2011 January❮❮prevnext❯❯

--via

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I've just been playing Grand Theft Auto. I crashed into someone. I couldn't find the "Exchange insurance details" button. Very frustratiing.

--via"Charming" is the word for it! I dig it. Kinda wanted to see the ying-yang bubble though. Also I wonder what kind of bubble formula he is using...

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To this day it makes me sad that Outlook thinks a copy and pasted URL should carry font information too. (and why Times New Roman? The browser displayed it in something sans-serif, the default font for my message is Arial...)

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Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk - real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious.

--love the spacing and comic timing of the action in this. via

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computer programming is moments of triumph surrounded by hours of the computer telling you you're an idiot

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Harboring new doubts about MBTA bag bomb residue search-they missed that my bag was packed with ATOMIC fireballs! (Christmas gift from mom)

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/weekinreview/02parkerpope.html - NY Times on sustaining romantic love.

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Trying the rotated 90 degrees "tallscreen, not widescreen" thing. A bit vertiginous but you can see a lot of code at once.

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In theory I should care about HTML tricks that work in practice but not in theory (like putting a div inside an a href link tag.) In practice I probably won't. From Tom Bissell's essay "The Unbearable Lightness of Games":

I wrote in my essay that art is "obligated to address questions allergic to mere entertainment... In my humble estimation, no video game has yet crossed the Rubicon from entertainment to true art." Here I was trying to say that what distinguishes one work of art from another is primarily intelligence, which is as multivalent as art itself. Artistic or creative intelligence can express itself formally, stylistically, emotionally, thematically, morally, or any number of ways. Works of art we call masterpieces typically run the table on the many forms artistic intelligence can take: They are comprehensively intelligent. This kind of intelligence is most frequently apparent in great works of art created by individuals. Unity of artistic effect is something human beings have learned to respond to, and for obvious reasons this is best achieved by individual artists. Many games--which are, to be sure, corporate entertainments created by dozens of people with a strong expectation of making a lot of money--have more formal and stylistic intelligence than they know what to do with and not even trace amounts of thematic, emotional, or moral intelligence. One could argue that these games succeed as works of art in some ways and either fail or do not succeed in others. "True" art makes the attempt to succeed in every way available to it. At least, I think so.

That essay is in his book "Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter". I noted that this was exactly what I was getting at with my "Theory of Multiple Intelligences for Art".

Overall Bissell does a good job explaining some things about narratology vs ludology -- the story of the game vs the play of the game.

Stories are about time passing and narrative progression. Games are about challenge, which frustrates the passing of time and impedes narrative progression. The story wants to go forward and the "friction force" of challenge tries to hold the story back.

I liked this parenthetical aside:

Even forms of creative expression that do include story use it in a way that leaves no doubt that the real art is happening elsewhere, as in, say, opera.

Anyway, he points out the obvious truth that few other forms have a mechanic: a novel doesn't have to explain the first chapter explaining how it should be read. (Though I can think of some art installations that do.) Still, it's the idea of having a mechanic, a novel interaction, that makes me love games, and excited about making my own.

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http://www.slate.com/id/2279920/ -Wow. Teapartiers understand their fetish object The Constitution as little as most Fundies know the Bible.

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Still, it can get lonely. One of the perks of the job is that I get to use the mini-wormhole generator in my unit for personal purposes, so long as any distortions I create in the fabric of space-time are completely reversible. I modified it slightly to pry open really tiny temporary quantum windows into other universes, through which I am able to spy on my alternate selves. I've seen thirty-nine of them, these varieties of me, and about thirty-five of them seem like total jerks. I guess I've come to terms with that, with what it probably means. If 89.7 percent of the other versions of you are assholes, chances are you aren't exactly Mr. Personality yourself.

(so far a nice blend of Italo Calvino and "Einstein's Dreams", with a 50's sci-fi flavor as well.)

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http://trunc.it/dmhtq - I like how Starbucks logos gradually use zoom to mask that - dude, it's a mermaid spreading her tails for you!

--thanks JZ! (Some of the lyrics a tad racy) Besides some of the basic sounds the guy makes, its a kinda fascinating study in how to layer tracks, I might try to take a few cues from it.

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Obama has it much worse than Reagan 'cause 4 years of Carter and the was a lot better than 8 of Bush and the Neocons... Time for my 11th annual summary of the books, movies, and games I took in over the past year.

I realized I changed the meaning of one of my categorizations. This year marked a continuation of me not really watching movies on broadcast or cable TV along with the rediscovery of Netflix streaming, and the ability it provides to catch up on entire tv series. So my "tv" category switched from "movie on HBO or Pay-Per-View" to "one season of an entire series".

Also, rather than using my old "recommended" checkbox, I switched to a rating of 1-4 stars. 1 means I resent the time it took from me (marked here in gray), 2 is pleasantly neutral, 3 is I'd recommend it (marked with italics), 4 is it should count as one of my favorites of this and any year (marked in red).

Movies at the Cinema (14)
It's Complicated, Alice in Wonderland, An Education, More Joel on Software, Bridget Jones 2: The Edge of Reason, How to Train Your Dragon, Iron Man 2, Inception, Despicable Me, The Other Guys, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, The Social Network, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Tron: Legacy

No 4-stars in theaters, but some decent films. "Scott Pilgrim" was probably the standout.

Movies on Video (57)
Year One, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Amelie, The Brothers Bloom, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen:, Paper Heart, Better Than Sex, Boogie Nights, Meaning of Life, Voices of a Distant Star , Sex and Lucia, Clerks, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Temple Grandin, Tron, Whip It, Adam, Twilight, Push, Kinsey, Cashback, Fired Up, The Girlfriend Experience, Mary and Max, The Fifth Element, Intimate Strangers, Annie Hall, 9 Songs, Secretary, XXY, Wall*E, Saved!, Coraline, Leon:The Professional, The Big Chill, Spirited Away, Strictly Sexual, Mean Girls, Sculpture, Chloe, Hard Candy, Clash of the Titans, 300, Twilight: New Moon (RiffTrax), Superstar, Delta of Venus, Dead Snow, TiMER, Eyes Wide Shut, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Valmont, The Italian Job, The Fast and the Furious, Match Point, Speed Racer, Real Genius, Ten Things I Hate About You

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being" and "Amelie" were well-known favorites. "Temple Grandin" was an awesome HBO documentary about an amazing woman. "Cashback" was sweet and sexy if a tad creepy, a fun and romantic "what if" about science fictional powers. "Speed Racer" was just a perfect kinetic visual feast. (Thanks for recommending it Bill!

TV Shows (11)
Caprica, Lost Season 6, Office Season 1, The Office: Season 2, Futurama Season 1, Top Chef Season 7, The IT Crowd: Season 2, The Office Season 3, The Office Season 4, The Office Season 5, Tipping the Velvet

Again no 4-stars, but I've really been enjoying catching up with "The Office" with Amber.

Books (59)
How to be Idle, A Long Way Down, F My Life, Made in America, The Gospel According to Science Fiction, Me of Little Faith, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, Mindscan, The World I Live In, Fluke, Coders at Work, The Ape in Me, Look Me in the Eye, Born Standing Up, Tough, Tough Toys For Tough, Tough Boys, Intimate Adventures of an Office Girl, Peterman Rides Again, You Are Not a Gadget, Waiting, Come to Me, In the Merde for Love, Buddhism Without Beliefs, Little Brother, Time: Secret Societies, 100 Best Beatles Song, I Shouldn't Even Be Doing This, The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes, The Glen Rock Book of the Dead, Too Cool to Get Married, Permutation City, Danny: The Champion of the World, Designing Interactions, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, HTML5 for Web Designers, Anathem, Disquiet, Please!, The Playboy Book, No One Belongs Here More Than You, How the Mind Works, Guys & Dolls, The Subterraneans, One-Night Stands with American History, Look at the Birdie, Sh*t My Dad Says, Pontoon, Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in ALL of Us, Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me, Retro Gamer Collection Vol.4, jQuery Cookbok, How To Be Inappropriate, Predictably Irrational, Constellation Games, A Guide To The Good Life. {the ancient art of stoic joy), Self-Therapy, Dr. C. Wacko's Miracle Guide to Designing and Programming Atari Computer Arcade Games, Dr. C. Wacko Presents: Atari BASIC & The Whiz-Bang Miracle Machine, Vintage Games, Room, Dear Friends: American Photographs of Men Together, 1840-1918

"Permutation City" is an old favorite, an out of print but brilliant set of thought experiments about what a virtual life could really mean... "How To Be Inappropriate" is just plain funny, "Constellation Games" is a book by Leonard I got the rare privilege or reviewing a draft of and making suggestions on. I've already expounded on the stoic treatise "A Guide to the Good Life" and my love of "Atari BASIC & The Whiz-Bang Miracle Machine".

Comics (21)
Exit Wounds, The Fart Party Vol. 2, Y: The Last Man, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Delayed Replays, 1001 Mad Pages You Must Read Before You Die, Students for a democratic Society: a graphic history, XXXenophile Vol.5, Lego Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary, GI Joe vs The Transformers, Logicomix, The Force Unleashed, MAD about Star Wars, Memories, It Is Folly To Assume My Awesome Lies Dormant, The Three Paradoxes, Empowered 6, The Lodger, Tron: Betrayal, Inbound 4: History of Boston, Inbound 5: The Food Issue

"It Is Folly To Assume My Awesome Lies Dormant", Mincing Mockingbird's odd juxtaposition of well-done bird paintings and odd captions, was something I found at The Decordova. "The Lodger" is by Karl Stevens - I love his realistic style and slice-of-life approach, even if his way of drawing thought balloons makes me think people are farting.

Video Game (11)
Redder, Redder, eBoy FixPix, Transformers: War for Cybertron, Red Remover, Tron, Starfox 64, Tron, Peggle, Peggle Nights, Super Scribblenauts

I got to playtest Auntie Pixelante's Redder and it is great retro play with intriguing philosophical overtones. "Tron" for the iPhone is the best tank game I've played in a long while. "Super Scribblenauts" is just crazily empowering... being able to write almost anything you can think of and have it appear, adjectives and all, is just a pinnacle of gaming.

Honorable Mention: Since we only play like one level at a time, I never offically record Left for Dead 2 but I'm pretty sure I've gotten through all the levels with my buds online...

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http://www.slate.com/id/2280249/ -it's easier to wrap yourself in the Constitution when you get to pick and choose which parts you like, eh?

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A static document is a fossil of thought.

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Just learned shift-Win-M reverses Win-M ('M'inimize All). But I was using Win-D (Show 'D'esktop) which doesn't shift reverse. Grr. (That's one of the fewish UI things OSX does better - its "Show Desktop" key is a toggle, just hit it again to get your windows back.)
I now have something that can, I think, fairly be called "a beard" (albeit one that's clipped fairly short.)

It's kind of tough changing my self-image to match this. Like, these eyes I'm looking through are looking over a bunch of facial hair.

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At the Boston Gaming HTML5 Tools Jam. Not To be confused with a jam for tools. I hope. #html5jam #html5jam -sad lessons learned: processing.js can't do inheritance, collections, good framerates (except for chrome), or good error messages

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#html5jam happy lesson learned: for CW rotation of square size "s", stuff at new (x,y) comes from (y,s-x-1) CCW: (s-y-1,x) Mirror:(s-x-1,y)

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#html5jam happy lessons learned "chrome.exe --allow-file-access-from-files" lets chrome ajax open local files.
from Tom the Dancing Bug Bob's Adventure Through Time. Years ago I printed out these panels for use as cubicle art... I just love the realization that yeah, in the 1700s Sprite would seem pretty amazing. (from GoComic's surprisingly deep archive - glad I didn't have to rely on Salon.com for this.)

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http://www.boingboing.net/2011/01/08/youtube-videos-of-ar.html So the shooter's nutiness may transcend violent rightwing bombast- but I still think having this kind of nut around argues against concealed carry.
Yikes! Puts tonight's expected extreme snow in perspective...

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Some days the god damn red and green lines are gonna make one of Those People randomly swearing, seemingly at nothing.
via. Wow. I hope there's hope.

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Playing the Snowpocalypse News Report Drinking Game. For example, every time a reporter touches snow to show you how snowy it is, drink.

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http://tracystoys.blogspot.com/2010/05/1947-lone-ranger-atomic-bomb-ring.html - coolest cereal box giveaway toy ever (scroll down)

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http://www.cracked.com/article_18417_the-lighter-side-dark-side-5-villains-who-were-good.html - liked the Wicked Witch and Sauron views.

Baked beans,
Butter beans,
Big fat lima beans,
Long thing string beans--
Those are just a few.
Green beans,
Black beans,
Big fat kidney beans,
Red hot chili beans,
Jumping beans too.
Pea beans,
Pinto beans,
Don't forget shelly beans.
Last of all, best of all,
I like jelly beans!

My dad and I had that memorized when I was a kid.
A lot more class than "beans beans the musical fruit"!

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Rumors that future iDevices might lose the physical home button-that sounds really dumb; 4 finger swipes too difficult in too many edge cases

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The B in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stands for Benoit B. Mandelbrot.

In the future, time travel and simple "disguise devices" have both become commonplace and affordable to the middle class.

Resultantly, the past, OUR time, is full of slightly odd-looking people, stopping us in the street and telling us NOT to do things.

The laws and philosophy of time travel discouraged direct statements of instruction, so the odd-looking people talked around things.

It was never "Do not marry Sam," It was an oddly-familiar stranger cornering you in a room and angrily listing Sam's weak points.

The past (us) long ago figured out time travel was inevitable, solely due to the interferences of these well-meaning future-selves.

You couldn't eat lunch without three future-yous attempting oblique advice-drops, which you spurned out of spite, changing nothing.

I wish I had such coherent sci-fi stories in my dreams!

(She also draws the alt-history webcomic Templar, AZ)

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Remember, with great power comes OH MY GOD! LOOK AT ME! THIS IS AWESOME! WOOO! YEAH! IN YOUR FACE, REGULAR PEOPLE!

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http://is.gd/gWel1M - The war on Kinder Eggs. We are such a damn nanny state. Kinder Eggs are terrific.
I am part of Team "Left As An Exercise for the Reader" for the 2011 MIT Mystery Hunt. Here I am dressed as the Left Pong Bat in "Pong", who is in turn in a pirate costume (you can tell by my sword and how my Pong Ball is dressed up as a parrot. I am accompanied by Elaine who is dressed as the Sunflower from "Plants vs Zombies" who is in a pirate costume, you can tell by the eyepatch. --It's tough to think of a new heart doodle for the Love Blender every month, but Amber suggested a snow globe (after a snowflake, which didn't work out so well. And after a snowbank which would have been really tough to make heart-ish.) She also pointed out the snow bits in the thing shouldn't have an outline.

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Deluxe Town Diner has a lovely train station companion in Newton Centre; only place I know to get, say, tall order of pancakes and a sloe gin fizz...

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Truth is, everybody is gonna hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.

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New Blender of Love Digest is here!

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Bad game for the Pats, congrats Jets. Ah well a time to "practice equanimity in success and failure" - which sounds LOSER TALK- and it is - but not untrue.
--via bb where they also have creepy reversed and slowed versions.

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At the New England Mobile Fair (Not mobile, nor a fair) got "Dread & Superficiality" about the Woody Allen comic strip. Intriguing format for the persona...
--via

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Just noticed XP's taskbar has an odd nod to Fitts' Law; if the mouse is on border at edge or corner, a click nudges the mouse to hit the button. (Though I still think "Fitts' Law" type analysis tends to neglect cognitive load issues.)

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My desk at work! Rockin' the Vertical Second Monitor, Bonus Baby Third, and Sea Monkeys.

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"The moon is lovely tonight."
"So are you."
"So perfect. So bright."
"So are you."
"Yet so distant and cold."
...
"Well?"
"I don't suppose the moon will come back to my place tonight, either."

I AM...


Just a little test of concept prototype I made during planning... I think it's a fun alternative to the usual boring dropdown box.

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The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

via Bill the Splut. The video is a commercial, but a fun one, and a bit of thinking outside the box...

UPDATE 2019: the link ( https://www.youtube.com/embed/mhepxtZR6tM ) died. Not sure if this was the same thing or not.
--I really liked Steve Jackson's "OGRE" boardgame back in the day, even if it seemed unbalanced -- at least the way my friends and I played. The game is about a GIANT automated tank rolling through more conventional forces to demolish their HQ... I think the non-OGRE side could shoot the treads off and win consistently.(via)

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http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/01/the_20_best_nic.php - 20 best mafia nicknames in the recent bust.

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See? Life is FULL of meaning... but so is an eviction notice.

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I've got to get a new broom.
As I sweep with this one, the straw drops out, and I have to sweep it up, and more straw drops out, and...
-on second thought maybe I'll keep it.
It's a perfect expression of the meaning of life.

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I used to think humans were worms in a cosmic plan.
Then I remembered, that in the final analysis-
-the worms win.

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http://is.gd/JWCtog - it's not about being right, just progressively less wrong. This is why science is better than fundamentalism.

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Last night I led a discussion at my UU "Science and Spirituality" group on William Irvine's Stoicism Book "A Guide to the Good Life". One woman who had previously flustered me by asking "would you please finish a sentence?" (meaning she was having trouble following my rambling mode of talk, how I can tend to jam my parenthetical asides in too early and then wend my way back) said I was much improved that night; I admit her original comment kind of irked me, but I took it a bit to heart and tried to improve, but I was still surprised (as was she!) that there was a noticeable improvement, and it was lovely of her to mention the change.
--Only watched 2/3 of this so far, but I'm knocked over by the sense of history, the subtle backdrop of Phillip Glass, the video quality on the iPad (try this full screen), the intriguing old footage, and seeing old veterans like Fred "The Mythical Man Month" Brooks.

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Just had Amber guide me in the making of pancakes with blueberry sauce! Nice. I will slowly gain something resembling kitchen competence.

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Tried the "Texas Roadhouse" in Everett- always wondered about it there in the middle of the plaza. Turns out it's kinda corny (think "Outback Steakhouse" but Texas) but has really tasty robust food cheap. Plus they start with a bucket of peanuts on table.
--A still from last entry's IBM Centennial video -- these were some of the final candidates for the UPC. I'd love to know more about the physical characteristics of some of these like, especially the circular ones. Also the font on that one (probably meant to be characters that are machine readable, like with checks) is intriguing. I know the normal UPC code has some cool properties so it can be read either way.

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The poet has really only two themes and they are Eros and Thanatos and if he lives long enough and thinks hard enough he becomes aware that they are interchangeable or that there is a beneficent tension between them.

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Maannamit.

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Watching Steelers whipping the Jets. It's only halftime but I'm building up a theory - any given Sunday can go your way if you have enough emotion and charge, but you're liable to get trounced the next week.
via madamluna

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http://www.slate.com/id/2281854/ - the power of precommitment

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Aww, RIP Jack LaLanne. I'm still tempted to buy his juicer.

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http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/ - not really that difficult!
I got a new touchscreen USB-powered monitor for work. This was my first doodles with it, to test it out.

For personal reasons I'm a little annoyed that it's name is the "iMo Mini-Monster".

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Odd Fundies don't seem to talk more about the Ascension of Jesus- maybe it's the weirdness of 'Heaven is Up Above' and you can fly there...

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http://www.avclub.com/articles/15-things-kurt-vonnegut-said-better-than-anyone-el,1858/ - great Vonnegut Quotes
--Got a little nostalgic the other day when I put this old tape of music from Star Lake Musicamp 1990 into MP3. I found this Youtube bit of a more recent rendition of "Star Lake March" there... a kind of fun and rousing bit. Around 1:20 you see one of the odder Salvation Army traditions (err along side the pseudo-paramilitary uniforms and British-style brass bands) "the Timbrels" -- tambourines shaken in choreographed routines, often to marches.

Around 2:08 the "chorus" kicks in, the title of today's entry. (In looking up some of the lyrics it seems that they've shifted over the years, or maybe I just didn't hear them rightly.)

Coming soon: the even more exciting "Pep Song".

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Someday there will be regular timely service out of Park Street on the Green Line. This is not that morning. Neither was yesterday.

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And that PSA about 18 yr old drivers and txting? Super-relevant, thanks #mbta. At least a real commercial might bring some funds...

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Ah well. The semi-brisk walk through frigid morning air can put some color in my cheeks. Lord knows I have enough cheek to go around.

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We need not destroy the past. It is gone.

So, 1990 Star Lake Musicamp... this track made it on the "Highlights" tape. It's Anita Cocker Hunt doing some light hazing of that year's special guests Ron + Janette Smart, the old friendly hazing of "learn the pep song or we'll toss you in the lake..." (I kind of doubt they'd ever carry through with that, actually.)

11_star_lake_pep_song_full.mp3, ~4Mb
I'm on the track too (they call me by my middle name "Logan" because I went by that for a bit in middle school, and it stuck for years after in church) providing tuba beat box. What can I say, it was barely the 90s. (I remember being a little annoyed that the percussionists felt the need to help me out, but hey, all together now.)

Here's just the Pep song, which is the track I'll probably actually add to next season's playlist:


11_star_lake_pep_song_just.mp3, ~1Mb
The Pep Song was pretty fun, with the purposefully offkey "HARMONY", the big brass and syncopated clapping in the bridge section, and the jumping up on the chair for the second half (that's what's going on when everyone starts screaming a bit.)

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If a man understands one woman he should let it go at that.

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How many dead do you have to see in a war before you know it is Death you are fighting for?

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Did you know that before the Civil Rights Act the components of the Oreo were sold separately? Every time I eat one I proclaim that it is change I can believe in.

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Random Plug: really digging our new Philips Sonicare toothbrushes. Breaking the 2 minute runtime into 4 parts makes brushing "long enough" easy. The way they kind of "sing" as they vibrate is odd at first but grows on you.
via Bill the Splut
Making the rounds for it is awesome. Despite the Russian overdub.

It's kind of what I wanted the Matrix sequels to be.

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An everything bagel really is "everything" if you realize it's a bagel surrounded by and attached to the universe. You just eat the center.

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http://www.globalgamejam.org -- Just a few hours 'til I start my third "Global Game Jam", this year I'm back to MIT/Gambit. Gonna join a team and make up a game in 48 hours!
what's kirk been
up to this weekend?

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When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

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It's kind of awesome being the sole programmer for a well-scoped gamejam game, bringing team member's ideas to actuality...

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I like to make games the way I like to watch movies -- on my ass.

To view this content, you need to install Java from java.com
sredavni - source - built with processing
My 2011 Global Game Jam game. I had a great team.
Thanks MIT/Gambit labs!
Satellite photo of the USA from today. That's quite the snow cloud. fullsize at NASA.

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I deny the allegation, and I defy the alligators.

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The barman says, 'We don't serve time travellers in here.'
A time traveller walks into a bar.

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[Games] are complex, rusty machines built to show us that the world is so much bigger and weirder than we expected.

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Note to self: keep workdesk's Sea-Monkeys to the left, not on the side where you tend to keep your soda, water, or iced-tea.

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http://is.gd/di9kke "Largest Nev. casinos lose $3.4B during fiscal 2010" -- guess the house doesn't always win after all...

2011 January❮❮prevnext❯❯