Sigh. One day, I'll get my turn in there. And it will be GLORIOUS. cc @criterion.bsky.social
Number crunching the Criterion Closet Picks
A prestigious cupboard of physical media. A cavalcade of filmmakers and actors. What patterns can we find between them?
beuseful.net
Cooper Hoffman reflecting on his dad's performance in #happiness is a delight (as are the rest of his picks). youtu.be/6UCSuaFuwrY?... @criterion.bsky.social
Cooper Hoffman’s Closet Picks
YouTube video by CRITERION
youtu.be
Picture the scene. A cardboard moving box, opened on a parquet floor. Inside, around two dozen vintage PC games in their original big boxes, spanning roughly 1982 to 1993. Treasure!
Ten big box PC games from the golden era
A photo essay of ten big box PC games from the 1980s and early 90s, from Zak McKracken to SimCity and Sid Meier's Pirates! You're welcome.
bulentyusuf.com
Movie lovers! A true rarity, Frank Perry's dark 1969 teen drama LAST SUMMER, is out on Blu-ray in a gorgeous restoration spearheaded by @larrythek.bsky.social. Hard to find for decades; it's never looked better. A must for many reasons, esp. Catherine Burns's exquisite Oscar-nominated performance.
Typing this on a mechanical keyboard I assembled from a flatpack of PCBs and acrylic, put together with a Torx key and a soldering iron over the course of an afternoon. It plays a few bars of Wagner every time I switch it on.
A keyboard that plays Wagner, built from a stack of PCBs
A mechanical keyboard that bleeps a chiptune "Ride of the Valkyries" whenever you power it on. Let's go!
bulentyusuf.com
Hello! I made a video game for #pico8 fantasy game console. Full disclosure upfront, it was built using AI assistance. But don't let that discourage you from giving BIG LIZARD a whirl, please! woollybully.itch.io/biglizard
Big Lizard by Bulent Yusuf
Wake up, sheeple!
woollybully.itch.io
Everyday magic: Using GenAI to create a mid-game build for the Witcher 3. This was very specific, vis a vis level, armor sets and playstyles. I'm kinda awed that an LLM could offer guidance on something so deeply nerdy and esoteric for RPGs. Have to report back if the build actually works, though...
The man with the werewolf hands: revisiting Darwyn Cooke's Parker on @comicsjournal.bsky.social www.tcj.com/you-either-t...
'You either take my word for it or you don't': Revisiting Darwyn Cooke's Parker - The Comics Journal
Are Cooke's Parker adaptations the best Parker adaptations? Tom Shapira investigates.
tcj.com
Seeing #TheThirdMan on the big screen in Vienna, where the film is set, was a highlight of my trip. Film is an absolute classic, and it's screened every night in one of the oldest cinemas in the world.
Annoying headline omits the important bit: China Miéville! First new book in a decade! And article fails to mention one of THE key works in modern speculative fiction, The City & The City! @nytimes.com clearly starstruck by Keanu Reeves and overlooks the real story. www.nytimes.com/2024/07/18/b...
Keanu Reeves Wrote a Book. A Really Weird One.
What if the star of “The Matrix” worked with a sci-fi novelist to tell the story of an 80,000-year-old warrior who can rip people’s arms off but struggles with loneliness?
nytimes.com
I love #raspberrypi, and thanks to them I've learned a lot about open source projects like #retropie and #pihole. But if monstrous coolers like this are necessary, we're ignoring a design flaw with the current board. And if it's a joke, it's an expensive one. www.tomshardware.com/raspberry-pi...
52-Pi Ice Tower Plus for Raspberry Pi 5 Review: Fast and furious cooling performance
If Dominic Toretto used Raspberry Pi, this would be the cooler that he would buy.
tomshardware.com
First saw #WomanInBath in Summer 1994 in Madrid. Reacquainted Summer 2024 in Vienna, three decades later. This time I took a picture. #Lichtenstein
I can remember when a game being addictive was considered a feature, not a bug. Interesting to see how thinking has evolved on the topic, much like modern game design itself. The two things are not unrelated. www.theguardian.com/games/articl...
Totally wired: Why are so many young people addicted to video games?
Locked in their bedrooms, playing video games into the small hours, children as young as 10 years old are now addicted to their consoles. Tim Lewis hears how the compulsive games can be impossible to ...
theguardian.com
'Sometimes things don't go, after all, from bad to worse' Thinking a lot about this poem today.
'We keep anxiously checking our phones. Is this Labour party playing it cool? Or are we coming on too strong? Will it perhaps express its true feelings later? When it says “business”, does it really mean “renationalise the trains”?' Terrific essay by Zadie Smith: www.theguardian.com/politics/art...
‘Here comes the sun’: Zadie Smith on hope, trepidation and rebirth after 14 years of the Tories
I used to shock US audiences with my stories of Britain’s excellent, accessible universities and healthcare. Then the Conservatives ruined the country. Now real change is on the horizon
theguardian.com
Played a #boardgame called #Hegemony. Players assume different roles in society (workers, the state, middle class and industrialists) and the rules are different for each. Because of competing interests, a model of a dysfunctional economy emerges. In a boardgame! Amazing.
And they would have got away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids
Picture This Scotland@74frankfurt.bsky.social · 2y agoChildren in Glasgow protest in February 1971 after the BBC announced they would be pulling Scooby-Doo from their schedule.
NEW: What went wrong with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? This is the story, based on interviews with two dozen people who worked on the game, of how Rocksteady Studios went from the revered Arkham series to a $200 million flop: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Behind ‘Suicide Squad,’ the Year’s Biggest Video-Game Flop
After seven years of tumultuous development, Warner Bros. took a $200 million loss on the Rocksteady game
bloomberg.com
Proof that reading comics is good for your health. How many have you read? www.menshealth.com/entertainmen...
45 Comic Book Insiders Share Their Favorite Comic Books of All Time
Finding a great comic can be tough. We got help from the best writers and artists in the industry to make it easier.
menshealth.com
Late to the party (so late that everyone's gone home and there's nothing left but empty beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays and an overturned shopping trolley in the garden), but #slaythespire is a work of genius. www.pastemagazine.com/games/slay-t...
Why Slay the Spire Has Such Staying Power
Five years after release Slay the Spire is still infinitely playable. Here's why it's the cream of the deck-building roguelike crop.
pastemagazine.com
Saw #furiosa! It's good! Most definitely a mad film built for maximum thrills, but it's also a different beast. With a five act structure over a longer time frame, it reminds me of one of those Jimmy Stewart/Anthony Mann westerns about REVENGE!! at any price.
Uncanny timing, I finished playing it last night! Verdict: a decent sequel, but the story and combat systems are more complicated than they needed to be. Regardless, PC gamers are in for a treat! blog.playstation.com/2024/05/30/g...
God of War Ragnarök is coming to PC
Release date and PC features for God of War Ragnarök announced.
blog.playstation.com
A good read from @aftermath.site about games journalism today. This quote articulates a key tension: “For fans, the goal they think the press should have is to validate their tastes. For developers... to always champion their work". No room for objective critique! aftermath.site/games-journa...
Why So Many Games Journalists End Up Going Into Game Development - Aftermath
A long, thorny history
aftermath.site
Leafing thru an issue of #wired magazine. Not read it in a while. The optimism about technology and "THE FUTURE!" is as unrelenting as always. I wonder, has anyone found an ancient back issue in a dentist's waiting room and had a chuckle about how wide of the mark they are?
