Do you get tired easily in the mid-afternoon? Though it may seem tempting to get a quick fix in the form of an energy drink or a sugary snack from the vending machine, preventing an energy slump from occurring in the first place starts with a full night of quality sleep and a healthy breakfast in the morning.
Using dry beans and and some scraps of cotton fabric, you can make your own DIY microwavable heat pack which can be used to relieve sore muscles, warm your hands when stepping outside into cold weather, heating up your pillow case on a freezing night, and more.
If you're using an Android phone or tablet with Google Now, then you and your little ones are in for a little treat. Just tell Google, "Let's Go Caroling," and watch the holiday metamorphosis as your device changes into a personal, karaoke caroling machine. Just in time for the holidays! Choose from one of five famous Christmas songs (Jingle Bells, Up on the House Top, Deck the Halls, O Christmas Tree, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas), press Play, then keep up with the bouncing ball as it h...
Is your favorite black T-shirt starting to look a little old? To restore a faded black fabric color to its former glory, add two cups of brewed coffee or black tea to your washer's rinse cycle.
Paper towels are great for absorbing your kitchen spills, but did you know that they're also perfect for cooking bacon in the microwave? Simply place bacon side-by-side on a layer of two paper towels and place two more paper towels on top of the bacon. Zap in the microwave at 1-minute interval for 3-4 minutes until desired crispiness is reached. No greasy pan-cleaning to worry about afterwards.
You can brew your own beer on the stove, in a keg, or even inside a pumpkin, but those all look boring next to The Wobbly Boot Pico Brewery, the most sophisticated home-brewing system you'll ever see. Built by Ben_B, an engineer at National Instruments, the brewery sits on a steel frame with two incredibly shiny kegs. There's an LCD touch-panel PC, and Ben even made his own app to make it fully automated. The app lets him save recipes and also monitors the temperature of the beer. It keeps tr...
I thought lawnmower racing was purely a redneck sport, but apparently not. With the world record speed currently at 80 mph, the UK's Project Runningblade aims to squash it at 100 mph.
Rosemarie Fiore is badass. She makes art with pyrotechnics, amusement park rides, Atari, guns, and pinball machines. Though all of her work is cool, I have to say my favorite piece is Fiore's larger than life spirograph, made from an amusement park ride, entitled "Good Time Mix Machine".
Jan Vorman has installed quick LEGO-fixes all over the world - from Italy to Germany to Israel to Holland.
Talk about yankee ingenuity... zany Japanese inventor, Dr. Nakamats, has lead a life propelled by curiosity and inventiveness. Nakamats boasts that he has Thomas Edison beat by a mile (compare Edison's measly 1,093 patents to Nakamats' 3,357).
Remember Big Dog? Or Big Dog's counterpart, Little Dog? Well, Boston Dynamics has added a new member to their creepily-moving-calvary.
World's most expensive car mod? A wealthy Swede began with a 1973 Lincoln Continental, and three years and one million dollars later, ended up with a real life replica of the famous batmobile.
Using a scanner to "take photos" is like having great studio lighting, a top of the art photocopy machine, and a high quality camera all in one. The process results in a shallow depth of a field, amazing detail, and best of all a dreamy, magazine-like quality.
Genius or retard? Such an impossibly fine, fine line. Imagine if MacGyver got hit by a hillbilly stupid stick. Extremely amusing. And yes, washing machine parts are integral to this design!$%^&.
Arachnophilia and technosexuals rejoice. This whimsical, skittering robot takes only 5 minutes of tinkering.
Pachinko originated in Japan as large casino machines that were similar to video slot machines. Players gambled on them for prizes. They were then adapted and became popular in the US as handheld kids' toys made of cardboard, a couple of BBs, some plastic and a rubber band.
This is a wonderfully simple method of kernel popping. Our pal Loup226 came up with this Coke can mod. It's a perfect anti-kitchen appliance. Pop corn anywhere there's flame: candle-top, campfire or car engine!
A playlist is simply a list of songs which can be played in sequential or shuffled/random order. Many people tailor-make playlists to suit a particular style of music or atmosphere, so being able to share these between people is great.
Bikes are a great form of transportation. They use human energy more efficiently than any other machine. You can keep it in your closet or hallway. You can even take it on the train in a pinch. However, this portability is also the bike's biggest draw back. If you own a bike in the city, chances are it will be stolen. Locks barely deter thieves armed with bolt cutters and crowbars. Throw the bike thieves for a loop and make a tilt-sensitive alarm. It will hopefully startle your bike's assaila...
Cryptography is a quintessential part of computer security in the modern world. Whenever you buy something on eBay or log into Facebook, that data is encrypted before it's sent to the server in order to prevent third parties from eavesdropping and stealing your sensitive information.
Last week I reviewed Kinotopic, the iPhone app that lets you easily create cinemagraphs. While I loved the result, I found the app hugely flawed. Kinotopic forced you to use a Facebook log-in, and didn't store the finished video on your phone itself. Instead, you had to visit the Kinotopic website to see your cinemagraphs or link to your Kinotopic page using Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr.
Windows 8 Beta (Developer Preview) It wasn't that long ago Windows 7 was released - now Windows 8 Beta is here. I did do a Google search to see when the stable version will be out but wasn't able to find an official statement from Microsoft. However - I saw several articles on Google hinting that the final release might be in August or there about.
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. So you have a deep mine, an epic home, a bountiful farm, and mob traps galore, but have you ever considered linking them together into one cohesive unit? With the use of a minecart train station you can turn your disjointed Minecraft manor into a well oiled machine and cut travel times in half.
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server.
Flash memory can be a tad unpredictable at times. I have had 4 flash drives die out on me over the last few years, and they usually die without warning. When a flash memory based device dies, the data is likely impossible to recover. Adversely on an HDD, or Hard Drive Disk, even if the disk dies out, someone will probably be able to fix it and get it back to working order—at least long enough for you to back up your data. Hard drives are a bit more forgiving. As you can guess, due to the unpr...
File Transfer Protocol, or FTP, is a network protocol made for transferring files in a client and host fashion over a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) network, such as the internet. FTP is integrated into most browsers, and you have probably used it before. It is a common way to host files and transfer them easily. To access an FTP, a login is required, unless the server is configured to use anonymous logins (like the Arch Linux mirrors).
You may have asked yourself, "How do hackers take my password, if the website owner can't?" The answer is simple. When a website stores your login password for the site, it is run through a cryptographic hash function before it enters the database (if the website isn't Sony).
Game design is sedentary work. Generally its practitioners do their work with their butts planted securely in front of a computer in an office (be it home or away) as their muscles and verbal skills atrophy. Even game journalists are prone to this condition. Not so with Colin and Sarah Northway (pictured below), the husband and wife team behind NORTHWAY Games. Not only do they make really cool indie games, but they do it with just a laptop while traveling the world meeting indie developers of...
You'll see a lot of Linux action going down here at Null Byte. We use Linux for hacking-related stuff because it provides a more relaxed programming environment, making it easy to write exploits and tools. Linux has many features Windows is lacking, such as full control over the OS right down to the Kernel and massive availability of mature, open source (read: free & tweakable) tools & projects.
Foldit is definitely a niche game. The sole gameplay mechanic is attempting to fold complex proteins into smaller and more efficient shapes following the rules of molecular physics and biology. Points are awarded based on how small one can make the protein. Online leaderboards track players' relative progress and allows them to view and manipulate other players' completed designs. It's original, certainly, but no developer is going to ship a million units of a game about molecular-level prote...
Video game controllers are our windows into the soul of the machine, our sole means of interacting with them. More often than not, consumers seem displeased by their controllers; it's comforting to blame sticky, poorly laid out buttons for messing up your game than your own lacking skills. The original "fatty" Xbox controller was so large it caused mass consternation and prompted Microsoft to replace it with a smaller version in a matter of months.
It's been an eventful week for Google+. Facebook decided to up its game and start rolling out several major updates intended to address privacy concerns. We got a glimpse into the future of Google+ via an insightful discussion between +Bradley Horowitz and +Tim O'Reilly. And Google decided to integrate the +1 button more fully with Google+ by allowing users to share directly from the +1 button. That's not all, though—scroll down for more news & updates that occurred in the past week.
The indie game scene is constantly expanding, but in 2008, Minecraft, Braid and Angry Birds had not been released, along with all of the other indie games that established the financial viability of the format. Indie games were the all-but-exclusive purview of free Flash game sites and the proud users of TIGsource.com. The Independent Gaming Source is a massive forum for indie game developers to share their projects with like-minded individuals, while seeking help and approval of their games.
Since the beginning of last year, every six months or so the fine folks at Wolfire Games have gathered indie developers together to release a combo gaming pack called Humble Indie Bundle. Not only are the included games good, but the way one buys them is what makes Humble Indie Bundle one of the coolest products in games. Even better, Humble Indie Bundle #3 just came out last Tuesday and is available here for two weeks only.
Blizzard Entertainment is considered one of the most successful game developers in the world. Ever since the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (their debut Warcraft game) in 1994, they've set sales records and created genre-defining games with remarkable consistency. But the company wasn't founded in 1994—it all started back in 1991 when they were called Silicon & Synapse.
Every Friday here at Indie Games Ichiban, I will feature a sampling of reviews from the mountains of indie and vintage games that have crossed my internet connection in the past week. Each week will have some sort of theme, this week being old school turn-based strategy games available on Steam.
Aside from food, oxygen, sunlight and water, there are other necessities that humans arguably need today to survive—clothing, love and shelter among them. Almost everyone wears clothes, needs somebody (or something) to love and a place to call home. And what's the one thing that connects all three? Something we all have? Keys.
Video games consoles have long wanted to be more than just consoles. Nintendo Japan called the NES the Famicom because they wanted to make it the sole family computer. Obviously that didn't work out, and most efforts to make consoles into all-in-one entertainment systems have had similar fates. Sony has done the best job with the Playstation consoles, probably because they have experience with other types of electronics that most video game companies do not.
Japanese people are into many things Americans find weird—like YouTube's beloved canine-hosted cooking show or Daito Manabe's light up LED grills or even more insane, a vending machine that distributes live crabs. In light of these cultural oddities, the Japanese phenomenon of visual novels (NVL, or bijuaru noberu), seems relatively normal. A meeting place of books and video games, visual novels are a sort of "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" for the new generation.
The joys of summer are many! If you, like me, live in a place where the summer is short, you’re going to want to maximize your fun in the sun by doing as many awesome things as possible before the sun goes back to wherever the hell it hibernates during the cold and dark times. The most important ingredients for fun in the sun are friends and…well…the sun, so you can do almost anything with a group of exciting creative people, but here are my favorite el cheapo activities for summer.
