Tribal Wars - Another Free MMO!

Tribal Wars is a free browser-based online game in which each player owns a village and attempts to exert their influence on the other player villages around them. This is done through force or diplomacy.

It's pretty simple to pick-up. Each building can be leveled up, which means they can produce more resources, troops etc. Building construction and resource gathering takes a certain amount of time. For example, a building may take around 30 minutes to be constructed/leveled-up (providing you have the resources available) upon which an email will be sent to you informing you that construction has been complete. This means you can comfortably leave the game alone and do other stuff while construction is underway.

Key to the game is diplomacy. It's important to contact nearby villages early on to determine their intentions towards you (or to inform them that you wish to burn down their village, of course!). Friendships may result in a tribe forming, or being invited to join their's. Joining or forming your own tribe is important as it can lead to a stronger defence of your villages and, most importantly, a more fun-filled game!

There are 8 worlds (plus two speed worlds) in total, each game lasting about a month. Like Urban Dead meta-gaming is part of the enjoyment so, if you don't like this, it might not be your cup of tea. I've only dipped my toes in yet but I'm finding it fun so far.

Join up here!

Spinach Powered House.

As global warming takes effect, and we have to think of more environmentally friendly ways to live our hectic lives, people are increasingly thinking of new ways to accomplish this effort. So, how about a house that's powered from Spinach?

Ok, maybe it's not powered solely by Spinach (it actually uses solar energy) but I'll let someone else explain why I'm talking about spinach:

To do this however, their design called for a house to be cladded with a solid-state photosynthetic solar cell based skin, whose main component for generating electricity from the sun is a protein called Photosystem I, which is derived from spinach. - Inhabitat

Will we all be living in houses like this? Probably not anytime soon but as long as my house isn't underwater in the near future I think I'll be fine.

Spinach Powered House - Inhabitat.

Star Wars AT-AT Stroller Mod.

This stroller modded to look like an AT-AT from Star Wars shows that you're never too young to be a Star Wars geek!

In case you're wondering, yes, it was spotted at the Star Wars Celebration IV convention back on May 26th (this blog post shows how it originated on the Internet).

DIY AT-AT Stroller: Who's Luke's Father? - Daddytypes.com (Via Neatorama)

Off The Book Shelf #1

Book: The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse by Robert Rankin.

Blurb: Once upon a time Jack set out to seek his fortune in the big city - but when Jack finally gets there, it is Toy City, formerly known as Toy Town. And there is a serial killer loose upon the streets.

One by one, the old, rich nursery rhyme characters are being brutally slaughtered. The Toy City police are getting nowhere; Bill Winkie, Private Eye, has also mysteriously vanished, leaving only his sidekick, Eddie Bear, to take care of business.

But Eddie's ready, and when he teams up with Jack, the two set out on an epic adventure. Not to mention a lot of heavy drinking, bad behaviour, fast car chases, gratuitous sex and violence, bizarre toy fetishism and all-round grossness. Of a type not normally associated with Toy Town.

My Comments: Although he's no Terry Pratchett or Douglass Adams Robert Rankin's story-telling is hilarious. There are parts where you do wonder if he's taking a leaf out of the Douglass Adams tome of writing but you can't fault him for having his own unique style.

Rankin successfully taps into the stories we grew up with and presents them in an 'adult' light. It's odd at first but increasingly hilarious as he plays around with the very characters we grew to love.

There's no question that things can get a little strange at times but what do you expect in a novel where toys and nursery rhyme characters play the most predominate parts? Although I haven't read anything else by Rankin the titles and blurbs of his other novels (such as The Toyminator) suggests that these uniquely strange settings are not limited to this novel alone. If you're looking to start reading Rankin I highly recommend this as your first option.

Loved Who Framed Roger Rabbit? You'll love this!

Buy From Amazon.com

Bear Robot To Rescue Wounded Troops

What's one thing missing from the battlefield? One thing that would really look out of place in all those explosions and that dying thing people tend to do? A teddy bear of course!

Introducing the latest weapon of mass destruction from your friends at the US military! Ok, it's not going to be taking out any terrorists anytime soon but it has it's very own purpose on the battlefield;

The Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot (BEAR) can scoop up even the heaviest of casualties and transport them over long distances over rough terrain. - BBC News

See what they did there, with the BEAR thing? New Scientist magazine says that the 'friendly appearance' of the robot is designed to put the wounded at ease. Right, so if I was lying in the middle of a battlefield in extreme pain and a teddy bear hopped along and said 'Come with me if you want to live!' I'd probably freak out and believe I was going crazy due to the pain.

There is one problem I have with it though. What's going to stop the enemy firing at this slow moving target and blowing it to fluffy little pieces? Common sense would dictate that they don't send it out under fire. Instead, the robot will be used to navigate difficult terrain and disaster areas, meaning other soldiers lives will not have to put their own lives in danger. The thing is, if I was lying injured somewhere I'd much rather have a fellow soldier helping me than some faceless robot - even if it does have the 'bear-like' face. Well, as long as it doesn't look like this anyway;


Bear robot rescues wounded troops - BBC

Vecna Robotics

Those Germans Do Some Crazy Things!

No LOLcats here! Instead we have a German guy who's attached a camera to his cat - whom is named Mr.Lee - to catch first-person perspectives of it's daily life.

I love cats, I'm not afraid to admit it, and there's an essence of voyeurism in wanting to see what cats get up to during their lazy days. If I attached a camera to my own cat it wouldn't be all that interesting as all she seems to do is sleep these days.

Check out the website, if you're really that interested, for the images.

Mr. Leee CatCam - (Via Boing Boing)

Man Sues Over Permanent Erection.

I think this qualifies for the most obscure piece of news today (although, to be fair, I haven't been over to Fark yet).

A NEW York man has sued the makers of a health drink, saying it has given him a permanent erection for the last two years. - NEWS.com.au

I often provide commentary on links I provide here but I don't think I can do this one much justice.

Man sues over permanent erection - NEWS.com.au

Did Pirates Really Say "Arrrr"?

Apparently not;

Both that phrase and the accent that goes with it are strictly Hollywood. They originated with Robert Newton, the actor who played Long John Silver in the movies and on TV through much of the 1950s. Newton was from Dorset, in the Cotswolds district of southwest England, and the regional accent he brought to the movies included a rolled "r." - Slate

Did Pirates Really Say "Arrrr"? - Slate

The True Historic Origins Of The Laugh-Out-Loud Cats?

We all love LOLcats (and if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about then where have you been?) but do any of us actually know the origin?

Not many people know this, but my great grandfather Aloysius "Gorilla" Koford, was also a cartoonist. From 1912-1913 he produced a comic strip which was featured in 17 newspapers, including the Philadephia Star-Democrat, the Tampa Telegraph, and the Santa Fe Good-Newser. The strip was entitled "the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats" and featured the exploits of one Meowlin Q. Kitteh (a sort of cat hobo-raconteur) and his young hapless kitten friend, Pip. The strip did not last long due to a run-in my great-grandfather had with none other than William Randolph Hearst.

See, the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats was run by a one of Heart's competitors, so “Big Willy” (as Hearst was known in his day) used the bully pulpit of his media empire to hound and mock the efforts of my great-grandfather. Hearst scribes insinuated Aloysius was an actual trained gorilla and purported to have evidence in the form of banana shipping statements. - Hobotopia

Of course, a Boing Boing reader points out that cheesburgers weren't invented until 1924 so the 1912-1913 timeline wouldn't work. The funny thing is - it's a pretty obvious hoax - that Boing Boing actually believed it in the first place!

It provided a good laugh though!

The real origin of Laugh-Out-Loud Cats - Hobotopia (Via Boing Boing)

Express Yourself Through Google Earth!

GeoGreeting allows you to create your own messages using aerial shots of buildings around the world. Using Google Earth and the hawk-like eyes of it's many users you can express the inner geek in you to anyone you wish!

The above message is made up of buildings from Tuscon, Shanghai, Minneapolis, Boise, Albuquerque, Bangkok, Hainburg, and Portland.

GeoGreeting.com (Via Miss Cellania)