September 6, 2010
The best FPPs are the ones that eat up 12 hours of your life
Ice Pick Lodge is a game design studio renowned for its experimental narratives and its championing of loftier ideals in gaming. Its second game, The Void (link goes to Steam), was released in 2009 to critical acclaim. Quintin Smith writes about it in two articles at RockPaperShotgun, first with a review of the game, and then with a piece defending Ice Pick's use of nudity as artistic. (It's worth mentioning that Smith introduced Ice Pick Lodge to a larger audience with his brilliant three part article defending Pathologic.) Don't have the time or patience for The Void? CannibalK9 of SomethingAwful has you covered with a thorough Let's Play that covers the entire game in twenty-two lengthy videos (not counting the hour-and-forty-minutes two-video finale), expertly narrated, thoroughly examining every aspect of the game, including Easter eggs. [more inside]
St. James Infirmary
Two Americans, doing odd jobs in the Philippines.
When Tory and Jason lost their jobs in the U.S., they found new ones in the Philippines, where they’ve spent the past year driving a taxi through the boondocks. In their latest video, they’ve decided to sell taho on the streets. The two are posting updates on their “job experiment” on Twitter - followers have been tweeting them suggestions for their next odd job.
When countries go bust
Sovereign debt issued by governments is immense. In 2009, worldwide sovereign debt exceeded $34 trillion and is now the largest risk to the global financial system. Many of the potential problems and risks are surprising, even to those well-versed in their particular area of finance. What happens if Things Go Really Bad?
...out of the multitude of potential scenarios, I have settled upon one which is really bad, but doesn’t involve asteroids, mass extinctions, or apes taking over. It is consistent with prior bad episodes of sovereign debt default.
Here is the Really Bad scenario. It’s not a worst possible scenario. It is more like the Long Depression or the Great Depression reoccurring under 2010 conditions.
In the Really Bad scenario, 45% of the countries with large outstanding sovereign debts are in default within a 2-3 year period."
A five-part article series on the imminent dangers of sovereign default from a guest columnist at Calculated Risk blog. Some of this strays into finance ubernerd territory but Part 5C in particular is the likely the playbook for the next financial crisis. [more inside]
What The Future Sounded Like
What The Future Sounded Like (1 2 3) is an excellent documentary about the birth of electronic music. [more inside]
The Story of Oilfurnace
worldsoundsurround
Soundmaps are field recordings of the unique audio ecology of a particular place and time. Often they are cities: New York, Berlin, Montreal, New Orleans, Barcelona, London (previously), Madrid, and many others. Sometimes they move through space: Ramallah. Sometimes they are mixable (probably my favorite, from Portugal). They might be of entire countries (Spain, the United States (previously), the United Kingdom, or continents (Africa, while on a bike!). Sometimes they cover the entire world: aporee (you may prefer the map interface). Some attempt to preserve sounds that are in danger of being lost. And sometimes soundmaps are of the deep ocean.
Most of the sounds are, appropriately, licensed under Creative Commons.
Disrobing the Politics of Cultural Difference
Here, the intellectual and political dispute centers around federal policy regarding First Nations in Canada, a debate that’s been controversially re-ignited by the book Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation. Among the book’s core arguments: the assertion that on-going “native problems” have a “cultural basis.” [more inside]
The Non-Expert
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. For example, Can We Date? — home to this flowchart to help determine what is legal, and what is socially acceptable. [previously]
Some people actually kiss while doing it.
Letkis is a Finnish dance. Oh, here’s the music. And here's the history. Some people (the French, of course) actually kiss while doing it. Many other nationalities have picked it up, like the Japanese and the Hungarians. Here's Finland's baddest rap group doing their take. But the clip that prompted me to delve into all this letkiss-ania in the first place, were these sharp Italian twins (via Schadenfreudian Therapy). [more inside]
50 Posts About Cyborgs
50 Posts About Cyborgs. "September 2010 is the 50th Anniversary of the coining of the term 'cyborg'. Over a month, this site will update 50 times with links to material — most of it new — celebrating 50 years of one of the 20th Century's more enduring concepts. Then it'll go dark." [Via]
David, Ed, and Ralph.
In the runup to the British Labour Party's leadership election, John Gray writes about Labour's embrace of (and attempts to tame) capitalism, and what the frontrunners' father might think of it all.
I want to be Forever Young
In April 1984, an unknown band's first single pushed Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax" off the top spot in the German music charts. Big In Japan marked the beginning of Alphaville's lengthy career. [more inside]
Mother: The ship will automatically destruct in T-minus five minutes.
Swarming spacecraft to self-destruct for greater good. "Future space probes that operate in cooperative swarms must commit hara-kiri if they begin to fail and risk damaging their comrades, says a recent patent application by NASA.
The agency foresees a day when space missions are undertaken not by one large spacecraft but by swarming formations of much smaller, cheaper ones. Such craft could collectively provide a "floating optics" system for a space telescope comprising separate craft flying in formation, for instance.
However, should one spacecraft in such a swarm begin to fail and risk a calamitous collision with another, it must sense its end is nigh and put itself on a course that takes it forever away from the swarm – for the greater good of the collective."
Turn Me On
A fascinating look at some interesting, and at times mind-boggling, arrays of dials and switches.
A pilgrim's POV of the UK Papal Visit
"Claz Gomez" is reporting live from the 2010 Papal Visit to the UK. Claz is using a variety of Internet media to provide her personal point of view from the ground, covering events running up to, during and presumably after the visit (official site) which takes place 16th - 19th September. [more inside]
AR Drone Helicopters
Got an iPhone? Always wanted to fly a helicopter? AR Drones allow you to fly a quadricopter with mounted video cameras through your iPhone. [more inside]
That's no moon, that's La Luna
Space Loteria. The Mexican memory game Loteria illustrated using characters from the Star Wars universe. Click on a card to see it larger, along with its traditional counterpart.
Mr Spaceman, Will You Please Take Me Along For The Ride?
Bill Lee, The Spaceman, baseball curmudgeon, subject of a Warren Zevon song, marijuana advocate, has become the oldest pitcher to win a professional baseball game at the age of 63.
'Marilyn Monroe used come by to try on hats'
Photographer Bill Cunningham has moved out of his a rent controlled apartment right above Carnegie Hall after living there for 60 years. He offers some pictures and memories of his time there. Andrew Carnegie intended the space above the hall to be occupied by artists and since 1896 the list of occupants has included Isadora Duncan, Marlon Brando and Leonard Bernstein. The last 5 residents (more details about them here) are being cleared out to make way for a music school. [more inside]
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