#Warren Robinett

[arconinternet]

Gertrude's Secrets & Gertrude's Puzzles (Apple II/C64/DOS, Teri Perl, Leslie Grimm & Warren Robinett, 1982/1984)

Educational games that together form one third of Leslie Grimm's 'logic trilogy'. Yes, that's Warren Robinett of Atari 2600 Adventure fame. You can play them in your browser here.

[explo-bit]

In gloria degli eroici programmatori dell'Atari 2600 VCS!

128byte di ram per le variabili, lo stack e la memoria di schermo (una riga per volta, sincronizzato con il pennello video e senza neanche gli interrupt).

David Crane, Warren Robinett, Howard Scott Warshaw o Carol Shaw sono nomi che non diranno niente alla stragrande maggioranza delle persone, ma hanno fatto la storia dei videogiochi!

[mikailborg]

One of the silliest things you can do in VR - play old flatscreen Atari 2600 games in it. Sure brought home the nostalgia, though… Played using a ROM from a cartridge I own, on an emulated system I physically own, using EmuVR.

[kreuzaderny]

How Pitfall Builds its World

Games for the Atari 2600 were quite constrained. When Warren Robinett first pitched the idea that would become Adventure, a game where you would explore a world with many rooms and pick up items to help you along the way, he was denied because it wasn't thought feasible. And it made sense to do so. This was the late 70s; there had never been a game with multiple screens before. This was in the days of Space Invaders and Pac Man, when everything in a game was in front of the player at all times, so the fact that Adventure was able to have 30 rooms when it was finally released in 1980 was quite impressive.

[yesungsh27]

"Menguak Rahasia Game Tersembunyi: Fakta Menarik yang Jarang Diketahui Pemain"

Industri game selalu penuh dengan kejutan dan inovasi. Namun, di balik layar, terdapat banyak fakta menarik dan rahasia yang jarang diketahui oleh pemain. Artikel ini akan membahas beberapa di antaranya, memperluas wawasan Anda tentang dunia game yang mungkin sudah Anda kenal.

1. Easter Eggs yang Mengubah Permainan

Easter eggs adalah fitur tersembunyi yang sering kali menjadi kejutan menyenangkan bagi pemain. Salah satu yang paling terkenal adalah dalam game Adventure untuk Atari 2600, di mana pencipta game, Warren Robinett, menyembunyikan namanya di dalam game. Sejak saat itu, banyak developer mengikuti jejak ini, menyematkan pesan atau referensi tersembunyi yang bisa ditemukan dengan eksplorasi.

2. Influensi Psikologi dalam Desain Game

Desain game tidak hanya tentang grafik dan mekanika, tetapi juga tentang psikologi. Banyak developer menggunakan prinsip psikologi untuk meningkatkan pengalaman pemain. Misalnya, penggunaan warna tertentu dapat memengaruhi emosi pemain, dan desain level yang cermat dapat menciptakan rasa pencapaian. Teknik ini sering kali membuat pemain merasa lebih terlibat dan terhubung dengan game.

3. Game yang Terinspirasi dari Kehidupan Nyata

Banyak game terinspirasi dari peristiwa nyata atau budaya populer. Misalnya, Spec Ops: The Line terinspirasi oleh novel Heart of Darkness karya Joseph Conrad dan film Apocalypse Now. Game ini tidak hanya menawarkan gameplay yang menarik, tetapi juga mengajak pemain untuk merenungkan moralitas dalam situasi perang.

4. Karakter yang Dihapus

Banyak karakter yang awalnya direncanakan untuk sebuah game namun dihapus sebelum rilis. Contohnya, dalam game Final Fantasy VII, karakter seperti Vincent Valentine dan Yuffie Kisaragi tidak ada dalam versi awal. Keputusan ini sering kali diambil karena keterbatasan waktu atau untuk menjaga fokus cerita.

5. Musik sebagai Elemen Cerita

Musik dalam game sering kali menjadi elemen yang diabaikan, padahal dapat sangat mempengaruhi pengalaman bermain. Komposer terkenal seperti Nobuo Uematsu dari Final Fantasy dan Koji Kondo dari Super Mario telah menciptakan melodi yang tidak hanya membuat game lebih menarik, tetapi juga berfungsi sebagai alat narasi yang kuat.

6. Perkembangan Game Indie

Dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, game indie telah menjadi semakin populer dan banyak dari mereka menyimpan fakta menarik. Misalnya, Undertale dibuat oleh Toby Fox, yang memulai pengembangan game tersebut sebagai proyek solo dan berhasil menciptakan pengalaman unik yang mengubah cara pemain berinteraksi dengan karakter dalam game.

7. Penggunaan AI untuk Pengembangan Karakter

Teknologi AI semakin digunakan dalam pengembangan karakter di game. Beberapa game modern memanfaatkan AI untuk menciptakan NPC (non-player character) yang dapat belajar dan beradaptasi dengan gaya bermain pemain. Ini memberikan pengalaman yang lebih dinamis dan tak terduga, membuat setiap sesi permainan terasa berbeda.

8. Dampak Game terhadap Kesehatan Mental

Penelitian menunjukkan bahwa game dapat memiliki dampak positif terhadap kesehatan mental. Game dapat menjadi sarana untuk bersosialisasi, meredakan stres, dan bahkan meningkatkan kemampuan kognitif. Beberapa game dirancang khusus untuk tujuan terapeutik, memberikan dukungan kepada pemain yang menghadapi masalah kesehatan mental.

Kesimpulan

Dunia game menyimpan banyak rahasia dan fakta menarik yang sering kali tidak diketahui oleh pemain. Dari desain dan pengembangan hingga dampak sosial dan psikologis, setiap aspek memberikan kedalaman yang lebih pada pengalaman bermain. Dengan pengetahuan ini, diharapkan pemain dapat lebih menghargai seni dan kerja keras di balik setiap game yang mereka nikmati. Selamat bermain dan menjelajahi rahasia yang ada!

[newsiesjathrine]

Took a while but my masterlist is done there will be open requests for now while I work on some of my own ideas so here it is

Masterlist:

Nics

Faith

Grace

Kate

Gibbs

Abby

Ducky

Mcgee

Ziva

Jimmy

Jack

Kasie

Jessica

Jenny

Vance

Tony

Ellie

Nick

Reeves(Clayton)

Alex

Maddie

Kelly

Kayla

Emily

Johnny

morgan

Tobais

jackie

Ncis new orleans

Naomi

Dwyane

Laurel

Chris

Sonja

Meredith

Loretta

Sebastian

Patton

Tammy

Hannah

Quitnten

Connor

David

Jimmy

natilie

Ncis la

Chris O'Donnell

G. Callen

Main

Peter Cambor

Nate Getz

Main

Recurring

Guest

Recurring

Guest

Daniela Ruah

Kensi Blye

Main

Adam Jamal Craig

Dominic Vail

Main[a]

LL Cool J

Sam Hanna

Main

Linda Hunt

Hetty Lange

Main[b]

Guest

Barrett Foa

Eric Beale

Main[c]

Eric Christian Olsen

Marty Deeks

Guest

Main

Renée Felice Smith

Nell Jones

Main[d]

Guest

Miguel Ferrer

Owen Granger

Recurring

Main[e]

Nia Long

Shay Mosley

Main[f]

Medalion Rahimi

Fatima Namazi

Recurring

Main[g]

Caleb Castille

Devin Rountree

Recurring

Main

Gerald McRaney

Hollace Kilbride

Guest

Recurring

Guest

Recurring

Main

Ncis hawaii

Alex

Julie

Maggie

Carla

Jane

Daniel

Ernie

Kathrine Marie "Kate"

Jesse

Kai

Rizzoli and isles

casey

lyida

Jane

Maura(dn)

Angela

Vince

Barry

Susie

Nina

Frankie

Tommy

Tj

Sean cavangh

Constance

Hope

Calin

Womens murder club

Linsday

Claire

Cindy

Jill

Inspector Warren Jacobi (Tyrees Allen) – Lindsay's loyal partner. He was up for the lieutenant position that went to Tom, but has not expressed much disappointment that he didn't get the job, seeming to prefer field work to the politics of the higher position. He also seems to prefer the finer things in life, having an affinity for wine, 30-year-old whiskey, and opera. He is thrice-divorced and has a child from one of those marriages.

Lieutenant Tom Hogan (Rob Estes) – Lindsay's ex-husband, who in the first episode was promoted to lieutenant and assigned as her boss. He is engaged in the pilot and has remarried by "To Drag and to Hold," but he still worries that Lindsay's obsession with her work will consume her. Tom was played by Christopher Wiehl in the unaired pilot.

Deputy District Attorney Denise Kwon (Linda Park) - Jill's immediate superior at the DA's office, she clashes with her over her "bleeding heart" style. She is also antagonistic towards Jill due to her past romantic history with Hanson North. When the show returned after the writers' strike, the first episode credits no longer showed her name. But by the second episode, she was back in the credits as a series regular.

Recurring cast[edit]

Luke Bowen (Coby Ryan McLaughlin) – Jill's ex-boyfriend. He is an ER doctor at the fictional Mission Cross North. Jill and Luke have recently broken up after he finds that she had slept with Hanson.

Hanson North (Kyle Secor) – Defense attorney who has a romantic history with Jill and is currently seeing her boss, Denise Kwon.

Ed Washburn (Jonathan Adams) – Claire's husband. Currently uses a wheelchair full-time after being shot while serving as a police officer.

Heather Hogan née Donnelly (Ever Carradine) – Tom's new wife. She is a kindergarten teacher who is eco-friendly, planning a green wedding.

Pete Raynor (Joel Gretsch) – Lindsay's love interest in season 1, who is in town for only two weeks.

Law and order

Actor

Character

Rank/Position

Seasons

Notes

Regular

Recurring

Guest

George Dzundza

Max Greevey

Sergeant

1

Chris Noth

Mike Logan

Junior Detective

1–5

Appeared in Exiled

Dann Florek

Donald Cragen

Captain

1–3

5, 10, 15

Appeared in Exiled

Michael Moriarty

Ben Stone

EADA

1–4

Richard Brooks

Paul Robinette

ADA

1–3

6, 16–17

Steven Hill

Adam Schiff

DA

1–10

Paul Sorvino

Phil Cerreta

Sergeant

2–3

3

Jerry Orbach

Lennie Briscoe

Senior Detective

3–14

Appeared in Exiled

Carolyn McCormick

Elizabeth Olivet

Psychologist

3–4

5–7, 13–14,

16–18

2, 9–10, 19–20

S. Epatha Merkerson

Anita Van Buren

Lieutenant

4–20

Appeared in Exiled

Jill Hennessy

Claire Kincaid

ADA

4–6

Sam Waterston

Jack McCoy

EADA,

Interim DA,

DA

5–17,

18–present

Appeared in Exiled

Benjamin Bratt

Rey Curtis

Junior Detective

6–9

20

Appeared in Exiled

Carey Lowell

Jamie Ross

ADA

7–8

10–11, 21

Angie Harmon

Abbie Carmichael

ADA

9–11

Jesse L. Martin

Ed Green

Junior Detective,

Senior Detective

10–16

17–18

Dianne Wiest

Nora Lewin

Interim DA

11–12

Elisabeth Röhm

Serena Southerlyn

ADA

12–15

Fred Dalton Thompson

Arthur Branch

DA

13–17

Dennis Farina

Joe Fontana

Senior Detective

15–16

Michael Imperioli

Nick Falco

Junior Detective

15

16

Temporarily assigned

Annie Parisse

Alexandra Borgia

ADA

15–16

Milena Govich

Nina Cassady

Junior Detective

17

Alana de la Garza

Connie Rubirosa

ADA

17–20

Jeremy Sisto

Cyrus Lupo

Junior Detective,

Senior Detective

18

18–20

Linus Roache

Michael Cutter

EADA

18–20

Anthony Anderson

Kevin Bernard

Junior Detective,

Senior Detective

18–20

21

18

Jeffrey Donovan

Frank Cosgrove

Junior Detective,

Senior Detective

21

22–present

Camryn Manheim

Kate Dixon

Lieutenant

21–present

Hugh Dancy

Nolan Price

EADA

21–present

Odelya Halevi

Samantha Maroun

ADA

21–present

Mehcad Brooks

Jalen Shaw

Junior Detective

22–

Law and order svu

Jenna

Maureen

Kathleen

Richard

Elizabeth

Eli

Noah

Jessie

Mason

Billie

Olivia

Elliot Stabler

Christopher Meloni

Sr. Detective

Main

Recurring

274

Olivia Benson

Mariska Hargitay

Jr. Detective (S1–12)

Sr. Detective (S13–15)

Sergeant (S15–17)

Lieutenant (S17–21)

Captain (S21–)

Main

508

John Munch

Richard Belzer

Sr. Detective (S1–8)

Sergeant (S9–15)

Main

G

326

Donald Cragen

Dann Florek

Captain (S1–15)

Main

G

G

332

Monique Jeffries

Michelle Hurd

Jr. Detective

M

25

Alexandra Cabot

Stephanie March

Assistant DA

Main

G

R

M

R

G

97

Fin Tutuola

Ice-T

Jr. Detective (S2–8)

Sr. Detective (S9–19)

Sergeant (S19–)

Main

476

George Huang

BD Wong

Psychiatrist (S2–15)

R

Main

Guest

G

230

Casey Novak

Diane Neal

Assistant DA

Main

G

R

112

Melinda Warner

Tamara Tunie

Chief Medical Examiner

Recurring

Main

Recurring

G

Guest

226

Chester Lake

Adam Beach

Jr. Detective

R

M

21

Kim Greylek

Michaela McManus

Assistant DA

M

22

Nick Amaro

Danny Pino

Jr. Detective

Main

G

95

Amanda Rollins

Kelli Giddish

Jr. Detective (S13–21)

Sr. Detective (S21–24)

Main

226

Rafael Barba

Raúl Esparza

Assistant DA (S14-19)

Defense Attorney (S21-23)

R

Main

Guest

118

Dominick Carisi

Peter Scanavino

Jr. Detective (S16–20)

Assistant DA (S21–)

Main

155

Peter Stone

Philip Winchester

Assistant DA

M

36

Katriona Tamin

Jamie Gray Hyder

Officer (S21–22)

Jr. Detective (S22–23)

Main

36

Christian Garland

Demore Barnes

Deputy Chief

R

M

25

Joe Velasco

Octavio Pisano

Jr. Detective

M

15

Grace Muncy

Molly Burnett

Jr. Detective

Law and order oc

Danielle Moné Truitt as Sergeant Ayanna Bell, squad supervisor of the OCCB task force and Stabler's current direct superior and partner.

Ainsley Seiger as Detective 2nd Grade Jet Slootmaekers, a former independent hacker who is recruited to the OCCB task force on Stabler's recommendation. She was requalified as an NYPD officer to work with the OCCB task force. In season 3 episode 16 ("Chinatown"), she is promoted from Detective 3rd Grade to Detective 2nd Grade.

Tamara Taylor as Prof. Angela Wheatley (seasons 1–2), a former math professor at Columbia University, ex-wife of Richard Wheatley, and a suspect in the hit ordered on Kathy Stabler. She committed suicide and presumably murdered Richard at the same time after discovering that Richard was responsible for her son Richie's murder.

Dylan McDermott as Richard Wheatley (seasons 1–2), son of notorious mobster Manfredi Sinatra, now a businessman and owner of an online pharmaceutical company who leads a second life as a crime boss, and was a suspect in the murder of Stabler's wife. He was presumed murdered by Angela after she discovered that Wheatley murdered their son Richie.

Nona Parker Johnson as Detective 3rd Grade Carmen "Nova" Riley (season 2, recurring season 2), an undercover narcotics detective working under Brewster's command to infiltrate the Marcy Killers. She retires from the NYPD and leaves New York after the murder of the gang's leader Preston Webb.

Brent Antonello as Detective 2nd Grade Jamie Whelan (season 3), a detective with the OCCB. In the season 3 finale, he is shot and paralyzed by Kyle Wilkie and later dies in the hospital.

Rick Gonzalez as Detective 2nd Grade Bobby Reyes (season 3–present), an undercover detective with the OCCB.

Chicago pd

Jason Beghe as Sergeant Henry "Hank" Voight, the enigmatic and often mercurial chief of the Chicago P.D.'s Intelligence Unit. Despite his brutal, tough exterior, he is loyal to the cops and detectives serving under him and highly "dedicated" to the victims of the crimes his unit investigates to the point of committing human rights violations, mainly torture, and not respecting the law. He is first introduced in Chicago Fire as a dirty cop who clashes with CFD Lieutenant Matthew Casey after Voight's son, Justin, causes an accident in which a teenager is paralyzed, and Casey, who was first on scene, had intended to testify that Justin was DUI. He is arrested by Det. Antonio Dawson for trying to have Casey silenced by force but is later released from prison and reinstated to the police force by Internal Affairs. As a result, many of Casey's colleagues dislike him, and Casey's superior Chief Boden has a love-hate working relationship with him. It is eventually revealed in the Chicago Fire episode "Let Her Go" that his dirty cop alter ego was part of an undercover operation to catch criminals and other dirty cops. Prior to taking command of Intelligence, Voight worked in the Gang Unit. His father Richard was a former CPD officer who was killed in the line of duty. Voight is a widower; his wife, Camille, died of cancer some years prior. His son, Justin, served in the Army and was killed in the last episode of season 3 while trying to help a friend. Voight took an interest in Erin Lindsay at 14 and raised her as his daughter.

Jon Seda as Senior Detective Antonio Dawson (seasons 1–6), an Intelligence Unit detective who previously arrested Voight for harassment and has since worked alongside him. Unlike Voight, he has limits on how far he will go to get criminals off the streets, as shown by the fact that he asks Halstead to stop Voight from killing anyone while on the hunt for Pulpo because he does not want it on his conscience. He and his ex-wife Laura have two children: Diego and Eva. He is the older brother of Chicago Fire character Gabriela "Gabby" Dawson. In season 4, he is offered a job at the State's Attorney's Office as Lead Investigator, which he accepts. After becoming disillusioned with the job, he returns to the unit in the first episode of season 5. In season 6, Antonio struggles with recovering from a shoulder injury and dependency on the oxycodone he is taking for the pain. After a dealer he owes kidnaps, beats, and rapes his daughter, Antonio, high on oxy, kills him in revenge. Though Voight and Ruzek manage to cover up the incident as self-defense, and Antonio successfully recovers in rehab, mayor-hopeful Superintendent Brian Kelton later gets the case reopened in order to take down the Intelligence Unit, and in the season finale, Antonio relapses after Ruzek is arrested after taking the blame for everything to protect him. In the season 7 premiere, it is revealed that Voight found Antonio and checked him into an off-the-books rehab clinic to get him clean again while also protecting his career. It was revealed several episodes later that Antonio resigned and moved to Puerto Rico to spend more time with his family.

Sophia Bush as Detective Erin Lindsay (seasons 1–4),[7] a tough Intelligence Unit detective and former CI whom Voight took under his wing when she was a juvenile delinquent. Because of this, she is closer to Voight than the other members of the unit. She has a half-brother, Teddy Courtney, who was taken by a pedophile ring at age thirteen and was found turning tricks in New York City 10 years later. She was in a relationship with her partner Jay Halstead from seasons 2 to 4. Near the end of the fourth season, Lindsay is accused of assault after she sticks her gun down a pedophile's throat in the interrogation room; facing possible dismissal from the police force, she accepts a job offer at the FBI in New York and leaves Chicago.

Jesse Lee Soffer as Senior Detective Jay Halstead (seasons 1–10), an Intelligence Unit detective who was Detective Lindsay's partner. A former Army Ranger, he is confident in his abilities and sometimes comes across as cocky. He also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, shown progressively during Season 5, later seeking therapy for it. He is the older brother of Chicago Med character Dr. Will Halstead. He was in a relationship with his partner Erin Lindsay from season 2 until she transferred to the FBI in New York at the end of season 4. He later marries fellow detective Hailey Upton in season 9. Following Olinsky's death and Antonio's resignation, Halstead becomes Voight's right-hand. He later resigns from the force early in season 10 after becoming disillusioned with the gray area the Intelligence Unit has to work in, and returns to the Army in a new job hunting drug cartels in Bolivia.

Patrick John Flueger as Officer Adam Ruzek, a younger police officer recruited straight out of the academy by Olinsky to do undercover work. He is often portrayed as an overeager amateur who dives headfirst into a situation without thinking. His parents are separated, and he split time between his father, "Disco Bob" Ruzek (Jack Coleman), a longtime patrol officer with the 26th District who lives in Beverly, and his mother in Canaryville. He was engaged to fellow police officer Kim Burgess.

Marina Squerciati as Officer Kim Burgess, a former flight attendant turned uniformed patrol officer who was Atwater's partner. She was then partnered with Sean Roman before his departure. Burgess is shot in "Called in Dead" and spends the next episode recovering. She was engaged to Adam Ruzek; the relationship is later broken off because of commitment issues. She later develops feelings for Roman before he moves to San Diego. In season 4, she is offered a job in Intelligence, which she accepts.

LaRoyce Hawkins as Officer Kevin Atwater, a uniformed patrol officer who was Burgess' former partner until he was promoted to the Intelligence Unit. He is responsible for caring for his younger siblings, his brother, Jordan, and sister, Vanessa. After his brother testifies to a grand jury about a crime he witnessed, and Vanessa is threatened with rape for her brother being a snitch, he sends them to live with their aunt in Texas.

Archie Kao as Detective Sheldon Jin (season 1), a tech and surveillance expert. He was discovered to be a reluctant mole working for Internal Affairs sergeant Edwin Stillwell, who had leverage to make him cooperate. He is found murdered in the first-season finale episode, "A Beautiful Friendship".

Elias Koteas as Senior Detective Alvin Olinsky (seasons 1–5), a veteran undercover officer and a friend of Voight who previously worked with him in the Gang Unit. Before joining the force, Olinsky served in the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team stationed in Vicenza, Italy. Olinsky mentions in "Called in Dead" that he has eight confirmed kills in the line of duty. At the end of the fifth season, Olinsky is arrested for the murder of Kevin Bingham, the man who murdered Voight's son, Justin, and is later stabbed to death via a hit in prison while awaiting trial.

Amy Morton as Sergeant Trudy Platt (season 2–present; recurring season 1), a sarcastic desk sergeant of District 21, and the immediate superior of the district's patrol officers. Before taking a desk job, she was a uniformed patrol officer, and worked with Dawson. She passed the detective's exam twice. Platt is married to Chicago Fire character Randy "Mouch" McHolland.

Brian Geraghty as Officer Sean Roman (seasons 2–3; guest season 7[8]), a brash patrol officer who partners with Burgess after transferring to the 2-1 from District 31. He transferred out because of his relationship with Jenn Cassidy (Spencer Grammer), who is now a K-9 officer, to avoid breaking fraternization rules. He has his own private security company on the side. After being wounded in the line of duty, and with the department feeling he would be unable to return to patrol, he resigns and decides to join the San Diego Police Department.

Tracy Spiridakos as Detective Hailey Upton Halstead (season 5–present; recurring season 4), a tough former robbery-homicide detective and Erin Lindsay's replacement following her departure to New York. Upton gets transferred to the FBI field office in New York City in season 7 episode 18, "Lines", to temporarily fill in for an agent undercover. She has great relationships with her CIs and goes to many lengths to protect them. Despite a dark turn in Season 7, she is mostly a "by the book" detective. She is married to former Detective Jay Halstead.

Lisseth Chavez as Officer Vanessa Rojas (season 7), a rookie and Antonio Dawson's replacement following his resignation. She previously worked in an undercover operations unit.

Benjamin Levy Aguilar as Officer Dante Torres (season 10; guest season 9[9]), a recruit who had a complicated past and was recruited under Detective Halstead's wing.Recurring[edit]

Samuel Caleb Hunt as Greg "Mouse" Gerwitz (seasons 1–4), the tech and surveillance expert for the Intelligence Unit who replaces Detective Jin. He had served in the same Army unit as Halstead. After he persuades Voight to get a felony expunged, he resigns from Intelligence to reenlist in the Army.

Stella Maeve as Nadia Decotis (seasons 1–2), an 18-year-old former escort and addict whom Lindsay tries and succeeds in helping. She later becomes the Intelligence Unit's civilian administrative aide and was studying to be a police officer. She was murdered by Dr. Gregory Yates in Law & Order: SVU's 16th season, episode "Daydream Believer", the conclusion of the season's second SVU/Chicago crossover event.

Jordan

Vanessa

The lizzie bennet diaries

Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bennet (Ashley Clements;[11] Elizabeth Bennet in the novel) is the middle Bennet sister and the narrator of most of the vlogs. She is a graduate student studying mass communications and, like her original counterpart, believes women should be highly educated and do more with their lives than simply pursue husbands. She is very close with her best friend, Charlotte Lu, who was born on the same day as she, as well as her older sister, Jane, while appearing to have a more strained relationship with her younger sister, Lydia. While it is clear that she cares for her family and friends, she can also be fairly prejudiced and quick to judge people who she perceives as condescending or a threat to her way of life, such as Darcy and, at first, Bing Lee.

Charlotte Lu (Julia Cho;[12] Charlotte Lucas in the novel) is Lizzie's best friend and often the director/editor of her vlog. Charlotte wants to be a filmmaker and convinced Lizzie to start her vlog as part of a school project. While the original character of Charlotte Lucas from the books is a minor character, Lu's role in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has been greatly expanded; she appears in many of the beginning episodes, and, according to both Lizzie and Jane, practically lives at the Bennet house. Charlotte and Lizzie have a falling out after Charlotte accepts Ricky Collins' job offer (which Lizzie originally turned down), but the two soon reconcile.

Jane Bennet (Laura Spencer[13]) is the eldest of the Bennet children, and an overworked, underpaid merchandise coordinator in the fashion world. She is incredibly polite, sweet and, according to Lizzie, "practically perfect in every way."[14] When Bing Lee moves into town, Jane is immediately smitten with him, much to the absolute joy of her mother. Jane is devastated by Bing's sudden departure. She moves to Los Angeles for both a new job and the hope of reconnecting with Bing. She later returns to her home to support her sister Lydia through her difficulties. After this is resolved, Jane is offered a new job in New York City and reconciles with Bing.

Lydia Britney Bennet (Mary Kate Wiles[15]) is the youngest Bennet child, currently attending community college. She is "feisty, energetic, and unapologetic."[16] Lizzie, somewhat less kindly, describes her as "too old to be on any reality shows about having babies in high school."[14] She has also created a series of her own videos starring herself, her cousin Mary, and her cat, Kitty.[17] On the occasion of her 21st birthday in December 2012, she and Lizzie get into a bitter argument about Lydia's perceived immaturity, and Lydia makes plans to vacation in Las Vegas for New Year's Eve, where she meets George Wickham and begins dating. Later, after being the victim of George Wickham's money-making site, she makes up with her sisters.

Bing Lee (Christopher Sean;[18] Charles Bingley in the novel) is a young, wealthy Asian-American medical student who has moved into The Netherfield House in the same neighborhood as the Bennets. He quickly falls for Jane Bennet and begins to date her. Bing abruptly leaves Netherfield and Jane by returning to Los Angeles, breaking Jane's heart, after Darcy suggests that Jane is only engaging in a relationship with him for his money and Caroline tells him that Jane flirted with another guy at his birthday party. However, after a run-in with Lizzie during her time at Pemberley Digital, he makes a return, having quit medical school to pursue his own passions. He and Jane move to New York together in episode 92.

Caroline Lee (Jessica Jade Andres;[19] Caroline Bingley in the novel) is Bing Lee's sister. She is aware of Lizzie's vlog diaries and appears to help Lizzie keep Bing and Darcy from discovering them during Lizzie and Jane's stay at Netherfield. She has a romantic interest in William Darcy, although her feelings aren't reciprocated. She is later revealed to have attempted to manipulate events to keep Bing and Jane apart, as well as (to a lesser extent) stymie Darcy's feelings for Lizzie. Caroline reappears in the sequel, Emma Approved, as Senator James Elton's fiancé, replacing Augusta Elton, the original wife of Philip Elton, from the novel.[20]

Ricky Collins (Maxwell Glick;[21] William Collins in the novel) is a former classmate of Lizzie and Charlotte's, who asks that he be addressed only as Mr. Collins. He has formed an alliance with venture capitalist Catherine de Bourgh, to attempt a foray into the world of web video. Mr. Collins frequently visits the Bennets while in town for a few weeks and, near the end of his stay, offers Lizzie a lucrative job at his company, Collins and Collins. Lizzie turns him down, so he offers the job to Charlotte, who accepts. This decision causes a brief but bitter argument between the two best friends, but they reconcile after Charlotte invites Lizzie to visit Collins & Collins (in the fictional town of Hunsford, California), where Lizzie also learns to tolerate Mr. Collins.

William Darcy (Daniel Vincent Gordh;[22] Fitzwilliam Darcy in the novel) is Bing Lee's best friend and the wealthy heir to an entertainment corporation called Pemberley Digital. He stays with Bing and Caroline at Netherfield until they all leave for Los Angeles. He first meets Lizzie at a wedding, and she overheard him telling Bing that she was "decent enough", which is when her dislike towards him starts. He is described by Lizzie as a snobby and condescending robot, and Jane has difficulty coming up with a flattering descriptor of him, beyond "tall";[23] Charlotte, however, believes that Darcy has a crush on Lizzie.[24] For a long time, second-hand characterization is all the audience has to go by, as Darcy is referred to but never seen, making his first appearance in episodes 59[25] (only from the neck down) and 60,[26] where he confirms Charlotte's suspicions by confessing his love for Lizzie.

George Wickham (Wes Aderhold[27]) is the coach of a university swim team who forms a short-lived romantic attachment with Lizzie. He claims that though he and Darcy were childhood friends, Darcy ruined his life by withholding money Darcy's father had promised, thereby ending George's hopes of a college education.[28] He leaves town for work, eventually re-entering the story after New Year's Day, where he meets and becomes romantically involved with Lydia, as chronicled in her spin-off videos. At the same time, Lizzie learns that George gambled away all the money the elder Darcy left for him, and then took advantage of Gigi Darcy, William's sister, for more. Finally, he attempts to exploit "YouTube Star Lydia Bennet" by releasing a sex tape of the two of them online.[29]

Fitz Williams (Craig Frank;[30] Col. Fitzwilliam in the novel) is Darcy's friend and colleague. Lizzie meets him while dining with Catherine de Bourgh, Darcy's aunt and Charlotte's boss. He has a boyfriend, Brandon, whose name was officially confirmed on Fitz's Twitter, and is particularly good at making care-packages.

Georgiana "Gigi" Darcy (Allison Paige;[31] Georgiana Darcy in the novel) is William Darcy's younger sister and a graphic designer at Pemberley Digital. Her first appearance in The Lizzie Bennet Diaries was Episode 77. She is aware of the video diaries, and claims to like them. She and George Wickham were romantically involved, but this ended when William proved that George was taking advantage of her for the money. Twitter posts between Gigi and Fitz suggest that she actively tries to push Lizzie and Darcy together. She is also instrumental in helping to end George's money-making plot: though the website itself did not list his name and George had stopped returning calls, he answers Gigi when she calls him, allowing Fitz and Darcy to track him down. Thereafter Darcy bought out the company which owned the rights to the sex tape, preventing it from ever being released.

Mrs. Bennet is Lizzie's mother. She appears to be a traditional Southern woman, eager to see her daughters married and interested in little else besides neighborhood gossip. She is almost always impersonated by Lizzie.

Mr. Bennet is Lizzie's father. He appears more calm and levelheaded than his wife, though one of his favorite activities, according to Lizzie, is winding her up.[32] He has a special fondness for bonsai trees and prepares a train extravaganza every Christmas. He is often impersonated by Charlotte and Lydia.

Catherine de Bourgh (Lady Catherine de Bourgh in the novel) is Darcy's aunt and an extremely wealthy venture capitalist who is the primary investor in Collins & Collins, the new media firm run by Mr. Collins, where Charlotte accepts a job offer after Lizzie rejected it. Catherine is very attached to her sickly dog who she calls Annie Kins. She is quick with her opinions and judgements. Charlotte said that Catherine is "on Team Caroline," meaning that she wants her nephew to be with Caroline. She is impersonated by Lizzie, and Ashley Clements says her impression is a combination of Julia Child, Miranda Priestly and Dolores Umbridge.[33]

Mary Bennet (Briana Cuoco[34]) is Lydia, Jane, and Lizzie's cousin who has appeared sporadically in Lydia's vlogs and once in Lizzie's. She becomes better friends and occasional tutor with Lydia while Lydia is staying at her house despite their opposing personalities. She is often the "forgotten" character and her Twitter reads, "I am Mary, never forgotten." Mary also has a boyfriend by the name of Eddie (a subtle nod to the character of Edmund Bertram from Austen's Mansfield Park.)[35] In the novel, she is actually one of the five Bennet sisters, being the middle sister between Elizabeth and Kitty.

Kitty Bennet (Rosie of House Wiles) is Lydia's cat who appears in Lydia's vlogs. In the novel, she is actually one of the five Bennet sisters, being the second youngest after Lydia.

Maria

Clara

Chicago justice

Philip Winchester as Assistant State's Attorney Peter Stone, the Deputy Bureau Chief of the State's Attorney's Office Special Prosecutions Bureau. His father is Benjamin Stone, an assistant district attorney in New York City.[3] Stone would later become the ADA of the sex crimes bureau in New York.[4] He previously played professional baseball in the Chicago Cubs organization but his career ended when he tore his UCL.

Jon Seda as Chief Investigator Antonio Dawson. Before joining the State's Attorney's office, he worked as a detective in the 21st District with the Chicago P.D.

Joelle Carter as Investigator Laura Nagel. Also a former Chicago police officer like Dawson, Nagel left the force and developed an addiction to painkillers after a line-of-duty injury. She has been clean for months and is now struggling to regain custody of her daughter.

Monica Barbaro as Assistant State's Attorney Anna Valdez, Stone's second chair.

Carl Weathers as Cook County State's Attorney Mark Jefferies. He served as a Marine during the

Chicago med

Dr. William "Will" Halstead

Nick Gehlfuss

Attending Physician in Emergency Medicine

Main

April Sexton

Yaya DaCosta

Emergency Dept Nurse

Main

Recurring[1]

Dr. Natalie Manning

Torrey DeVitto

Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician

Main[a]

Guest

Dr. Sarah Reese

Rachel DiPillo

First Year Psychiatry Resident

Main

Guest

Dr. Connor Rhodes

Colin Donnell

First Year Fellow/Attending Physician in Trauma & Cardiothoracic Surgery

Main[b]

Dr. Ethan Choi

Brian Tee

Lieutenant Commander, USNR; Emergency Medicine Attending Physician

Main

Sharon Goodwin

S. Epatha Merkerson

Executive Director of Patient and Medical Services

Main

Dr. Daniel Charles

Oliver Platt

Chief of Psychiatry

Main

Maggie Lockwood

Marlyne Barrett

Emergency Department Charge Nurse

Main[c]

Dr. Ava Bekker

Norma Kuhling

Second Year Fellow & later Attending Physician in Cardiothoracic Surgery

Recurring

Main[d]

Dr. Crockett Marcel

Dominic Rains

Fourth Year Resident & later Attending Physician in General Surgery

Main[e]

Dr. Dean Archer

Steven Weber

Interim Chief of Emergency Medicine and Trauma Attending Physician

Recurring

Main

Dr. Dylan Scott

Guy Lockard

Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physician

Main[f]

Dr. Stevie Hammer

Kristen Hager

Emergency Medicine Attending Physician

Main[g]

Dr. Hannah Asher

Jessy Schram

Emergency OB/GYN Attending Physician

Recurring

Guest

Main[h]

Chicago fire

Name

Portrayed by

Position

Seasons

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Matthew Casey

Jesse Spencer

Lieutenant, Truck 81

Main[a]

Guest

Kelly Severide

Taylor Kinney

Lieutenant, Squad 3

Main

Gabriela Dawson

Monica Raymund

Paramedic in Charge, Firefighter

Main

Guest

Leslie Elizabeth Shay

Lauren German

Paramedic

Main

Guest

Peter Mills

Charlie Barnett

Firefighter, Paramedic

Main

Christopher Herrmann

David Eigenberg

Lieutenant, Engine 51

Main[b]

Dr. Hallie Thomas

Teri Reeves

Resident Physician

Main[b]

Wallace Boden

Eamonn Walker

Battalion Chief

Main

Brian "Otis" Zvonecek

Yuri Sardarov

Firefighter

Recurring

Main[c]

Randall "Mouch" McHolland

Christian Stolte

Firefighter

Recurring

Main

Joe Cruz

Joe Minoso

Firefighter, Engineer

Recurring

Main

Sylvie Brett

Kara Killmer

Paramedic

Main

Jessica "Chili" Chilton

Dora Madison

Paramedic

Guest

Main[d]

Jimmy Borelli

Steven R. McQueen

Firefighter Candidate, Paramedic

Main[e]

Stella Kidd

[reasoningdaily]

Former president Barack Obama, who has become increasingly vocal in his demands for reparations for black Americans, was just informed by a Reuters investigation that he is descended from slaveholders.

Former President Obama said earlier this week that the case for reparations for Black Americans is “justified,” but claimed that the “politics of white resistance and resentment” made the prospect of pursuing the issue during his presidency a “non-starter.”

“There’s not much question that the wealth of this country, the power of this country was built in significant part — not exclusively, maybe not even the majority of it — but a large portion of it was built on the backs of slaves,” Obama continued.

Obama didn’t mention that his own relatives were slaveholders who owned and controlled vast numbers of slaves.

The Reuters investigation found that every living former president is a descendant of slaveholders. Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama were all found to have slaveholding ancestors. Donald Trump had ancestors who were involved in White Slavery of Women - Pimping; and were deported for the crime.

Obama’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, George Washington Overall owned slaves in Kentucky including a 15-year-old girl. He also found out that Obama’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Duvall, also owned slaves listed in an 1850 census record. In fact, the Duvalls were a wealthy family whose members were descended from a major landowner, Maureen Duvall, whose estate owned at least 18 slaves in the 17th century.

Census records viewed by Reuters revealed that Joe Biden’s great-great-great grandfather “enslaved a 14-year-old” in 1850. Politico found that another 3rd great grandfather, Jesse Robinett, enslaved people in Maryland’s Allegany County, according to an 1800 census.

The examination also found that Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch, 11 governors, and 100 legislators from the 117th Congress are descendants of slaveholders.

Lawmakers who descended from slaveholders include Republican senators Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and James Lankford, as well as Democrats, Elizabeth Warren (who notoriously identifies as American Indian), Tammy Duckworth, Jeanne Shaheen, and Maggie Hassan.

[badbxarwrld]

Welcome ! Let's talk about the history and pop culture of virtual Easter eggs in video games and other technologies!

Easter eggs in video games have been around since the 1970s, with the earliest known example appearing in the game Adventure for the Atari 2600. The term "Easter egg" was coined by Atari programmer Warren Robinett, who hid his name in the game as a way to claim credit for his work.

Since then, Easter eggs have become a staple of video game culture, with developers hiding all sorts of secrets and references in their games. Some Easter eggs are subtle, like hidden rooms or secret characters, while others are more overt, like references to other games or pop culture.

One of the most famous Easter eggs in video game history is the "Aerith's Theme" Easter egg in the role-playing game Final Fantasy VII. In the game, players can find a hidden location where they can hear a piano version of Aerith's theme, a poignant and memorable music from the game. This Easter egg became extremely famous and it's still a beloved moment for many fans.

Easter eggs have also made their way into other forms of technology, such as websites and software. Google, for example, is known for hiding Easter eggs in its search results, such as the "do a barrel roll" command, which causes the search results page to spin.

In recent years, Easter eggs have also become a part of internet culture, with memes and viral videos often referencing or poking fun at Easter eggs in video games and other technologies.

We hope you enjoyed this brief history of virtual Easter eggs in video games and other technologies. Happy hunting!

[mclassdias]

Happy New Year & Best wishes to you!

Here it is!! part 2 of my awesome experience at Retrocon. In this vlog we continue with Warren Robinett on his journey, followed by Star Wars Panel.

Enjoy this amazing Q and A with great advice from Bob Gurr at the very end.

Watch full vlog here 👇

[darker-than-darkstorm]

Programmer Warren Robinett explains that the “Chalice” was meant to be The Holy Grail, but Atari didn’t put that into the instruction manual (and, of course, there’s no in-game story).

The bat also has a name, Knubberrub, but that didn’t make it into the manual, either. (Instead, the manual made up a story about an evil wizard who stole the chalice and hid it in his castle. There’s no evil wizard in the game anywhere)

A moon piece, to fetch up the golden cup.

[angelholme]

May, Myself And I - Year 2(020)

Day 15 - Eggs

Last night I sort of missed the deadline for my entry about Pranks. I ended up starting ti before midnight but finished a little after. I know it says I posted it at one minute to midnight, but that was when I started it rather than when I finished it. The reason I missed it was I spent most of the evening in The OASIS - which is my nickname for my Oculus Quest. It’s a VR headset that is really quite impressive. There is a game called Gun Club VR that unlike most point and shoot games requires you to actually point and shoot with your hands. And there is a series of levels that takes you back to World War Two which are quite a lot of fun, because there is a subset of these levels that involve Zombie Nazis and they can be quite terrifying if you don’t pay attention. 

So yes - I was late, because I was shooting Zombie Nazis. Which leads me onto the revelation that the first time my boss watched The Sound of Music he was quite surprised when Nazis turned up in it.

I was surprised that he was surprised because it’s about the escape of The Von Trapp family from Nazi occupied Austria just after The Anschluss. So the arrival of Nazis was....... predictable.

However it seems that he’d known nothing about it - other than it was a musical and a few of the songs. He didn’t know it was set during World War II (or just before it I guess) and had no idea what the plot was about. 

Which came as quite a surprise to me because while I was born and raised on The Sound of Music I have more or less grown up with it - I think I first saw it when I was six or seven, and had more or less learned most of the songs by the time I was nine. And at one point my mum’s school went on a trip to Austria and Italy and we visited, amongst other places, parts of Salzburg where TSOM was actually filmed (I can still remember staring into the garden where Julie Andrews grabs her hat and sings the VERY high C and thinking “wow - it’s a REAL place?”)

All of this is by way of saying that - despite the fact I have a pretty good imagination - I am sometimes bad at realising not everyone has the same life experience as me.

Not for the big stuff - the state of my life, the fact it is better than some other people’s and not as good as some other people’ and things like that.

No - it is just for inconsequential nonsense. Things I take for granted because they are just a part of my life. Which I realise (it could be said) means they are part of the previous paragraph - that because of the way I was raised, and the life style I live in, there are just things I am used to that I don’t realise I am used to. (Nowadays it would almost certainly be referred to as privilege, to put it in context).

But it is things like seeing The Sound of Music on TV when I was a kid because my parents like music. And the fact I was raised on left wing, liberal protest music (Tom Lehrer, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, Hair, Peter Paul and Mary and so on) which shaped my politics even before I realised what politics really was.

Because it also meant that there are a whole slew of things that I never knew that I never knew.

Which was why the first time I went to stay with my beloved for Easter (usually she had come to stay with me) I got quite a surprise, because she said we were going to go “rolling eggs” on the Sunday.

And I literally had no idea what she was talking about. Because never in my life - which had been around 40 years at that point - had I ever “rolled eggs” on Easter Sunday.

At first I thought it was a joke, but no - turns out it was real. And it was actually a lot of fun :- you paint the eggs (I think I picked Super Heroes for my first attempt?), then you go to a local park, and you roll the eggs and see who get them the furthest.

We went with my beloved, her mum and two friends (her friend and her friend’s son) to a local park and then started rolling them.

Unfortunately my rolling technique was very, very bad. But - to be fair - it was my first attempt. Ever.

The first egg ever rolled in my entire life didn’t entirely roll. Instead of going forward and down the hill it went more downwards into the ground. And exploded. Which - for a hard-boiled egg - was quite an impressive sight.

The others found it pretty funny - there was laughter and much mirth. 

Then I watched as the other four had a go, so by my next attempt I had a much better idea of what I was supposed to be doing, and the next one exploded far less (almost not at all) and went a little further.

After a few rounds of rolling, we ended up just hurling eggs down the hill, then throwing them against trees - much fun was had.

Obviously this year there was less rolling of eggs, because there was less going to my beloved’s. (Everything, in these times, eventually comes back to what is going on in these times, I guess). 

There’s a term in computer programming called an “Easter Egg” - it originated with a man named Warren Robinett who created the very first one in a Atari game called Adventure. After he created it, and the very first player found it, thousands of other players set about trying to find it. They went on a hunt for it - a hunt to find this Easter Egg.

Ever since then programmers have been adding secrets to their games for players to find, and when the players find them, they are usually rewarded with something - either the eggs itself or a little bonus of something.

I love my beloved, and learning everything about her has been a joy and a wonder. It has been, and continues to be, the greatest privilege of my life and I would not change it for anything.

But every so often it throws up something new - something so utterly unexpected and out of my entire range of experience - that it surprises the life out of me.

And the whole “rolling eggs” things was definitely one of them. It was (in more ways than one) an Easter Egg.

[mikailborg]

Top: Atari Adventure, 1980 Bottom: Elden Ring, 2022 A minor difference 40 years makes.

[radwolf76]

FLASHBack: Week 51 [First-Class FLASHBack] - Everybody to the Limit (Come on Fhqwhgads)

December has started here on FLASHBack, and as is the custom here, the first Thursday of the Month is reserved for our First-Class Flash Artists, the ones who have a huge back catalog, and had pivotal roles in shaping the Flash Animation genre on the Web. This month, we’re going to revisit Homestar Runner, or more specifically, his nemesis, Strong Bad. As I mentioned previously, the reoccurring segments where Strong Bad answers his email were some of the most popular bits on the Homestar Runner website. They were also a rich source of meme material for the Brothers Chaps to turn into running gags that would get woven into the fabric of the Homestar Runner Mythos. One of the best examples of this (Outside of Trogdor, which FLASHBack has already covered) is Strong Bad Email #9 from 14 January 2002.   The body of the message is a simple and straightforward “i love u”, which is somewhat generic. After all, who doesn’t love Strong Bad? (Though I will allow for the possibility that the email sender was actually referencing the “ILOVEYOU” email virus of 2000, which would make this much more sinister.) However, it’s the email’s signature that was the real gem in this. The sender signed with the obvious keyboard smash of “fhqwhgadshgnsdhjsdbkhsdabkfabkveybvf”. Strong Bad would shorten this to “Fhqwhgads” for convenience, because saying the full name would take up time that he could be working on easier things, like making a painting of a Guy with a Big Knife (Strong Bad’s artistic love letter to 80s era Action Movie Heroes). Later that year, on 1 July 2002, Strong Bad would drop an absolute banger of a #1 Summer Jam, the song Everybody to the Limit, inspired by his email from Fhqwhgads, with a memorable music video for it produced by Strong Bad’s occasional compatriot in crime, The Cheat.

  In the video, Fhqwhgads is represented alternately by a Whiffle Ball and by the sprite of a Dragon from the Atari 2600 game, Adventure. Like all games on that console, the graphics were severely limited, a side effect of the fact that the console just barely had enough processing power to keep up with the electron beam drawing the scan lines on the Cathode Ray Tube televisions of the time. Game Developers for the 2600 would describe their game software as “Racing the Beam” because of this. Adventure’s three boss dragons, Yorgle, Grundle, and Rhindle, when rendered as a pixel sprite small enough for the 2600 to keep track of, ended up looking more like ducks – a resemblance that Strong Bad had called out when the Adventure Dragon had previously appeared on the Homestar Runner site, as part of an Atari-themed interactive Flash main page: “Somebody get this freakin’ duck away from me!”   Adventure contained the first widely known video game easter egg. Its programmer, Warren Robinett, was a bit put out by Atari’s policy of not crediting the programmers or paying them royalties, and decided to slip his own credit into the game itself. The Brothers Chaps kept up this tradition of easter egg hiding, both with clickable interactive elements in their videos, and also obscure references craftily hidden in plain sight. And while the former type are often lost when old Flash files are transitioned to video formats, the later remain to be noticed by clever viewers. Two examples of this second type of easter egg from Everybody to the Limit would be the fact that at one point Strong Bad pops out of the Visor Robot wielding the Big Knife he had previously included in his panting, and the fact that for a few frames, some of the text changes to the word “lemke”. (Mike Lemke being the baseball star from the grocery store commercials that prompted the Brothers’ friend James to coin the phrase “Homestar Runner” in the first place.)   The song Everybody To The Limit would itself show up as one of those easter eggs in Strong Bad Email #46 from 14 October 2002 – Strong Bad uses a Golden Record of the song (awarded for record sales of 500,000+) to smack both Bubs and the King of Town upside their respective heads. The song would come up again on 9 June 2003 in Strong Bad Email #76 in which Sibbie writes Strong Bad wanting to know if they can get a song like Fhqwhgads did. He tries to say no, but The Cheat has other plans, which makes Strong Bad mad enough to break out wrestling moves like the pile driver. When the Brothers Chaps converted this one to YouTube, they included the hidden clickable easter egg which would play a scene of Strong Bad teaching a class on how to pronounce “Fhqwhgads”.   On 11 December 2006, in Strong Bad Email #163, where Strong Bad adopts a Cable TV Home Shopping channel format to expound on what kind of gifts no one wants for Decemberween, a very low-fi version of the song Everybody to the Limit shows up as the audio on a “Dancin’ Strong Bad Musical Nobot”. Decemberween, of course, being the holiday 55 days after Halloween, and the HomestarRunnerverse’s version of Christmas. (Took me six paragraphs to get there, but I made this post seasonal. Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a habit of it.)   There have been a few other mentions of Fhqwhgads and the song Everybody to the Limit on Homestar Runner over the years, but I think I’d rather close this post out by showcasing some of the fan love it’s gotten. Sure there’s the time that the Highschool in Summerville, SC put Fhqwhgads on the scoreboard, but I’m talking about the mashup remixes. In particular, there’s the time YouTube mad genius IAmArique mashed up Everybody to the Limit with an entire Daft Punk Album. Also, there have been multiple mashups of Everybody to the Limit with Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk, the best one of which in my opinion is Reid Greven’s version. It’s downright criminal this one only has about 5k views while other, less well edited ones somehow have amassed almost 350k.   As for what’s coming up next week, since this season has visions of sugar plums dancing in people’s heads, I figure it’d be a good time to go to Candy Mountain.

[theoasis-rpo]

Atari 2600 - Adventure 1st Video Game Easter Egg - Warren Robinett

[shoesandsocks]

Got two books out of the library Tuesday. Coincidentally they both open with variations on the same quote from Dante, then a quote from a modern great.

[mamthew]

Why you should vote for Sanders in the Democratic Primary

I know this took me too long to write, and the Super Tuesday polls are closing soon, but to anyone who somehow hasn't voted yet, here's my...pitch, I guess, for Sanders over Warren, or Biden (or Bloomberg? God I hope I don't have anyone I interact with who's dumb enough to support Bloomberg). Or at least, here's my thoughts on where we are now and where we can go from here. The argument people tend to use when defending a vote for Biden is that the only issue that matters this year is that we must defeat Trump, and Biden - by being essentially a Republican - can do it by attracting moderate and Republican voters to his candidacy. Biden himself even floated the idea of choosing a Republican running mate for this very purpose.

Obviously, I agree that we have to stop Trump; he may be a mostly inept dumbass but he's still clearly and definitionally a fascist, and the policies that have managed to hold his attention long enough for him to pass are essentially just...unimaginable cruelty for the sake of inflicting unimaginable cruelty. We must, however, also stop Trumpism, the larger fascist movement that has grown out of Trump's rise. It's not enough to replace a Fascist figurehead with a Neoliberal figurehead, because there will still be the issue of millions of alienated people whose lives have been destroyed by the status quo and who have been distracted from the real cause of their situation by a man who will by then be painted as a martyr. The Democrats and Republicans have batted this voting bracket between parties over the decades, doing something small for them, then rolling it back, cyclically breeding cynicism and discontent. So here's something I've said so many times elsewhere that it might be a little divorced from meaning for folks who know me: Left-wing populism is the only way to beat Fascism.

Fascism is the use of aesthetics in politics to keep working people from getting too mad at those in power. These aesthetics (or illusions, or falsehoods, if you prefer) vary wildly from country to country and movement to movement, but they always ALWAYS include the framing of one or more minority groups and "the Left" as being enemies of the people. Obviously, "the Left" means different things in different places, but America's overton window has been pulled so far to the right that here it means Liberalism, a center-right ideology. Thanks to the wild success of Fascist propaganda in the '50s, it's considered the baseline that Socialists, Communists, and Anarchists are considered enemies of the people, which means America has always been this close to outright Fascism. Trump wasn't a bug, he was simply what we've been building towards kinda since the country's inception.

The reason, then, that left-wing Populism is the most effective way to stop Fascism is that it does not use aesthetics when identifying the issues hurting working people. There is no distraction from the machinations of those in power. You're not suffering because of "Liberals" or immigrants, or trans folks, you're suffering because for centuries backroom deals within corporations, within the government, and between corporations and the government have eroded away any semblance of human dignity for working-class people. You're a bargaining chip in a larger political game, but it's not your fault and it's also not the fault of the person next to you at whom Trump has been wildly gesticulating, who is also a bargaining chip in the same game.

Now, left-wing Populist movements don't often crop up in electoral politics, because of both the nature of electoral politics and the nature of the Left. These movements usually happen on the micro level, when communities work together to help each other, or groups of individuals try to lift up others. When they're larger, they're usually activist movements, or painted as terrorists, like with Occupy, Black Lives Matter, or the Black Panthers and Rainbow Coalition. Electoral left-wing Populist movements usually get kneecapped by corporate or government interests before they can do much (imagine if Eugene Debs wasn't in prison). But American culture has married politics to electoralism for so long that it's hard to get a large political movement going that isn't directly tied to an elected official or an electoral campaign. There are lots of left Populist movements right now that have been fighting the results of Trump's Fascism and the the results of the larger American Fascist experiment on grassroots levels, without involving themselves in electoralism in any way, but they haven't gained the same traction as Bernie Sanders, and they haven't stopped Trump, because those aren't their purposes.

Sanders' base is the most diverse, by far. It skews the youngest, and it polls best in working-class demographics. In 2016, Sanders won literally every single district in West Virginia. He won all but nine districts in Michigan. He absolutely cleans up with Hispanic voters - one of the minority groups that Trumpism frames as enemies of the people. Obviously, y'all know I care about Appalachia the most, and he speaks to Appalachia, both literally and figuratively. Counties that were painted as "Trump Country" in dishonest thinkpieces by journalists putting down six figures had more people vote for Sanders in the primary than voted at all in the general, and it's because what he said about the establishment rang true in a way that Trump's words didn't. If you want to attract a voter base who usually doesn't vote, you have to tell them the truth or spin them a convincing enough lie, and Clinton's lies, in the end, weren't as convincing as Trump's, just as Trump’s aren’t as convincing as the truth.

If the Democratic party is going to survive (and I'm not sure it even deserves to, at this point), it needs to stop engaging in aesthetics to protect those at the top, flirting with fascist strategies. We need to stop letting party elites hem and haw about what "moderates" might or might not want while selling our rights to the highest bidder and letting folks die because insulin cost them more than a month's income. I put "moderate" in quotes, because the "moderate voter" is mostly an invention; we all have things we care about and things we care less about, and very few people are actually that enlightened centrist strawman who believes there's a good midpoint between helping people and hurting them, corporations and working folks, concentration camps and no camps, etc.

Everything Joe Biden says about actually improving material conditions falls apart when you look at his record, because he's consistently voted for cutting social programs to benefit elites, he supported segregation, hell, he was on tape last year saying he has no empathy for young people struggling financially. His facade breaks easily, and he no longer has the mental acuity to even formulate a convincing enough lie to convince most Liberals, let alone nonvoters or former Trump voters. Sanders tells the truth about the reasons for living conditions in America, has the record to back up his convictions, and has the grassroots support to further back him up at the grassroots level, because (as much as every publication tries to make it a scare word) that's how Populism works.

If Sanders gets the nomination, it'll still be a hard fight against Trump. I'm not 100% believing those maps placing him at 474 electoral votes, especially because Trump's aesthetics have the backing of every corporate interest and centuries of disenfranchisement behind them. But Biden's fight just won't win, and if somehow we end up in the 1% of timelines where he somehow convinced enough people to show up at the ballot box for him, we still would have no defense against Trumpism. A burgeoning Fascist movement who still believe the same lies distracting them from the ruling classes and now with a martyr as a political figurehead will have no path to recuperation because primary voters believed it when the news said the word "socialism" was too scary.

Anyway, that's my piece, and it's where my mind has been for...honestly a few years, now. I'll see you on the other side of Super Tuesday.