Category: Links

“If it’s true that more than half the world’s peo­ple orga­nize them­selves in cities, then it’s our respon­si­bil­i­ty to under­stand and pay atten­tion to the wild and unman­aged plants that grow up all around us.” Curi­ous dis­cus­sion of the need to recon­sid­er the way we per­ceive weeds or inva­sive species.

“…our eco­nom­ic and social ‘adja­cent pos­si­ble’ appears to now include com­plete economies and social struc­tures deliv­ered as soft­ware ser­vice…” Since I am des­per­ate­ly look­ing for ways we might rein­vent how we mea­sure val­ue, this is of some inter­est. Via Alper.

“It’s a tool to help you do some­thing. That notion led to the thought that mechan­i­cal­ly-realised sto­ries – the kind that movies can’t real­ly ever tell, and the kind that games are invari­ably best at – are a kind of nar­ra­tive exoskele­ton.” Games as tools instead of media, that’s what it’s all about.

“We need to ques­tion any ”real­i­ty that presents itself as natural”and that includes some­thing as appar­ent­ly innocu­ous as Google.” An exam­i­na­tion of the rhetoric under­ly­ing Google’s seam­ing­ly neu­tral tech, and the new fron­tier of pol­i­tics that is the internets.

Most­ly of inter­est for its account of the game’s origins.

“…the idea of appro­pri­ate tech­nol­o­gy and alter­na­tive design: that needs to come back big time.” An inter­view with Kim Stan­ley Robin­son in which (among many things) the fol­lies of cur­rent think­ing on ‘sus­tain­able’ technology.

“There’s this idea that they are the agents of change, the true rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies, where the rev­o­lu­tion­ary change is to … make exclu­sive the plea­sures that had poten­tial­ly belonged to any­one in the past, to cel­e­brate the upwards redis­tri­b­u­tion of wealth.” A descrip­tion of the ori­gins of the hip­ster, as well as thoughts on why they elic­it as much hatred as they do. I am prob­a­bly a lit­tle guilty of this behav­iour myself at times.

This essay argues that 4chan’s /b/ is a prime exam­ple of a new form of art some call rela­tion­al aes­thet­ics. I found the exam­i­na­tion of the mAR­BLE CAKE ALSO THE GAME raid to be the most inter­est­ing part, remind­ing me of the ludic hap­pen­ings of the 50ies, but on steroids.

The author argues that to cling to Jacob’s roman­tic ide­al of the vibrant urban neigh­bour­hood is futile in the face of long term eco­nom­ic development.

I keep dig­ging up fas­ci­nat­ing fac­toids about this strange Chi­nese city. Here’s anoth­er one, about vil­lage-like nodes with­in the city limits.

“I do hope that we always have peo­ple around us remind­ing us to nev­er take the inter­nets too seri­ous­ly.” Danah Boyd makes a con­vinc­ing argu­ment that the folks at 4chan are hack­ing the atten­tion econ­o­my, sim­i­lar to how old school hack­ers were chal­leng­ing secu­ri­ty systems.

Pret­ty proud of the fact that Dutch games stu­dio Ranj have won yet anoth­er award. They keep bring­ing it, and don’t shy away from nov­el formats.

Not a bad list of things to live up to as a busi­ness. I think Hub­bub is in pret­ty good shape when it comes to these.

“the most cre­ative envi­ron­ments allow for repeat­ed fail­ure”. Fail ear­ly, fail often. Idea scaf­fold­ing. We know these things and by the looks of things after these two books the whole world will, too.

A pret­ty impres­sive tour of the mech­a­nisms behind mul­ti­play­er games. The point about almost any game being mul­ti­play­er in some sense is a wel­come one, too.

“sev­er­al fac­tors sug­gest that the impulse to make life as excit­ing as a game is not with­out a cer­tain naivety” A dis­cus­sion of a curi­ous per­va­sive game with some good insight into the issues sur­round­ing every­day real­i­ty with games.

“sub­tract­ing an hour from the life of anoth­er human being isn’t to be tak­en light­ly. It’s almost vio­lent. It’s cer­tain­ly inva­sive. Shared cal­en­dars are ves­sels you fill by tak­ing things away from oth­er peo­ple” Hav­ing to com­bine being an entre­peneur with being a design­er, mak­ing sure enough time is avail­able for cre­ative cycles is a real challenge.

‘De mon­di­ale cri­sis dicteert ons onze lev­enswan­del. We moeten ons lev­en daad­w­erke­lijk veran­deren, nieuwe lev­ensvor­men ontwikke­len, deel­ne­men aan ecol­o­gis­che en economis­che zelfhulpprogramma’s. We kun­nen niet anders dan “doen”. Of het ons nu bevalt of niet, dat speelt geen rol meer.’ An inter­est­ing inter­view with philoso­pher Peter Slo­ter­dijk on the social effects of the glob­al cri­sis. I cer­tain­ly iden­ti­fy with the feel­ing of impend­ing doom urg­ing one to prag­mat­ic action, or prac­tice as Slo­ter­dijk calls it.

“The Evap­o­ra­tive Cool­ing Effect … occurs when the most high val­ue con­trib­u­tors to a com­mu­ni­ty real­ize that the com­mu­ni­ty is no longer serv­ing their needs any more and so there­fore, leave.” Inter­est­ing obser­va­tion. I recog­nise the behav­iour from my own expe­ri­ences. It is some­thing I think we have instinc­tive­ly man­aged to avert for This hap­pened — Utrecht using sev­er­al mech­a­nisms. But in oth­er cas­es I might need to pay spe­cial atten­tion not to fall in its trap.