ascii

The 404 906: Where Qwikster delivers the booty (podcast)

Happy birthday to the emoticon, invented 29 years ago today on a computer-science bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University. Thanks for making parents around the world feel tech-savvy. :)

Before we get into the important Netflix news of of the day, Jeff tells us about his weekend experience at "Sleep No More," an interactive theater experience in New York that's loosely based on the Macbeth story--with a creepy twist. The plot plays out in various acts throughout a three-story abandoned warehouse in Chelsea, so tune in to hear more spoiler-free details and reserve your tickets here!

Next we'll get into the Netflix mea culpa delivered by e-mail and blog post this morning that's giving current Netflix subscribers even more reasons to moan about the recent price hike.

CEO Reed Hastings announced that the company will soon split in two, with the name of the DVD mail rental service changing to Qwikster (not to be confused with Quixtar, QuickStar, Kwikster, Quickster, or Quik-Star), while the video-streaming arm will retain the Netflix name and Web address.

We'll also talk today about a satellite plunging from space, a group of scientists that are poaching PS3 gamers to help find a cure for AIDS, and the last single-space parking meter disappearing in Manhattan today.

The 404 Digest for Episode 906

The emoticon was invented 29 years ago today. Netflix CEO: " I slid into arrogance." PS3 users are helping to find a cure for AIDS. A satellite loosely based on "Donnie Darko" is coming to Earth. World's largest sperm bank refusing donations from redheads. Iguana Fart.

Episode 906 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Word up

The creator of VerMan's Art Converter admits in the program's documentation that he created the program to impress a girl (and to practice his C+ skills). The girl wasn't impressed, but we were, at least to some extent. In terms of useful software, VerMan's Art Converter ranks pretty low on the list, but if you want to play around with word art, it's worth checking out.

The program has a plain interface that's easy to navigate, as each step in the process is outlined for you. First, select the image you want to work … Read more

Confusing ASCII editor

ASCII Art Marker lets users convert existing images into ASCII and create freehand ASCII images. We wish we could tell you more about it, but the sparse interface makes it hard to get a handle on exactly what else the program does.

The program's interface is basic--too basic. Our first instinct was to open the Help file, because we weren't sure how the program worked. Unfortunately, although there is a Help menu, when we tried to open it nothing happened. So we had to try to figure things out on our own. We started with the ASCII Editor, … Read more

ASCII: An artful way around spam filters

An old computer art form is making a comeback as a newer way to evade spam filters.

For decades, computing fans have enjoyed a form of expression called ASCII art that shows pictures or messages as a low-resolution graphic, a grid made of numerous computer characters encoded with the venerable ASCII standard. With a photo digitized with ASCII art, for example, the "#" character can represent a dark pixel and "." a light pixel. And there are large fonts constructed from an assemblage of individual characters.

Now the technique has surfaced as a way to transmit information that'… Read more

Google: Unicode conquers ASCII on the Web

I picture it happening this way. The Roman alphabet is on the run, pursued by a much larger army of Arabic characters with long scimitar-like ligatures, Chinese characters that look like throwing stars, and European peasant letters bristling with umlauts, cedillas, and tildes.

Unicode has overtaken ASCII as the most popular character encoding scheme on the World Wide Web, Mark Davis, Google's senior international software architect, said in a blog post. Also vanquished at almost exactly the same time was the Western European encoding.

Unicode is a character encoding standard that gracefully accommodates dozens of languages as well as … Read more

Gadgettes 83: The Cool Concept Episode

Let us quit beating around the bush and accept that sometimes a cool concept is good enough. So expect these concepts to become reality sometime in the flying-car future. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 83

Good concept: Footlume runs lights up your steps http://dvice.com/archives/2008/03/footlume_run_li.php

Toilet-mounted washing machine for less water wastage http://www.shinyshiny.tv/2008/03/toiletmounted_w.html

ApriPoko: a robotic universal remote that has a question http://dvice.com/archives/2008/03/apripoko_a_robo.php

ASCII curtains let you get geeky with home decor http://www.popgadget.net/2008/03/get_geeky_with.php… Read more

Weekend Webware: Turn pictures into letters with Ascii Cam

Check out the Amazing Instant ASCII Cam.

There's no use for this that I can see, but it's fun if you're old enough to remember printing out ASCII artwork on yellow ASR-33 roll paper. This modern ASCII portrait generator uses your Webcam to make a live image of your mug.

The dancing letters are a little Matrix-y, which is cool, but I couldn't find a way to redirect the output to a videoconferencing program, so it's a bit of a solitary experience.

See also: Fix8 (review).

Via: Delicious.

Happy 20th birthday, 'NetHack'!

One of the biggest games you've never heard of is celebrating its 20th birthday this month. On July 28, 1987, Mike Stephenson released NetHack, a text-based RPG that would become one of the most influential open-source computer games ever coded. While the game itself wasn't new or unique, (it was based off of previous games like Rogue and Hack, that spawned the genre of "Roguelikes"), its development and license makes it an influential part of the annals of gaming history.

NetHack was one of the first games to adopt the open-source General Public License, a software … Read more