Visit the official site www.gametrailers.com/player/34326.html A powerful new companion that accompanies the prince throughout the game.© 2008 MTV Networks

Auteur : Gametrailers
Tags : video games gametrailers games nintendo xbox playstation ps ps2 ps3 wii gamecube xbox360 360 ds gameboy psp mobile facebreakers face aol_gtfeature
Envoyé : 04 décembre 2008
Note :0.0
Votes :0

As he lived just before the invention of the telescope, Tycho Brahe relied on his keen eyes to make observations that changed the science. Yet his face was more remarkable for a different feature: a golden nose. In 1566, when Tycho was a 20-year-old student at the University of Rostock in Germany, he became embroiled in a drunken argument with another Danish nobleman named Manderup Parsbjerg. A duel ensued – in the dark – in the course of which Parsbjerg’s rapier lopped off much of the bridge of the future astronomer’s nose. To mask the damage, Tycho – like Galileo Galilei, he is generally known by his first name – designed himself a metallic nose-job. Using an alloy of silver and gold, he fashioned a false nose that is said to have been remarkably realistic. Thenceforth, he carried a special paste around with him – historians differ on whether this was for reattaching the nose, or for polishing it. The man with the golden nose may, in fact, have had several replacements. When his body was exhumed in 1901, on the 300th anniversary of his death, no precious prosthesis was found. His skull however, was stained green where the nose would have been. This may indicate that copper – which oxidises to a green colour – was used to build his nose. Some speculate that he had a lighter copper nose for everyday use, and saved the heavier silver-gold version for special occasions. Alternatively, a grave robber might have stolen the precious metal, and substituted a cheap alternative. Tycho’s nasal appendage was far from his only unusual possession: at his family seat, Knutstorp castle, he kept a pet moose. His prized companion met a tragic end, falling downstairs after drinking beer at a banquet. Another member of the nobleman’s unorthodox household was a dwarf named Jepp, whom Tycho considered to be clairvoyant. Tycho, who at one stage owned 1 per cent of all the wealth in Denmark, would often order silence at his feasts and make his guests listen to Jepp’s pronouncements. For all his quirks, however, Tycho was an astronomer of immense stature. Besides observing the supernova of 1572, he catalogued more than a thousand new stars, and made some of the most accurate measurements of celestial movements yet accomplished. In his latter years, when working in Prague, he employed Johannes Kepler as his assistant. After Tycho’s death, Kepler was to use his master’s records of the movement of Mars to establish the laws of planetary motion. Tycho, however, was off the scent on one critical astronomical matter: though well aware of Copernicus’s theory that the Earth orbits the Sun, he was unable to accept it. Instead, he proposed his own idiosyncratic cosmology, by which the Sun orbited the Earth, while the remaining planets orbited the Sun.

A fascinating companion to the recently posted book on how to build snow shelters is this 10-minute film produced by The National Film Board of Canada, How to Build an Igloo.

This is amazing. I had no idea that the blocks were arranged in a spiral pattern. (via five whys)

Hits Daily Double, the companion web site of music industry tip sheet HITS, reports: Many are expressing surprise that GUNS N' ROSES' Chinese Democracy sold only [261,000] in its first week as a Best Buy exclusive.

br / bAuthor:/b a href='http://forum.newsbin.com/profile.php?mode=viewprofileu=4'dexter/abr /br / bPosted:/b Wed Dec 03, 2008 9:33 pmbr /br / br /br / Great, glad we got that straightened out.br / br / The graphic is now the original size, it was getting stretched to fill the larger window.br / br / Robot does not have a name. I was just thinking about that yesterday. We've had him for over 5 years now. You're welcome to make a suggestion.br / br / We have a prototype of a French Maid robot companion for him but, didn't follow through with it.

Category: Healthcare & Fitness
Released: Dec 01, 2008
Price: $3.99

Description:
The difficulty of a bike ride is typically expressed by two numbers: the total distance traveled, and the cumulative elevation gain. Over the years there have been various ideas for combining these two numbers into a single estimate of �how difficult� the ride is. For example, is cycling 20 miles on a level road easier or more difficult than climbing 2000 feet? Up until now, it has been difficult to find an answer to questions such as this. BikeEnergy can provide these answers. The companion app BikePower estimates your instantaneous power output while riding. This app, BikeEnergy, estimates the total energy you expend during the entire ride. BikeEnergy estimates the total amount of energy (Calories or kJoules) required to ride a bike route characterized by total distance and cumulative and net elevation gains (along with a few other parameters that personalize the results for your specific weight, type of bicycle, and riding speed). Energy is an excellent measure of �difficulty�. A ride that burns up 2000 Calories of energy is in a very real sense more difficult than one that consumes only 1000 Calories. Not only will you feel more tired after a 2000 Calorie ride than after one that burns 1000 Calories, but you will also have to eat more food to replenish your energy stores for your next ride. Use BikeEnergy to rate your club rides for overall difficulty. Group rides into difficulty categories: 500 Calorie rides, 1000 Calorie rides, 1500 Calories rides, etc. If you are riding as a means to help control your weight, it is useful to be able to estimate how many Calories your cycling is actually burning up. There is a tendency to over-eat after exercise. BikeEnergy can be a useful tool to help prevent that by providing a realistic estimate of just how many Calories of energy you have actually expended. Features: � Energy is computed for your specific parameters. � US or metric units � Energy calculation includes: - Cumulative and Net Elevation Gains - Total Distance Ridden - Speed on Level Roads - Uphill energy based on weight of bike + rider - Wind resistance based on altitude, riding speed, and rider's aerodynamic drag area - Rolling Resistance of the tires � Reasonable default values are provided for all parameters � Complete instructions are provided on the website � The website provides tutorials on Power and Energy as well as how BikeEnergy works. The screenshots show: 1: The main display with sliders to vary elevation gain, distance, and speed. 2: The data entry display where you enter values to customize the computations to your specific parameters. Defaults values are given for all parameters and the website explains what everything means. The text near the bottom scrolls to reveal more instructions. 3: Example 1: Climbing 3000 feet expends about 780 Calories or about 2.4 donuts. 4: Example 2: Riding 37 miles at 15 mph on level roads also expends about 780 Calories 5: Example 3: Riding 37 miles including 3000 feet of elevation gain (Examples 1 + 2) expends about 1200 Calories. This is not the sum of Examples 1 & 2. Want to know why? Visit the website.

Website: http://www.myBikeApps.com
Support Website: http://www.myBikeApps.com

Note: The description above is the official one supplied by the application developer and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of this site or its staff.


Get it on iTunes: BikeEnergy

How in the holy frijoles is it December already? And why do I get the same stressed, panicked feeling every year? And why do I harbor such resentment against those who get their Christmas shopping done early (or prance gaily around their yards stringing up their lights the day after Thanksgiving)?

*deep breath*

The truth is, when I put myself in the mindset of how much I enjoyed the holidays as a kid, I can actually get some of those warm, good time-y feelings back. And having two little kids adds to the fun too. But man oh man, the stress returns every year, as sure as the commercials.

Music, of course, is the key to bringing back some of that positive holiday energy. Since 1994, this collection of tunes has steered the way (or the sleigh, heh). I taped this special off the radio that holiday season. I’ve said this all before, but Bruce Cockburn is a warm, comforting musical presence in my life, and listening to him sing these great songs and play the guitar like only he can - well - it’s better than a fridge full of nog.

Now, Nanci Griffith joins Bruce here, and sings some songs of her own (”Wexford Carol”, “Grafton Street”, “Going Back to Georgia”, etc.). But it’s the Bruce tunes that resonate with me: “Shepherds” opens the show, and has always been a song that pops into my head throughout the year, for some reason: “Glooooooria, in the hiiiighest.” I’m not heavy into the religion, mind you, but when Bruce sings, I’m a believer; “Deer Dancing Around a Broken Mirror”, a spirited and lush instrumental tune; “Huron Carol”, a song written in the 1600’s by a Jesuit missionary to the Huron Indians, and sung in the Huron language. Bruce gives a wonderful introduction, and reads the English translation beforehand; and of course, two favorites of mine: “I’m Gonna Fly Someday” and “One Day I Walk”. Sublime.

Enjoy. And hey, happy holidays, eh? Oh, and always a reminder for you fellow Yanks that haven’t heard of Bruce from the great white north - it’s CO-Burn. Co sounding like So. Ho ho ho.

“Christmas with Cockburn”
The Columbia Records Radio Hour, 1994

Intro
Shepherds [mp3]
Wexford Carol (Nanci Griffith)
Brave Companion of the Road (NG)
Deer Dancing Around a Broken Mirror
I’m Gonna Fly Someday
Grafton Street (NG)
Going Back to Georgia (NG)
One Day I Walk / Intro to Huron Carol
Huron Carol [mp3]
Mary Had a Baby

[Download the ZIP]

Posted by Dennis Sellers

Matrixx Initiatives, makers of Zicam cold remedy, has launched the Zicam Cold & Flu Companion mobile application for the T-Mobile G1, the world’s first Android-powered phone. The same mobile app will be released for the iPhone in mid-December.

img class=face src=http://planet.ubuntu.com/heads/toponce.png alt= pSo, due to the bad shape of the economy, and the lack of faith from a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor in a href=http://gurulabs.comGuru Labs/a, I was let go from my position as a Linux instructor and guru. As unfortunate as it is, I have to press forward looking for the best job that fits my skill set./p pHowever, the point of this post isn#8217;t to complain about being laid off, or the bad shape of the economy. Rather, while employed, I was given a 120 GB LaCie Rugged hard drive that was called the #8220;gurudisk#8221; (being a #8220;Linux Guru#8221; from #8220;Guru Labs#8221;. Get it?). The gurudisk had everything on it necessary for easing the installation of Linux on computers. Kickstart and AutoYast files were used for automating the install of the instructor machine, while scripts and RPMs were used to automate the configuration and additional software installation of the instructor machine, and DHCP, DNS, TFTP and PXE, along with Kickstart and AutoYast files, were used for automating student machines. Using the gurudisk, I could do a full classroom install, complete with instructor machine and 20 student machines, in under an hour. The gurudisk held RHEL 5, RHEL 5.1, Fedora 6, SLES 10, SUSE Linux 10.1 and Oracle 4.5 disk ISOs and software, as well as RPMs, scripts and config files. It was truly a welcomed companion./p pHowever, all of that can easily fit in 40 GB of space, so what to do with the rest of the 80 GB? Well, most of us began using that space for personal data. Music, videos, scripts, documents and so forth. I#8217;m not one to carry music or movies with me, so that didn#8217;t interest me much. Rather, I wanted the ability to take the gurudisk further with using Ubuntu and Debian. So, I had an #8220;isos#8221; directory on my gurudisk, where I kept more updated ISOs, including RHEL 5.2, Fedora 9 and 10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, Debian 4.0, openSUSE 11, OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and others. At one point, I had an entire Ubuntu repository mirroring 8.04 and 8.10 on the gurudisk. Lastly, if that#8217;s not enough, I had VMWare, KVM, Xen and VirtualBox virtual machines with clean, vanilla installations of a few of the major distributions. I took advantage of my space, and it also came to the welcome approval of many students./p pWhen news came yesterday that I had lost my job, and that I would need to turn in my gurudisk, I wanted to first get my Ubuntu mirror, virtual machines and ISOs off the disk. Then, I wanted to experience, first hand, #8220;shredding#8221; the data on the disk. Thus, we have now reached the topic of this post- GNU shred./p pI had heard from students over and over again that zeroing out the drive using /dev/zero is not sufficient for secure data deletion. I full heartedly disagree, and I#8217;m sure I#8217;ll bring out the emotion of many of you in the comments. Here#8217;s why I think /dev/zero is more than sufficient for secure data destruction:/p ul liOn older dive encoding schemes, mainly RLL and MFM, data was not written in exactly the same spot every time. As such, there was left over charge from the previous write, and expensive data recovery hardware could use math and averages to discover what the data once was. As such, a method known as the #8220;Gutmann Method#8221; became the standard of destroying data. Patters of ones and zeros would be written to the disk, in such a way that maximizing flipping the bits, minimizing the average left over charge. After seven passes, the residual charge would be so minute, that it would be virtually impossible to recover the data. Do 35 passes, and the data is gone for sure./li liDrives today do not use RLL or MFM encoding, and also, the bits are much more close together then they were in days gone by. The data has to be written in exactly the same spot, or data destruction is likely on other data existing on the disk. As such, there is no left over residual charge from rewriting the data. A single pass over existing data removes any existence of that data./li liSupposedly, top secret, mega government, super computers administered my corporations with endless amounts of cash flow can recover data on ATA drives, even after seven passes. However, there has been no academic study, no scientific evidence, no hard cold proof. All we have is hearsay and rumors of people we know claimed to recover the data using these killer machines or algorithms on ATA drives./li /ul pSo, with that in mind, after backing up my data, a single zeroing of the entire drive would be more than sufficient for a couple reasons. First, my bosses and company don#8217;t have the resources, the time and money, or the care to recover any data off of my gurudisk. Second, the data I was deleting wasn#8217;t necessarily personal, as no passwords or private keys or information was stored on the disk. So, even if the data could be recovered, of what use would it be to anyone? Little, if any. Chances are good that the drive will sit on a shelf, unattended and unused, and when it does make it back into commission, it will just be formatted with ext3, files put on, and used as any other drive. So, /dev/zero it is./p pOr not./p pI#8217;m a mathematician at heart. I love math and logic puzzles as well as cryptography and many an algorithm. If I had the time and money, I would finish college, and get a Doctorate in Mathematics. However, that#8217;s a dream that just isn#8217;t realistic at this point in my life, but I still enjoy pulling out my HP49G+, and crunching the numbers. So, the algorithm used in Gutmann#8217;s Method is interesting. More interesting are the pseudo-random number generators used in cryptographic applications. So, I decided to give GNU shred a try, seeing as though it#8217;s part of coreutils, and see what the result is. I ran the following command:/p preshred -v -z /dev/sdc/pre pThis means that GNU shred will make 26 total passes, with the 26th pass being straight zeros to hide the fact that the disk has been shredded. Once finished, I#8217;ll add one final pass as an easter egg to the next person who gets the gurudisk. So, 27 total passes to the disk. What I#8217;m mostly interested in, is the time it will take to finish. From my understanding, it will write pseudo-random numbers to the disk on the first, middle and second-to-last passes, due to passing #8216;-z#8217; to zero the shred. Writing random data to 120 GB of disk is going to take some time. In fact, I timed it, and it took 5 hours and 20 minutes. Which means it will last at least 16 hours to run to completion. But then there is the one and zero pattern writing that will take place in between. I would expect this to go substantially faster than writing random data, and it does- about three times as fast. Three passes can be completed in 5 hours and 20 minutes, give or take, based on the pattern. There are 23 final passes at this rate, which is approximately 41 hours. Add the 16 on top of that, and it#8217;s going to take 58 total hours to complete all 26 passes. That#8217;s almost 2 and a half days! In fact, as I#8217;m writing this, it#8217;s 18:00 the next day, and I#8217;m only on pass 11, writing the pattern #8220;333333#8243; in hexadecimal to the disk. The next pass will be my second random data pass. When I get out of bet tomorrow, I expect to be on pass 18, give or take./p pI figure, even though I#8217;m long past any possible data retrieval, it#8217;s fun to watch. Even more entertaining is the heat emanating off of the disk- it#8217;s fairly warm, which I guess makes sense, as the disks have been going non-stop for almost 24 hours. Would I recommend GNU shred for wiping your data? No. Again, /dev/zero will be more than sufficient, and fast too, at roughly 30 MB per second on a SATA or USB 2.0 disk. Which, by the way, this disk is connected via FireWire 400 (I#8217;m not a fan of the USB speed burst). I#8217;d love to see this run to completion, but I#8217;ll probably cancel it sometime tomorrow morning, install my easter egg, then be on my way to return the disk./p pLong live hacking!/p div class=feedflare a href=http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pthree?a=dqloOimg src=http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/pthree?i=dqloO border=0 //a /divimg src=http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/pthree/~4/473095795 height=1 width=1 /

When I was born 35.2 years ago, a light cone started expanding away from Earth out into the rest of the universe (Minkowski space-temporally speaking, of course). Thanks to updates from Matt Webb's fancy RSS tool, I know that my personal light cone is about to envelop the Zeta Herculis binary star system, located 35.2 light years from Earth in the constellation Hercules.

With a mass some 50 percent greater than the Sun, however, and beginning its evolution toward gianthood (its core hydrogen fusion likely shut down), Zeta Her A is 6 times more luminous than the Sun with a radius 2.5 times as large. Nevertheless, the star gives a good idea of what the Sun would look like from a great distance, in Zeta Her's case 35 light years. The companion (Zeta Her B), a cooler class G (G7) hydrogen-fusing dwarf with a luminosity only 65 percent that of the Sun and a mass about 85 percent solar, orbits with a period of 34.5 years at a mean distance of 15 Astronomical Units (over 50 percent farther than Saturn is from the Sun). A rather high eccentricity takes the two as far apart as 21 AU and as close as 8 AU.

Hercules is of course named for the Greek hero, Heracles. Next up is Delta Trianguli, another binary star system, in about two months.

WIN AUTOGRAPHS FROM THE CAST OF TWILIGHT 1 Comment counts for 1 Entry 1 Video Response counts for 3 Entries ENTER UP TO 3 TIMES PER DAY! You could win: A photo signed by Peter Facinelli A logo print signed by Mike Welch and Solomon Trimble A signed copy of the Twilight Movie Companion signed by Mike Welch, Solomon Trimble, Jackson Rathbone, Christian Serratos, and Peter Facinelli Plus, I'll be giving away more on my live BlogTV -- http://www.blogtv.com/people/kalebnation Special thanks to Twicon for the cool stuff (http://www.twicon.org). Be sure to check them out (I'm going to be there for sure!). And yes, this is my best Hank Green impression. Enjoy :D Music used with permission (in order of appearance): Jay Della Valle - Pink Elephants Second Dan - Forget To Remember Second Dan - The Elephant Fell To Earth The Crash Moderns - This Time ----------FAQ-- -- People I personally know can't enter the contest (AKA Lolly, Bailey, Rachul, The FTW, My Brother, Luke Skywalker, etc). -- You can enter 3 times per day in any way. AKA 3 comments, OR 3 video responses, OR 2 comments and 1 video response, etc. Higher chances go with the video responses (AKA, if you do 3 video responses, that's 9 entries, as opposed to 3 comments, which would be 3 entries). The video responses just need to be separate videos. -Honors- 12/2 #11 - Most Discussed (Today) #5 - Most Discussed (Today) - Entertainment #21 - Most Responded (Today) #2 - Most Responded (Today) - Entertainment #94 - Most Responded (This Week) #13 - Most Responded (This Week) - Entertainment #40 - Top Favorited (Today) - Entertainment More Twilight stuff at http://www.twilightguy.com/

Author: kalebnation Keywords: Twilight Youtube Contest Win Autographs Peter Facinelli Jackson Rathbone Mike Welch Christian Serratos Twicon KalebNation TwilightGuy Added: December 2, 2008

I love this retro/deco/steampunk-looking desk fan designer/artist Clive Batkin made from a redundant computer cooling and some copper, brass, and wood. He was inspired by the look of the heat sink fins and the overall design of the original fan. He's got some other really nice pieces on his site, including The Optimus desk lamp this fan was designed to accompany.

Steampunk desk fan - a companion to The Optimus

a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/retrotech_deskfan.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/retrotech_deskfan.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" / Permalink/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/12/retrotech_deskfan.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890#comments" /Comments/a | a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/retro/?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890" /Read more articles in Retro/a | a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=blog.makezine.com%2Farchive%2F2008%2F12%2Fretrotech_deskfan.htmltitle=Retro-tech%20deskfanbodytext=%20I%20love%20this%20retro%2Fdeco%2Fsteampunk-looking%20desk%20fan%20designer%2Fartist%20Clive%20Batkin%20made%20from%20a%20redundant%20computer%20cooling%20and%20some%20copper%2C%20brass%2C%20and%20wood.%20He%20was%20inspired%20by%20the%20look%20of%20the%20heat%20sink%20fins%20and%20the%20overall%20design%20of%20the%20original...topic=tech_news" /Digg this!/a

NetDragon Websoft Inc. , one of the leading online game developers and operators in China, together with The Walt Disney Company's Interactive Media Group today announced their first Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) "Disney Fantasy Online" will be launched in Spring 2009. This fun and dynamic game is set to be the most highly anticipated game for the season.

Gamers of "Disney Fantasy Online" are immersed in a uniquely Disney-themed central world, created based on themes of magic, adventure and romance with non-playing Disney character hosts such as Mickey and Friends, preparing and training the gamers for the vast adventures that lie ahead. As gamers explore, complete quests, and level-up, they have the opportunity to acquire virtual items to personalize the gaming experience and enable them to explore additional worlds more extensively. Expansion packs with new adventures and maps will be constantly added to the game, providing endless opportunities for gamers to uncover new content and secrets.

"Disney is committed to providing gamers in China with the ultimate digital entertainment destination. Our characters and stories endure across generations, platforms and now immersive online experiences," said Mr. Stanley Cheung, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Walt Disney Greater China. "We are very pleased to be cooperating with NetDragon, to create a unique, fun, and brand-new entertainment experience for gamers".

Key game features include:
-- Gamers will explore vast fantastic lands, and can show off their skills
in turn-based battle mode
-- Fully customizable player avatars, premium accessories, and other in-
game items
-- Players will be able to "raise" Disney-themed companions or "Pets"
throughout the game. Companions can be won, purchased, and/or
discovered and will have various attributes that enhance the gaming
experience. Companions are expected to be nurtured and will grow and
mature through game play
-- Players can build their virtual castles within the game world, which
will act as the player's virtual personal space. These virtual castles
can be upgraded, assembled, traded, and shared
-- Leveling-up, team-play, raising companions, and building virtual
castles provide endless gameplay and community activities

NetDragon, renowned for its leadership in online gaming development and operating experience, is responsible for developing "Disney Fantasy Online". The Game consists of many virtual worlds based on some of Disney's most famous stories, providing an exciting environment for endless adventure.

Mr. Liu Luyuan, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of NetDragon said, "We have 9 years of rich experience in online game development, and operations in multiple international markets. Creating and sharing great entertainment experiences are common objectives of NetDragon and Disney. I'm very excited about being able to work with Disney's rich content to develop this exciting game".

"We assigned the best creative and production teams to this project and the end result is the creation of a totally unique gaming experience around unique stories that will delight gamers," said Mr. Liu Luyuan.

Newly released today:



features
Enjoy the franchise's debut on next-generation consoles utilizing Ubisoft's proprietary Anvil engine, the same engine used to develop Assassins Creed
Utilize the Prince's old skills, along with a whole new combat system, to battle Ahriman's corrupted lieutenants to heal the land from the dark Corruption and restore the light
Escape to a fantasy world set in ancient Persia brought to life through masterful storytelling and sprawling environments and that rivals the blockbusters of Hollywood
For the first time in franchise history decide how the storyline unfolds by choosing the Prince's path in an open-ended game world
Wield the acrobatic and puzzle-solving power of the Prince's beautiful and powerful AI companion Elika as you explore the perils of ancient Persia

description
The critically acclaimed Prince of Persia franchise returns for the first time on next-generation platforms with an all-new epic journey.

Escape to experience the new fantasy world of ancient Persia. Masterful storytelling and sprawling environments deliver a brand new adventure that re-opens the Prince of Persia saga. Now you have the freedom to determine how the game evolves in this non-linear adventure. Players will decide how they unfold the storyline by choosing their path in the open-ended world.

In this strange land, your rogue warrior must utilize all of his skills, along with a whole new combat system, to battle Ahriman’s corrupted lieutenants to heal the land from the dark Corruption and restore the light. Also, history's greatest ally is revealed in the form of Elika, a dynamic AI companion who joins the Prince in his fight to sa