Month: January 2007

Here are some books, presentations, papers, posts and shows that I either have read and love or don’t have yet but will very shortly:

• Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams’ update to their ‘…On Game Design’ book: Fundamentals of Game Design (and check out the companion site for designers & educators!);
• Latest edition of the Design Philosophy Papers Journal may be the last free version, so check out the rare approach of design philsophy;
• Issue 1.3 of Lost Online Studies;
• Sam Ford’s discussion about books and TV shows (Oakdale Confidential) on Henry’s blog;
• Lab Mag 1 (pdf online, hardcopy through lulu);
• Henry (I do not sleep, only write) Jenkins has another book out: Wow Climax: Tracing the Emotional Impact of Popular Cuture;
• Routledge Encyclopedia of Narratology (one of my fav buys of 2005);
• Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife (thanks Evan);
• Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman (thanks Lost TV series);
• Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music novel and CD (thanks Josie);
• Episode 3 of Kate Pullinger’s wonderful interactive net story InAnimate Alice is released;
• Loved watching West Wing from the beginning again and starting a new love with Heroes.
• Looking forward to rewatching The Singing Detective…

I bought the December issue of Time Magazine to read about their Person of the Year: You. I was shocked to find the articles full of sensationalist writing about the rise of the person in light of ‘Web 2.0’. It was full of lots of badly researched ideas such as ‘Web 2.0’. The term has been appropriated to encompass notions of social networking and such on the Net, but was originally introduced with a more complex, interesting and helpful listing of what works on the Net. Web 2.0 provides: ‘design patterns and business models for the next generation of software‘. It is ‘little’ things like this I’d expect a journalist to at least tip-the-hat-to before delving into the popular meme. Also, how can a corporation give someone the status of person of the year? Such a move of self-affirming agency can only be done yourself. So…I name the Time Magazine 2006 Person of the Year: Me. 🙂

And for those enjoying the ‘Avatar of the Year’ alternative, check out Second Life Herald’s Avatar of the Year: CopyBot. LOL

[Added Wed 3rd Jan:] 

After my post about the Time Magazine Person of the Year: You, I’ve got to add this neat version enabled by Dan Wood. As he says on his blog, the Time’s cover, with its use of Mylar to have a mirror-looking monitor, is so 20th century. They really should have electronic paper that really did show us on the front. In the meantime, here is the web-enabled version created by Dan Wood for those with Mac iSight.

Source: Ugo Cei