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"As editorial director of Ladybird Books, Douglas Keen, who has died aged 95, was responsible for the first experience of reading of millions of children." Myself included; I learned to read with Peter, Jane, and my Mum, sitting on my bedroom floor each morning.
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Amazingly, a few in here I didn't know - "move selection" and "delete only whitespace" for starters.
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"I call this new form "procedural rhetoric," a type of rhetoric tied to the core affordances of computers: running processes and executing rule-based symbolic manipulation. Covering both commercial and non-commercial games from the earliest arcade games through contemporaty titles, I look at three areas in which videogame persuasion has already taken form and shows considerable potential: politics, advertising, and education. The book reflects both theoretical and game-design goals." Add to cart.
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"I won’t rant about how our tax dollars pay for these images and how we deserve better. But what I do find alarming is that these documents are used to brief major decision makers. These decision makers may know a thing or two about policy and politics, but if decoding and understanding the armed forces budget is the goal of these documents, then there is a huge failure here." Datafail and slidecrime, all under one roof.
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"The true orator is one whose practice of citizenship embodies a civic ideal - whose rhetoric, far from empty, is the deliberate, rational, careful organiser of ideas and argument that propels the state forward safely and wisely. This is clearly what Obama, too, is aiming to embody: his project is to unite rhetoric, thought and action in a new politics that eschews narrow bipartisanship. Can Obama's words translate into deeds?" Nice article on rhetoric and oratory. Cicero really is quite the writer, you know; ages since I've read him, but this brings it all back.
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"When the mechanics are broken there - no matter what great ingredients or designs you had - the dish disappoints. Execution is very much part of the analysis there - as is service, mis-en-scene. Food is never evluated (in the Guide Micheline sense) out of context… but the mechanics are fundamental to everything else." Robin Hunicke on another parallel to games criticism; I think she might be onto something, and it's another good contribution to the mound of Mirrors' Edge coverage.
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"Though few gamers might be interested in long haul trucking, there is nothing wrong with concentrating on a small group of gamers and offering them the best experience they can get within their limited requirements. In fact, the more MMO developers who realize this—that a small group of loyal players is better than a huge group of disinterested players—the better, honestly." Very true - a nice conclusion to Matthew Kumar's round-up of a somewhat niche - but interesting sounding - browser MMO.
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"The moisturiser, far from the trusted friend and counsellor of the first reading, is The Picture of Dorian Gray." Alex tries to read that Nivea ad that's all over stations right now. It is confusing.
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"We think it's one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century." Awesome. This is why kids go into engineering.
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"Maps, databases and other resources that help you dig deeper." A shame the raw data isn't available, but great they're collating this stuff and seeing it as another channel of news they provide.
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"A favorite on college Unix systems in the early to mid-1980s, Rogue popularized the dungeon crawling computer game dating back from 1980 (and spawned entire class of derivatives known collectively as "roguelikes"). gandreas software now presents the classic for the iPhone/iPod Touch." Oh god, Rogue for the iPhone. Unusual gestural interface, but it's a perfect port, and brings back memories of being 7 all over again. Needless to say, I installed it immediately.
01
December
2008
December
2008
Links
Tagged as:
advertising, argument, artillery, ascii, ballistics, barackobama, book, books, brand, browser, charts, children, criticism, data, documentary, douglaskeen, education, food, games, hatfield, hotdogs, ianbogost, influence, infographics, information, iphone, journalism, ladybird, latimes, mechanics, military, mirrorsedge, mmo, multiplayer, newspaper, obituary, online, oratory, play, politics, proceduralrhetoric, product, reading, resource, rhetoric, rhetorics, robinhunicke, rogue, roguelike, software, speech, stats, texmate, texteditor, tips, trukz, visualisation, web.
22
September
2008
September
2008
photography
Tagged as:
memories, photography, picture, primolevi, reading, theperiodictable.
Iron
Reading Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table in Dulwich Park at the weekend. Lovely weather; a remarkable book. A happy memory worth sharing.
Links & notes for this month
- "A dude by the name of Phoebus has posted a collection of his research on Left 4 Dead's infected and weapon damage statistics over on the official Steam forums. I think that it'll be of great interest for any serious player of the game to delve into this information." There's a question over their accuracy, but there's still a decent amount of detail here, and the details on tail-off of weapon damage is useful to know. Also a relief to have the hellacious friendly-fire damage on Expert confirmed.
- Fascinating to watch some of the body shapes - the hunched run, and in particular the the saut du chat - carry through to modern Parkour; that which is practical has always been so. As with all parkour: parts of it are beautiful, parts of it entertaining, and parts of it superhuman.
- "Bourne wraps cities, autobahns, ferries and train terminuses around him as the ultimate body-armour, in ways that Old Etonians could never even dream of." More on this topic from Jones; still think there's something we're not quite hitting yet, but it's all good stuff.
- Stack lets you subscribe to a selection of independent magazines; you choose how many you want a year, and they send you a selection. A really nice idea, although it'll be interesting to see them broaden their horizons a bit.
- "Program recipes should not only generate valid output, but be easy to prepare and delicious." Chef is a programming language where the programs are also valid (if strange) recipes. The syntax description is proper crazy; gives Homespring a run for its money, easily, in the realm of metaphorical programming languages that embrace their metaphor.
- "This recipe prints the immortal words "Hello world!", in a basically brute force way. It also makes a lot of food for one person."
- Big guide to levelling hunters. Lots of good hunter stuff on here, actually, which muggins needs to learn quite fast.
- "What I like about the rhetoric idea is that it places the accent on how the work operates on the player, and this is essential for an interactive medium. What I don't like is that it's a resolutely utilitarian framework for critical analysis: it focuses in on the way that games might change our opinions for good or ill at the expense of the way games might transport, entertain, humiliate, and ravish their users." Pliskin on Bogost's Procedural Rhetoric; both the post and its comments are smart, nuanced discussion around the idea.
- "There was a correlation between their performance on the game and their improvement on certain cognitive tests, Kramer said. Those who did well in the game also improved the most on switching between tasks. They also tended to do better on tests of working memory." Playing the game (Rise of Nations) didn't affect all tasks, but it had improvements on some - seemingly those involving task and process management.
- "Regardless of the dubious value of trying to dubiously value the art, one thing is immediately clear: in a reversal of casino logic, we value the rarity of the green stripe: 0, house wins."
- "The Napbook is a laptopcase which also happens to be a comfortable cushion." I could do with one right now.
- "I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colours", a pixelated Cthuluesque love-hate story. Sweet; overwritten, but the core mechanics is nice, and the pace of the game is very soothing.
- Some interesting visualisations of the way forum threads on dpreview - which has nested threads in posts - grow and progress. Interesting for the patterns it throws up, and somewhat useful, if only for rough, high-level analysis.
- Bonkers. It's a man, dressed as something a bit like a slinky, and it broke me a little.
- "Ikaruga doesn’t treat you mean because it wants to see you fail. Ikaruga treats you mean because it wants winning to feel wonderful. But the more I became addicted to that mechanic, the more uneasy I started to feel. Volunteering to be beaten and humiliated on the promise of eventual pleasure? Isn’t there a word for that?" I can't get on with Ikaruga - too much of a memory test, too much punishment, not enough pleasure - but I can totally understand these sentiments. Lovely writing.
- The Wire has started airing on German TV, in a dubbed version; fascinating interview on how to translate it whilst keep the flavour of the original show.
- How come I have not seen this before?
- Preserved at least in the screengrab of this post: today is the 15th anniversary of the release of Doom, and Offworld have reskinned accordingly. Fun.
- "The outcome of this rampant illegal software copying is that Windows is seen as "the first world standard" and any attempt to push a cheaper alternative is strongly resisted. They consider it trying to cheat local people out of getting the same quality of software that is used in the developed world, even though it's a legal way of getting quality software for free." Not what you'd expect, but totally understandable: as said before, there is a middle class everywhere, and it has the same aspirations everywhere.
- ...and here's a tiny bit that got cut from the final interviewer, from Tom Chick's own site. Spielberg talks in more detail about balancing storytelling and gameplay, and expands a bit on the cutscene problem.
- Tom Chick interviews Spielberg on games for Yahoo!. Spielberg is consumate and smart, as you'd expect, but also well-grounded; he really does _play games_. "Yes, I've played Half-Life, of course" - the "of course" is the important bit.
- “Sackboy will be tremendously popular and this is the perfect time of year to knit the little chap. Knitting and customizing him means that he will be utterly unique and a very cool accessory. We’re very lucky to have him in the magazine and we hope that he’ll help to increase the already sizable crossover between the great communities of gamers and knitters, online or not.” Frankly smashing. I wonder if Mum's looking for a Christmas knitting project?
- "In short, [MSG] defies many of the characteristics we normally ascribe to a tabletop RPG -- in the context of a very cynical, and very cool, cyberpunky future where even the minimal constraints on corporate action that currently apply are removed, and any residual ethical norms for businessmen are considered the domain of chumps. Excellent, in a word." Ordered, based upon Greg's writeup and also the fantastic downloadable version of the ruleset. Now, to find some players.
- "Herzog Zwei was a lot of fun, but I have to say the other inspiration for Dune II was the Mac software interface. The whole design/interface dynamics of mouse clicking and selecting desktop items got me thinking, ‘Why not allow the same inside the game environment? Why not a context-sensitive playfield? To hell with all these hot keys, to hell with keyboard as the primary means of manipulating the game!" Brett Sperry, of Westwood, on the making of Dune II. Via Offworld.
- "Changing the Game (order via Amazon or B&N) is a fast-paced tour of the many ways in which games, already an influential part of millions of people’s lives, have become a profoundly important part of the business world. From connecting with customers, to attracting and training employees, to developing new products and spurring innovation, games have introduced a new level of fun and engagement to the workplace. Changing the Game introduces you to the ways in which games are being used to enhance productivity at Microsoft, increase profits at Burger King, and raise employee loyalty at Sun Microsystems, among other remarkable examples. It is proof that work not only can be fun--it should be." I shall have to check this out.
- "As a result, vendors here are more likely to decline to sell you something than to cough up any of their increasingly precious coins in change. I've tried to buy a 2-peso candy bar with a 5-peso note only to be refused, suggesting that the 2-peso sale is worth less to the vendor than the 1-peso coin he would be forced to give me in change." They're running out of coins in Argentina, and it makes for a seriously odd situation - and a reminder of the differences between value and worth.
- "The artist Keith Tyson is offering 5,000 Guardian readers the opportunity to own a free downloadable artwork by him. The costs you'll have to bear are those of printing out the work on A3 photographic paper – and framing, if you so choose... You will be asked to enter your geographical location – which forms part of the unique title of each print."
- "The media would have us believe that those with the best ability in Parkour require and condition to bodies of hypermasculine levels, and the first notions of this concept seem quite logical. However, it is known to any traceur that the spectacle of the masculinized body is not in necessary relation to one’s ability of movement. Mass media tries to paint another picture with a careful selection of handsome, muscular men as traceurs... At its simplest, the hypermasculine spectacle is an easier sell to masses. However, our problem does not end at the body. It is not only the body that is masculinized, though, as we see the same pattern occurring to the discipline itself." Interesting article on Parkour and gender; specifically, the hyper-masculinisation of the art by the media.
- "Over three years ago I set a goal for myself. That goal was to have a max level character for every class in the game... Tonight, at long last, I’ve finally achieved my goal." Blimey.
- Lots of suggestions for simple but yummy puddings here. Will need to check this list out again.
- "If you need to perform data analysis, provide graphics for your users in your webapp, or produce high quality plots I encourage you to investigate the combination of ruby, GSL and GNUPlot." Looks good. I should probably give this a poke some time; could come in handy.
- "Feed cake to the cat for a megaburp; use the owl to block bullets." Lovely: you control the fat cat *and* the owl; the owl makes a path for the cat. It's slightly bulletty in places, and juggling two controls is tricky, but still quite laidback. A lovely, lovely flash shmup. The artwork and music helps, too.
- "So much joyful digital stuff is only a pleasure because it's hugely convenient; quick, free, indoors, no heavy lifting. That's enabled lovely little thoughts to get out there. But as 'digital natives' get more interested in the real world; embedding in it, augmenting it, connecting it, weaponising it, arduinoing it, printing it out, then those thoughts/things need to get better. And we might all need to acquire some analogue native skills." Yes. I am slighty frustrated by the attitude that you can make anything physical with an Arduino and some other stuff. It's the "other stuff" that's the important bit.
- "Our tireless multi-touch team is pleased to announce another bit of software meant to make your prototyping life a bit easier, via support for using a wiimote with our flash API to quickly turn any TV or projection surface into a multi-touch environment" Nice, simple, hacky.
- The comments thread on this is pretty epic, and I'm really not wading into that one. Suffice to say: it's quite a while before somebody mentions the word "criticism", and it's not in the main body of the article at all. That's the important word, to my mind.
- "Of all the adverts I’ve seen this year, I think this (late entry) surprised me the most. Not because of the concept - the hilarious coincidence that sometimes people who are not famous share names with people who are famous has been used before - or the clumsy copy. It surprised me because I actually know the person in the photograph. And she really is called Julia Roberts." So do I. She really is, you know.
- Lovely article about the White House cinema, the first occupant of which was Eisenhower. I came upon this post-"If Gamers Ran The World" if only to find out who the first film-literate (ie: willing to have it inside the White House) president was. The article is a gem.
- A somewhat geeky - and swear-free - Downfall adaptation, but pretty spot-on nontheless.
- A better way of handling TextMate projects, or so I'm told. Giving this a crack.
- "...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.
- "...most public objects - and certainly all municipal objects - should offer APIs. Furthermore, specifically with regard to public infrastructures like transit systems, I believe that this should be a matter of explicit government policy. What’s a public object? A sidewalk. A building facade. A parking meter. Any discrete object in the common spatial domain, intended for the use and enjoyment of the general public. Any artifact located in or bounding upon public rights-of-way. Any discrete object which is de facto shared by and accessible to the public, regardless of its ownership or original intention. How’s that for starters?"
- Better than GetBundle, apparently - hunts down unofficial bundles on github and the like, as well. Nifty.
- "What a wonderful idea," Jennifer noted. "We never get to see the people who make the games." Michael Abbott is talking about LittleBigPlanet.
- Leanoard rounds up his favourite DS homebrew games. Some good stuff in here that I didn't know of.
- "This is just one of many examples that show you can participate in online community without having to pretend to be something you’re not. In fact, participating with authenticity is not just morally good, it’s measurably more effective."
- Powazek is right; this is definitely smart advertising, and full props to EA/W+K for just taking the credit and not trying to make it "viral"; it'll do that anyway. Although: it really is a glitch, you know.
- "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.
- Oh gosh this is brilliant.
- "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.
- 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.
- The Brian Dettmer is beautiful. Also: didn't realise the heart/cube cogs were paper, not wood.
- "...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.
- "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."
- "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.
- Hey, I've been in that relationship too! These made me laugh a lot.
- "bill. francis. louis - look here. help." Ah, the fun of the farm. It's all coming back to me now.
- "Even sweeter, the folks at Pinball News have a clip from Pinball Expo 2004 where Medieval Madness sound designer Dan Forden plays a few takes of a mid-20s Tina Fey that didn't make it into the game. It's all a little too perfect, you know?" Super-awesome.
- "Timex sets their watches to precisely 10:09:36 while Rolex waits almost a minute until 10:10:31." Some lovely observations collated by Kottke.
- "Prince of Persia isn't Ninja Gaiden, and this is OK, because it's not aiming for the same tension-filled experience. It's a game that wants to be lyrical. It wants to be an musical instrument rather than a crucible, and it succeeds in this goal." Point taken. I might end up giving the Prince a chance, when my current crop of challenge-heavy games is worn down.
- "Zapm is a science fiction roguelike game by Cyrus Dolph. It's my humble attempt to create "the sci-fi Nethack". It is very much a work in progress."