Semifat Sediment

links for 2008-12-05

2008-12-05T08:00:55Z

Days Since Cheyenne Mountain Employees Have Been Paid.com

(tags: singleservingsites cheyennemountain gamedev pay)

links for 2008-12-04

2008-12-04T08:01:11Z

Star Wars: A New Heap - Triple Canopy

'Modernization is a disastrous conflation of More and St. John.' And Star Wars saved us from it?

(tags: starwars 2001 art modernism postmodernism minimalism)
iTunes App Store: The First Five Months - O'Reilly Radar

Average price of top apps is falling; there are more free socnet and news apps than paid; gaming is the top category.

(tags: iphone statistics sales free)

links for 2008-12-03

2008-12-03T08:01:01Z

harlem.org

(tags: harlem jazz photos history music)
Raph’s Website » Three pioneers: a historic picture

Richard Bartle (MUD), Randy Farmer (Habitat), and Pavel Curtis (LambaMOO) take a picture together. It's no Great Day in Harlem, but pretty cool.

(tags: photos mud moo habitat bartle farmer curtis virtualworlds)
The Grid System

More than you ever wanted to know about TEH GRIDZ.

(tags: grid rectangle design graphic)

links for 2008-12-01

2008-12-01T08:01:46Z

Helvetireader

Fancy, cool skin for Google Reader.

(tags: google rss reader css)

Tripping over my ego.

2008-11-30T19:39:53Z

I'm wandering through a Half-Price Books in Berkeley, noticing that they sell way too many things that aren't books -- why don't they call it Half-Price Books'n'More? Half-Price Mixed Media? Half-Price Miscellany? Half-Price Books Aren't Enough to Pay the Rent Anymore? Maybe the likes of Barnes & Noble and Borders have just taught everyone to expect music and movies and whatnot from their bookstores. I don't know.

At any rate, some of the half-price things they sell at Half-Price Whatever-you-want are video games; they're mostly boxed versions of casual games that digital cool kids like you and I already downloaded and played through a year ago. One of these games is Diner Dash, which I have fond memories of, since: 1) I really enjoyed it; and 2) I wrote a review of it a long, long time ago. (Well, it feels like a long time ago -- it's been a busy four years.)

Anyway, I'm walking past this "collector's edition" of Diner Dash, and one of the blurbs on the box catches my eye: "A Momentary Escape From Your Dreary 9-5."

"Hey," I think to myself. "That sounds like something I would-- waaaait a minute!" The blurb doesn't just sound like one I would write, but is, in fact, the one I did write for PopMatters.

My words are being used to shill warmed-up video game leftovers. That's kind of awesome!

It makes me think: If I'd gone down a different road four years ago and kept writing about games instead of making them, would I be the Jeffrey Lyons of the gaming industry by now?

links for 2008-11-29

2008-11-29T08:01:29Z

Play Auditorium

Artsy flashy particley puzzle fun.

(tags: games flashgames music)
Agaf Presents - PongOut

Play Pong and BreakOut at the same time.

(tags: pong breakout games)

links for 2008-11-26

2008-11-26T08:02:23Z

SuperTux

Open-source Mario clone with a level editor.

(tags: opensource games diy)
Flowmaps and Frag-Grenades, Part 1 - Boxes and Arrows: The design behind the design

'I’ve met developers that are actively recruiting from traditional software interaction design to take ownership of these features and if you look around you’re starting to see postings for UI designers.'

(tags: interviews nelson halo ixd ux gamedev)
Is Urban Loneliness a Myth? -- New York Magazine

'Cacioppo points out that loneliness isn’t about objective matters, like whether we live alone. It’s about subjective matters, like whether we feel alone.'

(tags: cities psychology urban living)
How to insult in verse. - By Robert Pinsky - Slate Magazine

'...like Paul Engle's epigram on the Duke of Alba as painted by Goya: "This is the kind of face that sheep / Must count at night, when they can't sleep."'

(tags: poetry writing insults)
QWOP

"Control" a runner by lifting his leg muscles.

(tags: flashgames running ragdoll confusion)

links for 2008-11-25

2008-11-25T08:33:29Z

The Screens Issue - If You Liked This, Sure to Love That - Winning the Netflix Prize - NYTimes.com

'Mathematically speaking, “Napoleon Dynamite” is a very significant problem for the Netflix Prize. Amazingly, Bertoni has deduced that this single movie is causing 15 percent of his remaining error rate.'

(tags: netflix statistics movies napoleondynamite recommendations)

links for 2008-11-24

2008-11-24T08:01:56Z

Immersion

'Photographer Robbie Cooper shows just how focused young video-game players can be.'

(tags: video games play focus children face)

links for 2008-11-22

2008-11-22T08:01:05Z

Barack Obama's Edge-Based Organization - John Sviokla

(tags: obama campaign organization working)
Flickr: The The End Pool

Oodles of end title cards from movies.

(tags: end flickr movies images)
Ani Difranco: Hippie Folksinger Invades WSJ Newsroom

Ani shows up where you least expect her.

(tags: difranco wsj performance)

links for 2008-11-21

2008-11-21T08:01:07Z

Oh Shiit

(tags: singleservingsites shit spelling)
Stupid Monsters someone was paid to make = the best job ever.

A bestiary of bad D&D monsters.

(tags: d&d art fantasy)
Protonotes: HTML prototyping collaboration tool.

Embed stickies on web pages for annotating webapp prototypes.

(tags: webdev notes collaboration)

links for 2008-11-20

2008-11-20T08:02:36Z

Google Pulls the Plug On Lively | paidContent.org

Well, that was quick.

(tags: google lively virtualworlds)
Kvetch! Let it out, baby.

It's back! And it runs on Twitter now, natch.

(tags: powazek twitter cranky complaints)
Study Finds Teenagers’ Internet Socializing Isn’t Such a Bad Thing - NYTimes.com

'“Teens usually have a ‘full-time intimate community’ with whom they communicate in an always-on mode via mobile phones and instant messaging,” the study said.'

(tags: teens internet socialmedia macarthur)

links for 2008-11-19

2008-11-19T08:00:48Z

Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Professor Jenkins Goes to Hollywood

Jenkins going to USC; Changes coming to MIT's Comparative Media Studies program?

(tags: jenkins academia media)

links for 2008-11-18

2008-11-18T08:01:41Z

Cooking Mama, The Unauthorized PETA Edition: Mama Kills Animals | PETA.org

Thanksgiving-themed spoof of Cooking Mama. More fun than it has a right to be.

(tags: peta flashgames thanksgiving vegan)
Murder of Transgender Woman Revives Scrutiny - NYTimes.com

'Ms. Johnson sustained a gunshot wound to the head late on Nov. 9, the police said, and officers found her body after responding to a shooting call in North Memphis.'

(tags: hate transgender lgbt)
Somali Pirates Grab Saudi Oil Tanker - NYTimes.com

'The massive supertanker would seem to present a daunting target for the pirates, who usually operate in small speedboats. At 1,080 feet, it is the length of an aircraft carrier and can carry about 2 million barrels of oil.'

(tags: piracy oil)

links for 2008-11-16

2008-11-16T08:01:42Z

Say Goodbye to BlackBerry? If Obama Has to, Yes He Can - NYTimes.com

(tags: presidency obama email panopticon)