I’m not one from playing games usually but I found myself surprisingly addicted to this ingenious little flash puzzle:
It works on the principle that you have to work with yourself to be able to reach the top level (floor) by replaying your cursor path each time the clock runs out and hence you help yourself along the way (have a go to see what I mean). How long does it take you to reach the 16th floor?! [via]
I’ve also always liked the look of Portal, a rather sophisticated teleportation game, based on the Half-Life engine praised for its unique gameplay and dark, deadpan humor. Somehow these sort of games appeal to me more than the usual killing fields in first-person shooters but then again there is something rather cathartic about them
Last year Information Architects Japan released the very cool 2007 web trends map. They’ve just posted a “sneak peak” of the new version for 2008 and, whilst it retains the previous general look and feel, it’s even better than before! Now presented using an isometric layout based on the KantÅ region as its geographic metaphor the map shows some interesting ideas with Dataportability.org already making an appearance and Google’s Android getting pride of place in Akihabara, the otaku mecca.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing the final full-sized version.
Update (25/01): Beta version of the final map now available!
I’ve noticed on recent trips outside London that being a “Londoner” tends to make you a bit of a snob towards the rest of the UK. A few weeks ago I visited a mid-sized town approximately 1.5 hours north of London. Upon arrival at the tiny railway station there could be seen a group of around 10 middle-aged men all looking rather dishevelled and bored. OK, I thought, they must be waiting for the next train out of this middle-of-nowhere hole. Two hours later when I returned to take the train back to London I was surprised to see that they were still there - upon closer inspection I noticed they were all carrying small notepads and some had cameras - this could only mean one thing: Trainspotters, otherwise known as Anoraks (persons with unimaginative/dull hobbies). What brings people to spend their free time watching trains and record useless trivia about them I will never know but unfortunately this sort of activity only reinforces the idea that there isn’t much life outside the capital (even though this isn’t really true… with a few exceptions)!
In Japan they have a word for similar sorts of behaviour: Otaku - a term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly in anime and manga, but can also refer to any fan of, or specialisation in any particular theme, topic, or hobby. The author William Gibson defined Otaku as “pathological-techno-fetishist-with-social-deficit” which is an interesting take on the way people collect data as opposed to objects in the information age. There are of course different extremes to which this can be taken and I guess we all are collectors to an extent…
I’m off to Amsterdam tomorrow but will be back later next week and will hopefully have a bit more time over the festive season to post more frequently
Yakuza, Ninjas, Sushi, Chainsaws, Flying Guillotines… it has it all! Where else in the world would you find a movie about a school girl seeking revenge on her brothers killers and the loss of her own arm (conveniently replaced with a gun)?!
I’m not saying the film will be any good but it might just be crazy enough to become a cult classic. [via]
The Japanese apparently have a saying for people who aren’t much good with technology - “Analogue Person“, literally translated. Futurologists have long predicted that eventually an underclass of people who do not have access to/do not want to use/don’t know how to use technology would evolve and some even go as far as to say that this would cause the human species to split into two sub-species of the elite and the digital underclass. Whilst this isn’t predicted to happen for thousands of years if this isn’t an early sign I don’t know what is!
Of course there is another line of thought which says this has already happened in Japan. You don’t have to look far for the evidence:
This twelfth generation android from Sony Robotics dubbed “Sony-san” is a particularly disturbing example of the future anthropomorphisation of humanity! Sony-san has appeared in music videos, variety shows, the occasional advert, and reportedly “lives” in a Buddhist temple (so much for secularity of science!).
1984 was a turning point in many ways (think Apple Computer, George Orwell, Linux, the Space Programme, Terminator, my birth…) and a mere 23 years later the world has been revolutionised by technology. But this revolution is not like it’s predecessors; it has no end. Like it or not things are not going to move at an ever accelerating pace. Don’t look back in 50 years and say I didn’t warn you!
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