Steve

I've played some of the games on the iPhone, and a few of them are entertaining enough, but you can't discount the fact that an iPhone (under most circumstances) requires a subscription to use for its primary purpose.

I think that's got to play into this in a major way.

I guess you're mostly joking...

but is this thing really "self aware" in it's truest sense or do you think it's more likely that it's just a very convincing simulation of something that is self aware.

this is assuming that there is even a difference between being self aware and SEEMING self aware. don't really feel like getting into a philosophical conversation :P

I guess I'm not allowed to post HTML... so my links didn't work out.

DS: Bright Star Catalogue
http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=4525

Constellations DS:
http://www.dev-scene.com/NDSNews:2007-06-28_-_Constellations_DS

There are actually two star-chart related titles in the homebrew scene (that I've stumbled across at least)

Neither are what you might call "well-polished".

Ok fine... one of them is barely usable but these guys totally get an "A" for effort!

The first is "DS: Bright Star Catalogue" which is not even remotely what it sounds like. It manages to plot out the brightest of the stars in a non-customizable (observer latitude/longitude) view of the night sky. I couldn't find any sort of search, or indexing capability. There are some very rudimentary controls for panning the stars about on the screen, but otherwise, the suck factor is high. I think that most people, not realizing that you're looking at some sort of astronomy program, would think that your DS is broken and randomly displaying odd pixels.

The second is a bit more refined. It's called Constellations DS, and actually seems to have a menuing system and some customization options. The casual observer will know that you're looking at something totally serious with this one. From only using it for a couple of hours at best, there seems to be a much larger catalog of stars, as well as some other astronomical objects (nebulae, planets, other crap...) In fact, if the developer for this app didn't seemingly drop from the face of the earth some time around june of last year, I'd think that this made the licensed app a total waste of money. Maybe he got hired? Lets hope they didn't "off" him.

Anyway, download them both and check them out:
DS: Bright Star Catalogue

Constellations DS

(if anyone has any better, or updated links for either of those, I'd be happy to hear about it!)

I'm a fan of NitroTracker. I'm waiting for DSOrganize to get cleaned up, but it's got a few features that I use occasionally (light-weight web browser, irc client, to-do list, etc.)

OMG They had DS's 15 years ago??? What the hell was I doing wasting my time with the stupid Gameboy?!?

Also... NitroTracker the homebrew app...

Aside from a potential learning curve, might be an awesome roadtrapplication.

I'm copyrighting that word if it isn't already...

My email was one of those thrown out into the public... and honestly I have yet to see any real negative effect from it.

Can anyone tell me why I should be more upset about that than I am? Does it make a difference that I have the foresight to not give any companies emails where I care if I get spammed or not? Let me know... maybe I'm missing something here.

I sent my disc out... I think I'm going to live through this...

I like to let my kids play electroplankton through the car stereo on car trips. They take turns being the dj!

My son comes up with the craziest stories I've ever read. I'd love to win this for him.