Unexpected Encounter Search Results

Metro 2033: Eye Candy

Picked up Metro 2033 from the Steam Sale. Wow is it pretty. At 1080p with DX11 and gorgeously detailed, it's hard to not stop and stare at every single thing! I wish there was a way to somehow convey this feeling..

News: Shibumi

In the dojo, what ISN’T said is often as important as what IS said. To most of us who’ve been raised in the USA, the reticence we encounter in the dojo can be off-putting. American society is very “content” oriented. Our legal contracts, for instance, run for pages and pages. Everything needs to be spelled out. In “context-oriented” societies there is far less reliance on such a literal approach. Much more importance is placed on the relationship between the two parties entering into an agree...

News: 10 Argentine hooligans are deported... is it just us?

In the news this past couple of days, we've heard of about 10 Argentine hooligans being deported back to Argentina before the start of the World Cup. I'm glad for the South African authorities showing that they have a firm grasp of security leading up to Friday's kick-off, and that the inter-agency cooperation between countries was a serious one.

News: Pacific Shark News Reports

The Pacific Shark Research Committee is the sole spot to find ALL shark sightings in SoCal. They're incredibly diligent about indexing all the activity. It's kind of nerve wracking that my two favorite spots: Sunset and San O are the most popular for white shark sightings, but oh well.

News: Is Your Dream Gaming PC Worth It?

The last week has been a trying one for me. On Sunday, there were four computers in my office, three of which were broken. The fourth was not really a computer, but more of a collection of parts that were cobbled together for the purpose of constructing a PC that would sneer derisively at the mere mention of turning down any game's ambient occlusion settings.

How To: Make 3D beveled text in 3ds Max

Nearly every object that you encounter in the real world is beveled. Because it is difficult and expensive to manufacture a perfectly sharp edge, most objects are created with chamfered, filleted or eased edges. In this video tutorial you will learn how to create 3d beveled text. Make sure to hit "play tutorial" in the top left corner of the video to start the video. There is no sound, so you'll need to watch the pop-up directions. Make 3D beveled text in 3ds Max.

DIY Scientists Beware: When NOT to Use Household Chemicals for Your Projects

The only thing better than successfully pulling off a new experiment is doing it with household materials. You get to laugh in conceit as professional scientists everywhere spend all their grant money on the same project you just accomplished with some under-the-sink chemicals! However, there are times when DIY gets dangerous. Some household chemicals are not pure enough to use and some are just pure dangerous. Let's take a look at two problems I have encountered in the course of mad sciencing.

News: Is Open Source Really Insecure?

To go Open Source or go proprietary? There is a common conception that open-source is unsafe and insecure and therefore companies should rather go for proprietary solutions. They think that because software is termed "open-source", that the world can see the vulnerabilities of the software and might exploit it, and less informed people tend to think that open-source software can be modified while it is running.

How To: Read Guitar Tab

Guitar Essentials My friends and I would secretly scribble tab in the darkly lit practice rooms in our university even though we were educated musicians. So, being able to read tablature, or tab, is essential for beginning guitarists.

News: A Way Out of the Overload

A Way Out of the Overload How do we simplify? There's a welter of information, advice, techniques, schools and every imaginable video tape available on the market to answer that question for you. In making a selection from this movable feast you'd want to take into account the background and credentials of the person offering you a way out of the overload. That's assuming you didn't just throw up your hands in exasperation and walk away from the task entirely.

How to Play Dead Space 2: Achievement & Trophy Guide

It's currently 2011, but when you fire up your game console, put your hands on the controller and play the new Dead Space 2 video game, you're warped into the future— into the year 2511— just 3 years after the events that took place in the first Dead Space. And it's sure to be a beautiful, frightening, futuristic experience.

News: Book Review - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Have you ever found a photograph - a photograph of complete strangers? Maybe in a used book or at a flea market? Not a photograph of anyone you know or anybody famous or of a place you’ve ever heard of. Just somebody else's ordinary, precious personal photo. Working at a used bookstore I found a number of photos tucked into books over the years. There's one on my fridge. There used to be one tucked into the edge of my mirror. There’s one that I brought home and put in a frame.

Minecraft Monster Slaying: How to Surprise Your Aggressors with a Long Drop and Sudden Stop

No one likes having their home invaded, and sometimes you just don't want to have to wait those precious few seconds for someone or something to drown, suffocate, or burn up. This trap utilizes gravity to destroy anyone who may want to pillage your home, be they monster or player. No drowning or suffocating here... they just go splat at the bottom of a deep hole, and you can instantly forget about them.

News: 10 Chrome Extensions to Jumpstart Your Google+ Wishlist

Are you finding that the Google+ features you've been waiting for are still not rolling out quickly enough for you? Although we've provided many solutions to Google+ issues with different Chrome extensions, it still seems like it's not enough. Now that we've been using Google+ for almost two months, our priorities have changed, and we're finding that we want and need different extensions to make Google+ work better. From filtering to circles, these Google+ Chrome extensions will solve many of...

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: The World's Most Expensive Video Games and Consoles Ever

Most of the indie and vintage games discussed in Indie Games Ichiban are pretty cheap to purchase. They rarely top twenty bucks, which is one of the major advantages independent games have against their sixty-buck, major league counterparts. But if you think $60 for a game and $300 for a PS3 or Xbox 360 seems like a lot, then you haven't played Steel Battalion or seen the TurboExpress. They go above and beyond what normal gamers are willing to spend for questionably entertaining products. Her...

News: The Morals and Dangers of Public Art. (A Warning)

I've decided to write this post so some of the fledgling street artists who may or may not follow this world in the future are informed about two things in the urban art world that are either not discussed at all, or distorted (intentionally or otherwise) to the point of misinformation. Those two things are, as the title says, the dangers of street art, and the morals of street art.

News: PostgreSQL Quick Start

Introduction PostgreSQL is a very popular Open-Source database management system. It competes heavily with many proprietary and commercial database management systems. More information on what it is and it's history can be found here and here.

News: Alan Wake Episode 3 Gameplay & Musings

There are no spoilers in this writing, read without worry. Finished Episode 3 of Alan Wake yesterday, impressed by different reasons. I originally bought the game for the possibility of great story, dialogue, and voice acting. That part of the game has been disappointing. What has stood out from playing episodes 1 to 3  is the level design and game play.

News: Lipstick for Dummies

Jezebel is back with another beauty basic: how to achieve a flawless, perfectly applied lipstick look. Lots of questions were posed, and hundreds of user answers sifted through. Sampling below, click through for all of Jezebel's selected tips.

News: Fireman Fridge, microwave, and door/Johnny the fireman

"Fireman Fridge" You guys should get one of the really powerfull hoses that the fire department uses and when someone goes to open a fridge (that they don't know is rigged with a hole cut in the back of it), someone should turn the hose on and mow down the person/people outside of the fridge with the hose, it would be totally unexpected. You can even hallow out the inside of a fridge and have one of the cast members stand inside of it with a firefighter suit on and spray the victim down.And. ...