Links tagged "geekingout"
2013.06.13
FEZ
I know FEZ II just got announced today, but I'm still stuck on the original, because I've never played it. "...You play as Gomez, a 2D creature living in what he believes is a 2D world. Until a strange and powerful artifact reveals to him the existence of a mysterious third dimension." I've had a tab in my browser open to the trailer for this for weeks, and I re-watch it every day, trying to wrap my mind around this. Thankfully, they also released this game for PC and not just XBox, and it's just $10. Now to find a PC I can play this on (and to convince my wife I can buy it...) #
68 thousand tweets were analyzed to find the distinction between the words of "geek" and "nerd". I tend to use the words interchangeably, but can clearly recognize the distinction. Be sure to see the hashtag analysis. It seems my interests are on the geeky side, but have several on the nerd side as well. #
Bret Victor gives us another very thoughtful essay on programming (which I admit has been opened as a tab in my browser for the past five months). I admit I'm a person who has tried to learn to program several times, and (in my opinion) failed every time, despite being able to accomplish all of the prescribed activities. Now don't get me wrong, Bret doesn't offer some miracle solution that makes it so we can all program, but I really like his examples and encouragements. All of it may be the real reason why I've taken so well to SQL - my mind has easily taken to visualizing data in that way. #
I'm to the point that I think my site is bloated. Although I like Movable Type (which is what runs this site), it's too heavy these days for what I need/want out of a site. Kirby CMS is almost in the complete opposite direction - a completely file-based CMS. I've been toying with it locally for a few weeks, and although I'm not ready to say I'm going for it, I can certainly see examples of how/when I'd use it. $40 to be database free, and insanely flexible. Very very tempting. #
This handy little OS X application will let you use that non-standard gamepad (like an old school SNES gamepad, along with one of Retro USB's USB Super RetroPort), and use it in any application. USB Overdrive can too, but it's too much for my purposes. Now don't get me wrong, Richard Bannister's perfect Emulator Enhancer is all you need for SNES9X, Nestopia, or Visual Boy Advance. One of its best features is the ease of being able to turn it on/off, and to have different profiles for different programs… and you can't beat the price. #
It's no secret I pretty much have a man crush on Shaun Inman. Now he's gone and come up with a Kickstarter project involving the same two collaborators as he worked with for Super Clew Land. You should back it. $25 for 6 7 games from him is a bargain, though that $75 tier sure looks appealing. #
The folks at arc90/Readability have created something I really like (though I'm still leery of them). Readlists give you the ability to create eBooks from a compilation of URLs. Simply type/paste in all the different pages you want combined, and it'll generate an eBook for you in multiple formats. It's perfect for things spread out over multiple pages (like Tor.com's Rothfuss Reread (see my Name of the Wind & The Wise Man's Fear readlists)).
I suppose that Marco Arment's brilliant Instapaper could do this same thing. You can just organize things in a folder, and export that individual folder as an ebook. The (current) benefit of Readlists is that they can be renamed, organized, and shared. #
I enjoy listening to audio books, and wanted a way to mash all of those three-minute tracks together. It's a multi-step process, but worth it to narrow down the number of files. Here are the steps I take:
- I organize all of my MP3s into nicely named folders, like "Chapter 1". Tricky, I know.
- Now, you should remove all the ID3 tags (the meta data inside each MP3 that has the Title, Artist, etc). I use my favorite ID3 tag editor - Media Rage. In the Data Remover tool, just set the MP3 ID3v2 and ID3v1 tag to "None", and process all of your nicely named/organized MP3s.
- Now go through the step explained on this page. Basically, cd into each directory, and then run that happy "cat" command. If I continue our example, I'd go with "cat * Chapter01.mp3". Avoid spaces in the file name (I don't want to go into escaping spaces). Do that with each folder you want combined.
- You're done, but I'd go through and move each of your new files into a folder, and go back and re-add ID3 tags. Again, use Media Rage. It's awesome (especially at this point, where it can read the file names, and put them into the ID3 tags automagically. Yes. It's magic.)
Or, you could do it a different, super simple way, and pay $6 for the great OS X application Audiobook Builder. I admit I like to have the combined MP3s in addition to the nicely formatted M4B file. So, after I go through the above steps, I throw them into Audiobook Builder, and get that iTunes/iOS-friendly file (so I can play the files at double-speed). #
Seeing a picture/illustration of one of these brings back so many childhood memories. It's not the world's most impressive plane, nor is it even in service any more, but it's an amazing aircraft for how it contributed to my life. #
Last week I finally watched this presentation by Bret Victor. Although he's not a very engaging presenter, his content is impeccable. I think the geeky demos are cool, and his personal modus operandi is interesting. Overall, the purpose of his presentation to find a guiding principal, or not to. You choose. #