Lost Levels: The Legend of Zelda prototype
A prototype for one of the most important video games in history, with a meticulous look at the changes between this prototype and the final release.
A prototype for one of the most important video games in history, with a meticulous look at the changes between this prototype and the final release.
It was a pretty predictable year.
Based on the most played songs list you might’ve guessed that my favorite album this year is Worn Thin, by Weep. Honorable mention goes to the Zola Jesus EP, Stridulum. Based on the most played artists list you might’ve guessed that I didn’t have much time for new music this year. I’m convinced that needs to change in 2011. There is nothing sadder than a man with almost no favorite bands who haven’t broken up or descended into self-parody.
Someone on Twitter suggested that a group of engineers should get together on a weekend and build a Delicious clone. In anticipation of this mystery group of people sitting down and doing this, I thought I’d make a quick todo list for them.
The icons are of varying quality, but it’s certainly a useful round to have in the chamber. Via Zeldman.
Being a wiki resource on the topic of Gamification: What is Gamification? Glad you asked:
Gamification is the concept that you can apply the basic elements that make games fun and engaging to things that typically aren’t considered a game.
Bit of an unwieldy word, but descriptive enough.
Nifty article with input from Ron Gilbert. Game Dev Story has been a big timesink for me. It suffers from a distinct lack of polish, but it tickles just the right areas of my brain that spent months with old PC simulations like Detroit and Air Bucks.
Thoughts is an iPhone application for sending audio messages to individuals or groups. It isn’t so much a replacement for voicemail or phone calls as a non-blocking way to talk to people without butting into whatever they’re already doing.
If you’re using the WYSIWYG content editor CKEditor for a project, and you’re having problems (primarily in IE7) that have no cause which you can uncover, it may be because your textarea is named “description”.
This knowledge would’ve saved me many hours today, and judging by these google results I am not alone.
An examination on why Google Maps seem so much more “readable” than Yahoo or Bing.
This is a recipe for using iTunes Smart Playlists to create a personal radio station from your music library, which will play old favorites, new jams, and obscure stuff in ratios which you can tune yourself. The purpose of this isn’t to tell you how to handle your music, but rather to help you get more of out it. As such, consider every single rule to be a suggestion based on what works for me. This is also slightly involved for the iTunes novice, but shouldn’t take you more than 15 minutes, and what is 15 minutes weighed against a new life of constantly rocking the fuck out?
The first thing we have to do is create several source playlists which we’ll use to funnel the proscribed ratios of classics, newness, and weirdness into your earholes.
These are the bits and bobs which will, when combined, make your music-listening experience much better. I suggest making a new folder called Radio to hold these playlists, so they won’t clutter your sidebar.
Radio Core
Radio Most Played
Radio Neglected
Radio New
Radio Top Rated
Radio Sprinkler
The most important part of the above source playlists is the “Limit” field. We’re using it to tune just how much of each playlist gets into our overall radio playlist. Want to hear more of your favorites? Increase the limit. Now that we’ve got our source playlists set up, we can pour them into our main Radio playlist.
This is your proper Radio playlist, the one you’ll click “play” on and listen to until it is time for bed.
This is the setup we use here at EFHQ North, and it works swimmingly. My own iTunes Radio just played Just Can’t Get Enough by Yaz, followed by Arlo Guthrie’s Los Angeles and R.E.M.’s Crazy. That is awesome. Comments and suggestions go to the usual place.