I thought for a minute that were approaching infinite recursion. Now everyone will want to try a live webcast just so they can do this and try handling it better.
[via b3ta]
Epic Super Mario Land Rap
Warning: Video contains strong language.
I never realized this until now, but it looks like Mario is cheating on Princess Peach in this game… unless these two have an open relationship… who knows?
Game Over for Original Xbox Online
Microsoft is finally withdrawing the Xbox LIVE online gaming service for owners of the original Xbox (ie, not the 360). The move will also mean the withdrawal of online play for Xbox titles played through the Xbox 360.
The firm isn’t giving too much detail about the reasons for the change, but says it’s related to forthcoming improvements to the Xbox 360 service which will be incompatible with the way original Xbox games are handled online.
The best guess would be that Xbox LIVE is being redesigned to add support to the motion control features of Project Natal. It’s also possible that some of the structures put in place at the initial launch of the service are simply inadequate in the 360 era: for example, the limit of 100 people on the online friends list may now be raised.
The service will be withdrawn from April 15. However, customers who only use the original Xbox will have their auto-renewals switched off immediately. Those affected by the changes should be getting messages through their LIVE account or e-mail in the next few weeks.
The strongest reaction to the news appears to be from dedicated fans of Halo 2, the best selling game on the original console and at one point the most popular online Xbox game for nearly two years. Speculation at the moment points to it being added to the Arcade section of Xbox Live or even being re-released for the Xbox360.
The news won’t be particularly welcome for people who’ve recently downloaded original Xbox games to their 360 with the intention of playing them online.
Whether the change is fair or reasonable is certainly open to argument. Owners of the original console may feel aggrieved at the move, particularly given that rival Sony still supports the 10-year-old PS2. Defenders of Microsoft would note that ditching some form of support for older products to concentrate on the latest systems is a well-established part of its business strategy.
Google Nexus One: Concept & Design
Google has just started releasing a series of videos documenting the story behind the company’s new phone, the Nexus one. In the first episode, various people who worked on the design of the phone talk about some of the decisions that were taken to make the Nexus One the most advanced mobile on the market today.
Lego Domino Row Building Machine
The machine works by having a magazine of dominoes that is dragged along the table and a slider that moves back and forth sliding one domino out of the magazine at a time. All along, the machine is driving forward, which causes the released dominoes to be spaced out.
[Via Woodgears]
Stormtroopers and Snoop Wear Adidas
Q: What do Snoop Dogg, David Beckham, and Star Wars all have in common?
A: Shoes.
Adidas is launching a line of Star Wars shoes, and somehow the obvious spokespeople are a rapper and a soccer player. In any case, today saw Darth Vader and a group of stormtroopers along with people in Adidas jumpsuits (who rather looked as if they were being escorted to their execution) marching through Times Square. They were there to hang with Snoop for the product launch at the NYC Adidas store.
There’s probably some joke in here about sneakers being invaluable for Star Wars geeks running from bullies in high school.
Sonic and Mario’s Awkward Reunion
It’s been quite some time since Sonic’s heydays in the 90’s when Sega unleashed him to rival Nintendo’s Mario. Since then, the Italian plumber has continued to prosper while the blue hedgehog’s star has petered out miserably. The two icons recently ran into each other in an exceedingly uncomfortable setting:
Thanks Ziad!
Barney’s true color forever a mystery
Last week we brought you the news that scientists have now found a way to deduce which colors dinosaurs may have been by analyzing the structure of melanosomes. Those are cell bodies which carry melanin, which determines color, and in the case of the Sinosauropteryx had survived in fossils.
Unfortunately there’s some bad news to add to that report. It turns out that the melanosomes had survived because they were inside the tough protein of feathers. The melanosomes which could thus theoretically have survived in other feathered dinosaurs would indicate black, brown, orange or gray colorings.
However, because the relevant pigments come from a different source, it appears unlikely we’ll ever be able to tell which feathered dinosaurs were red, green, yellow or, most disappointingly for multi-national entertainment corporation marketing, purple. It’s also unlikely it will be possible to be sure about the colors of scaly, non-feathered dinosaurs.
That doesn’t mark an end to the work by the researchers, however. They now plan to analyze the entire Sinosauropteryx to attempt to map the coloring across its entire body. That might lend a better insight into whether the colored feathering was designed as a form of camouflage or to make it distinctive enough to attract a mate.
By the way, for those who didn’t notice, a GeeksAreSexy reader kindly shared the lyrics of a song by musician Billy Crockett which deals with a school pupil who disagrees with his teacher about exactly what color a dinosaur should be. In hindsight, the teacher’s arguments no longer appear so convincing!
An Aliens Rap Tribute
From the same guy who produced the Amazing Robocop Rap, here comes a new video paying tribute to yet another masterpiece of geek culture: Aliens!
Facebook… Literally
[Via Gizmodo]