Monthly Archives: August 2014
Geek Links of the Week
John Oliver and most of the internet is behind net neutrality. Leading civil rights groups are throwing their lot in with Big Telecom because net neutrality will “harm communities of colour.” I think my brain just shut down from the sheer stupidity of that statement. [The Nation]
Big Telecom is also buying off people to troll articles in support of net neutrality. You know, if they spent less on lobbying, they could spend that money on better infrastructure, higher speeds or lower prices. That would mean that those companies are run by people with brains though. [Vice]
Dial-up might be dead but don’t tell AOL. They’re still making money off of it. [Quartz]
Microsoft isn’t planning a second major update for Windows 8. It looks like they’re going all-in on Windows 9. [Forbes]
Could Galaxy Quest finally get a sequel? Probably not but it’s fun to dream. [/Film]
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Dominik Omega Raps Game of Thrones
If you listened to Catch The Throne, HBO’s Game of Thrones inspired album, you might remember that one track that was a rap about Arya. That was by Dominik Omega. He might not be the biggest emcee in the world but he’s an avid book reader, not just a show watcher, and can drop some sick rhymes about the books and its characters.
Since I’m fond of a little music on a Friday afternoon, here’s both of Dominik Omega’s raps about Game of Thrones for Friday of Thrones.
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Twitch Introduces Audio Content Matching System For VODs
The YouTube-ification of Twitch continues this week. With the shut down of Twitch Interactive’s original live-streaming website, Justin.tv, on Tuesday, Twitch made another move that moves it closer to being a live-streaming arm of YouTube. In a blog post on Wednesday, Twitch announced that they were introducing an audio content recognition algorithm to identify and mute copyrighted audio in VODs.
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The Walking Dead: Season Two – Episode Four (Spoiler-Free) Review: My Body is a Cage
One of the advantages of being behind on playing an episodic game like The Walking Dead: Season Two is that you can play multiple episodes in quick succession. I didn’t get into the first season until a random Steam Sale so I was able to go through the first three episodes at the same time. There’s something to be said about being able to keep the story rolling by binging episodes. It works for TV so why wouldn’t it for video games?
Once again, my habit of going contrary to the consensus critical opinion continues in this review. While critics rated it as the worst episode of the season, I have it as the second-best. So what did I see that no one else did?
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eSports Weekend Calendar: August 8 – 10, 2014
If you’re a MOBA fan, it’s a quiet weekend. The Dota 2 scene might have the joinDOTA League ongoing but it’s hard to get a clear and easy to read schedule for that so keep your eyes peeled for that if that’s you preferred MOBA. League has LPL’s round robin continuing and a bit of EU LCS playoff action but it’s a quiet week otherwise.
StarCraft, on the other hand, is having a big weekend. Proleague is wrapping its 2014 season this weekend with a battle between KT Rolster and SK Telecom. I sometimes wonder if a foreign team leagues would catch on if they weren’t built on the all-kill format (like TeamStory Cup). It’s cool to see all-kills and reverse all-kills but I’d like to see how a big league foreign Proleague effort would play out. Maybe something like teams of four in a best-of-five with an ace match format so you don’t have to have a six-plus man roster to do best-of -sevens.
If SC2 team competitions aren’t your taste, Red Bull is having an six-man qualifier triple-elimination tournament for a spot in the 2014 Red Bull Battle Grounds Grand Final. Taiwan’s best do battle with some of Korea’s best in the Taiwan Open. And the best in the world take on the best on the North American ladder’s best in Destiny I.
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Twitch Shuts Down Justin.TV
With the sale of Twitch Interactive to YouTube / Google having been recently reported as being virtually a done deal, it was only a matter of time before changes were made at Twitch. The first move of the company under its new ownership was to shut down the original division of Twitch Interactive. Live-streaming website Justin.tv was the first casualty of the new regime with the site closing its doors on Tuesday.
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The Walking Dead: Season Two – Episode Three (Spoiler-Free) Review: Survival, From a Certain Point of View
For some reason, my views of this season of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead skews opposite of that of most reviewers. While I absolutely loved Episode Two, many were lukewarm relative to me. Then I look at Episode One and most critics liked it more than I did.
Episode Two introduced William Carver, the antagonist for this season of the game, and the story made a turn for the darker which is something that strikes a chord with me. The majority of critics called it the best episode of TWD Season Two when it came out. I won’t go that far but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a good episode of the game.
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Ubisoft Confirms Assassin’s Creed: Rogue After Footage Leaks
While some companies will deny, deny, deny any leaks coming out of their camp until they’re blue in the face, Ubisoft quickly gave up the fight when it came to the leak of this fall’s other Assassin’s Creed game.
After leaks on Tuesday and reports that we had for you as far back as March, Ubisoft confirmed that there would be a second Assassin’s Creed game launching this fall. This game is last-gen only on PS3 and 360 and is called Assassin’s Creed: Rogue.
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GameStop Updating Trade-In Program and Offering More Money
GameStop catches a lot of flack for their used games trade-in program. Most people feel that the scheme gives sellers too little money compared to what GameStop is able to resell them for. When you take a look at the setup of the program, you can see that it’s geared very specifically to keep money inside GameStop’s “ecosystem” and throws a whole bunch of qualifiers at clerks and customers to do so.
Now, GameStop’s overhauling their trade-in scheme. It simplifies all the variables that affect the price sellers get and increasing the base price for reselling a game by 20%.
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Comic Book Pull List for August 6, 2014
Here’s an interesting question: How does a comic series end and then come back after a short hiatus? Marvel tries to answer that question in Superior Spider-Man #32. They also smartly schedule their line-up to cash in on the blockbuster release of Guardians of the Galaxy with Legendary Star Lord #2 and Rocket Racoon #2.
Meanwhile, over at Valiant, fans of the Harbinger series gets a short miniseries that rises from the ashes of its predecessor in Harbinger: Omegas #1. A man must choose between the love of his life and duty to his people in Image’s Imperial #1. And if a kids comic is more your speed, Adventure Time writer Rebecca Sugar is behind Boom’s new Steven Universe series. No idea why that title would catch my eye…
et geekera 