Twenty years ago today, the gaming world saw the launch of a truly landmark title:
Sonic the Hedgehog. Developed as a vehicle for a new Sega mascot, the fluid, vibrant, cheery-tuned wonderland swiftly became the company's flagship product, inspiring over the ensuing decades
an increasingly convoluted universe of TV shows,
comic books, and dozens of games on a variety of systems (all documented in
this frighteningly comprehensive TVTropes portal). And while in recent years the series has turned out
more and more mediocre 3D and RPG efforts, the original games remain crown jewels of the 16-bit era. So why not kick off this anniversary by replaying the titles that started it all for free in your browser:
Sonic the Hedgehog (1991),
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992),
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994),
Sonic & Knuckles (1994). Or click inside for music, remakes, and other fun stuff!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 23, 2011 -
71 comments
Halfway through the third book of the
Hitchhiker's Guide series, there is
a throwaway reference to a doomed starship, one whose incredible splendor was matched only by the cosmic absurdity of its maiden-day annihilation.
But the story didn't end there. Unbeknownst to many fans, this small piece of Adamsian lore was the inspiration for an ambitious and richly-detailed side-story: a 1998 computer adventure game called
Starship Titanic.
Designed by Douglas Adams himself, the game set players loose in the infamous vessel, challenging them with a maddening mystery laced with the devilish wit of the novels.
The game was laden with extra content, including
an in-depth strategy guide,
a (mediocre) tie-in novel by Terry Jones,
a whimsical First Class In-Flight Magazine, and even a pair of 3D glasses for one of the more inventive puzzles.
Key to solving these puzzles was the game's groundbreaking communications system -- players interacted with
the ship's robotic crew through a natural language parsing engine called SpookiTalk, whose 10,000+ lines of conversational dialogue spawned
16 hours of audio recorded by professional voice actors, including
John Cleese,
Terry Jones, and even Douglas Adams himself in
several cameos (spoiler cameo). Want to experience the voyage for yourself? Then watch this narrated video playthrough (
intro (ads) -
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9? 10 11 12 13) ...or click inside for a information on how to run the game for free on Windows, Mac, and Linux (along with a bunch of other goodies!).
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 22, 2010 -
109 comments
CreativeApplications.Net scours the net for platform independent apps that help sharing and engaging with information. They look at OSX, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Web Apps, Flash, Physical Interfaces, Max MSP development, Processing and others.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Oct 30, 2010 -
4 comments
Google makes Picasa, YouTube, Blogger, and Google Documents, Calendar, and Contacts available to command-line geeks with
GoogleCL, a new, official command-line tool. How to install:
Mac OS X,
Windows,
elsewhere.
Google's examples of what you can do; Lifehacker's "
five nifty GoogleCL tricks."
[more inside]
posted by WCityMike
on Jun 29, 2010 -
26 comments
Mendeley is a cross-platform research management tool which features article databasing, PDF annotation, online backup, private, shared and public collections, metadata lookup on Google Scholar, direct exporting of multiple citation styles to Word, OpenOffice and BibTex, the ability to add documents directly from a web browser, and social networking with other members in your field of study. Like
Zotero (
previously), but out of the browser and with note-taking abilities. For Windows, Mac and Linux.
posted by l33tpolicywonk
on Jun 11, 2010 -
27 comments
Citing security concerns, Sony has decided to release a firmware
update that will disable the "OtherOS" feature on its older (non-slim) PlayStation 3 systems. This is almost certainly a response to the system finally being
hacked two months ago by George "GeoHot" Hotz. To counter Sony's disabling of the feature, Hotz, who previously stated that he would not be releasing custom firmware for the PS3,
now plans to do so:
"The PlayStation 3 is the only product I know that loses features throughout its lifecycle. Software PS2 emulation, SACD playback, and OtherOS support are all just software switches you can flip. It's unbelievable you would go and flip one, not just on new boxes you are shipping, but on tens of millions already in the field."
posted by Who_Am_I
on Mar 30, 2010 -
126 comments
Revolution OS [1h25m Google Video]
is a 2001 documentary which traces the history of GNU, Linux, and the open source and free software movements. It features several interviews with prominent hackers and entrepreneurs (and hackers-cum-entrepreneurs), including Richard Stallman, Michael Tiemann, Linus Torvalds, Larry Augustin, Eric S. Raymond, Bruce Perens, Frank Hecker and Brian Behlendorf. [more inside]
posted by hippybear
on Mar 11, 2010 -
68 comments
Nokia has announced the
n900 running the
maemo Linux based
operating system will be released in October. The phone has similar specifications to the
iphone, but with a keyboard and considerably higher resolution display
(800x480). In addition the OS is an open platform with free GPL development
tools. More from
The Guardian and
CNET.
posted by sien
on Aug 27, 2009 -
83 comments
Google Chrome OS: Google says it will release a new operating system, built around its Chrome browser, which will be open source and will initially be targeted at netbooks. Shipment is expected second half of 2010. No response yet from Microsoft.
[more inside]
posted by Chocolate Pickle
on Jul 7, 2009 -
227 comments
Open to Revisions. "Some religious entrepreneurs have adopted an 'open source' model, where rituals and doctrines can be rewritten as easily as computer code."
posted by homunculus
on Jun 11, 2009 -
54 comments
On May 13, security advisories published by
Debian and
Ubuntu revealed that, for over a year, their OpenSSL libraries have had a major flaw in their
CSPRNG, which is used by
key generation functions in many widely-used applications, which caused the "random" numbers produced to be extremely predictable.
[lolcat summary] [more inside]
posted by finite
on May 16, 2008 -
81 comments
Ubuntu 8.04's
Hardy Heron has recently perched on millions of desktops worldwide, but what does the future look like for the darling of the open source world? Now entering a
new 2-year art developent cycle, Ubuntu's
continuing quest for
"pure, unadulterated, raw, visceral, lustful, shallow, skin deep beauty" has begun again in earnest.
Bleeding edge desktop effects [youtube, music] are already creeping into the official distribution and the community is eagerly awaiting the new graphical look, promised as a ground-up re-imagination in the next release,
Intrepid Ibex.
Watch this space.
posted by cowbellemoo
on Apr 28, 2008 -
86 comments
cb.vu is a javascript virtual terminal which opens up full window in your browser and lets you fiddle with some UNIX goodness without being connected to a server, or affecting anything in The Real World whatsoever. Try creating, copying and reading files (and, particularly, read the about.txt), or playing one of the games provided. It even has an implementation of
vi!
[more inside]
posted by benzo8
on Apr 17, 2008 -
18 comments
LugRadio is a fortnightly British radio show that takes a relaxed, humorous look at Linux and open source.
posted by finite
on Mar 11, 2008 -
2 comments
Is this the end of the bus timetable? It can be bloody cold in Helsinki in January. The last thing you want to do is hang around too long for a bus or tram. Soon you won't have to because
Helsinki City Transport is currently fitting *its entire fleet* with Linux servers. Not only will each bus or tram become a travelling wireless hotspot, but you will be able to see exactly where in the city your new bus actually is. Meaning that you only step into the bitter cold the minute before it arrives. (its in beta but you can see the effects of the live trial)
[more inside]
posted by MrMerlot
on Jan 27, 2008 -
49 comments
Ubuntu has quickly become the number one
Linux distro for the desktop. Not only is it free, but it has also made Linux easier to use than ever. Now,
Wubi enables
Windows users to install Ubuntu just like any other application, so you no longer have to mess around with partitions, burning CDs, etc.
[more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis
on Jan 21, 2008 -
82 comments
The How-To Geek provides hints and tips for a variety of operating systems and popular pieces of software. The how-tos cover a pleasing range of head-slapping I-should-have-known-thats to relatively advanced techniques. Follow the
latest page to read the site in blog form.
posted by nthdegx
on Jul 8, 2007 -
12 comments
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