Extra Future

Month: January 2011

  • Game Developer Research Institute

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Doctor Sparkle, the mad genius behind Chrontendo, mentions the GDRI several times in his videos, and it’s an awesome resource for information on… game developers.][link] The bent is toward older companies and projects because those are the ones we generally know the least about. [link]: http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page “Main Page – GDRI :: Games You Know. Developers…

  • An Encoder Is Not A State Machine

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    Fellow Michigander [Chris Adamson does a good job of elaborating on the problems Google’s decision to drop H.264 from Chrome in favor of WebM][link] from the perspective of an implementor or creator. The short: It ain’t pretty. via [@soypunk][via] [link]: http://www.subfurther.com/blog/2011/01/13/an-encoder-is-not/ “An Encoder Is Not A State Machine” [via]: http://twitter.com/soypunk “Soypunk on Twitter”

  • Why Twitter Was the Only Company to Challenge the Secret WikiLeaks Subpoena

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [The why is important, but more important is that they did it at all.][link] I’m certain that Facebook, MySpace, etc, got similar requests and complied with them without even thinking. [link]: http://www.fastcompany.com/1716100/why-twitter-was-the-only-company-to-challenge-the-secret-wikileaks-subpoena “Why Twitter Was the Only Company to Challenge the Secret WikiLeaks Subpoena | Fast Company”

  • Google to Drop H.264 Support in Chrome

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [They’re replacing H.264 support with WebM][link] (a video codec [acquired and open-sourced][webm] by Google last year). It looks like the HTML video codec pissing match is about to start up again. [link]: http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html “Chromium Blog: HTML Video Codec Support in Chrome” [webm]: http://extrafuture.com/2010/05/19/webm/ “WebM”

  • Chrontendo

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [One man’s quest to play and talk about every video game released for the Famicom & NES in chronological order][link]. I’ve finally begun watching the video volumes, which run bout 45 minutes long and cover 15 games each. The [Episode Guide][guide] is indispensable. [link]: http://chrontendo.blogspot.com/ “Chrontendo” [guide]: http://www.sylpher.com/chrontendo/ “Chrontendo Episode Guide”

  • A Tale of Two Developers (and the Mac App Store)

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [The Mac App Store][mas], not even 48 hours old, has already set off small ripples and large waves of change across the Mac OS X development space. From Thursday every single new Mac user knows the Mac App Store as the primary place to purchase software. Even long-time users such as myself will slowly adapt.…

  • The Web Is a Customer Service Medium

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Paul Ford has written maybe the cleverest thing I’ve read about the web in as long as I can remember.][link] via [Aaron Swartz][aaron] [link]: http://www.ftrain.com/wwic.html “The Web Is a Customer Service Medium (Ftrain.com)” [aaron]: http://www.aaronsw.com/ “Aaron Swartz”

  • Study Linking Vaccines to Autism an “Elaborate Fraud”

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [The study didn’t just have incorrect findings or bad data, it was an actual *fraud*, purposefully making stuff up][link]. The doctor has been stripped of his license and his study discredited, but the damage is done: >In the United States, more cases of measles were reported in 2008 than in any other year since 1997,…

  • The Huawei U8100 and Mac OS X, “Upgrade Failed”

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    If you have a Huawei U8100 phone and you use Mac OS X and you’d like to update the firmware, don’t bother. After a full day of fighting with the thing, I’ve found you have to use Windows to load an SD card with the necessary files, or it simply won’t work. I’ve created this…

  • Todd Alcott’s 7-Part Review of The Shining

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    Readers of my [Twitter feed][twitter] may know Todd from [his great reviews of The Venture Bros][vb]. [This mammoth essay on The Shining][link] shows every bit of the insight of those articles and more. (via [Daring Fireball][df]) [link]: http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/tag/kubrick “Todd Alcott” [vb]: http://toddalcott.livejournal.com/tag/venture%20bros “Todd Alcott’s Venture Bros posts” [twitter]: http://twitter.com/philnelson “Me on Twitter” [df]: http://daringfireball.net “Daring…

  • Extra Future 2010 Retrospective: Kreskin

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    I made a bunch of weird stuff in 2010, and I’m going to spend the new few days or weeks telling you about them with short posts about each one. Up first is [Kreskin][kreskin], a project it took about 12 hours to spit out and another 12 to make usable. [kreskin]: http://kreskin.extrafuture.com “Kreskin” ##Kreskin (Cat.…

  • Bruce Sterling on Wikileaks

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [New Zealand conference Webstock asks Bruce for his opinion and thoughts, and the result is a great, long, essay which you should read.][link] It goes well with a massive morning dose of coffee. [link]: http://www.webstock.org.nz/blog/2010/the-blast-shack/ “The Blast Shack”