Historical debates
FNN ceases operation in wake of hack attack, after 4-year run
Posted by GreenReaper on Fri 10 Apr 2015 - 13:29 Furry news aggregator Furry News Network has closed its doors – for now – after an attack which left the site replaced with a password entry form.
While the attack was "the final straw", health issues had limited the efforts of FNN founder Markos for some time, as he explained April 1:
Due to health issues, and a recent hacking attack, I have decided to end this version of Furry News Network. The site and its content has been archived. I've been considering this for several months, and the hack attempt that took the site off line March 30, 2015 was the final straw. I've really enjoyed working with members of the Furry community to bring the content to you. For those of you who don't know my history, I've had health issues for the past 14 years. I lost a kidney in 2001, had heart issues start in 2007 and was hospitalized with an auto-immune disorder in 2009. In 2014, I fell and broke my hip and have never fully recovered. I am now fighting stage 3 kidney disease and anemia. I need to deal with my health. I will sorely miss many of you and look forward to the day I can bring Furry News Network back. Thank you!
Comparison of furry website HTTPS configurations
Posted by Rakuen Growlithe on Tue 27 Jan 2015 - 06:30Security is necessary for one's own protection, both offline (to protect one's physical safety and possessions) and online (protecting identity, money and, as the our digital and real lives become more integrated, even physical possessions). Our own behaviours and security systems need to work together to be effective. It's no good having the latest burglar alarm, strong locks on your doors and a security gate if one leaves the door wide open. Similarly, it's great to lock the door each time one goes out - but if that door is secured solely by a latch, it won't be effective. As I've given some basic guidelines on how to stay safe online, I'm now comparing how furry sites are helping their users stay safe.
Update (Jan 28): All Weasyl servers now receive an A grade, however the server configuration is still not consistent.
'Alpha and Omega 3: The Great Wolf Games' - marks for effort, animation still needs work
Posted by Diamond Man on Wed 19 Mar 2014 - 14:46They're making these sequels fast; I think they've been working on them the past three years, ever since the first movie came out. Check out the trailer. [TheChriZ1995] The movie is in stores March 25; the Blu-ray & DVD edition is exclusive to Walmart and is currently offered for $18.96; it'll also be on iTunes for $14.99/$9.99 HD/SD.
While Alpha and Omega 2 had a very low quality, with a lack of shading and choppy animation, at least they tried to work on the issues for this one. It's a huge graphics upgrade from the second movie. Sadly the animation still needs work to be smooth like the first Alpha and Omega movie. Yet while the quality may not match up to the original, at least they are trying - I think it looks reasonable for what is essentially an extended TV show. For a company that isn't Pixar, they're doing a fairly good job at the moment.
I have a feeling some people on here may not like it, but this is for those who might want it, even if they never heard of it. It's great to have the fandom for this, though.
Animation: 'The Last Flight of the Champion'
Posted by Fred on Wed 28 Aug 2013 - 17:41I don’t quite believe this… Amid Amidi reports on the Cartoon Brew website that in just two days, The Last Flight of the Champion, a CGI theatrical feature that nobody (including him) ever heard of, will be released – in fifteen theaters across America.
Produced by Omnipulse Entertainment (who?), the 2’15” theatrical trailer makes this look like an embarrassingly bad ripoff of Star Wars: A New Hope, with funny animals replacing the Rebel Alliance and an anthro cricket in the Luke Skywalker role, against Darth Vader – sorry, General Disdain – and his Storm, er, Shock Troopers.
Like they say, I couldn’t make up anything like this. This trailer deserves a special place among the ranks of awesomely bad animated movies. Will the feature be any good? (Don't answer that…)
AAE seeks new logo for Further Confusion
Posted by GreenReaper on Sun 16 Jun 2013 - 02:01Organizers of Bay Area furry convention Further Confusion are looking to update its 16-year-old logo.
Entries should incorporate AAE's service mark, "FurCon", and must be "clean and easy to understand", look good in color and black and white, and be PG-rated. They should not use "specific critters or characters", and must be available in vector format.
Multiple entries may be submitted by 12AM PT, July 4; the winner will be picked by the end of July. The selected designer will receive a FC2014 patron membership and merchandise; there will also be five runner-up sponsor prizes. All six will be featured online and in the conbook.
Public response so far has not been positive, though a few artists seem interested. The submission deadline has been extended from June 14.
Update (14 Jul): The selection and announcement of winners has been pushed back to the next FC staff meeting (August 17).
Review: 'Carbonel, The King of the Cats', 'The Kingdom of Carbonel', and 'Carbonel and Calidor', by Barbara Sleigh
Posted by Fred on Wed 21 Nov 2012 - 19:49I usually select the books that I review on my own initiative, but this review of the Carbonel novels was suggested/inspired by Rakuen Growlithe. He asked, in a comment to my review of Windrusher and the Trail of Fire:
There were two cat books I read as a kid and found really good but I don't recall ever seeing someone in the fandom mention them, which I find a bit sad. Did you ever read either Carbonel or The Kingdom of Carbonel? They were about Carbonel, the king of the cats, his service to a witch, relationship with two children and, in the sequel, his kittens and authority?
I had read them over fifty years ago and remembered enjoying them. On investigating, I found that there was a third Carbonel novel that I had not known about; and that, after being out of print for decades, all three have been reprinted recently and are again available. Fortunately, the Los Angeles Public Library and the County of Los Angeles Public Library between them have all three, so I did not have to buy copies.
I have enjoyed rereading the first two, and reading the third for the first time, very much. Thank you, Rakuen, for reminding me of them. (By the way, do you remember whether you read the British edition, the American edition, or was there a separate South African edition?)
Survey: Foreign Furry novels
Posted by Fred on Sat 20 Oct 2012 - 21:52I recently had an article, “The Furry Novel That Nobody Has Read”, published in Anthro #32, November-December 2011. It is about the Dutch About Reynard the Fox (Van de vos Reynarde), by Robert van Genechten, published in 1941. The reason that I had not read it is that it was only published in Dutch, which I do not read. (Yes, I once had a copy.) The reason I said that nobody else has read it is that it is a very anti-Semitic pro-Nazi talking-animal satire that equates rhinoceroses with Jews. There was never an English-language edition, and due to modern anti-Hate literature laws in America and most Western European nations, it could not be reprinted or translated today. (Correction: at least one modern Dutch neo-Nazi group is trying to keep the 1941 Dutch edition available.)
But what about other, modern Furry novels in foreign languages that have never had English-language translations? They certainly exist, and Furry fans in France, Germany and other nations can read them in their own countries; and they theoretically could be translated into English some day. What have we English-language readers been missing?
Weasyl goes up, then down again over "obvious issues"
Posted by GreenReaper on Tue 2 Oct 2012 - 06:51New art site Weasyl has been taken down after just a day online, while developers "work on some obvious issues".
The site's support forum has been flooded with threads reporting a variety of issues and feature requests.
More seriously, some are already probing for vulnerabilities, though at least one has been reported responsibly.
Weasyl appears to be hand-coded, raising the spectre of security holes, although past experience may have been enough to encourage the use of basic precautions.
Update (8 Oct): Weasyl is back, with a laundry list of fixes.
Opinion: Do rabbits need a reason?
Posted by crossaffliction on Mon 3 Sep 2012 - 21:53In my review of fluffy’s Unity Book 1: Ascent, I mentioned in the first line that I was dubious about furry science fiction. I gave that book a positive review, despite it being furry science fiction, because it was good science fiction. In concluding my opinion piece on furry criticism, I added as an afterthought that I am also dubious about the value of furry prose.
In both cases, Phil Geusz seemed to take these assertions as personal challenges. To the furry criticism piece, he suggested I try Watership Down, a book I was – to put it mildly – already familiar with. As readers had given me plenty more suggestions about what I could spend my spare time with that were not as friendly, I did not give it much thought.
But Geusz was more effective with his response to the Ascent review, offering up one of his own books in defense of the idea. I immediately plumped for another rabbit book, The First Book of Lapism, based on an earlier review by Fred Patten.
I chose this book for a variety of reasons, but the main one is the basis for this piece. Geusz’s story about a rabbit based religion is another good piece of furry science fiction, and it illustrates a need for “justification” in furry writing.
'True Life' still keen to film furs, but Brits want therians
Posted by GreenReaper on Wed 23 May 2012 - 21:28Since we last covered MTV's True Life, the show has taken footage of several furs, but is seeking more. From an email:
This is a docu-series to chronicle the real life of a Furry. We have no intention of showing Furries in a negative light but instead hope to dispel some of the media myths out there about them.
The renewed casting call was recieved with scepticism on the furrymedia LJ community.
Meanwhile, UK-based Zig Zag Productions (whose shows are often "factual entertainment") hopes to contact a more rarified group – therians and otherkin.