Two hundred plus comments on what you should watch from Netflix’s streaming library. It’s territory covered heavily elsewhere online, but especially if you’re new to Netflix and bewildered where to start, there’s some good options here.
I’m not a huge iOS gamer, but when I do I gravitate toward word games. One of the best in the genre is David Gage’s SpellTower. It’s fun, simple, and has four game variations to keep things interesting. Works well on both iPhone and iPad, and there’s Bluetooth connectivity included for competitive multiplayer.
It’s on sale right now for a buck only for the next 24 hours, so go get it (Cool web site as well.)
If you haven’t stopped by Dustin Curtis’s network of tech bloggers, do so asap. Dustin is rounding up a great set of talent (e.g. Federico Viticci, Christina Warren.) The minimal design is optimized for reading and casual browsing. In addition, the clean visuals and lack of ads give it an upscale feel; it’s almost like browsing a minimalist Monocle online.
The A.V. Club’s Mike D’Angelo on that car chase from The French Connection:
Early in the scene, it’s mostly Hackman (who later became a mildly successful amateur race-car driver) behind the wheel, clearly visible either in profile or in the rear-view mirror. But the second half features footage shot from the front bumper, and that’s Hickman (“Hickman, Hackman. Hackman, Hickman”) barreling down actual, non-staged Brooklyn traffic at what Friedkin, who was operating from the back seat, claims was upward of 90 miles per hour. Some sources—notably cinematographer Owen Roizman—claim this is exaggerated slightly…you can still tell that what you’re seeing was in no way safe, and the idea that most of those other cars are just ordinary folks going about their day is mind-boggling. Do they even know they’re in the movie, or do they just think they narrowly avoided being hit by some random asshole?
I had no idea. Crazy stuff.
Excellent primer on floating elements from the Design Shack team. Floats can be a hard concept to visualize, yet author Joshua Jonson does a good job of laying the basic rules out. The experienced should file this as reference material; it’s an article best suited for CSS newbies.
This isn’t a perfect design brief; the Frameographer team skips over a few major wireframes along with a few big jumps in logic. Yet one fact is made clear: simple sketches lead to big ideas. You don’t have to make a masterpiece. Just by putting pen to paper (or stylus to tablet) you can rapidly work through UI ideas pretty rapidly.
Javascript based graphing libraries have been done before, but I’ve rarely seen graphing code this clean, straightforward or well documented. Worth a look.
Ever since news broke of the DOJ accusing Apple of collusion, I’ve gone back and forth on where I stand on the issue. On one hand, Apple has a point about Amazon’s stranglehold on the e-book market, which isn’t good for anybody. Yet the implication that flipping to an agency model that jacks up prices for consumers isn’t kosher either.
After reading entrepreneur David Parkman’s opinion here on the matter, I’ve fallen more on the pro-Amazon side. A great point here:
The negative coverage of Amazon is centered on them selling eBooks below cost in order to reach the $10 price point. But that is a function of publishers setting the cost higher than $10. If the profit-maximizing price for an eBook is $10, then publishers must adapt to set a wholesale price lower than that, even if it means your legacy cost structure doesn’t allow it. And that’s the rub.
This reminds me about the record companies initial complaints about iTunes store pricing. Apple, in their eyes, was going too low. Yet we all remember life prior to the iPod, where retail prices of $17 or more per CD at a Tower Records was commonplace. It doesn’t fully excuse then some monopolistic like behavior from Apple, but was that pricing structure fair for the consumer?
The Iterate podcast gathered a lot of talented designers together – David Bernard of App Cubby, Marc Edwards of Bjango, to name a few – and talked for an hour on first impressions of Photoshop CS6. It’s really interesting if Photoshop is at all a core part of your workflow. Don’t miss the 30 minute mark where the hosts discuss the backwardness of Photoshop’s default settings (e.g. why default to sRGB color space instead of Adobe RGB?)
I already listen regularly to the Build and Analyze podcast, but this week’s episode really stood out as a keeper. I especially enjoyed a brief aside (starting around the 20 minute mark) about Facebook’s long term intentions regarding the web and Instagram.