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
[SWEATSHOP, the live art show which I produce][swt], is back today with a vengeance and thirst for meatblood: [In which E.G. Gauger returns to painting live on a canvas, and I return to cracking wise at our ever-patient and filthy audience.][link] Broadcasting commences at 12pm PST, today, 30th January 2011.
[link]: http://3liza.tumblr.com/post/3015050469/sweatshop-today-at-12pm-pst “Sweatshop Announcement”
[swt]: http://sweatshop.tv “Sweatshop”
Missed this due to my obsessive monitoring of the situation in Egypt, but this is very good news. [Code Igniter’s evolutionary step has begun.][link]
[link]: http://codeigniter.com/news/codeigniter_2.0.0_released/ “CodeIgniter 2.0.0 Released | CodeIgniter – News”
[The Heritage Foundation has many good arguments against the proposed government-controlled Internet IDs.][link] It’s a bad idea, and even perfectly-implemented bad ideas are bad ideas.
[link]: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/01/National-Internet-ID-Calls-for-Caution “National Internet ID: Calls for Caution | The Heritage Foundation”
A “[Hard Science Fiction Miniseries for the Web][link]” which [raised $10k on Kickstarter][kick]. I wish them luck.
via [Warren Ellis][warren].
[link]: http://www.l5-series.com/ “L5 – Hard Science Fiction Miniseries for the Web”
[kick]: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hemogoblin/l5-a-hard-science-fiction-miniseries “L5 on Kickstarter”
[warren]: http://warrenellis.com “Warren Ellis”
[This’ll make it a lot easier to socially tag our window gardens in the favela future:][link]
>FluidDB is a platform for the web of things, each represented by an openly writable “social” object.
[link]: http://www.fluidinfo.com/ “Welcome to Fluidinfo”
[Author Tobias Buckell’s treatise on book piracy and what it means here in the now][link]:
>A certain book that usually sells about 5,000 copies, locked down and protected, seems to sell the same 5,000 copies as a book with a free giveaway and pirated. The difference, according to O’Reilly and many, will be that the second author sees a 5,000 copies sold book, and 5,000 downloads and wonders “why, I should really have had 10,000 sales!” But the truth might be more like, 5,000 people purchased each, and one of them got 5,000 additional reads.
Most of this analysis seems like it should fall under the rubric of “common sense,” but there’s obviously a pretty big lack of that in the traditional publishing channels right now. Some people will read your stuff, some people will pay you, and the best you can hope for is enough people fall into the second category that you can pay your bills.
[link]: http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/2011/01/27/writing-on-the-high-seas/ “Writing on the high seas at Tobias Buckell Online”
[Like Kickstarter but specifically for video games][link]. This is the first crowd-funding service I’ve seen with such a specific focus, but I’m certain it won’t be the last.
[link]: http://www.8bitfunding.com/ “8-bit funding”
Old documents, unreleased game reviews, and more from a games reviewer. It’s a formatted simply, easy to read, and made up of neat little bits and bobs.
Narratively, that’s the story I find most interesting about Google. At a certain point, do you become so large and powerful that evil is unavoidable?
