Link Dump – Feb 2014

A few months ago, I discovered Raymond Chen‘s occasional Link Clearance posts. I decided I’m going to do a similar style post once in a while, to clean out the ever-growing stash of “must-read!” bookmarks.

Many of my links are from hacker news, or boing boing, some other news source, or friend, naturally.

WHAT SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE DO WITH THE FIRST HOUR OF THEIR WORK DAY – made me realize that my best working hours are the first few after I wake up.

Dojo Of Death – Addictive flash game.

How I Created the Iconic iPhone Sound

The best picture on the internet.

Empire Falls – Long read on the subject of western civilization.

Source Code in TV and Films – “Images of the computer code appearing in TV and films and what they really are.”

Tron Legacy CG – Behind-the-scenes account of a CG artist’s work on Tron Legacy.

Pictures from a developer’s life.

More. – a short film about life’s purpose.

Super Mario Melodies – Music theory analysis of super mario melodies and sound effects.

Rubber echoes. – A random blog I happened upon. Damn fine writing.

Taking pictures of the Rolling Stones with the ‘best pocket camera ever made’. – I’ve been out of the prosumer digital camera market for a while, as it seemed mostly stagnant below DSLR level for a while. Nice to know there’s some amazing consumer-grade portable hardware still being produced, despite the $100 garbage camera mainstream market.

Luftrausers – Rezzed 2013 Developer Sessions (youtube link) – Amazing semi-biographical presentation by the guys from Vlambeer (a small two-man indie games shop, responsible for hits such as Super Crate Box and Rediculous Fishing). About an hour long, completely worth it for the 10 minutes or so where they show many successive iterative builds of a game.

Indie Game: The Movie – A documentary about several prominent small indie game development shops, a must see for anyone with a development or creative background. It’s more than that though, it’s about the creative process, about trying something on your own, and all the ups and downs that come along with the process. I highly recommend watching it with your spouse – just watching it explains so much to your spouse that’s so often nigh-impossible for creative introverts to put into words. Exciting, touching, and heart-breaking, all at once. It’s available to stream on Netflix.

Minecraft: The Story Of Mojang (youtube link) – Documentary about minecraft, very similar to the movie mentioned above. Highly recommended watch as well.

Self Publishing Cool Tools – Great “how to publish a book” article.

Fuck the Super Game Boy – Amazing series of rants about the super gameboy from both a technical and a fan’s perspective.

Microsoft’s Lost Decade – Interesting read about the unwinding of a tech giant due to a cut-throat culture that encouraged survival-of-the-fittest rather than collaboration.

How Yahoo Killed Flickr – This was published around the time Instagram was bought for $1B – it’s a great look at how the grass is always greener when you’re being acquired.

VGMaps – Amazing, huge, pixel-perfect maps of games, such as this contra map.

Working with Idiots.

Sound City – Great documentary about a famous recording studio, highly recommended along with It Might Get Loud.

Bill Nye Tho – Incredible joke twitter. Also has a facebook page.

Between Two Ferns – in which Zach Galifianakis keeps it real.

Did I just blow your mind?

Last, but perhaps the most interesting read is this archived blog entry from one of my favorite musicians, Matthew Good. A few years back he released an incredible album titled “Hospital Music” – shortly after resolving a long-life mystery-filled struggle with mental illness. The blog entry is all-at-once poignant, interesting, intensely personal, and educational. A must read, if you ask me.

^^^ A video swiped from the top of a recent Matt Good post: And What Now?.