86 Words

Former Fighter Pilot Yves Rossy and his sponsors have spent 5 years and pile of money getting the scifi like device to its current state, but on May 14th 2008, Rossy took his maiden flight.

This is obviously a prototype model, with changes already planned to enable it to cross the English channel and navigate the grand canyon, but Rossy believes that it won’t be long before more refined versions are available to a broader audience.

I WANT ONE!!!!!

The test flight was launched from a plane, but it’s a new technology, that won’t be necessary for long!

Here’s a close-up of the rocket pack in use (as usual, click for a larger image)

Though this was the first test, Rossy did climbs, dives, loops, and at one point even flew on his back to prove it could be done!

- Maiden Flight of Custom Rocket Pack -

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Here’s another game that fits under the “pretend to be drawing stuff instead of shooting aliens like a proper game” category.

In Chalk, you have… Er… You’re a… Um…

Alright, you draw stuff instead of shooting aliens like a proper game.

In this case, you draw stuff like shields to protect your character…

On the other hand, you DO get to draw stuff to CROSS OFF aliens (and they explode in a chalky sort of way)!

Pretty intense game play, really!

Here you have to draw a chalk line through the bullets and one of the yellow guys at the same time to… Uh… Kill it

Here it shows four simultaneous attacks… I’m in trouble…

The boss levels usually have something you have to figure out, this is the fifth, I think

- Download Here -

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A couple of months back, we did a post on the game “Crayon Physics”, whichwas certainly a lot of fun, but it had very few levels (5-7 if I remember right).

Well, Magic Pen is a very (!) similar concept, only A) it’s on the web, B) there are more things you can do and C) it has a lot more levels!

Here you see the pink ball that I created rolling along with the help of a few other objects I created. The goal of each level is to get the red ball to roll over the flag (or flags)

Here’s the completion of that level a few seconds later

Here’s the level following that one to show that things can get pretty complex!

- Magic Pen -

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Most of us have a friend or three who are always forwarding us those internet meme emails that go around with funny videos, collections of jokes, etc.

Well, now you don’t have to wait for your buddy to forward that email to you, FwdItOn.com collects them, you can be the one in your friend circle to see them first.

Hey, if nothing else, it’s a lot of fun to browse!

This screenshot shows the standard listing format and also highlights the tabs at the top that provide different options for browsing the different entries.

Since a lot of these kinds of emails are image based, FwdItOn has a nice, lightbox style picture built in!

-FwdItOn.com-

Tags: Humor, Collections, Reference, Current Events, Virtual, Links, Net Life, Just Cool, General // Add Comment »

Now and then I indulge my taste for things old and eclectic, but in my defense, I’ve been consistently posting daily on 86Words, even though I’m only scheduled for every OTHER day.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, this is an old and eclectic post, but hopefully, you’ll see it as “classic”, not “outdated”.

User PinkPonk (with whom I’m not personally familiar) has posted a wonderful collection of old advertisements from the 50’s to the 70’s.

Enjoy.

Some of the ads are pretty easy to place as far as which decade they came from!

This picture is showing an actual television that actually works, and she can hold it up with one hand!

Ah the simplicity of earlier times, comparing the heroic appeal of the space program with the exciting new… Er… Station Wagin by Ford (I actually think we had one of these - my mom called it “Jitney”, whatever that means)

- PinkPonk’s Ad Pics from the 50’s - 70’s -

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[Note to Word Count critics: Apparently, some people consider my word counts “cheating” because I don’t count the title or the image captions. To these people I wanted to say that A. If the 86 Word article doesn’t stand on its own, then I would believe I was cheating, B. I included the words in the first image (”The Hello World Collection”) in my word count for today (though I didn’t count the text of this notice), and C. it’s MY site, and you’re perfectly welcome to contribute (as are all my readers), and when you do so, you can count your words however you like (as long as it’s within MY limit, of course!).

So there!

Hmm… Now I’m wondering if I should have made this a separate post as it may well generate a lot of comments! At least then we’ll see how the readers feel!

Now, on with the regularly scheduled post!

—————————–

Since the early seventies when Kernigan and Ritchie wrote their C programming “bible”, the simple “Hello World” program has become commonplace in introductory programming texts (to the utter bewilderment of my wife finds the idea of such a simple construct completely unpalatable).

Anyway, back in the dark ages (circa 1994), Wolfram Rosler began collecting examples in different languages.

Currently there are 366 programming language and 58 human language versions of the ubiquitous phrase.

Now, for your viewing pleasure (or distaste), we present:

Here are a chunk of the page showing the languages with available code examples

And just for completeness on MY part, here’s a chunk of the human languages!

- The Hello World Collection -

Tags: Virtual, Weird, Collections, Reference, Net Life, Art / Visual, Geek Stuff, Software, Links, Life Tips, General // 4 Comments »

Yesterday at the end of our article on the Infocom “Milliways” game, we alluded to the possibility that we would tell you how you could get to play the original Hitchhiker’s Guide game today.

Well, in order not to disappoint, we’re doing exactly that, and even a little better!

For the 20th anniversery of the release of the original game, The BBC did an “update” to the original game. The original play and text is untouched, but they’ve added illustrations of many of the scenes and a fairly nice “point & click” interface.

Now download necessary!

On the site, the even give you two different versions to play! They both use the unmodified, original game text, engine, etc, but the first edition uses graphics they had designed for the game, the second one uses graphics based on the results of a competition to illustrate the game.

Here’s a screenshot of the game in play, it’s actually the first edition, but at this point in the game, they’re identical anyway. Note that you can use the arrow compass to move, click items from your inventory, and enjoy the graphical visualizations of the current scene, all without changint the orignal game at all!

- Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - 20th Anniversery Edition on BBC -
If you still can’t get enough Hitchhikers stuff, look around their site, there’s tons of it!

Tags: Virtual, Net Life, Humor, Retro, Reference, Art / Visual, Video Gaming, Software, Geek Stuff, Cool Sites, Links, Gaming, General // Add Comment »

I’ve always loved the Infocom games of olde. I even fantasized about there “when I grew up”. But alas, Infocom, like all great empires, became but an intesting history note.

Woah, I don’t usually write like that - must be some sort of purple-prose effect from thinking about Zork!

Anyway, here’s the story, with plenty of soap-opera drama, about the (failed) making of the Milliways game, including a playable demo and post comments from many of the people involved (read Bywater’s comment!).

Since Milliways was never released, we can’t show pictures from it, so we’ll do the next best thing and show you the feel of the Infocom games. Here’s the box cover from the original HHG game.

And this is what the back of the box looked like. There’s a way to tell that this was a very late reprint, can you spot it?

Here are some of the cool, included contents of the original HHG game, they are the Pocket Fluff from the game, a Don’t Panic button, Vogon Orders to Destroy Earth, a Microscopic Space Fleet from the books, Ju-Jantzen Peril-Sensitive Sun Glasses from the books, and the Orders to destroy Arthur’s house

- Original Milliway’s Article -

- Download Zork I, Zork II, and Zork III (legally released for download) -
It isn’t legal to distribute the HHG game itself, but if you’re really wanting to play, see tomorrow’s post!

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I don’t know what to make of this website except to say that it’s visually stunning (though very, very weird). It’s an excellent example of how much you can do from a web interface perspective using Flash.

It seems to be a combination of a japanese comic and a game (which you have to figure out while playing). When you go to the page, it’s already running, there’s no setup, no explanation, just very weird visuals.

The style is very odd, though very definitely japanese

There are little bits of interestingness everywhere - to find this room, you had to dive below the grownd 555 meters (with smooth, mouse-driven, full-screen animation)

On the top left of every screen (even when scrolling around the larger-than-screen areas), there is an option to pop-out a couple of utilities, this one is the map of the game world.

- Makibishi -
Don’t forget to select “English” on the first page (after the loading screen)!

Tags: Virtual, Net Life, Weird, Multimedia, Reference, Art / Visual, Video Gaming, Geek Stuff, Software, Cool Sites, Links, General // Add Comment »

DinoRun is an addictive (and massively multi-faceted) game in the graphical style of the 8-Bit era. It runs within your browser, but definitely doesn’t feel like a browser game!

You’re a little, yellow dinosaur who just witnessed the impact of the epoch-ending meteor, and now you are running for your life.

Along the way you’ll find shortcuts, munch smaller critters, get stuck in muck, cross lava rivers, etc.

Just stay ahead of the meteor’s constantly expanding Wall of Doom!

You can easily see the 8-bit feel, even from the title screen, but in this game, “it works man”!

The first few levels are primarily for training, the game seems pretty simplistic until about level 4

I’m running through a shortcut cave (I’m behind one of those black columns getting points for finding bones)

Dino Run even has a multi-player version where you race through one level to get to the finish line first!

Here you can see my (singler player) dino, Spriggan. The screen shows various stats that are tracked and accumulated each time you play (saved in a cookie) so you can build up your abilities and such. You can even earn downloadable trophies and such to add to your dino’s career!

- DinoRun -

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