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'Super Mario Kart' Wii U eShop Review: The Best Video Game Ever Made, Still, Forever

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Super Mario Kart (SNES) is out now for the Wii U Virtual Console for 5.49.

Reviews are not objective. So let's get this out of the way. This is a personal opinion, but I do not think 'Super Mario Kart' is one of the best video games ever made.

I think it is the best game ever made.

Now, there are lots of great video games and for lots of different reasons. Some games are classics because they contain a single genius idea which pops out of nowhere and hooks in your brain like a virus. (Tetris, for instance.) Other games achieve greatness through generating atmosphere (Doom) or emotional resonance (The Last Of Us), or by making you rethink how the world inside and outside your computer fits together (SimCity, or Minecraft).

Super Mario Kart doesn't rely on any of those. At its heart, it is a simplistic racing game, with cute characters, and weapons, and a relatively shallow difficulty curve which punishes mistakes with the cruelty of an irrational deity, and rarely rewards genuine skill except in multiplayer. That's it. On paper, it shouldn't have worked.

But it did. Because Super Mario Kart had a Red Shell of its own: tuning.

Super Mario Kart is tuned like a Stradivarius before opening night at the Albert Hall.

You can feel the nuance, and balance, and thought, in every nanosecond of gameplay. This video game was made by a genius.

It's in the way your acceleration builds, quickly at first, then slowly, slowly, all through the race, to a crescendo of momentum, and how each touch on the brakes feels like a failure. It is contained in how the powerslides provide just enough give to stay on course even on the harshest corners, and in the perfect balance of the weapon and items, the sudden shock of the speed arrows and the juddering thump of a mistimed slam into the walls. It's in the game's famed ability to keep you in the race even when you're in eight place on the final lap, and the almost coma-inducingly perfect way the camera spins around 180 degrees the instant you pass the finishing line.

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'Super Mario Kart' Wii U eShop Review: The Best Video Game Ever Made, Still, Forever

Super Readers

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INDIANAPOLIS Growing up, Indianapolis Colts tight end Dwayne Allen said he didnt have anyone who pushed him to read. But now, Allen is aiming to be that voice to Hoosiers of all ages by working with the Indianapolis Public Library to promote reading.

Recently, Allen initiated the Super Read Challenge, which encouraged residents to read throughout the month of February for a chance to win 2014-15 Colts season tickets.

A presentation in the Central Librarys West Reading Room Thursday marked the culmination of the challenge, as library officials and Allen announced that the winner was Indianapolis resident Melanie Ohlsen.

Indianapolis Public Library CEO Jackie Nytes gave everyone a background of the reading program.

We have had a great relationship with all of our professional sports teams here in our city, Nytes said. Since Colts player Dwayne Allens rookie season, he has been a real leader in that relationship that weve had. This is not his first visit to Central Library at all hes absolutely earned his library stripes. In fact, it was determined just a few weeks back, he is an official storyteller. We think we have room for him in our ranks if he ever gets tired of football.

Nytes said the idea behind the program was to promote reading throughout Black History Month especially books that had Black History and Civil Rights themes.

In an attempt to motivate Indianapolis residents to do a little bit more reading, he was the one who dreamed up this challenge to win Colts tickets, Nytes said. We spend a lot of time trying to think of contest ideas and ways to get people into the library. It is really thrilling when someone like Dwayne calls up and says Ive got an idea. That is just the neatest thing in the whole world. The community really responded.

In that one month Nytes said 38,072 children and adults took part in the Super Reading Challenge, checking out a total of 283,023 books.

To pick a winner, Nytes said each book that was checked out was given a number and then at the end of the challenge a computer randomly picked out the winning number, which happened to be Olsen.

Olsen said she had checked out The Invention of Wings by Sue Kidd Monk, an Oprah Book Club selection about two women linked by the horrors of slavery.

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Super Readers

Bolaris: Super cyclone will graze Philly

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The very latest models indicate that a storm now slowly developing along the Southeast coast will move generally northeastward and "bomb," or rapidly intensify, into a super Western Atlantic cyclone by very late tonight.

Luckily all the major cities from Washington, D.C. to Philly to New York City & possibly even Boston look to avoid any heavy snow accumulations.

But coastal sections of New Jersey, and central and southern Delaware stand an increasing chance of heavier snow amounts, perhaps in a few places exceeding 4 inches.

The capes of New England have blizzard watches posted and will be dealing with a dangerous and very powerful storm with winds in excess of 50mph and snows of 6-12 inches depending on the storm's exact placement.

The set-up

The storm, now slowly developing along the Southeast coast, will merge with some very explosive energy diving down into the base of an energized trough, which will phase the Northern and Southern Jet energy (bring them together as one powerful jet) at the same time the trough (deep atmospheric valley in the East which enhances storm development) will take on a negative tilt (as the trough valley actually tilts back toward the coast). This will act as the final explosive mechanism allowing for a super cyclone to form.

Latest computer guidance keeps this storm far enough off the Northeast coast to limit its impact in the Philly region.

But with that being said, as this storm begins its transition into a superstorm, an enhancement of snow growth should start to take place along the Southeast coast of New Jersey, especially Cape May County and central and southern Delaware, south of Dover.

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Bolaris: Super cyclone will graze Philly

Computer Scientists & Multidisciplinary Team Receive Grant to Build Faster, More Efficient Supercomputer Prototype

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Newswise The National Science Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to researchers at Texas Tech University to develop a new supercomputer prototype that could lead to more efficient data-intensive computing - and speed-up the scientific discovery cycle.

Yong Chen, assistant professor of computer science and Director of Data-Intensive Scalable Computing Laboratory at Texas Tech University, is leading a team of researchers in a project titled, Development of a Data-Intensive Scalable Computing Instrument (DISCI) for High Performance Computing.

High performance computers traditionally are designed for computation-intensive problems, Chen said. They are not a good fit for the increasingly important data-intensive applications.

Imagine trying to use a 35 year old computer to perform modern day tasks, such as streaming a movie. It would be impossible because that particular device was only meant for computations.

In computing technology, advancement in software has always lagged behind hardware, said Rattikorn Hewett, department chair and professor of computer science. Just like having a modern home running an old plumbing system, sophisticated high performance computers alone cant perform well without advanced mechanisms for Data movement and Data access. Dr. Chens project attempts to unlock this problem with software solutions that would potentially have great impacts on anyone who uses data intensively.

Chen says existing supercomputers experience comparable behavior, but on a much larger scale, for many data-intensive scientific and enterprise computing problems.

Data generation has become so cheap and so easy, Chen said. Almost everyone has a smartphone capable of taking pictures or video. Gene sequencers have never been so cheap. The proliferation of sensors, embedded devices and mobile devices has led to data generation easier than never before. The problem comes with data storage, retrieval and utilization.

The teams goal is to create a supercomputer that will enable academic departments, cross-disciplinary units and collaborators to analyze and utilize their data, and put them to use with accuracy, speed and efficiency.

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Computer Scientists & Multidisciplinary Team Receive Grant to Build Faster, More Efficient Supercomputer Prototype

Former Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl took his computer home, returned it later

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City officials turned over to the FBI a city-owned desktop computer that belonged to former Mayor Luke Ravenstahl after Mayor Bill Peduto's office learned the former mayor took it with him when he left office and held onto it for several days.

The mayor's office initially reported to the FBI that the computer was missing on Jan. 10, four days after Mr. Peduto took office. When it was returned, it was promptly turned over to federal authorities, said the mayor's chief of staff Kevin Acklin.

The FBI declined comment.

Mr. Ravenstahl referred comment to his attorney, Charles Porter, who said the former mayor took the computer because he was concerned the Peduto administration would move in, hide it and then concoct a story about it going missing.

"He didn't trust the administration, so he thought it prudent" to take the computer with him, Mr. Porter said, "so that people couldn't claim any derogatory things about him."

Mr. Porter said he does not believe there is any reason the city should have alerted the FBI because he said the matter does not involve any federal jurisdiction.

Mr. Acklin said the administration decided to contact the FBI because of the continuing federal probe into city business, which last year resulted in the indictment of former police chief Nate Harper. Later, Mr. Ravenstahl's chief of staff, secretary, police bodyguards and two female acquaintances were called before the FBI.

"There is an ongoing federal investigation," Mr. Acklin said. "When we found that city property was missing -- including the mayor's computer -- we felt obligated to contact the lead agency."

The machine was discovered missing when technicians from City Information Systems went to the mayor's suite on Jan. 9 to install a new computer for Mr. Peduto. A monitor, keyboard, mouse and loose wiring remained at the desk. But the computer was nowhere to be found.

A CIS employee called Mr. Ravenstahl and left a message with him inquiring about the computer. The following day, a Peduto administration official called the FBI to report the computer missing.

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Former Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl took his computer home, returned it later

Graphene Contact Lenses With Infrared Sight? Super-Thin Heat Vision Technology Is Every 'RoboCop' Fan's Dream

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Its developers say the technology could one day give people super-human vision and is particularly relevant for use by the military.

"If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision," Zhaohui Zhong, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the university, said in a statement. "It provides you another way of interacting with your environment."

One major hurdle Zhong and his team had to clear was creating a heat-vision device that functioned at room temperature. CBS News notes that other infrared detectors get hot and require bulky cooling systems. The University of Michigan design does away with such equipment because of the use of ultra-thin graphene.

According to the study, published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the infrared technology includes an insulating layer inserted between two sheets of graphene that are just one atom thick. Graphene, which is basically a single layer of carbon atoms densely packed in a honeycomb-lattice shape, can sense the whole infrared spectrum.

"We can make the entire design super-thin," Zhong said. "It can be stacked on a contact lens or integrated with a cell phone."

Theres just one setback. A single graphene layer only absorbs about 2.3 percent of light that hits it. Researchers were able to tinker with the graphenes electron-generating abilities to amplify this effect.

"Our work pioneered a new way to detect light," Zhong said. "We envision that people will be able to adopt this same mechanism in other material and device platforms."

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Graphene Contact Lenses With Infrared Sight? Super-Thin Heat Vision Technology Is Every 'RoboCop' Fan's Dream

Revealed by computer! The 2014 Premier League champions will be

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The Premier League title race could yet be won by any of the top four, with the weekend's results reducing Chelsea's lead to four points.

The chasing pack all have games in hand on the Blues, while the fixture list means Arsenal and Liverpool both play Jose Mourinho's side, while Man City must travel to the Gunners and Anfield.

It all means that all four can dream of title glory, but who will come out on top?

We asked the football stats experts at Bloomberg Sports to crunch the numbers in their super computer, which uses a complex algorithm to predict sporting outcomes.

They have calculated that City stand a 38.8 per cent chance of coming out on top, making them favourites ahead of Chelsea.

The Blues have a 34.7 per cent of winning the title, according to the Bloomberg calculations, while Liverpool are third with a 19.1 per cent opportunity, leaving Arsenal fourth with a 7.4 per cent chance of winning the league.

According to Bloomberg Sports' calculations at this stage, the title race should go down to the wire between Man City and Chelsea.

Rounding up or down the points totals they have calculated, City would finish top with 84 points, ahead of Chelsea on 83, with Liverpool third on 81 and Arsenal on 79

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Revealed by computer! The 2014 Premier League champions will be

Super Joey Makes Dish Hopper a TV Junkie's Delight

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With eight tuners, a full day's worth of content can be recorded in just a single prime time block. Picture quality across eight recordings was fine. I was worried that as I recorded more, the quality would suffer, but that wasn't the case. In side-by-side comparisons with content recorded on the cable box, I sometimes reached for the wrong remote, as I couldn't tell which source I was watching.

How do you make Dish Network's Hopper HD-DVR system even better? That's easy -- you supersize it.

Introduced earlier this year at CES, Super Joey has officially arrived, and for TV fans it more than lives up to its "super" moniker. Utilizing the same Hopper and Sling technology as previous versions, it now increases the recording power.

The Joey units, basically room extenders to the Dish set-top box, allow viewers to watch live or recorded TV around the house. The catch was Dish could only -- yes only -- allow viewers to record or view six programs at the same time.

That might not seem like a problem, but it could become one if users opted to use the PrimeTime Anytime functionality every night. This feature automatically records the prime time content from ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC.

As I noted in my original review of the Dish Hopper with Sling, PrimeTime Anytime was enough to make TV junkies jump -- or hop -- for joy. With PrimeTime Anytime, there are no show subscriptions to manage, and should you hear good things about that new drama you skipped the night before you are covered -- as long as it aired on one of the aforementioned nets.

The downside to PrimeTime Anytime is that it eats up four of the six tuners in the set-top box. That suddenly robust looking "six" recording options dwindles to two, and that could be a problem if you want to watch something different on more than two TVs.

Of course, if you agree with former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Netwon N. Minow that the networks are a "vast wasteland," than you'd still have six tuners to record exactly what you want. However, as network TV does have a lot to offer, it isn't hard to see why this feature usually should be kept on, just in case.

The other benefit it provides is that by recording everything on, say, NBC you need not worry about the final seconds of a program being cut off if it runs long -- you've recorded the full evening.

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Super Joey Makes Dish Hopper a TV Junkie's Delight

MIT's super-speedy robot fish makes flashy escape

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Researchers have created a "soft" robofish powered by carbon dioxide that can swim around on its own and execute a critical escape maneuver just as fast as a real fish.

MIT's Andrew Marchese and Daniela Rus put the soft silicone rubber outer skin on their robotic fish. The rubber was cast in a 3D-printed mold.

Some robot fish we've seen wouldn't be able to escape a predator if their fins depended on it.

Enter the new fish-shaped "soft robot" developed by Andrew Marchese, a graduate student in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. It can execute an escape maneuver called a "C-turn" in about 100 milliseconds, matching the speed of fish in the wild. Such swiftness is one of the things that most sets this robofish apart.

Soft robots are machines that have gushy exteriors and move around through the use of fluids or gases pumping through vein-like internal tubes. They're of interest because they don't hurt when they bump into people (nor do they scratch the furniture). "We're excited about soft robots for a variety of reasons," Daniela Rus, one of the researchers who designed and built the fish, said in a statement. "As robots penetrate the physical world and start interacting with people more and more, it's much easier to make robots safe if their bodies are so wonderfully soft that there's no danger if they whack you."

Like a robot fish to water...

The fact that the fish can perform an escape maneuver "is really important for the field of soft robotics," Marchese said in the below MIT video about the invention. "It shows that soft robots can be both self-contained and capable of high performance. The maneuver is so fast and it's got such high body curvature that it shows soft robots might be more capable than hard robots in some tasks."

The robofish consists of a hard control module that stores the electronics and a carbon dioxide canister in its head and abdomen. From here, two inflatable tubes travel down each side of the fish to its tail. These tubes have nozzles that feed them carbon dioxide. The opening of the nozzle controls how fast the fish moves, while the amount of tube inflation controls the angle at which the fish changes direction. The electronics module also contains a receiver that allows it to be controlled wirelessly, and the entire robot is covered in soft, waterproof silicone rubber made from a 3D-printed mold.

The novel gas-though-tube-controlled movement differs from other robotic fish we've seen, like the one invented at the U.K's University of Bath, which moved thanks to an undulating fin on its underside.

Rus, director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, said a normal robot with hinged joints couldn't possibly move so fast and that the unique propelling mechanism of the robofish -- inflating and deflating internal tubes with carbon dioxide -- gives it a distinct advantage over its land-dwelling clunky cousins. "The fact that the body deforms continuously gives these machines an infinite range of configurations, and this is not achievable with machines that are hinged," she said.

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MIT's super-speedy robot fish makes flashy escape

Hemric poised for Southern Super Series title defense at Rattler 250

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KINSTON, AL - After teaming up with Jake and Deanna Carswells Carswell Motorsports for the inaugural season of the Southern Super Series presented by Sunoco in 2013, Daniel Hemric made every finish count by winning the series title by just one point over Georgias Bubba Pollard.

Even before starting his run towards a second SSS title on March 16 at the 38th annual Hardee's Rattler 250 at South Alabama Speedway in Kinston, AL, Hemric has already had an impressive start to the 2014 season. The 23-year-old from Kannapolis, NC recently scored a pair of PASS South Super Late Model events in South Carolina.

Now as the 2014 Southern Super Series season gets ramped up with the Rattler at South Alabama, Hemric hopes to carry the early-season momentum towards a second Southern Super Series championship.

Its good for the teams mojo, said Hemric of his hot start to 2014. It really gives everybody something to be excited about, especially coming off wins and good runs. Its getting everybody pumped to start the actual series that were going to be running in this year. So Im definitely excited about it, especially coming off the championship last year. Everybodys spirits are high and Im just looking forward to getting down there and getting the season started.

Kicking off the season at South Alabama Speedway this weekened, Hemric knows the No. 98 team will have to make every lap count and hope to start the season off on the right foot in the 250-lap event.

Were really going to try to start the same as we did last year by putting together a string of a couple good finishes," said Hemric. "You dont want to say youre going to points race before you ever even get started, but everything matters, especially early on. It really sets the tone for the season. Were going to try to come out of the box as hard and as fast as we can to try to rack up points early in the year and hopefully well be there when it matters.

Not only will the Hardees Rattler 250 be the Southern Super Series' first trip to the Alabama track, but it will be Hemrics first run in a Super Late Model at the 4/10-mile oval as well.

I ran there with Jeff Fultz about four or five years ago in a Pro Late Model, said Hemric. But this trip will be my first go at it in a Super. Every year Ive had to sit at home on the computer and watch it so Im excited to be a part of it this year.

After finding success in 2013, Hemric and the Carswell Motorsports team will not make any changes for the 2014 season.

Were still working with the same team right now, said Hemric. Everybody is just pulling together to make one big family again and hopefully we will get the same results.

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Hemric poised for Southern Super Series title defense at Rattler 250


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