These are my links for April 19th through May 7th:

• Missing The Point: It Doesn’t Matter If Torture “Works” –
• Transistors go 3D as Intel re-invents the microchip –
• DSLR Mirror Lock-Up – Worth the Effort or Not? –
• Take Shape For Life –
• A Keyboard and a .45 –
• Oleg Volk Photography –
• CrimeReportSearch –
• The First Zombie-Proof House –
• OOSChecker: The Ultimate iPad2 Treasure Hunter –
• Affordable Weekend Getaways and Vacations – LivingSocial –
• Texas3006.com –
• Corps Lakes Gateway: Texas –
• Lily Ponds Cottage – New Ulm, Texas –
• Google Encrypted Search –
• Portal 2 and Steam on PlayStation®3 –

Although I prefer the stilts on Chell

From the people that brought you Portal: The Flash Version, comes all the levels from the flash version converted to actual portal maps. The Portal: The Flash Version Mappack isn’t just a bunch of levels strewn together, but has level continuity, added dialogue, and surprises. Plus extra levels. Even a “boss” fight at the end.

Highly recommended

Portal was a game that went beyond the actual playing. It is one of the few action games with a great story and atmosphere supporting it. In fact, as good as the puzzle play was, it was eclipsed by the game’s wonderful personality. I enjoyed Narbacular Drop immensely, but the idea really came into it’s own with Portal.

The ending sequence was an oddity. The rest of the game had funny, sometimes subtle, nuance to everything the character did, and the reaction provoked from GladOS. Then we get to the end and it seemed like a cut-and-dry end-boss robot battle. Abruptly changing the gameplay from the rest of the game. It was hard to believe, and although I wanted to understand and try to study the physical form of GladOS… the fact that you only have a few minutes to kill “her” kinda puts a damper on smelling the roses.

I have replayed many of the levels, but I honestly never felt an impulse to replay the ending scene. But a the game-ism blog has stumbled on something that rings true. As I had not replayed the end sequence, I had not heard the developer commentary within it. It reveals that Valve tried to give GladOS a female form, but not exactly which. Game-ism proposes GladOS wanted you to find her all along, to free her from her bondage.

• What are your obsolete gaming skills? » Has the advance of time rendered any of your videogame abilities redundant?
• Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys » Contrary to popular assumption, DRAMs used in most modern computers retain their contents for seconds to minutes after power is lost, even at operating temperatures and even if removed from a motherboard.
• ‘Perry Bible Fellowship’ Comic Is Ending »
• Google Lunar Xprize » Google is offering $30 million to the first people to put a robot on the moon.
• Portal 2 Confirmed » On tonight’s episode of X-Play, lead designer for Portal, Kimberly Swift, confirmed that there will be a Portal 2. Video of interview at the link.
• Gene research may help explain autistic savants » Mice lacking a certain brain protein learn some tasks better but also forget faster, according to new research from MIT that may explain the phenomenon of autistic savants in humans.
• Austin Czech Historical Association »
• Self-healing rubber bounces back » A material that is able to self-repair even when it is sliced in two has been invented by French researchers.
• GetByMail » Remote Access & File Sharing by Mail
• Making your windows folder smaller!  »
• LitePC Technologies » trim Windows operating systems
• HDDVD is Dead – Toshiba Press Release » Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.
• Samuel Adams Hop Sharing Program » Samuel Adams beer is selling their hops to microbrewers at just above their cost, to help alleviate the strain of the hop shortage on microbreweries.

Portal may be old and tired in game-life terms…

wait… if you agreed to that, get out.

Here’s Portal done lovingly with some Legos.

• How to make ANIMATED Sprays » for source games (Half-Life Team Fortress 2, etc)
• Ghostbusters 3… the game » The whole team of Ghostbusters actors will be reprising their roles in a Ghostbusters game by Vivendi/Sony to be released in 2008 on consoles and PC.
• Portal Papercraft »
• Photography: Digital Camera Reviews, Learn Photography, Photo Galleries – photo.net »
• How to solve a maze with Photoshop »
• Chowhound » food forums
• Black Friday Ads – The Official Black Friday 2007 Website »
• Java Applet Tutorial »
• Newsvine – Leonardo Painting Has Coded ‘Soundtrack’ » An Italian musician and computer technician claims to have uncovered musical notes encoded in Leonardo Da Vinci’s "Last Supper"
• Definition Changing for People’s Privacy »
• Open Handset Alliance » Google and other partners strive to create an open source cellphone platform.

• LCD monitor test images »
• wide screen gaming forum »
• The Good Life Barber Shop » Austin downtown barber
• Humping Dolphin »
• Portal: The Skinny » Jonathan Coulton talks about writing the end-title song to Portal.
• Pokemon.Marriland.com »
• PS3 supercomputer » Dartmouth astrophysicist Dr. Gaurav Khanna has rigged up an array of eight PS3 systems to help him crunch numbers in his study of theoretical gravity waves.
• Poll: Some Germans see good in Nazi rule – Yahoo! News »
• Half-Life 2: Portal » Use the Portal gun in Half-Life 2 and it’s episodes
• The Grandmaster Experiment » The queen is the most powerful piece on the chessboard. Yet in the ultra-elite ranks of chess, a woman who can hold her own is the rarest of creatures. How, then, did one family produce three of the most successful female chess champions ever?
• Halfwit-2 : Half-Life 2 Bits and Pieces »
• Main Page – Valve Developer Community »
• Valve’s Portal Mapping »
• Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories – Making the World a Better Place, One Evil Mad Scientist at a Time »
• Solid freeform fabrication: DIY, on the cheap, and made of pure sugar »

I’ve been lax. I haven’t posted on anything relating to the Orange Box. I guess I really couldn’t say much more than the 5 bazillion other people who are playing it. I loved TF2, Episode 2 was short but a blast, and Portal was even better than I expected.

Especially the story… and the culmination in the end song. But again, this is definitely not a unique opinion.

But when I found this combining two things I really like… well, that’s enough impetus to post:

The dream pack of Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal has a new confirmed release date: October 9, 2007. Of course, we all know Valve’s track record with release dates, including these titles. And c’mon, TF2 was on the Vaporware list for years!

But anyways, this is the official word Shacknews wrangled out of them.