In lieu of a real post
I’ve been busy since the holidays catching up and preparing for the new term, which makes this the requisite occasional “I haven’t posted on the blog” blog post. Since I’ve been reduced to such self-referential shame, I figured I might as well take things even further and offer my readers a massive dump of recentish press about me. For starters,… read more
Year of the Cow
Switched.com ran a story offering their assement of The Best Tech Writing of 2010, and my piece Cow Clicker: The Making of Obsession. I’m in good company, too: others in the top 15 include Zadie Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, William Gibson, Gary Kasparov, and the inimitable Onion. I’d never heard of Switched.com, but apparently it’s a reasonably popular AOL technology lifestyle… read more
A summary
Here’s a quick link summary of my 2010, including both major events/work and smaller moments that took the form of blog posts. Happy new year, all. Disney cease-and-desist – the turtlenecked hairshirt – the Art History of Games – Hacks, Remakes, and Demakes – Heavy Rain – Pascal spoken here – I hate gamification – Knight News Challenge – philosopher… read more
A review of Adam Kotsko's book
Adam Kotsko’s little book Awkwardness is a pleasurable and insightful read, yet another reminder that Zero Books is quickly becoming the trusted source for short, punchy works on philosophy and cultural theory. In the book, Kotsko offers a tiny theory of awkwardness: “The tension of awkwardness indicates that no social order is self-evident and no social order accounts for every… read more
Geoffrey West and Urban Withdrawal.
There’s a terrific article in today’s New York Times about theoretical physicist Geoffrey West’s attempt to build a general-purpose logical model of cities. The way West describes his motivations, “I’ve always wanted to find the rules that govern everything,” offers an elegant summation of why I find procedure a more compelling object of concern than process. These are the laws,… read more
To the burritos themselves!
Georgia Tech computer science PhD student Mark Nelson sends along what is surely the best piece of writing ever about ontology and burritos, Specters of Tacology. As Mark notes, I sometimes joke that after my career as a game scholar (a ludologist, if you insist) is over, I’ll take up the burrito as my subject (a field I once dubbed… read more
Call for Papers - in Athens!
It’s not often that I get to address both my philosopher friends and my game friends at once, but this is such a case. The Philosophy of Computer Games has released a call for papers for the 2011 conference, which will take place April 6-11 in Athens, Greece. I’m on the program committee this year, and I had a fantastic… read more
OOO at the RMMLA
It was particularly appropriate to come to Albuquerque to speak on object-oriented ontology with Levi Bryant and Tim Morton. Why? Well, you’ll have to wait for Alien Phenomenology to understand, but it will be clear on the first page. The RMMLA was lively and fun, much unlike it’s bigger brother (sister? crazy uncle?) the MLA. I enjoyed meeting folks for… read more
In Facebook and Philosophy: What's on Your Mind?, edited by D.E. Wittkower
In Facebook and Philosophy I received two degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, but Facebook won’t let me join the UCLA network. A Facebook network is an organizational category that allows my profile to come up when someone searches or browses in a particular group. At different stages in the life of the service, networks have been organized… read more
Stuff I said to the Press
I thought I’d share few recent mentions of me in the media. I try not to do this with every little mention, but all of these are really good articles that you should read anyway. First, Chris Suellentrop’s New York Times Magazine story Video Games that Bring Afghanistan Home. It’s a wide-ranging feature, and even though I only have one… read more