Tag Archives: video games

Friday Links: Why Do Programmers Work at Night?

• Why programmers work at night.
• Buzzfeed has an interview with the creators of the Live Action Toy Story video that was all the rage this week.
• “Aaron’s Law” introduced, would change computer law so violating Terms of Service isn’t a felony
• The Empire responds to the White House’s Deathstar response. Probably related White House raises the number of signatures needed to get a response to a petition.
• Writers strive to get science right, and a seal of approval.
• Disney builds 8-bit street in London to promote “Wreck-it Ralph.”
• 8 insights about the coming era of interactive design.
• Typographic Star Wars prints.
• The psychology of a well-designed business card.

The Life & Death of the American Arcade

The Verge has a fascinating (and long) read, “For Amusement Only: the life and death of the American arcade.”

“The crash of 1983 nearly killed off the entire video game industry. It wasn’t just arcades that suffered, though this marks the beginning of their very steep and permanent decline. History has told us that the rise of home gaming killed off arcades, and so our own laziness is to blame. To an extent, of course, that’s true. If this were a history of video games, it would be time to talk about Nintendo, and the epic release of the revolutionary NES console in 1985. This event reinvigorated a decimated industry, and ultimately gave birth to the video games ecosystem we all still live in. But that didn’t happen until 1985, and so it wasn’t technology that killed off the arcade, not to begin with. It’s fair to concede that the arcade, already dying, was allowed to stay dead because we were all happily gaming at home by the time anybody noticed that all of the actual arcades were disappearing, and fast.”

Friday Links: Neil deGrasse Tyson locates Krypton

• Great Scott! this Back to the Future wedding cake is amazing.
• Neil deGrasse Tyson reveals location of Krypton.
• LEGO gets super fancy with designer handbags for Chanel. In the not-quite-so-fancy, but still category, build your own LEGO holiday ornaments.
• Starwarigami.
• In praise of the hashtag.
• MAD magazine’s parody ads.
• How to disappear from the web forever.
• Dad fixes pronouns for videogame playing daughter. “I’m not having my daughter growing up thinking girls don’t get to be the hero and rescue their little brothers.”

Marching Band + Video Game = Nothing but Goodness

If you missed it when @the_nerdery tweeted it this morning, this video of the Ohio State University paying tribute to classic video games really is a wonder to behold. If you’re the impatient type, fast forward to six minutes and just watch the running horse bit. It’s amazing.

What are Indie Video Games?

More awesomeness from PBS’ Off Book series.

Did blowing in Nintendo cartridges really help?

“When things went wrong inside your NES, the problem was usually a bad connection between the cartridge and its slot. That could be due to tarnishing, corrosion, crud in various places, weak pins in the slot, or other issues. The symptoms of a bad connection could include the game not starting at all, the console showing a blinking light, or the game starting up with garbage all over the screen. . . To combat these problems, in the mid-1980s my friends and I somehow learned this secret: if we took out the cartridge, blew in it, and reinserted it, it worked. And if it didn’t work the first time, it eventually worked, on the second or fifth or tenth time. But looking back on it, I wondered: did that blowing actually help? And if it did…why?”

The folks over at Mental Floss have investigated the age-old question does blowing in Nintendo cartridges really help?. Anecdotal evidence from anyone who has tried this trick would point to yes. You’ll have to head over to Mental Floss to see what their experts had to say about the issue.

Friday Links: How to innovate and not Lose Focus

• The Biz Journal has a Fast 50 Diary entry on How to Innovate and Not Lose Focus. If you want to read about The Nerdery’s tips you can check out what we had to say in the News Section.
• Mathematical mechanics behind Battleship (the game).
• Computer legend & gaming pioneer Jack Tramiel died this week.
• Why “Community” is the most popular show on the Internet.
• Everything you wanted to know about Top Ramen and Cup Noodles, because you know you were kind of curious.
• A non-designers guide to typefaces & layout.
• Interview with Caine of Caine’s Arcade fame and the filmaker.
• The Calendar of Fictional Birthdays, is pretty awesome.
• If you were/are a fan of ZeFrank, watch An Invocation for Beginners. If curse words offend you, don’t watch it.
• The Draw Something masterpiece collection.
• How GM is saving money using LEGOs.
• Kids drawings recreated by a professional artist. It’s pretty cool, go take a look.

How not to handle customer service, or don’t make the nerds mad

In that strange in-between time when the Internet is awash with 2,011 year-end ‘Best of’ lists, the nerd-rage descending upon the head of a clueless and inept PR flak is probably the best thing to read today.

Penny Arcade has the full saga about Dave who just wanted his swanky PS3 Avenger controller and Paul, the not-so-adept PR/Marketing man who will probably looking for a new job in 2012 (that’s my prediction).

This story has made Penny Arcade a bit spotty on the up-time, but you can check out excerpts of the fracas at Kotaku, Forever Geek, Tech Crunch, and just about every other nerd-centric blog.

I don’t know what it is about these sort of customer service flame outs that are so darn interesting, but I can’t look away.

Classic video game deaths

Seen on Kottke

Friday Links: Popular video games turned into horror movies

• Check out Line 25′s Sites of the Week. We heartily approve.
• Popular video games transformed into short horror films.
• The Apple-fication of everything, about design standards and a beautiful thermostat. And if you’re still in the mood for some Apple design talk, take a look at Apple’s aesthetic dichotomy (which has a really good point).
• Google kills its other plus, and how to get it back.
• Settlers of Catan, the novel coming to a bookstore near you.
• Pictures from Hallomeme. Some of it’s pretty funny.
• Richard Stallman’s tour rider.
• Beer at work: A case for drinking on the job.
• Forrester urges IT to support the Mac.