Tag: childhood

A fascinating graphic novel about the origins of Dungeons & Dragons

Almost 10 years ago, journalist David Kushner had a chance to interview Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the two creators of Dungeons & Dragons , before they died. Kushner’s reporting became a story for Wired , and now he’s expanded the scope of his tale into a graphic novel. Rise of the Dungeon Master , beautifully illustrated by Koren Shadmi, is both a moving portrait of two creative outsiders and a chronicle of how a new kind of storytelling changed pop culture forever. Kushner recounts the story of Gygax and Arneson in the second person, addressing the reader as if Kushner were the dungeon master. “You” are young Gygax, the child of immigrants growing up in the midwest, seeking escape from ordinary life by exploring the wilderness, hunting, and eventually learning to break into an old, abandoned asylum. The narrative technique sounds gimmicky, but it works: you’re sucked into the story and into immediate sympathy with Gygax as he traces his fascination with adventure games back to his childhood, when he climbed around in the maze of tunnels below the creepy asylum’s rotting rooms. Nation Books Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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A fascinating graphic novel about the origins of Dungeons & Dragons

Brains can recover some ‘lost’ memories

For the longest while, researchers believed that you could only preserve a memory in your brain if the relevant neurons were active. However, it now looks like this isn’t always the case — and that could be a tremendous help to anyone suffering from short-term memory loss. Scientists have discovered that small jolts of electricity to the brain (specifically, a pulse of transcranial magnetic stimulation) can revive recent memories. Your mind can slow near-term memories down to a dormant state where they’re in the background, but remain ready to come back when necessary. You can’t apply this method to long-term memories (you likely need different techniques for that), so don’t expect to revisit your childhood with a zap to your head. However, the findings should improve our understanding of how the brain works — it’s already clear that memory is more complex than we thought. And in the long run, there’s a chance this could lead to treatments for Alzheimer’s and other conditions where regaining short-term memories could greatly improve a patient’s quality of life. Via: Motherboard Source: Science

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Brains can recover some ‘lost’ memories

Comic books come to VR through an app

You may have felt immersed in a comic book before, but never quite so literally as this. Madefire has released a free Gear VR preview app that lets you read its Motion Books in virtual reality. As you might guess, it’s all about depth. Pages now fill your view, and creators can add 3D layers to individual panels. While it’s not real 3D (your childhood dreams of exploring comic universes will have to wait), it beats staring at completely flat pictures on a PC or tablet. You’ll initially get just a smattering of sample comics to read (such as Injustice: Year One and Madefire’s own Mono: The Old Curiosity Shop ), but Madefire hopes to add some level of VR support to its entire 10, 000-plus comic catalog by the holidays. Are you going to regularly read comics with a headset from now on? Probably not, especially since Madefire’s library only represents a slice of the comic book world. However, it’s a good example of how VR can boost an ordinary reading experience. Via: TechCrunch , Android Community Source: Oculus , Marketwired

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Comic books come to VR through an app