- This was a while ago but I forgot to share it and would like to now:
Papa John’s PR Firm Targets Bloggers. So remember when Papa John’s founder John Schnatter said that because of the “Affordable Care Act” said pizzas would have to go up in price 10-15 cents and that stores would have to close down and that people’s job’s would be cut? Well… a PR firm called Sitrick and Co. is now claiming Schnatter never said anything about the closures or lost jobs, and that the price thing was a mischaracterization of a quote from an investor call Schnatter made. Here’s the Politico article. I would never presume to tell anyone what to think about anything, especially this bill cause it is massively complicated. That’s not what this is about. This is about that ongoing struggle of power vs. freedom of information. A struggle that has been happening for a long, long time, though the internet has certainly amplified it like never before.
Aaron Swartz believed in the freedom of information.
“To call someone “deranged” or “mad” is to marginalize them, to declare that they are “not one of us.” Indeed, it is to say that he or she is not really human at all. As an adult with Asperger’s syndrome who has been marginalized all her life, I feel very uncomfortable when anyone, even someone unsavory, is summarily written out of the human race. I wonder if these sanctimonious pundits realize that the most devastating instances of mass carnage (a.k.a. “wars”) have been planned and executed by neurotypicals just like themselves who were perfectly sane—unless you consider “drunk with power” a cognizable mental disorder.
Recently it was reported that Adam Lanza, the shooter in the Connecticut elementary school massacre, may have had Asperger’s syndrome. Now it is the autism community’s turn to recoil in horror and declare that no, he could not have possibly been one of us; the Autism Society has issued a press release stating that “it is imperative to remove autism from this tragic story.”
- The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historiais, shockingly, the number one book on Amazon right now. It’s also number one on Barnes & Noble’s website, and something called Indigo. Here’s the BleedingCool post about it. I remember reading about this when it was announced, being that Dark Horse put it out and I’m pretty in-tune with what’s happening with the mainstream comic book publishers. Here’s the book’s official website.
- The classic P.O.S. album “Audition” turned seven years old yesterday. Just to give you an idea of what we’re dealing with here:
-Apparently Facebook, which as you know went public (in a much hyped disaster), made 2 cents per user last month. There’s of course a lot going on there with all sorts of complexities to a social networking giant like FB… but it does not seem like a viable business model.
- Hurricane Sandy as the Fibonacci Spiral/Sequence:
- I wonder how close this is to the character from 2001…? Someone has decided to make a HAL9000 robot for purchase and — I’m assuming — mounting on your wall somewhere? You can preorder it for $500 right now. LINK.
- Then we got some what looks to be hockey jersey’s that are really fucking nerdy and awesome at GeekJerseys.com. This Link jersey is really, really fucking awesome:
DNA sequencing of 36 complete Y chromosomes has uncovered a previously unknown period when the human population expanded rapidly. This population explosion occurred 40 to 50 thousand years ago, between the first expansion of modern humans out of Africa 60 to 70 thousand years ago and the Neolithic expansions of people in several parts of the world starting 10 thousand years ago.
- Warren Ellis FAQ featuring some interesting writing questions. Such as:
I was wondering if you had any advice regarding making ideas more important. I have pages of different events + characters that I can only develop so far because, after a time, all I can add to them are “WHO CARES?” and “WHY DOES THIS MATTER?” (I’m talking about events characters will go through. “Statues come to life all around Greece” is immediately followed by “WHO GIVES A FUCK?”) Does this ever happen to you? Thank you very much for your time, and sorry if you’ve answered a similar question!Ungh. This is a really tough one. There are two ways, maybe, to attack this.
1) One way of doing it, and this works okay for standard dramatic storytelling, is this: what do your characters WANT? The secondary questions are, what stops them from getting what they want, and how far are they prepared to go to get what they want? But start with the simple first question. What your character wants defines how we perceive and feel about them in the story. Find one thing they want, and see how that feels to you.
2) From a certain view, stories are two things. There’s what the story’s about, and what the story’s REALLY about. Wells’ WAR OF THE WORLDS is about a Martian invasion of Earth. But it’s REALLY about something else entirely. There’s a subtext: there’s the thing Wells wrote the story toactually talk about. What you may be encountering is having a story that’s all surface, or a story with a subtext that isn’t working out for you. Find out what you really want to say with your fiction. If it matters to YOU, it’ll matter to other people.
I’m starting today with three people playing theLegend of Zeldatheme on Marimba’s from YouTube:
(“Triforce” is my fantasy football team name; yes… insinuating that I don’t give a shit about fantasy football [it's a work thing])
I’ve just searched the terms “zelda mashup” on Deviant Art and found this amazingly nerdy rendition of the Fantastic 4 (Dhalsim as Mr. Fantastic is probably my favorite):
1. Prince Zuko (avatar last air bender) as Human Torch
2. Dhalsim (Street fighter) as MR Fantastic
3. Princess Zelda (Legand of Zelda) as invisible woman
4. Alphonse Elric (Full Metal alchemist) as The Thing
“Scientists may have seen more hints of the dark matter purported to make up a majority of the mass in the Universe. Researchers at the Cresst experiment in Italy say they have spotted 67 events in their detectors that may be caused by dark matter particles called Wimps. The finds must be reconciled with other experiments that have recently hinted at the detection of Wimps. The results were revealed at the Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics meeting in Germany on Tuesday.”
Scottie Young — he’s a comic book artist from Chicago — has a page where he posts illustrations of often-times pop cultural ilk. He works exclusively for Marvel and has made a name for himself drawing their entire “Wizard of Oz” catalog of books with his charming, simple but dynamic work. Recently on his blog he put up these two entries:
It’s 95 degrees outside here in sunny Minnesota today and I’m waiting to go to work, avoiding stepping outside. I just finished watching Nintendo’s spotlight hour at this year’s E3. Apparently the word on the street — or on the interwebs, gamers don’t really walk on streets — is that Nintendo was finally going to announce their next console this year, most likely to be released in 2012. Then again, the word on the street is not always the reality.
What they ended up announcing, among other things no one really cares about beyond the hardcore Nintendo fan (like a Legend of Zelda orchestral worldwide tour), was something they’re calling the Wii-U. Which is essentially a tablet-type device which can be played as a stand-alone gaming experience (but, they stressed, is NOT a handheld ala DS; as it must be tethered to the Wii wirelessly), can enhance previous or future Wii titles (like laying it down on the floor in front of you while playing Wii Golf to get a look at your ball and lie), and can be used as a multimedia device as well (there was a shot of someone swiping a video from their Wii-U to their television).
They never once uttered the term “console” however which has me shaking my head a bit in disappointment. Because the current Wii – in terms of processing power and space and hardware — is not even really a “current gen” system. Both the 360 and PS3 blow it out of the water in those respects. So, in 2011 they’re already about half a generation behind if we’re talking in those terms. Granted, they’re probably a full generation ahead in innovation (with both Microsoft and Sony just now coming to the party of motion-control).
As a child of the 80′s though, someone who grew up playing Zelda and Mario and Metroid and all these classic Nintendo games, I don’t care about control innovation so much as amazingly good games. It’s really, really sad that I can’t help but think if someone had the ability to use the Zelda license on the PS3 it would blow my mind. This new Wii-U may perhaps be another huge innovation from Nintendo in terms of how we play games (it’s looking like it is; and a larger step than even the Wii announcement back in 2006[?]), but it isn’t going to be any huge innovation in terms of Nintendo games themselves. That innovation, that next big step in Zelda or Mario or Metroid, needs to come at some point. These are some of the most iconic, memorable, classic games and characters in the history of console (and more) gaming, at some point they need to be pushed into the 21st Century.
Don’t get me wrong, I was impressed by some of the things the device will allow 3rd party developers the opportunity to try, but a large part of me just wants a super-super advanced GameCube type next-gen console from the company.
