December 17, 2015
"The simplest answer is: More gaming choices."
The 2015 People's Choice Top 100 Solo Tabletop Games: a list produced by BoardGameGeek's 1 Player Guild in connection with the 1 Player Podcast. Over 200 voters today put the Mage Knight Board Game in the top spot once more, but a number of smaller/shorter games made the top 10 too. The group's FAQ "Why do some people play solitaire board games?" explains how solo tabletop gaming complements multiplayer and digital board gaming. This week, incidentally, the iOS Board Games blog is synopsizing the latter in its annual Digital Board Games Gift Guide. [more inside]
Your secret Stingray is not so secret anymore
Daniel Rigmaiden had a theory about something his phone was doing. It turns out his phone really was spying on him.
Most phones can be used to geolocate people, but the documents indicate that some have more advanced capabilities, like eavesdropping on calls and spying on SMS messages.
You broke my videogames and I like it. -- not_on_display
To avoid spoilers by quoting JHarris from here, "Retro Sabotage is a collection of recreations of classic video games. Or is it?" And they have just released their first content in almost six years to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Space Harrier: To War. Oh, and here's JHarris's hint about Retro Sabotage in general: "If a button needs to be pressed, it's the space bar unless it's explained otherwise." [more inside]
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away
A long time ago in a TV studio not so far away, the stars of the original Star Wars film came to the BBC to promote their then-unknown movie Star Wars at the BBC (Iplayer) (Youtube) [more inside]
"Owning a Frenchie is not for the faint of heart."
WHY FRENCH BULLDOGS (AND THEIR OWNERS) ARE THE WORST: A RANT
Generations of unwise inbreeding to no good end, far beyond what would be needed to keep their signature looks, have left these cartoon critters with low resistance to illness and allergies. Physically handicapped at birth (by cesarean, because the heads are, like the owners' pride, inflated) with squashed-in faces that are freakishly flat, they face serious challenges in performing some of any mammal's basic functions — like getting enough oxygen and keeping their bodies at a safe temperature.
French Bulldogs are NYC’s Most Popular Dog
Generations of unwise inbreeding to no good end, far beyond what would be needed to keep their signature looks, have left these cartoon critters with low resistance to illness and allergies. Physically handicapped at birth (by cesarean, because the heads are, like the owners' pride, inflated) with squashed-in faces that are freakishly flat, they face serious challenges in performing some of any mammal's basic functions — like getting enough oxygen and keeping their bodies at a safe temperature.
French Bulldogs are NYC’s Most Popular Dog
Put a bow on it!
Tis the season for big-ass bows. Here's a very brief documentary on one of the more unique businesses in America (and the obligatory Key and Peele sketch that goes with it).
You mite not have heard of them, but they'd lice to tell you a story
The history of humanity’s grand sweep around the world is recorded in our genes and genealogies, our art and artifacts, our literature and languages. It’s also written in the legions
of tiny mites that live, eat, crawl, and have sex on your face.
Stromae's Racine Carrée, live - we were amazing
In support of his most recent album, Racine Carrée (YT playlist with official videos), Stromae played 209 concerts in 25 countries. From these, he captured performances at the Bell Center in Montreal on September 28 and 29 to present two hours of the singing, dancing, acting spectacle that was his show (YT). Bonus: it's subtitled in English, if you want to understand those French lyrics. [more inside]
Turns out good beards don't mean good chocolate
How the Mast Brothers fooled the world into paying $10 a bar for crappy hipster chocolate [more inside]
Literally Blood-Curdling
"Extending to the lower orders a small share in domination."
How To Predict Bad Cops In Chicago
"...thou shalt not be a bystander" ― Yehuda Bauer
Playing Along With Benny Goodman: Javier Grillo-Marxuach on Plagiarism
I am a Fucking Plagiarist -- Javier Grillo-Marxuach, creator of The Middleman (previously), a writer for two seasons on Lost, and co-host of the Children of Tendu podcast, riffs (extensively, and entertainingly) on the nature of plagiarism in the lives of aspiring and professional entertainers. [more inside]
"There's the Jamaican bobsled team, so TAKE THAT, stereotypes!"
“Black Folk Don’t...” is an open conversation that invites everyone to take a second look at the grey areas between us all, no matter the race, and most importantly to do it with a sense of humor. This documentary web series is a special presentation of BlackPublicMedia.org, directed and produced by Angela Tucker, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Did you know that black folk don't… [more inside]
"It is for her love that we’ve done everything."
"Like grimey servants we followed every new trace that could lead us to her, the aim of our two year quest was always to see the toughest of all the machines. A dormant juggernaut that lies underground. Her name? Iseb, the worm maiden." [more inside]
Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery
In 1796, Jane Austen visited John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. The museum (operational from 1789-1805) was entirely devoted to specially-commissioned paintings of scenes from Shakespeare's plays, and played a significant role in shaping the dramatist's reputation during the late eighteenth century. This reconstruction of the gallery includes the catalog and the paintings that would have been hanging there in 1796 (the museum's collection ultimately included well over 150 paintings). For more information on the gallery, see the Folger Library's Marketing Shakespeare. The Romantic Illustration Network is working on digitizing extant engravings of the gallery's entire collection. Visitors to the gallery were themselves painted in 1790.
I can't do it his way and now I'm ashamed to do it my way.
I enjoy watching Mr. Brown. He's clever, he's informed and I'm sure he's generally right about the "right" way to do things. I'm also sure that I will never in my life have a kitchen as well-stocked as his or that I will have nine hours to spend making a blintz.
Why I Don't Cook [more inside]
Radical Acceptance in the Pearl of Africa
Cleopatra Kambugu was outed as a trans woman following the passage of extremely punitive anti-gay bills in Uganda. She, her boyfriend, and her family are the subject of a series of short documentaries about life in East Africa for openly LGBTQI individuals. "I was born here - a land with beautiful mountains and deep dark forest - a country blessed with diversity in ethnicity, gender, flora and fauna. Yet in all this richness, as a people and as a nation, we still struggle to recognize and appreciate this diversity." links and videos contain some disturbing transphobic and homophobic rhetoric and violence. [more inside]
high-end cafe at home
How Jimmy Fallon Crushed Stephen Colbert
Essay contest for movie theater giveaway!
Write yourself a new life via essay contest in a movie theater giveaway Win a two-screen movie theater in Houlton, Maine (right on the cusp of an international border!) in an essay contest. The theater is no white elephant gift; the owner renovated and upgraded in 2014 for digital projection & sound. [more inside]
This is a summoning of bodies: all shapes, sizes and shades
Lizzo has a new album out - Big GRRRL Small World. Among a roster of tracks that specialises in audacious beats, hilarious lyrics, unexpected diversions and freakishly catchy hooks, sits My Skin, a sweet but weary ode to empowerment, body-positivity, and being a person of colour. [more inside]
The dark truth behind the convictions for 'gender fraud'
It's not about justice, it's about witch hunts, argues Alex Sharpe "Today, a young transgender man, Kyran Lee, received a two year suspended sentence after being convicted in 2014 of one count of sexual assault by penetration on the basis of “gender fraud.” He is the fifth young LGBT person to be prosecuted for and convicted of so-called “gender fraud” in the UK since 2012. The reason for this recent spate of criminal prosecutions of LGBT youth is unclear and calls for rigorous analysis in its own right. What is clear, is that while these prosecutions have some support, they do not accord with general community sentiment concerning the meaning of consent and the proper reach of criminal law."
“You can’t squint hard enough to make this gray.”
Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Claims of a Cover-Up by Nicholas Kulish, Christopher Drew and Matthew Rosenberg [The New York Times] U.S. soldiers accused Afghan police and Navy SEALs of abusing detainees. But the SEAL command opted against a court-martial and cleared its men of wrongdoing.
Abuse of detainees is among the most serious offenses an American service member can commit. Several military justice experts, who reviewed a Naval Criminal Investigative Service report on the case at the request of The Times, said that it had been inappropriate for the SEAL command to treat such allegations as an internal disciplinary matter and that it should have referred the case for an Article 32 review, the equivalent of a grand jury, to consider a court-martial.[more inside]
Snow and Seals
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