Archive for the ‘Web’ tag
Xbox Live Gamercard API
So, got decided to join most of my friends and I got an Xbox 360. Me being me though, I got interested in the way that all the information about your “Gamertag” is stored an accessible on the xbox.com website. Wouldn’t it be fun to do something with this data!
As it turns out, I was beaten to the post by Duncan MacKensie (http://duncanmackenzie.net/Blog/put-up-a-rest-api-for-xbox-gamertag-data) who hosts a webservice to retrieve gamer data from Microsoft. I could find no details about how this service works, where the data comes from or anything! Either he has a relationship with Microsoft, or he scrapes xbox.com but either way, the data seems pretty consistent and reliable. Actually it turns out this information was right there on his website… http://www.duncanmackenzie.net/Blog/if-you-are-wondering-where-i-get-my-xbox-live-info So he gets it as part of his membership to the Xbox Community Developer Program.
However, the webservice is great, and returns XML which is fine, but I thought it would be more useful to me to have a PHP API for this data. So I wrote one which retrieves data from Duncans webservice.
Fantastic Contraption
Oh my god. I can’t believe how addictive this game is. http://fantasticcontraption.com/. The simplicity of it really appeals to me. The idea is to move a pink block from one area on the course to another, and you do so by building a contraption from wheels and connectors. that’s pretty much it!
Doesn’t sound like much, but if you are like me, you’ll not only want to finish all the levels but also go back and experiment with loads of other different ways to finish in the vain hope of finding the perfect solution. A solution that excels by being so simple, or so elegant. So unusual, or so complex. I could play for hours. But I won’t go on for hours.
I will leave you with some of the best contraptions I have managed to come up with, and the first one you should really vote as amazing, because (and I know this sounds a bit arrogant) is ingenious!
- unusual technique! See if you can guess how it works before you start it!
- Minimalistic elegance, perfect timing.
- I saw a solution with more than one spinny thing, but this seemed a cooler solution (notice the pole to slow down the last ball slightly…)
- A cool way to do “The Ball”
That’s all for the moment, but I’m sure I’ll post more contraptions in the future…