"I've developed a habit of delivering a drum solo at the beginning of every Rock Band track — just a little wailing away while the song cues up. It's a way of making the songs mine. You can't do that in The Beatles. Hit a drum pad before the song starts, and nothing happens, because that sound isn't on the original recording… More important, it's the game's way of making sure that you don't dare mess with perfection! I'm not a huge fan of that attitude. Past — and, technically, current — Rock Band games are about engaging with the music on an equal level. This game, though, is a ball-washing of the highest order. Maybe the Beatles are more deserving of such treatment than any other band, but I don't think any band deserves that treatment. Not now that I've seen the alternatives." Mitch Krpata on his problems with Rock Band: The Beatles.

"The Beatles: Rock Band is the total opposite [of Rock Band 2]. The "characters" are untouchable, and the tracks don't even toss you a freestyle section. Your only choices are to get the song right, or not. Sure, it's a cliché that most videogames make you save the world, but at least in those games, you know you're needed. I've never felt less important in a game than this one." Chris Dahlen makes an excellent point in the midst of his excellent (and otherwise uniformly positive) review of The Beatles: Rock Band for Pitchfork.

Castronova's paper on whether the Law of Demand, as it works in the real world, also works in the virtual.

Ryan North makes a little poem dedicated to the COALESCE function in MySQL. He's right: it's super useful.

"Local devs, running local services, but how to share with everyone in the room?" Answer: rebuild all your tools to work across Bonjour. Slightly bonkers but very cool.

"When we assembled a focus group of Xbox Live players, they immediately asked for one feature we hadn’t even considered – in-depth tracking of the groin area, for post-kill celebrations. We were proud to help them find a new revolutionary way to teabag – and believe me, these ain’t no waggle controls." Hardcasual goes for the soft targets, as usual. Ahehe.

Seriously, Harmonix' character design is just amazing, and this movie – just the _intro_ movie to Beatles Rockband – is making me care more about that band than anything in my life has. Harmonix are gods.