The Jarbochov Stratagem

Living in the gray.

The Jarbochov Weekly Roundup (January 14th, 2022)

Hello and welcome to this week’s roundup. I’ve been enjoying Awesome Games Done Quick this week which is a week long video game marathon raising money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. It’s always a light of positivity for me.

2022 is still only two weeks old but it feels like it’s been a month already.


Let’s get to the round up (which is pretty dense this week.)

Habitat for Humanity Built Its First 3D-Printed Home in US – Nerdist

A very interesting application of 3D printing on a large scale.


minimator

A cute little vector editor that will let you sketch up little things using right angles or semi circles.

I made this. It let's you export to some kind of vector I'm guessing (SVG).
I made this. It lets you export to some kind of vector I’m guessing (SVG).
An example canvas that kind of lets you see the style you can achieve.
An example canvas that kind of lets you see the style you can achieve.

Let’s Settle This

One website to settle all arguments such as “Is a hot dog a sandwich?”

I do not agree with this as a definitive result… although I agreed with most of the outcomes.

Reading

Superheroes create cultural acceptance for popular oligarchy (Interconnected)

The superhero makes things alright without being asked. It looks after us, it protects, it cleans up the streets. It’s a parental role. (And, to Moore’s point, we’ve got these parental superheroes at the same time as we’ve basically got tech startups that do what our parents did for us: drive us places, give us food, fulfil whims on demand.)

Interesting read. Worth thinking about considering our superhero saturation point.


After ruining Android messaging, Google says iMessage is too powerful | Ars Technica

Google yelling about standards after having, let me check my notes, 325 different chat programs, should probably just cool its jets. I’m all for a standard that is privacy focused. Interoperability is always a win for consumers. Let’s see where this Google Wave takes us.


NFTs

If you’ve been wondering what all this NFT hubbub is about, don’t worry. You can ignore it. Like many technologies that get overhyped it’s not going to solve all of our problems. If people are having fun with it, then have fun, but don’t think this is what’s going to lead to a decentralized Internet. I’ve rounded up some critical reading about the trend that you might find interesting. (and eventually I’ll share my thoughts on NFTs in video games.)


The Case Against Crypto

Despite that, for the last thirteen years these projects have done nothing but scam people by creating synthetic asset bubbles for gambling and destroying the environment. There are fundamental limitations to the scalability of blockchain-based technologies, and every use case is better served by another simpler technology except for crime, ransomware, extralegal gambling, and sanctions evasion; all of which are a drain on society not a benefit. Taken as a whole the technology has no tangible benefits over simply using trusted parties and centralized databases.


Stop phaking my ape, bro – by Alex Wilhelm

It’s all just cartoon art on a slow database!


I can’t emphasize this enough. The Web 2.0 I became infatuated with was open standards and interoperability. Podcasting using RSS feeds, Google Reader (using RSS feeds), things like Friendfeed that consolidated everyone’s social media into one easy to follow feed. Flickr which was a pioneer in collecting and supporting Creative Commons works.

Of course we were naive because monetization had to happen eventually.


Moxie Marlinspike >> Blog >> My first impressions of web3

The former Signal CEO created some crypto projects and wrote about it.


YouTube




That’s all for this week. I know this week has a lot of reading but these are things I probably spend too much time thinking about. Hopefully next week will be more uplifting.

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