This summed up my experience with Japanese arcades very well. He even includes the ‘Fear of Heights’ experience by Bandai-Namco that I’ve posted about before. But I can’t believe I missed the real cars in Odaiba. Guess I’ll need to make another trip.
YouTuber Historia Civilis aptly showcases the evolution of Roman battle tactics. And while the content treads a simplistic (though nifty) overview, we can get the core idea behind the Roman military system and how its adaptability set it apart from most of the ‘stagnant’ armies of the ancient world. Definitely worth the watch.
http://www.realmofhistory.com/2016/05/10/animated-evolution-roman-battle-tactics/
The game is called Line Wobbler. It runs on an Arduino, a 5 meter long LED strip, and a self-made spring joystick. The game itself is fairly simple, you control a green pixel, and you want to reach the other end of the strip, fighting 1D enemies and avoiding 1D lava on the way. There’s 10 levels and even a boss fight at the end.
A fascinating piece of kinetic sculpture (over 3 feet long) by the design studio Humans since 1982. Available at the Moma store for only $4995
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYHHjm1M5CE
Autumn is without a doubt my favorite season of the year. The trees turn, pumpkin patches open, corn mazes draw crowds, hoodies, jackets, scarves appear, and fall decorations of leaves are made by children everywhere. As the nights grow+ colder and days shorter, who couldn’t also love a good spooky story told around a campfire while cooking smores and drinking hot cider?
Dana Mele created a list of amazing short spooky stories from solid literary sources. These aren’t your blood and gore stories, gimmicky kiddie tales, or cheap jump scares. Many come from the golden ages of the 1800’s when proper authors would often write short, scary tales. I approve of her entire list. Best yet, each is short enough to read before falling asleep. So pour a warm drink, toss a few logs on the fireplace, and settle in under a warm blacket before bed and read a good story!
(The link to her countdown is here, but I’m always afraid of such beautiful resources getting lost/shut down. So I make a copy here.)
Do you have any spooky stories you would add? Please share!
31. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, PDF – Free Audiobook version
30. The Tapestried Chamber by Sir Walter Scott – Free Audiobook version
29. The Phantom Coach by Amelia B. Edwards, PDF – Free audiobook version
28. Squire Toby’s Will by J.S. Le Fanu
27. The Upper Berth by F. Marion Crawford – Free audiobook version
26. The Judge’s House by Bram Stoker, PDF – Free audiobook version
25. Man-Size in Marble by Edith Nesbit – Free audiobook version
24. The Roll-Call of the Reef by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch – Free audiobook version
23. The Friends of the Friends by Henry James
22. The Red Room by H.G. Wells – Free audiobook here
21. The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs, PDF – Free audiobook here
20. The Lost Ghost by Mary E. Wilkins – Free audiobook here
19. ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ by M.R. James – Free Audiobook version (2 parts)
18. The Empty House by Algernon Blackwood, PDF – Free audiobook version
17. Widdershins by Oliver Onions (6 ghost stories) – Free audiobook version
16. Rose Rose by Barry Pain
15. The Confession of Charles Linkworth by E.F. Benson
14. On the Brighton Road by Richard Middleton – Free Audiobook version
13. Bone to His Bone by E.G. Swain, PDF version
12. The Taipan by W. Somerset Maugham
11. A Visitor From Down Under by L.P. Hartley
10. Fullcircle by John Buchan
9. The Clock by W.F. Harvey
8. Mr. Jones by Edith Wharton
7. Smee by A.M. Burrage – Free audiobook version
6. The Little Ghost by Hugh Walpole
5. The Hollow Man by Thomas Burke (small print- view in fullscreen and adjust)
4. Et in Sempiternum Pereant by Charles Williams
3. An Encounter in the Mist by A.N.L. Munby, PDF version
2. The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe – Free audiobook version
List of Honorable Mentions:
- “Berenice” (1835) by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Black Cat” (1845) by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Cask of Amontillado” (1846) by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (1845) by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “Hop-Frog” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “Ligeia” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “Mesmeric Revelation” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Premature Burial” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “Some Words With a Mummy” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” by Edgar Allen Poe
- “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe
- Other runners up
- Hand in Glove by Elizabeth Bowen
- A Ghost Story by Mark Twain
- The Mortal Immortal by Mary Shelley
- The Tomb by H.P. Lovecraft
- The Tree by H.P. Lovecraft
- The Vampiress by Lord Lytton
- The Vampyre by John Polidori
- THE SKETCH BOOK.
- THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM.
- “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” by Stephen King
- “Wolfshead” by Robert E. Howard
- “Varney the Vampire” by James Malcolm Rymer and/or Thomas Preskett Prest
- “The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains” by Neil Gaiman
- “Ma Perkins Comes to Stay” by Ray Bradbury
- “The Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allan Poe
- “Catskin” by Kelly Link
- “Nethescurial” by Thomas Ligotti
- “Trapped Inside the Stoker” by Jack Ketchum
- “Dissolution” by Sarah Langan
- “The Last Man” by Mary Shelley
- “Magdala Amygdala” by Lucy A. Snyder
- “Strange Candy” by Robert McCammon
- “Mexican Moon” by Karen E. Taylor
- “The Goblin’s Collection” by Algernon Blackwood
- “The Repairer of Reputations” by Robert W. Chambers
- “The Rats in the Walls” by H.P. Lovecraft
- “A Death” (The New Yorker, March 2015)
- The Shadow in the Corner by M.E. Braddon
- A Wicked Voice by Vernon Lee
According to most scientific sources, even those written by such notables as Stephen (corrected) Hawking, the universe is about 13.88 billion years old. But the dirty secret is that recently possible measurements weren’t jiving.
Gaia is the EU’s new space-based telescope and has logged the distances between almost a billion nearby stars with unprecedented accuracy. In releasing the distances to the first 2 million objects, it’s numbers are causing a stir because if the Gaia speed observations are correct, it would mean having to reduce the estimated 13.88 billion-year-old universe by perhaps a few hundred million years.
Kudos to the BBC for not dumbing it down:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37438458
SethBling took his MarI/O neural net/machine learning Mario AI and applied it to Mariokart.
SethBling decided to apply his knowledge of writing neural nets and machine learning algorithms to the problems of playing Mario
Here’s the paper writeup: http://nn.cs.utexas.edu/downloads/papers/stanley.ec02.pdf
Here’s the source: http://pastebin.com/ZZmSNaHX
How cool is your home-brew MAME arcade machine? This cool? Wow.
Remember studying about that “Industrial Revolution” or “Internet” thing and how it changed society and demographics? This is a really good write-up on how the next revolution of machine learning is about, and already, changing everything again. Get ready for it.
https://www.wired.com/2015/08/robots-will-steal-jobs-theyll-give-us-new-ones/