Extra Future

Hi, I’m Phil Nelson, a writer, developer, and audio-visual maker of stuff. I have been making stuff online for over 25 years. I run RetroStrange and Set Side B. Good to see you.

Blog Archives

Tag: software

  • Retrobatch, a new batch image processor from Flying Meat

    Looks like a heck of a swiss-army-knife of a tool. It’s node-based, supports CoreML image classification and sorting, and yep… it supports AppleScript. FM’s suggestions for new use cases contain fun, weird, stuff like “Read an image from the clipboard, apply a drop shadow, and write it right back to the clipboard to paste into another app.”

    Retrobatch is available as a 14 day free trial, and licenses start at $29.99. Props to Flying Meat for being one of those third-party Mac development houses that just keeps going.

  • Anil Dash is the new CEO of Fog Creek

    And they’re introducing what looks like the Yahoo Pipes of our dreams, Gomix.

    Source: I’m at Fog Creek. And we’re introducing Gomix! – Anil Dash

  • “How I Judge the Quality of Documentation in 30 Seconds”

    A quick-ish post buy Eric Holscher, of [Read the Docs][rtd]. [I agree with all of this, therefore I am linking to it.][link] tl;dr: Have a website, not a directory of text files. Use prose, not auto-generated bullshit. Use permalinks. Have the language and version # in your URLs. Keep docs keyed to version #s.

    [link]: http://ericholscher.com/blog/2014/feb/27/how-i-judge-documentation-quality/ “How I Judge the Quality of Documentation in 30 Seconds — Surfing in Kansas”
    [rtd]: http://readthedocs.org “Read the Docs”

  • Marco Arment sells majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks

    [Didn’t see that one coming][link]. I use Instapaper every single day, and I hope this keeps Instapaper around for a long time and frees up Marco to make more new stuff. From his post:

    >I’m happy to announce that I’ve sold a majority stake in Instapaper to Betaworks. We’ve structured the deal with Instapaper’s health and longevity as the top priority, with incentives to keep it going well into the future. I will continue advising the project indefinitely, while Betaworks will take over its operations, expand its staff, and develop it further.

    I’ve been in a similar place before; having a successful project that can continue growing but needs a bigger team and more resources, but you don’t want to make it your entire career. Marco, it seems, felt similarly before he made the decision to sell.

    [link]: http://www.marco.org/2013/04/25/instapaper-next-generation “The next generation of Instapaper – Marco.org”

  • Pinry

    [A self-hosted, open source, Pinterest clone.][link] Built with Python, from the looks of it.

    [link]: http://getpinry.com/ “Pinry”

  • Storyboard

    [“Read the TV and Movies you don’t want to watch,”][link] they say. Storyboard is a package that takes subtitled input videos and creates a PDF of every line and every scene change.

    I could see using this for a lot of weird/interesting data analysis.

    [link]: http://syntaxi.net/2013/01/20/storyboard/ “Storyboard : Read the TV and Movies you don't want to watch”

  • Tent

    [A sort of counterpoint to App.net, Tent is a truly decentralized social media protocol][link]. It even integrated with Tor to help those in nations that which to stifle free speech.

    It’s a protocol, like HTTP or email, not just a service. It’s fully open source. This is interesting. I hope that it becomes more friendly and stable and active than, say, Jabber.

    [link]: http://tent.io/ “Tent – the decentralized social web”

  • The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998’s Thief: The Dark Project

    [A write-up / retrospective by the primary author of Thief: The Dark Project’s 3D rendering engine][link]. An interesting historical curio, from the time just before hardware 3D rendering was commonplace. via [Shawn Medero][shawn].

    [link]: http://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html “The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998’s Thief: The Dark Project”
    [shawn]: http://shawn.medero.net/ “Shawn Medero”

  • Acorn 3

    [A great-looking update to the self-described “image editor for humans.”][link] I’ve been using Acorn since version 1, and I spend more time with Acorn and less with Photoshop every week.

    [link]: http://flyingmeat.com/acorn/ “Acorn, a great Mac image editor, built for humans.”

  • Isotope

    [A jQuery plugin that makes reordering rows, sorting, and show/hide look absolutely great][link]. The plugin’s page is itself a perfect demo for the tech. At something like 2kb minified I’m wondering how I lived without it.

    [link]: http://isotope.metafizzy.co/ “Isotope”