Archives for July 2014

From Indie Web Camp’s Principles of building on the indie web:

If human society is are able to preserve ancient papyrus, Victorian photographs and dinosaur bones, we should be able to build web technology that doesn’t require us to destroy everything we’ve done every few years in the name of progress.

The problem is that out of context, most of it will just seem like noise. Games that were awesome on the Commodore 64 in the 80s will. not. hold. up.

Codename Iceman, which was AMAZING in 3rd grade, will. not. hold. up.

But! it’s hard to stand on the shoulders of giants if none of their work is still around.

So let’s do it.

Brett Terpstra was kind enough to have me on Systematic this week. It was the first podcast that I’ve recorded. And brother, if you think your voice sounds weird on a voice-message, just wait until you hear yourself almost make a point for over an hour.

I had an awesome time, I’m pretty sure I didn’t offend anyone, and he taught me how to use the microphone that I bought 6-months ago.

So we’ll call it a big-time win.

I thought all I needed was a desk. Maybe a home office. I was wrong.

Via Shedworking

Russell Davies, with a refreshing take on Google in Campaign:

Google was invented by engineers. They, typically, hate advertising – but they stumbled on an advertising-based business model so lucrative that it was hard to keep hating it. Even so, they certainly did their best to keep their distance. They made the advertising they carry look as unlike regular advertising as possible and all their rhetoric was about how they would make advertising so relevant and targeted that it would stop actually being advertising and become useful information.

…

That’s why I don’t worry that the self-driving cars are going to take diversions past billboards or the thermostats are going to whisper ads in your ear while you’re sleeping. Google is not looking for new ways to do advertising – it is looking for ways to get out of it.

This would be good news.

They make great services, but trying to figure out whether or not I care about Google’s knowledge of me is exhausting.

Lego is coming out with a new line, branded as Lego Fusion, that is made to bridge real world creation with digital gameplay.

Announced on Wednesday, and shipping in August and September, Lego Fusion boxes each come with 200 Lego pieces. They let you build and play in app-based virtual worlds that include a tower-defense game called “Battle Towers,” a town-building game called “Town Master,” a racing game called “Create and Race” and “Resort Designer.” What you build in the real world can be captured and used in the iOS and Android tablet apps. Each structure then becomes part of the game, and each game can be a part of your world or the larger Lego social community, where others are using their Fusion sets to build similar worlds. Towers can battle towers, race cars can compete against each other and townspeople can take virtual metros to visit other player’s towns.

As a dad of two boys, I can’t even begin to describe the embarrassment of Lego (Lego is the plural of Lego) they are in for when old enough. Though I am trying to figure out how to avoid the movie-theme/franchised Lego sets in favor of things like this that encourage them to make things up on their own.

Then after they’ve messed around with a bucket of random peices for long enough, we’ll build the Death Star. Because we’re gentlemen.

Via Mashable