Stan Wagon, a mathematician at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., has a bicycle with square wheels. It’s a weird contraption, but he can ride it perfectly smoothly. His secret is the shape of the road over which the wheels roll. Stan Wagon rides his square-wheeled trike over a special roadway. Courtesy of Stan —Riding…
I am sanitaryware enthusiast (I have no idea why) and have been restoring and supplying antique bathroom fittings for the past fourteen years. I also collect trade catalogues, salesmen‘ssamples and even full size W.C.‘sand washbasins. —Simon Kirby —Flushed With Pride – The Story of Thomas Crapper (JLDR) Oh, those eccentric Brits. Much more colorful, and far…
‘Click Cancel to Proceed’: Pop-Up Dialog Rhetoric A little while ago, I got an e-mail from a Ph.D. student working on a research project. Would I mind filling out an online form that asked questions about leadership and religion? The form says I can leave certain questions blank. So I do. After I’ve filled out…
To cut to the chase: The game industry currently doesn’t believe in “game research”. You’re either working on a shippable product, or you’re bullshitting around. Shippability implies minimizing risk; minimizing risk implies minimizing innovation. There are regions of design space that cannot be reached incrementally. That is, there exist new game genres that can’t be…
Do you know the origin of term BSOD aka ?Blue Screen of Death?? Well, the term ?Blue Screen of Death? was not the original acronym for BSOD. The original term meant the ?Black Screen of Death? and was seen when running under Windows 3.0. A user would attempt to run a DOS application and instead…
The only way to get the industry to take risks on games that explore the missing themes of human experience — heartbreak, betrayal, anticipation, jealousy, despair, eternal hope, grief, and so many others — is to nurture students who are inspired and who are capable of inspiring others with their vision…. If academics can help…