Author: Serkadis

Like many games, Japan gets first dibs on Sengoku Basara 3. Worry not, it’ll get a stateside release. In North America, the game will be known as Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes and will arrive later this year.

Dame Dash’s latest creation, DD172, consists of The Black Keys, Mos Def and others. The group has their very own customized Chevrolet Camaro called the Special Edition BlakRoc Chevrolet Camaro. Like the Black Keys rock/hip-hop collaboration project Blakroc, this special-edition Camaro is inspired by blues, styled by hip-hop and all attitude.

Click here to get prices on the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro.

The BlakRoc Edition Camaro boasts plenty of customizations on top of the 426HP 2SS model: custom black striping, hood & trunk Blakroc graphics, embroidered console & headrests, Boston Acoustic 500W amp w/ subwoofer, 22 Lexani LX15 wheels & tinted windows.

The Black Keys are also joined by other stars in hip-hop like Mos Def, Jim Jones, RZA, Raekwon, Ludacris, Pharoahe Monch, Nicole Wray, Q-Tip, NOE & Billy Danze.

If you would like to purchase the BlakRoc Chevrolet Camaro – check out the site here.

Check out the gallery and the video after the jump along with a list of upgrades given to the BlakRoc Camaro 2SS.

BlakRoc Chevrolet Camaro SS:

BlakRoc Chevrolet Camaro:

– By: Omar Rana

From Green Right Now Reports

With Earth Day approaching, and summer just around the corner, thinking about getting back to nature is, well…natural.

The folks at the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation think so, too. In honor of National Parks Week (April 17-25), they have released their list of the “Top 10 Things You Can Do to Celebrate National Parks Week 2010″:

1. Share a park, and shape a life: Introduce a young person to our national parks. Go to nationalparkweek.org and download the brand new free resource for families: Parks for Play: 35 National Park Adventures for Kids of All Ages which features 35 great national parks for families with tykes, teens and everyone in between.

2. Visit a National Park for Free: The National Park Service has waived entrance fees to all 392 national parks through Sunday, April 25, 2010. Need help locating the closest park to you? Visit the NPS webpage on this event. 

3. Plant Native Species: “Everglades National Park was the first national park in America established to preserve, protect, and restore a unique and fragile ecosystem,” said Dan Kimball, superintendent of Everglades National Park. “You can protect the environment in your community by planting native plant species in your home gardens and backyards. Non-native plants can adversely impact native wildlife, wreak havoc on nearby natural areas and waters, and interfere with our efforts to restore imperiled ecosystems like the Everglades.”

4. Help Support the Parks at Macy’s: If you can’t make it to a park, consider a gift of any amount and Macy’s will match your gift up to $1 million through the end of April. Macy’s support of the National Park Foundation is helping bring more than 100,000 youth into parks this spring. You can help by visiting your nearest Macy’s store or going online at to the Macy’s Giveback program.

5. Celebrate Earth Day in the Parks, and Leave Your Car Home: Did you know that there are many options for visiting national parks without driving your car? In Boston, on April 21st and 22nd (Earth Day) park rangers will be picking up visitors at MBTA (”The T”) and offering rides to 12 area parks. Take the train through Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. Or, think about carpooling with friends to the park nearest you.

6. Use Reusable bags: “Replace disposable bags with reusable ones,” said Rich Weideman, Chief of Public Affairs at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. “Everyone has seen old plastic bags stuck in trees, littering our roadsides and in our streams, and that’s just one of the signs of waste we face in an urban national park like Golden Gate.”

7. Volunteer: Help pick up trash, mulch a trail, pull weeds – or whatever else your local park needs. Find out how you can volunteer too by visiting nationalparkweek.org.

8. Buy Locally Grown Produce: “When you buy your fruits and veggies locally, you’re saving on the fuel and energy it takes to transport and store them,” said Joan Anzelmo superintendent of Colorado National Monument, where park rangers participate in the local farmers market in Grand Junction, Colo., each summer.

9. Help turn one of America’s best parks into one of America’s best classrooms: This spring, the National Park Foundation will bring Bryce Canyon National Park into classrooms across the nation through our Electronic Field Trip. It’s free for teachers to register their classes for the live broadcast and interactive curriculum. Click on this link to sign up.

10. Use Water Efficiently: “A whopping 30 % of the city of Seattle’s electricity comes from hydroelectricity generated within North Cascades National Park,” said Chip Jenkins, superintendent of North Cascades National Park. “Every time you conserve your water usage, that’s not only more clean water for drinking and water for wildlife, but potentially creating more water for clean energy.”

For more information about National Park Week, visit the National Park Service webpage on National Parks Week.

Article Tags: UK Election 2010

Tickets have sold out for our climate debate featuring Ed Miliband, Greg Clark and Simon Hughes. But you can still take part by posting a question below … and follow the debate on a live audio stream and via Twitter

Tomorrow, the three politicians who are fighting to be the next climate minister will lock horns in the Guardian’s climate and energy election debate.

While tickets for the event in London are sold out, you can still put your question for the speakers – Ed Miliband for Labour, Greg Clark for the Conservatives and Simon Hughes for the Liberal Democrats – by posting it below. As Andy Atkins of Friends of the Earth argues today, all three major parties recognise the importance of acting on climate change, but they still desperately need “a seismic shift in political thinking.”

You can also hear the trio’s answers by listening to our live audio stream and following our live Twitter coverage tomorrow night – check back at environmentguardian.co.uk at 7pm on 21 April or just follow us on @guardianeco. Share your thoughts on how the candidates rated below and on Twitter with the hashtag #climatedebate.

Source: guardian.co.uk

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One the most enduring (and consistently entertaining) Internet memes of the past few years has been remixes of the bunker scene from the German film, The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich (aka Der Untergang). EFF Boardmember Brad Templeton even got in on it, creating a very funny remix with Hitler ranting about troubles with DRM and the failure of DMCA takedowns to prevent fair uses. (Ironically enough, that video resulted in the Apple Store rejecting an EFF newsfeed app.)

In a depressing twist, these remixes are reportedly disappearing from YouTube, thanks to Constantin Film (the movie’s producer and distributor) and YouTube’s censorship-friendly automated filtering system, Content I.D. Because the Content I.D. filter permits a copyright owner to disable any video that contains its copyrighted content — whether or not that video contains other elements that make the use a noninfringing fair use — a content owner can take down a broad swath of fair uses with the flick of a switch. It seems that’s exactly what Constantin Film has chosen to do.

This is hardly the first time that Content I.D., has led to overbroad takedowns of legal content. Copyright owners have used the system to take down (or silence) everything from home videos of a teenager singing Winter Wonderland and a toddler lip-syncing to Foreigner’s Juke Box Hero to (and we’re not making this up) a lecture by Prof. Larry Lessig on the cultural importance of remix creativity.

YouTube users do have options for response (read our “Guide to YouTube Removals” for details.) But YouTube’s procedures for “removing” videos have created considerable confusion among users, and it’s a fair bet that most YouTube users aren’t aware of their ability to “dispute” these removals. Others may be leery of exercising the dispute option. While the risks may be low, our broken copyright system leaves users facing the prospect of paying outrageous statutory damages and even attorneys’ fees if they stand up, fight back and, despite overwhelming odds in their favor, lose. It’s a gamble many people just aren’t willing to take, even when their works are clear fair uses.

If copyright owners want to block remix creativity, they should have to use a formal DMCA takedown notice (and be subject to legal punishment if they fail to consider fair use), rather than a coarse automated blocking tool. That is one reason we called on YouTube to fix the Content ID system so that it will not automatically remove videos unless there is a match between the video and audio tracks of a submitted fingerprint and nearly the entirety (e.g, 90% or more) of the challenged content is comprised of a single copyrighted work. That was over two years ago, and YouTube told us then that they were working on improving the tool. If YouTube is serious about protecting its users, it is long past time for YouTube to do that work.

UPDATE: Templeton’s video was also targeted; check out his discussion on his personal blog.

Article Tags: Carbon Trading

From a scheme to create an algae bloom in the South Pacific to a Vatican forest in the plains of Hungary – how one carbon offset developer’s ideas failed to reduce global warming.

Russ George described himself as a man of vision. He certainly envisioned making money.

The San Francisco promoter saw the profit of promising to remove carbon dioxide from the air, and selling that promise as carbon offsets to polluters, a plan he touted in interviews, press releases, and even to a congressional committee.

He just needed seed money. Nelson Skalbania, a high-profile Canadian real estate trader who had spent a year wearing a court-supervised electronic bracelet for a conviction in Canada of misappropriating $100,000 in investor funds, was just the kind of “green angel” – as Mr. George called him – who would put up the money.

With Mr. Skalbania’s backing, George bought the 152-foot research vessel Weatherbird II, repainted it with his new company name – Planktos – and hired a crew to sail for the Galapagos Islands in summer 2007.

His plan was to enlist one of nature’s carbon sponges, algae. He’d scatter a fertilizer of iron dust on 2.4 million acres of the South Pacific, he announced. In three weeks, it would produce a massive bloom of phytoplankton algae, which would inhale carbon dioxide, then sink with the carbon. George would sell his estimate of the absorbed carbon as “carbon offsets” at $5 a ton and make millions.

Source: csmonitor.com

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Capcom’s fighting games aren’t the only ones that savored the spotlight back at the Captivate 2010 event in Hawaii. The publisher also announced Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, which comes with redesigns, re-engineering, and you better believe it

Ken Block today released a little hint of what’s to come from his all new Gymkhana THREE with his new 2011 Ford Fiesta. The footage taken at top secret testing facility.

Block tells us that the Gymkhana THREE Fiesta will be revealed at later today in San Fransisco.

Click here to get prices on the 2011 Ford Fiesta.

Ken Block’s 2011 Monster World Rally Team Ford Fiesta:

Ken Block’s 2011 Monster World Rally Team Ford Fiesta:

– By: Omar Rana

Filed under: Convertible, Performance, China, UK, Rumormill

Inside Line has a rendering of that still-in-the-works successor to the MG TF. It isn’t exactly a shock, as it looks much like a slightly evolved version of the current and soon-to-be-dead MG TF. The real revolution will be what the body rests on and what powers it – Chinese owner SAIC is reportedly still playing around with platform possibilities, but it doesn’t look like the company is any closer than before to finding a partner for that aspect of the project.

The roadster’s motivation will be thanks to an engine in front turning the wheels in back, just as God intended. Powerplant options are said to be a small General Motors diesel, a conventional V6 and an in-house hybrid. The natural question posed is: where is the four-cylinder? Who knows, maybe SAIC plans to skip that step and pwn the Mazda MX-5 Miata with its revelatory handling chops. No matter which they choose, if the body in the illustration can be trusted, it will be handsome enough to make the attempt. No hurries on a decision – we still have three years before it goes into production, and we’ve heard promises of MG’s revival in the States before, so we’re not holding our breath.

[Source: Inside Line]

Rendered Speculation: Will a new Roadster spearhead MG’s return to America? originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TWO loads of trailer with prepaid meters were intercepted by some inquisitive youths in Ile-Ife last Tuesday.

According to OSUN DEFENDER investigation, it was gathered that the two trucks loaded with the Power Holding Company of Nigeria’s (PHCN) prepaid metres took off from a branch office of PHCN’s office located at Mayfair area of the ancient town late in the night on Tuesday, but some motorcyclists popularly known as Okada reportedly suspected a foul play informed the security agents about the movement of the two lorries which led to their interception.

Some of the commercial motorcyclists, who informed the State Security Service (SSS), in a chat with the medium said that the two trailers had earlier parked at a distance not too far from the PHCN’s branch office as early as 4p.m, but the loading of the pre-paid metres into the vehicles did not commence until 9p.m which aroused their suspicion of a possible foul play.

A senior source at the SSS office confirmed the incident to the medium, while also affirming that the PHCN branch manager where the pre-paid metres were loaded into the trailers had been interrogated by the security operatives.

Further findings by the medium also revealed that the prepaid metres were supplied by a company known as ENL Ltd, to the PHCN in Ile-Ife, but the company later decided to transfer the goods to a location in Ikolaba area in Ibadan.

Investigation also revealed that some electricity consumers in Ile-Ife, who had earlier applied for the pre-paid metres from the PHCN, had been denied the metres, alleging that the prepaid metres that were intercepted but later released by security agents were indeed meant for Ile-Ife customers, but were hoarded by the PHCN officials.

A staff of the PHCN who spoke with the medium under anonymity informed the medium that the decision to transfer the pre-paid metres to Ibadan was the sole decision of ENL Company, which was saddled with the responsibility of distributing the metres to the PHCN’s offices nationwide.

By SOLA JACOBS

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(This guest post previously appeared at the author’s blog)

I always marvel at the quarterly earnings at Apple Corporation. Not necessarily because of the impressive fundamentals, but because of the game being played.  Corporate earnings are a game. The best managements know how the game works and they play the analysts for fools by consistently managing expectations. No one does this better than Apple. Every quarter they beat and every quarter they sandbag earnings. Like clockwork, the analysts peg their estimates near Apple’s “projections”. And Apple blows them out of the water. This quarter should be no different.

Today, I was particularly intrigued to see CNN’s list of quarterly estimates. They are broken down by analyst, but also show a few “unaffiliated” estimates.  What’s interesting to note here is how much higher the “unaffiliated” estimates are.  The average “unaffiliated” estimate calls for revenues of $12.6B while the consensus analyst estimate is for just $12.15B – a full $450MM difference.  The average “unaffiliated” EPS estimate is for $2.75 while the consensus Wall Street estimate is for $2.48 – a full $0.27 difference.  We’re not talking about a small difference here.  This is night and day.  It makes me wonder just how these two parties could both be considered reasonable sources, yet so far apart in terms of their estimates?

While we’re at it I’ll go ahead and throw my own hat in the ring.  My estimates are calling for $2.81 EPS on $12.65B in revenues, 7.3MM iPhones, 10.1MM iPods, 2.95MM MACs, 41% GM so I expect Apple to beat handily.  But this all raises an interesting question we’ve been discussing of late.  It’s clear that these analysts are highly impacted by management’s communications with them (yes, they get phone calls from the companies if their estimates drift too high).  But it’s also clear that management is sandbagging them to high heaven.  Knowing all of this, we have to ask ourselves – why do investors even pay attention to these analysts?  They’re not “analyzing” anything.  They’re just copying the right numbers down after management gives them a nudge in the right direction.  Nonetheless, Apple’s stock is likely to soar or tank after the earnings are compared to these phony estimates.  That’s what is so frightening here.  These men and women can add or remove billions in market cap based on this “analysis”.

In sum, Apple is going to report another superb quarter (particularly when compared to Wall Street’s estimates).  But the quality of those earnings really depends on who you listen to.  It will be interesting to see which set of “analysts” is closer to the actual figures.  I have no doubt the “unaffiliated” set will prove far more prescient and give investors a much better idea of how well Apple really performed this quarter.

Chart via Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Apple2.0 >

 

Get more market commentary at The Pragmatic Capitalist >

Join the conversation about this story »

Online marketplaces like eBay have a bit of protection from liability if their platforms are used to sell counterfeit or copyrighted goods. However, in the offline world, flea markets have historically not been granted the same type of protection, as seen in Fonovisa v. Cherry Auctions (1996), where flea markets were found to be liable for selling infringing works.

But now, the same protections afforded to online marketplaces could now be coming to their offline counterparts. Texas judge Lynn Hughes has dismissed the case Sony Discos Inc. v. EJC Family Partnership, where Sony Music sued a flea market operator, Elwin J. Cole, for copyrighted goods being sold at the market. Sony alleged that EJC was guilty of contributory infringement by allowing its sellers to sell copyrighted goods in the market. The judge disagreed, ruling that it was not EJC’s responsibility to police the market for Sony (full ruling here – pdf):

Sony does not argue and cannot show that Cole aided or enhanced infringing sales specifically, in a manner distinct from Cole’s facilitation of all sales at the flea market.

…Cole is not akin to the driver of a get-away car; he is closer to the service station manager who sells the bank-robber gasoline.

So, perhaps driven by the safe harbors enjoyed by their online counterparts, offline flea markets are no longer to be held responsible for infringing uses of their marketplaces. If infringement happens, then it’s reasonable for the owners to go after those specifically responsible — it’s inefficient and unfair to expect a marketplace to do the police work, especially when there are tons of non-infringing sales happening all of the time.

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Fantasy is renowned for its series. Since Tolkien brought us the archetypical trilogy, we’ve become used to novels that span hundreds upon hundreds of pages, with volumes of text. While often painted as being filled with simple world-views and clear cut good and evil, really amazing fantasy goes beyond that. While still producing a noble degree of escapism, great fantasy can hold a mirror up to the actions and heart of humanity. Seldom restricted to just a single book, these multi-volume epics have millions of fans around the world. Here is a list of the finest the genre has to offer.

18. Belgariad by David Eddings

I’m slightly hesitant to call Eddings “best” at anything, but lets face it, he typifies the multi-volume fantasy genre. Great sweeping plots, evil gods, heroic farmboys. Many of us cut our teeth reading his cookie cutter epics, and we learned that you can skim read very fast, as he spends way too much time describing each castle. Sure, the plots of all his series are bordering on identical, and yes, they are worlds of moral absolutes, but there’s something to be said for Eddings’ dedication to the field. While not groundbreaking, his works are always enjoyable, and deserve a special place for the entertainment the offered countless 12 year olds.

17. Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind

I confess, I haven’t read all of the Sword of Truth novels. I put up with with Goodkind’s torture fetish, constant sexual violence, and weird misogyny for a few volumes, but I fell by the wayside with the blatant Ayn Randian insanity of Faith of the Fallen. That said, Goodkind deserves cred for his work on creating an immense world, filled with diverse and usually nefarious inhabitants. While I’m not a huge fan of his work, I know there are plenty there who swear by them, and can quote all the Wizard’s Rules, in order. I defer to you, diehard fans, for you claim this series is greatness.

16. Conan by Robert E. Howard

Barbarian lord of pulp novels, Howard’s long-lived and multimedia hero has etched a permanent place in the consciousness of readers everywhere. The hulking, dark-haired warrior king, who strode across steppe and desert, slaughtering his way through thousand of countless minions. Not limited to novels, Conan branched off into the awesome movies, the saturday morning cartoon, and some very good Marvel comics After Howard’s death a number of amazing authors wrote Conan stories, people like Robert Jordan and Harry Turtledove took their hand at the Cimmerian. A cultural milestone who influenced years of fantasy authors fo follow.

15. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

Yeah, the last book was kinda crap, and yes, Rowling needed an editor with some stones to cut out big chunks of the final few. But lets not forget, there’s a reason why the Harry Potter books became so incredibly popular — they were actually really, really good. The first few were concise, intriguing, and offered glimpses into a world just next to our own. Rownling got a big head pretty soon, and started writing mammoth tomes that severely needed a red pen taken to them. They also encouraged a generation of new readers, who fell in love with the dense mythos of fantasy, and graduated on to other geekery. How’s this to make you feel old? The first book was published 13 years ago. That’s right, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is just about old enough to start high school.

14. Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber

Seminal figures in the world of fantasy, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser created a sort of bridge between the pulp action heroes like Conan, and the slightly more cerebral later entries into the field. Equal parts tragic and heroic, the pair buckled their swashes, and drank, wenched and fought their way across their cruel homeland. Their festering main haunt of Lankhmar became the basis of Discworld’s Ankh-Morpork, and the first story of the two won both a Hugo and a Nebula. The mammoth collection of novellas that make up the Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser corpus are all infused with a dark humor that would make any Monty Python fan happy.

13. Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

While the Chronicles haven’t aged quite as well as we would like, they’re still seminal works of fiction. Children’s novels beloved by generations of readers, the Chronicles of Narnia don’t fare so well if read with a critical eye. You have to gloss over sexism, racism and some pretty dogmatic Christian messages to get to the story underneath. But, if you can manage to look past those, you’ll find the same stories you fell in love with as a child. The stories of talking animals, noble princes, and children from our world exalted in another. Borrowing from a dozen different mythologies and beliefs, the Chronicles now seem dated, but still retain a glimmer of their original magic.

12. The Song of the Lioness by Tamora Pierce

Another young adult entry on the list (don’t worry, only one more after this), Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness made major headway in breaking through the “boy’s only club” feel to much fantasy. Instead of the usual farmboy-orphan-thrust-into-greatness schtick that is found in so much of the genre, the Alanna books focused on the daughter of a minor noble, who pretends to be a boy in order to train to be a knight. No trick to her birth, and no wise old sage accompanying, she makes it through sheer grit and determination. The Lioness books provided a welcome break from the rather guy-filled novels that surrounded it, and brought a number of young ladies into the world of fantasy.

11. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen Donaldson

The Thomas Covenant novels (now into their third series) are some of the darkest, bleakest most depressing fantasy novels ever written. The main character is a leper, who at the beginning is convinced that he’s dreaming the unreal landscape that he’s been sucked into. Convinced that his actions will have no consequences, he proceeds to be the biggest bastard imaginable, including raping the first woman to help him, and those around him put up with it because they think he’s their saviour. And that’s the most upbeat of the books. In the second series, the whole world is sick and deadly, attempting to kill you at every turn. Thomas Covenant isn’t an anti-hero, he’s an a-hero, but somehow ends up doing the right thing. Almost. Dark, bitter, and bound to leave you depressed, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are densely layered with recurring themes of impotence, disbelief, and inevitability. Excellent novels, but long, twisted, and will leave you hating everyone.

10. Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Originally a trilogy, the tales of Earthsea now stretch over some six books. Not quite as dark in tone as the aforementioned Thomas Covenant novels, Earthsea isn’t exactly happiness and light either. Magic in the Earthsea novels is a part of life, but doesn’t really seem to make things much better. People still eke out an late bronze/early iron age existence, struggling to get by from day to day. The novels all felt somber in tone, with the adventure of the magician Ged being important and somber affairs. Interestingly, Le Guin intentionally created a world more ethnically diverse than your standard fantasy fare, with the main characters looking something like Native Americans. Unsurprisingly, just about every visual depiction of the characters has been whitewashed.

9. Elric by Michael Moorcock

Moorcock’s highly influential “Tales of the Eternal Champion” is best remembered for the Elric saga. The pail, wan prince of a dying race, Elric does the right thing in spite of the torturous people he comes from, and is often at odds with his people’s history. The character of a weak albino noble, sustained only by drugs and magic stands in stark contrast to the virile and ripped heroes of Conan’s ilk. Striving to maintain the universal balance between Chaos and Order, reincarnated into a thousand forms, Moorcock’s Elric came to define the fantasy anti-hero in the 60s. Such a prominent character that he’s become a frequent subject of satire and mockery, taken at the time of writing, the stories of Elric were gothic and genre defining.

8. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

The self-described anti-Lewis, Pullman’s novels stand in stark contrast to the Chronicles of Narnia. Instead of talking animals, and children who are given magical powers due to their birth , you have children who save the world through sheer grit and determination. Pullman’s work was heavily criticized for its Atheist leanings, which I never though a problem. Pullman made a story that was very anti-church, anti-authority and pro-intelligence. I don’t see any issues with that. Any book that encourages kids to work hard and think for themselves is worth it. It also has an ending far, far too sad for a young adult’s novel.

7. Discworld by Terry Pratchett

The only comedy series to make this list, Pratchett’s Discworld in an institution. Up to almost 40 novels, plus countless spinoff comics, tv shows, computer games and just about everything else, Discworld has an extremely dedicated fan base. While always funny, Pratchett also has a rather nasty habit of exposing real world issues in his novels, too. Sometimes more subtly than others — Thud! wasn’t exactly understated. Unfortunately, Discworld probably isn’t going to last much longer, as Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2007, and some readers have even been saying that his writing is already suffering from the disease. Regardless, Pratchett is a powerhouse, consistently pumping out works on a nearly annual basis, all of which are extremely popular.

6. The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

The Farseer Trilogy, and to a lesser extent the other Realm of the Elderlings novels, are the extremely successful series of stories by Robin Hobb. Darker than much of the fantasy on this list, the trilogy is about a bastard — as in a child born out of wedlock — to royalty, raised in the castle to be an assassin for the king. Filled with dark intrigue, hatred, and more than a bit of violence, the Farseer Trilogy was described by Orson Scott Card as having “arguably set the standard for the modern serious fantasy novel.” While reading it, people are often astonished and the brutality of characters to one another, and FitzChivalry — the protagonist of the series — is beaten, tortured, taken over with magic, has ideas planted in his brain, and generally treated as the world’s whipping boy. Yet even as screwed up as the Hobb’s world is, there’s a streak of human decency that runs through most of the characters, that makes you believe that humanity maybe ain’t such a bunch of bastards after all.

5. Dark Tower by Stephen King

Of all the series’ on this list, Dark Tower is probably the furthest removed from traditional European, middle ages fare. The Dark Tower novels are also quite distant from King’s better known horror work. Set in a sort of wild west, feudal, magical world, the series is about a lone gunslinger hunting the Man in Black. King has described the seven volume series as his Magnum Opus, and it sits at a thematic crossroads with his other writing, referencing and interplaying with novels from his entire literary corpus. Dark Tower draws heavily from other major fantasy series, and references pop culture frequently throughout. A critical darling and fan favorite, the Dark Tower is the first of the top five.

4. Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

Jordan’s Wheel of Time series perhaps best illustrates the tendency of fantasy series to go on too long. Originally planned as a trilogy, Jordan had reached 11 books in the series before his unexpected death. Using his notes, Brandon Sanderson is pegged to finish the series, bringing it up to 14 volumes, and more than 10,000 pages in length. The slimmest novel in the main series still clocks in at over 700 pages, and if you put them all in a sack, you could bludgeon someone to death — assuming you could lift it over your head. As bloated as the series is, its also become a fantasy touchstone, representing some of the best and worst the genre has to offer. Yes, it’s overly wordy and drawn out, but it also features some of the best world building in modern fantasy, and a cast of characters unmatched in number in breadth. Thousands upon thousands of fans snatch every new book that comes out, and when the final volume finally lands, you can be sure that it will be a major event.

3. Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny

Another slightly non-traditional series, Zelazny’s Amber books state that there are only two true realities: Amber and the Courts of Chaos, and that all other worlds, including our own, are shadows and iterations of that. The first (and generally considered better) cycle of the novels deals almost exclusively with Amber, and the machinations of its ruling family. A dysfunctional group, they each have the ability to walk through the various shadow world, merely by choosing which detail of that reality they will keep, and which will be discarded. For such a high concept, almost the entire series is devoted to family intrigue, and battles for the crown — which makes sense when you realize that the crown controls all possible realities. Zelazny’s series has become one of the pillars of modern fantasy. It’s also the setting for my favorite ever Roguelike — Zangband.

2. Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

The one, the original, the great grandpappy of modern fantasy. We all have a lot to thank Tolkien for. If it wasn’t for his writing, elves would be little fairy things that fixed shoes, D&D wouldn’t exist, and fantasy tales as we know would never have arisen. Without Tolkien, you have no party of different peoples, combining forces against an evil god, fighting insurmountable odds. You have no elvin archers, dwarven miners, orc or goblins. A gifted academic, Tolkien took elements of mythologies from around Europe — Norse, German, British, French, as well as his own Catholic worldview — and from them crafted the most resonant story of the 20th century. Every piece of modern fantasy owes their origins to Tolkien. Of course, we can also blame him for spending pages at a time describing the scenery in order to bad out a novel’s length.

1. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

Could there be any doubt? More than seven million novels sold, four times on the New York Times bestseller list, and possibly the most well regarded fantasy novels on the planet. Martin made a far more realistic take on the traditional high fantasy story, with a strong historical bent, and a course attitude towards sex and violence. Planned to be some seven novels long, four have been released, and the gaps between each grow ever longer. Martin refuses to be rushed, and I think everyone just hopes the novels will be finished in their lifetime. The series has been picked up by HBO, with each season pegged to cover a single novel — and if anyone can do dark sex and violence in a fantastical world, it’s HBO. The novels have won Locus, Nebula and Hugo awards galore. You know what? Just go and read the first one. It’s not nearly as long as some of the other books on the list, and it’s old enough that you can pick it up for pennies from a used book store. Have a read, and see why this is the greatest fantasy series ever.

The stock market has completely filled the Goldman Sachs (GS) gap, with the S&P rallying to 1206, which is where it was before the charges were announced.

But gold hasn’t come back.

Remember, right after the charges, gold tanked on fears that John Paulson, if things got really ugly, could have to liquidate his long gold fund (which, according to reports, hasn’t done that stellar), which owns a lot of the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD).

Anyway, gold hasn’t filled the Goldman gap like stocks have. Are lingering fears about Paulson the reason why?

Don’t miss: The complete guide to Goldman winners and losers >

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Ken Block and his Monster World Rally Team seem to really get it. If you’re going to show us a seven minute infomercial, it’s best to sell product and perform astonishing feats of drift at the same time. Block’s annual drifting extravaganza has quickly become one of the few must-see videos on the Internets, with nearly 14 million viewers tuning in to absorb Gymkhana II.

And if you’re worried that Block’s switch from the Subaru WRX STI to the 2011 Ford Fiesta means that the breathtaking drift videos are dead, think again. The driftmaster is in tease mode for Gymkhana III, and the post-jump video gives an all-too-brief glimpse of what’s to come later tonight. Hit the jump to watch the 24-second tease for yourself. The video tells us that Gymkhana III Ford Fiesta will be unveiled this evening at 8 p.m. PST at San Francisco’s Taverna Avenue.

[Source: YouTube]

Continue reading Video: Ken Block teases Gymkhana 3 with his new Ford Fiesta

Video: Ken Block teases Gymkhana 3 with his new Ford Fiesta originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Let’s face it even if you’re king of the rounds down at your place, there’s always someone online with madder skills than you. Fortunately for Super Street Fighter IV, it comes with a few online game

Eddy Elfeinbein of CrossingWallStreet argues yes.

Some points he makes:

• It trades at 43x earnings.
• Forward PE is still a sky-high 35x projected earnings.
• To hit its goals, NetFlix needs margins to expand.
• But it’s facing brutal competition from Wal-Mart (WMT), Amazon (AMZN), RedBox, and BestBuy (BBY)

Read the rest of his argument here >

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Kevin Yank sends over an interview he recently did with Derek Powazek who, among other things, developed one of the first truly cool online publications in Fray, and also JPG Magazine, discussing the future of print. Powazek makes a point that we’ve tried to make here in the past, but weren’t able to highlight as clearly as he does:

And the other crazy thing we found when we were doing JPG is that by far, the majority of our subscribers were people who did not subscribe to any other magazines. I thought that was weird. Like, you’d think, “Okay, maybe the people who like print would buy it.” But what we learned was it was the people who felt involved in the creation of it who were buying it. The people who were submitting their photos, voting on other people’s photos, who felt involved in the community were the ones buying it.

So I think there’s a real opportunity here for media makers to learn from this to say, “Well maybe the reason why people aren’t buying newspapers and magazines is because they feel completely disconnected from the product, right? Because the old style of journalism was sit down, shut up and consume what we say. And in a world of collaborative media where everybody can participate online, everybody can make content, maybe what these media organizations need to do is tear down the walls a little bit and let people feel involved in the making of it, and then they’ll buy the product.

Exactly. We’ve discussed in the past how much the community now wants to be a part of the news process, whether it’s helping out with some aspect of reporting or (more frequently) in spreading the news, sharing the news and offering commentary on the news. But that’s not the way the old school publishers think. They still think of themselves as being part of an ivory tower of sorts, where they deliver “the word” from on high. But that doesn’t create any connection with the community.

And that’s a disaster for a publication — since it’s always really been about bringing together a community, and then trying to monetize the attention of that community. But by actually involving the community, inviting them in, and making them feel a part of the process creates amazing connections that create people who are loyal to publications. It’s something that a lot of old school publications really need to understand. And, if they did, they’d quickly realize that a concept like a paywall pretty much destroys that relationship.

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You’ve seen Chris Redfield in the Captivate trailer (qjnet/news/watch-chris-redfield-invades-marvel-vs-capcom-3-trailer-released.html) for Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but just in case you were looking for something along the gameplay side, Capcom sent out a press release to fill us