equilibrium
— issue #0 —

.hello

Equilibrium will be a monthly (so it won’t become overwhelming) newsletter which will include hand-picked pieces of content mostly about (web) development and design, startup-related articles (I usually prefer stories about bootstrapped ventures), other computer science related topics, as well as a few drops of unrelated (and sometimes geeky) topics, such as games and science fiction novels, that I find interesting. Nothing is written in stone though, so the content might shift while the newsletter evolves.

Actually, maybe the word “news” from the “newsletter” should be dropped, since there will be no real news in there. The creation date of the content is irrelevant, therefore the… letter might include stuff that was published yesterday, or even years ago if they’re still relevant. If you’re looking for a newsletter for actual news, there are other newsletters to subscribe to! :)

This is a sample issue containing a few pieces of content, just to give you an idea of how the newsletter will look like.

If you find it interesting, consider subscribing. The first issue will be sent on 1st of May, 2014.

Thanks for reading Equilibrium!
– Stathis

.blogs (interesting reads from around the web)

Breakup Notifier — dlo.me, 2011

A story about a small web app which was built in a few hours, went from 0 to over 200.000 unique visitors in a week, and (spoiler alert) made zero revenue (at least during that week).

Understanding Pac-Man Ghost Behavior — gameinternals.com, 2010

A very interesting read for anyone who is interested in games' Artificial Intelligence (AI).

From fanzines to newsletters — burnmind.com, 2014

Since it is relevant to this sample issue, I include a blog post where I describe how I ended up launching Equilibrium.

.newsletters (worth subscribing to)

Hacker Newsletter

A weekly newsletter, containing hand-picked articles on startups, technology, programming, and more, which appeared on Hacker News. A good way to read interesting stuff if you find the actual Hacker News website overwhelming.

.podcasts (sometimes is better to listen)

This Developer's Life

"A podcast about developers and their lives". It is not focused on the web, but it is still very interesting. Only a couple of episodes were released within the last few months, but the already published episodes are worth to be listened to.

My personal favourite episode is the latest one (at least it was at the time I was writing this), which was about space (3.0.2).

.books (physical or electronic)

Getting real

It might sound as a cliche from all the exposure the company has received over the past years, but the first book I'm going to recommend -to whoever hasn't heard of it- is 37signal's (sorry, I still find it hard to call them Basecamp) Getting real.

When I read it several years ago (it was published in 2006), it influenced the way I work. You can download it for free (pdf) by joining the company's mailing list via the link in the title.

.games (everybody needs some play time)

Machinarium

Released by Amanita Design in 2009, Machinarium is a point and click adventure game with beautiful hand-made style graphics, which brought me back to the good old days of such games. You control a small robot through its journey to find its lost beloved one, in a cruel robot world. It's built entirely in Flash (so -unfortunately- forget the right click). If you even remotely like point and click adventures, play it!

.comics

Freelance Freedom

Freelance Freedom is a freelance-themed comic created by N.C. Winters. It consists of over 300 comic strips illustrating professional and personal moments of a freelance designer. His -very short- illustrated tales are most likely going to make you smile.

.bye

Thanks for reading Equilibrium. If you've enjoyed reading it, consider consider subscribing, as well as spreading the word to your friends. The first issue will be sent on 1st of May, 2014.

Photo credits: Machinarium by Amanita Design and Pac-man by nekopie.