Month: August 2016

It is difficult to know where to begin with the historic flooding in Louisiana during the past week. There is the sheer volume of water itself—based on rainfall accumulations, an estimated 4 trillion gallons of rain fell across southern Louisiana from the middle of Thursday through Saturday morning. That is roughly the same amount of water discharged by the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico over the course of 80 days.

The rains hit hardest just to the east of Baton Rouge in Livingston Parish, which straddles Interstate 12 and is home to about 130,000 people. Some state officials have estimated that as many as 70 percent of the homes and businesses in this parish—more than 30,000 homes—were flooded. Across the state, officials say as many as 80,000 structures may have flooded. Some 20,000 people had to be rescued from flooded homes and vehicles. Very early damage estimates pegged the storm at $1 billion to $2 billion. At least seven people have died.

Area roadways were also hit extremely hard. The state's Department of Transportation and Development estimates that 30 state roads were washed out, and thousands of miles of state roads were under water as water levels rose on Sunday. Some 1,400 bridges will need to be inspected, as well. From Saturday through Monday large chunks of Interstate 10 and 12, which cross the southern tier of Louisiana, were closed due to floodwaters. As of Tuesday morning, parts of Interstate 10 remained closed due to flooding.

Get a sneak peek at one whole hour of Final Fantasy 15 from the very beginning of the game. Naturally, the video contains some spoilers. The text below is spoiler-free. (video link)

COLOGNE, Germany—It finally happened, a decade's worth of expectation fulfilled with a simple push of a button. Though I still can't quite believe it (and a recent delay hasn't helped) Final Fantasy XV, a game that's taken on near mythical status alongside the likes of The Last Guardian, Beyond Good and Evil 2, and Half Life 3, is finally being released on November 29—and I've already played it.

Selecting "New Game" has never been quite as satisfying before.

Amazon is pushing its Original Series shows out to more outlets, this time for free. The company announced it will upload full pilot episodes of ten original shows on social media sites including YouTube and Facebook, free for anyone to watch.

According to a Broadcasting and Cable report, Amazon will share the pilots for five primetime shows (including Bosch, The Man in the High Castle, and Transparent) and five kids shows (including Tumble Leaf and Wishenpoof!) on its YouTube channel and Facebook page. Currently only Amazon Prime members have access to these shows in their entirety, so this its the first time non-Prime customers can watch these episodes for free. All ten episodes have already been uploaded to Amazon's YouTube channel.

Until now, these social media accounts have been used to show teasers and trailers for new Original Series content. It's likely that Amazon is trying to encourage new customers to sign up for Prime by giving them a sneak peek into its Video service. In addition to free two-day shipping, one of the perks of Amazon Prime is free, full access to Amazon Prime Video, which includes original content from Amazon as well as many other movies and TV shows.