Category: General
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→Bringing a Webcomic to the Page: A Chat with Zach Weiner
Zach Weiner, author of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, my favorite *funny* webcomic of all time, on the rise of geek humor:
The less obvious thing is this: we’re all very in tune with machines now in a way I think the last generation wasn’t. For example, when one of my parents doesn’t know something (like, say you pass a statue in the park, but don’t know the person it portrays) they’re okay with being resigned to not knowing. I just pick up my phone and look up wikipedia. I, and many others, use sites like wikipedia, google, and wolframalpha so much that they become like working knowledge. So, for comedians, this opens up possibilities. I can make a joke knowing full well many people will have to look it up. This is okay (within reason) because information is so available.
http://blogs.forbes.com/jasonoberholtzer/2011/05/02/bringing-a-webcomic-to-the-page-a-chat-with-zach-weiner/
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➟ Aonori, by Brief & Trunks — A brilliant Japanese comedy music video
via youtube.comThis starts well, and then you think maybe it’s going to be the same thing for four minutes, but they manage to build on the joke very nicely.
You may have to enable YouTube annotations/closed-captioning to get the English subs.
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➟ How Good Is Hype Machine Radio? [AppAdvice]
via appadvice.comI don’t know if the app is worth its $2.99 (I guess if your 3G connection is good and you want their music on the go, it is), but I’m just getting started on using the Hype Machine as an aggregator of music sources instead of an MP3 search engine — imagine a Last.fm for little known music, streaming from a network of music blogs. Am currently listening through my desktop browser and if this quality keeps up, I’ll be a customer within the hour.
It’s a situation ideally suited to success, actually. Music lovers who consider themselves informed, cutting-edge curators — a breed of digital vinyl collectors — who publish their opinions on well-trafficked blogs, are always going to be your best bet for radio that doesn’t suck.
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Genki sushi has reopened at Orchard Central with a pretty cool iPad ordering system
We ate here a couple of nights ago, without hoping for more than the standard conveyor belt sushi they used to offer when they were a pretty visible chain here up until a few years ago. So it was a pleasant surprise to see a proper Japanese-style train system that delivers plates directly to the specific table that ordered, on top of a regular conveyor belt (that wasnt operational yet; they were pretty empty from being new). There was also an iPad ordering system that I initially scoffed at for being a gimmick, but the implementation is sound and goes beyond being a ‘dumb’ menu, actually placing orders over the wireless network with a well-structured presentation and passable touch interface with some nice details.
One example, you load up a small batch of up to 4 orders, which are shown on an image of a train car not unlike the ones speeding past, and send them out as you go. Ideally, the food should arrive in the form of your order, but we often had ours split into 2-plate deliveries, which was totally fine, of course. This all works much better than Sakae Sushi’s aging tableside computerized ordering system, which suffers from being mouse-driven and hard to navigate. Yes, the iPad is a bit of an obnoxious novelty and fights for space on the table (you can dock it above the belt, but it’s a bit of a bother because it can’t be used in that position), but it works out well. They probably did the whole thing for less than it might have cost to install regular old touchscreen computers and link them all up. The wait staff also take all orders and add up bills with iPod touches. Very nicely done. I’m wondering if it was custom built from scratch or if a local company is offering the backend as a turnkey solution with design services.
sangsara.net 