September 5, 2008 2:25

Because You're Curious: Bill & Jerry

And I thought he didn't work there anymore.

September 5, 2008 10:14

Will Wright on Spore: Cute vs. Science

This week, to make sure that Time was different from every other magazine and newspaper in the entire world, I wrote a piece about Spore.

I love interviewing Will Wright. He sort of interviews himself. He has some kind of built-in filter that prevents him from ever saying anything uninteresting. I only had a page for the piece, and I talked to him for an hour, so here are a couple of outtakes.

September 3, 2008 2:26

Dr. Horrible Rules iTunes, the Future

My work-copy of iTunes is so broken, it actually emitted that sharp, loud angry-Mac beep when I fired it up just now. But nonetheless I was able to confirm that the Dr. Horrible soundtrack is the number two-most downloaded album right now. Such is the amazing power of Whedonicity.

It looked like a one-off, but it's turning out that Dr. Horrible is just too awesome to die. I am given to understand -- MTV gives me to understand -- that there may be more Horribleness in the future. Or at least Moistness:

Plus something's afoot with the Evil League of Evil. And somehow this Captain Hammer webcomic slipped onto the Net without my noticing. Now if I could get a bit more Johnny Snow I'd be sorted.

It's kinda fitting that Dark Horse should be handling the comics side of things. What with the Thoroughbred of Sin and all. Speaking of which, do they have a monopoly on Web things that are good? Today Dark Horse put up a special color Achewood comic.

September 2, 2008 3:32

They Are 8-Bit: From Games into Art

There's always something cool-slash-disturbing to see whenever the I Am 8-Bit people put on a show. Basically it's paintings inspired by 1980's video games. For some reason they're all really fascinated by Dig-Dug.

September 2, 2008 11:15

Google Releasing Its Own Browser; World Wonders What Took Them So Long

Google's Chrome browser drops today. They've created a handy comic strip outlining its features so clearly that even a technology journalist can understand them. I hear Jon Favreau has already acquired the movie rights. Some screenshots are here.

Obvs I'm going to give it a spin. Google people are smart, which makes me curious what they've come up with. You can't expect it to have the maturity of a generations-old browser right off the bat, but there's got to be some cool stuff in there. If there's a weak spot I expect it'll have to do with the UI, since design is not what Googlers do best. Though they do make a helluva comic strip.

Whenever anybody releases a browser I always find myself asking, why the hell did they bother? No one's ever convincingly monetized a browser. But it's more obvious in Google's case than most. Since they're investing so heavily in online apps, why not create an environment for said apps that they can control?

(By the way I hear the Chrome comic was drawn by Scott McCloud, the artist who also produced Zot, which was recently released in collected form. I have a special fondness for Zot because it takes place at a suburban high school that looks exactly like my high school. I always wondered why that was, till I found out that McCloud actually went to my high school.)