Wednesday: July 7, 2010
- State of the GLM: Yes, I'm still here. No, I'm not dead.
You may have noticed that GLM has gone rather quiet for the past two-three months or so in terms of any and all content on the site. This post serves as a status update to alleviate any fears that GeekLikeMe is gone for good. Quite the contrary my dear friends. And yes, while I could run down the list of excuses as to why the site hasn't been updated, I'm sure they would just bore you to tears. To save us all some time I shall sum up in two words: work and parenthood.
For work I have been diving into the grand world of Objective-C programming for the past six months and I still haven't managed to come up for air. Hopefully when I'm actually able to take a deep breath I'll have an array of iPhone and iPad apps to show for it. Also on this note I'd like to state that I very well may have taken the most ass-backwards route in getting into a new programming language. Nevertheless, it's been a rewarding and infuriating process thus far but I'm learning a lot and I think it'll turn out well in the end.
I don't think I have to say much about parenthood other than sleep is a sought-after commodity and there are only so many hours in a day. This has turned out to be a major contributing factor to the current lack of posting. Shocker.
But now onto much better news: a new version of GeekLikeMe.net is in the works yet again and I've decided to make a design choice right off the bat. I recently took a trip down memory lane courtesy of archive.org's wayback machine. After feeling somewhat nostalgic about the old GLM design I decided that maybe it was time to return to the minimalist roots yet again. More details and information about the new site coming soon!
P.S. You can also follow me on Twitter even though I have yet to tweet anything. Oops, scratch that.
Tuesday: May 18, 2010
- Brand new computer algorithm actually capable of detecting sarcasm.
...the team scanned 66,000 Amazon.com product reviews, with three different human annotators tagging sentences for sarcasm. The team then identified certain sarcastic patterns that emerged in the reviews and created a classification algorithm that puts each statement into a sarcastic class.
- Next installment of Pirates of the Caribbean to be filmed exclusively in 3D.
Yes, the next you see Jack Sparrow on the big screen you'll be able see him in multiple dimensions. Filming in 3D offers up obvious some advantages over adding useless effects in post - though you may up seeing a bevy of Avatar-like effects (not necessarily a bad thing). POTC4 will be swash-buckling into theaters May 2011.
- Microsoft to give Hotmail service a makeover at some point this summer.
...users will encounter a first screen that’s on overview of new messages, sorted into categories, with e-mails from known contacts in the top heap, updates from services like Facebook and Twitter at the bottom, and a bar up top that lets you send a status message.
- A handy tutorial on how to create your very own realistic soda bottle in Photoshop.
An interesting tutorial for those interested in dabbling with some photo-realistic effects from scratch. When all is said done you'll be way more familiar with the pen tool as well as the ancient art of dodging and burning. Now if you'll excuse me, I am in dire need of a cool glass of Crystal Pepsi.
- Everything you never knew about ball lightning hallucinations.
For hundreds of years eyewitnesses have reported brief encounters with the golf ball- to tennis ball-size orbs of electricity. But scientists have been unable to agree on how and why ball lightning forms, since the phenomenon is rare and very short-lived.
- Square Enix did quite well this year with their multi-million selling titles.
One of those titles happened to be Final Fantasy XIII, a game that literally makes you literally click one button for ten plus hours and nothing else. On the flip side, if you manage to stick it out past the twenty hour mark the game begins to get somewhat enjoyable.
Monday: May 17, 2010
- YouTube now gets about two billion hits on a daily basis.
YouTube has decided to share this information just as they turn a whopping five years old. According to the source article, the first video ever posted to the service can still be found on their site to this day (and you can view it here). Congratulations and a happy birthday, the Interwebs have enjoyed many a rickroll thanks to you.
- Apple beats out Whole Foods and Nordstrom for best shopper experience title.
Factors that contribute to a good shopping experience, according to the survey, include having customer-centric store design, maintaining shopper history data, creating ambiance, and carrying and displaying a well-organized, 'rationalized' product assortment.
- PopCap offers up Mac gaming bundle, get your Peggle and Zuma on.
Got fifty bucks laying around and don't know what to do with it? Why not put it to some mind-numbing addictive casual video game use. As an added bonus some of these games can be quite therapeutic after a long day of work.
- Ten ways to upgrade your morning routine according to Lifehacker.
Covers everything from contemplative morning thinking to ditching the morning java and cranking out some push-ups. Fun fact: for the past five years GLM was exclusively done as a morning blog. Don't look so shocked.
- Google may have been accidentally snooping in on your wi-fi connections.
Let this be a lesson to you all to never leave a wi-fi network unsecured. The good news is that Google has agreed to stop collecting this data, at least for now.
- Venus and our moon align for one brief Kodak moment.
During spring time, Venus shines brightly, and as these photos show, Venus appears as a bright object before it disappears behind the moon and then reappears on the other side in a game of celestial hide-and-seek.
- A gallery of the world's worst playgrounds through the playful eye of Photoshop.
As a kid did anyone ever actually play a game of Tic Tac Toe on one of these things? Who thought this was a good idea? Oh, and be careful going down that twisty slide, you may get wet.
Wednesday: May 12, 2010
- HTC asks for ban on Apple products after filing patent complaint.
Engadget is taking a deeper look at just what patents are involved here between the two companies and the implications of the federal lawsuit (which HTC has filed along with their patent suit). Should be an interesting battle - or about as interesting as Nokia versus Apple.
- Twenty fresh high-quality free fonts courtesy of the folks from Smashing Magazine.
Every designer knows that it can never hurt to have some quality fonts laying around in your design arsenal for a rainy day. Having too many shitty fonts in your library and using said shitty fonts often, well that's another story.
- Scientists have discovered that Jupiter somehow managed to lose a stripe.
The band was present at the end of 2009, right before Jupiter moved too close to the sun in the sky to be observed from Earth. When the planet emerged from the sun's glare again in early April, its south equatorial belt was nowhere to be seen.
- Apple seems to have lost yet another iPhone prototype.
Here we go again - not sure how Apple would've been able to make the same mistake twice given the publicity of the last prototype that was lost. A teardown of the device has revealed an Apple branded microchip, just like the iPad.
- Marvel and Disney character mashups through the mutated eye of Photoshop.
Mike Wazowski is Bruce Banner as The Incredible Myopic Hulk - and there's your plot for The Incredible Hulk 2 (or 3?) and/or Monsters Inc 2. The scary part is that legally, this can actually be made (Disney owns Marvel) and someone in Hollywood probably thinks its a good idea.
- Rogue star mystery finally deciphered thanks to Hubble Space Telescope.
The massive, hot star seemed out of place when astronomers first spotted it in 2006, and now thanks to Hubble, we know why. The misfit, 30 Dor #016, appears to have been ejected from a cluster of even heftier stars, pinging off of them and off into space at tremendous speed.
- Google will probably have an e-book store of their own in the near future.
Interesting news when combined with the all-to-recent rumors of an Android tablet coming to Verizon. And apparently Google has already even gotten approvals from roughly 25,000 authors and publishers.
- Eight websites you need to stop building according to The Oatmeal.
After carefully perusing this comic (and laughing a little bit too loud for office-level volumes) I was a little discomforted by the fact that the Pork'd mock design looks ridiculously similar to the current version of GLM. I guess I was a little generic with this iteration, might be time for a redesign methinks.
- A handy tutorial on how to make your very own vinyl record bookends.
Another awesome quick four-step tutorial from the fine folks over at Instructables. Simply boil up some of your old vinyl records and bend them, mold them, shape them into retro bookends. Really, when you were going to listen to those old polka albums anyway?
- Verizon would like you to know they are working on a tablet device with Google.
Few will be surprised at the notion that Google and Verizon are heading down this path: The New York Times reported last month that Google was working on a slate-style Android tablet along the lines of Apple's iPad.
Tuesday: May 11, 2010
- A photo gallery from inside the Pavilions of Expo currently underway in Shanghai, China.
Go on in and have a gander at some photography of the event courtesy of Popular Science. You'll see some interesting things such as the world's largest IMAX screen followed by the world's largest baby (relax, it's only a model).
- Scientists discover that colossal squid is actually just a lazy pink blob.
The researchers found that the colossal squid would have had a slower metabolism and so moved slower than expected, waiting for prey rather than running it down. 'Everyone thought it was an aggressive predator, but the data suggests otherwise,' Rosa told LiveScience.
- Have a peek at some near-final screenshots of the Windows Phone 7 interface.
I find parts of this user interface to be very depressing (granted it's not final but near-final sounds like their pretty close). The data entry screens are bland, colorless, and lifeless. Almost as if you're signing a death warrant on someone when you want to add them as a contact. Not very inviting.
- A showcase of blogs with unique post designs for your viewing pleasure.
It seems like these days everyone is using the same old blog template or the same tired Wordpress theme (although I've seen some pretty amazing Tumblr themes). Regardless, I'm a sucker for blogs that don't actually look like your average blog and stray from the formula. The end result is what some are calling a 'blogazine'. Enjoy.
- IBM pulls the curtain back on brand new social media analytics tool.
This new software will allow companies, marketing groups, and advertisers to track 'consumer sentiment' on various social networks. Just one more thing to be be aware of as you romp through daily social networking sites. It can even analyze product names, industry jargon, slang, even emoticons. :-/
- Fifteen things about Star Trek that you may not have previously known about.
I had no idea that a) the main tag line of Star Trek (to boldy go, yadda yadda) was lifted from a White House pamphlet on space exploration and b) the entire sentence is grammatically incorrect. Lets hear it for split infinitives!