- The creation of Missile Command and the haunting of its creator, Dave Theurer - "How a game about nuclear war stuck in the head of its lead developer." Theurer was lead developer of Atari's classic arcade game, but he worked so long and hard on the project that nightmares of nuclear annihilation began to invade what little sleep he got.
- Nothing to fall back on - "My sixteen year old daughter has left school. She isn’t taking A Levels. In September she will begin a course at a top dance college... I tell people of her plans and they react in horror, “no A Levels? What will she fall back on?” I find this a strange statement, and not just because it seems to assume that she is going to fail." Brilliant perspective on life choices, by Rachel Andrew.
- From the Omni Archive: Dune - "[John] Schoenherr’s illustrations are among the most celebrated of science fiction artworks; he showed, like Richard M. Powers, that science fiction art could be mature and painterly, worlds away from the lurid pulp exaggerations the genre had cultivated since its inception. The first artist to tackle the desert planet Arrakis, his Dune illustrations in particular have become archetypes by which Frank Herbert’s universe is visualized." Lots more good stuff will surely be emerging from the vaults of Omni through the Omni Reboot project
- Body and Soul - "...the paramedics carried him outside toward the ambulance. It was pouring. As he looked up at the night sky, he could feel the rain on his face, but nowhere else." Drew Nelles tells the story of his schoolfriend Dan Harvey, who was paralysed by an accident in a gym.
- Why Ice Cream Sounds Fat and Crackers Sound Skinny - "Do the names of some foods make them sound heavier or lighter than others?" Linguist Dan Jurafsky explains how the vowel sounds in names trigger certain associations in our minds.
- The Top F2P Monetization Tricks - Ramin Shokrizade provides an in-depth explanation of the many ways free-to-play (F2P) games use psychology to manipulate players into making in-game purchases with real-world cash: "...some Asian game developers that make only ante games like IGG have “VIP” member sections that you have to spend $3000+ per year for the top level of membership."
- The Shining and The Steadicam - "Once Stanley Kubrick became aware of Garrett Brown’s Steadicam invention in 1974, he couldn’t wait to get his hands on one and play with it. While the opening sequence of Halloween was the first horror film to utilize the Steadicam, The Shining took it even further, smoothly gliding the viewer through the halls and the treacherous hedge maze of the Overlook Hotel." Brown describes how he came to understand the best ways to use his invention by working under Kubrick's direction.
- Murder by Craigslist - "Wanted: Caretaker For Farm. Simply watch over a 688 acre patch of hilly farmland and feed a few cows, you get 300 a week and a nice 2 bedroom trailer, someone older and single preferred... it will be a real get away for the right person, job of a lifetime—if you are ready to relocate please contact asap, position will not stay open." Men who answered this advertisement on Craigslist were, if they met advertiser Richard Beasley's criteria, offered the job: on arriving to take up their new life, Beasley immediately murdered them so their possessions could be sold.
- Photos of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Dangerous Summer’ - "...in 1959, just a few years before he shot himself in Idaho, [Hemingway] had the last, best summer of his life... The JFK Library asked [archival librarian Megh Testerman] to try and catalogue photographs of Ernest Hemingway from 1953 all the way to the summer he spent in Spain in 1959–known as “The Dangerous Summer.”"
- The Deep Sea Mystery Circle – a love story - "On the seabed a geometric, circular structure measuring roughly 6.5 ft in diameter had been precisely carved from sand. It consisted of multiple ridges, symmetrically jutting out from the center, and appeared to be the work of an underwater artist, carefully working with tools... Underwater cameras showed that the artist was a small puffer fish who, using only his flapping fin, tirelessly worked day and night to carve the circular ridges."
Happy invoicing!
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