"Since I’m an OS X user, I decided to make the whole thing work on my system – Leopard 10.5.6 at the time of this writing. Here are the notes, mostly for my reference and because it might be also useful to others:" God yes; setting up cairo on my Mac proved a nightmare last year.

"This guidebook is a practical “how-to” manual on the conduct of effective nation-building. It is organized around the constituent elements that make up any nation-building mission: military, police, rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and development. The chapters describe how each of these components should be organized and employed, how much of each is likely to be needed, and the likely cost." Not your average "for dummies" book, then.

"In collaboration with Bungie and Microsoft we are bringing the artistry and almost infinite content of the Halo 3 world into your world. For the first time ever, custom screenshot images created on the Xbox 360 console during Halo 3 gameplay are available as remastered fine art products, and delivered ready to hang on your wall." Single-click from the Bungie.net screenshot viewer to buying prints (or canvases) of your screengrabs. Superb.

…That Periodically Go Bad. Somewhat useful, surprisingly.

"Whenever is a Ruby gem that provides a clear syntax for defining cron jobs. It outputs valid cron syntax and can even write your crontab file for you. It is designed to work well with Rails applications and can be deployed with Capistrano. Whenever works fine independently as well." Pretty DSL for generating crontab in a rubyish manner.

"William Petersen as Gil Grissom, David Caruso as Horatio Caine, Gary Sinese as Mac Taylor, Mark Harmon as Jethro Gibbs, Anthony LaPaglia as Jack Malone. These guys are the franchise players of primetime TV. But they are also role models. Each represents a different management style." I'd work for Grissom instead of Gibbs in a flash, personally, but I'm an eccentric and I like eccentric managers.

I am not an expert in these matters, but that is rather lovely.

That performance of Billie Jean. But with a Giant White Glove. Brilliant.

"On May 4th, 2007, we asked internet users to help isolate Michael Jackson's white glove in all 10,060 frames of his nationally televised landmark performance of Billy Jean. 72 hours later 125,000 gloves had been located. wgt_data_v1.txt (listed below) is the culmination of data collected. It is released here for all to download and use as an input into any digital system. Just as the data was gathered collectively it is our hope that it will be visualized collectively." This is amazing. And what it leads to is even better.

Thoughtbot discover their RFID door-lock system has an API. A short bash at some code later, and they now have theme songs when they enter the office.

"From 30th June to 25th August, I'll be following a route across Scotland from the south western tip of Mull to the outskirts of Edinburgh, as charted in Chapters 14–27 of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Kidnapped’." I remember talking to Tim about this at BookCamp; it's great to see it in-the-world.

"Peter Newman's Skystation is a circular sculpture inspired by the form of Le Corbusier's LC4 chaise longue which encourages the user to lie down and contemplate the vast expanse of space above and beyond." I rather like that. Doesn't look comfortable, but I agree with the sentiment.

"After years of observation and reverse engineering I am proud to say I have been able to reproduce the IE6 algorithm to break even the most standards-compliant websites." Hur hur hur.

"Bayer’s DIDGET™ is the only blood glucose meter that plugs into a Nintendo DS™ or Nintendo DS™ Lite system. This unique meter helps encourage consistent testing with reward points that children can use to buy items within the game and unlock new game levels." Blood glucose monitor for diabetics that plugs into your Nintendo DS. Utterly awesome, and exactly what a new world of products should look like.

"I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is still long." How have I only just encountered this?

Some jolly good stuff from Chris, notably "And I Saw..". I mainly like it, though, because he went and made a thing, and it definitely worked, and it's so, so simple.

"Ultimately, when I reject narrative techniques in favor of ludic ones, what I am really saying is that I reject traditional authorship. I reject the notion that what I think you will find emotionally engaging and compelling – and then build and deliver to you to consume – is innately superior to what you think is emotionally compelling. By extension, I reject the idea that I can make you feel the loss of a friend in a more compelling way by authoring an irreversible system than you could make yourself feel by playing with a system wherein a friend can be both dead and alive simultaneously and wherein his very existence can be in flux based on your playful whim… This discussion is not about how to make a game more meaningful. It is about how games mean." Yep, I still want to marry Clint Hocking.

"The next time you see an application you like, think very long and hard about all the user-oriented details that went into making it a pleasure to use, before decrying how you could trivially reimplement the entire damn thing in a weekend. Nine times out of ten, when you think an application was ridiculously easy to implement, you’re completely missing the user side of the story." Yes. Similarly: what you don't see is the decision-making, everything that was thrown away.

Monster Hunter's success comes down to its local-only multiplayer, which has been a huge hit in Japan, but less so over here. To promote Freedom Unite, Capcom open a pop-up meeting-space on Charing Cross Road, simply to provide a space for Monster Hunters to congregate. You'll need a PSP to be allowed to enter. I have no idea if this is going to work out, but there's something about the idea – creating public spaces designed for the playing of videogames, together – that I rather like.

"this is good level design." A lovely dissection of a couple of screens from Super Mario Land; detailed, spot-on, carefuly analysis from Anna Anthropy. Amazing what you can do with four types of block.

"Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to." The rest of the quotation is where the magic happens.

In which photographers, or, more likely, their assistants, upload lighting test shots. Some are striking; some are practical; some are made of awesome. Fun!

The last keffiyeh factory in Palestine is going out of business; they're all made in China now. Well done, hipsters!

Recommended by Matt Haughey.

Now that Net Yaroze has closed its doors, Edge catch up with some former Yaroze developers; they have some interesting things to say on the state of games education in particular.

"[Our heroine's] name is Marta Louise Velasquez, and she’s quite possibly the most unpleasant female lead character in the history of gaming. She’s also what makes TD2192 worth remembering." Indeed, I have many. She did not lead a happy life, I'll give Richard that.

"Critical thinking is the key to success!" Professor Layton is on Twitter. Officially. This is good.

why do it? To borrow from the site's About pages: "First, it will help you find shows that others have not only watched, but are talking about. Hopefully it'll throw up a few hidden gems. People's interest, attention and engagement with shows are more important to Shownar than viewing figures; the audience size of a documentary on BBC FOUR, for instance, will never approach that of EastEnders, but if that documentary sparks a lot of interest and comment – even discussion – we want to highlight it. And second, when you've found a show of interest, we want to assist your onward journey by generating links to related discussions elsewhere on the web. In the same way news stories are improved by linking out to the same story on other news sites, we believe shows are improved by connecting them to the wider discussion and their audience." Dan Taylor explains Shownar from the BBC's perspective

"Shownar tracks millions of blogs and Twitter plus other microblogging services, and finds people talking about BBC telly and radio. Then it datamines to see where the conversations are and what shows are surprisingly popular. You can explore the shows at Shownar itself. It’s an experimental prototype we’ve designed and built for the BBC over the last few months. We’ll learn a lot having it in the public eye, and I hope to see it as a key part of discovery and conversation scattered across BBC Online one day." Matt talks about Shownar on Pulse Laser.

"Shownar tracks the online buzz around BBC shows. It's an experimental prototype and we want your feedback." What I've been working on in the first three months at Schulze & Webb, and is now live. Exciting!