Adam Norwood: Tumblr

austinkleon: Tim Schafer’s writing routine The latest Double...

Sun, 13 May 2012 21:02:59 -0500

Tim Schafer’s writing routine

The latest Double Fine Adventure update¹ was pretty fantastic, documenting the beginning of the process of creating an adventure game.

Schafer gets up in the morning and freewrites longhand in a spiral lined notebook as a way of getting over the blank page and getting out all the crummy ideas. It’s pretty great seeing all of his old notebooks—if you click the third picture, you can see a list of names Schafer was brainstorming for Grim Fandango.

For Kickstarter backers only, though they have a “slacker backer” option that will let you watch these videos. ↩

"Live your Life. Live your Life. Live your Life."

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:20:54 -0500

“Live your Life. Live your Life. Live your Life.”

- Maurice Sendak has died. We’re changing the entire show today to remember him. This quote is from his most recent Fresh Air appearance last year. (via nprfreshair)

The first computer at my house when I was a toddler was a Wang...

Fri, 04 May 2012 22:01:09 -0500

The first computer at my house when I was a toddler was a Wang (presumably the 8088-based PC clone?) on loan from my dad’s job at AT&T, later replaced by the equally sexy Olivetti M24. All I remember about the Wang was that it had a letter guessing game called Wangman, and some kind of text-based dungeon / Adventure clone. And years later memories of it provided a good chuckle during an episode of the Simpsons (“Thank goodness he’s drawing attention away from my shirt!”). Unpopular computers FTW.

(Via John Nack)

As an art person I’ve enjoyed a good amount of time around...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:46:00 -0500

As an art person I’ve enjoyed a good amount of time around lithography and other drawing media, and now I’m engaged to a children’s book illustrator who largely works in watercolor, so I’ve spent a fair amount of time at art supply shops buying paper. One thing has bugged me for years about our fine rag paper purchases, though: what’s up with the “BFK” in “Rives Arches BFK”? I’ve asked professors, professional printers, other artists, and even the Internet, with no great leads, but I finally coaxed the answer out of Google today. From The Albumen & Salted Paper Book: The history and practice of photographic printing, 1840-1895:

It is no wonder that only two paper mills in the world managed to consistently produce a paper of the necessary quality, and these two mills were able to maintain their monopoly from the 1860’s until approximately World War I. They were the above-mentioned Blanchet Frères et Klébler Co. in Rives, France (hence their product was known as the “Rives” paper) and Steinbach and Company, located in Malmedy, Belgium (at that time part of Germany). Steinbach paper was known outside Germany as “Saxe” paper.

The product that established their paper monopoly (duopoly?) — the exploding new field of photography! More to the point, 3D stereography, the Victorian postcard origin of a Tumblr meme:

In the late 1850’s and especially after 1860, two new factors in photographic technology and practice generated a great demand for albumen paper. The first of these was the stereograph; its ability to transport the viewer to distant scenes with the illusion of three-dimensional reality depended largely on the smooth surface and fine detail of albumen paper. Stereo views were extremely popular, and created a corresponding demand for albumen paper. Nearly all stereo views before 1890 were made on albumen paper.

This 3D thing will catch on one of these days…

"Be a scribe! Your body will be sleek, your hand will be soft … your servants answer speedily; beer..."

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:49:34 -0500

““Be a scribe! Your body will be sleek, your hand will be soft … your servants answer speedily; beer is poured copiously; all who see you rejoice in good cheer.””

- Ptahhotep, ancient Egyptian sage, quoted in Jonathan Gottschall, “Jargon to Jabberwocky: 3 Books on Writing Well,” NPR Books (via jndevereux)

thenearsightedmonkey: via monstercrazy: book cover art by...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 09:46:00 -0500

thenearsightedmonkey:

via monstercrazy:

book cover art by Edward Gorey

Special to the What It Is class:

As you think about making images for your book, think of this spider and let your mind wander.

"Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good..."

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 02:31:13 -0500

“Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

- George Orwell, Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali

Cat and Girl on authenticity.

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:01:27 -0500

Cat and Girl on authenticity.

criterioncollection: Unbelievable! Akira Kurosawa visits the...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 09:01:36 -0500

criterioncollection:

Unbelievable! Akira Kurosawa visits the set of KINDERGARTEN COP:

I ignore the Internet for a day, and I miss great announcements like this new Criterion edition of Kindergarten Cop! Jeez.

Though it’s distinguished by pulse-pounding suspense, a Crayola-bright palette by cinematographer Michael Chapman (Taxi Driver), and trenchant observations about education in the Bush I era, the film’s emotional center is Schwarzenegger’s gruff yet good-tempered interaction with a class full of precocious scamps, including a tumor-forewarning death-obsessive and a genitalia expert. By leavening a children’s film with enough violence to please even the most cold-hearted bastard, director Ivan Reitman shows that he refuses to color inside the lines.

(the “Related Films” sidebar is pretty great, too)

Been having fun playing with Google Map’s Quest feature,...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:20:35 -0500

Been having fun playing with Google Map’s Quest feature, creating some lo-fi Austin scenes. I’m sorry to say that this is likely a Google April Fools’ joke, as I kind of like poking around places as though they were background scenes from a forgotten third-tier Sierra adventure. I’ve posted a handful of Austin 8Bit pics on Flickr — what other locations would be good choices?

Classic Nintendo Games are (NP-)Hard

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 09:00:06 -0500

Classic Nintendo Games are (NP-)Hard:

Science!

We prove NP-hardness results for five of Nintendo’s largest video game franchises: Mario, Donkey Kong, Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Pokemon. Our results apply to Super Mario Bros. 1, 3, Lost Levels, and Super Mario World; Donkey Kong Country 1-3; all Legend of Zelda games except Zelda II: The Adventure of Link; all Metroid games; and all Pokemon role-playing games. For Mario and Donkey Kong, we show NP-completeness. In addition, we observe that several games in the Zelda series are PSPACE-complete.

Translation: video games might provide interesting fodder for complexity theory, and possibly provide a model for novel ways of looking at difficult decision problems. In any case, I just like seeing Metroid mentioned on the arXiv.

(Via New Scientist)

I’m getting far too many chuckles out of this page for the...

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 21:19:00 -0500

I’m getting far too many chuckles out of this page for the Fake Unicode Consortium, which pairs up obscure Unicode glyphs with better names. Depicted here:

Unicode character U+2231: ‘NOW FLIP SNAKE TO COOK OTHER SIDE’
http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2231/index.htm

(Via O’Reilly Radar)

"Comics give to the artist a very interesting field of exploration and research. Everything is..."

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:39:01 -0500

“Comics give to the artist a very interesting field of exploration and research. Everything is possible. You can be very small or very big or very modest or very ambitious. You can stay in a regular style like everybody, or you can escape and be completely unusual and incredible. You can give more to the world, more to the drawing. Everything.”

- Jean Giraud (aka Moebius) on why he turned to drawing comics as a young man, from the documentary The Masters of Comic Book Art (was on YouTube but got yanked, VHS might be the only option at present?), as quoted in his NYTimes obit.

A fun Boston nightly news clip from 1988 on the outbreak of the...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:22:44 -0600

A fun Boston nightly news clip from 1988 on the outbreak of the Morris worm, one of the first Internet-spreading infections that caught mainstream attention. There’s much to love about this clip: the “part-time virus hunter”, the scenes of MIT’s computer labs, the bizarre (but maybe slyly satirical?) footage of the infamous Atari 2600 ET game inserted, um, I guess to, uh, illustrate something computer-y?

(Via Dangerous Minds)

A fan-made port of the pixel font built into the adventure game...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:12:09 -0600

A fan-made port of the pixel font built into the adventure game classics The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge. As a bonus, a separate version is available that is properly kerned and hinted. (double bonus: opening the .ttf file in Font Book reveals that the demonstration string for the font reads “You fight like a dairy farmer!”)

A post combining Lucasfilm Games and typography? Immediate reblog!

A little video spin art for your Saturday night enjoyment. (Via...

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 19:19:35 -0600

A little video spin art for your Saturday night enjoyment.

(Via Quipsologies)

jndevereux: learntobabble: OK Soda press kit for Coca-Cola...

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 10:38:05 -0600

jndevereux:

learntobabble:

OK Soda press kit for Coca-Cola salesmen.

I consider it a source of generational pride that Coke’s biggest attempt to market to “Generation X” was a failure.

OK Soda tasted bad. But the artwork was nice. I think there were Charles Burns illustrations on the cans in addition to those by Daniel Clowes.

1-800-IFEELOK

I’m transported back to 1995 every time I spot the OK Soda vending machine in the background of Waiting for Guffman (was that gym scene filmed in Lockhart? Or here in Austin?).

RIP Steve Kordek, pinball pioneer

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 10:00:06 -0600

Steve Kordek, the guy who revolutionized the world of pinball by introducing a machine with the now-familiar electromechanical flippers at the bottom of the playfield (imagine: a player can somewhat control the game!), passed away this week at the age of 100. His 6-decade career started off with remarkable serendipity. From the NY Times obit:

On a visit to his hometown in 1937, he was walking down a street without an umbrella when a torrential rain forced him to step into the lobby of a building he was passing. It was the Genco company. A receptionist asked if he was looking for a job.

“I had never seen a pin game before in my life,” Mr. Kordek told The Chicago Tribune in 2009. For 45 cents an hour, he was soon doing soldering on the company’s production line. …

Mr. Kordek never got tired of the clang, clack and buzz of pinball. “I had more fun in this business than anyone could believe,” he told The Tribune.

To advertise their new accessibility-friendly menus, the South...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 22:46:35 -0600

To advertise their new accessibility-friendly menus, the South African arm of the Wimpy fast food chain delivers burgers to blind users with a special twist: the sesame seeds on the bun spell out a message in braille! While it might be viewed as a marketing gimmick, it’s nice to see a fast food place making efforts to be inclusive, and the recipients in the video certainly seem amused. (a narrated version of the video is also available for the visually impaired)

PS: what’s up with both the Popeye’s and Wimpy fast food chains completely ignoring their namesake cartoon characters in their branding?

PPS: evidently the Wimpy UK mascot, a weird little guy in a Beefeater outfit, got his own platforming game back in the early 1980s! Thanks, Wikipedia rabbit hole.

"This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: “At the time, no one knew what..."

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:30:16 -0600

“This may be the most important proposition revealed by history: “At the time, no one knew what was coming.””

- From the first page of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 (translated by Jay Rubin). His earlier books that I’ve read have been wonderful dream factories, but I’ve seen this one scoring some negative reviews. I don’t know what’s coming over the next 925 pages, but I have hope that it’ll be good.