The Amiga may have failed to catch up with competitors like Apple in the personal computer race, but the retro platform still maintains a devoted fanbase. In 2011, director Zach Weddington turned to the Amiga cult to crowdfund his documentary about the computer through Kickstarter, and as Ars Technica reports, that film is available to watch today.
Viva Amiga, which recently premiered at the 2017 Music and Gaming Festival, traces the Amiga timeline from its inception to its demise. The documentary then jumps forward to present day to examine some of the users who’ve refused to let go of this relic from recent history. One scene takes place at the 2010 AmiWest Expo, an annual show that provides “a haven for like-minded individuals to come and celebrate all things Amiga.” Of the Amiga fans interviewed in the film, many said they still use the system today.
Purchasing an old Amiga isn’t the only way to recapture memories of buying your first computer in the 1980s. There are thousands of old-school Amiga titles available through the Internet Archive, and you can even play them on your Mac. If that still isn’t enough to satisfy your nostalgia craving, you can find Viva Amiga on Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play. Check out the trailer below.
Library books that go years without getting checked out risk losing their spots on the shelves. That means, in theory, that one insatiable reader could single-handedly save a library’s most vulnerable titles from getting the boot. This was the idea behind Orlando librarian George Dore’s plan to create a card for a fictional alter ego, and now he’s facing real-life trouble from the authorities.
As the Orlando Sentinel reports, “Chuck Finley” checked out 2361 books from the East Lake County Library in the span of nine months in 2016. Named after the 54-year-old former California Angels pitcher, Dore collaborated with a library assistant to devise an address, occupation, and drivers license number for the fake patron. Chuck Finley’s reading tastes ranged from classics (Cannery Row by John Steinbeck) to children’s books (Why Do My Ears Pop? by Ann Fullick), and he would often return items within an hour of checking them out. His reading habits boosted the branch’s circulation by 3.9 percent, prompting an investigation.
What may look like an act of heroism to bibliophiles is actually a serious offense in the eyes of the law. According to the inspector general’s report, creating a fake library card in this case “amounts to the creation of a false public record.” Despite the deceitful nature of the scheme, Dore insists his intentions were in the right place. Books that the software’s algorithm marks as irrelevant are often bought back by the library after they’re taken off shelves. Dore says he was just trying to save the library time and money by keeping these books in circulation. Nonetheless, he’s been placed on paid suspension from his position as branch supervisor, and he could ultimately be fired.
Though Dore’s branch isn’t one of them, several libraries in his county receive funding based on their circulation numbers. This incident has inspired a county-wide investigation into whether there are similar fraud cases in the system.
Keurig is best known for reinventing the coffee machine with its pod-based brewing systems. Now, the company is looking to get into the libation business. As CNN Money reports, Keurig is partnering with Anheuser-Busch InBev to develop an in-home brewer for alcoholic beverages.
The single-pod format has been applied to non-coffee products in the past. Cold medicine, chicken soup, and even tortilla mix have all been packaged into K-cups or something similar. But not all riffs on the concept are successful—take the Keurig Cold, the home soda-making machine that was discontinued in June 2016 after 10 months of production. With their new collaboration with Anheuser-Busch, Keurig aims to turn the cold-brewing technology left over from that product into something profitable.
Anheuser-Busch InBev is best known for producing beers like Budweiser, Corona, and Stella Artois, but their Keurig booze brewer will also be capable of whipping up spirits, cocktails, and mixers. So far, there’s no prototype. The product is only in the research phase, so customers still have a while to wait before they can ditch their bottle openers.
In Pulp Fiction (1994), Samuel L. Jackson was somehow able to translate biting a burger into one of the tensest moments in cinema history. Another testament to his acting chops is how much he made us want to try it for ourselves. Now, as NME reports, “tasty burger” fans can do so by following the recipe in the video below.
For his cooking series Binging with Babish, the YouTube chef whips up the fictional Big Kahuna burger, step-by-step. He starts by recreating a fast food-like patty to match the sandwich in the film, then gives it the Big Kahuna’s signature toppings: jack cheese, caramelized pineapples, and a Hawaiian roll to hold it together. After assembling the burger all you need is a $5 milkshake to wash it down.
A night spent building roads to nowhere and trading bricks for sheep may not sound like the most stimulating time, but true board game fans know differently. When The Settlers of Catan was first released over two decades ago, there was nothing else on the shelves quite like it. The game has since been credited with introducing German-style games to the U.S. and has been embraced by everyone from pro athletes to Silicon Valley CEOs. Whether you’re a novice player or a seasoned Catanian, here are 12 facts worth knowing about the game.
1. IT WAS INVENTED BY A GERMAN DENTAL TECHNICIAN.
When Klaus Teuber developed The Settlers of Catan in the 1990s, board game design was just a side hobby for him. He had created award-winning games in the past, but his job at the dental lab was what paid the bills. Nonetheless, when his interest in Viking history inspired him to make Catan, he fully committed himself to the project. Perfecting the product took him four years, and after creating each prototype, he would gather his wife and kids around the board to act as his guinea pigs. When his family was finally too engrossed to be distracted with anything else, he knew he had something special on his hands.
Even so, he could have never predicted what The Settlers of Catan would grow into. His final version—consisting of a stack of resource cards, some wooden houses, 19 hexagonal cardboard tiles, and two dice—debuted in Germany in 1995. The first run of 5000 games sold out so quickly that Teuber himself doesn’t have a first edition copy. Three years later he was able to retire from dentistry, and today he’s the managing director of his multi-million dollar business, Catan GmbH.
Unless you make board games for a living, chances are you’ve never heard of the Spiel des Jahres award. But to people in the industry, the distinction is a very big deal. Every year, the Spiel des Jahres (German for “Game of the Year”) recognizes a new game that excels in the areas of concept, design, rule structure, and layout. The Settlers of Catan was honored in 1995, marking the fourth Game of the Year win in Klaus Teuber’s career. Catan also brought home nearly every other board game award of note that year, including an Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game, first place at Deutscher Spiele Preis, and a Meeples’ Choice Award.
3. THE CREATOR PLAYS ANONYMOUSLY ONLINE.
Creating a beloved board game has its perks, but there is one major downside: People are hesitant to play against you once they learn who you are. Perhaps that’s why Klaus Teuber has turned to the web to keep his Catan skills sharp. PlayCatan.com is home to over 80,000 active members, and Teuber is one of them. But if you were to go toe-to-toe with him online you would likely never know it, as he likes to keep his identity anonymous.
4. THE GREEN BAY PACKERS GOT HOOKED.
Football and Catan are both incredibly competitive games that place an emphasis on strategy, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the game has been adopted as a bonding exercise by members of the Green Bay Packers. In 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that team members would regularly meet for The Settlers ofCatan game nights. “At first we’re like, ‘What the hell is this? Brick? Wool? What kind of game is this?'” Green Bay center Corey Linsley told WSJ. But it wasn’t long before the players were fully invested. David Bakhtiari, the team’s starting left tackle and the player responsible for spreading Catan fever, would even go so far as to insist they play with zero background music so he could hear his opponents strategize.
5. THE STAR TREK EDITION LETS YOU SETTLE THE FINAL FRONTIER.
The least exciting aspect of The Settlers ofCatan may be Catan itself. For players looking for more adventure and less sheep, the Star Trek version offers a cosmic change in scenery. The gameplay is basically the same, only instead of collecting wood, grain, and wool you acquire water, oxygen, and dilithium, and instead of building roads you construct enterprises. The game also includes support character cards representing different characters from the original series, each with their own special ability that can be used twice throughout the game. The Star Trek edition is just one of dozens of products tied to the title, but it’s definitely in the running for nerdiest Catan collector’s item of all time.
6. THE LARGEST GAME EVER INVOLVED 1000 PLAYERS.
Catan is best played with three or four people, maybe six at the most. That’s unless of course your goal is to break a world record. In 2015, 1040 participants—including Klaus Teuber himself—gathered around an expanded board at Germany’s Spiel convention for the largest game of Catan ever played. It nabbed the record from a game that took place in Indianapolis, Indiana two years earlier (only 922 players had showed for that event).
7. IF YOU’RE NOT INTO BOARD GAMES, YOU CAN READ THE BOOK.
For anyone who prefers to experience their resource-trading adventures in solitude, the world of Catan also comes in book form. The Settlers of Catan was penned by German historical fiction author Rebecca Gable and published in Germany in 2003. Unlike some other examples of board games-turned-media, it’s actually supposed to be pretty good. Fans still holding out hope for a movie or TV show adaptation can keep dreaming: Air Force One producer Gail Katz purchased the film and television rights for the game in 2015, but she still hasn’t announced any plans to use them.
8. IT’S BEEN HAILED AS “THE NEW GOLF.”
Nowadays when Silicon Valley insiders are looking to land investors or forge business relationships, they aren’t heading to the golf course. Their dealings are more likely to take place over a hexagonal board. The Settlers of Catan has become a beloved pastime by those in the industry. Many tech professionals don’t know an eagle from a birdie, but they can explain to you the benefits of prioritizing ore over wood. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and former Mozilla chief executive John Lilly have all been known to network over a game of Catan at corporate retreats. Lilly told The Wall Street Journal that the board game is popular with tech crowds because it “most closely approximates entrepreneurial strategy.”
9. THE CREATORS HELPED DEVELOP ITS PARKS AND REC COUNTERPART.
Even if you’ve never played Catan in real life you may recognize it from the television series Parks and Recreation. The game is a favorite activity of Pawnee’s resident uber-nerd Ben Wyatt—he plays it at his bachelor party and even ranked at a national competition for the game. He’s so into it, in fact, that he invents a Catan-inspired board game of his own in season six. “We knew that there was going to be a story point that Ben was going to have about a week off between jobs,” Parks and Rec co-producer, and writer of the “Cones of Dunshire” episode, Dave King told Vulture. “As soon as the idea came up for Ben to design his own Catan-like board game, I remember Mike Schur, our creator and showrunner, was like, ‘Yes. That’s it. Absolutely.'”
To create a game that was both funny and believable at the same time, the show’s producers reached out to Mayfair Games, the real-life board game company behind Catan, for help. The result was Cones of Dunshire, a game that Mayfair’s Alex Yeager told Nuvo, “trie[s] to walk a line between something playable, and something still rooted in the crazed imagination of an unemployed geek.” The game was a success in the Parks and Rec universe, and in 2014 fans got the chance to play it in the real world. At that year’s Gen Con gaming conference in Indianapolis, 33 players paid $100 each to play a realized version of the game for charity. Participants were treated to the above message from the game’s architect beforehand, courtesy of Parks and Rec actor Adam Scott.
After 20 years on the market, the manufacturers of The Settlers of Catan decided it was time for a name change. Since 2015, all new editions have been sold under the simplified title Catan with fancy new design elements to boot. Newer boxes are portrait-shaped, and all art for the covers, cards, and tiles were produced by a single artist for a more consistent aesthetic. The new games may look sharper, but they also make the edition you’ve been playing with since the ’90s that much more sentimental.
There are plenty of ways to approach a game of Catan, but some strategies have a stronger foundation than others. Earlier this year, Great Big Story asked the game’s original testers, Benny and Guido Teuber, about the methods they’ve developed over the years. Benny recommends lots of complaining: “Even though you know you’re winning, you still have to say you’re not.” Guido says he loves “building cities as early as possible in the game.” Their father and Catan’s inventor Klaus Teuber also gave his two cents. His advice is sweet and simple: “Never build the longest road at the beginning.”
Making friends can be complicated (especially when science tells us that one out of two friendships is one-sided). But research from Dartmouth sociology professor Janice McCabe suggests that the types of social structures we form are surprisingly straightforward, Quartz reports. According to her paper [PDF] published last year in the journal Contexts, our friendship styles can be broken into three simple categories.
For her study, McCabe looked at 67 students at a four-year Midwestern university (a small sample size, to be sure). She found that most subjects fit under one of the three umbrellas: tight-knitters, compartmentalizers, and samplers. Members of the first group belong to a single social network where everyone’s connected in some way—in other words, you have one big group of friends. Tight-knitters have a net of social support to fall back on but also risk being dragged down by negativity in the group.
Compartmentalizers have a few small clusters of friends rather than one tightly woven web. These friend-makers have two to four friend groups that rarely mix, which gives them the benefit of being able to hop between clusters in order to satisfy different needs.
The last category, samplers, have many individual friendships collected from different parts of life. People who gravitate towards one-on-one relationships may be more independent in their personal lives, but they sometimes lack a sense of belonging.
McCabe entered into the study looking to see what effect, if any, peer groups have on performance in school. She found that while tight-knitters and compartmentalizers often turn to friends for academic support, samplers usually rely on themselves in that area. The classroom isn’t the only place where a strong network of friends comes in handy: After graduation, friendships can also help you get ahead and stay sane in the workforce.
There’s no need to travel to the fromageries of France or the dairy farms of Switzerland to sample the best cheese on Earth. According to the judges of 2016’s World Championship Cheese Contest, it can be found in the American Midwest. The Wisconsin-made “Roth Grand Cru Surchoix” was named Best in Show at the competition, marking the first time since 1988 that an American cheese has won the title, Condé Nast Travelerreports.
Though it doesn’t always receive the same level of respect as products made across the pond, Wisconsin cheese is a big deal. According to the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, the state’s cheeses have received 4835 national and international awards, more than any other state or nation. But there’s one prize, Best in Show at the World Championship Cheese Contest, that has remained elusive for decades. Wisconsin cheesemakers have snagged the award in the past (they won six out of the seven competitions from 1957 to 1968), but for 28 years they’ve been passed over in favor of entries from Europe and Australia.
Emmi Roth USA’s Roth Grand Cru Surchoix, an Alpine-style cheese similar to Gruyère, was the cheese that finally broke America’s losing streak. It’s a firm product that’s aged for at least nine months to develop complex notes of mushroom, fruit, and caramel. The sample that was submitted for judging was aged for 14 months, and ultimately bested 2959 entries for the top honor. If you aren’t lucky enough to live in America’s cheese capital, you can order the decorated Wisconsin cheese for $13 from Walmart.
If they’re lucky, shoppers at the Tesco supermarket in Coventry, UK may be able to pick up some poetry in addition to their milk and eggs. The Coventry Telegraph reports that a mysterious visitor has left carefully selected poems around the store.
Two poems printed on plain paper have been discovered in the grocery store so far. The first, “Bread,” by modern American poet W.S. Merwin, was placed in the baked goods aisle. The opening stanza reads:
Each face in the street is a slice of bread
wandering on
searching
The second poem was “Deer” by another American poet, Kenneth Rexroth:
Deer are gentle and graceful
and they have beautiful eyes.
They hurt no one but themselves
[…]
Men have invented several
Thousand ways of killing them.
That poem was discovered in the meat section on top of some venison.
A verse-loving perpetrator has yet to come forward, but this may not be their first offense. In December 2016, notes telling customers that they “don’t need these chemicals” and to “stop counting calories! YOU LOOK GREAT” were found on boxes of diet products in the same grocery store.
Similar examples of poetry vigilantism have also been reported elsewhere in the UK. In 2015 an optimistic poem titled “Worst Day Ever?” appeared without explanation in a bar in North London, and around the same time someone calling himself “M Jones” or “composer Mark Jones” (coined by others “The Banksy of Poetry“) began sending romantic poems to hairdressers in Wales. Whether these incidents are somehow related or just examples of Britain’s love of poetry remains a mystery.
Despite an increased demand for avocados that has spurred price hikes and crime waves, it appears that consumers have yet to tire of the green stuff. According to Metro, the newest establishment looking to satisfy our relentless avocado cravings is an avocado-themed eatery opening in Amsterdam.
Simply titled The Avocado Show, owners Julien Zaal and Ron Simpson, and chef Jaimie van Heije, have vowed to incorporate the trendy ingredient into every dish they serve. The menu covers breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night eats, and it includes nutrient-packed offerings like avocado fries, avocado ice cream, avocado smoothies, and burgers served on avocado buns.
According to The Avocado Show’s Facebook page, the restaurant will open its doors in Amsterdam’s De Pijp neighborhood sometime in February 2017. If you can’t make it to Europe for a visit, you can always pay tribute by embracing a new trendy fruit this year—preferably one that’s not potentially on its way to extinction.
It wasn’t too long ago that loud-talkers and seat-kickers were the biggest annoyances moviegoers encountered at the cinema. Today they also have glowing blue smartphone screens to deal with. If you’re of the opinion that movie-goers shouldn’t be checking their Facebook likes during the show, you may not like this latest rumor surrounding the iPhone: As AppleInsider reports, the first beta release of iOS 10.3 may feature a “Theater mode.”
The rumor was recently shared on Twitter by a regular Apple tipster named Sonny Dickson. According to his tweets, the setting will be available through a “popcorn-shaped” icon in the Control Center when the software update is supposedly released on January 10.
Beyond that small detail, Dickson doesn’t specify what exactly theater mode entails. According to The Guardian people are speculating that it might be a quick way to silence notifications and dim the screen. But even if the setting is able to keep surrounding viewers from being disturbed, some theater purists still aren’t happy about the message it sends. Empire editor Terri White told The Guardian, “I find it absolute madness that anybody would want to do anything other than turn their phone off. You can’t fully give yourself over to a film and lose yourself in the moment, which is the amazing thing about cinema, if your phone’s buzzing on your thigh.”
Some patrons may want to keep their phones on in case of emergencies. But as Tom Philip of GQ points out, there are few scenarios that can’t wait 90 minutes to be taken care of. “Unless you are a high-ranking government official keeping track of a foreign coup or have a loved one in absolute, imminent danger, turn your phone off at the movies,” he writes. And even in those rare situations when checking a text can’t wait, nothing’s stopping theatergoers from stepping outside to do so.
If the rumors are true, Apple won’t be the only big name who’s picked a side in the phone off-or-on debate. Last April AMC Entertainment’s CEO floated the idea of allowing phone-friendly screenings for Millennials. The proposal was met with immediate backlash, and AMC dropped it soon after. As you can see from the tweets below, the reactions surrounding the new rumor aren’t any more positive this time around:
#TheaterMode
Um….mute and dim the screen? Yeah, I can do that on my Galaxy already…….Apple’s got a very low bar I guess. …
