Anzac Day

Lest We Forget

Feed Me RSS Pudding

While I wait for my game to download I figure I'd take this moment to give my quick run down on RSS readers and hopefully get users who aren't currently taking advantage of them to give them a go. For some of you, Google Reader is closing down and you're looking for a new place to reside. A mass exodus occurred and places like Feedly pretty much got DoS'd by the swathes of people flocking to find a nice alternative. I wonder if Google will ever rethink its position on Readers. I could forsee it integrating with G+ quite nicely. You could have a "Websites & Blogs" circle which goes directly into your feed. Seems almost like a no brainer now that it's popped into my... brain.

What's An RSS Reader & Why Should I Care?
Everytime someone doesn't care about RSS, an angel dies. RSS stands for Read Something Stupid and was invented by Isaac Asimov in the year of our Lord: who cares. It's a service that collects all your blogs and updating websites new posts all together in one place.

This is the soon to be dead Google Reader. Down the left hand side are all my unread items. All I need to do is click on one to view it straight away. No need to remember URLs, and it speeds up the process of looking at all my daily stuff. At the top right is a subscribe button. Just slam a URL into that and it'll do all the paperwork for you. Bureaucrats could learn a thing or two from that button.
If you read a lot of webcomics or news sites this is a godsend. Some comics (like Chainsawsuit pictured, XKCD and also our very own Snow) allow you to view the comic right in the reader. Some like Penny Arcade and PvP don't, so you just need to follow the link that gets pushed to your reader to view them.
Some readers come with browser plugins, meaning you won't need to manually check all your favourite sites for updates. When they're ready the come to you.

Essentially, RSS readers allow you to stop being the internets bitch.

Ok You've Convinced Me You Slick Talking Devil, Now What?
There are a shit ton of them out there. The one that everyone is going for at the moment is Feedly.

I've been using the mobile app for about a year now on my iPad. Matthew Rust has been using it to great effect on his iPhone, and now his Android. So in terms of mobility Feedly really kicks ass. If you're a smart phone user I'd recommend this. It'll make your general browsing experience of your normal haunts a lot easier. Because let's be honest. Mobile browsers kind of blow arse at getting around quickly.

My new personal favourite is The Old Reader.

New users may not be enthralled with its slick mirroring of the Google Reader interface But I really dig it. Especially its responsiveness at different sizes. It currently lacks an app, but the aforementioned responsiveness of the site lets it adapt well to smaller screens. Personally I prefer this as a desktop reader. It cuts all the shit and stays out of your way. Also another bonus, you can download a Chrome plugin for it that alerts you in the top right of your browser when you have new unread items. Perfect for when you need a quick dose of procrastination between emails and real work.

So, are you ready to stop the internet from making you its bitch?

Snow: Episode 38

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I love the "WITH CASH" panel. Hero's face is so great. I think I'm allowed a little pontification once in a while. In fact that's probably the best way to describe these blurbs.
We're running the new G+ commenting system now! There were a lot of pro's and cons about using it, since Disqus is such a brilliant commenting system which is really open and allows everyone to chip in. But to be honest, no one really did, so we'll see how this new system works. By the way, if you reshare this comic or post a link to this particular episode it'l appear in the comments down the bottom. So be careful about slagging me off! Cause I'll probably see it. Ha ha.
At the moment the tag at the bottom of my posts are saying there are zero comments on everything, but that's far from the truth. It's just a big lier. I think I must have screwed something up when I unplugged Disqus. I have a feeling there is some rogue code floating around cock blocking some data somewhere. The easiest way I can imagine fixing it would be to reset the template. Unfortunately this template is heavily modified and putting back the tweaks all over the place would be just as much a pain. A manchilds work is never done.

Edit: 19/5/12, added Aarons beard in panel 210. It seems to disappear a lot.

8bit Pineapple Maki

Have you watched Strip Search yet? I didn't expect I'd actually be recommending it. I definitely had reservations about it before. In fact I avoided it for as long as I possibly could. It does have all the tropes of your average reality TV show, except for one vital thing. The people on the show aren't scum of the earth. They're all cool people! And they realize that the end prize isn't the biggest deal. Just being on the show is going to propel their professional lives forward. Unless they act like a real asshole the whole time, in which case they have advertised themselves as being a bigger sphincter than they are a cartoonist.
Edit Maki bumped into this post! Woo.

Graduation

So I finally graduated with my lovely girlfriend. Some penguin also graduated, He had a stealy gaze and I couldn't get much more out of him. It's weird, It isn't often I'm the one pulling the least silly faces. Although I did do a wide eyed stare at the camera as I was coming down the stairs. I didn't realize it was being beamed on stage for the entire audience. But that makes it better I guess.

I never had much patriotism for Massey until yesterday. If it wasn't for Becky I probably wouldn't have gone. I'd have been content with just a degree in the mail that I could just use as a fancy paper plane. But I'm glad I went after all that.

One thing I don't understand is why people were so paranoid about getting our gowns wet. I mean, 100 years ago they wore those things all the time, and now we're worried about getting them a little damp and losing our bond on them. What are they made out of now? Paper mache? I was also throwing around the idea of just keeping the whole thing and letting them keep my sixty dollar bond. I think that's a pretty mint deal. In five years time I'll just take another set of photos and pretend I graduated again. And next time there's a Harry Potter themed event I'll totally be ready.

The Chancellor told me I must have some friends in the crowd, due to a few cheers which were real appreciated. I said yeah, 'spose. Turns out he said the same thing to Becky. I'm not a special snowflake after all. Wish I'd taken the opportunity to tell him to not be stupid and close the design department in Auckland instead like I was planning on doing.

I think if we wore all this junk all the time at uni people would have had a different mindset towards the whole endeavour. I feel like a lot of people just saw Uni as High School 2.0 with added alcohol. Before we went out the door in the morning Mum reminded me that thousands of people get degrees these days so the whole process is just a big watered down conveyer belt. I thanked her graciously for belittling my achievement as much as possible. It was a point which was enforced later by one of my peers who's got a pretty mint design job now even though their final project was a carbon copy of an existing brand.
Remember kids. C's get degrees! Also it isn't what you know, it's who you know and whether or not they're willing to give you a job in return for a blowjob. It's why they're called blowjobs. Because that's what they get you. Handjobs constitute manual labour. And if you're giving out anything more than that then you have already found your new work.

I'm actually laughing at something pretty hilarious, I'd tell you about it but I don't think you deserve to know. That, and I can't actually remember what was so funny.

I've been thinking I should probably start writing my humble opinion about design and the things I've learned. Not because I think I'm better than everyone else (because I definitely am not), but I know I would have wanted to have read about someone (and I did) who had made it through the other end of the system and made it out alive. Also it's probably the closest I'll ever get to any sort of academia ever again. Which is a little bit of a shame, since I actually found all that stuff quite invigorating when I wasn't forced to memorise it and shit it out the other end in a presentable fashion for my lecturers.

I wanted to say that this was the conclusion to a big part of my life. But I'm pretty sure I've already beaten myself to the punch in that regard when I properly finished uni ages ago and got stuck into having a job that pays for expensive fish and chips. Seriously, I got 29 dollars worth of fish and chips for just myself (Don't worry, it was only enough to feed one person, not three families like it usually is). I've shocked myself with my wanton abandon when it comes to buying food now. But screw it. I work such long hours I deserve to clog my arteries in any way I please. I didn't come this far to just continue living like a student.

~Final score~

Bachelor of Design With Honours

Second Class Honours(Division 1)

First class honours was for chumps anyway.

Snow: Episode 37

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This weekend blew by. I can't even remember Friday now. I can try though... And by remember I mean ask Becky. Oh ok, yeah, I worked late and then we went and picked up her new Nexus 4 from the illustrious +Josiah Spackman. He's a real gent in hooking us up. They always talk about Apple Acolytes but no one ever mentions the Android Avangelist who'l go out of his way to hook you up with a sweet deal. Seriously man, it's changed her life and mine. She hasn't talked to me in five hours due to a gameboy emulator and a Pokemon Leaf Green emulator. I'm telling her forcefully to buy the full version so she can play the game at a million miles an hour and enjoy the game at the spastic pace I enjoyed Pokemon Blue at on my NO$GMB back in the day. Did anyone else split screen that and share a keyboard? Good times.

Saturday was spent at The Postmans Leg having "photo times" for +Quin Polderman's going away thing. This was my personal highlight.

Snow: Episode 36

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I'm very disappointed in you guys. No one told me that the last episode featured an unbearded version of Aaron! What an embarrassment.

My own personal theory into why Hero is so damn strong is that all he ever eats is steroids and strong people.

I hope you've all had a rocking Easter! Yay, the first non offensive thing you've read about Easter on the internet. Now there's a curveball. I think offensive humour is something that should take you by surprise, zombie Jesus jokes are to easy. Mixing ironic casual racism into a criticism of anti-gay protestors however is a lot harder. Trust me, I tried it over lunch yesterday and it went down about as good as a helium balloon in an anti gravity chamber.

I'd like to take a second to do a shout out to people who have been kind enough to shout me out or use my thingies elsewhere on the web. Fidgetfu is using the Dwarf Fortress font on his DF Mac plugin hosted on github. I haven't got a Mac to try it out, but I'm sure if you play DF then it will be a handy plugin.

Another dorfy type dude got inspired by me apparently, and you should also check him out! His writing is quite good and so is his other pixel stuff.