Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Not Opposed to Marriage Amendment
May 19, 2006

I’ve been avoiding the political beat for quite a while, because every time I dig in, I end up losing interest in defending my position. Don’t consider this return to politics a desire to stand fast with the opinions presented here - I just read something (especially the comments) on Philly Future this morning that got to me, and something needed to be said. This is the comment I posted, which I hope will see a different audience by re-posting here. Enjoy, and read it before you post a comment so that I don’t have to call you names.

(Thanks to Brian, who helped produce a good bit of this text during a conversation we had over IM quite a while ago.)

Hint Books Ruin Video Games
May 18, 2006

Last week while shopping for Brain Age, I pre-purchased The New Super Mario Bros. for my Gameboy DS. At the checkout counter was the official guide for the game. I flipped through a few pages. Indeed, it does ruin the game.

In college, the thing I did fourth-most (in the list right after “ping pong”) when I wasn’t going to class was playing video games. We kept a fair number of consoles around our room. I don’t remember whose the NES was, but we played hours and hours of Tetris and Super Mario.

One of the best parts of playing Super Mario was finding all of the hidden stuff. There are places in the game where you can leap out of the visible play area and run on top of the blocks that border the game board. There are places with invisible blocks that you can hit and cause really weird things to happen in the game. There are these warp whistle/flute things - objects you can pick up in the game only after finding the most hidden of secret treasures.

There was no guide for us for this game. Or maybe if there was, we didn’t have it. We played the game and happened upon these easter eggs. And then we looked for more, trying all sorts of weird things to see if the developers had hidden anything else in the game’s dark corners. 80% of the fun of the game was knowing how to employ these secrets and discovering new ones. It’s a thrill you can’t get from games today.

What To Do When 9rules Rejects Your Application
May 17, 2006

In case you missed the announcement (I have on the past three occasions, and have taken special measures to ensure that it doesn’t happen again), 9rules is enrolling today. Of the hundreds and thousands and millions of blogs that they will review, only about three will be allowed to join their exclusive blog network. And since one of those blogs is bound to be Asymptomatic, that only leaves two slots open for the rest of you.

Since your chances of being accepted as a true blogger are about as likely as the chances of anyone escaping from the Lost island alive, I thought that I might provide some suggestions as to what you can do to quell your thoughts of suicidal rejection.

Option A: Go on a comment spam fit on all of the newly added blogs and leave hateful messages about how 9rules sucks because they didn’t add your site. Explain how you think their network is bogus self-promotion and that you wouldn’t join their crappy little group if they paid you. Deny that you ever submitted your site for inclusion, and cast aspersions on any such insinuations.

Dining For One
May 16, 2006

I’ve made a casual observation many times in trips to places like the mall food court. Have you noticed how people don’t eat together?

I mean, if you go to the mall with a group of people or with a spouse or friend, you’ll eat with them, surely. But if you’re just shopping by yourself and you decide to get lunch, you’ll be eating by yourself. And so will every other solitary person.

Interview Questions Answered
May 13, 2006

Perusing Digg, I came across a post that outlines a set of twenty questions that interviewers should ask their candidates for web development positions. I thought it would be fun to see how I would answer these questions. Here we go…

What industry sites and blogs do you read regularly?

None religiously. Great ideas don’t always come from the most respected names in the business. You’ll find that every now and then, something new and interesting will come from someone previously unknown. That’s why you have to have your fingers on the pulse of the web, and know how to sip from the firehose of new web tech.

That said, I do monitor QuirksBlog and have occasion to peruse ALA periodically. Also, I have in my aggregator a bunch of folks who keep tabs on these things pretty well. Combined with some good PubSub subscriptions and the Digg/del.icio.us/Slashdot filtering I do, I get a good feel for what’s going on.

Do you prefer to work alone or on a team?

It depends on what the project is. It only makes sense that if it’s a very small project, I would expect not to have to coordinate with five other developers. Also, I prefer to focus on coding over design if possible, so a team of developer (me) and designer (someone else) suits me great.