The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• Parallel Kingdom » GPS MMORPG for your cell phone
• Terminator Ambush » Game using iphones, pcs, and real-world locations. Tied into the Sarah Connor Chronicles.
• ClickPopMedia »
• Box2DFlash » AS3 Flash Physics Engine
• Advice for Computer Science College Students »
• iPhone Dev Team Portal [iPhone Dev Team] »
• blog.iphone-dev.org »
• Ancient Yeast Reborn in Modern Beer »
• iFixit » Apple do-it-yourself repair
• Creative Food Sculptures »
• vi.sualize.us » social bookmarking for pictures
• Stack Overflow » social site for developers.
• Debunking Power Supply Myths »

The hype team behind Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles has released a multi-platform metagame, named Terminator Ambush.

Play consists of two levels.  On one hand you are the hunted.  Use an iPhone to check in using your GPS location via their Ambush iPhone application.  Which looks like this:

You get points for putting in more location, but then the other portion of the game comes into play.  On the Terminator Ambush website, you are tracked by your check-ins on a non-descript virtual map.  Hunters can use this data to try and determine your next check-in point and lay a trap.  If they get you, you are terminated.

I’m not sure if it’s entirely working, as I used the iPhone app while running around town today.  It shows my plots but my score has not been updated at all.  The plot points were much shorter distance apart on the virtual map than I had thought, that with the large trap reticle, it should be easy to terminate people.  What I mean is, I went in 10 mile sweep through Austin while running errands, and my path markings are just about contained in a one-inch square area.

Yes, it’s a little big-brothery that you are uploading your GPS data, but luckily it doesn’t show any real-world tie-in for people to actually track you or anything.  But, meta-gaming like this is a fun idea, that I expect will become even more popular now, with all the iPhones and other GPS phones being released.  There was a another game announced previously called Parallel Kingdom which has a more involved concept of building virtual buildings and such as a sort of GPS MMO.

As seen at Dragoncon 2008 and posted on this flickr page.

The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• Tome of Spoilers - Warhammer : Age of Reckoning »
• Armature » Gaming studio in Austin
• Stanford CS Ed Library »
• TheWarWiki » warhammer online wiki
• Set Firefox 3 to Launch Gmail for mailto Links »
• Crows use causal reasoning »
• Rivkasmom.com » Steampunk accessories for the discerning collector.
• Antec.com - Skeleton » good looking open air case with a huge fan
• Maps - Atlas of WAR - Warhammer Online »
• WARDB » Warhammer Online Database
• The Sultan Gaming Table » D&D gaming table for luxury
• Scientists Develop Breathalyzer for Disease »
• anti-theft lunch bag »
• Warhammer Alliance »

The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• Stephen Hawking to unveil strange new way to tell the time » grasshopper escapement
• popurls » popular urls to the latest web buzz
• PollDaddy.com » Create free online surveys and polls for your site
• Large Hadron Collider Live Webcams »
• End Runs Around Vista » HP wants to make it's own operating system, to compete with Vista
• WikIkariam » wiki for Ikariam game
• HammerWiki » Warhammer Online wiki.
• Devunity » Developer social network
• KeePass Password Safe » the best password generator and storage
• Play With Spider » Interactive spider going for realism in flash
• Reflection of Life With LEGO bricks » famous pictures retaken with legos
• Umbrella Today? » simplest forecast.. and usually why you are looking at the forecast
• Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home »
• Elephants show flair for arithmetic »

The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• Audiko » iphone and other ringtones, create your own or search ones already made
• iPhone Application List » Software listing for iPhone and iPodTouch
• Rent A Coder » How Software Gets Done — Home of the worlds' largest number of completed software projects
• Phone Saber Unleashed » Phonesaber strikes back!
• The WineRack » definitely not the rack you are thinking of
• CIA, FBI push ‘Facebook for spies’ »
• Mashable! » Social Networking and Social Media News Blog
• Take Detailed Close-up Photos With Your iPhone »
• FFFFOUND! » picture bookmarking
• The art of Steven Stahlberg »
• Serious Security Flaw in Google Chrome »
• GameRecruiter » Recruiters for Console, PC, MMO, Handheld, Mobile, Casual and Serious Games
• FrotzMain » Interactive Fiction for the iPhone
• Burned by Chrome » The EULA is a little, daunting.
• Javascript performance test » Test different browsers reaction times to simple javascript calls. Great for showing what Chrome can do.

The Nerf machine gun in action.  

I had no idea there was a Nerf bazooka.

The Great Office War from Runawaybox on Vimeo

In fact, I am posting from it now.

I was skeptical, and I wasn’t alone in that feeling, but I only had one day to be skeptical because they only announced this thing yesterday!  (Kudos for keeping it under wraps).

Google Chrome is a web browser built on WebKit, which powers other well known browsers such as Apple’s safari and KDE’s Konqueror.  Google included a cute online comic book to explain the technology here.  The gist being that the web browser uses entirely separate processes to load each separate tab.  This goes beyond simple multi-threading, and gets into OS territory.  They want to do this to eliminate browser hangups from ultiple tasks needing to use the same process.  While this can and will usitilize more memory and processor power, it also allows one to regulate it easier, especially memory-wise.  Plug-ins (when they appear) will also use separate processes.

The comic gets into computer science territory when they explain how they built their V8 from Webkit.  It streamlines object manipulization and pointer calls and other things you can read about there.

I’m impressed.  First off at the ease of slipping into it right from Firefox.  It handles the same keyboard commands I’m used to, and tabs behave much the same.  Two things it does not have that firefox has:

• Memory munching.  Yes, it uses a spearate process and memory space for each tab, but these are confined spaces, unlike Firefox which could eat all my memory if I let it.
• Addons. none. Zilch.  Yeah, it’s a beta, but man I need my add-ons.

The lack of add-ons will make me only piddle with Chrome when I feel like, not use it for a main browser.  For one, I have many that are hard to live without.  And two, Firefox is damn snappy without any add-ons, too, so it’s unfair to compare Chrome until it’s got the same capablities as a fully-loaded Firefox browser.

But the technology is impressive, and obviously since everything is open source, we are going to have a flood of add-ons coming very soon.

The true weblog portion of drzy. Bookmarks from around the internet this last week. Updated every Sunday evening.

• French surgeons destroy brain tumour on conscious patient in world first »
• VPilf.com » Sarah Palin, VPCilf
• Clear View Skins » iphone 3g skin
• Sarah Palin Is NOT The Mother [Photos+Video] »
• Sleepers.net » iPhone news
• flickr iphone web app »
• McCain’s VP Wants Creationism Taught in School »
• Topix » local news
• Photosynth | drzy »
• Wired, the iPhone 3G, and not 3G | drzy »
• Cure for deafness now within reach » good, because I can hardly pick out conversations already (damn you, metal!)
• Tuffwrapâ„¢ for iPhone » Durable silicone case with Tuffshieldâ„¢ screen protection
• midomi.com » Search for Music Using Your Voice by Singing or Humming
• Improv Everywhere »
• Dragonlance Nexus »