January 2009
21 posts
Five by Five Things About Me
Fears & Delusions:
When I was fairly young, I read physics books voraciously. Most were above my level, but I managed a dangerously tenuous grasp on Isaac Asimov’s “Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos”. This book instilled a deep fear of cutting things, especially Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches, for worry of accidentally splitting an atom and setting off a chain...
WatchTHE SCETCHPAD INSANITY MOVIE by gamagama, made at DoInk.com
Gamagama creates an epic animation; it’s 6 original, high-quality minutes in length! (I’m floored when our community pushes our software beyond what I thought it could do)
If you don’t have 6 minutes to spare, definitely scrub towards the end… Zombie Lincoln fights President Obama, though I have no idea why.
Insensitive Observation of the Day
If a child has Dyslexia, they have a learning disability.
If a child has Down Syndrome, they have special needs.
Why didn't I think of that? Swoopo.com
Whoever came up with Swoopo.com is a GENIU$. The site bills itself as an “entertainment shopping” experience, here’s how it works:
Swoopo.com creates an auction, starting at 15 cent, and closing in 24 hours.
For a 75 cent fee, you can bid on auction driving the price up 15 cents, and the clock by an additional 20 seconds.
Thats it.
Typically auctions end at a HUGE discount...
Quick Memo to Friends
You’re great & I love you, and when your Facebook profile includes your phone-number, I can call to remind you of that. Please, don’t impede the love:
ALWAYS INCLUDE YOUR PHONE NUMBER IN YOUR FACEBOOK PROFILE.
:)
WatchDisney’s “Star Guitarist” software can use real guitars to drive a Guiter-Hero like video game. This is the future of all education.
Object Orientation is a Joke; Avoid it.
(If you’re not a programmer, or a particularly good programmer, you may skip this post and still lead a fulfilling life…)
Object Orientation is a joke. It does not solve as many problems as it ends up creating. Collectively, programmers could work on improving abstraction & problem solving skills. Instead we busy ourselves learning object patterns, libraries, higher-order hacks,...
“I’ll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened...”
– George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008
The top 25 Bushisms of all time - Slate Magazine
“Just because the youngsters are used to it doesn’t mean they aren’t worse off...”
– Samuel Fine’s comment in response to the Clay Shirky quote.
“you never hear 20-year-olds talking about information overload because they...”
– Clay Shirky (via Scott Heiferman) (via betaworks)
This paints the picture I want to believe. However, a lot of our computing and filtering technologies were, and are, both cryptic and inaccessible, even to the twenty-somethings. Thats the fault of a few visionary older-folks, and a whole slew of...
Question for the Font Freaks
We’re on the same page 51/52 times.
Is there a reasonable excuse for why capital “I” and lower-case “l” look indentical in Helvetica?
Discuss.
Speaking from the Gut
Colbert would have us believe this is a bad thing. Hey may be right.
I’m not convinced.
In the past several months I’ve watched acquaintances, friends, and extremely close friends lose their jobs as organizations collapse around them. The unifying theme? My gut warned me well in advance.
In some cases, I communicated my gut’s outlook, though not as strongly as I might have.
...
WatchDuck Hunt by Delaney12, made at DoInk.com
People love recreating video game elements on DoInk. What a blast.
Learning on the Job
If you’re not learning on the job every single day, either you’re a robot, or something is terribly wrong (and let’s be brutally honest with ourselves, even robots can learn).
And, if you are a technologist working at a startup, particularly in the social gaming space, there is no better blog to read than Lessons Learned by Eric Fried, former CTO of IMVU (now an advisor to...
Watchtoo high by ClassyFat, made at DoInk.com
Today felt a little like this!
Kindle Koncerns
Here is a great list of Kindle complaints coming from Cassandra:
I do have some problems with e-books (these are aimed specifically at the Kindle because that’s the one we have at home and I haven’t used any others): + eInk can’t be backlit, thus making the books hard to read in many settings. + It’s hard to share your copy, unless you want to share your reader. + From...
The Value of Books?
Even before I had a budget, it had a loophole: I was free to spend as much as I wanted on books so long as I read them. Fast forward: I have a wide knowledge base, and a lot of books.
My concern is that as a child of a digital world and a consumer culture, I see books as “power-ups” (and I truly mean that in the Super Mario sense). Once read, I’m enhanced, and all practical...
Effectivity & the New Year
Technology and the internet bring us a million little hacks and tools to make us more efficient. After two minutes of googling, you can shave seconds off of any task, no matter how meaningless it is. There’s an allure to tackling small things, putting quick triumphs under your belt. Of course, no matter how fast you can plug leaks, your ship may still be sinking. There is no need to worry...
