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GamesArchive for December, 2010
Overpriced HDMI cables – “When the signal went digital the ripoff reached absurdity…” Is the End in Sight for The World’s Coral Reefs? – “It is a difficult idea to fathom. But the science is clear: Unless we change the way we live, the Earth’s coral reefs will be utterly destroyed within our children’s lifetimes….” [...]
Chernobyl Tourism: Not for the Faint of Heart
by Deblina Chakraborty | December 17, 2010
The Ukrainian government announced this week that they’ll open Chernobyl — the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster — to tourists next year. Would you risk a little radiation to check it out?
I had a pretty strange reaction when I first heard that FOX planned to move “Fringe” to Friday nights in January. I could’ve cursed a blue streak at my television, but instead I basically bypassed four of the five Kübler-Ross stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining and depression — and headed right to acceptance. That didn’t really make sense: Why was I so ready to let go of one of my favorite shows so quickly? Then I saw the name of the first Friday episode and thought wearily, “Oh yeah. That’s why. They’ve done this before. And now they’re twisting the knife.”
Blow Your Mind: Ladies Night on Earth and the Overview Effect
by Robert Lamb | December 17, 2010
I want you to look into the future, a future where men are long extinct and an all-female race of super-short humans rule the earth beside their robotic physicians. Welcome to the Y chromosome apocalypse, gentlemen.
Yes, we’ve got two exciting podcasts for you this week. In Ladies Night on Earth we discuss the inevitable extinction of males and ponder why. And since males are merely altered female why do we keep them around? Julie and I will discuss the advantages of sexual reproduction and, in a move that has been dubbed “epic man fail” on Twitter, I refuse to defend my own gender against charges that it mucked up the world. Am I right, ladies?
Check into the “TRON” Suite at ICEHOTEL
by Amanda Arnold | December 17, 2010
I think somebody in the Arctic Circle is kinda excited about the new “TRON” movie.
Invention – Amazing realism – Digging out of uncanny valley with brute force
by Marshall Brain | December 17, 2010
The effect of the “uncanny valley” is well known in robots, video games, etc. It is hard to make simulated people look like real people. So here is a technology that appears to solve the problem by using overwhelming brute force: The summary – it’s called “3-D mesh generation from optical cameras”. You film an [...]
TechStuff Roundup: Sound on Film and Follow-up to 2009 Predictions
by Chris Pollette | December 17, 2010
This week on TechStuff, Jonathan and I returned to our film technology series with a podcast on sound on film. Early movie houses relied on an organist or even an orchestra (in some of the larger theaters). Later, sound was added to the film itself using an optical method, and even later a magnetic track. We even made reference to one of the technologies we mentioned in our surround sound podcast: Fantasound.
I ran across a cool online magazine today that featured a blog post about a phenomenon known as ToyVoyagers. Inspired in part by the 2001 movie “Amélie” which featured a jet-setting garden gnome in one of the film’s many subplots, ToyVoyagers are little stuffed animals who journey the world while their exploits are chronicled online in Travelogs that consist of photos and brief descriptions of all the sights they take in.
Oysters are amazing, especially when it comes to water quality. They act like little filters, and in large numbers they can filter huge amounts of water: OYSTER FACT SHEET An adult oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water a day…. The oysters in the [Chesapeake] Bay could once filter a volume of [...]
Public Service Announcement – Your space heater can kill you
by Marshall Brain | December 17, 2010
This article… Electric heater: Five safety tips for when you turn it on …mentions an amazing statistic: Between 1999 and 2002, [space heaters] were responsible for an average 9,900 residential fires and 190 fatalities a year, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). That was nearly five times the annual fatalities linked to [...]
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