Extra Future

Year: 2014

  • The Rise of Nintendo: A Story in 8 Bits

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [A long excerpt from Blake J. Harris’ new book, Console Wars, which I am very much looking forward to.][link] [link]: http://grantland.com/features/the-rise-of-nintendo-video-games-history/ “The Rise of Nintendo: A Story in 8 Bits”

  • Make Weird Stuff in Unity Tutorial

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [They’re speaking my language][link]: >This tutorial is about empowering people who feel constrained about their lack of abilities. For example, programmers who feel like they need artists to make cool things, or artists who think they need programmers to make cool things, or even people who are neither of those who want to make cool…

  • Phaser

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Another HTML5 2D game framework][link], built mobile-first. Supports TypeScript and JavaScript. Looks pretty fast / simple, and it’s used on the awesome [Game Mechanic Explorer][gme] site. [link]: http://phaser.io/ “Phaser – Desktop and Mobile HTML5 game framework” [gme]: http://gamemechanicexplorer.com “Game Mechanic Explorer”

  • Anti-Net-Neutrality “Fast Lanes” Are Bullshit

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Marco Arment with some strong language about the gross marketing campaign to rebrand the destruction of net neutrality as allowing ISPs to create “fast lanes”][link]: >Be honest. > >This is not building anything new — it’s discriminating and restricting what we already have. > >This is not making anything faster — it’s allowing ISPs to…

  • Information is the Beginning

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Jesper, on *facts* and how good communication can really change your understanding of something.][link] It’s a short post, so I’m not going to excerpt it, but it involves Opera. The musical theater variety, not the probably-doomed web browser. [link]: http://waffle.wootest.net/2014/04/13/information-is-the-beginning/ “waffle → Information is the Beginning”

  • sql.js: A port of SQLite to JavaScript

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [This is ridiculous and great][link]: >sql.js is a port of SQLite to JavaScript, by compiling the SQLite C code with Emscripten. no C bindings or node-gyp compilation here. Once again, via [Jesper][jesper]. [link]: https://github.com/kripken/sql.js “kripken/sql.js” [jesper]: http://waffle.wootest.net “Jesper’s blog, Waffle”

  • slick – the last carousel you’ll ever need

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    [A full-responsive, CSS3-enabled, touch-ready, arrow-key supporting, draggable carousel that you can instance with one line.][link] Having built and used probably a dozen different image slider / content carousels this one looks like it covers all of the bases and with minimal markup bullshit. Color me impressed. [link]: http://kenwheeler.github.io/slick/ “slick – the last carousel you'll ever…

  • grid

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    by

    Phil Nelson
    in

    >[Drag and drop library for two-dimensional, resizable and responsive lists.][link] I’ve seen this done before but not so efficiently, responsively, and with no dependencies. (via [Jesper][jesp]) [link]: https://github.com/ubervu/grid “uberVU/grid” [jesp]: http://waffle.wootest.net “Waffle, Jesper’s blog.”

  • Font-To-Width

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    >[Font‑To‑Width (FTW!)][link] is a script by Nick Sherman and Chris Lewis that takes advantage of large type families to fit pieces of text snugly within their containers. Can definitely see using this for some datavis stuff. There is some FOUT (Flash of unstyled text) to deal with though. [link]: http://font-to-width.com/ “Font-To-Width”

  • Cognitive Lode by ribot

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    Providing the “[Latest research on consumer behaviour, psychology and biases][link].” This stuff is like catnip for me. [link]: http://coglode.com/ “Latest research on consumer behaviour, psychology and biases – Cognitive Lode by ribot”

  • ASCII Delimited Text – Not CSV or TAB delimited text

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [Turns out we are doing delimited text all wrong][link]: >If you use ASCII 31 as your field separator instead of comma or tab, and ASCII 30 as your record separator instead of new line. Then you have a text file format that is trivial to write out and read in, with no restrictions on the…

  • MicIO.js

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    Phil Nelson
    in

    [This is some crazy magicks and I love it][link]: > Use HTML5’s web audio API to create a hardware bus somewhat similar to how Square’s Credit Card readers works. I am abuzz with ideas for this right now and this is bad because I have actual work to do. (via [Jesper][jesp]) [link]: http://colinbookman.com/2014/03/23/micio/ “MicIO.js” [jesp]:…