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Watch SpaceX blow up a lot of rockets while trying to land them
During the early days of SpaceX's rocket landing attempts failure was definitely an option, so instead getting depressed, Elon Musk embraced it. Knowing that everyone loves a good (harmless) explosion, he just released a full-on fail highlight reel of the early attempts, set to the Monty Python theme and accompanied by Arnold-like quips. "It's just a scratch," he said, after one booster was deliberately blown to pieces due to an engine sensor failure.
Massively Speaking 278: Bloopers, outtakes, and tomfoolery
It's the final Massively Speaking podcast of the year! We've been diligently collecting bloopers, outtakes, and general tomfoolery from our past shows, and now we've assembled them all for a hilarious stream of weirdness and non sequiturs. Laugh with us and at us (mostly the latter), and we'll see you all in 2014! Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot an email to podcast@massively.com. We may just read your email on the air! Get the podcast: [RSS] Add Massively Speaking to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. [iTunes] Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. [Stitcher] Follow the podcast on Stitcher Radio. Listen here on the page: Read below the cut for the full show notes.
The Daily Grind: Has a cash shop ever killed a game for you?
Oh, Allods Online. You could cure cancer, end poverty, and kick off another green revolution, but some people would still hate you. It's not fair, really. You're beautiful. You have neat Russian steampunk elements and elves and gibberlings and bards and really great hair. You have freakin' dirigibles as player housing. But none of that matters because of your cash shop -- specifically, the extremely high prices in your cash shop when you launched compared to the prices charged by the rest of the industry. Players found that cash shop (and the subsequent holy charms bait-and-switch) greedy and unforgivable. We're reminded of this every time we post something innocent about the game and inadvertently cause our commenters to spasm with angry mourning, even when the original complaints have long been addressed. Gamers just don't forget these things. They won't give Allods another chance because of the initial sting of the microtransactions. So when has a cash shop killed a game for you? Is there anything that game could do to win you back, or is your grudge eternal? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Quadrocopters: blooper reel edition
We have a gut feeling this is the video that'll be playing when 'the hive' takes over -- a sentimental, 'look how far we've come' victory reel for the Quadrotor nation. But for now, let's just keep the focus on the softer side of our future nemesis' training-room foibles. Playing like an über-geek version of America's Funniest Home Videos, we admit we cracked a smile watching these insect-like bots from the University of Pennsylvania's GRASP Lab take a few hard knocks in the humility ring. Fear of the swarm aside, it's a humorous twist on an otherwise droning research project. The take away? Schadenfreude -- it's not just for humans. [Thanks, Daniel]
Mario Kart symbols appear on bike lanes in Portland, Ore.
Some wily vandal in Portland, Oregon has painted Mario Kart symbols into the pavement there on one of the city's bike lanes. You can see them in action in this video (also embedded after the break). Unfortunately, the bananas, star and speed arrows don't actually confer the same powers they do in the game, but we did smirk to see that all of the bikers do faithfully avoid the banana peel, and hit the rest of the symbols head on. You can even wring some unintentional hilarity from the dry-as-a-Dry Bones explanation of what each powerup does by the KATU anchor. That's right, Carl Click! You might have read that script just fine, but admit it: You don't know a Red Shell from a Blooper.
If you've been waiting for a Blooper hoodie, today's your lucky day
We've seen enough clothing branded with 1-up mushrooms to last us several lifetimes (which is sort of ironic), but other items in lastactioncowboy's new line-up of Nintendo clothing feature characters that haven't been so drastically overused. We've not seen too many Blooper hoodies, for example, while Bob-omb underwear is a new one to us.Admittedly, probably none of this stuff is as effortlessly cool or obscure as those Sega-themed t-shirts from The King of Games, but then it's also not as horrendously pricey -- just $40 for a hoodie, or $18 per piece of underwear.%Gallery-21841%[Via That Girl's Site]
Cozy up with Blooper
We're not exactly sure where each of you would place cushions on a list of life's essentials -- they're right next to DS games ending with 'z' on our list -- but if you are a lover of cushions (and some of us live with such people), you may as well be a lover of totally awesome cushions.That's where Etsy member punzie can help out, because she's crafted a (currently very small) range of $20 Nintendo cushions, including the charming teal Blooper design you see above. While there's only three to choose from right now, she does take requests -- we're half-thinking about asking for a Kuribo's Shoe cushion to call our own. Sit yourself down in your cold, hard, unpadded chair and hit the break for a couple more examples of her work.
