurrences have lead to protests and demonstrations across the country. However, little national attention has been paid to the curious case of Victor White III. The lack of credible information as to what actually went down surely has something to do with it. And as time goes on, there is the very real possibility that his death will drop out of the news cycle. However, headlines and protest wouldn't provide much solace to Victor White Sr., who's had to live the last few months in purgatory wondering what in the world happened to his boy.
UPDATE: We posted this link in our first story about Victor White III, but we wanted to remind readers again that the White family has created a campaign to raise funds for an independent autopsy and crime-scene tests. If you want to help them get answers, please donate.
"The choice of materials was both deliberate and necessary: they couldn't use ice water, participants say, due to deteriorating conditions on the ground."
As the rest of the world continues to dump buckets of cold water over their heads in support of ALS research, some Palestinians have created their own version of the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise awareness about the ongoing crisis in Gaza. Known as the Rubble Bucket Challenge, the campaign invites social media users to douse themselves in sand, cement, and other materials from buildings that have been destroyed during Israel's seven-week military offensive. The choice of materials was both deliberate and necessary: they couldn't use ice water, participants say, due to deteriorating conditions on the ground.
"In Gaza we don't have water and when we have water, we can't make ice since the electricity is off most of the time," writes Gaza resident Abu Yazan, alongside a video he uploaded to Facebook Tuesday morning. "So my cousin Hafiz, [my] nephew Khalid and I used remains of a destroyed house to participate in this challenge."
The campaign launched on Saturday, and has picked up steam on Facebook and Twitter. At the time of this writing, the Rubble Bucket Challenge Facebook page has more than 4,200 "likes," and many have posted videos of themselves completing the feat under the hashtags #RubbleBucketChallenge, #DustBucketChallenge, and #RemainsBucketChallenge. The campaign received an extra boost today, with the support of Palestinian singer Mohammad Assaf, and has been heavily promoted by Palestinian journalist Ayman al-Aloul, who posted the video embedded above.
Unlike the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, this campaign doesn't ask users for monetary donations. Instead, it relies on social media to simply raise awareness about a humanitarian crisis that its Facebook page describes as "ethnic cleansing."
"Money will not bring the so many innocent souls back to life and we cannot begin to rebuild Gaza unless the Israeli attacks stop," Maysam Yusef, the Gaza university student who launched the Rubble Bucket Challenge, said in an email. "So our campaign is more of a social media revolution, where people show their solidarity with Gaza and publicly reject the killing of civilians. We are trying to form a worldwide movement to pressure Israel to stop this genocidal act against Palestinians of Gaza."
Israel launched an air and ground offensive in Gaza on July 8th, with the aim of halting Hamas rocket fire and destroying the organization's network of tunnels. Since then, the operation has killed 2,133 people — mostly civilians — and injured more than 10,000 others. Sixty-eight Israelis have been killed over that span, including four civilians. The situation has escalated since a ceasefire agreement collapsed on August 19th, with Israeli forces targeting high-rise buildings and shopping complexes. Israeli officials have accused Hamas operatives of using Gazans as human shields, while others have suggested that Israel's massive operation could amount to war crimes.
Some media outlets have cited al-Aloul, the journalist, as the founder of the Rubble Bucket Challenge; others have pointed to Palestinian comedian Mohammed Darwaza, who uploaded a video of himself completing the challenge on Friday. But Yusef says she launched the campaign after seeing Darwaza's video, and worked with the comedian to spread the hashtag before announcing it in a video posted Saturday (two days before al-Aloul's video was published). Attribution aside, Yusef says she's pleased with the movement's spread, and hopes it will pressure politicians and policymakers to bring about change.
"Our challenge is not exclusive to a race or a religion," Yusef says. "All people are invited to take the challenge. Killing civilians is not acceptable in any sense."
American denim companies are locked in a technology battle to improve women's pants, as more and more women abandon jeans for stretchy leggings and yoga pants.
"Liberia's president has fired all Cabinet ministers and other top officials who defied her order to return to the country as it struggles with an unprecedented Ebola outbreak"
I know this is the Onion, but Rice is a huge college football fan who grew up in a coaching family, and the way Stanford is built she also had hire/fire and administrative responsibilities over their football program.
NEW YORK—Saying that she could use a short reminder of why she has a significant sway in the shaping of the collegiate sports landscape, sources confirmed that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spent the first 15 minutes of a College Footba...
#1. AKG K551, $200 (and the fourth-cheapest he reviews)
A fantastic new model jumped right to my second-favorite spot for portable, closed headphones. Highly recommended.
I’ve also significantly upgraded the review page with images, better navigation, and more clear information in the summaries at the bottom. Check it out if it’s been a while or you’re in the market — I usually update it every few months.
"YOU;RE DAMN RIGHT POPEYES ENJOYS A RICH TRADITION AND PASSIONATE FANS. Look, we've said it here before and we'll say it again. If you think there's a fast food item on the market that is better than Popeyes chicken, I think you are criminally insane and deserve to go to some sort of high-security prison site."
"Popeyes does not currently have any restaurants in the Bahamas,and does not have any plans of opening restaurants in the Bahamas."
Popeyes is delicious. College football is delicious. Now, there is a thing called the Popeyes Bowl.
There will be a bowl game played in the Bahamas in 2014. It was called, until today, simply "The Bahamas Bowl." That is no longer true. It is now called "The Popeyes Bahamas Bowl," and as shameless, as-of-yet-unpaid endorsers of Popeyes, this makes us incredibly happy.
"Popeyes is honored to partner with the Bahamas Bowl to bring this historic bowl game to college football fans everywhere," said Hector Munoz, Vice President of Marketing for Popeyes. "Like college football, Popeyes enjoys a rich tradition and passionate fans, and we look forward to a great game and a lot of fun in the Bahamas."
YOU;RE DAMN RIGHT POPEYES ENJOYS A RICH TRADITION AND PASSIONATE FANS. Look, we've said it here before and we'll say it again. If you think there's a fast food item on the market that is better than Popeyes chicken, I think you are criminally insane and deserve to go to some sort of high-security prison site.
That said, we're cautious. Normally we'd book tickets literally right this second to spend Christmas Eve watching a MAC team and a C-USA team play football in the Bahamas while downing a four-piece -- spicy, please, with mashed potatoes -- but! Popeyes does not currently have any restaurants in the Bahamas,and does not have any plans of opening restaurants in the Bahamas.
Hopefully we'll soon receive word that Popeyes is planning emergency shipments of Popeyes to the Bahamas serve to all attendees, but until then, we'd like to warn potential fans that the Popeyes Bowl could be Popeyes-free, and therefore a horrible place we would not like to be.
Oh, and also, we would eat something called a Popeyes Bahamas Bowl, if they would start making it.
The Das Can-in-Stein is a novelty product by ThinkGeek that can dress up any standard 12-ounce can for Oktoberfest by giving it the look at feel of a classic pewter tankard. It was originally one of ThinkGeek’s fake April Fools’ Day joke products, but it’s now available for sale.
Despite its pewter look, the Das Can-in-Stein is made of resin, so ThinkGeek warns to only toast from the bottom of the device while holding the handle. Das Can-in-Stein also features a functional lid that can be opened and closed with the thumb-lever to keep drinks covered and to complete the full tankard experience. ThinkGeek does specifically mention that the Das Can-in-Stein is not microwave safe, so do not microwave beer in it.
The ways in which we interact online with our favorite shows is very different on Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit—and that’s underscored by just how divergent the most popular shows on each platform are. The following charts say just as much about each social media platform as they do about the TV shows themselves.
Facebook—lighter fare (animated shows and comedies)
Even though young people are leaving Facebook, the most popular shows on this platform skew toward a younger audience. That’s partly because older people just watch far less TV, but the main reason is probably that the top shows on Facebook are also, simply, among the most popular shows anywhere. For example, The Big Bang Theory is the most-watched comedy in the US, and The Walking Dead is cable’s most watched series. Most of these shows don’t require much analysis, but they are inherently shareable.
There’s also something to be said about identity, given that a show will appear in your Facebook profile if you “like” that page. Most people wouldn’t have a problem with friends knowing that they watch The Simpsons. You can’t necessarily say the same for many of the most popular shows on Twitter, as you’ll see below.
Twitter—events, reality TV, and news
The most popular TV show Twitter accounts belong to talk shows, reality shows, or cable news programs. However, the shows with the most followers on Twitter aren’t necessarily the ones being tweeted about the most. TV chatter on Twitter often is dominated by major live events, like award shows, football games, or singing competitions. For instance, Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta generated 471,000 tweets while it aired last week, but the show’s official Twitter account only has 200,000 followers—nowhere near the top 10. You don’t need to follow a show’s official Twitter account in order to talk about it in real-time with other people across the world.
And unlike Facebook, where a show’s official page can post something and prompt hundreds of comments and thousands of likes, a Tweet from an official show account won’t garner nearly as many direct interactions—be it retweets, favorites, or replies. Most TV Twitter interactions happen amongst fans of shows, not between the fans and the show itself.
Nielsen released a report earlier this summer that showed what the most-tweeted-about series of the last year were. Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and Game of Thrones all were among the most talked-about, which makes sense since they are also some of the most buzzworthy shows on the other social media platforms. But again, these are merely instances when Twitter users mention these shows—not when they engage with a specific show’s Twitter account.
Reddit—genre shows
The majority of Reddit users are young males. Accordingly, the most popular TV subreddits (Reddit pages devoted solely to links and discussion for a specific topic)are for shows that attract a young male audience. But they also tend to be shows that require in-depth discussion, recapping, and theorizing. Many of the popular subreddits will have an “episode thread” for users to discuss episodes live in real-time—but unlike a Twitter feed, they need to be refreshed for new content to appear.
The bulk of TV subreddit content comes after an episode airs, as users post pictures, videos, and spoilers, and then argue about it all until the next episode. TV subreddits have essentially rendered fan sites useless, as you can find pretty much everything you’d ever want in a specific show’s subreddit—not to mention, much of the content on independent fan sites probably originated on Reddit anyway.
Sounds like an old British car, is in actual fact about designing underground rail systems. Basically, if you’d rather not play anything to do with transport, walk away now.
No, no, hey, come on, I didn’t mean that, let’s sit down and talk about this. I didn’t really want to play anything to do with transport either, but I’m glad I did. Mini Metro is about subway systems, but it isn’t really about subway systems.
It is! It totally is! But it isn’t about being a train gonk, it’s about movement. It’s about creating and maintaining movement. It’s about tranquil coloured lines, flowing neatly and being coolly reshaped into better flows still. It’s about going “bollocks, if I only I could stretch the red line over that river then a thousand people stuck waiting on that station over there wouldn’t want to kill me.”
It’s my favourite game about stretchy lines in a very long time. And I say that even though there’s no damn sound, which on the one hand is extremely distracting, but on the other encourages me to seek out my own, appropriate minimalist, ambient or otherwise dancing-around-the-candles-at-Glastonbury-at-5am soundtrack. Line-stretching is all that’s involved, other than occasionally adding extra carriages or locomotives to particularly busy stretch lines – the rest of the simulation plays itself. On paper, it sounds like there’s little to do; in practice, it’s moment-to-moment anxiety.
What it also does is make me think upon how many times I’ve sworn at unseen, nameless creators of the London Underground, damning their crazed logic for how it’s caused my journey from Grotty, Overcrowded Tube Station X to Grotty, Eerily Deserted Tube Station Y to take 20 minutes longer than it surely needs to. As I make mistakes and compromises in my own tube layout, as I frown at how I’ve inadvertently I’ve made the people on the blue line have to tour the entire perimeter of the system simply to reach a stop that’s basically just across the road from where they started, my annoyance at those ancient architects turns only to sympathy. Then it becomes panic, as a new stop pops into being which requires a wholescale rethink of my entire transport system if I’m to fold it into my fragile network.
What’s particularly intriguing is that my layouts broadly come to resemble the London Underground’s layout, and I don’t know if that’s because London is a geographic puzzle that logically can only be solved a certain way, or because my own memories of the place are affecting which coloured lines I place where, and in which shapes.
(Other cities are available, by the way, including Paris, New York and St Petersburg, with many more to come as Early Access rolls on, but broadly you’re having the same experience no matter which country’s public transport you choose to ruin. This is, for my money, Early Access done right. Mini Metro’s essential challenge and essential appeal is there, it’s solid, it’s smart and it turns a dry concept into a mesmerising challenge of logic and aesthetics. Sound and more cities and maybe a few new ways to lay a line can come later: what matters is there right now.
Mini Metro is very much a game you learn as you play, both in terms of how to actually control the thing, and how to be any good at it. I’m still stranded somewhere out in Zone 4 in terms of the latter, but the former didn’t take too long. Disaster is always waiting somewhere down the line, but I appreciate how beautifully Mini Metro turns to chaos. The black squares and triangles which denote passengers waiting at stations gradually increase in number, and a grey circle begins to fill at the busiest stops. If that circle fills, you’ve failed.
Basically, you’ve got a Clapham Junction, and no-one wants that. More likely though, you’ve got two or three Clapham Junctions. The wannabe passengers saying nothing, do nothing other than wait, but their impatience is palpable. It’s sympathy, perhaps: I’ve been in their weary shoes too many times myself. What to do? Wait it out in the hope this stage of the challenge will end, rewarding me with another line, train, carriage or tunnel, or take action before it’s too late?
Panic. Too many bodies, not enough choo-choos to carry them where they want to go. Dilemma. A minor adjustment to my elaborate network, or hit pause, tear down every line and start again to try and remove the choke points? Too late: it’s all over. Too many waited for too long.
A game that’s elegant even in disaster: just a few dots were all I needed to know everything had gone to hell, and just a few dragged lines were all that would ever have been needed to fix it. The spirit and the ingenuity of transportation management games of times past, preserved and even strengthened despite chopping away everything beyond ‘where does each train go?’
So I find myself in a rare situation: hoping that an Early Access game doesn’t expand too much further. Too many parts stacked on top of this cool, clean Jenga tower could upset its admirable minimalism, distract from its essential challenge of flow. What’s already here suggests a game that’s too smart and clear-eyed to fall into that trap. Whatever it might go in the future, it is most certainly ready to depart the station right now.
Mini Metro is out now on Steam Early access and the Humble Store, and so far has been receiving a steady stream of updates. Audio is promised soon, and the Zen mode Graham called for when he wrote about it a while back is already in there. The original prototype game jam version is available to fiddle with for free too.
"Tekken producer/director Katsuhiro Harada and Soulcalibur producer Masaaki Hoshino are working on the project"
Pokken Tournament is happening ⊟
A Pokemon fighting game from Bandai Namco (makers of the Tekken series, obvi), coming to Japan next year! It’s worth noting that The Pokemon Company has registered trademarks for “Pokken Fighters” and “Pokken Tournament” in both Europe and the U.S.
The game will be coming to arcades “first”, that last word implying an eventual console port in the works, presumably for Wii U. It sounds like Tekken producer/director Katsuhiro Harada and Soulcalibur producer Masaaki Hoshino are working on the project.
'the main antagonist in the game, an up-and-coming criminal boss who spends the first few hours of the game sexually harassing Fetch every time they talk. It becomes grating, especially since Fetch is forced to grit and bear the abuse in order to protect her brother.'
Infamous: First Light is typical in a lot of ways. It's a downloadable spin-off to the solid PS4 title Infamous: Second Son, one that delves into the origin story of a super-powered character capable of harnessing neon light to do everything from glide through the air to shoot glowing pink laser bolts at bad guys. It only lasts around five hours, but First Light gives you everything you'd expect out of a superhero action game. There's one key difference, though — it stars a woman.
The protagonist of First Light is Abigail "Fetch" Walker, who first appeared in Second Son as a vigilante intent on ridding Seattle of drug dealers. In her standalone title you learn just why she hates them so much. First Light is basically a standard damsel in distress story, except in this case the damsel is Fetch's older brother, who has been kidnapped by criminals who are trying to blackmail her to take control of the city's seedy underbelly.
The Infamous series takes place in a sort of X-Men-like universe, where superpowered people like Fetch — who are known as "conduits" — are labelled bioterrorists, and a well-funded government organization called DUP is intent on rounding them all up. She’s basically the universe’s Jubilee, a spunky kid with bright flashy powers, only Fetch has a mean streak. First Light jumps back and forth between the story of Fetch's brother and her time spent in a DUP prison and, despite the short run time, the story is great, building towards a surprisingly heartbreaking ending. The final scene is perfect and makes the small slice of the game feel like a complete experience.
She loves to create mayhem
Action games tend to star depressingly generic characters that can be hard to tell apart. The biggest blockbusters — whether it’s Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin’s Creed, or basically any first-person shooter — nearly all star straight white men that are virtually identical. And not just in terms of how they look, but also how they act: they’re angry, out for vengeance, and they have little personality beyond that. I can barely remember a thing about that guy with the hat from Watch Dogs other than him being really mad his niece was dead. Even popular games that step outside this mold, such as Bioshock, do so very gently.
That's part of what makes First Light such a refreshing change. It's not just that Fetch is a woman, a rarity in the genre — she's also a uniquely interesting and complex character." Young and immature, dealing with drug problems while living on the streets, and coming to grips with her new powers. Her life is pretty complicated. Whereas young female characters are often depicted as weak or vulnerable, Fetch destroys her enemies with a disturbing sense of glee. One mission has you trying to blow up as much of the city as possible to distract the police, and her laughter during this scene is chilling. She loves to create mayhem.
The main characters from Infamous: Second Son and Infamous 2
In fact, outside of the copious use of pink, having a female lead doesn't dramatically change the Infamous formula in any real way. Fetch isn’t sexualized and people are rightfully terrified of her and her volatile powers. The missions feel familiar, jumping between frantic action scenes where you kill waves and waves of bad guys, as well as timed chases that let you use Fetch's super speed to track down your enemies. You can even use Fetch's powers to shoot down drones that the police use to keep tabs on her. "We wanted to make a strong character-driven game, regardless of gender," says Sucker Punch Productions' Jason Connell, who served as creative lead on the game.The one exception to this is the main antagonist in the game, an up-and-coming criminal boss who spends the first few hours of the game sexually harassing Fetch every time they talk. It becomes grating, especially since Fetch is forced to grit and bear the abuse in order to protect her brother.
"I’m always stumped as to why there aren’t more."
According to Connell, Fetch was actually inspired in part by Laura Bailey, the actress who voices the character. "Laura and [director Nate Fox] were very close in further driving the character of Fetch," he explains. "Many of her personality traits come from Laura’s acting." He also says that the studio chose Fetch to star in the new game because they wanted to explore her character more in depth, not just to have a token female. "When we started exploring the characters," he says, "it was an easy decision."
As great as First Light is, though, it's somewhat disappointing that Fetch is relegated to a downloadable spin-off as opposed to a full-fledged game. First Light is a game aimed at existing Infamous fans who want to delve further into the universe. It's not really an experience that will bring in new people excited about an awesome new female superhero. (That said, First Light is a standalone title, so you don't need to own Second Son to play it. The story also works fairly well on its own.) Five hours with Fetch was fun, but I definitely want more.
Connell says that the success of First Light won't determine whether the next Infamous will similarly have a female lead; instead the choice will be story-driven, as it was with Fetch. "Our team would make those kinds of decisions by looking at the story, experience, and emotional journey we are trying to create," he says. For now, Fetch joins Lara Croft in the recent Tomb Raider reboot in gaming's small group of great female action stars, and one of its only female superheroes. Just like comics and movies, it seems like games are slowly moving to a future where female leads aren’t an anomaly. "I’m always stumped as to why there aren’t more," says Connell, "but I will say that I’m excited to be part of a project that didn’t think twice on this."
Infamous: First Light is available today on the PlayStation 4.
'While winning his own award, Stephen Colbert kicked things off by making light of the fact that his show only employs one female writer. Cool? He thanked his writers—those guys—and one woman. He added, "Sorry about that, for some reason." Oh yeah why the hell should you be ashamed about have ONE WOMAN IN THAT ENTIRE BIG ASS GROUP YOU HAVE ON STAGE? (Side note: earlier this year, when his one female writer Meredith Scardino announced she was leaving for a new Tina Fey project, the Colbert team scrambled to find a female writer to replace her. They put out a huge call for submission packets from women only — several women known to members of the Jezebel staff responded to that submission call, and one woman was ultimately hired to replace Scardino as she left. Why? Because, I suspect, Colbert knows exactly why he should apologize for a lack of diversity in his writers' room. Otherwise, his team wouldn't have acted so decisively to prevent it from getting really pathetic.)
We then transitioned into Sofia Vergara introducing the President of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Instead of the usual boring spiel the President gives every year, they decided to throw Sofia Vergara on a spinning platform while giving the same boring spiel. She was treated like a literal object.
Do better, everyone. After all, you don't want to make Julianna Marguiles a liar: she won Lead Actress in a Drama and immediately said, "What a wonderful time for women on television."'
tl;dr: it replaced strategy guides and gaming magazines with an army of dane cooks, creating the ideal environment for taking money from 14-year-old boys
Buying Advice
People watch streams to know what to buy next. The sheer number of games on the market has skyrocketed in recent years. The video games press can't hope to keep up with the volume of new games, and even if it could, expert reviews come hours, days, or even weeks after the game has launched. For a savvy and switched-on class of gamer, that's too late - they need to see the game in action now. With early access PC games often costing more than their final retail versions and no demo version to try before you buy, the streamer becomes the guinea pig, the viewer watching over their shoulder to see if the game is worth the asking price.
Many of the most popular streamers have a particularly young audience, broadcasting to players who simply can’t afford to buy and play the latest games. But while some are watching to live vicariously through adults with more money, millions of others are watching because they’re buying in to streamers’ characters and personalities.
As TotalBiscuit, Bain has built a huge and loyal fanbase who see him as an everyman. While the games press hands judgements down from on high, Bain uses democratically available Twitch streams to provide apparently impartial advice from the same level as his followers. He leads a cult of personality, and he’s not the only one.
PewDiePie reportedly earns $4 million a year for his game streams and videos
YouTube star PewDiePie has 30 million subscribers, and reportedly earns $4 million a year for his game streams and videos, over which he lays jokes and over-the-top, on-the-fly reactions. Toby "Tobuscus" Turner has 1.14 million Twitter followers and caused a mini-riot in 2012 when he appeared at London's Eurogamer Expo as fans crowded him on the street. Both earned much of their fame with short and slickly edited YouTube videos, but offer their armies of fans another way to see their idols by filling unedited hours with streams of consciousness as well as streams of video games.
StarCraft II provided a kickstart for many popular streamers. Stephen "Destiny" Bonnell propelled himself into the game's professional circuit by streaming StarCraft II matches live, commentating his games as he played with acerbic and often offensive statements. Bonnell dialed his natural personality up for his streams, building a following who would pay $5 for a subscription to his Twitch channel in the process. Speaking to me in 2013, Bonnell explained the importance of personality to streamers. "It's not so much watching a game, as watching a person who happens to be playing a game. Like if Denzel Washington started to stream Halo 3. You might not play Halo 3, but you'd probably watch Denzel Washington play because of who he is."
Fans follow Bonnell around regardless of the games he plays
To Bonnell, the important factor wasn’t the game itself, but the player. "I have a fanbase who follows me around regardless of the games I play," he said, "just because they enjoy watching me play." Both Plott and Bonnell offer personality, but also community involvement, replying to commenters in Twitch’s chat client and asking them for advice on what to play next.
Both streamers are examples of ringleaders for a community that bands together around their play schedules, but Twitch's streamers don't even have to be human to draw an audience. The mesmerizing Salty Bet pits computer-controlled fighting game characters against each other and asks its viewers to bet imaginary "Salty bucks" on the outcome. The stream has been viewed more than 16 million times. Another stream uses the meandering of two small goldfish to control Street Fighter II characters. It has 13,810 followers. Twitch Plays Pokémon, perhaps the site's greatest social experiment yet, saw 64 million viewers flood the site's chat client with commands in an anarchic attempt to crowdsource a way to finish Game Boy game Pokémon Red.
Watch and learn
Yet others see Twitch and its streamers as a way of advancing their own skills. Professional gamers often broadcast their own practice sessions, allowing laypeople to observe the kind of advanced tactics or exercises they employ. These streams are often more businesslike in tone than more personality-driven channels, with the streamer either zen-like in their silence or offering dry commentary about their thought process, but they don't pull in any fewer viewers because of it. In April last year, pro League of Legends player Mike "Wickd" Petersen reached a record concurrent viewership on a personal stream with 137,769 watching him battling against a team-mate for a spot on e-sports team Evil Geniuses' roster.
Wickd's personal stream figure was eclipsed by last year's League of Legends' finals, which saw 32 million people watch the annual competition, with 8.5 million of those watching at once. Earlier this year, Dota 2 tournament The International 4 was broadcast on the Twitch, and watched by 20 million viewers.
Millions watch Twitch streams: some to see the game, others to see the player
Twitch provides a window into events that might be seen as niche - in addition to huge Dota 2 and League of Legends tournaments run by those games' developers, the site allows the broadcast of much smaller competitions, helping to foster a sense of community in pro-gaming circles less visible to the wider video game community. This year's iteration of fighting game tournament Evolution, for example, saw 138,000 tune in to watch its Super Smash Bros. Melee championship — a video game that came out more than a decade ago on Nintendo's GameCube console.
There’s no one specific reason why people watch other people play games because the people who do watch are so varied. Some watch to see the game, others to see the player. The same people that watch a fish play a SNES game for 20 minutes aren’t necessarily the same people that book days off work to watch e-sports tournaments live from the other side of the world. But Twitch has become a home for these types of person — and more.
The answer to "what kind of gamer watches other people play video games?" Every kind.
Culver City in Southern California has halved the size of massive parking rules signage around an Elementary School after they reached as high as 15 feet. The towers of regulatory information were erected to highlight new child drop off rules around Linwood E. Howe Elementary School, but were widely cited as causing confusion among parents afraid of being hit with a $73 fine.
"The third largest school district in the U.S. not only deserves better but should lead better by having a logo done properly and not farming it out to kids. Regardless of the process, and possibly ending these kids' dreams of becoming graphic designers, the logo is quite terrible."
Growing Pains
"Chicago Public Schools (CPS), officially classified as City of Chicago School District #299 for funding and districting reasons, in Chicago, Illinois is the third largest school district in the U.S.. For the 2012-2013 school year, CPS reported overseeing 681 schools including 472 elementary schools, 106 high schools, 96 charter schools, and 7 contract schools. Chicago Public Schools serves 400,000 students. Students attend a particular school based on their area of residence except for charter schools and selective enrollment schools. The school system reported a graduation rate of 65.4 percent for the 2012-2013 school year. Unlike most school systems, CPS is headed by a chief executive officer rather than a superintendent." (Wikipedia)
Design by: Phuong Le (14 years old) and Ivan Delgado (17 years old)
Opinion/Notes: Yeah, I guess it's cute to let the students design the logo and it's not much worse than what a paid professional designer might deliver but, c'mon, the third largest school district in the U.S. not only deserves better but should lead better by having a logo done properly and not farming it out to kids. Regardless of the process, and possibly ending these kids' dreams of becoming graphic designers, the logo is quite terrible. The three silhouettes are literally literal about growth and education and the typography is as bland as it gets. The thinning circle doesn't help in any way either.
Select Quote: The new CPS logo has been in the works since last spring, when CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett challenged students in grades 6-12 to come up with an original design to represent their schools. Nearly 300 designs were submitted and ten finalists chosen. These designs were then voted on by representatives from the Mayor's Office, the Board of Education, the Student Advisory Council, and the CTU, as well as CEO Byrd-Bennett.
In the end, two designs were chosen, and the student artists worked with a graphic designer to combine and shape the new logo. Like the timeline that adorns the new website, its distinctive design represents CPS students growing and ultimately graduating from high school ready for success in college and career.
'that’s part of why we have the free rules, and make the game for free, so that there is really nothing to pirate'
'Maybe I just want to be on a plane or just sitting around and want a quick reference that’s a quick read and just the information I want. So what does that do to the [PDF] design? We strip out a lot of the art and make it utilitarian. Or we break it up and actually the ebook version is actually three books, we’ve broken it up into three parts, and each topic is now a separate book. So maybe I’m playing a Wizard, and I’m just using the Basic D&D, but I want more spells… so I’m just wanting the spell chapters, so maybe I spend 5 bucks or 2 bucks just so I have that indexed or bookmarked and can quickly reference my spells. You know, what is the usefulness of that? Just as a bibliophile wants the whole book as a physical artifact, the digital only user, well, what is the best way for them to get access to the game.'
