Links & notes for this month

• • ohnotheydidnt: Mad Men Playboy shoot
    Some of the cast of Mad Men do a shoot for Playboy - in period style. Wonderful.
    (tags: playboy fashion photography period tv madmen pastiche )
  • Stephen Fry » Blog Archive » Wii is a kind of magic
    "...Nintendo understands that while play does involve competition, territoriality and rehearsal for war, it also involves silliness, laughter and fun." Oh, god, can I just marry Stephen Fry now? Oh, there's a queue. Never mind.
    (tags: wii play games nintendo fun casual interaction stephenfry article writing )
• • Simplify ActiveRecord Aggregates And Other Goodies Via named_scope : Locomotivation
    "With a recent project, we really started utilizing extensions with named_scope which is very powerful and cleaned up our code considerably." Some really nice examples of using named_scope effectively.
    (tags: named_scope ruby rails rubyonrails development programming tips )
  • The Wii "isn't hurting us", says Sony boss - Eurogamer
    "Nintendo makes money with the hardware alone, which may be a superior business model." What, making profit on units rather than selling them at colossal loss is a *superior* business model? Who would have thought it!
    (tags: business sony idiots nintendo profit pricing ps3 wii )
  • Redesigned 8-bit and 16-bit games (Some unbelievable!) - NeoGAF
    Long thread of patched and hacked 8-bit and 16-bit ROMs, some bringing a vast amount of customisation.
    (tags: games videogames hack patch redesign rework modified homebrew )
• • Puzzle games - Boombot - Walkthrough, comments and more Free Web Games at FreeGamesNews.com
    You're a little robot. You're also indestructible. Use bombs to bounce yourself around the level, but don't run out. Lovely little flash game.
    (tags: flash games physics explosions fun )
  • Super Mario Brothers Is Frustrating pt1 Video
    In which an entertaining man plays a hacked, super-hard Super Mario map, swears at his TV a lot, and still manages to be pretty good at it. It's a nice illustration of the problem-solving process, and it's rather funny. "This is worse than Panic At The Disco. This is worse than Ann Coulter."
    (tags: nintendo hacked supermario difficult hard games walkthrough video swearing funny humour )
  • The No Game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    "The No Game is a party game with only one real rule."
    (tags: games play language sidsackson )
  • Sweetcron - The Automated Lifestream Blog Software
    This looks like it could be interesting/fun; if anything, worth watching as a slightly more attractive option for lifestreaming...
    (tags: web tools socialsoftware lifestreaming opensource )
  • Sequel Pro – MySQL database management app for Mac OS X
    "Sequel Pro is the perfect tool for working with database-driven websites and applications." Leopard-only MySQL management application; forked out of the long-neglected CocoaMySQL.
    (tags: leopard macosx web database mysql utility application )
  • Game Designer Jonathan Blow: What We All Missed About Braid | The A.V. Club
    I need to think on this more; there's a lot of meat in it, and some interesting commentary, but suggesting that "the entire bachelor’s degree in English is all about bullshitting things" I find somewhat insulting. I'm frustrated because it feels like Blow is pushing for people to find the "correct" interpretation, rather than any valid criticism they can back up. Still, there's also some excellent stuff in here, but it's the first thing he's said that's rubbed me the wrong way a little (and I'm not just talking about the 'bullshit' comment).
    (tags: braid criticism avclub jonathanblow )
• • Analog Meets Its Match in Red Digital Cinema's Ultrahigh-Res Camera
    "I'm passionate about this because I'm building the camera I've always wanted to shoot with," he says. "When my grandkids and great-grandkids look back, they're going to say I was a camera builder. I did handgrips and then goggles and then sunglasses to prepare myself. But cameras are magic." Fantastic article about Jim Jannard and his Red digital movie-camera business.
    (tags: hd film camera technology red wired filmmaking cinematography )
  • YouTube - future engineer-this kids amazing
    Brilliant, brilliant little advert.
    (tags: commerical advert engineering education awesome )
  • Video Games Hero - rocking the NDS homebrew
    "VideoGamesHero brings you homebrew action at it's best - offering lasting fun and challenging action with over 65 Songs, 5 Game modes, Motion Card and Guitar Grip support, there is something for everyone!" Homebrew Harmonix-style rhythm action game for the ds. Awesome.
    (tags: nintendo ds nintendods homebrew music games rhythmaction )
  • Gamasutra - Game Design Psychology: The Full Hirokazu Yasuhara Interview
    "In this extensive interview, Yasuhara outlines his carefully constructed theories of fun and game design, including the differences between American and Japanese audiences, with illustrated documents." Lots of nice things in here, including a section on "tidying up".
    (tags: game design hirokazuyasuhara interaction play )
  • Front page - APIdock
    "APIdock is a web app that provides a rich and usable interface for searching, perusing and improving the documentation of projects that are included in the app." Handy.
    (tags: api reference documentation doc ruby rspec rails )
  • adaptive path » blog » Peter Merholz » Pen(cil) and paper to live prototype - where’d the wireframe go?
    "I think the role of the architecture diagram, user flow, and wireframe belongs very much after the fact, after we’ve sketched and prototyped an experience. Those are tools to document what has been agreed through sketching and prototyping. They are not the best means for solving challenging design problems." That seems like a good way of putting it.
    (tags: documentation ux userexperience design sketching prototyping wireframe making )
  • OmniGraffle UX Template | Konigi
    "In this template you'll find shared layers (masters) for a title page, wireframe, wireframe/storyboard hybrid, simple storyboard, and storyboard with notes. Column guides and a regular grid make it easy to use and keep your layout tight." Nice .graffle templates for UX designers.
    (tags: design ux omnigraffle template layout prototyping )
  • Rosemarie fiore
    Timelapse, merged photographs of videogames. Beautiful, especially Tempest.
    (tags: tempest gyrus qix timelapse merge photography games videogames arcade classic )
• • Braid: Unforgiven. (Semifat Sediment)
    "Being able to go back and fix your mistakes is not the same as being forgiven for them. Maybe that’s what all those storybooks were trying to tell us." Lovely.
    (tags: braid difficulty games writing )
  • Social Networks: The Case for a "Pause" Button | 43 Folders
    "If you’re an adult who’s at a place in life where you need to pretend you’re interested in people whom you are not actually interested in, then “fake following” should be more than adequate for your needs. But, if you’re here to actually read things and to enjoy the thoughts, photos, and opinions of actual people who have good and bad streaks, it wouldn’t hurt to have an easy way to hit “snooze” for a while." Merlin Mann is very sensible.
    (tags: friendfeed socialnetworking friends friending interaction broken fixed merlinmann )
  • Feministe » Hair-pulling and braid-weaving
    "It seems to me that Tim and the nameless characters of the epilogue represent archetypes of some kind. They don’t stand in for every man and woman, certainly, but they’re emblematic of a certain kind of dysfunctional relationship, one where “I’ll protect you” turns into “I’ll control you.”" A smart, sharp reading of Braid, that understands its gameiness.
    (tags: braid games criticism writing critique narrative )
  • QuirksBlog: iPhone events
    "The mouse is a continuous pointing device; the finger is discontinuous. That’s a profound difference that I wish I were able to clearly understand and explain." PPK on how MobileSafari responds to Javascript's mouse actions.
    (tags: webkit safari iphone javascript interaction )
  • Morality Tales - BioWare Versus The Issues | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    "I think, in these fleshed out circumstances, an RPG could be the most remarkable place for getting to grips with matters like abortion and euthanasia. I think _because_ they’re the sorts of subjects it’s completely pointless to talk about in the pub, because it inevitably descends into people entrenching themselves in their currently held position and then hurling stones at the other side, that the RPG would be a space in which the emphasis of thought and consideration would be squarely on you." John Walker on the problem with BioWare's attitude to morality, and some potential solutions.
    (tags: bioware rpg writing morality narrative games choice play debate issues )
  • Opentape
    "Opentape is a free, open-source package that lets you make and host your own mixtapes on the web. Upload songs (via web or FTP), reorder, rename, customize the style, and share what you like on other sites with an embeddable player."
    (tags: php webapp muxtape music sharing streaming )
  • Versus CluClu Land: I Pay Tribute to the Master Chief
    "I've heard that Japanese developers, who have traditionally held American game development in low esteem, have a great deal of respect for Bungie, and you can understand why. Bungie has done for shooters what Nintendo did for platformers: they've turned the visceral joys control and motion into the centerpiece of the game."
    (tags: bungie halo games interaction physics motion control embodiment )
  • The Diver’s View - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com
    "Thomas Finchum, an American diver competing in Beijing, describes the view from the 10-meter platform at the Water Cube." Incredible, interactive panorama from the top board in the Water Cube.
    (tags: diving olympics photography interactive panorama )
  • uxweek 2008 (tecznotes)
    "Greebles are the parts that "look cool, but don't actually do anything". There's an entire discipline here composed of special effects artists and asset designers working to hide the plywood spaceships and simple game world polygons beneath an encrusted surface texture." And this is the trick to make the little bits look like part of a whole. Lovely talk from Mike at UXWeek.
    (tags: uxweek mikemigurski information data effects greebling bumpmapping mapping visualisation surface webofdata credibility )
  • Fake following
    "One of the new features of FriendFeed (a Twitter-like thingie) is "fake following". That means you can friend someone but you don't see their updates... It's one of the few new social features I've seen that makes being online buddies with someone manageable and doesn't just make being social a game or competition."
    (tags: socialnetworking socialsoftware interaction design friendfeed )
• • Fullbright: Quick Critique: Braid
    "I don't begrudge Blow an attempt at addressing important historical events, but the weight of the atomic age seems too much to address with a few lines of text that feel incongruous with the rest of the production." This is, I think, a worthwhile point. I'll be returning to the whole "atomic bomb" question in a blogpost soon, I hope.
    (tags: braid games play critique criticism )
  • Games Convention 2008: Team Fortress 2 Updates Coming To Xbox 360 Later This Year
    "Given that Valve is being forced to charge for the update, they wanted to ensure that 360 owners were getting their money's worth." Such a shame they have to charge for it - but still, more TF2 on 360, and that's a good thing from my perspective.
    (tags: valve microsoft live downloadablecontent dlc tf2 teamfortress2 )
  • Everyday GIT With 20 Commands Or So
    A nice simple explanation of what using Git is really like.
    (tags: git versioncontrol vcs scm sourcecontrol tutorial tips )
  • Games Without Frontiers: Games Give Free Reign to the Douchebag Within
    "What the hell is wrong with me? There are a lot of ways to win at Civilization Revolution that do not involve taking a happy, peaceful city and reducing it to a smoldering gravesite filled with radioactive trinitite." Clive Thompson on a case of Walter Mitty syndrome.
    (tags: games psychology play choice wishfulfilment escapism )
  • Blue Moon for Mac OS 10.5
    "Keldon Jones has published an artificial intelligence opponent for the game Blue Moon with an user interface written with GTK+ toolkit. This is a native Mac OS 10.5 version of the game written with Cocoa, so there's no need to install X11 and GTK+ libraries. It runs straight out of the box (on Leopard)." Heck yes.
    (tags: bluemoon boardgames macosx ai games play cards cardgame knizia )
  • thisplacement » Adventures in Urban Computing
    "This is a write-up of my diploma project in interaction design from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design. The project is entitled ‘Adventures in Urban Computing’ and this weblog post contains a brief project description and a pdf of the diploma report." Well worth a read, and beautifully presented. I need to chew over this more.
    (tags: ubicomp urban computing behaviour change interactiondesign design project )
  • The Brainy Gamer: Is this what we want?
    "It's a shame to me that a game with Braid's narrative, artistic, and aesthetic aspirations is inaccessible to so many people hungry for exactly those things." Yes. Much as I adore it, Braid can be awful hard at times. A smart game for smart gamers, alas.
    (tags: videogames play criticism art braid difficulty accessibility )
  • Agile Game Development: Agile values - Responding to change over following a plan
    "A popular misconception about agile is that it doesn’t allow for plans. This isn’t true. Agile focuses on the activity of planning rather than focusing on a fixed plan."
    (tags: agile software development projectmanagement programming project )
• • Wikka: Welcome to Wikka Wiki
    WikkaWiki is a flexible, standards-compliant and lightweight wiki engine∞ written in PHP, which uses MySQL to store pages. Forked from WakkaWiki. Designed for speed, extensibility, and security. Released under the GPL license.
    (tags: wiki php software )
  • the-morning-after - Google Code
    "The Morning After is a magazine-style theme for WordPress created by Arun Kale. The theme was created based on a brief survey on the WordPress forums about what people would want to see in a unique magazine-style theme." Looks great.
    (tags: wordpress design theme publishing cms blog template )
  • Do-It-Yourself InkJet and Laser Printer Repair (HP, Apple, Epson, and More) - fixyourownprinter.com
    Now that's what I call a UI. Nice idea!
    (tags: technology printers faqs tips maintenance repair reference online resource )
  • mysqlgame
    "Are you tired of browser-based games that are thinly veiled interfaces for databases? Finally, there's a game that just is a database!" This looks awesome.
    (tags: mysql games database programming )
  • Stephen Fry » Blog Archive » Handheld gaming
    "A simple pocket knife can be more appealing and usable than a bristling Victorinox, and a dedicated little games machine like the DS can engage us far more than the sleek power of the PSP. You can feel admiration and even awe for the big power boxes, but for the DS you feel affection - and that, in marketing terms, is worth a whole heap more." I love Stephen Fry.
    (tags: nintendo wii ds gaming games play attachment emotional )
• • How To Launch Software (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)
    "...for software developers, it's moronic. Your software isn't being released in theaters, it's available over the Web. You don't have to worry about the theater no longer showing after week one; you can keep pushing it for years, growing your userbase."
    (tags: software development project management launch strategy projectmanagement )
  • Speak Up › Dear Lulu, The New Standards
    "The result of the workshop is Dear Lulu, a fantastic and imaginative resource that puts digital printing to the test through a Do-It-Yourself presentation." Testing digital printing by creating a book that's full of metrics and challenges.
    (tags: typography printing reference quality printondemand lulu design layout margin bleed )
• • David OReilly - BLOG - Animation, Ideas, Information etc
    "The application works by assuming a constant viewing angle (35-45 degrees), typical for when the device is placed on a tabletop. The 3d scene’s perspective is warped using anamorphosis..." Awesome.
    (tags: iphone illusion design video anamorphic perspective )
  • The Omni Group - OmniDiskSweeper
    "OmniDiskSweeper is a utility for quickly finding and deleting big, useless files and thus making space on your hard disks."
    (tags: osx software utility macosx mac )
  • Balsamiq Mockups Home | Balsamiq
    "Mockups feels like you are drawing, but it's digital, so you can tweak and rearrange controls easily, and the end result is much cleaner." Interesting-looking prototyping/wireframing tool.
    (tags: wireframe mockup prototype sketch ui interaction design )
  • hustler of culture: Little Thinkers/Tinkerers
    "The Tinkering School offers an exploratory curriculum designed to help kids - ages 7 to 17 - learn how to build things. By providing a collaborative environment in which to explore basic and advanced building techniques and principles, we strive to create a school where we all learn by fooling around. All activities are hands-on, supervised, and at least partly improvisational." Sounds fantastic.
    (tags: learning playing making tinkering summercamp education )
  • Fleshmap: Listen: Music
    "What do we sing about, when we sing about the body?" Lovely infographic, ever-so mildly NSFW. Hint: hip-hop talks a lot about bottom.
    (tags: music infographics body visualization dataviz lyrics )
• • I Believe in Advertising | Advertising Blog & Community » Stella Artois: PSP
    "Anecdotal feedback also confirmed that without exception, the PSP was regarded as the best sales presenter ever received. As a result, Foster’s is now reviewing further rollout of the tool." Fosters use a pre-loaded PSP as sales demonstration tool; it does very well.
    (tags: psp advertising marketing brand promotion fosters stellaartois australia )
  • GameSetWatch - Design Lesson 101 - Braid
    "Each world has a specific mechanic and overlapping rarely occurs between world mechanics. Instead, the player is given just enough objects on the screen to solve the puzzle with the limited tools available. By being able to concentrate on one mindset of solving the puzzle, eventually the solutions make themselves apparent." A nice Manveer Heir piece on why the puzzles themselves in Braid are good: because the game creates complexity out of limited tools, rather than throwing every mechanic in all the time.
    (tags: braid game design mechanics games play puzzles problems )