Because nothing else is more important: Ze Frank is back. No telling if the video is a one-off thing, or the opening volley of a continuous attack on our senses, but we shall all bow down regardless.

I mean, how can we not love a man who shows us, yet again, how absolutely ridiculous Japanese television is?

Silverstripe has lengthy coverage of An Event Apart, a web design conference put on by A List Apart. The article (covering both days) is an immense grab bag of design inspiration, so definitely check it out. The An Event Apart page has the slides for the San Francisco events, as well as the other 2007 events (Boston, Chicago, and Seattle respectively).

The History of Visual Communication is a comprehensive walk through, well, the history of visual communication. The trail begins 40,000 years ago, and ends roughly a decade ago.

Anyone who has played Super Mario Bros. 2 knows it is a very different beast than the rest of the Super Mario Bros. family. In actuality, the game was hardly a Super Mario Bros. game at all, but an appropriation of Doki Doki Panic. The real Super Mario Bros. 2 was deemed too hard, and never released in America. Nintendo finally caved in and the game is now available through the Wii’s Virtual Console. After watching the YouTube video of a player racing through the whole game in 10 minutes, Slate has a piece detailing just how difficult, and fun, the real Super Mario Bros. 2 game is:

In most games, you trust that the designer is guiding you, through the usual signposts and landmarks, in the direction that you ought to go. In the Real Super Mario Bros. 2, you have no such faith. Here, Miyamoto is not God but the devil. Maybe he really was depressed while making it—I kept wanting to ask him, Why have you forsaken me? The online reviewer who sizes up the game as “a giant puzzle and practical joke” isn’t far off.

Finally, much to the dismay of everyone hoping for an actual gPhone, Google has announced Android, an open-source mobile OS it is developing in cooperation with the Open Handset Alliance. An introduction to Android is available on YouTube (after being pulled initially), but it is almost unbearingly vague, prompting some to ask, “Is Google now in the vaporware business?” And of course, the inevitable iPhone reference.

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