Tips for solving Crosswords

Crosswords are very interesting, if you love words. It is a cool way to kill time when you are on the bus, waiting for a plane, OR in a restaurant. Here are few tips you can use to figure out how to solve a puzzle.

• Start with what you know for sure and build from there. Short answers are usually easier to get than longer ones, because the English language doesn’t have many three- and four-letter words, and the same ones tend to appear often in crosswords. This is especially so for words with lots of vowels, like ALE, ARIA, and OLEO
• Remember that a clue and its answer will always be in the same part of speech and generally can be used interchangeably in a sentence with the same meaning.

• If you get stuck, don’t be afraid to guess. But also don’t be afraid to erase an answer that isn’t working out from the crossings.

• If you really get stuck, put the puzzle aside and come back later. It’s amazing how often this trick works. Thinking of one new answer the next time around may be enough to get you off and running again.

• Finally, to answer a question I’m asked all the time: No, it’s not “cheating” to use a reference book or the Internet to get an answer you don’t know. It’s your puzzle. Solve it any way you like!

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Video game industry in 2006 = $13.5 billion!!

 

Reuters - Overall U.S. video game sales rose 18 percent to $13.5 billion in 2006, boosted by new consoles from Sony Corp. and Nintendo Co. Ltd. and titles like “Madden NFL 07″ and “World of Warcraft,” market research firm NPD said on Thursday.

Nvidia to release directx 10 graphics card

Nvidia is expected to announce the world’s first DirectX 10-compliant graphics chip, the GeForce 8800 (codenamed G80), in the middle of November, graphics card makers revealed. However, despite the advantage of early launch, demand for the new graphics processing unit (GPU) will depend on penetration rate of the new Windows Vista OS and availability of new PC games supporting DirectX 10, the makers indicated.
With Shader Model 4.0 support, DirectX 10 will improve visualization and rendering capabilities utilized in PC games, also reducing CPU overhead, according to the makers. It means that game developers will get additional space to make their games more sophisticated, said the makers.
The makers expressed the doubt that ATI’s next-generation R600 chip, which is also expected to support DirectX 10, may appear in the market before 2007. Nevertheless, ATI will continue benefit from its close relationships with Microsoft around the Xbox 360, the makers said.
Since DirectX 10 is positioned as a Vista-only solution, with presumably no ability to work with previous Windows versions, Nvidia’s move to launch the GeForce 8800 in November should rather be considered as a symbolic step, said industry sources. So far, Microsoft only promised that Windows Vista will run DirectX 9.0, allowing to later upgrade it to DirectX 10 via Windows Update, the sources indicated. When Microsoft releases a DirectX 10-capable OS, ATI will perhaps catch up with the competition, the sources added.

It is really a great news but who knows about the price of this stuff, but Microsoft has made Direct X 10 exclusive to Vista so if you want to run it on your XP box you can only use Direct X 9.It is bad in my opinion.I believe it is another Microsoft business tactic

Google Buys Photo Recognition Firm

Google on Tuesday announced it had acquired Neven Vision, a company that develops photo recognition software which is currently used in mobile phones, along with biometric applications by the U.S. government and law enforcement.

This company has about 15 patents to its credit regarding photo recognition,Google plans to use the technology to improve Picasa, its free photo organization application. The program will eventually be able to automatically identify individuals and places in pictures, which will make searching far easier.

Nintendo DS with Opera Browser to be released

The Nintendo DS Opera web browser is set to land on European soil October 6th. In case you don’t remember, the browser used the WiFi connection in the DS to connect to the internet, and both screens to render pages. There’s a special mode in the browser where the top screen shows a zoomed in version of the selected portion of the bottom screen. Very nice implementation for the DS. The only problem is that the performance is a little sluggish, rendering pages in minutes instead of seconds.

Dont know what to write this thing is realy amazing if you have wifi .Opera rocks Nintendo too

Here is an image:

Uncyclopedia:A wikipedia parody imitation

Uncyclopedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit,”It is an encyclopedia whose standards differ from the mainstream encyclopedic style. Uncyclopedia began as a satirical parody of Wikipedia, though Uncyclopedia claims the reverse.The site was launched in January 2005 by Jonathan Huang and an unnamed counterpart (known as ‘Stillwaters’ or ‘Euniana’), and claims to be a project of the “Uncyclomedia Foundation”,a parody of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The original self-proclaimed mission of Uncyclopedia was to provide a Satirical Point of View (SPOV) in the wiki format. However, as the community grew, the content expanded to include many other forms of humour, and a transformation towards the site which is more serious than it seems began. There is no restriction on the kinds of humour allowed; however, all articles are held to a standard of comprehensibility and must appeal to more than just a small group of people.

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