Infovore : tag : parody

06
November
2009

Links

Tagged as:
bondage, bookake, furniture, parody.

SHPANK, CRØSS & STÖCK: Flat-pack on your back — Bookkake

"it comes as no surprise that a well-known Swedish furniture-maker has taken the opportunity to enter the specialist adult market, furnishing the adulterers of the green belt with the tools necessary for their pleasures." Ahehehe.

(tags: bookake parody furniture bondage )

18
June
2009

Links

Tagged as:
advertising, augmentedreality, baking, billharris, bldgblog, bloomsday, bread, chess, cities, cooking, culture, description, design, destablisation, dollar, downturn, draughts, dublin, economy, games, genre, guide, howto, humour, imagery, interview, jasonrohrer, joyce, london, microsoft, money, music, natal, notsure, openframeworks, parody, politics, quipu, quotation, realism, recipe, recipes, revolution, stories, switzerland, tallstories, terminator, tours, uk, video, walking, zombies.

Dubious Quality: A Lesson In Revolutionary Politics From Video Games

"It was at that moment that I understood, more fully than ever before, why revolutionaries succeed and then fail. It's because they're switching genres. They take over the country in a third-person (or first person) action game, but then they have to play an RTS to govern the country."

(tags: politics revolution games billharris quotation genre )
Suitcase With $134 Billion Puts Dollar on Edge: William Pesek – Bloomberg.com

"Think about it: These two guys were carrying the gross domestic product of New Zealand or enough for three Beijing Olympics. If economies were for sale, the men could buy Slovakia and Croatia and have plenty left over for Mongolia or Cambodia… These men carrying bonds concealed in the bottom of their luggage also would be the fourth-largest U.S. creditors." Um, wow.

(tags: economy dollar tallstories money switzerland downturn destablisation )
Art Game Star Jason Rohrer Joins Ad Collective | GameCulture

"After a stint shuttling back and forth from his farm in upstate New York to LA, where he consulted on a project for Steven Spielberg and EA, Rohrer has now joined the roster of multimedia stars at Tool of North America, which produces high-end commercials and interactive campaigns for the top advertising firms in the nation." Hmm.

(tags: games advertising jasonrohrer notsure )
BLDGBLOG: Bloomsday

"What if Ulysses had been written before the construction of Dublin? That is, what if Dublin did not, in fact, precede and inspire Joyce's novel, but the city had, itself, actually been derived from Joyce's book?" Geoff Manaugh expands on a comment he made at Thrilling Wonder Stories; the stuff about 'quipu' is also awesome.

(tags: quipu dublin cities bldgblog joyce bloomsday realism description stories design )
nullpointer » Drum machine draughts

"I’ve always been interested in the relationship between gameplay and musical performance. Theres a remarkable structural similarity between certain game systems/mechanics and compositional ones. There is also a risk/reward/challenge aspect that is core to both practices. Anyway, for a short talk I took part in for the Leeds Evolution Festival I wrote a quick augmented chess/draughts app." And the result is a video-processing step-sequencer. Nifty.

(tags: openframeworks music video imagery augmentedreality chess draughts )
Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread

"It is easy to have fresh bread whenever you want it with only five minutes a day of active effort. Just mix the dough and let it sit for two hours. No kneading needed! Then shape and bake a loaf, and refrigerate the rest to use over the next couple weeks. Yes, weeks! The Master Recipe (below) makes enough dough for many loaves. When you want fresh-baked crusty bread, take some dough, shape it into a loaf, let it rise for about 20 minutes, then bake. Your house will smell like a bakery, and your family and friends will love you for it."

(tags: baking bread recipes cooking howto recipe )
Great London walks – Time Out London

"Explore London on foot with our suggestions for some great capital walks, including riverside rambles, architectural adventures, even the odd pub crawl." A useful page to bookmark.

(tags: london uk walking guide cities tours )
GameSetWatch – GameSetInterview: Throwing A Zombie Doublesix With Mummery

"I think in films, zombies are cyclical. They come around, they get reinvigorated. I think in games, they're a constant. In games, zombies just represent this thing around which you can construct a game. There's no morality to them. There's no worries about racism that games are having right now. If it's a zombie and it's a pure zombie, a stupid zombie like the ones we have, they're a game mechanic. They're fodder, they're whatever you want to put in a game, however you want to deal with it."

(tags: zombies games culture interview )
“Project Natal Must Never Be Completed” by John Connor, Leader of the Human Resistance | Hardcasual

"This is John Connor, leader of the Human Resistance… Microsoft’s Project Natal must never be completed, no matter what the cost. This machine, with its RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone, and custom processor running proprietary software, as well as its ability to track up to four human users for motion analysis, is clearly the precursor the killing machines of the near-future that haunt my dreams every night."

(tags: humour games terminator natal microsoft parody )

16
June
2009

Links

Tagged as:
arcade, awesome, bolognese, business, c64, codeigniter, competition, cooking, development, errorhandling, exception, games, interview, management, manufacture, market, maxis, meetings, narrative, nyt, parody, php, play, process, product, productivity, programming, recipe, retro, sbo, seasamestreet, servicedesign, services, society, software, streetfighter, tshirts, twitter, unproduct, willwright, xmarket.

:: v a n . d e n . b r a n d e :: Breadbox64

"BREADBOX64 is a twitter client for the C64/128 which allows you to tweet from a real C64 and show your friends timeline." Now that's a classy look.

(tags: twitter software c64 retro )
Corner Office – On Will Wright’s Team, Would You Be a Solvent, or the Glue? – Interview – NYTimes.com

"There was a point a few years ago whenever somebody called a meeting that I had to attend, then whoever called the meeting had to pay me a dollar. And I got a lot of dollars that way. It did make them think twice about calling the meeting, even though it was only a dollar." Will Wright has a good point.

(tags: management meetings willwright maxis games productivity process interview nyt )
The Online Photographer: Column 100: Looking Forward, Backward, and Sideways

"What we didn't predict was how cheap storage (and other computer-ish) improvements would change the market. That's called the "X Market"—it's all about how the product you're introducing changes the marketplace you're selling into rather than how much of the existing market you'll be able to capture Had it not been for the X Market, hard drives would be specialty items today… Many consumers feel cramped with 100 GB of storage. Home entertainment systems are available with over 10 TB of storage. A consequence of super-cheap storage, at the same time that it's what makes said storage a viable product."

(tags: xmarket product manufacture market business )
Putting people first » Italians say goodbye to property

Italians getting into rental, rather than ownership. Products become services.

(tags: servicedesign services unproduct )
J!NX : Puppet Brawlin' T-Shirt – Clothing for Gamers & Geeks

"The unforgiving streets of public television are no place for weakness: either you fight, or you die. Join the courageous young brawler Large Avian as he embarks on a rampage of revenge against the animatronic gang that killed his family and defiled his nest. Watch as our hero trashes Oswald the Grump, spells out certain doom for the Cracker Beast, and puts their calculating, blood-sucking leader down for the count. New episode every Sunday!" Want this so badly.

(tags: tshirts seasamestreet parody streetfighter games awesome )
THE GRIND: SOCAL EDITION (SF4 TRAINING & SBO QUALS) – iPLAYWINNER FIGHTING GAME NEWS – Street Fighter Virtua Fighter Tekken SNK Capcom BlazBlue Fighting Game News Strategy and Guides at iPlayWinner.com

Huge, and a bit baggy, but nontheless interesting account of a trip to the SBO Qualifiers in the US; if anything, makes me sad that there's no way we'll ever see an arcade scene like this in the UK ever again.

(tags: arcade games streetfighter play competition sbo narrative society )
this internet is a series of tubes – Bolognese

"Some time ago, Simon Schama wrote an article for the Guardian on the perfect bolognese sauce. Like any other enthusiastic cook, I've been finely honing my sauce for years and finally had it nailed down to what I considered to be Very Good. However, I saw the article as an opportunity to challenge myself, rip it up and start again and above all, get one over Schama. So here's my recipe:" Epicly epic bolognese recipe. Should try this some time.

(tags: bolognese cooking recipe )
In CodeIgniter, how can I have PHP error messages emailed to me? – Stack Overflow

A rough guide to building your own ExceptionNotifier for CodeIgniter. Might come in handy.

(tags: php programming development codeigniter errorhandling exception )

11
March
2009

Links

Tagged as:
abusrd, affectionate, api, appleii, balzac, bloopers, branding, businessbibs, cinematography, code, content, contentapi, culture, data, design, dlc, error, falloutboy, food, friedchicken, gaas, games, gem, gtaiv, guardian, happyaccident, infographics, iroquoispliskin, jamescoburn, journalism, ken, kenfighterken, library, maps, mattjones, module, movies, music, narrative, openplatform, oregontrail, parody, pastiche, platform, productiondesign, programming, retro, ruby, sf4, signage, stills, stories, streetfighter4, suits, tailoring, thepresidentsanalyst, uk, universe, video, visualisation, web.

Fall Out Boy Trail

It's Oregon Trail, but where you take everybody's favourite emo band on tour of the states. Surprisingly deep and detailed, an affectionate tribute to Apple II entertainment and the rigours of being a touring rock band. It is very silly, and somewhat ace, and will be getting a blog post in due course.

(tags: games music parody pastiche retro falloutboy oregontrail affectionate appleii )
YouTube – A Master Class for Ken (SF4)

"Tips and tricks only the pros knew, UNTIL NOW! Get ready to PWN up some NUBS on Xbox Live and get some MAD BP'S BRO!" I'm pretty sure I've played this guy.

(tags: games video streetfighter4 ken kenfighterken sf4 )
Outtakes from the businessbib process – a set on Flickr

"These are just various photos taken during the development cycle of the businessib. Enjoy them. We hope you think they are as hilarious as we do." Oh my word.

(tags: tailoring suits businessbibs abusrd )
Versus CluClu Land: La Comedie Post-Humaine

"If you keep the city and concentrate on putting more world into it, imaginativeness becomes the primary obstacle– you can add things into this city without having to add much physical space and new assets. There's legions of empty storefronts and empty buildings, waiting to be filled. And media– web sites, radio stations, tv shows– don't take up space either. Think of this cheap empty space as a place to tell new stories, because as a developer, you are good at this." Iroquois, hitting many nails on the head all at once, again.

(tags: games narrative stories iroquoispliskin dlc gtaiv gaas balzac universe )
The Guardian Open Platform | guardian.co.uk

The Guardian Open Platform launches, with their Content API, their Data Store, and a selection of client libraries for the API (one of which I did a smidge of work on). This is not just a good thing, it's a good thing Done Right, and I'm looking forward to what's next from the Open Platform team.

(tags: platform web guardian data journalism api content openplatform )
Matthew Bloch – accidents

"A collection of accidents that happened while working on maps and other graphics." Bloopers from interactive infographics. Delightful; the patina and happy accidents of the 21st century.

(tags: infographics maps data visualisation error happyaccident bloopers )
james's custodian at master – GitHub

Custodian is the Ruby gem for accessing the Guardian Open Platform Content API that James Darling, Kalv Sandhu, and I (although my contribution was minor) built. There's a Google Code link to it, but I'd imagine the github version is where the action will be.

(tags: programming ruby gem library guardian api code module openplatform contentapi )
CR Blog » Blog Archive » Meet Mr Chicken

"You may not know his name but you will certainly know his work: Morris Cassanova (aka Mr Chicken) designs and makes signs for most of the fried chicken shops in the UK." That's a good market to have sewn up, I'd imagine.

(tags: design uk food culture branding signage friedchicken )
Obsessed with the production design of The President’s Analyst « Magical Nihilism

Jones annotates his screengrabs from the James Coburn classic; lovely to see it all captured so well, even if I'd disagree that the plot is a thing of "gossamer" – it's a _tiny_ bit thicker, surely?

(tags: mattjones movies cinematography stills jamescoburn thepresidentsanalyst productiondesign )

01
January
2009

Links

Tagged as:
advice, blogs, cooking, design, food, infrastructure, interaction, madmen, newyork, parody, pastiche, perse, rfid, selfhelp, thomaskeller, tumblr, tv, ubicomp, writing.

Jan Chipchase – Future Perfect: Contactless Confusion

"…as the cards become more prevalent, and the features of one card start to trump another people end up carrying multiple cards with overlapping functions. The only way for the user to know which card to use? Gosh – to remove the card from the wallet. Convenience indeed."

(tags: interaction design ubicomp infrastructure rfid )
What Would Don Draper Do?

Don turns to writing a self-help column. The style is pretty much spot on.

(tags: parody pastiche tv madmen advice tumblr selfhelp )
Foodie at Fifteen (now 16): Per Se (2)

"It was September 29th; exactly two months from the Saturday of Thanksgiving break and one of the few times I would be able to make the trek up to New York to dine at Per Se. I would have to call to make the reservation at Per Se at exactly 10 A.M today if I had any hope of getting that Saturday reservation. The only problem? I had school." Some lovely writing from a young foodie on securing a reservation at Per Se, and what happened when he went. And, of course, what he ate.

(tags: writing food cooking blogs perse newyork thomaskeller )

08
December
2008

Links

Tagged as:
d3x, design, diagram, downfall, fullframe, funny, nikon, parody, pastiche, photography, plugin, practice, textmate, userexperience, ux, visualisation.

The Online Photographer: A Rant About the D3X

A somewhat geeky – and swear-free – Downfall adaptation, but pretty spot-on nontheless.

(tags: downfall nikon fullframe d3x pastiche parody funny photography )
Ciarán Walsh’s Blog » TextMate Plug-in: ProjectPlus

A better way of handling TextMate projects, or so I'm told. Giving this a crack.

(tags: textmate plugin )
The Disciplines of User Experience

"…what is user experience design by itself, those areas that aren’t filled up with other bubbles? I tried to answer some of that in an earlier post, but the short answer is: not much, aside from coordination between the various disciplines, or what used to be called creative direction. It’s about the joining of the different disciplines, and not particularly a discipline in and of itself… Without the “raw materials” of the disciplines that make up UX, UX would be empty indeed." Some nice thoughts, clearly delineated, from Dan.

(tags: userexperience ux design diagram visualisation practice )

06
December
2008

Links

Tagged as:
accelerometer, application, art, attention, bonkers, construction, crazy, davidhobby, design, electronics, emotionml, facebook, finger, folding, freckle, free, funny, games, hardware, incorrect, interaction, iphone, jealousdevices, learning, left4dead, library, littlebigplanet, markup, naughty, paper, papercraft, parody, passwords, pastiche, patterns, photography, physical, play, process, programming, promotion, ps3, ruby, scraping, security, sgml, socialnetworking, spec, statemachine, strobist, toys, w3c, web20, wrong, xml.

alter ego

"AlterEgo is a Ruby implementation of the State pattern as described by the Gang of Four. It differs from other Ruby state machine libraries in that it focuses on providing polymorphic behavior based on object state. In effect, it makes it easy to give an object different “personalities” depending on the state it is in." Oh, that could be really handy.

(tags: ruby library statemachine programming patterns )
Welcome to Sackbook! Social networking for LittleBigPlanet™

Oh gosh this is brilliant.

(tags: littlebigplanet socialnetworking games play ps3 web20 pastiche scraping )
ThinkGeek :: Tuttuki Bako Virtual Finger Game

"Simply stick your finger in the hole and a virtual representation appears on the screen. Then you can use your virtual finger to play all kinds of cool mini games… from swinging a panda to having a karate fight with a tiny little man." Um, wow. Although I'm always afraid of putting appendages in boxes I can't see inside, though.

(tags: toys games electronics physical finger )
freckle: time tracking rethought » Blog Archive » Calamity howlers & positively selecting with surprise

I think they're wrong, you know. It's not theatre; it's protocol. Maybe people aren't used to the protocol; if yours is the first app they encounter, they'll think that it's OK to show what passwords are – and perhaps that it's OK to write them down elsewhere in plaintext. Applications have a degree of responsibility for users' interactions across the internet, and quirky and cute as this may be, it's just not the place to demonstrate your shining personality.

(tags: design interaction application freckle incorrect wrong naughty passwords security )
15 Incredibly Creative Papercraft Artists | WebUrbanist

The Brian Dettmer is beautiful. Also: didn't realise the heart/cube cogs were paper, not wood.

(tags: papercraft paper folding design construction art )
russell davies: reader

"…it's another little example of the way the ipod/iphone is such an attention-demanding device. It doesn't orient to you, it orients to itself." Yes. This is a problem.

(tags: iphone accelerometer jealousdevices attention hardware design )
Strobist: Four Reasons to Consider Working for Free

"The US auto industry is on the verge of imploding. People are losing their homes to foreclosure. And, on the off chance that you had the nerve to try to buy something, credit is almost impossible to come by. It is against that backdrop that I would like to talk about working for free. Why? Because I think it is one of the fastest ways to make yourself a better photographer, whether you are a pro or an amateur."

(tags: strobist davidhobby photography free promotion learning process )
Elements of an EmotionML 1.0

"To the extent that the web is becoming truly ubiquitous, and involves increasingly multimodal paradigms of interaction, it seems appropriate to define a Web standard for representing emotion-related states, which can provide the required functionality." No, it does not seem appropriate. It seems bonkers.

(tags: w3c spec bonkers crazy emotionml xml markup sgml )
Zoey’s status has been updated. « Hardcasual

Hey, I've been in that relationship too! These made me laugh a lot.

(tags: games left4dead facebook parody pastiche funny )
Zoey posted a photo. « Hardcasual

"bill. francis. louis – look here. help." Ah, the fun of the farm. It's all coming back to me now.

(tags: games facebook parody pastiche left4dead funny )

03
December
2008

Links

Tagged as:
amazing, art, books, bubblewrap, calendar, covers, criticism, design, development, dissonance, experimental, flash, funny, games, google, graphicdesign, grid, illustration, jackets, layout, mechanics, michaelabbott, narrative, parody, pastiche, poem, reference, resource, review, satire, software, stevegaynor, story, systems, watchmen, web, webcomics, yahoo.

i made this. you play this. we are enemies.

Um. An "artwork/game/digital poem/world of scribbles" from Jason Nelson. Stop trying to "get it".

(tags: satire google yahoo web flash games art poem experimental )
The Book Design Review

"My Favorite Book Covers of 2008" Some I'd seen before; some I'd not. Some very beautiful things here.

(tags: illustration books jackets covers design graphicdesign )
Games are Software « Save the Robot – Chris Dahlen

"I come from a software background, as well as an artsy-fartsy one. I want to see games as art, but they’re also supposed to work as logically-constructed bodies of code. And in a lot of cases, reviewers need to see them as software rather than as art. Here’s why…" I think Steve has some good points here, but I'm not totally swung yet; after all, games might _be_ software, but do we _experience_ them as software? I'm not sure that we do, and that's why we respond to them in the manner we do.

(tags: games software criticism review development stevegaynor )
The Grid System

"The ultimate resource in grid systems."

(tags: resource grid design layout web reference )
scans_daily: Watchmen: The condensed version

Pretty much spot on. Especially when it comes to GRIMDARK PIRATE COMICS.

(tags: watchmen webcomics parody pastiche funny )
The Brainy Gamer: Dissonance

"Does the road to ludonarrative unity really lead us where we want to go? Is the destination reachable? Is it possible to embrace a design aesthetic that takes us in another direction that could be just as fruitful, if not more so? Okay that was three questions, but it's my blog so I get to ask as many as I want. Now if I could only answer them." This is going to be interesting when I come to write about Far Cry 2.

(tags: games narrative story michaelabbott dissonance design mechanics systems )
Bubble Calendar, a poster-sized calendar with a bubble to pop every day.

"a poster-sized calendar with a bubble to pop every day". Yes please!

(tags: calendar bubblewrap design amazing )

18
November
2008

Links

Tagged as:
acme, alanmoore, animalcrossing, article, awesome, badidea, bounadries, cartoons, clivethompson, comics, crazy, flash, flickr, games, geo, geography, geolocative, huge, insane, journalism, licensing, littlebigplanet, location, makeitstop, manufacturing, maps, mirrorsedge, motionsickness, movies, nintendo, onebutton, parody, places, products, proprioception, psychogeography, reference, simonparkin, squid, swissarmyknife, tiein, tv, watchmen, wii, wired, woe, writing.

Amazon.co.uk: Wenger Swiss Army Giant Knife: Sports & Leisure

"For even if all it does is sit ceremonially on your mantelpiece next to a bar of Toblerone and a signed photo of Swiss Toni as a tribute to all things Swiss, you will have achieved greatness, my son." Best. Product. Description. Ever. (This feels like an April fool, but apparently no).

(tags: swissarmyknife crazy insane huge awesome )
Tiscali Games – Watchmen galerie obrazků

Oh jesus it's a Watchmen videogame and it's been converted… into a free-roaming beat-em-up. Rorschach in Streets of Rage 3D. Shoot me now.

(tags: badidea games watchmen alanmoore comics tiein licensing movies makeitstop )
The Adventures of Lil’ Gardner & Robot Jesus » Archive » Keep Squid Alive

Yes.

(tags: comics watchmen squid )
The ORIGINAL Illustrated Catalog Of ACME Products

"ACME is a worldwide leader of many manufactured goods. From its humble beginnings providing corks and flypaper to bug collectors ("Buddy's Bug Hunt/1935") to its heyday in the American Southwest supplying a certain coyote, from Ultimatum Dispatchers to Batman outfits, ACME has set the standard for excellence. For the first time ever, information and pictures of all ACME products, specialty divisions, and services featured in Warner Bros. cartoons (made by the original studio from 1935 to 1964) are gathered here, in one convenient catalog."

(tags: acme manufacturing cartoons reference products tv )
chewing pixels » Animal Crossing – Wii review

"…while almost all of the game’s residents are free to go as they please, heading off to new towns and lives on a whim, once you step off the bus and choose a house in which to settle, you’re here for good…. you are the local constant, the hick who’s never left its borders and there is some comfort in the knowledge that the places the other animals leave for can never be known by you." Simon's original version of his Wii Animal Crossing review; some lovely analysis of the series to date.

(tags: simonparkin games writing journalism wii animalcrossing nintendo )
http://boundaries.tomtaylor.co.uk/

"Uses the Flickr shapefiles to show you where the world thinks its neighbours are." Damnit I wish Tom would stop magicking up awesomeness all the time.

(tags: geo location geolocative flickr bounadries woe places geography psychogeography maps )
Little Shit Planet – My World is Small and Crap

…and bloody frustrating too.

(tags: onebutton games flash littlebigplanet parody )
Games Without Frontiers: Victory in Vomit

Clive Thompson on how Mirror's Edge "hacks" your proprioception: "it explains, I think, why Mirror's Edge is so curiously likely to produce motion sickness. The game is not merely graphically realistic; it's neurologically realistic."

(tags: wired clivethompson article writing games mirrorsedge motionsickness proprioception )

04
October
2008

Links

Tagged as:
accelerometer, comic, comics, cover, design, dexter, digital, ebook, illustration, instrument, iphone, labels, magazine, music, panmacmillan, parody, pastiche, pharmacy, phonogram, picador, poison, print, printing, publishing, software, spatial, typography, writing.

Vintage Poison Labels – Spookshows.com

That they are. Got to love the type on these.

(tags: typography poison printing labels pharmacy illustration )
Cosmovox – a Musical Instrument for the iPhone and iPod touch

"Cosmovox is a unique and innovative musical instrument for the iPhone and iPod touch." Nearly a theremin. Nearly.

(tags: software iphone music instrument accelerometer spatial )
thedigitalist.net » lifting the veil – will you take a peek?

"Tim, or perhaps T.J. (we were at the pudding stage), began talking about the experience of editing Cliffhanger (the edition we were going to print), and about some of the material that had to be changed or cast away – characters’ names, a lesbian sex scene, the ending itself – and we wondered whether, in a born-digital text, these sloughed-off palimpsests acquired an existence of their own, beyond the shadows of an HFS hard drive; in a library run by Veet Voojagig, perhaps." Picador publish both the final version of the book in print – and the urtext as a separate digital product. Fun.

(tags: publishing writing picador panmacmillan ebook digital )
The Singles Club (preview) – Phonogram

"The time comes again. Here’s the first five pages from the first issues of PHONOGRAM: THE SINGLES CLUB. Not only that, but we include seven sample B-side pages, plus a little introduction about what they’re all about, like." Looking jolly good, and am rather excited by the B-sides.

(tags: phonogram comics music comic )
Dexter Gets His Own Newsstand

Wonderful pastiches of popular US newstand titles to promote the new season of Dexter. The New Yorker pastiche is particularly superb.

(tags: design print publishing magazine cover parody pastiche dexter )

Links & notes for this month

Endnotes