Uplift of Enlightenment

It just so happens once in a while that i just accidentally come across a new game that is going to be released soon, of which i have never heart before but which seems to have a lot of potential to catch my attention in the long run. One of those games is “From Dust” which is the working title of a new Ubisoft game by Eric Chahi. It is a god game, where you (the god) are in control of some natural elements (in this case sand, lava, water and vegetation) to form the world for the human inhabitants by preventing disasters, creating living space or causing havoc (probably like many god games where Populous was the first i remember playing). Why am i mentioning this game after we have played so many other similar games already until exhaustion? Well, it is definitely the art style of this one that fascinated me. There is not much info on the gameplay as of now, but i can see a lot of potential there. Basically i just wanted to let you know that i will keep my eye on this game. Release date is somewhere around summer 2011. I just hope that it will not fail to fulfill my expectations as Black & White did some time ago. Even though i am not much into this kind of games anymore, i can imagine that it would be relaxing to play one of those endless single player modes all by myself for a change (there is no multiplayer announced). I am impatiently now waiting for more details on the gameplay itself and see what it turns into…

I found this video of an early game engine demo:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfKQCAxizrA

Another teaser with similar clips from the demo plus some pictures can be found on the official homepage.

There is also an interview with its creator Eric about the ideas behind the game on youtube:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV4xE4tFolo

Do you also have those days sometimes where everything seems to go wrong? Well, how about a day where everything you try actually works?! Watch how that would be like:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQ-Nw8RAn_U

I do not claim this is NOT an average day for them, but what if it wasn’t? What do you think how many hours of video those guys accumulated until they finally got the intended results? I admire their patience in that case, otherwise i admire their skills! Oh and the choice of music fits excellent too. Thumbs up!

I couldnt help but smiling throughout the whole reading of this product’s description: Razer announces a sci-fi glove thingy ‘Razer Talon’ where you put your fingers into some sensors and by your ten finger’s movement it is supposed to increase your APM (Actions Per Minute) up to some mad 3.000! That would be about 10x more than pro gamers and around 30x more than average gamers. Although APM is especially important in games like starcraft (which i am not so interested in currently), i find this product really cool. There is even an option to set the glove to “massage” mode where the input becomes an output, relaxing your worn off hands in between matches! Just fantastic idea!! But then again, it is 1st April today…

[via Razer]

If you are not familiar with APM then you should check out this south korean master in starcraft telling you what it is:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q

Its pretty simple to remove pingbacks and trackbacks from your sidebar actually, but the required change is overwritten by any wordpress update since it is done directly inside the wordpress files:

1. Open the file wp-includes/default-widgets.php
2. Find line with $comments= get_comments( array( 'number'=> $number, 'status'=> 'approve') );
3. Change line to $comments= get_comments( array( 'number'=> $number, 'status'=> 'approve', 'type'=> 'comment') );

Your pingbacks and trackbacks should be hidden from the default recent comments widget.

Edit: I tried stromkopf’s suggestion to use a plugin and it works perfectly. To get it, go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/get-recent-comments

And now we are allowed to take a glimpse at the third part of the cleverly released chunks of awe from DICE…

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbW98JYSjos

The previously released parts:
Episode 1
Episode 2

I do not want to loose to many words about it. After the teaser and the first part of this episode, DICE/EA has now released the sequel of their trailers of Battlefield 3. And it looks awesome and sounds just amazing. Watch:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqg66mx8YbE

In case you missed it, here is Episode 1.

This animated short does not require any comment, except that if you are a gamer, you know how this guy feels… I am particularly haunted since a few months as my provider (Cablecom) has decided to sell a lot more bandwidth on my node than they are actually able to offer – giving me a ping of 2.8 seconds in peak hours!!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcP9jiCbakw

Do you really know how the earth is spinning around the sun? There is a lot going on there to create climate changes and seasons of different lengths and intensities on the different places on earth. I was not aware how many factors count into the equation if you want to calculate the exact length of a year… A nice scientific explanation in under 10mins:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ml4_Jv_HkE

There are some things that we all have in common… Bobby McFerrin is demonstrating this on the World Science Festival 2009, by making the audience spontaneously sing together without explicitly telling them what to do. As he said, this works no matter where on earth he is trying this. I also like the comment in the end “what the hell just happened?” and am smiling even without knowing the answer…

http://vimeo.com/5732745

This is an impressive display on how much detail and effort hides behind the creation of a magazine cover.