ℹ️ This is an archived legacy site for link purposes only.
Typo 2 is a Blackberry-like keyboard for iPhone. From Sean Hollister’s review:
Heres ab example of some typig on the FUCK why am I nack obn the homescreen? Typo’s physical keyboard. Its bot ridiculously retTrible but gos I wish Iddnty have to go back and fixz all these nisyakes.
Matt Mullenweg, preaching it:
Let people live someplace remarkable instead of paying $2,800 a month for a mediocre one bedroom rental in San Francisco. Or don’t, and let companies like Automattic and Github hire the best and brightest and let them live and work wherever they like.
The Interview might prove to be fodder for online premiers. Consider this, from the Deadline story:
The unplanned day-and-date release of The Interview raked in more than $15 million in online revenues through Saturday, Sony Pictures said in a release.
And then this:
The film also was screened in 331 theaters, bringing in another $2.8 million beginning Christmas Day. The substantial online revenues for the film may fuel additional conversation and even controversy about day-and-date debuts for films online and in theaters.
It might be a bit early to get our hopes up for a better, more digital, distribution system of movies but it’s interesting nonetheless. Also, no telling how the terror threats have affected theater sales. Then again, without the whole Sony hack spectacle, chances are The Interview would’ve just passed us by.
Every New Year’s, some people starts to whine about how a new year is nothing more than another day. Your inclination to promise and commit to behavior for the coming twelve months are unnatural and unwarranted that’s their gospel.
They’re right in principle, but not in reality.
We’re all better off considering things – life, work, goals, whatever – and to take the time to actually do that; it needs to be in the books. Some of us schedule this, others tackle the big questions when they arise, or preferably just before that happens.
Sony, on three days of PlayStation Network outage:
PlayStation Network is back online. As you probably know, PlayStation Network and some other gaming services were attacked over the holidays with artificially high levels of traffic designed to disrupt connectivity and online gameplay. This may have prevented your access to the network and its services over the last few days.
“Some other network” is Xbox Live, which were up on Friday. This is not the first outage for any of these services, but so far Sony’s been the one lagging behind. Reliance on online services is something that’s proving troublesome, with games needing a connection to work, not just for online play. While that’s not necessarily the case for all console games, so many features are online dependent these days – where online often is a centralized network such as PlayStation Network – it’s obvious that the suppliers of these networks aren’t up to the task.
It’s been a bit slow here recently, albeit not even remotely close to what it was like before. Relaunching with focus on blogging has led to a lot of posts, long and short alike. Just take a look at the archives and tell me it’s not a change.
Said archives is also the best place to start if you want to read something by me over the holidays. I’m taking it easy, and while I do intend to get quite a bit of writing done, none of it is meant for this site. (I won’t update Daily Crowdfunder either, but added an archive view there – plenty of great crowdfunding campaign that are still rolling.)
All that said, I hope you get some time off this holiday season, and have something meaningful to spend it on. And yes, slacking around playing videogames definitely counts. I’ll see you on a more regular basis in the new year (aka 2015).
Happy holidays, no matter what kind you’re celebrating!
In the words of Ray Spass, one half of the leading characters in Grant Morrison’s comic Annihilator (this from issue #4, I think):
I’m actually enjoying Annihilator thus far. It’s a bit much at time, desperately trying, but I still look forward to the next issue, so it must be good. Check it out here, and then make sure you backup before you clock out for the Holidays.
My point is that fantasy, and all the genres like it, give writers a medium through which they can explore every facet of the human imagination, test the very limits of what we, as human beings, can envision and relate to, what’s within our power to articulate. Fantasy challenges writers to make social commentary and philosophical statements within the most fantastic and diverse circumstances possible. Fantasy has the potential to take its readers to places they could never conceive of, on adventures that transcend comprehension; with this tool, fantasy could become the most beautiful, poetic, and diverse form of escapism we have.
It could be, if we didn’t focus so much on the elves, the dwarves and the dragons, but we do, because we’re idiots.
Fantasy is a genre that has become bogged down with clichés and tropes, archetypes and expectations. Apparently, in order for a novel to qualify as fantasy, there has to be sword fights, magic has to be present, dragons have to turn up at some point, and it absolutely must be set in a pseudo-medieval, sort of European landscape.
Fantasy literature is a weird beast. It definitely carries the weight of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, doubtless not his intentions. The readers want what they’re accustomed to, just as in any other genre, or form of entertainment. Meanwhile, there’s the people who want to be different, who want to stand out and whine about how everything that’s shaped fantasy is basically shit. I find that silly, it’s like saying 70s rock is shit, and needs to be replaced. There’s room for a lot more than we have today, a lot more than fantasy worlds inspired by medieval Europe, but that doesn’t mean that everything pertaining to that style should be obliterated. Nor does it mean that you can scratch out Tolkien’s importance in the genre, no matter how much you want to.
Fantasy literature is constrained only by what you accept to read, and, I guess, in part by what’s published. With self-publishing, you can rest assured there’s quite a lot non-mainstream out there, so if you really want to change things for fantasy readers, do it with your wallet. And if you’ve read some outstanding fantasy, traditional or not, tell me on Twitter. I’d love to spread the word, if it’s good.
WordPress 4.1 är släppt, med blandade nyheter samt ett nytt standardtema. Uppdatera bums!
Jag skrev ett par ord till om saken på TDH.me.
Gamers beware, the Steam Holiday Sale for 2014 has started. 63% off Dark Souls II, and 40% off Civilization: Beyond Earth among the discounted games in the first batch. Better set up a budget for this thing…
WordPress 4.1 is out now. My favorite addition isn’t the new default theme, Twenty Fifteen, although I like it and am currently using it on Pale Publishing’s site. No, I’m more interested in this little tidbit:
Metadata, date, and term queries now support advanced conditional logic, like nested clauses and multiple operators — A AND ( B OR C ).
Potentially very useful.
I enjoy setup posts, what’s in my bag, the everyday carrys, that sort of thing. They tell me what works for people, and that gives me ideas as to how I can improve my own productivity by tweaking my gear. Also, I guess I like to read about gadgets and stuff.
One thing I’ve been thinking about is how much people carry around. The backpacks are filled to the brim, with sensible things (usually), but a lot of them.