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Retweet of alvarombedoya

2015 Nov 11, 9:42
3/ This lets advertisers figure out that 'John owns this laptop AND this smartphone.' http://www.steamfeed.com/silverpush-launches-cross-device-ad-targeting-with-unique-audio-beacon-technology/ … pic.twitter.com/hci0aUeLoN
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Gamers Messed With The Steam Sale, Then Valve Changed The Rules

2014 Jun 24, 3:51

Applied game theory 101: Valve’s Steam Summer Sale involves a meta game with teams of Steam users competing for daily prizes. On Reddit the players join together to take turns winning daily. Valve gets wise and performs an existential attack, changing the rules to make it harder for players to want to coordinate.

Still, that all the players joined together to game the system gives me hope for humanity. Its a self organized solution to a tragedy of the commons problem. Only in this case the tragedy is by design and is updated to be more tragic.

PermalinkCommentsgame video-game game-theory valve

Dustforce Trailer - Available on Steam January 17th! (by...

2012 Jan 10, 2:17


Dustforce Trailer - Available on Steam January 17th! (by hitboxteam)

Funny concept, and from the video it looks like lovely execution.

PermalinkCommentshumor video video-game dustforce trailer

In Response to SOPA, Reddit Meshnet Project picks up steam (forbes.com)

2011 Nov 24, 4:25PermalinkCommentstechnical networking wireless mesh

TorrentMeter – A steampunk bandwidth meter

2010 Nov 15, 12:00PermalinkCommentsArts technical

Three Reasons Why We Buy Those Crazy Steam Bundles « The Psychology of Video Games

2010 May 30, 9:20PermalinkCommentsvia:mattb psychology game video-game steam economics technical

Crawler Town

2010 Feb 23, 3:13Amazing Lego crawling town
PermalinkCommentslego art photo flickr steampunk via:boingboing

Marienplatz and the Deutsches Museum

2008 Dec 19, 12:18

Church Tower in MarienplatzOn Monday in Germany we went to Marienplatz and wandered around the Christmas Market, some of the stores, had drinks in a little pub, visited the Toy Museum, and checked out an impressive looking church. We accidentally drew in some other tourists as we stood gaping at the Glockenspiel tower waiting for the little show to begin at the wrong hour. That night Megan and Oliver came by our hotel and took us out to a traditional Bavarian restaurant and brewery that had been brewing beer there for hundreds of years. It was fun although we may have kept Megan and Oliver out too late on a weeknight.

Deutsches MuseumThe next day we went to the Deutsches Museum the largest science and technology museum in the world. And indeed it is very large, six floors on a large grounds. I needed to better pace myself: I spent too much energy being interested in the engineering sections with steam engines, mining, aerospace etc. I was completely worn out by the time we got to physics, chemistry, etc. etc. and we didn't even look in the natural sciences section. Anyway, its very large. That night we ate with Jon at an Italian restaurant. During the meal two period dressed children came in and began singing then tried to shake down their captive audience in the restaurant asking for money. The man at the table next to us asked one of the children what charity the money was going towards, the child said they kept the money, and the man said never mind then and sent the child away.

PermalinkCommentsgermany personal vacation nontechnical

Fantasy Magazine - Guest Column: Five Thoughts On The Popularity Of Steampunk

2008 Sep 26, 2:22This made me laugh: "People think of goths as weirdoes who take vampires too seriously, and therefore they can't help being worried on some level that a crazy goth might, you know, want to make them bleed. Whereas steampunks are - what? Weirdoes who take pocket-watches too seriously? What are they gonna do, vehemently tell you what time it is?"PermalinkCommentssteampunk article goth scifi geek via:ethan_t_hein

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Stories / Down on the Farm by Charles Stross

2008 Jul 22, 5:17Down on the Farm by Charles Stross. Short scifi story with elements of steampunk and a math/csc based version of the occult.PermalinkCommentsmath scifi fiction free tor literature charles-stross

Welcome to Airship Ventures

2008 May 12, 5:13Finally, geez! "Airship Ventures is a corporation formed with the objective of bringing Zeppelin NT airships to the USA for commercial air tours, media and advertising operations, scientific research, and special missions."PermalinkCommentssteampunk travel zeppelin via:kris.kowal

SILVER TYPE KEY CUFFLINKS | Silver Type Key Cufflinks with Authentic, Vintage Typewriter Letters for Writers and Antique Lovers | UncommonGoods

2007 Dec 23, 1:58PermalinkCommentsgift purchase cufflink keyboard steampunk

Chronotheric Fluxing Capacitron - a photoset on Flickr

2007 Oct 29, 1:01FTA: "A prop to accompany my Halloween 2007 costume, which was a 19th century time traveler."PermalinkCommentshumor flickr photos photo steampunk time-travel bttf flux-capacitor

Portal is fun; the cake is a lie!

2007 Oct 22, 4:47I purchased the Orange Box off of Steam a bit ago and like others before me who have discussed elsewhere, I already owned two of the five games that come from the Orange Box. However, the combined price of HL2E2 and Portal, the two games I actually wanted was supposedly equivalent to the price of the Orange Box bundle. Incidentally, if anyone would like HL2 or HL2E1 I can gift them to you.

HL2E2 was excellent of course but the big surprise for me was Portal. (Mild spoilers follow) It has a sort of zen simplicity: there are a few simple game-play mechanics, a handful of textures and objects, and a deceptively simple story all used well and tied together to produce an entertaining and polished game. It seems a bit short but its probably better to end with the gamer demanding more. The humor and the sort of play within a play aspect of the game is what really sold me though. It has the funniest ending theme I've heard (also blogged by the creator). The voices of the automated turrets are so adorable I would feel compelled to hug them if they weren't always trying to kill me. Additionally the weighted companion cube seems like an experiment in understanding gamers' attachment to NPCs. In this case the NPC is a box and yet I still felt awful incinerating it. The whole time I was vaguely reminded of Solitary the reality show that sticks contestants alone in small rooms forcing them to endure various tests all the while being watched by a humorous computer with a female voice. Someone should sue...

RPS has articles on Portal including a Portal review, a page suggesting Portal is a tale of lesbianism, and others.PermalinkCommentshl2e2 game hl2 solitary valve portal nontechnical

Awesome Movies Unknown to Me

2007 Aug 12, 2:50Thanks to Netflix I've been able to enjoy several movies that I'd never heard of.



Brick is a classic PI film set in a modern high school. Its fun figuring out which high school students correspond to which film noir archetypes.

Primer is a sci-fi movie but it doesn't focus on action or effects. Its like watching an excellent Twilight Zone episode. I hate to describe this any further for fear of giving something away.

The Amazing Screw-On Head is an animated version of the one shot comic. It feels like the 1800s precursor to the The Venture Bros. and stars Screw-On Head, a steam-punk robot head thing and Abe Lincoln's top spy for occult matters.

The Quiet Earth is the movie version of the book about a man who awakes one day to find himself alone(... or is he?) It was made in the 80s and in Australia but don't hold that against it.PermalinkCommentsscifi primer movie amazing screw-on head personal netflix brick the quiet earth

Dark Roasted Blend: Creepy High Voltage Installations

2007 Jul 4, 11:21Photos of a giant high voltage installationPermalinkCommentsphotos steampunk architecture electricity history science technology weird

Office Remodel

2007 Jun 11, 4:20Venkat NameplateMy manager has come back this week from a 10 week vacation and paternity leave. In response and similar to other office hacks some dedicated coworkers and I decided to do something to my manager's office.

Venkat's New Office SpecWhile gone we knew my manager, Venkat, was getting into meditation. My coworker Vishu had the excellent idea of easing Venkat back into work by making his office better suited for meditation. To start with, we updated his nameplate with an Om.

Venkat's New and Improved OfficeNext we emptied his office of anything that could distract him from meditation and replaced it with a yoga mat. Of course I left a copy of the specification for the remodel in his office.PermalinkCommentsmicrosoft personal office humor nontechnical

XPointer Framework - IE7 XML Source View Upgrade Part 3

2007 May 17, 5:16Previously I created some resource tools and then I used them to overwrite msxml3's XML source view. In this update I've added support for the XPointer Framework.

This time around I've started to add support for the XPointer Framework to my XML source view and I've added installation instructions. The framework consists of a series of pointer segments each of which has a scheme name followed by data in parenthesis. For example 'scheme1(data1)scheme2(data2)scheme3(data3)'. A pointer segment resolves to a portion of the XML document based on the data and the scheme name. The whole pointer resolves to the first segment that successfully resolves. That is, from the example, if scheme1 resolves to nothing and scheme2 resolves to something then that's used and scheme3 is ignored. In addition to the framework I've added support for the xmlns scheme which binds namespace prefixes to a namespace URI and the element scheme which is a simple way to resolve to particular elements in an XML. I also have limited support for the xpointer scheme the content of which is resolved as an XPath with some extra functions (which I don't support -- hence the limited). I've also thrown in schemes for the two SelectionLanguage values supported by msxml3.

Next time I might try to support the xpointer functions that aren't in xpath using msxml script. But I think I'm losing steam on this project... we'll see.PermalinkCommentsresource technical xml xpointer res xpath xslt

microbotic.org

2007 Apr 11, 5:24The portfolio of Christopher Conte who makes cool steampunk sculpturesPermalinkCommentsart steampunk christopher-conte

Telegraph Clacks out RSS Feeds - The Steampunk Workshop

2007 Mar 30, 2:10From the guy who did the 1920s keyboard this is a telegraph piece that taps out RSS feeds in morse code.PermalinkCommentssteampunk telegraph rss video
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