"Unlike other screenshot services, we are able to process a large number of capturing jobs in parallel and in realtime, making it the fastest service that we know of." Ooh. That could be useful.

"This article provides a simple positive model for preventing XSS using output escaping/encoding properly. While there are a huge number of XSS attack vectors, following a few simple rules can completely defend against this serious attack." Pretty comprehensive, and some clear guidelines if, like me, you're unsure where to start when protecting against XSS.

"Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input." Which is interesting. I know it's only a research project, but it'd be lovely to play with some time.

"Today it feels harder than ever to get the tools to play with science at home and I want to be able to give my son a chemistry set that he would relish getting out to experiment with. One that he could pass on to his younger brother when the time is right. One that will instill the joy of science, exploration and discovery in him. If I can’t buy one then I am going to make one, so this site will record my attempts to put together the best chemistry set a boy or girl could wish for." Smashing.

"Transmission is a fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client." Impressive OSX version, for a multi-platform tool, too. Very pleased with this after Tomato gave up the ghost.

"It's just 4 names, on a t-shirt. Buy it now because you know whats coming and by then, it'll be too late. Good luck." Want, so bad. And the kerning's not a million miles out.

"MagiCal is a FREE menu-based clock and calendar. It features a huge range of configuration options for how the time and date are displayed, and can operate either in conjunction with, or as a replacement for the built in system menu clock." Quite pretty, and makes a nice companion for FuzzyClock.

"The microprinter is an experiment in physical activity streams and notification, using a repurposed receipt printer connected to the web. I use it for things like reminders, notifications, and my day at-a-glance, but anything that can be injected from the web and suits text only, short format messaging, will work." Tom writes up his printer in more detail.

"We’ve recently switched a number of projects to ThinkingSphinx here at Hashrocket. These projects were originally using SOLR or UltraSphinx. Today, we’ll explore the differences between UltraSphinx and ThinkingSphinx and why we chose to switch." Detailed explanation of the advantages of ThinkingSphinx over UltraSphinx or other alternatives.

"Last night I laser-etched the top of my Eee PC with the complete level maps of Super Mario Land ( on the Game Boy)." Just beautiful. (Thanks, Offworld!)

"Compared to a standard web (un)conference where everyone knows their space, expertise and opinions, here lots (most?) of us were exploring stuff outside of our day job and business-as-usual. It was passionate and interesting and I felt completely out of my depth, which was was great. So in 2009, less of the comfort zone stuff please, and more like this." I can get behind that.

"Morph was sometimes supposed to copy Hart's own artistic work, but not perfectly. In this way nervous children were reassured that even their endearing hero Morph could get it wrong, which made them determined to pick up their pens and pencils and other objects and do better… He believed that most of the things he did could be done only [on television]: "I hope that by example, and by humour, children will start to make pictures for themselves. Show them, don't tell them!"" I was terrible at art, and most forms of drawing, but I could watch his hands work all day.

The New Frontiersman is on Flickr. The paperverse is collapsing. (Although: "taken on August 10, 2008" breaks the illusion a little).

Leslie roughly captures a few thoughts I've had and some reasonably opinions. In a nutshell: the social value of tagging is broad, fuzzy, and a second-order effect. As a loose, freeform taxonomy for personal use, they're superb, and delicious captures that excellently. I tag for me; if it's useful for you, that's a nice side effect.

The results are now out. No surprises that Soundless Mountain II wins, but nice to see a late entry from the entertainingly Crush pastiche, "Squish". In Squish, a 2D game gets flattened to a 1D game at the touch of a button! Brilliant.

"I used to scoff at paying a premium for jeans that come with holes in them already. Then I saw just how much work goes into distressing jeans, and I realized that these people are artists."

"The main screen of the application. All operations are performed using this screen." And you can tell, you know. What a UI!

…and then a massive anonymous slagging-match and name-calling session begins in the comments. Some reasonable commentary in amongst a lot of mud-slinging about the state of EALA…

"Take the hassle out of organising football". It's been done before, but perhaps the brand, mobile experience, and quality of product will win out for Nike's team-management app. They showed us the MMO with Nike+; now they're doing guild management for the masses.

"In essence, the in-game physics cooked up by Pure's designers isn't merely a matter of being realistic or unrealistic. The physics is evocative, creating your worldview within the game, and even metaphoric: When you play Pure, you realize that physics is one of the truly artistic elements of an action title." Yes! Spot on, Clive Thompson.

"Well-designed games make us forget the technical impediments to the enjoyment of art, and this is more than half the battle."

Yes.

"KeyCue gives you an instant overview of the overall functionality of any application, plus lets you automatically start working more efficiently by making use of menu shortcuts." Awesome. Really, really awesome. I might well end up registering this.

Jos Buivenga's font foundry, with many free faces (usually in a few weights – other weights are paid-for). Some beautiful stuff in here.

Beautiful, free, sans-serif font. Gorgeous – especially at 900-weight.

"His advice for those attempting a project like this, is to get people who understand the web. DICE hired a web development director, and a web producer. "Without those people, we would have never made it as far as we have," he says. He also recommends a web tech director, which DICE did not need to hire "because we had a team in DICE who were pretty strong."" Excellent article about building games for the online age; the section on the socially-driven BH website is very incisive.

"Bandcamp isn’t Yet Another Place to Put Your Music. We power a site that’s yours. So instead of our logo plastered between banner ads for Sexy Singles Chat, your fans see your design, your music, your name, your URL. You retain all ownership rights, and we just hang out in the background handling the tech stuff." Via Waxy; looks really excellent, and some wonderful stat-gathering tools for bandowners.

You're a little robot. You're also indestructible. Use bombs to bounce yourself around the level, but don't run out. Lovely little flash game.

In which an entertaining man plays a hacked, super-hard Super Mario map, swears at his TV a lot, and still manages to be pretty good at it. It's a nice illustration of the problem-solving process, and it's rather funny. "This is worse than Panic At The Disco. This is worse than Ann Coulter."

"The No Game is a party game with only one real rule."

This looks like it could be interesting/fun; if anything, worth watching as a slightly more attractive option for lifestreaming…

"Sequel Pro is the perfect tool for working with database-driven websites and applications." Leopard-only MySQL management application; forked out of the long-neglected CocoaMySQL.

I need to think on this more; there's a lot of meat in it, and some interesting commentary, but suggesting that "the entire bachelor’s degree in English is all about bullshitting things" I find somewhat insulting. I'm frustrated because it feels like Blow is pushing for people to find the "correct" interpretation, rather than any valid criticism they can back up. Still, there's also some excellent stuff in here, but it's the first thing he's said that's rubbed me the wrong way a little (and I'm not just talking about the 'bullshit' comment).

"The application works by assuming a constant viewing angle (35-45 degrees), typical for when the device is placed on a tabletop. The 3d scene’s perspective is warped using anamorphosis…" Awesome.

"OmniDiskSweeper is a utility for quickly finding and deleting big, useless files and thus making space on your hard disks."

"Mockups feels like you are drawing, but it's digital, so you can tweak and rearrange controls easily, and the end result is much cleaner." Interesting-looking prototyping/wireframing tool.

"The Tinkering School offers an exploratory curriculum designed to help kids – ages 7 to 17 – learn how to build things. By providing a collaborative environment in which to explore basic and advanced building techniques and principles, we strive to create a school where we all learn by fooling around. All activities are hands-on, supervised, and at least partly improvisational." Sounds fantastic.

"What do we sing about, when we sing about the body?" Lovely infographic, ever-so mildly NSFW. Hint: hip-hop talks a lot about bottom.