Robin talks through the previous rig – again, note how carefully the elements are chosen as a broad but limited palette.

A really beautiful live modular set from Scanner/Robin Rimbaud. I love this because it's melodic and musical, delivered from a small but carefully chosen 6U rig; it is the exact thing I like in ambient music, and the exact opposite of so much modular nonsense in the world. It's beautiful to study, too.

Jamie on "Impro" with respect to games. I really need to get on and read it.

"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.

Clint Hocking's presentation materials – talk, slides, short mpeg – from his GDC09 lecture, "Fault Tolerance: From Intentionality to Improvisation". It's meaty and weighty and it's really, really, really good, and covers lots of bases and I'll need to read it again. Lots of dense stuff about the balances between Far Cry 2's gameplay systems, designing systems for improvisation, and rebalancing games to what they want to be. My mancrush is not abated, sadly.