Posts tagged: FUN

Seen on Flickr: this huge collection of Web 2.0 company logos. You can argue with the taxonomy but it’s still fun to look at.

I’m not a big gamer, but I can get behind this:

We want to COLLECT BANANAS FROM MAGIC CASTLES not earn respect from fictional gang leaders! We want to stun enemies with BOUNCE ATTACKS, not shoot them in unrealistic and shoddy drive-bys!

Of course, I’m old, so my idea of the Platonic gaming ideal is Asteroids.

…at least that’s what you’d think by looking at the User-Agent string sent out by the Blazer web browser:

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; 
  PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448

Embarrassing, especially for a Mac/Palm/Unix guy. I mean, if I did use Windows, I’d run something cool like Windows 2000 Server.

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Gene commented on Mon May 21 20:42:23 2007:

Hello, silly……. That is talking about the compatibility of the Blazer browser, not the operating system It is used by web sites to tell the server how to serve up the web page to the browser for best handling and viewing.

In November I wrote about rediscovering BASIC Computer Games, a book I had when I was learning programming in the ’80s. Flipping through it recently I came across a simple game called “Reverse”:

The game of REVERSE requires you to arrange a list of numbers in numerical order from left to right. To move, you tell the computer how many numbers (counting from the left) to reverse. For example, if the current list is 2 3 4 5 1 6 7 8 9 and you reverse 4, the result will be 5 4 3 2 1 6 7 8 9. Now if you reverse 5, you win.

Various advertising blogs have been linking to the website of a firm called Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, whose splash page is nothing but a disclaimer (in Flash). It reads:

The materials on this website are copyrighted and are presented exclusively for viewing by clients, prospects, and employees. Before entering the site we ask that you agree not to copy, rebroadcast, or otherwise reproduce the work displayed here.

This is followed by two buttons labeled “ACCEPT” and “DENY”.

In case you missed the news, there’s a new laptop in town. It’s supposed to be really fast and stuff. But my favorite feature is the new MagSafe power connector.

On Tuesday morning, before the keynote, one of my students happened to stop by my office to show me what had happened to the power adapter on his PowerBook. His roommate tripped over the power cord while he was working on the couch. Here’s the damage (not covered under warranty, naturally):

So, it’s out. The real, authorized version of Google Earth for OS X.

Very cool. I’d never seen the Windows version, so it’s all new to me (except the imagery, of course, which is the same used by Google Maps). A couple features I had no idea existed: tilt-the-earth (with optional topographic modeling, i.e. making hills hill-shaped), and 3D modeled buildings (check out the Manhattan skyline). It also has massive amounts of overlay data – roads, borders, place names, schools, stores, ATMs, churches, crime statistics…