Category: Cash From Chaos

Posted on // 0 Comments

I’m Busy, Watch This

https://youtu.be/PjBO6bzVM4o

In 1998, a little known company named Valve released a first-person shooter named Half-Life and changed the face of gaming. Where other shooters struggled to provide even a semblance of a story, Half-Life had brains to match its brawns; a stirring tale featuring a realistic human cast and a protagonist that was more than a hand and a gun unfolded before the player’s eyes as they progressed through each level.

As Valve grew, so too did Half-Life’s reputation, with Half-Life 2 in 2004 once again revolutionizing the genre, and its episodic expansions, Half-life 2: Episode One and Episode Two, further raising the bar. The series didn’t release consistently, and occasionally suffered unexpected and painful setbacks; but when it did, it seemed as if Valve could do no wrong – until the series suddenly stopped. Shifting priorities, a lack of motivation, and other, more nebulous factors would lead Valve to put Half-Life on ice in the middle of its prime, leaving a generation of gamers adrift, and an opus unfinished.

And yet – Half-Life lives on. Be it in the innumerable games and series it inspired or provided the computative bedrock for, an undying stream of mods, or other media based on the franchise, Half-Life’s DNA is permanently embedded in the fabric of the video game industry, and will likely remain so for some time. As sad as it is that a Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or a Half-Life 3 will likely never happen, and as frustrating as it is that Valve remains belligerent as to precisely why, the series, for the most part, has only really fallen… out of Valve’s hands.

This is the rise and fall of Half-Life.

Posted on // 2 Comments

Please Kill Me Radio Documentary

And if you haven’t read the book, we can’t be friends anymore.

Please Kill Me: Voices from the Archives
Two one-hour documentaries that explore an America that birthed the new order of today.

20 years ago journalists and music historians Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil recorded interviews with the icons of Punk for their New York Times best-selling book “Please Kill Me – The Uncensored History of Punk.” Now, these rare, candid interviews have been meticulously restored for Public Radio and compiled to create an oral history of the Punk movement in Please Kill Me – Voices From the Archives.

The stories of these bands are more than music, they’re the cultural evolution of America:
the end of the 60s
the ferment of the 70s
Watergate to the Women’s Movement.

Part One -The Pioneers of Punk
How the Warhol 60’s morphed into the Punk 70’s, marginalized inhabitants of a near-bankrupt New York City, changed 20th century culture, and influenced the World.

Part Two – The Punk Invasion
The music of the Velvet Underground, Iggy and the Stooges,The New York Dolls, and others were meeting fierce resistance in the US. With no other options open to them, during the July 4rth weekend of 1976, as America was celebrating it’s bicentennial, the Ramones went to London and launched punk rock. In England, punk would explode and become a cultural force to be reckoned with.

Features exclusive, never-before-heard interviews with Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, the Ramones and many more.

Posted on // 4 Comments

My Eyes! The Goggles Do Nothing!

The horror, the horror.

Sylvester Stallone designed this pen and watch set a few years ago as part of cross-promotion for The Expendables. The watches ranged in price from $5,000.00 up to $75,000.00!

So, basically the guy who sat next to you in 8th grade study hall is now making pens.

Or …

For the man who has everything … except taste.

Or …

EXOTIC. MAJESTIC. IMPOSING. A pen that feels like a steel dick in your pocket, stabbing your actual genitals.

Posted on // 4 Comments

This Hits The Spot

Brand new video from a bunch of dead guys! (And Marky, who is doing just fine.)

You’re watching the never-before-seen official music video for Ramones – ‘She’s The One’ from the 1978 album ‘Road To Ruin’. ‘Road To Ruin’ just turned 40, and Rhino is celebrating the milestone with a 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition.

Posted on // 5 Comments

So Long, Google+

I’ll remember our time together fondly.

From The Guardian …

This March, as Facebook was coming under global scrutiny over the harvesting of personal data for Cambridge Analytica, Google discovered a skeleton in its own closet: a bug in the API for Google+ had been allowing third-party app developers to access the data not just of users who had granted permission, but of their friends.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s almost exactly the scenario that got Mark Zuckerberg dragged in front of the US Congress. The parallel was not lost on Google, and the company chose not to disclose the data leak, the Wall Street Journal revealed Monday, in order to avoid the public relations headache and potential regulatory enforcement.

Disclosure will likely result “in us coming into the spotlight alongside or even instead of Facebook despite having stayed under the radar throughout the Cambridge Analytica scandal”, Google policy and legal officials wrote in a memo obtained by the Journal. It “almost guarantees Sundar will testify before Congress”, the memo said, referring to the company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai. The disclosure would also invite “immediate regulatory interest”.

Shortly after the story was published, Google announced that it will shut down consumer access to Google+ and improve privacy protections for third-party applications.

Posted on // 2 Comments

MAD’s “Punk Rock Group” Of The Year

I’ve posted this here and there before. Deal with it.