The Wii U is on life support. Can it be revived?

Let’s face facts here: The Wii U’s life so far has been an unmitigated disaster. Nintendo has struggled to sell the thing to consumers, third-party developers are hesitant to commit, and to top it all off, they seem to have had a time time convincing the public that their new system is even a system at all. More

The events of Donglegate don’t add anything to a very real discussion about gender equality in the IT workforce.

The tweet that kicked off Donglegate. Photo by https://dailymail.co.uk.

I’m going to be very upfront about my stance on the issue of ‘Donglegate’ and spell it out right here in my opening paragraph, because at the risk of mixing metaphors I fully realize how much of a tightrope I’m walking by even dipping my toes into this issue: Adria Richards is the only person whose firing was justified. Now that you’ve let the hate flow through you, allow me to explain my position, and why I believe that sexism, while certainly a factor, should not be the dominating theme of whatever lesson we as an industry choose to take away from the Donglegate incident. More

SPOILER ALERT: I’ve finished watching House of Cards.

I’ve been watching House of Cards lately- Netflix’s first ballsy gamble on original content for their streaming video service. Unlike virtually everyone I’ve talked to who’s seen the show, however, I chose not to hammer through the entire series in one weekend. instead I decided to go the traditional route, and watch the episodes one at a time, in roughly week-long intervals, as though it were being broadcast on a traditional cable network like HBO. But today I gave up on that approach, and I’m streaming the rest of the first season all day today, as I write this piece. It’s taking a bit longer than usual…. this show is damn addictive. More

Matt Cain has thrown the second perfect game this season. That sentence alone was, until the last few seasons, enough to make any baseball fan spin in their seat. Now consider some more interesting tidbits about this season:

There have been two no-hitters in addition to the aforementioned perfect games (Jered Weaver on May 2, Johan Santana on June 1).

There has also been an interleague no-no (Kevin Millwood, Charlie Furbush, Stephen Pryor, Lucas Luetge, Brandon League, and Tom Wilhelmsen on June 8).

By the way, it’s only the middle of June. More

 As a consumer, I’m outraged; yet as a designer/ developer, I’m tempted to stand up and slow clap. Aussie online retailer Kogan has imposed a 6.8% tax on all purchases by visitors who view their site on Internet Explorer 7. Customers who do choose to visit Kogan’s site via IE7 are greeted with a blatant, slightly snarky popup explaining that if they proceed to make a purchase they will incur an extra 6.8% fee on their goods.

It’s actually a fairly ingenious way to get around having to deal with the grueling process of cross-browser compatibility for those who insist on using outdated software (or are too computer-illiterate to know better). More importantly, if Kogan’s idea catches fire and other sites begin adopting similar policies, that could potentially accelerate the glacial rate of adoption for new browser versions across the web- and with the exciting features of HTML5, WebGL and other new web tech moving painfully slowly towards mainstream adoption, I for one am excited to see someone finally taking a real stab at browser standards enforcement.

Besides, every browser’s updates are free, and for those too inept to figure out how to do it themselves, the site’s popup contains handy links to the latest versions of the most popular browsers, so the tradeoff between disrupting customer satisfaction and working with outdated technology is pretty well balanced in this case. And doesn’t it make sense to encourage everyone to update who still runs a browser not capable of doing so itself? There’s virtually no way that those who update from IE7 would see any meaningful drawbacks from a newer browser, at least not in the long run, and doing so just once makes the entire web an easier place to build for.

After all, a rising tide raises all boats (except, ironically enough, for Netscape Navigator).

Kogan imposes world’s first Internet Explorer 7 tax.