I don’t think I’ve ever played a video game in my life. I won’t give my reasons as I don’t want to offend readers who like them and would disagree with me. To each their own!

But this is one game I really would play: it’s called “HK”, and is in development; in fact, they just got funding. It’s about the stray cats of Hong Kong, and I love the graphics. I don’t even know what the game is really about! I do know it’ll be a while, since the developers are two guys and (they say) their cat. There’s a bit of information here:

But this game is about more than just being a cat. This is about being a cat in Hong Kong. More specifically it’s about being a cat in Kowloon Walled City, a crazily populated area of Hong Kong that is pretty much ungoverned. That’s just an astonishingly interesting high concept for a video game.

Watch their Twitter page and Facebook page for further developments:

This is a message from our CEO Murtaugh : "Moaw, Mllllllo Moew !" ; this means : "we are now funded !" 🙂 #UE4 #indiedev pic.twitter.com/C1lz5eSBLo

— STRAY (@HKdevblog) April 11, 2017

There are more graphics on the “devblog“,

When I was younger, I would invent a game for myself involving a time machine. The rules were these: you were given a time machine, and you could set it to go back to just a single place and time in the history of the Earth, and stay there for 24 hours. You would then be returned to the present. You would be allowed one notebook and pencils, but no cameras, video or otherwise, or recording devices.

And you could do this for two reasons: to answer as many scientific questions as you could by being in one place and time (you were allowed to bring your notebook back), or to simply satisfy your own curiosity.

There was one more provision: you could also specify to be set down in a single area where there were specific things you wanted to see, like a band of Neanderthals or a T. rex, for of course you wouldn’t know where or when you could see them in advance.

I never resolved this question for myself, even to the extent of seeing whether I wanted to answer scientific questions or just see what a T. rex really looked like.

I’m asking readers here (and I hope I’ve been sufficiently specific) this question: where would you want to be taken for 24 hours in your time machine?  Please state your reasons, too. 

I got an email from one Lin Taylor, who pointed me to a swell new quiz that she and a biology friend constructed. I’m not much for games, but this is a good one, because it not only challenges your knowledge of biology but it’s educational in several ways. Here’s her email and the link:

I’m a biologist turned programmer (I took one of Matthew Cobb’s zoology classes at university!) and long-time reader of your blog. A few weeks ago you published a post ‘how many of these weird animals do you know?’:

My friend and I were disappointed that this wasn’t an *actual* quiz, with multiple choice options… so being industrious people, we made one of our own:

It’s populated with 500 species from the Encyclopedia of Life database, so there is a pretty healthy variety of animals and plants in there (I haven’t seen any fungi or slime moulds yet, unfortunately…). We thought you might enjoy playing it.

I did enjoy playing it, and hope you will too. Again, it’s here, and here’s how it works. For any round you can choose between 3 and 5 questions, all at either “easy”, “medium,” or “hard.” With the first two you can have hints (unlimited for “easy”); but no hints for hard.

Your job is to guess the Latin binomial of a pictured species given three choices. For example, below is a “hard” one (not hard for me, as you see, because I recognize the Latin names of all felids!).  And this one is easier than most hard ones.

After each game you can play again, and will get new animals. Try it!

(Lin warns me that if too many people play the game, it could overwhelm the server.)

[JAC note: Matthew told me he’d written this draft post and that I could put it up or not depending on whether I liked it. I decided to post it without seeing it, just for the surprise.  I predict that the balls will all end up at the bottom, but hat do I know?]

by Matthew Cobb

… you tipped a load of plastic balls onto the bottom of an up escalator. Where would they end up? We’re talking lots and lots of balls. Make your prediction and then click on the video. (And yes, I know the people making the video cheat.) This was posted about 30 months ago – the people who made it (Ian McCart) had a website that no longer works. I think it’s some kind of kinetic artwork.

h/t @cotesia1

We all know about this one, and I bet some of you are experts. (I am lousy at stuff like this and never solved my only cube.) Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 40th anniversary of the famous cube invented by Hungarian Erno Rubik, whose name will linger in history longer than any of ours. If you go to the page, and I guess you’d better go soon, you’ll see this, and it will whirl around when you click on it. When it gets big, you can go ahead and solve it. The first reader who does, and sends me a photo, will be honored on this post. (Sorry, no free books or mugs today.)

As Forbes notes:

According to Wired, Google was finally able to create their most sophisticated Doodle yet thanks to the widespread adoption of CSS 3-D Transforms on most web browsers.

“CSS 3-D Transforms lets us display the cube in a 3-D space, as opposed to having a sort of rasterized 2-D experience,” lead engineer Kristopher Hom told the publication. “It makes it feel alive, because as you’re moving your mouse, you can see the cube rotating in 3-D space.”

Here’s  a screenshot of what you’ll see, but click here to solve the puzzle—if you can:

A few more salient facts:

[The invention] was in 1974, in Soviet-controlled Hungary. The architect eventually managed to license the cube to Ideal Toy Corp in 1980. It was originally called the Magic Cube, but was rebranded with the more memorable name we have now.

Since then it’s sold over 350 million units, making it the best-selling toy ever, though it’s not as popular as it once was. The world record for solving the Rubik’s Cube is held by Mats Valk, a Dutch teenager who managed to complete the cube in just 5.55 seconds.

The LEGO Mindstorms-built Cubestormer III robot—powered by a Galaxy S4 smartphone—solved the cube in just 3.25 seconds.

***

UPDATE: Reader Alan R. (see below) solved it; the proof and time taken are below. If you can best it, send me proof.

 Reader Joseph G. sent me a better time this a.m.:

Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the crossword puzzle, but if you go to Google today, you’ll see this:

Which, if you click on it, turns into this:

And you can use your keyboard to fill in the puzzle.

I’ve never been much interested in crosswords, and when I try I’m lousy at them, but some of my friends are addicts, thriving on solving the Saturday New York Times puzzle. According to Aisha Harris at Slate, this one is a bit easier:

They eventually decided that a “legitimate crossword constructor” should be brought on board to help design the doodle, and Tabanao’s first choice was Merl Reagle, long-time creator of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Sunday puzzle. Reagle “appeals to a broad audience,” Tabanao told me. “You know there are some edgier constructors, there’s some constructors that do kind of crazy things with unusual letters … but it seemed like a good fit between Merle’s audience and Google’s audience.”

I’ve been told, and have verified it, that Google UK has a special interactive Google Doodle today honoring the 50th anniversary of the first episode of “Doctor Who”.  (Because it’s also the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, I assume it’s not on the Google US site out of respect.) The doodle is in fact is a game in which you can rack up and post high scores.

I never watched Doctor Who, but I know we have a lot of fans here, so if you’re interested in playing the game, go here and knock yourself out.  (The rules are here).  A screenshot: