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May 26, 2010

TNT Airlines Safety Video Parody

For medium light, pull the shade to its middle section

Check out this funny send-up of an airline safety video: I particularly love the unreasonably extended instruction for using the window shade, but the entire thing is choice satire. ...

April 20, 2010

OOO: This Week!

It's a very busy week. I just got back from a quick trip to Los Angeles, and now I'm making the final preparations for the Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium this Friday at Georgia Tech. I hope to see you there. Despite some very reasonable concerns about the volcanic ash mess disrupting ...

March 10, 2010

An Atari Travels

My VCS Goes to GDC

As you may remember, I brought my Atari out to GDC for the Independent Game Festival. It's been having an unusual time indeed during its travels, and I believe it hasn't seen this much excitement in some 33 years. Here are some highlights: In the Delta SkyClub Stowed under the ...

February 10, 2010

Check-Ins Check Out

On check-in mechanics and games as loyalty programs. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra.

January 2, 2010

Please Stand Clear of the Closing Rights

How Disney and Zazzle conspire against me (and you)

I've reported twice on my experience selling things on Zazzle, the custom on-demand online print service for apparel and paper goods. First, just over a year ago, I mentioned the t-shirt designs I had made to riff on the Disney World monorail announcer notice, "Por favor manténgase alejado de las ...

November 16, 2009

The Papers are Calling

Or is it the other way around?

While I'm catching up from last week's trip to the Mobile Media Symposium at UCLA (more on that later), and this week's new deadlines, I thought I'd drop a few CFPs for those of you who might be interested. First, the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games has ...

October 12, 2009

Disney: We Own the Concept of the Castle

Fun with Infringement

Almost a year ago, I wrote about my modest success selling t-shirt designs on Zazzle.com that artfully depict the Disney World monorail announcer's characteristic Por favor manténgase alejado de las puertas. In that piece, I also drew attention to the ways products like this exert fandom by commercially exploiting holes ...

September 5, 2009

Object-Oriented Ontology and McLuhan Visit Game Studies

My Talks at DiGRA 2009

I'm just returned from the 2009 Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Conference, which was held this week at Brunel University in Uxbridge, UK. The conference was enjoyable, with good talks, good company, and good ale. I did two talks at this DiGRA, the text of which I have now posted ...

August 2, 2009

Tantrum Capitalism

Thoughts on Skype and Ebay

If you follow technology news—or even if you don't—you couldn't have missed this incredible story about Skype. Apparently when Ebay bought Skype for $2.6 billion back in 2005, they didn't acquire all of the latter's core product. Specifically, Skype's founders sheltered key peer to peer subsystems for the service in ...

July 14, 2009

A New Yorker in Paris

Versailles Graffito

A little Bastille Day gift can be found below: a graffito found etched onto a map of the grounds at the Palace of Versailles, reading "I ♥ NY." It's emblazoned onto one end of the Grand Canal. During the reign of Louis XIV, gilded gondolas would have sailed here. I ...

July 7, 2009

United Breaks Guitars

A music video complaint letter

Given my propensity for relatively outlandish, time-consuming, and complex corporate complaints (see Lucifer Notes and Disaffected, for example), I can only say that I am awed and humbled by this music video complaint letter by Dave Carroll and his band. You can read the full story here, but you'll enjoy ...

July 6, 2009

Digital Objects

Speculative Realism and Digital Media

Last week I had the opportunity to visit in Cairo with philosopher Graham Harman, someone whose work I've known and admired for some time now. It was nice to meet him in person for the first time, not to mention having a local guide for getting around this enormous, insane ...

May 12, 2009

Quarantine, Surgical Masks, and Biohazard Suits

The Insane Japanese Response to Swine Flu

A week ago, I wrote about the irrationality surrounding so-called swine flu, in the context of Killer Flu, a videogame Persuasive Games created about seasonal and pandemic flu. This week, I received an unexpected email from the organizers of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, which is scheduled ...

December 18, 2008

Por Favor Manténgase Alejado de las Puertas

Fandom and Detritus

One of my gripes with Henry Jenkins's book Convergence Culture was its tendency to privilege pop cultural fan activity to other sorts of attention. Appealing though they may be, I wondered if Harry Potter and Survivor really sat at the pinnacle of human creativity in the way that the ...

November 16, 2008

Carrying On Over Carry-Ons

A Review of the Tom Bihn Checkpoint Flyer

For years now, it has been necessary to remove laptops from carry-on bags for inspection at airport security here in the States. The TSA imposes this requirement to insure a clear view of the internal components of some electronics. Scanning a laptop separately allows security personnel to insure that a ...

October 15, 2008

Checkpoint Friendly

More TSA Brow-Furrowing

As a frequent traveler I pay close attention to the caprices of the Transportation Security Administration. Recently, the TSA has announced a program to support and encourage manufacturers' creation of "checkpoint friendly" laptop bags. The idea is this: if companies make bags that allow unobstructed x-ray views of the laptop ...

February 1, 2008

Shoes, Laptops, Liquids, Blog

The Transportation Security Administration's new blog

As an airport obsessive, I was interested to learn that the TSA has a blog now. It's a curious thing. For example, they've gone to some significant lengths to humanize the bloggers: Hi, I'm Bob, and I started with the TSA in September 2002. ... I live in Southwest Ohio ...