Extra Future

Month: April 2009

  • NYT Bits Blog on The Cost of Bandwidth

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Hint: It’s falling, not rising][link]. Time Warner got into a big shit-fight over imposing bandwidth caps, which Rogers has already done here in Canada. Here’s an exercise to illustrate how fucked the telecom industry is: Raise your hand if you believe a word that comes from Comcast, Time Warner, or AT&T. [link]: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/the-cost-of-downloading-all-those-videos/ “The Cost…

  • [Sponsor] The Extra Future Amazon Store

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [In which, among other lovely items][store], you’ll find what I’m currently reading: *[Hello Americans][hello]* by Simon Callow. [store]: http://astore.amazon.com/philnelson-20 “Extra Future’s aStore” [hello]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140275177?ie=UTF8&tag=philnelson-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0140275177 “Hello Americans on Amazon” This is the second volume of Callow’s biography on film legend Orson Welles (the first being 1997’s *[The Road To Xanadu][xanadu]*) and it is every bit as…

  • Dave Shea on Why He’s Backing HTML5

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [The points he makes are good ones, and I agree with most of them][link]. The comments are pretty lively on this one, but seem civilized. [link]: http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2009/04/20/switched/ “mezzoblue § Switched”

  • “SPELLING WITH MY BRAIN”

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Using a neural interface to send twitter messages][link]. [link]: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/braintweet.html “Twitter Telepathy: Researchers Turn Thoughts Into Tweets | Wired Science from Wired.com”

  • Braid Artist David Hellman Releases The Game’s Art Resources

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [A bit late for the initial craze][link], but I’m sure the quality of fan-made stuff will only go up. Includes: Level icons, animated GIFs, and some gorgeous wallpapers. [link]: http://www.davidhellman.net/braidbrief.htm “David Hellman .net – Braid”

  • WHEAT, INVINCIBLE

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    Your headline of the evening: “[Washington scientists make wheat impervious to death][link].” [link]: http://www.kansas.com/222/story/776586.html “Washington scientists make wheat impervious to death | News2Use | Wichita Eagle”

  • O’Reilly’s Round-up of iPhone Application Statistics

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Lots of interesting data][link]. As [a commenter notes][comment], the “ratings” metric should be taken with a grain of salt. Instead of defaulting to “no” stars (and possibly prompting the user to choose a rating if they’ve not done so) the App Store defaults to 1 star. Since it doesn’t require you to select a star,…

  • “What’s The Twitshirt Thing?”

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Twitshirt][link] launched yesterday (16 April 2009) and provide a service that I’m sure many people would/will give their patronage to: The printing of individual tweets on t-shirts, on-demand. Since the t-shirt is the defining medium of this generation, and vanity publishing is in full vogue, it only makes sense that a business model which combines…

  • Court Jails Pirate Bay Founders

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [I’m sure the appeals process will be long][link]: >Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde were found guilty of breaking copyright law and were sentenced to a year in jail. > >They were also ordered to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages. [link]: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8003799.stm “BBC NEWS | Technology | Court jails Pirate Bay…

  • HTTP Client – Mac Tool for HTTP Debugging

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Found this useful today in my tracking down a problem with la petite url][link]. (via [Shawn Medero][shawn]) [link]: http://ditchnet.org/httpclient/ “HTTP Client – Mac Developer Tool for HTTP Debugging” [shawn]: http://shawn.medero.net “Shawn Medero”

  • PXR + Cufon = Pxfon

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Shawn Inman’s Cufon-compatible solution for pixel fonts][link]. [Check out the generator][gen]. No anti-aliasing! [link]: http://shauninman.com/archive/2009/04/17/pxr_cufon_pxfon “PXR + Cufon = Pxfon // ShaunInman.com” [gen]: http://pixel-portraits.com/pxfon/ “PxFon Generator”

  • John Madden Is Retiring

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Probably the single most visible ambassador of American football][link] is calling it quits after 50 years. A great coach, and a great announcer. Even if you didn’t like his style, you knew he cared a lot about the game. [link]: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/sports/football/17madden.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all “Madden Decides to Put Down His Microphone – NYTimes.com”