Monthly Archives: April 2012

The Most Dangerous Gamer

Fantastic article about Jonathan Blow at the Atlantic.

This is what makes Blow’s games so remarkable: at great personal expense, in ways no other developer has even attempted, he struggles to communicate a deeply authentic vision of the meaning of human existence. With both of his games, Blow strives to use the unique language of video games to impart the wisdom he has gained the hard way in his life.

Blow is a visionary artist and a brilliant example of how video games can be, and are, a form of art — and should be treated as such.

This is the mail system

This is how we tell hundreds of millions of computer users that something has gone wrong:

This isn’t just bad. This is beyond unacceptable. I’ve talked about email security before, but the list of comically broken anachronisms in email as a system — a system we rely on and use every day — just goes on and on. This isn’t just an ‘oh, that’s kind of bad’ type of thing: email has to be fixed.

Heck, Apple can do their part. That email I got back was apparently because my attachments were too large. I can barely read that email — let alone my grandmother. Machines can read it just fine, though. Here’s an idea: machines shouldn’t slap us in the face. They should help us along if they fail to do our bidding.

New CGI of How Titanic Sank

A video excerpt of National Geographic’s upcoming two-day featurette about the sinking of the Titanic, a disaster that happened almost exactly 100 years ago (April 15th 1912, to be exact).

As a child, I was fascinated with the Titanic, from its construction and design to the eventual sinking of the ship. The notion that something designed to be ‘perfectly invincible’ to all reasonably preconceived hazards could still sink on its maiden voyage was, I think, what really moved me. Growing up and eventually becoming a designer, you learn to respect events like these even more.

Similarly, I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed shows like Air Crash Investigation, because they show you that even the most elaborately safe systems and products will at some point encounter strange edge cases in which every one of its design principle is tested to its extremes.