Alex Allmont's "Play House" is brilliant. I'd seen his Clunky Drummer, but this is lovely – really like the emphasis on analogue, from contact mics onwards, and on making it as legible as possible. Also, his work-in-progress videos are lovely.

"When my brother and I wanted a new toy, we cannibalized whatever we’d made before, which had been made of all the things we’d ever made before that. So of all those years of guns and starships, I have only that Wrightian feeling for form in the fingertips — and the sound, somewhere between rustling and clinking, of a thousand plastic pieces tumbling from an overturned bucket into a disorderly pile, rippling away from a seeking hand." As Paul M pointed out, that sound is very, very visceral for many of us. This is a lovely article about what Lego does to the head.

Great interview on the end titles for the Lego Movie, which, unlike the rest of the film, were actual stop motion. From designing in Lego Digital Design, through digital previz, and into manufacture, lots of details shared and cunning insight; motion controller stereoscopic stop motion isn't easy, you know. Very much symptomatic of all the detail throughout the film.

"Today I want to talk about these moments when the future falls in our laps, with no warning or consideration about whether we're ready to confront it." This is a great, great talk from Maciej, on the histories of technology, and how culture interferes with work, and how 20th century history complicated most things it touched. Also: the rant in the middle is good. I think this might be my favourite Maciej talk I've read or seen.

"Three design principles from Lego CEO Jorgen Vig Knudstorp: When it’s advertised does it make a child say: ‘I want this!’? Once he opens the box, does it make him go: ‘I want more of this’? One month later, does he come back to the toy and still play with it? Or does he put it on the shelf and forget about it?" Useful for things that aren't toys, too.

"This is so nice, I’d kind of like a print of it for my wall." Yes please. (Looks like an original patent of the lego block, to me).

Microcontrolled Lego printer, running off some kind of postscript driver, I guess. Properly awesome – and, of course, the most important thing is all the little chaps that keep it working.

Nikon IR intervalometer, hooked up to an Arduino, without even needing another remote. Definitely interested in building one of these.

"The Lego Step-sequencer is 3 channels 8 steps sequencer. The different coloured Lego pieces each have their own sound. Connecting the Lego three-dimensional makes complex sound. This is building sound more than playing sound."

"The walkthrough posted by Lee Beng Hai belongs in a “best games writing” list somewhere, not so much for the prose, but for the depth of his coverage and the gratitude I feel for it, like he’s the first guy in my tribe to wander into the jungle and come back with all his limbs." Chris Dahlen on why nobody's writing about Demon's Souls, but everybody's playing it. (Also: "It’s not “flow”, because flow implies progress; it’s more like tantric sex with a slide rule" is a brilliant analogy).

"Clarity is a Splunk like web interface for your server log files. It supports searching (using grep) as well as trailing log files. It has been written using the event based architecture based on EventMachine and so allows real-time search of very large log files. If you hit the browser Stop button it will also kill the grep / tail utility."

"a JavaScript GameBoy Emulator" Blimey.

"Every family, it seems, has its own set of words for describing particular Lego pieces. No one uses the official names. “Dad, please could you pass me that Brick 2×2?” No. In our house, it’ll always be: “Dad, please could you pass me that four-er?”" So true. I'm trying to recall our own nomenclature.

Great interview with Lantz, expanding on his "games aren't media" angle and some other interesting points on aesthetics; totally marred by Michaël Samyn's trolling of a comment thread (on his *own* company's blog). Still, read the top half!

"Video game designer Robin Hunicke, noticeable at any gaming event for having the reddest hair of anyone in attendance, is trading her big-company background for ThatGameCompany, a sign that the small studio behind Flow and Flower is growing its ranks." Oh. That *is* interesting.

Someone will come.

"The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation announced today that The LEGO Group is now the exclusive licensed manufacturer of Frank Lloyd Wright Collection® LEGO Architecture sets." Hmn. Not sure what the market for these is, beyond curios; they're not particularly high-resolution, for starters.

"Professional photographic & art printing with great value? theprintspace delivers. At the printspace we understand what professional quality means, and we also offer 48 hour turnaround time & guaranteed satisfaction." As recommended to me by Jon.

"I gave a presentation on Treetop last night at lrug – seemed to go down well. There aren’t many examples of treetop grammars I’ve seen, so it might be useful if you find the main site’s documentation a bit impeneterable." Roland drops some Treetop science, and it looks very useful. Good stuff!

"LÖVE is an unquestionably awesome 2D game engine, which allows rapid game development and prototyping in Lua." And it all looks rather pretty, too. Must investigate further!

danah's PhD dissertation. I need to bookmark this, and have not read it yet, but am sure, at some point, I am going to plough through it, for work, recreation, or (most likely) a bit of both. Until then: just a bookmark.

"I still have nothing but respect for my more traditional industry colleagues, but I’ve stopped worrying about impressing the games industry and its pundits. Or at least, I’ve stopped worrying about impressing them first. Instead, I’ve started focusing more on the people who might be interested in different kinds of game experiences. People who fly for business more than three times a month, or people who read all of the Sunday newspaper, or people who have kids with food allergies, for example. I am sure these people read magazines and watch television and listen to the radio. But it would be short-sighted to label them ziners or tubers or airwavers. They are just people, with interests, who sometimes consume different kinds of media." Bogost is right, and I'm concerned I'm always going to be ashamed I chose to use that word.

"It is a commonplace that if it weren’t for computers we couldn’t fly to the moon, or even keep an accurate record of the national debt. On the question of how it does what it does, however, the computer has always remained essentially mysterious—unfathomable to all but a small handful of initiates. An officer of one major computer concern guessed recently that not more than 2% of his employees really know how it works." 2% seems awfully high these days. Detailed, technical article from Life in 1967.

"This is not intended to be a fun game. It has all the trappings of a LEGO game. It has the forgiving game mechanics. The ease of control. But it uses these elements to create a cognitive dissonance between the ease of the actions and the terrible nature of their real world counterparts." Corvus hypothesises what A Lego Clockwork Orange might look like. Thoughtful stuff.

"So why not embrace it? That's why You Have To Burn The Rope is fantastic… for games to become art there must be an awareness and a conversation with its own history. Film, music, and literary critic call this allusion, but for the creators, this isn't just a word, it's a dialogue. Which means it should invite participants. For me, I'm far more intrigued by stop-motion artist Patrick Boivin's attempt at turning a linked sequence of videos into Youtube Street Fighter." I'm not sure I agree with Wang on YHTBTR, specifically, but this paragraph is reasonably sensible.

65 years since the end of the siege of Leningrad, this LJ post shows photographs from the late 1940s merged with images of the location in the present. All are striking; some are very sad. Great contextualisation, though.