Extra Future

Hi, I’m Phil Nelson, a writer, developer, and audio-visual maker of stuff. I have been making stuff online for over 25 years. I run RetroStrange and Set Side B. Good to see you.

Blog Archives

Month: November 2017

  • Bail Bloc

    [A new project, using the blockchain to generate bail money for nonviolent offenders][link], who are often victims of racist policing and sentencing.

    >Here’s how it works: When you download the app, a small part of your computer’s unused processing power is redirected toward mining a popular cryptocurrency called Monero, which is secure, private, and untraceable. At the end of every month, we exchange the Monero for US dollars and donate the earnings to the Bronx Freedom Fund and through them, a new nation-wide initiative, The Bail Project.

    Can’t speak highly enough of The New Inquiry, Bronx Freedom, and The Bail Project for running this. _This_ is the kind of “technology changes lives” shit we need here in 2017. Save the “smart” shower curtain.

    [link]: https://bailbloc.thenewinquiry.com/ “Bail Bloc”

  • “God only knows what [Facebook is] doing to our children’s brains.”

    [Sean Parker, founding president of Facebook][link]:

    >”I don’t know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because [of] the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and … it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other … It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

    Gosh, I bet he’s keeping the millions of dollars he personally made off of all this, though, isn’t he?

    [link]: https://www.axios.com/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-2508036343.html “Sean Parker unloads on Facebook exploiting human weakness”

  • Keeping Web Communities Healthy in a Dark Timeline

    Friend of the site and genuinely decent human being Josh Millard gave this talk at DonutJS, October 2017. Mefi remains one of the _vital_ communities on the web, and there’s nobody better in the world to run it than Josh.

    [link]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhun8OzAmfg “Josh Millard – Keeping Web Communities Healthy in a Dark Timeline – DonutJS October 2017”

  • “almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983”

    A twitter thread from @gravislizard. Start here.

  • Retronauts on the 20th Anniversary of Gunpei Yokoi’s Death

    Gunpei Yokoi’s legacy is one of sensible choices and thoughtful compromise. I admire him greatly as a professional. Jeremy Parish has a retrospective on Retronauts.com:

    Yokoi liked to create gadgets. More than that, he liked to come up with clever hacks. He had a keen eye for simple but unexpected ideas that would translate into fun toys, along with an unerring sense of how to make those products affordable for the widest audience possible. Rather than saving costs by using cheap materials, Yokoi preferred to match low prices to premium quality production by making cuts at the conceptual level.

    Same, Gunpei. Same.

  • John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’: The Story of an SF Horror Game-Changer

    Had the good fortune of seeing a rare 70mm edition of this classic film last week, [this is an excellent follow-up][link].

    [link]: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/john-carpenters-thing-story-sf-horror-game-changer/ “John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’: The Story of an SF Horror Game-Changer • Cinephilia & Beyond”

  • Korg teases music making app for Nintendo Switch

    The announced it by way of a little microsite. The KORG apps for DS are a ton of fun, I have a feeling this one will be even better.

  • Signal Now Has A Standalone Desktop App

    The app is now available for Windows, macOS, Debian-based linux distros. You should be using Signal if you ever talk about anything to anyone.