Giant Difference Search Results

News: 9 Easy Exploits to Raise Combat Skills in Skyrim

Skyrim is an enormous RPG recently released by Bethesda. After many long years of waiting (I had 1000's of hours clocked into its predecessor, Oblivion, way back in 8th grade) the game is finally out and it surpasses everyone's expectations—save for removing custom spell crafting... Why, Bethesda?

News: Complete Your Degree as a Nurse Online with Kaplan University's Nurse Practiti

A degree in nursing from Kaplan University addresses the challenges and scenarios real nurses work through on a daily basis. Kaplan University’s Master of Science in Nursing (MSN program) is based on relevant material to help ensure our students are prepared for their careers. Our online nursing degrees are based on flexible coursework; students enrolled in the Kaplan University School of Nursing program are already nurses and there is no easier way to cater to the ever-changing schedule of a...

News: BioShock's Libertarian 'Rapture' of the Deep Evolves into Real-Life Seastead Cities

BioShock is one of the best games of all time. It combines FPS gameplay with RPG storytelling and supports multiple systems better than any other game, that much is for sure. And the setting of its amazing story is a place called Rapture, a high-tech libertarian colony at the bottom of the Atlantic built by Andrew Ryan, a greying industrialist clearly inspired by John Galt and his creator Ayn Rand, the mother of Objectivism and modern American libertarianism in general. Ryan is a Soviet exile...

Photoshop Project: How to Use Layers Creatively

Difficulty Level: Moderate Photoshop Skills Photoshop isn't just for zapping zits and adding freaky colors to sunset pictures! You can use it for fun, altered-reality pictures, too. If you have a tripod and some friends, you can combine many exposures as separate layers and using layer masks, make one super cool image from many slightly cool images.

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: Is the Metascore Algorithm for Rating Video Games B.S.?

Guiding internet users to useful content is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world. This process is called aggregation. Google and other search engines form the top of the food chain, aggregating all of the content on the web in response to queries. There are all sorts of other important aggregators though, and you probably use at least one every day: Fark and Reddit for web content, Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews, and Metacritic for a variety of media, but most importantly, vid...

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...

How To: Win at QuiBids Auctions—Which Might Just Mean Stay Away

If you're looking to acquire the newest iPod model or latest Xbox without breaking the bank, your first stop would probably be eBay, maybe even the Amazon Marketplace, or any of the other reputable online marketplaces and auction sites. But you probably haven't hit up the penny auctions yet, and that could be a good thing, depending on how you go about it.

How To: Get Healthy Skin in 3 Easy Steps

You can get healthier looking skin in just three easy steps! Sarah shows you how... Cleanse For morning, Use an electronic facial cleansing brush; it will make a huge difference in your skin. It helps circulation and removes old makeup and dirt and can be used in the shower. For evening, use facial cleansing cloths.

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: Connect a Bluetooth Mouse and Keyboard to your iPad (or iPhone)!

After years of being a PC technician and Windows System administrator, I had the blind hatred for Apple that I thought I was suppose to have. I swore that I'd never even touch an iPod, let alone buy an Apple product. But I found a new career that drug me out of the Windows server/PC tech room dungeon, and into the bright modern office of a web development firm. Then it happened. After a couple weeks with all this Apple stuff around me, my love for gadgets and (closet) Apple curiosity got the ...

How To: An Entry Level Guide to Finding and Reading Logs (And Maybe Staying Out of Jail)

Big brother is watching when you're playing around on another system—and big brother is that system. Everything from operating systems to intrusion detection systems to database services are maintaining logs. Sometimes, these are error logs that can show attackers trying various SQL injection vectors over and over. This is especially so if they are using an automated framework like sqlmap that can spam a ton of requests in a short time. More often than not, the access logs are what most amate...

News: Lightweight Programs You Should Use for a Faster Linux

Some people are what is labeled a power user. I am one of these people. No matter how fast I get my system, or how quick of programs I have, it is never good enough. There is always at least one program that I could swap out for a more advanced, text-based counterpart that increases performance just a bit. Luckily, you don't have to use text-based programs without graphical user interfaces to get blazing fast speeds on Linux. There are tons of open source alternatives to the mainstream progra...

Chess: The Ultimate PvP On-the-Go

Sitting in the dentist’s waiting room, I found I couldn’t browse the internet on my smartphone anymore. My eyes were tired from reading and there were no headphones to listen to music. There are no magazines at this dentist’s office, just an old TV playing Russian music videos ad nauseam. Mostly female Russian singers, and curiously enough they all shared similar traits: they can’t dance. They look gorgeous, but the best they could do is small movements and two slow moves at best- a huge diff...

News: The Best 6 Places to Buy Used Camera Equipment Online

Camera manufacturers release new versions of the same cameras, mostly point-and-shoot models, as frequently as Detroit's auto industry upgrades minivans. They also add new lenses regularly, upgrading previous models with adjusted zoom ranges or the image stabilization feature. The same goes for tripods, portable flashes and even camera bags.

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.

How To: Improve Your Vertical Jump

The vertical jump is an important part of many sports, including basketball, volleyball, track & field, football, and many more. For this reason, it is important to learn how to improve vertical jump as it will provide several advantages in the different sports.