King of the (virtual) world

Are you a gamer? Or, perhaps, are you a GAMER. The difference might not be obvious, until you read the story of Jorge Yao at the NY Times. It’s a crazy story about one man’s quest in the online game Clash Of Clans. It details what led him to the game, and continues with the story of he became an internet celebrity. The number one player in the world for six months, Jorge attracted 90,000 twitter followers, 30,000 facebook likes, and hundreds of thousands of views for youtube videos.

It’s a great article, chronicling what it took to remain on top for so long. A few quick details: $250 a week in in-game purchases. $3000 over the first three months of his run. That led to getting a sponsor to continue. Playing up to five accounts at a time, even in the shower. Eventually, it became too much, but the work paid off in the form of a job with a gaming company.

The World’s Scariest Trail

If you happen to find yourself in China, and you are feeling adventurous, you might want to check out the Heavenly Stairs at Mt. Hua Shan. It’s a giant stone staircase that leads up the side of the mountain. And if you are still feeling frisky after the climb, you can continue on to the plank path. But you might not want to. Have a look at it.

Crazy, right? There is more to this than the views or the usual ‘because it’s there’. If you do make your way past the plank path, there is a surprise waiting at the top of the mountain. But I won’t spoil it. Check out this post on Viralnova for more pictures and the reveal of what is at the end of the trail.

The two wheeled pickup truck

 

CES is in full swing, with all manner of strange and new things being displayed. As I navigated down the rabbit-hole inspired by all of that nuttery, I landed on the Kubo. Billed as a pickup truck on two wheels, the Kubo is a scooter from Lit Motors. It boasts a top speed of 45mph, a range of 80 miles, and has a giant cargo hold right there in the middle. It would seem to be the perfect in-city run-about. Deliveries are expected to commence this year.

Hardware keyboards are not dead yet

One of the casualties of the mobile space’s march toward thinner phones and bigger screens has been the physical keyboard. It’s a rare thing. After all, if you want that keyboard, the phone is going to have to be thicker, or the screen is going to have to be smaller. It is something of an odd choice that manufacturers have decided to ignore the userbase that is interested in the physical keyboard. There is enough of an audience still around to support a keyboard accessory market.

One of the latest is from Typo, which is notable for two main reasons. First, it is funded in part by Ryan Seacrest. And most recently, because they are being sued by Blackberry for copying the Blackberry keyboard. You can hit the links for more on that. I’m more curious about the decision to go with the portrait style keyboard. It does avoid the problem of making the screen smaller, but the iPhone is a pretty long and skinny device to start with, and this makes it oddly longer. More perplexing though, is holding it in use. That’s just not a natural thing with so much phone above the keys. I like the idea of the physical keyboard, but I would lean more to the classic slide-out landscape form factor, like you see on the BoxWave Keyboard Buddy.

The Year In Theatre

When the work day ends you are most likely to find me somewhere in the greater Seattle area at one of the many local theatres. By most likely I mean that in 2013 I went to 310 different things. Or, looking at it another way, 5.9 events a week. It’s crazy how the numbers stack up over the course of the year. That means that I probably see more shows than just about anyone in the city. With that in mind, one of the local theatre columnists did an interview with me looking back on the year that was.  You can read that at The Stranger.

Bonus! The Stranger interview was released before I posted my top ten shows of the year. For the curious, here is the complete list. Should you find yourself in Seattle and looking for entertainment, this list of companies is a great place to start.

1. Undo – Annex Theatre
2. Compagnie Marie Chouinard – UW World Series
3. Two Rooms – Confrontational Theater
4. The Underneath – Annex Theatre
5. Paige Barnes Performances: Naked – Project Space Available
6. Catherine Cabeen And Company | Fire – On The Boards
7. The Taming – ArtsWest
8. A Beginning – The Pendleton House
9. Jesus Christ Superstar – Burien Little Theatre
10. The Totally True And Almost Accurate Adventures Of Pinocchio – Balagan Theatre

The HP Museum

Let’s jump in the wayback machine. The march of technology is a pretty remarkable thing. Most of us are probably packing more computing power in our cell phones than we had in our home computers ten years ago. And those differences get really crazy when you start looking back 30 and 40 years. The HP Computer Museum gives you a chance to do just that. It chronicles all the various products from 1966-1992.

It is a fun look at our computing history. The bit that really floors me is the printers. While servers and desktops have relatively short lifespans, printers just keep going. As evidenced by the 2934. It was released in 1993, but we have actually sold them this year. A full thirty years after their introduction. In fact, that warranty sticker from 1989 at the top of the post is from that very printer.

The world’s thinnest mechanical watch

This is the Piaget Altiplano 900P. It is a beautiful watch, but its claim to fame is that it is the world’s thinnest mechanical watch, coming in at just 3.65 mm (.14 in) thick. That is an astounding bit of engineering. To give you an idea of just how astounding, there are 145 parts inside that 3.65 mm. But it sends my mind down a completely different path, calling to mind the current cell phone ecosystem.

We are all more than familiar with the race to thin that exists with cell phones. Every new phone has to be thinner than the last and it is always a huge marketing point. It’s also completely wrong. Cell phones don’t need to be thinner. Once they got to the point that they would fit in most pants pockets, they were thin enough. How many times have you heard someone lament that their phone isn’t  1 mm thinner? And how many times have you heard someone complain about their phone’s battery? Or camera? Batteries and cameras are both things that could greatly benefit from a couple extra millimeters.

The Piaget 900P then, represents where crazed thinness belongs. A marvel that shows that it can be done that exists in small numbers as an exclusive niche. The rest of the watch making industry isn’t joining them in a war that takes all watches to this extreme. There are still plenty of people crafting excellent 12 or 13 mm thick watches. Thicker cell phones, on the other hand, are the bargain bin, featuring out of date technology and a decided lack of features.

Unbelievable Martyn Ashton bicycle video

More amazing video! The Gou Miyagi skateboard video from the other day was incredible. This road bike video featuring Martyn Ashton is even better.

360° Power Lap with The Stig

Technology continues to march on. As mentioned yesterday, the internet and camera technology have given us access to all manner of things we wouldn’t otherwise have been able to see. Here, we take that up another notch. Not only do you get to see The Stig doing a power lap in a Mercedes SLS… you also get to control the camera. The technology is from VISUALISE, and it is rather amazing. The possibilities as this technology grows are extraordinary. You think the NFL is popular now? Wait until fans can be dropped right on the field and look around. Or what about a movie where you are free to look wherever you like? It will add a whole new twist, and increase replay-ability dramatically. For now though, some say he knows two facts about ducks and both of them are wrong, and that he roams around the woods at night foraging for wolves. All we know is… Go watch the video.

Gou Miyagi is amazing

Thanks to the internet and advances in camera technology, we now have access to all sorts of things that we never would have seen back in the day. Action sports have taken full advantage of both of those things. It’s pretty easy to fall down a youtube rabbit hole watching video after video. This one, featuring Gou Miyagi, is one of the best that I have seen.