Extra Future

Month: May 2010

  • Mote, the Amazon S3 Music Player

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Mote began as a 6-hour project and slowly changed into a 12-hour one][link]. It takes the contents of any Amazon S3 bucket, checks for audio files and lets you play them like an album. It defaults to using HTML5’s audio tag, and falls back to Flash if your browser does not support HTML5. Mote is…

  • The All-In-One Almost-Alphabetical No-Bullshit Guide to Detecting Everything

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Great guide from Mark Pilgrim][link], who’s [Dive Into HTML5][dive] is essential. [link]: http://diveintohtml5.org/everything.html “The All-In-One Almost-Alphabetical No-Bullshit Guide to Detecting Everything – Dive Into HTML5” [dive]: http://diveintohtml5.org/ “Dive Into HTML 5”

  • On Steam for Mac OS X

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    * Steam for Mac, while a welcome panacea against the 17 or 20 Windows users who were clinging to the last hope of their platform (“Macs don’t have any games!”), is not yet a first-class Mac OS X citizen. As a cross-platform system, it is completely expected, and normal, that there are going to be…

  • Shaun Inman’s Analysis of the Super Mario World Camera System

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [A follow-up][link] to his great [analysis of Super Mario 3][3]. I love that he’s doing this stuff in public as he’s working on his own game. [link]: http://blog.mimeoverse.com/post/577060703/following-yesterdays-analysis-of-super-mario “Following yesterday’s analysis of Super Mario… – Mimeo in the Tumbleverse” [3]: http://blog.mimeoverse.com/post/574942897/just-completed-a-playthrough-of-super-mario-bros “Inman’s analysis of SMB3”

  • Station Identification 2.0

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    Version 2 of my anti-piracy feed identification plugin, [Station Identification][sid] is available for auto-updating or [downloading from the WordPress plugins site][dl]. [dl]: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/station-identification/ “Station Identification on WordPress.org” [sid]: http://extrafuture.com/projects/station-identification “Station Identification’s homepage”

  • All This And Less

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Engadget on the $499 Android-powered “Edge” tablet][link]: >Yes, the Edge is a combination e-reader and a Android tablet — it just doesn’t quite work well as either. For $499 there are just too many issues with it, including its chunky body, skimpy e-book selection, frustrating touchscreen, poor battery life and lack of Android apps. I…

  • Wikipedia’s New Look

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [ I don’t see a big visual improvement][link], but the overall simplification of the UI and reworking the previously atrocious underlying HTML code is a step forward. Not sure why they went with an XHTML 1.0 Transitional DOCTYPE instead of, say, HTML5, which is practically tailor-made for a website like Wikipedia. I’m assuming that the…

  • Facebook Privacy: A Bewildering Tangle of Options

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    What is longer than the US Constitution and is comprised of over 50 settings and 170 options? [Facebook’s privacy settings][link]. [link]: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/12/business/facebook-privacy.html “NYT: Facebook Privacy”

  • The Steam Client for Mac Is Here

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    … and here is where to [download it from the Steam homepage][link]. It is a 2.7mb Disk Image. I expect a press release shortly. Hurry up before the server melts. If you aren’t in the closed beta you’ll get a message saying so, but at least you’ll have the client downloaded and updated before the…

  • Humble Indie Bundle Sells Over $1 Million, Goes Open Source

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    Which so far amounts to $351,207 for charity ([EFF][eff] and [Child’s Play][child]). Aquaria, Gish, Lugaru HD, and Penumbra Overture have pledged to go open source ([free as in ‘free speech’][speech]). There are going to be hundreds of posts trying to examine what Humble Indie Bundle “did right,” but it’s real simple: 1. Well put-together website.…

  • The Onion’s ‘The Cressbeckler Stance’

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [“Semi-literate former gold prospector given own cable show,”][link] and I love literally every second of it. [link]: http://www.theonion.com/video/semiliterate-former-gold-prospector-given-own-cabl,17408/ “Semi-Literate Former Gold Prospector Given Own Cable News Show | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source | Onion News Network”

  • Goodbye, Sir. And Thanks.

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Eliza Gauger’s farewell to Frank Frazetta][link]. A giant died today. [link]: http://www.ectomo.com/2010/05/10/goodbye-sir-and-thanks/ “ECTOPLASMOSIS! » Goodbye, Sir. And Thanks.”