Links & notes for this month

• • jQuery Sparklines
    "This jQuery plugin generates sparklines (small inline charts) directly in the browser using data supplied either inline in the HTML, or via javascript." Nifty.
    (tags: infographics visualization jquery plugin charts graphs sparklines )
  • The Brainy Gamer: Put away your popcorn
    "...when we step into the shoes of that avatar, be it 1st-person, 3rd-person or otherwise, we exit the darkened movie theater paradigm and enter an intricate, performative, exploratory lab of untested ideas and speculation. We enter a playful space that feels and responds much more like a live theater rehearsal than an interactive movie or a triggered series of movie clips." Michael debunks the games-as-cinema analogy with an interesting take that considers them as more like theatre rehearsal.
    (tags: games michaelabbott analogy cinema theatre rehearsal stage )
  • Grand Text Auto » The Tell-Tale Brick
    "This is not a book about the VCS, nor breakout, nor video games and video game culture; it is a chronicle of the experience of that entity we might call “the player.” Oddly, there is little I can take from it in terms of approaches to video gaming or thoughts on the VCS Breakout. But it did enlarge my perspective and help me think about physiological, cognitive, and, let us say, monomaniacal aspects of video game play. Nervous, very dreadfully nervous Sudnow has been, but why would I say that he is mad?" Sudnow passed away very recently; I really ought to read his book, more than ever.
    (tags: games writing criticism books arcade davidsurnow ethnography breakout )
  • scraplab : s3 fm is new thing i've built...
    "[s3fm]... lets anyone run a streaming radio station, with just a folder of MP3s. Put those MP3s in an Amazon S3 bucket, and give your friends the S3 FM link."
    (tags: music tomtaylor streaming radio aws mp3 s3 )
  • Matt Webb - Lift conferences, webcams & interviews
    Matt's talk (in English) from Lift 09, on scientific fiction, stories, and the design process. Good stuff - not too long - and wonderfully filmed: the cameraman focuses on his hands as much as his face, which is just perfect.
    (tags: design video creation process mattwebb drawing schulzeandwebb evolution lift lift09 )
  • LittleBigWatch: the NeoGAF hive-mind's LittleBigContra - Offworld
    NeoGAF users band together to make a perfect, eight-stage, LittleBigPlanet rendition of Contra. Remarkable, especially the behind-the-backdrop puppeteering that makes the walking-into-the-screen levels possible. This had better not get a takedown slapped on it, because it's phenomenal.
    (tags: games ugc amazing creation littlebigplanet demake remake contra )
  • Etsy :: geekdetails :: Main and Alt drinking glasses
    "Perfect gift for any World of Warcraft player or other MMORPGer in general. You get one "main" glass and one "alt" glass. Serving idea: fill your main with your alcoholic beverage and your alt with your chaser since mains are typically stronger than alts." Oh dear. (But: good gag, and dangerous for drinking games).
    (tags: funny wow worldofwarcraft joke glassware drinking paceyourself )
  • SF0
    "SFZero is a Collaborative Production Game. Players build characters by completing tasks for their groups and increasing their Score. The goals of play include meeting new people, exploring the city, and participating in non-consumer leisure activities."
    (tags: games play art sf cities urban open collaboration sanfrancisco sf0 )
  • Wolfram Blog : Exploring Logo Designs with Mathematica
    "One of my enduring passions is exploring graphic design with programmatic and generative systems. While some aspects of design require the skilled hand of the designer, others can be formalized and explored by computer. For those tasks, Mathematica is an exceptional tool." Some lovely thinking around generative design.
    (tags: design development generative branding code mathematica )
• • Mindquirk | Xbox Live Friends
    "Xbox Live Friends is a tool for keeping a vigilant eye on what all of your friends are doing." It's much improved from previous versions, too. Enjoying this quite a lot.
    (tags: games osx mac utility xbox live xboxlive )
  • Good design: The ten commandments of Dieter Rams
    These feel about right. Or, at least, about right if you agree with Rams as both a designer and a provider of commandments. He's hard to argue with, for sure.
    (tags: design advice utility explanation simplicity dieterrams clarity )
  • Defend Moscow on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos
    Defend Moscow are a friend's new band, and their single "Manifesto" is out very, very soon; big, eighties-influenced pop, with slightly filthy bass and that classic boy/girl harmony thing going on. Hoping for good things for this, so into the links it goes!
    (tags: music indie awesome pop defendmoscow single davefawbert kidsrecords )
• • Hadouken Hadouken Hadouken
    More on the phenomenon that is Ken Fighter Ken.
    (tags: games humour cartoon cheese streetfighter4 ken scrub kenfighterken mashing system:filetype:jpg system:media:image )
  • The Ken Flowchart
    This is a pretty accurate explanation of the state of the majority of SF4 online. It's also quite funny, and is the reason the phrase "Flowchart Ken", used to described a particular kind of player, is already entering the SF4 Lexicon.
    (tags: games humor diagram flowchart cheese streetfighter4 ken scrub system:filetype:png system:media:image )
  • Ryanair: "Lunatic bloggers can keep the blogosphere" | Media | guardian.co.uk
    "Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again." Ryanair's social media strategy is pretty much on-brand, it seems.
    (tags: marketing socialmedia blogging brand ryanair ohdear )
  • Hit Self-Destruct: Domestic City, Part Three
    'A morose-looking guy stood at the bar talking to his friends, wearing a Flashbang Studios t-shirt. Emily leaned across the bar next to him, and shouted giddily over the music: "hey, I like that developer."' A lovely piece of speculative writing from Duncan Fyfe.
    (tags: games popularity culture society rock speculative )
  • Pulse Laser: Endless Notebooks
    A first, rather long, post on the S&W Blog, in which I talk to Jack about a project he's been working on for a while.
    (tags: design product manufacture work service schulzeandwebb jackschulze notebooks bookbinding )
  • EA's drawing board of ideas before creating Dante's Inferno: the videogame - The Eegra Forums
    "This summer will you be, or not be? It's Resident Evil meets House of the Dead, IN DENMARK." Epic Eegra thread taking the Dante's Inferno-shaped ball and running a very, very long way with it.
    (tags: games humour pastiche dantesinferno forum literature mashup eegra )
  • Mirror's Edge 2D
    Full version, no out! The beta was lovely, so I'm looking forward to this a lot.
    (tags: flash games parkour 2d platforming mirrosedge )
  • The Making Of Wrestle Jam: The Wrestler's Unsung Hero
    "[Wrestle Jam is] completely playable. There was an intro screen, character select, win / loss conditions, opponent AI, eight different attacks," Furino explained. "It was as close to a genuine old-school wrestling game as I could make it in the time allowed. I even mapped an old Nintendo controller to the input system so they could play it that way." Gosh, that's lovely, if not totally unexpected from Arronofsky. Lovely interview, too.
    (tags: games pastiche film retro thewrestler )
• • russell davies: fair play
    "...kids are utterly, utterly obsessed with fairness. It's the most important element in any game. And human rule-enforcement is automatically deemed unfair. There is no referee, umpire or god-like grandparent that can escape being seen as unfair at some point, for some decision. But the commanding voice of Cosmic Catch escapes all that. The relentless, ineluctable judgement of the RFID machine brooks no argument, is prey to no human frailties and biases and is immediately seen as fair."
    (tags: games play children toys psychology rules fairness )
  • cursor*10 2nd (NEKOGAMES)
    It's more cursor*10, and it's as fiendish and entertaining as ever. The impaled-cursor is particularly cute.
    (tags: flash games memory puzzle repetition )
• • Animation: Target's Spread Across The U.S.
    "Not to be outdone (well, maybe a little outdone), we've combed through hours of imaginary data here at Consumerist HQ and put together a similar animation that illustrates Starbucks' explosive growth over the past 20 years. Enjoy." I did.
    (tags: animation information infographics data dataviz starbucks lol )
  • YouTube - Radiohead vs Dave Brubeck - Five Step
    Obvious, when you think about it; if you're going to mash up one track in five, why not find another? What's remarkable is how well Brubeck's piano and Paul Desmond's sax fit the melody, as well as the stilted rhythm, of Radiohead's "Fifteen Step".
    (tags: video mashup radiohead complextime davebrubeck fifteenstep takefive )
  • Core77 Presents: Greener Gadgets Design Competition
    "SmartSwitch doesn't restrict the user from turning on a light, but rather it passively encourages behavior change. SmartSwitches can be programmed to respond to either personal or communal electrical usage. In a home wired with SmartSwitches, lights can become harder to turn on during hours of peak demand." Just right.
    (tags: design lighting energy electricity switch switching feedback haptic )
• • Video Games I Quit On: Force Unleashed | My Chemical Romance
    "I shouldn't even explain it- you should probably just youtube some gameplay footage if you're interested and watch the insanity." Gerard Way on quitting Force Unleashed - and hinting that he's going to talk more about other games he's given up on. That should be interesting.
    (tags: games writing mychemicalromance failure gerardway defeat frustration )
  • Building and Scaling a Startup on Rails: 12 Things We Learned the Hard Way - Axon Flux - A Ruby on Rails Blog
    Some well-worn tales here, but also some good new ones, particularly when it comes to query-profiling and all forms of caching.
    (tags: tips ruby performance development web rails scaling deployment )
• • Jumpman
    Almost Atari 2600-era platforming, but with a couple of (big) twists. Compulsive, and cross-platform, it's almost definitely worth an hour of your day.
    (tags: games platform physics osx indie windows retro free mac platforming )
• • The Demon-Haunted World
    "...or the past and future of practical city magic". Jones drops the presentation bomb and it's really very very good; it doesn't feel "weird" as he suggests at all; instead, it's all one great big joined-up mishmash of coherent thought and a dash of wonder.
    (tags: ubicomp infrastructure cities everyware mattjones presentation urban psychogeography webstock )
  • Meggy Roguelike - a set on Flickr
    It's a Roguelike, running on a Meggy Jr - the microcontroller-powered console with an 8x8 LED display. Looking good so far!
    (tags: games video electronics roguelike meggyjr )
  • f.lux
    "F.lux fixes this: it makes your computer's lighting adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better." Perhaps not right for things that need to be color-managed... but might be good for everything else. And healthier.
    (tags: osx software mac lighting time color temperature )
• • GameSetWatch - DICE 09: Valve's Newell On 'Using Your Customer Base To Reach New Customers'
    "In the 14 months since [TeamFortress 2] shipped, the PC version of the game has seen 63 updates – “that’s the frequency you want to be providing updates to your customers,” [Newell] adds. “You want to say, ‘We’ll get back to you every week. The degree to which you can engage your customer base in creating value for your other players” is key, says Newell. “When people say interesting or intelligent things about your product, it will translate directly into incremental revenue for the content provider.”" Great write-up from Chris Remo of Gabe Newell's DICE talk.
    (tags: games business community communication piracy valve steam gaas gabenewell digitaldistribution )
  • click opera - Art students (called Brian) observed
    "This is a sort of thorough, empirical, sociological study of art students at two British art schools at a very interesting moment, the late 1960s (a moment when, as the book says, anti-art became the approved art, bringing all sorts of paradoxes to the fore). I find it fascinating that such a subjective thing as developing an art practice can be studied so objectively, but then I find it amazing that art can be taught at all. The book shows the tutors and students circling each other with wariness, coolness, misunderstanding, despair, appreciation." Some great anecdotes and observation.
    (tags: education teaching art uk eno sixties school momus studies )
  • Busker Du
    "Busker Du (dial-up) is a recording service for buskers through the telephone (preferably public payphones hidden in subway stations). Audio recorded will be posted to this audio-blog and made available to all who cherish lo-fi original music. Try it out at your favorite subway station or street corner." Dial-A-Song comes full circle.
    (tags: audio music phone recording busking payphone covert )
  • Poole - HAL 9000 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    "Poole - HAL 9000 is a fictional chess game in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the movie, the astronaut Frank Poole is seen playing chess with the HAL 9000 supercomputer... The director Stanley Kubrick was a passionate chess player, so unlike many chess scenes shown in other films, the position and analysis actually makes sense. The actual game seems to come from Roesch - Schlage, Hamburg 1910, a tournament game between two lesser-known masters."
    (tags: trivia wikipedia blimey 2001 chess )
  • David Merrill demos Siftables, the smart blocks | Video on TED.com
    Lovely demo - some interesting interfaces that feel quicker than current alternatives, as well as experimental ones that, whilst slower and clumsier, represent information a bit better. I mainly like the form-factor, though - but what's the unit cost? These things get a lot better the more you have.
    (tags: design interaction talk video technology innovation toys siftables ted )
  • Septivium - Learn about everything
    "Something like: Trying to create a reading list that gives the best introduction to everything. This may change." Phil is trying to collect the Good Books in many fields. It's an interesting project, for sure; it'll also be interesting to see how it pans out.
    (tags: education learning reading books sharing knowledge )
  • Noby Noby Boy Review - Page 1 // PS3 /// Eurogamer
    I was a little excited from the ongoing Offworld love in, but Oli Welsh's review suddenly makes me insanely excited about Keita Takahashi's new plaything. Why is it that all the reasons for me wanting a £300 PS3 are £3 PSN titles?
    (tags: games play review ps3 eurogamer nobynobyboy keitatakahashi toy )
  • Lubing the Edges of the Internet - Jan Chipchase - Future Perfect
    "...the biggest consequence [of a universal micro-USB adaptor] will be the ease of transferring data/content from street service provider to consumer, and consumer to consumer... There is a place at the edges of the internet where the level of friction makes content and data grind to a halt. It's largely unregulated. And it just got seriously lubed."
    (tags: mobile distribution interface data friction connectivity phone standards edges microusb telephony )
  • IndieGames.com - The Weblog - Freeware Game Pick: 30 Second Hero (UUE)
    "30 Second Hero is an action RPG which consists of really short battles that require no interaction, as players race against the clock to save the kingdom from an evil wizard's wrath. As indicated by the title, you only have thirty seconds to level up your character sufficiently for the final battle, although additional time can be bought from the castle at the cost of a hundred gold pieces per increment of ten seconds." Hectic; the entire early JRPG genre (FF1, et al) condensed into a minute-long rush. Grinding as poetry.
    (tags: games condensation levelling concept jrpg grinding )
  • Donk Donk Donk Donk Donk | crackunit.com
    "I was convinced that it was a spoof. As if there’d be a genre called Donk. Everything is wrong about the video. The knowing subtitles over subtle Northern Accents. The presenter’s slight grin when he’s chatting to folk. The funnily named shops. Everything. There’s no way I’m falling for a prank like that. It reminds me heavily of the episode of Brass Eye where they whang on about Cake (the made up drug). And all the characters and the interviews look like they could be setups or clever edits." But no, it's real. Iain Tait discovers Donk.
    (tags: music dance techno donk northernengland regionaldance )
  • RIP HotU
    "...with that sad note from Sarinee Achavanuntakul, one of the most enduring (if illegal) tributes to gaming history came to an end." Home of the Underdogs is no more; just gone, like that. It wasn't that it had the best games or the worst games, or that they were illegal, or free; it was history, and childhood, and the smell of cardboard and boot disks, all wrapped up in one giant cathedral to Good Old Games. Most things I played on my old DOS machine were there. A shame; I hope they're elsewhere. This is why we need proper game archives.
    (tags: games history computers archive nostalgia abandonware old )
  • NHL 09 PS3 Patch Released - Impressions - Operation Sports Forums
    Tweaking a game five months after launch to make it both more playable, and also more realistic; understanding that realism is key to NHL09 fans, and delivering on that as an ongoing promise.
    (tags: games services dlc gaas patching nhl09 )
  • One More Go: World of Warcraft, home is where the hearth is - Offworld
    "Warcraft’s success has always been substantially due to the extraordinary physicality of Azeroth, to the real sense of land transversed, of caves discovered, and of secrets shared. Players old and new bemoan the endless trudging that low-level travel requires, but it’s crucial for binding you to the world." Yes. Despite QuestHelper, I'm always in awe of the new areas. I just wish more people were playing the game as slowly and badly as me. Another beautiful One More Go, and one that resonates a lot right now.
    (tags: games writing place wow worldofwarcraft home onemorego azeroth belonging )
• • Intro to CIUnit (part of fooStack) for CodeIgniter
    Requires a chunk of configuration, but this is not half bad: allows you to use PHPUnit from the command line to actually, properly test CI models. Even lets you use YAML configuration files. Not bad.
    (tags: testing codeigniter phpunit unittesting )
  • TweeterGetter .::. Get 15,625 New Twitter Followers In 30 Days!
    There are not expletives strong enough. In a nutshell: it's a pyramid scheme for following people you don't know on Twitter. It asks for your username and password. Terrifying.
    (tags: marketing twitter awful spam mlm socalledfriends )
  • Exporting the past into the future, or, “The Possibility Jelly lives on the hypersurface of the present” « Magical Nihilism
    "Warning - this is a collection of half-formed thoughts, perhaps even more than usual." They seem pretty well-formed to me, even if the blogpost is a dense infoburst. Lots of solid gold in here, worth reading twice, slowly, and thinking on. And then working out what the conclusions are.
    (tags: socialsoftware space place mattjones location time thoughts proximity resolution )
  • WikipathS: The Great Web Race | Play This Thing!
    "...you go to any page on Wikipedia; a "start" button appears on the page. You click it, and it sends you to a random Wikipedia page, and then displays your "target" page in a box at the bottom of the browser window (as shown in the illo above). Your goal is to navigate from the start page to the target page, using only links in the main body of each article; the game is timed, so presumably you're attempting to do it in the minimum amount of time." A Greasemonkey/js entrant to the Global Game Jam - unusual, to say the least, and an interesting move.
    (tags: games web javascript greasemonkey wikipedia navigation )
  • KANYE WEST "Welcome To Heartbreak" Directed by Nabil on Vimeo
    And Kanye's datamoshing too. This is a bit more subtle and polished than the Chairlift video, but ideally suits the song.
    (tags: music compression videos effects kanyewest artefacting datamoshing )
  • Solid Snake Must Be Somewhere in This Warehouse « Hardcasual
    "Solid Snake, the special operations agent who frequently amuses himself by hiding in cardboard boxes, has been taped up and shipped to a warehouse in Oslo, Norway. Details are scarce at this point, but it appears Mr. Snake, famous for single-handedly dismantling Outer Heaven and destroying countless Metal Gears, made an error while shipping classified documents overseas and was picked up by a Fedex truck. The rescue operation has proved fruitless as of the time of this writing."
    (tags: humour hardcasual packaging infrastructure metalgearsolid )