Taylor Swift

Once again, it’s worth noting that while there are some things about Donald Trump that are uniquely horrible, most of his appointments are just bog-standard right-wing choices any Republican president would make. He just named Cathy McMorris Rodgers as Secretary of the Interior, a completely expected and utterly horrendous choice to administer the nation’s public lands. Government by Goldman Sachs is exactly what we would have seen with Mitt Romney as president. No real difference with Trump.

Never mind that these cabinet members should be negotiating for you and not with you. Trump was supposed to be an unorthodox Republican, a champion of the (white) working class. Instead his cabinet picks represent mainstays of the Republican elite: neoconservative hawks, Wall Street bankers, climate change deniers, a guy literally nicknamed the “foreclosure king.” His pick for Labor, Andrew Puzder, is even pro-immigration, a classic GOP elite position.

If voters were hoping to express their disgust at both Republicans and Democrats in electing Trump, too bad.

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I am beginning to wonder why I subscribe to the New York Times. In today’s NYT false equivalence operation, colleges are unsafe overly politicized spaces and it truly affects both sides. You see some students feel physically threatened because they are Muslim and have been verbally threatened. And other students have the sads because some say they are racist.

Bias incidents on both sides have been reported. A student walking near campus was threatened with being lit on fire because she wore a hijab. Other students were accused of being racist for supporting Mr. Trump, according to a campuswide message from Mark Schlissel, the university’s president.

Yeah, pretty much the same thing. Why are those liberal students so mean!

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The Matrix Online officially shut down in 2009, but one modder has been working dutifully ever since to restore the MMO to its former glory. ...

Tomas advised us that “Björk stans her” which was more than enough for us.

[Video][Website]
[6.50]

Juana Giaimo: Long and unstructured songs like “Tuck” remind me of my old musical taste, when I would dive through endless seconds of dreaminess. They also make me wonder when I started denying songs with too many seconds. But Katie Gately doesn’t seem to worry a lot about that: she tries different tools, adds new sounds and isn’t looking for a solid structure. It’s too eerie and slightly violent to get lost in it, but its lingering nature stops “Tuck” from being an instant and effective shock. 
[5]

Iain Mew: Glasser, glassier; glister, glitter.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Like being dropped into a terrarium, “Tuck” sports claps, tablas, gurgles, and other unidentified sound effects. Imagine a more playful Susanne Sundfør. 
[7]

Ramzi Awn: The horns only add to the fanfare on this unafraid single, a dark and stormy pop opus.  
[7]

Megan Harrington: Weird and wonderful, “Tuck” promises an escape from the ordinary that is usually reserved for children. This is without the overt symbolism of arch fantasies like Game of Thrones or The Avengers, purging the lectures and lessons and leaving only color and texture. It’s a mess of sound and you’re free to imagine it taking any shape you choose. 
[9]

Thomas Inskeep: Loud, unpleasantly cluttered, clattering, and unfocused: she could use a good editor.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: I’m not normally one to complain about a wacky bit of fanfare but I’m not into the one on this especially. It takes a song that was deliciously off-kilter and throws it out the window, and not in a good way. There might be such a thing as too many layers! Underneath some of them there’s a really nice, skewed melody delivered hypnotically, the beats pressing themselves onto my skull. Gately’s voice in places reminds me a bit of Bertine Zetlitz if she went some way beyond her weirdest point which I like too. It’s maybe one track too many, or one trick too many, to be the [8] I want this to be.
[7]

Brad Shoup: She’s riffing on Lady Gaga’s pop-ringmaster persona, but maybe also something older. Perhaps the more eldritch hits of Cab Calloway. The garbled horns play a warped reveille; frogs chirp; she asks what we hear and I’m not entirely sure. A light threatens to break through a couple times in the middle, but there’s so much creeping left to do.
[6]

Matt brings us a K-pop group that might be struggling elsewhere, but not with us…

[Video][Website]
[6.82]

Madeleine Lee: Back in February, rapper Hyeran described the promotions for this song as her last chance. Brave Girls are hardly the only K-pop group that have had years of never progressing past “struggling,” but Hyeran really does sound like it’s her last chance in “Deepened,” throwing herself wholly into her half-sung verse. It’s already a melancholy song, and kind of a flat one until that point, but her performance gives it the emotional core it needs. One of the most striking individual performances in a K-pop song I’ve heard all year.
[7]

Iain Mew: “Deepened” mostly works as a rolling mood piece, its forefronting of atmosphere above all an unusual choice which pays off because it sets up Hyeran’s rap as the moment everything solidifies.
[7]

Katie Gill: I mean, it’s a sexy R&B jam. The main thing it’s got going for it is that powerful, in your face rap break, but the rest of the song’s simple sexy R&B, designed for grinding and not really designed for analyzing.
[5]

Alfred Soto: It’s got the bump of a The-Dream production but not the grind — it’s pleasant fare.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: The combination of that deep, grinding throb and a sad piano is interesting but awkward — how am I going to get down to this when it sounds desperate, as if the voice of the song isn’t getting into its own groove?
[6]

Will Adams: I love the mashup of the piano ballad and trap templates here; neither outweigh the other at any point, and the balance between the former’s sweetness and the latter’s melancholy make for an engaging listen.
[7]

Leonel Manzanares: The slow mecha-beat/elongated piano chords combination in the verses rarely works with vocals that are too frontal in the mix, but the second-verse rap, with such a commanding flow and interesting rhythmic choices, puts that idea to rest. Then the chorus goes full Miami Bass — which should be illegal at this point, ’cause man, does it bang. 
[7]

Brad Shoup: Outside of the appearance of a clopping beat (and ignoring the Mustardy “hey”s), it’s a fine slow jam in the Braxton mold: cleanly-etched anguish, small high harmonies, midnight piano chording.
[6]

Ramzi Awn: Brave Girls nail the pre-chorus and fade-out on “Deepened,” a breezy track with texture. 
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Even if you don’t know the lyrics to “Deepened,” you get the melancholy, thanks to the vocal performances of Brave Girls. This is a song of regret, made all the more powerful by its juxtaposition of piano-based near-balladry with freestyle snares preparing to body-rock (which happens in the chorus, albeit subtly). There’s a sadness which catches you right there, and that makes this fairly essential.  
[9]

Matt Vitone: “Deepened” clicks from the first note. The gloomy, piano-driven production chugs along with machine-like precision, but it’s the human elements here that intrigue. Hyeran’s sixteen stunning bars are the song’s centerpiece rather than simple flourish in the typical K-pop way. She tears into the lyrics with the ferocity of someone well aware this might be her last chance. “I just wanted you to look at me/I know love changes as time passes,” is directed at an ex-lover, but also speaks to the fragile reality of the idol machine, and how easily our dreams can pass us by. From a fan’s perspective, a lot has “changed” in K-pop too (the song title in Korean 변했어 literally means “You’ve Changed”). This year I got bored of the same cloying cute concepts, the same songs that try to be 15 songs at once. I was bored and disappointed with groups that should be the antithesis of all that playing it safe. And so there was something refreshing about this song that aspires to be nothing more than well-constructed, with a nice touch of wistfulness and sophistication. Yet something about hearing “you’ve changed so much” repeated thrice touched in me something larger, about how my teenage hobby might be passing me by, too.
[9]

Courtesy of Connor, a Londoner steps into the spotlight…

[Video][Website]
[7.18]

Ramzi Awn: Anna has a serious beat to work with, and she slays the hook, a Dumblonde take on Juliana Hatfield’s “Dumb Fun.” Though the track has one too many ideas, “serious” comes in late as one of the sexiest words of the year.  
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: More house should take cues from early Madonna (ignore the anachronism). Much more house should eviscerate pretentious music dudes and dance-industry politics this mercilessly. That “losing sound” bit is perfect: an immortalization-via-banger of something stupid I’m sure was actually said, and given ample interpretation space, not a bad description of the way the prechorus slips away briefly into nothing.
[9]

Edward Okulicz: Wow, the music draws you in as Straker cuts you off at the knees. My one complaint is this: why you’d take such a poised woman who gives no fucks at all and process her voice in the second half of the song into indifference?
[8]

Brad Shoup: The second verse scuppers what could’ve been a very good Chainsmokers drag. Instead, it becomes the icy glare of someone who’s so into the mechanics of record production that, on the chorus, she becomes technology. The back half of it is a magic bag carelessly dumped: empty-stomach bass, disco hits and an electro ghost vocal.  
[6]

Alfred Soto: On one hand it’s pro forma English house, and on the bridge Straker is too close to Jessie Ware, but the tension between the vocal distortions and the febrile mix reminds me never to count anything or anyone out. All you, Katy B. 
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Tight and taut, “Serious” is a tough midtempo work-it-out, a progressive house track shoehorned into a becoming 2:52 pop single.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: Anna Straker’s somewhat tinny deep house is of the frothy kind; “Serious” is not particularly. It feels like a night that’s just starting, when you’re feeling out your mood and wondering what might happen a few hours in when the bass starts kicking and things really get going.
[6]

Tim de Reuse: Straker launches immediately into a convincing, dynamic vocal performance over a four-note synth loop that’s pleasantly glossy if it isn’t terribly exciting. Really, there’s nothing that she does wrong, but I feel that she sticks to her comfort zone too much — the quieter pre-chorus is the only place where the energy level shifts at all, and outside of it there’s a lack of overall movement that makes it hard to stay properly engaged.
[6]

Madeleine Lee: I suspect this song is a bit thin outside of the two or three ideas it repeats, but those ideas are just so good that they do bear repeating immediately after the first go-around, and digitized deep house is hard to make unlikeable. It helps that Straker sounds so triumphant from the very first line.
[8]

Ryo Miyauchi: As glorious as that breezy 2-step beat unfolds — those tinkling bells and gunfire synths, oh my — it would not be what it is without Anna Straker dancing at its center. She doesn’t just taunt; she challenges. For my year in dance-pop full of balmy sighs, it’s a good, much needed shake-up.
[8]

Iain Mew: Like the last Saint Etienne album if it was just as self-referential but more sharp and boisterous. The more straightforward pop melodicism in places sits a bit oddly with everything else, but it’s all good enough to still work.
[7]

Wipeout Omega Collection brings three Wipeout games to PlayStation 4.

Who better to kick off the “Hassle Year Ender” season than the delightfully odd and entertaining ANGELA SAWYER, the Boston comedy/ music underground’s Dark Queen. Remember she ran Weirdo Records? Remember she runs the Midway or the Highway night and the Shaves events? Remember she plays in Duck That, Negative One, Grizzler, Bad Telephone + more, and does stand up? Ringing a fucking bell????!!!!!!

So, here’s all the places I performed in 2016. It doesn’t include unbooked open mic events (which would triple the list). But it does include a few shows that got cancelled, or when I was sick. Big, small, very small, these were the shows I wanted people to come to this year. If you didn’t, why not come to one next year?

Sun Jan 3 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sat Jan 9 7:00pm Duck That at Open Sound – Open Sound Studios Union Square
Sun Jan 10 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Jan 14 8:00pm Duck That at Franklin St – Franklin Street house, Allston
Sun Jan 17 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Tue Jan 19 9:00pm Shaves – Behind the Red Door, JP
Sun Jan 24 6:30pm Comedy Chicks workshop – Doyle’s Cafe, JP
Sun Jan 24 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Jan 25 6:30pm Storyclub Boston – Milky Way Lounge, JP
Sun Jan 31 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Tue Feb 2 8:00pm Bad Telephone at Katie McShane’s – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Feb 4 9:00pm Angela does standup at the Riot Theater – The Riot Theater, JP
Sun Feb 7 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Feb 11 8:00pm Shaves – Beyond the Red Door, JP
Sat Feb 13 8:00pm Grizzler – Washington Street Arts Center, Somerville
Sun Feb 14 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Feb 18 8:00pm Duck That at Franklin Street – Franklin Street house, Allston
Sun Feb 21 6:30pm Comedy Chicks workshop – Doyle’s Cafe, JP
Sun Feb 21 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Feb 22 6:30pm Storyclub Boston – Milky Way Lounge, JP
Sun Feb 28 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Feb 29 7:00pm Worst Day of the Week showcase – Blue, Portland ME
Sun Mar 6 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sat Mar 12 7:00pm The Bad Bad Show – Wonderbar, Allston
Sun Mar 13 7:00pm Millennial Cocktail at Industry Labs, Cambridge
Sun Mar 13 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Mar 17 8:00pm Ducks at a house – Franklin Street house, Allston
Sat Mar 19 8:00pm Armando at the Riot – The Riot Theater, JP
Sun Mar 20 6:00pm Comedy Chicks workshop – Doyle’s Cafe, JP
Sun Mar 20 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Mar 21 8:00pm Banshee showcase – The Banshee, Dorchester
Thu Mar 24 8:00pm Shaves – Beyond the Red Door, JP
Sun Mar 27 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP

Mon Mar 28 6:30pm Storyclub Boston – The Milky Way Lounge, JP
Sat Apr 2 8:00pm Bad Telephone – Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church, Somerville
Sun Apr 3 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Wed Apr 6 8:00pm Negative One & John Funke – P.A.’s Lounge, Somerville
Sat Apr 9 8:00pm M Kurdi, A Margolis & friends – Whaus, JP
Sun Apr 10 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sat Apr 16 7:00pm Taco Party – Armory Cafe, Somerville
Sun Apr 17 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Apr 21 12:00am Angela at the bear cages, JP
Thu Apr 21 8:00pm Ducks at a house – Franklin Street house, Allston
Sat Apr 23 8:00pm Angela plays Strange Maine – Strange Maine, Portland, ME
Sun Apr 24 7:00pm Comedy Chicks workshop – Doyle’s Cafe, JP
Sun Apr 24 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Apr 25 6:30pm Storyclub Boston – Milky Way Lounge, JP
Tue Apr 26 9:00pm Shaves – Beyond the Red Door, Beyond the Red Door, JP
Thu Apr 28 7:00pm Thunderbar feature – Wonderbar, Allston
Sat Apr 30 9:00pm Angela does standup at the People’s Throwdown – ImprovBoston, Cambridge
Sun May 1 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Tue May 3 8:00pm Fem showcase 1 Year Anniversary – Midway Cafe, JP
Sun May 8 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sat May 14 7:00pm Dungeon comedy show – Salt in your eyes, Gloucester
Sun May 15 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Wed May 18 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Comedy Studio – The Comedy Studio, Cambridge
Thu May 19 8:00pm Duck That on Franklin Street, Franklin Street house, Allston
Sat May 21 7:30pm Stories to Scenes – The Riot Theater, JP
Sun May 22 7:00pm Comedy Chicks workshop, Doyle’s, JP
Sun May 27 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon May 23 6:30pm Storyclub Boston – The Milky Way Lounge, JP
Tue May 24 9:00pm Shaves – Beyond the Red Door, Beyond the Red Door, JP
Thu May 26 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Comedy Studio, Cambridge
Sun May 29 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon May 30 8:00pm Negative one plays in new Hampshire – Spray Paint, Dover, NH
Sun Jun 5 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Tue Jun 7 7:30pm Paperback Comedians – 3065 Live, Cranberry Hwy, East Wareham
Fri Jun 10 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Comedy Studio, Cambridge
Sun Jun 12 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Comedy Studio, Cambridge
Sun Jan 12 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Jun 16 8:00pm Duck That on Franklin Street, Franklin Street house, Allston
Sun Jun 19 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Wed Jun 22 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Comedy Studio, Cambridge
Sat Jun 25 8:00pm Girls rock camp benefit, Industry Labs, Cambridge
Sun Jun 26 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Jun 27 6:30pm – 8:00pm Storyclub Boston – The Milky Way Lounge, JP
Tue Jun 28 9:00pm Shaves – Beyond the Red Door, JP
Thu Jun 30 7:00pm Angela at LOLstel – Hostel international, Boston
Sun Jul 3 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sun Jul 10 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sun Jul 17 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sun Jul 24 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sun Jul 31 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Aug 4 9:00pm Negative One plays – Rugg warehouse, Allston
Sun Aug 7 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Aug 8 8:00pm Angela at Mystery Train – Mystery Train Records, Amherst
Thu Aug 11 8:00pm Wreck Room – Deep Thoughts, JP
Sun Aug 14 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Aug 18 8:00am Duck that zombies – Franklin Street house, Allston
Sun Aug 21 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Aug 22 6:30pm Story Club Boston – The Milky Way Lounge, JP
Thu Aug 25 6:00pm Angela Sawyer at LOLstel – Hostel international Boston
This Aug 25 9:00pm Shaves, a Storytelling Show – Angs new house, JP
Sun Aug 28 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sun Sep 4 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sat Sep 10 8:00pm Boston comedy chicks – Doyle’s Cafe, JP
Sun Sep 11 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sat Sep 17 8:00pm Stories to Scenes – The Riot Theater, JP
Sun Sep 18 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Wed Sep 21 7:00pm Storyclub Boston – Dorchester Brewing Company, Dorchester
Sun Sep 25 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Sep 29 8:00pm Roast Battle – The Rockwell, Somerville
Sat Oct 1 8:30pm Angela does comedy at Lincolns, Brighton
Sun Oct 2 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Tue Oct 4 9:00pm Shaves a storytelling show – Top of the Ruggerios hill, JP
Sat Oct 8 5:00pm Negative One at a house festival, Allston
Sat Oct 8 8:00pm Boston comedy chicks – Doyle’s Cafe, JP
Sun Oct 9 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sun Oct 16 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Oct 20 8:00pm Caller ID at the Providence Comedy Connection – Providence, RI
Sat Oct 22 8:00pm Preggy Peggy with Corsano, Strunk, Pensado, more – Caldors, on Rugg, Allston
Sun Oct 23 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Comedy Studio, Cambridge
Sun Oct 23 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Oct 24 6:30pm Storyclub Boston – Milky Way Lounge, JP
Tue Oct 25 9:00pm Shaves, a storytelling show – Top of the Ruggerios Hill, JP
Sun Oct 30 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Tue Nov 1 8:30pm Record Hospital Noise Lecture – WHRB-FM, Cambridge
Wed Nov 2 8:00pm Angela does standup at Limelight – Limelight Stage + Studios, Boston
Sun Nov 6 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Tue Nov 8 6:30pm Cafe Fixe with Steph – Cafe Fixe, Brookline
Wed Nov 9 9:00pm Angela at Murphy’s Taproom, Manchester, NH
Wed Nov 9 9:00pm Angela at Murphy’s Taproom, Manchester, NH
Sat Nov 12 8:00pm Negative One release show – Deep Thoughts, JP
Sun Nov 13 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Comedy Studio, Cambridge
Sun Nov 13 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sun Nov 20 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Tue Nov 22 9:00pm Angela at Hot Queso – Sunset Grill, Allston
Thu Nov 24 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Comedy Studio, Cambridge
Sat Nov 26 8:00pm Angela at Sweet Caroline’s – Sweet Caroline’s, Boston
Sun Nov 27 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Nov 28 6:30pm Storyclub Boston – Milky Way Lounge, JP
Tue Nov 29 9:00pm Shaves, a storytelling show – Up the ruggerios hill, JP
Sat Dec 3 8:00pm Angela Sawyer at the Know Show, Allston
Sun Dec 4 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Sat Dec 10 8:00pm BARCC benefit, Dogbar, Gloucester
Sun Dec 11 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe,JP
Fri Dec 16 8:00pm Angela Sawyer release party – Caldors, on Rugg, Allston
Sat Dec 17 8:00pm Grizzler – Washington Street Art Center, Somerville
Sun Dec 18 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Mon Dec 26 9:00pm Midway Or The Highway Open Mic – Midway Cafe, JP
Thu Dec 29 8:00pm Shaves, a storytelling show – Top of the Ruggerios Hill, JP

Published on Dec 2, 2016 Power DX7 "This is a foundation level tutorial and it’s the first Yamaha DX7 & FM synthesis tutorial from the FM synthesis tutorial series. This how to learn tutorial gives you an overview of the most important aspect of the Yamaha DX7 and FM synthesis, Algorithm. Algorithm plays a critical role in the FM synthesis sound design. It determines how all Operators (

Published on Nov 30, 2016 Stochastic Design "Join us as we highlight new features of the Teenage Engineering OP-1 Firmware in under four minutes, through a tune! We create a tune by using the new arpeggiator, the Voltage synthesizer, the updated endless sequencer, and syncing a pair of Pocket Operators to provide backing."

The Advertising Standards Authority has cleared Hello Games and Valve of any wrongdoing after several players complained about the way No Man's Sky was being advertised on Steam.  ...

finally

"Look at them, sitting so comfortably, with their smug faces. They're waiting for you to cut up the turkey. It'd be too bad if something happened to ruin this day. A real shame..." - Author's description

Download on Itch.io (Windows, Mac)

---

"In the beginning I was pretty down on perfect turns," Thumper dev Brian Gibson tells RPS in a new turn-focused chat. "Over time it grew on me and I realized that it does make the game better." ...

I feel like Super Adventures has been getting a bit niche lately, so this week I've chosen a subject that likely appeals to basically everyone: Amiga game loading/insert disk screenshots! I've assembled a gallery of work from some of the best pixel artists of the 90s to present their interpretations of a 3½-inch blue square with a label and a metal shutter on.

This isn't the first time I've thought about writing this article. When I was doing research I found I'd written this on my Cannon Fodder 2 post back in 2013:

 "You know, sometimes I'm half-tempted to make a post just about 'insert disk' screens. A page full of basically nothing but pixelled floppy disks. That's when I'll know I've finally gone crazy."

So bad news, I've gone crazy. Good news, at least I'm getting this over with now. Plus it'll be nostalgic for people who've owned the system, and educational for those who didn't!

Amigas could support hard drives just fine, but most people didn't own them and the games generally weren't designed to be installed, so one of the big differences between PC and Amiga gaming in the early 90s was all the bloody disk swapping. Scroll through a dozen of these pictures slowly and you'll get an idea of what it's like to play an adventure game on the system. Keep scrolling back and forth through two or three of them over and over and that's what it's like playing a fighting game.
Read on »

A git repository of Unix commits, 1970-present:

The project has achieved its first major goal with the establishment of a continuous timeline from 1972 until today:

• snapshots of PDP-7, V1, V3, V4, V5, V6, and V7 Research Edition,
• Unix/32V,
• all available BSD releases,
• the CSRG SCCS history,
• two releases of 386BSD,
• the 386BSD patchkit,
• the FreeBSD 1.0 to 1.1.5 CVS history,
• an import of the FreeBSD repository starting from its initial imports that led to FreeBSD 2.0, and
• the current FreeBSD repository.

The files appear to be added in the repository in chronological order according to their modification time, and large parts of the source code have been attributed to their actual authors. Commands like git blame and (sometimes) git log produce the expected results.

Blame is apportioned appropriately.

Previously, previously, previously.

yet another amazing talk/essay from Maciej Ceglowski

this is just astounding; how it works

or just the HUD

This year’s Interactive Fiction Competition is over, and for the first time in its 22-year history, the winner can be played without a keyboard.

IFComp is run by and for the interactive fiction community, a group of hobbyist writers and programmers making experimental art with prose and code. It’s free to enter, and anyone can judge it.

It’s an oasis of joy and experimentation and creativity right now, for me and others.

For most of its history, IFComp was dominated by parser-based interactive fiction: games navigated with keyboard commands like “NORTH,” “READ BOOK,” “TAKE BUCKET,” “UNLOCK DOOR WITH BRASS KEY” and so on.

But the last few years have seen a dramatic shift towards other experimental forms that don’t require a keyboard: choice-based and hypertext games, played with a mouse, mostly by clicking on links in a browser.

Tools like Twine, Texture, and Inklewriter made it possible for many, many more people to make interactive fiction without learning to code. These stories were also more accessible for players, played entirely with a mouse and without learning the conventions and syntax of parser-based games.

This year, more than two-thirds of the 58 entries are non-parser games played without a keyboard, most made with Twine. (This led to some predictable hand-wringing from some corners of the interactive fiction community, but it seems to have been embraced by most.)

On Thursday, the IFComp 2016 winners were announced.

For the first time ever, the winner isn’t a parser-based game.

Detectiveland is a tongue-in-cheek noir game that retains many of the features of traditional parser-based gameplay—inventory, interactive objects and NPCs, puzzles, and scoring—all playable in the browser entirely with a mouse. Robin Johnson built his own homebrew Javascript engine for it, nicknamed Versificator 2, which he plans to release publicly.

The third-place winner, Cactus Blue Motel, is a Twine game by Astrid Dalmady, telling the story of three friends on a road trip through the American Southwest, stopping off at a roadside motel with a unique past.

A special shout-out to Amelia Pinnolla’s widely-misunderstood TAKE. (Read Emily Short’s post for more context.)

I’ve loved interactive fiction for years—I even made a community for people to write their own. To me, it represents a beautiful fusion of art and technology, and it’s achievable by a single person. Seeing people push the genre forward with new tools and platforms is a bright spot in an otherwise-dreary year.

Go play.

Abertay University in Dundee, Scotland will be recognizing notable public figures with honorary degrees next Friday, including veteran game industry musician Rob Hubbard. ...

While on the street in Harajuku, we met Karinboko, a 19-year-old student.

Blonde-haired Karinboko’s ensemble features an asymmetrical sweater dress from Tokyo based fashion label, Balmung. White garter stockings and white platform boots from YRU completed her outfit. Accessories include a yellow Pompompurin tote bag from Sanrio, and an Onsen watch.

Karinboko loves listening to Band Ja Naimon!. She is active on Twitter.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

After nearly a decade, invite-only music tracker What.cd closed today and deleted all its data after a raid by French authorities—a sad end to what was likely the largest, most active private torrent tracker ever.

Founded the day Oink’s Pink Palace closed in 2007, What.cd managed to survive for nearly a decade, including several crippling DDOS attacks.

It may have flaunted copyright law, but collectively, What.cd’s dedicated group of fans worked together to create the most comprehensive, organized, and metadata-rich collection of music online.

All site and user data has been destroyed. So long, and thanks for all the fish. <3 2/2

— What.CD (@whatcd) November 17, 2016

What.cd, like most private trackers, operated on a ratio system—you could only download if you were actively uploading, donating, or otherwise making the site better.

While most of its members were invited by someone in the community, What.cd provided the unusual option of an open interview process. Applicants were expected to study preparation materials on site rules and encoding guidelines, conduct a speed test, and interview with a volunteer moderator in IRC. (Don’t expect to ace the interview, either.)

Their focus on quality and comprehensiveness was relentless. They encouraged original encodings at high-quality, with automated tools to check logs, verifying encoding, and culling out low-quality rips.

The ultimate goal was perfection. Every release should have a perfect lossless rip and the “perfect 3” MP3s—V0, V2, and 320 MP3 encodings—along with all accompanying metadata, consistent file names, folders, tags, and album art. What.cd provided tools for finding releases that could use improvement, giving everyone an easy chance to improve their ratio.

The developers open-sourced Gazelle, their web framework, and Ocelot, their large-scale BitTorrent tracker, which became the foundation for hundreds of other private torrent communities.

In addition to organizing music into discographies and collages, users could make requests for specific releases, spending their ratio to drive up the demand for rare releases. As a result, out-of-print and unreleased material often found its way to What.cd, occasionally putting it in the headlines.

An unreleased Radiohead song, unpublished JD Salinger stories, and Microsoft’s forensic tools for law enforcement all made headlines when they appeared exclusively on the site for the first time.

The result was likely the most comprehensive and well-organized music archive ever—over a million unique releases—assembled entirely by passionate music fans operating outside of copyright law.

what.cd was the largest and most meticulous library of recorded music ever assembled, as far as I can tell. Sad it had to end this way.

— Parker Higgins (@xor) November 17, 2016

It will be missed.

 

I came to Yo La Tengo late. Rob Sheffield’s lead review in Rolling Stone did the persuading. The Blue Mask? I’m there (his Lovesexy analogy crumbles though). Confident enough in its smarts to use declarative sentences, employing guitars and vibes and synths to shape sounds commensurate with the relationship it’s celebrating, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out was a good first album but a taxing one. I got I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One on the defunct Columbia House’s website; it soundtracked a summer of county wide commuting to my first journalism internship. One Saturday afternoon I got too stoned listening to “”Spec Bebop.” Summer Sun I embraced without a worry three years later: eleven miniatures, capped by a hushed version of “Take Care.” I may overrate the album because that tour was spectacular: two men and a woman switching instruments and no loss of momentum or joy in the other’s company. We liked the band enough to drive to Jacksonville in 2003, a not inconsiderable concession especially if you know the world’s dullest city. The tour for I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass, which made a stop in February 2007 at the long gone Studio A, also charmed the hell out of me; the album itself was a take it or leave it deal.

Take or leave my opinion. If being a fan means the demonstration of passion and the willingness to forgive mistakes or mere competence, then I’m not one. But I love these songs.

1. Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)
2. You Can Have It All
3. Little Eyes
4. Stockholm Syndrome
5. Cherry Chaptstick
6. Autumn Sweater
7. Hanky Panky Nohow
8. (Straight Down to the) Bitter End
9. Moby Octopad
10. Sugarcube
11. Season of the Shark
12. Little Honda
13. Ohm
14. The Room Got Heavy
15. Big Day Coming
16. I Should’ve Known Better
17. Deeper Into Movies
18. Madeline
19. From a Motel 6
20. Our Way to Fall
21. A Worrying Thing
22. Blue Line Swinger
23. Pablo and Andrea
24. Somebody’s Baby
25. Drug Test

ALBUMS

1. I Can Hear The Heart Beating as One
2. And Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
3. Electr-O-Pura
4. Summer Sun
5. Painful

Minori is a Japanese shironuri artist who is well known in the Tokyo street fashion scene. We met her on the street in Harajuku after dark. If you’d like to know more about her life, check this video on YouTube.

Minori’s handmade fashion features a lot of the color red this time. She’s wearing a veil, a ruffle top, leather pants, platform boots, and a leather handbag. Her hand painted shironuri makeup is one of the key parts of her look as well.

Find Minori on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

Click on any photo to enlarge it.