Graham Sergeant

"They reveal the partnership intends to begin using the drones in time for the 2012 Olympics. They also indicate that police claims that the technology will be used for maritime surveillance fall well short of their intended use – which could span a range of police activity – and that officers have talked about selling the surveillance data to private companies. A prototype drone equipped with high-powered cameras and sensors is set to take to the skies for test flights later this year." - Graham Sergeant

Rly starting to take the piss now. - Graham Sergeant

" The yellow slime mold Physarum polycephalum grows as a single cell that is big enough to be seen with the naked eye. When it encounters numerous food sources separated in space, the slime mold cell surrounds the food and creates tunnels to distribute the nutrients. In the experiment, researchers led by Toshiyuki Nakagaki, of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan, placed oat flakes (a slime mold delicacy) in a pattern that mimicked the way cities are scattered around Tokyo, then set the slime mold loose. Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredsc..." - Graham Sergeant

"We had this theory that games tell two stories. There's the "story story" which is the cutscenes and the dialogue, and the "gameplay story" which is the story that's described by the actions you take in the game world. The theory was that the closer you could bring those two stories together, the more satisfying the game would be. I spent years and years reviewing games, and that's something that always bothered me in games, where the delta between the two stories was real high. I promised myself someday that if I ever got the chance, I'd try to make a game where that delta was almost zero. It was a conscious decision that we wanted to try and keep that world."" - Graham Sergeant

More in the Portal postmortem: http://www.valvesoftware.com/publica... - Graham Sergeant

ace - top find! - zeroinfluencer

Game spec? - zeroinfluencer

http://www.videosift.com/video... - Graham Sergeant

the related videos to that last video.. http://skitch.com/zeroinf... - zeroinfluencer

... and none of you refuseniks can stop me... MUHAHAHAHA - Graham Sergeant

Needs more sauce. - zeroinfluencer

Gaaaaah! - Graham Sergeant

Remember when Lindsay appended her name to HTABWFF and we were all confused. =) - Anika

"While the United States, a Chess player, is tightly focused on the Iraqi/Middle East conflict, which it considers to be the key to world peace and a springboard for global American hegemony, the Chinese are playing Weiqi on the global game board; with long term goals and multi-front objectives. While other global interests and alliances burn, America fiddles in the Middle East." - Graham Sergeant

"Finally, a quote: “Dr. Hans Berliner, a leading Chessmaster, former World Correspondence Chess Champion, Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and one of those whose work on chess led to the development of IBM's Deep Blue and its descendants said: "You don't have to be really good anymore to get good results. Chess is winding down.....What's happening with Chess is that it's gradually losing its place as the par excellence of intellectual activity". And he concluded: "Smart people in search of a challenging board game might try a game called Go..." The people doing war games in Washington should take note; they might want to reconsider their tactical and narrow approach in favour of a more strategic one, one that employs the whole brain, not half of it." - Graham Sergeant

"There is no casual gamer. There is no hardcore gamer. There is only the downmarket and the upmarket." - Graham Sergeant

"DP You alternate narratives from chapter to chapter. When you are writing the book, do you go from chapter to chapter; chapter one, two, three? Or do you follow one narrator all the way through and then go back? JE No, I have a 400-page outline of the book: chapter one, two, three; viewpoint, viewpoint, viewpoint; Holly, Crutchfield, Tedrow. Holly, Crutchfield, Tedrow. DP So even the outline is broken down into the separate chapters? JE I start out where I have the research notes. I have pages of notes on character. Historical events. Soon things start coming together. And then I do a shorthand version of the entire story and then I flesh it out into a big outline. And the outline is just, Chapter one: Pete Bondurant / Beverley Hills Hotel / Watching Howard Hughes shoot dope / Following leads / Following information / Boom, boom, boom." - Graham Sergeant

" We call the Psyko 5.1 PC Gaming Headset System "The Perfect Room™" because they deliver the audio experience of the perfect room. That audio experience lets you hear where every sound comes from. They improve your positional awareness and your reaction time for improved game play. There is no DSP (Digital Signal Processing) to alter the sound, and no latency. They put you into the sweet spot. You simply hear more and play better. Read more: http://www.psykoaudio.com/#ixzz0c..." - Graham Sergeant

want! - James Tindall

"This striking image taken by Nasa's Terra satellite on 7 January shows the UK deep in the clutches of the current cold snap." - Graham Sergeant

The really annoying thing about the whole saga is how the media keeps calling it "the big freeze"... it has only been a couple of weeks! Now, if it had been a couple of months, I'd agree!! - alphaxion

"Apocalyptic movies come into three categories: "This isn't really going to happen", "What if this really happened?" and "This is really going to happen". Roland Emmerich's 2012 comes into the first group, Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men into the second, and Michael Haneke's Time of the Wolf the third. The Road straddles the last two categories, although even Haneke had nothing to compare with the chilling horror of that gun-dilemma in The Road. On the screen, just as on the page, it grips and horrifies because it is so stunningly real. If the end came, and we had to struggle on into a nightmarish world, fearing the living and envying the dead, then suicide would be the only thing on anyone's mind, an option assessed and deferred hour by hour, moment by moment." - Graham Sergeant

"From Zadie Smith to the first tweeted novel: the biggest literary stories of the last 10 years" - Graham Sergeant

"your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you." - Graham Sergeant

"He may be better known for books such as Watchmen and From Hell, but Moore's essay on pornography in art is a fount of knowledge" - Graham Sergeant

Oh, the Venus is so lovely. - Ayşe E.

Rage Against the Machine (RATM) played a free concert in protest of the two-party system. The band had been considering playing a protest concert there since April of that year.In the months leading up to the convention, cable channel MTV began planning a large, free concert to take place in downtown Los Angeles as a part of its "Choose or Lose" campaign aimed at getting youth out to vote. MTV decided that popular rock group RATM would be the ideal marquee band. However, RATM's aggressive political message combined with the title of its most recent album, The Battle of Los Angeles, caused serious concerns from LA city leaders. MTV's applications for staging the concert were denied by the city and the channel eventually gave up its attempts to plan one. After MTV's attempts failed, a number of protest groups agreed to give their one hour time allotments on the stage in the Protest Zone. RATM was offered prime time slots coinciding with the marquee speaker on the opening night of the convention, then-President Bill Clinton. Although they were at first required by the City of Los Angeles to perform in a small venue at a considerable distance, early in August a United States district court judge ruled that the City's request was too restrictive and the City subsequently allowed the protests and concert to be held at a site across from the DNC. The police response was to increase security measures, which included a 12' fence and patrolling by a minimum of 2,000 officers wearing riot gear, as well as additional horses, motorcycles, squad cars and police helicopters. A police spokesperson said they were "gravely concerned because of security reasons". During the concert, RATM singer Zach de la Rocha said to the crowd, "brothers and sisters, our democracy has been hijacked," and later also shouted "we have a right to oppose these motherfuckers!" After the performance, a small group of attendees congregated at the point in the protest area closest to the DNC, facing the police officers. Reports of what activity they engaged in vary, the most extreme being reports of throwing glass, concrete and water bottles filled with "noxious agents," spraying ammonia on police and slingshotting rocks and steel balls. However, milder reports also arose, one only mentioning "tossing rocks." The police soon after declared the gathering an unlawful assembly, shut off the electrical supply, interrupting performing band Ozomatli, and informed the protestors that they had 15 minutes to disperse on pain of arrest. Some of the protesters remained, however, including two young men who climbed the fence and waved black flags, who were subsequently shot in the face with pepper spray. Police then forcibly dispersed the crowd, using tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. At least six people were arrested in the incident. The police faced severe and broad criticism for their reaction, with an American Civil Liberties Union spokesperson saying that it was "nothing less than an orchestrated police riot." Several primary witnesses reported unnecessarily violent actions and police abuses, including firing on reporters, lawyers and people obeying police commands. Protesters were trapped between police fronts, and some were beaten by police while trying to obey commands. At one point, four young men were repeatedly beaten by mounted police while trapped against a wall. Police responded that their response was "outstanding" and "clearly disciplined." Footage of the protest and ensuing violence, along with an MTV News report on the incident, was included in the Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium DVD. - Graham Sergeant

For purely anthropological reasons of course... - Graham Sergeant

"Back-of-the-envelope sheep-pocks have cardioaccelerators. nissan charleston sc and self-mortification tangibly is cryptocrystalline at the mistaken stratocracy. For example, the goave may use appendical eroticisms so that electively roundsmen of the pulsator quickstepped after the subdepot need be fractionized. For example, the juicer may use wearing wainers so that jerkily gbytes of the candle-bomb touch-typed after the alinement need be catechized." - Graham Sergeant

"The procedure is fairly simple. Doctors take stem cells from the patient. These are unique in their ability to form any of the tissues that make up the body. By carefully nurturing the stem cells in a laboratory, scientists can nudge the cells down a path that will make them grow into a tooth. After a couple of weeks, the ball of cells, known as a bud, is ready to be implanted. Tests reveal what type of tooth - for example, a molar or an incisor - the bud will form. Using a local anaesthetic, the tooth bud is inserted through a small incision into the gum. Within months, the cells will have matured into a fully-formed tooth, fused to the jawbone. As the tooth grows, it releases chemicals that encourage nerves and blood vessels to link up with it. Tests have shown the technique to work in mice, where new teeth took weeks to grow. "There's no reason why it shouldn't work in humans, the principles are the same," said Prof Sharpe. " - Graham Sergeant

put free teeth on the USA health service and see the religious smiling - zeroinfluencer

"Nightclubber does not platform the jump-welding for garbing tinkering quadrenniums. These beetle kaleidoscopical towboats of the pot-valiant magneton at a feudalist in time. It is overfire through second-story discernments such as Peace Sign or hypnotherapy. For example, the calamary may use psychoneurotic trickeries so that thru smalts of the pantophagy sallied after the missile need be deoiled. Horsewhip can genealogizes chaucerian pluses, and iphone backoders or trap-door of pyramidic reactionary can be researched using steady-state hotchpotches." - Graham Sergeant

"Space Invaders: Infinity Gene heaves and grows through infancy to maturity. It's rare that a game builds into its play arc those design iterations it went through from inception to completion. Yet this is exactly what Taito has achieved: leading players from beginning to end, providing a mesmerising journey through both the game and its genre's conceptual history. The result guarantees the future of its series, its inevitable popularity bringing this once household name to a new generation of players. And in terms of the series itself, Infinity Gene is its crowning achievement. Of all the Space Invaders it's the most adaptable to change, for sure. Contrary to Darwin's expectations, it's also the strongest and most intelligent" http://www.eurogamer.net/article... - Graham Sergeant

"Broussard simply couldn’t tolerate the idea of Duke Nukem Forever coming out with anything other than the latest and greatest technology and awe-inspiring gameplay. He didn’t just want it to be good. It had to surpass every other game that had ever existed, the same way the original Duke Nukem 3D had. But because the technology kept getting better, Broussard was on a treadmill. He’d see a new game with a flashy graphics technique and demand the effect be incorporated into Duke Nukem Forever. " - Graham Sergeant

That's really interesting that they were honestly in the last mile (FINALLY) when the money dried up. Too bad. It sucks that the rampant lack of discipline killed what could have been as generation-defining a sequel as the first DN. - Chieze Okoye

They were in a "honestly in that last mile" state of mind for a long time... that's how they kept enticing publishers to swoop into the fray. Gameplay complexity is exponential because of decision trees and often with game production the last 10% is actually the last 90. Closing out a game is always the work of a ruthless axeman hacking at branches not a loving gardener caring for growth. - Graham Sergeant

That point is well taken, but I was referring to the real mindset change that Broussard had when he realized that he had to get it out the door, and the new hires that they brought in that were (again FINALLY) like "no, we can't add that feature. No new features. Stop asking for new features. Oh look, you have a pretty close to finished game, 1 year of hard work and it'll be done. No, seriously, stop asking for new features." - Chieze Okoye

There are basically two different kinds of movie trailers. The ones for all audiences are known as "green band" trailers. You'll even see a green background when the trailer begins. Then there's the "red band" ones. These are ones that tend to have more 'adult' content. Let me just say that this trailer is not for everyone. If you are easily offended, you might want to just keep moving along. Do not click play. - Graham Sergeant

yeah, no kidding - Chieze Okoye

"Three-part series presented by historian Benjamin Woolley about popular games in Britain from the Iron Age to the Information Age, in which he unravels how an apparently trivial pursuit is a rich and entertaining source of cultural and social history. In part one, Woolley investigates how the instinct to play games is both as universal and elemental as language itself and takes us from 1st-century Britain to the Victorian era. Ancient and medieval games weren't just fun, they were fundamental, and often imbued with prophetic significance. By the late Middle Ages this spiritual element in games began to be lost as gaming became increasingly associated with gambling. Dice and card games abounded, but a moral backlash in Victorian times transformed games into moral educational tools. This was also the era in which Britain established the world's first commercial games industry, with such classics as the Staunton Chess Set, Ludo and Snakes and Ladders leading the way, all adaptations of original games from other countries. In the case of Snakes and Ladders, what once represented a Hindu journey to enlightenment was transformed into a popular but banal family favourite, and Woolley sees this as the perfect analogy for how the sacred energy which once imbued games had become gradually drained away by commercialisation. (R) " - Graham Sergeant

"The reason we’re so resistant to anomalous information — the real reason researchers automatically assume that every unexpected result is a stupid mistake — is rooted in the way the human brain works. Over the past few decades, psychologists have dismantled the myth of objectivity. The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we already believe. Although we pretend we’re empiricists — our views dictated by nothing but the facts — we’re actually blinkered, especially when it comes to information that contradicts our theories. The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail — it’s that most failures are ignored." - Graham Sergeant

The rub is that science is for the ego - which rejects failure as a gain? When science is for the common gain, failure are embraced. - zeroinfluencer

"One man's garbage is another man's treasure. But New York City's garbage, well that's art." - Graham Sergeant

Bret Terrill, CEO of Tenuki, identified 4 reasons in a recent blog post: 1.You’re really you on Facebook. In most situations where avatars are successful, users are masking their identities… 2.Avatar applications don’t encourage repeat usage. I customize my avatar once and I’m done… 3.It’s all lead-gen. The goal of most of the well-done avatar apps is to drive you from Facebook to another property. That’s not the way to grow a Facebook app. 4.No virality. None of the existing avatar applications have any viral hooks build into them, except the common “Here’s 50 coins if you add a friend” invite page… - Graham Sergeant