The biggest digital store and the most popular game client in gaming isn’t enough for Valve. Last year, Steam announced the launch of their own operating system, controller and Steam-branded Steam Machine gaming PCs for the living room. Now, Steam is taking on Twitch with its latest project.
This week, Steam announced Steam Broadcasting, a new streaming service that will let you watch people play games in and through the Steam client.
We’re getting to that point in the year where posts are a little harder to come by. I try to plan posts a week or two ahead but that doesn’t mean that I’m always able to figure out all that I want to put on the blog ahead of time. For example, I know that there will be a video game review this week and one early next week. However, I’m missing a Thursday post in the mean time. I have to pull something together quickly.
Anyway, it’s time for the links. Let’s bring back old blog favourite Anna Kendrick.
Kathryn Borel talks about when the CBC ignored her when she told them about Jian Ghomeshi harassing her on the job. (The Guardian)
A little while back, we ran a link to a story about a rape and the rape culture at the University of Virginia. Here’s the story behind the story. (Washington Post)
A program in Tampa claims to help homeless people find jobs and get back into society, it looks like it’s all a front to make the program money. (Tampa Bay Times)
Every so often, we take a look at the most epic fails from the week that was in the Fails of the Week. This week, we have five pictures and videos that we think are the most epic fails of the week.
While the 2014 Formula One World Championship may have wrapped up last week, that doesn’t mean that work has finished for the teams of the Formula One World Championship. After the season finale, the teams stayed on for another couple of days to learn some last lessons from their 2014 cars and start work on 2015.
I think that I’ve mentioned it before but there are three linkdumps a year that are exceptionally difficult to do: The one following July 4th, the one of the two following Christmas because you can only run so many year-in-review links and this one following US Thanksgiving. We do have some links for you but not as many as usual.
However, to make up for the relative lack of links, here’s the return of an old favourite. It’s American model Rachel Mortenson.
With the recent protests in Ferguson and support protests in Toronto, we shouldn’t be settling for “we’re not as bad as them” as a positive for Canadian society. (Toronto Life)
It’s not just 18-year-olds or Ferguson that has to deal with police racism. A 12-year-old in Cleveland was shot for having an airsoft gun and the police are trying to justify it. (Gawker)
And I’m not the only person who thinks there a shift in the discourse about sexual assault. It looks like the Ghomeshi story has started making investigating sexual assaults a big deal. (MacLean’s)
Anyone that follows my writing over on etg. sister site The Lowdown Blog knows that I’m a racing fanatic. Two wheels, four wheels, even more wheels (European truck racing is surprisingly awesome), road courses, ovals, dirt, I can settle down and watch anything. So naturally, I had a lot of toy cars growing up and had a lot of toy car races.
This brings me to Toybox Turbos. While many people liken the game to a modernized callback to Codemasters’ Micro Machines, their first iconic racing game, I thought of Toybox Turbos to be just like the toy car races on the floor at home. But does a childhood call back, whether it’s to a video game or little plastic or die-cast cars, make a great game.
Today is Thanksgiving in America. Now, there are lots of reasons to be thankful for our neighbours to the south. There’s the day of football (even if the Lions are playing… though it’s occasionally generous to call my Lions a football team). There’s the big discounts on Black Friday that start today at some stores. And they once Rickrolled the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and I really wish something awesome like that would happen again.
As is our American Thanksgiving tradition from Lowdown Blog headquarters in Canada, here are 25 more of the great women of the United States.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a single week in which so many major stories have broken or had developments. Between the grand jury and subsequent protests/riots in Ferguson, Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby and the start of year-end lists, there is no shortage of interesting reads this week. It was a challenge to get it down to a manageable list for today’s links.
So let’s not waste any more time. Let’s start with Kate Beckinsale.
The Grand Jury hearing the case of Officer Darren Wilson, the man who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, declined to indict the police officer. It’s hard to believe considering the inconsistencies in Wilson’s story. (Vox)
And Grand Juries not approving indictments, the Grand Jury is often termed a prosecutor’s playground. It’s exceedingly rare for a Grand Jury not to indict but Robert McCulloch managed to pull that off in the biggest case of his career. (FiveThirtyEight)
Rape culture and the discourse around sexual assault is something that society is coming along on but is a far way from getting right. There is still a lot of troubling stigma over sexual assault. (Rolling Stone)
For the second time, the FIA’s new green motorsport took to the streets in an attempt to show that motorsport doesn’t have to be all loud noises and high-octane to be a spectacle.
After a so-so first outing that was only highlighted by a massive accident in the final turn, Formula E returned with a trip to the streets of Putrajaya, Malaysia, that saw battles throughout the field. Well, except at the front where Sam Bird absolutely dominated the day’s running to win his first ePrix.
Double points, regular points and no points. It doesn’t matter what the points on offer would have been in the final race of the 2014 Formula One World Championship because the result would have been the same. With an ERS failure crippling his car for the final half of the race, reliability was finally on Lewis Hamilton’s side as he scored the win and clinched the World Drivers’ Championship.
The Lowdown 