WAXY, the homebase of Andy Baio, is easily one of my favorite destinations on the web. I check it multiple times a day out of obsessive interest in what his Link log may contain - as whatever shows up in there is always of interest to me. The site recently turned ten years old and he's got a nice writeup on the past decade - including a list of some of his favorite posts throughout the years. If I were a more eloquent writer with, you know, analytical thoughts worth pondering - I'd totally steal his format of long form blog posts coupled with a blast of small writeup interesting web destinations. It's the perfect combo.

Long story short, WAXY is ten. If you haven't been visiting it with great regularity before now, you should really take action today to correct that course.

I'm going to be honest; I don't totally understand the function of The Random Adventures of Brandon Generator. At it's simplest, it's a web-only undertaking from writer/director Edgar Wright, illustrator Tommy Lee Edwards and narration from Julian Barratt - a combo no one could argue is compelling. Digging a little deeper, it's apparently sponsored by Internet Explorer 9 - though they leave the site open for any browser to interact with it. It's also a crowd sourced undertaking in which you, the user, are asked to submit prose & inspiration to the main Brandon character. I've only watched the first episode but the aesthetic is compelling and it could certainly go some interesting places. Consider me Sold on the whole idea.

Check out this great repository of Swiss Typefaces to browse through. The straight-forward Font Listings are nice but the homepage couples some great ambient photography with a selection of the type - so even if you aren't into the typefaces, you will likely approve of the presentation. Each face comes with a limited Free Trial version as well; so you don't have to drop a pretty penny right outta the gate if you see something you love.

• Jmpress.js - create some pretty nice 3D effects with this javascript bundle. The demo throws everything at you at once, so it's a bit much but you can imagine using 1 or 2 transitions tastefully to spruce up a site.
• Primer CSS - dump in your page markup and this little tool with extract all the ID's and classes for you into a startup CSS document. Assuming you tackle your markup first, could be super handy.
• Nielsen is wrong on mobile - Josh Clark has a great take on how Jakob Nielsen's thoughts on the mobile world are incorrect. This made the rounds heavily last week so you probably saw it but, in case you haven't, take time to read it thoroughly. He's dead on the mark.

Hey, it's Friday the 13th! But, more importantly, it's just Friday. So here's your playlist. If you're in the Nashville area, I suggest you hit up The Basement tonight.. just sayin.

• Duane - you know what you're going to get when you watch an Everything Is Terrible video but sometimes, like with Duane, you just wanna watch it over and over.
• Best Worst Car Chase Ever - you think Michael Bay is over the top? Think again. All action movies should be this ridiculous. via Paul.
• A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Street - yes, this is a viral video for TNT but sometimes advertising is done well enough that you just can't deny its goodness. This is one of those rare times.
• JJ - the caption says it all "Best 2.71 seconds of your life." Also via Paul - a true collector of great things.
• Green Khil Zone - this is too weird to even attempt to describe. Also, completely mesmerizing. Thank you Josh.
• Super Seinfeld Bros - Seinfeld style instrumentation doing the Mario Bros music works amazingly well. See also: Hip Hop Matlock Theme.
• Dancing on the Moon - yea, it's an Intel ad but because it's Japanese it's too weird for words.

Have a great weekend!

The AV Club has a great interview up with animator Don Hertzfeldt. You're most likely to know him from his short film Rejected but he's got a number of other short films I can't recommend enough. His interview is insightful, humble and inspiring. I particularly enjoyed this quote:

But at the end of the day, it’s every filmmaker’s dream to just be able to make the movies that they want to make and have an audience waiting for them. I just feel so lucky, and I think that’s a big part of the reason I work so hard, because I feel stupid when I’m not making a movie. I feel stupid when I’m not in production on something, because this is such a rare thing. I just feel dumb if I’m squandering it and not doing something.

There's something alluring about that sort of hypercritical nature and how it drives you to do more.

It's safe to say that the likelihood of your enjoyment of this Pebble ePaper Watch will be pretty high. In less than 30 hours they surpassed their intended $100k goal and are about to exceed $2million. The funding certainly seems to be deserved as the product functions like science fiction - it pairs with your mobile device (iOS / Android) and can have custom apps installed to do a myriad of things. Just watch the video and I'm sure you'll be intrigued.

Personally, I love the idea here. The only part that gives me pause is the idea of having another device to charge.. not that there is any way around that but a watch is not something I typically worry about running out of juice. Despite that, there's a huge potential for customization here that will likely open doors to new innovation we haven't even thought of yet.

This little Super Group matching game is an addictive bit of advertising for Minigroup - a collaboration suite of online tools. They do an amusing job of tying in the game to their service but, honestly, it's more about how memorable the game itself is than any sort of additional content. The pixel drawings are hilarious and 50 teams to create certainly takes a bit of time.

Top marks all around, this thing is well designed, functions incredibly well and entertains perfectly. Play now - and finish it all the way through!

• RetinaJS - an easy to implement swap for retina display images. Aside from being easy to use it also educated me to the "@2x" extensions Apple recommends for alternate images. Good to know.
• Viewport Width View - just a handy little snippet of code to keep an eye on your viewport width. You likely won't need this too often but it's still nice to have around.
• Snoopy - a bookmarklet to view behind the curtain on whatever website it's run on. Viewing source on a desktop browser is easy enough but imagine having this at your beck and call when browsing via mobile device? Potentially handy?! via Daniel.
• SmartSheets - I'd bet a solid $10 that if these guys keep innovating the realm of spreadsheets that they'll get snatched up by Google. Anyone wanna take me up on that? Link via Dolan.

Yesterday, comedian Jim Gaffigan released his new stand-up special Mr. Universe online for $5. It follows in the footsteps of Louis CK and Aziz Ansari doing the same thing before him. However, this is a bit different because Gaffigan doesn't have quite the same high-profile that the other two do. It's the same setup - self-financed, direct to consumer sales for $5 - but he's banking a whole lot more on word of mouth.

Personally, I think everyone should check out the preview and heartily consider spending the $5 on the full show. The more artists that succeed in this manner, the better. Having complete creative control over your works can only have an upside.

There's a great variety of work in the portfolio books of Jon Morgan. Urban landscapes, band photography, portraits, various potential fashion photo shoots, etc. It's a nice browse through a collection of works crossing a lot of styles. The site is engaging enough but if you're curious to see some in person he'll be having a warehouse show at 328 Hill Ave in Nashville, TN. on May 5th. Should be a gathering worth attending.

Combining the words of Alan Moore's doomed objectivist vigilante Rorschach with images of Parks and Recreations' lovingly stern libertarian Ron Swanson. Or sometimes maybe the other way around.

I'm at a loss for words for how entertaining I find Ron Sworschach to be. Thanks to Jon for that.

• Meteor - a pure javascript API used for building web apps. The bullet list of features is impressive and the code itself seems pretty straightforward. You probably want to watch the Getting Started Screencast or, at the very least, look at some examples.
• Ziptastic - a simple API to send a zipcode and receive back County, State and City because, frankly, why do you have to enter those fields once you enter your zipcode? This is simply brilliant and I hope to see some sort of across-the-board browser wide integration of the same sort of thinking as we move forward.
• The Current State of HTML5 Forms - the form experts at Wufoo give a rundown of browser support for new html5 input types and attributes. It's nerdy but kind of essential information.
• zxcvbn: password estimator - the folks at Dropbox want your data to be more secure. So Dan Wheeler came up with zxcvbn, an easy-to-integrate password strength meter. The writeup on the thinking behind it is fascinating but the example is bonkers to watch dissect password choices.

You have, undoubtedly, encountered the work of Neil Krug at one point or another in your Internet travels. He collaborates with Joni Harbeck to create modern day pulp imagery. The results are sexual, a bit voyeuristic and typically filled light leaks, tears and other such weathering.

But you know all that. I'm posting to inform you, and remind myself, that the collection of these images Pulp Art Book Volume One and Two are available for a pretty reasonable price. Next time I have $100 burning a hole in my pocket, I'm getting them both.

If you're anything like myself and my group of friends you've likely tackled the subject of a Zombie Invasion. What would you do? What's the survival plan? Well, this handy Zombie Survival Map will help you determine some of the best sources for resources (gas, food, guns, medicine, tanks) as well as general Danger Zones. Sure, it's a bit of viral marketing for a forthcoming Zombie app but that doesn't mean it's not also worthwhile information! That being said, you'll probably want to print it out since the Internet is sure to be the first thing to go.

My only question, why aren't nearby Riverboats marked? Surely the safest place in any Zombie Invasion is on the water, right?

I am absolutely smitten with these works of Kon Trubkovich. The VHS glitched out style is appealing for a number of reasons - basic subjective appeal and, for me, the notion that it emerges from a dead and soon to be extinct technology. Warbly images, tracking adjustments, and television snow are, pretty much, a thing of the past. So, these images have a bit of a nostalgic slant to them, a bit of technological ponderment and just the right amount of grime and distortion. Not something I see all too often in oil paintings. See more here, here or here.

via Aaron.

Garrett Shane Bryant has been on my list of admirable artists / designers / people for a long time. You likely know him best as the man behind Crown Dozen but there's plenty of original works in his portfolio. He's also just released a series of eight 11x17 prints under the umbrella title Babyteeth. Each creature in the set has that perfect balance of a loose, hand-drawn nature but with total intention behind the marks - it's not sloppy but it's loose. There's a gruesome quality to it that I find completely appealing. View them all.

• BugHerd is issue reporting software that runs entirely on the web. You sign up, give your clients a login and an overlay appears on your site to allow them to show you exactly where an issue may lie. I assume such services exist in competition but this looks incredibly slick and well executed. Check out the intro video but really dive into the Feature set.
• Prototyping with Foundation - I've not completely read through it yet but I'm intrigued by this article on using Foundation as a framework. It's grid based (of course), it's responsive, it's light weight, etc. etc. The part that intrigues me is that it is intentionally designed to be overwritten and wrangled to your project - which means that the homogeny of sites using the framework is less likely to happen.

So, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that Facebook procured Instagram yesterday for a cool $1 billion. Aside from the deeper issues involved with such a large purchase of a company with no monetizing plan I am sort of shocked at the enormous backlash incurred by the announcement. Is it because people treat apps like they used to treat punk bands? Once the secret is out, the fun is over? Is it because when a huge company buys a small company it gets neglected and new features stagnant (i.e. Yahoo → Flickr)? I'm the last person in the world to defend Facebook but I understand why they bought Instagram.. retention.

I'll be curious to see what happens to the app, how it changes & integrates more with Facebook and if it gets neglected (though, as an App - it's entirely possible it could be replaced by another social photo app in no time flat). Mostly I'm just curious as to hear why you may be upset by the news? I'm not saying you're wrong - I'd just like to open the floor.

Feeling up for a design challenge? I Come to Shanghai and Texachusetts Records are crowding sourcing the LP label design for the Eternal Life vinyl coming this summer. The details of the contest are here but, basically, you have to use the label logo, include the tracklist for each side and can only incorporate one color. Tweet your entries to @RobertAshley... I'm gonna try and work on mine today.