The Safety of the Indie Mac Community

Earlier today, I was watching through the video that Wolf Rentzsch posted from C4[1] and it started my brain working. Shouldn’t there be a rule against all these indie mac gurus meeting in one place at the same time?

Think of the consequences – it’s like how the important members of our government can’t travel together. It’s irresponsible of us to allow these guys to endanger the livelihood of our applications like this! What if there was some kind of disaster in Chicago? It would be like a software wasteland. I get my operating system from the big guys, but the indie community is what makes my Mac run.

Maybe they’ll hire me as a security consultant or something for the conference this year. Or maybe, I’m just having a little Cloverfield hangover from earlier this afternoon…

Either way, I’d suggest that anyone interested in developing an app check out the C4[1] videos (Wolf is adding a new video each week. Watching through this introductory video is really inspiring. I really hope to attend this summer. There’s just such a great vibe surrounding this community and it’s really exciting to think of coming face to face with the guys responsible for the great software I use on a daily basis.

Seen on a Starbucks Cup

“So called ‘global warming’ is just a secret ploy by wacko tree-huggers to make America energy independent, clean our air and water, improve the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, kick-start 21-st century industries, and make our cities safer and more livable.  Don’t let them get away with it!”  

– Chip Giller, Founder of Grist.org  

This may be one of the most funny and insightful ”The Way I See It’s” Yet.

Where’s the Excitement in Primetime?

Just where is the excitement and nostalgia in prime-time sports these days?

Just in the last few weeks, I’ve heard shitty music from the likes of Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez and Fall Out Boy. In fact, one of the lines that would’ve been played (if not for sampling the song precisely) is “he tastes like you, only sweeter..” Sure sounds like something that NFL fans around the country would be beating their chest to, huh? Give me a break – bring back the classic rock like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Ozzy. I don’t care if it’s old, it’s just better.

It’s not just the music leading out to commercials, either. There’s aboslutely no hype leading into even the biggest games being played. I remember when I was a kid, I used to sit around all night waiting for Monday Night Football. And sorry, showing a countdown-to-kickoff counter all day during Sportscenter re-runs just isn’t doing it for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a major sports fan – there’s no way I’m going anywhere, but they could put a little more effort into it. They’re just not doing much to generate excitement anymore.

P.S. – Chip Caray is a hater. Can I just say “And here come the Yankees!”? Yeah, stay in New York ya bum. I’m glad we’re going back to FOX for the ALCS.

Garko the Chugger

Last night, the Tribe finally did what so many thought they couldn’t – they defeated the Yankees in 4 games to advance to the ALCS. Awesome, right?

There’s so many great things to look back on from that game 4. There’s Paul Byrd coming out and throwing a great 5 innings, only giving up 2 runs against a powerful Yankee offense, an uplifting solo homerun by Sizemore starting the game off, and most of all, watching our guys have a party in the infield of Yankee Stadium.

The real takeaway here – the real gem – was during the post-game celebration in the locker room. Everyone is dumping champagne on each other when Ryan Garko walks in front of the camera, while dumping dual Bud Lights all over his face. That’s celebrating Cleveland style. That’s how we do it.

Go Tribe!

Could the iPhone Improve Flash on Macs?

So we’ve heard since the announcement of the iPhone that they’re working on porting an optimized version of Adobe’s Flash Player, but the real question is whether that could help the situation on Mac hardware.

Now I’m typing this post on a G4 1.5 GHz Powerbook, so I accept the fact that I’m not out there on the bleeding edge. But when I visit a site that’s heavy on flash presentation, my normally snappy hardware slows to a crawl. Try it for yourself by visiting the MiniUSA Web site. It’s downright painful. I can’t even imagine what that would look like on the iPhone.

So here’s my call to Apple/Adobe, once you guys get flash running properly on a CPU-strapped device, don’t forget about us regular users who have tons more CPU cycles to spare – I know you can make it happen!

Born Losers

So a couple of weeks ago, I was browsing around on iTunes and picked up the “Free Single of the Week” as I always do.  I had never heard of Matthew Good or his new single ”Born Losers”, but now I can’t stop listening to it.  I’m no music critic, so I’m not going to dissect why it’s good or whatever, just go check it out – trust me it’s worth it.

Calling all Nerds!

I’ll admit, when Carcassonne was relased on Xbox Live Marketplace back on June 27th, I dismissed it as a game riding on the coattails of Catan. Now, I like Catan, and I’m sure it has a sizeable audience, but when I fire up my 360, it just isn’t the sort of entertainment I’m looking for. Out of boredom over the weekend, I launched the Carcassone demo and was quickly sucked in.

The pace and average game time are far quicker, keeping me interested. The average time I spend playing a single player game is around 20 minutes and the average game times I’ve seen online are about 40 minutes. It’s fantastic being able to drop into a game and play a quick match without having to invest a ton of time. Here’s the gist of it – the game begins with 71 tiles (when not using the built-in expansion pack), and each player taking a turn placing a tile and deciding whether to occupy a portion of that tile with a follower. Although the gameplay is simple, the strategy is deceptively involved. Ultimately, it boils down to balancing your desire to build your own mega-cities and blocking/squatting on your opponents’ efforts. With “The River” expansion pack included and the developers planning on releasing more packs down the line, this game should provide fun for quite some time.

Check it out, and I’ll see you online. Yep, we’ll get together and build some farms and cities, ’cause that’s how we roll.

Top 3 Gadgets of all Time

Engadget is recruiting some new editors, and after reading their application requirements, it made me start thinking, what are my favorite gadgets?

Xbox 360
The 360 was the first console to market featuring high-def gaming. It also has a solid software library and the unified online experience I always wanted from my days of PC gaming. Where do I sign up?

Apple Powerbook G4
The Powerbook was the hardware that supported my journey as a “switcher”. Once the Apple hardware shed its awful multi-colored skin, I was on board.

Sony Ericsson T637
Ok, so maybe it doesn’t hold up under today’s standards, but in its day, I totally loved the T637. For one, it was the first phone I’d ever owned with an internal antenna that actually worked properly. It felt just right in the hand, not too heavy, not too chintzy. With a beautiful, bright screen and a decent connectivity package, it rounded out a terrific handset.

What are some of your favorite gadgets of all time?

Welcome to Cleveland

Creative Search Tools

I’ve recently stumbled upon a couple of cool search sites and I thought I’d share.

Flickr Related Tag Browser

The first one is a related tag browser for Flickr. You enter a tag, say shoes for example, and it will display a list of pictures from all over Flickr with a tag “shoes”. If you move your mouse from the center of the screen, it will pan out and give you a list of the other tags from the currently displayed pictures. Pretty slick. I could screw around on here for hours with all of the quality photoblogging going on over at Fickr.

Amazon Related Purchase Search

The second is a different take on the related purchase feature at Amazon.com. It allows you to enter a keyword and then searches for books including your search criteria in their keywords. Now comes the fun part. As it finds matches to your search criteria, it connects books which are on each others’ “You might also be interested in these products” lists. The end result is this really cool, interactive spider web of related books. Bonus points for old school sound effects as well.