Ohhhh, new look...

So apparently, Blogger has a new layout look! Although, this could literally be several months old considering I haven't updated this blog in about that long. I'd post a screenshot, but that sounds like a lot of work.

Anyway, it's summer...Several days ago, actually. And I still don't have time to "chill" (as the young people say these days) since I'm just too darn busy studying for the SAT next Saturday...Oh well, things should settle down nicely after that ordeal.

I Hate Tower Defense Games

Yep, I HATE them. I never play them. EVER.

(Lie)

Well, I do find tower defense games a bit tedious and boring, but for some reason, I've gone back to LOVING Bloons Tower Defense. WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?! Well, the fifth one did recently come out, and it's very good. But upgrades take forever, and what's wrong with a nice platformer or RPG?

The problem is, those USED to be good. Games like Rebuild., Fancy Pants, Achievement unlocked....Basically, games I would play more than once. And my favorite game designers don't come out with games regularly anymore; Borne has been working on FP3 for years, and jmtb02 hasn't come out with a major, long game since Elephant Quest.

I was rather disappointed in JayisGames' best of 2011. Some games that won were purely low quality and frankly, rather boring.

Hopefully, 2012 holds better prospects for browser based games.

Bleh

GAAAHHHH

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(I will eventually)

Just how crazy IS China?

New images from Google Maps shows odd unidentifiable structures being built in the middle of the Gobi desert.

No one seems to have any sort of definite explanation for what these are, but current theories range from China's version of Area 51 to a clever hacker playing a prank.

According to Gizmodo, the first is a set of what appears to be metallic tracks located north of the Shule River, and is approximately 1 mile long by over 3000 feet wide. Check it out.

This looks like some sort of electrical station or radio station. Investigate here.

Some sort of target? Here.

This looks kind of like an airport, with either water or some weird blue stuff next to it.

This is some huge complex, if you zoom in, you'll find cooling towers and water treatment plants.

The Southwest Research Institute has discovered that the solar systems may have lost a giant gas planet several million years ago.
Astronomer David Nesvorny managed to learn some secrets of the past of the solar system by looking at the Kuiper belt and the craters on the Earth's moon. He discovered a "dynamic instability" that may suggest a planet had once existed 600 million years ago between Mars and Jupiter.
There were several alternative scenarios to explain this instability, however, each held flaws that couldn't be solved through the application of the current solar system. Therefore, another giant planet of a size like Uranus or Neptune may help solve these flaws. By adding this new mass, the simulations of the solar system during that time period actually adds up.
“The possibility that the solar system had more than four giant planets initially, and ejected some, appears to be conceivable in view of the recent discovery of a large number of free-floating planets in interstellar space, indicating the planet ejection process could be a common occurrence,” Nesvorny said.
If you have any idea of the location of this theoretical, anonymous planet, feel free to contact the Southwest Research institute.

How to Break Into Windows (And Prevent It)

One of the biggest concerns in this digital age is the age old problem of security. There are some VERY simple ways of getting into a locked computer, and it's not just trying the user's birthday either.
Luckily, preventing such attacks on your own computer is almost just as easy. In this special 2-part edition, I'll be describing easy ways to hack and prevent hacking into Windows and Macs. Obviously, I'm beginning with Windows. And yeah, you can use these methods for innocent purposes (like getting into your computer if you forget the password) too.

The Sloth Way: Copying the Files Using Linux
This is probably the easiest, laziest way to get at someone's files. Just burn a live copy of Linux (Such as Ubuntu) onto a CD, and stick it in the computer you want. Pick the trial option, which should take you to the desktop. From there, you can basically just copy all the windows files from the Places menu.
Protect Yourself: Encrypt your OS--A malicious user can't access any encrypted files.

The Sly Way: Reset Password with System Rescue
This way requires a bit of command work. However, if you need to access the OS itself, using the Linux-based system rescue CD is the best way, as it allows you to reset the password. It should cause you any problems if you follow these instructions line by line.
Protect Yourself: Again, this is basically useless for encrypted files.

The Blunt Way: Crack the Password
No, don't look around for sticky-notes which very conveniently have passwords written on them, and yeah, no one really uses their birthday, their name, or "password." There are plenty of programs for cracking passwords, Ophcrack may be the best. Again, there's a line-by-line here.
Protect Yourself： Since this program just gets the passwords for you, encryption won't help here. But you can stump Ophcrack by making your passwords longer than 14 characters, and really complicated. But remember, a password doesn't have to be hard to remember to be hard to crack.

It'll make student essays harder to read, but that doesn't make it any less awesome.

Ludvig Bruneau Rossow, a Norwegian graphic designer, one day decided to take it upon himself to make a font from railway models. He created every letter of the alphabet from an old train set found in his grandmother's basement. Unfortunately, he did not manage to make any of the punctuation or other subsets.