McCulloch House Blog: June 2006

Mario Borthers Room

Mario Brothers Room
I've always been a Mario Bros. fan, but I've not gone to this length.... yet! I want it :)

Today's Videos

Here's a series of videos I found either funny, fascinating or just really cool...

1. Okay I've seen a lot of great DDR players, but this really tops it. I mean come on, the guy does a cartwheel!

2. Yes there are heaps of mentos and coke videos, but this one is unique...101 bottles of coke and 503 mentos...

3. This is just cool...

4. This is also just cool...

5. This is hilarious! =)

6. This one is for my girlfriend, she's a Mazda fan...

The Technology at the World Cup

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/communications/
soa/_Goalfest_for_IT_at_the_World_Cup/
0,39023754,39259212,00.htm

Check out that link for a list of technology that's being used in the broadcast of the worldcup, its quite enlightening...

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/08/D8I489R80.html

No no, as much as I enjoy computer games, I am not addicted, I assure you. But plenty of people are, especially in countries like Korea where computer games are practically a national sport. A detox clinic has even been setup in Europe that will help addicted gamers let go of their joysticks.

Microsoft Talks Daily with Your Computer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060607/ap_on_hi_te/
microsoft_monitoring_piracy;_ylt=
AujEpciXDaznfIp7roidcYMjtBAF;_
ylu=X3oDMTA0cDJlYmhvBHNlYwM-

Microsoft have released that their Windows Genuine Advantage tool contacts Microsoft each day. The tool verifies if the version of Windows you are running is legitimate, and the contact is designed as a security measure, since the tool is still in pilot. The daily contact allows Microsoft to shut the tool down if it was to malfunction (start detecting pirated copies incorrectly).

Lets hope Microsoft isn't planning on taking over the world or anything...

Real-Life Game Engine

http://img161.imageshack.us/my.php?image=comparison018mx4df.jpg

Next-gen game engines are really pulling weight with the aim to do realistic graphics.The comparison photos to the left are from Crysis, being developed by EA and Crytek (I posted a link to Crytek's demo's not long ago, the stuff they do just gets better and better).
<< It uses the CryENGINE™ 2.

Make your own DDR Deck

http://inventgeek.com/Projects/dancepad1/overview.aspx

Donna introduced me to DDR not long ago, and I've come to really enjoy it =). It took me about four goes before I figured which foot was which =P, but I'm slowly getting the hang of the game.

A lot of the DDR decks you can buy are pretty crap and made out of soft materials, so we spend most of the DDR playing at arcades that have the solid DDR decks. But it might be time for us to try and make our own! If you visit the link theres detail by detail on how to make your own DDR deck (see photo). The material costs range from US$250 to US$1000 so its a bit pricy, but we'll see =).

The PS3 Disappointment....

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=32171

Sony seem to have screwed up memory on the PS3 =S. Turns out while it can write to local memory at 4GB/s, it can only read at 16MB/s. Main memory seems fine, and Sony is telling dev's not to use local memory.

There's more too about the number of triangles that the PS3 can render: apparantly half of that of the XBox 360...... seems like the PS3 is going to make more thud than bang, atleast with developers.