Danish Something Awful Forum Goons Build Space Rocket
They’re planning to do a test launch on August 31st, 2010. They’ve been answering questions in this Something Awful thread.
Sequoia Voting Machine Hacked To Play Pac-Man
Without breaking the tamper-evident seals:
We received the machine with the original tamper-evident seals intact. The software can be replaced without breaking any of these seals, simply by removing screws and opening the case.
I don’t know about you, but my votes sure don’t feel safe.
“Twitter isn’t your audience. It’s your community.”
Andrew Mayne for Hidden Frequency:
[...] It’s easy to tell the difference: The guy on stage at the concert is in front of his audience. The people in the stands are in their community. When the concert is over the audience vanishes but the community continues; with or without the man on stage.
The stage metaphor is a bit strained, but this is similar to my own philosophy on Twitter and other social media sites. Unless you have millions of followers, treating Twitter like a broadcast medium means you miss most of what it’s good for.
Introducing Kreskin, A Band/Album Generator
Kreskin is an album generator, which essentially automates the Wikipedia Band Name Game. To wit:
- Go to the Random article page on Wikipedia. The page it goes to is your band name.
- Go to Flickr’s most interesting photos for the last 7 days. Find the third image. That is your band’s album cover.
- Go to the quotations page and pick the last quote on the Random Quotes page. The last three words of this quote is the title of your album.
You have likely played this game on a grey workday afternoon, but Kreskin makes the process much easier. Using the sources above, Kreskin grabs the needed information and presents you with a lovely image with a permalink that you can pass around, no manual labor needed. Kreskin also picks from a random assortment of freely-licensed web fonts to snazz up your album covers.
Here are a few of my favorite albums so far:
Kreskin is an Extra Future 6-hour Project.
Inkling
Interactive textbooks for the iPad. The educational potential is neat, but personally I’m just as interested in the entertainment potential.
Google Now Charging Developers $5 To List Chrome Extensions, Themes, And Apps
How open of them. The changes are:
“intended to create better safeguards against fraudulent extensions in the gallery and limit the activity of malicious developer accounts.”
Kove, A Community-Created Choose Your Own Adventure Game
This of it as a wiki-style take on the classic book genre. Just sign in via Twitter OAuth and start adding and editing pages. All content is published under a CC-BY license. There is also an atom feed of new pages.
Kove is an Extra Future 6-Hour Project.
Elements, a Dropbox powered text editor for iOS
An extremely slick-looking text editor a bit lacking in features, but cloud storage using the indispensable Dropbox is a big plus.
Another Brilliant Adobe Interface
This is what comes up when I double-click the Fireworks uninstaller. It’s like these applications were designed by angry, angry, monks.
Vimeo Releases Embeddable HTML5 Video Player
Another shot across the bow of Flash. Vimeo embeds will use the HTML5 player automatically in browsers that support the codecs involved.
Google, Verizon, Net Neutrality, and iTunes Cloud
Google: Makes money by selling ads. Has a smartphone OS that helps them sell ads on search results, apps, etc. Upset with Apple’s foray into advertising. Starting to feel the pinch of a possible iPhone for Verizon, their most visible Android partner.
Verizon: Makes money by selling bits. Sells dozens of phones with dozens of different operating systems from dozens of different manufacturers. Has sunk some money into Droid, but isn’t married to the platform. Will go with whichever benefits their bottom line most.
Apple: Makes money selling software, and some bits. Just got into the ad space with iAds. Their iPhone sells its own bits and sells its own ads. Doesn’t like making concessions to wireless carriers, and will call them out in public. If they launch a version of their iPhone for Verizon, Verizon isn’t likely to get a cut of their App, Music, Video, or Ad market. Those are all bits that Verizon wants to charge extra for.
iTunes Cloud: Live streaming of a user’s purchased iTunes tracks to any supported device. Only likely supported phone platform? iOS, the iPhone’s operating system. No phone carrier is going to get a cut of tracks purchased for this service.
Net Neutrality: Means that carriers aren’t allowed to slow down certain kinds of internet traffic to help their business goals. Means that iTunes Cloud can stream as many tracks as the user is willing to buy bandwidth for. Means Verizon doesn’t get a cut aside from their 3G bandwidth spectrum pricing, which is getting cheaper all the time despite their (recent) complaining about capacity problems.
Dots: Partially connected.
“Wireless is Different”
Wireless isn’t different, AT&T. It just suits your business model that it be treated differently. It’s enough to clog your bullshit filter.
With bullshit.
Voogle Wireless
Google’s 2006 PSA for net neutrality underscores the severity of their about-face this week. Is there any way Google can still claim this isn’t about money?
Credibly?
onprogress
My good friend Shawn Medero’s new blog, which is a conversationally-toned look at the latest web browser development trends, issues, and a wee bit of futurecasting.
Worth monitoring if you build websites or just need to look into the sausage factory every now and again.
Drew Thaler’s JavaScript Blacklist
A Safari 5 extension that blocks javascript from noise merchants like tynt, intellitxt, and snap.com. It can be easily configured to block from other domains, too. (via Daring Fireball)
Why Google Became A Carrier-Humping, Net Neutrality Surrender Monkey
Compare Monday’s statement to this one, from a post on Google’s official blog in 2007: “The nation’s spectrum airwaves are not the birthright of any one company. They are a unique and valuable public resource that belong to all Americans. The FCC’s auction rules are designed to allow U.S. consumers — for the first time — to use their handsets with any network they desire, and and use the lawful software applications of their choice.”
Compare, indeed. Yes, it’s true that people and corporations change their minds, and they’re welcome to. But Google has apparently changed its mind for one reason: They stand to make more money with their pals at Verizon. They just won’t come out and say it.
The EFF Reviews Verizon and Google’s Net Neutrality Proposal
Mostly the same as what has been going around, but this time covered in the candy shell of an actual lawyer’s thoughts.
Man Lives In Futuristic Sci-Fi World Where All His Interactions Take Place In Cyberspace
Though his high-tech, cybertronic existence may appear overwhelming to the rest of us, it is the only way this weary wanderer of circuits and space knows how to live. And until the day our world catches up with his, Royce will be out there on the virtual nexus, searching.
THE INCIDENT
Now available for iPhone and iPad. One of the most utterly delightful games I’ve ever played, for any console. A little bit of Katamari Damacy, a little bit of Tetris, a whole lot of beautiful faux-16-bit graphics and sound. Every byte of this game was crafted with care.
You will not find a better way to spend $2 today. It even works on my original launch iPhone.
