Reading recommendations (2016-07-18)

Posted on Mon 18 July 2016 • Tagged with Reading recommendations

It’s kind of amazing that there’s still some time left between work, playing Black Desert Online and doing household chores. I have a little idea about these link posts in the back of my head but don’t know yet how much coding effort is required to make that work, so I’ll not go into specifics just yet. Let’s get to it.

  • DroidJack Uses Side-Load…It’s Super Effective! Backdoored Pokemon GO Android App Found by Proofpoint Staff (via Polygon.com RSS)
    In the craze that is Pokémon GO and its staggered release over the world, it is not suprising to see criminals jumping to exploit the people’s impatience. Personally, I’ve seen more than a few players last week in Graz even though the game was released in most of Europa on Saturday. A DDOS immediately followed the release and prevented my girlfriend and me from trying ourselves.

  • The UX Secret That Will Ruin Apps For You by Mark Wilson (via mjtsai.com RSS)
    While I can imagine that checks that take - relatively speaking - too little time have the potential to make people feel insecure I think that’s just the assumption that we have been grown accustomed to by using slower internet connections and systems (e.g. without Solid State Drives) for years. Now, if things are done in an instant, it ‘seems wrong’. As someone working in tech, it’s a different thing because there’s a lot more understanding for how fast computers have become and how much you can optimize a problem.

  • STARCRAFT: GHOST: WHAT WENT WRONG by Patrick Stafford (RSS, Polygon)
    I really wanted Starcraft: Ghost to become a real thing. The Starcraft lore is overall very good and would’ve provided ample room for such a stealth based game with its distinct Ghost units. It’s saddening to read about the multiple failures of a project of such potential.

  • The Psychological Benefits of Writing Regularly by Gregory Ciotti (RSS, Lifehacker)
    I can attest to that. While I do love writing in general, there’s writing which feels nice and writing that is a drag. Writing technical documentation is a kind of let down - you have to be precise, think hard whether what you write is understandable to your target audience. Prose on the other hand feels like what I imagine painting would be for an artist. I’ll just grab the (virtual) pen and let loose.

  • Answer to ‘In a nutshell, why do a lot of developers dislike Agile?’ by Miles English (via Fefes Blog RSS)
    Have you ever wondered why such a lot of things seem to go wrong when developing software and planning is not done before, but during the project?

  • I’m a black ex-cop, and this is the real truth about race and policing by Redditt Hudson (via Fefes Blog RSS)
    Horrifying read. These problems in America’s police force are of nightmarish dimensions. Abuse of power in many, many forms. Reminds me of a tweet I read recently which discussed new gun regulations for officers in another country. A commenter added ‘that they act like they were ashamed of gun use’. Well, yes. In countries other than the US, guns are not glorified. They are to be used with caution and preferably not at all by police force.

  • TA Top Five: Main Menu Themes by Marc Hollinshead (RSS, TrueAchievements)
    TA’s nice feature on video game menu music has some gems. Didn’t know the Dark Souls III one before and was surprised. Oblivion’s theme and Mass Effect’s theme were immediately recognizable to me; having played many hours of either.

I picked 7 links for some additional commentary. Further links which were candidates can be found below for archival purposes.

Sidenotes.