Pacman in depth, and hilarious twitter bot

so, it occurs to me that occasionally some of the super-geeky links that my awesomse super-geeky colleagues turn up may be of interest to other chums. with that in mind, I present the most detailed analysis of pac-man in the world.


Did you know that pac-man corners slightly differently from the ghosts?  did you know the ghosts all have different personalities?  did you know that some of the intricacies of the timing algorithm of the jail mean that you can theoretically lock the ghosts away for the whole level if you do it right?  read on!

http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html

and also, some hilarious fellow has devised an AI twitter bot that looks for common global-warming-denial arguments and responds with automated tweet debunks.  The best thing about this is that, since the targets are essentially parroting common arguments, they're essentially no better than bots themselve, so they're essentially failing the turing test themselves. Credit to talking philosophy for that thought,  more info here.

pictures from germany!

from halt! suppenzeit and felix:

kanye vs fourye

 

myers vs kruger

quake vs gents

Spiderman?

from http://www.explosm.net/comics/592/.  thanks Mike.

also, your wikipedia article of the week is… chaos magic!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Magic

that’ll teach me to waste a morning on reading about hp lovecraft…

How to make a number 1 single

the original guide by the KLF, in full:

http://tomrobinson.com/wordpress/?page_id=52

thanks Francis.

from this point it's only 60 ft to the top

Thanks Max!

Boiling hot?

neo lebowski

thanks max

aaaah, small towns

When You Think McDonough's Auto Repair, You Think Craftsmanship, Murder, And Pride

New Van Canto Video!

Sweet.  I think Van Canto are pretty much my favourite band.



the more you watch them, the more you think they are AWESOME first and HILARIOUS second.  join me....


I'm going to write Dragonforce a letter to see if they'll have the VC supporting them on their next tour. That would be the best concert ever.

geek update

for anyone who missed this from george: amazing:

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/sorting-algorithms-quite-boring-until-you-add-sound-effects-20100819/

and while we're at it,

http://hackedirl.com/2010/08/16/culture-jamming-win-nerd-love/

girls like boys with skills!

first, some ergonomic advice:



(thanks boingboing)

next, check out the alien-fish that giger ripped off:



thanks felix

and finally:



boingboing

Pictures!

1/ safe bedisde table:

thanks Dave.

2/ rocket-propelled chainsaw launcher

thanks Felix

Repercussions of evil

Thanks Felix

art and storytelling

"Obama's Weekly Video Addresses Becoming Increasingly Avant-Garde":
http://www.theonion.com/articles/obamas-weekly-video-addresses-becoming-increasingl,17649/

and:

Ooh, I have a blog!

I'd forgotten that.

So, I started reading this short story, and a couple of hours later had read a lot more about rationalism than I expected to. So that was this morning.

Damn "mad scientists"

Anyway then the front fell off. Doh.

LOLcano!

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/03/fun-with-a-banks-sec.html

http://www.theonion.com/articles/supreme-court-upholds-freedom-of-speech-in-obsceni,17372/

weeee!

Airspace Rebooted from ItoWorld on Vimeo.

would you trust google to tell you which sites are safe?

result of :

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=google.com/

What is the current listing status for google.com?

This site is not currently listed as suspicious.

Part of this site was listed for suspicious activity 2 time(s) over the past 90 days.

What happened when Google visited this site?

Of the 181401 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 17 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2010-04-19, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2010-04-18.

Malicious software includes 141 scripting exploit(s), 10 trojan(s), 7 exploit(s).

Malicious software is hosted on 28 domain(s), including monidopo.bee.pl/, shifmant.co.il/, recover888.com/.

20 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including googleusercontent.com/, mots.go.th/, aliraqnews.net/.

This site was hosted on 5 network(s) including AS15169 (Google Internet Backbone), AS20940 (AKAMAI), AS13867 (CNET).

Has this site acted as an intermediary resulting in further distribution of malware?

Over the past 90 days, google.com appeared to function as an intermediary for the infection of 17 site(s) including zerogradinord.net/, aekcka.googlepages.com/, themeadowblog.com/.

Has this site hosted malware?

Yes, this site has hosted malicious software over the past 90 days. It infected 42 domain(s), including sangalonews.com/, ro777.com/, aviris.com.ua/.

hardehardehar.

AZO

this guy is now my absolute hero:



also in the news:

extremely long exposition of why star wars 2 sucks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfBhi6qqFLA&feature=channel

mobius bagel slicing:
http://www.georgehart.com/bagel/bagel.html

want!

"This type of vehicle called in Russian ekranoplan uses so called ground effect - extra lift of large wings when in proximity to the surface. For this reason they have been designed to travel at a maximum of three meters above the sea [...] It is also interesting to note that this aircraft is one of the largest ever built, with a length of 73,8 meters (comparing with 73 of Airbus A380)."

more info here. don't miss page 3 of pictures....

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2010/03/12/ekranoplan/

thanks Felix!