October 6, 2013
Apathy and Voting
Want to start your Monday with the sadness of ineffectual activism? (slHTML5) Apathy attempts to simulate social networking (not in a bad way) and activism in bicameral politics.
"I have never been custodian of my legacy."
In Conversation: Antonin Scalia "On the eve of a new Supreme Court session, the firebrand justice discusses gay rights and media echo chambers, Seinfeld and the Devil, and how much he cares about his intellectual legacy ("I don’t")." [more inside]
Spore: My View of the Elephant
A postmortem of the video game Spore from a member of the development team, Soren Johnson: "A few weeks ago and with little fanfare, Spore turned five-years-old. The game was announced at GDC 2005 during Will Wright’s annual mind-blowing speech on whatever floats through his head. The initial concept – of a game in which the player evolves a species from cellular development to galactic dominion – generated an immense amount of hype, which the game struggled to fulfill upon its 2008 release. Spore received middling reviews from the gaming press, who found the gameplay weak and unfocused, and harsh criticism from the scientific press, who felt tricked by the promise of a game built from real science.
For myself, the time is now right to put down my own thoughts on Spore’s development – my memories of the project are still fresh, yet enough time has passed to ensure that criticism doesn’t impact active teams."
Ping Pong with Knives
Narcoland
'Mexico's war on drugs is one big lie'. '"Narcoland shows how contemporary capitalism is in no position to renounce the mafia. Because it is not the mafia that has transformed itself into a modern capitalist enterprise, it is capitalism that has transformed itself into a mafia. The rules of drug trafficking that Anabel Hernández describes are also the rules of capitalism."' [more inside]
And still the party goes on.
Nero's Guests is a story about India’s agrarian crisis and the growing inequality seen through the work of the Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, P Sainath. The entire film is uncopyrighted and available to watch online. As Sainath says, "There are two kinds of journalists. One kind are journalists, the other are stenographers." As to the silence of the mainstream Indian media on the farmer suicides, he noted:
"Tacitus despised Nero. His writings on the Emperor show us that. However, he wrote very little about his guests. Those who could pop that fig while human torches burned around them. But then, come to think of it, the media of our time – the first-drafters-of history – are remarkably silent about this side of our own elite. Too many of whom are today just that. Nero’s Guests.
The Big Chill
Let the enlargement of knowledge be one constant view and design in life
The Improvement of the Mind by hymnwriter Issac Watts provides surprisingly relevant and modern advice on how to learn, listen, read, debate, and converse. It proved to be inspirational to the great experimentalist and scientist Michael Faraday. Full version on Google Books.
Undelete! Undelete! Undelete!
On the cusp of Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary, rumors have been swirling for months that at least 90 of the 106 missing Doctor Who episodes have been recovered. Today, a Sunday tabloid in the UK ran the same rumor. A report in the Radio Times seems to confirm it. [more inside]
There isn't any tension-destroying, mood-killing fanservice.
Kotaku dubbed it one of the shows to watch this season, later said that it was not living up to its potential, and finally proclaimed it "damn good." Its over the top, but really fantastic, soundtrack has spawned a bit of a meme and, of course, it has inspired the requisite minecraft recreation. After all of that, though, and with the anime's first series coming to an end recently, one of the most high comments that can be paid to the series thus far is that it handles gender in a way that is head and shoulders above many other series.
If he hollers let him go
10 seconds in the span of 10 minutes
TimeFRAME (Unity plugin/plays in-browser) is a lovely meditative game created as part of Ludum Dare 27 by Tyler Owen, Clark Aboud, Alex Senechal.
Downloadable versions: Windows, Linux, Mac, Windows with Occulus Rift support.
Downloadable versions: Windows, Linux, Mac, Windows with Occulus Rift support.
Grundeinkommen - ein Kulturimpuls
Switzerland to vote on $2,800 monthly 'basic income' for adults (reddit, mr; previously-er) [more inside]
Prance-y Dance-y Fancy Death Machine
Boston Dynamics ( Previously, previously, previously) recently released video of its brand new 4-legged running robot - Introducing The WildCat
PuzzleScript
Coffee, air baths and a lunchtime martini
The kids don't give a damn about your generation's movies
Bringing Up Nick is a show where Revision3's Adam Sessler tries to teach his younger and movie ignorant colleague Nick a thing or two about classic movies and their cultural impact. First up, James Cameron's Aliens.
That tour of the whole house thing Americans do is bizarre though
"In New York City, if you yell “where do I get the F train?” at someone they will tell you, they might even STOP to tell you. If you ask them “Excuse me, I was wondering if you have a moment, I’m from out of town and my trying to find the F train, so if you could possibly…” If you set up your question with all that, they will have walked away from you after the fifth word.
In Seattle, if you are pushing your car for some reason, men will appear without a word and help you push. You’ll be pushing, and the next thing you know, there are men on either side of you." -- Cultural Secrets that I Know
In Seattle, if you are pushing your car for some reason, men will appear without a word and help you push. You’ll be pushing, and the next thing you know, there are men on either side of you." -- Cultural Secrets that I Know
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