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mefi
Sorry, Elvis's birthplace!
(looks to the left) (looks to the right) (takes a deep breath)
"MEMPHIS!"π«π«π«BANNED BY TWITTERπ«π«π«
Gizmodo, The Guardian, The Independent, Engadget, WREG out of... you know, that town.
"MEMPHIS!"π«π«π«BANNED BY TWITTERπ«π«π«
Gizmodo, The Guardian, The Independent, Engadget, WREG out of... you know, that town.
Making Pokemon Not Fun To Play!
Speedrunning is more popular than ever, but inventive/crazy players are finding other unusual ways to play games. One is the search for ways to permanently soft-lock a game, that is, render it non-completable. Like: releasing all your pokemon, except for one Magikarp in the Pokemon League at the end of the game... wait, it's escapable? Fanbyte article: "Meet the Players Who Render Games Unplayable." Youtube playlist, Soft Lock Picking. A video from it, Escaping the Magikarp Trap.
"Get psyched!"
You stand over the guard's body, grabbing frantically for a banana. You're not sure if the other guards heard his muffled scream. Just a few weeks ago you were on a reconnaissance mission of extreme importance. You were to infiltrate the fortress and find the plans for Operation Bad-Boon. Captain William J. "B.J." Blazkowicz, you've got a big plastic ball and eight floors of hell to get through. Good luck! RETURN TO CASTLE MONKEY BALL YouTube demo (CW: Nazi imagery, portrait of Awful Person)
Throat Notes
Felix Colgrave, creator of Double King (previously) and other interesting cartoons, returns with Throat Notes, a charming and bizarre story about frogs and frog sounds.
[secret found jingle]
It's Zelda Day 2020! Here's some video links on various things about Legend of Zelda games:
- Find out how speedrunners tackled a hard problem (25m): conquering the highly pseudo-random, Battleship-like "Sploosh-kaboom" minigame in The Wind Waker by writing a solver that runs in a web browser
- Watch suckerpinch showing off his attempts to 3D-ify the original Legend of Zelda (and other NES games too), in a video titled "the glEnd() of Zelda" (16m)
- And, here is the world-record "Low%" Twilight Princess speedrun where the player does nothing for 17 hours (16m)
STINKOMAN COMPLETE
Fifteen years ago, homestarrunner.com's fictional video game company Videlectrix released Stinkoman, a Flash platformer game starring the "20X6" version of their characters. Eventually the game would end up with nine levels and a promised 10th that was never finished. UNTIL NOW, literally days before browser support for Flash dies forever. The ridiculousness of this timing is not lost on them. You might need to use these instructions to reenable Flash support--very temporarily, of course. (Note that the Flash install page still tries to install bullshit McAfee stuff if you don't uncheck those boxes.) Fortunately you don't need Flash to view the trailer.
A MERRY CHRISTMAS IN THE FACE OF DOOM
"Meteors are raining down, zombies marching through your town, tidal waves are heading right your waaay..." Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy wrote and performed a song about Christmas in 2020, and @JoshFlowers on Twitter edited clips of RiffTrax Christmas videos into it. It's APOCALYPSE CHRISTMAS. HO HO HO
Ask your doctor if Lowjinxerol is right for you
Homestar Runner has a new cartoon for Halloween! If you still have a way to play it, there is even a Flash version! Side effects may include zig-zaggéd pants, large bean, clichéd parodies and playing in a band.
Identifying Luck in Mario Party
For two decades and across seven systems, the Mario Party games have been a beloved but frustrating experience. You might try with all your might to be the damnable Super Star, but a plethora of factors, some luck-related but some not, conspire to throw the match to your eight-year-old cousin who always plays Yoshi. YouTuber ZoomZike has compiled amazing and exhaustive videos going through every element of four games in the series, and showing what can be manipulated and what can't. It's IDENTIFYING LUCK IN MARIO PARTY: One - Two - Three - Four
It's Zelda Day in July!
Kleric (previously) posts entertaining YouTube videos showing off glitches and tricks in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Tricks like, how physics changes during 'bullet time' and how to make a 'spaceship' out of a Guardian and a boat, how to make a stable flying machine out of two minecars, information on causing 'glitched blood moons', shield sliding, hold smuggling, creating a flood of Ancient parts, what 'skew' is and how to take advantage of it, menu overloading basics and a better way to do it, how to ensure the day/night timer never begins, and how to make as many horses as your little equine-loving heart desires.
Let's drill!
A couple of developers (Johan & Johan) have made Pico Driller, a free, simplified rendition of arcade classic Mr. Driller, in Pico8! It's a good introduction to the Ways of the Drill. Good luck!
A musical undersea space adventure!
Hammerhead Shark Song, from the album Domingo, by Chip Tanaka (aka Hirokazu Tanaka, aka Hip Tanaka, composer for Metroid, Kid Icarus and some of Earthbound), video programmed by Toby Fox (Undertale, Deltarune) with help from Temmie Chang and others.
Always follow directions on package
Solutions and Other Problems
After seven years, Allie Brosh, creator of the blog and book Hyperbole and A Half, has written a second book, due out in September.
"I'm talking with you against the advice of my attorney."
On Twitter, reporter J. David McSwane reports on "one of the most bizarre stories of his career," as he travels via private jet with the CEO of two-year-old company Federal Government Experts LLC, which had previously advertised "block chain" AI procurement solutions, chasing down vanishing leads for N95 facemasks, trying to fulfill a no-bid contract with the VA for procuring masks. Here's the complete story at ProPublica.
MOM ACCORDIONS ARE MADE OF BEES
Every night, Kate Bowler tucks her six-year-old son into bed. And, every night, he asks her questions to try to keep her from leaving. Questions like, "Have you ever eaten pumpkin seeds?" or "Are raccoons awake right now?" or "Do you know anyone with one eye?" or "MOM. IS GOOGLE A PERSON?" or....
MST3K, pandemic style
Joel Hodgson has announced via the AV Club that they're doing a special live show of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on May 3 (Sunday) at 6 PM Eastern, over a variety of venues including Twitch, YouTube, Facebook and others, riffing over the Season One episode Moon Zero Two.
Scandal rolls the marble racing world
Last month there was posted the awesome Marbula One, "the REVOLUTION in Marble Sports." But just a couple of years ago the marble racing world was rocked by scandal, surrounding 2018 racing champion Red No. 3. Find out more in the 15-minute mini-documentary Not A Marble from MSPN.
Simple yet powerful gamedev
Want to get into game development, but find C++ to forbidding, Unity too HUGE, and Game Maker too expensive and prone to charge you hundreds of dollars for every specific export system? Then you don't really need to wait for Godot, which is only 27 megabytes (around 52 with Mono support), is both free as in beer and under the MIT License, uses a Python-like syntax with options for C#, C++ and others, runs on Windows, macOS, Linuxes and BSDs and even Haiku, exports to all of the above plus iOS, Android and HTML5, and is pretty easy to use.
"Ball save!"
If you don't mind killer latency, not being able to nudge the table, waiting for your turn to play and creating an account on surrogate.tv, you can play a physical Stern's Batman 66 pinball machine live on the internet. Here's how they did it.
Microsoft Powertoys!
One of the coolest things about Windows 95 were the Powertoys, a number of freeware utilities made by Microsoft employees, many originating from tools that the developers made for their own use. For a good number of years the Powertoys were a beloved part of the power user experience until, following the Windows XP release, they were abolished, as part of the general Microsoft trend away from fun and unsupported tools. But now... the Powertoys are back.
β« Kurasshu Bandi-bandiku! β«
In Japan, Crash Bandicoot was promoted with an umprobably catchy and silly theme song, which was included on the disk for the Japanese release of his second game. Here it is, in all its earwormyness, with subtitled translations, or without.
"WELCOME to the EDGE"
Before the Sci-Fi Channel (these days "Syfy" because we're all dumber now) officially launched, they aired a good amount of vaguely weird video and shimmery audio along with a launch timer. The last hour and twenty minutes of it are preserved on YouTube. Here's some of it without the timer. Also, here's a collection of 125 FTL Newsfeeds, the weird fake future newscast Sci-Fi aired that served both as mood setter and experiment in serialized storytelling. Here's a bunch of bumpers from 1990/2000. And the bumps from their short-lived "Sci-Fi World" block, featuring the song Funkytown.
"A vision of the future: Mario's shoe stamping on Bowser's face forever"
Amiibots is an automated Twitch stream that hosts amiibo figure fighters submitted by Exion Vault's community fighting each other in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in endless succession, twenty-four hours a day.
The Legend of Zelda Day
It's Zelda Day (Dec 26) again! Here's the news from Hyrule:
Romhacker Mark Kurko has made some awesome hacks putting Banjo & Kazooie into multiple other games, most notably Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and The Wind Waker.
Speedruns of Breath of the Wild have gotten crazy. Here's one done in 27:29. Or instead, watch this comedy animation of the general idea, of which more is accurate than you might think.
Super Mario Maker 2 recently had an update that put the Master Sword into the game, which lets you play as Link. Link has a wide variety of moves that empowers players a lot. This video demonstrates the new abilities.
Speedruns of Breath of the Wild have gotten crazy. Here's one done in 27:29. Or instead, watch this comedy animation of the general idea, of which more is accurate than you might think.
Super Mario Maker 2 recently had an update that put the Master Sword into the game, which lets you play as Link. Link has a wide variety of moves that empowers players a lot. This video demonstrates the new abilities.
How to play Call of Cthulhu, 7th edition
Wanted to get into cosmic horror roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu but thwarted by the rulebook? The 7th edition of the game makes combat a lot more rigorous where most attack rolls are opposed, adds more specific procedure to insanity, and beefs up a lot of other areas of the system. It can be a lot for a new player, so CJ has made an entertaining and informative animated series that lays out how the game works, with lots of examples.
1. Introduction β 2. Basic Rules β 3. Combat β 4. Firearms β 5. Insanity β 6. Character Creation β 7. Investigator Development β 8. Chase β 9. Magic
1. Introduction β 2. Basic Rules β 3. Combat β 4. Firearms β 5. Insanity β 6. Character Creation β 7. Investigator Development β 8. Chase β 9. Magic
ENGLISH PLEASURE
"Very concerned about this horse. He appears to be missing several lumbar vertebrae and an old injury to the gaskin has healed improperly, leaving left rear leg bent at an unnatural angle. Appears comfortable, but likely only pasture-sound." Writer Jelena Woehr rates the horses in various popular emoji systems (TWITTER).
Steven Universe Future
Announced at New York Comic Con yesterday was the news that Steven Universe, instead of a season six, would be getting an epilogue series, Steven Universe Future, along with a trailer. Previously... - Fanfare
WINFILE.EXE
This morning when you woke up, did you even slightly suspect that today you would find out that Microsoft has re-released the classic Windows 3.1 File Manager, updated and working on Windows 10, on both GitHub and the Microsoft Store?
100 x 75 resolution!
Did you ever think to yourself, "Hey, I probably could make a video card if I really tried?" No? Well, maybe you could! Here's Part 2.
7266: Target's heart turns to solid gold, potentially killing him
π hen playing Dungeons & Dragons, and a "wild magic surge" is called for, a blast of random magic, do you find the D20 or D100 tables usually supplied for these effects unsatisfying? I would point the interested/sadistic/madcap DM to the Net Libram of Random Magical Effects [PDF] which contains a D10000 table full of concerning, dangerous and otherwise odd results.
A notably memory-inefficent way to generate fractals
Making fractals with recursive nested Powerpoint presentations and slides. How they work. A better way.
Optimal Arkanoid
The new glitchless, tool-assisted speedrun of the NES version of Taito's classic arcade hit Breakout clone Arkanoid is 10% faster than the previous record. It was done in an interesting way: the runner simulated the game on a frame-by-frame level in a C++ reimplementation, then used it to brute force a solution to each level, which required a year's worth of CPU effort (split across six cores) to accomplish. Here are full details, including video (12m) of the result played back in an emulator. For extra fun, he made an ASCII-art version of the run!
Plotters vs Pantsers
Why does Game Of Thrones feel different in this last season? Daniel Silvermint on Twitter explains what probably happened: George R. R. Martin's plan-it-as-you-go approach, where he cultivated a garden of plot seeds with only a vague idea of where each would lead, ran up against the showrunners' need to end everything in 13 episodes.
Playing to Tie
The SB Nation video series Weird Rules, and its second season, are generally great, telling us of the time when a basketball team tried to block a free throw, the time a ref in a soccer match scored a goal and it counted, the rule preventing goal-tending against field goals in NFL games, and many other entertainingly ridiculous circumstances. A British player in a bicycle race crashed on purpose to get a restart in the 2012 Olympics, an European League basketball team tried to tie to force the game into overtime because for playoff purposes they wanted to win by at least 11, and Barbados in the Caribbean Cup played to tie once because the overtime "golden goal" used to be worth two points there.
"Super Mario Bros. 64"
After seven years of work, a reasonably accurate port of Super Mario Bros. has been made for the Commodore 64. YouTube.
Putting the mechanical into electro-mechanical
Mustafa Yasar makes (among other things) homemade pinball machines. They don't have blinking lights, sound effects, scoring over two digits or powered playfield gimmicks. But they do have multiball. (Found from ausretrogamer's Twitter.)
MACHINES WILL LEARN THE HUMANS A COLOR AND ANIMALS
Why not go gradually insane this weekend watching the computer generated "educational" videos of Raibow Animals, La La, Bi Bi TV, Toy Monster, Funny TV show, TOY Kids TV, totite tetito, Bobi Star TV, ABC Kids TV, and undoubtedly others.
They should not be confused with TocToc Toys or Rainbow Art, god forbid, which are composed of actual footage of people doing random color-related things, with no computer rendering.
Money Laundering 101
What supports high housing prices when the market's in the toilet? Money laundries. A Twitter thread (unrolled) by @CZEdwards, found linked by @CStross (MeFi).
The Computers of Commodore
Commodore was a calculator company that, under the leadership of charismatic (and sometimes abrasive) founder Jack Tramiel, bought promising microchip foundry MOS Technologies, got into the home computer business. They made some of the most popular machines of the 8-bit era, especially the hugely Commodore 64. But the C64 was actually part of a line of machines, many of which are much less-known. Have you ever heard of the MAX Machine? The Educator 64? The 64GS? The Commodore 16?
Here is a series of extremely informative videos from The 8-Bit Guy that go through the whole line up to Amiga (which is forthcoming): Commodore PET - VIC-20 (warning: William Shatner) - Commodore 64 - Plus-4, C16, C116 (with guest Bil Hurd, former Commodore engineer!) - Commodore 128 Average video length is 30 minutes.
Here is a series of extremely informative videos from The 8-Bit Guy that go through the whole line up to Amiga (which is forthcoming): Commodore PET - VIC-20 (warning: William Shatner) - Commodore 64 - Plus-4, C16, C116 (with guest Bil Hurd, former Commodore engineer!) - Commodore 128 Average video length is 30 minutes.
Zelda Day 2018
An interesting physics glitch discovered in Zelda: Breath of the Wild:
- Jump towards a monster, preferably from a height.
- Still in the air, get your shield out and start riding it.
- Get out your arrows and aim, starting "bullet time."
- While riding your shield and in bullet time, land on the monster.
Baby Burping Made Easy
The Useless Duck Company has unveiled their new system for releasing air bubbles from the stomachs of infants, using their custom-built, ergonomic apparatus in conjunction with a handy app. Come see the future of child care!
Miffa Miffa Meeka Moo!
Homestar Runner Halloween 2018: Mr. Poofers Must Die, the story of a dog that no one can bring themselves to kill when telling a creepy ghost story.
Yaawwn... zzzz....
It's been Yet Another Exhausting Day, and it's time for bed. But you're too snoozy to just stand up and walk there. You don't want to just fall asleep in the middle of the floor like a slob... but you're so tired. Maybe if you don't stand up, but just sort of slide along the floor to the bedroom.... (It's a computer game! Here's a playable demo, and here's the game's Twitter. Sadly, it's Windows only for now. Thanks to Alpha Beta Gamer and Jupiter Hadley for the find.)
Magic Advice in D&D 5E for Players and DMs
For you D&D 5th edition fanatics out there, Youtube animator Zee Bashew makes a series of short cartoons illustrating different aspects of and ideas for the game (especially magic) called the Animated Spellbook. Spellbooks - Save Spells vs. Attack Roll Spells - Spell Levels and Cantrips - Casting Times and Rituals - Weak Characters are Better - Prestigitation - Sleep - Feather Fall - Goodberry - The Deadliest Thing in D&D - Detect Magic
Whatever Happened To....
Broken Chains is a blog devoted to telling about and visiting the few remaining locations of formerly expansive restaurant chains.
NetHack 3.6.1
NetHack 3.6.1 has been released. Release notes. Downloads (so far the only ready-to-run version is Windows). Usenet announcement on Google Groups.
A husky puppy and a box of 1988 baseball cards
"This story starts with my dog taking a shit on the bathroom floor, and ends with me cleaning out a meth house. [TWITTER] Hold up, I need a beer." Along the way: a footprint in that poop, the car mysteriously parked outside, and a box of ashes. [ThreadReader (all in one) link here]
Always Be'ing and Do'ing, Never Cheesing or Choosing
The trend seems to be to post long-awaited updates on April Fools Day so no one expects them. And so Homestar Runner has released a new Strong Bad email. YouTube version for the Flash deprived or annoyed.
Three from Filmation
In addition to Star Trek: The Animated Series, He-Man, She-Ra and some other fondly-remembered shows, Filmation also produced, well, a lot of ridiculous crap. Here is some: an hour of "Fraidy Cat," nearly two hours of "Quackula" (unrelated to Cosgrove-Hall's much better Count Duckula), and an unsold pilot for "Dick Digit," an action/comedy show, that has to be seen to be believed.
Classic Mario music but... cHAngED
Super Mario Bros 2 with its music frequency table "reversed.". I'm not sure what that means exactly but it's certainly an, um, unique sound. The same thing done to Mario 3.