Wednesday, April 30, 2014

"When [a] Golden State Warriors assistant coach . . . was fired earlier this month, the reason given was a 'violation of company policy'"

"It turns out that [the coach] was secretly recording conversations between the team's coaches and players"

This spider is so transparent that you can see it's eyes moving around inside its head





Yellow amycine jumping spider.

Link roundup

1. The latest Hitman game was inspired by The Rich Kids of Instagram.

2. "The Skylanders series has existed for less than three years, but in its 27 months is has made over $2 billion at retail."

3.  Charlie Stross says we should encourage wealthy corporations to fund airship settlements on Venus:
A balloon or Zeppelin full of human-breathable air would actually float as well in the troposphere of Venus as a hydrogen balloon does on Earth. "At cloud-top level, Venus is the paradise planet," as Geoffrey Landis puts it. More here, with links to papers in the footnotes: let's just say that my money would be on a million people living in the clouds of Venus being both cheaper and faster to achieve than getting a million people living on or below the surface of Mars.

Clever advertisements for an exterminator


Tiny missing posters of mice posted in New York to promote a rodent control company.

Star Wars librarian action figure



Jocasta Nu with Dooku bust:
At the request of Star Wars fans, Jocasta Nu is making her very first appearance as a 3.75” figure! Jocasta Nu comes on a Vintage card, encased in a premium package designed to resemble the holocron vaults that she oversees as Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives. Nu comes with the bust of Master Dooku, along with a mantle to hold the bust.

Accessory List
Lightsaber handle (unlit)
Lightsaber (lit)
Battle bag with string closure
Master Dooku "Lost Twenty" Bust

"The United States built Twitter-like social media programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, like one in Cuba, that were aimed at encouraging open political discussion"

"But like the program in Cuba, which was widely ridiculed when it became public this month, the services in Pakistan and Afghanistan shut down after they ran out of money because the administration could not make them self-sustaining."

Cards Against Humanity details their Extreme Gaming Oatmeal campaign

CAH:
PWNMEAL Extreme Gaming Oatmeal was a prank that Cards Against Humanity played at PAX East 2014. We created a fake “extreme oatmeal” brand and distributed sixty thousand packets of instant oatmeal with Cards Against Humanity cards inside to attendees of PAX.

...

First, the joke just wouldn’t have been as funny if it was some kind of dumb viral marketing for Cards Against Humanity; we wanted to really create confusion as to what exactly PWNMEAL was. My dream was to create the illusion of an extreme oatmeal brand so convincingly that people would throw their packets out, and then go digging in the trash for them later when they realized that there were Cards Against Humanity cards inside.

Second, we wanted to heighten the surprise of finding the cards in the oatmeal as much as possible, which meant we had to really sell the idea of an extreme gaming oatmeal. We didn’t want anyone to know that PWNMEAL was associated with Cards Against Humanity until they opened it up.

Third, I wanted the cards to come loose in the oatmeal, covered in oat dust - I didn’t want them in a foil pack or any packaging. It was just funnier that way.

Finally, we had to get these packets into the U.S. with FDA approval, and they had to fit into the convention center’s strict rules that ban giving away food. This was a big design challenge that we solved in two phases. Phase one was to ship the empty, printed packets to the U.S. and fill them with about an ounce each of good old domestic U.S.A. oatmeal here, so we didn’t have to worry about FDA import policies. Phase two was to hope we didn’t get caught by the convention center. In total, we ordered three tons of quick rolled oats and created about 60,000 packets of instant oatmeal. (Someone from the convention center food services department did come over to our booth looking for us, but it turns out he was just a fan and wanted to give us cupcakes).

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Thundarr layouts



By Jack Kirby.

Wonder Twins



Super hero rock stars by Andrés Moncayo available as prints.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Iron Man 3 included Man-Thing's origin



Wikipedia:
In Iron Man 3, AIM is using a formula based on plant research to give people superpowers. In the comics, Man-Thing was originally a scientist who was doing top secret research on plants in the Everglades when his wife betrayed him to AIM. In desperation, he injected himself with his untested formula, only to discover it had seriously unexpected consequences. The female AIM agent (played by Stephanie Szostak) who battles Tony to the death midway through the film is named Ellen Brandt, who is Man-Thing's treacherous wife. The character even has the scar on her face she received fighting Man-Thing in the comics.

Link roundup

1. $22k official Monster Hunter guitar looks like a giant sword.

2. Gif of Tom Cruise getting hit by a truck over and over (from the new Edge of Tomorrow commercial).

3. Cellphone-charging nightmare at Coachella.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Mike Mitchell's Marvel Series



Mike Mitchell posted all of the art he created for his new Marvel-themed show at Mondo.

Striped beard

Friday, April 25, 2014

The male stuntman for Pris

The robot dog from Battlestar Galactica was a chimpanzee in costume

It was named Evolution.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Link roundup

1. 538 on the sperm of older men:
I’d say the jury is out on the relationship between paternal age and child psychiatric problems. Yes, there is some possibility that it matters. But it’s probably not necessary to run off to the sperm freezer just yet.
2. "Billionaire Tech Investor Attacked in Sext Extortion Plot"
Vinod Khosla, the cofounder of Sun Microsystems and titan venture capitalist, values his privacy. He's also a billionaire—so if you're his daughter's scumbag ex-boyfriend, you might think he's just the right guy to threaten with naked pictures of her.
3. Grantland looks at Chip Engelland, the Spurs' shooting guru:
“He understands that a big part of shooting is the shooter’s mind,” Kerr said, and a moment toward the end of Kerr’s career provided such an example. With Kerr playing reduced minutes in Portland as a 36-year-old during the 2001-02 campaign, he found himself struggling to stay loose for meaningful shooting opportunities. Kerr told Engelland about his problem and the shooting expert flew up and offered a solution: a 30-minute, seven-shot workout. Kerr and Engelland would sit alone on the bench in the Portland practice facility after everybody else had left. Engelland would ask Kerr to tell him what was going on with his kids or even leave him to read a newspaper. After a few minutes, Engelland would shout at Kerr to go, and the two would sprint off the bench and set Kerr up for a single 3-point attempt from the wing before returning to the bench. Repeat six more times and you’ve got the league’s most unlikely — and simultaneously most logical — shooting workout. A typical shooting coach, Kerr said, would have noted his struggles and told him to take 200 shots from a variety of spots to try to regain his physical rhythm. Instead, Engelland put himself in Kerr’s shoes to help refresh Kerr’s mental timing.

Link roundup

1. "In just one year, Zynga lost nearly half of its daily active users."  Via.

2.  Florida school will stop giving elementary students trail mix and Mountain Dew before standardized tests.

3.  Sexual violence awareness cake at Columbia.

4. "Brazil's World Cup Logo Sure Looks Like Someone Facepalming"

5. "The same vine can even mimic several trees! If it crosses from one plant to another, its leaves change accordingly."

Listen to Ice-T DM a Dungeons and Dragons adventure

I Dan Harmon's Harmontown podcast, he and a few guests talk for an hour or so in front of a live audience and then finish the show by playing Dungeons and Dragons.

Episode 92 was recorded not long after the news came out that Ice-T had unwittingly agreed to narrate a Dungeons and Dragons audiobook.  Coincidentally, the Harmontown group's usual dungeonmaster was out. So when it came time to play Dungeons and Dragons, they had an Ice-T impersonator DM in character as Ice-T.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Nike's futuristic running ponchos and vests







Nike's new tech sportswear.

Link roundup

1. "How Skechers Beat Nike In The Boston Marathon"

2. "Where once leisure time was a mark of affluence, now it is a marker for poverty."

3.  Cracked on George Orwell:
In 1948, Britain decided to form a secret government organization called the Information Research Department (IRD), whose goal was to spread anti-communist propaganda. Orwell not only supported this organization, but agreed to work as an informer for them. A year before he died, Orwell provided the IRD with a list of the names of dozens of writers and researchers whom he thought might be "crypto-communist," basing his judgment on everything from opinions they might have held to whether they were homosexual or Jewish.
4. Drake using a lint roller courtside.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

"The 'Final Minute' Of Grizzlies-Thunder Lasted 43 Minutes"

Monday, April 21, 2014

Fan art from tonight's Adventure Time episode

Fan art of the thing that happened.

And speaking of Adventure Time, fan art by David Mayzis:

Batgirl redesign



By Jordan Gibson.

Concept art for Wildstyle from The Lego Movie



Shane Prigmore posted concept art for Wildstyle/Lucy Lego:
Lucy (Wildstyle) was conceived as a rebel with a tendency to try a little to hard (in life and in looks). There was a lot of discussion on what that could mean visually, and above are just a few of my early explorations.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

The makers of Myst didn't even like puzzles

From Kotaku's summary of a talk by the creators of Doom and Myst:
"Puzzles were 'friction' to slow people down," he revealed. "My brother and I weren't even puzzle fans. But we built them into the environment to create a pace for people and let other technical things happen in the background. We thought of it as an exploration game and not a puzzle game. I look back now and it seems so haphazard. Two levers in a clock tower? That doesn't make any sense."

General Mills already abandoned its attempt to say liking it on Facebook meant giving up the right to sue

"We're sorry we even started down this path ... And we do hope you'll accept our apology."

Link roundup

1. "Gay Jeans Reveal Rainbow Threads With Every Wash And Wear."

2. "Islamist rebels duped dozens of Nigerian schoolgirls into thinking they were soldiers come to evacuate them before abducting over 100 in their latest anti-government raid, one of the survivors said on Wednesday."

3. "Two journalists from The Sunday Times set out to investigate whether Bulgarians would sell babies. And a Bulgarian journalist set out to investigate whether Britons would buy their babies. Disaster ensues."

4.  Remote control water cannon installed by Israelis at Palestinian border.

Saturday, April 19, 2014

"Mountains on Saturn’s Moon Iapetus Fell From the Sky"

"[A]n entire 800-mile-long mountain range along the moon’s equator formed after it fell from space."

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Computer-generated eyes

Forget Google Glass. AgencyGlass completely covers your real eyes and replaces them with computer-generated ones.

What was the worst business decision ever made?

One of the many nominees:
The early-18th-century British South Sea Bubble led to loss or ruin for most involved. Parliament pondered a resolution to tie the bankers up in snake-filled bags, while Isaac Newton, who’d lost money, noted that he could chart the course of stars but not the “madness of men.”

Cartoon Brew looks at CGHub's shutdown

Cartoon Brew does its best to name names.

Ken Block playing soccer against Neymar Jr. (with his car)



New Ken Block Gymkhana.

Remembering the Apt Pupil shower scene lawsuit and criminal investigation

Wikipedia and an EW article from 1997 summarize the lawsuit against Singer that ultimately went nowhere.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Syracuse's new football uniform



One of Syracuse's new football uniforms by Nike.

Where the Wild Things Are poster by Nicolas Delort



Available from Mondo sometime tomorrow ($40).

Slender Man is an Easter Egg in Plants vs. Zombies Zombie Warfare

Slender Man and Wind Waker easter eggs in Plants vs. Zombies Zombie Warfare.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

"New Photos Reveal True Purpose of Mysterious Boston Marathon Roof Man"

He was barbecuing.

The Onion AV Club praises Link's Awakening

AV Club:
Since it’s so easy to get swept up in this push, it takes a while to realize that Link’s actions aren’t necessarily good. The townspeople were just fine without Link (except for the occasional dognapping). The monsters who guard the musical instruments aren’t causing problems for anyone. Link is the one storming into their homes, breaking their things, and taking away their drums and violins. The big guards waiting at the end of each labyrinth aren’t sympathetic to his “conquests,” either. They’re grotesque, and their warnings are unsettling.

Facehugger egg cake

Recent Screenburn posts:

1. Facehugger egg cake.

2. 1981 promised a smartwatch with tiny floppy drive and qwerty keyboard.

3. Riot police training in a fake town in England.

4. Dogfighting arcade game does 360 flips.

5. Watch Minnie Mouse Hulk out in the new Disney short.

6.   Lids baseball hat with LCD screen for swappabale logos.

Monday, April 14, 2014

Kraken pasta



Black pasta with squid ink packaging concept by Jacques Laplante.

The surprising ancient origins of Passover

Haaretz:
The holiday we know today began as two distinct ones, one for nomadic herders and one for farmers. Neither involved Egypt.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Harrison Ford answers questions about Blade Runner 2 and more

From Harrison Ford's AMA:

Getting hired for Star Wars:
I was approached with the offer of a job, which at that point, was all I wanted to hear. I had helped George Lucas audition other actors for the principle parts, and with no expectation or indication that I might be considered for the part of Han, I was quite surprised when I was offered the part. My principle job at the time was carpentry, I had been under contract as an actor at Columbia and Universal. I had a house at the time I wanted to remodel, a bit of the wreck of a house. I'd invest money in tools but wouldn't have money for materials, so I realized this was another way of putting food on the table. And allowing me to pick and choose from the acting jobs that were being offered at the time.
Filming Indiana Jones:
On the first Indiana Jones movie, I tore an ACL in one of my knees, can't remember which knee, the scene in which I was fighting the big German mechanic on an airplane called a flying wing, I was run over by the landing gear and injured my knee, but I can't remember which one it was.
Filming Blade Runner:
The set for Blade Runner was maybe the hardest set I've ever worked on because I think we worked 50 nights in a row, and it was always raining.

The Spanish town called Kill Jews

A northern Spanish village will vote next week on whether or not to keep its current name "Castrillo Matajudios," which translates as "Castrillo Kill Jews." Hmmm. Tough call! 
Castrillo Matajudios will convene its 60 resident families at a town hall meeting next week to vote on the proposal, which Mayor Lorenzo Rodriguez submitted. He has suggested that the name be changed to Castrillo Mota de Judios, meaning "Castrillo Jews' Hill," which is believed to be the village's original name before it was changed during the Spanish inquisition.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Grantland's football expert lost money on his bets last season

Grantland:
In all, I placed $2,725 worth of bets and came away with $2,578.65. I lost $146.36

Indoor Football League player flips over the wall as he makes a catch




Nice catch by Johnny Lester. Via.

Recent Screenburn posts



1. Extreme Gaming Oatmeal (a promotion for Cards Against Humanity)

2. Play The Mighty Quest For Epic Loot with a hamster companion.

3. Playing The Old Republic as He-Man.

Baby Armored Colossus from the new X-Men movie teaser




A few stills from the new X-Men Days of Future Past trailer, showing mutant involvement in important historical moments, including Colossus's mutation being caused by Chernobyl.

At Screenburn: Days of Future Past kids meal toys.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Reuters:
Insurgents in Iraq have added water to their arsenal of weapons after seizing control of a dam in the west of the country that enables them to flood certain areas and prevent security forces from advancing against them.

Shield/Hydra Logo



SHIELD/Hydra logo by Paolo Rivera, from the Agents of Shield promo poster he made.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Gawker's restaurant reviews continue to be the best

Rich and Caity eat at the Museum of Sex:
Rich: I liked both. Even the one with your slobber on it. 
Caity: I said, "Do you think I could fit this whole pyramid in my mouth?" 
And you said, "Probably, but I want to eat it." 
And I said, "Would you rather eat it or see something amazing?" 
And you said, "The latter, I guess." 
Rich: I'm in it for the story. That's my approach to life AND my job. No divide. 
Caity: Ladies and gentleman, I got that cake in my mouth. Unhinged my jaw like a snake and popped it in whole. And as the corners of the pyramid were scraped the back of my throat, I knew: I'm giving Rich a great New York memory here.

The Brown professor whose letters constantly get published in the New York Times

New Yorker:
Felicia Nimue Ackerman—“Felicia Nimue is a double first name like Mary Jane, and I’m called the whole thing”—is a short-story writer and a philosophy professor at Brown, and she excels at crafting arguments concisely. Since 1987, the Times has printed more than two hundred of her letters, which is either a record or close to one. Tom Feyer, the letters editor, doesn’t keep count, but he named Ackerman as a top contender for first place. “Some days she sends several letters, each in response to a different article,” he said. . . . Gawker wrote a post about one of Ackerman’s letters (“Ivy Professor: Sundaes Are Yummy!,” and a commenter wrote, “I used to edit the letters column for one of the pull-out sections in the Times, and we had a rule against running too many Felicia Ackermans…. One woman wrote us one time asking if her chances of having her letter published would be significantly improved if she signed her letter Felicia Ackerman.”

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

The deleted Godfather scene when Michael personally takes revenge



Cinetropolis:
In the dropped sequence, back in New York, Michael’s sources have tracked Fabrizio down to New York, where his boss has set him up in business running a pizza restaurant. After seeing off Barzini, Rizzi and the other threats to the Corleone family, Michael and Neri drive to the restaurant. Foregoing what he had told Sonny before he killed in another restaurant, Michael makes it his business to take personal retribution.

Link roundup

1.  NY Times:
Unable to breach the computer network at a big oil company, hackers infected with malware the online menu of a Chinese restaurant that was popular with employees. When the workers browsed the menu, they inadvertently downloaded code that gave the attackers a foothold in the business’s vast computer network.
2.  "Safety On Set: Camera Crew Outnumber Stunt Personnel 4-To-1 In On-Set Deaths"

3.  The Dodgers have a new mascot.

"LAPD officers tampered with in-car recording equipment"

LA Times:
An inspection by Los Angeles Police Department investigators found about half of the estimated 80 cars in one South L.A. patrol division were missing antennas, which help capture what officers say in the field.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Coconut Crabs

"Coconut crabs may be responsible for the disappearance of Amelia Earhart's remains, consuming them after her death and hoarding her skeletal remnants in their burrows"

Footage from the canceled Darth Maul game

Maul vs. Mandalorians in canceled Lucasarts game.

Ikea fail

Monday, April 7, 2014

Kenner repurposed the Gamorrean Guard as Friar Tuck



I assume it's the figure on sale at ebay, wearing robes to hide his shame.

Doom/Myst poster



By James Harvey.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Rogue and Gambit cake topper



Rogue and Gambit wedding cake topper by Paul Pape.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

The time Hulk Hogan almost killed Richard Belzer on live television

He then proceeds to put a game Belzer into a front headlock — known mostly today as a guillotine choke in MMA, but which Hogan calls a sleeper hold — and cinches it in. “You just tell me, brother, when you want him to quit screaming,” he says to Mr. T. Hogan vamps for the crowd, narrating the technical aspects of the assumedly nonlethal hold. Belzer’s arms go limp, but Hogan doesn’t notice. When he releases Belzer a few seconds later, much to the surprise of the Hulkster and everybody in the audience, Belzer flops onto the floor, his body totally lifeless. His head hits last, smacking the aforementioned hard floor audibly. “He’s all right,” says Mr. T, still sitting sullenly on the couch 15 feet away. “He’s just sleepin’.” 
... 
The crowd is unsure whether they’re watching something real or staged. As the reality sets in, the gasps come in waves. Finally, Belzer wakes up, and Hogan gamely slaps his cheeks and yanks him to his feet. As Belzer lifts his head, you can see a puddle of blood on the floor. Belzer looks like, well, like a man who’s suffered head trauma.
Here's the video:

Greed



Magic: The Gathering card by Izzy Medrano.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Netherlands jersey



Nike.

Male fertility cults

While reading the book, I looked into other Westerners' experiences in the Asmat, and I saw a clip of Tobias Schneebaum telling Charlie Rose that he wouldn't have had the access to the information that he had if he hadn't engaged in sex with Asmat men. Do you think that's bullshit? 
No, I don't. I think it's a hundred percent true. Tobias Schneebaum went deeper than I ever did, no pun intended. Tobias' journeys in Asmat and the Amazon were extraordinary. Since the book came out, I have been getting letters from missionaries in Asmat and a lot of them don't like Schneebaum. The question of how much homosexuality actually was in Asmat is a valid question: Was there was much as Schneebaum said or was he projecting? But I don't really think it matters, and I don't think he was lying about having sex with them. The male fertility cults and male appropriation of female fertility stuff—semen exchange, etc.—is well documented.

Advertising via Tinder

TechCrunch:
A number of users on dating app Tinder report being matched with fake profiles of women, who are actually automated bots promoting a mobile game called “Castle Clash.”

Grantland says Tyler Hansbrough is the most annoying player in the NBA

Grantland:
Whether it’s intentional or otherwise, he annoys, pesters, and instigates as much as any other current player in the league. It’s not hard to find examples.

Cosplaying as Bioshock Infinite's Elizabeth, if she was an adventurer instead of a damsel in distress



Elizabeth as a "Skydiver" by Angela Bermudez.