How to Get Link’s Hylian Shield in Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The Hylian shield in Breath of the Wild makes the game ten times more playable (as you do not need to flee from every other battle) but some gamers have had trouble locating its whereabouts on the massive new map that Breath of the Wild has.

This video from IGN tells you exactly what you need to do to land your hands on one of the better defense objects in the game. But as an old-school gamer, don’t you think half the fun of a game this fully-realized in the joy of discovering the shield on your own?

I guess not.

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Third Law Of Thermodynamics Gets Proof

Two quantum physics professors have developed a proof of the third law of thermodynamics. As well as being academically satisfying, it could help make quantum computing more viable.

The wording of the third law varies, but a common version is “The entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero is exactly equal to zero.” That has a variety of practical effects, one of the most important being that it’s impossible to reduce temperature to absolute zero in a finite number of steps or in a finite time.

Until now, the law hadn’t been mathematically proved and there were even some practical steps involving quantum ‘shortcuts’ that appeared to violate it.

Jonathan Oppenheim and Lluis Masanes of University College London looked at the topic and mathematically derived the principle. It’s some hardcore stuff which I don’t mind admitting is largely over my head, but the upshot is that there’s a relationship between the energy used to cool a system and the speed at which it cools, even when using quantum shortcuts.

In very simplified terms, no finite speed will ever be fast enough to take the system all the way down to absolute zero within a finite time. In turn, infinite speed isn’t reachable without an infinite amount of energy.

The pair also used these relationships to calculate the theoretical maximum speed at which a system can be cooled within a given time. At the moment technological limitations mean such a speed isn’t practical, so it’s more a case of knowing the ultimate limit.

As well as filling in a missing gap in physics, the work could have some practical benefits for quantum computing, which takes advantage of the way quantum bits can be in multiple states simultaneously, unlike the binary on/off (or 0/1) of traditional computing.

While keeping processors from overheating is a big part of operating computers, temperature control and cooling are even more important with quantum computing where temperature changes can change the state of particles and potentially wreck the data.

How to Make Jake’s Perfect Sandwich From Adventure Time [Video]

Scholars have attempted to crack the code to the perfect sandwich for millennia – in the end, it was Jake the Dog who finally achieved the zenith of ‘wichcraft. Can Jake’s glowing dream sandwich be realized outside the cartoon realm, or will it topple under the weight of its 12 separate components?

For those interested, here’s the clip form Adventure Time:

[Andrew Rea | Via TN]

The Switch Brings Back the Charm of Old-School Game Boxes (and Manuals)

I miss game manuals. Honestly, I do. One of the worst things that has happened to gaming since the 90’s is the in-game tutorial. As great as it may be to learn a game by playing it, now games just come with empty boxes, no instructions or art or anything cool but a box and a disc. Meh to that.

But it looks like Nintendo has gone old school with the Switch in more than just the cartidge department. If you look at the above Switch copy of The Binding of Isaac, you will see it has a manual (Zelda throwback, genius) and a few pieces of sticker art thrown in there. It even has some “inside of box” art, which is totally badass. If the Nintendo Switch will bring back game manuals and original game art and cool boxes like this one, the world will be a better place.

[Kotaku]

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