Linked List: May 7, 2014

Wednesday, 7 May 2014

Going Against the Grain 

Justin Williams, on running a niche social platform (in his case, Glassboard, but it applies to App.net and Mlkshk, too, to name just two such services in the news this week):

Finding an audience of people interested in your platform is challenging. This isn’t Field of Dreams where if you build it people will magically appear. Once you find that niche of users, you’ve got to ensure they’re also the type of folks that are willing to pay to support your platform. If they aren’t, you keep looking for a niche that will sustain your product.

The Man Who Literally Built ‘Star Wars’ 

Esquire interviews Roger Christian, set decorator from Star Wars:

ESQ: And you also did the first light saber, or “laser sword” as it was called, right?

RC: Yes. The laser sword was one of the most challenging props to find. Several attempts at mock-ups made by John Steers’ SFX department had been rejected. I knew the laser sword or light saber had the potential to become the symbol of Star Wars, like Excalibur was to King Arthur, so it had to look the part. And the Prop Master Frank Bruton, who had to get everything on trucks for Tunisia for the start of filming, was hounding me, and nothing I had found to adapt was feeling right. One day at the camera shop we rented equipment from, I asked the owner if he had any spare parts somewhere. And he pointed to some boxes buried deep under the shelves and there in the box were several Graflex flashgun handles. They were perfect, heavy, and had a red button for firing the flash. I could not believe my luck. I used rubber T-strip as a base, which I had also used for the Stormtroopers’ Stirling sub machine guns, and I pulled out my superglue and stuck strips along the base to form a handle grip. Then I had found some interesting bubble strip from an old calculator LED strip and they fit perfectly into the grip where the Graflex attached to the camera. I placed some chrome tape over the Graflex name and voila.

(Via Dan Moren.)

The Return of Upcoming.org 

Andy Baio:

Launched in 2003 and “sunsetted” last year, Upcoming.org was the original art and tech events community. Let’s bring it back.

‘This Deal’s Getting Worse All the Time’ 

Re: the previous item.

Apparently It Was a ‘Shocker’ 

Two weeks ago, when Moves announced their acquisition by Facebook (with a happy little exclamation mark in the headline):

For those of you that use the Moves app — the Moves experience will continue to operate as a standalone app, and there are no plans to change that or commingle data with Facebook.

Again, yesterday:

Moves, the fitness-tracking app recently acquired by Facebook, has changed its privacy policy to allow broader sharing of user data, including with Facebook.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away:

“I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

Nintendo Probably Can’t Save the Wii U 

Matt Peckham, writing for Time:

Nintendo’s problem is that it’s in that deadliest of platform catch-22s, where you need a slew of standout, signature games to make your case, leveraged by third-party support for all of the triple-A multi-platform titles. The company has too few of the former and a shrinking dearth of the latter at this point. Third parties have either abandoned the system or failed to sign up for duty in the first place, their worries doubtless confirmed for the second cycle running with these latest fiscal results.