Recent posts (page 6)
Company letters
Today I read two letters written by companies which impressed me.
The first is by Kickstarter. Some asshole was trying to raise money to produce a “seduction guidebook” which advocated sexual assault of women, and though many people asked Kickstarter to cancel the project before the funding period completed, they didn’t. Then today they wrote a (seemingly) sincere letter of apology to their users, and by way of compensation have donated $25,000 to RAINN, an anti-sexual assault organisation.
Mail link to current Safari page in Mac OS 10.8 with a keyboard shortcut
In Mac OS 10.8 Mountain Lion, Apple removed the Email link to this page option in Safari, replacing it with Share > Email this page, which places the entire contents of the page into the email, images and all.
Sometimes this isn’t what you want, though. Sometimes just a link is best.
I’ve written a short AppleScript to perform the old “just a link” function, and will explain how to make it run from within Safari using a customisable key command.
Curiosity
Oh this? Just a film of landing on Mars.
PS. If you haven’t seen NASA’s “Seven Minutes of Terror” video, it’s worth checking out. Those folks are crazy.
Aural Architecture
In the past few years there have been released a handful of indie games which share a kind of common form and aesthetic, one that strikes a chord with me. This design space is represented in my mind by Kairo, and the upcoming Fract and NaissanceE, though it contains many more.
The quality these games have in common is use a first-person perspective and an experience based around architecture and soundscapes, working in concert to elicit some aesthetic or emotional response.
Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: first video is out
Clint Hocking: "Dynamics: The State of the Art"
Clint Hocking’s talks are always interesting, but this is a particularly fascinating one from the GDC 2011.
Workshop on Algebra, Coalgebra and Topology
I’m a local organiser for the Workshop on Algebra, Coalgebra and Topology (part of the Wessex Theory Seminar) which will be held at the University of Bath on March 1st 2013. More details on that page to which I just linked. Email me if you’d like to attend (registration is free). Proceedings will be published in ENTCS if enough people submit.
Y♥︎LO
To my friends who have sleeve tattoos, gauged ears or drawn-on moustaches, please don’t take this seriously <3
Squowl
Real Myst book
This makes me pretty happy. Mike Ando has created a real, working Myst linking book.
Well, actually it’s a Myst-playing PC inside a hollowed-out book identical to the original Myst book, but it’s still gorgeous.
I am a lifelong fan of Cyan Worlds’ Myst games, especially the first two. They occupy a special, formative part of my mind.
Something else which I am excited about, but which I have yet to fully investigate is Mystcraft, a Minecraft mod which allows players to create linking books and write descriptive books and use them to travel between worlds. That seems to rank among the best ideas.
