"‫قلب‬ is a simple, Scheme-like programming language that you code entirely in Arabic. It is an exploration of the impact of human culture on computer science, the role of tradition in software engineering, and the connection between natural and computer languages." Somebody asked me at Four Thought about non-English programming languages, and I had to explain there really weren't many/any. This is a nice counterpoint, though it's as much a statement as a practical tool, I guess. Still: it's a statement about the thing I explained to the audience member.

A really nice look at how to play fighting games, starting with the urtext – Super Turbo – and the ur-character – Ryu – and breaking apart the entire game as a reaction to Ryu's skillset. It's a variation on what I blather about when I blather about the design of fighting games, which I do a lot.

"It was like graduate school, art school, and business school all rolled into one and I feel ready to explore in some new directions. For the moment, that means catching up on things: sleep, books, hacking and design projects, exercise, regular blogging, and more. Soon, it will mean looking at new possibilities. For the moment, I don’t know what awaits me in the after but if you’re up for lunch I’m probably game." What a nine years, though. Well done, Mike. I look forward to what happens next.

Physical artefacts that respond as expected to touchscreen gestures.

"Araucaria… has 18 down of the 19, which is being treated with 13 15". How very, very sad; what a way of telling the world.

"The problem of writing is always the problem of who you were, always the problem of who to be next. It is a game of catch-up, of understanding that what you’re failing to write could only be written by who you used to be. Who you are now should be writing something else: what, you won’t know until you try."

All very beautiful, but I like "Down and Out…" best.

"In September and October I did a short pottery course at Brighton's Painting Pottery Cafe – six evenings, once a week." Rod has been potting, and this is a lovely piece of writing about materials, and how they feel in the hand. Also: I think Rod is probably better at this than I'd be.

"…nothing really gets older online; the only aging of things here comes from the erosive force of changing human sensibilities. The black of that North Face jacket looks just as black, but the point of wearing it has faded a little. Here there is only the appearance of getting older because everything else has gotten much newer. The pixels do not outwardly become worn. They are like grains of sand. If one is destroyed, it’s too small for us to know it’s been annihilated. And there is so much sand."

"I wonder if there’s a business to be gotten into where one shows movies the way everyone wants to see them: just the movies, from the very first second you start watching. It’s a naive thought; I understand that. But I can’t forget that when those lights went down, when that screen went up, and when that twangy riff kicked in, there were audible gasps and cheers in the audience, and someone behind me yelled out “whoa, awesome!” I want to believe that there’s a business to be gotten into that capitalizes on “whoa, awesome”."

Stewart Lee's dark, self-referential Christmas tale from this year, for the New Statesman.

"In other words, the more packages you send at once, the shittier job FedEx does of delivering each of them, with each package getting less and less of a delivery attempt. And the limit actually approaches zero, which means that if you somehow send me infinity packages through FedEx, they will not even knock on my door. They will take the infinity dollars and run. I did honestly not intend today to use math to prove precisely how bad FedEx is at delivering packages, but, um, here we are?" I love Ryan North.

Lasercut contour maps of what's underwater. Gorgeous.

"Xtreme Mapping 1.4 is an advanced editor of MIDI controller mappings for Native Instruments' Traktor DJ software." I'm always amazed how bad Traktor's mapping editor is, given how much you can do; this looks like a powerful way to build more complex mappings.