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The big question is how it would stand up against a super soaker?

Interesting. I wonder if that seemed too racists for us at the time. It was launched here in 1949, with the correct spelling of "Mr Boddy", according to Hasboro's Clue Game History. Or maybe we just appreciate cheesy puns more.

By outright calling Nintendo childish you are neglecting, perhaps on purpose or perhaps through ignorance, things like Metroid Prime and Eternal Darkness, and imperiously discounting things like Zelda: Wind Waker, which despite its appearance is absolutely awesome, and the Pikmin games, which are really cool in a way few other games are. Perhaps you've just been listening to too many XBox fanboys.

It's well known to be riddled full of security holes, it's horrible to maintain or extend, it looks and feels unprofessional, and it falls apart under pressure.

Kids, if you want a real content management system like grown-ups use, you should download Plone. It's high quality free open source software, it works great right out of the box, it's secure, and it cooks a lot better than a 60 watt lightbulb.

-Don

Support the people who are publishing these materials, or don't and let the people who make them go out of business.

Somehow, I'm not worried about Hasbro going out of business.

Personally, I've learned everything I'll ever need to know about medicine by playing Operation

CLUE(tm)

Hear that? That's the sound of Hasbro's lawyer's knocking.

Perhaps they need to contact NERF about getting some safer and healthier weapons developed. They've even got a rail gun prototype weapon.

Perhaps they need to contact NERF about getting some safer and healthier weapons developed. They've even got a rail gun prototype weapon.

Hope they dont see this.

The Monopoly game was created way before W. H. Gates III was born. Maybe Hasbro (owners of the board game) should sue Microsoft for diluting their trademark?

The Scrabble dictionary is a sub-set of the Merriam-Webster dictionary - which doesn't list axa as a word.

Of course it's real.. You can print it yourself and see!

This is basically the same principle as the odd-shaped pieces in your old Spirograph set....

Umm what EZ-bake would you be refering to? The one my sister had used two AA batts.

Umm what EZ-bake would you be refering to? The one my sister had used two AA batts.

Well, Hasbro is trying to appeal to boys too. Check this out.

And this is NOT a joke. Well, OK. Maybe it is. But this is a joke that you can buy in stores. The first time that I saw one in a store, I thought "That is just SOOOOOOO COOOL! It appeals to my baser instincts.

Wish I could mod this up, as it's one of the most insightful posts in here.

It's interesting psychologically how people associate value with things. As another example, in the board game Monopoly during the frequently misunderstood property auction (see official rules), many players are unwilling to bid higher than the printed value of the property on the board. In reality, the value of the property is based on who has the other properties of that color, expected future income, and general strategy, yet people see the number and think "oh ok that's how much this is worth". Odd, but at least predictable and makes it easy to gain the upper hand...

Wish I could mod this up, as it's one of the most insightful posts in here.

It's interesting psychologically how people associate value with things. As another example, in the board game Monopoly during the frequently misunderstood property auction (see official rules), many players are unwilling to bid higher than the printed value of the property on the board. In reality, the value of the property is based on who has the other properties of that color, expected future income, and general strategy, yet people see the number and think "oh ok that's how much this is worth". Odd, but at least predictable and makes it easy to gain the upper hand...

I haven't read anything from Hasbro yet, but this looks like it could be an Alternators Bumblebee. It is yellow, and it does have the little horns. Volkswagen won't license their New Beetle for a new Bumblebee because some kind of anti-weapon stance, so I would think the second choice for a little yellow retro would be the new Mini. Mazda is doing some silmilar marketing with Hasbro and their RX-8

See here. The team got in trouble from Hasbro though. :(

Hasbro has a device called the VideoNow

Sometimes dictionary makers put false words in there to catch competitors stealing their lists.

High rez PDFs of Monopoly money from Hasbro.

http://www.hasbro.com/mrpotatohead/pl/page.wallpap er/dn/default.cfm

Not to threadjack, but has anyone seen those little Tiger/Hasbro VideoNow players that play little 3-inch "Personal Video Discs" with 25 minutes of (say) SpongeBob or the Fairly OddParents, or the like? My sister was in search of one for her kids yesterday and I'd never even heard of the thing before. The player sells for about $30, but since we couldn't find one, I have no idea what quality the video on these things enjoys. Anyone seen or heard of these elsewhere?

Okay, you got me. I am, in fact, a Parker Brother. And, believe it or not, a Has-bro, as we sometimes call ourselves.

Or, actually, I was referring to the fact that rule sets for nearly a hundred games have already been posted, and probably more exist, but so far there aren't thousands of games already created. Of course, the potential is much greater, just as with a deck of cards.

Well, I'd better get back to astroturfing for the BGAA.... did you hear about that new LOTR trilogy Monopoly game? I hear it's the most spectacular one ever!

Taboo is lots of fun, too.

...has uncovered some loss technology your lame post may be interested in. at this url

It's a small 5 button pyramid that requires logic, mathmatic, scientific, and critical thinking to solve all 100 of it's puzzles.

The device will talk during different puzzles, and you have to figure out the solution.

Hasbro has some information about it here: http://www.hasbro.com/nemesisfactor/?CFID=19321184 &CFTOKEN=92808386#

When he mentioned a logo based on the game of life to represent hackers, I immediately thought he meant a logo consisting of a blue car with a single blue peg in it. No pink peg in it, of course...

I miss the good ol' game...

I think it's still being sold... you can be a winner at the game of life! :)

I miss the good ol' game...

I think it's still being sold... you can be a winner at the game of life! :)

You can't be a winner if you've ever played Conway's Game of Life

Yea...I'm pretty much a jerk.

But when they said "the game of life" I instantly thought of the Hasbro Game of Life that I played as a kid. Did anyone else ever sell their family members at the end of the game for extra cash?? Anyone?? Anyo... Maybe I have bigger problems than just not being geek enough.

There's the poster radio with real working controls just printed on the poster. It's over an inch thick though, not a real poster. Oh, and there's a poster phone as well.

Here's an inflatable radio. How is it different from other inflatable radios? Mainly that the controls are printed right on the inflatable surface.

And here's some more boring toys which use the T-Ink technology.

Actually, I'm sort of surprised ThinkGeek hasn't picked up on some of those items...

There's the poster radio with real working controls just printed on the poster. It's over an inch thick though, not a real poster. Oh, and there's a poster phone as well.

Here's an inflatable radio. How is it different from other inflatable radios? Mainly that the controls are printed right on the inflatable surface.

And here's some more boring toys which use the T-Ink technology.

Actually, I'm sort of surprised ThinkGeek hasn't picked up on some of those items...

VIDEONOW discs feature a special proprietary format and will not fit into or play on other media players.

This is an amazing summary of how the corporate world doesn't speak with customers, they speak at customers. Only someone stuck in a corporate mindset would think that missing functionality and vendor lock in was an amazing feature that customers want.

I understand that the product might not be financially viable without these limitations. My problem is that they brazens claim it's a feature. The only people to whom it is a feature is the company itself, certainly not end users.

The VIDEONOW player [has] a black and white LCD screen that features sixteen levels of grayscale, contains 80 by 80 pixels ... resulting in quality picture.

Apparently Hasbro's idea of a "quality picture" doesn't quite match mine.

Limited quality kids versions of audio-visual devices aren't a new idea. Back in the 90s (I believe), there was a kids video camera that recorded black and white onto an ordinary audio cassette. There were also proprietary mini-media that held a single song. None of them did too well since the Real Thing kept dropping in price. They may be fun toys, but they seem too limited. This seems particularlly silly given its limitations, but whatever.

I wish the reverse engineering project the best of luck, it looks like a fun hack! And if you got a Videonow box for your kids, wouldn't it be neat to be able to make home-movie Videonow discs in addition to the ones for sale?

Actually, it's not. At least, not yet. Pixelvision was so great because it was liberating. It was the video version of the portable 4-track tape recorder. It brought the DIY/Garage ethos to movie making.

This thing is all about consuming licensed content ("Collect Them All") from the major media players, as if that's any big surprise. Sure, Zoc_All_Alone is reverse-engineering the file format, but until someone can hack a Mavica to record in that format, I don't think it will be as compelling to fiddle with.

from Playskool (tm) for the look and feel???

Longhorn approved PDA

Longhorn/RIAA approved MP3 player

Longhorn control panel

Longhorn/RIAA approved CD player

And, last but not least, introducing the ALL NEW Longhorn approved WORM..

from Playskool (tm) for the look and feel???

Longhorn approved PDA

Longhorn/RIAA approved MP3 player

Longhorn control panel

Longhorn/RIAA approved CD player

And, last but not least, introducing the ALL NEW Longhorn approved WORM..

from Playskool (tm) for the look and feel???

Longhorn approved PDA

Longhorn/RIAA approved MP3 player

Longhorn control panel

Longhorn/RIAA approved CD player

And, last but not least, introducing the ALL NEW Longhorn approved WORM..

from Playskool (tm) for the look and feel???

Longhorn approved PDA

Longhorn/RIAA approved MP3 player

Longhorn control panel

Longhorn/RIAA approved CD player

And, last but not least, introducing the ALL NEW Longhorn approved WORM..

from Playskool (tm) for the look and feel???

Longhorn approved PDA

Longhorn/RIAA approved MP3 player

Longhorn control panel

Longhorn/RIAA approved CD player

And, last but not least, introducing the ALL NEW Longhorn approved WORM..

I can print all of the money I will ever need.

I've just learned that another headline killing has been linked to video game violence. Douglass Williams, it turns out, was an avid Warcraft III player on Battle.net. So much so that he fell under the delusion that he was a human rifleman infiltrating an orc encampment (the factory) and taking out their peons (his co-workers).

In related news, George W. Bush has been known to enjoy a quality game of Risk...

...beams of light coming out of the case!

Get with it man. That's so 1993. Now modding a G5 to work like the Fuzzy Bumper Buzz Cuts. That would be impressive! :)

... could be possible terorist weapons :)

Well, one of my goals in college was to break the speed of sound with a nerf ball. We hit mach 1.3 with a modified potato gun and the little "ballistic balls". I can assure you, at those speeds a nerf ball is incredibly destructive. I can't even imagine what it would have done to a spacecraft's wing.

If you're wondering how we measured the speed, we used two metal foil strips with current running through them, such that it would generate a square wave when the foils were broken. We captured the signal with a computer soundcard, and just counted the samples to measure the period of the wave.

The WoTC guys were lucky they had jobs "for awhile". When Hasbro took over Avalon Hill, ALL of the talent was let go with no notice!

Actually, this is so interesting that I will try and approach Hasbro about whether they could publish the complete specs for the hardware on board(or if someone from Hasbro reads this, publish it here). Then, if we get the specs, I will publish a "R2D2 new brains challenge", at this site.