When I first started playing this game, earlier in the year, I was dismayed to find they had placed jetpacks in a weapon slot, preventing you from being able to fly and shoot at the same time. Well, you still can't fly and shoot at the same time, but they've given everyone hands-free jetpacks now so that they are moved out of a weapon slot and assigned to the spacebar. Flying in this game just went from manual to automatic transmission!

Since the market has become virtually flooded with fantasy MMO's, the focus of the gaming community is beginning to move towards the sci-fi end of the spectrum. For years, EVE Online has dominated the sci-fi MMO market, remaining viable for years with a growing loyal fan-base while other aspiring sci-fi MMO's flared briefly before fading away.

However, EVE Online is not a game for everyone, heavily featuring PvP action. I've personally tried playing twice only to have the experience ruined by bored griefers with too much virtual artillery. As a result, I have been on the watch for something new to play, specifically in this genre.

Reviewing the unreleased games that are anticipated, I have selected three that appear to be worth investing some time in, once they are available.

After the jump, I will cover the primary features of interest for each game, detailing exactly why it is worth looking into. In expected order of release, they are Jumpgate Evolution, Earthrise and Infinity.

You could build a truck that ran on biodiesel, contained biodiesel processing equipment, pulled a biodiesel tank, and also sold coffee. It could drive around collecting grounds until it was full, at which point it would drive to a biodiesel consumer community to sell it all before going on another round.

Custom built coffee ground collection containers could be dropped off at each cafe on an established route.

FTA...

If your home is heated by gas and it does not seem to be getting the job done very well as the winter months roll in, you may want to ensure that your hot water line into the heater is open (not to mention the line back into the hot water line, down-stream from the heater).

After being present at a neighbors while a leasing office rep came in to ensure the above was established correctly, I realized the reason that my apartment as been ice-fucking-cold over the past few weeks.

Oh, don't get me wrong, the "heater" was "running"; but that just means the fan was on. Lots of air has been recirculating in my unit for a while now, but absolutely nothing has been getting done to change it's temperature.

I opened the inlet immediately after witnessing the incident, but just now realized I'd left the outlet closed still and corrected THAT deficiency...

Maybe you like it cold, but I may as well be a lizard when it comes to maintaining body heat.

Good luck, and stay warm in there!

I recently had the pleasure of witnessing, first hand, someone "level up" in Photoshop. I have always been a firm believer in the learning process consisting of a series of "plateaus", much like the leveling system for characters in just about ever computer game available these days.

As the ad hoc resident guru on all things computer related, I began with a brief discussion of their current level of understanding. After that, I simply began to demonstrate casual use of the application. By merely watching the way that I worked, she was able to deduce several new abilities and add them to her design repertoire.

It was fascinating to witness, I must say. What I take for granted as habitual casual use of a program contains years of learned responses that can each be correlated to various "abilities" associated with it.

Just like that, after months of struggling to learn the intricacies of Photoshop, she earned a new "plateau" of skills associated with Magic Wands...

Lesson? Don't neglect to stop in and check with your class trainer periodically, else you wind up missing the fundamentals necessary to ply your trade successfully.

Keep reading for a breakdown of the Magic Wand skillset under the Photoshop path specialization of the Designer class. ahem.

By now, everyone is, of course, quite sick of seeing the buxom ads deployed to entice new players for Evony. Being rather burnt out on everything else available on the market, I've been giving it a try. No, there isn't any comely wench in-game, of any sort, that I've found. But, it is free, after all, right..? Right?

Except they nerfed medals...

You can play for free until you get out of newbie-mode by trying to advance beyond Knight, which requires these medals, see?

What does it mean to get "Slashdotted"?

If you have been online for a decent amount of time, you probably know about the news site for geeks called Slashdot.

From this, you may surmise that getting "Slashdotted" involves getting your site linked to in an article on Slashdot, resulting in a significant increase in your site traffic.

You would be correct. Very correct.

You may also surmise that this increase in traffic results in a corresponding increase in sales/leads/etc.

I found an incredibly cool graph illustrating the anticipated future trend of computing, gaming, movies and artificial intelligence. They graph things between Best, Worst and Base Case scenarios, showing a range of just how pleasant or unpleasant things could become. Regardless, it is all inspiring from a technology perspective. Some truly great ideas are listed across the graph; things that I had not previously considered and that the industries affected may not have either. Virtual cinema attendance was one idea that struck me as obvious in retrospect, but predicting the last human produced film and game on such short notice (10 years from now?) is not something that ever occurred to me.

No matter who you are, there is bound to be a few things that spark your interest. I will be using the graph as a repeated inspirational exercise going forward; it's just that cool.

Smartpen's have been around for a while, granted. While they still seem to be tied to specially designed paper for use, Livescribe has come up with a new feature that will really appeal to fellow gadget-philes. Their new Pulse pen includes audio recording and playback.

This may not sound like anything revolutionary, given the vast array of MP3 players/recorders available, but keep reading. The recording feature on the Pulse activates while you are writing with it. The intended use is for instances like during lectures when you may wish to record the lecture itself. With the Pulse, you can record the lecture while you take notes, and the Pulse software associates your notes with the audio recorded when they were written, like a new type of bookmarking.

While some of us pine away for more pragmatic steampunk accessories, such as goggles, the team over at Weta has been building weapons. These are definitely not cheap, starting at just over $1k and going all the way up to $8k for the Unnatural Selector. Each comes in a designed case that further captures the steampunk essense quite nicely. Any one of these would be a great capstone to someone's steampunk collection.

I suppose it would be too much to ask for some adoring fan to gift something from the collection to me. There are a limited number of each weapon available, so it is not likely that you will get a second chance to pick one up, for yourself or for me!