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Play Tetris on your fridge [update 1]
Tetris has achieved an iconic pop culture status like Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. Its simple and logical gameplay is addictive to the point of madness, and we wore out at least two Game Boys while trying to master it. However, we sure can pack a bag or load a truck a heck of a lot better now.Tetris has appeared on practically every video game platform since it was introduced in 1985, and regularly pops up in the most unexpected places.The block stacking phenomenon has appeared in Japanese comedy acts, on the side of a building in milkcrate form, as a set of shelves, as the basis for a Honda commercial, on a merit badge, off the side of Interstate 95 in Rhode Island, as a lotto ticket in Quebec, and on an episode of the Simpsons.Tetris has spawned dozens of clones, appeared in other Nintendo games like Dr. Mario, and lives on today as Hexic, which was designed by Tetris creator Alexey Pazhitnov. In fact, most of today's popular puzzle games like Bejeweled can trace their roots back to Tetris, which is itself a sort of bizarre twist on Breakout, and that leads directly back to Pong, which takes us back to the beginning of time and makes our heads hurt.Today it appears on your refrigerator as "Tetrius," courtesy of Art. Lebedev Studio in Russia. It can adorn your fridge this Christmas for only 278 rubles, which is about ten bucks. Check out the other products they offer, it's a bizarre collection of odd products that won't improve your productivity, but will make life a bit more fun.Joystiq's stocking had better have one of these in it come December, or else we'll make a clone of our own.[Thanks, laserboyjc! My bad for not thanking you earlier, great find]
Widget Watch: YouTube widget
As if you can't waste enough time at YouTube, Sport Monkey Design has doomed the productivity levels of Tiger users everywhere by bringing YouTube to the Dashboard. The YouTube Widget isn't so much of a viewer for videos, but it lets you view a list of new videos and filter them by tags, user and even most viewed, most discussed, etc. The only way this widget could be more of a threat is if they integrated an actual video player so you never need to leave Dashboard.
Make your windows fly with Fentres Volantes, a 3D screensaver
For years now, I haven't really been one for screensavers. Ever since I started owning nothing but portable machines with LCDs and I found out that burn-in really doesn't happen anymore, I either opt to let my displays dim and turn themselves off to save power or I simply leave my chat and email apps front and center so I can keep an eye on what's going on. Aside from occasionally turning on Mac OS X's RSS screensaver in a coffee shop to show off a little, I just haven't been that interested in screensavers.Until TUAW reader Mark Rickert sent us a tip for the Fenêtres Volantes screensaver.This screensaver takes your idle windows and gives them something to do - by making them fly around your display in 3D space. The effect is really slick and driven by Quartz Composer, which also means the unfortunate lack of anti-aliasing is a ball in Apple's court, not the developer's. The screensaver is fairly customizable, with controls for how many windows to use, how fast to move, whether a second display is involved, and more. Mac OS X 10.4.6 is required, as is a G4, G5 or Intel CPU at 1 Ghz or faster.Fenêtres Volantes is donationware and available from the author's site at Objective Cocoa.
Wingnuts 2 released
Freeverse has released Wingnuts 2, a $29.95 OMG (original Mac game) that has been billed by the game's creator as the "ultimate arcade game." Based on the time we've spent with a pre-release version of the game, we're tempted to agree. Wingnuts 2 is a bucket of fun to play, and it happens to look great too.According to Freeverse's minimum system requirements, you'll need at least an 800MHz G4, 32MB of VRAM, 512MB of system RAM and just under 1GB of Hard Drive space to run and store the game. You can download the demo here and watch a movie of the game in action here. Expect a full review of the game from us in the next few days.
Stupid Mage Tricks
I have to admit - I find this thread in the mage forums about "stupid mage tricks" to be immensely amusing. Slow fall base-jumping? Stacking portals to different places on top of one another? So, anyone reading have any amusing, entertaining, or just plain stupid tricks of their own - for mages or other classes. After all - there's only so much instancing, raiding, PvP-ing, reputation farming, and questing you can do before needing to find entertainment wherever you can.
Halo 3 has a happy ending, or how I learned to love YTMND
The animated .gif addicts over at YTMND have been very busy lately revealing the truthiness behind recent video game rumors. Here are some of those OMIGOD NEWS FLASH! announcements from YTMND's gaming posse: The PS3's 100% official start-up screen REVEALED! Nintendo's bunker busted REVEALED! Halo 3 ending REVEALED! World of Warcraft in space REVEALED! Shiggy's secret N64 formula REVEALED! Half-Life 2's plotline REVEALED! (take that, suckas) YTMND's formula is never going to get old, simply because there will never be a shortage of fanboy ideas and rumors to make fun of. [Via Xbox360Fanboy] More: The Wii zeitgeist, via YTMND, Wiill Ferrell tests Wii accelerometer technology and Dick Hunt!
Aquada maker unveils Quadski ATV / jet ski combo
You've already got both a car and an SUV that can magically transform into watercraft at the touch of a button, but what to do about your spoiled kids who want to go from land to sea without changing vehicles? Luckily for you, Aquada and Humdinga (that name still kills us) manufacturer Gibbs Technologies has just revealed a prototype product that's sure to be hit with the younger crowd at your summer house: the Quadski dual-purpose ATV / jet ski. Equally at home in sand or surf, the Quadski can hit a claimed 50 miles-per-hour traveling on either surface, thanks to a 140-horsepower engine and a propulsion system protected by no less than 60 patents. The switch from ATV to jet ski supposedly takes a mere five seconds, and a full tank of gas will give you either a 372-mile range on land or two hours to tool around in the water -- but don't go getting the kids too hyped up, because there's no word on when/if the Quadski will see mass production.[Via Gizmag, thanks Madeleine]
Mac rumors are boring
I don't mean Apple rumors are conceptually boring -- I enjoy the Mac and iPod rumor mill as much as the next Apple geek -- they're just boring to read. Daring Fireball's John Gruber hit the nail on the head last month when he wrote about his dislike for Mac rumor site Think Secret. At the time he was talking about a rumor suggesting that Aperture was about to bite the dust. Of course, we all know it didn't, as we covered later on, but the inherent poor aim of rumor sites isn't the topic of this post.What the Mac web really needs, ok, wants, is a rumor site that merges the style of Crazy Apple Rumors with that of Think Secret and AppleInsider. Like Gruber says, the "objective" style of TS and AI apes that of the Associated Press (read: dull) when it should be taking a page out of the much loved, but now-defunct, Mac the Knife column. That fundamental element of gossip, the "we know that you know that this isn't important, but we also know that you know that this is fun" tone is completely missing from sites like Think Secret, AppleInsider and even rumor aggregation site Mac Rumors. We can understand why these sites pretend to be objective. It certainly *sounds* more legitimate if you write like the NYTimes (coincidentally this style makes it easier for us to pick apart the rumors, as you saw last week). However, this isn't the NYTimes. It's just a bit of gossip about our favorite computer company. Nothing more, nothing less.[Image credit]
TIME gets hands-on with the Nintendo Wii
We knew we should have taken that call from Miyamoto the other day, but our loss was TIME magazine's gain, because the Mario and Zelda creator was looking for someone to, wouldn't you know it, take the upcoming Wii for a little spin. TIME's five page article is so full of interesting deets that we barely have room to scratch the surface here, but suffice it to say that Lev Grossman not only reports on his hands-on experiences with a number of games, he's also able to get inside Nintendo's head, if you will, and tease out a bit of the methodology behind what some hardcore gamers perceive as the company's madness (Wii? those controllers? Nintendogs?). As for the actual gaming, Grossman got to play some tennis (the sensors even allow you to add spin), slay some dragons (brandishing the controller like a sword in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess), and bring those wacky Warioware minigames into the third dimension (think: fishing, weight lifting, cooking, etc.). Geez, this thing sounds like so much fun that we may just skip the Sony keynote this afternoon and see if the folks from Nintendo will let us play with their goodies.
Create the items you've always longed for
After that authentic feel? This WoW item creator allows you to input a variety of stats and create your own epics, although the results are unfortunately limited to the Internet and won't appear in-game. You too can make Chuck Norris jokes via an innovative new medium!I'm English, and have no clue who Chuck Norris is. Fortunately the Chuck Norris phenomenon has only brushed Europe -- I can play for days without seeing his name bandied about. Like WoW itself, however, it'll undoubtedly have Europe in its grip before long.[via pasta and vinegar, which has links to some Chuck Norris items and even a Chuck Norris Fact Generator addon]
Why isn't Photo Booth free?
I inevitably ended up playing around with Photo Booth for a while. As much as I wanted to hate it as a frivolous bit of code on my new iMac, I have to agree with Scott. It's a cool little app.I also have to ask... why doesn't Apple release this for everyone? I mean, it's not a part of iLife (nor is Front Row). Why is Apple only offering these programs with new hardware? I'd think giving them away for free would be good karma for Apple.
50 Fun Things To Do With Your iPod
Ok, so the list only hits 44, but still, who couldn't use a few more things to do with their little white gadget? I mean, only playing music on an iPod is so... 2001.Anyway, kottke.org has put together quite the creative list of *other* things you can do with your iPod. Notable alternatives include cooking a nice dinner (# 24), listening to text (# 14) and making free phone calls (# 37). Check out the full list of Fun Things To Do With Your iPod if you've been looking for that *special something* to spice up your iPod's usefulness.[via digg]
Descent 2 updated for OSX - and free!
I don't know why or how, but the gaming classic Descent 2 - yea, the entire thing - is available for OSX, Windows and Linux, and was just updated to version 0.2. It looks like an open source team somehow got ahold of the source and has been chugging away at getting it to work across platforms. (Looks like Interplay, the game's original publisher, has a pretty barren site these days.) I played the 0.1 version on OSX and it was pretty slick, but the game didn't like my mouse very much. Hopefully that was addressed with this update, but either way: go check out this most awesome of classic 3D spaceship fly-around-and-blow-up-crazy-robots games.
