That’s not to say that all shipping code wins; after all, Andrew and Intermedia and HyTime shipped code too. Code is necessary but not sufficient for success. And I certainly don’t mean to say that shipping code before a standard will produce the best solution. Marc’s <img> element didn’t mandate a common graphics format; it didn’t define how text flowed around it; it didn’t support text alternatives or fallback content for older browsers. And 16, almost 17 years later, we’re still struggling with content sniffing, and it’s still a source of crazy security vulnerabilities. And you can trace that all the way back, 17 years, through the Great Browser Wars, all the way back to February 25, 1993, when Marc Andreessen offhandedly remarked, “MIME, someday, maybe,” and then shipped his code anyway.
The ones that win are the ones that ship.
Reflections on Blogtober
Blogtober was great.
For those late to the party, Blogtober 2009 was, as far as I can tell, a scheme to get bloggers like me to post something on their blog, at least once per day in October 2009.
For the most part, it worked well.
It all started when one of the people I follow on Twitter mentioned something about Blogtober, and how they were considering taking part. Having not researched the concept any more than that single tweet (but having heard similar concepts before,) I decided to partake on this particular adventure, and post something every day in October, right here.
For what it’s worth, I think it worked quite well. If you take a scroll through the October archives you’ll notice everything from quick quotes, Youtube clips, and even the odd musing/ponderance post, plus a few shots from my iPhone camera roll thrown in for good measure.
I certaintly gained something from it: the ability to publish iPhone screenshots, via a service called Posterous. Posterous allows you to publish things to your Posterous blog or to Twitter/Facebook/Wordpress blog, all from a single email, and that’s what I’ve been using to put up screenies from my iPhone. Previously the way I had to publish iPhone screencaps was to email them to myself, or use the WordPress app itself – neither of which were exceptionally good. Now that I’m using Posterous, I can push content from my iPhone to pretty much any service I want, be it Twitter/Facebook or otherwise.
It’s pretty cool.
Overall, I enjoyed Blogtober. Sometimes finding something interesting to post was a little tricky, and there are still a couple of posts I haven’t yet published, but for the most part, I didn’t feel obligated to publish something every day (OR DiE!!), it was pretty much exactly how I imagined it – relaxed, pretty casual, and so on.
Blogtober’s now over, and as you can probably tell we’ve already returned to our normal programming (that is, nothing every day). I enjoyed posting stuff during Blogtober, so why stop?
Here’s to more stuff!
#end
Left 4 Dead 2 demo – Censorship Comparison
Video Comparison Between The Uncut version of Left4Dead2 and the Australian “Low Violence” version
According to the classification board report, the modified version removes considerable amounts of gore from gameplay.
The board notes that the game no longer contains depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment, the report said.
No wound detail is shown and the implicitly dead bodies and blood splatter disappear as they touch the ground.
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EDIT: ALSO CONFIRMED (30.10.09)
But was unable to get footage of at time of making
Infected don’t actually Catch Fire in cut version (Except the Tank) however they still die in the flames.
NO Blood splatters on the screen
NO RIOT COP uncommon common in AUS release (violence against authority figures)
(and if you play with a person who has the cut version even if you dont, the riot cop will not spawn)
Pipebomb Explosion is Similar however the bodies ragdoll off and vanish in midair with out gibbing almost instantly
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For those not in the know, the reason this game had 2 be modified to be released in Australia is because we don’t have a R18+ rating for games here in Australia. To have one introduced, all the states have to agree that they want one, all states have said yes to this, except SA (Michael Atkinson). So it is one man stopping the rest of us getting an R18+ rating, So seeing as MA15+ is the highest we have got, the OFLC have no choice and the game must be modified to fit into that category if it is to be released here, otherwise its the ban hammer and the game gets Refused Classification(RC). So its not Valves Fault, Its not the OFLC’s fault its not the governments fault… its Michael Atkinson’s Fault.
His Excuse is that he doesn’t think we need one and that if we don’t have one the children wont get introduced into Violent Video Game, He thinks he is protecting the children, however when you think about it he is doing the opposite, by refusing to have a R18+ rating he is making it so that games that would have otherwise been rated as R18+ are being modified to fit into
the MA15+ rating therefore introducing those games to an even younger generation than would have been whilst at the same time punishing the rest of us by censoring the game and making a choice that should be ours for us.
We Should be allowed to play this as we want, in the uncensored version you have the option to disable gore if wanted.
via YouTube – Left 4 Dead 2 – Censor Comparison L4D2.
There’s a supposed “fix” for if you’ve got the censored version, but it seems pretty hackish, like a nasty hack.
Otherwise, you could always buy it from Steamerica (Steam in the US does not equal Steam in Australia) via this method. Works just fine in that you don’t get censored crap.
The 3 Phases of Owning a Computer
via The 3 Phases of Owning a Computer – The Oatmeal.
Phases 2 and 3 after the break.
Hey Jude Flowchart
Best flowchart ever? I think so.
via kung fu grippe : (via thememegeneration).
This post part of Blogtober 2009, a post a day, yada yada yada.
Honda – The Cog
This WebRidesTV video is a commercial made by Honda to showcase the Honda Accord. It is a two minute video that shows Honda Accord parts interacting with each other similar to a Rube Goldberg machine.
via YouTube – Honda – The Cog.
Like Apple, everything just works.
This post part of Blogtober 2009. Might have something else later.