First Base

In our media-enriched world, past and present, SCRABBLE has made a name for itself, whether deliberately, subconsciously, or influentially. You may have a read a book that had the popular word game within a chapter, watched a movie that showed your favorite characters bringing ...more

It’s hard to know where to start talking about a book like 2666. That’s partly because, in some ways, it’s actually five books. Published posthumously, the book begins with “A Note from the Author’s Heirs” explaining that, before his death, Bolano stipulated the book be publis ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! Looking to build an awesome one-way entrance into your base? Why not create an awesome drawbridge so that no one can enter without your permission? This sty ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server! Hey, it's iDwarf bringing you another redstone competition! The last one was fairly successful for being new. As you all know, I will be running these compe ...more

If you’ve never heard of the term search engine optimization or SEO, then your website probably isn’t optimized for search engines and it’s hindering your site’s ability to get all of the traffic that it should. Read on for an explanation of what this entails and how it can he ...more

Social engineering is described as the clever manipulation of the natural tendency of human trust. All of the passwords, locks, and encryption in the entire world are useless against a good social engineer who can charm or trick you into giving it up. But what once started as ...more

Dealing With Stress My senior thesis project is going to be about stress. I want to learn how to educate others (my peers) throughout a web site about stress, what it is, how serious it is and how to deal with it. I will create a Wonder How To account where I am going to upda ...more

WonderHowTo is made up of niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects. First off, thanks to all of our moderators ...more

It's once again Monday, which means it's time to highlight some of the most recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. I also thought we'd take a look at building a model that has appeared in numerous posts. It's the simplest of the intersecting plane mod ...more

Nearly every game takes strategy to win, but when it comes to games like Scrabble and Words with Friends, you've also got to have a lexically inclined mind full of wonderful and weird words. Most start out by learning all of the two-letter words in the Scrabble dictionary, the ...more

Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. While mining is a basic aspect of Minecraft, it is often overlooked. Every adventure requires iron and diamonds and other ore and if you're playing in hardcore mode then you need al ...more

It's Monday, time to highlight some of the community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. One of these posts inspired me so much, I think it merits a closer look. Today, I present a "simple" method for making a golden spiral using just a straight edge, a compass, an ...more

I've been unreasonably excited about Dungeon Defenders (NOT DUNGEON DEFENDER!) for almost a year. Playing it at PAX did nothing to damper that enthusiasm. I had a chance this week to speak with co-founder/development director Jeremy Stieglitz and marketing diretor Philip Asher ...more

D.I.Y.: Start Your Own Cassette Label! By adam_schragin on Aug 4, 2008 at 10:56am in DIY Let’s say you’ve got the itch to start your own label. You’ve got the typeface all picked out, the clever name ready, and an idea of what sort of music you’d like to showcase. What you d ...more

This article details the step-by-step instructions on how you can make a strawberry tower that can be used for your hydroponics/aquaponics system. The water dripping through the system contains the nutrients, so soil is not used. The growing media is expanded shale, but you co ...more

Who could resist a retro SCRABBLE board game for two bucks? Suereal definitely couldn't, especially with the challenge of totally revamping a board game into something genuine and creative. Craftster's Craft Challenge #51 last June was meant to bring life back to an old board ...more

I first heard the term molecular gastronomy while watching an episode of Bravo's Top Chef a few seasons back. Intrigued by the concept, I sought to find out more about this modern, deconstructed type of cookery. If you happen to be around foodies and the topic of molecular gas ...more

Kick Ass Game Review Part 1: Background & Voice Talent There are three parties involved in bringing you The Kick Ass Game: - Wha Entertainment (Publisher) - Marv Entertainment (Role unknown) - Frozen Codebase (Indie Developer) Wha Entertainment is owned by Howard Horowitz. H ...more

Last weekend we had a fun workshop (not the redstone workshop from yesterday) in which a bunch of people got together and built mountains! Well, small mountains, at least. The workshop was only an hour, after all. There are three techniques that you want to consider when cons ...more

Rockets are lots of fun when you are launching them. However, finding them can be an arduous if not maddening task. Fancy space rockets have lots of tracking equipment to make touchdowns as simple as pie. Today, we look at embedding LEDs into your hobby rocket for easy night f ...more

If you’re unfamiliar with League of Legends, you’re either not into PC gaming or you haven’t spent much time on the internet. Riot Games officially released League almost two years ago, and since then it’s become a huge hit. In fact, the Santa Monica based company recently ann ...more

It's only been a few weeks, and already there are a lot of misconceptions and myths floating around Google+. Let's take a deep breath, and tackle some of the more prominent ones. Myth #1: Google+ is Sexist At the onset, many respectable media outlets were reporting that most ...more

Always falling asleep behind the wheel? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that there are over 56,000 sleep-related accidents each year, resulting in 40,000 injuries and 1,550 deaths annually in the United States. Don't want to be a statistic? ...more

Steam has been a game-changer in the PC indie game market over the last eight years, making smaller games available to millions of users at lower prices than ever before. And few times in those eight years have there been as much indie awesomeness on sale for as little money a ...more

Where were you in 1993? Thinking about starting a tech company? Starting elementary school? Awaiting a 1996 Daft Punk party after which you would be conceived? It's been eighteen years, but the game that solidified my dorkdom for good is still coming out with new sets, still f ...more

This tutorial teaches you how to fold an origami mouse with an ordinary sheet of paper. This model is suitable for beginners and children. Origami is great for small kids as the only material needed is paper, no scissors or glue that could do harm! Profile: Design: tradition ...more

A game labeled as 'educational' usually spells its death among hardcore gamers. The educational game genre is mostly intended for children, and games that appeal to children often lack the sort of widespread appeal that makes them commercially successful. Many people play gam ...more

I sometimes play on a survival server where griefing is not only allowed, but almost encouraged. Keeping yourself safe and other on their toes is important. :) So, I came up with this simple TNT + pressure plate trap. I know what you are all thinking at the moment. "Aaaw, no ...more

The Workshop this weekend went of without a hitch! Except that it didn't happen until later at night, The workshop went exceptionally well. Lots of people came out to build in this weeks workshop and here's some nice pictures to help tell the tale! First up (Literally above t ...more

This week, I will be covering one of my favorite styles of roofing in Minecraft—the arched roof. This is basically just a roof that starts out steep and slowly slopes down until it meets in the center. I think this type of roof looks great in Elvish-styled buildings and can ma ...more

The developer community has already made some incredibly quick progress on implementing assemblers, interpreters, and emulators for the proposed virtual computer in 0x10c, Notch's latest game. But the truth is that the majority of programmers out there couldn't be bothered wit ...more

Wireless networks. Nowadays, everyone uses 'em, but most don't secure 'em. On average, I can drive up and down any block in my city and find at least one or two open or semi-open networks on any given day. With some changed MAC addresses for good measure, an attacker can use y ...more

The stair is considered by many people to be one of the, if not the most, versatile blocks in Minecraft. They can completely change the look and feel of a build and increase its quality. In this post, I will highlight just a few of the options you have for using them. The fir ...more

Nikola Tesla. He was the man behind some of the greatest inventions of all time, including radio and alternating current. But perhaps his most visually fascinating invention is the Tesla coil. While maintaining a low current, it can produce dangerous high frequencies and volta ...more

Today I'll be detailing how to use the two YouTube Video Editors to enhance the quality of your work, as well as going over a simple workaround to save time uploading the variety of clips you'll need to assemble a more complicated piece of filmmaking. While the tools YouTube ...more

This is how my version of an origami Christmas tree turned out based on the instructions I posted awhile back. Cory also made a version from white glossy paper, which looks great. I opted for the green and brown look, but it wasn't easy. I tried making a really small version ...more

Math Craft admin Cory Poole posted instructions on How to Make a Cube, Octahedron & Icosahedron from Sonobe Units, plus some great complex models in his article, How to Make a Truncated Icosahedron, Pentakis Dodecahedron & More. These models use the standard sonobe unit and a ...more

How do you show that you love your job? You get "sleeved", like photographer Dabe Alan who has lined his arms with tattoos of all his favorite things in life, with the help of Toledo-based tattoo artist Tony Touch. Every time Dabe visits Toledo, he gets another photography-rel ...more

Andrew Lipson builds sculptures based off of Mathematical objects using standard Lego bricks. He has built models of knots, Mobius strips, Klein bottles, Tori, Hoberman spheres (using Lego technic pieces), and recreations of M.C. Escher works. Below are a few images and brief ...more

Adventure gamers would love to know what was the first adventure game. Well, it was a 1970s computer game titled "Colossal Cave Adventure", also known as "Adventure". Designed by Will Crowther, the game was in FORTRAN and initially had 700 lines of code and data, which was lat ...more

Dungeon Defenders is finally out on the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. We've previously featured the tower defense RPG, and if you haven't had a chance to check out the PAX interview with Trendy Entertainment, now would be a good time. While there have been quite a few PC and indie c ...more