MAC SOFTWARE
Posted by on under whitewash, swan, unity, demo, game, white world | 
oddly, announced at the same time as the Whitewash tech demo in Unity Posted by on under whitewash, swan, unity, demo, game, white world |
oddly, announced at the same time as the Whitewash tech demo in Unity Posted by jason@kottke.org on under paint balls, maze game, black paint, swan, demo |
The Unfinished Swan is a maze game set in an entirely white world and you use a gun that shoots black paint balls to navigate your way around. Check out the demo video:
(via snarkmarket)
(link)Posted by on under ugly duckling, beautiful swan, zune, gray bird, champis, clear stream, anet, techcrunch, growing pains, ipod touch, thin air, quirks, caliber, sy, hd, offerings, swan, samsung, bush, microsoft |
But what did he see in the clear stream below? His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. —The Ugly DucklingIt's been a long, brown trip for the Zune: from its early days (mocked and abject) to its awkward years (deemed a dead end and money pit) it's been embattled and criticized, and rightly so. After all, here was an unpopular company with a frankly ridiculous brand it had pulled out of thin air, attempting to compete with the guys who defined the market. We've always been champions of the devices, despite their quirks, and of the service, despite its growing pains — and Microsoft occasionally made it pretty hard for us to stand by our favorite little misfit media player. Well, for once they just made it really easy. Let's not beat around the bush, now: this thing is going head-on with the iPod touch, one of the most versatile and well-liked devices on the planet. There are other PMPs, sure, but the caliber of these two devices is well beyond the best offerings from Creative, Samsung, or Sony. To make it easy on the Apple fans who are impatient to comment on this story, let me just state it right now for the record: the Zune HD is not an iPod-killer, but it is the only player out there that can go up against it and not be annihilated in the process. It's good enough that everyone owes it to themselves to give it a look — unless you're afraid of just how good it might be.
Posted by Jason Kottke on under nassim taleb, black swan, new statesman, outlier, quite some time, kidneys, mother nature, time share, lungs, excerpt, savannah, swan, kidney, nbsp, lt, postscript, bas |
New Statesman has an excerpt of the new-for-the-paperback postscript from Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan, which book was probably the most interesting one I've read in quite some time (if you can handle some of the ridiculous posturing).
An economist would find it inefficient to carry two lungs and two kidneys -- consider the costs involved in transporting these heavy items across the savannah. Such optimisation would, eventually, kill you, after the first accident, the first "outlier". Also, consider that if we gave Mother Nature to economists, it would dispense with individual kidneys -- since we do not need them all the time, it would be more "efficient" if we sold ours and used a central kidney on a time-share basis. You could also lend your eyes at night, since you do not need them to dream.
Read through to the end for Taleb's list of ten principles for a Black Swan-robust society.
Tags: blackswan books economics Nassim Taleb