July 31, 2012
The Game Boy Camera is an official Nintendo accessory for the handheld Game Boy and Super Game Boy gaming consoles and was released in 1998. It is also compatible with all of the Game Boy platforms (with the exception of Game Boy Micro). The camera can take 256×224 (down scaled to half resolution on the unit with anti-aliasing), black & white digital images using the 4-color palette of the Game Boy system.
It interfaced with the Game Boy Printer, which utilized thermal paper to print any saved images, making a hard copy. Both the camera and the printer were marketed by Nintendo as light-hearted entertainment devices aimed mainly at children. The Game Boy Camera was used to take the photographs for the album cover of Neil Young’s album ‘Silver & Gold.’
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July 31, 2012
A SuperBall or bouncy ball is a toy, invented in 1964 by chemist Norman Stingley by compressing a synthetic rubber material under high pressure. It is an extremely elastic ball made of Zectron, which contains the synthetic rubber polymer polybutadiene, as well as hydrated silica, zinc oxide, stearic acid, and other ingredients, vulcanized with sulfur at a temperature of 165 degrees Celsius and at a pressure of 3,500psi.
The Super Ball has an amazingly high coefficient of restitution. Dropped from shoulder level, balls snap nearly all the way back; thrown down by an average adult, it can leap over a three-story building. Toys similar to SuperBalls are more generally known as bouncy balls, a term which covers other more or less similar balls by different manufacturers with different formulations.
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July 30, 2012
Tough Mudder is an adventure sports company that hosts 10-12 mile endurance event obstacle courses designed by British Special Forces to test all around strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie that are billed as ‘probably the toughest event on the planet’ and regularly attract 15-20,000 participants over a two day weekend.
Tough Mudder events are a new type of team endurance challenge. According to ‘The New York Times,’ the events are ‘more convivial than marathons and triathlons, but more grueling than shorter runs or novelty events (for example, ‘Warrior Dash’ courses are 3-4 miles). Contestants are not timed and organizers encourage ‘mudders’ to demonstrate teamwork by helping fellow participants over difficult obstacles to complete the course. The prize for completing a Tough Mudder challenge is an official orange sweatband and a free beer. It is estimated that 15-20% of participants do not finish. Each event is designed to be unique and incorporates challenges and obstacles that utilize the local terrain.
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July 30, 2012
Basketball is the most popular and successful team sport in Lithuania. Luke Winn wrote in ‘Sports Illustrated,’ ‘Basketball is the only sport the 3.2 million Lithuanians truly care about—it’s their second religion, after Catholicism—and their success is proportionately stunning.’ The Lithuanian national basketball team won the European Basketball Championship in 1937, 1939 (led by Frank Lubin, the ‘Grandfather of Lithuanian Basketball’), and 2003.
They won a silver medal in 1995, and bronze in 2007, and again hosted EuroBasket 2011. Having been part of the Soviet Union, Lithuanian players frequently formed the core of the Soviet national team. This was especially so for the 1988 Olympic basketball gold medal-winning team. After the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1990, the national team was resurrected. Lithuania won bronze medals in the first three Olympics to include NBA players – 1992, 1996, and 2000, finished fourth in 2004 and 2008, and qualified to play at London 2012 Olympics.
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July 23, 2012
Rodney Greenblat (b. 1960) is an American graphic artist known best in the United States for the visual style of the computer games ‘PaRappa the Rapper’ and ‘UmJammer Lammy,’ and in Japan for his comic ‘Thunder Bunny.’
He was also the character designer for the ‘PaRappa Rappa’ anime that was released in Japan. He also designed They Might Be Giants’ self-titled debut album in 1986. He is currently an abstract painter in New York.
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July 23, 2012
Rhythm game refers to a genre of music-themed action video games. Games in the genre typically focus on dance or the simulated performance of musical instruments, and require players to press buttons in a sequence dictated on the screen. Doing so causes the game’s protagonist or avatar to dance or to play their instrument correctly, which increases the player’s score.
Many rhythm games include multiplayer modes in which players compete for the highest score or cooperate as a simulated musical ensemble. While conventional control pads may be used as input devices, rhythm games often feature novel game controllers that emulate musical instruments. Certain dance-based games require the player to physically dance on a mat, with pressure-sensitive pads acting as the input device.
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July 23, 2012
PaRappa the Rapper is a rhythm video game (e.g. ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ and ‘Guitar Hero’) for the Sony PlayStation created by Masaya Matsuura (the former leader of the Japanese ‘Hyper Pop Unit’ PSY S) and his NanaOn-Sha company.
While the gameplay is not challenging for experienced gamers, the game is remembered for its unique graphic design, its quirky soundtrack and its bizarre plot. Despite being made in Japan, all of the game’s songs and dialogue are spoken in English in all versions. The game is named after its protagonist, Parappa, a 2D rapping dog with the motto, ‘I gotta believe!’ His name comes from the Japanese term for ‘paper thin.’
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July 23, 2012
Gitaroo Man is a 2001 rhythm video game developed by iNiS and published by Koei for PlayStation 2. The game features visual design by pop artist 326 (Mitsuru Nakamura) and an original soundtrack by Japanese band COIL. The player character is U-1, a young boy who finds out he is the last legendary hero of Planet Gitaroo, and the possessor of the Last Gitaroo, a legendary guitar.
Despite a number of positive reviews, the North American and European versions of ‘Gitaroo Man’ were produced in very low quantities by Koei and, as a result, have become somewhat rare; it is regarded as a cult video game. Around 2005 in North America, copies began popping up in GameStop game stores. This was due to a reprint by GameQuestDirect, similar to their previous reprints of PlayStation RPGs ‘Persona 2’ and ‘Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure,’ both of which were previously very rare.
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July 17, 2012
A regenerative brake is an energy recovery mechanism which slows a vehicle or object down by converting its kinetic energy into another form, which can be either used immediately or stored until needed. This contrasts with conventional braking systems, where the excess kinetic energy is converted to heat by friction in the brake linings and therefore wasted. The most common form of regenerative brake involves using an electric motor as an electric generator.
In electric railways the generated electricity is fed back into the supply system, whereas in battery electric and hybrid electric vehicles, the energy is stored in a battery or bank of capacitors for later use. Energy may also be stored mechanically via pneumatics, hydraulics, or the kinetic energy of a rotating flywheel.
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July 17, 2012
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (SMAC) is a science fiction 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate), turn-based strategy video game sequel to the ‘Civilization’ series. Sid Meier, designer of ‘Civilization,’ and Brian Reynolds, designer of ‘Civilization II,’ developed ‘Alpha Centauri’ after they left MicroProse to join the newly created developer Firaxis Games. Electronic Arts released both SMAC and its expansion, ‘Sid Meier’s Alien Crossfire’ (SMAX), in 1999. In the following year, both titles were ported to Mac and Linux.
Set in the 22nd century, the game begins as seven competing ideological factions land on the planet Chiron (‘Planet’) in the Alpha Centauri star system. As the game progresses, Planet’s growing sentience becomes a formidable obstacle to the human colonists. Alpha Centauri features improvements on Civ II’s game engine, including simultaneous multiplay, social engineering, climate, customizable units, alien native life, additional diplomatic and spy options, additional ways to win, and greater mod-ability. ‘Alien Crossfire’ introduces five new human and two non-human factions as well as additional technologies, facilities, secret projects, native life, unit abilities, and a victory condition.
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July 17, 2012
Sid Meier’s Civilization is a turn-based strategy video game created by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley for MicroProse in 1991. It is a standard-bearer for the 4X genre: eXplore (reveal surrounding territories), eXpand (create new settlements), eXploit (gather resources), and eXterminate (eliminate rivals). The game’s objective is to ‘Build an empire to stand the test of time.’ It begins in 4000 BCE and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires through the ages from the ancient era until modern and near-future times. The game requires a fair amount of micromanagement (although less than a simulation game such as SimCity).
Along with the larger tasks of exploration, warfare, and diplomacy, the player has to make decisions about where to build new cities, which improvements or units to build in each city, which advances in knowledge should be sought (and at what rate), and how to transform the land surrounding the cities for maximum benefit. From time to time the player’s towns may be harassed by barbarians, units with no specific nationality and no named leader. These threats only come from unclaimed land or sea, so that over time there are fewer and fewer places from which barbarians will emanate.
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July 17, 2012
4X games are a genre of strategy video game in which players control an empire and ‘explore (reveal surrounding territories), expand (create new settlements), exploit (gather resources), and exterminate’ (eliminate rivals). The four elements often overlap with each other and vary in length depending on the game design.
For example, the ‘Space Empires’ series and ‘Galactic Civilizations II’ have lengthy expansion phases, because players must make large investments in research to explore and expand into every area. The term was first coined by video game critic Alan Emrich in his 1993 preview of ‘Master of Orion’ for ‘Computer Gaming World,’ in which he rated the game ‘XXXX’ as a pun on the rating for pornography.
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