Civ4 poll from Firaxis

Firaxis is looking for feedback on Civ 4 with this poll. It's a good chance to ask for features in an expansion pack, but it's even a better chance to point out that the game still needs patches to fix the many bugs in the game.

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GROW ORNAMENT ver.0 Flash Game Planet___EYEZMAZE

GROW ORNAMENT ver.0 Flash Game Planet___EYEZMAZE

Huzzah! Finally a grow where I could find the solution easily.


Spolier Alert!


The solution is gifts hearts, cloud, lights, garlands then star.

Nintendo Recovery Centre

Nintendo has launched the website that ties-in to their Canadian advertising campaign (hence it's "centre" and not "center"). You may remember a while back the mouse-maze tv ad for the GB Micro posted to Digg from this campaign. Yes, it is advertising, but it's very amusing advertising that many out there may not otherwise see.

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Nintendo will replace buggy Pokemon Blue Rescue Force

It turns out that the new Pokemon has a nasty bug, and so quite unlike every other games company, Nintendo will freely replace this game with a new version that has the bug fixed. Huzzah for Ninendo's customer service!

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White or Red with Kraft Dinner?

Is it white or red wine with Kraft Dinner?

It is a pasta with a cheese sauce, so logic would indicate that it should be a white wine. But, the accompnying wine should have a peppery bouquet to compliment the Kraft Dinner taste, which suggests a red wine. I'm confused.

Civ IV Patch finally available!

OK, it's not on the website yet, but you can use the 'Check for updates' on the Advanced menu to get it. Download the patch and pray this fixes many of the bugs in this otherwise fabulous game.

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IT Conversations: Robert Lefkowitz - The Semasiology of Open Source (Part 2)

IT Conversations: Robert Lefkowitz - The Semasiology of Open Source (Part 2)

About 9 minutes into this presentation, Lefkowitz talks about literate programming, a critically important coding philosophy.

The Music of Civilization IV

Wow, it just sunk in for me just how amazing the soundtrack for Cvilization IV is.

After playing awhile, I started to recognise some of the music that was woven into the background music. Then, I started recognising a lot of the music. So, I decided to hunt in the program's directories to see if the music was accessible; it is.

It turns out that all the music are just regular mp3 files, and there's a lot of them. Some of the music pieces are original comppsitions, but most is selected pieces representative of the great works over many musical eras. There's Bach, Brahms, Dvorak, Palestrina, Mozart, &c (no Schubert?) and the treatment of each is quite excellent.

Thus, there's a new batch of 75 mp3 files running through my iTunes library. Not a bad little bonus that comes with the game.

Silver Springs

Silver Springs Panorama, originally uploaded by smithco.

I have a set of photos from a walk down the ravine in Silver Springs. This is the ravine in which the natural springs that our community takes its name from are.

Despite the warm weather, there was already snow coverings and ice formations in the shaded areas at the bottom of the ravine. And the combination of the snow melt and the natural springs sure had the falls and streams flowing strongly.

(link to the photo set)

Play me on Mario Kart DS

My friend code for Mario Kart DS is 313592195617. Enter it to you cart, share yours with me and look for me on the race tracks.