Jason Cosper

Tag: games

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 05.18.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    And it keeps coming and it keeps coming
    And it keeps coming ’til the day it stops

    LCD Soundsystem, Someone Great

    Sometimes, you get overwhelmed by life and let things fall by the wayside. You don’t mean to do it. It just sort of… happens.

    Eventually, you make it to the other side. But then you find yourself filled with the overwhelming desire to figure things out.

    So… what now? You can’t say “I’m never going to let this happen again.” because never sure as hell is a mighty long time.

    You’ve just got to find the thing that’ll work for you, and then try to do that thing for as long as you can.

    Anyway… How about some links?

    GMK Redacted Keycap Set

    Not to go all mechanical keyboard guy on y’all, but this pre-order (through June 2, 2020) for a keycap set with a number of redacted keys is very much my vibe.

    Stan Lee vs Rob Liefeld & Todd McFarlane

    Now, I know this video is 28 years old, but I found it while doing a deep dive on YouTube a couple weeks ago and it is fantastic.

    In it, Stan Lee lowkey savages Liefeld and McFarlane while they create one of the greatest examples of dumb 1990’s comic book maximalism, Overtkill.

    The Third Quarter of Isolation

    We may now be entering the dreaded third quarter of hollow-eyed stares, odd fixations and brooding resentment. Time grows sludgy. The days blur into the nights, and the weekdays into the weekends. You’ve hidden the notifications from a recently downloaded exercise app and you’re no longer telling people you’ll learn Italian. You begin to suspect that your friends have their own Messenger group.

    See also: Fuck the Bread. The Bread Is Over.

    Stealing Home

    In lieu of watching the Dodgers play baseball this summer, I’ve decided to read this instead and grapple with the complicated history of one of my favorite teams. (thx) 😬

    Tonight We Riot

    Over the past couple weeks, I’ve spent a decent amount of time playing this Switch brawler that allows you to control a whole movement of people trying to throw off the shackles of capitalist oppression. 🌹

    It’s unapologetically leftist, and I fucking love it.

    Bad Baby Names

    Why let Space Karen and Grimes have all the fun?

    P.S. Please join us in welcoming our new child, Dr. Bronner Paulblart, Reloaded. 👶🏻

    The Father of the Title Sequence

    On what would have been his 100th birthday, Criterion celebrates one of my all-time favorite designers, Saul Bass.

    This Word Does Not Exist

    AI generated words, with definitions. Some of them feel as if they’ve been lifted out of a William Gibson novel. (via)

    The Conspiracy Museum

    A short story by Robin Sloan for The Atlantic’s Shadowland.

    David Lynch’s Weather Report

    Back in the early aughts, David Lynch used to do the weather report for LA alternative station, Indie 103.1‘s morning show. I don’t even know why he did it, but I’ll be damned if I missed a single one of them.

    As of last week, he’s started doing them again and putting them up on YouTube. Even though I no longer live in LA, I’ve happily watched every. single. one.

    I Paint Any Ass

    You give them €40 and a photo of your butt and you get back a painting. Dunno what else to say about it, TBH.

    Jeez. Seems like I’ve been saving them up for a while, huh? 😂

    We’ll (hopefully) talk again soon!

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.22.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    We’ve got a big one today. The next post might suffer for it, but why should I sit on all of these tasty morsels and end up get scooped by the likes of Kottke and Waxy? 😄

    Epidemic Lofi

    Let’s kick the day off on a chill note. This Soundcloud playlist from Epidemic Sound has damn near 200 songs worth of lofi hip hop vibes to get you through your day.

    I don’t know about you, but I’ll use whatever I can to get through my day at this point.

    Blind Users Struggle with State Coronavirus Websites

    Forty-one of the 50 state pages we surveyed contained low-contrast text, which can be challenging for users with low vision, including seniors, who are at higher risk in the outbreak.

    …

    Navigation was another challenge for users with visual disabilities. Thirty-one of the 50 state pages contained empty links or buttons, which means a screen reader will not be able to tell the user what the button does or where the link is supposed to go.

    😞

    Of course most of these sites are lousy on accessibility. People with disabilities tend to be an afterthought all over the web.

    Big Honking Button

    Why press Y to honk when you can press a big honking button instead?

    This is more than “just a button” though — it’s a hackable, one-button sampler that runs CircuitPython.

    Psilocybin Produced in Yeast

    Too bad there’s a yeast shortage, because I could really stand to get trip balls on some dough rn. 🍞

    Gophers

    Keep a gopher network alive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland – your community will thank you for it.

    I’m pretty fucked out on post-apocalypse shit at the moment, but I really adore the concept and style of this (free!) game produced as part of Ludum Dare 46. (via)

    98.css

    Nothing means anything anymore — and, as we covered the other day, the internet feels pretty 90s lately — so why not make something that looks like Win98? (via)

    People of the Pandemic

    An effective visualization of how a pandemic can spread through a community, masquerading as a game. 🦠🕹

    I find it interesting that the game uses the decisions of 19 previous players to inject a little entropy into your decisions. Because, in situations like these, you’ve always gotta worry about what the other assholes in your town are doing… 🙄

    MonoLisa

    I know what some of y’all are saying… “$350 for a typeface for my terminal?! Are you high?”

    I mean, a little. 😬 Don’t worry though — there’s also a more modest $70 version for the junior ballers in the crowd.

    Still, take some time to look at the specimen and fuck with the playground on the site. I’m sure you’ll agree that MonoLisa is a beaut.

    Hoo boy. 🥱 Let’s call it a day, shall we?

    Hope to see all you nice people back around here soon!

    P.S. I’m still crossposting these regular link dumps 💩 to my newsletter. If you’re still not reading RSS feeds because you haven’t quite gotten over losing Google Reader, you should subscribe.

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.15.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    It’s 82° F and clear in Bakersfield today. The sort of day that, TBH, we don’t see all that much. Late spring through early fall is, usually, oppressively hot, and late fall through early spring tends to be right above freezing. So days like today are a treat.

    I probably ought to cut out of work ~30 minutes early — before the sun gets too low — go sit on a lounge chair by the pool, and tell myself “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.“

    Other Music

    An amazing looking documentary on iconic NYC record store Other Music. They’re doing a virtual screening April 17–20th in partnership with a bunch of indie record stores, including my local fave. (thx)

    We’re on the Brink of Cyberpunk

    While Blade Runner’s once-distant future of November 2019 feels resonant in so many ways—vast corporate power, persistent surveillance, life in a time of constant crisis—it misses the actual 2019’s most salient feature: an inescapable, painful awareness of politics and of the presence or deliberate absence of government in daily life.

    Our dystopia is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed. 🦾

    Flipper Zero

    Speaking of cyberpunk, this portable “tamagotchi for hackers” meets hacker multitool looks like a blast. RFID, Infrared, GPIO out, rubber ducky emulation, iButton support… 🤯 (via)

    PowerWash Simulator

    One of my favorite things to do after a stressful day is throw on a pressure washing video and just sort of zone out.

    Okay, so now that you know that, you’d better believe that I was thrilled af to discover this game — which just dropped as an early beta. I was less thrilled to see that it’s (currently) Windows only, but I’m hopeful that it’ll be easy to port elsewhere because Unity.

    I don’t know about you, but I’m good with calling it a day at four links. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    Guess I should go grab a tallboy out of the fridge and pull up a lounge chair before the sun up and calls it a day.

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.14.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    It’s been one of those “lowkey overdo it on CBD, listen to white noise for five hours, and try to get work done” sort of days. Y’all have those too, right? 😬

    Zooooom.us

    A macOS screensaver that simulates an increasingly absurd Zoom call.

    I’ll stick with Brooklyn — lest I give myself an anxiety attack over thinking that I forgot about a meeting — but I’ll keep this in my back pocket for future pranking purposes. (via)

    Airbreak

    What we have done is to “jailbreak” the the AirSense 10 CPAP machine, a common, low-cost sleep therapy device intended to treat sleep apnea, so that it is possible to run additional tasks on the device. These new tasks add the features and adjust the range of parameters that make it possible to use the device as a temporary ventilator.

    This is incredibly clever. My only hope is that it doesn’t drive up the cost of the AirSense 10 and its supplies on the CPAP grey market as people start to panic buy them up.

    ArduBee

    I’m not really a drone guy, but I do like the concept of this small, hackable, open source powered, mini drone kit (allegedly) coming soon to Kickstarter.

    Arcade Game Typography

    Vintage video games and deep dives into typography: two great tastes that taste great together. (via)

    Okay, that’ll do for today. How about a nap? 💤

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.13.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    Alright, International Brotherhood of Indoor Kids! How about we get back at it?!

    Ugh. Do we really have to though? Mondays were already tough, but Mondays in these times are like peddling a heavy mountain bike up the steepest hill you can think of from childhood in first gear. 😞

    Guess I should stop pedaling so hard and just walk the damn thing up the hill, huh?

    Twelve Hours of Satellite of Love Ambient Noise

    crysknife007’s YouTube channel is a veritable treasure trove of nerd friendly white noise, but I’ve got a soft spot for the low, rumbling background noise used on MST3K.

    Don’t forget to turn down your lights (where applicable). 😉

    Bar None

    I’ve had a Touch Bar MBP for ~3 years now, so I’ve grown to used to having a virtual function row on my machine. Hell, I’d even go so far as to say that I like my Touch Bar.

    Still, I love this tool by Shaun Inman that disables the Touch Bar unless you’re holding down the fn key. (via)

    House Industries Lettering Manual

    New book alert!

    One of my all-time favorite type foundries is publishing a gorgeous looking book — based on their wildly popular lettering workshops — that drops tomorrow.

    Totally snuck up on me, but I’m glad Mike tipped me off to it.

    TIC-80

    An open source fantasy computer for game development, with an inexpensive — and totally optional, but still useful — Pro version.

    🤔 Wonder if I can manage to get this running on my old PocketCHIP… (via)

    Pro Chefs Make 13 Kinds of Pantry Pasta

    I’m really glad that the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen crew are still making videos from home. Here, a whole bunch of them improvise a ton of different pantry pasta dishes.

    Social Distancing and the Resurgence of Drive-In Theaters

    I’m a great believer that mental stability is as important as physical stability. If people don’t have a certain amount of normalcy in their life, it’s going to affect them.

    John Watzke, Owner, Ocala Drive-In Theater

    I’ve got a lot of fond memories of going to the drive-in with my parents in the eighties. Double features… Sneaking in giant Tupperware bowls full of air popped popcorn and way too much butter… Bulk bags of M&Ms and Whoppers…

    If we get a mini drive-in boom over the next few months, definitely I wouldn’t be mad about it. 😃

    Okay. Bike’s up the proverbial hill. Time to coast now. See y’all again soon!

    P.S. Don’t forget, these posts are also available as a newsletter. Subscribe early and subscribe often!

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.10.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    I know today is technically Friday, but the past few weeks have turned into sort of an indefinable gelatinous cube of time.

    It’s almost feels like I’ve managed to become unstuck in time. Completely incapable of escaping the world’s longest, mass hallucinated Wednesday.

    Songs for Pierre Chuvin

    The Mountain Goats’ first all-boombox album since All Hail West Texas, which is one of my all-time favorite albums, period. This one’s inspired by Chuvin’s A Chronicle of the Last Pagans.

    Keep Distance Ruler

    Artist Keisuke Terashima has created an incredibly useful script for these times that you can run on your iPhone.

    The script drops a six foot circle around you in AR — which you can then use to make sure you’re safely distancing yourself while venturing out in the world.

    The better thing is to not, you know, go out in public. At least until after we get the all clear. But this is still here, should anyone happen to need it.

    In Depth: The Game Boy Printer

    A delightfully wonky deep dive of one man’s attempt at emulating the Game Boy Printer in his open source emulator.

    GB Studio

    Speaking of the Game Boy, my buddy Rich pointed me at this rad, cross-platform, drag and drop game creation tool that’ll export your game as a playable ROM!

    I mean, why not spend some of our collective downtime making your very own Zelda-like?

    If You Can’t Smash It, Set It On Fire

    Big mood. Huge.

    I’ve already got the sticker version of this on my laptop, but I really love the colors on the patch.

    Bread Scheduler

    Unlike the rest of the International Brotherhood of Indoor Kids, I haven’t managed to get a sourdough starter going yet.

    This site looks like it’ll be handy for when I get around to it though. I mean, c’mon… Gantt charts!

    How to Take a Decent Photo of Your Own Shoes

    Matt Haughey coming through with the 🔥 sneakerhead protip.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a weekend of moderate drinking and meal prep to get to.

    P.S. If this is a thing that you’ve found yourself enjoying, these posts are also available as a newsletter. Subscribe now and you’ll never have to visit my site again! 😂😭

  • Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 04.09.20

    This content was imported from gomi no sensei, a project I briefly did during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead of maintaining yet another WordPress install, I’ve decided to shove this content into the everything bucket that is my long running personal blog. 🥴

    Feelin’ fine.

    Well, not really. Honestly, I’m starting to get really tired of being stuck inside all the time. Guess I’m not suited for long distance space travel, huh?

    Oh well. The mission to Mars will have to go on without me, I guess…

    Anyway, how about a few links?

    Punk Haircuts

    I have a few friends who, knowing they’re not going to see their barbers for a few months, have gone full Ripley during quarantine. That’s a pretty bold move if you ask me.

    Sure, slapping a number two on the Wahl clippers rusting out under your guest bathroom sink is a classic punk haircut — don’t think I haven’t considered it — but there’s also the chance that you’ll look like a giant-sized Bobby Hill. 😬

    But hey, it’s not like you have any place to be rn, right?

    Rollerblade Office Chair Wheels

    After seeing Matt Haughey mention how much of an upgrade these were for his home office chair, I bought a set for my Sayl.

    I’d had the wheels swapped out in under three minutes, and my chair rolls along the rug that’s under my desk so much smoother now.

    Highly recommended upgrade, y’all!

    Pocket Developer

    A D20 full of developer cliches — like “Works for me”, and “Try it now” — ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. (via)

    The 501 Developer Manifesto

    We are software developers who take pride in our work but choose not to be wholly defined by it.

    As someone who has spent the last few years trying to get the whole work/life balance thing right, I am really fucking feeling this.

    OpenRCT2

    Looking to waste some time? Sure, we all are.

    Here’s an open-source re-implementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 that runs on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

    You’ll need to get your hands on the object files from a copy of RCT2, but that’s not too hard to to do. 😉

    How to Look Good on Camera

    Now this is the sort of journalism I pay The New York Times $14 a month for… 🤣

    Maureen Dowd talked with fashion designer and filmmaker Tom Ford about how to look your best on all of the video calls you’re no doubt getting pulled into.

    I’ve been working from home for ~8 years, so I went feral and stopped caring ages ago — but maybe you’ll find it useful, dear reader.

    A Flock of 30 Zines

    My pal Austin Kleon — author of the extremely inspiring Keep Going — has been spending his “indoor kid” time making zines, and I am deeply into his aesthetic.

    He’s got links to all of them in the post. And, if you’re feeling inspired, he’s provided instructions on how you can make your own out of a single sheet of paper.

    US Out of California

    Since I’m talking about stuff my friends have made — and since Gavin Newsom went on MSNBC and declared California a “nation-state” — I might as well give Mike Monteiro‘s classic Cotton Bureau design a shout out. 🤷🏻‍♂️

    Well, I’ve gotta go figure out what to do about a very full swimming pool — so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just see myself out.