Hasta La Gadget!

If you love playing RPGs, perhaps you’ve imagined what skills and prerequisites you’d need to have in the real world to reach your desired job or level of success. The folks at web development agency 352 Media thought of doing the same thing to their profession and created Dungeons & Developers, an RPG-style skill tree that outlines what you need to learn to become a master web developer.

As with a typical RPG, each icon in the tree represents a skill. The skills involve learning about things like CSS, AJAX & APIs and Advanced DB Management. When you learn a skill, your character gains stats and unlocks more advanced skills. But 352 Media took their geeky project a step further and made it possible so you could actually use the skill tree to help you learn about web development and keep track of your progress while you’re learning. Each skill contains a link to an educational resource such as a tutorial. Your skill tree is tied to a unique URL, so you can bookmark it to save your progress, then check back to see if you’re bound to level up.

Once you’ve learned a skill, simply left click its icon to add a point into it. Right-click on a learned skill to subtract a point. You cheater. Speaking of cheating, Dungeons & Developers also has a god mode. 352 Media says you can unlock 100% completion if you “go old school.”

Head to Dungeons & Developers to check out the skill tree. As a fan of RPGs I can’t help but point out that the tree is misleading. It’s missing a few arrows for the other prerequisites needed to unlock the ultimate skill. It’s no biggie though, just know that all of the skills at the second to the last row need to be learned before you can unlock Web Development Mastery. The earliest you can do that is at level 26, so get grinding!

[via Boing Boing]

Got a few minutes to spare? Then don’t check out Salty Bet, because it will take those minutes and turn them into hours of lost time. Salty Bet runs an endless livestream of computer-controlled matches on M.U.G.E.N., a free and highly customizable fighting game. It has a massive stable of characters from various fighting franchises and then some. Seriously I wouldn’t be surprised if I saw a match between a Betamax tape and my neighbor’s dog.

Yep, that’s Son Gohan from Dragon Ball Z, and he’s up against Shadowcat from Marvel Comics. So far I’ve seen Kuchiki Byakuya of Bleach, Rikuo of Darkstalkers, Jill Valentine and some robot that just turned into a rocket ship and flew away.  And it didn’t come back. Seriously this game is nuts. Don’t believe me? Here you go:

Salty Bet is free to join. If you sign up, you get virtual currency, which can only be used to bet on the matches. It has no other value or purpose. The real benefit of becoming a member is that you can join the website’s chat, which is half of what makes Salty Bet such an addictive time waster because the folks there are as freaked out about the matches as you are.

Salty Bet also has a paid membership with a few fringe perks, but trust me you can lose hours just lurking on the site. The game is hilariously bizarre and unbalanced and the folks on the chat are funny, although their language is indeed salty. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to watch Shuma-Gorath lay the smack down on Link.

[via Pocket Tactics]

I’d say that the chances that you’d ever need a tennis ball with a one foot diameter, a five foot tall toothbrush or a gigantic polymer pickle are pretty slim, but hey- Why not, right?

If you grew up during the time Cabbage Patch Kids dolls were all the rage then you know how really adorable they were. Now your own babies can look that adorable with a Cabbage Patch inspired wigs/hats. These cute crocheted hats are made to order by The Lillie Pad on Etsy. So you can choose the size and yarn color you want for your baby . . . or for yourself.

Brands, brands everywhere! If you’re tired of seeing brands and logos plastered on everything these days, then why not go generic? Chris did and he did it in the most unusual way possible when he threw a generic birthday party for his wife.

Staying true to his 100%-generic theme, Chris put up some boring decorations and balloons and set up some generic games, most of which were done up without color. Now, generic isn’t synonymous with colorless, but I guess Chris just wanted to make everything as basic as possible.

Chris explains: “My wife wanted a run-of-the-mill birthday party. I asked her, ‘So just a generic party?’ This is the result.”

Even the gift is wrapped in generic paper, although I’m pretty sure Chris didn’t go with a completely generic gift on the inside because I’m not sure his wife would be too happy about that.

[via Pleated Jeans via Neatorama]