Welcome to the cage, Airbnb

Spring Creek Linear City, Brooklyn NY (Plan of New York City 1969)

Much of this plan has come to fruition, first with Starrett City (towers in the park style development) and more recently with the Vandalia Houses, a New Urbanist approach to affordable housing.  The Linear City plan grew out of the failed Cross-Brooklyn Expressway which would have run from Bay Ridge to East New York.  Interestingly the Spring Creek plan advocates for the unbuilt Queens Interboro Expressway.

World Cup Referee Accidentally Grabs Stack Of Hundreds Instead Of Yellow Card

Kaizou Chounin Shubibinman 3: Ikai no Princess 

(Masaya - PC Engine - 1992) 

via kartridges

Shovel Knight is a well-crafted homage to the golden age of NES platformers (read our review!), but that doesn't mean it could actually run on Nintendo's beloved 8-bit console. Children of the 80s and 90s will probably notice, for example, that there...

Two Shovel Knight soundtracks! If you want the original, genuine chiptune steez, you can get the Shovel Knight OST from Bandcamp here. If you want the arranged version with lots of guest artists (including Manami Matsumae remixing Jake “Virt” Kaufman!) that one’s here. The price is right for both: literally any amount of money.

If you want a version of the OST you can play in an NES emulator  – or on an actual NES, should you have a flash cart – you can get the NSF version here. What? Virt, you spoil us.

Oh, and in case you somehow didn’t hear, Shovel Knight is the business.

BUY Nintendo 2DS & 3DS/XL, upcoming games

New submitter thermowax sends a report on how Massachusetts SWAT teams are dodging open records requests by claiming to be corporations. From the article: As it turns out, a number of SWAT teams in the Bay State are operated by what are called law enforcement councils, or LECs. These LECs are funded by several police agencies in a given geographic area and overseen by an executive board, which is usually made up of police chiefs from member police departments. ... Some of these LECs have also apparently incorporated as 501(c)(3) organizations. And it's here that we run into problems. According to the ACLU, the LECs are claiming that the 501(c)(3) status means that they're private corporations, not government agencies. And therefore, they say they're immune from open records requests. Let's be clear. These agencies oversee police activities. They employ cops who carry guns, wear badges, collect paychecks provided by taxpayers and have the power to detain, arrest, injure and kill. They operate SWAT teams, which conduct raids on private residences. And yet they say that because they've incorporated, they're immune to Massachusetts open records laws. The state's residents aren't permitted to know how often the SWAT teams are used, what they're used for, what sort of training they get or who they're primarily used against.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

GOOD MORNING, BLOGTOWN! I'm a big man, give this man room. I'd a hit everything, from Cancun to Grant's tomb. LET'S GO TO PRESS.

Pro-Russian separatists and Kiev government mediators meet face to face in an attempt to bring peace to a very ugly situation. Meanwhile thousands of Ukrainians rush for the Russian border to escape the onslaught of violence.

A US official confirmed today that our military has armed drones flying above Baghdad—as backup for 180 military advisors in the area.

Today in dumb things Republicans say: An Arkansas GOP official resigns after telling a magazine that if Hillary Clinton returned to the state, she'd "probably get shot." Bye-bye, dumb-dumb!

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton continues to struggle with the (correct) perception that's she's a richy-rich.

Massachusetts raises their state minimum wage to $11 an hour—now the highest in the country. (Jealous much?)

115 gay and lesbian couples get married in a mass wedding ceremony in Toronto.

One of the few Republicans who can tell which way the wind is blowing, GOP Senator Susan Collins of Maine publicly voices her support of same-sex marriage.

In India, a Bengal tiger leaps onto a fishing boat, grabs a man, and drags him away to his death... which is completely horrible, but a cooler way to die than prostate cancer by a long shot.

In extremely creepy news, during the investigation of a toddler who died in a sweltering hot car, police look at the internet browsing history of the father and find a search for... you guessed it... "how long it takes for animals to die in a sweltering hot car." OH, NO.

According to the CDC, if you're having 15 drinks per week and you're a man, you're considered a "heavy drinker." HAHAHA! I only have 14. (By the way, women are thought to be heavy drinkers if they only have "8 or more" per week. So now they not only have to battle for equal pay, but equal boozing as well?)

Actor Shia LeBeouf "LeBeoufs it" again, getting arrested for drunken disorderly conduct and smoking a cigarette in a Broadway theater.

The US moves on to the knockout stage of the World Cup (despite yesterday's boring loss), and today the goal-scoring Dutch take on the goal-denying Mexico. (That should be a good one!)

Now here's what's going on in your neck of the woods: More rain today and tomorrow (BOO-HOO-HOOO! or rather "Yaaaaaay!" according to some of you Portland-centric snobs), but sunny sun returns on sunny Sunday! YAYYYY! (Or "boooo!" for you snobs.)

And finally... ridin' dirty at Disneyland.

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rembrandtswife:

petermorwood:

badwolfwillrise:

badwolfwillrise:

danbrownish:

Americans Were Asked To Place European Countries On A Map. Here’s What They Wrote:

i have been laughing for days “glad to see college paid off” “i went to college i have my masters” “cold”

Reblogging again because perfection

I larffed a lot, because I could do better than that - though by Eastern Europe and the Balkans I’d be floundering (and in good company - Palmerston, Gladstone, Chamberlain, Metternich, Bismarck…)

At the same time, give me a name-the-state map of the USA and I could only label New York, Long Island, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, California and Oregon with any certainty, and make a creditable stab at a few others.

The rest would be vague labels - “Flyover country, keep flying”, “Wheat or still dust?”, “John Wayne land”,  “Fargo, ya you betcha”, “DC or State?”, “South Canada”, “Whistle Dixie here”…

But it’s nice to see I was born in The Shire! :-)

My fave is “Benedict Cumberbatch’s house”.

THE SHIRE. …. :)

Along with iPhoto, it’ll be replaced with the upcoming iCloud-backed Photos app on Yosemite and iOS 8.

This is bad news for people who liked the organizational features of Aperture, as they’ll probably not be replaced. But it might be good news for many people, like me, who wanted Aperture’s powerful RAW adjustment tools but with simpler iPhoto-like management and iOS-device sync.¹ The hole left in Aperture’s absence will encourage Apple to expose more of those great lossless editing tools into Photos. (iPhoto has always quietly offered some lossless RAW editing, but nowhere near the power of Aperture’s.)

Plus, Aperture has been plagued with bugs, poor performance, slow updates, and extreme neglect for most of its life. It defined a useful category, then let the better-executed, better-maintained Lightroom eat its lunch. I’ve used many versions of each for extended periods, and Lightroom is the better app by far, especially in performance, editing tools, and adjustment quality. Sure, the interface is a bit weird, but so is Aperture’s.

Apple discontinuing a mediocre, neglected, poorly competing pro app to focus on a much better consumer app is a clear win for everyone.

∞ Permalink

Some things are too precious to last in this brutal world, and Washboard, a startup that mailed you quarters to do your laundry, is one of them. It is, against all odds and after only a month in business ("business"), shutting down.

I have a soft spot for academic studies about multiplayer games. Partly, this is because games are my stomping ground, and I like to nitpick the things I love. But more importantly, such studies are often reflective of how game culture is inextricably tied to the real world. The values we hold out here can’t help but trickle down into virtual environments as well. There’s a new study that illustrates this beautifully, with a focus on social norms and expectations. In other words, my jam.

“Sex role stereotyping is hard to kill” is the work of Adrienne Holz Ivory of Virginia Tech, Jesse Fox of Ohio State University, Frank Waddell of Pennsylvania State University, and James Ivory of Virginia Tech (thanks to Wai Yen Tang, who sent the study my way). They conducted a field experiment to explore the relationship between social categorization and in-game interaction. They predicted that male players who behave aggressively would gain more compliance with friend requests, while female players would benefit from behaving submissively. In other words, if you conform to the social expectations attributed to your gender, people are more likely to reward you for it.

Over the course of several weeks, the researchers played public Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 matches under two fake usernames: “John” and “Ashley,” followed by random strings of numbers. During the matches, the researchers transmitted pre-recorded utterances over voice chat. The gender of each voice corresponded to the gender of the username in use. Both speakers were white, and used Standard American English accents. Positive comments included things such as “nice shot!,” whereas negative comments were the usual batch of “you suck” and so forth. Some matches were also played without using any recorded comments. After each match, the researchers sent friend requests from “John” or “Ashley” to everyone they’d just played with. They then kept track of how many requests were accepted.

Overall, the researchers collected data from 1371 participants, but only used 520 as their final sample (the rest were thrown out due to conditions such as waiting too long to answer a friend request). Once the numbers were crunched, here’s what they found:

• “Ashley” had a total acceptance rate of 92.13%. “John” was not as popular — his acceptance rate was 74.31%.
•  While “Ashley” had a higher acceptance rate overall, players responded most favorably toward her if she was silent or positive. Her acceptance rate was 92.71% while using positive comments, 89.01% while negative, and 95.00% while silent.
• Players responded most favorably toward “John” when he used negative comments (82.35%). He did not fare as well if positive (70.37%) or silent (70.11%).
• Player skill had no discernible effect on the acceptance rates.

Now, there are a few caveats to keep in mind. Firstly, this study was conducted solely within Call of Duty. You can’t apply these results to the gaming community at large, or even to the entire FPS genre (Call of Duty is a very different scene than, say, Team Fortress 2). Additionally, as the researchers point out, the one big drawback is that they had no way of collecting demographic information for the people they were sending friend requests to. While it’s likely that most of the players were male, it’s also a pretty safe bet that there were some women in there, too. (I would be fascinated to see whether or not these trends vary between male and female players. Judging by other studies I’ve read on gender role stereotypes, I tend to think not — but then again, raise your hand if you’re a female gamer who has ever been excited to find another woman playing alongside you in a multiplayer match, regardless of her behavior. I know I have.)

Disclaimers aside, I will say that the results of this study mesh with my own in-game experiences. Pushy dudes get respect, while ladies who use smiley faces and say “lol” a lot tend to fare somewhat better than others. As for the higher acceptance rate, that’s not a surprise, either. Outing yourself as female in a public multiplayer match often results in insults and harassment, yes, but private messages and friend requests are commonly part of the package, too. Granted, my experiences on that front are less varied than some. Like many women, I use a gender-neutral username. Nowadays, this is more out of habit than anything else.

My taste for public matches has waned as I’ve gotten older, and I find that the vast majority of my multiplayer time is spent in private games with good friends. But in my early multiplayer years, I learned very quickly to just keep my mouth shut and play. I wouldn’t lie about my gender if I was asked, but this happened rarely. “Gender neutral” translates as “assumed male,” and therefore left alone. But there were times when I would speak up, either literally over voice chat, or in solidarity if I saw another female player being picked on (“hey, there are other girls here, too” — that kind of thing). Every time it happened, the response I got was the same. Insults. Name calling. Friend requests.

This is somewhat uncomfortable to admit, but this study has me thinking more about myself than my in-game experiences. The female behavior the authors describe as stereotypical — “aligned and supportive,” “oriented toward communal goals” — is my standard operating procedure. I don’t enjoy trash talk, nor do I like bad sportsmanship. I give my friends a world of grief, but I don’t do the same to strangers. If another player is bothering me, I prefer to mute rather than fight. I try to act positively, be it by helping out newbies or smiling through defeat. “Oriented toward communal goals”? Yeah, that’s me.

When I first started playing multiplayer games, I did my best to act like “one of the boys.” Again, I wasn’t on mic much with strangers, but I threw my weight around in party chat, and I gave as much as I got. I hated it. It felt ugly and ill-fitting. I was much more at ease once I started acting in a way that was more in keeping with how I am offline — quiet but friendly around strangers, averse to conflict, and more concerned with having a good time than winning. I know in my core that’s who I am, but this study has got me questioning where those traits came from. How much is nature, and how much is nurture? Probably a bit of column A, a bit of column B. I hope the former is the stronger, but I wonder. I wonder.

Funnily enough, it was a group of men who made me realize that I could fit in with a kinder attitude, too. It was through my male gaming friends’ example that I saw the benefit of saying “good luck” and “good game.” That was the crowd I wanted to be a part of. That was the way I wanted to be. I haven’t talked with any of them about this study, but I’m curious to hear whether the results resonate with them, as well. I remember a conversation I had with my brother a few years back, in which he discussed how he’d tempered his behavior in multiplayer games. He played an endless amount of DOTA in his early teens, and I remember being put off by the toxic way he and the other players acted toward each other. He shook his head as we talked about it. “I said a lot of stupid things,” he said. “I was kind of an ass. It’s just how everybody is in those games, y’know?”

Yeah, I know. Nature, nurture, social expectations. It’s the oldest story in the book.

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ruinedchildhood:

Replacing Hannah Montana videos with Miley’s new songs is my new favorite thing

The FDA is considering changing marijuana's status, so that it would no longer be classified as a drug with the highest risk for dependency and no medical benefits whatsoever. Instead, restrictions would be loosened to allow further study of its medical uses.

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dat-soldier:

officialunitedstates:

I want to be the first person on the moon to shoot a sniper rifle at earth and hit a wasp nest.  my whole life so far is leading up to that moment

A daring cat makes an amazing leap from a ladder on the roof of a handyman’s van to the roof of a house where he gets some love as he steps through an open window as captured in this wobbly 2012 video posted by oMagiccx.

via Viral Viral Videos

djempirical

making the rounds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkefglL9c4c

Original Source

According to a new study from the Boston University School of Medicine, women who naturally conceive and give birth to their last child after age 33 are twice as likely to live to age 95 as those who give birth to their last child before age 30.

BoozeBot is a cocktail-making robot currently under development by UK-based programmers Alun King and Chris Whitcombe. The robot can be equipped with up to 16 ingredients and contains a library of over 4,500 drink recipes. Drinks can be ordered through the robot’s touch screen or via a mobile app. King and Whitcombe are raising funds on Kickstarter to finance production of BoozeBot .

photos via BoozeBots

submitted via Laughing Squid Tips

It's the D&D 5E Starter Set Wizard character sheet! [130 comments]
Plus author Ethan Gilsdorf has received the starter

submitted by ReallyHender [link] [11 comments]