Links & notes for this month

• • Zack Arias - Atlanta based editorial music photographer » White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 1 :: Gear & Space
    "If I had but one backdrop to use for portraiture I would choose a simple roll of white seamless paper. With one roll of paper you can create many options. For the rest of the week I’m going to break it down for you. We are going to look at getting it to pop to pure white, making it various shades of grey, getting it to go black, gelling it to any color in the rainbow, and doing very easy and quick changes in post production to further the visual options available to us when using such a simple background." Fantastic tutorial.
    (tags: tutorial technique lighting strobist photography background studio )
  • Ludomancy » Sense of Wonder Night
    "Moon Stories, a collection of my latest three experiments, got selected to be presented at the Tokyo Game Show during the Sense of Wonder Night, the japanese version of the Experimental Gameplay Sessions." Beautiful, notably "I wish I were the Moon"
    (tags: games play calvino narrative experimental gameplay flash )
  • Fullbright: On Invisibility
    "In a strange way then, the designer of a video game is himself present as an entity within the work: as the "computer"-- the sum of the mechanics with which the player interacts." Fantastic piece from Steve Gaynor, which touches on some notions of the death of the designer - namely, that the designer *is* inherently present in games; they embody themselves in mechanics, and games that downplay logical mechanics that players can reverse-engineer do themselves a disservice.
    (tags: games design play mechanics rules rulesets stevegaynor designer author )
  • xkcd - A Webcomic - Height
    I don't normally link to XKCD, simply because it would become repetitive... but "Height" is really lovely.
    (tags: science visualisation comic xkcd scale space altitude )
• • Google Analytics Hack - obtaining full referring URL
    This might come in handy sometime.
    (tags: referers tutorial tracking analytics statistics metrics googleanalytics web )
  • Loops of Zen (Flash game)
    "Restore harmony by clicking the tiles until no open end is left over."
    (tags: games calming relaxing minimalist flash )
  • Gamasutra - Saving Street Fighter: Yoshi Ono on Building Street Fighter IV
    Excellent interview with Yoshi Ono on some of the design challenges and nuanaces of Street FIghter IV. The stuff about when to skip frames (and when not to) is particularly interesting.
    (tags: games streetfighter capcom interview design development streetfighteriv fighting beatemup )
  • I Just Fount Out My Daughter's Horde | Play This Thing
    "Maybe it's the tusks, and the horns. Running with a dangerous crowd. You have to admit, dark elf boys are kind of wuss. And let's not even talk about gnomes. Or maybe it's part of the separation process. Getting away from your parents. For sure I can't ever visit her in the Undercity."
    (tags: wow humour factions games )
• • Product and marketing in the start-up « azeem.azhar
    "Marketing is a strategic function about delivering customers what they want. It isn’t a jazz hands and rubber chicken and t-shirts. It is the heart of successful companies..."
    (tags: azeemazhar marketing product company startup business )
  • Code: Flickr Developer Blog » Flickr Engineers Do It Offline
    A few notes on Flickr's queueing systems.
    (tags: flickr queue queueing development scaling scalability web programming )
  • Designing the UI of Things for iPhone
    Cultured Code do a large behind-the-scenes look at how they designed their Things iPhone UI. Lots of detail, lots of working shown. Even if you don't agree with the choices they made, it's excellent to see somebody sharing at this level of detail.
    (tags: design sketch prototype iphone things application interface ui )
• • GameSetWatch - Chewing Pixels: 'For Sale: Hero Shoes. Once Worn.'
    "Still, it’s 110 days (or 2,663.18 hours) that I’m sort of responsible for taking from a girl’s life. Phileas Fog circumnavigated the globe in less time than that." A lovely piece of writing from Simon Parkin, tracking down a digital life he sold long ago.
    (tags: finalfantasyxi mmorpg mmo journalism writing simonparkin )
  • chewing pixels » Getting Gamers to Keep Their Games
    "...one final achievement, ‘Remember September ‘44′ rewards players with no less than 50 achievement points for simply playing the game at some point on September 17th, the anniversay of the events depictied in the game. As you have to be connected to Xbox Live at the time, there’s no way to cheat by fixing the time on your console’s clock, meaning that gamers who want the full 1000 points on offer will have to hang on to the game for close to a year from now..."
    (tags: games play sale resale persistence brotherinarms achievements longevity )
  • Photomake - Ponoko
    "Turn photos of your designs into real life things." Fabbing based upon photographs or illustration. Blimey.
    (tags: prototyping fabbing making design manufacture service )
  • Evil League of Evil
    "The rumblings you've been hearing in the criminal underground since July indeed are true: At long last, we are seeking new applicants to the League." Eeeeexcellent.
    (tags: evil evilleagoueofevil media video drhorrible )
  • Wireframe Graph Paper Notepad | Konigi
    "The Wireframe Graph Paper Notepad is made for visual designers, interaction designers, and information architects... These pages are great for sketching, but also work well when producing high fidelity drawings. The grid consists of 24 columns with gutters, so you can easily divide your canvas into common divisions..." Oh, yes please.
    (tags: wireframe design notepad notebook paper )
• • film music | mobygratis.com
    "this portion of moby.com, 'film music', is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short... the music is free as long as it's being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short. if you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that's generated being given to the humane society." Moby is smart when it comes to licensing his music. I think this is a really good move, and not something you'd expect from a major recording artist.
    (tags: video audio music soundtrack moby film independent freeware )
  • post-ONA conference (tecznotes)
    "For one, there's an undercurrent of a siege mentality in journalism right now, with newsrooms cutting staff and print operations frozen stiff in the headlights of the internet. The focus on narrative and story gives a softer edge and an escape valve, though - this group is not primarily a tech-driven community, but they catch on to new developments quickly and bend them into the service of storytelling." Interesting round-up from Mike, particularly with respect to the NYT's election coverage.
    (tags: journalism conference data programming development media datadriven )
  • Is 190 Bowery the Greatest Real-Estate Coup of All Time? -- New York Magazine
    “You know what a sign of love is, in this family? It’s if you come home and the elevator is on the ground floor,” says Linda. “Because that means whoever came home before you walked up twelve flights of stairs.” Fantastic article about Jay Maisel's house.
    (tags: realestate housing photography art nyc interiors jaymaisel )
• • The Baikonur Cosmodrome - The Big Picture - Boston.com
    "When NASA's last scheduled Space Shuttle mission lands in June of 2010, the United States will not have the capability to get astronauts into space again until the scheduled launch of the new Orion spacecraft in 2015. Over those five years, the U.S. manned space program will be relying heavily on Russia and its Baikonur Cosmodrome facility in Kazakhstan." Wonderful pictures of spaceflight, Russian-style.
    (tags: bigpicture photography space spaceflight russia kazakhstan )
  • Gamers Are Here: Middle East Gaming | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    "Journalist Kareem Shaheen was attending at GAMES 2008 convention in Dubai, and asked us if we fancied writing anything about gaming in the Middle East. And we said HELL YES, as we like capitals." A nice, if brief, piece from Shaheen about a sector of gaming I know nothing about.
    (tags: rockpapershotgun games gaming culture middleeast dubai society play piracy )
  • YouTube - Wario Ware Inc: Doc Brown's Microgames
    Make Iced Tea!
    (tags: backtothefuture warioware parody mashup video humour )
  • Bleep Labs » Thing-a-ma-kits!
    "Now noisy makers can assemble and modify their own light controlled analog noise friend!" I want an analog noise friend.
    (tags: toys synthesizer music project hardware electronics sound noise )
  • Parsons students create 'Shadow of the LittleBigColossus' - PS3 Fanboy
    "Over the weekend, students from NYC's Parsons School worked for twenty four hours continuously with LittleBigPlanet. Their challenge? To create a level from scratch using early copies of the PS3-exclusive.. one level stood out as the single best level -- one created by Team Sportsmanship. We've lovingly dubbed the level "Shadow of the LittleBigColossus." Watch the video and see why." Amazing. Intensive, over-difficult, but still impressive.
    (tags: games design creativity littlebigplanet sony ps3 leveldesign )
• • Gamasutra - Moving From MMO To Web: What's The Story?
    "People think the interface is the game, and I think that is kind of backwards. I think the game is the game, and we should be thinking what are the many interfaces to it... you touch Twitter in many ways, you touch Facebook in many ways." Raph Koster. But you guessed that, right?
    (tags: web mmo social software design socialsoftware socialnetworking casual play games )
  • YouTube - experiencewii's Channel
    Wonderful.
    (tags: youtube nintendo warioland shakeit wii advertising marketing genius )
  • Near Future Laboratory » Blog Archive » *-computing
    "There's a weird conceit in here, that the activities and practices of normal human beings will involve data processing and algorithms of some sort, which is an awfully big assumption. So big, in fact, that it has distilled down to a way of seeing the world as consisting of bits of data that can be processed into information that then will naturally yield some value to people... Design for people, practices and interaction rituals before the assumptions about computation, data structures and algorithms get bolted onto normal human interaction rituals."
    (tags: computing data ubicomp julianbleecker social software socialsoftware design )
  • Cody Fauser - Rails HTTP Status Code to Symbol Mapping
    "Recently I had been wondering what the complete list of HTTP status code symbols was in Rails. Searching through Rails didn't yield any results for a symbol like :unprocessable_entity... Rails defines the symbol to status code mapping dynamically from the status message. The symbol used is an underscored version of the status message with no spaces." Quick list of clear textual shorthand for returning HTTP status.
    (tags: rails rubyonrails http statuscode status reference )
  • Selling an Experience
    "Let’s no longer think in terms of selling them a game. Let’s instead think of selling them an experience." A nice article on the changing shape of game design, particularly when it comes to narrative and participatory hooks.
    (tags: design experience games narrative participation genre )
• • Tom Phillips: Sculpture & Mixed Media: 20 Sites n Years
    "Every year on or around the same day ... at the same time of day and from the same position a photograph is taken at each of the twenty locations on this map which is based on a circle of half a mile radius drawn around the place where the project was devised. It is hoped that this process will be carried on into the future and beyond the deviser's death for as long as the possibility of continuing and the will to undertake the task persist." Tom Phillips project, as mentioned in Reading the Everyday.
    (tags: photography se15 london peckham tomphillips )
  • Boxer: Mac-Friendly DOS Emulation
    "Boxer is a DOS game emulator for OS X, built around the powerful DOSBox. Boxer aims to make it easy and painless to play your DOS games."
    (tags: osx mac dos games emulation pc )
  • Seth's Blog: What advertising can't fix
    "Microsoft may very well not be broken. The world needs reliable bureaucracies that mollify the needs of corporations and individuals in the center of the market. But if it is broken, advertising isn't going to fix it."
    (tags: marketing microsoft strategy google apple advertising sethgodin )
  • Chris' Survival Horror Quest
    "Some people believe that there's no correlation between quality and sales, and thus think that the way to make money is to make things that are easily marketable (read: licenses). Game developers themselves usually argue that sales above a certain level require a game to be sufficient quality. I decided to see which of these perspectives was correct for the Playstation 2 era." Datanalysismachinego!
    (tags: data visualization statistics sales games quality analysis )
  • GameDevBlog: Manager In A Strange Land: Leaders Play Bass
    "Of course, to get the most points, your band needs a bassist. And nobody wants to play bass. So if you want to lead a full band, you're going to have to play bass yourself. And this is like life!" Lovely article from Torpex' Jamie Fristrom.
    (tags: leadership management bass bassguitar games rockband )
• • Hori Fighting Stick EX-2 on a Mac - My soup
    "After replacing the old plist, you can use your Hori stick with MacMAME!" Fantastic. Six-button fighter action agogo.
    (tags: hori fightingstick osx mame mac macmame games )
  • Bejeweled, Warcraft Combine to Form World's Most Addictive Game | Game | Life from Wired.com
    "A version of the match-three game is set to launch next Thursday within the World of Warcraft MMO (massively multiplayer online), letting players kill time with puzzles during raids and long stints farming rare items." Oh god no. Don't cross the time-sink streams!
    (tags: wow mmo mmorpg worldofwarcraft bejeweled matchthree games puzzle )
• • The Online Photographer: The Amazing Gift of Woo Lai Wah
    "And if there was a "prize" in this lottery, it was not so much the object itself, but the letter and the awesome mysteries of unfathomable spiritual connections, and the very gesture itself from this dear, dear person and the timing!" What a story.
    (tags: photography chance happenstance story fortune )