Last week I listened to a podcast in which a trends analyst cooed at what a wonderful time it is to be young. She placed special emphasis on how this upcoming generation was somehow more interesting and special than any before it. This seemed like just the sort of thing you’d hear from a trends analyst: more mysterious possibilities to keep the marketing folks at Nike paying for overpriced ‘trends’ data. Forgive me if I’m cynical, but I say it’s quite the opposite.
I think every generation is almost identical to the one that preceded it. Each one experiences a marginally different context that seems immediately significant, but in actuality is only temporarily so. As decades pass, we learn that high-tops, flannel shirts and SMS slang actually amount to very little. These little novelties are curious, but looking upon them to ‘define’ a generation hardly moves beyond the brutally superficial. Universal truths, however, bind us all, even if our vision of them isn’t exactly clear. What are these truths? I think they include the need to be loved, the desire to feel connected to others, the hope that one is relevant, and an arm-full of other similar emotions that transcend any paper-thin trends.
This is a much more eloquent version of the argument I have with myself in my head whenever I’m feeling “old”.
I’ve never enjoyed the RTS genre, usually because the control scheme doesn’t engage me (over-the-top complexity might have something to do with it as well), but I’m pretty sure this would change all that for me.
Any skills that have improved are always the ones that I continually used, not just thought (fantasized) about. Steven’s post illustrates (literally) that principle in a fantastic way.
An old friend of mine’s short film has just gone live on Atom.com—give it a watch and if you like it, please give it a thumbs-up over on Atom. The films with the most thumbs-up’s get played on Comedy Central!
Probably NSFW, but if you played any form of text adventures back in the day (Zork, MUDs, etc—my game was TeleArena) and you don’t mind a little lowbrow humor, then this video just might be up your alley.
A personal site for random odds and ends written by Jacob Reiff.
I'm in the thick of creating Wantist, which is currently in a 0.1 state. We're working hard to iterate faster, faster. Wantist has a dev blog over at Ideademic, if you're interested in the behind-the-scenes.
We also made and manage The King, still the best keyboard tray out there. No risk to try with our 30 day return policy + free shipping both ways.
My wife & partner Brittany keeps me in check, my catahoula Everett keeps me on my toes.
