firehose

itscolossal:

This is what happens when you run water through a 24hz sine wave.

By Kevin Gifford on Mar 13, 2013 at 5:25a

Have you tried playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl online lately? If not, it's probably too late to bother with it much. There are players around, sure, but the "pros" tend to favor a strategy that's less than conducive to, well, having fun.

Here's how one guy, who wrote in to Brawl producer Masahiro Sakurai, put it: "The other day, I had my first run at Smash Bros. Brawl online play. What I found was that nobody ever went on the attack; it was like everyone was taking the approach of waiting for the other guy to take the offensive. There were no items, either. I wanted to shout at them 'This isn't how you do Smash Bros.'! As the producer, what do you think of fights like this?"

Sakurai — who's still recovering from a repetitive-strain injury to his arm that's keeping him from playing video games for the time being — took time out in his Famitsu column this week to respond. "The idea of Brawl's 'carefree brawling' motto was to get rid of as many restraints as possible and allow people to choose whatever play approach they liked," he wrote. "I'd like people to take some freer approaches with their gameplay, but the sort of battle style you describe in your letter is not interesting or fun. That's why I'll probably be thinking of a way to deal with that in the next game. We've learned a lot about net play since Brawl was released, after all, so a lot more is possible."

The director of games like Brawl and Kid Icarus: Uprising also admitted that his own team was more than a little at fault for this. "Of course," he said, "I suppose the fact that we've still got no-fee online battles available in a game that was released five years ago is another cause of the problem. It would have been nice if we could have revised the game rules as appropriate, but with the system we had, that wasn't possible."

It seems safe to say that the next Smash Bros., whenever it comes out, will have some more thought put into online play to keep the pros from taking all the fun out of it.

Microsoft's latest Patch Tuesday round of security updates includes a fix for a vulnerability that could allow attackers to compromise PCs using a USB key. The attack requires physical access to a PC, but allows malicious users to simply insert a USB key and make the system execute malicious code at the Windows kernel level. Microsoft is rating the vulnerability as important, not the highest rating of critical, suggesting that the company doesn't view it as a serious threat despite its obvious implications.

The ability to compromise machines by USB is particularly troublesome for big businesses and enterprises running thousands of Windows machines. As compromises move away from the traditional software-based exploits towards physical access and social engineering, there are greater challenges to securing data. Hackers have been known to use janitorial staff to access machines at businesses and install USB-based keyloggers and USB keys, so Microsoft's patch is clearly aimed at plugging some of those vulnerabilities.

Microsoft admits the flaw could "open additional avenues of exploitation that do not require direct physical access to the system," once the USB-based exploit is successful. Still, if a hacker has physical access to your machine then there's little you can do to protect a machine and its data fully, and these type of exploits demonstrate the challenge of security that reaches beyond software.

• Source Microsoft Security Research & DefenseMicrosoft security bulletin
• Related Items microsoft security vulnerability patch fix flaw patch tuesday usb

An anonymous reader writes "We recently discussed what appeared to be a positive response from the Obama administration on the legality of cell phone unlocking. Unfortunately, the Obama administration may not be able to do anything about it. It has already signed away our rights under a trade agreement with South Korea. Lawyer Jonathan Band, who works for the Association of Research Libraries, wrote, 'The White House position, however, may be inconsistent with the U.S. proposal in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and existing obligations in the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) and other free trade agreements to which the United States is a party. This demonstrates the danger of including in international agreements rigid provisions that do not accommodate technological development.'You can read more about this issue in a short eight page legal primer by Jonathan Band (PDF). An interesting, related note that the U.S.-KOREA FTA is possibly inconsistent with our domestic patent/drug law in the Hatch-Waxman Act as well. The trade agreement requires us to grant injunctions until the patent is invalidated as opposed to thirty months under current domestic law."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

sofapizza:

jazzy jeff used to be a world-renowned surgeon, until..

Flipnote Studio 3D on the way

The 3DS successor to popular DSi animation software Flipnote Studio will finally release in North America and Japan (probably Europe, too) this summer as a free download.

Flipnote Studio 3D will feature GIF and AVI exporting support, three layers and six colors to draw with, and a “Flipnote Gallery: Friends” for commenting, rating, and downloading friends’ animations.

The eShop app will also have a “Flipnote Gallery: World” service with community features that aren’t limited to your friends, but it will require a small monthly fee. Nintendo will offer a 30-day free trial, waive the fee for users with high-rating animations, and let everyone access the service for free during certain hours.

Bad news for those of you who refuse to buy 3DSes or are stuck with a DSi for whatever reason — Nintendo will shut down the original Flipnote Studio’s community services at the end of May.

You can watch the Mini Nintendo Direct for Flipnote Studio 3D here. H3DS has more GIFs ripped from the video.

BUY Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL consoles, upcoming releases

I want my set-top box to me as small and non-descript as possible — in my home theater stack, design flair is a problem. The Roku 3 is fortunately both: a glossy black rectangle, 3.5 inches squared and an inch tall, that blends nicely with the also-black, also-glossy stand on my TV. It's a little heavier than previous Roku models, but that's a good thing — it's now sturdy enough to not slide off the back of your TV stand when a cable's attached. There's a "3" emblazoned on the top, the words "Roku 3" on the front edge, and the company's telltale purple tag sticking off the side, but other than the branding there's no decoration to the device whatsoever. Power, ethernet, HDMI, and microSD ports carve up the puck's back, and there's a USB 3.0 port on the right side for plugging in a drive and playing local content. The layout is smart — you're going to use the USB port more, so it makes sense to have it more accessible — and helps the device slide unnoticed into your home theater setup.

While testing the Roku 3, I got the sense over and over that the company just gets what people want from a set-top box. That's especially true with the remote — it's simple, spartan, and impossibly easy to decipher. The glossy black rectangle feels a little cheap and chintzy, but there's a surprising amount of cool tech inside. It works via Wi-Fi Direct, which means you don't need to point it at the box to get it to work — feel free to stick the Roku 3 in a closet or hide it behind your TV. There's also an accelerometer built into the remote, which means you can fire your Angry Birds slingshot with just a flick of your wrist — there are a bunch of games on the Roku 3, and they're all fun, though gaming isn't really a reason to buy this device.

Roku just seems to get what I want in a set-top box

All that is great, but the headphone jack in the remote immediately became my favorite feature of the Roku 3. Plug in a pair of headphones, and audio automatically stops playing on the TV and comes through your headphones instead; unplug them, and it starts playing on your TV speakers again, all without the video ever skipping a beat. (A pair of purple headphones is even bundled, though they don't sound particularly good.) There's a volume control on the remote, but it only applies to the headphones, which means that you unfortunately can't control TV volume on the Roku remote but also means you won't accidentally blow out your speakers when you unplug your headphones. All in all, probably a smart choice.

I should mention here that there are other Roku models out there, all of them cheaper than the Roku 3. The $49.99 Roku LT comes with all the same content as the latest box, and will be getting the new interface soon as a software update, but only the most expensive model offers the more powerful internals, the headphone jack in the remote, 5GHz Wi-Fi the USB port, and 1080p playback. It's the most powerful box by far, and is easily worth the upgrade if you can afford it.

Getting set up couldn't be easier, but you will need a computer handy. You just plug the Roku in to an outlet and your TV, and follow a bunch of on-screen prompts. The first connects you to the internet, which you can do via Wi-Fi or ethernet (I mostly used Wi-Fi). Then you need to connect the box to your Roku account, which is where the PC comes in — Roku has a great web interface for creating an account and adding and managing channels, and it's worth spending ten minutes getting everything you want loaded on your box.

You should also install the Roku app, available for iOS and Android, because it makes setup a whole lot easier. Entering your Wi-Fi password on your TV is a down-right-right-right-down-down nightmare, and the apps let you type it in right from your phone; same goes for logging into all your various content services. The app isn't a great replacement for general navigation on the Roku — you're better off using the actual remote, which doesn't make you constantly look down to ensure you're hitting the right button — but it is great for jumping between channels, which you can see in a list on your phone rather than having to go back to the Roku's homescreen and interrupt whatever you were watching.

Submitted by Nacho R

A curious cat is pushed into a bathtub by a rude dog in this comical video uploaded by dwaynecaulter on YouTube. The pair of animals started off by watching a toy that was floating around in the bath water. It all came to a quick end when the cat invaded the dog’s personal space.

video via dwaynecaulter

via reddit, Yababoon

You and other cyberpunks can play together in CD Projekt Red's upcoming-ish near-future RPG. Speaking to Eurogamer, managing director Adam Badowski said Cyberpunk 2077 "will be a story-based RPG experience with amazing single-player playthroughs, but we're going to add multiplayer features."

As Eurogamer notes, Cyberpunk 2077 doesn't have a pre-defined hero, which maybe makes the game more suitable for multiplayer than CD Projekt's The Witcher series. However, when CD Projekt advertised last year it was looking for a multiplayer programmer, it wasn't clear if that was just for its cyber-RPG and not also for the now revealed Witcher 3.

CD Projekt's Badowski was coy enough to keep multiplayer a fair possibility for Geralt's third adventure, telling Eurogamer "we're thinking about something."

Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer confirmed, in consideration for Witcher 3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 13 Mar 2013 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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mask.of.sanity writes "Kali, the sixth installment of the BackTrack operating system has been launched. The platform is a favorite of hackers and penetration testers and has been entirely rebuilt to become more secure, transparent and customizable. Metasploit too has been rebuilt to be more stable with an optional noob-friendly interface. Kali even works on ARM devices and comes ready to go for your Raspberry Pi." The big new feature is that it's been repackaged as a flavor of Debian, instead of using their own custom packaging magic.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We’ve never really thought to ourselves “This RC car is fun, but it really needs more handguns”. And if we did, it certainly would not be a built to undertake with students. But to each his own. [Jerod Michel] is a mathematician working in China. He recently built the project seen above with a group of students. Look closely and you’ll notice that the remote control car includes a remote control Beretta strapped to the side.

He doesn’t have a blog post about the project, but you can find a couple of images and his build instructions after the break. The firearm has a motor attached to the trigger that allows it to be fired by tapping into one of the extra channels on the RC car’s PCB. But you won’t just be firing blindly. The project also includes a video transmitter which can be viewed from an LCD screen mounted on top of the remote control unit. There’s even a laser sight that will show what you’re aiming at.

We wonder what the recoil of the firearm does to this light-weight vehicle?

Build Instructions (.txt file)

Filed under: weapons hacks

The need for complicated modeling software is currently one of the biggest barriers of the 3D printing process. MakerBot’s Digitizer is one proposed solution, and Sandboxr is another service looking to make it easier for laypeople of all ages to customize their own 3D-printed creations. With the Sandboxr web app, users can pose, combine, and create their own unique characters using models provided by companies like Super Villain Studios. Then, Sandboxr will print, package, and ship the figurine. Sandboxr is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, and is expected to launch later this year.

images via Sandboxr

Cover to Savage Dragon #184 with hand-lettering.

When you go to your local store (or digital provider) you’ll find that nearly all of the comics are lettered using a computer. That’s obvious, right? But there are a relative few creators who still prefer, and advocate, hand-lettering to digital methods, and one of those is Image Comics co-founder and Savage Dragon creator Erik Larsen.

With very few exceptions, every issue of his Savage Dragon series for the past 20 years has been hand-lettered by Chris Eliopoulos, Tom Orzechowski or Larsen himself. But recently on Twitter, Larsen began talking about a switch to digital lettering — and for those attuned to the craft, that’s something major. So we asked him for more information.

“In this case it was simply timing,” Larsen told ROBOT 6. “Tom Orzechowski was booked.”

While that might seem trivial, the central point Larsen had is that the time involved — inked pages are shipped to the letterer and then shipped back once lettering is complete — was adding a significant wrinkle to Savage Dragon‘s production schedule. With digital inking, you can send the files to the letterer in a matter of minutes (depending on your scanner and Internet bandwidth), with the production time for a letterer drastically reduced by the use of a computer.

But be that as it may, Larsen still thinks hand-lettering, when done by an expert, is superior to that of digital lettering. However, there’s another aspect as well.

“[Hand-lettering is] not as stiff and uniform as computer lettering,” he explained. “Plus it’s nice to have the lettering be part of the art.”

What he brings up is a unique part of comics production that’s overlooked by many, unless you’ve actually seen a page of original art. Up until the ’80s, most finished comics pages featured the lettering pasted onto the original art. With digital lettering, the original art pages are balloon-less. For some that’s a good thing, while others prefer to see the page closer in context to the printed edition.

When we asked Larsen specifically about his own ideal method for producing Savage Dragon, he said ultimately he’d like to take on every aspect — lettering and coloring included. Larsen experimented with digital lettering himself in some of the 2006 Savage Dragon issues. But as of now Eliopoulos is filling in for Orzechowski, with Issue 186 being a trial run at digital lettering.

Ok, this is pretty badass. A Google Docs spreadsheet can be configured as a website monitor tool with notifications by SMS. I had no idea that scripts in a Google Doc can continue to run when the document is closed.

Slaughtering Workshop flyer, Gurafiku

Casino

Adventure Time DS and 3DS for $20

We all have more than enough to play without even thinking about our backlogs, but if you do decide to pick this up, judging by our list of upcoming releases, you will have time to play it during the first week of April. May also looks open for now, as far as 3DS releases go.

Then Animal Crossing: New Leaf ($5 off) hits on June 9, and we expect to have our schedule filled up afterward until forever.

SEE ALSO More mathematical Adventure Time posts

In an effort to broaden Minecraft's audience and draw in families and younger gamers, Mojang has announced a new initiative called Minecraft Realms. At its core, Realms is a monthly subscription service that gives players a private, tightly-controlled Minecraft server, providing "a safe and easy way" for children to enjoy the hugely-popular title. Pricing has yet to be finalized, but Games Industry International suggests it will fall somewhere between $10 and $15. For that fee, players will take ownership of their own Minecraft world with full control over who else may enter and build alongside them. Thankfully only one person needs to pay for a Realms account, so your friends and family members won't have to part with any cash to get started — all they'll need is a copy of the game and an internet connection.

"In the end I think this will get Minecraft new players, since there is a viral aspect of Realms," Mojang CEO Carl Manneh told Games Industry International. "Kids will probably invite friends who don't have Minecraft yet to play with them." Manneh says his company has seen "great demand" for this type of service, with parents rarely having time to play the role of server administrator for their kids. If Realms proves successful — and Mojang thinks it may eventually bring in more revenue than the core game — Manneh says the developer could install "portals" that let gamers jump between different worlds.

Minecraft's loyal community has already produced similar functionality (not to mention other stunning work) through mods, and Mojang seems intent on formalizing those efforts. For now, the service is in private alpha with a beta targeted for May. And don't forget: you'll eventually be able to wander through Minecraft worlds with the Oculus Rift.

• Source Games Industry International
• Related Items minecraft family gaming mojang minecraft realms

“

Cumberbatch says series three, which starts filming next week, could hit screens at Christmas.

Gatiss: “I love The Blue Carbuncle. I’d love to use it as the basis for a Sherlock Christmas special!”

”

- Sherlock series 3 could air at Christmas says Benedict Cumberbatch | Radio Times

“It follows two friends in New York City (Jacobson, Glazer), navigating their way through the minutiae that is life. “Finally, there’s a television show set in New York City,” said Comedy Central president of original programming Kent Alterman.”

- Amy Poehler-Produced ‘Broad City’ Gets Series Order By Comedy Central - Yahoo! TV

“The bartender told the Huffington Post—which agreed to withhold his name until after the MSNBC appearance—that he had brought the camera to the event after working a previous fundraiser where former President Bill Clinton had posed for photos backstage with the staff. Thinking Romney might do the same, the bartender brought along his Canon camera.
But Romney, who was running late, did not speak to the staff.”

- Worker who taped Romney’s ’47 percent’ comment comes forward | The Ticket - Yahoo! News

“

Republicans on the House budget-writing committee criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget proposal Tuesday as an elaborate shell game balanced by shaky financing and improper money maneuvers.

The testy exchanges with Jindal administration leaders set the tone for a tense budget debate, which is expected to continue as the House Appropriations Committee combs through the governor’s spending proposals for the 2013-14 fiscal year.

The GOP governor’s budget relies on anticipated savings from the privatization of LSU-run public hospitals, which hasn’t yet happened; passage of bills not yet approved; and patchwork financing from property sales and other not-yet-completed fund sweeps.

Lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, questioned assumptions used to craft Jindal’s budget. A bloc of conservative House Republicans nicknamed the “fiscal hawks” said some of the governor’s financing plans don’t follow constitutional limits on certain pools of money. That’s the subject of a pending lawsuit filed by two lawmakers against the administration.

“Don’t go with the ‘We’ve always done it this way’ argument. That doesn’t fly with me,” said Rep. Brett Geymann, R-Lake Charles.

”

- La. House opens hearings on Jindal budget proposal - Yahoo! News

David Windestål has dreamed of sending a remote-controlled plane to the stratosphere since 2010, and he’s finally made his dream a reality. Using a Multiplex FunJET equipped with a GoPro, GPS tracker, and video transmitter, Windestål piloted the rig at about 100,000 feet above sea level and got some truly amazing footage from the experiment.

images via David Windestål

via Gizmodo

hentaihotsprings:

oh fuck he getting it

this is my favorite video now

Posted by Adam Laurie on Mar 13

with a great big nod to atlas 0f d00m, this RFCat inspired project
utilises the RF capable wristwatch that comes with the TI Chronos dev
kits...

blog entry is here:

http://adamsblog.aperturelabs.com/2013/03/you-can-ring-my-bell-adventures-in-sub.html

code can be found on the Aperture Labs tools page:

http://www.aperturelabs.com/tools.html

enjoy!

cheers,
Adam

professional-pineapple:

mmmerry:

so today in ict we were making home page buttons 

and the teacher said ‘make it more professional’

so i just

i swear to god

crystalsoulslayer:

methlabrador:

when people say “i dont believe in science”

what are you even talking about

 

Doom by Gabriele Dell’Otto