Don’t Love the Player, Love the Game

The new issue of The Loop magazine is out on the iOS Newsstand and features an essay by me. No shit. You can get a taste by previewing the whole issue but I suggest you download the app for iPhone and iPad.
A big thank you to Jim Dalrymple for asking me to write for it.
Publishing is going through some major upheavals right now, but it’s great to see magazines like the Loop taking off and I’m excited to be a part of it.
If you like music, design, technology, games and Apple you should subscribe. A new issue is published every 2 weeks and it only costs $2 per month. A no-brainer if you ask me.
Download The Loop magazine on the App Store.

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Words

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Overtaken

Horace Dediu on size of the mobile computer install base:

In terms of install base, a computing category that did not exist six years ago has come to overtake one that has been around for 38 years.
Crazy. That is what you call disruption.

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Technology

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Move aside and let the man go through…

A pretty awesome thing happened two weekends ago.
Some of my closest friends from grade school and high school pooled together to have Mike Doughty perform a private show for us at my friend’s parents’ house in Scituate, Massachusetts.
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For those of you who don’t know who Mike Doughty is, he’s a singer/songwriter and former frontman for the band Soul Coughing—a band my friends and I loved back in high school and college. Their big hit in the 90’s was Super Bon Bon but after the band broke up, Mike went on to do some great solo work. I Hear The Bells is one of my favorites.
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We got him to perform through his PledgeMusic project, Soul Coughing Songs: Reimagined (PledgeMusic is like a Kickstarter for strictly music-related projects).
Since my friends took the initiative to get Mike to play for us, I felt compelled to create some solid (and very limited) concert schwag in the form of t-shirts for all my friends and their wives/girlfriends as well as concert posters. I screen printed them myself:
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The t-shirts and the posters both feature the same design, but I gave the posters and extra twist: I made them a 2-color, red/blue design, imitating the old form that 3-D graphics used to take back in the day.
We called the event “3D” because every year, my friends have a 4th of July barbecue and we call it Dogs & ‘Dads. It’s a double entrendre. “Dogs” refers to both each of the dogs my friends own and the hot dogs we cook. “Dads” refers to the fact that most my friends are now fathers as well as the crawdads we ship up from New Orleans to boil and eat.
This year we had a third “D”, Doughty.
3D.
Oh, and Mike sounded awesome.

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Music

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Their Prices Are INSANE!!!*

From the Verge:

Microsoft is planning to cut the price of its Surface RT tablets. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s Surface plans have revealed to The Verge that the price cut could occur as early as next week, with each model being cut by $150.
This totally reminds me of when Apple had to slash the price of the iPad to boost weak sales when it first debuted.
Oh wait, Apple never had to to do that. Doh!
(*If you grew up in the 80s and lived in the tri-state area, you might remember Crazy Eddie’s classic commercials.)

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Technology

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The Next Disruption

So some some guy built a complete SLR camera from parts he made on a 3D printer.
If you’re wondering what industry is the next one of be disrupted, this is it. Manufacturing is in for a rude awakening. Some people think it’s a big deal Apple is starting to make Macs in the United States, but it’s nothing compared to the grassroots movement to make anything right in your home.
Oh and I love how The Verge article refers to him as a ‘maniac’.
Humans like to do that. Anyone who’s not middle-of-the-road, anyone extreme is labeled a ‘fanatic’, or ‘obsessed’.
It’s actually called passion and it’s required to make art.
Don’t let people make you feel bad about what you love to do.

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Art

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Good Morning, New York

This week New York is humid, smelly and full of energy. It’s been over a year since I’ve taken the subway to work. The air underground during the summer is as hot as the women and as dense as the traffic.
I’ve missed it.
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Travel

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