It's late at night, you've got a pocketful of crumpled bills and coins, and your hunger exceeds your self-esteem. Thanks to a clever hack, now all you have to do is send your budget to a special email address to generate a maximum calorie Taco Bell menu.
Australian retailer JB Hi-Fi - never a bastion of serious business - has a sticker for The Elder Scrolls Online that is as funny as it is foreboding.
Cannonball's childhood is going to be very different. Okay, okay, it already is.
No, it's not a one way mirror. It's much cooler than that. MIT scientists have invented a new invisible mirror that can show reflections like a typical mirror but also be see through like a window. The magic is in the alternating 84 ultra thin layers typical glass and tantalum oxide. It's a mirror but when you spin it, it becomes transparent. Some light passes through, some light gets reflected.
Google's new standalone Camera app is a sleek and powerful alternative to the stock Android camera. Turns out, it's also a soldier in the war against vertical videos . Try to shoot a portrait-framed vid, and you'll stare down the cold judgment of an icon telling you you're doing it wrong. You've been warned.
Photos with Star Wars figurines can't really get more dramatic (and funny) than in Malaysian photographer Zahir Batin's machroshots on DeviantART. He only needed a few droids, some stormtroopers and the touch of nature to fill his series with emotion.
Supposedly, the new anime series Ninja Slayer is based on the novels of American writers Bradley Bond and Philip Ninj@ Morzez. Instead, the books were actually written by Japanese "translators" Honda Yu and Sugi Leika. Either way, this first trailer is delightfully insane.
Chili's had planned to donate 10% of its customers' checks on April 7th to the National Autism Association , an organization that claims vaccines "trigger or exacerbate autism in some, if not many, children." This evening, Chili's announced it will be canceling the event based on feedback received from its guests.
It's turning out that the outer reaches of the solar system may be more hospitable to life than we ever imagined. Gravity measurements made by Cassini have confirmed that Enceladus, a tiny moon orbiting Saturn, hosts a subsurface ocean in its southern latitudes. Astronomers are now saying it's potentially habitable.
    
|
This probably goes without saying, but one of the things I love about video games is that they give me a (somewhat) grown-up excuse to play with toys. That probably helps explain why Skylanders is one of my favorite games in recent memory. It's also why I'm so excited for Prodigy, a tactical RPG currently in development at the French indie studio Hanakai.
|
|
Filed under: Sci-Fi, EVE Online, Patches, Previews, Dev Diaries, Sandbox
EVE Online plans drone renaissance originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 01 Apr 2014 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Seriously people, you must watch Jelani Eddington's incredible rendition of the Main Title from the Star Wars Symphonic Suite on a Sanfilippo Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ. It starts slow but it gets pretty crazy after a while. And the end—holy crap that end. Is he playing in the Death Star or what?
|
|
Filed under: Endgame, Opinion, The Soapbox, Miscellaneous
Continue reading The Soapbox: Let me tell you how little I want to raid
The Soapbox: Let me tell you how little I want to raid originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 27 Mar 2014 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
This is the mecha smartphone holder ($90) made and sold by Etsy shop MechWorld. It looks like it's made out of a bunch of cabinet door hinges and other hardware. It also looks like it would be a real treat to accidentally step on in the middle of the night. "But why would it be on the floor?" I don't know, maybe it was f***ing a dust-bunny, don't act like you know what mechas do when you turn off the lights.
Keep going for a couple more shots, but be sure to check out dude's Etsy store for all your 'Transformers and other robots made out of door hinges' needs.
Can we decree that every vehicle in pop fiction has to turn into a giant robot, please? Because artist Darren Rawlings has reimagined the greatest vehicles of TV, cinema, anime and more as Transformers, and the results are phenomenal.
|
|
Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, EverQuest, Game Mechanics, MMO Industry, PvE, Opinion, Ultima Online, Miscellaneous, Sandbox, WildStar, Dungeons, MMORPG, Working As Intended
Continue reading Working As Intended: Endgame is the worst thing that ever happened to MMOs
Working As Intended: Endgame is the worst thing that ever happened to MMOs originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 14 Mar 2014 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
That's what haiku poets do after laying down some serious syllables, right? They pose? I'm just trying to make sure I've got this whole master poet thing down. It's a good look for me and no, no it's not.
EXCLUSIVE STW COMIC: I've got a new exclusive comic up over on the I Love Charts collection of Medium! Please check it out and enjoy!
EMERALD CITY COMIC CON: Come see me in Seattle! March 28-30!
PHD UNKNOWN - my other webcomic about fierce creatures, biology, and grad school
SCIENCE THE WORLD - research on STEM
education open to all K-12 educators
Liked this lesson? Share this comic!
This weekend, we're reconnecting with Veronica Mars, our favorite teenage detective, after a decade apart. And she's still rocking the camera and sass. But Veronica's not the only teenage hero who managed to grow up without losing her mojo. Here are 10 other teen heroes who grew up but kept their style.
|
|
There's not been a lot of discussion of evolution in Neil deGrasse Tyson's Cosmos so far, and yet a very slight reference to it was so upsetting to Fox's Oklahoma City affiliate that they just "happened" to run a promo for the nightly news over the show's sole mention it, as you can see in the above video.
|
|
The number one rule for hosting a successful dinner party? Make sure your guests fear gruesome death by dinosaur at least once during the evening. The best way to achieve the effect? These ice ripples that mimic that scene—you know the one—from the original Jurassic Park. No T-Rex needed!
|
|
New legislation being proposed in California would begin to phase out the keeping of killer whales (Orcinus orca) in captive environments in the state. Democratic Assemblymember Richard Bloom of the state's fiftieth district announced the bill this morning at a press conference on the Santa Monica Pier. The bill, AB 2140, is informally called the "California Captive Orca Welfare and Safety Act."
If passed, the bill would end performance-based entertainment for all killer whales in California, end captive breeding programs for the species within the state, prevent the import and export of genetic materials for breeding programs elsewhere, prevent the import and export of the whales themselves, and more.
With the Pacific Ocean as his backdrop, Bloom began the announcement by describing the ways in which our relationship with one of the ocean's top predators has changed in the last forty years. "Not that long ago, the military used orcas for target practice because they were considered dangerous to humans or pests to fisherman, and were therefore deemed expendable. Well, things have obviously changed. Beginning in the 1970s, studies of these majestic creatures in the wild began to emerge, and over the next few decades we learned that orcas are neither mindless killers nor pests. In their natural habitat, orcas are docile, if not inquisitive." He went on to describe their social structure and cognitive sophistication: "Orcas are family-oriented, highly adaptable, [and] socially complex, with cultural traditions that trail only humans as the most intelligent creatures on the planet."
While Bloom has a track record of concern for the environment – he is a former California Coastal Commissioner and former Chair of the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission – he explained that it was his constituents and his staff who encouraged him to consider developing legislation on orca welfare. The film Blackfish was what initially sparked the interest, but Bloom also consulted with marine mammal researchers, including the Animal Welfare Institute's Naomi Rose, rather than relying entirely on the film to form his opinions. "[Blackfish] is helping to form peoples' opinions, but…that wasn't enough for me. I went out and spoke to the scientific community," Bloom said. "It wasn't until after I had gathered all of that information that I became convinced that this was an appropriate bill to carry."
While the legislation is designed to end the keeping of killer whales for entertainment purposes, the Assemblymember was clear that this was not targeted at SeaWorld per se. "This bill is not about SeaWorld and it is not intended to try and somehow harm SeaWorld and its business model." He said. "I am confident that SeaWorld can carry on without this one element of the many things that it does. SeaWorld does good work in the community. It provides funding for scientific studies, and it does marine rescue work that is highly thought of by the community."
Importantly, the proposed legislation also acknowledges the practical and scientific limitations involved in the release of captive-born animals. "Another misunderstanding about this bill is that it would somehow lead to the release of all the orcas that are currently in captivity, into the wild," he said. Because killer whale society is so complex, it would be a poor welfare decision to dump these animals back into the sea. "To simply release them into the wild would probably be releasing them to their deaths," Bloom correctly explained. Those whales for which wild release would be impossible are instead to be transferred to sea pens. Until sea pens, which are large enclosures anchored to the seafloor and attached to the shore, become available, the orcas are allowed to be kept in their existing enclosures, but not for performance or entertainment purposes.
That means that the orcas currently in marine parks and aquariums, some of whom will live out their lives in their enclosures, will still be properly cared for. The training that is necessary for veterinary care, psychological and physical enrichment, and management will still be permitted.
The full text of the proposed legislation can be found here. It's easy to understand and (in this writer's opinion) very well written. Here are the key points:
|
|
There's no denying that everything looks cooler in slow motion, but birds of prey on the hunt are particularly mesmerizing through the lens of a high-speed camera. This Goshawk is being lured into attacking a water balloon baited with a piece of meat, and its mid-air maneuvers make even our most advanced fighter planes look primitive.
|
|
Who says our visions of a blimp-filled future are passé? Behold the Airlander, a hybrid air vehicle that's part blimp, part airplane, and part helicopter. Experts are calling it a 'game changer' — and it could revolutionize the transport industry.
|
|
The folks from I Want to Fish were about start fishing salmon off the coast of British Columbia when a humpback whale came to their boat to say hi. No, really, she actually came by, said hi waving her fin and left. That's how awesome whales roll.
|
|
