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straightforsasuke · 4 years

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Great Wines Are Component of Every Great Meal

Among the several pleasures in life is locating a peaceful little restaurant with wonderful food as well as a choice of great wines. For some, this might indicate a regional eatery with remarkable chocolate desserts large enough to feed the whole table and a lot of flowing champagne. Others may find their regional steakhouse that reduces their own meat and chefs it flawlessly to requirements whenever enjoyed with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon is the solution to an amazing dish. And after that there are those that like a seafood meal gently prepared and also come with by their favourite white wine, possibly a Riesling or a Chardonnay. Since every person appears to have a different opinion regarding their ideal dish experience, several various other favourites are out there.

For some, thinking about a dish indicates selecting a sort of food such as Italian, Mexican, American, Chinese or Indian. Well, presume what? Every one of these foods have specific sorts of wine that are usually offered and delighted in. It's as easy as resting down at a table and also looking over the food selection or wine list. Normally, the recommended wines are listed near the top or in an area of wines from the particular nation on which the restaurant's food is based. As well as if you're checking out a certain country it's even less complicated. Just ask your waiter for the wines advised by the dining establishment. Normally, the usual wines in stock will certainly be the local ranges.

While dining establishment eating is what lots of people consider when they desire a great dinner as well as wine experience, it is definitely not the only option available. Some enjoy cooking as well as are extremely competent at preparing special as well as tasty dishes. Also for those who choose not to prepare, nowadays it's very easy to locate mail-order gourmet services that will certainly deliver impressive meals ready to cook to your front door. Various other options consist of having a personal chef drop in your home to prepare an expert dish to your requirements. Whatever alternative you select, do not fail to remember to drop in your regional wine store and pick up a choice of fine wines to opt for your remarkable meal.

Something that tends to puzzle several beginning or seldom wine enthusiasts is what specific food as well as wine combinations are suitable. When it comes to selecting a certain type of wine to consume with a particular meal, there are a number of so-called guidelines. And to better make complex points, some wines are more appropriate prior to a meal while others are much better suited for alcohol consumption after a dish. It can all be so difficult to the beginner that they quit as well as buy a soda as opposed to having to make the terrible wine choice and show up foolish. Essentially there are a couple of means to handle this dilemma and also eventually get over the worry of buying wine.

The very first method to get rid of the concern of buying wine is to come to be informed. Now, acquiring an education in wine will certainly involve a long time as well as work just like anything you established out to discover. A good location to begin is the collection. Try to find publications and also publications about wine and obtain to function reading them over. If you discover that your library has actually limited sources worrying current wine information, take a trip over to your neighbourhood bookstore to have a look at the publication racks first. Most of the bigger bookstores have numerous publication selections regarding almost any type of topic of interest and also they ought to have numerous on the subject of wine. Still an additional resource of details is the web. Do search on wine as well as see what you can discover. With a bit of time invested, you'll understand a lot regarding the different kinds of wines and also feel more like a professional than a newbie in no time.

Although learning more about wine is probably the ideal technique to coming to be comfortable with it, there is another option. A quick approach would certainly be to just neglect your concern as well as start getting. Ask yourself if it truly matters if a person else thinks you have made a poor selection. Try something else next time if your wine selection doesn't work with the food you bought. After a little test and also mistake, you'll be selecting wines that match your meals. When eaten by itself, the main thing to remember about food as well as wine combinations is that the food must make the wine preference much better than it tastes.

French wines remain in a class of their very own. It wouldn't be hard to base an entire holiday around a browse through to France to taste much of the fantastic French wines offered by this nation. Actually, the majority of people consider France and also wine in the very same idea. That can visualise strolling past a walkway coffee shop and also not seeing a bottle of the country's best on each table? And there is no much better mid-day meal than a bottle of wine, a loaf of French bread, some cheese and also fruit to please the cravings. There is no question that wine and also France have a history and also the nation creates some of the finest, if not the finest, wine in the entire globe.

With every one of the wineries and various vineyards in France, both big and little, nearly every type of wine is different relying on the winemaker. Obviously, that is all component of the appeal as well as attraction making wine manufacturing much more of an art than a scientific research. The majority of the variety comes from the numerous selections a winemaker should make when generating their wine. Initially, they need to choose a sort of grape as well as a setting for their winery. Naturally, many times this choice has currently been made as they possibly currently have their winery. The climate in their area has an influence on manufacturing as well as the perfect harvest date in their specific situations.

Additional factors to consider that can influence the top qualities of wine consist of the sort of container utilised during the fermentation procedure, the associated temperature levels and also actual size of the fermentation period. Another variable is the kind of container made use of throughout the growth phase which is generally some sort of barrel or barrel. Among one of the most prominent wine areas in France are Champagne, Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Loire and also Rhone. Just listening to the names of these fabulous places can make you desire to get on an aircraft as well as take a wine tour. Naturally, a quicker way to obtain virtually the very same sensation is to turn on the travel channel, get a container of one of your favourite French wines and loosen up.

Offer Riesling a try if you're looking for fantastic German wine. Among the oldest as well as finest sorts of wines readily available today is German wine. Although wine has actually been generated by Germany for an excellent number of years as well as has a long history, wine manufacturing methods have created as well as progressed along with the times. The country is known particularly for its white wine which consists of the bulk of the overall wine manufacturing annually. Of course, the nation likewise creates red wine but in much lower quantities than the white ranges. It interests keep in mind that over twenty percent of Germany's entire wine production includes a solitary type of grape, the Riesling grape.

With such a huge part of production bought Riesling wine, it comes as no shock that this sort of wine is maybe the best-known and also most prominent of the wines generated in Germany. Although other countries also grow Riesling grapes and also create this type of wine, none appears to compare to the German selection. This is due in huge component to the soil and also ecological problems found in Germany. It is a popular reality among wine students that grapes tackle features of the soil and various other environments so relying on where a grape is expanded, the very same kind of wine can vary considerably in the completed item.

Talking of grape growing problems, Germany has the excellent backdrop for wineries and winemaking. The majority of the vineyards are situated in the southwestern component of the country in almost perfect conditions. Think of an item of the countryside, with Riesling and also other types of grapes growing on the either incline or in valleys, practically always with a river streaming nearby and also you have the best beginnings of an excellent wine. That defines most vineyards in Germany. Due to the fact that the Riesling grapes, specifically, have a longer ripening period which permits a much more developed aroma as well as greater equilibrium to the completed wine, Germany is the excellent setup to make this grape also much better. Whether you pick to attempt Riesling or one of the various other outstanding options of German wine, make sure to include wines from this nation to your shortlist of favourites.

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groovynerdglitter · 3 years

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PopCap Games - Gaming Company - Best Gaming Ideas in 2022

The gaming company PopCap was founded in 2000 and is based in Seattle, Washington. Its founders, John Vechey and Brian Fiete, now head the company. It employs more than 200 people, most of whom work on games. Most of PopCap's games are available for free, but they also offer full versions for a fee. For more information on the company and its products, visit its website. Get the best gaming ch airs from gaming-chair.guide

The company is now owned by the largest game publisher in the world: Electronic Arts (EA). The acquisition ended the company's talks of an initial public offering. Instead, the company is now in the hands of EA, one of the largest game publishers in the world. According to PopCap's CEO, the deal was a good match for the company, especially given its focus on digital games. Additionally, the bigger publisher will help the company scale as it tries to reach a larger audience.

The games developed by PopCap are available on several platforms.

They include Plants vs. Zombies, Bejeweled, and Zuma. Bejeweled has sold over 50 million copies and is the company's best-selling game. The company's products are available for PCs, Macs, Xbox and PlayStation consoles. They are also available for mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. In addition to making great games, PopCap has also acquired several game developers. In 2010, it raised $22.5 million in an initial public offering, allowing it to expand its catalogue and reach.

While EA's recent acquisition of PopCap Games is a great move for both companies, the company's growth is limited by the size of its company. Its games include a variety of genres, including casual and puzzle games. This is why PopCap's website mixes games developed by other companies with those created by PopCap. Its most popular game is Plants vs. Zombies, which was originally released for PCs in May 2009, is the first game on that platform.

The company has a large number of titles.

Its best-selling games include "Plants vs. Zombies" and other wildly popular games. It is also home to a huge library of mobile and PC versions of its games. Although there are a variety of devices, the company is headquartered in Seattle, which gives it a global reach. They are a great place to work. They create games that you can enjoy anywhere.

The company was founded in 2000. Its current workforce is about 400 and is based in Seattle, Washington. Its headquarters is in Seattle, and it has offices in Canada, Europe, and Asia. They develop games for various platforms, including mobile devices, online, and Facebook. Some of their most popular titles include Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies. In terms of revenue, 80 percent of the company's revenue comes from digital platforms, while the rest comes from sales of physical products.

The company employs over 300 people, with offices in Seattle, Chicago, and Dublin. The company is also based in Ireland. The firm is a small business, but it has managed to grow into a major gaming company. Currently, it is worth a few dollars if you're considering investing in a gaming company. You can play games for free online, download demos, and more! The gaming world has a lot to offer.

History of PopCap Games

PopCap Games was founded in 2000 by John Vechey, Brian Fiete, and Jason Kapalka. The three founders wanted to make games that would be fun to play. Their first game was Bejeweled, which was supported on all major platforms. It was awarded a computer gaming world hall of fame award in 2002. In 2005, PopCap acquired the startup Sprout Games. The company is known for its popular Angry Birds, which were developed by James Gwertzman.

In 2011, PopCap was acquired by Electronic Arts, a major game developer. The company shifted its focus from free-to-play games to mobile games. It also considered going public and shut down its Dublin studio. This move led to the closure of the studio. It also resulted in the closure of the company's Irish studio on September 24, 2012. It is unclear whether the Irish business will remain independent, but the game company's Irish office will continue to be run by Electronic Arts employees. Visit tumblr for more.

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mobilegamedevelopmentus · 3 years

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6 Steps Of Mobile Game Development: How to Develop a Game

When we talk about game then there is different platform where We are starting a new category mobile game development. There are more tools and resources available for indie game development like Unity, Godot engine, unreal engine 4, Defold with different programing languages like Java, Js, Python, .Net etc.

1. Pick a (Small) Idea New game developers are often inspired by the games they wish to play. And if you’re curious about something like Civilization or Stardew Valley, you would possibly want to dive into an identical project right from the beginning. Unfortunately, you’re not ready for something complex. Game development may be a difficult skill that grows with practice. It’s like learning the piano — you've got to start out with easy, simple songs and gradually expand into tougher pieces.

2. Pick an Engine or Framework

The next step is to work out what engine, framework, or library you would like to use.

• Game engines (like Unity or Unreal) typically accompany graphical interfaces and therefore the most built-in functionality.

• Frameworks and libraries are usually in written form existing programming languages. Therefore, obviously these are easy to use fast in code. It’s make development fast as possible. They supply all of the functions you would like to make your game and obtain something that shows abreast of the screen, but they require tons more setup.

Non-Programmers

Programmers

2D vs. 3D

Image take from Pixels

3. Create the Prototype Now it’s time to truly start developing. Your goal is to make a minimum viable product (MVP).

4. Find Assets The next step is to feature art and sound to your game. you'll certainly try making your own if you’re curious about that. except for most of the people , it’s best to seek out free assets online. Sites like itch.io and OpenGameArt have many great resources. Most games you create will have prototype or temporary assets in their early versions, so it’s good to find out the way to find placeholder images and sounds online. But if we discard non-professionalism, then the gaze exposes a harsh truth. Steps to creating a computer game are complex and multi-component. Here you'll find:

• a lot of introductory planning and conceptual and practical work, exciting but very long and siphon the lifeblood out of game designers; • work on design and art that at an equivalent time inspires and shatter the nerves of artists who accept and implement endless edits; • programming and testing, almost like the fine jewelry work of a glass blower, when mistakes are often corrected only while the glass remains hot; • creating sounds and music that ought to give the sport its own unique and inimitable voice and make sound designers think hard about the way to avoid being almost like others; • as well as a bunch of people who connect departments, coordinate, communicate with the customer then on.

Mobile Game development is often compared with game design. We have already managed to tell everyone interested about the incorrectness of this comparison, so let’s briefly recall the essence.

Top Game developers are involved within the implementation of ideas written by game designers on paper. They enter the project after the artists have already created the required art, and that they are busy writing the code to form the merchandise interactive and embed the created art into it. The developers are liable for ensuring that the most character and therefore the game world are inseparable, and generally they are doing everything to form the concept work.

1. Game budget. In this budgeting environment a limited and short budget doesn’t mean lower quality. this is often just a marker that permits you to roughly estimate the amount of features, the extent of graphics and therefore the overall “packaging” of the sport .

2. Game type. to not be confused with the genre. Here, supported the budget, we define the sort of game from several main ones: mini 2D game, casual 2D/3D game, mid-core 3D game or hardcore 3D game and video game.

3. Gaming platform. it's necessary to work out that platform you're getting to make the game: mobile devices, PC, console, or even you would like to make a browser game.

4. Game genre. Here the selection is huge: simulation, strategy, sports, adventure, RPG, puzzle, board, and more. the selection of the genre should depend upon the size of the longer-term game. for instance, if you've got alittle budget, then you ought to not hope for genres like RPGs or simulations since they require the elaboration and implementation of an enormous amount of detail.

5. The audience. This point also has its nuances. If you're making an off-the-cuff game, then you aim for the most important possible reach of various players. If the sport is more narrowly specialized in terms of genre, it's necessary to obviously understand who are going to be its main consumer.

Conclusion

At the final stag its nice to say that there is large scope of game at google play store and apple store as well. A high-level game doesn’t meter but quality of game does. Therefore, We at Mass Game Studio is option for mobile game development with our expert programmer, game developers.

#linkedin #bitcons #gaming companies #game developers #kpo

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nerdychopshopgoatee · 3 years

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Important programming languages

There are around 300 programming languages out there in our country. The interest and distinction of programming languages waver every year. Moreover, new programming languages are going with engaging features.

With everything taken into account, which programming language would it be a smart thought for you to learn? Learning another programming language is reliably an endeavor of your time and mental capacity. If you are a pre-arranged designer or accepting you unquestionably know a couple of programming vernaculars, you can get comfortable with a forte, current one. Lately, I have made a blog section where I have short-recorded seven current programming languages worth learning:

However, if you are starting your programming calling in 2021 or accepting you need to get comfortable with your first or second programming language, it is quick to learn one of the norm and set up programming languages. The best programming vernaculars to learn in 2021 are recorded underneath. Recorded program languages are top 10 programming languages in India.

Top programming languages of 2021 in India

Python

Right when Guido van Rossum made Python during the 1990s as his side endeavor, nobody thought it would be the most notable programming language one day. Considering all a lot of apparent rankings and industry designs, I put Python as the primary programming language for the most part.

Python has not seen a short lived rising in reputation like Java or C/C++. In like manner, Python is definitely not a hazardous programming language. Regardless, from the soonest beginning stage, Python has focused in on fashioner experience and endeavored to cut down the limit to programming so that younger students can moreover form creation grade code.

In 2008, Python went through a tremendous update and improvement with the cost of introducing basic breaking changes by introducing Python 3.

Today, Python is universal and used in various spaces of programming progression, with no sign of moving down. Python is best programming language to learn in 2021

Key Highlights:

The USP of Python is its language plan. It is significantly useful, rich, fundamental, yet astounding. Python has five star joining with C/C++ and can impeccably offload the focal processor strong tasks to C/C++. Python has an amazingly unique neighborhood backing.

Pros:

Supports various systems and stages. Article Situated Programming (Oh no) decided. Helps with improving Developer’s Profitability. Grants you to scale even the most puzzling applications easily. Wide Help Libraries

Cons:

Note ideal for Portable Figuring. Python’s informational index permission layer is fairly juvenile and rough.

Use/Application: Web and Web Improvement, Logical and Numeric applications, Work region GUIs, Business applications. It is by and large used in AI(Artificial Insight) and AI space.

JavaScript

During the chief program war, Netscape had alloted Brendan Eich to develop another programming language for its Program. Brendan Eich had developed the hidden model in only ten days, and the rest is history. Programming engineers regularly despised JavaScript in its underlying days because of its defenseless language plan and nonappearance of features.

All through the long haul, JavaScript has formed into a multi-perspective, unquestionable level, incredible programming language. The key colossal jump forward of JavaScript came in 2009 when Ryan Dahl conveyed cross-stage JavaScript runtime Node.js and enabled JavaScript to run on Worker Side.

The other enormous forward jump of JavaScript came around 2010 when Google conveyed a JavaScript based Web progression structure AngularJS.

Today, JavaScript is perhaps the most by and large used programming lingos in the world and runs on basically everywhere: Programs, Workers, Cell telephones, Cloud, Holders, Miniature controllers.

Key Highlights:

JavaScript is the undisputed ruler in Program programming. Because of Node.js, JavaScript offers event driven programming, which is especially suitable for I/O significant tasks. JavaScript has gone through enormous modernization and update over the latest all in all an extended period of time, especially in 2015, 2016, and later.

Pros:

Client side JavaScript is incredibly speedy as it will in general be arrived behind schedule in the client side program. JavaScript is by and large simple to learn. It can work effectively with various lingos and can be used in an immense variety of uses. Oil monkey support to make pieces out of JavaScript which can execute on unequivocal pages

Cons:

JavaScript simply allows single inheritance, so different heritages are unreasonable. No copy or comparable procedure is open in JavaScript. JavaScript interpreted differently by different projects. Use/Applications: JavaScript usage join web/adaptable application headway, game development, and work region application improvement.

Java

Java is potentially the most irksome programming vernaculars to date. Beholding back to the ’90s, business applications were primarily developed using C++, which was extremely obfuscated and stage subordinate. James Gosling and his gathering at Sun brought the obstacle down to make business applications by offering significantly less perplexing, object-arranged, unraveled programming language that also maintains Multi-hanging programming.

Java has achieved Stage independence by making Java Virtual Machine (JVM), which distracted the low-level Working Framework from fashioners and gave the first “Make Once, Run wherever” programming language. Also, JVM offers age rubbish variety, which manages the Item life cycle.

Recently, Java has lost a segment of its business areas to significantly design pleasing present day tongues and the rising of various lingos, especially Python, JavaScript. Moreover, JVM isn’t actually Cloud friendly considering its huge size. Prophet has actually introduced significant approving charges for JDK, which will check Java’s pervasiveness further.

Fortunately, Java is managing its inadequacies and endeavoring to make Java fit for Cloud through the GraalVM drive. Furthermore, in OpenJDK, there is a free choice as opposed to the prohibitive Prophet JDK.

Java is at this point the principle programming language for tries. Java is seen as a best programming language to learn in 2020

Key Highlights:

Java offers an astounding, feature rich, multi-perspective, translated programming language with a moderate assumption to learn and adjust and high specialist productivity. Java is rigidly in invert suitable, which is a basic essential for business applications. Java’s runtime JVM is a showstopper of Programming and a champion among other virtual machines in the business.

Pros:

Article Arranged language. Java offers APIs for different activities like Data set affiliation, arranging, XML parsing, utilities, etc. Inconceivable open source Fast Improvement mechanical assemblies. A huge number of open source libraries

Cons:

Memory the chiefs in Java is exorbitant. The deficiency of configurations can confine you to make great data structures.

Use/Application: Java for the most part used for making Android applications, web applications, and Enormous data.

In 2000, Tech beast Microsoft decided to make their Article Arranged C like programming language C# as a segment of their .NET drive, which will be directed (run on a Virtual Machine like Java).

The veteran language maker Anders Hejlsberg arranged C# as a segment of Microsoft’s Regular Language Drive (CLI) stage where various other (mostly Microsoft’s lingos) orchestrated into a center design which runs on a Runtime named Normal Language Runtime (CLR).

During bygone times, C# was censured as a pantomime of Java. However, later, both of the tongues meandered. In like manner, Microsoft’s approving of C# compiler/runtime isn’t for each situation clear. Notwithstanding the way that Microsoft is as of now not maintaining its licenses under the Microsoft Open Detail Venture, it may change.

Today, C# is a multi-perspective programming language that is by and large used on the Windows stage just as on the iOS/Android stage (as a result of Xamarin) and Linux stage. Still c# saw as the best programming language to learn in 2020.

Key Highlights:

Anders Hejlsberg endeavored to convey C# by and by from Java’s shadow and give its own character. Maintained by Microsoft and being in the business for seemingly forever, C# has huge conditions of libraries and frameworks. Like Java, C# is moreover stage independent (due to CLR) and runs on Windows, Linux, Cell telephones.

Pros:

C# uses essentially similar accentuation which follows by C so it direct for the people who know C language. Basic Mix with Windows. Totally consolidated with the .NET library which offers induction to a document of convenience and support. Safer than its namesakes (C/++) as pointer types are not permitted

Cons:

It grants pointers in ‘risky’ blocks.

Usage applications: Broadly used in Big business Cross-Applications Advancement, Web Applications

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mostfungames-blog1 · 5 years

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Incredible Advancements in the Gaming Technology

Gaming technology advances every year so does its great prospects in the coming future! People are gaming enthusiasts and consider it the best thing for time pass. How about let’s take a few moments out of our life to praise its development to perfection.

Top advances in gaming and technology over the past 5 years

Gesture Control

When hands can work as great tools in our daily lives then why not use them as a tool for gaming? The gesture control technology is one such thing that needs these human tools known as hands to control the characters. The gaming technology uses motion sensors and cameras to detect the movement made by your hands and transmit it to the game. This kind of gaming equipment is used to play shooting and sporty games.

HD Graphics

There was once a time when 8-bit graphics of the games was the thing in demand and appreciated for its superb visuals? Now, with 4K (4000 pixels, wow!) games give us real-time experience. Now the cutting-edge advancements give the gamers a world of photorealistic textures, higher image quality and increase the playability.

Facial Recognition

The facial and voice recognition feature in the gaming world has seen a great boom in the gaming world. 3D scanning technology helps to create a character of its own that just looks like the face of the player, and the voice recognition feature makes the character sound exactly like you.

Facial recognition allows your character to portray the same emotions that you might be feeling at the time of playing a game. The facial recognition power of the technology uses 78 different facial points of a person to imitate the exact emotions on the screen.

Virtual Reality

It is smartly and gradually creeping its way into the gaming industry and if you can immerse yourself into a game now then you must be aware of the VR headset that comes along to experience the enthralling beauty of the games. So, have you started playing games, the VR way!

Augmented Reality

If virtual reality did not impress you much, then how about trying this technology that is so fine that it sounds something of a generation ahead? Now, you don’t have to stay confined to your computer or television as with augmented reality maneuver spaces of the real world to make objects applicable for real-life situations.

For example; you can play hockey on the counter of your kitchen, standing at any angle and partake puzzles in the playground.

Wearable Gaming

Wearable games are totally in now! You can play your favorite games sitting anywhere and using the latest technology. Wearables are the gaming consoles of the body. Wearable gaming comes in the form of smartwatches and glasses.

Mobile Gaming

For the love of hardcore gamers, mobile technology now gives ease and love for playing favorite games on mobile phones. Now, the gaming experience has come out of the arcade and come in your living room and put in the palm of your hands. Mobile technology has spread beyond hardcore console-consumers and online gamers.

Computer Gaming

Now you get to play awesome games on your computer with superb graphics and that too totally free of cost. All the games are accessible and super fun and easy to play! Computer games like raft wars, dad n me, territory war, super Mario flash, skull kid, etc. have superb graphics and can be played on a computer, totally free of cost.

Cloud Gaming

Unlike older games that required more powerful systems and hardware to run them nowadays, developers are working more and more on the lightening the load of the system by bringing in the system of cloud gaming. Games no longer need the great amount of memory of discs and consoles to run. Now, with the cloud technology supports the massive size of the pictures with the help of the internet and huge storage capacity of the servers. With the cloud system gaming technology has been experiencing evolution and changes in the various sectors similarly the use of these technologies is increasing in the other sectors too.

Voice Recognition

If you are the millennial who finds it too difficult to pick up the controller then voice recognition is the thing for you. The voice-controlled gaming system easily recognizes voice commands given by the user and then understands and interprets it. Now, with the help of the voice recognition system, you can turn the console on and off and use the technology to control the gameplay. You can also select the games from the media library by just giving demands, browse the web and taking to the gaming system.

Evolved AI

Artificial intelligence has evolved magnificently over the last few decades. And it has enriched the gaming experience by providing us single-player and multiplayer options. Now with the advancement in artificial intelligence almost near-human characteristics are developing which are more intelligent than ever. Now, for example, bots can imitate the real-world tactics and resort to real-world tactics in the combat games. Evolved AI takes the difficulty of the games to a higher level and with this better innovation are taking place.

Originally publish at https://www.technobyet.com/incredible-advancements-in-the-gaming-technology/

#raft wars #Dad n me #the impossible quiz #Strategy Games #super Mario flash #Video games #Notdoppler #games online #free games #crazy games

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t-baba · 5 years

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TypeScript 3.6, and npm's ban on terminal text ads

#452 — August 30, 2019

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How JavaScript Grew Up and Became a 'Real' Language — If you were in the JavaScript space in the early 2000s, skip this one.. but I still remember the first time I saw Google Maps in 2005, then saw Microsoft’s documentation for XMLHttpRequest (which shipped in IE 5 in 1999!), and a Pandora’s box was rapidly opened as developers finally saw potential in making Web pages interactive in a truly two-way fashion. JavaScript’s second wind had begun!

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Announcing TypeScript 3.6 — The latest version of the increasingly popular, optionally typed superset of JavaScript introduces stricter checking for iterators and generator functions, improved UX around Promises, a new playground, and more besides.

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Dive Deep into Promises and Async/Await to Write Better Code — The all-in-one course that covers both fundamentals and the latest upgrades. Say goodbye to hackish code and puzzled debugging: with this 3-hr video course split into bite-size segments, you’ll get rock-solid knowledge and in-depth understanding.

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npm Inc. Moves to Ban Ads on the Terminal — After a mixed reaction to a recent experiment in open source funding by showing text ads upon the installation of npm packages, npm Inc. is updating their policies to explicitly ban packages that display ads at runtime or installation.

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Should You Be Using Web Workers? (Probably Not.) — An interesting contrast to Surma’s recently popular article promoting Web Workers and their ability to execute JavaScript off of the main thread. But David thinks they’re over-hyped: “I have seen exactly zero other instances where Web Workers would have improved the user experience.”

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🐦 What do you think? Join the discussion on whether or not to more proactively use Web Workers in our latest Twitter thread.

A Practical Guide to ES6 Symbols — ES6 introduced symbols as a new primitive type to act as unique identifiers. Here’s a look at their uses.

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Dojo 6 Released: A Progressive Framework for Webapps — Mikeal Rogers once said React is the new Dojo, but Dojo, a popular ‘batteries included’ framework, is still innovating with v6 being the most ambitious release since last year’s v2.

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The Story of a V8 Performance Cliff in React — A look at how V8 chooses optimal in-memory representations for various JavaScript values, and how that impacts the shape machinery (all of which helps explain a recent V8 performance cliff in React core).

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💻 Jobs

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Take a <br> From Job Hunting — Upload your past projects or try out our custom challenges - our AI will match you with amazing companies who apply to you, salary upfront. No recruiters.

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Introduction the Optional Chaining Operator ?. — The proposal is still at stage 3, but when the official V8 blog is posting about it, it’s as good as official. Here’s how it works.

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Creating 'Live' Avatars with face-api.js — Less a tutorial and more a neat idea you might like to recreate. This company has ‘live avatars’ on its site using face position tracking with face-api.js.

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A Beginner's Guide to Using Regular Expressions in JavaScript — Love or hate them, regular expressions are hugely powerful when it comes to matching against the content of strings.

Muhsin Warfa

Going Beyond npm with Yarn and pnpm — A quick look at two alternatives to npm if you haven’t ventured off the beaten path.

Niccolo Borgioli

Creating an Object Validator in the Test-Driven Development Way

Nick Scialli

🔧 Code and Tools

Iosevka: A Condensed, 'Slender' Typeface for Code — As well as being useful for code, it’s easily customizable via code and defined via code itself (example code).

Belleve Invis

A Much Faster Way to Debug Code Than with Breakpoints or console.log — Wallaby catches errors in your tests and code and displays them right in your editor as you type, making your development feedback loop more productive.

Wallaby.js sponsor

Fiddle: The Easiest Way to Get Started with Electron — If you’ve wanted to play with Electron for building a JavaScript-powered desktop app but didn’t have the time, Fiddle makes it into more of a quick-start ‘playground’ experience.

Electron

radialMenu: A Highly Customizable Radial Menu — Works on both desktop and mobile. You can see a demo here.

Victor Ribeiro

ApexCharts: A JavaScript Chart (and More) Library — A year ago, its creator explained why we needed yet another chart library and to his credit it continues to improve frequently. It does sparklines, gauges, candlesticks, heatmaps, and more, too.

Juned Chhipa

Trumbowyg: A Lightweight WYSIWYG Editor — It’s a jQuery plugin (..ssh!) Only 8KB when gzipped though and there’s a live demo.

Alexandre Demode

Browser Automation Experience Made Reliable and Less Flaky

ThoughtWorks - Taiko sponsor

Feathers 4: A Framework for Real-Time Apps and REST APIs — Brings together Node, React Native and the browser in a framework based around services and workflows rather than routes and controllers.

David Luecke

Karma: A Multi-Browser Test Runner for JavaScript — A popular way to test your code in multiple, real browsers at once.

Karma

⚡️ Quick Releases

Quasar 1.1 — Rapidly build Vue.js-powered interfaces.

SystemJS 6.0 — Dynamic ES module loader.

Mapbox GL JS 1.3 — Powerful map rendering the browser.

react-datepicker 2.9.0 — Date-picker component for React.

jquery.terminal 2.8 — Create terminal-like experiences on the Web.

VeeValidate 3.0 — Template-based validation for Vue.js.

by via JavaScript Weekly https://ift.tt/2UhFJaO

#Javascript Branding #Javascript Weekly

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Fascinating expose on the real estate properties owned by SEXUAL PREDATOR and SEX TRAFFICER #JeffreyEpstein. LOCK HIM UP

Every Property Owned by Sleazy Financier Jeffrey Epstein

By Spencer Peterson | Published January 9, 2015 12:52 pm | Curbed | Posted July 8, 2019 |

Welcome to What Do They Own?, a new Curbed series where we take someone making headlines and try to figure out how much of the world they own, and by extension, how far they've gone to insulate themselves from the world.

Disgraced financier Jeffrey Epsteinbecame a registered sex offender in 2008, when he was convicted of soliciting and underage girl for prostitution at his Palm Beach Mansion. Often erroneously referred to as a billionaire, Epstein runs a shady money management firm based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he owns a 70-acre island, one of the places named in a recent suit alleging that he forced a minor he kept as a "sex slave" to have sex with Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew, Duke of York, on multiple occasions. His portfolio also includes a "stone fortress" in New Mexico and the Herbert N. Straus Mansion in Manhattan, both of which are mentioned in the current round of allegations.

The Herbert N. Straus Mansion

New York, New York

Often referred to as one of the largest townhouses in Manhattan—possessing 21,000 square feet and seven stories, 45,000 square feet and eight stories, or 50,000 square feetand nine stories, depending on who's describing it and when—the stone mansion at 9 East 71st Street was built in 1933. It was designed by society architect Horace Trumbauerfor Herbert N. Straus, one of the heirs to the Macy's department store fortune, who died before it was completed.

It's been said that "entire 18th-century rooms were purchased to be shipped to New York and installed in the new mansion," and the Metropolitan Museum of Art does have a exhibit in its period rooms collection with fixtures from a French hotel acquired by Herbert's wife Therese in a timeline that would fit the mansion's construction. She donated them to the Met in 1943, a year before the mansion was converted into a convalescent home, after the Straus family donated it to the Roman Catholic Archbishopric of New York. These photos offer an interesting picture of the conversion process, which shows much of the interior fixtures stripped away.

In 1961, the mansion became home to the Birch Wathen School, which it remained until Leslie H. Wexner,the founding chairman of the Limited Inc., bought it in 1989 for $13.2M. Wexner hired architect Thierry Despont and interior designer John Stefanidis to help gut-renovate the 40-room home, showing it off in the December 1995 issue of Architectural Digest (sadly, the magazine's online archives don't go back that far). In 1996, the New York Times referred to the sumptuously decorated, expensively renovated pied-à-terre as the latest "puzzling" "status symbol of the ultra rich," when it reported that Wexner never spent more than a few months in the home. This was back when the scarcely used pied-à-terre was a smaller part of the Manhattan real estate makeup.

Back then, according to the Times,

Visitors described a bathroom reminiscent of James Bond movies: hidden beneath a stairway, lined with lead to provide shelter from attack and supplied with closed-circuit television screens and a telephone, both concealed in a cabinet beneath the sink. The house also has a heated sidewalk, a luxurious provision that explains why, while snow blankets the rest of the Eastern Seaboard, the Wexner house (and Bill Cosby's house across the street) remains opulently snow-free, much to the delight of neighborhood dogs.in 1995, Wexner turned the home over to Epstein, who was his protege and financial advisor (and much more, if you believe Gawker CEO Nick Denton's argument) because, on the face of it, his new wife "expressed greater enthusiasm for bringing up their two young children in Columbus, Ohio." Some say that Epstein paid just a dollar for the mansion, though it would seem to be well within his means at the time to pay full market value. Epstein then undertook his own renovation, not wanting "to live in another person's house." He is said to have spent $10M redoing the place. In 2007, when model Maximilia Cordero filed suit against Epstein for statutory rape and sexual assault (the suit was later dismissed), her lawyer included a description of what has by now become a legendary piece of puerile decor in chez Epstein: "[The] defendant gave plaintiff a tour of his mansion, showing her a huge crystal staircase with a huge crystal ball by the railing, ceiling chandeliers, a lounge room with red chairs, a statute [sic] of a dog with a statute [sic] of dog feces next to it" (emphasis ours).

Vicky Ward, in her recently elaborated upon 2003 profile of Epstein, very memorably captured the experience of touring the residence:

The entrance hall is decorated not with paintings but with row upon row of individually framed eyeballs; these, the owner tells people with relish, were imported from England, where they were made for injured soldiers. Next comes a marble foyer, which does have a painting, in the manner of Jean Dubuffet … but the host coyly refuses to tell visitors who painted it. In any case, guests are like pygmies next to the nearby twice-life-size sculpture of a naked African warrior. ...Tea is served in the "leather room," so called because of the cordovan-colored fabric on the walls. The chairs are covered in a leopard print, and on the wall hangs a huge, Oriental fantasy of a woman holding an opium pipe and caressing a snarling lionskin. Under her gaze, plates of finger sandwiches are delivered to Epstein and guests by the menservants in white gloves.

Upstairs, to the right of a spiral staircase, is the "office," an enormous gallery spanning the width of the house. Strangely, it holds no computer. Computers belong in the "computer room" (a smaller room at the back of the house), Epstein has been known to say. The office features a gilded desk (which Epstein tells people belonged to banker J. P. Morgan), 18th-century black lacquered Portuguese cabinets, and a nine-foot ebony Steinway "D" grand. On the desk, a paperback copy of the Marquis de Sade's The Misfortunes of Virtue was recently spotted. Covering the floor, Epstein has explained, "is the largest Persian rug you'll ever see in a private home—so big, it must have come from a mosque." Amid such splendor, much of which reflects the work of the French decorator Alberto Pinto, who has worked for Jacques Chirac and the royal families of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there is one particularly startling oddity: a stuffed black poodle, standing atop the grand piano. "No decorator would ever tell you to do that," Epstein brags to visitors. "But I want people to think what it means to stuff a dog." People can't help but feel it's Epstein's way of saying that he always has the last word.

*Shudders.*

In 2001, the New York Post reported that Epstein and Prince Andrew celebrated the registered sex offender's release from jail with a party at the mansion. Virginia Roberts, one of the litigants in a Florida lawsuit against Epstein's prosecutors, alleges that the second time she was coerced into having sex with prince Andrew was at Epstein's Manhattan mansion in 2001.

Little Saint James

U.S. Virgin Islands

Panoramio

Epstein owns the entire 70-acre island of Little Saint James, which has its own Wikipedia page. (The U.S. Virgin islands is also where his money management firm is based.) The Daily Mirror recently flew a helicopter over what they dub the "isle of sin," and came back with some pretty good shots of what Epstein has built there: a colonnaded villa-style compound designed by luxury resort and hotel designer Edward Tuttle, with a large library, a cinema, surrounding cabanas, and a detached Japanese bathhouse. The island is where Epstein's alleged "sex slave" Virginia Roberts claimed he made her take part in orgies, including one where she was allegedly forced to have sex with Prince Andrew. According to the Mirror, the island could at one time be rented for £4K (~$6K) a night. Over the years, it's hosted the conferences held by the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation, which have drawn the likes of Stephen Hawking. Roberts claims she met Bill Clinton once on the island, when he was there to dine with Epstein. Court papers claim that at other times, visitors included "prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well known prime minister and other world leaders."

Oddly enough, providing the third instance of a weird non-animate animal on an Epstein property, in 2009, a blogger based on the island of St. John claimed that this imageshowed a "fake lawn ornament cow" that was seen in different locations on Epstein's island throughout the construction process.

Palm Beach Mansion

Palm Beach, Florida

Daily Mail

Epstein's Palm Beach mansion, once valued at $6.8M, was at the center of the undercover investigation that eventually led to Epstein pleading guilty to a single state charge of soliciting prostitution, becoming a registered sex offender, and serving 13 months out of an 18-month sentence. According to a rather lurid Daily Beast article published in 2010, a police search of the property turned up:

large, framed photos of nude young girls, and similar images... stashed in an armoire and on the computers seized at the house (although police found only bare cables where other computers had been). Some bathrooms were stocked with soap in the shape of sex organs, and various sex toys, such as a "twin torpedo" vibrator and creams and lubricants available at erotic specialty shops, were stowed near the massage tables set up in several rooms upstairs.

Zorro Ranch

Stanley, New Mexico

In 1993, Epstein purchased a 7,500-acre ranch in Stanley, New Mexico, from the late former New Mexico governor Bruce King. He named the ranch "Zorro," and proceeded to build a 26,700-square-foot hilltop mansion that was once said to be the largest home in the state, and has been described as a "stone fortress." A 1995 article in The New Mexicansaid that Epstein's initial plans for the residence described a main house that "will be similar to a Mexican hacienda, with an open-air entry into a courtyard with high-ceiling hallways, stone columns and a central fountain. The living room will measure about 2,100-square-feet, larger than the average house in Santa Fe County. The home will have an elevator, eight bathrooms, four fireplaces and three bedrooms." According to more recent report,Epstein recieved a county permit to build a small airplane hangar and air strip on the ranch.

Epstein has been reported as saying his New Mexico home "makes the town house look like a shack." According to records accessed on Property Shark, the structures on the property were last appraised in 2013 at $18,186,406.

In the recent court filing in Florida, Roberts names Zorro Ranch as one of the place she was sexually abused by Epstein, as well as forced to have sex with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. The Last time Epstein made news in New Mexico, it was when it was revealed that he attempted to contribute to the reelection campaign of former Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Gary King in 2006.

Foch Avenue Apartment

Paris, France

Epstein owns an apartment on Paris' ritzy Avenue Foch.

A Boeing 727

Not technically a piece of real estate, but also kind of a flying piece of real estate. Said to be the only reason Bill Clinton was ever friends with Epstein—that and his campaign donations to democrats—though many in the conservative media are surely speculating otherwise. In September of 2002, Clinton had a weeklong tour of South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, and Mozambique coming up to promote anti-AIDS efforts, and former Clinton advisor Doug Band encouraged Epstein to come along and provide the ride. Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker were there, too, which sounds like it must have been kind of weird.

#u.s. news #donald trump #politics #trump administration #president donald trump #politics and government #white house #international news #us: news #must reads #legal issues #u.s. department of justice #corruption #criminal-justice #sex crimes #trumpism #jeffrey epstein #sex trafficking

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vgjustice · 8 years

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VG Talks Games: My thoughts on The Switch (Jan. 14th, ‘17)

Really just a basic rundown on what I’m seeing from the various bits that have been officially released and what should be known if you want one of these systems. Buckle in, this might be a long one.

So, just for simplicity’s sake, I’m going to be using North American pricing when I’m talking about the system, games, and accessories. I know these prices are different in different regions, but the basic idea will still be the same when divorced from hard numbers. Okay? Okay.

And on that note, let’s talk cost. At $300 this thing is going to be more expensive than either an Xbox One S or a PlayStation 4 slim. And if you’re only looking at the Switch as a home console, that’s bad. You’d better really want those Nintendo exclusives to justify spending that much more on a less powerful system, and it is a less powerful system. But, that’s kind of the thing, right? It’s not just a “home console”. It’s not really much of a portable either, what with the 2.5 to 6 hour battery life (my New 3DS XL gets considerably better than that), but it can be taken on the go and that’s really the point. Much like the controllers have some motion control to them, even though people were really very much done with “waggling” before the Wii bit the dust.

From what I saw in the Switch Event it looks to me like Nintendo is trying to capture two very distinct audiences with this console. The first group are the casual market they captured with the Wii. That’s why games like 1, 2, Switch! and Just Dance 2017 are launch titles, it’s why they talked so extensively about using the console and games more like a party game that doesn’t need the TV. And I have no idea if that’s going to work. The Wii casual market clearly didn’t want the more powerful Wii U, even when it was explained to them on a personal level. Maybe Nintendo can hit pay dirt again, and it’s pretty obvious that they’re trying. The second group is the long time Nintendo loyalists. Which is why Breath of the Wild is a launch title and why the Switch Event wrapped up with that game’s release date. It’s why they focused so much on Super Mario Odyssey, and also announced Splatoon 2. They’ve got a pretty good idea what that demographic wants and have been good about pleasing them (us) for the past few console generations. And to be perfectly honest, that’s not really enough. Every loyalist lost is a major blow since I don’t think Nintendo is replacing those customers very easily. Really, the Switch needs a unique lineup to attract new customers, but they need something that either younger customers can grow with much like the current loyalists did with the NES/SNES/N64, or they need to please the major console fanatics and convince them to pick up this new device. But with underpowered hardware that doesn’t feature a lot of the things their less expensive counterparts have (Blu-Ray players anyone?) it’s going to be a tough sell to say the least.

On the more techy side of things, I’m pleased to say that Nintendo might finally be on to something here. The replacement controllers might be expensive at $80 for a set (L and R Joycons), but it’s also pretty obvious that having more than one set synced at a time is not the way the system is meant to be played. The much less expensive Pro Controller is clearly the “couch co-op” controller of choice here. For the admittedly poor battery performance, the solution is actually a lot more simple than you might think. The system uses a standard USB cable to charge. Let me say that again because I’m just as incredulous as you are: The Nintendo Switch uses the standard USB type-C cable to charge. If you already have a phone that uses USB-C, you’ve already got a Switch charger. Worried about playing on the go? Bring a pocket charger and a USB-C cable. Take it to your favorite restaurant and plug in a USB wall adapter to the cell charger that nearly every place has now. That poor battery really isn’t that big of a deal and those chargers are going to be readily available from dozens of reputable manufacturers. That was great news to hear!

The system uses microSDXC memory cards, which is a standard memory card. Basically the same card that the New 3DS hardware uses. The only concern I have, and this is a small and nit-picky concern, is the question of memory limitation. A lot of devices have strange limits on the maximum size card it can recognize. SDXC tells us that it will work with cards AT LEAST up to 64 GB in capacity. But, might it also work with the 128 GB cards? What about the 200 GB cards? Larger? Who knows? This is one of the many tech missteps Nintendo took with that press release, and have still not corrected on their web page detailing what the system can work with. (Note: That web page is why I know it’s compatible with microSDXC specifically.) This will be needful information going forward and I hope we learn more before the system comes out in a little over a month and a half.

The launch lineup seems a little... sparse. My recommendation for any new game console is to have three to five games either readily available or shortly available to justify the cost of the system. Buying a game system for one or two games isn’t cost effective for anyone, really. (You’re free to reject that suggestion, of course. It’s your money.) But, the launch lineup I’m seeing doesn’t really offer a lot to work with. It feels like “The new Zelda game plus a bunch of tech demos”. That’s not a great feeling when looking at picking up a brand new, untested game system. Never the less, the upcoming titles do look promising. I’m excited to see a new Puyo Puyo game, even if it’s riding on the coat tails of Tetris to get there. (Some of my favorite puzzle games use Tetris to some extent, so this is not a bad thing to me at all. Tetris is awesome.) A new Bomberman game is exciting, but Konami has been so bad as of late that I’m worried about the game on principal. Arms is likely to be a huge internet joke for quite some time, but could also prove to be a good game. I expect it to be a flash in the pan party game that’s quickly forgotten. The controls just don’t look like they’re there, you know? Thankfully the system seems to be teeming with a variety of RPGs from several venerable studios. If you like those slow-burner games this could be a very good system. Plus, there are still rumors of a Mario and Rabbids crossover game in addition to a new Pokemon game, both of which are exciting for different reasons. People who remember the Sega Nomad and playing home console Sonic on the go might be more interested in the new offering, and it does look like it could be worth a chance. Which is more than I can say about far too many Sonic the Hedgehog games. (Come on, Sonic Team. You guys used to be better than this.) There are more than a few notable omissions from Nintendo’s list as well, and that has mixed feelings from me. Things like Mother 3/EarthBound 2 and anything related to Metroid not being there hurt a little, as well as Smash Bros., and makes me worry that either the titles are not going to be on the system or will take a long time to get there. Neither option is great for early adopters.

And finally, the big bugaboo from the event, Nintendo stepping into the realms of Payed Online Use. This is very much one of those things where it could either be the thing that saves Nintendo’s online presence or the thing that crushes the company. And I’m really more on the side of the former. When Microsoft introduced the concept it proved to be very viable, ensuring a much more stable network for it’s games and customers. When Sony finally bit the bullet and did the same, it didn’t feel great but they added the value of their PlayStation Plus to the mix, giving games every month to subscribers. That was effective enough to force Microsoft to follow suit. Nintendo has some big problems to overcome if they want to make this service charge successful. Offering free games every month is going to be a must, and as long as Nintendo gets their amazing catalogue of classic games onto the system fast enough they’ll have a great pool to pick from. I don’t expect them to do this, since they haven’t had a large number of games available at any time since they began offering the eShop with the Wii. This same issue could be even more troubling if they decide to offer rentals of whatever customers want. It would be great to offer that, but they need to have the library to support it first or it just will not be valuable. Next, Nintendo needs to offer reliable and effective online connectivity. Which is thankfully something I have not seen them have trouble with at any point in the Wii U’s life span, so this shouldn’t be an issue. I honestly don’t see a reason for Nintendo to change their policy in such a way since their online connectivity has always been exceptional, but perhaps they’re adding a service that would need some kind of payment option to make it viable. I’m just hoping it’s not a simple cash grab, since this would directly hurt the sales of the system if it’s not valuable enough. Or if it costs too much. More expensive system with the same cost for online play? Yeah, Nintendo won’t make any money on that if that’s the case.

Overall, I’m honestly still pretty positive about the system. I’ve just got a lot of concerns and the Switch Event didn’t do much to inform me, and in some cases actually gave me more concerns than I had before. But hey, who knows? Maybe it’ll capture the casual market again and bring in core console players and we’ll all enjoy Splatoon 2 together. To make early buying as effective as possible, pick up a USB-C cable plus appropriate USB adapters, a 64 GB microSDXC card (at least), and a USB rechargeable battery pack to go with the system. A carrying case for on the go use would also be recommended. Extra diligence in watching for thieves in the first few months is going to be a must I fear. And also the very real possibility of a highly limited launch window aiding scalpers will likely drive the price up, so be vigilant in not supporting these individuals.

Be safe, be smart, caveat emptor.

#Nintendo #Nintendo Switch #long post

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sahpathi2016-blog · 8 years

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Imlee-Mahuaa: A remembered journey

Sahib Tulsi has written a beautiful memoir of the time he spent in Imlee-Mahuaa, a centre of education in Kondagaon district of Chhattisgarh this past winter (as an extension of the Sahpathi programme). In the first post of this four-part series, he introduces us to the ethos of the school through its students and staff. He brings the school alive for us through vivid descriptions of the library and the two classrooms.

Part 1

As finality hung in the air, on January 9 (2017), Nikhil, a student of class I, came up to me and said,

“I know you are leaving tomorrow. Let us shake hands.”

And then, many of them followed his queue, shook my hand before charming me with a “thank you,” leaving me in a rather melancholic state. On my first day at the Imlee-Mahuaa school, on December 17 (2016), I had asked Prayaag (one of the three adults at the school): “What do I have to do to break ice with the children?” He simply told me to keep coming there and leave the rest to the time-inspired familiarity. On that last day, reflecting on the ties of affection that familiarity can forge, the strength of his advice had finally dawned upon me.

Imlee-Mahuaa is a centre of education in the village of Balenga Para (Panchayat – Kibai Balenga) in the Kondagaon district of Chhattisgarh. I still use the word ‘school’ in this write-up, for, the spoils of habit are hard to unlearn. But, to be sure, Imlee-Mahuaa is far from the conventional perceptions that we cling onto when we think of a ‘school’, as I hope to demonstrate through this brief memoir. At the time of my stay, there were 54 children in the school, enrolled in classes I to VIII, with a few pre-school children as well. Later on, I was to realize, very gradually, that all of them are coming to the school because they wanted to, without any trace of coercion from anyone. Most of them belong to the Muria Gond tribe. The rest of them belong to Scheduled Castes – Gaandas (traditional musicians) and Pankhas (traditional weavers) – and Other Backward Castes – Kallars (traditional distillers). There are two children who are also preparing for the class X examinations to be undertaken by the National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS); Imlee-Mahuaa is not a Tribal Residential School, but is a registered centre of NIOS.

A journey through memories

As one enters through the iron-door of the school, to the extreme left is a little open mud-space, with a stone-made playground slide occupying the lion’s share of this area. Very seldom, though, did I see children climb up from the holes in the back of the slide; they preferred running upwards diagonally along the slide, only to slope down from the side railing. My regard for my heavy build soothed the envy I used to feel at times at the amount of energy these frisky children seemed to possess.

To the right of this space is the library of the school. A decent-sized room, with a mud-floor, dwelling made of clay tiles and wooden beams with a few open spaces covered with glasses to allow the sunlight to seep through, and concrete walls on both the sides (all the enclosed rooms are built in a similar way), it houses many books – textbooks for all the relevant classes, references books, storybooks, et cetera. It is managed by two children, who arrange the books in a systematic way every morning on the working days when the school opens at ten o’clock in the morning, with written records of all the books that have been issued. Recently, both the librarians and Prayaag decided together to change the opening hours of the library from the post-lunch hour to a couple of hours before the lunch since some children preferred to go back to their home forthwith after lunch.

Next to the library is the first of the two ‘classrooms’. Every morning, the three sides of the room are lined with tables, with various books being displayed (mostly storybooks, reference books and NCERT books like Rimjhim, Marigold, Vasant, Baal Vigyanik, et cetera). Above the tables, one can see the cloth-bags of the children with all their personal copies, drawing-sheets and pencil-boxes. Many of these bags have been embroidered with the name of the child, to whom the bag belongs, by the respective child himself/herself. Children come in the room whenever they want to read something, spend some time immersing themselves in the visual imageries of the books or solve various puzzles and crosswords. Many times, they would scan various books, pick the one that interested them the most and start perusing through the pages, quietly, sitting on one of the two mats lying in the centre of the room, totally absorbed in their activities. Many of them would come to me in the morning to greet me: “Good morning, bhaiya.” This was also the room where I spent maximum time, reading.

It was in this room that I got to know many of the children. For it was here that they would come to me, with their shy and affectionate smiles, showing me their drawings. They are very fond of putting the pictures of flowers, trees, birds and animals on paper. It was in this room that a few of them would come to me once in a while with a storybook, in Hindi, and request me to read aloud to them. It was here that I would sit with them and put the jigsaw pieces in the huge cardboard political map of India. It was here in this room that some of them would talk to me about my life, my family, my studies, and the books that I read; and enquire about the workings of solar system, the lifecycle of plants and forests, Bollywood, and trains and aeroplanes; explore the science kit, abacuses and a spinning wheel, along with me, that Prayaag had so thoughtfully brought for them. I always marvelled at how each of them would satiate their curiosities, fiddling with these kits and then, spend as much time as it would take to arrange them in the way it was to be done before keeping it back at its allotted place. And, I do not remember seeing a single book lying on the mat unused. The books were always put back from where they were taken out.

Adjoining this first study-room was a two-sided open space where I got a glimpse into the life of Kumhars (potters): Pottery Section. Milan (second of three adults at the school), a potter, sits here, engaged in the intricate threads of his craft. I spent many afternoons sitting with him, engrossed, observing the metamorphosis of his creative imagination into something tangible, delighting with aesthetic pleasure at the final results (very often, my delight was initiated by Milan’s contended countenance that used to accompany the skilful working of his hands), and trying my hands at pottery as well, albeit maladroitly. He also showed me the working of the potter-wheel; polishing of the earthen products he was making (animal-shaped piggy banks and incense stands) and finally, drying them in the sunlight before heating them in the kiln. His delicate use of fingers never ceased to mesmerize me. A soft-spoken man, he also shared a lot of knowledge with me about the social and cultural world of potters in Kondagaon.

Next to the pottery-space, behind the boundary of the school was a huge mahua tree, under the shade of which, Gautam (third adult at the school), who has an M.A. in Economics, used to take his Mathematics classes. I often used to climb the boundaries of the school, to go to another tree a little further from the mahua tree: the tree of Tamarinds. It was quite an effort to pluck tamarinds from here, using logs of wood, but, the taste of bitter-sweet tamarinds was a frequent source of joy to many children, including me.

Don’t forget to visit the blog again on Friday, Feb 17th 2017, to read the next post chronicling Sahib’s experience at Imlee-Mahuaa!

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skillworthy · 3 years

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Best programming language to learn

There are around 300 programming languages out there in our country. The interest and distinction of programming lingos waver every year. Moreover, new programming languages are going with engaging features.

However, if you are starting your programming calling in 2021 or accepting you need to get comfortable with your first or second programming language, it is quick to learn one of the norm and set up programming lingos. The best programming vernaculars to learn in 2021 are recorded underneath. Recorded program lingos are top 10 programming languages in India.

Top programming languages of 2021 in India

Python

In 2008, Python went through a tremendous update and improvement with the cost of introducing basic breaking changes by introducing Python 3.

Today, Python is universal and used in various spaces of programming progression, with no sign of moving down. Python is best programming language to learn in 2021

Key Highlights:

Pros:

Cons:

Note ideal for Portable Figuring. Python’s informational index permission layer is fairly juvenile and rough.

Use/Application: Web and Web Improvement, Logical and Numeric applications, Work region GUIs, Business applications. It is by and large used in AI(Artificial Insight) and AI space.

JavaScript

The other enormous forward jump of JavaScript came around 2010 when Google conveyed a JavaScript based Web progression structure AngularJS.

Today, JavaScript is perhaps the most by and large used programming lingos in the world and runs on basically everywhere: Programs, Workers, Cell telephones, Cloud, Holders, Miniature controllers.

Key Highlights:

Pros:

Cons:

Java

Java is at this point the principle programming language for tries. Java is seen as a best programming language to learn in 2020

Key Highlights:

Pros:

Cons:

Memory the chiefs in Java is exorbitant. The deficiency of configurations can confine you to make great data structures.

Use/Application: Java for the most part used for making Android applications, web applications, and Enormous data.

In 2000, Tech beast Microsoft decided to make their Article Arranged C like programming language C# as a segment of their .NET drive, which will be directed (run on a Virtual Machine like Java).

Key Highlights:

Pros: C# uses essentially similar accentuation which follows by C so it direct for the people who know C language. Basic Mix with Windows. Totally consolidated with the .NET library which offers induction to a document of convenience and support. Safer than its namesakes (C/++) as pointer types are not permitted

Cons: It grants pointers in ‘risky’ blocks.

Usage applications: Broadly used in Big business Cross-Applications Advancement, Web Applications For more details visit this programming languages to learn blog of Smartknower.

#python #java #javascript #smartknower

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the-everqueen · 5 years

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it’s quarantine, i’ve done zero quals work in the past week--so i’m posting the only thing that’s consistently gotten words from me in these troubled not-times: a hannibal wereverse kidfic

The cafeteria is chaos at lunch.

Usually Will avoids the cafeteria, preferring to retreat into the library for the hour. But his English teacher caught him headed upstream against the wave of children jockeying toward recess and corralled him in the “right” direction, even going so far as to make sure he got in line for a free lunch. Now, balancing a plastic tray with his tattered copy of Child of God, a bologna sandwich, and a fruit cup, he weaves among tables, looking for a semi-isolated place to sit. The fluorescent lights buzz at a pitch that hurts his ears. The smells of sweat, musk, and processed food make the fur on his arms prickle. And the people—humans, wolves—press too close, their loud voices splitting his head like a hundred drill bits.

Surrounded by so many others, Will Graham feels…adrift.

He could probably sneak out. Ms. Mitchell will have gone back to her office. Or if he ran into another teacher, he could say he was going to the bathroom, hole up in an empty stall until next period. Boring, but not the worst.

(His mind shutters against The Worst.)

The thing that keeps him here is food. Most days he ignores the pinch in his belly as a matter of fact: Dad can’t afford more than bare staples, and Will can’t bring raw chicken or canned beans to school. He’s not too proud to accept a free meal, but the meagre offering has never seemed worth the stares. Except, as he settles down at a table in the far corner, he thinks he might suffer the headache once in a while, if he gets a sandwich for his pains.

He’s finished the last scrap of bologna and is picking at the plastic seal on the fruit cup with clumsy, clawed fingers when the kid sits next to him.

Will glances over, frowning. The table he chose has two bitten weres opposite him—sisters, one of them nonverbal, neither of them with enough social weight or investment in the situation to chase him away. This kid smells human. He has no reason to sit with them; the humans have their own table for social outcasts.

The kid catches his gaze and offers a smile. “I’m Jim,” he says, friendly.

Will grunts.

Jim seems undeterred. “You like McCarthy? I read Blood Meridian, it was real good.”

Will stubbornly continues to poke at the fruit cup, manages to puncture the seal so that he can lap at the thin syrup that pools from the ragged hole. Jim hesitates but poses another comment about his taste in books. Like paws slapped against the ground, an invitation to play. Will pins his ears in annoyance, mouth tight at the corners. It’s enough to make the sisters uneasy, shuffling closer together, but Jim doesn’t pick up on the cue.

“I get that you’re the new kid,” Will interrupts, when he can’t take it anymore, “but are you stupid, too?”

He darts a look at the kid’s face. Jim gapes, shoulders curling inward. He’s got the same naked lankiness of his non-wolf peers, but the first word that comes to Will’s mind is pretty: girlish fine features and huge dark eyes with long lashes. Will shakes the thought loose. His brain does the mental math to fill in the other necessary details—first day in the local high school, recent move from the suburbs, human but immune to the bite.

Will scoffs. “Oh. Figured you’d start with low stakes, since I’m not a threat to you.”

A blush patches over Jim’s pale, freckled face. “You—what you said in class. About the Shakespeare. That was clever.”

It takes a second for Will to recall. He rarely participates in classes, but he’d been so frustrated at Ms. Mitchell for not understanding Iago. Her unsubtle questions posed to the room got moralizing answers, banal platitudes that no one actually thinks, and Will’s hand had shot up of its own accord.

“That was nothing,” Will says. One furred ear flicks in irritation.

“I read Othello last year, back—back before we came here, and no one in class had anything interesting to say about it.”

“Including you.”

Jim’s flush deepens. “I like Hamlet better,” he mumbles.

Will makes a dismissive noise in response. He finally manages to scrape back enough plastic to snap up pieces of canned fruit; the sweetness is almost too much, but hunger demands its due, and so long as he’s lapping chunks of pear and pineapple he doesn’t have to make eye contact.

Jim stops trying for a conversation, but he doesn’t move to another table.

As soon as the bell rings, Will grabs his book and darts for his next period.

***

He assumes that will be the extent of their interactions. Most kids at the various schools he’s attended categorize him as an outsider, and the few that don’t quickly learn not to bother with him. That’s all he wants, really, is for them to leave him alone. Often the fact that he’s a bitten is enough—the prejudice against bitten youths as unstable frames his moody distance as more dangerous than normal teenage angst and less explicable than psychological problems. Humans and purebloods alike keep their distance from bitten weres. But there are other things about him that discourage anyone from getting close.

Jim does not seem to recognize these things.

As it happens, they share a similar schedule. Jim tries to catch him after biology, and again when school lets out. Both times Will pretends he can’t hear his name being spoken over the din of students—a transparent lie, given his wolfish ears—and slips into the crowd.

The kid’s persistence bothers him. It doesn’t feel malicious: Will has endured his share of bullying, he can scent the nervous tics and dark amusement under a friendly gesture. But he can’t puzzle out the underlying motive. Any human trying to form a social connection should attempt to insert themselves at the upper echelons and work their way down until they find a niche that’ll accept them, not start at the bottom.

Maybe Jim just doesn’t understand that. Maybe Will has found someone worse at interactions than him.

He ponders a possible social malfunction on the walk home. It doesn’t fit quite right in his head, but it’s an explanation.

The trailer is dark when he lets himself in—Dad must still be working. Will tells himself this even though, when he flicks on the lights, he sees his dad’s discarded work shirt and steel toed boots, feels the resentment simmering in the humid air. He glances at the clock. Late afternoon. He’s hungry, but it’s too early for dinner—he’ll just wake up in the middle of the night with stomach pangs. Might as well waste an hour on homework while he’s got the quiet.

He finishes his English essay sprawled out on the sagging mattress: the position is awkward but allows for his tail and shifting hips. When he’s done making a clean copy, he spends a minute examining his tail, which is losing some of its puppy thinness and starting to fill out nicely. Then he stretches and sets about scrounging for dinner.

There’s nothing in the fridge besides a rind of sour-smelling cheese. Will eats it while he digs around the pantry. Some canned goods, a jar of peanut butter. He considers. Dad won’t like it if he finishes their groceries, and he hasn’t given Will permission (or cash) to go to the store.

No one else is home.

Just behind the trailer park is a stretch of trees and bracken. Will gets over the fence separating the two spaces with relative ease, his bare feet giving him needed traction. He’s come out here before, when he wanted to be alone, finish reading a book.

But solitude isn’t the plan.

He drops to all fours, weaving in a zigzag pattern while he sniffs at the grass. It’s not close enough to full moon for this position to be entirely comfortable, but the twinge in his hips and shoulders eases as he pads along. His feet and hands are rough with developing paw pads; his nose flares and twitches with the influx of smells. It’s hard to pick up a trail—there’s so many things alive and moving out here, he keeps getting distracted—but eventually his brain snags on warm blood, little creature and he’s on his way.

His hunger almost disrupts the hunt. At one point he moves too fast, makes a racket pushing through some undergrowth. But finally he sneaks up on his prey: a good-sized, unsuspecting squirrel.

Tense, leap, bite. Will’s heart surges as he cracks down through the squirrel’s spine, his mouth filling with a rush of blood. Yes, good, hunt, food. Once the critter stops its death throes, he settles down to enjoy his meal.

It’s gone too soon. He nibbles on the scraps of fur, licks the blood from between his fingers and around his mouth. He’ll have to splash about in the nearby creek to be sure he’s clean, but there’s no sense in wasting any part of a kill.

When he gets back, it’s dark outside and he’s tired and damp, if better sated. Dad remains absent, so Will takes a shower and does his math homework. Geometry proofs are soothing, mindless. When he feels suitably numb, he crawls into bed and huddles under a blanket. The weather is too warm for covers, but he needs something to try and block out the sound of his dad’s return.

Will has always been a troubled sleeper.

Sure enough, sometime in the night he wakes to the sound of the front door slamming shut. Dad curses mildly as he stumbles through the trailer, the smell of liquor in his wake. Something else, too—other wolves, other people, a tangle of scents that makes Will wrinkle his nose, burrow deeper under the blanket.

“Billy?” his dad rasps.

Will goes very still. Tries to keep his breathing even.

Maybe Dad knows he’s faking, but he doesn’t call Will’s bluff. Instead he sighs, shucks off his shoes and pants, and climbs into bed.

***

The moon waxes and wanes. School continues to be both a distraction from home and a throbbing headache behind Will’s eyes. He stays out of the cafeteria, lurking in the library with his worn paperbacks. The librarian catches him squinting at a page and sends him to the nurse, who tells him he needs glasses. Will steals a pair from the local drugstore. They slip down his lengthening muzzle, and he’s constantly pushing them back into place, but it helps with the migraines.

He doesn’t see Jim outside of classes. He thinks maybe Jim has moved on.

He is wrong.

The envelope taped to the outside of his locker stands out like a splotch of blood against the dull beige. Immediately Will is on alert. He thought he’d handled the bullies in his first weeks here; now he wonders whether they were just waiting for him to lower his guard. The hall is mostly empty at this hour—it’s a good twenty minutes before the first bell—but he scents the air, edges close enough to snatch the envelope and rip it open.

Inside is a generic card. It takes Will a long moment to process what the painstakingly neat handwriting says.

Will you go to Spring Dance with me?

There’s a signature and a phone number, but Will can’t make any meaning out of them. His vision has whited out with rage. He’s shaking, the soft scrim of fuzz on his hands bristling. A growl starts deep in his chest, an engine kicking to life.

Whoever did this, they’d want to watch.

His gaze flicks around the hall, lands on a familiar, pretty face.

“What kind of sick joke is this?” he snarls.

Jim flinches. The reflexive part of Will’s brain catalogues that he’s put in the effort to make his appearance nice, wearing new jeans and an ironed button down with the sleeves rolled into crisp cuffs at his elbows. “It—it’s not a joke,” he stammers. Split second of hesitation, then he crosses the hall, getting closer while maintaining a careful distance. “I just thought…It doesn’t have to be anything, if you’re not—um, just if you didn’t have anyone to go with…”

What makes you think I’d go to a school event? Will wants to scream. But part of him feels the flush of embarrassment that colors Jim’s freckled cheeks as keenly as if it were his own.

Before he can say anything, another voice juts in. “He doesn’t want your faggot ass, Walker.”

Will turns to see the resident jock prince strut down the hall, sycophants flanking his sides. Harry Bergeron. He radiates a smug assurance that no one should possess this early in the morning, least of all in a public high school.

Will bares teeth. “Saving me for yourself, Harry?”

The jock—human, but with a good six inches and thirty pounds on Will, and isn’t that the kind of thing to make humans stupid—frowns at him. “Does the bitch want the fag, after all?” he sneers.

Jim, wide-eyed and frozen in place, looks almost hopeful.

“No,” Will snaps. “Just. Leave him alone.”

“Or what? I’m not scared of some pup.”

“Yeah?” He curls his lips back. It’s almost new moon, but he’s still sporting fangs. “Haven’t see you much since last fall.”

Harry’s face darkens.

Will knows not to press his luck. He crumples the card in his hand, turns to open his locker, and feigns gathering supplies for his first class.

Harry levels another insult at Jim. There’s a clatter—someone pushed the kid down. Roll over, know your place. Will rolls his eyes. Humans aren’t that different from wolves, and no one understands so better than teenagers.

He waits until they’ve moved down the hall to slam his locker shut.

Jim is still standing around, arms folded tight across his torso. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to…I thought maybe…”

“I know.” Suddenly Will feels very tired. “Look, I don’t get how you haven’t figured it out yet, but if you’re gonna fucking ask a boy out around here, at least make sure he’s human.”

“I’m not a speciesist.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Will says, frustrated. “Fine. Do whatever you want. But leave me out of it.”

Jim stares at him. There’s something that Will is missing, he can feel it, but the close attention of another person makes his skin crawl. Shouldering his backpack, he ducks his head and hurries along to class.

He can figure it out later, maybe, when he’s not cornered by all these people, their thoughts and expressions bearing down on him in ways he doesn’t know how to deflect.

#...will graham #the wilgram fic i'm writing #(this is one of them)#like pls no one interact with this i just need to have the feeling of #Did Something #uhhhhhh #tw child neglect #tw slurs #tw internalized homophobia #tw eating stuff #(like...it's bc of said neglect and poverty if that helps)#this is mostly me having a lot of Feelings about #myself and the current situation and Gender #and maybe some like other personal shit but shh #anyways i'm sorry i just gotta Post Something #at this hour maybe people will not see #nbc hannibal #mine fic

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years

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Missed Classic 79: A Christmas Adventure (1983)

Written by Joe Pranevich

Merry Christmas! Welcome back to another Christmas at “The Adventure Gamer” where we are looking at our sixth holiday adventure game! Time flies while we are having so much fun and I’m just amazed that we keep finding new holiday adventures to play. This time out will be 1983’s A Christmas Adventure, a “bitCard” (more on that in a bit) by Chartscan Data, Inc. This game has two notable distinctions: First, it is the earliest Christmas game that I have found so far. Merry Christmas from Melbourne House and A Spell of Christmas Ice were both 1984 games, but this one is a full year earlier. This may be the first commercially released Christmas adventure ever, but we’ll keep looking for more. Second, this game was brought to us by you! Last year, we ran a brief GoFundMe to purchase the only available-to-the-public copy of the game from Retrogames. Our community pitched in some funds and we purchased and sent the game off to the Internet Archive. Unfortunately, they were unable to get the game imaged for the holidays and we detoured to Humbug instead. The archivists uploaded our game in January and that gave us plenty of time to review it for this Christmas.

The Christmas Adventure story begins in Montreal, Quebec at the home of Frank Winstan. It was spring or early summer 1983 and he was working on an idea to design and sell personalized software as an electronic holiday or greeting card. You wouldn’t just play an adventure game, you’d play a game that knew your name and would have personalized messages and other features set by your friends or family. Even in the 1980s, the holiday card industry was hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly sales; if they could tap even a tiny portion, the upside would be huge. In part due to a fear that someone else could capitalize on a similar idea first, he set his sights on a Christmas release for his first electronic “bitCard”. Even for the fast development cycles of early games, the timing was incredibly tight and made all the more so due to a lack of marketing or distribution infrastructure. Winstan needed to bootstrap a startup and ship their first product in less than five months. Was that even possible?

The software retailed for approximately $45 in today’s money.

Winstan had been advised by others that his timeline was too tight, but he enlisted the help of a Larry Callahan, a friend from Vanier College, and they set to work. Chartscan Data was born! Winstan was a psychology professor and he did not have experience with adventure games. Nonetheless, he and Callahan established a system where he (and Ron Sperber) wrote the scenario, Callahan built much of the initial Apple II version, and other programmers were brought on board for porting and other work. Callahan wrote the software in a combination of BASIC and 6502 assembly for speed and size. To make an impossible task even harder, Winstan targeted five separate 6502-based systems, each with their own versions of BASIC and other platform dependencies, all needing to ship at the same time.

While Callahan and others built the product, Winstan built the company. Time was against him. Despite marketing copy that said the game would go on sale in October, he only officially incorporated his company that September. Winstan’s role was to ferry code and documentation between the contracted programmers, develop marketing relationships and ship copies of his near-completed game for reviews, as well as write and type-set all of the documentation, and just about everything else. The coding wasn’t entirely going according to plan either and with only a month to go, he was still placing “help wanted” ads in the McGill University newspaper looking for experienced 6502 programmers. He reports that he frequently slept only two hours per night to keep all of the gears turning. Christmas was, in a very real sense, coming!

Judging by the date on this review, you would be correct to surmise that they made it! Chartscan Data released their first product on time, but not quite everything had fallen into place. Given the schedule, there was insufficient time to produce or distribute a boxed version of the game or to develop relationships for the same. Instead, all sales were to be via mail order. Winstan had managed to get seven or eight (by his report) reviews published, but these were in the holiday issues of various computing magazines. Between the delays inherent in print publication and the challenges of a mail-order only business model, there was a slim window where readers could purchase the game and ensure that it arrived in time for Christmas with all of the customizations inact. Samples were sent to computer stores, but this was not the perfect harmony of distribution and marketing that Winstan’s e-cards needed to be successful.

The Apple II edition of “A Christmas Adventure”

I’d love to report that A Christmas Adventure was the surprise hit of 1983, but that distinction falls to Care Bears and Cabbage Patch Kids. They made their Christmas delivery, but ultimately the timeline and budget were too tight to build a distribution pipeline to reach the masses by Christmas morning. Less than a thousand copies were sold that first year, plunging Chartscan Data into debt and ultimately bankruptcy. Having played the game (as you will soon read), they did not fail for lack of either effort or a good idea. Winstan’s concept of personalized games as gifts was a remarkable leap in 1983! In fact, I would assert (without adequate proof or research, mind you) that he is likely the unsung inventor of the “e-card”. I hope that he and his team look back on this failure with a certain amount of pride.

As a final coda on this part of our story, Winstan tells me that The Sloane Report, a Miami-based newsletter focusing on software in education, named A Christmas Adventure as their co-game of the year in 1984. Of course, this recognition came too late for the Christmas season, but it hinted that there may still have been life in the product after all. Although Chartscan Data had gone under, a new Bitcards, Inc. emerged through the magic of business and financial wizardry. Winstan taught himself BASIC and continued the development of A Christmas Adventure himself, releasing a “2.0” edition in time for Christmas 1984. This is the version that I played in my review. He continued updating and selling the game through Christmas 1986 with the final version being tagged as version 2.8. He tells me that he nearly had an agreement for a boxed edition of the game, but at that late stage the industry was shifting towards IBM PCs and that was not a platform that he or his team envisioned supporting. In the end, no other Bitcards were created and the company was eventually folded. Winstan and Callahan continued their careers at Vanier College. Winstan taught Psychology, while Callahan ran their IT Support Services (a role that is very dear to my heart!).

Frank Winstan in the 1980s.

This title has become exceedingly rare. Unlike so much of the early Commodore and Apple II software library, the game was never picked up by the BBS community or the abandonware forums. Very few copies were known to survive. For many years, the only known version was one of Winstan’s “sampler” demos sent to computer stores, documented by AppleAdventures in 2015. This version included 50% of the story and a “mini-customizer” so that you could see how your personalization would affect the story. AppleAdventures was later able to get his (or her?) hands on an original full version by 2018 and produced a “Let’s Play” video of it on Youtube, but I was unable to convince him to give us a copy to review. When I speak of the differences in the 1983 version below, I am comparing to his earlier efforts in documenting the game.

The version that I played for review was Winstan’s “version 2.0” edition with a 1984 copyright date. This update incorporated a few new puzzles and cleaned up old ones, added a bit more music, and redid some of the item names and text descriptions. This is the version available today on the Internet Archive and, I believe, the version that we purchased last year in our GoFundMe promotion.

Before I begin, I want to thank Frank Winstan and Larry Callahan for their kind cooperation in my review of their work. I can only imagine what it is like to have strange people email you about something that you did thirty-six years ago, but to their credit they have been incredibly forthcoming with details and anecdotes about the development of the game. It is to my great shame that I only incorporated around a third of the historical details that they provided me. I am also exceedingly grateful for Frank for sending along a copy of the manual and offering to mail me a pristine Apple II version for my review. I was unable to take him up on that given the time constraints– I suspect rushing right before Christmas is a feeling that he is familiar with!– but appreciate it nonetheless.

Very nice “3D” rendering of flying towards the palace; quite advanced for 1983!

Introductory Movie

The game opens with an extended cinematic, very unusual for a game of this era and well-done over all. The camera flies over a darkened North Pole snow field towards Santa’s Ice Palace. We are taken inside to Santa’s office. A “greetings” message on the wall appears to be customizable. I’m not positive who is narrating, but they have “chatted” with Santa’s computer many times before and refer to us, the viewer and player, as a “poor mortal”.

Something is amiss? What can it be?

OMG. Who could it be?

Suddenly, an alert appears on the computer: Santa is missing! With only a few hours before Christmas, the computer springs into action to figure out what to do. It searches its worldwide naughty-and-nice database to locate someone that can help. That someone… is you! My version has the name set as “Current Player” although this also is customizable.

With that, we are instructed to flip over the disk and begin.

Presumably the Apple logo was also customizable.

Playing the Game

We start the game where the cinematic ended, in Santa’s “Ice Palace”. The greeting message from the opening is still there, but the safe that was clearly visible before is now covered by an Apple painting. I’d wager that was either customizable as well, or at least changed based on which platform you were running. Is that a hint? Yes! We can move the painting to reveal the safe, although it is keyed to only let Santa open it. A strange parser issue shows up immediately in that the “waste basket” is spelled “was’basket”, presumably because the word was too long. You have to be careful as “basket” isn’t recognized as a synonym. I’ll have to be on the lookout for these sorts of things.

When we look at the desk and chair, we get the message that they “cannot be manipulated in any way” and “this is not a trick”. The 1983 edition of the game doesn’t mention them at all and I am not sure what was gained by adding them in except to fill out the room.

In terms of customization, the 1983 video that I viewed has the game brought to us by “Frostbyte Computers” while my version says “Apple User Magazine”. Apple User was a magazine published in the 1980s by Database Publications, although beyond that I am not deeply familiar with it. Frostbyte is a name that is used by far too many companies over the years and I am unclear which one this referred to. In both cases, my guess is that these are companies that Frank Winstan worked with to promote the game. I do not know what a straight-from-the-factory edition of the game would have said.

In addition to the vault, we also have a computer that wants us to insert both a system and a data disk (oh, the 1980s!) and we can pick up the waste basket.

Made in Canada!

My first task is to explore the house and see what I find. Rather than narrate through every room one-by-one, let me summarize:

To the north is Santa’s Workshop, complete with a map of Canada! I grab a shovel, but the crafting tools are too delicate to be picked up by my fingers. I pull aside the rug to reveal a key. I ignore the stairs down for now.

In the northwest of the palace is Santa’s minimalist art gallery: only a single painting adorns the wall. Moving it causes me to be attacked by “cursed elves”. That triggers a brief action scene, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do except watch as they ransack the place. I am forced to restore already. A window in the room is too high up for me to do anything with it. Will I find a ladder?

West of the office is a living room with a chair and a (very!) hot fireplace. Even looking at the fire kills me, so I’ll avoid that for now. I sit in the chair and discover that it “feels funny”. I remove the cushions and discover a rope that I can add to my collection. A sword over the fireplace seems interesting but I can’t do anything with it.

Further west is an entertainment room with a jukebox and ping-pong table. I pick up a record, but there is no obvious way to play music.

North of the living room is a spartan kitchen containing milk and an empty bag. I nab both.

In the south, I find a bedroom with dressers and closets. One closet contains a surprise Pac-Man cameo while the other has a full set of Santa regalia including boots, a hat, a coat, and gloves. I pocket some coins from the dresser. A second drawer is locked, but my key fits. That contains a disk labeled “chanukah”! Finally, a piece of paper falls out of Santa’s coat that says to call “Current Player” (me!) in the event of an emergency. How did they know I was so good at adventure games!?

Hey look! It’s a cameo!

That is a lot to digest, but I want to highlight a few things. When you enter that closet in the bedroom, the screen goes black and Pac-Man marches across the screen. When he gets around half way, he discovers that he’s in the wrong game and quickly runs off. It’s bonkers and the first laugh-out-loud moment of the game. I hope we see more examples of the authors’ humor as we play on. It seems impossible, but when this game came out Pac-Man (1980) was very new and “Pac-Man fever” had only just subsided.

Interface-wise, the game is inconsistent whether or not objects disappear when you pick them up. The shovel and key disappear, for example, while the wastebasket does not. Unlike Sierra’s Mystery House-style games, dropped objects only appear when you drop them in the room that they originated in. The parser seems very simple with very few supported synonyms. I’m also fairly sure that it has only three characters of sensitivity, as opposed to the five used by many other early adventures.

Finally, this is the first reference to Chanukah (or “Hanukkah” or any number of equally-valid alternate spellings) in one of our Christmas games! I’ve been hoping to come across a Hanukkah adventure game, but I’m almost certain that none were made in the classic era. The only Hanukkah game that I know of at all is Game of the Maccabees (1983), a little-known action game for the Atari. The earliest Jewish-themed adventure game that I know of is The Pesach Adventure (1993) celebrating Passover. If I ever find a Hanukkah adventure, you can bet your menorah that I’ll find a way to cover it.

If only Amazon could work out how to store 43 million boxes in such a small space!

Just beneath the workshop is the “gift storage room” where we can see piles of gifts for the good little boys and girls in the world. Looking at them triggers a database-style interface where I can theoretically learn the gifts of all 43,126,798 good children, but for simplicity we can only see the first eight entries. While 43 million seems like a big number, there were 63 million children in the United States alone in 1983. Were the rest naughty? And what about all the good children everywhere else in the world? And did I spend more time than I should researching historical census data? The answer to the last question is “yes”.

We can look at the presents, but only a couple of them seem valuable. Presents #1, #5, #6, and #8 all teleport me somewhere around the castle when I look at them. I’m not clear why. Present #3 is apparently “curtains” and thanks to the magic of an overly-destructive pun, I die and have to restore. #7 is the present for me that I will get at the end of the game. The only presents of value are #4, a doll that I can pick up, and #2, a rhyme:

I was talking to a computer ace Her name, it was Veronica I said, “Hi Ronny- what’s the word?” She said, “The word is Chanukah!”

With two references to Hanukkah in the last couple of minutes, I think that will be important later.

The 1983 game has a completely different puzzle here. In the opening cinematic, there is a brief display of Santa’s gift list. For some reason, Susie’s present is listed in that opening but left blank here. Somehow this is supposed to clue you in that you can pick up (“get doll”) in this room. Regardless of how you get it, the doll is pull-string and intones, “Mommy says that you have to keep warm when you are sick.” Could that be a clue?

The sleigh is pointed in an inconvenient direction, don’t you think?

Past the gift room is the empty reindeer stables and a garage containing Santa’s sleigh. With neither reindeer to pull it, nor jolly old man to steer it, they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. I do find a blanket that I can grab. By this point, I’m out of inventory space and storing things elsewhere but you get the idea.

With no more rooms in the Ice Palace, I resolve to solve some puzzles. The first is easy: Santa’s security system is fooled by wearing his clothes and that gets me access to his safe. Inside is an unlabeled potion. I can also insert the “chanukah” disk in the computer, but it still needs a second before it will boot. (Weren’t old-timey computers so quaint?) It takes some time and experimentation, but I realize that the record from the jukebox is referred to as “floppy” in its description. That makes no sense at all, but the computer boots when I (somehow?) insert it, so what do I know?

On startup, the computer asks for a password so I take the most obvious guess: “chanukah”. It works! Only a moron would write the password on the disk itself, but my wager is that Santa isn’t the most clued in to digital security. Wait until he gets his whole “naughty” list hacked one of these years! The computer displays a menu with four options:

The first is the gift list, but it doesn’t appear to be useful. The list does not match what is in the store room; the doll is the same, but the third gift is a bicycle and not (evil) curtains.

The second and third options are “need to know” and the computer somehow thinks I don’t need to know yet. When I need to “cure elf maladies” or render “reindeer first aid”, I’ll know where to look for answers.

The final option describes an emergency exit from the palace. It reveals that during an emergency (like this one), the castle is automatically sealed to prevent anyone entering or leaving. However, there is one way out via a “virtually empty” room, although it involves fastening together two common items hidden elsewhere. To make it trickier, one of the items is in a “different time plane”. Is there time travel in this game? My guess is that the rope is one of the items, but what is the second?

The 1983 edition has the computer with the same password, but without the menu. Instead, it gives you a (unnecessary, in my case) clue to access the vault.

Catch the elves in color!

This is where I get stuck and I eventually watch the 1983 video to see what I missed. The next puzzle that I could solve was the “cursed elves”. I had not noticed that if I opened up the painting while carrying the bag, my action scene would be different. Now, I can control the bag with the arrow keys to capture as many elves as possible. It was more difficult than it looks! For one thing, the elves can move diagonally while I can only move up and down or left and right. Even leaving one behind ends the game and it took me a few tries to capture them all. Once I did, I discovered that I captured seven bad elves and one good one. I have to play over again to try to leave one of the green elves and this adds another layer to the difficulty as the green ones seem to kamikaze whenever I get close. After a few frustrating attempts, I work out that the striped elf is the “good” one (not the plain green one) and seal the deal.

This puzzle is clearer in the black-and-white version of the game as all of the elves wearing vertical stripes are evil while the one with horizontal stripes is not.

Catch the elves in black and white!

Once we work out the correct elf to keep and get lucky with the arcade sequence, the final elf appears in the room with me. Unfortunately, all of the evil magic has made him ill (an elf malady!) and I can now consult the computer to see what to do. The computer tells me that I need to feed the elf the potion and to keep him warm. I hand over the potion and blanket and he’s right as rain again. The elf turns out to be the leader elf and is happy to follow me around from room to room. I am not clear how to solve this puzzle in the 1983 edition of the game as there is no computer hint. I believe that the doll’s advice was supposed to clue you in to give him the blanket, but I am uncertain what may have clued you in to needing the potion as well.

With the elf in tow, I can pick up the tools in Santa’s Workshop since he can carry them for me.

I fail to notice at first, but you can walk through the hole where the evil elves poured through. This leads to a dark tunnel and then to a time machine! See? I knew there would be time travel here eventually. The original edition of the game has a small maze in place of the tunnel, but since I’m just watching a video I have no idea how difficult it was.

This time machine has a Y2K problem.

Even with the time machine, I am immediately stuck again. The 1983 video just shows the elf activating the machine when you enter the room and look at it, but that doesn’t happen in the 1984 version. I have to solve this myself. Before I get too far, let me admit that this was multiple hours of experimentation with a little bit of “reading the source code” included. Only a small portion of the game is written in BASIC and I was unable to find anything relevant, but that tells you how desperate I was. Given the rarity of this game, I do not believe a “request for assistance” would have been useful!

If I only had the manual when I played!

This is when I discovered the “help” feature and boy is it robust! This is all clearly laid out in the manual, but I did not get my hands on a copy (thanks again to Mr. Winstan!) prior to playing. By typing “help”, you can request general information (such as a list of verbs that the game understands) or more specific information about the room that you are in. You can even decrease the difficulty of the elf capture game! This is a great feature, made slightly worse by all of the disk swapping that you have to do to access it. This was likely quite easy on a real system, but my emulator did not handle the disk swapping correctly (probably because the game writes its state to the disks?) and so I had to restore after receiving the hint. I will blame this on modernity rather than a bug in the original. The two hints for the time machine room are cryptic:

“He is his name and his name is like he. Get his attention- that’s the key!”

“Only someone who is small by design can help you slip through the cracks of time.”

Both clues point to the elf as the solution, but I only stumble on the answer by accident. We can, it turns out, issue commands directly to the elf by typing “elf” by itself. That brings up a second prompt to tell him what to do. You can even type “help” again and he’ll give you his own clues! In this case, he tells us to examine the time machine. I had done that already, but now I tell him to examine the machine. This reveals that there is a keyhole in the back.

I know I missed something because I never learned that the time machine was broken, but if you tell the elf to “fix timemachine” when he is carrying the tools, he does so and we are whisked back to the past.

I had thought that this strange syntax for asking the elf to do something would have been in the manual, but it turns out that it is not. My manual is for a later update to the game and perhaps this puzzle was tweaked again, but as it stands I found this to be the most frustrating part of the game so far. Being able to issue commands to the elf is a great feature! It opens up tons of puzzle mechanics and was implemented very well in the Zork series, for example. I am not aware of any other games using this syntax and I wish that it would have been mentioned in the manual.

Prehistoric!

With my complaints out of the way, I travel back to the year “1”. (The current year was “8X”, but I’m not going to nit pick this two-digit year too much. I expect there were more than just cave paintings in the year 1901!) When we are in the past, the interface doesn’t really work because– somehow this makes sense– we are in an era before computers existed and therefore we cannot tell our computer to do stuff for us. Fortunately, the elf traveled with us and we know how to control him so it all works out. It’s clever but reminds us that we are working through an avatar. We learn that the cave paintings are done by an ancient Evil One and that he is the one that put the elves under a spell. Did he make Santa and the reindeer disappear as well? I discover a hook hidden under a pile of bones and grab that before heading back to the present.

The 1983 version of the puzzle is different.

In the original version, the time machine is easier to activate as I stated previously, but also takes you to a different era. This is the only example of changed art that I see so far between the 1983 and 1984 games. Rather than going prehistoric, we seem to go somewhere else. The dial remains on “83” so I am glad that this sequence was rewritten for clarity. We still pick up a hook in the past (behind a painting rather than in a pile of bones) and then travel back to the present.

With the hook and rope together, I can create a grappling hook! I throw that to the window in the art gallery and I am able to leave the Ice Palace for the first time. I’m not even going to mention that we were on the second floor.

Just because my nose glows… I just don’t fit in.

I have been reluctant to mention this before now because I am not sure what is the game and what is the emulator, but I have been struggling with infrequent lockups. I’ve never lost more than a few minutes, but from this point on the game suddenly becomes much less stable. By the time I reach the end in a few minutes from now, I’ll be carefully plotting every move and avoiding actions (like checking our inventory!) that can trigger a crash. I push through, but if these bugs were in the original then I am not sure how much patience the players would have had for this. I’m going to assume that the bugs are due to emulaton and possibly due to my use of save states rather than saving to disk as intended.

I emerge outside. To the west is a snow bank. I dig with the shovel and discover that Rudolph was trapped under the snow! He’s suffering from the extreme cold and his nose has turned orange rather than red; apparently that also means that the other reindeer will not recognize him. Are glowing colored noses so common that they couldn’t put two-and-two together? Sure, Comet and Cupid might be dumb, but Donner and Blitzen could have worked it out. I ask the computer what to do and it tells me that I need to administer a “hot non-alcoholic beverage”. I don’t have any of those yet.

Not the game’s best art.

Abandoning Rudolph for now, I head east to discover a hut with a loose floorboard. Looking at it tells me that it is “hanging at the window” and I can only assume that it’s a translation error of some kind. It hardly matters because I can move the board to find a path downstairs. Heading down, I discover not only Santa’s secret stash of booze, but also the jolly old elf himself. He’s been tied up, but it is no problem at all to “untie santa” and he heads off on his way. Santa will wait for us by his sleigh.

The final puzzle stumped me for a long time, but I eventually found the “hint” that I needed by hex-editing the game files. I know, I know… I’m a dirty cheater. The 1983 edition of the game just requires you to give the milk to Rudolph, but the 1984 edition wants it to be warm milk. I had guessed as much, but no amount of trying to warm it by the fire seemed to have helped. I eventually noticed an item in the game called “was’bas+mlk”. This revealed that I could put the milk in the basket, then I could put the basket in the fire, and finally I could fish them back out and have warm milk. Make sense? The parser doesn’t handle this very clearly as we cannot remove the milk from the basket when done, but it gets the point across and we can feed the milk to Rudolph. Once back to health, he too went back to Santa’s sleigh.

I race back to the sleign, noticing that there are now reindeer in their stables. Presumably Rudolph gathered them together once he was feeling well. At the sleigh, Santa gives me a present and a message from my friend that gave me the game and heads off on his yearly rounds. I win!

Time Played: 6 hr 35 min

Santa thanks you and leaves for his once-a-year task.

We get our gift (never revealed) and then the game ends with a personalized message.

Final Rating

We made it to the end of another holiday classic! I hope you enjoyed this trip as much as I have. I have a ton of fun researching these holiday games and I hope that comes through. This is a game that has tremendous promise, but for everything that is ahead of its time (the personalization and help system especially), there are some head-scratching moments that a more seasoned game designer would have avoided. The fact that I had enough fun that I was willing to try to hex-edit the game to solve it should be seen as a sign of my enjoyment and desire to reach the end, rather than my frustration.

Every one of our reviews may be someone’s first and that is doubly true for these holiday posts. Let me remind you that we are using our “suspiciously similar” EGGNOG system for review since our usual rating scale doesn’t seem festive enough. Also keep in mind that these scores are based against an idealized version of a circa-1990s LucasArts or Sierra game. Text adventures and early adventures in general do not score all that highly, but this is an indication only of their quality compared to games released more than a decade later. These ratings are designed to be fun and it is generally not a good idea to put too much stock in them.

Let’s get to reviewing:

Enigmas and Solution-Findability – On the whole, I enjoyed the puzzles in this game even though most did not rise above fetch quests around the house. The use of the computer for hints was fantastic, as was everything involved with the Elf, and the creation of the warm milk. Ultimately, those were let down by the primitiveness of the parser but the underlying ideas were solid. The animated arcade sequence was also done well with the right level of charm and frustration; having to work out which elf to save was a nice touch. I am giving extra credit for the robust helpo system which was exceptional for the era and helped to ensure the game remained fun and not frustrating. The rhyming clues ( which I only briefly covered) were some of the game’s best sources of humor. My score: 3

Game UI and Items – As much as I hate to say it, the interface isn’t quite baked yet. A three-character parser with very few synonyms is not great even by 1983 standards and it shows that the developers hadn’t played that many adventure games prior to building this one. If they had better tools, they could have made a better game. Still, the verb list was helpful (even if it felt like an exaggeration) and there are some great features such as the ability to make multiple moves in a single line which are listed in the manual but which I did not discover on my own. My score: 2

Gameworld and Story – The Ice Palace and environs were fun to explore, but they never felt like a real place and the story never coalesced into a full narrative. We never fully understood who our avatar was in the game (an intelligent or magical computer?) and the menace of an Evil One from the dawn of time who plotted something against Santa was a great start, but didn’t go anywhere and didn’t have any impact on the ending of the game. It feels like there were plot beats missing. Who tied up Santa? How did Rudolph end up trapped in the snow? Did we ever cure all of those cursed elves? My score: 1

Noises and Pretty Pixels – This game gives us both a Christmas soundtrack and some excellent art, including a surprisingly nice opening animation. A few of the locations weren’t drawn as well as the others, but the little touches ranging from Pac-Man’s cameo to the catch-the-elves game were done very well. My score: 3

Overworld and Environs – In our normal rating system, we refer to this category as “Atmosphere” and it describes how the game made you feel. Was it tense? Did the setting evoke strong emotions? Did it all come together in an indescribable way? Unfortunately, I have to say that while the game was good and had some nice bits of levity, the overall tone wasn’t consistent. I may have felt differently if I had used the help system more or if the rhymes were integrated into the game itself. My score: 2

Gregariousness and Thespianism – This category refers to the game’s text and I’m very much in a split-decision. On one hand, the room descriptions were spartan and a few object names had strange contractions. And yet, some of the jokes landed, the computer interfaces were nice, and the help system was robust and clever with lots of rhyming clues that most players would never see. I loved those rhyming clues! My score: 2.

Before we add it all up, I want to add one bonus point for being customizable. I was considering deducting points for the crashes, but as I am uncertain whether that was my game or the emulator, I’ll give the game the benefit of the doubt.

Finally tally: (3+2+1+3+2+2)/.6+1 = 23 points!

Honestly, that feels about right. This is another case where the game is greater than the sum of its parts, but it is in good company with several of our other Christmas games, as well as Brian Moriarty’s early work. I am positive that the Bitcards team would have continued to improve had they remained in the industry. With a slightly better engine, they could have done wonders. Even so, it seems likely that Frank Winstan invented the computer greeting card.

I might be stretching things a bit, but I would not be at all surprised to learn that Winstan’s game inspired the release of Merry Christmas from Melbourne House the following year. While they were Australian (but releasing games in the US and UK) and it seems unlikely that they played this one, a particularly inscrutable joke in that game was that you could only exit Santa’s workshop via a window. We may never know if these events are connected, but I have my suspicions.

If you are looking for even more Christmas-gaming fun, please check out our previous holiday specials:

Merry Christmas from Melbourne House (1984)

A Spell of Christmas Ice (1984)

Crisis at Christmas (1986)

Elves ‘87 (aka Elf’s Christmas Adventure) (1987)

Humbug (1990)

As for me, I’ll be taking a break until the new year when I will resume our Infocom marathon (finally!) with Trinity. See you in 2020!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-79-a-christmas-adventure-1983/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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thomasrosana22-blog · 5 years

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The New Voice User Interface For Online Search Engine: Searching Facilitated

There are different search innovations currently offered and picking one that is appropriate would depend straight on the particular jobs that you would require to resolve in the future. Do you have to keep on stopping your searches just since you can not type those keywords?

Voice search questions do not have such context. Therefore, there is little details from the voice itself in which to make a voice acknowledgment decision.

Have you heard of voice-activated Internet browsing and browsing? As a matter of truth, Google had actually just recently made statements concerning their strategies to use totally free software application online that would permit users to browse the Internet with the usage of voice-activated tools.

Given that the user still requires to go through numerous voice menus, it may be sluggish to utilize. In the end it may trigger some aggravation on the part of the user, specifically considering that he or she should change his or her interactions to the stiff, mechanical structure of the system. A more reliable voice user interface for search engines is still at big.

The present patent application associated in voice user interfaces for search engines addresses these issues. According to the stated patent, by restricting the scope of the voice questions to an extremely narrow variety will resolve those issues. After picking one classification, the system will once again provide another little set of options till the user reach the piece of details that he or she is browsing for.

According to its patent, voice user interface for search engines is a system that would supply search outcomes from a voice search inquiry. Naturally, the system would get a voice search inquiry from a user, then it will obtain one or more acknowledgment hypotheses. The system will supply the weighted boolean inquiry to a search system and then offers the outcomes of the search system to a user.

There are numerous issues that exist in developing acceptable voice user interfaces. Among which is that existing speech acknowledgment innovation has high word mistake rates, especially for big vocabulary sizes. Suggesting a modification in articulation might puzzle the command.

You see voice triggered software application needs unique microphones, or else the background sounds and vibrations will make it tough for your voice-activated software application to understand your demands. Just put, you will not be able to browse around the Internet this method without it.

If you desire your voice user interface to work correctly, then your environment needs to be serene enough. The sound and vibrations would just mess up the words that you spoke into the microphone and would just puzzle the voice-activated software application. Do not let it keep you from experiencing the next huge thing in the Internet-- voice user interface for search engines.

The issues that you will come across are various and even though you are browsing with the help of keywords, it’s all to no get. Well, considering that the memory of a single PC is essentially comparable to the quantity of text information that is kept in a genuine land base library, browsing for a particular piece of details is like browsing for a needle in the middle of a lot of hay. That is why it is rather required to produce search systems and innovations that would streamline as well as speed up access to the needed info.

The voice user interface is would be useful to the details retrieval systems and, more particularly, to a system and approach for supporting voice questions in info retrieval systems. The primary goal of this innovation is to assist those individuals in their searches. The voice user interface to an online search engine will enable them to carry out searches without the requirement to type words, because it acknowledges spoken inquiries and are ensured to return extremely appropriate search engine result.

At one point or another, each people has actually been confronted with problems while attempting to look for info. Whether you are utilizing the Internet, a file system on your computer system’s disk drive, database, or a worldwide details system of your business, looking for details can be rather a laborious job.

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yesdanielblisslove · 5 years

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Try not to Be a Shmogi, Taking Yoga Back

From Shmoga Back to Yoga

I have some uplifting news and I have some awful news. I'll begin with the terrible news. There has been an endeavor to seize and hijack yoga from us. What's more, presently the uplifting news, you can take it back. Numerous experts call themselves yogis or yoginis yet they have taken the hallowed routine with regards to yoga and transformed it to a difficult to reach and inauthentic practice. They are who I call Shmogis(ginis), or fake yogis! Huge numbers of these Shmogis have attempted to remove yoga from the majority by spreading fantasies about the training and I need us to take yoga back.

Yoga is more than 4,000 years of age and rehearsed by men, ladies and youngsters everywhere throughout the world. Yoga is the burdening or weaving together of psyche, body and soul. So for what reason would it abruptly be liable to inflexible details, strange customs or mind boggling physical accomplishments?

Yoga envelops numerous viewpoints including physical stances, investigation of holy ways of thinking, care, control, and contemplation, recognizing wholeness, to name a few.I by and by accept that there are advantages to the proposed general rules and ways to yoga. In any case, as you will see underneath, a portion of these have transformed into legends that appear to keep yoga selective just to the individuals who pursue quite certain ways and fend off every single other searcher. We should ask, for what reason do some demand depicting yoga as something to be finished by the youthful, physically wonderful, fit and aerobatic?

How I found Yoga and You Can Too

In 2000, I was lamenting the abrupt passing of my mom from an uncommon malignant growth, changing in accordance with moving the nation over from New York to San Francisco. During that time, I had no changeless employment or assets, and was managing different emergencies that lead to my physical, passionate and profound breakdown. I chose to attempt yoga as a pressure the executives system. I rehearsed alone in my loft since I didn't have the cash to go to a studio and would not like to uncover my messed up self to others.Slowly I understood and found that yoga was considerably more than physical stances.

At one point I ended up confounded in light of the fact that I didn't comprehend its philosophical or otherworldly segments great. I learned through watching recordings, perusing books, and other writing the various approaches to rehearse that would work for me. I'm really obstinate so I chosen to do my very own training and modify it to accommodate my physical and money related restrictions. It's been over 10 years regardless I believe myself to be in the first place periods of my yoga investigation as a basic piece of my life.I have additionally discovered that yoga as rehearsed in the western world has removed in few winding abandons TRUTH.

I need to keep others from inclination the debilitation I felt on occasion by uncovering the legends and publicity executed by the shmogis and enterprises that have over-business-fied yoga. Many good natured professionals genuinely accept these fantasies and sustain them further intensifying the issue. You may have totally various reasons and wants to investigate yoga and each one's way is person. Yet, in the event that any of the fantasies underneath prevented you previously, maybe you would now be able to come back to what is your legitimate spot in the realm of yoga.

Legends That Discourage the General Population From Practicing Yoga

Paying for Yoga- - I put stock in vitality trade and pay for any products and ventures. Be that as it may, you ought to have the option to rehearse yoga regardless of whether you can't manage the cost of it. There are a few studios that enable you to pay what you can. For whatever length of time that you can give something with respect and inside your methods you can approach their yoga studio. This course of action clearly works superior to paying high as can be costs. It is additionally conceivable to be a lone professional. You can rehearse independent from anyone else utilizing different assets that are accessible and some are recorded underneath. At the point when your conditions change you would then be able to attempt a studio that charges

Tricky and puzzling practices-Some people or gatherings attempt to shroud yoga in riddle ceremonies and language and that startles numerous searchers away. Yoga brings such a significant number of advantages, physical, enthusiastic and profound and like anything with such a large number of chances, it ought to be available to anybody at any level. Yoga can be as straightforward as finding a spot to sit for 5 minutes per day to be still or as unpredictable you wish. The fact of the matter is YOU pick not others.

You must be slender, very adaptable and strong Yoga should be possible by anybody of all ages, size and physical condition. Yoga is something other than physical postures. So notwithstanding when doing certain hand signals called mudras, or basic breathing activities, you are fundamentally doing yoga.

Persuading you to do yoga just a single explicit way-There are numerous kinds of stances, breathing procedures, contemplation levels, philosophical profundities that can be investigated in yoga. Be that as it may, yoga is about existence and it's all in the adjusting, burdening and going at your very own pace. Distinctive yogic practices today underscore various things. Some emphasis on arriving at edification, another on acing authority over one's brain and body, others on cherishing generosity, and different core interests. So it is ideal to discover what requirements adjusting in your life consequently which sort of yoga to start investigating.

Demanding gathering yoga is better than single practice- - Why is bunch yoga underscored? Be in a gathering on the off chance that you so decide to yet not on the grounds that you think it is totally vital or better than rehearsing alone. Truly it is basic to realize how to do certain stances accurately and to comprehend the way of thinking and history. Numerous individuals who practice yoga in gatherings do in fact feel it is valuable, useful and a positive. Anyway doing gathering yoga is a way not by any means the only method to rehearse yoga.

Sex izing yoga-A deception has been made that yoga practice is for the most part for ladies. By including for the most part lady in the media, magazines, and promoting, this legend is propagated. Yoga has been polished for a large number of years by men, ladies and offspring all things considered. Unfortunately numerous men avoid yoga feeling senseless for considering rehearsing it. Additionally men may dread inclination strange going to classes which are female commanded. In any case, that isn't reasonable for anybody. Yoga is for all and all can profit by it

Over-commercializing-Just one take a gander at any yoga related material will rapidly take the searcher to an existence where s/he is suffocated in claim to fame ad of yoga-explicit dress, gems, extravagant props, ways of thinking, clubs, travel spots, retreats and occasions. In any case, this pointlessly adapts a holy practice. A large number of these "things", gadgets and such have their advantages and spot yet the expense and arrangement is to be sure suspect.

Demanding yoga be finished with a master A master is somebody that has experienced the privilege of entry, as it were, in a specific way throughout everyday life. Somebody who has rose to a position of insight and subsequently the capacity to lead other people who are unpracticed and understudies into a similar section of development and learning. However, is it a flat out need? Likely not. Having a master is exceptionally close to home and just you will know whether and when you need one.

Outlandish retreats that are treated as necessities Retreats are beautiful and a decent method to get focused, loose, and revived. It's anything but a prerequisite for discovering profound edification. Thus it's anything but a reasonable or fair approach to sell an exceptionally extravagant extravagance touring plan,

Citing extravagant posture names and ways of thinking in Sanskrit-Sometimes a few people utilize extravagant names, terms and methods of reasoning to scare the normal individual from rehearsing yoga and jumping further into its ways of thinking. On account of innovation, the great old design library or book shop you can decipher most terms yourself. Indeed, even elocution has turned into a major hysteria. Simply check with the first Sanskrit when conceivable or call it by its interpreted name. For instance don't stress of saying Tadasana, simply recollect it is additionally called Mountain Pose. With opportunity everything meets up like some other language.

Highlighting propelled acts like the perfect to achieve be a genuine expert in all actuality one needs to move inside the points of confinement of ones claim body. Some accept, and I concur, in the possibility that it is beneficial to push ones self past what we accept to be our impersonations. For whatever length of time that we are cautious and tune in to what our body needs and needs, you will live yoga.

Muddling the procedure unnecessarily with naming kinds of yoga practices and masters related with each.- There is an enormous rundown of the various sorts of yoga you can rehearse. It tends to be overpowering. It is both intriguing and valuable to find out about the historical backdrop of yoga, reasoning, branches, people who are powerful in the yoga network, and so on. For whatever length of time that you don't give this a chance to decide if you'll rehearse at all or become snooty once you do get familiar with a particular way that works best to you. Everything relies upon what your objectives are at some random point during your investigation of yoga.

Over-Sexualizing Yoga-One of the most fascinating things that has happened to yoga is its over sexual-ization. Tantric yoga is old and worshipped part of yoga. It is additionally unpredictable and fascinating. However, on the off chance that you ask the normal individual or do a straightforward pursuit on the web, it is considered and treated like a sexual practice likened to the Kama Sutra. Sexuality is a basic part of Tantric yoga, as is breathing, contemplation, right activity, etc. Sexuality is a piece of our humankind however doesn't need to overwhelm it, else we become unequal and fall into the fantasy trap.

Making it into aggressive occasions There is one more development to make yoga focused occasions. These occasions would have people going after structure, intricacy, adaptability and a wide range of trapeze artistry. Maybe it would intrigue and engaging however I don't know it would be in the soul of yoga's goal, which is entire and plentiful living,

Presenting bazaar type gear there is by all accounts a boundless manner by which yoga appears to create and advance. Many individuals use

Beginning Yoga Reno map

BUSINESS ADDRESS:Sparkle Yoga465 S Meadows Pkwy #11, Reno, NV 89521C6QP+MV Reno, NevadaWEBSITE: https://sparkleyogareno.com/PH: (760) 505-0952

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smartoptionsio · 6 years

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Wanna Learn To Trade? Consider an Internship at Trend Mentors!

Lately, we got many requests of guys who want to learn to trade and if there is a decent course out there. We watched out and there are quite some decent offerings, but I am not a fan of video course that pushes knowledge, even if it is good and leaves you alone with that. Learning to trade, does not work like a “video in – ready trader comes out” – model. The opposite is the case, the charts are your teacher, and your wallet is the direct feedback for your learning progress.

It’s been on our agenda, for quite some time now, to find that special provider that focus on learning and function like an interactive trading group where you can put your learning into practice. A place where we can direct those cravings for this and want something special and extra. This has shown to be a hard task to find as most spots are video courses and you don’t have actual traders besides you, that will guide you and more important KNOW HOW TO TEACH YOU. We are glad to finally give our stamp of approval to this small group of traders, that has run a private group for 6 months but now decided to open up for everyone: The Trend Mentors.

The group is run by experienced channel owners that held great results but not now left scalability behind and focus on teaching in a small environment giving the right settings to your everyday trading. The group have been a private closed trading group for several months but is now open for anyone interesting to learn about crypto and trading. It really has the feel of a group of family and friends and the limitation is a good thing for learning efficiency.

Trend Mentors Internship takes only 25 participants, heck – that’s not really much. Only 25 people will be able to take part in the Internship and the aim is for experienced traders to take your trading to the next level, and if you are a beginner you will get the settings needed to do it right from the start. So, in order to do this and give each member unique support and attention the seats are very limited. You will even have the option to get 1-1 shared screen session if you need help with something specific or for example never traded on Bitmex or Binance previously, you can get help to get started with this. The chat is interactive, and you will get feedback on your own charts and trade ideas and receive the help you need to learn what trades suit you the best and how to do your own technique as well as fundamental analysis.

You will not get buy now sell now instruction, as this is not a Signals channel. Instead, you will get ‘trade sharing ideas’ which is the admin’s way of sharing their trades prior to taking them and discuss why they think it’s a good trade and follow it trough. Understanding the logic and risk to reward behind a trade is a very important aspect for those traders who would like to put rationale forward before attempting a trade. There are frequent Bitcoin and market analysis, that up till now have been very accurate. The analysis is delivered both in written form and through YouTube live streams. Live streams are also done spontaneously if a subject comes up and there is something specific to show. There are plenty of Alt reports to follow and the idea is for you to learn to see what the traders behind Trend Mentors see on the charts accompanied by a touch of fundamentals. If you want to learn to trade, this incorporates a huge difference, as the learning steps from reading to talking about it with the authors, to make conclusions on your own, based on the provided information, is a proactive process, that will mold you into someone, with a better market understanding. This team has a background in financial trading, but also from other commercial industries and you can sense they worked on a corporate level before, by how serious they run the group. They focus on mental coaching and beat bad habits into good solid ones and we all know this is a huge part of being a successful trader.

So, the thing that puzzled me here, was this Internship-thing and the sharp limitation to only 25 people. The earning capabilities for the team behind Trend Mentors are pretty limited, I have to say.

The thought that comes out of this observation is that the people behind this group do this more out of passion than for business reasons – the fee is an incentive to participate and invest time in themselves for a long-term solid foundation to become a successful trader. This is the place if you want to learn TA in a smaller group with personal attention and trade together among helpful friends. It’s an environment you can share all your worries and get the support you need and learn from mistakes and share success. The traders behind Trend Mentors are very open with their trades and decisions, both successful decisions and trades that go south. They share and analyze what could have been done different – and this is one of the most important parts. Good trades often make a worse trader out of you and the lost trades are the best teachers for you. Being in the signals business for a while, auditing dozens of groups to date, it seems to be common practice to delete unsuccessful signals – though they are part of the game, they must be analyzed, they must be assessed – and this is what you can get with this learning group. Since they are no signal provider, there is no reason to hide a thing, but see failed trades great learning opportunities. One can obviously not be this open in a bigger group so the group itself becomes very intimate and people get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and the support and help provided is rather unique.

The entire aim and goal are to help you develop into a solid trader that can read the market and make well-planned decisions and take the action into your own hands and understand how to react and adjust to the market.

In the capped 25-member Internship, you will receive the following:

Interactive Intern chat with 3 admins

Portfolio Management with TA on your holdings

Risk Management Strategy

TA education and hands-on help with your charting

Live sessions on shared screen to improve your TA skills and get market updates

Full access to Trend Mentors online library and all live stream videos

Trade share – Trade share is Trend Mentor’s way of helping you get great gains, trades that are interesting will be shared so it can be traded together, it be discussed why it’s a good trade and help everyone understand the process of getting to that decision.

Bitmex and Binance exchanges

Coin Watch – updated coins weekly to keep under observation

Trusted Education Provider

Please contact @AC_C4Q by Telegram to enroll or ask more questions. Discount code: Use the discount code SMARTOPTIONS for 10% discounted price.

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Fact Sheet for Trade Mentors

Telegram contact: @AC_C4Q

Subscription Pricing (with 10% discount applied): 1 Month: 225 USD 2 Months: 405 USD 3 Months: 585 USD

Payment Option: BTC – ETH

Exchanges: Bitmex and Binance

Trade share with TA: Yes, charts various time frames are attached

Trading Time zones: The activity is spread over the day, so everyone has a chance to participate. Live sessions are usually done in evening GMT if a weekday and usually afternoon or as agreed if in weekends, and being only 25 members, this is easy to adjust.

Cross promotions: No, all part of Trend Mentors has been a private channel up to now.

Free Channel: https: //t.me/TrendMentors

Free Chat: https://t.me/Trend_Mentors

Feedback Channel: https://t.me/TrendMentorsFeedback

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