Month: July 2016

Texas Congressman Lamar Smith has had an eventful run as chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology so far. And his most colorful highlights revolve around climate science. Smith, who rejects the central conclusions of climate scientists, has been demanding the e-mails of NOAA scientists, whom he has accused of manipulating data for a 2015 study published in the journal Science, even though that work is publicly available, independently replicated, and scientifically uncontroversial.

Recently, he has turned his focus to several state attorneys general who are pursuing investigations of Exxon Mobil. Some recent media reports revealed that Exxon’s own climate research in the 1970s and '80s concluded that climate change was human-caused. But the company later reversed course and campaigned to block any climate policies. Several investigations are now looking at whether, in doing so, Exxon mislead its shareholders. The investigations are modeled after the cases brought against tobacco companies in the 1990s.

In May, Smith subpoenaed 17 attorneys general and 8 environmental groups for any communications related to these investigations, describing them as “a coordinated attempt to attack the First Amendment rights of American citizens”.

Enlarge / This handy graphic breaks down the times and games of Evo, and tells you which Twitch channel is covering what.

Fighting game competitors and fans from around the globe are gathering this weekend in Las Vegas for the Evolution Championship Series (more commonly known as Evo), the world's largest fighting game event. We detailed exactly what attending Evo is like back in 2013. This year, the tournament features the following nine games, with the number of player entries noted after each game:

Street Fighter V (5107)
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (782)
Mortal Kombat X (713)
Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator (910)
Pokkén Tournament (1180)
Killer Instinct (546)
Super Smash Bros. Melee (2372)
Super Smash Bros. for WiiU (2662)
Tekken 7: Fated Retribution (549)

There's something for everyone, from the more casual and accessible games like Smash Bros. and Pokkén Tournament, to the more hardcore stylings of anime fighter Guilty Gear Xrd and arcade-only Tekken 7: Fated Retribution, but Street Fighter V is the big story, with registration more than doubling last year's entries for Street Fighter IV.

Columbia Pictures

Ecto-1, back in action.

9 more images in gallery

The original Ghostbusters came out around the same time as Real Genius, Weird Science, and Revenge of the Nerds. Those ‘80s films happened to share a theme: geek underdogs triumph over bullies and idiots while inventing bizarre contraptions. In 2016, of course, geeks who started a small tech company in a tiny loft space would be showered with venture capital rather than scorn.

So it's a good thing that the new Ghostbusters film remixes the idea of geeks in tan jumpsuits hunting down poltergeists. Rather than try to recapture the exact glory of the original Ghostbusters, this new movie reflects how geek culture—and our relationship with the paranormal—has changed. That in turn is what makes it worthy to bear the name Ghostbusters.

I'll admit that I was apprehensive about the idea of a new Ghostbusters film. It's a "reboot" of one of the all-time great science fiction/fantasy comedies, up there with Back to the Future, so it had a lot to live up to. The trailers didn't look great, and I know I’m not the only one fatigued by Hollywood's compulsion to remake everything, from RoboCop to Total Recall. Plus Spy, the previous collaboration between Ghostbusters director Paul Feig and star Melissa McCarthy, didn't wow me, even though I liked their other films, Bridesmaids and The Heat.