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Tech is Dead

There are no more tech companies, where by "tech" I mean information and computer technology. This statement is immediately, trivially disproven—except it is also essentially true. There are no more companies that thrive by selling technology as technology to consumers. Every company you thought of doesn't make money from

Perspective Diversity

In 2014 the US "tech" industry discovered a truth that I'd always known: it was staggeringly homogenous, basically a bunch of white dudes, a couple of South East Asians (also mostly dudes), and a sprinkling of women and ethnic minorities. The largest tech companies published their diversity reports, with white

A Bowlful of Nostalgia: the "Death" of Saturday Morning Cartoons

On October 11, 2014 I saw a couple of people on my social networking feeds lament the "fact" that it was the first time in decades that there were "no Saturday morning cartoons" on in America. What really happened was that the last over-the-air broadcast station with a multi-hour programming

On Animation Design and Production Methods

It's interesting how the production method of an animated show—traditionally hand-drawn, Flash-style "paper" marionette, stop motion, or 3D CGI—can so deeply affect design. I've noticed some long-running shows switching from one to the other, typically from hand-drawn to Flash-style, and there is just something... off about them. The

Robot Byline: Software Sportscasters and Other Stories

Several months ago I was reading a fun piece by Kontra on the subject of sports previews written by software [http://counternotions.com/2013/12/10/algorithmic-writing/]. Prolific Internet commenter Walt French [http://disqus.com/WaltFrench/] (you'll find him writing detailed comments on several sites: Asymco, Monday Note, the late

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