Month: March 2008

Mindbending

By AMH

I wish I could remember where I saw a link to this odd little jigsaw puzzle, but it is very cool. Especially once you scroll down and read the directions and realize you can rotate pieces as well as drag them around the board to fit them together. It is both cute and fun. If you like that type of little game, or enjoy “brain teaser” type puzzles, the site as a whole is worth a browse. A lot of the games are fairly old, but the Flash implementations are quite nice. The I/O Puzzle is also worth a look … Continue reading Mindbending

Where *is* our time travel technology?

By AMH

I have seen the short story Wikihistory linked from a lot of places (first, I think, from Boing Boing) and finally went and read it – it’s short and amusing so you should check it out too. It does a nice job playing with online conversation structures; I think that this format for this particular story lays out all of the information you want to know about this scenario in a very compact way. I do not think I would have wanted a longer-form version of the story. I definitely like the use of the “n00b” as a justification for … Continue reading Where *is* our time travel technology?

Another Open Source Summer

By AMH

If you are a student, like writing code, and are still looking for something interesting to do with your summer, you might want to check out Google Summer of Code 2008. Students are paired with mentoring organizations to participate in various open source development projects. The list of organizations interested in mentoring students has been recently posted, including summaries of the types of projects they may be interested in supporting. The program FAQ answers most of the key questions; student project proposals are due at the end of the month.

Flames! Gears! Excitement!

By AMH

I was just notified [Thanks T!] that ESPN wants to sponsor a Collegiate BattleBots Championship and I am semi-seriously wondering if there is any interest among my students because WOW would that be fun. It doesn’t look like there have been any competitions since 2005, so they are still investigating whether there is enough interest to actually do this. It actually makes me wondering if there is some sort of tie in with Doonesbury – this week they are rerunning their awesome series from last January where Alex is off at MIT competing in a robot competition. Go check it … Continue reading Flames! Gears! Excitement!