With the right computer algorithms I can hack you back in time. – HACKERMAN
Kung Fury is a fantastic 80s-flavored kung fu time travel dinoriffic flick! It’s fun and ridiculous and I really enjoyed it! If you enjoyed Ready Player One you’ll enjoy Kung Fury.
If you don’t, Barbariana will be very disappointed in you.
Now that you’ve seen it, you may enjoy Defocused 49: I have complaints about hair where Joe and Dan review the film as only they can.
There has been a lot of debate among nerds about the privacy and security implications of Google and Apple. How much is privacy worth? Is Google going too far? Is Apple protecting us? Does it even matter anymore?
For me, this is not a debate I care to take part in. My information is already out in the world. Target, Carefirst BlueCross Blueshield, Chick Fil-A, Adobe and most recently, the Federal Government have been breached.
Since the incident was identified, OPM has partnered with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine the impact to Federal personnel. And OPM immediately implemented additional security measures to protect the sensitive information it manages.
I have worked as a contractor for two separate US Government agencies. I haven’t heard if my information was one of the 4,000,000 people leaked in the hack on the Office of Personnel Management. But it would not surprise me if it was.
It feels like every week there is some other places letting my information out into the world. It’s no surprise after looking at this list of data breaches in 2015. These reports cover 103,340,565 records. That’s about 1 in 3 US Citizens that could have had their information leaked into the world.
I’m not interested in having a theoretical debate over my privacy and what Google or Apple are or are not going to do with my photos when my credit card, social security number and every other bit of identifying, personal information about me have or may have already been exposed. I’d be much more curious to see if active security scans are being done and if security people are on staff at places I trust my with you
Why do people like watching other people play video games online?
Much has been written about the curiosity of things like Twitch. A service allowing players to stream video of them playing a game to the web from an Xbox One, Playstation 4 or Windows PC.
It allows others to watch that player and comment in a chat box or follow along with the action. Why do we do this? And more importantly, why do we watch others?
It’s different for a lot of people. Recently, I found myself among hundreds of thousands of people watching Bungie show game-play from their new House of Wolves expansion to Destiny. It was a first-look at the new aspects of the game. What better way to see what it had in store for me, than to watch people play it?
Streaming video games can be a marketing tool. It’s better than a trailer. Instead of pre-rendered footage or marketing clips, it is real game-play by real people. So it will show off the product exactly as it is.
Back in the dark ages of the Nintendo Entertainment System and later the Super NES, the talk of the lunch room and hallways were tips and tricks for Mario, Zelda and Metroid. Many of the secrets in the game came to us by word-of-mouth and friend-of-a-friend eyewitness accounts. Many of the feats are not real but there was no way to know.
I spent a lot of my youth at GameFAQs. A site dedicated to walk-through and FAQs about all different games. When I’d get stuck in a Final Fantasy quest, or need a refresher about where I was in the story, I’d consult the fan-compiled .txt files and ASCII artwork.
Today, I can spend 30 seconds and look up anything on YouTube and find a recorded stream of the person doing exactly what I’m trying to do. Where is this item? How do I complete that quest? How do I get to this specific area in a game with no map? It’s all there and it’s only seconds away.
Why do we watch non-competitive video gaming streams? I’ve done it too. it’s not like watching sports, what’s the analog?
— Evil Genius (@AlexMorse) May 28, 2015
A friend on Twitter asked about the analog to watching people play video games online. He’s done it. I’ve done it. And I think it’s sitting next to a friend or sibling on a couch and watching them play something where you had to take turns.
My brother and I spent hours playing through Final Fantasy II and III on the SNES. We’d take turns playing quests and helping each other through. There was nothing for the second person to do but watch and follow the story.
Early computer games like Command&Conquer could be played by two people. Over our blazing 26400bps modem, one of us would play the game, using the mouse and the other would spam our competitor with the text chat or enter keyboard commands.
We’d work as a team even though only one of us was really playing the game. There is something extremely social for me about playing games that stems from those long afternoon and nights of gaming with my brother.
We had a serious obsession with NBA JAM and would compile long lists of our records in notebooks. Most dunks, steals or three-pointers. How much could we blow the other team out? Could we hold them scoreless?
Gaming is a social activity. I love cooperative games more than anything else. There’s nothing better than joining a team in person or online and working together to complete a quest or help a friend through a tricky part of the game.
I play with a core group of friends that work all varying shifts. When I get home in the evenings, they’ll just have gone to work and I will start a Twitch stream and share my game with them.
It’s nice to chat with them over the game, even if they can’t respond in kind. I leave the chat window open on the side of my screen so we can talk. Which is a perfectly fun asynchronous way to chat while we’re both doing something else.
It’s no different from chatting over text message or a phone call with a distracted second party. It’s nice to hear a friendly voice when you’re stuck working on tedious tasks like data entry.
Streaming games can be a lot of fun and it’s not limited to video games. Wil Wheaton hosts a show called TableTop where he invites friends to play board games. It’s a stellar show with explanations of the games beforehand and clarification throughout. It’s informed a lot of my board game purchases as my wife and I explore our growing love affair with them.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Dice Tower. My wife has watched hour of videos from them. They put together lists of games in all sorts of categories and play styles. It’s a great intro to a genre of games or if you’re just looking for something passed Scrabble and Parcheesi.
You know what I write in most days? Windows.
I like MarkdownPad because it’s simple. It lets me type away and see any styling in real-time. It shows the styles as I type.
It can do so much more than I need it to, but I ignore the extras and use it as a place for words. It’s free to use and $15 to upgrade and get a host of added, useful features like auto-saving and session-management.
It’s never crashed on me. knock wood. It’s a solid little app that does what I need it to do. I save files to .txt or .md and put them in Google Drive. I appreciate the app’s simplicity. It also pairs nicely with another app I love to write in.
Writemonkey is big, black canvas where I can put my words. There’s something about the black page and green text that reminds me of the old days of computing. It has a ton of options and plugins. But I use it as you see it. A big black page with lovely green text.
It feels comfortable to me. I am not saying this is the way all writing should be done. I am saying this works for me.
Find what works best for you and do it. I have found a color scheme and font that please me. It’s not a requirement for me to write. I don’t have to be seated just so with the proper writing tool in the perfect environment.
I just need time and head space to compose words. And these are the tools I’m using these days. On the Mac and iPhone, I have Byword set to the dark mode but I don’t remember the last time I used either.
I don’t remember where I first learned about The Glitch Mob but it may have been the remixes from the Tron Soundtrack. I heard EDit’s Ants which is a spectacularly beautiful song and was curious to learn more. I found out he was 1/3 of The Glitch Mob so I gave them a listen and was hooked.
I saw them first at Bonnaroo at 2:15am and that was a magical experience. I saw them again in Washington, D.C. and really enjoyed them again. The music speaks to me and moves me.
Part of their act is The Blade. It’s an instrument / platform / space ship of music.
It’s something they’ve created themselves to house their instruments and program. I always wondered what went into it and now they’ve released a short documentary on it. Two laptops, two Mac minis, and 12 iPads are just the start of The Blade. I love knowing how things work and this didn’t disappoint.
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