Good news, Archer fans. FX has renewed the series up through its tenth season, guaranteeing us another few years of everyone’s favorite animated spy. We’re currently on season 7, with the eighth season being set to premiere next year. Archer is one of several animated shows targeted at adults that is enjoying a healthy fanbase; FX praised it in a … Continue reading
Yahoo’s latest mobile app wants to help you browse more than just the internet. Radar, which launched today for iOS, acts as your “virtual travel guide” by using machine learning and artificial intelligence (not to mention the travel confirmations in…
Faraday Future isn’t waiting for Michigan to get its act together before it starts testing self-driving cars in the US. Reuters has confirmed that the fledgling company has received approval to try autonomous vehicles on California roads later this…
Sometimes you meet toxic players when playing multiplayer games. It is inevitable. Blizzard built in a feature called “Avoid this player” which basically during the matchmaking process, will ensure that players won’t be matched with that particular player, which we guess makes a lot of sense, at least until it starts to wreck havoc on the system.
This is why Blizzard has decided to remove the feature, and Overwatch’s game director Jeff Kaplan explains why in a forum post. In his post, Kaplan goes over how they have designed the matchmaking system, and what they take into consideration when trying to match players with each other such as their MMR and ping, for example.
However Kaplan notes, “For example, we recently realized that ‘Avoid this player’ was wreaking havoc on matchmaking. One of the best Widowmaker players in the world complained to us about long queue times. We looked into it and found that hundreds of other players had avoided him (he’s a nice guy – they avoided him because they did not want to play against him, not because of misbehavior).”
The end result is that when that player eventually got around to playing game, he was throw into a game with lesser-skilled players which meant that ultimately he did not get the experience that he was after. Of course Blizzard’s decision to disable the feature wasn’t just for one player; imagine a scenario where players start blocking other players that they feel intimidated by. Of course this also means that it leaves the door open to players having to play with the other toxic players that they wanted to avoid in the first place, but we guess that’s another problem for another time.
Blizzard Removes Overwatch’s ‘Avoid This Player’ Feature , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Last week during E3 2016, Sony showed off a trailer to a new Spider-Man game that would be arriving on the PS4, and from what we saw the game looked fantastic. However given that it is a trailer, there is a good chance that what we were looking at were cinematics, or maybe enhanced graphics to make the game look more compelling.
The good news is that if you were wondering if what you saw was just trumped up graphics, you can relax because according to its developers, Insomniac Games, they have confirmed that what was in the trailer was in-game footage. This means that what you see in the trailer (see the video above in case you missed it the first time) is what you will get in the game.
Insomniac also notes that the footage of the game is based off on the current-gen PS4 hardware, not Sony’s upcoming PS4 “Neo” which at the moment there aren’t too many details about, although last we checked, there were rumors to suggest that Sony could be bringing the console to market this year.
That being said, Insomniac’s Spider-Man will not have any direct connection to the upcoming Spider-Man movie starring Tom Holland which is due for a release next year, but either way it looks good and we wouldn’t mind getting our hands on it.
Insomniac Confirms Spider-Man’s E3 Trailer Was All In-Game Footage , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Horror movies over the years have left us with a lot of iconic monsters/villains, like Jason from Friday the 13th, or Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street, or more recently like the Conjuring 2’s demonic nun who is apparently going to get her own movie. Basically there are a ton of villains and monsters and it seems that NetherRealm’s Ed Boon wants to put them all together.
In an interview with Game Informer, Boon revealed that the idea of a fighting game which pits all the various ghosts, monsters, demons, and villains from horror movies is something that he has thought of before. In fact we’ve already seen some of them in Mortal Kombat, such as Jason, Freddy Krueger, and Leatherface.
According to Boon, “Yes, yes! You know, as we’ve been accumulating them, that idea has been coming up more and more frequently. You brought it up and a few other people have brought it up like ‘why don’t you do a horror movie fighting game?’ Maybe one day we’ll do it.” Of course this is by no means a confirmation, but it sounds like a great idea.
After all with all the gross and grisly fatalities that have been included in Mortal Kombat throughout the years, we can only imagine how “next level” this could get if it were to be purely based on characters from horror movies. What do you guys think?
Ed Boon Wants To Create A Horror Movie Fighting Game , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
When you really need to get a signal in from Pluto, a direct connection isn’t always possible. Oh sure, when it’s a big project like New Horizons, you can make sure the line is clear and someone’s listening — but for routine updates from a Neptune orbiter or power-starved comet lander, there’s Delay Tolerant Networking, which just got its first big installation on… Read More
While Joe Biden didn’t explicitly name Donald Trump during his speech at a Washington think tank on Monday, the vice president’s message about the presumptive GOP nominee was clear.
During the Center for a New American Security‘s annual conference, Biden spoke about the openly hostile environment that some candidates — he didn’t name names — are creating for Muslims this campaign season.
“There are 1.4 billion Muslims in the world,” Biden said. “Some of the rhetoric I’m hearing sounds designed to radicalize all 1.4 billion.”
He also criticized Trump’s foreign policy positions, as well as his stance on Russia, which Biden said would “call into question America’s longstanding commitment to a Europe whole, free and at peace.”
Watch some of Biden’s remarks in the video above.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
Several writers better known for their literary contributions have ventured into the political arena recently to denounce presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. With their words, they’ve issued evocative warnings.
J.K. Rowling declared Trump “fascist in all but name” in an essay titled “On Monsters, Villains and the EU Referendum,” which was posted on her website this week.
“Look towards the Republican Party in America and shudder. ‘Make America Great Again!’ cries a man who is fascist in all but name,” she wrote. “His stubby fingers are currently within horrifyingly close reach of America’s nuclear codes. He achieved this pre-eminence by proposing crude, unworkable solutions to complex threats. Terrorism? ‘Ban all Muslims!’ Immigration? ‘Build a wall!’ He has the temperament of an unstable nightclub bouncer, jeers at violence when it breaks out at his rallies and wears his disdain for women and minorities with pride. God help America. God help us all.”
Rowling had already made her opinion of Trump clear back in December with a devastating comparison to Harry Potter’s great foe. “Voldemort was nowhere near as bad” as Trump, she tweeted.
Last month, hundreds of other writers — including Diana Abu-Jaber, Michael Chabon, Junot Díaz, Rita Dove, Jennifer Egan, Stephen King and Maxine Hong Kingston — signed an “An Open Letter to the American People” opposing Trump.
As writers, they said, “we are particularly aware of the many ways that language can be abused in the name of power.”
Dave Eggers, who also signed that letter, attended one of Trump’s rallies earlier this month, seeking to better understand the people who support him.
“Believing that Trump’s supporters are all fascists or racists is a grave mistake,” Eggers wrote in The Guardian last week. “This day in Sacramento presented a different picture, of a thousand or so regular people who thought it was pretty cool how Trump showed up in a plane with his name on it. How naughty it was when he called the president ‘stupid.'”
“Americans who have voted for Trump in the primaries have done so not because they agree with all, or any, of his statements or promises, but because he is an entertainment,” Eggers continued. “He is a loud, captivating distraction and a very good comedian … The moment he ceases to entertain – to say crazy shit – he will evaporate.”
Garrison Keillor described Trump in a widely syndicated essay last week as “the C-minus guy who sat behind you in history and poked you with his pencil and smirked when you asked him to stop.” The “Prairie Home Companion” creator said Trump doesn’t have any kind of philosophy, “just an attitude.”
Pointing to Trump’s self-congratulatory tweets after a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub, Keillor doubted that Republicans could teach Trump any humility.
“The dreamers in the Republican Party imagine that success will steady him and he will come into the gravitational field of reality but it isn’t happening. The Orlando tweets show it: the man does not have a heart,” Keillor wrote.
And if Trump wins the presidential election?
“If the man is not defeated, then we are not the country we imagine we are. All of the trillions spent on education was a waste. The churches should close up shop. The nation that elects this man president is not a civilized society,” wrote Keillor.
“The gentleman is not airing out his fingernail polish, he is not showing off his wedding ring; he is making an obscene gesture. Ignore it at your peril.”
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
There are many forms of consensual non monogamy, ways which people in a relationship negotiate sex and intimacy outside of traditional norms. From car keys in the middle of the room swinging through hand-fasted triads, to relationship anarchy, people have been saying for a while now that there are other ways of doing relationships. Of course, as many advocates of polygamy will point out, traditional depends on where you are standing, and there are a number of cultures across the world who have had different models of how adult relationships can work
Whatever someone calls their way of doing relationships, they encounter the same questions, preconceptions and stereotypes from monogamous people.
1. You must be sex mad!
Some forms of consensual non monogamy are based around sexual encounters, swinging for example. In swinging single people and couples believe that sex is not just reserved for those with whom you have an emotional bond. However, many swingers will only “play” (a term which highlights the easy going, light hearted attitude taken to sex) with those they have built some form of an emotional relationship with. There are very few hard and fast rules around swinging, other than the golden rule of consent.
Many non monogamous people however do not see their relationships as about more sex, but more love, that is what polyamory means after all — “many loves.” For them the idea that they are just looking for more sexual partners is hurtful, it’s about love, emotional connection, not bed hopping. A joke in policy circles is that you need google calendar more than you need a bag of sex toys!
2. I could never have an affair
So often people confuse being unfaithful with polyamory, and its probably the statement which causes more anger than any other. Poly, or whatever form of consensual non monogamy someone practices, is consensual, but people seem to skim over the all important “c word.” If you are deceiving a partner, going behind their back, it’s not polyamory, it’s not consensual for all parties involved. If you ever want to see sparks fly, mention those on poly forums and sites who claim to be poly, but without the consent of their partners. Whilst it is of course difficult if you realize after marriage that you and your partner have different views on monogamy, the ethical solution is to talk, and negotiate. I know from my client work that this is not as impossible as some might suppose. If you are meeting others without the consent of your partner, its a lot of things, but it is not poly.
3. It must be wonderful to never get jealous.
There are some people who don’t seem to get jealous. There are far more people who know that jealousy is a destructive emotion, which eats away at our joy and happiness. Choosing non monogamy does not mean you do not get jealous, there isn’t a handy switch you can turn off. For many poly people it’s about accepting that jealousy isn’t a positive emotion, and working through their feelings rather than giving full reign to them. They may well be jealous, but, they choose not to let the emotion control things. The lovely polar opposite of jealousy is compersion, a beautiful concept, pleasure in a partner’s relationship with another.
4. But what about the children!
It’s a cry many LGBTQ people are used to hearing, and many Pride parades will have a poly section, as a lot of similar prejudices are faced. I can safely say, as a therapist, and parent, children need love, support, acceptance, and the makeup of the family which provides that is far less relevant to their health and happiness than the fact it is provided.
5. But who do you really love?
In some ways this is like the question children ask their parents — “But which of us do you love the most?” It can be difficult to explain that love doesn’t work like that, your children can be very different, and yet loved equally. So it is for poly people. Some do have primary partners, someone they see as their life partner, whilst others dislike this as too hierarchical.However most poly people reject the idea that a relationship is somehow more real or valid because its with one person, over another. The relative new concept of relationship anarchy challenges the idea that people we have sex with should have primacy. It may sound odd, but how many of us have a close friend, who sticks with us through thick and thin, who is always there when a relationship ends? These friends know us better than any partner, and relationship anarchy suggests should not be considered a lesser relationship.
6. Will you sleep with me?
This is often put less politely, but it’s a common question . Related to the first point, just because someone is not monogamous, doesn’t mean they want to have sex with you. So many poly women and nonbinary people have told me this is a huge issue for them. The minute they mention they are non monogamous huge assumptions are made. It is important to remember that many poly people only have sex within committed emotional relationships, so no, they probably aren’t going to get naked within seconds of meeting you.
7. I could never convince my wife to do that
This infuriates for two reasons. Poly is about all parties agreeing, not about coercion, or convincing someone to do something against their will. Poly is not for everyone; I personally believe some people are naturally inclined to be monogamous, and others are not. It is also suggesting that women are not active in, or desiring of poly, but are led by male partners and husbands, who have forced them into it. Women can, and do, suggest exploring polyamory, and want polyamorous relationships.
More and more people are looking at other ways of doing relationships, ways which try to avoid the pitfalls of traditional monogamy. Rejecting the idea of the “one” sold to us by Hollywood and romantic fiction, and instead trying to work out for themselves what does, and doesn’t work. Usually it’s less porn hub, and more conventional than you might imagine, especially if you drop the assumptions and stereotypes.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.