Posts tagged “video games”

Just One More Game …

There’s a really good article in this week’s New York Times Magazine on the hyperaddictive, time-sucking, relationship-busting, mind-crushing power and allure of silly digital games. (hat tip to @sprokolopolis)

2024-06-28: Broken links in this post have been removed and/or updated.
2024-07-12: Broken links in this post have been removed and/or updated.
2024-07-12: Broken links in this post have been removed and/or updated.
2024-07-26: Broken links in this post have been removed and/or updated.
  • Bacon and Games is a new blog for video game developers. It’s full of great articles on how to make games better (and not only by adding bacon). See also: Bacon floss
  • The Alot is better than you at everything.
  • The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which “people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it”.
  • It really bothers me when people argue that marijuana is a completely harmless drug. It’s not.
  • “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.” That’s usually the first thing I think when someone explains to me (yet another) brilliant idea for a website. My first question is always, and I mean always, “How are you going to make money?” Eyeballs don’t pay the bills.
  • I suppose on some level it’s pretty cool that Microsoft has created a FixItCenter website that lets you troubleshoot and resolve problems with Windows. My opinion, though, is that it sure would be much better for their image if they’d simply sell a product that didn’t constantly require fixing.
  • If you’re a gambler, check out the odds on Tebow.
2024-07-29: Broken links in this post have been removed and/or updated.
  • Drop everything and go watch Teenage Zombies right now.
  • The Green Day rock opera album American Idiot is now a Broadway show.
  • After a grueling 58 hours of continuous play, John McAllister of Seattle, Washington officially became the best Asteroids player on the planet.
  • I also spend a fair amount of my life trying to determine what went wrong, so I can appreciate a stroke of luck.
  • Well this is pretty crazy: There are a bunch of functioning oil wells hidden around Los Angeles. The first one they feature is about two miles from my house; it’s covered by giant paintings of flowers right next to a high school football field. (I always thought it was some funky art project!)
  • A few drinks and a little idle curiosity have led to the discovery of a hidden chapel under a family home.
  • This is what I keep wondering about Dancing with the Stars: “Oh you mean world champions like Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith and Ocho Cinco, who make millions because of their brilliant hand-eye coordination and ability to move in a rhythm with exact timing and precision? How will that translate to dancing?”
  • It has a double penis, is as long as a tall human, and lives in a heavily populated area of the Philippines. Yet somehow the giant lizard Varanus bitatawa has gone undetected by science until now.
  • I’ve been skeptical of solar power for a long time. There are simply too many cloudy days. (Not here in LA, but certainly in Florida.) But I’ve always been a fan of wind. [ed: I have since changed my stance! Solar power is awesome!]
  • The reason why Apple is going to win — again — with the iPad, is because the overwhelming majority of people don’t care about Flash, software, files, directories, RAM, or whether their machine has a CD-ROM drive. They just want stuff that works.
2024-09-09: Broken links in this post have been removed and/or updated.

What Is This?

davidgagne.net is the personal weblog of me, David Vincent Gagne. I've been publishing here since 1999, which makes this one of the oldest continuously-updated websites on the Internet.

bartender.live

A few years ago I was trying to determine what cocktails I could make with the alcohol I had at home. I searched the App Store but couldn't find an app that would let me do that, so I built one.

Hemingway

You can read dozens of essays and articles and find hundreds of links to other sites with stories and information about Ernest Hemingway in The Hemingway Collection.