Archive: April, 2012

‘Mad Men’ fashion

Really interesting analysis and breakdown by the opinionated Tom and Lorenzo couple of Mad Men’s fashion. It’s deeper than just what’s trendy in the late 60s; by reading their episode recaps (with plenty of helpful screen grabs) you learn a lot about costume design and how subtle choices can help characterization on film and TV.

Minigroup

I first heard about this over at the Brooklyn Creative League, and I’m digging this collaborative tech for project management. It’s crazy cheap ($3 a year for 3 minigroups and a gig of storage) and looks very straightforward. It’s so inexpensive I’d consider it for non-work web collaboration with friends out of NYC.

How Apple sidesteps billions in taxes

Invariably this article, like the ones on Foxconn working conditions, will be dismissed as something that all multinational corporations do, not just Apple. Be it better working conditions in China, more jobs in the U.S., or paying a fair share of California taxes, Apple won’t do it because it won’t “maximize competitive shareholder value.”

Yet don’t we expect more from Apple? Many wouldn’t think twice of criticizing Mitt Romney’s 15% effective tax rate, yet Apple gets a free pass? It’s clear to stay competitive Apple can’t change everything. But something, from donations to California public schools, to bumping up the price on iPhones and Macs (or at least presenting the option) by a few bucks for better working conditions, can be done.

I can’t play without my radio

Smartly written piece by Killscreen Daily writer Theon Weber reminiscing on radio stations in the Grand Theft Auto and Fallout series. I loved this line:

Mario’s never needed period pop to bind together his adventures, or situate them historically: Princess Peach is to the right of where he is, and left is where he came from.

Cloud storage: a pricing and feature guide

As the debut of Google Drive underlined this week, there's a lot of options out there for cloud storage. To help you decide what's best for your needs, Ars Technica breaks down the pros and cons of each service.

(For the record, I'm pretty happy with the 8GB I get via Dropbox. Some great iOS integration with key apps doesn't hurt either.)

Peep tool for Twitter

Twitter is awesome, yet I’m very selective with my follow list; a lot of people I otherwise respect just don’t tweet with either a frequency or content that I’m comfortable constantly scrolling through. For that reason a lot of Twitter recommendation engines I find don’t work well.

Peep could change all that. It’s a little tool, produced during this year’s Seven on Seven conference, where you type in any user name and get a private list added to your account which mirrors all their followers. In other words, you get a list that mirrors their timeline. Clever.

Nintendo’s latest earnings call

Vlad Savov for The Verge:

Apple sold more iPhones in the last quarter, 35 million, than Nintendo has been able to sell handhelds in any single year. The total of 109 million iPhones sold over the past four quarters eclipses the 98.5 million Nintendo portables sold over the past four years.

The market of a dedicated portable gaming device is clearly drawing to a close. Sans major handheld sales, where will Nintendo move next?

Slashfilmcast ep. 182: ‘God Bless America’ and the death of film

Excellent discussion over at Slashfilm this week regarding the death of film as a physical media. Hosts Dave, Devindra and Adam break down the implications for a half hour, covering technology, economics and the emotional attachment to celluloid.

Because the Slashfilmcast moved to a shorter, more streamlined format a few weeks ago to accommodate host Dave’s new day job, I didn’t expect we’d see in depth discussions like this. Kudos to the team for keeping production levels high.

The ‘Learn HTML & CSS’ book

Perhaps you’re reading this post, don’t know much about HTML and CSS, but want to start. Many if not most would recommend some sort of online tutorial. Based on the sample chapter I’ve read and reviews elsewhere, check out this book first. Gorgeous work and $15 on Amazon.

Granted it’s true 99% of technical books out there are outdated within seemingly a day after their publication. Yet the raw basics of HTML and CSS – markup, attributes, layout – are fairly timeless. I expect this book, for this reason and with its shallow learning curve, will last on shelves a lot longer.

Oatmeal’s state of the web for spring 2012

The Oatmeal strikes again with another winner. I had a good laugh with his FlareGramster idea.