• Once Upon a Time in the Westworld

    Once Upon a Time in the Westworld

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    4–6 minutes

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    No-one watches Game of Thrones and thinks, “this show describes my life perfectly.” It may contain plenty of themes and imagery that ring true today, about lust for power and the pitiless brutality of war — it may be fantastic storytelling — but unlike drama set in the ‘real’ world of doctors and policewomen and unemployed people, it’s a…

  • Mario vs. Mickey

    Mario vs. Mickey

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    2–3 minutes

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    A couple of years ago, I visited the The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. The museum has precisely nothing to do with The Walt Disney Company that owns approximately all of the world’s entertainment industry, and as far as I’m aware, the Company does not much appreciate how the Family depicts Walt in…

  • Make Browsing Great Again

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    1–2 minutes

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    Spot the Difference What if I told you that reading online could once again be a pleasant, focused experience? What if you could stop mindlessly clicking on Buzzfeed and Gawker articles with enticing titles? And what if it were really easy? My friends: I’m not talking about adblocking. Adblocking is Browsing 101 — an essential foundation to…

  • How we made an App Store subscription success

    Apple just announced they’re giving developers a 85/15 revenue split (instead of 70/30) for subscriptions lasting over a year — and Google will be offering even better terms. As the co-creator of Zombies, Run!, a fitness app that transitioned to a subscription model just over one year ago, I couldn’t be more delighted. 🍾 + 🎉 all…

  • VR Will Break Museums

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    13–19 minutes

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    2 comments on VR Will Break Museums

    The first sign came with the Oculus Rift DK2 last year, when I discovered that consumer virtual reality could finally replicate a sense of physical presence in a digital world. The second came last month, when I visited the British Museum’s Sicily exhibition. The exhibition was perfectly fine, a well-curated narrative of the Greek and…

  • Artificial Intelligence: Another Inspection

    Film critics were not kind when A.I. Artificial Intelligence was released in 2001. A.I. was directed by Steven Spielberg but originated from, and was made with, Stanley Kubrick, up until his death in 1999. A lot of reviewers accordinly blamed Spielberg for pretty much everything they disliked about the film, notably its final 30 minutes…

  • Snap Judgment: The Novel of Podcasts

    Snap Judgment is the novel of podcasts for me – each episode is hard to get into, and each story can be intimidatingly unpredictable, as personal tales inevitably are. But overall, the podcast is surprisingly rewarding and consistent. That’s a real achievement compared to more highly-produced podcasts that are like crystals, almost too perfect and…

  • Lacking Inspiration

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    4–6 minutes

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    1 comment on Lacking Inspiration

    I’ve been struggling to get started writing a new book. I find it all to easy for my time out of work to be nibbled away, seconds and minutes and hours, by genuinely intriguing articles, blog posts, videos, comments, TV shows, work, and games. Like a lot of people, I have the urge to complete…

  • 30 Kickstarters in 30 Days

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    1–2 minutes

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    On Ep 226 of the Core Intuition podcast, Manton Reece discussed his 30 Coffee Shops in 30 Days challenge, which he promptly followed up with a 30 Libraries in 30 Days challenge. They also jokingly talked about a ’30 Kickstarters in 30 Days’ challenge, which immediately made me wonder, as a Kickstarter veteran and aficionado,…

  • Port Standard

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    1–2 minutes

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    1 comment on Port Standard

    There are about 20 plug socket types being used around the world today, but only one really matters for modern devices: USB-A. And USB is truly a worldwide standard. Practically all the devices I might carry around – phone, tablet, watch, camera — can be powered directly via USB cable. My next laptop will be…