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Making Minecraft Spherical

Blocky Planet is a tech demo I created in the Unity game engine that attempts to map Minecraft’s cubic voxels onto a spherical planet. The planet is procedurally generated and fully destructible, allowing players to place or remove more than 20 different block types. While much of the implementation relies on common techniques you’d expect from your average Kirkland brand Minecraft clone, the spherical structure introduces a number of unique design considerations. This post will focus on these

The Block Stacking Problem

The Block Stacking Problem John D. Norton Department of History and Philosophy of Science University of Pittsburgh https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/jdnorton.html February 21, 2025 1. Introduction In the block stacking problem, a collection of blocks are to be stacked at a table edge. If we stack the blocks so that they protrude past the edge of the table, how far can they go horizontally? The curious and then surprizing result is that we can extend the stack horizontally arbitrarily far.

Linux PC acting up? Here's my first course of action (and why it fixes things most of the time)

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET I've had it happen before. Back when drives consisted of spinning, magnetic platters, that dreaded "tick" was a sure sign a hard drive was failing. Once upon a nightmare scenario, I waited too late and wound up losing everything on my drive. Sure, I could have recovered that data, but at a pretty high monetary cost. Also: The first 5 Linux commands every new user should learn Since then, I've always been vigilant about checking for bad blocks and sectors on hard drives.

Linux PC acting up? Here's my first course of action (and why it fixes things 99% of the time)

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET I've had it happen before. Back when drives consisted of spinning, magnetic platters, that dreaded "tick" was a sure sign a hard drive was failing. Once upon a nightmare scenario, I waited too late and wound up losing everything on my drive. Sure, I could have recovered that data, but at a pretty high monetary cost. Also: The first 5 Linux commands every new user should learn Since then, I've always been vigilant about checking for bad blocks and sectors on hard drives.

How to check for bad blocks on a Linux PC hard drive (and why you shouldn't wait to do it)

Kyle Kucharski/ZDNET I've had it happen before. Back when drives consisted of spinning, magnetic platters, that dreaded "tick" was a sure sign a hard drive was failing. Once upon a nightmare scenario, I waited too late and wound up losing everything on my drive. Sure, I could have recovered that data, but at a pretty high monetary cost. Also: The first 5 Linux commands every new user should learn Since then, I've always been vigilant about checking for bad blocks and sectors on hard drives.

Linux PC acting up? How to check for bad blocks on a hard drive - before it's too late

synthetick / Getty Images I've had it happen before. Back when drives consisted of spinning, magnetic platters, that dreaded "tick" was a sure sign a hard drive was failing. Once upon a nightmare scenario, I waited too late and wound up losing everything on my drive. Sure, I could have recovered that data, but at a pretty high monetary cost. Also: The first 5 Linux commands every new user should learn Since then, I've always been vigilant about checking for bad blocks and sectors on hard driv

Stone blocks from the Lighthouse of Alexandria recovered from seafloor

After centuries underwater, 22 huge stone blocks of the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, have been recovered from the Mediterranean seabed, a breakthrough in an ambitious digital reconstruction effort. Restoration is part of the ongoing “PHAROS” project, led by archaeologist and architect Isabelle Hairy of France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), along with Egypt’s Centre d’Études Alexandrines (CEAlex) under the authority of Egypt’

This 2-Pack of 40W Wall Chargers (USB-C/A) Is Now Just $7 Each, Amazon Launches Early Prime Day Deals

Not all charging blocks are created equal and finding the sweet spot between power, safety, outputs, and price can be tricky. Amazon is hosting some of its most aggressive deals ever leading up to Prime Day so now’s a great time to upgrade your charging kit – and they’re not just for Prime members. One of the best bargains available currently is for a 2-pack of 40W wall charger blocks by MateStar which is now selling at an all-time low price. The normal price on this pack of 2 40W charger block

A different take on S-expressions

[about document] Peculiar kind of S-expressions specification document [intended audience] beginners in programming table of contents 1. introduction S-expressions (Symbolic Expressions) are a fundamental concept in computer science and programming language theory. S-expressions are a simple, yet powerful notation for representing nested list data structures and code in a parenthesized form. They are commonly associated with the Lisp family of programming languages, where they serve both as

Minecraft: Chase the Skies improves graphics, adds Happy Ghast mob

Minecraft is a game about breaking and placing blocks. At first, players built simple structures to protect themselves from nocturnal monsters. But as the game grew, players began working together to create wonderful, imaginative things. It can also be about adventuring with friends or watching the sunrise over a blocky ocean. It's pretty. Brave players battle terrible creatures in The Nether, which is more scary than pretty. Or, if you'd prefer something calmer, you can visit a land of giant m

Simulink (Matlab) Copilot

Before I start - Yes, I know the differential equation in the video is wrong. I’ve already fixed it by tweaking the prompt and the script so the inputs depend on what’s being asked. The original issue was that blocks like Sum were being pasted in without matching the right number of inputs and outputs. I’m a 2nd-year aero-engineering student at Imperial College London, I enjoy problem solving (did BPhO - gold and UKMT Gold) I'm a full-stack dev (or atleast trying to be lol) who hacked together