Geek and Fandom Events in BC and Washington State
http://youtu.be/Yje-Vd2x0Aw
Sakura-con’s Musical guest Stereopony has recorded a very special message for their fans coming to Sakura-con next month. Apparently, this will be their first time performing on the west coast, and they discuss what they could do that’s particular to our neck of the woods. Seattle’s not much for beaches, but perhaps there’s some good hiking this time of year?
Source: Very Good Days
For the love of all that is holy, THERE EXISTS A BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ROLLER COASTER!! There are two entrances to the ride, human and cylon. One coaster is standing, the other leaves your feet dangling in space. Both coasters twist and turn in a desperate dogfight for galactic supremacy. Nothing could be more awesome than this if only it weren’t 10,000 miles away in Singapore. Realize this and despair. So say we all.
Source: YouTube.
Mike Toole over at the Anime News Network has written a blog post full of Anime convention war stories. You know the kind, long line-ups, sparse guest lists, and barely there budgets? He brings up one convention in particular that keeps coming up in these war stories. Vancouver’s first attempt at an anime convention: Aka-con.
The thing was, Aka-Kon had a rough time taking care of their guests; they had a decent list of visitors, but not a whole lot of cash, so some of the arriving voice actors and artists found themselves on the hook for shuttle fares, meals, and appallingly, even hotel rooms. One pal in particular told me of a Friday night guest dinner where the poor guest relations chief was only given $50 from the con’s war chest to entertain the guests, who had to foot their own bills.
You’d think after all the drama of Anime Evolution that Vancouver would be able to live that debacle down, but I you just can’t beat embezzlement, drug scandals, and a crazy scheme to fund a convention through the sales of an original anime porno. Oh well.
Source:Anime News Network.
Valve has now officially quashed rumours that it will be making its own set-top box to compete with the likes of Playstation and Xbox. Valve Marketing Director Doug Lombardi has said that while they are working on an interface update to Steam, the notion of it getting its own console would not be happening any time soon. Speculation about the console started swelling after there was talk of biometric interfaces and a prototype box built by Valve’s Greg Coomer. Lombardi had this to say about the issue
“Greg’s one of the guys leading the effort of the Big Picture mode,” Lombardi said. “The idea is that you can take Steam to any display. What we’re trying to do is say, ‘here’s a box that we’re going to use for testing that’s common for Big Picture mode and get performance at a base level.’… We’re always putting boxes together. Going all the way back to the Half-Life 1 days, we built special boxes to test our software render… it’s just part of development.”
So there you have it. The rumours were kind of sketchy to begin with. You can’t release a console system these days without amassing huge amounts of resources. The main three competitors in the console game are losing money on every unit just so they can secure a proper set of exclusive games. If anyone is going to release a console in this climate, it definitely will not be through the traditional channels of suppliers and retailers. Perhaps we might still see a PC build with a Steam “Seal of Approval”.
Source:Kotaku.
Vancouver iOS developer startup A Thinking Ape wanted to host a Hackathon, but they weren’t too enthused with traditional Alpha Nerds smelling up the joint. This led to the creation the White Day Hackathon. It was named after the Japanese tradition of boys giving back white-themed gifts to girls who had given them chocolate on Valentine’s Day. The goal was to get more female developers out, and it worked! Over half of the 60 attendees were female.
18 teams of one to three developers sought to win prizes such as “Most Nauseatingly Cute” and “Best Date Bailout”.
I entered this mashup of a Dating Sim and Customer Database. It got nominated for “Most Nauseatingly Cute”.
And Cupcakes! Let’s not forget cupcakes!The Winning entries included Datebomb (Get out of your date with 20 texts from your “Crazy Friend), Food Fight (Vote on where to go to Lunch), Korde (build chord progressions for songs) and Cupcake Delight in SPAAAACE (Give cupcakes to hungry planets).
The Dolls given out for "Most Nauseatingly Cute" App were built by A Thinking Ape's Illustrator Chenoa Goa (@0nedove)
John De Lancie aka Q from Star Trek:TNG is set to appear in CW’s The Secret Circle in April. The Secret Circle is about a girl named Cassie Blake who discovers she is descended from a long line of witches. She and her friends use her powers to defend the town of Chase Harbor, Washington from all manner of eldritch nasties. John De Lancie plays the grandfather of one of Cassie’s friends Jake Armstrong. He will be revealing certain things about events 16 years ago that may have led to the death of Jake’s parents. The episode airs on April 19, 2012.
Source: Subspace Communique
More details have been announced about the cast and crew of Primeval: New World. Stargate’s Amanda Tapping and Andy Mikita have now been attached to the project. Mikita has been a long-time producer for Stargate and Amanda Tapping played Dr. Samantha Carter on Stargate:SG-1 and has been director of the Vancouver-based series Sanctuary.
Also notable is the addition of Niall Matter, who has guest starred in Stargate: Atlantis, but is most remembered for his role as Zane Donovan in Eureka. The final season of that series will air in April.
Source:GateWorld
If you’ve been seeing these Ninja turtle cake pops on the net and you were wondering what it would be like to get a little a taste of Cowabunga, wonder no more! My friend Ivy Fong has posted a super easy recipe for cake fondant. The finished product has the consistency of play-dough and is a hundred times as tasty, so why stop at Ninja Turtles? Why not Splinter, Shredder, or the TechnoDrome? With some marshmallow fluff, powdered sugar, vanilla, and food coloring, these powers of creation could be yours!
Source:Eating with Ivy.
Valve CEO Gabe Newell has debuted as 854th out of 1,226 global billionaires after a stellar 2011 has left Mr. Newell with a cool $1.5 billion. I can say without hyperbole that this couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. This is the kind of person we want to think of when we hear billionaire. His company’s work to bring digital distribution has been a godsend. They even got Russia to pay for video games. Russia, a country that owes what freedom they have to bootleg Beatles records smuggled in on grooved X-ray images. Valve has done more to kill piracy than any moronic piece of legislature the guardians of old media can come up with. They’ve proved that Piracy is a technological problem, and if you give consumers an easy way to pay for digital goods online, and you’re not a douche about it, you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.
Source:Forbes
http://youtu.be/f6UL63Zo-uo
343 Studios has released a new trailer with gameplay footage and developer interviews revealing further details about the new Halo game. Most interesting to note is the injection of story into multiplayer. Apparently there will be a reason for the Red and Blue Spartans to fight, and not just the painfully comic existential emptiness that the pour souls in Red V. Blue have to contend with. The graphics and sound have all been redone, and it looks like 343 is going to make this into the Triple-A experience we’ve come to expect from the Halo Franchise.
SourceHalo Waypoint
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