Asides

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Twitter

With Twitter’s possible inevitable collapse, I find myself wanting to go back to the blog. You know, before the whole microblog.

Twitter was never perfect and maybe it can and will be better. Time will only tell. RSS never died. Podcasting and feed readers still power the truly democratized web envisioned decades ago. Newsletters are also a thing still?

Also spoiler alert for those who gave up on RSS the day Google Reader died… there are a ton of options now and they’re all pretty good. Even local options that don’t require a platform. But the social options aren’t there in most cases, but that’s okay. You can just share what you find on Twit…. your blog.

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It’s been a while since I just did a normal blog post. My Roundup fame has taken me to new heights of internet content producing. I have moved the roundups to their own section with the intent that this may encourage me to post other types of things. Such as more frequent smaller things like using the aside post format in WordPress, which I feel was the original intent.

I recently got the Playdate from Panic and have really enjoyed just looking at it. It’s the perfect desk companion. I can’t wait for the dock.

I have 98% written a review of a few games I’ve completed recently. So I may post that here soon.

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My Top Music 2020

Man, a lot of people use Spotify. Until they allow me to upload my own music (like Apple Music does) it’s never meant to be. You can’t play the Donkey Kong Land soundtrack on Spotify.

(And before someone busts in here telling me about the local files option… yeah I know, it’s dumb. I’m talkin’ cloud music library baby.)

My top albums/artists/songs for 2020 include:

  • Zelda and Chill II – Mikel
  • Zelda Dark Side of the Triforce – Epic Game Music
  • The Donkey Kong Land OST
  • Playing With The Boys – Kenny Loggins
  • Carrisa – Desert Star
  • River City Girls OST
  • ZeroRanger OST
  • Blinding Lights – The Weeknd
  • Tetris Effect OST
  • Hamilton

You guys are sleeping on that Donkey Kong Land soundtrack… just sayin’

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Fall Colors

Autumn is generally not one of my favorite seasons. But I’ll have to say with everything going on in 2020, I am welcoming it with open arms with its cool nights, and beautiful colors. I should probably go somewhere this weekend to capture the peak colors before they are gone.

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Pikmin Short Movies

These were originally released in 2014 as paid downloads for the Wii U and Nintendo 3DS. I of course bought them on both platforms. This was after Pikmin 3 launched on the Wii U. I love these shorts. They were storyboarded by Miyamoto and made me really wonder why Nintendo hasn’t pursued using their characters in any form of independent animation. These are what I’d call Pixar quality both in animation quality and charm. I’m glad they published these SIX YEARS later on Youtube.

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A Sad Small Story

Yesterday evening after finishing dinner, I stood up and looked out my dining room window. Along the edge of our property there was a man kneeling and digging with hand tools near a large tree. I was curious1. Why was this man digging? He continued for several minutes and was digging along the roots in a narrow shallow approach. Then after a few minutes he stopped, and stood up and walked away. Did he see me? I was staring out my window awkwardly because, well, I’m naturally awkward. He walked along the path surrounding nearby houses behind a bush. But he did not emerge on the other side of the bush. At this moment I pondered: Did he see me, and is he hiding? Was he up to no good? Why is he just digging near a tree?

He came back from behind the bush approaching the hole he had dug. Between the two hand tools lay a stiff squirrel. Instantly my thoughts shuffled and reorganized. The man laid the squirrel in the resting spot. He then gently covered the grave with soil for a few minutes, stood up, stepped over it to compress the loose soil. Then he knelt again scrounging for something. He found two small sticks and fashioned cross. He stood once more, said something, crossed his heart, and walked away.

In those final moments, I became emotional over that squirrel. Was it the same squirrel that frequented our deck? That man took the time to give that small creature some dignity and respect to the natural world.

RIP Squirrel.

  1. I’m very protective of the trees near our house and property because the area used be very wooded before we moved in and they cut down a bunch of older trees. I like trees. ↩
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Facebook Buys Giphy

If you would have told me in 2005 that GIFs would be huge, I would have laughed at you. Absolutely absurd. GIFs were the bane of personal websites in the late 90s and early 2000s. But as media has evolved, bandwidth increased, and now we all have mini-computers in our pockets, GIFs have been an indispensable resource in expressing our feelings, referencing pop culture, and generally speaking it’s lightweight portable video now.

Now Facebook is involved which in turn means privacy is at risk. I didn’t think about it at first, but Giphy is the defacto source for GIFs and integration to their Google database of GIFs. Now we all have trackers in any app we use.

Of course Giphy is going to retain its own brand. If they renamed it to “Facebook Tracking Pixels”, usage might drop off. Think about all the messaging apps that don’t offer Facebook integration for security/privacy reasons (not to mention not wanting to have their apps crash on launch when Facebook pushes a buggy update), where Giphy images appear. You know, like Apple’s Messages. Well, now Facebook has tracking pixels in them.

John Gruber

Cool. Cool cool cool.