How Success Killed Duke Nukem

Another article from Wired, Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem is a fascinating story about how Duke Nukem went from the top to the world of vapor over an excruciating 10+ year journey.

Definitely, a cautionary tale about the excesses of the pursuit of perfection.

So THIS is where "Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus" came from!

From Wired Magazine, Now Playing: Cheap-and-Schlocky Blockbuster Ripoffs. It has been such a long time since I had actually walked into a BlockBuster to see the "close but different" movies like:

• Snakes on a Train (instead of Plane)
• The Land that Time Forgot (instead of Land of the Lost)
• 18 year old virgin (instead of 40 year old virgin)
• Aliens vs Hunter: AVH (instead of Aliens vs Predator: AVP)
• Transmorphers: Fall of Man (instead of Transformers: Whatever)
• Sherlock (instead of Sherlock Holmes)

But they make money. They just have to time the releases properly.

My kids were enthralled with the concept of "Mega-Shark vs Giant Octopus" and with STRONG leads like Lorenzo Lamas and Debbie Gibson, why wouldn't they be?

Warhammer 40k - Live RPG - Pics - Lt.E.Watts' Photostream

Before you all think this fellow has built an actual army of Powered Armor suits, he hasn't. But he has a number of full human-scale props for their LARPing. Nice gun!
Lt.E.Watts' Photostream here

Dan O’Bannon, ‘Alien’ Screenwriter, Dies at 63 - Obituary

Dan O’Bannon, ‘Alien’ Screenwriter, Dies at 63 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

Though the look wasn't developed by him, the story was all his (and Ronald Shusett).

He also wrote DarkStar!

Definitely, his Alien - horror creation is long-lasting.

20th Anniversary Simpsons full cast shot

Whole Simpsons Cast shot!

I think I only know about half of them.

Totally Crafty - hoops and yoyo | make a super-fun CHRISTMAS paper toy!

hoops and yoyo's paper toy! is totally awesome!

Not sure how to print this out on good paper stock though.

Misc Flash Dev Links - 2009-12-11

Flash Development Links:

• Flash Dev Essential Toolbox List
• Better Flash Asset Loading using SWCs
• Flash for Android
• Pixel Bender Performance

Best Free Online TV Viewer

List of Online viewers -- Best Free Online TV Viewer

Just need more time!

Left4Dead 8-bit

Aww, so cute! Will be something folks can play in Jan 2010.



More! MORE BRAINS!

The Best Writing Tips Ever (?)

Interesting list of thoughts slogans on writing from Allan Ginsburg.

The first one from William Blake is really wonderful.

DEFINITIONS, A PREFACE (2/19/94)

Allen Ginsberg spent two decades teaching poetics at Naropa Institute, a half decade at Brooklyn College, and did occasional workshops at Zen Center & Shambhala/Dharmadhatu weekends. It's all been boiled down to brief mottoes from many sources found useful to guide myself and others in the experience of "writing the mind." --Peter Hale

ALLEN GINSBERG'S MIND WRITING SLOGANS

'First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.' --William Blake

I. GROUND (Situation, or Primary Perception)

1. 'First Thought, Best Thought' --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
2. 'Take a friendly attitude toward your thoughts.' --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
3. 'The Mind must be loose.' --John Adams
4. 'One perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception.' --Charles Olson, 'Projective Verse'
5. 'My writing is a picture of the mind moving.' --Philip Whalen
6. Surprise Mind --Allen Ginsberg
7. 'The old pond, a frog jumps in, Kerplunk!' --Basho
8. 'Magic is the total delight (appreciation) of chance' --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
9. 'Do I contradict myself?
   
   Very well, then I contradict myself,
   
   (I am large. I contain multitudes.)' --Walt Whitman
10. "...What quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature? ...Negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." --John Keats
11. 'Form is never more than an extension of content.' --Robert Creeley to Charles Olson
12. 'Form follows function.' --Frank Lloyd Wright
13. Ordinary Mind includes eternal perceptions. --A.G.
14. 'Nothing is better for being Eternal
    
    Nor so white as the white that dies of a day.' --Louis Zukofsky
15. Notice what you notice. --A.G.
16. Catch yourself thinking. --A.G.
17. Observe what's vivid. --A.G.
18. Vividness is self-selecting. --A.G.
19. 'Spots of Time' --William Wordsworth
20. If we don't show anyone we're free to write anything. --A.G.
21. 'My mind is open to itself.' --Gelek Rinpoche
22. 'Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound.' --Charles Reznikoff




II. PATH (Method or Recognition)

23. 'No ideas but in things.' '...No ideas but in the Facts.' --William Carlos Williams
24. 'Close to the nose.' --W.C.Williams
25. 'Sight is where the eye hits.' --Louis Zukofsky
26. 'Clamp the mind down on objects.' --W.C.Williams
27. 'Direct treatment of the thing...' (or object.)' --E.Pound, 1912
28. 'Presentation, not reference...' --Ezra Pound
29. 'Give me a for instance.' --Vernacular
30. 'Show not tell.' --Vernacular
31. 'The natural object is always the adequate symbol.' --Ezra Pound
32. 'Things are symbols of themselves.' --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
33. 'Labor well the minute particulars, take care of the little ones
    
    He who would do good for another must do it in minute particulars
    
    General Good is the plea of the Scoundrel Hypocrite and Flatterer
    
    For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars" --William Blake
34. 'And being old she put a skin/On everything she said.' --W.B.Yeats
35. 'Don't think of words when you stop but to see the picture better.' --Jack Kerouac
36. 'Details are the Life of Prose.' --Jack Kerouac
37. Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best. --A.G.
38. 'Economy of Words' --Ezra Pound
39. 'Tailoring' --Gregory Corso
40. Maximum information, minimum number of syllables. --A.G.
41. Syntax condensed, sound is solid. --A.G.
42. Savor vowels, appreciate consonants. --A.G.
43. 'Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.' --Ezra Pound
44. '...awareness...of the tone leading of the vowels.' --Ezra Pound
45. '...an attempt to approximate classical quantitative meters...' --Ezra Pound
46. 'Lower limit speech, upper limit song' --Louis Zukofsky
47. 'Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, Logopoeia.' --Ezra Pound
48. "Sight, Sound & Intellect." --Louis Zukofsky
49. 'Only emotion objectified endures.' -- Louis Zukofsky




III. FRUITION (Result or Appreciation)

50. Spiritus = Breathing = Inspiration = Unobstructed Breath
51. 'Alone with the Alone' --Plotinus
52. Sunyata (Skt.) = Ku (Japanese) = Emptiness
53. 'What's the sound of one hand clapping?' --Zen Koan
54. 'What's the face you had before you were born?' --Zen Koan
55. Vipassana (Skt.) = Clear Seeing
56. 'Stop the world' --Carlos Casteneda
57. 'The purpose of art is to stop time.' --Bob Dylan
58. 'The unspeakable visions of the individual.' --J.K.
59. 'I'm going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.' --Chuang Tzu, (Tr. Burton Watson)
60. 'Candor' --Whitman
61. 'One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.' --Shakespeare
62. "Contact" --A Magazine, Nathaniel West & W.C. Williams, Eds.
63. "God Appears & God is Light
    
    To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
    
    But does a Human Form Display
    
    To those who Dwell in Realms of day.' --W. Blake
64. Subject is known by what she sees. --A.G.
65. Others can measure their visions by what we see. --A.G.
66. Candor ends paranoia. --A.G.
67. 'Willingness to be Fool.' --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
68. "day & night/you're all right" --Corso
69. Tyger: "Humility is Beatness." --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G.
70. Lion: "Surprise Mind" --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G.
71. Garuda: 'Crazy Wisdom Outrageousness' --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
72. Dragon: 'Unborn Inscrutability' --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
73. 'To be men not destroyers' --Ezra Pound
74. "Speech synchronizes mind & body." --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
75. "The Emperor unites Heaven & Earth." --Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
76. 'Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.' --Shelley
77. 'Make it new' --Ezra Pound
78. 'When the mode of music changes, the walls of the city shake' --Plato
79. 'Every third thought shall be my grave' --W. Shakespeare, 'The Tempest'
80. 'That in black ink my love may still shine bright' --W. Shakespeare, Sonnets
81. 'Only emotion endures' --Ezra Pound
82. 'Well while I'm here I'll
    
    do the work--
    
    and what's the Work?
    
    To ease the pain of living.
    
    Everything else, drunken
    
    dumbshow.' --A.G.
83. '...Kindness, sweetest
    
    of the small notes

in the world's ache,

most modest & gentle

of the elements

entered man before history

and became his daily

connection, let no man

tell you otherwise.' --Carl Rakosi

Ed Emberley’s Make a World: The Film

I have no idea what this movie Ed Emberely’s Make a World: The Film. could have that could compare to the awesome power he shared to draw anything.

Oh my god, I loved this book: Ed Emberley's Make-a-World I LOVED this book back in 1972.

I think I borrowed this book from the library about a zillion times.

"Make a World : the Film" Teaser from makeaworldfilm on Vimeo.

But I'll definitely watch it!

urban computing conference title generator

Awesome urban computing conference title generator.

Sound Hip without meaning ANYTHING!

Some samples:

• Approaching the Mesh Tweet
• Deploying the Ludic Interstices
• Thinking about the New Environment
• Approaching the Participatory Service
• Discussing the Spatial App
• Architecting the Public Infrastructure

Flurry of ActionScript stuff

Some interesting links to remember:

• From InsideRIA, Create cleaner ActionScript with conditional compiling is a pretty cool technote for AS3 development
• From Mike Chambers, a slide deck (PDF) on how to build iPhone apps with Flash CS5 (not released yet). Talks about optimization techniques for a weaker mobile device.