K 3 3 G

Open Source Gifts

Posted on February 17th, 2007 by sofimi.
Categories: everything else, tech, games.

Make: magazine has released a list of gift suggestions for the holidays on its blog and it’s nothing short of geeky—or should I say k33gy?

Here’s the short of it:

1. Open source Atmel AVR microcontroller kits
2. Qtopia- Greenphone/SDK
3. Open Prosthetics
4. Ubuntu with Support
5. x0xb0x - open source ‘acid’ bassline synthesizer with sequencer
6. Multimachine - Open Source machine tool
7. Arduino stamp
8. NEUROS OSD - Open Source Linux embedded media center
9. MIDIsense A real-world MIDI interface platform
10. Open source firmware + wireless router… Buffalo WHR-HP-G54
11. The MAKE “Daisy” MP3 Player Kit - Open source MP3 player
12. Open EEG - Analog & digital boards
13. The Leaf - Open source robot using artificial intelligence and vision
14. Rockbox an new MP3 player
15. Open source IR for Xbox
16. Game of Life Board
17. Open source web based home automation
18. DIY Fuel Injection Conversion using open source engine management
19. Liberlab - Open source lab
20. Butterfly open source mp3 Player
21. MediaPortal - Open source media center for Windows
22. Flex-Radio SDR-1000 - Open source software radio
23. Chumby - Open source squeezable, Wi-Fi bean-bag computer
24. Open source embedded ethernet
25. Open source beer
26. openEyes - open-source open-hardware toolkit for low-cost real-time eye tracking
27. Open-source grid controller - the monome
28. Open source planetarium
29. PortableApps Suite - Computer without a computer
30. LEGO Mindstorms NXT
31. MAKE Controller Kit - Open source physical computing
32. SpokePOV - Persistence of vision for your bike!
33. Open Source MIDI Keyboard
34. Electronic game kit
35. MiniPOV kit
36. Minty Boost kit - charge USB devices
37. High Speed Photography Kit
38. Alice
39. MAKE Leatherman warranty voiders!
40. eMusic gift certificate & Magnatune
41. XGameStation Pico Edition 2.0 - DIY game console
42. Universal Software Radio Peripheral
43. EFF Pioneer membership
44. O’Reilly Open source books & Safari
45. OpenMoko phones & Gumstix
46. Open Gameboy - Flashcar and DevKit
47. Playstation 3 - PS3 + the OtherOS laoder with Linux
48. GP2x - Open source gaming
49. AVRSynth - Open source synthesizer
50. A PSP - Hacked up, freed and open PSP with LuaPlayer
51. MIDIBox - Open MIDI
52. MAKE Magazine - By makers for makers

And here’s the long of it.

The OpenMoko phone is a refreshing sight from all the Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson phones clogging up the stores. (Add the iPhone to that list as well.) That media center looks a lot like the PS3. And of course, the Open Source Beer is a hoot. Do check out the post discussion for even more ideas!

How about you? Do you have any geeky things on your wishlists?

Footnote: Okay, I know this is uber-uber-uber late for Christmas or Valentines or whatever holiday I’ve skipped, but I’ll publish this post anyway. Kung Hei Fat Choi! Haha. Talk about procrastination—which I’ll write about next time. ^_~

2 comments.

Linkage: WeffRiddles

Posted on February 16th, 2007 by ephemere.
Categories: games.

If you like mind games and enjoy dissecting pictures and text, you might want to try this. It’s an HTML-based puzzle game: the answer to the puzzle takes you to the next one. Very, very, very addictive.

http://www.weffriddles.com

(I’m currently stuck on a fake level. Heh.)

12 comments.

The Girl’s Guide to Gamers (1/?)

Posted on February 14th, 2007 by ephemere.
Categories: opinions, games, ideas.

Valentine’s day special!

Heh, not really. This piece has been on my mind for quite a while now, especially since (a) I’m both a girl and a gamer; and (b) I’m involved with a gamer. Truth be told, if one were to trust gamer lore, gamer girl + gamer guy = ideal combination, but we all know that’s just wishful thinking.

Thus, this series (? hopefully I manage to follow through with it!). I’m starting it in a very informal way, but may turn it into an article or something more readable someday. Bear in mind that a lot of things here apply to geeks in general, not just gamers, and can be generalized to… well, just about anyone, whether you’re a gamer or a girl or just something starting with g. Just pick and choose whatever you feel applies.

(more…)

2 comments.

Rot and Notebooks

Posted on February 6th, 2007 by Zarathustra.
Categories: everything else, philosophy, games.

I live!

Coincidentally, my ‘living’ comes at the point where I’ve read enough webcomics and books to last me the next 3 years (aka, I am quite bored with the intarweb). Productivity is so-so, life is as happy as I can make it…

Thus I have decided to be a little more surreal about things. Unfortunately for you people it also means exposure to a slightly immature yet impossibly wise vision of things as they are, and as they are becoming.

All hail the coming of the anti-nerd.

DOTA. Yes yes yes. If you are Filipino, Singaporean, Malaysian, or American, it is relatively impossible to not have heard this term somewhere. Some people hate it (refer to the phenomenon “Girlfriends against DOTA”), some have no idea of what it is, and others practically live by it. DOTA is a game, yet in some way or another it represents the massive shift of the gaming market into the realm of the casual player. Before, you’d have the gamers (hardcore or soft), the indifferent people who play games, and the rest of the world. But with the advent of cheap electronics, lightning-fast innovations in technology, and some savvy marketing (I do admit though that disillusionment is a big contributor to the gaming spirit), games have finally broken through the wall and entered the life of “everyman and woman.”

I like to think of myself as a quasi-pioneer, a brave explorer who paved the way for the current crop of cafe players around the country. As with all adventures, a price had to be paid for progress, and I lost quite a bit: grades, potential friends, allowance, parental trust, and most importantly time. Time I could have spent righting wrongs, honing my mind, fighting for justice, and dating.

I have absolutely no regrets. As things were, I doubt I’d have done those things even if games didn’t exist. Better the good “what could have been” excuses than the “relatively same stupid activities.”

DOTA is the proof that I did not waste my time. The people who started playing PC games because of DOTA are the same people I had assumed to have led significant, responsible, and overall disciplined lives. DOTA razes all pretensions of the intellectual elite, the snobbish socialites, the people who I thought lived and “seized the day.” DOTA is the window through which all men and women are created (spawned) equal.

DOTA has made food of us all.

Pudge Build: Hook, Rot, Hook, Rot, Hook, Dismember, Hook, Flesh Heap, Flesh Heap, Flesh heap, Dismember, Rot, Flesh Heap, Rot, Stats, Dismember, stats till 25.

Mix and match Vanguard, Linken’s Sphere, Boots of Travel, Aegis of the Immortal, Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse.

TO WHIT:

If you had a notebook that enabled you to kill people by simply writing down their names and thinking of their faces (you can also control the manner of their death), would you use it?

On a related note, would you support a movement towards world domination with my sexy self leading the way?

15 comments.