Basheera Khan

The game of life

The description of this fantasy game app from the one they call @FreddieBoz reminds me of something that's been knocking around my brain for a while now.

Is there actually an app for a sort of augmented reality game that uses your location info in conjunction with Google Maps to make an obstacle course of your commute?

So if you feel like a slightly more adventurous walk than usual to the Tube station or bus stop, or even just an autotelic ramble around town, you can input your departure and destination points, and the game randomly generates zombies/vampires/ninjas/ex-MPs to avoid, pickups to locate, and maybe even some interactivity options if it detects other players within a given radius of yourself.

Did I dream it? Does this exist? If it does, what's it called and where can I buy it? (Because you know I'd pay for this sort of thing.) If it doesn't exist, are there any iPhone gaming devs out there who want to take the idea and run with it? I'll happily beta test. :-)

When you screw up user experience design, it makes the baby Jesus(phone) cry

I have a bone to pick with Apple's iTunes interface designers.

What the fuck do you call this? How is it in any way a useful dialogue?

So, yes, I have multiple backups and yes, some of them are dated and some not, and no, you can't sort them. At all.

Which leaves me with the problem I have now - I restored my iPhone after the Apple Store replaced it on grounds of a wonky wifi card, but all my apps reset - meaning I lost all my cherished data and a fair few text messages as well.

I've tried restoring the phone multiple times, on the advice of a few friends, but nada. I'm pretty certain that the data is in there, somewhere - the question is, can I get to it and restore it manually?

If anyone has any answers, please for the love of all that is logical, elegant and efficiently designed, tell me. Do not mention TimeMachine in your response.

And yes, my phone is called iBone. As it happens, I do appreciate the hilarity of this name. No, it's got nothing to do with whatever you think it does.

Jeff Buckley documentary available at last

This hour-long independent documentary investigates the power behind Jeff Buckley’s musical legacy and finds revelation at its heart–the fans. The film includes rare performances, exclusive video footage and interviews with all four Jeff Buckley Band members, friends, family and colleagues, as well as artists (composer, painter, dancer and singers) who pay tribute to how Jeff inspired them. Produced and directed by first-time filmmakers, the documentary screened at 25 film festivals worldwide (Seattle International Film Festival, Cinequest, CMJ, etc.) and won four awards, including best music documentary and best film.”

More here. Trailer down there.

Observation

When I shut my eyes, I type faster and more accurately than when I'm looking at the screen. I can't help but feel this is a living metaphor demonstrating the effect that second-guessing one's abilities can have on one's performance, especially where that performance stems from a place of ultimate self-trust and self-belief.

Win! Stuff! Now!

Kat at bview is running a contest ahead of SocialMediaCamp London, where the winner will be chosen by popular vote. (That's Kat wrapped in the Canadian flag with Safetygoat on the occasion of the First Annual Old Street Photographic Scavenger Hunt). Here's what's involved:

1. You write a blog post telling the world what you’d do with your 99% off. Make sure you have a link back to www.bview.co.uk.
2. Send an email to competition@bview.com and give Kat a link to said posting.
3. All entries have to be received by midnight GMT on Saturday, April 25, 2009.
4. Kat will shortlist her top 10 favourites, and then the lovely attendees of Social Media Camp London will vote on the winner, which will be announced by 8pm Sunday, April 26, 2009 GMT.
5. You can enter as many times as you like (if you have multiple blogs, then go for it!).
6. People from anywhere in the world can enter, but the prize will be awarded in pounds sterling.

So, with that in mind, here's mine. Sadly it's not witty or funny, just a poignantly real expression of my heart's desire. It's been five years since I last saw my mum and family, most of whom live in South Africa, because for one reason or another, I just haven't had sufficient spare dosh lying around with which to go home. With 99% off £500, I'd buy myself a plane ticket, take a long holiday and spend quality time with everyone I love and miss, but most especially my mum. Which in reality would probably mean I'd be ready to return to the UK about, say, 11 seconds after saying hello.* I mean, not that my mum's an awful person or anything - we just seem to get along a lot better when we're continents apart. Oh god, this sounds terrible. Honestly, she's lovely! Really! If you met her, you'd instantly fall in love with her and beg her to adopt you! And she would, because she's fantastic! Though if you did suddenly become my sister or brother, I have to warn you - I have dibs on the belon when it comes time to inherit. Yep, that's right. I think ahead. And dammit, no belon rolls rotis rounder than that belon.   

Hmm... is there a rap lyric in there somewhere? "Ain't no belon like my mamma's belon, cos my mamma's belon don't stop!"

That's how I roll. Know what I'm sayin'? 

* If you get this reference, put it in the comments. I'd have referenced it properly but for YouTube's accursed cussedness. If I win this competition, I promise to bring home some cheap tourist tat for all correct guessers.

Everything is shit

Source: The amazing FFFFound, of course.

Taking it up a notch

For those seeking a true challenge: Rock Paper Scissors Spock Lizard - with helpful diagram.

(Via gimbo, of course.)

If you've got a problem, yo I'll solve it

But will Twitter check out the hook when my DJ revolves it?

So basically, my problem is this: for people like me, who still pay attention to individual new Twitter followers, it's very difficult to tell at a glance from the 'new follower email notification' whether or not I should consider following-back straight away. I might stop email notification of new followers if I start picking them up at a rate of knots, but at the moment I can still cope with the flow.

Here's my suggestion: When Twitter sends you an email saying you've got a new follower, how about including that person's location, web address and bio (which most people fill out unless they're trying to be terribly mysterious) and their last three tweets to give a flavour of what they're like -- essentially an overview that will save me from having to click through to decide whether or not to follow them back.

Following on from that - how about a link from within the email that allows one to follow or block that user straight from within the email? This might be overkill for some, but seriously, the less clicking through I need to do to manage my online life, the better.

Of course, this is based on the assumption that Twitter is never going to overhaul its web-based friend/follower management tools. Personally, I'm familiar enough with Gmail and its heavenly keyboard shortcuts to make pretty short shrift of tackling my inbox. It's why I choose email notification for the sort of thing that makes visiting Twitter's site a PITA.

If Twitter's web-based tools were smoother and more shortcut-friendly, with a more thoughtful approach to the interface design, I would probably prefer managing it all online. Unless of course some genius comes up with the perfect Twitter client for OS X – i.e. TweetDeck's group feature + Tweetie's conversation breadcrumb feature + Twitterific's keyboard shortcut integration + support for location updates, TwitPic posts, and all the other beautiful API goodness all rolled into one amazing piece of software that I won't ever ever ever want to leave or quit or change up from ever ever ever EVER.

That is, until the next big thing comes along.

Update: Thanks to Andy Price for actually submitting these ramblings as a bona fide feature request - *that's* the way to get things done. :-)

Fantastic description

From Kevin Telfer's thoughts on The New Capitalism:

"My favourite commentator on the economic crisis has been the Queen, who in her visit to LSE, asked in that dazzling tone of voice that veers somewhere between hopeless naivety and steel-balled, zero-bullshit, cutting-straight-to-the-chase lucidity: ‘It’s awful - why did nobody see it coming?’"

This is why I love him