12.27.13 |
∞
Noah Horowitz over at the NRDC:
The Natural Resources Defense Council has just completed rigorous measurements of the power use of the newly released U.S. versions of the Sony PlayStation 4 (PS4) and Microsoft Xbox One. We found that the new models have made substantial progress on energy efficiency compared to their predecessors, the PS3 and Xbox 360. But despite these power-saving advances, the new consoles’ higher performance and new features result in up to three times higher annual energy consumption than the most recent models of their predecessors.
What’s most telling about their research is for most common streaming usage – watching HD movies on Netflix or TV on Hulu – devices like the Apple TV and Roku use less than 5 ways. That’s 15 times lower than the PS4 or XBox One. It’s minor, but between that and the ability to easily navigate with a remote control, I tend to switch to my Roku or Apple TV for movies vs. my new PS4.
12.26.13 |
∞
Niles Schwartz, writing for L’etoile:
Carlito’s Way is a beautiful after-hours ride to nowhere, a late night discotheque frenzy of manic physicality blasting off and crumpling down with the same bullet, where the dancers are passionately moving as if to a final destination of perfection, but are escorted out, dozing, on last call…Now, Carlito’s Way stands as one of his [Pacino’s] last headlining triumphs, his subsequent noteworthy work having shared before-the-title acknowledgement: Robert De Niro (Heat), Johnny Depp (Donnie Brasco), and Russell Crowe (The Insider).
It’s still an amazing film, something I want to potentially revisit during the holiday break. Available on digital rental and Netflix via DVD.
12.25.13 |
∞
If you’re an iOS user there’s a lot of app sales going on for the holidays. But there’s no better single sales grouping than over at App Santa. Very respected iOS dev teams with some excellent apps. I use Tweetbot, Clear+, One Password, and Launch Center Pro daily. I only use Scanner Pro every so often, but it’s essential for keeping track of receipts, especially on business trips.
12.25.13 |
∞
Yes, it’s arguably a lot of PR boilerplate over at this PlayStation Blog post. But I’m linking to game studio Housemarque’s holiday card because they are behind Resogun, a legitimately great launch PS4 game. These guys are the embodiment of almost everything I wanted from the PS4 on day one; a simple fun showcase for the PS4 graphics with addictive gameplay. It’s perfect for a short break away from my day job. If you do have a PS4 over break and haven’t given Resogun a try, do so. It’s free on PS+ (which you should have for at least 30 days as part of your new console) and even a la carte at $15 it’s well worth its entry price.
12.24.13 |
∞
It’s too last minute to be useful for holiday gifting, but for 2014 shopping, Canopy is a great site. It’s effectively a wrapper around Amazon with hand picked recommendations; most items selected are very design and/or tech friendly, and often hard to find elsewhere. I like the clean web design as well.
12.23.13 |
∞
During the holidays I tend to travel more and rely on my iPhone and iPad for blogging and social media. But there’s a big problem when you find a cool link on RSS or Twitter: the URL is often littered with proxies, tokens, and other junk that’s unnecessary. Enter the free Clean Links app. Just copy whatever the URL is to your clipboard, open up the app, and a “cleaned” version of the URL is pasted back on your clipboard for use elsewhere. For those that want a faster workflow, Clean Links supports the X-Callback-URL scheme for use in apps like Drafts or Launch Center Pro.
12.20.13 |
∞
I’ve usually come away very impressed with Polygon’s long form writing, and this article by Tracey Lien is a great example. Very solid reporting, smart illustrations, it’s the full package. Best of all, you don’t have to be hard core gamer to appreciate the content. If you’re vaguely interesting in marketing, even basic human psychology, there’s a lot of good stuff here.
12.19.13 |
∞
Alice Marwick’s article has already gotten a lot of well deserved praise, but this passage really stood out as a smart (and simple?) observation that I’ve rarely spotted in other articles:
Certainly, a level of material wealth is necessary to participate in San Francisco tech culture. Very few pointed to the elephant in the room of assumed wealth: “People behave as if we all make kind of the same.” To forge the type of social connections necessary to move into the upper echelons of the tech scene requires being able to take part in group activities, travel to conferences, and work on personal projects. This requires middle- to upper-class wealth, which filters out most people.
The result of this mythology is that it denies the role of personal connections, wealth, background, gender, race, or education in an individual’s success.
12.19.13 |
∞
I’m already a big fan of Chris Coyer over at CSS Tricks, but I think he outdid himself with his work on this article over at 24 Ways. It’s possibly the best completely from scratch introduction to the Grunt task manager (which is essential to my daily workflow) that I’ve seen. Now when I’ve got coworkers or friends that ask what the hell Grunt is, I point them to this article first.
12.18.13 |
∞
Mark Harris writing for Grantland:
So, as a means of guesswork, right now it makes more sense to look at the voters than at the movies. The Academy is divided by branch — actors, writers, producers, sound people, composers, and so on — but thinking of Oscar voting as tribalism-by-profession often leads to fallacies like “Editors like movies with a lot of editing in them,” and it doesn’t tell you much about how Best Picture nominees emerge. Think of the Academy instead as a group of about half a dozen voting blocs divided by taste and predilection. This is who they are — and who’s targeting them.