Javascript - based Unix

From the site:
JS/UIX is an UN*X-like OS for standard web-browsers, written
entirely in JavaScript (no plug-ins used). It comprises a vir-
tual machine, shell, virtual file-system, process-management,
and brings its own terminal with screen- and keyboard-mapping.

OpenLaszlo 3.1 is out!

The latest and greatest version of Laszlo is out! Go grab a copy and check it out. It's a free, open source, xml+javascript application framework that outputs to flash. Sites like Pandora.com use it as their UI.

W3C Web APIs Working Group

W3C is finally waking up to the new world of AJAX and persistent web applications. This is great news! Some of the highlights are persistent storage on the client, and different protocols like IRC via the web browser.

Dedicated toy inventor creates colored bubbles

What a great story. A man works 11 years out of his house to create colored bubbles. The world will never be the same :)

Flash VNC

Coool. Flash based VNC -- just the first of many things we'll start to see as folks see Flash in a new light. As flash performance has gone up, folks I believe will begin to find new uses for it.

Classic BBS's Still Alive and Kicking

Do you fondly remember the old days of BBS's - playing Tradwars or LORD? You might squeal in girlish delight at this site, which has a live and kicking BBS for you to exercise your retro-hungry muscles.

Opera: AJAX Widgets for Mobile Devices

Russell Beattie chats about Opera's new Platform for mobile widgets. Think Konfabulator for your cellphone using Opera.

Monitor This

This site will create a list of rss feeds from various search engines that track the topic you are looking for -- basically a great way to quickly create feeds to monitor some search query.

4 Elements Contest Winners

GameDev ran a contest which challenged indie game developers to create games with at least two of the following: robots, pirates, ninjas, or zombies:


The Four Elements IV contest is about bringing back the spirit of gaming. After years of research1, we determined that every successful game requires one of four elements: robots, pirates, ninjas, and zombies. So what better than a contest that combines them all!

Your goal in the Four Elements IV contest is to take at least two of these four game elements and do what you do best: make a game!



The winners have finally been announced - go check out the entries and see for your self. By far the coolest (that I've tried so far) has been the 1st prize winner Ninja Loves Pirate (NLP homepage)

Xbox 360 - why am I underwhelmed?

I'm a hardcore gamer. I play everything I can find, and enjoy some aspect of most of it. I can get into a gameboy color game, PSP, GameCube, Xbox, you name it. I love web games and even common board games. So why have I been largely ignoring the whole 360 thing? I mean I've been reading a story or two here and there - scanning through screenshots, or reading about this or that game release. But not with any degree of enthusiasm. I've seen screenshots or movies of many of the xbox releases, and basically I've been underwhelmed. They look just like some of the better Xbox games. Plus they have that sort of PC quality to them -- everything's blocky and square - sorta unreal or plastic. What's up with me then? It's hard to say. I mean I own an Xbox, and honestly if I had a choice of getting the same game on PS2 or Xbox, I'd get the Xbox version since it's bound to be more visually detailed.

I guess for me it's pretty much that I've been underwhelmed with the 360. I mean when you say "Next Generation" you assume it's going to be something really amazingly better than what's already out there. When I've looked at PS3 games (yes, I know they are probably just 'renditions' of what it 'might' look like) I get really excited. The realism, and just plain richness of the games looks like something truly "next-gen". So, for me - the hardcore gamer - I'm going to skip getting an Xbox 360 for the time being. Perhaps next year sometime when they stop bundling tons of games I'd rather not have, and stores stop charging extra just because they can, I might pick one up. Or maybe not. With the limited income I'm dealing with lately, I think I'll stick with getting great games for my still awesome PS2, and save my pennies for something a bit more revolutionary...