Tag Archives: antichump

Aziz Ansari, Louis C.K., and the Humble Bundle

Pals, Video, ,

This is an awesome time to be alive. Everything keeps changing. I remember when it was common knowledge that you had to cripple the movies and games you sold to keep people from copying them.

These days, that old myth is falling apart and people are realizing that alot of that was a pricing issue. Louis C.K. took a chance on his fans and sold them 100% DRM free comedy at $5 a pop.  His fans made him a million in 12 days, because he is genuine and treated them like people.

The Humble Indie Bundle was a crazy idea that you could offer fans 100% uncrippled games for windows, mac and linux – and let the fans pay whatever they want. They also let fans decide where the money goes – to the developers or to a charity!  They stomped it, raising buckets of cash for the developers / the Child’s Play charity,  and have gone on to release many more of these, now including Android versions as well.  Sadly, Apple’s rules prevent the team from offering iPhone games.

Now Azis Ansari is offering the same deal Louis CK offered: Stream or download a 100% DRM free HD video of Aziz Ansari’s latest comedy set – for just $5.

How Ning made me a chump and how you can avoid it

Pals, User Experience, , , , , , , , ,

The problem with Software as a Service is you don’t own it.

You get it for free, but you don’t have a stake and you don’t have negotiating power.  Instead, try to work with services that give you an exit plan or that have the safety stamp of an aGPL license. 1

Who cares?

Vim pretties up with the Vivid Chalk theme.Let me back up and tell you a story about a social network I created.  Two big-time development bloggers, Jeff and Scott, were writing posts back and forth about how what colors they liked in their text editors and what fonts they used.

I’m not kidding, this is important in a job where most of what you do is sip coffee and type.  I’ve certainly killed some time messing about with how I color my  source code. Continue reading How Ning made me a chump and how you can avoid it →

  1. The Autonomo.us project has a great list of alternatives that either AGPL or CC or something you can use.  Check out this guide to replacing what you are using now with services that keep you free.  (back)