A less net-savvy friend who’s a keen poker player asked me to check out a few poker sites and figure out which were likely to be reliable, safe to use and fair. You see lots of ads on British TV for poker sites these days so it’s tempting to assume it must all be well regulated and so on, but in fact there seem to still be a lot of shady sites out there. Having made a shortlist the site that seemed to be to be most above board was PartyPoker.

They have a great reputation, use SSL encryption when you make deposits AND are fully audited by the independant iTech Labs to ensure fair play. As well as sit-down-and-play single-table poker tournaments, PartyPoker also offers a LOT of different tournament play options (check them all out on the site). All the most popular game variants are offered too; Texas Hold ‘Em (of course), Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud and 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo.

Another plus for PartyPoker is that their client software looks very clean and easy to use, again making them ideal for someone new to online poker. If you’re not just a newbie to online poker but the game in general, the site features a very readable and useful introduction to poker theory and tactics and a handy online Hand Analyser to figure out your pre-flop odds.

In short, I reckon if you’re looking for a first online poker destination and don’t want to get ripped off, they’re your best bet.

THE NARDIAH WALL – thousand-section fortress in the fabric of space-time itself…

Last remaining relic of a long-dead aetheric empire, constructed at its farthest frontier to confound forgotten foes.

Now, although some primitive defences remain, astral-dreaming jumpers – the deft – gather to race along its ruined walkways.

Read on for gameplay video and free download for Mac or Windows. (Read More…)

Having had various friends ask me to how to get started with programming, but through circumstance never having had the opportunity to sit down with them and teach them one-to-one, I’ve looked around at various times for a tutorial series that teaches like I would.

Not having been able to find one, I’ve finally got round to writing my own, over at the Bendoverclocking forums.

Godlike Coding is a zero-to-hero series that takes you from rank beginner through to demo effects and games programming. I try and teach code in the same way I would if I was sitting beside you at your PC — which means lively, irreverent, and at times mildly offensive. It’s up to 24 episodes over 3 volumes so far, with my intrepid learners producing some awesome assignment output.

Read on for more pics and healthy self-promotion.

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Kicking off 2010, here’s a new release of Basilar, my C# procedural city-building from-web-pages experiment.

Read on for more pretty pics, video, and binary/source download.

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A coroplast 38″ wingspan delta wing slope soarer for 2-channel elevon control.

Read on for more pics, and all the tasty links you need to make your own.
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Not yer granddad’s RC plane construction. Lithium-polymer batteries and brushless electric motors mean no more noise or messy fuel and allow really miniature construction.

Read on for lots of pics and a video. (Read More…)

This is a fun little project I finished a few evenings ago; a homebrew 500x digital microscope for all your biohacking needs, made from an old webcam found in the trusty junk box.

Read on for a mini-howto and some captured microscopic images. (Read More…)