Depression Quest »

Even if you’re not suffering from depression (or if you think you’re not suffering from depression), you should play this. Touching and extremely well-done.

How Netflix is turning viewers into puppets »

This is interesting. Netflix analysed its data and concluded that a lot of people liked political thrillers, a lot of people liked Kevin Spacey and a lot of people liked films directed by David Fincher. And so the first show they’ve bankrolled is a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher. And rather than some lowest-common-denominator, design-by-committee bullshit, it actually turned out pretty good.

Gamers are the ultimate trolls »

I am guilty of this myself, of course. When Half Life started and the creators were showing me the living, breathing world outside of the rail car, I was too busy to notice, trying to jump out of the car through the window. In Half Life 2, when Alyx was telling me something important, I couldn’t hear it over the explosions of the grenades I kept throwing at her.

This week’s This American Life has a story about how babies are like scientists, and by doing things like, say, dropping their forks on the ground, they’re actually working out the logic of the world. Because each game is different, with different rules and different logic, players have to do their own experiments. It’s just a bonus that these experiments so often lead to hilarious, ridiculous situations.

Little Printer: A portrait in the nude »

I think that Berg’s Little Printer is a great idea. It’s right in the middle of the junction between magical technology and tactile physicality (I also think its £199 price-point is insane). This is a really nice insight into the design process behind it.

Surgeon Simulator 2013 »

Like QWOP meets E.R. with a special guest appearance by the uncoordinated arm (and shitty IK physics) from Jurassic Park: Trespasser. So much fun.

The Hobbit Re-Covered »

I know I talked recently about the problems with fetishizing the form of a book and not the content, but sometimes you can’t help it. The form is just so damn lovely.

Old school »

Q: Wait a minute. Didn’t you just buy a house in Northampton?

A: Yeah. We’re already moving. It’s a little more in the country. They want to have chickens and grow flowers and stuff. We got rid of TV, there’s no computers, no electronics. It’s old school. And the kids haven’t said peep about it.

Q: How old are the kids?

A: Three, five, six, eleven, and thirteen. It’s so loud. It’s crazy.

Q: You do loud and crazy.

A: Yeah, yeah. Everybody’s loud. Let me show you some pictures [on his iPhone].

Do you see what happened there? “No computers, no electronics. It’s old school”. But he still has an iPhone. Everyone has a smartphone now, but they’re so ubiquitous that no-one even thinks of them as being a “computer”. Warren Ellis was totally right. People don’t even think about or recognise the magic around them.

(Incidentally, Middlemojo.com is just wonderful. A blog about creative people approaching middle age. Why hasn’t this been done before?)

Group of grown-ass men have been playing "tag" for 23 years »

This is some serious dedication to messing around, legal contracts and everything.

102 Spectacular Nonfiction Stories from 2012 »

Because my Pocket queue wasn’t long enough.

Storyboard - Read the TV and Movies you don't want to watch »

Storyboard was born of my insane desire to consume videos without actually having to watch them. Normally that would involve putting the TV on in the background and ignoring the video while listening to the audio, but what about the reverse? All visual without the audio. On my kindle.

This reminds me of the line in Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs about people turning on subtitles and watching films in fast-forward because it’s more time-efficient.