Displaying post 1 to 50 of 55
Edinburgh author
Iain M. Banks, creator of the post capitalist space faring society
The Culture and it's
oddly named ships, has long been the UKs top science fiction writer, but has never had
more than a toehold in the US (in part through lack of availability, in part due to lack of promotion and in part due to some pretty
awful covers. That could change:
Matter, his latest, has been heavily promoted in the US and sports a cover nearly identical to the UK edition. This week
Orbit are releasing US editions of the two earliest Culture novels, with the third following in July, which could mean a complete release of all the novels in the US in order.
posted to MetaFilter by Artw
at 11:00 PM on March 23, 2008
(160 comments)
I'm specifically looking at automated builds, unit testing, better source control, and generally moving away from seat-of-the-pants coding and deployment, to specific processes. This is a Microsoft shop, if that helps.
posted to Ask Metafilter by quixxotic
at 12:04 PM on March 22, 2008
(15 comments)
Our indoor cat desperately wants to go outside. Help!
posted to Ask Metafilter by anotherpanacea
at 7:21 PM on February 15, 2008
(16 comments)
What hardware and software give you the best writing experience?
Hardware, like models of laptops, pdas, typewriters, keyboards, mice, etc
Software like apps, webapps, userscripts, preferences, etc
And in addition to your personal preference, what would you recommend to me if I want to have this gloarious writing experience on an all-day battery?
posted to Ask Metafilter by oneous
at 2:41 AM on February 12, 2008
(10 comments)
Game Design: In an MMO, how do you build an economy that will 'balance' itself? Obviously, having solid inputs and outputs are one thing, and balancing those inputs with the demand for the item, but what other things need to be taken into account?
posted to Ask Metafilter by SpecialK
at 11:48 AM on February 9, 2008
(23 comments)
What are some cool, low-key alley-way bars in Melbourne city?
posted to Ask Metafilter by lazy robot
at 1:10 AM on November 7, 2006
(5 comments)
Help me be a good product manager.
posted to Ask Metafilter by StephenF
at 8:41 AM on January 16, 2008
(17 comments)
Many freeware games were released in 2007. How to seperate the crap from the good stuff? It can be a little hard admittedly but
this thread on the
Tigsource forums might help you. With around 30 categories (and a winner announced for each) ranging from 'Best Shooter' to 'Best Bosses,' there's probably something there to please just about anyone.
posted to MetaFilter by pancreas
at 4:43 AM on January 4, 2008
(20 comments)
BEKs, "Easter Eggs," The Holders... Welcome to
the world of
creepypasta -- short, oft-repeated scary stories, anecdotes, and "facts."
posted to MetaFilter by hjo3
at 6:55 PM on December 20, 2007
(44 comments)
Do you want to fly? Really fly? Not at the controls of a cockpit simulation, but just you ... flying ... your motion through space controlled by the gentlest of nudges of your mouse.
Tranquility.
Not a game; but an environment in which to 'travel'. View a
short QT video clip of a typical Tranquility level. Download the 'game browser' (versions for all common computers) in which the game operates, work through the short training levels, and prepare to lose yourself in flight.
(Don't be put off by the 'Buy the Game' links on the website; Tranquility is perfectly functional in demo mode, with the demo landscape changing daily. I've been playing it that way for more than five years.)
posted to MetaFilter by woodblock100
at 9:16 AM on June 15, 2007
(29 comments)
The star who never was. Part rock and roll history and part cautionary tale, the story of Marcus is too compelling to ignore. Well.... maybe not, but it's worth the read.
posted to MetaFilter by elwoodwiles
at 3:12 PM on May 16, 2005
(11 comments)
Tales of Future Past*
— It's been a looong Monday. Do you want to get
off the planet and out of the
city to a place where you can really
live? Well, here's some
food for thought on the way
home down life's
highways. First, take a break from all this depressing
war talk. Then
empower yourself by giving yourself some
space and maybe
taking off for a few days.
Drive just a bit slower, turn up the
volume and
imagine that your
mechanic will say the tranny's OK after all. Once you're in the front door, take
time to get slightly
wired and forget all about
politics. Get
recharged for tomorrow: have a nice long
bath, put your
mind at ease, watch
Ur Fave shOw, and listen to some soothing
music. Now, don't things look a lot better?
[*
Note the 'Start the Tour' links at the bottom of each page.]
posted to MetaFilter by cenoxo
at 4:36 PM on February 12, 2007
(10 comments)
The
premise of Marvel Comic's
Civil War storyline is that after a hero-related disaster, the government decides to force all superheroes to register, causing a split in the hero community. While heroes debate and decide which side to join, fans
debate whether or not the cross-over series is actually any good. Clearly,
Christopher Bird falls squarely on one side and has attempted to "improve" the story by starting a project to edit the dialogue of the series.
(1) (2) (3) (4)
(5) (6)
posted to MetaFilter by robocop is bleeding
at 6:21 AM on February 9, 2007
(53 comments)
You've heard of
ScummVM and
MAME, but harvest time is approaching in the field of reverse-engineered
open source re-implementations of other classic games too:
OpenTTD (Transport Tycoon),
LinCity (Sim City),
Advanced Strategic Command (Battle Isle),
Freeciv (Civilization),
Enigma (Oxyd),
Widelands (Settlers),
OpenArena (Quake 3),
Spring (Total Annihilation),
JJFFE (Frontier First Encounters),
Vega Strike and
Oolite (Elite),
FreeOrion (Master of Orion),
Pingus (Lemmings),
Stratagus (Warcraft II et al.),
CloneKeen (Commander Keen),
Exult (Ultima VII),
FreeCNC (Command & Conquer),
REminiscence (Flashback),
LGeneral (Panzer General),
Pioneers (Settlers of Catan), and
Freedoom (Doom).
posted to MetaFilter by hoverboards don't work on water
at 3:27 PM on February 1, 2007
(43 comments)
At the beginning was the noosphere.
The existence of a "sphere of ideas", beyond the "sphere of life" (biosphere) and the "sphere of matter" (geosphere) was apparently first postulated by the pioneering Russian-Ukrainian geochemist
V.I. Vernadsky. Vernadsky thought not only that the biosphere had entirely reshaped the geosphere, but that the burgeoning noosphere of interconnected thought would ultimately change the biosphere just as much.
French jesuit and paleontologist
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin took the concept and
ran with it...(more inside)
posted to MetaFilter by Skeptic
at 12:24 PM on November 28, 2006
(24 comments)
Weird-in-a-good-way-filter: I need suggestions for online stores/catalogs for Christmas Shopping!
posted to Ask Metafilter by deedeep
at 1:08 PM on November 14, 2006
(47 comments)
Roger Corman's Fantastic Four movie had been lambasted by many as the absolute worst in superhero moviedom, at least until
Elektra and
Catwoman came along. Shelved after production, it's hard for the casually-interested nerd to find without having to deal with bootleg video dealers at cons. Thankfully, somebody put it up on the internet in handy Flash video:
Part One |
Part Two.
posted to MetaFilter by beaucoupkevin
at 2:29 PM on November 19, 2006
(45 comments)
Let's say you're thrust headlong into a dogfight engagement in space. Era and galaxy of your choosing. What would the real-world physics look like?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Gordion Knott
at 6:28 AM on November 2, 2006
(58 comments)
USSR Posters.
Gallery of over 1400 posters from the Soviet era.
posted to MetaFilter by plep
at 2:06 PM on September 28, 2006
(44 comments)
I'm in a polyamorous relationship. It isn't enough.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Bora Horza Gobuchul
at 8:31 PM on August 31, 2006
(41 comments)
1,100 Apple II games you can play online.
If you are too overwhelmed by your memories to know what to play, some playable classics:
Oregon Trail*,
Ultima IV*,
Archon*,
Captain Goodnight and the Islands of Fear*,
Drol*,
Wings of Fury*,
Choplifter *,
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?* and
Taipan*. Or you can play the
first game mod in history:
Castle Smurfenstein, a modification of the 1983 original
Castle Wolfenstein. What did I miss?
[Young whippersnappers can click the asterisks to find out why the game was important. Use the left and right alt keys for joystick buttons, the other instructions are on the site. Emulator only works with IE, sorry. See also this.]
posted to MetaFilter by blahblahblah
at 12:17 PM on August 29, 2006
(98 comments)
Piet
is a programming language in which programs look like
abstract paintings. You can view some sample programs, or if you just like Mondrian, why not make your own with the Mondrian Machine? Or maybe you don't like Mondrian but you do like programming, in which case you can check out other strange languages, such as Petrovich, where you can punish or reward your PC. Finally, if you don't like programming OR Mondrian, have a look at a silly gif of a kitten.
posted to MetaFilter by Orange Goblin
at 10:55 AM on August 14, 2006
(11 comments)
Payback is a B****
Someone played one too many practical jokes and/or pranks on some IT guys who had too much time on their hands. Impressive results ensue.
posted to MetaFilter by FlamingBore
at 9:55 PM on August 8, 2006
(52 comments)
In 1899, the core of downtown Seattle burned to the ground. While the shops quickly rebuilt & re-opened, the city itself took the opportunity to rebuild the streets some 36 feet higher than they previously had been (ostensibly to combat water pressure/sea level issues), meaning that pedestrians climbed ladders to go between street level and building entrances. Eventually, the city laid down sidewalks up on the new street level, and the underground
city was
all but forgotten. Today,
via a building in Pioneer Square, you can still tour what
remains of the
abandoned underground,
looking up at the
people above through the
opaque glass sidewalk.
posted to MetaFilter by jonson
at 10:54 AM on August 9, 2006
(45 comments)
Dead Ringers: the Science Museum asks us the question "should we upgrade our mobile phone?" "
No" and "
no" say the Times and the Observer, but we still do: on average every 18 months. What's the problem? Well it isn't just the lead, arsenic, beryllium and
brominated fire-retardant cases (pollutants all) disappearing into our land fills (which are not covered by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive [
WEEE] in Europe). Coltan also goes into our phones. It occurs mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and as such our demand for upgrades has been
contributing to a war (despite mobile phone companies' claims to the contrary, coltan is not regulated like timber). If we must upgrade, we can at least
recycle or hack our
old phones.
posted to MetaFilter by nthdegx
at 11:37 AM on August 7, 2006
(49 comments)
Tell me what web-forms really, really impress you. I'm stuck in "form-developer" block mode, and after muddling through mountains and mountains of layouts and best practises sites, I think I'm about to explode.
posted to Ask Metafilter by purephase
at 3:48 PM on May 29, 2006
(13 comments)
revalationfilter: What happens in the book of revalations?
posted to Ask Metafilter by delmoi
at 11:45 AM on May 30, 2006
(35 comments)
