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'The [On Language] columns, many collected in books, made him an unofficial arbiter of usage, and one of the most widely read writers on language. It also tapped into the lighter side of the dour-looking Mr. Safire: a Pickwickian quibbler who gleefully pounced on gaffes, inexactitudes, neologisms, misnomers, solecisms and perversely peccant puns, like “The President’s populism and the First Lady’s momulism.”'
links for 2009-09-28
links for 2009-09-26
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'Taking an old game, sometimes long forgotten, sometimes popular and updating it. It’s the sort of thing that can only really, truly be done for the love of it. You’d have to be crazy otherwise.'
links for 2009-09-23
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'Clearly many, many games have some random elements, and some are highly luck-dependent, and yet people continue to play them. What really is the role of randomness in games, and how can designers work to harness it to beneficial effect?'
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Bay area map porn.
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'This is the original syslog. It's one of those thread-bound kids' class notebooks, and it contains the run-time log of John Von Neumann's programmable computer from Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study.'
links for 2009-09-22
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BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos takes the prize.
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August 13, 2010. Mark it.
links for 2009-09-21
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'It has the approachability that good videogames have (savegames, hints, achievements, etc), combined with the immersion, story, and engagement of a good ARG. Crucially, it simulates the internet. If you want to illustrate the threats, dangers and opportunities of life online, there is no better way than this.'
links for 2009-09-18
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Sounds like it was basically a presentation of their org chart. Good to know, not sorry I missed it.
links for 2009-09-17
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"Machine learning techniques are really difficult to handle for complicated (or even real-life) problems, and that's why games can be an ideal step between academic toy example and real-life application."
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The first games journalism? Also note the section where Brand discovers personal computing.
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'In mid-2009 we had to make a tough call – support this game which wasn't growing or monetizing fast enough. Or shut down PMOG/The Nethernet so we would have more resources to move forward with other projects. We shut down the Nethernet in August, and in September, GameLayers launched Dictator Wars, a casual RPG game on Facebook.'
links for 2009-09-15
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'In one segment, layoffs hit Sesame Street and Elmo’s parents struggle to make ends meet. Somehow it really sinks in how awful it is out there, especially when you remember that one in six workers is unemployed or underemployed. This is what’s going on in many a household right now, and this hour of TV was more revealing than a hundred tossed-off job-numbers stories.'
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'Ms. Lee is using a fortune she made in real estate to try to take the [Hangul] alphabet to places where native peoples lack indigenous written systems to record their languages.'
links for 2009-09-10
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Well, that was quick.