Archive for the ‘Games and Diversions’ Category

The Xbox 360?

Friday, February 4th, 2005

According to Engadget, the rumor mill has ground out the name Xbox 360 for the successor to Microsoft’s Xbox.

To give you a head start on all the fun, perhaps you’d like to install emulator for OS360

Gingerbread House Patterns

Thursday, December 2nd, 2004

Gingerbread House PatternsI’m as obsessive compulsive as the next guy (actually, I’m twice as obsessive), but even I am amazed at the dedication that resulted in this site full of Gingerbread House Patterns. Cool tips for a neat holiday craft!

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - The Adventure Game

Friday, October 29th, 2004

The BBC has the 1984 Infocom adventure based upon Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy running as a Flash applet. Cool stuff. Don’t forget your towel!

Free George Bush and John Kerry Jack o Lantern Patterns

Wednesday, October 27th, 2004

Enjoy carving those large wintertime vegetables!

Boing Boing: Knitting patterns under Creative Commons license

Monday, October 25th, 2004

Materials licensed under Creative Commons licenses are becoming more and more popular, and more and more mainstream. As reported on BoingBoing, Knitty is a web-published knitting magazine, and for a special breast-cancer awareness issue, they decided to publish their patterns under a Creative Commons license, specifically the Attribution-NoCommercial-NoDerivs license. Check out the patterns: I’m more of a crochet guy myself, but can knit in a pinch. The socks look comfy.

Stair Dismount

Wednesday, October 6th, 2004

Stair DismountWhile watching the amateur video program The Packet Sniffers, I was introduced to Stair Dismount. It is a wacky little “game”, where you basically aim a force at particular portions of a stick figures anatomy to push him down a long flight of stairs, and then get points depending on how hard the various bits of his anatomy contact the stairs. As a person working in CG films, I appreciate the programming and physics involved, while the sick puppy in me just likes to see him bounce off the stairs.

Check it out!

Blogger fooled, news at 11.

Monday, September 27th, 2004

Not a computer of the futureYour beloved editor (that’s me, in case you didn’t realize) was apparently taken in by an Internet hoax. The image of the “computer of the future” envisioned by Rand scientists in 1954 is in fact a cleverly edited photograph from a Navy website which shoes a full scale mockup of a nuclear submarine’s maneuvering room. I smelled a rat when I blogged it: I should have known better. There were certainly lots of clues to suggest that it was a photoshop job. I remember questioning the odd scale differences between the foreground teletype and the human.

Increment my shame counter.

It was really cool though. To the original creators: kudos!

The Mathematics of Gambling

Thursday, July 15th, 2004

Thorp’s book, The Mathematics of Gambling, is apparently available online with permission of the author.

Thorp is of course the author of the classic book Beat the Dealer, to which an entire generation of card counters owe their heritage.

Xaphoon - The Maui Xaphoon (Bamboo Sax or Bamboo Flute)

Thursday, July 8th, 2004

Metafilter pointed me at Xaphoon - The Maui Xaphoon (Bamboo Sax or Bamboo Flute), another website with an unusual music instrument. This is cute because it’s a very small, portable instrument with a terrific sound which closely approximates a full saxophone.

They make a $60 injection molded ABS version which is called The Pocket Sax. While searching for a dealer, I found this page which gave interesting background on how they actually designed and manufactured these mass produced instruments. Cool!

Mining Project Gutenberg

Monday, July 5th, 2004

While perusing a random copy of Scientific American from June 18, 1887, I ran across an interesting little nugget of mathematical niftiness: Lewis Carroll’s technique for computing the day of the week for any date in your head. Cool! It’s not quite as simple as the Doomsday algorithm, but then we are talking about Lewis Carroll.

Making the Squarpent, a serpent-like instrument

Sunday, July 4th, 2004

At least one of my occasional readers is interested in homebrew musical instruments. Having listened to the example mp3’s, I’m not sure that these instruments qualify, but here are instructions for building a tuba and other instruments out of plywood. The overall tonal quality makes you pine for the melodic sounds of the bagpipe and the didgeridoo.

The author, Paul Schmidt, also has some other interesting bits, like these plans for a model trebuchet.

For those of you seeking a slightly more melodious instrument, you could always try making a flute from PVC.

Addendum: Check the comments to this posting for additional comments from their creator. He makes the following points:

  • The instrument is a reed instrument, not a wind instrument, hence my comparing them to a “tuba” is inaccurate.
  • The mp3’s he did were literally the first sound made by the instruments, and it is unfair to judge them on that basis.
  • I should avoid glibness when describing other people’s passions. :-)

More Papercraft — Jun Mitani

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2004

Paper Models from Jun MitaniIn keeping with the earlier paper model theme, I give you Jun Mitani, who has a paper in this year’s SIGGRAPH conference on turning polygonal meshes into paper models, with some examples shown here on the right. His other papers appear interesting too.

Soda Straw Tensegrity Structures

Monday, June 21st, 2004

Tensegrity SphereAnother cool link from the Geometry Junkbox: George Hart’s instructions on building Soda Straw Tensegrity Structures. I can see myself wandering off to the store to buy soda straws, paper clips and rubberbands tonight.

Paper Plates Never Looked So Cool

Monday, June 21st, 2004

I like arts and crafts, particularly those with a mathematical bent. Wholemovement - The Work of Bradford Hansen-Smith shows what cool stuff you can do with paper plates. Be sure to read the commentary about the “wholeness of circles” and the like. I’d like some of whatever he’s smoking. Found this while perusing the terrific Geometry Junkyard, which I noticed now has an RSS feed. I’ll be adding it to my list shortly.

Tinkering with Toys

Wednesday, May 26th, 2004

Walking Robot SchematicI recall seeing the plans for a simple walking, balancing robot constructed out of TinkerToys, and while surfing around aimlessly I ran accross it again. I thought I’d go ahead and archive the paper which described it just for fun. It seems like the kind of toy you should just go ahead and build so you can show it off in your cubical. The Cornell Human Power Lab has some videos of this and related projects at their website. Enjoy.