Extra Future

Month: March 2010

  • Grim Meathook Future: Government Passport Cloning For Assassins

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Evidence that the Israeli government has been cloning the passports of British citizens, and using them as fake IDs for assassins][link]. Airport security? Haaaaa. [link]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/24/israel-ben-gurion-cloned-passports-soca “Britons queued at Ben Gurion airport as Israeli officials cloned passports”

  • David Mamet’s Editorial Notes To Writers of “The Unit”

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Written, as one might hope, in all-caps, laced with profanity, and peppered with utter contempt for network executives][link]. Delicious, and mostly good advice. A sample: >ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK…

  • Nivo Slider

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [It bills itself as “The Most Awesome jQuery Image Slider,”][link] and once you see it you will, if not agree entirely, see where they’re coming from. [link]: http://nivo.dev7studios.com/ “Nivo Slider – The Most Awesome jQuery Image Slider”

  • Opera Mini “Countup”

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Opera submitted Opera Mini to the App Store 6 hours ago, and this page is tracking how long it takes Apple to approve it][link]. The closest guess wins a new iPhone. This is pretty clever. Everyone knows the App Store approval process is bunk, why not have some fun with it? [link]: http://my.opera.com/community/countup/ “My Opera…

  • “Plastic Bag” By Ramin Bahrani

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [A short film which features Werner Herzog voicing a plastic bag as it journeys across America][link] in search of it’s Maker. I shit you not. [link]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBtCb61Sd4 “YouTube – Plastic Bag By Ramin Bahrani”

  • James Randi Comes Out at 81

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Sad that he felt he had to wait so long, glad he feels comfortable enough to do it now][link]. I’m a big fan of the James Randi Educational Foundation, and in particular the [$1 Million Paranormal Challenge][challenge]. [link]: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/914-how-to-say-it.html “James Randi – How to say it?” [challenge]: http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html “The JSRF Challenge”

  • “Fear and Loathing in Farmville”

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Soren Johnson’s summary of Social Gaming / Facebook’s presence at SXSW,][link] what it’s doing to the industry, and what it might do to the future of games. Potentially very bad for everyone. My favorite quote is this, which I think sums up my real problem with [those fucks] Zynga: >So many of the methods for…

  • Ask H&FJ: Four Ways to Mix Fonts

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Click it, read it, learn it, love it.][link] These are all essential tips. [link]: http://www.typography.com/email/2010_03/index_tw.htm “Ask H&FJ: Four Ways to Mix Fonts”

  • The A.V. Club’s Interview With Bob Odenkirk

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Terradalou, The Bob.][link] Mr. Show is the true way. According to the interview, Bob’s character Saul Goodman is in 10 episodes of Breaking Bad this season. [link]: http://www.avclub.com/articles/bob-odenkirk,39237/ “Bob Odenkirk | TV | Interview | The A.V. Club”

  • Moving and Not Moving

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    >[A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.][link] I am personally in the quantum state of being excited and terrified. [link]: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100317/full/news.2010.130.html “Scientists supersize quantum mechanics : Nature News”

  • YouTube Alleges Viacom ‘Secretly Uploaded’ Content To YouTube, While Suing Them For It’s Presence

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [This kind of thing is par for the course with major conglomerates like Viacom][link]. They want the “buzz” but have to pretend they’re being horribly damaged financially. [link]: http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/03/broadcast-yourself.html “YouTube Blog: Broadcast Yourself”

  • “No Dashes Or Spaces” Hall of Shame

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [From the Usability Follies dept][link]. It actually takes the same amount of work to check for a valid card WITH spaces or dashes as without. It’s one line of PHP, Perl, Ruby, whatever your flavor of webcode is. No excuse. [link]: http://unixwiz.net/ndos-shame.html “”No Dashes Or Spaces” Hall of Shame”