from Lamebook - Funny Facebook Statuses, Fails, LOLs and More - The Original

from orcish army knife http://www.orcisharmyknife.com/

from Destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?mode=atom

from Stargazer's World http://www.stargazersworld.com

from Tofugu http://www.tofugu.com

from Destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?mode=atom

from Tofugu http://www.tofugu.com

from Wondermark http://wondermark.com

from Tofugu http://www.tofugu.com

from Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com

from kottke.org http://kottke.org/

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

from Matt Gemmell http://mattgemmell.com/

from kottke.org http://kottke.org/

from xkcd.com http://xkcd.com/

from kottke.org http://kottke.org/

An extensive collection gathered from all over the internet of the source code and documentation for NASA's Apollo and Gemini programs. Here's part of the source code for Apollo 11's guidance computer.

And here's an interesting tidbit about the core rope memory used for the Apollo's guidance computer:

Fun fact: the actual programs in the spacecraft were stored in core rope memory, an ancient memory technology made by (literally) weaving a fabric/rope, where the bits were physical rings of ferrite material.

"Core" memory is resistant to cosmic rays. The state of a core bit will not change when bombarded by radiation in Outer Space. Can't say the same of solid state memory.

Woven memory! Also called LOL memory:

Software written by MIT programmers was woven into core rope memory by female workers in factories. Some programmers nicknamed the finished product LOL memory, for Little Old Lady memory.

Tags: Apollo   Gemini   NASA   programming

from Destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?mode=atom

It's very rare that you'll get a representative from one studio slam another developer's game, but Dead Space story producer Chuck Beaver has some words to say about Gears of War's narrative efforts, and it ain't pretty. In fact, he says it's "literally the worst writing" in the industry. Ouch!

To be fair, he said it didn't matter to the game's fans, because they don't care about the game's plot to begin with. 

"It contains atrocious, offensive violations of story basics," he said. "Yet it doesn't seem to ruin it for many, many people. It's literally the worst writing in games, but seems to have no ill effects."

Beaver wasn't letting his own game off the hook, either. He admitted that Dead Space was "just a simple haunted house story" that his team had "pasted a personal aspect on top of" when including Isaac's dead girlfriend. He also said Dead Space 2 went overly complex with its lore, and made fun of the final boss sequence, which he claims was added without his knowledge. 

His pick for a good game story is Portal 2, claiming that it "succeeds at least as much on its writing as its masterful platformer level design." On that point, he'll brook no argument from me, even if I do kind of like Gears of War's silly story and believe there are far worse examples.

Dead Space story producer says Gears of War has "literally the worst writing in games" [Eurogamer]

from Dice Monkey http://dicemonkey.net Number of Views :284
I came up with a new RPG today. A bit more complicated than Awesomesauce, but not too much.

Here’s the rules:

Choose a race. This can be any race that exists in the world you’re playing in. In Star Wars, it could be human, wookiee or droid. In D&D it’s elves, dwarves or dragonborn.

Choose a class. This also depends on the setting. You can choose anything you feel best describes your character. Wayward Knight, Jedi Master, etc.

Choose Race and Class Traits. Now, choose three traits for your class and race that you think best defines them. A Wayward Knight may be “Impulsive”, “Strong” and “Gallant.”

Choose your Race and Class proficiencies. Mark down a D6 or a D8 in your Class and Race. If you want your race to be more important, you would have a D8 there. If you wanted your class to be more important, you’d place a D8 there.

Choose Skills. Choose two skills your character has. This can be something such as armorsmithing, playing a particular instrument, trapfinding or swordplay. Be sure to be specific. Mark these two down, and give them both a stat of D6.

Choose a Talent. This is a short phrase that says something about you. It can even be as short as a single word. “Impulsive.” “Never backs down.” This is a D4.

Choose equipment. You now can choose what type of weapon you carry, or anything else you have on you. Your primary weapon is a D4.

Bump up your stats. You now have two points to spend. You can spend 2 points to bump a skill up by one die size, 2 points to bump your trait up by one die size, or 1 point to bump your equipment up by one die size or 2 points for two die sizes. For example, if you wanted a broadsword, that’s likely not a D4 weapon, so you bump it up to a D8 with 2 points. On the other hand, if you carry a broadsword, but just aren’t very good with it, leave it at D4.

Let’s look at some examples of Character Creation.

CROM!

Human D6
     Cruel
     Tough
     Bullheaded

Barbarian D8
     Good with a Sword
     Brutal
     Warrior

Skills
     Skinning D6
     Warfare D6

Talent
     A taste for bloodshed D4

Broadsword D8

And that’s a barbarian for you.

Now let’s look at a Wizard.

Elevan the Magnificent

Elf D6
     Noble
     Graceful
     Haughty

Archmage D8
     Practitioner of Wizardry
     Teacher
     Aged

Skills
     Spellcraft D8
     Potion Making D6

Talent
     Intuitive knowlege of the arcane D4

Weapons
     Wand D4

You’ll see that I spent the two points in Crom to give him a D8 weapon, while I spent the two points in Elevan to give him a D8 in spellcraft.

Let’s adventure!

Rules of the game

As your heroes move throughout the world, interacting with their environment, they’re going to get to the point where they’ll need to roll dice. Whether its fighting a monster, solving a puzzle or avoiding traps, dice will be thrown at some point. The rules for this are simple: Add in any dice that are applicable to that moment. If you can use your sword, roll for that, along with your race and class. If there is a trait you’ve chosen within the class or race that also can apply, add a D4.

The person defending themselves does the same, choosing any dice that are important at the moment in the scene. If you can describe it, you can use it.

If the scene is not combat related, and the task is of average difficulty, they will roll the same dice the player rolls. If the task is simpler, they will roll one less die, removing the highest numbered die before the roll. If it is difficult, they will add 1d6 or 1d8 depending on the difficulty. If it is very, very difficult, they may roll more dice as they feel is necessary.

In the case of damage being done, if the attacker succeeds, then they may choose to drop their opponents die down on either their race or class, attacker’s choice. If the defender wins, they ignore the attack. If you are reduced past D2 to 0, you fall unconcious, or are dead, depending on the needs of the story.

Initiative Order

The GM determines who goes first in the round. The active player, once they have moved and made an attack, must choose an enemy to go next. The enemy must then choose one of their enemies, until everyone has gone. The last person in the turn can choose anyone to be first in the initiative order.

Experience

After each session, the GM should award the players 1 XP. If the session was particularly strenuous, the GM can award 2XP.

You may increase any die on your character by spending a number of XP equal to the next highest number. For example, if I wanted to bump up a D4 to a D6, I would spend 6XP. I couldn’t spend 8XP to bump a D4 to a D8. I would need to spend 6, then 8, or 14 points at once to do so.

You may gain a new Talent or Skill at D4 by spending 4 XP.

That’s all there is! Those are the rules to the game! Does anything need clarification? Should more rules be implemented? Let me know in the comments!

from Blog of Holding http://blogofholding.com

I bought Sign of the Labrys because it's on the Appendix N reading list, and because Mike Mornard recommended that I read it to understand where the D&D "dungeon" came from. Its bizarre 1960's back-cover blurb was icing on the cake:

This blurb merits further discussion, but right now, I want to talk about dungeon levels.

Pages one through 19 of Sign of the Labrys are fairly ordinary post-apocalyptic science fiction. Then on page 20, Margaret St. Clair gets down to business and explains exactly how dungeons work in D&D:

It is important to understand what a level is. It is not much like a floor in an office building. A level may be a hundred or a hundred and fifty feet deep, and subdivided into several tiers. Also, access to them is not uniform. The upper levels are simple and straightforward; one gets to and from them by stairs, escalators, or elevators. [...] But the upper levels are easy. As one goes down, it gets difficult. Entrances and exits are usually concealed.

It is interesting to note that just going down a set of stairs doesn't guarantee that you're going into a deeper "level": a complex that's 150 feet deep, and composed of several tiers, can be considered a single level if it's part of the same ecosystem. And that is, I think, how early dungeons were designed. Each level was its own conceptual unit: it might or might not be composed of several floors.

The author goes on to explain something else puzzling about Gygaxian dungeon design: levels aren't always stacked one above another.

F had been designed as the laboratory level, but there had been a foul-up in its construction. F1 and F2, the partial levels, or tiers, which had been meant to house the lab workers of F, had been constructed above it and on the bias, like the two arms of a Y.

Compare that to a side view of a dungeon from OD&D's Underworld and Wilderness Adventures:

It's important to Gygax that the dungeon levels have the same sort of complex relationships to each other that they do in the above St. Clair quote. Look at levels 4a and 4b, above level 5 like the two arms of a Y.

James Mal, ever a careful OD&D scholar, makes sure to do something similar in his Dwimmermount megadungeon: level 1 has two stairs down, leading to levels 2A and 2B. Who knows if Dwimmermount would be designed thus if there had not been a "foulup in the construction" of Level F in Sign of the Labrys!

High five, guys! We squeezed a lot of D&D out of that single page. But page 20's bounties are not yet exhausted. Here's some prototypical dungeon exploration, still on page 20 (and running to page 21):

The corridor was narrow and high. It ran straight for six or eight feet, and then seemed to descend a couple of steps... I walked along the corridor to where it changed level... the space in front of me was large, perhaps twenty by fifty feet, and it was carpeted with a dense deep covering of shining white... the space before me, from wall to wall, was filled with white rats.

Change the first person past tense to present second, and you have something that sounds a lot like a DM's monologue, even down to the obsession with measurements. So much, in fact, that I stole this room and put it into Dwimmermount when I ran the Lawful Evil event - along with a sinister glowing gem that turned people into rats. The party members, Lawful Evil as they were, went to great lengths to convince other characters to touch the gem.

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

In a 1962 letter to his aunt, Patty, a then-18-year-old Keith Richards described a chance meeting with a guy he knew from primary school, a certain “Mick Jagger.”

Richards:

Anyways the guy on the station, he is called Mick Jagger and all the chicks and the boys meet every Saturday morning in the ‘Carousel’ some juke-joint well one morning in Jan I was walking past and decided to look him up. Everybody’s all over me I get invited to about 10 parties. Beside that Mick is the greatest R&B singer this side of the Atlantic and I don’t mean maybe. I play guitar (electric) Chuck style we got us a bass player and drummer and rhythm-guitar and we practice 2 or 3 nights a week. SWINGIN’.

Three months later, The Rolling Stones made their live debut at London’s Marquee Club.

[lettersofnote.]

Tagged: Letter Of Note, rolling stones

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

DeviantArtist Dynamaito delivers a screenshot from Game of Thrones Excel, the Marvel-vs.-Capcom-style Thrones fighting game of our (wolf) dreams.

Unfortunately, this Song of Street and Fighter remains firmly in the realm of fiction. How cool is that “Winter is Coming” super meter?

[toplessrobot.]

Tagged: fighting game, Game of thrones, this should be real

Submitted by: Unknown

from Destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?mode=atom

If you want to get in on the mad craze of people uploading gameplay videos from their consoles to the YouTubes, there are only a few ways to go about it. You could get a video camera, point it at your television and press record, but people these days demand that their definitions be high. That means you'll need a way to capture the footage directly from your console.

And here comes Hauppauge with the HD PVR "Gaming Edition" to save the day.

The Hauppauge HD PVR has been around for several years now (I myself have been using one since 2010), and the "Gaming Edition" is repackaging of this product with some additional accessories to provide a complete, one box solution for folk who wish to start recording high-definition gameplay videos. The package comes with the HD PVR and power adapter, a USB cable, a standard component video and audio cable (to pass video through to your display) and a universal component video and audio cable with connectors for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.

Setting up the device is as simple as it should be. Just drop in the included CD-ROM, installing the drivers and bundled ArcSoft ShowBiz software, connect the PVR to your game console, display and PC and you're done. Owing to the device's advantages as an external capture box connecting via USB, there's nothing you need to configure and it's easy to take the device from one PC to another in just a few minutes if you should have the need.

The included software, ArcSoft ShowBiz, is a fairly basic video editing suite. It's enough to allow a novice to easily cut together a video and then burn to DVD/Blu-Ray or upload directly to YouTube, but most users will probably want to edit with something a little more robust. The device itself is only compatible with ShowBiz for the purpose of capturing, so you'll still wind up using it fairly regularly with the HD PVR. Thankfully, this aspect of the software is simple as well and you can be recording in as little as two mouse clicks.

As mentioned previously, the Hauppauge HD PVR uses component video for sources. This is important to note for a few specific reasons. First, this means maximum resolution the PVR is capable of recording at is 1080i. You'll also need to have a display you can connect a component source to (or an adapter), as there is a significant delay when viewing the source monitor in ArcSoft ShowBiz which makes it impossible to competently control a game. 

There are a few other input options available on the device as well. The HD PVR is capable of capturing the full 5.1 audio mix via an optical input (and an optical output for pass-through). The front of the device also features inputs for composite or s-video and an accompanying 2-channel audio, and you can select whether you want to use the back or front inputs from within ShowBiz.

These inputs seem less reliable, however. My experience using the HD PVR to capture video from composite sources resulted in a lot of dropped frames, making for footage which was basically unwatchable. While Hauppauge did admit that some composite video devices may be incompatible, I didn't have any luck whatsoever with the variety of devices I had on hand. While not a serious issue for a capture box intended for recording high-definition footage, it may not serve as an appropriate solution for all your video capturing needs should you want to use some older hardware.

Minor issues of compatibility and versatility aside, the Hauppauge HD PVR "Gaming Edition" is a relatively affordable way to capture high-def gameplay videos and simple enough for the layperson to use. It has some limitations but gets the job done with very little screwing about and the end results look great. Users will probably want to look into more sophisticated software than ShowBiz for editing but this is a solid product on the whole and a great entry-level device.

from Budget Bytes http://budgetbytes.blogspot.com/

Inspired by this recipe that showed up in my mail box last week, I decided to pair two of my favorites, kale and chorizo, into one easy breakfast strata!
I also bought my first cast iron skillet this week, which is awesome because I was able to saute and bake all of the ingredients in ONE DISH! If you don't have a cast iron skillet, you can still easily make this strata by transferring the sauteed kale and chorizo to a casserole dish before adding the egg mixture (as I did in this recipe).
The other reason that this recipe is so easy is that the chorizo brings all of the flavor and seasoning to the table. There is so much flavor in the chorizo, in fact, that it is completely unnecessary to add any additional spices or herbs. Just six simple ingredients and you've got yourself a hearty, delicious dish. Add some toast and a piece of fruit and you've got a restaurant quality breakfast.
Kale & Chorizo Breakfast Strata

Total Recipe cost: $6.27Servings Per Recipe: 6Cost per serving: $1.05Prep time: 5 min. Cook time: 1 hr. Total: 1 hr 5 min.

INGREDIENTS

COST

10 oz.

Mexican style chorizo

$2.75

1 bunch

kale

$0.99

4 large

eggs

$0.93

1 cup

milk

$0.36

1/4 cup

grated parmesan

$0.24

1 cup

shredded mozzarella

$1.00

TOTAL

$6.27

STEP 1: Remove the chorizo from the casings and saute in a large skillet over medium heat until cooked through. Drain the excess grease from the skillet.STEP 2: While the chorizo is cooking, remove the kale leaves from the stems and tear into small pieces. Place in a colander and rinse well. Once the chorizo is fully cooked and drained, add the kale to the skillet. Cook until the kale is fully wilted.STEP 3: Begin to preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, whisk the four eggs until they are fairly smooth. Next, whisk the milk and parmesan into the eggs. If you will be baking the strata in the cast iron skillet, pour the egg mixture directly over the cooked chorizo and kale. If you are cooking the strata in a casserole dish, spray it lightly with non-stick spray, add the cooked chorizo and kale to the bottom, and then pour the egg mixture over top.STEP 4: Sprinkle the shredded mozzarella over the top of the strata. Place in the preheated oven and bake for about 45 minutes or until the strata looks puffy and golden brown on top. Slice into six pieces and serve hot.
Step By Step Photos

This is the chorizo I used. I only used half of this 19 oz. package and froze the rest for later use.Squeeze the chorizo out of the casing and cook in a large skillet over medium heat.Saute the chorizo until it is cooked through. Drain the excess grease from the skillet.While the chorizo is cooking, remove the kale leaves from the stems and tear into small pieces. Place the kale leaves in a colander and rinse well.Add the kale to the skillet (it will likely be over flowing) and continue to cook over medium heat.Eventually (about 5-10 minutes), the kale will wilt down to a fraction of its original size.Once the chorizo and kale have cooked, begin to prepare the egg mixture. First whisk the eggs until they are fairly smooth. Also, begin to preheat the oven to 350 degrees.Next whisk in the milk and parmesan.If you're baking the strata in your skillet (make sure it is oven safe), pour the egg mixture right over top of the cooked kale and chorizo. Otherwise, transfer the chorizo and kale to a casserole dish that has been coated with non-stick spray, and then pour the egg mixture over top.Sprinkle the shredded mozzarella over top of the strata. Place the strata in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 45 minutes.You'll know your strata is finished cooking when it looks puffed and golden brown on top. The edges will begin to puff first, and when the center is puffed, you'll know it's done. The strata will deflate after it comes out of the oven, but the puff during cooking is a good indicator of doneness.Slice into six pieces and serve hot!

from The Kolat Informant http://kolatinformant.blogspot.com/

Many of you know that the Tennessee Kotei is scheduled for April 28th 2012 in Knoxville, TN.  This is the first Tennessee Kotei since 2007.  I was involved in running the 2006 and 2007 events.  I want to help this new group succeed and carry on the tradition.

Sci-Fi City

3001 Knoxville Center Dr #1270 (East Town Mall)

Knoxville, TN

1-865-523-4700
Knoxville Center Mall, lower level towards J.C. Penney, Exit 8 off I-640

April 28, 2012

Registration will begin at 10 am
Tournament will begin at 11 am

Shawn Carman has already stated that he will be at the event and now the Kolat Informant will also be there (as a competitor of course). 

from Jeffs Gameblog http://jrients.blogspot.com/

The new graphic at the top of the blog is a still from the 1982 Rankin-Bass special The Flight of Dragons.  I wish I could give you some more stills, but my own copy is pretty low quality.  And the youtube clips of the great intro have embedding turned off.  Go check it out.  The opening song is by Don "American Pie" McLean. 

So instead I'll do a short run down of whatever images I can find via google search.

Carolinus, the Green Wizard, (Harry Morgan) has discovered that the magic is going out of the world as mankind embraces logic and science.

He calls a meeting of the Four Wizards.  Three of them agree to create a Last Realm of Magic, an invisible place for the elves and dragons and such to live.

The fourth wizard, Ommadon (James Earl Jones), is not cool with this plan.  Instead he plans to use his evil magic to corrupt the new world.  The other wizards swear to stop him, but cannot oppose a brother wizard directly.

The oracular Voice of Antiquity selects Peter Dickinson (John Ritter) as the champion needed to defeat Ommadon.  Trained as a scientist but a wannabe fantasy author and game designer, Peter is the only man who can straddle both worlds.

Carolinus travels to the future, where he finds Peter attemtping to secure financing to print and distribute this blockbuster new game about dragons and wizards.  The pieces represent Carolinus and other people back in magical times, showing Peter's strange connection to the times of magic.

Arriving in the past, Peter meets Gorbash, Carolinus's house dragon.  A spell fumble by the wizard results in Peter's mind being placed in Gorbash's body.  Peter eventually figures out the science behind dragons: they produce hydrogen naturally and float like zeppelins.  When they need to descend they burn off the hydrogen and vent it from their mouths.



Joining Peter/Gorbash and his draconic mentor Smrgol is Sir Orrin Neville-Smythe.  Everyone who watches this show would remember Sir Neville-Smythe as the most stereotypical British knight ever, except that everyone really remembers how he falls in love with Carolinus' daughter Melisande when he's a grown man and she's five years old.  Creepy.

Seventeen-year-old Melisande is Peter's love interest.  She is allowed on the quest and spends a great deal of the adventure sick in bed, having visions.



I like the archer Danielle a lot better.  She's kickass with her bow.  Sir Orrin eventually forgets his obsession with Melisande and falls in love with Danielle, clearing the way for the inevitable Peter/Melisande pairing.  Two other companions added to the quest as they travel to Ommadon's lair are Giles the Elf, who looks just like a Rankin-Bass hobbit and a talking wolf played by Victor Buono.  He was a real show stealer as King Tut in the old Batman TV show.



The entrance to Ommadon's gloomy realm is guarded by this three-eyed ogre that the two dragons have to rassle.

But before wrassling, the dragons get blotto drinking wine by the barrelfull.

The final confrontation between good and evil takes the form of Peter explaining to Ommadon how all his magic is a load of crap.  His scientific knowledge literally shields him from the evil wizard's powers.

Dispelled in a poof of logic, Peter claims Ommadon's crown of power.  (Which incidentally, serves as the inspiration for the Red Crown of the White Queen in my Wessex campaign.)

The Last Realm of Magic is saved.  Peter literally sells the crown at a pawnshop to finance his game and he's reunited with Melisande.  They kiss, roll credits.

All in all, a charming little tale that's lots of fun to watch.  I've skipped several interesting parts that I can't find good stills for.

Carolinus's message that as humanity grows into a world of science and logic they must keep the magic of imagination in their hearts still speaks to me today.  Carl Sagan was saying the same thing at roughly the same time in Cosmos.  If Carl Sagan and a wizard can agree on something, I'm pretty sure it's true.

from Comixed - 4 panel comic strip (yonkoma or 4koma) http://comixed.memebase.com

Oh look, a CoD coming out in 2012, what are the odds?

Comic by:

BloodyPooProductions

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Of course the MPAA doesn’t want people to see Bully. If people stopped turning a blind eye to bullying the MPAA could no longer exist.

[thanks jill!]

Tagged: bully, Infographic, MPAA

from Dave Winer's "Scripting News" weblog http://scripting.com/

I love this -- people are competing to write new blogging platforms based on simplicity. Yes. That's good! Competition, energy, ideas, simplicity.

There's Svbtle and Obtvse and lots of debate.

And the best thing, they all have feeds, so they show up in my river. Bing!

What's so great? It's all happening on the open web.

Let's have more choices, fewer silos, more interop. Goodness.

from Need More Rage http://needmorerage.blogspot.com/ Just discovered what beer-specced monks (is the tanking spec) is gonna be ables ta equip polearms. Means the glorious Hellreaver, which I feared were gonna be lost in the transmogalypse, may survives after all. Means also what I could has a tankin' team member what looks kinda like this:

Yeah, I'd be down with that.

from Jeffs Gameblog http://jrients.blogspot.com/

Jeff Rients  -  Yesterday 9:56 AM (edited)  -  Limited

You know what would be a neat? A campaign that uses BX D&D's 4+3 approach, with four human classes and three non-human race-as-class choices, but using totally different classes than the seven canonical options.

 -  Comment  -  Hang out  -  Share

+5

 -  Robert Fisher, Alex Schroeder, Reynaldo Madrinan, Mike Davison and 1 more

13 comments

David Rollins  -  I'd play that!

Yesterday 9:53 AM   

Chris Hogan  -  Slaine-flavoured Celty game: charioteer, warped one, druid, bard/jester (+ Fomor? Slaugh? Titan?)

Yesterday 9:56 AM (edited)   

+4

  

John Berry  -  Pilot, Scientist, Soldier, Psyker, Hovering Squid, Omega Reticulan, Bearman.

Yesterday 10:01 AM   

+8

  

Steve Lawson  -  Alchemist, Artisan, Ruffian, Gravedigger; Flumph, Thought Eater, Mimic.

Yesterday 10:07 AM   

+4

  

Mike Davison  -  +John Berry I want to play in that game.

Yesterday 10:08 AM   

John Berry  -  +Mike Davison You and me both, friend. I've been wanting to play that game for 15 years.

Yesterday 10:15 AM   

Steve Sigety  -  Hyborian Age setting: barbarian, merchant, sorcerer, pirate; serpent-man, giant ape, Summoned Thing from the Outer Dark.

Yesterday 10:18 AM   

+5

  

Steve Lawson  -  Hunter, Chieftain, Shaman, Tamer; Gryphon, Manticore, Centaur

Yesterday 10:22 AM   

+2

  

Reynaldo Madrinan  -  A series of little game books like that would be awesome.

Yesterday 11:27 AM (edited)   

+3

  

Reynaldo Madrinan  -  Space Ninja, Nova Samurai, Star Mage and Cosmic Shaman

Yesterday 11:29 AM   

John Berry  -  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Gary Oldman.

Yesterday 11:34 AM   

+1

  

Chris Hogan  -  +John Berry: Nonhuman race: Smileys. :/

Yesterday 11:39 AM   

+2

  

Steve Lawson  -  Garage Rocker, Prog Rocker, Scenester, Sound Guy; Record Label Executive, Hippie, Drummer.

Yesterday 11:42 AM   

from Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com/index.php
Righthaven, a copyright-troll law firm that failed in its attempt to make money for newspapers by suing readers for sharing stories online, was dealt a death blow on Tuesday by a federal judge who ordered the Las Vegas company to forfeit "all of" its intellectual property and other "intangible property" to settle its debts.

The order is an ironic twist to a copyright trolling saga that began in 2010, when Righthaven was formed with the idea of suing blogs and websites that re-post newspaper articles or snippets of them without permission.

Read the comments on this post

from Destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?mode=atom

The art of the mash-up is simple enough to explain: take concepts from at least two different media and blend them together into one seamless amalgamation. Here on Destructoid, we've showcased various mash-ups from over the years, from a steampunk Mr. Destructoid helmet to Adventure Time-as-Mother 3 fan art. There are many examples of mash-ups with two distinct bases, but what would happen if a third influence were introduced? Would the universe implode by the sheer density of awesome?

Enter Julius von Brunk, the LEGO hobbyist who recently constructed the amazing Mario 3 airship. His follow-up is on a smaller scale technically, but it's just mind-f*ck-blowing conceptually. It is -- get this -- a Transformer built out of LEGO bricks that turns into a Game Boy. Cheese and crackers, a motherf*ckin' LEGO Game Boy Transformer!

The creation is named Domaster, an abbreviation of "Dot Matrix with Stereo Sound," and he's equipped with a pair of AA battery blasters and an avian support unit called Tetrawing that turns in a Tetris cartridge. This isn't the first such Transformer that Julius concocted, either -- last month, he created Plasmashock, a transforming NES Zapper. Simply incredible.

Domaster & Tetrawing - Nintendo Game Boy & Tetris Transformers! [MOCpages] (Thanks, Klepto Kat!)

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Jean Giraud, better known as the influential French comic artist Moebius, passed away yesterday at the age of 73. He had been battling cancer for some time.

Giraud leaves behind a legacy spanning multiple generations: From his Harvey and Eisner Award-winning Western comic series Blueberry, through his acclaimed Silver Surfer miniseries, Parable, to the genre-defining conceptual artwork he contributed to such modern sci-fi and fantasy classics as Alien, Tron, The Fifth Element, The Abyss, and Willow.

Both Blade Runner and The Empire Strikes Back (as well as other Star Wars episodes) were also heavily influenced by Giraud’s unique style, the latter even featuring the artist’s design for the Imperial Probe Droid.

“We’ve lost two great artists,” said the French cultural minister, referring to Giraud and his alter ego Moebius. “Through his influence and his dazzling images, he made comic books the 9th art form that has stayed with me throughout my life.”

[ca / thr / photo: ouadah.]

Tagged: Jean Giraud, moebius, RIP

from Tales of the Aggronaut http://aggronaut.com

I created this guide because I can do all of my Ilum quests in 15-20 minutes each morning as I am drinking my coffee.  However most of the folks my guild seem to take 30 minutes to an hour to finish them all up.  One of the biggest factors is the fact that if you do the quests in the order you receive them, you end up doing a ton of back tracking.  I’ve prepared a nifty map to illustrate the order in which I do the quests.  I skip the heroic, because after a point it really is not worth the effort it takes.

Your time may vary based on several factors:  how farmed the various camps are, your luck with RNG drops, and your current level of gear.  However in all cases this seems to be the best path for Republic.

Speed Questing Order Rundown

Arrive on Planet at Republic Base Camp (1)
      Recieve Following Quests:

Jam the Transmissions (2)

Pilot Down (5)

Travel to point (2) and complete quest

Travel to Republic Waystation (3)
      Recieve Following Quests:

Crystal Clear Sabotage (4)

Icy Destruction (4)

A Fair Fight (6)

Travel to point (4)

Complete Crystal Clear Sabotage

Complete Icy Destruction

Travel to Point (5) and complete quest

Travel to Point (6) and complete quest

Fast Travel to Republic Waystation (3)

Turn In Following Quests

Crystal Clear Sabotage (4)

Icy Destruction (4)

A Fair Fight (6)

Take Speeder to Republic Base Camp (1)

Turn In Following Quests:

Jam the Transmissions (2)

Done!

Belsavis dailies are considerably more contorted, but I will be working on trying to create some semblance of a guide for those as well.

from Stargazer's World http://www.stargazersworld.com

Back in the day, when we still played in the basement of a friend’s house we kept a list of memorable quotes. One of my favorites is the following dialogue during a Vampire – The Masquerade game. The players actually were pretty amateurish vampire hunters that just had overpowered their first vampire.

Storyteller: You have successfully overpowered the vampire. What do you do now?

Player: I douse him with holy water!

Other player: What happens?

Storyteller: He gets wet.

In another case I actually made the mistake to say: “The GM would never do this to us!” which definitely makes #1 in my list of famous last words.

So what are your favorite quotes, funny anecdotes and famous last words from your campaigns?

No related posts.

from Comixed - 4 panel comic strip (yonkoma or 4koma) http://comixed.memebase.com

Comic by: Unknown

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

On Kony 2012: I honestly wanted to stay as far away as possible from KONY 2012, the latest fauxtivist fad sweeping the web (remember “change your Facebook profile pic to stop child abuse”?), but you clearly won’t stop sending me that damn video until I say something about it, so here goes:

Stop sending me that video.

The organization behind Kony 2012 — Invisible Children Inc. — is an extremely shady nonprofit that has been called ”misleading,” “naive,” and “dangerous” by a Yale political science professor, and has been accused by Foreign Affairs of “manipulat[ing] facts for strategic purposes.” They have also been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for refusing to provide information necessary to determine if IC meets the Bureau’s standards.

Additionally, IC has a low two-star rating in accountability from Charity Navigator because they won’t let their financials be independently audited. That’s not a good thing. In fact, it’s a very bad thing, and should make you immediately pause and reflect on where the money you’re sending them is going.

By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone [pdf]. The rest go to line the pockets of the three people in charge of the organization, to pay for their travel expenses (over $1 million in the last year alone) and to fund their filmmaking business (also over a million) — which is quite an effective way to make more money, as clearly illustrated by the fact that so many can’t seem to stop forwarding their well-engineered emotional blackmail to everyone they’ve ever known.

And as far as what they do with that money:

The group is in favour of direct military intervention, and their money supports the Ugandan government’s army and various other military forces. Here’s a photo of the founders of Invisible Children posing with weapons and personnel of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Both the Ugandan army and Sudan People’s Liberation Army are riddled with accusations of rape and looting, but Invisible Children defends them, arguing that the Ugandan army is “better equipped than that of any of the other affected countries”, although Kony is no longer active in Uganda and hasn’t been since 2006 by their own admission. These books each refer to the rape and sexual assault that are perennial issues with the UPDF, the military group Invisible Children is defending.

Let’s not get our lines crossed: The Lord’s Resistance Army is bad news. And Joseph Kony is a very bad man, and needs to be stopped. But propping up Uganda’s decades-old dictatorship and its military arm, which has been accused by the UN of committing unspeakable atrocities and itself facilitated the recruitment of child soldiers, is not the way to go about it.

The United States is already plenty involved in helping rout Kony and his band of psycho sycophants. Kony is on the run, having been pushed out of Uganda, and it’s likely he will soon be caught, if he isn’t already dead. But killing Kony won’t fix anything, just as killing Osama bin Laden didn’t end terrorism. The LRA might collapse, but, as Foreign Affairs points out, it is “a relatively small player in all of this — as much a symptom as a cause of the endemic violence.”

Myopically placing the blame for all of central Africa’s woes on Kony — even as a starting point — will only imperil many more people than are already in danger.

Sending money to a nonprofit that wants to muck things up by dousing the flames with fuel is not helping. Want to help? Really want to help? Send your money to nonprofits that are putting more than 31% toward rebuilding the region’s medical and educational infrastructure, so that former child soldiers have something worth coming home to.

Here are just a few of those charities. They all have a sparkling four-star rating from Charity Navigator, and, more importantly, no interest in airdropping American troops armed to the teeth into the middle of a multi-nation tribal war to help one madman catch another.

The bottom line is, research your causes thoroughly. Don’t just forward a random video to a stranger because a mass murderer makes a five-year-old “sad.” Learn a little bit about the complexities of the region’s ongoing strife before advocating for direct military intervention.

There is no black and white in the world. And going about solving important problems like there is just serves to make all those equally troubling shades of gray invisible.

[kony2012.]

Tagged: Invisible Children, Kony 2012, Lord's Resistance Army

from inessential.com http://inessential.com/

For a Cocoa developer, Xcode is a synonym for air. So we grumble when it gets hard to breathe.

If you don’t sympathize at least a little with the Open Radar report Xcode just doesn’t work worth shit, then I think you’re not working hard enough.

But Daniel Pasco makes an excellent point: Radar or GTFO.

from Wondermark http://wondermark.com

from Jeffs Gameblog http://jrients.blogspot.com/ So once upon a time I played a few sessions in one of Dave Hoover's Feng Shui campaigns.  This was back before he and his wife Heather ran my kickass local game store, so he still had time to GM.  Dave's one of the best GM's I've ever played under.  My time in his campaign was short solely because I prefer to run rather than play, so I launched my D&D3.5 game not long afterwards and didn't have time to do both..

He will kick your ass.

Feng Shui is basically the game of playing all Hong Kong action movies at the same time.  There's a background involving time travel and demons from the Netherworld and cyborgs from the future of  Orwell's 1984, but the jist of it is "You're John Woo with two pistols, I'm shirtless Bruce Lee.  Lo Pan is stirring some shit.  Let's go."
I played an Old Kung Fu Master template (character class) that I'm pretty sure was designed for jolly little Mr. Miyagi types.  For my own guy (see the picture) I decided that he would be a villain like the guy who gets his balls busted at the end of the 1977 classic Invincible Armor.  My basic line of explorations was "What if the evil white-haired master of a thousand deadly techniques worked for the good guys?"  Since these guys always roll around in wicked cool robes that my guy would be horrible at blending in with modern Hong Kong society.  The pic of him in his civilian clothes is swiped from an old SomethingAwful.com column called FashionSWAT.  Since have the players in the game had chosen templates based upon white action heroes (I think we had a Mafia thug and a Kurt Russell from Big Trouble in Little China, among others) I also decided that my guy would be a grumpy old racist who thought all honkies looked alike.
But my main problem with this dude was with his charsheet.  I claimed to be master of 10,000 ways of killing a man, but mechanically I really only knew 5 different Kung Fu tricks.  So I borrowed a trick from Champions, where pretty much any fluff can be assigned to any game mechanic.  Enter: Chris Pound.  Chris Pound's Language Machines is a collection of word-recombination toys that any GM should keep handy.  Need a few Tsolyani names for your Empire of the Petal Throne game? Bam! Howzabout five hundred Dying Earth style spell names? Suck on this Vancian magic!
For this old kung fu bastard with the ugly suit I printed out this sample list of crazy martial art maneuver names.  Every time I used a perfectly ordinary melee attack I would call out one of these names and then mark it off of my list.  One round a simple punch would become "Roaring Mantis Scratch!", the next round the exact same mechanic became "Golden Sun Claw!"  I never shared the whole list with the other players, so they were always in suspense regarding what sort of nonsense I would next spout.  One time, as an experiment, I simply rolled my attack without calling out its name.  Everyone was visibly disappointed until I quickly looked at my list and tacked on a maneuver name.
I think musing on this experience recently has given me a little insight into why some of the 4e enthusiasts are freaked out about the way 5e seems to be leaning towards the old school.  They don't want to go back to the days of "I swing my sword, again".  That's perfectly understandable.  If I was playing a 4e PC with a dozen weirdo powers I'd probably enjoy announcing my kickassedness just like I did with my white-haired kung fu douchebag.  I think a fair number of Exalted players dig on that as well.
But I also think my Feng Shui experience might demonstrate that you don't really need any mechanics backing you up to achieve that sort of baroque combat ballet.

from PlayStation Blog http://blog.us.playstation.com

If you’ve picked up PS Vita then you’ve probably been too busy plowing through the dense launch line-up to have spent much time browsing the Settings menu. Luckily, you don’t need to – we’ve spent plenty of time with PlayStation’s new crown jewel and we’ve put together a few favorite tips and tricks we wanted to share. Of course, this is just a start: We want your tips, too!

If you’ve discovered any favorite PS Vita functions, please share them in the comments for all to enjoy this weekend.

1. Order in the court! By now, you’ve probably figured out how to move your game and app bubbles around the Home Menu by pressing and holding one using the front touchscreen, enabling you to drag it around into different frame. You can even change the background color or image by tapping the theme icon in the bottom right of each frame. Get creative and design your own background images (which you can transfer to your PS Vita via PS3) like James Gallagher from the EU PlayStation Blog did here.

2. Let there be light. You can adjust your PS Vita’s OLED screen brightness mid-game without the hassle of jumping into the Settings menu. Just hold the PS button to bring up a quick-access menu that enables you to adjust brightness and your custom music options. Wanna listen to the soundtrack to Armageddon while carving through Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus? Don’t miss a thing, baby.

3. Call for backup. Let’s face it: electronic devices have an uncanny affinity for toilets. We can’t prevent that, but we can help ensure you don’t lose your precious saved game data. Simply connect your PS Vita to your PS3 via the USB cable, open up the Content Manager on your PS Vita, and select the the Back Up option to back up all your PS Vita’s game data and gain a little extra peace of mind.

4. Say cheese! PS Vita comes equipped with a simple but game-changing new feature: The ability to snap screenshots of your in-game exploits. Just press the PS button and Start at the same time: You’ll see a white flash and hear the snap of a camera shutter and the resulting image will be saved and neatly categorized in your Photos gallery. You’ll be able to take screenshots in the vast majority of games, though not every game.

5. Prettier PSP games. PS Vita currently supports more than 275 legacy digital PSP games and more are on the way. You can also improve the way those lower-resolution PSP games look on the PS Vita’s screen by pressing and holding the front touchscreen to bring up a Settings menu where you can activate several options. Checking “bilinear filtering” and “color space” seems to yield consistently smoother results, but experiment with your PSP games to find your favorite combination.

6. Slip into something more comfortable. PS Vita enables you to adopt a custom panel to add a little flair to your PSN presence. To change your PSN panel, navigate to Settings, PSN, Account Information, and Panel to choose from a wide assortment of artwork from first and third-party games.

7. Remote Play renaissance. Ever wish you could log into your PS3 remotely to access a video or initiate a PlayStation Store download? This handy feature isn’t technically new — it was supported on PSP — but thanks to PS Vita’s monstrous OLED screen and more powerful processors, it’s more useful than ever. Protip: Remote Play is compatible with any PSone games you may have on your hard drive, along with a handful of classic PSN games such as PixelJunk Monsters, PixelJunk Eden, and Peggle.

8. Bluetooth bliss. PS Vita supports high-quality stereo Bluetooth for audio output, so if you’ve got a nice pair of Bluetooth headphones (ahem), you can pipe in your game audio without restricting wires. In the Settings menu, touch Network and Bluetooth Settings and you’ll be able to pair your headphones to your new PS Vita. If you get stuck on the pairing code, try “0000.” If that doesn’t work, check the manual that came with your headphones (or look it up online) to find the proper four-digit code. Now enjoy a better life — a life without wires!

9. Silence is golden. Some people like soft jazz, others prefer silence. If you want to turn off PS Vita’s toe-tappin’ menu music, you’ll find the option in Settings > Sound & Display > System Music. While you’re there, you’ll notice an AVLS option. This limits the maximum volume when using headphones — perfect if you share your PS Vita with a little one.

from xkcd.com http://xkcd.com/

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

RIP Society of the Day: I can’t decide who I dislike more: The “who is Paul McCartney” kids or the “I would let Chris Brown beat me” girls. 

I say we toss them all into a monster truck arena and let Bigfoot sort them out.

[nedhepburn / caitiedelaney.]

Tagged: Is it 2012 yet?, RIP Society, Who is Paul McCartney

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

Sad Pop Culture Duos of the Day: Artist Chris Gerringer created a series of illustrations featuring depressed-looking pairs of video game, movie and comic book characters who can totally relate to each other’s problems, and captioned them all “I know that feel, bro.”

For example, Mario and Adventure Time‘s Finn both have issues with princesses, Pikachu and the Genie from Aladdin have itty-bitty living spaces, and a Stormtrooper and a Koopa Troopa are some of the most expendable bad guys around.

But at least they’ve got each other to share that feel with.

Check out the whole series after the jump.

[io9]

Tagged: chris gerringer, i know that feel bro

Submitted by: Unknown

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Parents These Days of the Day: 15-year-old puts up normal teenage Facebook post bashing her parents for making her work too hard, dad reacts by posting a video response to her grievances on her Facebook page. (Make sure to stick around until the end for the video’s dramatic conclusion.)

[reddit.]

Tagged: Crime And Punishment, ever heard of charity?, Facebook Parenting, Parents These Days

from Lamebook - Funny Facebook Statuses, Fails, LOLs and More - The Original http://www.lamebook.com

from Capcom : Official Blog http://www.capcom-unity.com/go/network/blog

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Logical Conclusion of the Day: Also, as noted by Redditor Hank_Scorpio_77, Batman Begins was released the year Obama was sworn in as Senator (2005).

Election over.

[4chan / reddit.]

Tagged: Election Over, logical conclusion, POTUS

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Interrupting Bus Driver of the Day: A press conference on the Horseshoe Casino collapse nearly had to have its own press conference after a bossy bus driver almost rammed into attendees, just before getting out of the vehicle and ordering everyone to move so she can get by.

[thanks moriah!]

Tagged: cincinnati, Horseshoe Casino, I Got A Job To Do, Interrupting Bus Driver

from kottke.org http://kottke.org/

Adrian Chen has an interview with a renegade IT guy named Martin who does social media, hacking, and other tech stuff for "High Net-worth Individuals" and criminals. One of things he does is set up drug rings with prepaid cell phones and a rotating collection of SIM cards a la the Barksdale/Bell drug crew in The Wire.

With Martin's system, each crewmember gets a cell phone that operates using a prepaid SIM card; they also get a two-week plastic pill organizer filled with 14 SIM cards where the pills should be. Each SIM card, loaded with $50 worth of airtime, is attached to a different phone number and stores all contacts, text messages and call histories associated with that number, like a removable hard drive. This makes a new SIM card effectively a new phone. Every morning, each crewmember swaps out his phone's card for the card in next day's compartment in the pill organizers. After all 14 cards are used, they start over at the first one.

Of course, it would be hugely annoying for a crewmember to have to remember the others' constantly changing numbers. But he doesn't have to, thanks to the pill organizers. Martin preprograms each day's SIM card with the phone numbers the other members have that day. As long they all swap out their cards every day, the contacts in the phones stay in sync. (They never call anyone but each other on the phones.) Crewmembers will remind each other to "take their medicine," Martin said.

That's clever. The "take their medicine" detail reads like it's straight out of the movies.

Tags: Adrian Chen   crime   The Wire

from Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/

Visual novels are a long-running staple in Japan.
Popular titles don't just sell like hotcakes, they go on to influence merchandising of all kinds, manga adaptations, anime version, and even the occasional fighting game spin-off.
For years if not decades, this has largely remained a very Eastern-centric pastime, if not as Japanese as they get.
That slowly started to change, partially thanks in no small part to the popularity of Capcom's Gyatuken Saiban/Phoenix Wright games, which arguably started making the genre a viable one in the US.With the primary focus being on reading into witness testimonies, and giving the player an attachment to the immense cast along the way, the PW games are solid examples of what makes visual novels appealing.
Still, for the games to have a chance at selling in the US, the publishers and localization teams responsible usually try to find titles that involve gameplay of some kind; not just reading pages upon pages of text with little to no player involvement.
Not very surprising given how American gamers tend to expect some kind of action along the way.
This hasn't stopped die-hard VN fans from giving purist readers their fix, however.
The expansive 'Umineko No Naku Koro Ni'('When The Seagulls Cry') series, for example; an elaborate tale of magic versus reason, murders, witchcraft, and romance.
07th Expansion's PC novels spin one gripping tale, and remain one of the most widely known of the genre. It's also one of the best examples of a solid fan translation.The Witch Hunt didn't just go all out in their translation works of the Umineko saga; they even got the attention of the series creator, Ryukishi, who went on to sanction their work, and even give them a reference in the story.
That's all good and fine for the comparatively small niche of readers who are savvy in patching Japanese titles, but what about going after the gaming population at large?
Localizing any VN title, even one with VN elements, remains a risky gamble.
RED Company's long-running Sakura Wars franchise, ever a huge success in Japan, finally had a title localized c/o NIS America, only to have an underwhelming performance when it came to sales.
A balanced mix of mecha strategic combat and the wooing of numerous female significant others, Sakura Wars remains one of the more enjoyable and innovative examples of visual novel RPGs.
Despite being a great game in its own right, Sakura Wars V is largely considered the worst in the series. Moreover, it was released both for a dying console(the PS2) and one that left it easily overlooked in a sea of shovelware(the Wii).
Whether it was the wrong game or the wrong time, the failure of NIS's endeavor seems to have largely spelled the end of Sakura Wars' chances in the states.
Fortunately, it didn't end hopes for the VN genre.
Aksys took a considerable gamble in localizing Chun-Soft's DS visual novel/suspsense puzzler, '999'.
The venture paid off in spades. The game went on to sell out all over the country, and continues to be reprinted to this day; up to its 5th printing at last count.
(It very much deserves it: 999 doesn't just tell a great story, it brings a great game along with it.)
With the success of 999, the flood gates appear to have opened, and VN fans have much to rejoice over.
Team GrisGris and 5pb's Corpse Party, a mix of visceral horror and traditional top-down RPG, was a pretty risky venture by definition for XSeed.
It deservedly did well for itself, and remains the biggest selling game on the PSP.
(Which may not say much when the console is on its last legs, but a success is a success!)
Aksys aren't ones to be outdone, either.
Idea Factory's Hakuoki is next on their list, and as a rare first, this one's for the ladies: the protagonist is a female character, out to seek love and vengeance in feudal-era Japan.
As of recent, even some extremely dedicated fans have taken up the mantle, and created a visual novel of their own:
The controversial, and free!, Katawa Shoujo.
One of the more time-honored variants of visual novels, Katawa Shoujo is purely a dating sim: where all the available girls are afflicted with a handicap of some sort.
Despite the shallow-sounding premise, it's the solid writing, charming cast, and the ensnaring atmosphere that makes this one a keeper: and if the GameFAQs top 10 is to be believed, a very popular one.
It's also worth noting that some groups such as Manga Gamer and JAST sell official localizations of visual novels through the web, such as 07th Expansion's Higurashi(the precursor to Umineko), and the well-received Aselia The Eternal, though their works tend to skew more towards the eroge(adult) genre.
So what's next for the genre in the US? Only good things, if all the previous examples are to be believed.
I'm waiting with bated breath for an official Umineko localization, myself.

from Destructoid http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/index.phtml?mode=atom

Do you miss the good old days, when a videogame wasn't a videogame unless you were forced to plan your life around it? When you couldn't just kick open a door and shoot everything inside, but instead had to peek through the keyhole, hack into the security cameras, set up fifteen ammo drones, and then wire the door to kick itself in? Well, BioShock Infinite has what you want. 

Irrational Games has announced "1999 Mode" after overwhelming fan demand. This new gameplay setting will bring back the glory days of titles such as System Shock and Deus Ex -- where planning, awareness and pragmatism are essential. 

"It’s not simply a matter of adjusting the difficulty sliders in the game -- the team went much further than that," said the studio blog. "Resource planning? If you’re to survive this mode, proper planning will be crucial. Combat specializations? You’ll need to develop them efficiently and effectively throughout the story; any weapon will be useless to you unless you have that specialization. Combat? You will need to carefully target every shot, and your health will be set to an entirely different baseline.

"Game saves? Well, yes, there will be those, but according to Irrational Games Creative Director Ken Levine 'there are game saves, and you’re gonna f***ing need them.'"

1999 mode will feature irreversible decisions that will make you "suffer" if you choose incorrectly. According to Levine, this is for "the oldest and most committed fans," so you old school nutjobs out there are in for a real treat. 

Sounds seriously tantalizing, right?

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

Cosplay Corner: Cosplay queen Yaya Han returns with another gorgeous costume. This time, it’s Litchi Faye-Ling from manga-inspired fighting game BlazBlue.

Yaya writes,

Litchi’s design and fighting style with the staff was instantly my favorite. I also really approve of girls in glasses. AND I love pandas, and she has one hanging on her head. It was love at first button push.

So, not only is Yaya an amazing model and costume designer, she’s also an arcade game nerd? Yep, “love at first button push” sounds about right.

Check out some more photos of Yaya as Litchi after the jump, and make sure you show us your cosplay! Head over to the submit page and send in your best photos.

[yayacosplay]

Tagged: blazblue, cosplay corner, litchi, yaya han

Submitted by: Unknown

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

George Lucas Retiring from Blockbusters of the Day: The pressure of making Hollywood blockbusters has finally gotten to George Lucas.

The Star Wars creator told The New York Times he intends to settle down and focus on small art films after he finishes promoting his latest movie, Red Tails, an action flick about the Tuskegee Airmen.

“I’m retiring,” Lucas said. “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff.”

Lucas had previously mentioned making a sequel and a prequel to Red Tails, but now he wants to turn those projects over to other filmmakers, possibly Spike Lee and Precious director Lee Daniels.

The Times describes Lucas’s future work as “small in scope, esoteric in subject and screened mostly in art houses,” which is about as far from Star Wars as it gets. And that’s fine with him.

“Why would I make any more,” Lucas said, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

Lucas also revealed that he was the one responsible for the infamous “nuke the fridge” scene in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, although Steven Spielberg took credit for it.

“He was just trying to protect me,” Lucas said, before admitting that he created a six-inch thick dossier on the probability that Indy could use the refrigerator to survive.

Uh, George? You might have been better off letting Spielberg take the hit for that one.

[avclub]

Tagged: george lucas, red tails, retirement, star wars

Submitted by: Unknown

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

Conspiracy Theory of the Day: Redditor moving-target posted an extensive collection video reports of people from around the world hearing the same mysterious sound, asking Reddit to help him explain the phenomenon.

Other Redditors quickly dismissed the noise as fake, pointing out that the YouTube accounts posting the videos all mentioned aliens, the apocalypse and other conspiracy theories, and that the frequency of the mystery noises was inconsistent with the rest of the audio heard in the vids.

It’s still not clear what the mystery sounds are, although viral marketing is one possible explanation. Some on Reddit even joked that this might be the beginning of a campaign for Cloverfield 2.

What do you think these noises are all about?

Listen to more examples of the phenomenon after the jump.

[reddit]

Tagged: video

from Myths RETOLD http://bettermyths.blogspot.com/ So mice
we have them in my apartment
also my house
they eat things and it sucks
but imagine how much worse it would be if they could do this:
so one day this mouse gets fed up hearing all these fairy tales
about crazy mystical far off lands
and he's like FUCK STORIES
I'm going to go to those far off lands MYSELF
so this mouse just picks a direction and starts walking
but almost immediately problems start happening
because like ten feet from the mouse's house is a river
and mice suck at rivers
so he's sitting there trying to figure out what to do
when a frog jumps out of the river like WHAT'S UP MOUUUUUSE
and the mouse is like uh
how do I cross this river?
and the frog is like oh, that's easy
just swim
and the mouse is like oh ... ok
and the frog is like why do you wanna cross the river anyway?
and the mouse is like well I am just trying to get to the magical fairytale kingdom
and the frog is like well that sounds reasonable
here:
let me give you
SUPERPOWERS
I HEREBY NAME YOU
JUMPING MOUSE
and ho-lee shit
this mouse suddenly has incredible frog jumps
superman leaps
man these are some hops you could brew beer with is what I am saying
and the mouse is like THANKS MAGIC FROG
and the frog is like HOW DID YOU KNOW MY NAME?
ANYWAY GOOD LUCK
so jumping mouse is jumping along
and he runs up on a buffalo that is passed out in the grass
and he's like hey buffalo
what the fuck is wrong with you
and the buffalo is like dude
I totally went blind from drinking too much
and now I am so screwed
aaaaaaa
and jumping mouse is like dude it's okay
don't you know that I have BASICALLY NECROMANCY POWERS?
HERE
HAVE MY EYES
and he straight gives his eyes to the buffalo
and the buffalo is like HOLY SHIT THIS WORKS SOMEHOW
SORRY YOU'RE BLIND NOW LITTLE DUDE
LET ME GIVE YOU A RIDE TO THE MOUNTAINS
I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM EAGLES
WHICH ARE THE GREATEST DANGER TO TRAVELING MICE
NOT THAT THERE ARE REALLY A LOT OF TRAVELING MICE
BUT WHATEVER DUDE
TRUST ME ON THIS ONE
so that is what the buffalo does
but then it turns out buffalos are useless and can't climb mountains
so jumping mouse is left to crawl blindly up the rest of the way
and halfway up he just runs STRAIGHT INTO A WOLF
and instead of eating him
like a REAL WOLF
the wolf is like BOO HOO HOO I LOST MY SENSE OF SMELL
and jumping mouse is like oh no problem dude
HAVE MINE
and the wolf is so grateful
that he CONTINUES TO FAIL TO EAT JUMPING MOUSE
and in fact gives him a ride to the bottom of the mountain
protecting him from terrifying eagles the entire way
not that jumping mouse can even really tell at this point
because he is BLIND AND CANNOT SMELL
so he's down in the valley
which turns out to be the magic fairy kingdom lands
and suddenly he hears this creepy voice up in his ear
like congratulations jumping mouse
it is i
magic frog
apparently I knew a faster way to get here the whole time
but enough about me
it is time for you to JUMP JUMP JUMP
and jumping mouse is like seriously dude?
I am kind of mourning the loss of about half my senses
and the frog is like YOU ARE FORGETTING ABOUT THE SIXTH SENSE:
JUMPING
and so jumping mouse starts jumping
and then all of a sudden his arms turn into wings
and his sight comes back
and also his smell
and he is just soaring all the fuck over everywhere
and the frog is like CONGRATULATIONS JUMPING MOUSE
IN RETURN FOR YOUR GENEROSITY
YOU GET TO BE AN EAGLE
and Jumping Mouse is like whoa
i should probably get a different name huh?
So the moral of the story
is give away all your organs
and you can BECOME YOUR GREATEST ENEMY
The end

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Shut Up And Take My Money of the Day: Not even lying: I would pay double the suggested retail price for a Criterion Collection edition of Good Burger.

[@criterion.]

Tagged: Criterion Collection, good burger, shut up, Take Money

from Ask A Jedi http://www.askajedi.com

As some may be aware (and certainly the mention of it in my latest Blasters, Beggars & Credits post generated more than a few comments), the method to get the fabled Magenta Adegan Crystal has finally been revealed. A group of Redditors (and it’s unclear to whom exactly receives credit, so why not just give it to r/swtor as a whole) unraveled the mystery and shared it around the evening of the sixth – we feel confident that the secret is out!

This sleuthing was based off of Georg Zoeller’s hint: “273.15.” Based on that, they figured out the exact steps to acquiring the crystal. So we figured we’d post a guide for those that want to embark on the journey. Be warned, some spoilers follow, and if you like figuring out puzzles, you may want to skip this one! For those that don’t know, 273.15 is the temperature (in Kelvins) at which water freezes.

Heavy risk - but the prize...

Your quest for magenta should first take you to Tatooine to get a buff. This buff is called “Sustained and Refreshed,” and it lasts for 30 minutes, albeit without a timer. Speed is of the essence once you get the buff, though 30 minutes should be plenty of time so long as you don’t engage in other activities.

In order to get the buff, you need to find a water vaporator that has a glowing object attached called a “Water Access Panel.” These vaporators are located in Jundland, and are all over the place, but look to be mostly concentrated around the Republic base of Dreviad Outpost.

Back off the Water Access Panel, mate.

Once someone gets the buff, the item goes away and spawns in some other location. It also takes 15 seconds to cast. However, if you are taking multiple people through to get it, you can all click the panel at the same time and complete it off of just one click.

For a desert planet, there's a surprising amount of moisture available.

Now, you have your buff. The next part of your magenta quest is to head to Hoth, specifically to Highmount Ridge. Above Leth Outpost, in the southern part, is a mountain ridge; ascending it to the approximate coordinates of -993, 148 will place a debuff on your character called Extreme Altitude; additionally, if you have the “Sustained and Refreshed” buff, you will have a new item in your inventory called Pure Shockfrozen Water.

Delicious, pure water.

Now that your timed portion is done, you must travel to Ilum to one of the daily quest areas, northwest of the Republic Waystation and southwest of the Imperial Waystation (around -555, 34 on the map). There you will find an item on the ground called a Depleted White Adegan Crystal.

Where's the magenta? It's just white and off-white, here.

If you have the water in your inventory, clicking on this item will cause a Force Ghost Champion with around 214,000 HP to spawn. A 4-man group with reasonable gear should be fine to kill him; we had 16 since everyone wanted to get a crystal made (this was our 3rd or 4th run at it in the past few days, with similar numbers attending each time).

It's a g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost!

Killing him spawns a bunch of crystals on the ground that anyone with the water can then loot (in exchange for the water, of course).

Now you know that white crystals need water to grow into magenta crystals.

And with that, you’re done – or, well, sort of. You also need to find an artifice who has the pattern. The guild I’m in was lucky enough to get the 33 power crystal to drop from the Belsavis world boss (known as The Primal Destroyer) a few days before the method was discovered for acquiring the magenta crystal (we’re on the Jung Ma server for any interested), but it does seem that the pattern is a rare drop from that boss. Gargath on Hoth supposedly also drops the crystal.

This whole adventure reminds me of the days in World of Warcraft, you could go to Blackrock Spire, have a Priest Mind Control a specific enemy NPC, and then have him grant a huge fire resistance buff to everyone in your raid. This really helped out in the early days of fighting Ragnaros! I think undocumented puzzles like this are very cool, and hopefully we’ll see more like it from the team at BioWare down the road?

Good luck on your quest!

from Jeffs Gameblog http://jrients.blogspot.com/

The PDF version of The Miscellaneum of Cinder, my 2009 compendium of random tables, will no longer be listed for sale at lulu.com.  Instead, a free version is now listed at the OSR Conservation Project.  If you want the print version, that is still available at lulu via this link. Note that the OSR-CP version lacks the much-maligned purple cover.

You know what's missing from standard D&D character sheets? A spot for an animal companion.  Even if you don't have a familiar or a magical talking dog or psionic chameleon, there ought to be a place for your donkey or warhorse.

Do class abilities migrate in FLAILSNAILS games? For example, I let a Lamentations of the Flame Princess-derived magic-user fire a bow and wear leather in my Wessex campaign, since Raggi's rules allow that. Should I have enforced the BX rules on that guy?  And if not, does that mean my PC gets the funky bonus die from his one level as a DCC warrior and the cleave ability standard to fighters in Outland?  I kinda like the idea of adventurers collecting weird abilities based upon where they were when they leveled up, but I don't want things to get out of control either.

I've re-read a bit of Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed the past couple of days.  I don't really have any more to add to that.  I just think that it was a pretty cool idea. It seemed daunting at the time to replace all the standard 3e classes and races with new ones.  Would it be easier for me to pull off today?  I dunno.

from The Holocomm http://www.theholocomm.com

One of the coolest things about a new MMO’s launch is that the game still holds mystery. Within months, just about everything there is to find will be found, but those first few weeks after launch are filled with a sense of pure discovery. The Old Republic players felt that in spades this past week when debate over the mysterious Magenta Adegan Color Crystal reached a fever pitch. Sure, the item is in the Torhead database (as well as other TOR databases), but where the heck does it come from? Does it even exist, or is the item just a relic from beta?

Late last week on Jan. 6, The Old Republic‘s Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller took pity on players desperately searching for their color crystal of choice and dropped a hint:

Magenta Adegan Crystals

It’s actually not difficult at all. There is no RNG element involved, nor do you need to be running around in endgame gear to obtain it, nor do you need an Operation to do so.

You may need a bit of time, but not a crazy amount either. All classes are capable of obtaining it. Think of it as something like a datacron.

Of course you also need to find an Artifice capable crafter with the recipe to turn the raw crystal it into a Lightsaber crystal, but for the right price, I’m sure they’ll help you out.

Honestly, I was a bit amazed to find out that it is possible to have a mystery like this in an MMO. It’s been in the game for a few months now (since beta).

Why the mystery? Why not serve it on a platter to those who want the color?

Well, for the same reason there aren’t vendors at the start of the game with all the outfits, colors, colors, weapon appearances, etc. Because this is an RPG – some things are earned, not just handed to you on a silver platter. If you want them, you have to play the game.

Yes, we know character appearance is important for people. Hence many of the choices we made in the game, hence us adjusting many features based on feedback from the community during beta. However, the acquisition of appearance options is still a part of the game. You earn appearance past character creation, in various ways.

As said, the magenta adegan crystal is available for everyone and eventually someone will figure out how to get it. It’s rare because it’s undiscovered, not rare because it’s terribly hard to get.

And, because I’m such a nice person today, I’ll throw in one hint to get you started:

273.15

source

 

Those of you that paid any attention to your science courses in high school may recall that -273.15 is the Celsius equivalent of 0 Kelvin, or Absolute Zero. In other words, the hint was to think cold. Very cold. Players on TOR‘s official forums, reddit’s /r/swtor, and numerous fansites went wild trying to find a solution, and eventually one surfaced.

Fly to Tatooine. Click on a Water Vaporator’s Water Access Panel to get a Refreshed and Sustained buff. Any vaporator should work.

Fly to Hoth while still under the effects of Refreshed and Sustained. Climb up the highest point in Hoth (roughly -966,600) until you receive an Extreme Altitude debuff. Upon receiving that debuff, your Sustained and Refreshed buff should disappear. You will then receive a Pure Shockfrozen Water item in your inventory.

Fly to Ilum. Find a Depleted White Adegan Crystal node, which are scattered throughout the zone. Clicking on the node will spawn a level 50 boss Force Ghost, which you will need a group to kill.

Once you’ve defeated the boss, it will drop raw magenta crystals on the ground — your entire group can loot one crystal per person. The crystals are unique, so you can only hold one at a time. No stockpiling raw magenta crystals!

Elaborate? Yes. Significantly more convenient than relying on RNG? YES!

A crude image that surfaced on reddit lays out the map coordinates very well, but if you prefer to see this instructions in video form, NotCasuals has you covered.

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

What’s In A Name of the Day: Madison, WI man Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-bop-bop, 30, was arrested on Thursday on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana.

Zopittybop-bop-bop, born Jeffrey Drew Wilschke, legally changed his name in October.

It’s not clear whether Wilschke’s name change was inspired by Bill Cosby, nor do police reports reveal whether, like other kids these days, he enjoys the hippin’ and the hoppin’ and the bippin’ and the boppin’.

His Facebook profile does say, however, that he’s a member of the Orthodox Church Of Jerry Garcia Fans.

[dailypicksandflicks.]

Tagged: What's In A Name

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Whoopsie Daisy of the Day: At a Mitt Romney rally in Charleston, SC, Sen. John McCain took the stage to endorse the presidential candidate he believes can “turn this country around”: President Obama.

“I believe in America. I believe our best days are ahead of us,” McCain continued, apparently not realizing that he hadn’t said “Mitt Romney.”

Romney realized it, though, and moved to take the mic from the septuagenarian senator, who finally corrected himself, saying “Excuse me. President … President Romney will turn this around.”

[wonkette]

Tagged: brain fart, john mccain, mitt romney, senior moment, video, Whoopsie Daisy

from Crew Skills » – Crafting & More in SW:TOR http://crewskills.net

As I posted a week ago, Slicing is still profitable post-nerf. It’s just no longer a license to print money, and has more risk involved.

Findings

 

Mission Yield

Class

Moderate

Abundant

Bountiful

Rich

1

1.44

0.98

 

0.93

2

1.41

1.11

 

1.10

3

1.39

1.30

1.14

1.09

4

1.34

 

1.17

 

5

1.44

1.22

 

1.44

6

1.18

1.21

 

 

A ratio of 1.0 means that your rewards average out to equal the cost of the missions. A ratio of 1.2 means that for every 1000 credits you spend on missions, you will – on average – receive 1,200 credits from lockboxes.

From this we can see a few key things:

Moderate-yield missions score surprisingly well – this is usually because they’re very cheap to perform.

Equally, Rare missions aren’t worth doing for most classes (except 5). This is because they’re usually a huge increase in cost, and they often don’t pay much more than the lower-yield missions.

Class 1 and 2 Moderate missions are very profitable, but they’re fairly fiddly given that you have to tend to your companions every few minutes.

Methodology

You can see the data set I accumulated in this Google Docs spreadsheet.

All Slicing missions were performed after the Patch 1.0.1 nerf.

All missions were performed at 400 skill.

All missions were carried out with companions under 1,000 Affection, and none of them had any bonuses to Slicing.

There were no mission failures. Some missions were crit successes; you can see these in the dataset with Large boxes listed as the reward.

The value of other rewards (schematics, augments, mission unlocks) were not included, only the credits from the lockbox.

Every mission was done 10-15 times, except unlockable missions. They’re included in the dataset for reference, but not included in the table.

Some missions are unrepresented: these are Imperial-only missions. There are some factionally-split mission pairs which are identical in cost and yield and time – I’m assuming their profitability is equivalent too.

There wasn’t enough data to say anything conclusive about unlockable missions. My suspicion is that they’re probably worth doing for the extra goodies, credits aside.

You may also want to take a look at this Google Docs spreadsheet (provided by pdxmarcos on the official forums) which has numbers on Average Credits per Minute. I’m not including that data in this post as it’s directly affected by companion affection, but you can find some useful numbers there.

Slicing Profitability is a post by Siha from Crew Skills. Comments, feedback and discussion welcome!

from Wondermark http://wondermark.com

Well, the yacht is a-rockin’ dangerously, don’t bother knockin’
Yeah, the yacht is a-rockin’ hazardously, don’t bother knockin’
Yeah, the yacht is a-rockin’ precariously, don’t bother, come aboard
I said the yacht is critically top-heavy, don’t bother, come aboard

from Gnome Stew http://www.gnomestew.com

With our regular game canceled last week, we tried out a game that has been neglected on my shelf for too long. The game was In A Wicked Age. It features a short rulebook, simple character sheets, and seemed perfect for a fill in game. We got started a little late, didn’t get all the characters tied together, and quit a few scenes before we reached the end–but it was a fun experiment anyway. Here are some key elements that might work for you, whatever game you ordinarily play.

Situation Building: Oracles

The game begins incredibly flexibly; it’s a rush and a terror to try to tie together the prompts and make a situation. What am I talking about? The Oracle, and what it reveals.

You select one Oracle, to give the game a specific style. Then you draw four cards, each of which contributes one specific element. We selected the God-kings of War oracle, and got the following results:

A day sacred to an oppressed slave cult, the celebration of which is punishable by torture.

A warrior-woman, queen of her small wild tribe, hard-pressed by advancing civilization.

The arrival of a hundred fearsome warships on an unprepared, prosperous, peaceful coast.

From those random elements, everyone at the table picks out characters that sound interesting–explicit or implied by the oracle’s reading. The characters can be anyone–god, mortal, slave or king. In our case, the characters that were selected were a tribal queen, a noble horsewoman driven to the edge of habitable land by the large empire. She crossed paths with a captain of the approaching fleet, who it turned out, was a member of the subjugated culture that kept the slaves and drove off the warrior-woman’s people. The last PC was an adviser to the high priest of the banned religion. We had many other characters who came up when we read the characters from the oracle–the ones no one claimed became NPCs. The queen of the ‘peaceful, prosperous’ empire, the high priest, the admiral of the invading navy, and the neglected god were all other characters that could have been selected as PCs–and wound up as NPCs for our game. You can imagine how different it would have played if one of the players had switched their character for one of those roles!

Oracles and You

The core game concentrates on a bronze age, Conan, feel. But the oracles have been embraced by players who love other settings and gathered at random-generator.com; oracles exist for Mouse Guard, Shakespeare, Wuxia, Battlestar Galactica, and dozens of other settings.

If you’re stuck, or just need inspiration for your next session, click on an appropriate oracle. You might have a one-click Shadowrun at hand. (Some assembly required.) You can twist the PCs into the implied roles–or just report the tense revealed situation to your players, and see how they get sucked in.

Short Character Sheets

In A Wicked Age does a great job of summarizing a character’s capabilities succinctly. A PC’s stats are: Covertly, Directly, For Myself, For Others, With Love, and With Violence. That’s how you solve problems–pick two that apply and roll their associated dice. In some ways the stats are similar to traditional RPGs–being good at solving things With Violence is similar to being a high strength fighter in D&D–but being a passionate fire mage is as good an explanation for solving things with violence.

NPCs are even simpler; they have only three stats: Action, Maneuvering and Self-protection. They’re each fixed combinations of two dice, so they’re immediately ready to go. If an NPC is good at maneuvering, okay at self-protection and poor at action? That sounds like an idle ruler or his vizier, doesn’t it?

Needless to say, assigning stats takes only an eye blink when those are all you have. Coming up with the cool character is much less simple, but it is refreshing to throw out driven NPCs, just worrying about characterization–and without pondering how their CR matches up to the PCs, what feats they have available… and all of the other burdens that we accept with our standard systems.

Mastering In A Wicked Age

So, now that I’ve played, here’s the research I should have done to have a smooth session. I hope it helps you get off on the right foot.

This isn’t just advice, it’s also an example and a nice tool. Best Interests tutorial and sheet (PDF)

Some of the bad habits addressed in this thread impeded our play too. This thread, led by the game designer, does a good job of bringing some unconscious habits to light.

I muddled, bringing dice in too early. This thread includes good advice, particularly about waiting until someone says, “Hell no, you’re not doing that” before the dice come out. It’s hard to resist using the system, but delaying until it’s a real conflict would have helped to cement the difference.

Tim Jensen’s advice later in the above thread would have really improved our game. “All of the characters should start within easy walking distance of everyone else.” Not addressing that led to three parallel stories rather than a braid of overlapping interactions.

Setting Sparks

Have you played In A Wicked Age? Did you play it straight, with a different oracle, or hacked to your group’s play style?

Even if you haven’t played IAWA, have you ever used a tool like an Oracle to help you plan out your next scene? Or even to generate PCs and a tense situation for a game?

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Celebrity Shill of the Day: Local Kia dealerships in Pennsylvania and Texas hired wacky waving inflatable arm flailing Gary Busey to sell some cars. That was last year, and the TV spots have somehow gone unnoticed by the video-viewing masses.

Naturally, being that this is the Internet, they couldn’t remain undiscovered for long, and, naturally, being that this is Gary Busey, they are amazing.

Check out a couple more below, and then head over here to watch the rest. Tell ‘em Gary sentcha (or he’ll pull your endocrine system out of your body).

[uproxx.]

Tagged: Celebrity Shill, gary busey, kia, video

from Dice Monkey http://dicemonkey.net Number of Views :3
It’s here, it’s here!

Okay, it’s not actually here, per se, but it’ll be here before we know it!

You should go to your FLGS and beg them to stock it, or, barring having an FLGS, you could preorder it on Amazon.

Now, you all know me: I love miniatures. As such, I think I need to prepare for the game.

The basic game will allow you to play as one of many heroes, and make your own. I like the idea of playing established heroes in the universe (at least to start), so we’ll need miniatures.

The text on the site mentions “Captain America, Spider-Man, Daredevil, Iron Man, Wolverine, and more” while the cover of the book (as seen above) also shows Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel. So, we’ll need those minis.

Fire up Strike Zone Online, and get looking!

First up: Captain America. Depending on which Cap is carrying the shield in the stats, there are two options: This one, depicting Bucky Barnes as Cap (for the low, low cost of $.88!), or this one, depicting Steve Rogers.

Second, we have Iron Man. I like this one, which features Iron Man flying forward at top speed. It would go well alongside the Steve Rogers Captain America above.

Spider-Man has a fantastic variety of miniatures, but my favorite is definitely this one. He’s got a backpack on, and if you don’t like that, it’s easily removed. I’ve got the mini, and it’s actually fallen off of my figure.

Wolverine has a lot of options as well. Here’s a nice, straightforward figure, and this one would be good with a repaint. Also, there’s Logan, without his costume. It’s a great figure.

Daredevil has a couple good sculpts. Here’s one, where he’s punching. Also, this is a great dynamic one. This one is great as well.

With Ms. Marvel, they aparently only have her as a Skrull, so you’d have to do a repaint. Here she is.

Spider-Woman has a single sculpt, which is this one. Not too bad, but not as great as it could be.

So that’s the heroes they’ve mentioned. They mention a couple of villains as well, Armadillo and Zzzax. I’m certain that there will be a lot more, but those are the only two we know of so far.

You’ll need villains, so I can imagine you’ll need lots of HYDRA Agents (found here, here, and here), lots of AIM agents (here, here and here), some Skrulls (here, here and here), and some Doombots (here). Of course, picking up some well-known villains such as Magneto and Dr. Doom wouldn’t hurt.

Luckily, with the Heroclix figures, you can usually find a cheap version of any hero or villain you need.

But what about the gigantic stands? No one likes those! Well, you can easily chop the figures off, and put them onto D&D bases. Works like a charm.

Finally, go get a few sets of the Star Wars Galaxy Tiles (I have three, from when they first came out). These can represent the hallways of the Helicarrier or a dozen other places.

Now go forth and get ready! I’m preordering my copy as soon as possible.

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

What The Hell of the Day: How does a 14-year-old African-American girl who speaks not one word of Spanish end up being deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Colombia? That’s what they would like to know.

ICE Director of Public Affairs Brian Hale said the department has opened an investigation into the circumstances leading to the deportation of a Texas teen named Jakadrien, who was arrested and sent to Colombia last year despite never having been there in her life.

According to Jakadrien’s grandmother, who managed to track down her granddaughter with the help of Dallas Police and Facebook, the then-14-year-old ran away from home in 2010 after her grandfather died and her parents divorced.

News 8 says Jakadrien ended up on the streets of Houston, where she was arrested by police for theft. Alone and scared, the young girl gave officers a fake name, which, by sheer misfortune, happened to belong to a 22-year-old illegal immigrant from Colombia.

Without verification, ICE collected Jakadrien’s fingerprints and deported her to the South American republic, where she was given a work card and released. In Facebook posts, Jakadrien reportedly complained of being tired from having to work all day cleaning a big house.

Though the U.S. Embassy has been notified of her whereabouts, this sad story isn’t over yet: The Colombian government has since seized Jakadrien, and is holding her in a detention facility for reasons unknown.

Her grandmother, however, is far from giving up: “I feel like she will come home,” she says. “I just need help and prayer.”

[wfaa.]

Tagged: All Kinds Of Wrong, Jakadrien, what the hell

from Tiny Cartridge http://tinycartridge.com/
New Japanese commercial for Super Mario 3D Land starring actress/idol Haruka Ayase. This is the handheld gaming experience — spending a quiet afternoon slouching in a chair, knees up, talking to yourself and making weird noises as you guide characters around a tiny screen.

Looking at Ayase’s filmography, I saw she was in a hilariously titled Japanese movie called Oppai Volleyball, which I found this amusing description for:

“Haruka Ayase stars as a newly-transferred 23-year-old teacher who takes over coaching of her new school’s volleyball team, only to discover the squad’s 5 players are all geeks who are too preoccupied with girls to bother practicing. Without realizing quite how effective it would ultimately be, she somehow gets roped into promising to show her ‘oppai’ (breasts) if they win a game, turning the boys into highly-dedicated sportsmen overnight.”

She was also in Kwak Jae-yong’s (My Sassy Girl) Cyborg She, which I hear was good but haven’t checked out yet.

Buy: Super Mario 3D Land, 3DS system

Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more

See also: More Super Mario 3D Land stuff

from Comixed - 4 panel comic strip (yonkoma or 4koma) http://comixed.memebase.com

Comic by:

Berial

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

Supercut of the Day: The plot of It’s a Wonderful Life recreated with clips from over 20 TV shows — and Back to the Future II.

(List of shows at the source.)

[vkmtvstudios / waxy.]

Tagged: Clip Compilation, It's a Wonderful Life, Mashup, Movie Montage, Supercut

from The Daily What http://thedailywh.at

This Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: The Arizona Humane Society has come under fire for euthanizing the nine-month old kitten of a recovering heroin addict who was unable to pay $400 for the animal’s surgery.

Scruffy the cat was Daniel Dockery’s “closest companion.” Dockery had raised the feline from birth.

Earlier this month, Scruffy sustained severe injuries after getting tangled in some barbed-wire fencing. The AHS demanded $400 from Dockery to treat his pet. He requested 24 hours to obtain the money by wire from his mother in Michigan, but staff members would not allow it. They even rejected his request to have his mother provide her credit card information over the phone.

They left him with one option: Sign over Scruffy’s ownership rights or the cat would go untreated.

Dockery reluctantly gave Scruffy over to the AHS after being assured the cat would receive medical aid and put in foster care. He then spent two weeks attempting to track Scruffy down at every local shelter, but to no avail.

Yesterday, Arizona Republic‘s Robert Anglen learned the heartbreaking truth: Scruffy had been euthanized.

Asked to explain its actions, AHS told Anglen the kitten was put down “not because of its wounds, but because its owner could not immediately pay for its care.”

Apparently there were only enough resources to treat two of the three ailing cats at the clinic, and Scruffy pulled out the short straw.

“Now I’ve got to think about how I failed that beautiful animal,” Dockery said. “I failed her. … That’s so wrong. There was no reason for her not to be treated.”

AHS told Anglen it would be reconsidering its policy of rejecting payment over the phone.

Despite all he’s been through, Dockery still feels taking Scruffy to the AHS was the right decision. “I don’t want to turn people away from the Humane Society,” he said. “They do do good works.”

[azrepublic / mediaite.] 

Tagged: All Kinds Of Wrong, Arizona Humane Society, Daniel Dockery, Scruffy

from Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/

Despite the holiday season bringing joy, laughter and harmony to many of us, it doesn't shelter life from its fragile nature. Today, Abel announced that Hiroyuki Kanno has passed away. On December 19th, Kanno left us due to a cerebral hemorrhage. Kanno was only 37 years old.
Throughout his life, Kanno was an avid reader and studied the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Stephen King, as well as philosophical studies in order to learn about the human psyche and emotional patterns. He would make use of this when he began to design video games in his early 20s for C's Ware, a visual novel software house that became an influential in the progression of the visual novel genre with his games Eve burst error and Desire. His greatest achievement in video games would later be YU-NO, the multi dimensional thriller which not only brought innovation to visual novels, but video gaming as a whole.
Kanno was a close friend of late Ryu Umemoto, a friendship which saw them collaborate on the games which made them two of the most well respected individuals and deeply regarded in the independent video game scene in Japan in their respective fields. Now, the legendary duo has both passed away, all within 6 months.
Hardcore Gaming 101 would like to offer our thoughts and condolences to Kanno's family.

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at

Mysterious Metal Ball from Space of the Day: A 13-pound metallic ball, about 14 inches in diameter, has crash-landed in a remote region of Namibia.

Local authorities suspect the ball fell from space, judging by the size of the crater it left, and they’ve attempted to contact NASA and the European Space Agency about its origins.

The hollow metal ball is one of several that have been reported over the past two decades in Australia, Latin America and southern Africa.

Although it was first discovered in November, the mysterious object wasn’t reported until recently, because authorities wanted to verify that it wasn’t dangerous.

“It is not an explosive device, but rather hollow, but we had to investigate all this first,” said police deputy inspector general Vilho Hifindaka.

[popsci]

Tagged: metal, mystery, mystery objects, namibia, space ball

Submitted by: Unknown

from Jeffs Gameblog http://jrients.blogspot.com/  It's just a spell that does damage at a range, right?Magic Missile Manifestation (d20)
1. Summon Ghost Arrow
2. Laser Beam Finger
3. Ebon Flame Gout from Palm
4. Icicle Spray from Fingertips
5. Sparkly Rainbow Gesture
6. Summon Nano Black Hole
7. Throw Fire Shurikens
8. Bees from Mouth
9. Lightning from Eyes
10. Fingers Briefly Become Long Snakes
11. Heat Wave From Forehead Cooks Foe's Innards
12. Spheres of Eerie Light Up From Ground
13. Slime Erupts from Target's Pores
14. Summon Biting Skulls
15. Eyes Open In Palms, Shoot Purple Beams
16. Spit Lava
17. Conjure Vortex of Green Fumes
18. Call the Hideous Cackling from Nowhere
19. Blow Kiss of Death
20. Projectile Vomit of Acid
DMs may opt to track specific formulations, or simply each caster has their own version, or maybe you have to roll every dang time you cast.

from xkcd.com http://xkcd.com/

from Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/ I’ve been meaning to post about Satellablog for months, but kept forgetting. Apologies to all involved. Satellablog is dedicated to all things Satellaview, the satellite-based add-on system for the Super Famicom in Japan. Arguabl...

from Comixed - 4 panel comic strip (yonkoma or 4koma) http://comixed.memebase.com

Comic by: AllSeeingIsland

from inessential.com http://inessential.com/ I’d love to run, edit, and write for a publication bigger than just me and my blog. I don’t have time, so I won’t, at least not any time soon. But if I were to run a publication, I’d have a few rules: Design for reading Obviously. See my previous p...

from TDW Geeks http://geeks.thedailywh.at Akira Casting News of the Day: Ken Watanabe (Inception, Batman Begins) has been offered the role of The Colonel in the live-action version of Akira, according to Twitch. Watanabe is the first Japanese actor to be offered a major part in the controversia...