I’ve always considered Zurb’s foundation to be one of the best thought out front-end web frameworks out there, especially with regard to its thoughts on an adaptive grid system. Foundation 4 really shakes up what’s been done so far, most notably moving to a “mobile first” mentality regarding its grid and CSS components.
Sizemore had a huge presence as a smaller character actor in the 90s, often as a someone with rough edges (see also Michael Madsen.) It was a bummer to see the actor go through such a messy life in the last decade, but in a way that’s what makes this A.V. Club interview so revealing. I really liked this passage talking about his relationships kept up from his time in Saving Private Ryan and Heat:
All those guys were great, especially De Niro and Hanks, who I got really close to, and Mann. They never deserted me. When I was going through my difficult times they never were far away. They’d call me and check on me. And when something happens to you, when something bad happens to you, you find out who your friends are. Those guys are my friends. They were my friends when I wasn’t doing well, and I’m happy to report that they’re my friends today.
You can be cynical and argue it’s Hollywood name dropping, but I think he’s genuine. Besides, the guy has a point regarding down times.
Designer Viljami Salminen:
As I earlier in that article wrote, typography for the Web is really hard to design anywhere else than inside the browser. This is today even more true than it was a year ago. Typography prototype tries to solve this by doing the hard choices before jumping to other design tools like Photoshop.
Viljami really has a great point here. I’ve seen way too many projects backpedal when a font was decided on that looks awesome in Photoshop, only to fall apart in actual browser usage in the middle of a development cycle. But it’s more than face selection, it’s also issues of size and scale, also briefly touched on in this post.
Really gorgeous ten minute supercut of some of the best Steadicam shots over the past forty years. As expected, Scorcese and Kubrick films are well represented here.
Simon Parkin writing for Polygon:
After a noisy opening, the darkened bar lit by the cathode glow of its attendant squadron of machines, success was quick and consistent. “The popularity surprised me,” says [Barcade founder] Kermizian, “and [the fact] that it didn’t wear off, that it became a place where people came regularly. We were worried that this might be a lot of fun for people, but that they would only view it as a once-in-a-long-while thing. I was astounded at how many regulars we found right away, and how dedicated they became.”
Barcade was a great idea, and it’s awesome to see its popularity catch on, at least around here in New York.
I found the details here a bit overkill – something about the amount of mixins dependencies gives me some mild concern about code bloat. But once I started paging through the raw CSS logic there’s a lot of great ideas here, from a non uniform line height to not using pure black and a custom look for ampersands.
The name says it all; I know what I’m going to be having fun with on my next web side project.
EA’s mobile driving game Real Racing 3 has gotten a lot of flak since its debut last week. The primary controversy surrounds the game’s free to play model that leverages artificial timers to generate revenue. Repair or upgrade a car and it’s unavailable to play for a set amount of time, anywhere from 5 to 25 minutes (in rare cases, far longer). Of course by spending real money you can end a timer early, and EA clearly hopes you will. Many tech and gaming journalists on my Twitter feed have called the practice “abominable” and refuse to play. Others have taken the exact opposite stance: it’s a free game on your phone, relax and wait a few minutes! I disagree with a one sided position on RR3; the right answer for me lies somewhere in the middle.
One aspect RR3‘s critics get decidedly wrong is the impact timers have on gameplay. Many make the mistake of judging RR3 from the perspective of a traditional console or PC game, not a mobile title. Console and PC games tend to be played in longer sessions of at least an hour; in that context a twenty minute repair timer would be catastrophic. In contrast, mobile games are usually played for far shorter intervals, which minimizes the impact of RR3’s timers. Furthermore, early on in the game (in my case, with less than an hour of gameplay) you start acquiring multiple cars. By just shuffling between cars that are not in repair, you can nullify a timer’s effect. Already I’m at four cars and timers are effectively a non issue.
The real problem with RR3‘s economic model is less about actual gameplay than principle. Traditional games charge for extra content, not to pay off an arbitrary delay timer. Normally games give you the full package for a set price, while the equivalent with RR3 (to unlock all tracks and cars) costs hundreds of hours or dollars. Overall RR3‘s timers are, as Alex Navarro over at Giant Bomb wrote, just plain invasive. It’s applying a Zenga or Farmville like min-max model on what should be a fun racing game.
While RR3 is a mobile game, it’s also an AAA game on all levels: polished graphics, depth, varied gameplay and a big budget. I want to hold the game to a similar standard as a full console title and expect a more traditional pricing model, or at least free to play with real enhancements, not repair timers.
But that didn’t happen, and the larger root problem here wasn’t EA or RR3. Instead we should direct more blame to the mobile app store market as a whole. Over the last few years, a race to the bottom price mentality has eliminated almost any iOS or Android game that’s more than $3, and the app store supervisors, most notably Apple, haven’t done a thing to slow or stop it. EA knows $1 or $2 purchases en masse couldn’t come close to matching their high budget; free to play was the only viable option. Even the “traditional” free to play (e.g. paying money for more cars and tracks) that we’re use to on mobile wouldn’t cut it. Only invasive timers, in EA’s mind, ensures profitability. In short, timers may be wrong on principle, but given the mobile app store climate, they are likely a sound economical bet for EA.
Overall RR3‘s strange free to play model is a clear signal that gaming is in a tricky, experimental and indeterminate state. Yet as gamers we can vote with our dollars. We should support games financially that are fun and worth the investment, from assorted free to play or cheap iOS diversions to $60 console games and everything in between. I’m conflicted over RR3, a solid game with a sketchy business model; I’ll continue to play but I’ll minimize how much I spend on it.
I really liked this short post by director/designer Nathan Ford on the advantages of custom cut web grid systems. Here’s the money quote:
Nathan Smith built 960.gs a few years back and it went a long way to popularize the application of grid-based layout on the web. This was a leap forward in bringing grid-based thinking to the web, but 12 columns at 960px wide has become so ubiquitous now that it limits our progress into more considered and complex grid design. 960.gs – and most frameworks – invert a key aspect of grid theory:
You should design a grid based on your content’s constraints, not design your content based on a grid’s constraints.
I’m aware we’re a good few months before the Breaking Bad craziness starts again for one last time, but this Youtube breakdown of Walter White’s mental state (or psychosis?) is awesome. Nice static graphics as well. Fair warning: major spoilers are contained for seasons one through four.