July 12, 2017
It just doesn't matter!
Believe me, typical NR reader, I get you.
"I declare a snark battle with that dumb National Review essay comparing women to cowboys." [more inside]
' the most sacred of sacred cows'
The untold origins of Gamergate — and the gaming legends who spawned the modern culture of abuse
Today, most people probably aren’t familiar with Old Man Murray, a gaming and humor website that ran from 1997 to 2002. Its writers and founders may ring a bell, though, as the creative minds behind some of the industry's most critically acclaimed games. Erik Wolpaw was a writer for Psychonauts, Portal 1, and Portal 2. Chet Faliszek was a writer on Left 4 Dead and Portal 1-2. Together, they “invented the internet,” as Scott Pilgrim author Bryan Lee O’Malley put it.[more inside]
Creating a pox that's small
Canadian researchers reconstituted an extinct poxvirus for $100,000 using mail-order DNA Sciencemag: Virologists synthesized the extinct horsepox - harmless to humans - by combining genetic material ordered by mail. [more inside]
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
Hollow Knight's Charming Art Sets the Bar for Hand Drawn Games [PC Gamer] “I've been obsessed with indie metroidvania Hollow Knight [Release Trailer] [Beneath and Beyond Trailer] since its launch late last month. Apart from having fun and challenging combat and a massive amount of game to explore, I've found myself sucked in by the moody, Dark Souls-inspired setting developer Team Cherry has created. Despite a mostly monotone dark color palette, the dank corridors of Hallownest still feel vibrant thanks to how Hollow Knight mixes fantastic hand drawn art with more modern effects. It's a lot of little things all coming together that make Hollow Knight look so good, many of which you may not actively notice. It's a 2D game with 2D animations, but Team Cherry's use of dynamic lighting, shadows, and particle effects do a huge amount of work to solidify those 2D sketches and make them feel real in whatever space they're in. And while the character designs are relatively clean and simple, animation fills them with personality. ” [more inside]
What We Know — And Don’t Know — About Hate Crimes in America
The FBI is required by law to collect data about hate crimes in the United States, but local jurisdictions aren't required to report incidents up to the federal government. As a predictable consequence, the FBI's data is incomplete. To help fill in the gaps, ProPublica's Documenting Hate is constructing a non-public-facing database to offer a broader picture of hate crimes and bias incidents in the U.S., and reporting on their preliminary findings, including recent surges in visits to white supremacist websites, an interview with a scholar of the far-right and the New York Police Department's rare diligence in tracking hate crimes. [more inside]
Starting With Nimona and Ending With Superman
Yes, it's another list of "all time bests" to be debated, disputed, dissected, and deemed various levels of unworthiness. NPR Books' Summer Reader Poll 2017: 100 Favorite Comics And Graphic Novels got over 7000 different nominated works, whittled down to a hunnerd by a shockingly four-fifths female judging panel (Including G. Willow Wilson and C. Spike Trotman). Yes, there are subcategories for Superheroes, Newspaper Comics and Web Comics (which semi-oddly includes Homestuck and The Nib). Let the WebArguments begin!
Quit smiling, ya idiot, you're supposed to be professional
Please enjoy this anodyne for troubled times: Adorable Raccoon Babies Make Human Friend [sprightly music, titles]. BoredPanda offers more evidence of the animal's infernal charm. What could be better, you ask? Raccoon and dogs! Inside Edition promo [voiceover and music], Youtube channel.
Disabilities and Dragons: portrayals of disability on TV, and in fantasy
Last November, Michelle Diament reported that Disability Portrayals On TV At Record High (Disability Scoop), citing GLAAD's 2016-2017 "Where We Are on TV" report (PDF), but unfortunately, another study by the Ruderman Family Foundation found that Able-Bodied Actors Play 95% of Disabled Characters in Top 10 TV Shows (Variety). Still, there are a few shows shaking up disability representation on television, with David M. Perry, a disability rights journalist, highlighting Speechless and Switched at Birth for both accurate casting and over-all portrayal of life with disabilities. NPR recently added Game of Thrones to the list of notable shows regarding disabilities, though it's not without issues. [more inside]
Fall on your knees
Thrifted Transformations
Thrifted Transformations is a YouTube series by April aka coolirpa, and it is all about transforming thrift shop clothes (and sometimes not-clothes) into entirely new creations. (See also ReFashionista, previously on MeFi.)
The taste of grief
"From then on, she would eliminate onion and garlic, alliums thought to conjure sexual energy, from her diet. She would stop eating red lentils for the same reason—these were, apparently, edible pulses as potent as aphrodisiacs. She would stamp out meat and fish, staples of cooking in Paschim Dinajpur, and stick to a rigorously strict vegetarian diet. She would be restricted to one meal a day, mid-day. At night, she would have puffed rice, khoi, with milk. Following this odd, constricting decree was culturally expected of her and other Hindu, high-caste widows in Bengal."
The following is an actual legal dispute. Like, for real.
"If I do less next year, that's OK by me."
Rape Choreography Makes Films Safer, But Still Takes a Toll on Cast and Crew by April Wolfe, LA Weekly
With this many on-screen rape scenes being produced, people like MacNair are needed more than ever on set to supervise. "These actresses are playing a vulnerable part, and they're half naked, so I'm assisting for safety reasons," MacNair says. "If [the production] didn't have a choreographer, I would not trust it."[CW: numerous descriptions of fictional and real sexual assault; several still images of sexual assault scenes from films]
Learning through playing and watching and doing
Explorable Explainations are interactive online game/toy/video hybrids that teach complex concepts through interactivity. Some classics (which may have been discussed here before) include the Parable of the Polygons about segregation (by Vi Hart and Nicky Case), an interactive guide to p-hacking (from 538), an intro to digital signal processing, a sentencing simulation by the Marshall Project, and a guide to game design using games by Amit Patel. Just added to this list is a really interesting video/interactive tool on what viruses can teach us about design.
Retired French cabinet-maker builds wooden Citroen 2CV
Michel Robillard is a retired Frenchman and a cabinet-maker by profession since the age of 14. He shares two passions, wood and cars and, it would seem, a true love of the 2CV. [more inside]
The grimedark future is only brexit.
Warhammer 40K is Predicting the Present. How the UK's economy and politics of the last thirty years is reflected by rise and fall (and rise again?) of Games Workshop.
Betting on Balls of Chaos
Dune Club with Comic Book Girl 19
Join Comic Book Girl 19 and read and discuss Frank Herbert's Dune. The Dune Book Club is streamed live on Twitch on Sundays at 3 pt.
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