Pimpology

While the moniker of this webiste (as seen hanging ominously above) often causes readers to assume that we are a font of Microsoft biased gushing, we are, in fact, comprised of bloggers with a variety of gaming passions. As such, we have to admit that we’re intrigued by the PS3 exclusive build-your-own-platformer Little Big Planet, yet woefully unable to afford the hardware necessary to play it. If you find yourself in the same position, you may find hope in Boku, a new programing tool from Microsoft. Boku allows users to create entire games using an entirely icon-driven system which can be controlled using only an Xbox 360 controller. In other words, Boku offers the promise of XNA (on which the tool is based) without the need for programming knowledge, allowing users of all ages to create their own games.

Most impressive is that it appears Boku can be used to create all kinds of games, including overhead shooters, 2D action, and even 3D platforming. Check out a video of it in action after the break.

The details of exactly how Boku will be released remain unclear, though it’s expected launch in some form in 2009.

Directly from: http://www.xbox360fanboy.com/2008/11/03/watch-out-little-big-planet-here-comes-microsofts-boku/

More info: http://research.microsoft.com/projects/boku/

Just a short but hopefully sweet note to say,

Happy Birtday Tiffie! - Love you babeh! <3

A Post Over at http://westkarana.com/ Said the below, with my edit near the end.. Just said everything I wanted to say about it, it Looks like such a great game! Little Big Planet for the Playstation3 is an amazing looking game.

So with three very big games (GTAIV, Bioshock and Final Fantasy XIII) going multi-format, does this mean that one of Sony?s key PS3 titles. So when is the Little Big Planet Xbox 360 version being released? Well even though the Xbox 360 has shown itself to be more than a match for the Playstation 3 in terms of graphical power, a game like LittleBigPlanet is likely to have a small appreciative audience on the 360 and may not be worth the extra development time needed to port it over. A PC version is much more likely though as another game by the same designers; Rag Doll Kung Fu, is available on the PC through Steam. However, seeing as the games title is a registered trademark of Sony and not Media Molecule, we really don?t think you?ll see this title anywhere else, which is a shame really as the pointer and motion control of Wii would?ve really suited it. The LittleBigPlanet was released 30th October..

I will add that it doesn’t seem likely it will ever come out on the xbox 360, but will something simular come around for xbox? or even PC.. I know we have SecondLife.. but it’s just lacking simple functions… Maybe Metaplace will give me what I’m looking for in a Game and Community, there just isn’t anything I can get now to use - Anyone giving away a PS3? :p /sigh

Back to World of Warcraft and the odd hop into SecondLife..

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8rcRkxokVaM

So you’re in a room at 2:30 AM with 15 computers. What do you do? Well, these guys developed a screensaver that could be synchronized across every monitor and simulate a Formula 1 race car riding around the ring they form. It’s the coolest screensaver since flying toasters.

Translation:

Sept 30th, 2:32am
For 3 weeks, 15 speed-nuts have been trying to complete a challenge.
Turn their office into a virtual track.
HOW?
Synchronizing 15 screensavers, each one with a bit of the track, to form the whole circuit.
67 attempts later…
When hearing their number, each “pilot” stops any computer activity.
(countdown)
After 3 minutes of no activity, the screen savers are launched.
(people saying: perfect! wow, perfect! this is better than the previous one! animal! animal! yeehee! Here comes the signature! Perfect! Wait wait wait! whoohooooo whistle whistle).

The guy who did the crass and funny Legend of Neil shorts has directed a political segment on how the Presidential candidates fare in the world of World of Warcraft. Is McCain is a night elf warrior because he lives a long time, or a dwarf warrior because he’s a very small man and holds aggro? Is Obama a Tauren druid because he shapeshifts? And wouldn’t you know the lone undecided is a gnome? That’s just the kind of annoying race I’d expect an undecided to decide on.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Kg-K7em20

Wrath Of The Lich King features many changes over The Burning Crusade, most of the changes being done with the specific purpose of allowing greater accessibility to more players, so that the new content doesn’t fall into the old trap of only being done by a small percentage of the player base.

# All 5 Man dungeons can be done in ?Normal? or ?Heroic? mode.
# Heroic versions of all dungeons have their own loot tables.
# All 5 man instances are aimed at being cleared in 1 hour.
# Blizzard is on record saying that ?Heroic instances were too hard? so it is assumed that Heroics will be a bit easier in WotLK.
# Raids can be done in either ?Normal? or ?Heroic? mode, Normal being 10 man and Heroic being 25 man.
# 10 and 25 man raids have separate loot tables, the 25 man versions are a full tier higher than the 10 man versions.
# 10 and 25 man raids are on separate timers (even for the same raid).
# There is a Spirit Shard type PVP system for all 5 man instances and raids, based on Wintergrasp PVP rewards.
# There are new raid scenarios similar to Zul’Aman timed events.
# Most of the Raids are non-linear, so you can pick and choose which boss you wish to do and in what order.
# Plenty of token/badge type rewards for people.

At release, there will be 12 five man Instances, each with a heroic version of the same instance and then 3 Raids, each raid with a 10 or 25 man versions. More Raids will come out a few months after the expansion is released, similar to how Black Temple, Sunwell, Zul’Aman and Caverns of Time Raids were released after TBC came out.

You can see all the instance levels, boss counts and other info about them by reading the full post on the forum.

In what surely would have been really useful after Halloween, a new British start-up, Media Metrica, is going to release high-tech trash bins all over London next year. The bins will be both bomb-proof (London of course, removed trash bins on the Underground following an IRA bombing in 1991, and then the rest of public bins two years later after more bombings) and will have built-in weatherproof LCD screens to display the latest news (presumably connected wirelessly to the Internet).

The bins apparently are made of steel, which reduces the impact of an explosion, by absorbing shrapnel and the heat of the explosion.

According to various British newspapers, the City of London and Media Metrica have a 15-year agreement to install 50 trash bins (each with two screens) around the city, in exchange for operating the information channel (upon which the company can likely run advertising). Otherwise, the units apparently cost  about $50,000 each — plus, they weigh about a ton — so they’re probably not going to be in your neighborhood anytime soon.

The company, which has been testing the bins for the last five years in the New Mexico desert, also plans to bring them to other financial centers around the world, including New York and Dubai.

The Times of London also reports today that “[t]he units will include recycling compartments, allowing pedestrians to deposit newspapers, cans and bottles. With 30 million tonnes of litter collected every year and more than £600 million a year spent in measures to clean up Britain, there is concern about the lack of rubbish receptacles.”

While Londoners must be appreciative of finally having trash bins in public where they didn’t before, I do wonder how green a bin with electronics attached actually will be and how that in and of itself will be recycled. The London Evening Standard reported last year that the plastic casing is made of “recycled materials,” but beyond that it’s not clear what exactly that means.

Over here in the US, a 5-year-old company called BigBelly Solar already makes a $4,000 solar-powered trash bin that compacts garbage once it’s reached a certain level. They’re currently in use outside San Diego, Greater Vancouver, and even at Fenway Park in Boston.

Still, as much as I love teched-out stuff, maybe just simple plastic bins are the way to go.

If you have a Wordpress blog it is crucial that you do certain things to keep it secure. Blogsecurify can help you accomplish this by scanning your Wordpress web blog for known vulnerabilities.

From the blogsecurify.com team:
In order to verify that you are the owner of the URL, you have to include
<!– tested by blogsecurify –> or <!– wpscanner –> somewhere on your front page.
You can use HTML comments for that matter. If you wish not to modify your template, they also provide a Wordpress plugin. Just drop it in your plugins directory and activate.

They will scan a few things on your blog and do a brief security scan, handy little tool.

I guess the Empire had a pretty solid economy, though. It seems that although EA is doing well in the long term, it?s cautious of incurring too much in costs during the downturn. Don?t worry, I?m sure we?ll be having Maddens for years to come, but a 6 percent reduction in headcount at something like EA is a serious move. I hope they don?t have make any more like that.

It feels a little weird rooting for the big guy, but let?s be honest: when they make cuts, they?re going to make it to the less profitable sections, i.e. original games with new ideas that don?t sell in the millions. As much as EA gets flak for being a sequel machine, at least they still put out genuinely good stuff every once in a while.