Categories
Posts

Set Side B, A New Independent Gaming Blog

the Set Side B masthead

Softly and quietly launched this week: Set Side B. A new gaming blog from John Harris, one of my favorite games writers, and a small-but-growing cast of characters.

The name Set Side B has been kicking around in my head for awhile, being the huge Famicom Disk System nerd that I am. It’s a reference to a common message that appears on screen instructing the player to eject and flip the disk.

As usual I’m Kermit The Frog / Ed Wood-ing this one, and the infrastructure is shared with RetroStrange and Extra Future. Set Side B is ad and tracker free.

Visit the site at https://setsideb.com/

Categories
Links

Sign Up Sheet For the Next Season of Divergent League Baseball

So what if real baseball is back, let’s get weird again!

Categories
Posts

Divergent League Baseball now has a podcast called Divergent League Update

1993 Divergent League Update Podcast Art

Two of the things I’ve wanted to do since day one with Divergent League are coming true this season: Season Tickets (coming soon) and Divergent League Update, our weekly podcast. It’ll have stats, standings, and occasional talk about how our season is different than “real life.”

This first update is a short one, at just 2 minutes. In the future you can expect to find interviews with league owners, polls, and more. As always, thanks to the owners and my Patrons for supporting Divergent League. You can too!

You can get the feed in your preferred podcatcher, as I’ve submitted it to Apple, Google, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Categories
Quick Ones

RetroStrange Gets A New Website

I’ve updated retrostrange.com– it no longer just hosts the 24-hour old time radio channel LOFI SCIFI (which has been moved to http://retrostrange.com/lofi) but is now a WordPress installation.

We’ve got some plans for the new year, starting with RetroStrange Movie Night #16.

Categories
Posts

Divergent League Baseball Signup Sheet

You can now sign up for the Divergent League newsletter (and be invited to play in the next Season) by filling out our new form.

Categories
Posts

Subscribe To My Newsletter

I have a newsletter. It arrives at your inbox each Thursday. I write about myself more openly there than I do here. I also write about pro wrestling, video games, what music I’m listening to, what I’m working on, &c.

You can subscribe and read the current issue for free on Substack.

Categories
Posts

Bridgesketball, a mixed reality basketball game you can play anywhere

I’ve been working off and on for the last several months on a new project for the Bridge headset, which I’m calling Bridgesketball. It’s a mixed reality basketball game. You can put up a backboard practically anywhere and shoot hoops.

So I’ve promoted Bridgesketball to Project status here on Extra Future Dot Com. The last thing I did this for was la petite url (a custom URL shortener which got broken by some WordPress update or other and no longer works, sorry sorry) so… good luck, Bridgesketball. You’ll find a preview video on the Bridgesketball page as well as a slightly more thorough description, and I’ll add more stuff later. Promise.

Categories
Links

The Pro Wrestling Wiki

I’m back in the wiki game, this time it’s [The Pro Wrestling Wiki][link]. We’re going to become the one-stop shop for independent pro wrestling events, wrestlers, and history, without an agenda toward becoming advertising partners with some megacorp. Right now that means it’s me entering stuff in by hand and spinning up discrete linode servers.

Yee-haw.

[link]: https://wiki.wrestling.social “The Pro Wrestling Wiki”

Categories
Links

Rassler

[Rassler][link] is a little 2D 1980s-inspired pro wrestling RPG that I’ve been developing in my spare time, using the Love2d engine. It’s free, I’ve been doing updates pretty regularly, and plan on continuing to do so. Currently only built for OS X, but Windows builds are coming soon.

[link]: http://philnelson.itch.io/rassler “Rassler”

Categories
Links

Tybor, the Extra Future chat bot, Lives!

[I spent last night making some needed fixes and changes to XFU’s resident learning chat bot, Tybor][link]. His brain is now stored in a SQLite database, making him much faster and more portable. He even works on iOS and Android phones.

[link]: http://extrafuture.com/code/tybor “Say Hello to Tybor”

Categories
Links

“I Survived The Internet Blackout”

[A new t-shirt commemorating the event that came to define last week.][link]

[link]: http://www.redbubble.com/people/extrafuture/works/8382734-i-survived-the-internet-blackout “"I Survived The Internet Blackout" T-Shirts & Hoodies by Phil Nelson | RedBubble”

Categories
Links

Sweatshop RETURNS

[Sweatshop, the live art show I produce with E.G. Gauger, returns today at noon PST][link]. Join us for chat, art, videos, and music. We love you.

[link]: http://sweatshop.tv:8080/ “Sweatshop – Basically We Love Hats”

Categories
Posts

Today’s Experiment: A-Ha Time

I have taken the classic A-Ha 80s jam “Take On Me” and slowed it down 50%. It starts out as an awesome dirge worthy of the Dawn Of The Dead soundtrack, and turns into a monster screaming about love in the most amusing possible manner. It is what I’m calling a Zombie Love Dirge.

I’m sure I’ll get a cease & desist soon, so enjoy while you can.

Categories
Posts

PNGPress

This app is retired.

[PNGPress, my simple image optimization app for Mac OS X is now available on the App Store.][link] I hope you like it. PNGPress will accept any number of PNG images dropped onto its dock icon.

[link]: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pngpress/id416848846?mt=12 “PNGPress”

Categories
Posts

Extra Future 2010 Retrospective: Kreskin

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. No. EF-027)

[Kreskin][kreskin] plays the [Wikipedia Band Name Game][game] for you, rolling up a band name, album title, and cover art, and showing it to you. Every album it generates is persistent, meaning you can pass it around to your friends. It’s really fun, and I find once you [generate one][kresgen], you tend to stick around for at least a few more. Recent favorites include: [GAMA ENERGY, INC. – in his own][kres1], and [Brain Sponge – more of it][kres2].

Kreskin was [featured on Buzzfeed][buzzfeed] which got it a pretty good amount of traffic which, sadly, didn’t last. There is a track listing for each album, but it is experimental and generally not super good. To date Kreskin date has created 6,867 albums by request. It is available, day or night, via the URL [http://kreskin.extrafuture.com][kreskin].

[buzzfeed]: http://www.buzzfeed.com/katamandaa/kreskin-automates-the-wikipedia-band-name-game-xej “Buzzfeed: Kreskin Automates the Wikipedia Band Name Game”
[game]: http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/wikipedia-names-your-band “Wikipedia Names Your Band”
[kresgen]: http://kreskin.extrafuture.com/album/generate “Generate a new album on Kreskin”
[kres1]: http://kreskin.extrafuture.com/album/6867 “Gama Energy, Inc. on Kreskin”
[kres2]: http://kreskin.extrafuture.com/album/6895 “Brain Sponge – more of it”

Categories
Links

Mote, the Amazon S3 Music Player

[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 clever enough to know if your browser supports any of the specific kinds of files in the bucket (say, M4A in Firefox) and if not, will fall back to Flash for those files.

[link]: http://mote.extrafuture.com/ “Mote, the Amazon S3 Music Player”

Categories
Links

Station Identification 2.0

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”

Categories
Links

la petite url 2.0

[The long wait is over, and la petite url version 2.0 is out the door][link]. WordPress users with auto-update can update at-will, and users who haven’t installed it yet (what’s wrong with you?) [can get it here][wp]. Major changes include: An awesome new options panel, much faster redirects, removing of the old registration for the new one, and a sidebar widget.

[link]: http://extrafuture.com/la-petite-url “la petite url”
[wp]: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/le-petite-url/ “la petite url on WordPress.org”

Categories
Links

The All-New Independent Cowboy Justice Brigade Archive

[Preserving some comics by friend Edward and I did longabouts 2003-2004][link]. A work-in-progress.

[link]: http://icjb.efcomics.com/ “The All-New Independent Cowboy Justice Brigade – Archive”

Categories
Links

Minimalist Citizen Kane Poster

[Created by yours truly (view)][link] in about 40 minutes, using [sketchy clipart from here][clipart]. It is not as… minimal as the others, but I think it captures the film pretty well. It may work just as well with only the rose, or only the title. The snow says a lot. I think it would look pretty fantastic with the rose / text letterpressed.

[link]: http://extrafuture.s3.amazonaws.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/minimalist-kane1.png “Citizen Kane Poster”
[clipart]: http://www.free-clipart-pictures.net/rose_clipart.html “Rose Clipart”

Inspired by [Eduardo Prox’s minimalist movie posters][ed].

[ed]: http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Minimalist-Movie-Posters/384613 “Minimalist Movie Posters”