Rob Beschizza

Spontaneous gadget generation amid mushroom rings in woods near Worthing, England.

When I was a kid, I found a TRS-80 Model 100, a motorcycle and a giant pig in a forest clearing.

101 Classic Computer Ads

Some of the best, the worst, and the weirdest ads in computer history. 8 megabytes of JPEGs after the jump!

Peek Email Theory

The Peek, a simple handset that looks like a cellphone but does nothing but email, makes an argument for cheap, on-the-go messaging.

Microsoft announces 20 editions of Windows 7! (j/k)

If there’s an instinct that Microsoft can’t put to bed, it’s the one that led to more versions of Vista than can be counted on one hand.

Arenaceous Anti-Desertification Architecture uses bacteria to weld sand together, creating sandstone from the shifting Sahara. In principle, it could turn desert into dwellings on a massive scale: the designers propose creating a vast wall across africa, permanently holding back the dunes. [BLDGBLG]

Scaffolding

Abandoned power stations

Dark Roasted Blend’s gallery of abandoned power stations isn’t as creepy as you’d expect. They’re mostly calm and restful.

Ancient forest preserved in bog

“Naturalists in Cambridgeshire say they have been astounded by the large number of ancient trees that have been found preserved in the peat soil of the Fens.” [BBC]
Photo: Xenocryst (Of different fens!)

Fly Ranch, Nevada

Photo: “Fly Geyser” by Rodney Lough of Happy Valley, Oregon. [Linkinn]

Maunsell Forts on the Thames

Photo: Shivering Sands sea forts [Diamond Geezer's photostream]

Atlantis, physical

Mare Nostrum

Source: BrotherTao’s Gallery

The ampitheater at Buzludzha

Source [Artifical Owl]

It Is With Great Regret…

…Notes from the Frontline of a JRPG
The following correspondence was found among the effects of Chalmond Carmon, Chief Alderman of Windyvale, upon the disposition of his estate. It appears he told no-one of the information contained therein.

Such Bravery

After my husband’s funeral, I closed the gate and wandered back to our salt-rimed townhouse, through a throng of youngsters and their bitter songs of Jerusalem.

The Narrator

The visitor smiled without parting his lips.

Retro Action/Puzzle Game Generator

This one’s for fans (or, indeed, haters) of retro-style action puzzle games, from weird French fare of the 1980s like Purple Saturn Day to modern nostalgia-burners like Geometry Wars and Every Extend Extra.
Retro Action and Puzzle Game Generator.

It’s not in the game

Sport games get the random generator treatment. No random pictures in this one, though, so it’s not a very good one. But maybe good for a titter.
Sport game generator

Groovy Squares

Here is some 1960s-style psychedelic geometry, with a suitable soundtrack. The flash source code included.
These were the results of my first forays into proper Flash coding, instead of just Flash-the-animation-program.
This was supposed to be a medieval city plan generator, but it didn’t work out. With the application of pastel colors and The Girl From Ipa [...]

Over the face of the waters

Random map generators produce realistic results using fractals. Rather than do the same, I wrote this one instead as a grid of cells, representing elevations, which react to the random movements of a wandering entity. Various aspects of this fellow’s behaviour and the cellular rules can be tweaked, and the size of the map changed.

Cliched WWII Game Generator

The Japanese RPG sausage factory might amuse, but the West has it’s own genre cliches. Though not as fleshed out as its eastern counterpart, maybe the WWII first-person shooter generator will be good for a couple of laughs.

Japanese RPG Game Generator

Anyone familiar with Japanese role-playing video games will understand this one. Some are intruiging epic productions that suck in the player for dozens of hours. Others… Well, others are not. Here is my tribute to every generic, poorly-translated, hackneyed game ever to rise from the land of Dragon Quest VIII, Final Fantasy XII.

DMCA Culture Wars

FOR Wired

A dispute between an atheist group and a creationist group over some postings on YouTube has critics of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act crying foul. They say it’s a new and inappropriate use of DMCA, which is becoming a frequent weapon in nasty political and cultural battles.

Open-Source Phones

FOR Wired

Open-source and hacker-friendly alternatives are coming to the market or already available. Here are nine of the best that let you do things the iPhone won’t.

The ultimate iPhone hack

FOR Wired

Mobile Complete, a software-services company, pulled an iPhone to pieces and lashed it to a remote-controlled server. Every input and output on the dissected iPhone is electrically hooked up to the net, providing access to would-be iPhone programmers over the web.

Mechanical Fingers

FOR Wired

If the X-Finger looks like a prop from The Terminator, relax. It isn’t out to kill you, and it isn’t robotic. In fact, it’s a mechanical prosthetic finger so effective it provides articulation as fast and flexible as the real thing.

Researchers Dream of Humanizing Androids

FOR Wired

“I believe that the next-generation humanoid robots should have a spine as we do.”

Nuclear Power’s Softer Side

FOR Wired

“The promise of nuclear fusion is safe, clean energy,” said Rob Goldston, director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. “With fusion, if all the fuel burns at once, your shift supervisor will get annoyed with you. With fission, if it all burns at once, your nearest 200,000 neighbors have to move out of their homes.”