Wednesday 30 January 2013
Google buys 15,000 Raspberry Pi computers for UK schools
Google buys 15,000 Raspberry Pi computers for UK schools: Eric Schmidt says that the micro-computer is essential to future innovation in the UK
Tuesday 29 January 2013
Wargaming moves to consoles with $20m purchase of Day 1 Studios
Wargaming moves to consoles with $20m purchase of Day 1 Studios: Team behind F.E.A.R. and Fracture join free-to-play World of Tanks creator
Monday 28 January 2013
Saturday 26 January 2013
Friday 25 January 2013
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 DLC trailer expects you’ll be playing it a lot, suggests a way to help
WTF?
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 DLC trailer expects you’ll be playing it a lot, suggests a way to help:
What to do when your making a trailer for a DLC collection of maps (and a gun)? Well, the obvious thing would be to tour the new maps, giving players a chance to preview the various chokepoints and hidey-holes. The makers of this Black Ops 2: Revolution trailer decided not to do that. Instead they got Prison Break’s Peter Stormare to do, well, this.
In fairness, Treyarch have already provided a fairly detailed overview of the Revolution pack, which will include floods, gondolas, an M.C. Escher-styled building, and a new mode that lets you play as the zombies.
Black Ops 2: Revolution only has an Xbox 360 launch date so far, with the PC version due sometime after that January 29 release.
Thanks, PCGamesN.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 DLC trailer expects you’ll be playing it a lot, suggests a way to help:
What to do when your making a trailer for a DLC collection of maps (and a gun)? Well, the obvious thing would be to tour the new maps, giving players a chance to preview the various chokepoints and hidey-holes. The makers of this Black Ops 2: Revolution trailer decided not to do that. Instead they got Prison Break’s Peter Stormare to do, well, this.
In fairness, Treyarch have already provided a fairly detailed overview of the Revolution pack, which will include floods, gondolas, an M.C. Escher-styled building, and a new mode that lets you play as the zombies.
Black Ops 2: Revolution only has an Xbox 360 launch date so far, with the PC version due sometime after that January 29 release.
Thanks, PCGamesN.
 |  |
Aliens: Colonial Marines Trailer Heavy On The “Colon”
I really wanted this to be good :(
Aliens: Colonial Marines Trailer Heavy On The “Colon”:
The latest trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines has the worst – and I mean the worst – voiceover script I have ever heard. So bad, and so badly delivered, I cannot help myself but transcribe it in its entirety, and present it to you in the form of poetry.
(more…)
Aliens: Colonial Marines Trailer Heavy On The “Colon”:
The latest trailer for Aliens: Colonial Marines has the worst – and I mean the worst – voiceover script I have ever heard. So bad, and so badly delivered, I cannot help myself but transcribe it in its entirety, and present it to you in the form of poetry.
(more…)
Thursday 24 January 2013
Functional Iron Man gauntlet shoots lasers powerful enough to pop a balloon
Functional Iron Man gauntlet shoots lasers powerful enough to pop a balloon:
Patrick Priebe of Laser Gadgets builds custom props with a little something extra, from steampunk laser guns that can really burn to a crossbow that fires buzz saw blades. Here he adds his laser magic to an Iron Man-style gauntlet, arming it with enough power to pop a balloon.
Sadly, Priebe doesn't post schematics or tutorials, but he does take custom orders through his website.
[via Obvious Winner]
Patrick Priebe of Laser Gadgets builds custom props with a little something extra, from steampunk laser guns that can really burn to a crossbow that fires buzz saw blades. Here he adds his laser magic to an Iron Man-style gauntlet, arming it with enough power to pop a balloon.
Sadly, Priebe doesn't post schematics or tutorials, but he does take custom orders through his website.
[via Obvious Winner]
This robot suit rampage is so awesome you'll almost forgive it for being a dubstep music video
Awesome. Love the ending.
This robot suit rampage is so awesome you'll almost forgive it for being a dubstep music video:
Yeah, yeah. You hate dubstep. We know. But two things: 1) this isn't just dubstep, it's chiptunes dubstep, and it's actually pretty good, and 2) if you don't watch this music video by Xilent — titled "Boss Wave" — you're robbing yourself of an opportunity to see a particularly fantastic video of a guy in an awesome robot suit blasting real-life videogame enemies (along with a few innocent bystanders). Just sayin'. Thanks to Erik for the tip!
This robot suit rampage is so awesome you'll almost forgive it for being a dubstep music video:
Yeah, yeah. You hate dubstep. We know. But two things: 1) this isn't just dubstep, it's chiptunes dubstep, and it's actually pretty good, and 2) if you don't watch this music video by Xilent — titled "Boss Wave" — you're robbing yourself of an opportunity to see a particularly fantastic video of a guy in an awesome robot suit blasting real-life videogame enemies (along with a few innocent bystanders). Just sayin'. Thanks to Erik for the tip!
Where Memes Really Come From
Where Memes Really Come From:
Though history will probably remember Richard Dawkins as the activist who spearheaded a new atheist movement, there is something far more famous and important that he invented — and few people know it. He is the guy who first popularized the idea of the meme, way back in the 1970s. That's right. Dawkins is indirectly responsible for every fruit-adorned cat, weird Japanese mashup video, and animated gif from Harry Potter fandom that has spurted out of the internet and into your face.
But of course, Dawkins's idea of memes wasn't quite the same thing as lolcats or ROFLCon. Here's how the idea of the meme evolved, and where it came from.
The Selfish Meme
Dawkins published The Selfish Gene in 1976. It popularized a new understanding of evolution, looked at from the perspective of the tiniest units of reproduction: genes. In a sense, it was his effort to update Darwinism for the genetic age, but it was also a polemic. He argued that individuals are driven by their "selfish" genes, which are programmed to survive at all costs. In this way, Dawkins shrank the Darwinian argument down to its constituent parts. Instead of focusing on survival of the species, he focused on the self-preserving individual. And the most basic unit of the individual was what Dawkins called "the fundamental unit of heredity," or the gene.
Still, Dawkins wasn't discounting the influence of culture on this genetic affair. Even if we are ruled by genes, we are also guided by culture. And so, toward the end of his book, he takes a go at analyzing culture the way he analyzed individual selection. The most fundamental unit of cultural meaning, he called a "meme." Like a gene, a meme wants to spread and evolve, but it does so at a much faster rate than genes. An idea can mutate an entire culture in less than a generation — and indeed, as if to prove Dawkins's point, the idea of the meme has already done this in our lifetimes.
There are two interesting points that Dawkins makes about memes that are worth considering in light of how "meme" evolved into lolcats. First, he emphasizes very strongly that memes are not subject to the same rules of selection that genes are. A meme does not have to aid in human survival in order for it to replicate. A successful meme is copied from one brain to another, perhaps billions of times over thousands of years, for what Dawkins calls "psychological" reasons. Second, he describes the competition between memes by talking about computers — a pretty prescient move in the mid-1970s when he was writing The Selfish Gene. Memes compete for our attention and memory the way programs compete for valuable time on computers (he was probably thinking of a mainframe, where users would queue up programs to run sequentially, due to the machine's limited processor power).
Can a meme be selfish? Of course. Just look at the "god meme," opines Dawkins, which exists only to perpetuate itself — often by associating with complexes of other successful memes, like popular pieces of art, music, and architecture.
So the meme is unlike genes in many ways, but it shares with them the basic "urge" to be copied, to compete for survival, and to preserve itself by joining up with complexes of other memes.
The Seme Before the Meme
Dawkins was in no way the first person to think about culture in the context of tiny units of meaning that replicate themselves. Linguists had pondered this idea for over a century before Dawkins copied their memes. And in 1970, a few years before The Selfish Gene came out, a philosopher named Roland Barthes published a book called S/Z where he explored the idea of the "seme," or a single unit of semantic meaning. Like Dawkins's meme, Barthes's seme could be a word, a song, or an image. A seme means many things at once; it is inherently unstable, what Barthes calls "a flicker of meaning." For example, a description of a large house (the seme) can mean "wealth" or "loneliness" or "family."
If you analyzed Limecat as a seme, you could say that it means "I am humiliated," "You suck," "This is awkward," "I am all-powerful and regard you as ridiculous," and any number of other possible things. Today's lolcats and animated gifs fit the definition of Barthes's seme as much as Dawkins's meme because they are used in so many situations to mean so many different things. They become a flicker of meaning in our internet conversations, an ambiguous rejoinder to a comment or a vague representation of a feeling.
Barthes's book S/Z offers, in part, a seme-by-seme analysis of a short story by Honoré de Balzac called "Sarassine." He uses the story to demonstrate how semes are inherently unstable, taking on meanings and discarding them. This is crucial to Barthes's whole view of how narrative works. Like many philosophers of his time, Barthes insisted that cultural texts — whether books or sporting events — always have many meanings. This is partly because textual meaning is in the mind of the reader, and it's partly because language itself works by implication and suggestion. There is, in other words, no way to test a book in the lab and find out what its absolute meaning is.
If the meme is the basic unit of culture, I suppose you could say the seme is the basic unit of cultural ambiguity. The seme explains why memes never survive intact. They mean many things at once, or their meanings change over time. The same image is used with a zillion different captions. A pop song becomes a "rickroll." A cat falling off a balcony is something silly, something courageous, something to distract you from boredom. It's all those things.
LOL
So the seme never became a popular meme (except among post-structuralists), but the meme finally took off as a meme once the internet was so ubiquitous that these selfish little units of meaning could replicate and compete for our attention at a rapid clip. In the 1990s, Douglas Rushkoff popularized the idea of a "media virus," which was basically a way of applying memes specifically to internet culture. Shortly after his book Media Virus went viral in 1996, the phrase "going viral" became synonymous with internet memes and how they behave.
But it wasn't really until the 2000s that the internet meme as we know it went mainstream. There were 1990s internet memes, like Goatse and various things on rec.arts.funny, but there was nothing like the organized meme-machine of I Can Haz Cheezburger and the empire that site created. Still, many memes pay homage to their 1990s origins by transmitting themselves through animated gifs, which were a staple of the late-90s "homepage" days on the "World Wide Web."
What memes haven't transmitted is their complicated origin story in 1970s philosophy and science. Many people believe that "meme" refers exclusively to cat pictures or gifs of Tom Cruise jumping all over Oprah's sofa. I suspect that Dawkins would consider this to be the hallmark of a successful meme, which has copied itself into everyone's brain so thoroughly that they don't view it as having a historical or cultural context. Like the god meme that Dawkins has spent most of his life fighting, the meme meme attaches itself to other likable, successful memes like pop songs and animal pictures. And then it replicates by competing successfully for our attention.
Still, it's useful to remember the seme in the meme. The meme has not always been what it is today. It is not always the same thing to everyone. Your limecat is imperious in his Magneto helmet. Mine is resigned and grumpy inside that fucking piece of fruit somebody put on his damn head again.
Memes are not like genes, and they evolve according to rules that we don't yet fully understand. As we think abou the future of this tiny unit of culture, it's worth recalling an extremely science fictional passage from The Selfish Gene:
Though history will probably remember Richard Dawkins as the activist who spearheaded a new atheist movement, there is something far more famous and important that he invented — and few people know it. He is the guy who first popularized the idea of the meme, way back in the 1970s. That's right. Dawkins is indirectly responsible for every fruit-adorned cat, weird Japanese mashup video, and animated gif from Harry Potter fandom that has spurted out of the internet and into your face.But of course, Dawkins's idea of memes wasn't quite the same thing as lolcats or ROFLCon. Here's how the idea of the meme evolved, and where it came from.
The Selfish Meme
Dawkins published The Selfish Gene in 1976. It popularized a new understanding of evolution, looked at from the perspective of the tiniest units of reproduction: genes. In a sense, it was his effort to update Darwinism for the genetic age, but it was also a polemic. He argued that individuals are driven by their "selfish" genes, which are programmed to survive at all costs. In this way, Dawkins shrank the Darwinian argument down to its constituent parts. Instead of focusing on survival of the species, he focused on the self-preserving individual. And the most basic unit of the individual was what Dawkins called "the fundamental unit of heredity," or the gene.
Still, Dawkins wasn't discounting the influence of culture on this genetic affair. Even if we are ruled by genes, we are also guided by culture. And so, toward the end of his book, he takes a go at analyzing culture the way he analyzed individual selection. The most fundamental unit of cultural meaning, he called a "meme." Like a gene, a meme wants to spread and evolve, but it does so at a much faster rate than genes. An idea can mutate an entire culture in less than a generation — and indeed, as if to prove Dawkins's point, the idea of the meme has already done this in our lifetimes.
There are two interesting points that Dawkins makes about memes that are worth considering in light of how "meme" evolved into lolcats. First, he emphasizes very strongly that memes are not subject to the same rules of selection that genes are. A meme does not have to aid in human survival in order for it to replicate. A successful meme is copied from one brain to another, perhaps billions of times over thousands of years, for what Dawkins calls "psychological" reasons. Second, he describes the competition between memes by talking about computers — a pretty prescient move in the mid-1970s when he was writing The Selfish Gene. Memes compete for our attention and memory the way programs compete for valuable time on computers (he was probably thinking of a mainframe, where users would queue up programs to run sequentially, due to the machine's limited processor power).Can a meme be selfish? Of course. Just look at the "god meme," opines Dawkins, which exists only to perpetuate itself — often by associating with complexes of other successful memes, like popular pieces of art, music, and architecture.
So the meme is unlike genes in many ways, but it shares with them the basic "urge" to be copied, to compete for survival, and to preserve itself by joining up with complexes of other memes.
The Seme Before the Meme
Dawkins was in no way the first person to think about culture in the context of tiny units of meaning that replicate themselves. Linguists had pondered this idea for over a century before Dawkins copied their memes. And in 1970, a few years before The Selfish Gene came out, a philosopher named Roland Barthes published a book called S/Z where he explored the idea of the "seme," or a single unit of semantic meaning. Like Dawkins's meme, Barthes's seme could be a word, a song, or an image. A seme means many things at once; it is inherently unstable, what Barthes calls "a flicker of meaning." For example, a description of a large house (the seme) can mean "wealth" or "loneliness" or "family."
If you analyzed Limecat as a seme, you could say that it means "I am humiliated," "You suck," "This is awkward," "I am all-powerful and regard you as ridiculous," and any number of other possible things. Today's lolcats and animated gifs fit the definition of Barthes's seme as much as Dawkins's meme because they are used in so many situations to mean so many different things. They become a flicker of meaning in our internet conversations, an ambiguous rejoinder to a comment or a vague representation of a feeling.Barthes's book S/Z offers, in part, a seme-by-seme analysis of a short story by Honoré de Balzac called "Sarassine." He uses the story to demonstrate how semes are inherently unstable, taking on meanings and discarding them. This is crucial to Barthes's whole view of how narrative works. Like many philosophers of his time, Barthes insisted that cultural texts — whether books or sporting events — always have many meanings. This is partly because textual meaning is in the mind of the reader, and it's partly because language itself works by implication and suggestion. There is, in other words, no way to test a book in the lab and find out what its absolute meaning is.
If the meme is the basic unit of culture, I suppose you could say the seme is the basic unit of cultural ambiguity. The seme explains why memes never survive intact. They mean many things at once, or their meanings change over time. The same image is used with a zillion different captions. A pop song becomes a "rickroll." A cat falling off a balcony is something silly, something courageous, something to distract you from boredom. It's all those things.
LOL
So the seme never became a popular meme (except among post-structuralists), but the meme finally took off as a meme once the internet was so ubiquitous that these selfish little units of meaning could replicate and compete for our attention at a rapid clip. In the 1990s, Douglas Rushkoff popularized the idea of a "media virus," which was basically a way of applying memes specifically to internet culture. Shortly after his book Media Virus went viral in 1996, the phrase "going viral" became synonymous with internet memes and how they behave.
But it wasn't really until the 2000s that the internet meme as we know it went mainstream. There were 1990s internet memes, like Goatse and various things on rec.arts.funny, but there was nothing like the organized meme-machine of I Can Haz Cheezburger and the empire that site created. Still, many memes pay homage to their 1990s origins by transmitting themselves through animated gifs, which were a staple of the late-90s "homepage" days on the "World Wide Web."
What memes haven't transmitted is their complicated origin story in 1970s philosophy and science. Many people believe that "meme" refers exclusively to cat pictures or gifs of Tom Cruise jumping all over Oprah's sofa. I suspect that Dawkins would consider this to be the hallmark of a successful meme, which has copied itself into everyone's brain so thoroughly that they don't view it as having a historical or cultural context. Like the god meme that Dawkins has spent most of his life fighting, the meme meme attaches itself to other likable, successful memes like pop songs and animal pictures. And then it replicates by competing successfully for our attention.
Still, it's useful to remember the seme in the meme. The meme has not always been what it is today. It is not always the same thing to everyone. Your limecat is imperious in his Magneto helmet. Mine is resigned and grumpy inside that fucking piece of fruit somebody put on his damn head again.
Memes are not like genes, and they evolve according to rules that we don't yet fully understand. As we think abou the future of this tiny unit of culture, it's worth recalling an extremely science fictional passage from The Selfish Gene:
Once the genes have provided their survival machines with brains that are capable of rapid imitation, the memes will automatically take over.Think of this sentence as a seme. It could mean that at some point human evolution will transition into rapid, constantly-changing cultural evolution, leaving Darwinian logic behind. Or it could mean that we will one day be preoccupied by nothing but videos of cats flushing toilets. Either way, evolution and consciousness are about to get seriously weird.
Think you can multitask? Congratulations, you're probably living a lie.
Think you can multitask? Congratulations, you're probably living a lie.:
Hey you. Yeah, you. The one reading this while you take a working lunch to bang out some emails and phone your friend, all while scanning your twitter feed. Do you fancy yourself a multitasker? Guess again, hotshot. New research suggests you're living a lie. As it turns out, many people who think they can multitask effectively really, really can't.
According to University of Utah psychologists David Strayer and David Sanbonmatsu, people who identify as strong multitaskers tend to be impulsive, sensation-seeking and overconfident in their ability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously. In fact, note the researchers in the latest issue of PLOS, the people who multitask the most are often the least capable of doing so effectively.
The researchers arrived at their conclusion by asking 310 undergrads to rank their perceptions of their own multitasking skills on a scale ranging from 0 to 100, with a score of 50 being average. Study participants then reported on time spent on their cell phones while driving, and their exposure to various forms of media — everything from magazines to video games to text messaging and email. They were also asked to fill out surveys designed to measure impulsivity and sensation-seeking. Finally, students performed a test known as Operation Span (OSPAN) to gauge their actual multitasking abilities, which involved memorizing a series of letters, each one separated by a simple true or false math problem, like 2+3 = 6?.
A full seventy percent of participants rated themselves as above-average at multitasking. It's a result fans of Garrison Keillor will be quick to find the humor in. "[These people] all think they live in Lake Wobegon, where everybody is above average," said Strayer in a statement. "But it's a statistical impossibility."
What's more, "the people who are most likely to multitask harbor the illusion they are better than average at it," says Strayer, "when in fact they are no better than average and often worse."*
In short: just because you multitask a lot doesn't mean you're good at it. In fact, say the researchers, what you interpret as "multitasking" may actually be a symptom of an inability to focus on one task at a time, causing you to become distracted, or seek stimulation in some other activity. The study's findings corroborate this, revealing that the more time someone spends on their phone while driving, or using multiple forms of media simultaneously, the more likely they are to perform poorly on a standardized test of multitasking abilities.
But here's what's really ironic: the test subjects who performed best on the OSPAN multitasking test — we're talking the top 25% here — were found to be the ones least likely to multitask, and most likely to just do one thing at a time. Many of the world's best multitaskers are squandering their gift, and they probably don't even know it.
The study is published in the latest issue of PLOS.
*This is actually a well-documented psychological phenomena. Research shows that the majority of people perceive themselves to be more attractive than average, better drivers than average, and better leaders than average, when the fact is that most people are, well, average.
Top image via Shutterstock
Hey you. Yeah, you. The one reading this while you take a working lunch to bang out some emails and phone your friend, all while scanning your twitter feed. Do you fancy yourself a multitasker? Guess again, hotshot. New research suggests you're living a lie. As it turns out, many people who think they can multitask effectively really, really can't. According to University of Utah psychologists David Strayer and David Sanbonmatsu, people who identify as strong multitaskers tend to be impulsive, sensation-seeking and overconfident in their ability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously. In fact, note the researchers in the latest issue of PLOS, the people who multitask the most are often the least capable of doing so effectively.
The researchers arrived at their conclusion by asking 310 undergrads to rank their perceptions of their own multitasking skills on a scale ranging from 0 to 100, with a score of 50 being average. Study participants then reported on time spent on their cell phones while driving, and their exposure to various forms of media — everything from magazines to video games to text messaging and email. They were also asked to fill out surveys designed to measure impulsivity and sensation-seeking. Finally, students performed a test known as Operation Span (OSPAN) to gauge their actual multitasking abilities, which involved memorizing a series of letters, each one separated by a simple true or false math problem, like 2+3 = 6?.
A full seventy percent of participants rated themselves as above-average at multitasking. It's a result fans of Garrison Keillor will be quick to find the humor in. "[These people] all think they live in Lake Wobegon, where everybody is above average," said Strayer in a statement. "But it's a statistical impossibility."
What's more, "the people who are most likely to multitask harbor the illusion they are better than average at it," says Strayer, "when in fact they are no better than average and often worse."*
In short: just because you multitask a lot doesn't mean you're good at it. In fact, say the researchers, what you interpret as "multitasking" may actually be a symptom of an inability to focus on one task at a time, causing you to become distracted, or seek stimulation in some other activity. The study's findings corroborate this, revealing that the more time someone spends on their phone while driving, or using multiple forms of media simultaneously, the more likely they are to perform poorly on a standardized test of multitasking abilities.
But here's what's really ironic: the test subjects who performed best on the OSPAN multitasking test — we're talking the top 25% here — were found to be the ones least likely to multitask, and most likely to just do one thing at a time. Many of the world's best multitaskers are squandering their gift, and they probably don't even know it.
The study is published in the latest issue of PLOS.
*This is actually a well-documented psychological phenomena. Research shows that the majority of people perceive themselves to be more attractive than average, better drivers than average, and better leaders than average, when the fact is that most people are, well, average.
Top image via ShutterstockWednesday 23 January 2013
Fin: THQ Sells Off Most Studios, Basically Done
Glad Relic seem to have ended up in a safe place, but still. Sad day :(
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RockPaperShotgun/~3/ciME3ThCK0Y/
New Ultramarines trailer promises the Warhammer 40K movie is finally hitting the ground
Erm...This came out ages ago. And was awful :(
New Ultramarines trailer promises the Warhammer 40K movie is finally hitting the ground:
Ultramarines, the CG Warhammer 40K movie, was supposed to come to Blu-ray and DVD back in 2010. It didn't. But if you've been patiently waiting for your chance to see the Ultima Squad fight the Black Legion Chaos Space Marines — or even if that sentence makes any sense to you — good news, as Anchor Bay has announced they're finally releasing the damn thing on March 5. It will include "over 45 minutes of bonus features including Into The Void: Making of Ultramarines™, Between Chaos & Darkness: The World Of The Space Marines, Creating the Daemon and a cool Ultramarines™ 'prequel animated onscreen graphic novel," so... it's just about Warhammer time, I guess. You can pre-order the movie here. Question: Why hasn't there been a nerdcore rapper named MC Warhammer yet? Seems like a real wasted opportunity to me.
New Ultramarines trailer promises the Warhammer 40K movie is finally hitting the ground:
Ultramarines, the CG Warhammer 40K movie, was supposed to come to Blu-ray and DVD back in 2010. It didn't. But if you've been patiently waiting for your chance to see the Ultima Squad fight the Black Legion Chaos Space Marines — or even if that sentence makes any sense to you — good news, as Anchor Bay has announced they're finally releasing the damn thing on March 5. It will include "over 45 minutes of bonus features including Into The Void: Making of Ultramarines™, Between Chaos & Darkness: The World Of The Space Marines, Creating the Daemon and a cool Ultramarines™ 'prequel animated onscreen graphic novel," so... it's just about Warhammer time, I guess. You can pre-order the movie here. Question: Why hasn't there been a nerdcore rapper named MC Warhammer yet? Seems like a real wasted opportunity to me.
American McGee retracts EA marketing claims
lol
American McGee retracts EA marketing claims: "It attracted a few pissed messages from EA"
American McGee retracts EA marketing claims: "It attracted a few pissed messages from EA"
"FireFly" spaceships to begin exploring asteroids in 2015
"FireFly" spaceships to begin exploring asteroids in 2015:
Asteroid-mining company Deep Space Industries has just announced plans to launch a fleet of "FireFly" spacecraft as soon as 2015. Their mission? Find asteroids, rich with valuable metals, that could aid in humanity's colonization of space.
"Using resources harvested in space is the only way to afford permanent space development," said Deep Space CEO David Gump in a statement. Gump continues:
In any case, the FireFlies, specifically, will be made of economical "cubesat" components, weigh in at around 55 pounds each, and look something like this artist's concept:
The FireFly will act like a scout, seeking out promising space rock and paving the way for the company's 70-pound Dragonfly spacecraft, which will return asteroid samples to Earth on missions set to launch some time in 2016 and last between two and four years. In the concept art featured below, a Dragonfly samples from a prospective asteroid.
If all goes according to plan, Deep Space hopes to be harvesting water and metals within the decade, employing harvesting and fuel-processing spacecraft, like the ones conceptualized below, to do it. There's even a "settlement concept" spacecraft, pictured at the top of the post.
Can Deep Space actually pull this off? That remains to be seen. Unlike Planetary Resources — the only other major player in the brand new space-mining industry, which launched in April 2012 with big-money backers like Google and James Cameron — Deep Space Industries is a commercial space venture, which could be risky. But the company's business model also sounds like it could leave plenty of room for public involvement, which we're all about:
"The public will participate in FireFly and DragonFly missions via live feeds from Mission Control, online courses in asteroid mining sponsored by corporate marketers and other innovative ways to open the doors wide," explained Gump.
"The Google Lunar X Prize, Unilever and Red Bull each are spending tens of millions of dollars on space sponsorships, so the opportunity to sponsor a FireFly expedition into deep space will be enticing."
[Deep Space Industries]
Asteroid-mining company Deep Space Industries has just announced plans to launch a fleet of "FireFly" spacecraft as soon as 2015. Their mission? Find asteroids, rich with valuable metals, that could aid in humanity's colonization of space. "Using resources harvested in space is the only way to afford permanent space development," said Deep Space CEO David Gump in a statement. Gump continues:
More than 900 new asteroids that pass near Earth are discovered every year. They can be like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century - a key resource located near where it was needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is our strategy.According to Deep Space, the FireFly will be the first in a diverse lineup of spacecraft designed to prospect for, harvest, and process water and rare earth metals from near-Earth asteroids. It's unclear whether the moniker "FireFly" is a direct nod to Whedon's space western or not, but the filename for the FireFly concept art provided by Deep Space reads "archimedes," not "firefly," so we're willing to speculate that someone in marketing had the bright idea to go and re-name it something a little more grabby at the last minute.
In any case, the FireFlies, specifically, will be made of economical "cubesat" components, weigh in at around 55 pounds each, and look something like this artist's concept:
The FireFly will act like a scout, seeking out promising space rock and paving the way for the company's 70-pound Dragonfly spacecraft, which will return asteroid samples to Earth on missions set to launch some time in 2016 and last between two and four years. In the concept art featured below, a Dragonfly samples from a prospective asteroid.
If all goes according to plan, Deep Space hopes to be harvesting water and metals within the decade, employing harvesting and fuel-processing spacecraft, like the ones conceptualized below, to do it. There's even a "settlement concept" spacecraft, pictured at the top of the post.
Can Deep Space actually pull this off? That remains to be seen. Unlike Planetary Resources — the only other major player in the brand new space-mining industry, which launched in April 2012 with big-money backers like Google and James Cameron — Deep Space Industries is a commercial space venture, which could be risky. But the company's business model also sounds like it could leave plenty of room for public involvement, which we're all about:"The public will participate in FireFly and DragonFly missions via live feeds from Mission Control, online courses in asteroid mining sponsored by corporate marketers and other innovative ways to open the doors wide," explained Gump.
"The Google Lunar X Prize, Unilever and Red Bull each are spending tens of millions of dollars on space sponsorships, so the opportunity to sponsor a FireFly expedition into deep space will be enticing."
[Deep Space Industries]
Game of Thrones' Tywin Lannister reads 50 Shades of Gray for your sexy, sexy pleasure
This is hilarious, also that book does sound like the awful fanfic it apparently started as. Why the fuck is everybody reading it?
Game of Thrones' Tywin Lannister reads 50 Shades of Gray for your sexy, sexy pleasure:
The Starks might hate Tywin Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones, but they'd still have to admit he has a sweet set of pipes. Tywin is played by the actor Charles Dance in the fantasy drama, one of those elder British actors who jist exude dignity and gravitas with every single syllable, so of course the British game show Big Fat Quiz had him do a brief reading of 50 Shades of Gray. Honestly, you haven't lived until you've heard Tywin Lannister say "kinky fuckery" about 18 times in a row.
Dance joins such luminaries as Will Ferrell, Zach Galifinakis, George Takei, Duke Nukem, and a Morgan Freeman impersonator to narrate the best-selling former Twilight erotic fan fiction.
[Via Uproxx]
Game of Thrones' Tywin Lannister reads 50 Shades of Gray for your sexy, sexy pleasure:
The Starks might hate Tywin Lannister in HBO's Game of Thrones, but they'd still have to admit he has a sweet set of pipes. Tywin is played by the actor Charles Dance in the fantasy drama, one of those elder British actors who jist exude dignity and gravitas with every single syllable, so of course the British game show Big Fat Quiz had him do a brief reading of 50 Shades of Gray. Honestly, you haven't lived until you've heard Tywin Lannister say "kinky fuckery" about 18 times in a row.
Dance joins such luminaries as Will Ferrell, Zach Galifinakis, George Takei, Duke Nukem, and a Morgan Freeman impersonator to narrate the best-selling former Twilight erotic fan fiction.
[Via Uproxx]
First Details About Black Mirror Season 2!
Can't wait for this, season 1 was amazing.
First Details About Black Mirror Season 2!:
The first three episodes of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror were among the coolest television I've ever watched, and images and ideas from those three one-hour playlets often pop into my head at inopportune moments. So there's no way to overstate my excitement for the second batch of three episodes, coming sometime soon.
Britain's answer to the TV Guide, the Radio Times, has just revealed the first details about these three new dramas, which sound just as bonkers and unnerving as the original three. Here's what to expect:
Be Right Back: Hayley Atwell plays Martha, whose boyfriend Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) is a "social media addict." They decide to move to a cottage in the middle of nowhere, but then Ash is killed returning the moving van. At the funeral, Martha's friend Sarah (Sinead Matthews) tells her that they can create a real-seeming version of Ash out of all his previous social media updates. At first, Martha is grossed out, but eventually she goes along with it — and then she discovers she's pregnant. And she decides to write back to one of the emails she's gotten from the artificial, posthumous version of Ash.
The Waldo Moment: A failed comedian named Jamie (Daniel Rigby) is the voice of a blue bear named Waldo who interviews celebrities and politicians on television, ostensibly as a children's show — but actually, it's for a late night comedy program. Waldo the Bear becomes popular enough to get his own TV pilot — and then a producer comes up with the idea of having Waldo run for Parliament against one of the politicians he's targeted. At a debate, the Conservative politician taunts Jamie, who responds that Waldo the Bear is less artificial than most actual politicians. This rant becomes a YouTube sensation, and soon there's a distinct possibility that a big blue bear could win a Parliamentary seat.
White Bear: On the face of it, this sounds like your garden-variety post-apocalyptic scenario, but there's probably more to it than meets the eye. Toni (Being Human's Lenora Crichlow) wakes up with amnesia in a house she doesn't recognize. And when she goes outside, everyone is filming her with their smartphones. Except for one guy, who points a gun at her and tries to kill her. She meets up with two people, Damien (Ian Bonar) and Jem (Tuppence Middleton), and they hide in a gas station. Toni learns this has been going on for months — a mysterious signal has turned most people into "mindless voyeurs," while a few people who can resist the signal do whatever they want... including hunting people like Toni, Jem and Damien to the death. Toni decides to try and find the source of the signal, so she can disable it before she's murdered.
Oh, and there's a great quote from Brooker, who describes Black Mirror as being about "the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes' time if we're clumsy."
[via The Radio Times]
First Details About Black Mirror Season 2!:
The first three episodes of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror were among the coolest television I've ever watched, and images and ideas from those three one-hour playlets often pop into my head at inopportune moments. So there's no way to overstate my excitement for the second batch of three episodes, coming sometime soon.Britain's answer to the TV Guide, the Radio Times, has just revealed the first details about these three new dramas, which sound just as bonkers and unnerving as the original three. Here's what to expect:
Be Right Back: Hayley Atwell plays Martha, whose boyfriend Ash (Domhnall Gleeson) is a "social media addict." They decide to move to a cottage in the middle of nowhere, but then Ash is killed returning the moving van. At the funeral, Martha's friend Sarah (Sinead Matthews) tells her that they can create a real-seeming version of Ash out of all his previous social media updates. At first, Martha is grossed out, but eventually she goes along with it — and then she discovers she's pregnant. And she decides to write back to one of the emails she's gotten from the artificial, posthumous version of Ash.
The Waldo Moment: A failed comedian named Jamie (Daniel Rigby) is the voice of a blue bear named Waldo who interviews celebrities and politicians on television, ostensibly as a children's show — but actually, it's for a late night comedy program. Waldo the Bear becomes popular enough to get his own TV pilot — and then a producer comes up with the idea of having Waldo run for Parliament against one of the politicians he's targeted. At a debate, the Conservative politician taunts Jamie, who responds that Waldo the Bear is less artificial than most actual politicians. This rant becomes a YouTube sensation, and soon there's a distinct possibility that a big blue bear could win a Parliamentary seat.
White Bear: On the face of it, this sounds like your garden-variety post-apocalyptic scenario, but there's probably more to it than meets the eye. Toni (Being Human's Lenora Crichlow) wakes up with amnesia in a house she doesn't recognize. And when she goes outside, everyone is filming her with their smartphones. Except for one guy, who points a gun at her and tries to kill her. She meets up with two people, Damien (Ian Bonar) and Jem (Tuppence Middleton), and they hide in a gas station. Toni learns this has been going on for months — a mysterious signal has turned most people into "mindless voyeurs," while a few people who can resist the signal do whatever they want... including hunting people like Toni, Jem and Damien to the death. Toni decides to try and find the source of the signal, so she can disable it before she's murdered.
Oh, and there's a great quote from Brooker, who describes Black Mirror as being about "the way we live now – and the way we might be living in 10 minutes' time if we're clumsy."
[via The Radio Times]
I can't stop watching these private feeds from insecure webcams
I can't stop watching these private feeds from insecure webcams:
Over a year ago, computer security experts revealed that a popular webcam manufactured by TRENDnet wasn't exactly secure. Because these cams are controlled via the web, it's relatively easy to track down their IP addresses and peek through them. Though TRENDnet released a patch that was supposed to fix the problem, many consumers didn't download it. And now, a group called TRENDnetExposed has created a handy web interface that allows you to see all the insecure devices on a Google map, click them, and instantly peek into hundreds of stores, homes, offices, and other places where TRENDnet cams are installed.
I just spent several minutes watching people shop in a convenience store in Argentina, then watched people buying pizza in southern California, and finally checked out a woman tallying up receipts in a Romanian office. I snapped a picture (above) of somebody's living room at the border of Utah and Idaho. As the Verge's Amar Toor points out, it's creepy but mesmerizing. The point of the TRENDnet map is to alert owners of the cameras to download the patch that will prevent people from creeping on their cams — a link to the patch is displayed prominently at the top of the page.
If you have a TRENDnet cam, download that patch.
UPDATE: Due to your privacy concerns, I have removed all links to the TRENDnet Exposed map.
Over a year ago, computer security experts revealed that a popular webcam manufactured by TRENDnet wasn't exactly secure. Because these cams are controlled via the web, it's relatively easy to track down their IP addresses and peek through them. Though TRENDnet released a patch that was supposed to fix the problem, many consumers didn't download it. And now, a group called TRENDnetExposed has created a handy web interface that allows you to see all the insecure devices on a Google map, click them, and instantly peek into hundreds of stores, homes, offices, and other places where TRENDnet cams are installed.I just spent several minutes watching people shop in a convenience store in Argentina, then watched people buying pizza in southern California, and finally checked out a woman tallying up receipts in a Romanian office. I snapped a picture (above) of somebody's living room at the border of Utah and Idaho. As the Verge's Amar Toor points out, it's creepy but mesmerizing. The point of the TRENDnet map is to alert owners of the cameras to download the patch that will prevent people from creeping on their cams — a link to the patch is displayed prominently at the top of the page.
If you have a TRENDnet cam, download that patch.
UPDATE: Due to your privacy concerns, I have removed all links to the TRENDnet Exposed map.
Tuesday 22 January 2013
Pay As You Churn: Dead Space 3′s Microtransactions
Urgh.
Pay As You Churn: Dead Space 3′s Microtransactions:
Remember how in the previous Dead Space games, the only way to buy new weapons, armour, ammo and medkits was to stomp on the gooey remains of malformed mutants and catch the credits that they had stashed in their internal organs? Those were the good old days. Eurogamer spotted a “downloadable content” pop-up during Dead Space 3′s all-new crafting sections and the game’s associate producer, Yara Khoury, has now confirmed to our EG chums that it will be possible to pay real money to improve weaponry:
(more…)
Pay As You Churn: Dead Space 3′s Microtransactions:
Remember how in the previous Dead Space games, the only way to buy new weapons, armour, ammo and medkits was to stomp on the gooey remains of malformed mutants and catch the credits that they had stashed in their internal organs? Those were the good old days. Eurogamer spotted a “downloadable content” pop-up during Dead Space 3′s all-new crafting sections and the game’s associate producer, Yara Khoury, has now confirmed to our EG chums that it will be possible to pay real money to improve weaponry:
“You can buy resources with real money, but scavenger bots can also give you the currency that you can use on the marketplace. So you don’t have to spend [real world] dollars.”The answer to the question, “Please, sir, can I have some Ishi-more-a?”, is “Yes, but keep your credit card handy.”
(more…)
SimCity beta’s EULA contains EA wide ban clause for unreported bugs
SimCity beta’s EULA contains EA wide ban clause for unreported bugs:
EA’s overzealous lawyers are at it again! Did you sign up for the upcoming SimCity beta? If so, did you read its giant EULA? Every last dry, boring, legally-binding word of it? No, me neither. Fortunately, SideQuesting spotted a tweet from Twisted Pixel’s Dan Teasdale, pointing out a clause in the agreement that could result in a full EA ban for not reporting bugs.
Section 6.2 of the SimCity beta EULA states:
“It is understood and agreed that, as part of your participation in the Beta Program, it is your responsibility to report all known bugs, abuse of ‘bugs’, ‘undocumented features’ or other defects and problems related to the Game and Beta Software to EA as soon as they are found (“Bugs”). If you know about a Bug or have heard about a Bug and fail to report the Bug to EA, we reserve the right to treat you no differently from someone who abuses the Bug. You acknowledge that EA reserve the right to lock anyone caught abusing a Bug out of all EA products.”
Essentially: If you know or have heard of a bug, but don’t report it, EA can treat that as “abusing” the bug. EA can ban people who abuse bugs. Therefore, EA can ban people who know or have heard of a bug.
It’s important to note that that’s “can” and not “will”. Similarly mad EULA powers were agreed to for the Battlefield 3 beta, but no-one was banned for a missing bug report. For one thing, it’s got to be a nightmare to enforce. “I’m sorry, sir, but our records indicate you overheard details of a crash-to-desktop while out shopping. Now you can’t play Mass Effect 3.”
But while the clause is openly ridiculous beta back-covering, and unlikely to result in any action being taken, it’s absurd that the option is even on the table. Sure, beta tests should be about bug reports and game testing, but that’s rarely how they’re promoted by large publishers. That’s certainly true of SimCity’s beta – essentially an exclusive timed demo that doubles up as an online-server stress test
Thanks, BluesNews.
EA’s overzealous lawyers are at it again! Did you sign up for the upcoming SimCity beta? If so, did you read its giant EULA? Every last dry, boring, legally-binding word of it? No, me neither. Fortunately, SideQuesting spotted a tweet from Twisted Pixel’s Dan Teasdale, pointing out a clause in the agreement that could result in a full EA ban for not reporting bugs.
Section 6.2 of the SimCity beta EULA states:
“It is understood and agreed that, as part of your participation in the Beta Program, it is your responsibility to report all known bugs, abuse of ‘bugs’, ‘undocumented features’ or other defects and problems related to the Game and Beta Software to EA as soon as they are found (“Bugs”). If you know about a Bug or have heard about a Bug and fail to report the Bug to EA, we reserve the right to treat you no differently from someone who abuses the Bug. You acknowledge that EA reserve the right to lock anyone caught abusing a Bug out of all EA products.”
Essentially: If you know or have heard of a bug, but don’t report it, EA can treat that as “abusing” the bug. EA can ban people who abuse bugs. Therefore, EA can ban people who know or have heard of a bug.
It’s important to note that that’s “can” and not “will”. Similarly mad EULA powers were agreed to for the Battlefield 3 beta, but no-one was banned for a missing bug report. For one thing, it’s got to be a nightmare to enforce. “I’m sorry, sir, but our records indicate you overheard details of a crash-to-desktop while out shopping. Now you can’t play Mass Effect 3.”
But while the clause is openly ridiculous beta back-covering, and unlikely to result in any action being taken, it’s absurd that the option is even on the table. Sure, beta tests should be about bug reports and game testing, but that’s rarely how they’re promoted by large publishers. That’s certainly true of SimCity’s beta – essentially an exclusive timed demo that doubles up as an online-server stress test
Thanks, BluesNews.
| |
Hirai: Why go first with next-gen?
"Why go first, when your competitors can look at your specifications and come up with something better?"
Oooh, I know this one. It's because your competitors can already read the specs on the internet so it's irrelevant. Do I win?
Hirai: Why go first with next-gen?: Sony president is waiting for Microsoft to make the first move
Oooh, I know this one. It's because your competitors can already read the specs on the internet so it's irrelevant. Do I win?
Hirai: Why go first with next-gen?: Sony president is waiting for Microsoft to make the first move
Monday 21 January 2013
Gas Powered: "Kickstarter has become about saving a company"
People who were laid off, but are still going to work. They must REALLY like working there.
Gas Powered: "Kickstarter has become about saving a company": Laid off employees start work on Wildman at troubled studio
Gas Powered: "Kickstarter has become about saving a company": Laid off employees start work on Wildman at troubled studio
Ninja Theory secures UK #1 with DMC reboot
'grats Earl :)
Ninja Theory secures UK #1 with DMC reboot: First UK top spot for Capcom since Resident Evil 5 in 2009
Ninja Theory secures UK #1 with DMC reboot: First UK top spot for Capcom since Resident Evil 5 in 2009
Sunday 20 January 2013
The Panasonic Toughpad Press Conference - LOOK, ROBOT
Can't decide if this is funny, or if this guy is just a dick...
http://lookrobot.co.uk/2013/01/14/the-panasonic-toughpad-press-conference/
24 Places That Look Not Normal, But Are Actually Real | MyScienceAcademy
Damnit, I've seen that photo of the Stockholm metro before, but forgot about it when I was there. Don't know which station it is :(
http://myscienceacademy.org/2013/01/14/25-places-that-look-not-normal-but-are-actually-real/
Saturday 19 January 2013
Friday 18 January 2013
The Brass Teapot stars a magical Jewish teapot that spits money when you hurt yourself
The Brass Teapot stars a magical Jewish teapot that spits money when you hurt yourself:
Move over everything else coming out in 2013, the first trailer for the ridiculous movie The Brass Teapot just charmed the pants off of us. The film, which was lensed by music director Ramaa Mosley, was discovered after the director started googling "best short story," and came across Tim Macy's teapot tale. The story centers around the little known story about the Brass Teapot. According to religious folk lore, the brass teapot is made in part from the blood money paid in silver to Judas for the treason of Jesus, thus giving it magical powers. Specifically, the power to spew out money every time the Brass Teapot's owner injure themselves.
The short became a comic which then became this movie, and here is the very first trailer starring Juno Temple and Michael Angarano. Enjoy — we certainly did.
Here's the official synopsis:
Move over everything else coming out in 2013, the first trailer for the ridiculous movie The Brass Teapot just charmed the pants off of us. The film, which was lensed by music director Ramaa Mosley, was discovered after the director started googling "best short story," and came across Tim Macy's teapot tale. The story centers around the little known story about the Brass Teapot. According to religious folk lore, the brass teapot is made in part from the blood money paid in silver to Judas for the treason of Jesus, thus giving it magical powers. Specifically, the power to spew out money every time the Brass Teapot's owner injure themselves.
The short became a comic which then became this movie, and here is the very first trailer starring Juno Temple and Michael Angarano. Enjoy — we certainly did.
Here's the official synopsis:
Based on the comic book, THE BRASS TEAPOT is a feature film about John and Alice who live in small town America - 20s, married, very much in love, and broke. Once voted "Most Likely to Succeed," Alice struggles to make ends meet while her friends enjoy the good life. Her husband John, neurotic and riddled with phobias, just wants to get the bills paid. But an accident leads them to a roadside antique shop where Alice is spontaneously drawn to a mysterious brass teapot. It isn't long before they realize that this is no ordinary teapot and that perhaps they have found the answer to all of their financial woes… THE BRASS TEAPOT is a magical comedy that reminds us to be careful what we wish for.
Thursday 17 January 2013
The hidden bus routes in San Francisco that are only for techno-elites
The hidden bus routes in San Francisco that are only for techno-elites:
Last year, design firm Stamen got a grant to create an art project based on the bus routes that people in San Francisco take to commute the 30-50 miles south to Silicon Valley. (Click image to enlarge.) Though they take busses, none of these workers take public transit. Their companies, such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and others, run private bus lines through many unmarked stops in the city, before heading straight to the high tech campuses where wealthy San Franciscans work.
Companies do not publicize these bus lines, and indeed these companies actively discourage people from finding out about them. Undoubtedly, they fear that ordinary people who just want to get around in San Francisco will mistake them for public transit and try to pay a couple of bucks take one of the many empty seats.
In a fascinating post about how they created these maps, Stamen's staff explain:
Still, it's also easy to see how these buses presage an urban future where public transit systems are divided into techno-elites and have-nots. Many techno-elite buses make several stops within San Francisco, and there's no good reason why they shouldn't allow ordinary city-dwellers to hop on and get downtown when the actual public transit system is so slow and infrequent. Standing at a typical bus stop in my neighborhood, where several techno-elite buses drop off at the same spot where the have-not buses do, it's viscerally obvious that the city's class divide is widening. At rush hour, 5 people trickle out of the gleaming white bus with their laptops nestled in crisp Google-branded Timbuk2 bags, while 40 harried people stream out of the battered MUNI rig.
Maybe these maps can help some of those have-not commuters demand a ride next time the Facebook bus stops at its no-longer-secret place. Or maybe they really are just maps of the future city, where rich people don't even have to ride on the same buses with the people who sell them shoes, teach their children in school, and take out their trash.
Read more about how Stamen made these maps on their website.
Last year, design firm Stamen got a grant to create an art project based on the bus routes that people in San Francisco take to commute the 30-50 miles south to Silicon Valley. (Click image to enlarge.) Though they take busses, none of these workers take public transit. Their companies, such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and others, run private bus lines through many unmarked stops in the city, before heading straight to the high tech campuses where wealthy San Franciscans work.Companies do not publicize these bus lines, and indeed these companies actively discourage people from finding out about them. Undoubtedly, they fear that ordinary people who just want to get around in San Francisco will mistake them for public transit and try to pay a couple of bucks take one of the many empty seats.
In a fascinating post about how they created these maps, Stamen's staff explain:
We decided to try some dedicated observation. We sat at 18th & Dolores one morning, and counted shuttles. We counted a new shuttle every five minutes or so; several different companies, high frequency. We also researched online sources like Foursquare to look for shuttle movements, and a 2011 San Francisco city report helped fill in gaps and establish basic routes . . . We enlisted people to go to stops, measure traffic and count people getting off and on and we hired bike messengers to see where the buses went . . . Google alone makes 150 trips daily, all over the city . . .These buses are not subtle; anyone who has spent time in the city has seen these hulking, white buses with tinted windows, aircon, and wifi. Sometimes they are even double-decker. And there are many more lines not included on this map, such as the ones that go to Genentech. Of course, these buses are better in every measurable way than using a car to commute to Silicon Valley. They save on emissions, prevent traffic and parking snarls, and allow commuters to do work (or sleep) during the hour-long ride.
We wanted to simplify that, to start thinking about it as a system rather than a bunch of buses, so we began paring down the number of stops by grouping clusters where the stops were close to each other. The subway map is the end result of that simplification; it's not a literal representation, but it's much more readable than the actual routes. We also wanted to show the relative volumes, so the map segments are scaled by how many trips pass through them; you get a sense for just how much traffic the highways get, and how the routes branch out from there to cover the city. We only mapped San Francisco shuttles, many of these companies operate additional routes in East Bay, the Peninsula, and around San Jose, including direct routes from Caltrain stations to corporate campuses.
Still, it's also easy to see how these buses presage an urban future where public transit systems are divided into techno-elites and have-nots. Many techno-elite buses make several stops within San Francisco, and there's no good reason why they shouldn't allow ordinary city-dwellers to hop on and get downtown when the actual public transit system is so slow and infrequent. Standing at a typical bus stop in my neighborhood, where several techno-elite buses drop off at the same spot where the have-not buses do, it's viscerally obvious that the city's class divide is widening. At rush hour, 5 people trickle out of the gleaming white bus with their laptops nestled in crisp Google-branded Timbuk2 bags, while 40 harried people stream out of the battered MUNI rig.
Maybe these maps can help some of those have-not commuters demand a ride next time the Facebook bus stops at its no-longer-secret place. Or maybe they really are just maps of the future city, where rich people don't even have to ride on the same buses with the people who sell them shoes, teach their children in school, and take out their trash.
Read more about how Stamen made these maps on their website.
That time travel movie that started on Reddit is really getting made!
That time travel movie that started on Reddit is really getting made!:
Rome Sweet Rome, the story about a gaggle of U.S. Marines who find themselves transported back in time and pitted against the might of Rome, started out as a question on Reddit: "Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?" This question sparked James Erwin's story and garnered a crap load of readers.
As we reported back in 2011, the furor caught the eye of Warner Bros., and eventually the studio snapped up the story idea. And now, the studio has announced via Variety that Apollo 18 screenwriter Brian Miller has been hired to rework Erwin's original screenplay. Which means this may actually become a movie! According to Variety, the Marines have been swapped out with US Special Forces, and the studio is tagging it as 300 meets Black Hawk Down.
Read the original Rome, Sweet Rome saga over on Reddit.
Image via Prufrock451.
Rome Sweet Rome, the story about a gaggle of U.S. Marines who find themselves transported back in time and pitted against the might of Rome, started out as a question on Reddit: "Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?" This question sparked James Erwin's story and garnered a crap load of readers.As we reported back in 2011, the furor caught the eye of Warner Bros., and eventually the studio snapped up the story idea. And now, the studio has announced via Variety that Apollo 18 screenwriter Brian Miller has been hired to rework Erwin's original screenplay. Which means this may actually become a movie! According to Variety, the Marines have been swapped out with US Special Forces, and the studio is tagging it as 300 meets Black Hawk Down.
Read the original Rome, Sweet Rome saga over on Reddit.
Image via Prufrock451.
The Greatest Magic: The Gathering Art of All Time
The Greatest Magic: The Gathering Art of All Time:
Magic: the Gathering has been around for 20 years, and an integral part of the game's popularity has always been the art that appears on each card. Check out this greatest hits gallery of Magic art through the years.
I asked other Magic fans for their personal favorite pieces of Magic art, and picked some of my own, plus some that are iconic or perfect examples of Magic's evolving art style. Special thanks to Wizards of the Coasts' PR team and their art department for helping me track down hi-res versions of many of these works. Click any image to enlarge.
Perhaps the most iconic card in Magic history is Black Lotus (above), which today sells for $3,000 to $5,000. The original art by Christopher Rush may be instantly recognizable, but it's a bit bland. When Wizards of the Coast introduced a collection of older, powerful cards to the online version of Magic in 2012 (for a special draft format called Cube), they commissioned new art for Black Lotus. The velvety black petals and the corpses of fallen foes by Chris Rahn really does the original justice.
Damnation - Kev Walker
There are a lot of Magic cards that destroy things en masse, and a lot of ways to depict that. Damnation's sucking black void is the most unnerving to look at, though.
Bitterblossom - Rebecca Guay
This card with a seemingly subtle effect (it gives you a small flying creature each turn at the cost of 1 life point) fueled a monstrously successful faerie-themed tournament deck in its heyday. Rebecca Guay's art reminds us that Magic isn't all about massive warriors and gruesome beasts. It can be beautiful, too.
Dakkon Blackblade - Richard Kane Ferguson
Ferguson has a very distinctive style that appears to be watercolor, here depicting a prototypical bad-ass, gritty warrior.
Commander's Authority - Johannes Voss
Voss' use of light in this image is amazing.
Forest (Unhinged) - John Avon
For their "joke" sets, Unglued and Unhinged, Wizards ordered special full-card art for the basic lands. Those lands, including this one by John Avon, look so good they've become collector's items. Your EDH deck isn't truly pimped out until you have all Unhinged lands in it.
Akroma, Angel of Wrath - Chippy
One of Magic's classic creature types is the angel. They've appeared in many incarnations, some more demurely dressed than others. I like this version of Akroma both due to Chippy's use of light glowing through her wings and the determined expression on her face, which clearly says, "Just because I'm an angel doesn't mean I'm not a bad-ass."
Elspeth Tirel - Michael Komarck
Elspeth is a planeswalker, one of the most powerful beings in Magic's mythology. This is not only an example of the hyperdetailed pseudo-realism that is the de facto art style for Magic in recent years, but it also shows that Magic sometimes defies fantasy art cliches when it comes to depicting female characters.
Endless Ranks of the Dead - Ryan Yee
There are plenty of ways to depict a zombie horde, but subtly showing them pressed against the other side of a beautifully lit pane of stained glass is probably the best way. Brilliant idea brilliantly executed.
Evacuation - Franz Vohwinkel
Another example of "pseudo-realism" (by which I mean impossible things depicted realistically). Here, a wizard clears a game board of the pieces, which is exactly what the card does in the game.
Forest (Ravnica) - Stephan Martiniere
Some of the best art appears on basic lands, like this Forest from the Ravnica expansion. How do you depict a forest that's actually in a city? Martiniere pulls it off with moody, dramatic lighting and an eye for architecture.
Island - Stephan Martiniere
Another stunning basic land from Martiniere. The level of detail is mind-blowing.
Memory Jar - Donato Giancola
I love this art because it shows how amazing abstraction can be. In this case, it was necessary because the card itself does something somewhat abstract and confusing within the game (both players set their hands aside and draw new hands that they can only use until the end of the turn).
Hurloon Minotaur - Anson Maddocks
Magic art has advanced pretty far since this image was created, but for many years this was the image that Wizards used to represent Magic. I give Maddocks credit for creating an original and unique interpretation of a basic fantasy creature.
Natural Order - Terese Nielsen
Nielsen is one of my favorite Magic artists, and this card shows why.
Path to Exile (Friday Night Magic promo) - Rebecca Guay
For this promo card, Guay not only created a beautiful image, she captured both the card's flavor (it removes a creature from the game instead of killing it) and allusions to fantasy stories and folk tales.
Street Wraith - Cyril Van Der Haegen
This card was suggested to me for this list, and on closer inspection, it's quite amazing. The transition from the eerie green flames at the top to the shadowy tentacles at the bottom is perfectly done.
Baleful Strix - Nils Hamm
This biomechanical owl and the abstract scenery surrounding it are, quite simply, beautiful.
Kargan Dragonlord - Jason Chan
If you find a better shot that shows off the power and majesty of a dragon than this one, let me know. Bonus points for a dude riding the dragon and wearing a skull mask.
Lotus Cobra - Chippy
This one might look better within the context of the card itself (the green border adds necessary contrast), but it's an interesting piece of art on its own as well.
Mindshrieker - Dave Kendall
The power of a monochromatic image. I seem to have a thing for semi-abstract owls.
Walker of Secret Ways - Scott M. Fischer
Fischer's interpretation of a ninja stood out to me as soon as I saw it, and it has remained one of my favorite pieces of Magic art ever since.
Pact of Negation - Jason Chan
Chan again, showing off contrasting colors and a vivid interpretation of nothing in particular happening (the card is a counterspell that simply prevents another spell from resolving).
Sigiled Paladin - Greg Staples
More pseudo-realism. Magic didn't invent that style of fantasy art, of course (Jeff Easley is my favorite example), but Staples shows a mastery of the form here. Could anything possibly look more heroic than a gleaming knight riding a majestic lion?
Regeneration - Quinton Hoover
This early Magic card provides a nice contrast with the detailed, intricately lit works that would come later. The clear, simple lines remind me of some of the best bronze-age comic book art. George Tuska comes to mind.
Baneslayer Angel - Greg Staples
Here, Staples eschews pseudo-realism for a gorgeous, almost Impressionist angel. This card is one of the most powerful creatures in Magic, and at one time cost almost $60...while it was still in print.
Tombstalker - Aleksi Briclot
Briclot's design for this demon is incredible, but what makes this one of my favorite pieces of Magic art is the dynamic sense of movement.
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage - Eric Deschamps
There are so many little details that make this a great image of one of the strange, Asian-flavored moonfolk.
Twilight Shepherd - Jason Chan
Nearly monochromatic, but check out Chan's use of texture.
Plague Spitter - Chippy
More people requested this card than any other. I think Magic players keep Plague Spitter in their hearts because it's so damn weird, and Magic cards don't really get that weird any more.
Magic: the Gathering has been around for 20 years, and an integral part of the game's popularity has always been the art that appears on each card. Check out this greatest hits gallery of Magic art through the years. I asked other Magic fans for their personal favorite pieces of Magic art, and picked some of my own, plus some that are iconic or perfect examples of Magic's evolving art style. Special thanks to Wizards of the Coasts' PR team and their art department for helping me track down hi-res versions of many of these works. Click any image to enlarge.
Perhaps the most iconic card in Magic history is Black Lotus (above), which today sells for $3,000 to $5,000. The original art by Christopher Rush may be instantly recognizable, but it's a bit bland. When Wizards of the Coast introduced a collection of older, powerful cards to the online version of Magic in 2012 (for a special draft format called Cube), they commissioned new art for Black Lotus. The velvety black petals and the corpses of fallen foes by Chris Rahn really does the original justice.
Damnation - Kev Walker
There are a lot of Magic cards that destroy things en masse, and a lot of ways to depict that. Damnation's sucking black void is the most unnerving to look at, though.
Bitterblossom - Rebecca Guay
This card with a seemingly subtle effect (it gives you a small flying creature each turn at the cost of 1 life point) fueled a monstrously successful faerie-themed tournament deck in its heyday. Rebecca Guay's art reminds us that Magic isn't all about massive warriors and gruesome beasts. It can be beautiful, too.
Dakkon Blackblade - Richard Kane Ferguson
Ferguson has a very distinctive style that appears to be watercolor, here depicting a prototypical bad-ass, gritty warrior.
Commander's Authority - Johannes Voss
Voss' use of light in this image is amazing.
Forest (Unhinged) - John Avon
For their "joke" sets, Unglued and Unhinged, Wizards ordered special full-card art for the basic lands. Those lands, including this one by John Avon, look so good they've become collector's items. Your EDH deck isn't truly pimped out until you have all Unhinged lands in it.
Akroma, Angel of Wrath - Chippy
One of Magic's classic creature types is the angel. They've appeared in many incarnations, some more demurely dressed than others. I like this version of Akroma both due to Chippy's use of light glowing through her wings and the determined expression on her face, which clearly says, "Just because I'm an angel doesn't mean I'm not a bad-ass."
Elspeth Tirel - Michael Komarck
Elspeth is a planeswalker, one of the most powerful beings in Magic's mythology. This is not only an example of the hyperdetailed pseudo-realism that is the de facto art style for Magic in recent years, but it also shows that Magic sometimes defies fantasy art cliches when it comes to depicting female characters.
Endless Ranks of the Dead - Ryan Yee
There are plenty of ways to depict a zombie horde, but subtly showing them pressed against the other side of a beautifully lit pane of stained glass is probably the best way. Brilliant idea brilliantly executed.
Evacuation - Franz Vohwinkel
Another example of "pseudo-realism" (by which I mean impossible things depicted realistically). Here, a wizard clears a game board of the pieces, which is exactly what the card does in the game.
Forest (Ravnica) - Stephan Martiniere
Some of the best art appears on basic lands, like this Forest from the Ravnica expansion. How do you depict a forest that's actually in a city? Martiniere pulls it off with moody, dramatic lighting and an eye for architecture.
Island - Stephan Martiniere
Another stunning basic land from Martiniere. The level of detail is mind-blowing.
Memory Jar - Donato Giancola
I love this art because it shows how amazing abstraction can be. In this case, it was necessary because the card itself does something somewhat abstract and confusing within the game (both players set their hands aside and draw new hands that they can only use until the end of the turn).
Hurloon Minotaur - Anson Maddocks
Magic art has advanced pretty far since this image was created, but for many years this was the image that Wizards used to represent Magic. I give Maddocks credit for creating an original and unique interpretation of a basic fantasy creature.
Natural Order - Terese Nielsen
Nielsen is one of my favorite Magic artists, and this card shows why.
Path to Exile (Friday Night Magic promo) - Rebecca Guay
For this promo card, Guay not only created a beautiful image, she captured both the card's flavor (it removes a creature from the game instead of killing it) and allusions to fantasy stories and folk tales.
Street Wraith - Cyril Van Der Haegen
This card was suggested to me for this list, and on closer inspection, it's quite amazing. The transition from the eerie green flames at the top to the shadowy tentacles at the bottom is perfectly done.
Baleful Strix - Nils Hamm
This biomechanical owl and the abstract scenery surrounding it are, quite simply, beautiful.
Kargan Dragonlord - Jason Chan
If you find a better shot that shows off the power and majesty of a dragon than this one, let me know. Bonus points for a dude riding the dragon and wearing a skull mask.
Lotus Cobra - Chippy
This one might look better within the context of the card itself (the green border adds necessary contrast), but it's an interesting piece of art on its own as well.
Mindshrieker - Dave Kendall
The power of a monochromatic image. I seem to have a thing for semi-abstract owls.
Walker of Secret Ways - Scott M. Fischer
Fischer's interpretation of a ninja stood out to me as soon as I saw it, and it has remained one of my favorite pieces of Magic art ever since.
Pact of Negation - Jason Chan
Chan again, showing off contrasting colors and a vivid interpretation of nothing in particular happening (the card is a counterspell that simply prevents another spell from resolving).
Sigiled Paladin - Greg Staples
More pseudo-realism. Magic didn't invent that style of fantasy art, of course (Jeff Easley is my favorite example), but Staples shows a mastery of the form here. Could anything possibly look more heroic than a gleaming knight riding a majestic lion?
Regeneration - Quinton Hoover
This early Magic card provides a nice contrast with the detailed, intricately lit works that would come later. The clear, simple lines remind me of some of the best bronze-age comic book art. George Tuska comes to mind.
Baneslayer Angel - Greg Staples
Here, Staples eschews pseudo-realism for a gorgeous, almost Impressionist angel. This card is one of the most powerful creatures in Magic, and at one time cost almost $60...while it was still in print.
Tombstalker - Aleksi Briclot
Briclot's design for this demon is incredible, but what makes this one of my favorite pieces of Magic art is the dynamic sense of movement.
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage - Eric Deschamps
There are so many little details that make this a great image of one of the strange, Asian-flavored moonfolk.
Twilight Shepherd - Jason Chan
Nearly monochromatic, but check out Chan's use of texture.
Plague Spitter - Chippy
More people requested this card than any other. I think Magic players keep Plague Spitter in their hearts because it's so damn weird, and Magic cards don't really get that weird any more.
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