firehose

Part of me wants to be able to put up a wall between creators and the products they create. Does it matter to me that the artist of the comic, the coder on the game, or the writer of the book I’m trying to read can sometimes be an asshole on Twitter? Not if I don’t notice! But as soon as I notice, that’s going to put me off. And that happened this week.

People are talking a lot about “playable female characters” right now—something I always find important, but is in the spotlight particularly after the people behind Assassin’s Creed said at E3 that they couldn’t add a lady because it would have "doubled the work" on the game, something that simply isn't true, and lazy, in the face of a pretty important subject.* So it seemed pretty reasonable when someone on Twitter asked developer Garry Newman whether there would be a female avatar in his game Rust, a game I've been looking forward to.

Sure, he’s probably trying to be funny—but not all of this is a joke. He probably isn’t going to put a female avatar in Rust. Is that because women are silly? Or because he’s lazy and including 50 percent of the world’s population just isn’t important to him? I don’t really want to go off on Newman in particular, because seriously, he’s just a guy, a guy with an opinion, and my problem isn’t him—it’s that this opinion is popular, the sentiment is systemic, and it's followed by the fomenting bowl of hate that is the internet. For every popular videogame developer who says something “only a little bit sexist” as a joke, there are tens of thousands of fanboys of that guy who are looking for an opportunity to pick up a banner and fight for what they believe in (sexism). If Newman just let the art speak for itself? I'd probably play Rust. But because he's out there unwittingly leading an army, I'm not interested.

There's an interesting video going around the internet right now about Phil Fish—the Fez developer (and outspoken not-super-nice-guy) whom people love to hate. It says a lot about the nature of fame and the internet, but one of the points I found interesting is that people—media, developers, and people who played his games—were mad at Fish because the public made him famous. They enjoyed his game and spread the word about it... and then, once he had notoriety, he turned out to be not the kind of person they had assumed he was to start with.

So here’s what I’m doing. I feel sick when I feel betrayed by the creators of the media I consume. I don’t want to care, but I do. And that’s okay. So before I play something, I’m just gonna ask. The developers are right there on Twitter, why not? If I find out they want to outwardly state their opinion, then I'm gonna make my decision based on that.

For example, in a fit of internet abbreviations, I had a chat with developer Chris Chung, who is Kickstarting his game "Catlateral Damage" right now.

See? I feel better already. I'm shedding one of those responsibilities women in games feel—we think we have to play popular games because if we don't, we're "fake" and we don't have a right to participate. But I honestly don't give a crap. If you actively want to make my life worse, I'm not going to give you money. And there are lots of games made by people who care about women, about minorities, about making game culture one that moves forward instead of reflecting the worst of society—like Portland's own Fullbright Company, of course, and Logan Bonner, a writer on the tabletop Pathfinder games at Paizo Publishing.

And that? That just makes me want to play Pathfinder.

Yes, this may mean I’m playing fewer games. And no, I don’t think my stance is going to make people change anyone's minds. But it will make me feel better. And I’m spending too much time at my man-hating feminist meetings to play everything anyway.

*I don’t want to go off too hard on why having lady characters is important—because a lot has already been said, like they create role models, and teach boys that women are more than fleshbags with sex holes. And yes, while we're at it: videogames are an art form, and yes, they do have a responsibility to diversify. Even if creators don't think there's a female audience, and even if they just want to “make games." Creators who're fighting this, please shut up: You’re making a piece of media that is going to be consumed longer than a movie or a TV episode, and you have a responsibility to move our culture forward, and honestly, it’s not that hard. Especially if you decide not to do jiggle physics. (And yes, I know there are no female characters in Minecraft.)

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

F-16 co-designer and king of the 1970's era "Fighter Mafia," Pierre Sprey raised eyebrows this week when he trashed the F-35 in a video. Sadly, about half of what he says is totally relevant, the other half is totally bullshit.

Great video from quadcopter of Beijing -

“Beijing From Above, Aka The Story Of How I Was Detained By The Police Because Of My Dji Quadcopter”

flappypussyz:

when you type “fuck” but accidentally put “duck”

This video of a bumblebee "helping" a friend out of a spider web has been making the Internet rounds recently. The narrator asks for "experts" to tell us what's happening. And Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex answered the call.

Read more...

Recent studies have found that long periods in zero gravity can cause the heart to become more spherical as depicted in this comic by Maki Naro. via PopularScience.net

Microgravity, which seems like zero gravity, but is actually a state of free-fall caused by a spacecraft’s orbit around the Earth, has long been known to wreak havoc on the human body. Without having to support the weight of the body, bones begin to lose density and muscles atrophy, requiring astronauts to exercise regularly to stave off the effects. Without gravity to pull fluids downwards, astronauts often experience a phenomenon colloquially known as “puffy-face-chicken-legs syndrome”. More recently, this increase in fluid around the brain has been linked to changes in astronauts’ vision. Fluid shift has also been blamed for a diminished sense of smell and taste.

Now, a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 63rd Annual Scientific Session has added possible heart troubles to that list. The study, titled “Affect of Microgravity on Cardiac Shape: Comparison of Pre- and In-flight Data to Mathematical Modeling” showed that like most things in space, the human heart can become more spherical during long-term space missions. The heart, like other muscles in the body, is susceptible to atrophy because it does not have to work as hard in space. So it is important for scientists to develop effective ways for astronauts to maintain proper heart health. In the study, twelve astronauts took ultrasound images in order to monitor their heart health before, during, and after their mission. What they discovered was that their hearts became more spherical by a factor of 9.4%.

The good news is that the effect is temporary, and may actually provide useful data in treating heart conditions here on Earth that effect the heart’s ability to pump blood.

Read more

---

Each Saturday Morning here at Adafruit is Saturday Morning Cartoons! Be sure to check our cartoon and animated posts both nostalgic and new that inspire makers of all ages! You’ll find how-tos for young makers, approaches to learning about science and engineering, and all sorts of comic strip and animated Saturday Morning fun! Be sure to check out our Adafruit products featuring comic book art while you’re at it!

Wonder why most big movie premieres are being held in New York this summer? Blame Jimmy Fallon. NBC's "Tonight Show" move from Burbank to Rockefeller Center

FOR THE LOVE OF CONTENT MANAGEMENT I AM GOING TO LEARN ABOUT KINJA which apparently has headline limits in length no actually it just has a counter regarding headline length and it's unclear exactly how long headlines can be and if they can be really long or not, but one thing is clear and that is that headlines can't have italics anyway this headline is 484 characters and I don't know why it's telling me the character count in red maybe if I put my mouse over the red thing nope.

The woman at the center of the scandal over Hillary Clinton’s defense of an alleged child rapist speaks out in depth for the first time.

Shelly Sterling asked for an emergency motion from a court to protect herself, because her estranged husband, Donald Sterling, has been leaving threatening voicemails on the phones of the two doctors who found him mentally incompetent.

Many readers took heart in the news last week that museums in the U.S. outnumber McDonald's and Starbucks restaurants — combined. But like so many other quantifiable preferences that Americans have, there's a political dimension to the affinity for museums.

Steps

Newspaper Yanks George Will Column After Incendiary Rape Comments:

misandry-mermaid:

George Will’s incendiary column on sexual assault hasn’t just earned him the ire of a slew of readers, pundits and politicians — it’s now getting him dropped from newspapers altogether.

On Wednesday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch posted a note to its readers, saying that Will’s syndicated column would no longer run in its pages. The paper was very clear about why this was happening:

"The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier. The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it."

fatherfalconsperm:

Ancient Alchemical Lab Found in Prague

LINK

japaneseaesthetics:

Samurai battlefield sleeves (kote); Signed Myōchin Ki no Munesada saku (made by Myōchin Ki no Munesada); Mid-Edo period, 1790s, Japan; Iron, silver.  © The Ann & Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum, Dallas

minithecorgi:

"You can’t get me from up here. Your legs are too short dog!"

vgjunk:

The X-Men in a nutshell, from X-Men: Children of the Atom.

hodad

@jhw

#onpoortaste

the context and use of emoticons seems to typify a cultural trend that is at the very least rather annoying: a refusal of adults to act like grown-ups, and a mindless desire to endlessly, and uncritically, adopt all that is youth-related, and to never out-grow the preoccupation we have stolen from teenagers – that with being "cool".

Original Source

Pope Francis condemned the legalization of recreational drugs as a flawed and failed experiment on Friday, lending his voice to a debate which is raging from the U.S. to Uruguay and beyond.

utopiacontent:

These Brazilian kids have been learning English by gently correcting celebrities’ grammar on Twitter. 

“Why am I so freaking excited about this movie? Check out its cast: Tilda Swinton. Chris Evans. Jamie Bell. Alison Pill. John Hurt. Ed Harris. Octavia Spencer. South Korean actor Song Kang-ho, who was excellent in Park Chan-Wook’s 2009 vampire movie Thirst. I’m feeling Pacific Rim levels of anticipation here. Higher, even.” That’s what I wrote the very first time I heard about Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, all the way back in January 2013. I have been looking forward to this movie for seventeen months. To say I had high expectations going into it is like saying Michael Bay is mildly fond of explosions. Because I was looking forward to it so very much, potential for disappointment was high. So it goes.

But was I disappointed? Readers, I see a lot of movies. Most of them are good. Some are great. A small number I love. And every once in a while I see a movie that leaves me vibrating with energy as I leave the theater, knowing that what I just saw will stick with me probably for the rest of my life, or at least until the inevitable robot overlords come and conquer the planet. Snowpiercer is one of those.

Snowpiercer was the subject of a much-discussed controversy where its US distributor, The Weinstein Company, wanted to edit the film to make it more palatable to mainstream American audiences (“their aim is to make sure the film ‘will be understood by audiences in Iowa… and Oklahoma…’“). Ultimately that didn’t happen, but the compromise was that an uncut Snowpiercer would only get limited release. I don’t know what movie Harvey Weinstein was watching—maybe he thought “Woah, South Korean director and some Korean dialogue, what is this, some art-house foreign shit?! People will never watch that!”—because for all that what I saw has some seriously dark content, an incredibly bleak worldview (humanity dies because it tries to fix global warming), and is packed full of metaphors about class issues and human nature, it is absolutely an entertaining, even crowd-pleasing, movie.

The plot is fairly basic. As anyone can glean from the trailers, Snowpiercer takes place in a world beset by a new ice age. All what’s left of humanity lives on a train, where they’re separated into the haves and the have-nots. One of the have-nots, Curtis (Chris Evans), leads his people in a revolution. The whole movie is just them trying to get from the back of the train to the front. But Snowpiercer never gets boring. Your favorite characters never feel completely safe. You never know if you’re going to leave a car where an intense action sequence took place and enter one where people straight from the Capitol scenes in The Hunger Games are nightclubbing their hearts out like there ain’t no tomorrow. You might think you know where the story’s going… but you don’t.

There’s a darkly surrealist tone to Snowpiercer that’s reminiscent of Terry Gilliam, if Terry Gilliam weren’t quite so… Terry Gilliam-y. There’s weirdness in this movie, for all that it’s more accessible than a Brazil or a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. During one blood-pumping fight scene Curtis slips on a fish. Again: Chris Evans slips on a fish. Tilda Swinton takes her false teeth out at one point for some reason. There’s a scene where our grizzled revolutionaries encounter a chipper elementary school teacher (Alison Pill) who leads her charges in a rousing singalong about how great Wilford, the God-like owner of the train, is. It’s ridiculous, but it works. The darkness, the action, the humor: Everything fits. This movie could’ve turned into a hard-boiled mess at any given point, but it’s so carefully stylized, so precise, that I accept things which I would never let fly in another movie (“That character’s clairvoyant? OK, I’ll buy it.”).

One of the reasons it works is that Snowpiercer is a visual masterpiece—the entire thing literally takes place in a series of boxes, but it’s never boring. Some of the dialogue’s a bit awkward and stilted at first, but as soon as you accept you’re watching a heavily-stylized surrealist dystopian sci-fi and not a gritty, “Nolanesque” (as they say) sci-fi actioner, grrrrr, it all comes together. The key to tapping into the tone of the movie is something a character says late in the film: The experience of living on the train has driven everyone on it ever-so-slightly (or more than ever-so-slightly) crazy.

That brilliant creative decision on the part of Joon-ho and screenwriter Kelly Masterson leads to great performances from the entire cast, which is another huge reason why Snowpiercer didn’t fall on its face. You have never in your life seen another performance like the one Swinton gives in this movie, and I know you can say that about most Swinton performances, but trust me on this—you need to experience it. Incidentally, her character, Mason, was a man in Le Transperceneige, the graphic novel on which Snowpiercer is based.

And Chris Evans. Oh, Chris Evans. Curtis has similarities to Evans’ most famous role—both he and Captain America are men trying to be both a good person and a good leader when everything is stacked up against them. You can make a case for (or, for that matter, write fanfic about) Curtis being Cap in a particularly grim AU. But Snowpiercer strives for more than the MCU’s solid (but fairly basic) level of entertainment. With Snowpiercer, Evans gets to show you how good an actor he really is, and man oh star-spangled man does he deliver. Between this and Sunshine, he’s been in two of the best sci-fi movies to come out in the past ten years, hands down.

In a cast as big as Snowpiercer‘s, you’d think there’d be a weak point, but there really isn’t. Octavia Spencer, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Song Kang-ho, Ed Harris, Ewen Bremner, Ah-sung Ko, Luke Pasqualino, Marcanthonee Reis, and Vlad Ivanov all terrify, infuriate, intrigue, and/or cause intense emotional pain in turn. The only thing about Snowpiercer I really didn’t like at the time I was watching it is the visual effects of the frozen hellscape outside the train. Frankly speaking, it looks fake. But the more I thought about it, the more it grew on me. Like I said, Snowpiercer is an incredibly visually stylized movie. The world outside the train is supposed to look fake, to look distant and unreachable and unreal, because for the people on the train… it is. It’s mere feet away, but they’ve lost all hope of ever setting foot on it again. The train is the only thing that’s real.

I fear The Weinstein Company, with the aforementioned limited release, is trying to bury this one. It’s been out in other countries for months, and many people already illegally downloaded the French version in the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier‘s release (and why didn’t TWC put Snowpiercer shortly after it to capitalize on Evans mania?). Going into Snowpiercer I felt like I was one of the few people who hadn’t seen it yet, and I got into an advance press screening weeks before it even came out in the States! I’ve seen the trailer in a movie theater once—once—at an indie theater that plays trailers for whatever its upcoming movies are. Not in a Regal theater. Not in an AMC.

All this is to say, it looks like The Weinstein Company doesn’t think all that many people want to see Snowpiercer. They don’t think a weirdo dystopian movie with a South Korean director and partially Korean dialogue where one of the main actors (the always excellent Song Kang-ho) is mostly unknown to American audiences and Chris Evans slips on a fish has mainstream appeal. Prove them wrong. Snowpiercer comes out next Friday, June 27th. If you can, if it it’s playing near you, see this movie. Pay to see this movie. Take your friends, take your family, take your pet fish. Stand up for original sci-fi that’s not Transformers 4 or, yes, Captain America 3.

And see a damn fine movie in the process.

Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?

At the beginning of the year, I announced that I'd joined Co3 Systems as its CTO. Co3 Systems makes coordination software -- what I hear called workflow management -- for incident response. Here's a 3:30-minute video overview of how it works. It's old; we've put a whole bunch of new features in the system since we made that.

We've had a phenomenal first two quarters, and we're growing. We're hiring for a bunch of positions, including a production ops engineer, an incident response specialist, and a software engineer.

Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

fieldofheathers-stuff:

Just as promised, have a few orc ladies! I’m sorry for the semi-shitty quality, my scanner wasn’t very cooperative today. 

1- A midwife and her two younger apprentices. Female orc society is divided in castes by profession, and midwives are among the most powerful. They are vital to the community, but their role is not merely practical. They are believed to be the living symbol of the alliance between she-orcs and Melkor (see my post about gender roles in orc society), and thus having both great political and religious power (orc religion is centered on the Cult of Creation, so you can step to your own conclusion about why they are considered to be so important).

2- A merchant. She-orcs are in charge of economy and trade, so, after Angband stipulated his allegiance with various tribes of Men, caravans started traveling through secret trade routes towards the East and South. Although orcs learned quickly to produce artifacts similar in taste to the ones Men liked, they preserved their own traditional style, both in art, craft and fashion. Orcs are very secretive and proud about their art, thus many other cultures started believing (also due to elvish propaganda) that they are barbaric and uncivilized. 

3- Older orc matriarch. Contrary to male orcs, who usually don’t reach an old age, females, due to the fact that they usually don’t participate in warfare and thus are less exposed to risks, have a much longer lifespan. Orcs have also the lowest percentage of deaths by childbirth among all the races of Arda, as a result of Melkor’s genetic manipulation during their creation. 

Also, a few words about orc fashion: I think that in Angband it must get quite cold, so my designs of their dresses and jewelry are inspired to (but I tried to avoid any direct copy-paste design, because I live in terror of offending someone) cultures who live in (what I think are) similar climatic situations, such as Mongolian, Tibetan and Inuit culture. (Also, I’m crazy in love with those cultures, so, um, I just wanted to pay them a little tribute. Ughhh I love foreign cultures.)

Courtney shared this story from Super Opinionated.

---

Japan’s national alcoholic beverage, saké, is probably only encountered by the average American in a Japanese restaurant, and then after following the waiter’s direction. The fourth annual Saké Fest PDX, taking place at the Sentinel Hotel on Thursday 26, aims to demystify the drink (it is, after all, only fermented rice and water and it forgoes the bewildering complexity of wine’s different styles and classifications) and to showcase its versatility with foods—here it will be paired with chocolate and cheese, as well as more traditional Asian dishes. It’s an admirable attempt to help take saké out of its sushi ghetto and to broaden its appeal.

There are dozens of Japanese sake varieties to try, including rare and premium examples, as well as those from “jizake”, or artisanal brewers. Oregon is also represented and you will be able to compare pourings from the g saké, Momokawa and Moonstone labels. Food offerings are deliberately diverse, with the likes of Yakuza, Biwa, Bamboo Grove Hawaiian Grille and five chocolate companies matching tastings with appropriate saké varieties. Plus, there are plum wines to try, while Rogue is showcasing its Morimoto line of craft beers.

Tickets, which include all food and drink tastings and a tasting glass are $50 advance, $60 on the door and are available here. Sake Fest PDX, Sentinel Hotel, 614 SW 11th, June 26, 6:30 to 9 pm, SakeFestPDX.com

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Fuck all you baby dick, bitch made, wannabe haters trying to right rants on this god damn rant blog.

I'm tired of these little dickskinned, sissy ass rants so kick up yo feet and witness how a true hater comes correct.

I hate dolphins, sunshine, my mom, kitten posters, nice furniture, bicycles, fresh baked cookies, purse dogs, the Red Cross, modern art, babies, hats, Halloween, alcoholic beverages, amphibians, Jesus, BBQ, titties, slip and slides, free lunch, latex gimp suits, hot chocolate, well mannered children, and horror movies. All that shit you lames are hating on is already unpleasant and easily disliked. Expand your palette you weak motherfuckers.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, so before any of you dickfaces thinks to remind me of something I forgot, just assume I hate whatever stupid thing you came up with because I already sincerely despise your pathetic guts and hope you all fucking die in a car accident on your way to a super fun party at chuckie cheeses.

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Beautiful color plates from Chemical Atlas, or, The Chemistry of Familiar Objects (1855).

Newberry call number: Wing ZP 883 .A635