2010 Apr 21, 6:47"After years of secrecy (and the occasional leak), a draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) treaty has finally been released by negotiators. We've delved deep into the treaty,
highlighting its numerous problems. Indeed, there's a lot not to like about the treaty: Internet disconnections, anticircumvention prohibitions, and even the ability for rightsholders to get
injunctions if they can show infringement is imminent."
arstechnica acta privacy internet todo government politics piracy technical 2010 Mar 21, 6:06Ben Folds sings to folks on Chatroulette during a concert. This is the best use of Chatroulette yet although I can only imagine this really working for Ben Folds concerts or They Might Be Giants
concerts.
chatroulette ben-folds music live awesome humor video youtube 2010 Feb 22, 3:13On the Griffith OBservatory and the history of Mr. Griffith: "Today a splendid statue of Mr. Griffith stands in the park named after him. In one hand he is not holding a pistol, and in the other hand
he is not holding a bottle of whiskey."
humor griffith-observatory la california trip destination 2010 Feb 19, 2:27Raymond's tips for modifying x86 assembly code while debugging.
tutorial debug debugging technical assembly x86 windows raymond-chen tips 2010 Jan 29, 3:54
Raymond Chen has some thought experiments useful for discovering various kinds of stupidity in software design:
Tim Berners-Lee's principles of Web design includes my favorite: Test of Independent Invention. This has a thought experiment containing the construction of the MMM (Multi-Media Mesh) with
MRIs (Media Resource Identifiers) and MMTP (Muli-Media Transport Protocol).
The Internet design principles (RFC 1958) includes the Robustness Principle: be strict when sending and tolerant when receiving. A good one, but applied too liberally can lead to interop issues. For instance, consider web browsers.
Imagine one browser becomes so popular that web devs create web pages and just test out their pages in this popular browser. They don't ensure their pages conform to standards and accidentally end
up depending on the manner in which this popular browser tolerantly accepts non-standard input. This non-standard behavior ends up as de facto standard and future updates to the standard
essentially has had decisions made for it.
technical design principles software development 2010 Jan 29, 9:42"These jokes come so naturally you don't even have to think about it. You just mock."
humor video apple ipad ipod 2010 Jan 6, 2:17Not shocking that papers freely available on the Internet are cited more than those not freely available... "Articles whose authors make them Open Access (OA) by self-archiving them online are cited
significantly more than articles accessible only to subscribers. ... not because of a quality bias from authors self-selecting what to make OA, but because of a quality advantage, from users
self-selecting what to use and cite, freed by OA from the constraints of selective accessibility to subscribers only."
via:bengoldacre science paper citation internet 2010 Jan 5, 1:47
The New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a great game. Its the fun of old school Mario with the addition of great graphics and the kind of multiplayer I've wanted for Mario since playing the original as a
child: its got up to four player simultaneous cooperative multiplayer. I recommend it to anyone who has enjoyed Mario in the past. Watch this amazing video of level 1-3 you can unlock in the game.
As noted elsewhere, multiple players attempting to navigate platforms, grab power ups, and throw turtle shells creates new
challenges but along with that there's new ways to be incredibly cheap.
-
Jumping Higher
-
A second player means a head one can jump on to reach higher locations. Jump on your friend's head at the apex of their jump while holding down the jump button yourself for maximum jumping. In
the game you can also grab other players and hold them over your head. This is useful for reaching the top of the flagpole at the end of levels. On that same line, if the player you grab has a
flying cap you can now use them to fly in the same manner you would use a flying block which makes it easy to get two players to the top of the finish flagpole if only one of you has a flying
cap.
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Power-Ups
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Normal power-up blocks now spawn enough power-ups for everyone. A mushroom is spawned for each small player and full power-ups for the rest, except in the case everyone is small: then one of the
power-ups is a full power-up. If there's two players and you're both small, the full power-up always jumps out of the block to the right. Some hidden power-up blocks only give out one power-up
and in that case its a mushroom or not based on the player who hits the block - so be sure that a big player hits that if you have one.
-
Death & Bubbles
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When a player dies but at least one other player lives the dead player comes back in a limbo bubble from which they must be released before they may play again. Because of this, in a tough spot
you can send one player in and leave a second behind. If the first dies you don't lose your place in the level and the first comes back in a bubble ready to try again. For instance, if you're
trying to get the last star coin in 2-1 which sits just above the abyss, one player can just jump to their death for it and as long as another player lives you've collected the coin. However you
need not sacrifice your life to do this: you can press down and 'a' to force yourself into a bubble saving yourself from death. This is true in general as long as you have enough time to see your
death coming. This is also useful if one player runs ahead to the right. The screen will expand a bit but then it will just move to the right following the player in the lead. Players left behind
walls or now forced into lava pits will die unless they use the bubble.
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Misc.
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- If all players hit the ground at the same time from a ground pound it acts like hitting a pow block, killing the enemies on the screen.
- If you hold a player who has a projectile power over your head they can still use their power.
- Bubbles can be popped by hitting them with your fire or ice projectiles as well as thrown shells or blocks.
- All players get the extra lives from anyone collecting 100 coins or finishing a level with more than 7 enemies on the screen.
multiplayer mario wii 2009 Dec 28, 9:27"This class represents a sensor event and holds informations such as the sensor type (eg: accelerometer, orientation, etc...), the time-stamp, accuracy and of course the sensor's data."
sensor android technical programming development reference accelerometer java 2009 Dec 21, 3:40"“I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios,” he told the BBC’s Latin American service BBC Mundo. “It was amazing, we were all
shocked.”" And I can see why -- its a good video.
video scifi robot youtube hollywood 2009 Dec 16, 9:41"This sort of model should remind you of 1-piece click-out toys packaged with action figures such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michael Johansson specializes in parodying this particular moment in
toydom by creating life-sized models with that molded-plastic “break-apart and play” action specifically in mind."
art sculpture design product commodity parody 2009 Dec 14, 2:58"But this isn’t just another Android phone. ... It will be branded Google and sold by Google as an unlocked phone, which could change everything."
phone mobile google cellphone android 2009 Dec 14, 2:20This just in: 'Gullible' removed from dictionary. Story at 11...
humor video via:bengoldacre media australia information communication 2009 Dec 8, 1:56More good gift ideas just in time for the holidays: "The Invision LD 3D-Modeler printer has been discontinued and is being sold off for $5,000 a throw -- it uses Laminated Object Manufacturing to
produce low-rez 3D models"
3d printer purchase gift wishlist 2009 Nov 29, 1:58Phone booths get makeovers: "For Your Convenience Super-Hero Changing Station", "Coming Soon, improvements and upgrades to this public urination facility", and more.
humor phone-booth cultural-disobediance graffiti new-york photo 2009 Nov 28, 3:50The downside of the placebo the nocebo: "This is the amazing world of the nocebo effect, where negative expectations can induce unpleasant symptoms, in the absence of a physical cause.", "In two of
them, the consent form contained a statement outling various gastrointestinal side effects, and in these centres there was a sixfold increase in the number of people reporting such symptoms and
dropping out of the trial, compared with the one centre that did not list such side effects in the form."
nocebo placebo science medicine ben-goldacre 2009 Nov 23, 11:47'Bill Gates is being taken on a guided tour of the product support department's new office building...Bill puts on a headset, sits down, and answers the phone. "Hello, this is Microsoft Product
Support, William speaking. How can I help you?"'
humor microsoft bill-gates raymond-chen support history 2009 Oct 18, 2:23TED video of Stewart Brand: "The book tackles three of today’s most profound transformations — climate change, urbanization and biotechnology — in a way that’s part practical guide to damage control,
part prescriptive inspiration for a more efficient society, part bold anthem of design-thinking. And if Brand’s track record is any sign at all, Whole Earth Discipline may well become one of the
(counter)cultural classics of our generation."
stewart-brand climate-change biology biotech urban ted video ecology 2009 Sep 30, 5:12Bjarne Stroustrup answers the age old style questions like "int *p or int* p?" and "const int a or int const a?"
reference c++ faq style coding programming bjarne-stroustrup technical
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