Layers - Great little app to take layered screenshots. It cooks a nice PSD with the different windows in its own layer.
Wattson - Know how much energy your home is using.
Popularity EnhancEr - iPhone framework with farts and flashlight… (used by the cool Tweetie twitter client).
Comics Grammar & Tradition - Very nice article about lettering in comic books. They also have a cool collection on comic fonts (commercial and free).
The Sopranos, Uncensored - No comment. :)
Evolution of Game Controllers - Very cool. Moreover, I always found interesting that some controller designs allowed the devices to be used normally by left-handed people (i.e. Atari Lynx, Nintendo Virtual Boy, and now the Nintendo Wii). Also, Sony seems to be stuck with their original Playstation controller design…
HTTP Client - Useful.
World of Goo - Amazing little game, beautifully animated and brilliantly designed.
Balloon Tales - Bought some great looking comic fonts from Comicraft at the annual font sale ($600+ worth of fonts for $80), and found this great site in the process. Great tips.
I am Andrew Ryan, and I’m here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor. No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone. I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose Rapture. A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well. - Andrew Ryan
It is not just another game with awesome graphics thrown in, it’s much more than that, it’s an experience - it makes you feel, disturbed mostly, and makes you think about what happened to Rapture: Politics, science, ethics and morality. But it doesn’t end there, as the player also has a moral choice to make: To harvest ADAM¹ from the little sisters - creepy little girls that recycle ADAM from the dead - and kill them in the process, or save them by killing the parasite inside, gaining much less ADAM making you less powerful. Tough choice.
There are few games with as much substance as BioShock. If you haven’t played it already and you have an XBox or a PS3, you really should play it.
¹ ADAM are stem cells, produced by an underwater slug, that allows genetic mutations.
There is also a cool PDF with the game’s art and concepts. Get it here (bottom of the page).
Oktapodi - Brilliant CGI Animation Short with lots of awards. Watch it here. I don’t think it will be there for long.
Jordan Mechner’s Blog - The guy that did Prince of Persia. The first one (and Sands of Time, also). I like his sketches.
I spent the entire afternoon playing Gears of War (the first). It’s like being in a bad war/action movie - bad actors, badass characters, big weapons, lots of blood, cheesy lines and all - but hey, the formula works really well with a video game.
The berserker part on the end of Act 1, scared the shit out of me.
Loving it.
Assassin’s Creed is an excellent game: the cities are enormous, alive and really well modelized - being a joy to explore, the gameplay is good, the main character (Altaïr) is stylish and charismatic. Now, where are those Templars?
So, I bought an XBox. Yes, from Microsoft! And I’m having a lot of fun with it.
I grabbed 4 “discount” games to begin: Assassin’s Creed, Gears of War, Halo 3 and Bioshock. I started playing Assassin’s Creed, and I’m loving it. Quietly slicing guards throats is awesome…
Porsche Marketing vs Nissan Marketing - Porsche says Nissan kind-of-cheated on the Nurburgring GT-R time. Follow-up: Nissan says Porsche doesn’t know how to drive a GT-R.
iPhone NDA Lifted - Wow!
Nintendo DSi - Slightly bigger screen (3.25” vs 3”), two cameras, SD Card, online app/game store. Nice update. Update: WPA/WPA2 support. Finally.
Penny Arcade about Mega Man 9.
Always liked Leicas, they’re so simple and yet very powerful. Unfortunately I don’t own one, but I spend several hours reading and watching vintage Leicas on the net. I am absolutely fascinated by them.
Now, about the Digilux 3: In my opinion the most beautiful camera ever. Yes, I know, it’s not a pure breed Leica, it’s made from a Panasonic (the Lumix DMC-L1), but I still love its looks: drop-dead gorgeous.
The Leica Digilux 3.
Very cool Apple prototypes.
Hadron Collider - Pretty impressive photos. More about the collider on this very interesting TED talk: Brian Cox on CERN Supercollider.
Olympic Medal Count Map - Medals won by each country.
Face Your Manga - Make a cool, manga-like avatar of yourself.
PhotoCalc - The Photographer’s Calculator for iPhone.
