Design: June 2004 Archive Page

Spirit has begun to negotiate her way up into the Columbia Hills where she has encountered a strange rock called Pot of God that she found contains hematite, something that may well lead to the discovery of past water there. On the other side of the planet, Opportunity has continued her descent into Endurance Crater and is now investigating some intriguing rock layers that are already expanding the water story at Meridiani Planum. A.J.S. Rayl --Spirit Finds Hematite; Opportunity Discovers Signs of More Water (The Planetary Society)

That should be "Pot of Gold," methinks. In other, completely unrelated news about pot...

The Queen has allowed herself to be the subject of the first royal hologram. --Queen's holograph 'makes me look lost in woods' (Telegraph)

Thanks for the offbeat suggestion, Rosemary.

Tiny, even microscopic, cameras, deployed ubiquitously, should worry us in any number of ways. Individuals will lose even more of their privacy. Companies will find it difficult to maintain traditional notions of trade secrets. And governments will confront a world in which, to some extent, people will spy on the official snoops, not just the other way around.

Technology has already led to some of these changes in what for the most part are relatively small ways compared with what's coming.

How can we respond appropriately? --Dan Gillmor
--How do we adjust when cameras are everywhere? (Sillicon Valley)

What If... There Were No IF? An Alternative History of Games, sans Crowther's Colossal Cave (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

During a break in the Princeton video game conference a few months ago, David Thomas asked me, what would computer games be like today if Will Crowther hadn't created Colossal Cave Adventure? I pulled Nick Montfort into the brief discussion that followed, but then the next panel started, and the topic went onto the back burner.

Here is a possible alternative history of computer game design, based on the premise that Will Crowther never wrote his 1975 original.

For want of Adventure, the magic word XYZZY is lost. (Computer users around the world are forced to think of less-guessable passwords, and information technology is more secure.)

For want of Adventure, Zork was lost. (But now everyone uses a really cool spreadsheet called VisiCalc.)

For want of Zork, Roberta Williams does not create "The Mystery House."

For want of Adventure, Adventure International was lost.

For want of Adventure International, Ken Williams does not work briefly for Scott Adams.

For want of Ken and Roberta Williams, Sierra was lost. (A generation of youngsters don't bother nagging their parents to upgrade their video cards from CGA to SuperVGA; when an explosion at a factory in Japan cripples the world's supply of memory chips, about six people notice.)

For want of Sierra Online, Leisure Suit Larry was lost.

For want of Leisure Suit Larry, Grand Theft Auto was lost.

For want of Grand Theft Auto, Grand Text Auto was lost. (The creators choose the name "Rogues' Gallery" instead, because it got more votes than "The Pong Throng" or "VisiCalc User Forum.")

For want of the text adventure genre, the entire field of computer science seems lifeless and boring to a significant number of young men and women who briefly consider it in the late 70s and early 80s. They drop out in droves. The ones who don't end up running computers at financial institutions, but are eventually put out of work by high-school dropouts using VisiCalc.

For want of the text adventure genre, the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure genre is lost.

For want of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, scholars groping for a way to describe hypertext to their non-technical colleagues think harder and come up with a better metaphor, one which magically prevents the premature dismissal of hyperfiction, leading to its rapid acceptance into the literary canon.

For want of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, a generation of youths watches more TV. Later, in college, these youths daydream during their hyperfiction survey courses, wondering how their life would have turned out if they had dropped out of high school like their stoner friends did.

Oh, and Dave Thomas has a scar, Nick Montfort has a beard, side-scrollers all scroll the opposite way, and all ships have funky spikes on their warp drive nacelles.

A bit more seriously, now...

I've read many anecdotes from programmers whose early experience with interactive fiction games turned them on to computers, so I do think that without text adventures, some of these people might not have considered careers in computing. While it's a meme that Adventure set the field of computer science back two weeks, I'd prefer to think that after everyone finished Zork, they went back to their jobs energized by what computers might be able to accomplish, and perhaps they shifted their expectations in such a way that might have affected the development of CS in positive ways.

Since the average computer user didn't have access to CRTs that displayed fancy graphics, and since a significant chunk of computing took place on printer terminals, I suppose that ASCII genres such as Rogue, and strategy games such as Wumpus and mainframe Trek would have attracted the attention of the amateur hackers and students who, after playing Adventure or Zork, tried their hand at creating their own amateur interactive fiction.

Hosting the wild speculation up to the next level...

Perhaps the players who lost countless hours playing interactive fiction would have instead spent more time getting their game fix at the arcade. If coin-op video arcade games developed a little faster, then perhaps users of personal computers wouldn't have been at all satisfied with the bleeps and blips that they saw on their home computers... maybe they would have been so disappointed by the offerings of home computer entertainment that they would have preferred dropping coins in the arcade, playing games that emulated familiar TV shows (however badly), to typing in lines of code from magazines in order to play games on their home computers. This might have delayed growth in the market for PC games, paving the way in the future for a direct transition of loyalty from the video arcade to the gaming platform.

The way that desks and chairs are arranged in a professor's office send subtle signals. If you use your desk to block your doorway with a confrontational barrier like they do at, say, a police station, well then you're not only being uninviting, you're also responsible for all those nervous tics the students make when they do come talk to you. Think of the angles of the furniture: are they more "open" than "closed"? Do they invite conversation and informality, or do they put too many barriers between you and the student. While it's true that you may not want to be completely open and intimite with your students -- like, say, sitting beside them on a big puffy couch -- you might find that rearranging the furniture liberates some of the angst students have when they come to your office. So will little details like having family pictures on the desk, putting art on the walls that reflects your personality, having knick nacks or other things that students can look at when they want to avoid eye contact, or conversation pieces to get the shy ones talking...etc., etc. Be professional, yet open. --Mike Arnzen --Tips for Office Hours (Pedablogue)

A good collection of musings on office hours.

I've always arranged my office so that there isn't a barrier (such as a desk or bookcase) between me and the door, so that students who stop by won't feel they are imposing.

I generally work with the office door open. I will shut the door partway or completely in order to signal various degrees of isolation that I desire. When I really want to concentrate, of course, I take a stack of papers or a book and I find a quiet corner on campus.

The bad words we removed, meaning that "The meteor is going to be pissed" was changed to "The meteor is going to be mad." Howie Rubin of Jaleco (the company that was going to publish the game under license) advised us the that the baddest bad word is Kill. The central activity in most Nintendo games is killing things. The image and the act are good, but the word is bad, even if the word does not suggest the image or the act. --Douglas Crockford --Now You're Really Playing with Power: The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Crockford.com)

A bizarre story. Quotable quote: "Nintendo is a jealous god."

Want to play a game that involves Monty the Mole? Commander Keen? David "Knight Rider" Hasselhoff? With RoN you can. The fact that anyone can freely contribute to the series means that its potential for growth is unrivaled. Indeed, at the time of writing this article, there have been over sixty RoN games. Even King's Quest could only manage eight... --Robert Lacey
--Deconstructing Reality  (Adventure Gamers)

Hmm... this is more about the communal construction of virtual reality than it is about the deconstruction of reality, but it's a good article nonetheless.

I couldn’t have been less interested. The pedagogical approach was entirely vocational. Just as my French and Spanish courses revolved around hypothetical trips to Paris or Madrid (like I was going to get there any time soon), my programming courses were filled with unlikely scenarios that read like a cross between an inter-office memo and a GRE logic problem: “You own a small hardware store in Schenectady. Write a program that will display items in your inventory sorted in such and such a way, but not screwdrivers on Tuesdays when the moon is full.” --The Pedagogy of Programming (MGK)

The grading system for courses offered by CCS is focused on accomplishment, a combination of Pass/No Record grading and variable unit credit. For each course taken in the College, the student enrolls for a specific number of units of work that he or she plans to do during the quarter, from 1 - 6 units. (See Course Descriptions and ask your instructors regarding unit level guidelines in various courses). At the end of the quarter, the instructor of each course determines the number of units each student?s work merits (based on the quantity of work done at high quality level). If you earn no units of credit, the course does not appear on your transcript. You should request specific information from your instructors at the beginning of each quarter on what is expected in order to earn the number of units you desire. Though there are no letter grades in CCS classes, students are expected to maintain a high level of quality in all the work they do to fulfill academic requirements. --CCS Grading System (UCSB College of Creative Studies)

Fascinating. Students still need 180 credits to graduate, but a bright student could theoretically graduate in half the time.

I have done something like this on a small scale at my previous job, giving students some flexibility in setting their own deadlines. I did have some problems with students turning in no work for a month, then doing all-nighters to turn in three papers in the last week of class -- expecting me to get them back in enough time for them to revise and resubmit the next week. So I had to set some limits -- e.g. students couldn't submit paper 2 until I've approved paper 1; they couldn't submit first drafts of paper 2 and paper 3 in the same week (since the point of paper 2 is to give the student practice that will help them produce paper 3).

I spent a lot of time explaining this method, and I think it really did help me spend most of my time with those students who were most motivated to learn, but I'm not sure it helped those students who overestimated their abilities and only got serious about the course in the last month. Some of the same students who hated being nagged early in the term complained that I gave them too much freedom... and the more I tried to emphasize the importance of sticking to deadlines, the more negative my "welcome to the class" lecture got to be.

I really think the sequenced assignments were a beautiful thing, because they established a direct link between a student's academic habits and their consequences. Students who chose to take a little vacation ended up running out of time before they got to the major assignments -- and the class was designed to reward those who kept up... which is a polite way of saying it was designed to make sure that student procrastination didn't create extra work for me.

My thought is, in a writing class, I'd rather a student write and re-write two papers until they are A-level quality, even if it means they run out of time and can't even start the next two papers, than get Cs on all four papers without revising any of them. I greatly simplified my system when I came to Seton Hill, but I'd like perhaps to bring it back on a smaller scale.

Link found via Jocalo.

Now, I'm really not interested in just complaining about the fact that LeapFrog hasn't made this move. It's a massive strategic issue for them, and they do have shareholders to answer to. At the same time, I refuse to accept one justification I heard at the conference, namely that shelf space pressure was one reason to shrink from third party development -- LeapFrog products get a full aisle of shelf space in Target and Wal-Mart. Rather, I think the good folks at LeapFrog just need an outside perspective on the matter. And why shouldn't that perspective be a public one? --Ian Bogost --The Truth about Third Party Development on the LeapFrog Leapster (Water Cooler Games)

I've exchanged a few comments with Ian, who asked me, "What kinds of games might change your mind about the value of the Leapster as a supervised computer activity?"

The Amazon reviews of Leapster praised the concept and quality of the software, but there were more than enough problems with durability to make me pass on the hardware. Since I'm not really comfortable (yet) with the idea of letting my son have unlimited access to his games, I'd rather buy 3 or 4 edu-games for the PC we already have than risk a Leapster.

My son is not that picky about graphics, so he's happily playing some old (mid 1990s) games, and he prefers the 1994 (or so) Star Wars X Wing vs Tie Fighter to the more recent X Wing Alliance... So the fact that I can share with him games that I enjoyed means something to me.

In terms of content, what would it take to get me to change my mind? I don't know... I'll know it when I see it. We don't get cable TV, so he doesn't know who Spongebob or Dora the Explorer are, so the branded content is actually a liability in my eyes.

Some educational games make a funny blooping noise when you make a mistake or get a wrong answer. My son enjoyed trying to knock Curious George unconscious so much that he never paid attention to the letter-recognition game, and besides, he already knew his alphabet. So he got stuck on a level -- by his own choice -- for several days.

I would love to have been able to tweak the level of encouragement the game provides.

I know my son prefers games that feature a plot with an opponent to overcome... For several years he has been enthralled by Lego Stunt Rally, which has completely captured his imagination (to the point that we have to limit his access to that game, or he will make car brake squealing noises for hours at a time, re-playing races in his mind).

Sometimes I'd like to see the "plot" suffer an extreme setback if the kid is careless...

Oh wait -- I just thought of a game that might make me buy Leapster.

My son needs some work with penmanship... I had, and still have, terrible handwriting, so I'm senstitive on this issue.

If there were a game where you played... I don't know... a construction foreman, and you traced out shapes on a blueprint, and then construction teams built the roads according to the layout you designed, and then you had to drive on the roads, wrecking your nice cars if the wobbly lines drawn on the blueprint were too far from the norm. A game like that might also include map reading, simulation, basic math, and abstract thinking. Oh, and of course there would need to be random citizens with fruit stands to be smashed.

Throw in a villain with a handlebar moustache and a cool car that can spew smoke screens and drop oil slicks, and I'd buy it.

Planes, ants, Chewbacca making the calculations for a jump to hyperspace -- anything that moves in a boundary would work. It's drawing on the touch screen that would make the difference. But it's that touch screen that seems to be the source of a lot of frustration from consumers.

Unscrewed: Finding Replacement Screws for Palm Tungsten T3  (Jerz's Literacy Weblog)

A few weeks ago, I was comparing PDA's with Josh Sasmor (a Seton Hill math professor), when Josh noticed that one of the four tiny screws on the lower body of my Tungsten T3 was missing. I forgot to bring the charger home one weekend, and took the following week off, so my PDA's batteries died and I didn't use it for more than a week. When I picked it up again, I noticed that now, three of the four tiny screws were missing.

I hit the Internet, and found that I am not alone. Palm does not sell replacement screws, and in fact will not replace them at all unless you send in your PDA for servicing -- which costs $125, plus shipping and the time you have to spend without a PDA -- and that you might get somebody else's used PDA back instead of yours. A few posters in online forums mentioned finding replacements in out of the way places, so I was hopeful (though Finn never replied to my e-mail). One online poster said a railroad hobbyist eyeballed the screw, said "Looks like a #80," opened up a drawer, and presto -- problem solved.

After checking Wal-Mart, Lowe's (a hardware chain), three eyeglass stores, two jewelry stores and a Radio Shack, I was feeling pretty discouraged. The culture here in Pennsylvania is small-town friendly, so I didn't get the idea people were blowing me off; but nobody had a drawer full of odd screws, and nobody knew how to get in touch with a supplier who might stock such parts. "The parts I'm supposed to need just arrive from the warehouse," said one employee.

Today I was in downtown Greensburg, and found screws that fit at Bortz Hardware. They had about twenty in a little drawer; The part number: 0-80X 1/8, flat head Phillips, 64084. I bought seven. When I told employee Peggy Felton about the Tungsten problem, she looked in her drawer and said, "I'll order more."

Update, June 25 (photo added): The replacement screw, on the right, sticks out ever so slightly on the downslope edge, but it seems to fit tightly.

If you're looking for replacement Tungsten T3 screws, you might want to give Bortz Hardware a call at 724 834 3770. (I have no financial stake in the transaction... I'm just hoping I might be of some service to somebody whom Google throws my way.)

According to the chatter on user forums and an online petition, Palm's position is that the screws were lost due to user error, and thus the replacement is not covered by warranty. Many unhappy consumers note that they have owned countless electronic devices with tiny screws that do not need to be tightened regularly, and feel it is a design flaw.

Oh... the price Bortz Hardware charged for the screws? Eighteen cents each. That sure beats $125.

I doubt anyone could accuse me of literature. Online text games tend to have quite a different emphasis than a book. I am not trying to tell a story as much as I am trying to describe a location and an atmosphere. I try to make the descriptions detailed and interesting enough for people to believe they are actually there. I think this is one area the creators and I have tried hard to do well from early on, making the room descriptions very detailed. --David Bennett --Discworld MUD: Slinging Dirt with David Bennett (Armchair Arcade)

Bennett created a MUD based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.