Clubberjack's Unfocused Ramblings

A New Home for Clubberjack

This blog is now located at www.clubberjack.net. Enjoy!

posted by Clubberjack @ 11:47 PM 0 comments

Art I would like to collect

I have a small collection of artwork, some pieces made by artist friends, some bought at various street fairs or shows (and some of my own work as well). I would like to expand my collection, and there are a few artists whose work I've seen online that I would love to purchase from. Here's a few of my favorites:

• Mike Libby's Insects
  I like the spiders, cicadas, and beetles.
• Lockwasher Design
  Beautiful retro robots and rayguns made of recycled parts.
• Audrey Kawasaki's Paintings
  I really like the one with the octopus arms.
• El Rey
  I've bought work from El Rey before, but never for myself. His krylographs are pretty cool.
  
• James Jean
  I came to Jean through his work on the covers for the Fables series. His Recess prints are quite striking.
  

posted by Clubberjack @ 12:25 PM 0 comments

Getting it Wrong (the price of security)

Perhaps you've heard about the brouhaha surrounding the bomb scare in Boston. You know, the one set off by magnetic LED graffiti that was part of a marketing campaign (and so on...).

What I think is lost in all of the rush to assign blame (on all sides) is that this is the cost of having a bomb squad. Bomb squads get called in on false alarms all the time (like this). Sometimes you get it wrong. What happened in Boston was simply a false alarm; someone mistook an object for a bomb. Everyone clamoring for lawsuits against Cartoon Network or decrying the overreaction of Boston officials needs to step back and remember that there's no point in having a bomb squad if they're afraid to get it wrong some of the time.

Of course, that assumes that you believe in the relative merits of having a bomb squad...

... and that the security response is timely...

... which, in this case, it wasn't (the "bombs" had been up for 2 weeks prior to this incident).

Then, of course, there's the two actual fake bombs that were found the same day (with no arrests made yet).

[UPDATE] Here are a few more interesting comments on the situation:

• Boston's Weekly Dig
• Connection to actual graffiti art

posted by Clubberjack @ 5:50 PM 0 comments

Guitar Hero: What exactly are you doing?

Jesper Juul made a smart little post about Guitar Hero over at the Ludologist. He makes the distinction between playing music and performing, and identifies GH as the later (as opposed to Singstar for example). This seems like a pretty good way of thinking about games like GH, they let you feel what it's like to perform, which is what the fantasy of being a guitar god is all about anyway. GH isn't about the skill of actually playing guitar. Singstar on the other hand is about the skill of singing.

On the flip side, completing a difficult section of GH does feel a lot like some of my memories from Middle School band, struggling through difficult measures of music on my trumpet. The elation of getting to the end without screwing up (much) is the much the same.

posted by Clubberjack @ 5:38 PM 0 comments

Game Design Link Dump

Not quite done with the link dumps for today (I guess this is what happens when I let them build up over time). Here are some lovely links to interesting game design tidbits:

• Danc's overview of one Project Horseshoe workshop
• Jane McGonigal's thoughts on the opportunities of the Wii control scheme (we agree on a lot; she puts it a little more eloquently)

The next few are all from Raph Koster's blog. I've been reading a lot of his posts lately and finding his writing to be very insightful. Or maybe he and I have a similar set of interests... In any event, in the future, I'll try to post links to Raph's writing only when I have a full reaction to log (and not just a "wow, cool"). This should keep me from posting a link to everything.

• On using NWN for learning
• On consumer content (as opposed to user created content)
• On Viva Piniata
• On rich community tools for MMOs
  

posted by Clubberjack @ 12:32 AM 0 comments

Creative Process

As an artist, I enjoy looking into the processes and spaces that other artists work out for themselves. Here are a couple of articles in that vein that I've enjoyed recently:

• Inside Bungie
• Guillermo del Toro on Pan's Labyrinth (highly recommended)

Update: Here's another one from EDGE...

• Why Oddworld's Lorne Lanning gave up games for movies...
  

posted by Clubberjack @ 12:29 AM 0 comments

Link Dump

Here's some links with minimal commentary:

• Draw a stick figure and then see it dance!
• Billboards address Mini owners... by name
• A comic that explains my relationship to the internet
• Our need for useless information... (but it always seems so important)
• Cyberpunk here we come (data cable made of nerve cells)
• The link between Children of Men and Half-Life 2
• Brilliant musical ode to the bugs in Saints Row ("...at least from down here I can shoot at that guy...")
• Get a first life
• Sweet shoes (moebius strips)
• Jeff Han's awesome multi-touch screen (be sure to check out the video too)
• Some guy's personal annual report (well designed and humorous)
• Bruce Schneier explains when security theater is good
• Tyra helps some guy "quit WoW" (Damion at Zen of Design says "The guy’s look in the second video, as Tyra is shredding his WoW disks, is priceless. It says, 'These idiots don’t realize that I don’t need the disks anymore after install.' ")
  

posted by Clubberjack @ 11:57 PM 0 comments

Process Intensity

A concept that I've been trying to understand lately is process intensity. Here's a few links (mostly for my own reference):

• Chris Crawford's original article on Process Intensity
• Greg Costikyan's updated thoughts on the matter
• Noah Wardrip-Fruin: Introducing Process Intensity and Media Machines
  

I should have something intelligent to say about this soon.

posted by Clubberjack @ 11:25 PM 0 comments

The Importance of Movement

Recently, a couple of articles reminded me of one key part of virtual character development: movement. Whether it's the creator of the furby miming the movement of a dinosaur or Savion Glover dancing in a mo-cap suit, the motions that are injected into each character serve to create those moments that we, as viewers (or players or interactors) recognize as true.

posted by Clubberjack @ 12:01 AM 0 comments

Clockwork

These are too cool!

• Insect Lab (particularly the beetles)
• Really cool watch
  

posted by Clubberjack @ 11:51 PM 0 comments

Creative Link Dump

Here's some more links relating to creating great experiences:

• ILM's look under the skin of Dead Man's Chest
• Amy Jo Kim's PowerPoint about using game mechanics in software design
• You Don't Know Jack Principles of the Interactive Conversation Interface
• Danc's look at the Wii Help Cat
  

posted by Clubberjack @ 11:46 PM 0 comments

Link Dump

Here's a pile of random links from the last few weeks.

• An interesting way to browse Google Images
• Nintendo Wii and cats: what could be better?
• A what in a box? (probably not worksafe - lyrics-wise)
• Water on Mars!
• The Pain Gun: amazing non-lethal weapon or just a bad idea?
• Tony Long's ruminations on living an active life (without computers?)
• "Do you really think what you see on YouTube today will still exist in five years?" -Jonas Mekas
• Raph Koster's new venture... Web 2.0 meets MMOGs. I can't wait.
• Clive Thompson argues against innovation for once (sort of)
• The NYTimes takes Sony to task for the PS3

posted by Clubberjack @ 11:29 PM 0 comments