Top 5 dumbest Wii games ever imagined (by me)

Man, do I love the Nintendo Wii for its innovative interface! So I wondered one day not how to use it best, but how to use it worst. Dumbest. Ever. Below are the potential games I came up with, or more precisely, what the main character would be:

The baker

Put the bread in the oven.

Feel the thrill!

Post office employee

Do the stamps.

Too much rock for one hand baby!

The slave

Just paddle to avoid punishement.

Let this game enslave you!

(Actually, Nintendo stole that idea from me.)

Janitor

Get in and clean - let the fun begin! Uses the Ajax technology.

Level 1 - floor. Level 2 - windows. Level 3 - toilet.

Barrel organ player

A creative and inventive game based on a truly original concept.



This game doesn't need any stupid marketing slogan, and yet it does have one!

More dumb Wii games here!

[Picture source, source, source, source, source, quote source]

Historical tweets

Have you ever tried to imagine what Twitter would be like, if it was avaliable hundreds of years ago? Here's a wild guess by Eric Alt (source or click to zoom):



This one leads me to mixed feelings, between "LOLZ" and "omg, the youth nowadays". Fortunately, there's something way better: John Quincy Adams' diaries.

John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, always maintained diaries, but one was particular: the entries were 110-120 characters long, fitting the Twitter bound (140) without using acronyms like "omg" or "bff". This diary was started Aug. 5, 1809, which is precisely 200 years ago.

Now, with an exact 200 years shift, the Massachusetts Historical Society is posting those notes on Twitter! The lecture is just like reading a feed from 200 years ago.

Here's a better article about it from NY Times, with more links and info.

KTHXBA!!!

What [not] to watch: 'Llectuals.

'Llectuals is, according to its creators, the summer reading you can watch, and the show that proves that growing up is about more than just the secretion of endocrine hormones by the pituitary gland. If that isn't recommendation enough, check out the trailer:



Too bad it's just a mock up, created by the comedy troupe POYKPAC.


The idea is great, though. Here's the full script, if you wish to enlighten your mind by broadening your vocabulary and achieve an improvement of your uderstanding of the phrases pronounced by those young people.

The closest thing to a Full House reunion

Anyone remembers Full House?


More importantly, anyone cares? I kinda do! Though I'm not really star-struck on the actors, way more on the characters. (DJ is such a sweet girl and she's the eldest, like me!) But to some people, that's no difference. (A friend of mine shares his name with a fictional character from a TV show and a fan found him on Skype recently.)

Well, anyway, the cast is kinda trying to reunite (and one of the guys is supposedly trying to make a movie out of it), and they are almost succeeding on twitter. Te following are tweeting together:

• Andrea Barber (Kimmy)
• John Stamos (Uncle Jesse)
• Dave Coulier (Joey)
• Bob Saget (Danny)
• Candace Cameron Bure (DJ)

According to Dave Coulier, Jodie Sweetin (Stephanie) is thinking about tweeting and Lori Loughlin (Becky) will join. He's kinda clueless about the Olsen Twins (Michelle), though, as he's pointing to a fake Mary-Kate account, when Mary-Kate uses (or technically, does not) this one and Ashley is on this one.

All of which leads to a long and interesting discussion on Twitter and authentication. But that's a different topic. Way more fitting to this blog than stalking celebs on-line, I know, but still a different subject.

[Picture source]

[Update] Jodie has joined on the 5th of August and already has over 2000 followers.

Eye candy: a few geometrical sculptures

Today guys, for your viewing pleasure, the works of a few geometrical sculptors:

James Roper, "Into the Fold":


Carlo H. Séquin, "Tetroid with 24 Heptagons, 6 colors":


Bathsheba Grossman, "The Noom":


George W. Hart, "John Deere":


Charles Perry, "Eclipse":


Of course, there are many more on the artists' respective websites. Enjoy!

House - Season 1-4 DVDs on 50% sale!

I would write a "what [not] to watch" about House M.D., but what for, since you already know the answer (watch!!!) and have watched it all.



But, if by any chance, you haven't (I have only seen a few episodes so far, lucky me!), you might be interested in the fact that's the DVD for seasons 1-4 are on a 50% sale (£38.98 instead of £79.99) on Amazon.co.uk (or in the related fact, that I'm ordering them and will lend them to you, provided I know you IRL).

Google Wave: will curiosity kill the geek?

I signed up for Google Wave! Now I have to hope I'm one of the 100,000 chosen ones and wait for October and then I might try it out.


What is Google Wave anyway? No one exactly knows, but Gina Trapani said in less that 140 characters:

Simplest terms: Google Wave is Gmail on crack. Imagine Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Docs in one big inbox.

Sounds cool. I'd love to try that! Especially if I get to give improvement suggestions when it comes to usability.

More info on Google Wave here and here.

Random thoughts about the Sims 3

I go the Sims 3 as soon as they were out (remember how I couldn't wait in January? I also got the computer but not the flowery desk) and have already wasted many hours playing.

The game has really nice views of the world around us, I mean around the Sims (click to zoom):





The gameplay got improved and is a bit more realistic than in the Sims 2. The genetics are waaaaay better - Sims now make beautiful babies that you definitely want to play with.

Some bugs and glitches remain, however. The one I can't forgive is EA extra content not installing:


The "46" is one of my processors being clogged by the installer. The "0%" can stay up to 30 minutes (haven't tried longer, shouldn't 30 minutes be enough?). I've notified customer support.

The other glitches are funny:



Isn't this table standing in your way?


Get your foot from inside mine, bitch!



This one happened when a boyfriend came with his baby (he was adopting babies behind my Sim's back!), stayed for the night and then had to go to work - a delicate situation to handle.



That baby grew into a beautiful lady (blue-sleeved T-shirt), but look at her sister: her butt is in the water and it's the dirty dishes she's complaining about.



The burglar alarm, the burglar fighting with the police officer and the annoyed neighbors - in TS2, they didn't care.

Feed hungy Americans by downloading IE8

Microsoft is making totally crazy really intensive advertising campaign for his new baby IE8. Everything is to be found in the new ads.

First, my favourite, meritorical discussion:


Mmm, yeah, how very meritorical, I couln't agree more with these points.

Second, a marketing sure-thing, controversy:


This ad, a video of a woman so shocked by her husband's browsing history that she vomits, has been removed - and thus talked about a lot. "Browsing better", according to Microsoft, is visiting filthy websites, just as long as you don't leave them in your history. Needless to say, my definition of "browsing better" is slightly different.

But, but, but, however, after all the brainstorms that lead to this variety of ads, they finally got me. What made me download the thingy? The promise of provinding 8 meals for Americans in need fo every download. I clicked "downlad" and saw 4 versions to choose from:


You might think that since I'm using Windows 7, I've already got IE8 and none of this versions is for me. But this doesn't matter when it comes to fighting hunger - I downloaded all four versions, proving a month of food on Microsoft for someone. Then I deleted them.

You too can visit browserforthebetter.com and help fight hunger in America!

Silverlight vs. CSS

I'm back to Silverlight blogging! I've been super busy these last months with school, getting married and swithing to Python at work and I haven't had time to look deeper into Silverlight 3 nor get my hands dirty digging in some code. But, summer is here, and here I come! Let's start with some philo: Silverlight vs. CSS.

But why not Silverlight vs. Flash?

First, because it's done greatly at Shine Draw (congratulations on becoming a Silverlight MVP!) . By the way, Smashing Magazine, which is the best webdesign resource ever (and anyone working on a user interface should read that kind of stuff ) has recently had a really in-depth technical article about that subject too (which kinda concludes that Flash is better as it supports more stuff, but I'd just say older, anyway, I'm just saying I'm not writing about Flash).

Second: Flash and Silverlight are two different tools. You usually know one or the other. You usually have to choose one or the other as your area of expertise and once your choice is made, you won't go back, no matter how I praise one and critiscize the other. Silverlight and CSS, however, are tools lying side by side in the same toolbox. Okay, lots of generalizing here, some people are pure C# programmers and don't need to worry about webdesign. I am the girl who uses SL more for websites than for applications and that's what happens: I need to embed SL elements in a webpage done in HTML (thus my interest for HTML Overlay) so a question arises:

Which elements do I do in Silverlight, and which in DHTML?

Here's an excellent example: the Fish Eye menu.

n.design studio did it in CSS/JS:


PageBrooks did it in Silverlight:



Shine Draw did it his style: both Silverlight and Flash, for comparaison:

Now say you need a Fish Eye menu on your site - which do you use?

First thing: ask yourself about your target. Some of my best friends use Linux and well, not everyone has Silverlight. But some people block all of their Flash and some turn JavaScript off - you can't please everyone. I think I'd go with JS here, but the topic is broad.

Second: is it ready? Is it free? For commercial purposes too? Because if it isn't and you have to do it yourself, I'd say one hour for Silverlight, a few days for debugging JavaScript in all possible browsers - absolutely incomparable times.

Still don't know? Don't worry, neither do I, the topic is way too broad. A lot depends on your goal: is it learning a technology? Pleasing a customer? Building an impressive portfolio? If the latter, one important word of advice: don't overdo it. I've seen a site with two moving Silverlight controls that were getting really annoying after a bit of time. Modern at first sight, but cheap at the second: "Mm, yeah, a rotating banner, how hard is that in Silverlight?" It's easy and it's great that it is, but let's use our tools wisely.