Friday's Community Byte was weird. The intent was to do a HackThisSite mission, but upon time to begin, everyone in there was programming without my assistance, with the help of Sol Gates. This is great! It's really awesome that everyone enjoys programming that much and will make the effort to learn even when I am not present. So, a tip of my hat to Mr. Sol Gates and the rest of you fine people.
In these weekly Scrabble Challenges, so far we've covered two-letter words, double bingos, high scoring moves, triple-triples, last moves, parallel plays, phoneys and opening moves. For this week's puzzle, we're revisiting the strategy for opening moves.
A phoney word in a game of Scrabble is basically a non-valid word, either played or considered being played. Why? To fool the other player and go from losing to winning. It's perfectly acceptable in Scrabble play, but only if you don't get caught. If the other player challenges your play, then you'll be forced to remove it and your turn will be skipped. That right there—not fun.
Bourbon is the ultimate American spirit, considering the barrel-aged distilled spirit was originally produced in an area known as Bourbon County, Kentucky. To meet the legal definition of bourbon, it must be produced in the United States, must be created with at least 51% corn, and aged in new oak barrels. There are two types of bourbon whiskeys—straight and blended. Straight bourbon means that the bourbon has been aged for a minimum of 2 years, and has no other coloring or flavoring added. B...
Advancements in technology usually lead to the miniaturization of old technologies, and video games are no exception. Since at least 1990, game hardware manufacturers and enterprising DIY electronics enthusiasts have poured their efforts into making full-size video game consoles smaller, even handheld. And for good reason—who would have ever played a black and white Game Boy if they could have had an actual NES in their pocket?
Giveaway Tuesdays has officially ended! But don't sweat it, WonderHowTo has another World that's taken its place. Every Tuesday, Phone Snap! invites you to show off your cell phone photography skills.
Do you remember when video games came on tiny chips in plastic cartridges? When the CD and 3D graphics just meant ugly games with long load times? Before epic cinematics, spoken dialog, or cordless controllers? Do you still have all of your old games and lament that the consoles, cords, and controllers required to play them have either been stolen by exes or broken while moving apartments?
West LA Seido Karate-do embeds its personal protection program into its on-going classes. Private instruction in this aspect of Seido can also be arranged with Kyoshi on an individual basis.
Hi OLers read the following article to gain some great insight into the mischevious advertising ways of food labels. Thanks to the New York Times for this great article below. Happy Eating6 Meaningless Claims on Food LabelsAlthough food labels are supposed to tell us exactly what’s in the food we’re buying, marketers have created a language all their own to make foods sound more healthful than they really are.Today’s “Consumer Ally” column on AOL’s WalletPop site explores misleading food-labe...
April NPD Video Game Sales Every month around the second thursday the sales chart for video games and consoles are released for the previous month. They are released by the NPD group, the main company tracking video games sales in the US. Here are the top twenty games in the month of april (courtesy of Gamasutra http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=28566 ):
On its quest for online domination, Amazon.com continues to expand past its basic web marketplace to fulfill the needs of everyone and anyone with a little cash to spend.
According to Amazon.com, Kindle was their best-selling item this year, which means many, if not all of you are playing with a brand new Kindle on Christmas Day. Of all of Amazon's Kindle models, the Kindle 3 (6") will be the most common eReader in everyone's hands, either the Wi-Fi version or the 3G model.
This how-to is aimed at the uncynical, bright-eyed outsider who wants to become a television producer…the talented person who believes he or she has the ‘it’ to crack Hollywood. The ‘Sammy’ who just arrived in 90210.
In the first part we differentiated the two types of control, mental and physical. In part 2 we will dig deeper into Physical crowd control and analyze examples that are present today.
Hello and welcome to another InfoSecurity World tutorial. The intent of this article is to teach one how to encrypt sensitive files. When set up correctly with a strong password, it would be almost impossible to hack. Even the FBI have had issues decrypting this software. I'm here to teach you how to create a general encrypted container—not the complex hidden TrueCrypt volume.
Bluffing is one of the key components of poker. You may have a horrible hand, but if you can play it cool and raise the bet, you might just be able to convince your opponents otherwise and induce a few folds. But if you can't handle a little subterfuge, then you shouldn't be playing the game. Even the slightest tell could give you away. You have to maintain a poker face, no matter what.
WonderHowTo is made up niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects.
WonderHowTo is made up niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects.
It's a question I've been pondering a lot lately. Technically, children under the age of 13 are not allowed to join Facebook. But according to a Consumer Reports in May, 7.5 million children 12 and younger are already on the site. Currently, federal law prohibits websites from collecting personal data from children without parental permission. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, as it is more commonly known, has been in effect since 1998, but has not been updated since.
There's only a few week left until costumes and candy take over the streets, which means they'll be more and more seven-letter words in the Scrabble Bingo of the Days that relate to the Fall season, horror movies, and of course… Halloween. Below you'll find bingo words relevant such films as Halloween, Children of the Corn and The Wicker Man.
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...
If you've been reading, watching or listening to the news, you sure know about the Trayvon Martin case. If you visit this site often, you may also have noticed that I've not put up any news on this case. I have my reasons. And this post will describe why.
We’ve all been there before. Relentlessly refreshing Ticketmaster and filling in those CAPTCHA codes only to receive the miserable “No tickets are available at this time” message. That’s because ticket brokers with a dozen screens and God knows how many browsers snatch up anything and everything.
Math Craft admin Cory Poole provided quite a few recipes for sonobe models in his blog, and I followed one to make the pentakis dodecahedron here.
ZEPHYRS n sing. ZEPHYR gentle breezes 74 points (24 points without the bingo)
Video capture... how does it work? Apparently, I have no idea. What I thought would be a simple undertaking turned out to be a slow and annoying pain. I just wanted to capture video in high definition and to lessen the time it takes to setup, record, and upload the video.
Are you interested in selling your products at the local Farmers Markets? Many small mom and pop food crafters get started selling their artisan breads, homemade cakes, cookies, pies, biscotti, candy, seasoning mixes or regional barbecue sauces direct to customers who visit local farmers markets and farm stands. What better way to start than with those visiting the local farmers market; a captive audience expecting a wide variety of seasonal fruits and veggies; along with specialty products t...
By Ethical Traveler As the world becomes ever more interconnected, being an ethical traveler becomes both easier and more urgent. Travelers today have access to far more information than we did even 10 years ago. We can observe–almost in real time–the impact that smart or selfish choices, by governments and individuals, have on rainforests and reefs, cultures and communities.
Google's much anticipated eBook Store has finally opened. As of today, the digital bookselling enterprise is awaiting your needs, with over 3 million eBooks to read directly on the web or on other platforms, like Android, iPhone, iPad, Sony and Nook devices.
Technology: The Less You Know the Better?
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 ...
Minecraft is unique among computer games in that some users have created such breathtaking works of beauty and ingenuity that it challenges the very idea that Minecraft is even a game at all, but suggests that it is instead a tool for artistic expression much like Photoshop.
The community here on Null Byte has always been great and helpful in sharing their know-how, even before I took up admin duties in this World. I jumped at the chance of leading Null Byte because I enjoy teaching and informing people on all of the important need-to-know things out there, but more so than that—there is a deeper reason.
The developer community has already made some incredibly quick progress on implementing assemblers, interpreters, and emulators for the proposed virtual computer in 0x10c, Notch's latest game. But the truth is that the majority of programmers out there couldn't be bothered with spending enormous amounts of time writing anything much more complicated than a "hello world" application in assembly. What's on the top of everybody's mind is creating a compiler for a more widely used language.
In the age of automatic video editors and all around software-assisted creativity, how can a humble blogger help people master a program if said program does all the work for you?
I've been unreasonably excited about Dungeon Defenders (NOT DUNGEON DEFENDER!) for almost a year. Playing it at PAX did nothing to damper that enthusiasm. I had a chance this week to speak with co-founder/development director Jeremy Stieglitz and marketing diretor Philip Asher from Gainesville, Florida based developer Trendy Entertainment to find out a little more about the game, and how it came together.
One of the reasons I love living here in Northern Chile is the great variety of personalities represented in the people who live here. Truly, the culture we enjoy in Northern Chile is as diverse as the history of this region, and by reason of Zofri and the multinational customers it serves, we enjoy a variety of cultures from all over the world. I love the people of Northern Chile. They make me smile. I met an Iquiqueno during my first week in Iquique years ago who had that effect on me. As I...
Three years ago, Scrabble was one of the very first 500 mobile applications to appear on the new iTunes App Store, allowing iPhone users the chance to kill their Scrabble cravings on the go. It was a smart move for Hasbro and Electronic Arts (EA), but it's been two years and eight months since the Android Market opened for business, and they've just now released an official app for Android smartphones—Scrabble Free.
The relationship between developers and publishers in the video game industry has always been awkward. Many great game developers such as Bizzare Creations, Clover Studio, and Bullfrog Productions have been disbanded due to corporate shenanigans involving their publishers and owners. The indie game movement has risen largely as a response to this.
In 1988, John Langley created COPS for the fledgling FOX network. 23 years later, the show is still running. It is the Energizer bunny of prime time television. Since John has followed more police officers and witnessed more crime than any human being on earth (absolutely no question), I had to ask some advice for hypothetical unwanted encounters with the men in blue.