22 August 2012, mid-afternoon
Gerald Brom’s
art work shaped the way the Dark Sun game setting evolved. He would paint scenes that the game designers would then use as inspiration when building the world and the game mechanics that went with it. He has a very distinctive and I would say classic fantasy style. His work reminds me a little bit of the work of Frank Frazetta. He’s probably the greatest fantasy artist alive today—yeah I said it. He also has a Kickstarter project on right now to fund a retrospective book of his work. I’m losing my shit over here.
Nerd Alert
17 August 2012, mid-morning
Twitter published a pretty bizarre post on their developer blog yesterday, outlining changes they plan to make to how developers can interact with Twitter. To say it’s a little bit hostile to their developer community would be an understatement. I think it’s fair to say that much of Twiter’s early success didn’t come from the company itself. I mean, the site could barely stay up for the first few years of its existence. People stuck with Twitter despite the fact it often felt cobbled together. The two most iconic features of Twitter messages, @-replies and #hashtags, were both originated from the Twitter community. They ended up becoming official features because of their wide spread use. All of the good iPhone clients for Twitter were made by 3rd parties — including what became Twitter’s official client. Twitter’s official client is kind of a piece of shit compared to feature-rich Tweetbot or the simple and elegant Twitteriffic. I’ve been a Twitter user forever. Twitter launched on July 15 2006. I joined on July 28th 2006. I am user 3321. It took me a long while to warm up to the site, but I love it now. I find the direction they seem to be moving is more than a little disappointing. I think the best summary of the change comes from Ben Brooks: ‘This is the moment in Twitter’s life where they kicked Steve Jobs out of the company and told Sculley to run it.’
[2] Technology
7 August 2012, evening time
I was discussing Christopher Nolan’s worst movie with my cousin. I suggested Insomnia: a Hollywood remake of a Norwegian film. He suggested The Dark Knight Rises. No fucking way! I watched the concluding film in Nolan’s Batman trilogy over the weekend. The story picks up 8 years after the last film. Bruce Wayne is a recluse and Batman hasn’t been seen since he escaped capture by the police. The movie opens with Bane kidnapping a scientist in a pretty spectacular action sequence. From there it’s all about Batman’s return to being all Batman. There are highs and lows and I thought it was all pretty fantastic. In my mind this film is comparable to the first Batman film in its scope. I feel all three films are an interesting look at the Batman mythos, but the second film felt like a much deeper look at the various archetypes found within the Batman story. The Dark Knight felt stronger and more focused. This is all irrespective of Heath Ledger’s excellent portrayal of the Joker. The acting in this film is great too. All of Nolan’s regular actors make an appearance. Tom Hardy does a great job with Bane. (I actually like his voice, a common complaint I’ve heard about the film.) The action sequences are much better done. The fights aren’t quite as frantic as they were in the first film. Hathaway is super hot. Go watch this. Did you think I’d have anything else to say here?
The official The Dark Knight Rises website.
[5] Movies
