"Numerous Japanese teens, it seems, are uploading photos of themselves doing the Kamehameha attack from popular manga and anime series Dragon Ball," writes Kotaku's Japan-based correspondent Brian Ashcraft. There's a photo gallery and it's awesome. Brian had an earlier post at Kotaku about the broader trend in Japan of young women staging photos with manga-style martial arts. Below, one such image found on 2ch, Japan's largest bulletin board, with the heading, "Schoolgirls Nowadays lol".
The Internet Archive is one of the great treasures of the internet, housing content in every media; texts, video, audio. It’s also the home of the Wayback Machine, an archive of the Internet from 1996. I thought I had explored the site pretty thoroughly—at least according to my own interests—but recently came across runs of some of the great gaming magazines of the 1970s and 80s; The Space Gamer, Ares, Polyhedron, The General, and—temporarily—Dragon Magazine. These magazines represent not only the golden age of gaming, but expose the thrill and excitement of gaming when it was still new, still on the margins. It was a time when gaming still felt a little, dare I say, punk.
Seven members of the US Navy's highly secretive SEAL Team 6, one of whom was part of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information to game maker Electronic Arts. Four other SEALs are under investigation for similar alleged violations. They said to have given classified information to EA, for the game "Medal of Honor: Warfighter."
Oh, happy day. Genius weirdo video auteur Liam Lynch (@lynchland on Twitter) is making new episodes of "Sifl and Olly." The show originally ran on MTV from 1997-1999.
Not a new thing for women who game, but it's great to see the New York Timesdevote more than a thousand words to it. The hate-filled attacks that followed Anita Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter campaign are part of the story, but so are a number of anecdotes from tournaments that expose "the severity of the harassment that many women experience in virtual gaming communities." — Xeni
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Last month, I wrote about Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day's announcement of their joint project, Tabletop, a net-show that records rollicking tabletop gaming sessions. The first episode, covering the game Small World, is out, and it does not disappoint. This is 30 minutes of incredibly good fun, with a great guest list:
Wil Wheaton and guests, Sean Plott (host of "Day9TV", a Starcraft II dedicated webcast on how to be a better gamer), Grant Imahara (host of Discovery Channel's "Mythbusters"), and Jenna Busch (geek blogger, writer and host) play Small World!
Video Link to a short feature on the very popular "human sound machine" Hikakin, who has a growing following within and beyond his native Japan. His YouTube channel is here, and well worth a subscribe. Below, his take on the Donkey Kong theme song.
Harris O'Malley takes a run at male privilege in gaming, especially how it manifests as angry refusals to accept womens' complaints about the sexual objectification of female characters in mainstream games. "If a girl wants to see herself represented in video games, she better get used to the idea of being the prize at the bottom of the cereal box. ... It's hard to feel valued or fully included when a very vocal group insists that your input is irrelevant, misguided and ultimately unwelcome." [Kotaku] — Rob
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"The world's first commercial electronic video game, Computer Space, was released in 1971. The world's first electronic stock market, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), opened in 1971. The world's first scholarly journal devoted to the study of autism and autism spectrum disorders in children, The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, published its first issue in 1971." -- Justin Wolfe on gaming, the financial system and autism, at The Awl. [Thanks, Choire!] — Rob
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Anonymous officially denies that it is responsible for the recent hacking attacks on Sony—well, to the extent that an entity like Anonymous is capable of doing anything "officially," or with one voice. But two hackers identified as veterans of Anonymous tell the Financial Times that the cyber-activist group, or at least cells of the group, are probably behind it.
One Anonymous member told the FT that he saw technical details of a vulnerability in Sony's network that enabled the break-in discussed on an Anonymous chatroom, shortly before the intrusion.
"The hacker that did this was supporting OpSony's movements," the Anonymous activist told the FT.
Another established member of Anonymous who participated in the hacking of security firm HBGary Federal, said it could well have been other members who subsequently hacked Sony.
"If you say you are Anonymous, and do something as Anonymous, then Anonymous did it," said the hacker, who uses the online nickname Kayla. "Just because the rest of Anonymous might not agree with it, doesn't mean Anonymous didn't do it."
Seven members of the US Navy's highly secretive SEAL Team 6, one of whom was part of the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, 
