This week's FIGRR is all about games that are old-new (or new-old, if you like) school. Each celebrates a different vital, yet largely taken for granted, aspect of video game history in the decidedly new-school world of indie games. Their titles betray them. Blocks That Matter is all about blocks. Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is all about item shops. Neither are particularly sexy aspects of gaming, but both are ubiquitous elements of great games that can stand on their own.
Like a great acting performance, making a really good game is all about choices. While creating or playing a game, those involved have to constantly make small choices that will affect the outcome, either positively or negatively. And the only thing worse than choosing wrongly is not choosing at all. Too many games, especially today, stick to what they're supposed to do from the get-go and avoid making difficult, small, meaningful choices to differentiate themselves and make their performance...
This week seems to have gone by in a flash. Maybe it was the three day weekend, but I don't think it accounts for the flurry of activity I've been seeing on Google+. Updates, debates, and new initiatives are unfolding every day, and the best part is that most of them are coming from outside of Google. People love Google+ so much that they want to evangelize to others about it. What more could Google+ ask for?
There's nothing better than playing a game of Scrabble, feeling the smooth wooden tiles in your hand and savoring the heavy fumes of cardboard, cheap wood and plastic as you rearrange the letters on your rack into the perfect word. You try to keep a straight face while you watch your opponent sweat, but you can't help but release that diabolical grin of self-admiration as you play the elusive triple-triple. The score's recorded and you feel sorry for your bitter rival, but then you remember y...
There are two types of Scrabble players in the world—those who enjoy it and those who love it. I definitely fall into the latter category. Unfortunately, most of my friends don't. I'm lucky to have a few who simply enjoy it from time to time—some are even standing on the edge of Scrabble geekdom, afraid to take that last step. Maybe someday.
Antimatter15, author of the popular Surplus Chrome extension, was suspended from Google+ for using a pseudonym instead of a name that fits Google's community standards. As such, he's no longer supporting the extension, and if you're using it, now might be a good time to find a replacement. It's a reminder that nothing on the web is guaranteed to work forever. Luckily, there's no shortage of innovative coders whipping up creative and useful Google Chrome extensions.
If you're a lucky owner of the iPhone 4, you know that the upgrade to its camera app includes a front-facing camera feature which acts like a video cam on your computer. Apple, of course, intends the front-facing feature to be mainly used for the FaceTime application which enables you to hold video phone conferences with other iPhone 4 and Mac users who have FaceTime installed on their device. This is all well and good, but there several other ways the front-facing camera can be used.
ClariTrans is a requester on MTurk (www.mturk.com) they pay very well for transcribing short snippets of audio. Here is how you can transcribe their audio snippets properly to ensure your text will be approved and you will be paid:
Super Mario Brothers! No, wait... Super Meat Boy! Yep, that's right. Meat. As in "cube" steak. As in a square piece of beef with eyes and a shitty grin, who just happens to be in love with a band-aid. I have no idea why. And no matter how shocked you are to see your dinner on your screen, it doesn't change the fact that this platform game is AWESOME!
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.
Description: Admit it, having thousands of valid email Ids give you the power to do anything! Such as adding thousands of friends to your Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc profiles or promoting your article or blog in just a single click and much more! But how do we do it? I searched all over the internet in a hope to get a perfect email producing software but ended with just two -
Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Video Game was released on Tuesday August 10th for the PS3 (Download only, $9.99). It will be released for the Xbox 360 on August 25th for 800 imaginary points. We spent a few hours yesterday on co-op and single player and here are our initial impressions.
We all remember the controversy of SCRABBLE Trickster back in April. SCRABBLE + Mattel + Proper Nouns = BLASPHEMY!
So your mom may have told you not to spoil your appetite with that chocolate chip cookie you were eating before dinner, but did you ever think about what that energy drink your sipping on looks like in terms of its sugar content? The article "20 Worst Drinks in America" takes a look at what is hiding in that sinfully sweet soda. You may not ever dream of eating 6 Krispy Creme glazed donuts in one sitting but thats how much sugar you are putting in your body when you have a 16 oz Rockstar Ener...
This past weekend Berlin celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall with a visit from France's Royal de Luxe street theatre company.
It was brought up a while back in a Community Call to Arms that *math* is handy for encryption (and let's face it, everything) so let us go over things you just have to know. "In its simplest meaning in mathematics and logic, an operation is an action or procedure which produces a new value from one or more input values."[source]
Since the invention of the printing press, books have been a dominant and iconic paradigm in our culture and throughout the world. During my years in elementary and high school, the digital world was on the rise sparking the conversation: Are Books Obsolete. Over the last year (or 2 at the most) that the term "Book" has started to make the shift from a physical object to the concept of a written work.
People sometimes ask me about the IT industry here in the states. These folks are usually either trying to get into a certain field, or looking to switch or move into another one. Right now, you may currently be a Computer Science major that will be graduating shortly and are interested in the current state of IT security.
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.
Wouldn't it be nice to just sit at your buddy's house, plug into his network, and see exactly what he's doing? What if it was as easy as that? What makes packet sniffers like Wireshark such potent tools is that a majority of local area networks (LANs) are based on the shared Ethernet notion.
There’s a race on to see who'll be the Instagram of moving pictures. This makes sense, since many of our phones are clogged with video that, so far, no one is going to see. Wouldn’t it be great if there were a simple app that could take our video content, edit it for us, and then publish it to all of our networks?
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play with us on our free server.
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...
One of the things I consistently notice amongst fellow internet users is that many people don't know how to properly search for stuff. Google may have served you well in the past, but I'm going to share a few little tricks with you to help make your search results even spiffier.
Getting used to your new Firefox 4 web browser? If so, you might have seen some improvements in the Location Bar. The updated features make browsing the web a cinch, so it's no wonder why more and more Internet junkies are calling it the Awesome Bar. It's faster and easier to use, and there's even some optional tweaks that you can employ to make your Internet experience smooth and effortless.
Do you think playing guitar is that easy? It takes time and effort to learn the basic to extreme skills for playing a guitar! But you're lucky, simply because I will make everything easy for you by teaching you how to play guitar, my friend!
What happened to please and thank you? When did asking someone to come look at your build degenerate into COME NOW or FOLLOW or sending out teleport requests to any and all currently on the server without asking?
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server!
Making your own circuit boards can be a daunting challenge. You have to design a schematic, test it on a breadboard, design the board layout, and then after all of that, you still have to print and etch a board!
Night People: A Bad Vibes Label Profile
Anonymity is something that doesn't exist today. Everything you do in the world is tracked, from the purchases you make to surfing the internet—even taking pictures on your iPhone. Everything you have ever said and done on the internet is still there—somewhere. This is called caching. For example, when a site is down, you can view its cached page on Google.
International Pet Travel: Taking Your Pet Animal to a Foreign Country If you are taking a pet to another country (permanently or for a visit), contact that country's consulate or embassy for information about any requirements that you must meet. A list of consulates can be found at Foreign Consular Offices in the United States
