Me and You and A Dog Named Boo

John Winkelman

Things are kind of slow at Steelcase right now, so I am working from home. I haven’t done this in months; not since the 6-week vacation between jobs back in February and early March. Much to my surprise, I am being fairly productive. So far, I have worked out some of the data structure-and-flow issues in a SAP training game; I have installed TextPattern for one client, and am piecing together the logic for the secure client login for another client.

I find I have a difficult decision ahead of me: Ferris State University wants to hire me to teach a Game User Interface Design class during the Fall semester. On the one hand, HELL YEAH!!! On the other, my plate is already pretty full, and what with the Web Design class at Kendall College taking up most of my (otherwise) free time, I would be so busy that I would never see my girlfriend.

I suppose I could just stop sleeping. Again.

On a lighter note, Paula and I saw Star Wars on Sunday. The special effects were fantastic. So much so, that I occasionally forgot that there were people in the movie, too. Overall, I thought SW3 was better than SW1 or SW2, simply because the dialogue was much improved (but still not good by any stretch of the imagination). “Younglings”? Please! What are you, Lucas, a 12-year-old Star Wars fan fiction writer?

After a brief detour through A Game of Thrones, I have picked up Dark Age Ahead again. Check this out:

Cultural xenophobia is a frequent sequel to a society’s decline from cultural vigor. Someone has aptly called self-imposed isolation a fortress mentality. [Karen] Armstrong describes it as a shift from faith in logos, reason, with its future-oriented spirit, always seeking to know more and to extend areas of competence and control of the environment, to mythos, meaning conservatism that looks backward to fundamentalist beliefs for guidance and a worldview.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Finally!

John Winkelman

On a whim I stopped by George R. R. Martin’s site, and discovered that At Long Last, after untold decades of feverish expectations, A Feast for Crows is moving into production. For fans of the fantasy genre, this is indeed big news, as the third book in the series (Feast is the fourth) was published in October of 2000.

As for when it will hit the shelves—as near as I can tell, sometime between late July and December of this year. Use the intervening time to read the rest of the series.

This Week In Books

John Winkelman

Well, I finished everything on my stack. The Milagro Beanfield War was remarkable, and Twisty Little Passages offered up many interesting insights into the development of all kinds of interactive experiences.

Next up: Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs (chiefly known as the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities):

We in North America and Western Europe, enjoying the many benefits of the culture conventionally known as the West, customarily think of a Dark Age as happening once, long ago, following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. But in North America we live in a graveyard of lost aboriginal cultures, many of which were decisively finished off by mass amnesia in which even the memory of what was lost was also lost. Throughout the world Dark Ages have scrawled finis to successions of cultures receding far into the past.

36! or, A More Perfect Square Than Usual

John Winkelman

Yesterday was my 36th birthday. I was going to post something about the goings-on of previous June 5ths in the history of the world, but due to apocalyptic thunderstorms I was without power until after 11:00pm.

My weekend had two high points: The first was on Saturday, when Master Lee’s school performed downtown at Festival. The amazing Anisa did her usual brilliant job as our official/unofficial class photographer. The photos will be posted to Master Lee’s site later this week.

For me, the best part of the demonstration was when Master Lee’s nine-year-old grandson, Ethan, performed a solo version of Gung Li Chuan, one of our basic forms. In the photos Master Lee is standing behind Ethan, face absolutely glowing with pride.

Then yesterday my girlfriend Paula, and the afore-mentioned Anisa, and Anisa’s boyfriend Geoffrey cooked an amazing dinner (fish, asparagus, couscous, tiramisu) to help me celebrate while the thunder and lightning and wind and rain and hail raged outside. Bock bought me a bottle of rum, and my parents called to say Hi Happy Birthday

Good food, good friends, a loving family, and a numerically interesting birthday. Could life possibly get any better?

Playing With(in) the Rules

John Winkelman

In Twisty Little Passages, Montfort distinguishes between three types of story or narrative: Diegetic, Hypodiegetic, and Extradiegetic (from diegesis). The 1001 Arabian Nights is useful for describing the differences: The framework story is diegetic, each of the individual stories is hypodiegetic, and the physical book itself, the paper and ink, is extradiegetic.

In the world of Interactive Fiction, Diegetic commands are those which control the “player character”. Extradiegetic (e.g. meta-) commands are those which control the game itself. Hypodiegetic commands are those which are made through the player character, and which influence other characters in the game.

Moving from Interactive Fiction out to User Interaction, we find some parallels. Using the navigation links in a website is diegetic. Using the web browser controls is extradiegetic. Perhaps using in-system tools (e.g. a price calculator or a store locator) could be considered hypodiegetic.

Someone pointed out a few years ago that web developers and usability experts, nominally working in a “new” field, could take many lessons from the video game industry, which has been working on many of these same problems for more than 30 years.

You Never Have Enough and You Never Run Out

John Winkelman

I just regretfully informed Team n3kk1d that I will not be joining them in the MS-150 this year. Too much to do, and not enough time in which to do it.

This Saturday I and many of my classmates will journey to Midland to compete in the Midland Open Martial Arts Tournament. This will be our fifth(?) year competing, I think.

Next Saturday from 1:00 to 2:00 PM our school will perform at the 2005 Grand Rapids Arts Festival. We have been doing this for about as long as I have been a student.

It comes down to this: If I have time to train for a bike rally, then I have time to train for a kung fu performance.

The design for es.o is slowly coming together. At this rate, I should be ready for the 2006 May 1st Re-Boot.