New pet peeve: checkers in grocery stores who see that I am purchasing alcohol and say, “looks like you’re going to have FUN tonight!”
If only you knew! Every night is a blast at casa de Markel! I AM WEARING A LAMPSHADE ON MY HEAD RIGHT NOW WHOOOOOOOO
XKCD:
What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?
A careful reading of official Major League Baseball Rule 6.08(b) suggests that in this situation, the batter would be considered “hit by pitch”, and would be eligible to advance to first base.
Fantastic.
As promised, we’ve taken steps to quarantine confirmed cheaters in Max Payne 3 Multiplayer. Starting today, anyone we’ve found using hacked saves, modded games, or other exploits has officially been cordoned off in a dedicated cheater pool, confined to wallow with other unscrupulous reprobates.
This is the best solution to multiplayer cheating I have seen in a while. And if they are smart, they can use it as a honeypot to catch even more cheaters.
But the best quote is from the FAQ:
How will I know if I’m in the Cheater Pool?
If you know you have cheated and you find yourself either in empty lobbies or always matched with games full of other cheaters, you are likely in the Cheater Pool.
The only thing missing from this Gawker report from Neetzan Zimmerman is a shark fin underneath the picture of the jumping cat.
It was really only a matter of time until someone, somewhere thought it would be a great idea to launch a film festival for Internet cat videos, and that countdown is now officially over.
/facepalm
It’s neat the kinds of blogs that I can run into in a day of helping WordPress.com users.
So if you ever wanted to see a collection of Missed Connections posts on Craigslist specifically dealing with Walmart, this WordPress.com blog has got you covered because the author is collecting the best of them so you don’t have to.
On reading them I both do and don’t want these to be from real people instead of cleverly-written Craigslist satire. If you read the blog I am pretty sure you will be similarly conflicted.
This is either the most awesome thing I will see this week or the worst. I haven’t decided yet.
There’s lots of talk going on early this week about Twitter and their intentions towards third-party clients. Will they permit them? Will Tweetbot still be around in six months? How am I going to connect with other people if Twitter goes the Facebook route and makes me use official clients that aren’t as nice as the third-party ones I have now?
I was going to write a bunch of words about this, but in the end it comes down to something very simple.
Your blog has always loved you. Open—or at least agreed-upon and widely used—standards are not going to magically grow walls and keep you or others out.
WordPress. RSS. Comments. Pingbacks.
Digging deeper: PHP. MySQL. Apache/Nginx. Linux.
These things don’t belong to someone else. They don’t belong to a company that needs to please its investors. They don’t have reasons to keep you out or to stop you from doing what you want.
They belong to you. You use them to make great things. You contribute to them and make not only your stuff, but other people’s stuff, better. You use them to read others’ content and to enter the discussion. If your blog hasn’t been the center of your digital presence, why not?
Your blog has always loved you.
I hope you are paying attention.
Who wants the ME3 Extended Cut soundtrack for Free? http://t.co/cBghUXEM All 7 tracks from @samhulick now available for everyone!
— Evil Chris Priestly (@TheEvilChris) July 6, 2012
You do, if only for tracks like this:
(One of the few pieces of music from a game that has actually moved me to tears and still triggers an emotional response when I hear it.)
Another great set of work by Sam Hulick. I’ve enjoyed his work on the Mass Effect series and though I hope he gets the chance to do more there, am looking forward to what he does next.
I personally always, always try to link early and often throughout any sourced piece that I write. I’m not perfect, so I do miss links once in a while, but I attempt to correct them whenever possible. It’s only the right thing to do. We have a link section at the bottom over at TNW but I very, very rarely use it. I suppose I should duplicate the source links at the bottom of the post, but I feel that an inline link clearly attributed to the source so that it’s not a mystery is the best way to go.
Not one word, not a bit of punctuation, but either on the name of the site you’re referencing or a portion of the text that is clearly an indication that ‘more information exists here’.
There is only one reason why you wouldn’t link right in the body of your text, as far as I’m concerned: you don’t want people to click on it.
This is why when I link to interesting things I have read, I use an excerpt and  link the author’s name or the site on which the article was posted. I also try to use the Link post type on WordPress.com, which changes the post title to be a link out to the original article.
I quote things on my blog not because I’m trying to get eyeballs myself, but because I find what these people have written to be genuinely interesting and I think if you are pointed in their direction, maybe you’ll find another blog or site to add to your reading list.
Coming soon: a discussion on why Fever is the best RSS reader in the universe because it helps you find source articles and new things to read. (Oh, and owning your data FTW.)
As developers with a functional centralised software distribution mechanism, we love to complain about capricious reviews by customers. It’s so unfair, we essentially say. And it no doubt is, but at some point, at least one party has to stop being a teenager – and it won’t be our customers.
Crappy reviews aren’t surprising, even if your software is the best thing ever. I always get a mild feeling of unreality when I (regularly) hear a CrapStore-review complaining session, because people haven’t changed.
His analysis of why people write super-critical things for no apparent reason applies not just to iOS reviews, but also to pretty much every software-related customer service situation ever.
Sometimes the best decision is not to give the people who are saying crazy things about you an audience.
Internet translation: don’t feed the trolls.
