Reviews, Links, Code, and Discussion
Some links to discussion about 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10. One of the common ways to interact with the idea seems to be writing and posting re-implementations of the program in other languages and environments. Geeta Dayal’s review of the book in Slate. Discussion on Reddit r/Programming, including a hilarious Enterprise Java version. A discussion at Stack Overflow stemming… read more
You Can't Buy A Better Book About a One-Line BASIC Program At Twice The Price
My latest book is out! It’s called 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 and it’s about a one-line Commodore 64 BASIC program. I wrote it with nine other authors, but it’s not an anthology; we write in a single voice collaboratively, producing a monograph-like text. You can buy it in a beautiful hardcover edition, designed by one of the authors,… read more
What is Nintendo really attempting to do with the Wii U? From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.
For a century and a quarter, Nintendo has devoted itself to an unspoken mission: making games safe, stripping them of their risk and indecency. The company started as a hanafuda playing card manufacturer in the late nineteeth century. Like most gambling, hanafuda was closely tied to organized crime, and the term yakuza, the Japanese word for an organized crime mafia,… read more
On the top-heaviness of universities
An article in Business Week has been making the rounds this holiday weekend, The Troubling Dean-to-Professor Ratio. It’s about the top-heaviness of universities and the growth of senior and executive administration. The “money quote,” so to speak, is this: At universities nationwide, employment of administrators jumped 60 percent from 1993 to 2009, 10 times the growth rate for tenured faculty.… read more
A whole book about a single line of code. By ten authors.
This book is available in digital or physical format. Buy from Amazon This book takes a single line of code—the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title—and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture.The authors of this collaboratively written book… read more
A game art installation at MOCA Jacksonville and on the Apple App Store
Is glory and achievement something you earn, or something you buy? Is it more right (or more righteous) to ascend to a rank or office on the merits of your actions than on the influence of your connections, or the sway of your bank account? For that matter, which offices are worth earning (or buying) in the first place? Read… read more
My "Fuck this Jam" Keynote
Rami Ismail and Fernando Ramallo have organized a game jam called Fuck This Jam, in which participants are invited to build a game in a genre they hate. Given our experience making games in genres we hate, Rami and Fernando invited me (Cow Clicker) and Zach Gage (Spelltower) to deliver short keynote videos for the jam. You can watch the… read more
On MOOCs and Openness
In his keynote at the recent Educase conference, Internet zealot Clay Shirky made the case that MOOCs are not provocative because they are massive, but because they are open—except they are not really that open. So, I’m no big fan of Shirky’s fanatical obsession with Internet openness, but he’s right in this case. Still, it’s worth pointing out that there’s… read more
Gamification has reached such a fever pitch that its proponents have begun sounding like parodies of themselves. An amazing recent specimen is comes from Mashable, under the title “9 Strategies to Gamify Your Startup”. The entire article is “worth reading,” so to speak, but this one’s my favorite: When people have a measurement, they work harder to see that measurement… read more
A teaser for my latest game
I’ve been quiet lately because I’ve been working like a madman to complete my latest game, a commission in the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville’s Project Atrium series. The game takes the form of an installation that will run at the MOCA from November 17, 2012 through March 10, 2013. But don’t worry if you can’t get to Florida—a version… read more