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Making Electromagnetic Weapons: EMP Generator, Part One

In this series, I'll be exploring electromagnetic weapons, how to build them, their function and application to the future, and the amazing possibilities electromagnetism has to offer. First, the electromagnetic pulse generator, or EMP. You've probably heard of these before, and their devastating effects on electronics. A simple EMP consists of a capacitor, transformer, trigger, and coil of copper wire. This, when triggered, would produce an intense magnetic field for a brief period, similar ...

News: Friday Indie Game Review Roundup: Arcade Games Are Dead

If you're between the ages of 20 and 40, then video arcades probably hold a special place in your heart. Whether you all but lived in one (me), wished you could, or detested those with a liking for them, there's no denying that arcades were a ubiquitous part of American culture. They were everywhere, from big chains to little mom-and-pops, housing better systems than gamers had at home and with all the best games and newest titles.

News: Is Google+ More of a Threat to Twitter than Facebook?

Much of the press around the launch of Google+ has pitted it squarely against Facebook. This was highlighted painfully for Facebook with their (misguidedly dubbed) "awesome" announcements yesterday. Their launch of a new design, video calling, and group chat might have been exciting, had not Google announced its Hangout feature for Google+ a week earlier (and by the way, introduced their own 1-on-1 video calling inside of Gmail way back in 2008). Hangouts took video calling a step further and...

News: Minecraft, Meet Terraria

Minecraft was first released just a few years ago, but when a paradigm-shifting piece of media comes along the rest of the world is quick to take inspiration from it. The absolutely terrible XBLA knock-off FortressCraft was the first, and last month a much more interesting game called Terraria came out on Steam for $9.99. It is clearly inspired by Minecraft, and there is a long checklist of identical features. It is, nonetheless, a very different product, and just might be called the first in...

News: Are You Noob-Positive or Noob-Negative?

noob - Short for "newbie." Someone with little to no experience or skill. In some gaming communities, there is fierce debate over the distinction between "noob" and "newb"—one being derogatory while the other simply indicates being a novice. While some may argue the semantic differences, "noob" is the most common spelling seen around the internet, for both purposes.

News: Opening game in 3D. First impressions.

I've been curious to watch one of these famed '3D' games for a while now. Last April at NAB, I attended several 3D panels and folks from ESPN suggested that one of the strongest experiences that would bring 3D into the home would be live sports. I've missed opportunities to watch the PGA Masters broacasts, and NCAA games, but being a hardcore Soccer (Futbol) fan, I've been most excited about this possibility. It did not disappoint, but not without some concessions. I will be as detailed as po...

Tor vs. I2P: The Great Onion Debate

In my recent Darknet series, I attempted to connect the dots on the Deep Web. I covered the two largest anonymity networks on the Internet today, Tor and I2P. While my initial four articles were meant as an introduction, I ended up receiving a lot of interesting comments and messages asking the technical differences between the two. I'd like to thank all of you for letting me know what was on your minds, as you should always!

News: Bastion Joins the Pantheon of All-Time Great Downloadable Games

If you follow indie games at all, you've probably heard of Bastion. During its development, it took home numerous Best in Show prizes from E3 and other game conventions while building up an incredible amount of buzz in the games press. Part of what is intriguing about Bastion is its cool art design, which in the last couple months, peaked my interest more so than the gameplay or the much-ballyhooed narration.

Turning Letters into Pesticide: Killing Mechanical Bugs in Clockwords, Act 1

I love SCRABBLE, but sometimes it's hard to find an opponent who'll play a classic, tournament style game in person. Don't get me wrong—I play on the computer and iPhone all of the time, but it's just not the same as an in-person match. This leads me to stray every now and then, checking out new word-friendly games with a fast pace and interesting twist. And the most recent one was nothing like SCRABBLE, and I don't mean that in a bad way.

How To: Create Realistic 3D Shadows

Setting up shadows takes just as much time and attention as setting up lights. You can think of all of your illumination as one half of your lighting design, and shadows as the other, equally important half. Shadows can add richness to the tones and shading of your image, tie elements together, and improve your composition. Besides their artistic importance, rendering shadows is a key technical area to master. This chapter will explore both the visual and the technical sides of shadows and oc...

See Jane Pwn: A Primer for Internet Slang

Making your way into an online community can be really exciting. Some life-long friendships and lasting romances begin in humble chat rooms and message boards. But for the novice internet user, one of the biggest hurdles can be trying to figure out just what people are saying to one another.

Get Into the Kit Business: How to Build and Sell Your Own Arduino Shields

The DIY industry is booming, despite the desperate blackmailing of society by finance capitalists. Companies like Adafruit and Makerbot are grossing well over a million dollars a year, and Evil Mad Science Laboratories just recently dedicated themselves to running a full-time kit business. Making kits is fun, but starting a business can be scary. If you already enjoy making gadgets and want to take the plunge into selling your own kits online, this article is for you.

How To: Set Up Auto-Scheduled Backups to Avoid Data Loss on Any OS

Backing up your files is a requirement in today's world of tech. In an instant, your storage device can fail. This is an unacceptable situation that should never happen to anyone. Storage is cheap, and backups are easier than ever to perform. Most of the time, this can be completely automated, so you can just set it and forget it. Today, Null Byte will be covering how we can automatically, and efficiently back up our data across all OS platforms, while giving a few alternatives to the built-i...

How To: Score Big with Simple 2-Letter Words in Scrabble

No matter what word game you're playing, whether it's Scrabble or one of its near-homogeneous counterparts like Lexulous, Wordfeud or Words with Friends, one of the easiest ways to stay on top of your opponent is knowing all of the legal two-letter words you can play. You're not going to win by only playing two-letter words, but there are definitely occasions when the game could slip from your hands by not playing them.

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