21 links collected from wired.com between 2009 and 2020

Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem

To videogame fans, that logo is instantly recognizable. It’s the insignia of Duke Nukem 3D, a computer game that revolutionized shoot-’em-up virtual violence in 1996. Featuring a swaggering, steroidal, wisecracking hero, Duke Nukem 3D became one of the top-selling videogames ever, making its creators very wealthy and leaving fans absolutely delirious for a sequel. The team quickly began work on that sequel, Duke Nukem Forever, and it became one of the most hotly anticipated games of all time.

Spotify Finally Opens to Indie Bands

The popular Spotify music service solved a major problem Wednesday by providing a mechanism for bands unaffiliated with larger aggregators to submit music. In a partnership with TuneCore, Spotify will now allow any recording artist to add their tunes to the service for a low, flat fee.

Fred Brooks Shows How to Design Anything

You can’t accelerate a nine-month pregnancy by hiring nine pregnant women for a month. Likewise, says University of North Carolina computer scientist Fred Brooks, you can’t always speed up an overdue software project by adding more programmers; beyond a certain point, doing so increases delays.

While there are plenty of apps, widgets and other digital baubles to keep track of different time zones, there’s nothing like a physical, glanceable representation of time across the globe. So I started looking for a solution. (via Steal This Idea: DIY Time Zone Clocks | Wired Design | Wired.com)

While there are plenty of apps, widgets and other digital baubles to keep track of different time zones, there’s nothing like a physical, glanceable representation of time across the globe. So I started looking for a solution. (via Steal This Idea:...

How I Got My Digital Life Back Again After An Epic Hacking | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

I’m certainly a backup believer now. When you control your data locally, and have it stored redundantly, no one can take it from you. Not permanently, at least. I’ve now got a local and online backup solution, and I’m about to add a second off-site backup into that mix.

What Marissa Mayer Doesn’t (and Does) Get About White-Collar Work | Wired Opinion | Wired.com

On days the teams were most creative, they were also closest to each other and most physically active. "We have this myth that you do your best work when you’re alone, and it’s not true," says Ben Waber, president of Sociometric Solutions and inventor of the badges. Productivity and creativity can be polar opposites. On the other hand, organizations also need productivity—six hours of mental peace to finish a single complex piece of work.

The Second Coming of Java: A Relic Returns to Rule Web

But there’s a twist to this Java renaissance. It encompasses more than just Java.

IFTTT's Ingenious New Feature: Controlling Apps With Your Location

Updating the IFTTT app will unlock a new channel—iOS location—that lets users trigger events when entering or exiting a geographic plot of their specification

The Inside Story of Mt. Gox, Bitcoin’s $460 Million Disaster | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

Mt. Gox, he says, didn’t use any type of version control software — a standard tool in any professional software development environment. This meant that any coder could accidentally overwrite a colleague’s code if they happened to be working on the same file. According to this developer, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange had only recently introduced a test environment, meaning that, previously, untested software changes were pushed out to the exchanges customers — not the kind of thing you’d see on a professionally run financial services website.

Only You Can Overthrow the Tyranny of Awful Stock Photos

Let me be blunt: Stock photography needs to die.

Disney's $1 Billion Bet on a Magical Wristband

IF YOU WANT to imagine how the world will look in just a few years, once our cell phones become the keepers of both our money and identity, skip Silicon Valley and book a ticket to Orlando. Go to Disney World.

One way or another, it won’t be long before we’re scanning our world to an unprecedented degree, creating a three-dimensional copy of reality unlike any made before. (via These Laser Scans of London Are a New Way to See the World | WIRED)

You Can’t Do Squat About Spotify’s Eerie New Privacy Policy | WIRED

"If you don’t agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, then please don’t use the Service." – Spotify

Goodbye Applets

Another piece of old, insecure web infrastructure is about to be killed off. Oracle says that it’s discontinuing its Java browser plugin starting with the next big release of the programming language.

How WIRED Is Going to Handle Ad Blocking

In the coming weeks, we will restrict access to articles on WIRED.com if you are using an ad blocker. There will be two easy options to access that content.

The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet. It’s the End of the Middle Class | WIRED

...many of the researchers warned him that the coming revolution in AI would eliminate far more jobs far more quickly than he expected.

Diehard Coders Just Rescued NASA’s Earth Science Data

coders are building robust systems to monitor ongoing changes to government websites. And they’re keeping track of what’s been removed—to learn exactly when the pruning began.

The Inside Story of Reddit’s Redesign

the changes have turned Reddit from an esoteric maze into a website anyone can use—like a junk drawer that’s been gutted, cleaned, and reorganized

Go Ahead and Use the Hotel Wi-Fi

That’s not because hotel and airport Wi-Fi networks have necessarily gotten that much more secure. The web itself has.

Facebook's '10 Year Challenge' Is Just a Harmless Meme—Right?

Thanks to this meme, there’s now a very large dataset of carefully curated photos of people from roughly 10 years ago and now

Ad Tech Could Be the Next Internet Bubble

It’s a strange thing, the internet economy. The product that generates all the money doesn’t work very well, and when it does work, people tend to hate it.