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28 Jul 21:46

Twitter is trying to make its user growth look better than it is

by Alice Truong
Growing anemically.

If you looked at Twitter’s earnings release today at a glance, you might be inclined to believe that the social network added 8 million new users, ending the second quarter with 316 million users. According to the company, this is a 15% increase year-over-year and 2.6% sequentially.

But one important thing to remember is that Twitter recently changed the way it calculates its monthly active users. The company now counts what it calls “SMS Fast Followers,” or people who sign up and access Twitter entirely using text messages, which is helping boost the anemic user growth plaguing the company.

Minus SMS Fast Followers, Twitter only had 304 million users, up 2 million—or 0.66%—from the quarter before. On a year-over-year basis, it grew by 12%.

Twitter’s always had SMS-only users, but counting them as monthly active users appears to be a ploy to placate investors. The company hasn’t said publicly what SMS-only users have to do to be considered active. And there are concerns about monetizing such users, who for the most part live in developing countries and own feature phones. Many of Twitter’s ad products, such as app install ads or cards, are designed for its mobile apps and don’t work on text messages.

28 Jul 21:45

goTenna, A Device That Pairs With a Smartphone to Send Texts Even Without a Cellular or Satellite Signal

by Glen Tickle

goTenna 1

goTenna is a device that pairs with a smartphone to send and receive texts and location information even when there is no cellular or satellite signal in the area. The device works by generating its own VHF signal that can reach from half a mile up to six miles depending on certain conditions, allowing users to wirelessly communicate with any other goTenna owners within their range.

Interested parties can preorder a pair of goTenna devices through the company’s site for a significant discount.

goTenna 3

goTenna 2

images via goTenna

28 Jul 21:45

Sense8 Co-Creator on Possible Second Season

by Jessica Lachenal

Sense8 screengrab

Somehow, despite Sense8‘s strongly positive critical reception, Netflix is taking its time on deciding whether to give it another season or not. Series co-creator J. Michael Straczynski explained what’s up with the wait at TCA today. He said, “We’re still waiting word for the final determination, but the talks have been optimistic. It’s Netflix’s call.”

The ball’s firmly in Netflix’s court. Given all the positive vibes coming out from critics, fans, and the LGBTQ+ community, it’s not hard to see that Sense8 will be coming back soon to blow your mind and get everybody talking again. One wonders, though, if the Wachowski siblings miss the big screen at all. After Jupiter Ascending and Cloud Atlas‘ relative failures, they might still be stinging. But it seems like they’ve found their home in Netflix and small-screen mini-series.

Only time will tell whether we’ll be watching our Sense8 bbs grace our screen. But things are looking up, y’all.

(via Deadline)

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28 Jul 21:44

‘What Do Machines Sing Of?’, A Robot That Endlessly Performs Hit Ballads From the 1990s While Adding Emotion

by Glen Tickle

What Do Machines Sing Of?” is a robot by artist Martin Backes that endlessly performs number one hit ballads from the 1990s while attempting to add the proper emotion to its performances. When one song ends the machine randomly selects another and keeps on singing.

Backes posted a video demonstrating his machine’s talents as it performs Whitney Houston‘s cover of “I Will Always Love You” and “I Believe I Can Fly” by R. Kelly.

For comparison, here are the original videos for those songs.

via Prosthetic Knowledge

28 Jul 20:59

Tom Brady destroyed his cell phone, told NFL he destroys cell phones all the time

by Rodger Sherman

Is this a thing rich people do?

Tom Brady's four-game suspension for the DeflateGate scandal was upheld by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, in part because Brady deliberately destroyed his cell phone, in spite of the fact that the NFL's investigation had requested the phone.

From the NFL's official statement:

On or shortly before March 6, the day that Tom Brady met with independent investigator Ted Wells and his colleagues, Brady directed that the cell phone he had used for the prior four months be destroyed. He did so even though he was aware that the investigators had requested access to text messages and other electronic information that had been stored on that phone. During the four months that the cell phone was in use, Brady had exchanged nearly 10,000 text messages, none of which can now be retrieved from that device. The destruction of the cell phone was not disclosed until June 18, almost four months after the investigators had first sought electronic information from Brady.

While destroying evidence isn't an admission of a guilt, it was probably a big red flag to Goodell. After all, the initial punishment handed out to Brady and the Patriots seemed to stem more from their failure to cooperate with the investigation than their actual breaking of the NFL's rules. However, Brady argued that he wasn't intentionally avoiding the league's investigation when he destroyed his phone: He just destroys his phone a lot:

Brady communicated to the commissioner that he routinely destroys his phone for security reasons.

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) July 28, 2015

Apparently Goodell didn't buy this or didn't care.

SB Nation presents: How Pats fans feel about the Wells Report

28 Jul 20:57

Tom Brady will challenge NFL in federal court over DeflateGate suspension

by Louis Bien

After his DeflateGate suspension was upheld by Roger Goodell, Tom Brady is taking the fight to federal court.

Tom Brady will challenge the NFL's decision to uphold his four-game DeflateGate suspension in federal court, ESPN's Jim Trotter reports. After a lengthy wait, the NFL ruled that Brady was aware that Patriots employees deflated footballs ahead of the AFC Championship against the Indianapolis Cots. The NFL's statement also claimed that Brady destroyed his cell phone, which may have contained evidence against him.

In a statement, the NFL Players Association laid out its case against the NFL:

The Commissioner's ruling today did nothing to address the legal deficiencies of due process. The NFL remains stuck with the following facts:

The NFL had no policy that applied to players;
The NFL provided no notice of any such policy or potential discipline to players;
The NFL resorted to a nebulous standard of "general awareness" to predicate a legally unjustified punishment;
The NFL had no procedures in place until two days ago to test air pressure in footballs; and
The NFL violated the plain meaning of the collective bargaining agreement.
The fact that the NFL would resort to basing a suspension on a smoke screen of irrelevant text messages instead of admitting that they have all of the phone records they asked for is a new low, even for them, but it does nothing to correct their errors.

The NFLPA will appeal this outrageous decision on behalf of Tom Brady.

On Wednesday, the NFLPA formally filed an appeal:

The NFLPA filed an appeal today on behalf of Tom Brady in U.S. District Court of Minnesota to vacate the four-game suspension upheld by Goodell based on the following:

  • There was no direct evidence in the Wells Report so the discipline was based on a made up "general awareness" standard to justify such absurd and unprecedented punishment.
  • Roger Goodell delegated his disciplinary authority to Troy Vincent, violating our Collective Bargaining Agreement, and then as the "arbitrator," he ruled on his own improper delegation, botching basic arbitration law and fundamental fairness.
  • A collectively bargained policy already exists regarding tampering with equipment that provides only for fines, not suspensions. Troy Vincent ignored this policy when he issued his initial discipline. The policy that Vincent did apply to Brady only covers teams and team executives, not players. The NFL once again violated players' right to advance notice of discipline to try to justify unprecedented punishment.
  • No player in NFL history has served a suspension for "non-cooperation" or "obstruction."  And, in this case, the evidence is paper-thin.
  • The appeals hearing held on June 23, 2015 defied any concept of fundamental fairness and violated the principles of our CBA.

The collective bargaining agreement provides procedures and guidelines for how the Commissioner conducts disciplinary hearings and the rules applicable to players. The NFL chose to violate these principles.

By pursuing this petition, our union is protecting the rights of Tom Brady and of every NFL player past, present and future.

Brady's case may also center on the fact that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was the arbitrator during his appeal in June. Brady and NFL Players Association lobbied for Goodell to recuse himself from the case, but the commissioner refused.

Primarily, it appears the players union is arguing that the NFL misapplied its own policy. As written, the rules pertaining to the handling of equipment apply to club personnel and not players. Essentially, the NFL set a precedent when it punished Brady without any specific guideline for how the situation should be treated.

The case against Brady in the Ted Wells investigation is inconclusive as well. The language of the Wells report states that it's "more probable than not" that the quarterback was aware that violations had occurred, giving Brady some plausible deniabiity.

In favor of the NFL is the fact that Brady destroyed his phone and any evidence therein. The NFL's statement on its appeal decision stated that Brady destroyed his cell phone on or before March 6, the date he met with Wells. During the four months that the phone was in use, the NFL claims that Brady exchanged more than 10,000 text messages, none of which can be retrieved. Text message threads between Patriots employees Jim McNally and John Jastremski were key pieces of evidence in the Wells report.

Before the announcement of Brady's decision to petition Goodell's ruling, the NFL reportedly asked a federal court in New York to confirm the Brady suspension. The move was a preemptive strike against Brady and the NFLPA, who may try to take the case to the federal courts in Minnesota or Massachuseets, which are considered labor friendly and Patriots friendly, respectively. Recently, Vikings running back Adrian Peterson successfully took the NFL to court in Minnesota and won after a third party arbitrator upheld his 2014 suspension for child abuse charges.

The jurisdiction battle could prove pivotal. As Andrew Brandt notes, courts can be loathe to overturn decisions made by established arbitration, and Brady is governed by a collective bargaining agreement that gives Goodell significant punitive power.

SB Nation presents: How Pats fans feel about the Wells DeflateGate Report

28 Jul 20:53

AT&T doesn’t want to pay $100M fine, says throttling didn’t harm customers

by Jon Brodkin
firehose

all carriers suck forever

AT&T is trying to convince the Federal Communications Commission to backtrack from a $100 million fine issued to punish AT&T for its throttling of customers on unlimited data plans.

“The Commission’s findings that consumers and competition were harmed are devoid of factual support and wholly implausible,” AT&T wrote in a response to the FCC, according to The Hill. “Its 'moderate' forfeiture penalty of $100 million is plucked out of thin air, and the injunctive sanctions it proposes are beyond the Commission’s authority.”

AT&T claimed it made all the required disclosures to customers, and also that the statute of limitations on the alleged violations had passed. The company also claimed that the FCC is infringing its First Amendment rights by requiring AT&T to tell customers that it violated an FCC rule.

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

28 Jul 20:52

Hands-on with the 2015 Moto X Pure Edition—stock Android at a great price

by Ron Amadeo
firehose

$399 is a "great price" and "really cheap"

it's good for what it is but $399 is not a cheap anything

The 2015 Moto X. (The Moto X Style, if you're in a non-US region)

14 more images in gallery

NEW YORK—Motorola just took the wraps off its newest flagship, the 2015 Moto X, in addition to a couple other phones. There's a new version of the Moto G and two Moto Xes, but only one Moto X is coming to the US. Internationally, Motorola calls the flagship the "Moto X Style," and the mid-range Moto X the "Moto X Play." In the US, there's only one Moto X model, so it's called the Moto X Pure Edition. We're just going to call it the "2015 Moto X."

We've long considered Motorola to be the best Android OEM, and with the new Moto X, the company seems to be making all the right moves. The Moto X is still running stock Android—Motorola wants to make experiences that "augment, not compete" with Google's OS. And the Moto X is still really cheap—$399 gets you a 1.8GHz Snapdragon 808, 3GB of RAM, a 5.7-inch, 1440p display, 16GB of storage, and a 3000 mAh battery.

Motorola says the big upgrade this year is the camera. The company called the new 20MP camera "one of the best in the world," with "better light, faster focus, faster capture, and better color" when compared to the 2014 Moto X. Camera review site DxOMark has rated the Moto X 2015 camera as one of the top three cameras in the world, ahead of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6+. The front of the device has some camera upgrades, too, as the 5MP front-facing camera now has an LED flash.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

28 Jul 20:49

Apple Music exempted from T-Mobile’s data limits and throttling

by Jon Brodkin
firehose

all carriers suck forever

Apple's new music streaming service will no longer count against T-Mobile's limits on high-speed data. T-Mobile announced the expansion of "Music Freedom" today, which in total exempts 33 music services from data limits imposed on certain customers.

"Apple Music has become the single most requested new addition to Music Freedom and counts for a full 80% of the requests coming in via Twitter. I heard every one of them, so it’s happening right now!" T-Mobile US CEO John Legere wrote today.

T-Mobile today also said that customers who buy the iPhone 6 this summer under its so-called "JUMP! On Demand" installment plan can swap it for the next iPhone without any new fees "and no change to your monthly payment."

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

28 Jul 20:46

A Turkish tech mogul handed out $27 million to his staff after selling the company

by Annalisa Merelli
firehose

"The bonus amounted to over $200,000 per person—a huge sum, especially considering the employees’ monthly salaries ranged between 3,000 and 5,000 Turkish liras (about $1,000 to $1,800)."

Nevzat Aydın, CEO and living legend.

Yemeksepeti, an online food ordering service, achieved the dream of many startups on May 5, selling itself for $589 million to Delivery Hero, a German online food service. Yemeksepeti’s CEO, Nevzat Aydın, celebrated the success in an unusual way: by handing out bonuses totaling $27 million to his 115 employees.

Aydın told Hurriyet Daily News that the company wasn’t bound by contract to share revenues from the sale, but the employees deserved the acknowledgement and reward.

“We did this because if there is a success, we have accomplished it altogether,” he said.

Understandably, the act made the of CEO a bit of a rockstar among his former employees:

Türk iş adamları YILIN EN KÖTÜSÜ'nü seçti. 114 çalışanına 27 milyon dolar dağıtan NEVZAT AYDIN😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/UIxFbMlC5Q

— Ümit AYDIN (@umitaydinTR) July 27, 2015

The bonus amounted to over $200,000 per person—a huge sum, especially considering the employees’ monthly salaries ranged between 3,000 and 5,000 Turkish liras (about $1,000 to $1,800). “There were emotions, because you affect the lives of the people. People can buy homes, cars,” Aydın said.

This type of reward is rare, but not completely unheard of. A US businessman similarly gave out $6 million to 570 employees recently after the sale of a company. He said he shared profits after a previous sale as well.

Yemeksepeti was started in 2000 with $80,000 of capital, and has raised $44 million in two rounds of funding. Aydın says the company now does over 3 million transactions a month.

28 Jul 20:45

Cecil, Zimbabwe’s famous lion, was killed by an American dentist

by Sibusiso Tshabalala
A photo of a lion at the Lions Rock Big Cat Sanctuary in South Africa.

Cecil, Zimbabwe’s most famous lion–who ironically, shares a name with controversial historical figure Cecil John Rhodes–was killed by a Zimbabwean hunter on the instructions of an American citizen.

The Telegraph reports that Walter Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, who is fond of hunting wildlife, paid $55 000 for the hunting down of the Zimbabwe’s much-loved lion. On July 1, Cecil–who was part of a Oxford university wildlife research project and wore a GPS collar–was lured out of the grounds of a farm in Zimbabwe’s Hwange district, and then shot by a professional hunter. The lion’s head was then cut off as a trophy, and his skin was taken as well.

Zimbabwe’s wildlife authority claims that Theo Bronkhorst, a professional hunter with Zimbabwean-based Bushman Safaris, conspired with Honest Ndlovu, the landowner of the farm, to lure Cecil out of the Hwange National Park, and have him killed on Ndlovu’s farm.

The Guardian reports that politicians and wildlife conservationists in the UK are calling for import bans on the heads of animals as hunters’ trophies from African countries. Lion trophies are popular in Europe, with 200 trophies imported to the EU each year. Lions have also been classified as one of 23 000 species that are vulnerable to extinction by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

In the Hwange National Park–Zimbabwe’s largest game reserve and a popular location for a safari–Cecil the lion was a major tourist attraction. The thirteen-year old lion was well-known for being friendly with visitors, offering ideal photo opportunities to the park’s visitors who were often fascinated by his black mane and size.

Bryan Orford, a former wildlife guide in Hwange National Park who filmed Cecil numerous times, told the National Geographic that Cecil was the park’s “biggest tourist attraction”. Orford claims that by factoring the amount of money tourists would pay to stay at a lodge near the park, more money would’ve been made by taking a photo of Cecil, than killing him for a once-off fee.

Responding to Cecil the lion’s killing, Telegraph reports that Bronkhorst claims that he was not aware of Cecil’s fame, and that the killing was a mistake.

“It was a magnificent, mature lion. We did not know it was well-known lion. I had a licence for my client to shoot a lion with a bow and arrow in the area where it was shot,” said Bronkhorst.

28 Jul 20:44

The US is investigating suspiciously high cancer rates at Guantanamo Bay

by Hanna Kozlowska
Lawyers are worried about the conditions at "Camp Justice."

After at least seven people working at the Guantanamo Bay military base and detention facility in Cuba had been diagnosed with cancer, according to a complaint filed with the US Department of Defense. It seeks to evacuate parts of the facility and test it for carcinogens, Reuters reports.

The anonymous complaint—which came from a Navy Reserves attorney, according to the Miami Herald—states that a number of young and otherwise healthy people, including civilian and military lawyers, have fallen ill while working there. The US Navy, which runs the base, said today (July 28) it is investigating the issue.

The complaint does not mention any specific examples of cancer among Guantanamo detainees. Carcinogens could have come from jet fuel that was once disposed of at an abandoned airstrip on the site, or from toxic materials such as asbestos in some of the base’s older buildings.

A Miami Herald investigation found nine cases of different kinds of cancer among the hundreds of people who worked at Guantanamo’s Camp Justice since 2008. That’s when a trailer park and tent city were set up to temporarily house people working on the trials; they have remained there ever since.

According to the Herald, three of those who had fallen ill have died over the past 13 months. The most recent death was that of US Navy lieutenant commander Bill Kuebler, the appointed attorney of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr. He died yesterday (July 27) at age 44.

President Obama has been promising to close the base since his first presidential campaign, and his administration finally outlined a plan last weekend that would transfer 64 detainees into the US. But its success is by no means certain.

28 Jul 20:44

News in Brief: Woman Relieved Soulmate Turned Out To Be In Same Socioeconomic Bracket

SAN JOSE, CA—Noting how lucky she was to have finally found the one she was meant to be with forever, local woman Julie Winters told reporters Tuesday she was relieved that her true soulmate also happened to have the same socioeconomic status as she does. “From the moment I met David, I knew we were kindred spirits who were destined to be together, and it’s just such a relief that his income mirrors mine so well,” said Winters, adding that she breathed much easier upon realizing the person she had been waiting for her whole life was also a white-collar professional earning approximately $75,000 per year. “It’s also reassuring to know there really aren’t any glaring gaps in educational background between me and the only man I could ever love. I’m such a lucky girl!” Winters went on to say she was especially relieved ...










28 Jul 20:43

Tom Brady's 4-Game Suspension For Deflategate Upheld By Roger Goodell

firehose

$2 million

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has upheld the four-game suspension imposed on Patriots quarterback Tom Brady's role in deflating game footballs.
28 Jul 20:39

amandaseales: Look at how joe tho!! SAY HE WONT!

firehose

JJB

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.





amandaseales:

Look at how joe tho!! “SAY HE WON’T!”

28 Jul 20:19

The cities with the most potholed and treacherous roads in America, charted

by Alice Truong
firehose

'But in the San Francisco-Oakland area, that figure soars to 74%. Greater Los Angeles, famously known for its car culture, came in second at 73%. Overall, California metro areas made up four of the top five spots, with Detroit being the lone exception (No. 4 with 56%).'

Detroit pothole road

For all of the wealth and technology flowing through the Bay Area, you’d think they could figure out a way to handle a problem like potholes. But the San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area has the highest percentage of bumpy roads of any major urban center in the US.

Overall, 28% of roads in America’s urban centers with a population of 500,000 or greater are considered to be in substandard condition, according to a new report from Trip, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit transportation research group.

But in the San Francisco-Oakland area, that figure soars to 74%. Greater Los Angeles, famously known for its car culture, came in second at 73%. Overall, California metro areas made up four of the top five spots, with Detroit being the lone exception (No. 4 with 56%).

Potholes and cracked pavement aren’t just uncomfortable to drive over. They also take a toll on cars. Deteriorated roads cost American drivers $109.3 billion annually, with urban drivers averaging $516 on vehicle repairs and increased fuel costs a year. Drivers in San Francisco and Oakland, meanwhile, spend double that, averaging $1,044.

Trip is calling for Congress to invest in road repairs, especially as more people are taking to the road. There was little change in vehicle travel from 2008 to 2013. But travel rose by 1.7% in 2014 and then accelerated further to start 2015, increasing 3.9% in the first four months compared to a year earlier. Furthermore, commercial truck travel is expected to soar by 72% in the next 15 years, according to the group’s forecast.

“With state and local governments struggling to fund needed road repairs and with federal surface transportation funding set to expire this month, road conditions are projected to get even worse,” said executive director Will Wilkins.

Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

28 Jul 20:18

Donald Trump takes the lead in New Hampshire and surges to second place in Iowa

by Adam Pasick
Now leading by this much.

Don’t worry about Donald Trump, the conventional wisdom goes. His improbable campaign for the Republican presidential nomination has already peaked, according to party insiders, and his strong showing in national opinion polls doesn’t mean much since Americans vote for presidential nominees state by state.

Well, scratch that last part: Trump has taken the lead in the New Hampshire primary, which is the first in the 2016 election cycle, and he is now nipping at the heels of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker ahead of the influential Iowa caucus, according to a new NBC/Maris poll released this morning (July 26).

There are still plenty of reasons why Trump’s campaign prospects shouldn’t be taken very seriously—for one, Republicans have a habit of boosting improbable front-runners who fizzle out as elections begin in earnest. But with the first Republican debate scheduled for Aug. 6 in Cleveland, Ohio, the mogul could keep sucking the oxygen out of the GOP primary for weeks or months to come.

For the Democrats, Hillary Clinton has double-digit leads in both New Hampshire and Iowa.

Read this next: Video: We put Donald Trump into Google’s DeepDream AI, with terrifying results

28 Jul 20:16

Photo



28 Jul 20:16

hotboysofficial: when someone tickles ur neck

hotboysofficial:

when someone tickles ur neck

image

28 Jul 20:16

Photo



28 Jul 20:14

The Subtle Genius Of Minionese

firehose

our dystopian present

Minionese was designed for cuteness, but integrates a wide array of global languages in vocabulary and structure. While not a fully fledged language like Klingon, there are interesting and complex patterns in Minionese that are worth linguistic investigation.
28 Jul 19:47

4Channers Attempt to Scam Feminists With “FemCon2015,” Fail Miserably - Coooooonnnnnnnnnn!

by Carolyn Cox

What if #FemCon2015 backfires on the channers and it helps open up a proper discussion on sexism and harassment oh wait it already has

— JAPSPEPORJ FENWAY (@SidizenKane) July 27, 2015

Yesterday we received several emails from concerned readers asking us to sound the alarm about “FemCon,” a nonexistent “Feminist Convention” devised by some 4Channers to swindle the women of the Internet out of their money and expose feminism for the misandrist sham that it is (or something).

Fortunately, unlike the organizers’ insipid fake Twitter accounts, Internet feminists weren’t born yesterday:

Illegally conspiring to commit fraud on a public message board. This is a good idea. #Femcon2015 pic.twitter.com/HFuyQHv00x

— Filthy Water Vagrant (@Sif_Muna) July 27, 2015

After screenshots of 4chan’s /b/ message board and a related chat room began circulating, FemCon’s day-old Twitter account and Sellfy Crowdfunding page were quickly deleted, but not before the organizers’ ineptitude (and basic misunderstanding of feminism) was captured for posterity:

Probably the best part of those Femcon tinychat screenshots. #femcon2015 pic.twitter.com/TdYq5rn8Q0

— Hope (@hopedonut) July 27, 2015

Just catching up on the #FemCon2015 obvious scam. I find their web page particularly hilarious. First, a txt file? pic.twitter.com/EoHVTzxhX6

— Mooseplaining Max (@Mooseplainer) July 27, 2015

The FemCon2015 Tumblr (complete with a #DownWithMales tag and the Con’s harrasment policy) still remains, as does the Internet’s undying scorn:

brb, someone from definitely not 4chan needs to know if my refrigerator is running #FemCon2015

— Dave Lartigue (@daveexmachina) July 27, 2015

#femcon2015 Will we be destroying games? My male tears collection is low and I need more for the Femismismnit Illuminati.

— Charloppe Squid Now (@Nibelsnarfabarf) July 27, 2015

4chan be like #femcon2015 pic.twitter.com/UBAHUgDgoI

— JULISSA (@QueenIdle) July 27, 2015

FemCon2015: what if two kids standing on each others’ shoulders inside a trenchcoat were a convention

— Christopher Sebela (@xtop) July 27, 2015

(via Daily Dot, image via @QueenIdle on Twitter)

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28 Jul 19:41

trash-god: me:

firehose

yo rosalind



trash-god:

me:

image
28 Jul 19:31

Start-Ups Making Gender-Neutral Kids’ Apparel - Pink is for everyone. So are dinosaurs.

by Maddy Myers

svaha-clothing-gender-neutral

If you’ve shopped for children’s clothing lately, then you know that gendered assumptions abound in the apparel aisle. A handful of start-ups aim to buck those stereotypes, such as Svaha (pictured above), Handsome In Pink, BuddingSTEMPrincess Awesome, Girls Will Be, and Quirkie Kids. Several of these companies’ founders spoke to Bloomberg about their goals; Svaha founder Jaya Iyer, for example, created her company in response to her own daughter’s clothing desires:

[My daughter] was very upset with me for not ever buying her anything with astronauts on it. Then she started telling me: ‘I want a ninja on my shirt.’

It’s an understandable request!

Sharon Choksi and Martine Zoer, founders of Girls Will Be and Quirkie Kids respectively, had similar experiences with their kids. There’s no reason why dinosaurs and trucks can’t be on pink T-shirts—and indeed, a kid of any gender might well enjoy wearing such a shirt. The next generation deserves a colorful, dinosaur-filled fashion future!

(via Bloomberg, image via Svaha)

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28 Jul 19:31

Amazon Launchpad, A New Service That Highlights Startups and Helps Them Distribute Products

by Glen Tickle
firehose

FEATURED: $350 Bluetooth-connected luggage with a built-in battery; $150 copper beer growler; $177 golf shot tracking system; $170 wi-fi pet treat dispenser; $230 auto tire pressure monitor; $600 wireless speaker; $600 audio player; $600 boombox; $90 kids' dining set; $43 USB cable and SD card reader; $20 notebook with QR codes printed on every page

9 of the 11 startup testimonials are white men (the other 2 are ethnically Indian American women)

amazon launchpad logo

Amazon Launchpad is a new service offered by the popular online retailer that highlights startups and helps them distribute products. To help spotlight those startups and products, Amazon is also integrating them into their product recommendations, and offering them access to their fulfillment network and Amazon Prime free shipping.

There are currently over 200 products available through Amazon Launchpad in the categories of Body, Food, Gadgets, and Home with more products and startups being added through partnerships with venture capital firms and crowdfunding platforms.

Amazon announced the full details of the program in a release on Business Wire.

28 Jul 19:15

WTF, WotC? Your art direction is confusing.

by wundergeek
firehose

'On the left, you see Liliana in her pre-planeswalker state. That’s right, young, innocent, demure, and not even remotely sexual. On the right is the art for Liliana once she becomes a planeswalker – definitely one of the more sexual Liliana’s that I’ve seen. Because women with power are evil and evil women are sexy. Or something.

Sadly, it’s not unique to Liliana – whose color is black, which has always been the color of “evil”. Nissa Revane doesn’t fare any better, and she is plain old green. Just like Liliana, she gets to wear clothes when she’s not a planeswalker, but then as soon as she’s a planeswalker? BOOM. CLEAVAGE WINDOW.'

The dilemma: two product lines, two art direction styles, one company

One of the things that has long been a source of irritation for me is the inconsistent art direction of Wizards of the Coast’s two major game products – Magic: The Gathering and D&D.  It strikes me as weird that M:TG and D&D are both product lines owned and operated by WotC, and yet they have such wildly different approaches to art direction. (To be honest, it seems like a bit of a branding issue to me, but then what the hell do I know. I’m just an indie publisher.)

This has become top-of-mind recently for a few reasons. First, despite both of us being Magic: The Gathering fans, my husband follows the design and spoiler blogs much more closely than I do. (In that he reads them and I don’t.) So he tends to show me previews of art that he knows I will either find hilarious or objectionable. (Or both.) Recently, he’s been showing me a lot more of the latter, alas.

Second, as I prepare for this year’s GenCon, I keep thinking about last year and how the release of D&D 5th Edition wound up being a pretty big deal for me – despite that I still have not purchased any 5E products or even played the game. I got to have lunch with Mike Mearls and discuss the future direction of D&D and D&D art direction – something which was way encouraging.

And everything that I’ve seen, at least observing from a distance, coming out of the new D&D line has been pretty great and inclusive! Like check out these illustrations that come from the starter set:

STARTUP ILLOS

Pretty awesome, right? Fully clothed female characters that have personality, agency, and aren’t pointlessly objectified. And there’s lots more examples of this sort of thing!

Which, again, is baffling when you consider that Magic… Magic can’t decide what the hell it’s doing – if they want to do better by women, or exclude them, or have more of them but sexier, or just go back to their old awful ways and forget about trying to improve their depictions of women at all. As someone who has only seriously gotten into Magic in the last two years, it’s been weird and off-putting to watch.

So while I realize that the plural of anecdote is not data, it’s something that has bothered me sufficiently that I thought it would be worth taking a look at what Magic has been up to recently that has been getting under my skin.

M:TG’s recent art direction: I call shenanigans

I’ve written in the past about how I find the trend toward better art in Magic expansions to be (mostly) encouraging. Particularly in Khans of Tarkir – there were some really great illustrations of non-sexualized powerful women doing fantastically gonzo awesome shit! However, while Khans may have done much better in cutting down on the bullshit sexism, they did so at the cost of actually – yannow – depicting any women.

Still. I was hopeful that the overall trend of not fucking up at depicting women might continue! But alas, no joy.

First there came Magic: Origins – a core set focused on, well, the origins of the planeswalkers – characters that are meant to be player avatars. Being a core set, there are often a lot of reprinted cards, which tends to mean reprints of old art. So it’s not surprising that some old awful art (like the boobplate sideboob in Act of Treason) is sneaking through. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of brand-new awful to be found – particularly with their treatment of female planeswalkers.

See, planeswalkers in Magic: Origins are actually double-sided. They start out as a Legendary Creature, then when they meet a certain condition you turn them over and they become a planeswalker. In theory, pretty cool, right? You get a chance to see and play with familiar planeswalkers in their pre- and post-planeswalker states. The problem is, as always, the execution. Take, for example, Liliana – one of Magic’s oldest female planeswalkers. Liliana is a pretty classic example of the evil woman who is evil because she is sexay (or maybe she is sexay because she is evil?). But somehow WotC dug deep and found a way to make Liliana even worse:

liliana-origins

On the left, you see Liliana in her pre-planeswalker state. That’s right, young, innocent, demure, and not even remotely sexual. On the right is the art for Liliana once she becomes a planeswalker – definitely one of the more sexual Liliana’s that I’ve seen. Because women with power are evil and evil women are sexy. Or something.

Sadly, it’s not unique to Liliana – whose color is black, which has always been the color of “evil”. Nissa Revane doesn’t fare any better, and she is plain old green. Just like Liliana, she gets to wear clothes when she’s not a planeswalker, but then as soon as she’s a planeswalker? BOOM. CLEAVAGE WINDOW.

What the ever loving fuck, Magic? Are you trying to say that women can only have power so long as they are sexually pleasing to a (presumed) straight male viewer? Because that’s pretty fucked up, especially for a game that claims to be friendly for children.

It gets even worse when you look at more fringey M:TG products that WotC is working on releasing, like Modern Masters – a limited edition set that will be reprinting some of the most popular cards that have fallen out of legality with the standard format. These are just straight up reprints of old cards with old art, which means that there is some extra shitty sexist cards like these gems:

MODERN MASTERS

Man, that woman in Blades of Velis Vel is possibly the most Liefeld-ian piece of Magic art that I have ever seen – obscured hands and feat, impossibly thin torso, improbable levels of spine arch, and ridiculous 90s-ish costume. All it needs is some AWSUM POUCHES!!1! to complete the ensemble.

Meanwhile, Indomitable Angel is both weird and baffling. Is she wearing armor, or is she actually made of metal and is just naked? Does she actually have an 8-pack? What is up with her shoulders? Are those actually attached to her boobs? Does she have metal boob-pauldrons? WHY ARE BOOB-PAULDRONS EVEN A THING??

But even Indomitable Angel isn’t as confusing as Fiery Fall. It took a solid two minutes of staring at it for me to even figure out what was going on until I realized that it was a human woman falling upside down so that the artist could get in both upskirt AND underboob without the unwanted effort of trying to squeeze in humanizing details like a face. Because who cares about portraying her as a person about to meet a grim fate so long as we can ogle her tits before she messes them up by falling into lava?

Ugh. Just ugh.

But for me, the shit icing on the shit cake are these two card previews taken from From the Vault: Angels – a limited edition 15 card set reprinting old angels. 5 out of the 15 cards are even getting new art, which I would normally take as an encouraging sign! That is until my husband showed me these:

AKROMA-NEW

Nope. That’s not old artwork, folks. That’s NEW artwork. New artwork which took the old character designs and faithfully translated them into something just as bad, or possibly even a bit worse than the old art:

AKROMA-OLD
I KNOW that I prefer the old Angel of Wrath to the new art. Sure the boobplate is just as stupid and obvious phallic symbol is still obvious and phallic. But at least the old art doesn’t make her look like she’s five seconds away from humping the damn sword. As for the Angel of Fury, I go back and forth. It’s definitely artist that the artist got lazy when it came to the not-sexy bits – obscured hands and feet anyone? But at least the old art looks like she’s actually doing something – namely flying. Whereas the new art shows her… uh… vamping? Power posing? I’m not really sure what, to be honest.

Conclusion: I don’t know what the fuck to think

So all of this nonsense has left me feeling very conflicted about the state of Magic: The Gathering and whether I want to continue supporting it with my dollaz. I enjoy the occasional sealed-pack event, which is pretty much how I’ve acquired most of my collection. And despite the problems that the Magic division of WotC seems to have with not actually failing at depicting women, I was willing to cut them some slack given that things overall seemed to (slowly) be getting better. But given the amount of eye-rolling I’ve done lately, I’m starting to question my willingness to continue turning a blind eye.

Seriously – I get that it can be difficult to change the direction of a flagship product as large and entrenched as Magic: The Gathering. But the knowledge and experience on how to do so already exists IN THEIR OWN DAMN COMPANY. Someone on the Magic team needs to pick up the damn phone and have a serious conversation with the art team for D&D already.

(As for myself, this has me regretting that I didn’t keep all my old data on art from Magic sets for previous posts about Magic on this blog. I know it would be quite the undertaking, but I’m thinking it could be pretty interesting (if incredibly time-consuming) to compile numbers for every set for the last three or so years so as to be able to have some real numbers regarding trends.)


28 Jul 19:13

davescheidt

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28 Jul 19:13

miserymasks: Aliens cross stitch, the best present I’ve ever...

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miserymasks:

Aliens cross stitch, the best present I’ve ever received!

alex-v-hernandez davescheidt
28 Jul 19:12

vampirevioletss: ahahaha

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vampirevioletss:

ahahaha

28 Jul 19:12

troubled-sea: She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’s got resting bitch face

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troubled-sea:

She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’s got resting bitch face