One Idea about Narrative
There was an interesting editorial by Norman Mailer in the newspaper last week: PARADE Magazine | One Idea (Norman Mailer)–January 23, 2005. While he spends a little too much time praising the current educational reform effort, his “one idea” is the need to eliminate commercial interruptions on television, because they interrupt the narrative of the programs, and attention to narrative is an important part of reading literacy.
“In the early years of television, it was even hoped that the attention children gave to TV would improve their interest in reading. Indeed, it might have if TV, left to itself, consisted of uninterrupted narratives. That, of course, was soon not the case. There were constant interruptions to programs
NaNo ‘04
November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! Visit nanowrimo.org for all the details, support forums, &c.
The idea is to get people around the world to write a novel in one month. You know how you always say you are going to write that novel some day? How hard could it be? You could write it in the morning, before you go to work….
For the purposes of NaNoWriMo, a novel is 50,000 words. That means you need to write 1667 words a day for the thirty days of November. Most people emphasize quantity over quality — you can edit it later.
I “won” in 2003 with a 50k word detective novel. I’ve started making outlines for this years effort. I will perhaps update the blog as I make progress.
Ban Comic Sans
I recently installed a Windows operating system on a new machine, and one of my first tasks, along with disabling VBScript and removing all those wretched screen savers, was to delete the Comic Sans font.
I guess I’m not alone: Ban Comic Sans website
I’m not just against Comic Sans because it is an ugly font; I am against its painful and inadequate usurpation of comicbook style lettering. Look at that weak ‘a’, and that meagre ‘g’… wait a minute, who the hell uses lowercase comicbook lettering in the first place?
Proof that Videogames are Evil
17 year old boy kills 14 year old friend with a claw hammer after playing Manhunt. [The Sun] (link expired) [BBC News]
This story doesn’t seem to be making much news at all. (My unscientific research: a Google News search for “Rockstar Manhunt murder” brings up 5 results.)
Not something I recommend
If you are happy with life, if you feel like the US is doing a bang-up job in Iraq, if you wish to remain content and unaware of what war is really all about, then I don’t recommend you spend an hour or two browsing through this extensive collection of photos from Iraq at CBS News.
ALT-CTRL deadline
I should probably mention, in relation to my upcoming political game, that today is the deadline for ALT+CTRL submissions. This is an event to be held at the Beall Center for Art and Technology at the University of California Irvine.
It looks like an all-star jury. Given my batting record for the year I’m not setting my hopes too high, especially since my game is pretty much an alpha version.
Illegal Art
Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age.
Nintendo Cartoon Hour
“Oh, God, what a beautiful day!”
A fun little animation based on old computer game graphics, from the creative minds at The Lonely Island:
Quicktime: nintendo.mov
Real: nintendo.rm
MPEG: nintendo.mpg