Interesting links for November 16th through November 20th:
Map Plates – These procelain plates in the shape of countries look cool, but am I the only to notice that they're leaving countries out? Where's the Netherlands? And Belgium? And Austria isn't *that* big!
The Twilight Zone – A Vanity Fair article about the hype around Twilight, the vampire books by Stephanie Meyer (and the soon to be released movie adaption). I've been puzzled by the Twilight fans for some time now; while I haven't read the books, they truly seem just like a bad rip-off of countless other (older) stories (LJ Smith anyone?).
10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress 2.7 – WordPress is again getting a major update, this time with a lot of user interface changes. This is a useful post on the key differences between 2.7 and 2.6.
A Q&A With Sound Master Ben Burtt – Interesting interview with Ben Burtt, the genius behind the sounds of Star Wars, Indiana Jones and more recently Wall-E.
1. Comment on this post and ask for a letter.
2. I will give you one.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters whose names begin with that letter, and post their names and your comments on these characters on your blog.
My letter, courtesy of Kristie (from the above blog) was M. The M for Miss Geeky, the M for Melinda. Shouldn’t be that difficult, right? Strangely enough though, it was. The moment I had to start thinking of characters my mind completely blanked. Finally though after a couple weeks of thinking I’ve got my 5 characters:
Mary-Lynette Carter from Daughters of Darkness
This was one of my favourite characters from LJ Smith’s young adult Night World series. Mary-Lynette is a 16 year old girl from a small town with dreams about becoming an astronomer. And then Ash Redfern comes to town. He’s got ash blonde hair, mysterious eyes, gorgeous features and he’s a vampire. Oh, and Mary-Lynette is his soulmate. Instead of succumbing completely to him though, Mary-Lynette refuses to become a vampire herself and give up her dreams for him. She’s one of the first real strong, sarcastic characters I came across in a vampire story without being something ‘paranormal’ herself and without the need to become something ‘paranormal’ either.
Sigh. Captain Reynolds. Mal. How could I not include you in this list? Malcolm Reynolds is the captain of the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity (from of course the TV series Firefly and the movie Serenity). He’s not your traditional type of hero, but that’s exactly what makes him so endearing. (sidenote: I first got acquainted to Nathan Fillion through 2 Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place. After his roles in Firefly and Dr Horrible though, I forgive him for that.)
I love King Arthur and Camelot stories, but it’s difficult to keep track of all the various interpretations out there. Morgan le Fay’s character is especially one that is different every time. In the early works (pre 11th century) she only appears as a brief side character with magical powers. Later in the 13th century works her role is expanded, becoming Arthur’s half-sister and his antagonist.
Of course there are also modern interpretations of Morgan. While I still haven’t finished Mists of Avalon, I liked how her character (Morgaine) was portrayed there: as a priestess of Avalon, scared that Arthur will replace the native pagan religion with Christianity. Another different view is in Kinley McGregor’s Lord of Avalon series. Here Morgen has defeated Arthur and is Queen of Camelot and the demons that now inhabit it. Good or Evil, Morgan is always a great character to have around in an Arthurian story.
The Kushiel books from Jacqueline Carey may be my favourite fantasy books. They’re often classified under erotic fiction, but as I’ve said before there’s less sex in here than your typical romance novel and are much more about political intrigue. Melisande Shahrizai is the main antagonist of the series: blue-black hair, sapphire eyes, alabaster skin and a direct descendant of Kushiel, the god of punishment, she manipulates everyone for her own advancement. She’s one of my fav villains, cause although she’s “evil”, you can see and understand the reasons behind everything she does.
This is one of the most under-appreciated book series I’ve read, mainly cause a lot of people don’t know it. Check out the first book Wit’ch Fire (Banned & the Banished) on Amazon; it’s one of my favourite “finished/rounded off” series. Elena is the main character; a 13-year old girl, who finds out she’s a wielder of blood magic, the first in 500 years and the only hope against the evil that’s claimed the land of Alasea.
So those are my five characters with an M. Leave a comment behind if you want to play and I’ll give you a letter.
Remember the mysterious Dried On Paper invite? Turns out it was all about the launch party of the new INQ1 phone. Dried On Paper == Ink == INQ. Get it? (It was only after two days, reading blog posts of other people that I actually “got” that)
Thanks to the guys at 3mobilebuzz, I also got an invite to the official launch event that Thursday morning, getting a first look at the device and the chance to ask some questions to the brains behind it. I was twittering during the main presentation itself and got really excited about the possibilities of this device. After a hands-on session with it though and some more info on what it can (and can’t) do, I’m not exactly jumping with burning desire to buy one myself. It is, however, a step in the right direction and I’m curious to see what other devices will follow after this.
Integrated Social Apps
The main feature of the INQ1 is that it has several integrated Social apps on it: Facebook, Skype, Windows Messengerand Last.fm. After logging in once, these apps will stay synced and updated, running continuously in the background. They also work without having to be online; for instance, say you’re in the tube. Before going underground, the INQ1 would have updated the Facebook app, giving you access to all the latest Wall messages etc. You can go and do your usual Facebook stuff, and the app will sync everything later once you’re online again.
Address Book 2.0
Another cool feature of the INQ1 is it’s address book. Instead of maintaing your contacts manually, you can access your social network address books. After logging in the first time, the phone will import your Facebook, Skype, Windows Messenger contacts all into your address book. This means when your friend Bob phones you, you’ll see Bob’s Facebook avatar appear on the screen, without you having to do any extra effort.
Message Inbox
Because all these social apps are so fully integrated into the device itself, there’s also one main inbox where you can find an overview of all the different types of unread messages. So emails, Facebook messages, MSN and Skype chats and text messages, all together in one overview.
Price
The phone is available for only £79 with a Pay-As-You-Go plan, or for free with £15 per month plan, which includes unlimited web access, unlimited texts, and unlimited free 3-to-3 calls. Now this is what truly puts it apart from all other phones on the market. While the features may seem to be competing with the iPhone and other Smart phones out there, those are not it’s true competitors. People with enough money will buy an iPhone or a Blackberry or a high-end Nokia. No, this phone is aimed at those people who don’t want something as elaborate as that, but do want access to their social networks. And for this price plan I am tempted a little to get one myself.
What’s Missing?
So why won’t I buy one myself yet? There are a couple of things missing to make me want to replace the phone I currently use. For starters, it depends solely on the manufacturers which “social networks” make it into the phone. They’ve chosen now for Facebook, Windows Messenger, Skype and Last.fm, but what about other more newer networks? I’m sorely missing Twitter on this phone and I would have loved all this integration applied to that app. Besides that it doesn’t have a full keyboard and/or a touch screen, relying rather on the standard 12-button keypad. It’s sufficient, but you’d kind of expect a “social networking” phone to have a smarter way of inputting text.
While the INQ1 for me personally is not the “next big thing”, as I said above I am very curious to see what other devices will come after this. It is the first lower budget phone to focus more on the internet capabilities instead of the type of camera in it or the prettiness of a phone. I don’t use my phone that much for calling or texting or taking pictures; I use it for checking my emails and Twitters and browsing teh internetz. The next step of mobile communication should be social network communication and this is the first phone to focus on just that.
The INQ1 should be available in December on 3, right on time for Christmas.
Episode 90: “When what we want constantly redefines itself, shouldn’t how we watch it do the same?”
Here’s a cool ad from Toshiba:
[If the video doesn’t load here, watch it on Youtube]
I remember being so stunned the first time I saw “bullet time” in The Matrix, but since then it’s been used mainly as an extra stunt effect. And now here we have one step further, creating an even weirder type of effect. I’m curious to see how this can be applied in “normal” movies.
I’ve got a wonderful pair of black knee high leather Aerosole boots (see the black pair in the image below), but a couple of weeks ago I tripped when stepping off an escalator and I may have damaged the heel. I’m not sure yet if it’s possible to fix it; it’s like the inside part of the heel broke (just a little bit though), so it’s slightly wobbly.
They haven’t died completely yet, but the past couple of weeks I’ve just been too scared to use them, in case I damage them even more. I know I should get around to bringing them to a shoe repair, but I just haven’t found the time or the right place. So in the mean time I thought I’d look for another pair shoes! (yeah, no time to bring the old shoes to a shoe repair, but I do have time to go shoe shopping)
I didn’t want a replacement to these boots though, more something that would complement them. So while the old ones had high heels, I thought I’d look for a robust flat pair that would stand a bit of rain and a long day of walking around.
Now most of you may know my problems with shoe hunting (see previous posts). One of my feet is larger than the other, so I always have trouble finding the right shoes. I’m already quite fussy when it comes to the type of shoe (it has to meet my requirements exactly), then add to that the trouble of two different sized feet!
I almost had given up on finding something, when Cristiano noticed a small leather shop with shoes for sale. I ended up with these boots:
Here’s another photo:
They’re exactly what I was looking for! Flat, black, they look like leather (they’re actually rubber), robust, rain proof, comfortable, in other words: a nice new addition to my growing shoe family (I don’t have that many pairs, only six, and that’s including my wellies and running shoes).
I’ve been meaning to write about this conference for more than a week now, but things have just kept on popping up. As I said in a previous post, Playful was a different type of games design conference, not only featuring game designers (in fact, I think there were only two that were actually just that), but mainly people who were passionate about games and had a different perspective to game design.
I arrived slightly late (ugh, public transport), so I missed the intro from Toby Barnes and most of the talk from James Wallis. I got to see all the other presentations though and all of them gave a really unique view. In total there were 15 talks, each of them 20 minutes long. I won’t try to describe every single presentation, instead I’ll highlight the ones I found most interesting.
Guitar Hero Hacking
Roo Reynolds had a cool talk about how he used ControllerMate to interpret the Guitarhero/Rockband guitar “buttons” and pass it on to GarageBand. The result was being able to use your GuitarHero guitar as an actual instrument and create and play your own (or other people’s) songs. His slides and audiocast are up on Slideshare. Here’s a short clip of Roo playing Hotel California:
Games and Music
A nice (and completely unintentional) followup to Roo’s talk was Matthew Irvine Brown‘s presentation. He talked about the similarities between how you learn games and music (how you learn how to play a game and how you learn to play music, like reading notes and scales). He had done a couple of experiments to see how people could learn music principles through a more game like structure.
In one experiment Matthew took brass band type of instruments like trumpets, trombone and tuba, and created Guitarhero-like plastic controllers. In another he used a breath controller as the controller for a small remote control car (exhaling/inhaling in different degrees caused the car to go left/right). Finally Matthew had another experiment with a singing sock puppet (see this video to see what I mean), which got these type of reactions from people:
Addiction
Adrian Hon normally talks about Alternate Reality Games and that type of game design, but for this conference he wanted to do something different and not rehash an old presentation. So he talked about addiction and his own experiences with it. He told us how a couple of months ago he decided to play Team Fortress 2. Now the cool thing of that game is that you can play in clans with people, so Adrian found a fun clan to join and played regularly with the same group. Only problem: the clan was based in the US, and their standard playing hours were 1am-3am.
After a while Adrian had trouble sleeping and chose for a weird solution: drink alcohol. Apparently for him alcohol would make him sleepy, so he’d drink a couple of beer/wine/(I don’t remember what exactly) every time he would play at night. At one point though it came so far that he’d also drink on the nights he didn’t play. It wasn’t a lot, not enough to think “oh, I’m a alcoholic”, but eventually he realised he shouldn’t be drinking like that. So he stopped with the drinking and consequently with Team Fortress 2 too.
212 Box and Mystery on Fifth Avenue
Eric Clough is an architect with 212box (based in New York) and he first gave a couple of examples of cool design stuff his company had done. The main one that everyone was interested in though was Mystery on Fifth Avenue (check out the New York Times article). Eric explained a lot about this apartment, highlighting a lot of things not featured in the article.
A Playful Stance
Kars Alfrink gave a interesting presentation and a different take on design. The documentary film Dogtown and Z-Boys is about the beginning/birth of competitive skateboarding. Skateboards at the time (1970s) were seen as a land-bound pastime for surfers, nothing more. A group of kids took these skateboards and combined them with the empty concrete round swimming pools to create a more acrobatic and exhilarating game. They basically took these existing objects and created their own game with it. Kars proposed that games shouldn’t be designed, but instead tools should be designed with which people can create their own games.
Hardware Hacking
In this talk Matt Biddulph showed the results of hardware hacking and playing around with electronics. He first explained how it was possible through products like Arduino and that basically you can hack anything together you want with some basic soldering skills. He showed examples like Johnny Lee’s Wii hack, the Tenori-On, the BBC Dabagotchi and the DSBrut.
There were 9 more presentations, each giving a unique and cool perspective to game design. Check out some other blog posts about Playful: Digital Consultant, Roo Reynolds, James Wallis. I’m hoping most of the talks will be uploaded, cause I did see a camera recording everything. All in all, it was a great day and I look forward to next year’s event.
I was in a bad mood yesterday, so Cristiano decided to cheer me up with cocktails:
We took the recipe for the Miss Geeky Moscow Mules and left out anything we didn’t had. We also didn’t have any crushed ice though and no blender, so I had to resort to smashing big ice cubes wrapped up in a towel with one of my high heels. Not the most elegant solution, but highly effective.
A couple of weeks ago, Cristiano and I met up with Carlo and Fabiana in Regent’s Park for a photo shoot… where we were the models. Now neither of us are that natural when it comes to posing for photos, but I love love love how some of these photos turned out. Thanks Carlo and Fabiana!
We’ve got a whole collection of photos to choose from and we’re slowly going through them and uploading them. So far we’ve only got four of them online (on mine and Cristiano’s Flickr account), but keep an eye out for more.
We don’t have a lot of photos of the two of us together, mainly cause most of the time we’re the ones taking the photos. So I was pretty happy to have some photos of us, like this one:
This photo was a bit of an experiment, but the effect is nice and quirky:
Besides some photos of the two of us, we also wanted some new profile pics. Here’s one cool one of Cristiano:
And here’s a really cool one of me:
I’m wondering now: should I change my avatar again?
Last week I got a mysterious email inviting me to a VIP event for a new device that wouldn’t be disclosed:
On the 13th November a new device designed to keep you in social sync more than ever before will be unveiled. We thought you’d be interested in coming along and being involved.
As our special guests, you and a friend are invited to this exclusive event to witness how this new product will impact your life and social interactions. Taking place in a premier East End London venue, there’ll be music from Disco Bloodbath, The Unabombers and Hexstatic are on visual duties and there’ll be plenty of free food and drink.
This is VIP only and places are very limited, so please confirm your attendance ASAP by replying to this email and we’ll then send you your official invitation.
The party starts 5:30PM 13th November. More details to follow.
I emailed saying I was interested and got another email in return: an official invite would be mailed (snail mailed) later that week to me and I got a code which I had to fill in on DriedOnPaper.org. Now when I went to that website last week, all you saw were two target like circles with a countdown at the top. After filling my code in and after other people also filled their code in, we got this:
Next to that I got the following message:
Code accepted
The countdown’s begun… You know when, you know where. Why? We’ll tell you when you get there.
More will be revealed once all the codes have been entered. Come back and check
The underlying image still hasn’t been completely revealed and I’ve been really curious to find out what this is all about. Then this morning I got a package. Upon opening it, I discovered this:
Stamp? Ink? Dried on Paper? The stamp revealed the following message:
Okay, so nothing new in that, but I’m guessing this slip of paper is my official invite.
At the moment we have only a couple of clues: the phrase “Dried on Paper”, dancing people and a DJ (the image on the website) and a stamp plus ink. Oh yeah, and the venue (from what I can make out of the website) is a photo studio. Plus the product is “designed to keep you in social sync more than ever before” and “will impact your life and social interactions”. Anybody care to guess what this is about?
on Amazon; it’s one of my favourite “finished/rounded off” series. Elena is the main character; a 13-year old girl, who finds out she’s a wielder of blood magic, the first in 500 years and the only hope against the evil that’s claimed the land of Alasea. 
