December 2010
5 posts
2 tags
Open loops
I found this insightful piece of writing on Gamasutra, which analyses Zinga’s new game CityVille (makers of FarmVille), and how they managed to get 70 million users in less than a month.
The closest analogy that I can think of for how retention works is waiting tables. A waitress is commonly juggling many tasks at once. There are orders to collect, orders to serve, drinks to refill,...
1 tag
Everyone Who Tried to Convince Me to use Vim was...
To those who would say “that’s obvious; of course you learn vim incrementally”, I would simply say that having spoken to a number of vim users in the past, I never got that advice. Instead, I got a lot of advice about turning off my arrow keys, disallowing the use of the mouse, and learning the (MORE EFFICIENT!!!) vim ways to do everything, all at once. People just couldn’t stomach the idea of...
1 tag
The Antikythera Mechanism re-created with Lego
The Mechanism is interesting to me because people think of these astronomical predictions only being possible with sophisticated NASA computers. But to realize that someone actually built a mechanical machine to do that 2000 years ago is pretty impressive — and figuring out to to do it myself in Lego is fascinating too.
Andrew Carol via Fast Company
2 tags
Dissection of the Pac-Man AI →
Inky actually uses both Pac-Man’s position/facing as well as Blinky’s (the red ghost’s) position in his calculation. To locate Inky’s target, we first start by selecting the position two tiles in front of Pac-Man in his current direction of travel, similar to Pinky’s targeting method. From there, imagine drawing a vector from Blinky’s position to this tile, and then doubling the length of the...
November 2010
7 posts
3 tags
Designing without designers →
I will always remember my first introduction to the power of good product design. I was newly arrived at Apple, still learning the ways of business, when I was visited by a member of Apple’s Industrial Design team. He showed me a foam mockup of a proposed product. “Wow,” I said, “I want one! What is it?”
Don Norman, via Core77
2 tags
Mystery Surrounds Cyber Missile That Crippled... →
In the 20th century, this would have been a job for James Bond.
The mission: Infiltrate the highly advanced, securely guarded enemy headquarters where scientists in the clutches of an evil master are secretly building a weapon that can destroy the world. Then render that weapon harmless and escape undetected.
But in the 21st century, Bond doesn’t get the call. Instead, the job is handled...