Balancing a competitive multiplayer game is not for the faint of heart. In this article I’ll define the terms that will let us know what we’re talking about in the first place, then in the second and third articles, I’ll pretend that we have some hope of solving the wicked problem of game balance…

Our Local Correspondents Hot 97’s turf wars. by Ben McGrath July 10, 2006 On the last Wednesday in April, a former drug dealer named Jamal Woolard, from the Lafayette Garden housing projects, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, was preparing for his big break. Woolard, whose hip-hop name is Gravy and whose songs…

Spring 2013 Forensic Topology Geoff Manaugh “Pressure” Maxwell (Edward G. Robinson) and Jug Martin (Broderick Crawford) get to work on a bank burglary in Larceny, Inc. (1942). In the 1990s, Los Angeles held the dubious title of “bank robbery capital of the world.” At its height, the city’s bank…

T here was a time, back when I was living in a small one bedroom apartment, that all I dreamt about was having more space (and time) to do music. Back then all I had was my MPC-2000, an 8-track recorder, a pair of studio monitors, and my record collection. It wasn’t much but I did a lot with it. The…

It was mid-April when Judge Paul Hunt’s office received the first call. The judge was at his desk inside the Presidio County courthouse, a pink stucco building with a mansard roof and cupola that sits at the end of Marfa’s Highland Avenue. His assistant answered the phone. On the line was a young…