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July 6, 2010

Thank Galt I've Stockpiled

Let's Laugh at Libertarians

After a few days talking about Marxism here and elsewhere, I figured it would be good to spread my wings and pick on libertarians. Here are two specimens. First, from cartoonist Barry Deutsch comes the 24 Types of Libertarians (or click on the cartoon for a legible version at Deutsch's ...

July 4, 2010

Letting Go

The Realist Invitation and the Correlationist Imperative

A lively discussion erupted from my post on philosophy and politics of a few days ago. Among other things, commenters revisited the relationship between ontology and politics, issues OOO proponents in particular have attempted to disentangle. Among the many lengthy comments from David Rylance comes this snippet, which may have ...

June 29, 2010

I am not a Marxist

More on Politics and Philosophy

In recent days there's been a flare-up of discussion about speculative realism and politics. It's a more mild and reasoned one than previous debates, with contributions well worth reading. First read Chris Vitale's post Queering Speculative Realism. Then read Diversifying Speculative Realisms on Archive Fire. After that go read Levi ...

May 3, 2010

Affluence and Activism

Richard Rorty on Politics, circa 1998

I've been reading a bunch of reviews, interviews, and other secondary materials about Richard Rorty in preparation for next week's event at UC Irvine. Among the works that will get mention in my talk is the 1998 book Achieving Our Country. I thought I'd share a snippet from a Rorty ...

March 18, 2010

Playing Political Games

On the White House and Videogames

In a large theater at the 2010 Game Developers Conference, ten thousand game makers gathered for the Independent Games Festival and Game Developers Choice awards ceremonies, where the best indie and mainstream games of the year are celebrated by and for their creators. In between the two, an unusual video ...

January 18, 2010

The Marketplace of Ideas

Louis Menand's new book on professors and professionalization

Via Peter Gratton, I've just read Slate's detailed review of Louis Menand's new book The Marketplace of Ideas, about the state of the university and the anxiety of the professoriate. Given that my own feelings about such matters are far less measured and far more informal than Menand's, I'll look ...

January 14, 2010

Who Can Beat Nixon?

Defeat doesn't finish a game, quit does.

Here's a lovely specimen I hadn't seen before: a board game released in 1970 about Nixon's then-forthcoming (and ill-fated) reelection. The game seems to resemble Monopoly, although its unclear how the game works from just the board. According to the game's Board Game Geek entry, the game's events (driven by ...

December 26, 2009

Boredom and Torpor

Mark Fisher on discipline and pedagogy

I read Mark Fisher's excellent little book Capitalist Realism this week. It's a short book long on insights, many of which provoked me, some of which I disagreed with, and a few of which I want to share. Here's the first of the latter kind, from a discussion of the ...

December 21, 2009

Pralines and Polygons

Electronic Arts Eyes the South

You may have heard that Electronic Arts is considering opening a large studio in Georgia, either in Atlanta or Savannah. Many of us in the area had heard rumblings about this, but the Atlanta Business Chronicle filed the first official story on the matter late last week. Georgia has offered ...

November 3, 2009

Pretty Girls for Nixon

An image and a story on a theme, circa 1972

Feb. 21, 1972, Mao's residence, the first meeting between Nixon and Mao, as arranged by Kissinger. Nixon: I have read the chairman's poems and speeches, and I knew he was a professional philosopher. (The Chinese laugh.) Mao (looking at Kissinger): He is a doctor of philosophy? Nixon: He is ...

October 22, 2009

Things I Did Instead of Blogging

The miscellany of autumn

I've been a bit of a mess this week, as I'm finishing up the Newsgames book with my two graduate students and preparing my keynote for SLSA the week after next. Fortunately, interesting things have gone on without me. As I previously mentioned, on Monday, we hosted a colloquium on ...

October 2, 2009

The Ribs of Reform

Politics and Slow Cooking

There's been a surge of discussion in the past couple days about the relationship between object-oriented ontology and politics. For one part, Levi Bryant responded to Reid Kane's concerns about what he perceived to be the "absent political dimensions" and "neoliberal alliances" of OOO and Actor-Network Theory. A liveley discussion ...

September 21, 2009

Little Black Sambo

On the aftermath of an accidental racial slur in Scribblenauts. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.

September 11, 2009

In the War on Ideas, War Always Wins

On the British Government's neglect of Alan Turing's role in the history of computation

In the winter of 1952, Alan Turing called on the Manchester police to investigate a break-in at his house. He suspected an estranged lover was responsible and, being the earnest man that he was, reported his suspicion to the police. The problem was, Turing's lover was Arnold Murray. Homosexuality was ...

September 7, 2009

"Life goes on within you and without you"

On The Beatles: Rock Band

Last week, the NY Times published Seth Schiesel's effusive review of The Beatles: Rock Band. Calling the game a "transformative entertainment experience," Schiesel argued that it "may be the most important video game yet made." Schiesel's logic is sensical: the combination of Beatles + videogame gives baby boomers something ...

June 12, 2009

Cascading Failure

The Unseen Power of Google's Malware Detection

I often worry about the consequences of what Siva Vaidhyanathan calls Googlization, the way Google is changing and disrupting the creation and dissemination of ideas. I've resisted using Google services like Gmail and Google Docs, despite their popularity and, in some cases, their convenience. I've mostly been disinterested in allowing ...

October 10, 2008

Play-Doh Palin

Sculptures from Meaningful Play

Greetings from the the Meaningful Play conference at MSU. This morning, Leigh Anne Cappello from Hasbro spoke about toy design. Hasbro brought packages of Play Doh for every table, and Leigh encouraged us to make things during the talk. So, I made a Play Doh Sarah Palin. It's not nearly ...

August 9, 2008

Ordinary Olympians

Why athletic excellence alone cannot be appreciated

My sister-in-law Susannah is a world-class gymnast. Despite the fact that her event, tumbling, is much, much more atheletic and arresting than plain old artistic gymnastics, it didn't make the cut even for exhibition at the Beijing games. That may have something to do with China's weak performance in the sport. ...

September 11, 2007

Operating Systems Prohibit Film Still Fair Use

Built-in DVD players forbid screen captures with software constraint

Recently, I had the need to capture a still from a DVD a Persuasive Games client had sent over as guidelines for some game assets. I didn't want to rip the whole DVD, so I went to use the built-in screen capture facility in Apple OS X: the old standby ...

August 19, 2007

A Professor's Impressions of Facebook

Musings after several months of use, as I prepare to start the semester

This spring, I created an account on Facebook. I'm a web 2.0 cynic (and a cynic in general), so this surprised some of my friends and colleagues. But I was encouraged by so many of them, I wanted to give it a try. For example, Ian McCarthy just wanted an ...