The Daily Nerd (February 20th, 2014)

The Daily Nerd (February 20th, 2014) #

The 30 greatest video games that time forgot

History is not always kind to great games. Titles once heralded as masterworks are often lost as console cycles turn. Alternatively, there are the offbeat outliers completely shunned during their own lifetimes, only to be quietly ransacked by later generations of designers.

Here, we be remember 30 brilliant, idiosyncratic, challenging or just plain weird titles that have been erased from the gaming annals, or at least criminally overlooked. Each one of these did something interesting with gaming, just not interesting enough to be endlessly recalled in misty-eyed retro articles or on otherwise pretty good Charlie Brooker documentaries. What have I forgotten? What crimes against video game nostalgia have I committed? Add your own favourites in the comments section.

Bitcloud: can hackers use bitcoin to replace Facebook and YouTube?

Programmers famously have to balance their technical concepts with the needs of the human beings on which their projects rely. Too often, an engineer’s tunnel-vision means they end up focusing on the stuff that can be fixed, and abstract away the rest. The latest example can be found in Bitcloud, a software project announced breathlessly to Reddit as aiming to “replace YouTube, Dropbox, Facebook, Spotify, ISPs, and more with decentralised apps”.

Mars Rover Solves Doughnut Riddle

What if a rock that looked like a jelly doughnut suddenly appeared on Mars? That’s just what happened in front of Mars rover Opportunity last month. Researchers have since determined that the “doughnut” is a piece of a larger rock broken and moved by the rover’s wheels in early January.

Why People Resist the Notion of Climate Change

One of the most striking features of the climate change ‘debate’ is that it’s no longer a debate. Climate scientists around the world agree that climate change is very real — the Earth is warming up and we are the cause. Yet while there is consensus even among the most reserved climate scientists, a portion of the public persistently disagrees. A recent Pew Research Center — an organization that provides information on demographic trends across the U.S. and the world — survey found that roughly four-in-ten Americans see climate change as a global threat. Climate scientists are racking their brains in an attempt to find out why.