Slouching is for suckers

A 1953 Centron Corporation educational film explains how poor posture is the root of all social misery, poor health, and general malaise. And that's one to grow on.

Here is what you’ll learn today, fellow computer users: slouching is the reason no one talks to you at parties, even if you’re a perfectly attractive and friendly person, and the key to good posture is exercise, rest, and good shoes. Though we will tell you one thing: If your reflection in the mirror is mocking you because of your posture, you might have bigger problems than slouching.

1950s Educational Film Explains: Slouching Is For Terrible People [Video]

SpaceX Falcon 9 engine test will be webcast live (woo, fire! woo, space!)

If you like space and/or rockets and/or awesome flames, you'll want to tune in to spacex.com on Monday, April 30 to watch "a static fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket’s nine powerful Merlin engines in preparation for the company’s upcoming launch." The test is scheduled to begin at 2:30 PM ET/ 11:30 AM PT, with the actual static fire targeted for 3:00 PM ET/ 12:00 PM PT. Actual launch to space is currently targeted for May 7.

Walt Disney World in Minecraft, with working rides

TheRealDuckie (and friends) is working on a complete, functional replica of Walt Disney World in Minecraft, and has posted an update to Reddit. The Magic Kingdom is largely down, with the rides all ridable, and working restaurants. Epcot is underway. The files are available as free downloads.

This project started on the Reddit Creative Server and was later moved to Redstonehost.com. It took us 4 months of work and over 25 Cast Members to finish. We have recently started on EPCOT and will be continuing the resorts soon. As each park is finished we will release another download. As always, these downloads are free. We seek no monetary gain.

Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom - Finished! + EPCOT started (w/ world download) (imgur.com) (Thanks, Dave!)

Dude breaks up fight on NYC subway with bag of chips

[Video Link] SNACKMAN! (thanks, Sean Bonner)

Massacre in Norway – Sick MF

TheMiserableRanter rants. 8http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-southwood/norway-shootings_b_907934.html In Oslo, Norway, an insane white supremacist degenerate , dressed as a police officer, massacred over 90 innocent people This sick bastard’s name is Anders Brevik. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2018148/Anders-Behring-Breivik-posted-YouTube-video-hours-Norway-terror-attacks.html Quote from the above link: Massacre gunman posted YouTube video calling followers to ‘embrace martyrdom’ six hours before attacks Sent 12-minute YouTube video to 7,000 [...]

Undercover video from North Korea: starving children, hungry soldiers

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has released undercover video depicting living conditions in North Korea. The video shows grimy children begging, laborers building a private rail system intended to serve as a wedding gift for Kim Jong-un (son and heir of dictator Kim Jong-il), and an official shaking down a private market stall for rice for hungry soldiers. The ABC's analyst says this last is the most significant part of the video: "This footage is important because it shows that Kim Jong-il's regime is growing weak... It used to put the military first, but now it can't even supply food to its soldiers. Rice is being sold in markets but they are starving. This is the most significant thing in this video."

The video shows young children caked in filth begging in markets, pleading for scraps from compatriots who have nothing to give.

"I am eight," says one boy. "My father died and my mother left me. I sleep outdoors."

Many of the children are orphans; their parents victims of starvation or the gulag...

In the footage, a party official is demanding a stallholder make a donation of rice to the army.

"My business is not good," complains the stallholder.

"Shut up," replies the official. "Don't offer excuses."

N Korean children begging, army starving: exclusive (via Reddit)

The Curfew: a game about civil liberties and teenagers

Play This Thing reviews The Curfew, a game about civil liberties and teenagers that my wife, Alice Taylor commissioned for UK broadcaster Channel 4. The game, produced by Littleloud and written by Kieron Gillen, just won Best Educational Game at the Games for Change awards (it's a free-to-play Flash game, so you can judge for yourself -- or bring it into your classroom, or talk about it with your kids or friends).

Back in the early CD-ROM era, when the ability to do filmed video in a game was novel and the graphic adventure was still a commercially viable genre, there were a slew of mostly horrible games that tried to merge the adventure genre with filmed video. When I say "mostly horrible," imagine interminable, badly acted cut scenes with zero actual interaction, held apart by inventory puzzles in fairly crude graphics, or played out on photographs with a handful of lifeless interactions. Until playing The Curfew, I had come to the conclusion that merging video with the adventure game was an obviously bad idea, proven so by experience.

I have to say, however, that the combination works here, and works quite well. Part of the problem, back in the day, was the need to change what area of the disc was being read when a choice was made, so that there was always a perceptible lag whenever you made any choice that branched the video. Here, the clips are preloaded by the Flash framework, and the transitions are seamless. Also, the use of photography for the graphic adventure interactions themselves, coupled with small looped animations of characters drawn from video, makes the game feel alive even when you are not in the video itself. And finally, the developers have had the good taste and sense not to make the non-interactive sequences too lengthy or sententious.

The Curfew (Play This Thing)

The Curfew (game site)