We’ve been told that “Master Chief” from the Halo series of games reveals his face at the end of Halo 3. If you can’t wait to finish the game to find out who he is, the webcomic Godmode has given away the answer:
Click the comic to see it at full size on its original page.
Mollie Sterling wrote in her blog:
It does my heart good to see these photos from my alma mater, The Missouri School of Journalism. Back in the fall of 2001 when I was a freshman, it was me and two other kids in the back row with our glowing Apples. Now I feel almost sad for that poor kid with the Windows machine in the front row:)
Click to see the photo on its original page at full size.
Oh, those crazy MIT Guys…
Click to see the photo on its original page.
Here’s what the MIT Hacks gallery has to say:
During the night prior to the release of the heavily advertised Halo 3 video game, MIT hackers transformed the statue of John Harvard into the Master Chief character from the game. In the game, the character’s real name is known only as John. John was wearing the signature helmet from the game and was also holding a gun from the game. The hack was removed by around 8am.
Click the photo to see the Flickr photoset.
For the curious, there’s a Flickr photoset with pics from Saturday’s “Furries vs. Klingons” bowling competition in Atlanta.
Someone at the National Review suggested that the event might be the death knell of Western Civilization, but it’s really no sillier than a great deal of the activities that the National Review’s right-wing heroes partake in at Bohemian Grove (and far more harmless).
I live in Toronto, a city where a lot of movie filming takes place (recently, our Yonge Street has been standing in for New York’s Harlem in the upcoming Incredible Hulk movie). There’s always a movie shoot going on — you can tell by the pylons with the location company’s logo and the row of white trailers, we have a number of lots that store New York City police cars and cabs, and a number of downtown used furniture stores specialize in renting furniture for movie sets.
The library scene is a staple of movies, often used to inform the audience that a certain character is well-educated, or in the case of a private library, whether in a home or a gentleman’s club, it’s used to establish that a character is rich. Ever wondered where they get the books for these scenes from? One source is New York’s famous bookstore, The Strand (whose slogan is “18 miles of books”), which offers a service called Books by the Foot.
There’s more on the service (recently used for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull) in a New Yorker piece titled Books in Bulk.
Screenshot from Rock Band. Click to see the screenshot on its original page at full size (it’s huge).
Let me get the tiny bit of disappointment that I have with the upcoming game Rock Band out of the way first: What? No keyboards? They’re the most computer-ready interface devices to make! You suck.
That little gripe aside, I’m looking forward to Rock Band, the next step in the evolution of the Guitar Hero game. While Guitar Hero let one player at a time “play guitar” and Guitar Hero II let a single player “play” either guitar or bass, Rock Band offers, Rock Band lets up to four people play simultaneously, each one taking the role of guitarist, bassist, drummer or lead vocalist. As you can see from the screenshot above, gameplay looks like a hybrid of Guitar Hero for the instrument roles and Karaoke Revolution for the vocalist role.
Joystiq has just published the news on Rock Band’s release date and price. Rock Band for the XBox 360 and the PlayStation 3 will hit the shelves in the U.S. on Friday, November 23rd, with the PlayStation 2 version following on December 10th. November 23rd is “Black Friday” — for our non-American readers, this is the Friday of the American Thanksgiving long weekend. Being the last holiday before Christmas, it’s the biggest shopping day of the year and a day which puts a lot of stores “in the black”, hence the name. Shopping malls in the U.S. open ridiculously early on that day (we’re talking hours before sunrise) and the crowds are insane. Occasionally fights break out; perhaps the makers of Rock Band want shoppers to have the full rock concert experience — the Woodstock 1999 experience, that is.
The full Rock Band bundle will sell for the following consoles:
The bundle will include:
According to Wikipedia, the following songs have been announced for the game:
I think this is a pretty good collection of songs; a number of them are either in my accordion repertoire or were on the set lists of bands with whom I played keyboards.
Most of the tunes listed will use the original master tracks. I suspect that the game will use the bowlderized lyrics for Radiohead’s Creep (“You’re so very special” rather than “You’re so fucking special”), and I hope that Don’t Fear the Reaper has a special “cowbell” mode. I also think that The Perfect Drug might’ve been a better Nine Inch Nails tune, even if only to give the drummer a challenge (there’s a killer drum solo near the end of the song).
The inclusion of a tune by Boston-based synthpop band Freezepop seems a little odd — they’d fit better in a game that offered keyboard controllers. This may be a prank by a Wikipedia contributor.
The “Chuck Norris Facts” jokes as applied to computer security guru Bruce Schneier were funny, but geeks, being rather flighty creatures, have moved on. The new hotness is “Paul Graham Facts”, and if you can think of a good one about the Lisp hacker turned venture capitalist (or want to kiss some ass for Y Combinator funding), you can submit it.
My favourite Paul Graham Facts so far: