06.07.13 |
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Tech writer and former Hypercritical podcast host John Siracusa really sets a high bar with his post regarding the likely fates of the XBox One, PS4 for and Wii U for the next console generation. Bottom line, it’s hard to guess who will come out on top now, but I agree completely with John’s belief that there isn’t going to be an “even divide” between these consoles.
If I were a betting man today, I’d say the Wii U will fall far, far short of the XBox One and PS4, both in terms of hardware and games sold. But it’s extremely hard to say now either Sony or Microsoft have the edge. We’ll learn more next week at E3.
06.06.13 |
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Given the stellar quality of Zurb’s web framework Foundation, I’m going to try this “responsive image solution” out on some side project, just to see how the internals come together. But the syntax is a bit worrisome, a bit like the srcset attribute, but not all close to the picture element, which I’m currently favoring. I’ll still keep an eye on this one.
06.05.13 |
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Developer “m50d” on Github:
A cup of coffee might not be worth £2. But happiness is, and that’s what I’m buying. If you want me to buy your thing for £2, it had better bring this much joy into my life. Otherwise, I’d rather have another cup.
06.05.13 |
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The New Yorker’s Matt Buchanan:
When I spoke to Google designers across a number of products over the past couple of months, they rejected the idea that this was a top-down revolution. They described it instead as a conversation across the company. While an ascendant Larry Page “put the emphasis on beauty and gave us the freedom to go beyond,” said Gilbert, there’s “no organizational authority making it happen.”
Whatever the real story, from grass roots to a top-down skunkworks factory, it’s working. A year or two ago I wrote off Google’s design chops, especially on an aesthetic level, as dull and uninspired. No longer.
06.04.13 |
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Even though I consider myself quite technically proficient, I’m still often guilty of forgetting passwords all the time, and sometimes using duplicate copies all over the place. Enter 1Password, recommended from endless coworkers, bloggers and tech sites.
I broke down and bought it for half off over the weekend. Hopefully you will soon as well.
06.03.13 |
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Julie Delpy, delivering an important message to Alamo Drafthouse moviegoers:
He’s talking and texting at the same time, is this your living room? What’s your f**king problem man?
Anyone who’s a fan of Before Sunrise/Sunset/Midnight is going to love this one. I certainly did.
06.03.13 |
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Developer and writer Alex Payne:
A startup is just a means to an end. Consider the end, and don’t seek to revel in the means. What do you care about? Who do you want to help? Does a startup make meeting your goals easier or harder? Where will it leave you when your goal is met? Where will it leave you if it isn’t?
Startups are portrayed as an exciting…but a few interviews at later-stage startups will make clear just how quickly they ossify into structures that look very much like the organizations that came before them.
So true. I’ve both experienced touches of this here and there earlier in my career, and know so many other horror stories of fellow web developers that have sacrificed their personal lives at the alter of a “hot startup” that falls apart within a few months. I appreciate Alex isn’t anti-startups in his argument; he emphasizes balance, something sorely lacking from content we read every day on Hacker News and Techcrunch.
05.31.13 |
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Matt Zoller Seitz on today’s great era of TV direction:
Where’s their MoMA retrospective? Why is there no auteur theory of TV?
One explanation is that movies have a half-century head start on TV, so there’s been more time for critics to settle on terms and definitions. I like to tell people that TV, as both business and art, is at roughly the same place in its development as cinema was in the late fifties, around the time that the French floated the auteur theory. We’re still figuring out who the “author” is on TV shows. We’re still taking into account whether we’re talking about the show as a whole or a particular episode, and why. We rarely think of TV as being directed, unless the show’s main creative force has already been identified as a theatrical director (as David Lynch was before Twin Peaks) or doubles as the show’s star (like Louis C.K. or Lena Dunham).
I’ve become more aware of reoccurring TV directors on shows as varied as Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and even New Girl. I know there’s a “voice” there, but I admit I rarely make a connection with what’s onscreen the way I do with a “name” film director. Seitz helps explain why.
05.30.13 |
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Kotaku editor-in-chief Stephen Totilo:
I suggested that it would be useful if Microsoft could clear some things up. And I granted that, if you weren’t at the Redmond campus, you missed getting your hands on some of the best things about Xbox One. The new rumble in the controllers, for example. That feels next-level.
Was the anger really 20%? In my extended online world, it seemed broader than that. The mood away from Redmond was, at least among the gamers I saw online, the kind of stuttering, stammering frustration that comes with the dawning recognition that, in the Xbox One’s version of gaming’s future, you might not even be allowed to borrow a game from a friend without paying a fee. To console gamers of the last two decades, that seems mad.
Totilo really nails better than any other article I’ve read the massive confusion and PR problems that Microsoft has had since its XBox One unveil last week. It’s a shame on how much of this I think could have been preventable with better organization and preparation. Then again, maybe this is what we get with Microsoft comfortably winning the last generation of consoles: laziness, arrogance, and aloofness. Just ask Sony circa 2006.
05.29.13 |
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Developer Lucas Rocha:
Why is it so important to have designers and engineers working very closely? First, there are a number of issues that you only spot once you actually try the design ideas. If designers don’t engage with engineers, the product will likely stick with broken and/or unintended design.
Furthermore, design issues are tricky in that they have this qualitative side that tends to be invisible to untrained eyes. Design problems will not necessarily be caught by even the most competent QA team or the most solid UI tests—because both are usually focused on the functional correctness of the product.
As I’ve said many times here, close collaboration between a tech team’s designers and engineers isn’t just a “nice to have”. It’s essential for success, especially in smaller organizations like startups.