There’s a big fat post coming on open source and free software, but damned if I’m going to let the calendar get the better of me and miss a week.

And so…
Via BoingBoing: The Paper Version of The Web
A collection of the doodles that spawned some of the web’s more ubiquitous networking sites like Twitter and Flickr Places. That’s a small version of a Flickr Places sketch below (click to embiggen):

Via the PS3 store: The Linger In Shadows Teaser Trailer

Trippy “interactive art” coming soon to PS3s. And I quote “(t)he demo itself follows the ‘story-demo’ genre, revolving around a cat, a floating dog, a strange mechanical tentacled creature and a cloud of darkness”.

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So this is my first Wired Wednesday post (I forgot it was Wednesday last week, summer’ll do that to you), and in classic Miriam fashion, I want to really stretch the definition of what constitutes a “wired” subject.

See, I just came back from Detroit, where I was attending the Allied Media Conference, and I brought my computer and everything, because I am a technophile (with mild ADHD, natch) and I figured I would spend a lot of time listening to people talk and display PowerPoint presentations, leaving me with ample opportunity to do stuff like surf Metafilter or Favrd. That’s what you do at conferences, right? Show up, wear the badge and try to network. When not networking, stare at your laptop and “take notes” on the speakers.

Oh how wrong I was.

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(I cheaped it a little yesterday, so I’m doing a Wired Wednesday bonus round — Wired Wednesdays, now on Thursday!)

Over the last few months, and then twice today, CBC shows have featured stories on iPod and cell phone etiquette, noise pollution, safety and community.

Getting lots of air time are the people concerned about hearing loss, or the dangers of pedestrian oblivion. And the community-minded who worry about shutting out other people, creating barriers, and leaving us with cities filled with the walking dead. Plugged in and tuned out.

I’m not saying these aren’t fair points.

Some of the shows have been based in on-the-street interviews, and Ontario Today just wrapped up a call-in version. I had my (landline) phone at the ready, but missed the last time she gave out the number. I don’t call in to call-in shows. But I have been waiting and waiting (and waiting) for any of these episodes to say the one thing I keep saying out loud to our radio.

iPods
Well-represented are the single guys who mourn the loss of random conversations because all the women have their iPods on. Less opportunity for chats with a girl on the subway, or on the street, or at the gym.

But here’s The Thing.

I might not want you to strike up a conversation with me. iPods absolutely create a barrier. But I ain’t single, and I ain’t looking. For me it’s an intentional barrier, and a polite hint.

Being able to put up a barrier that helps take me out of the casual-conversation-that-might-go-somewhere-pool is a godsend to me. I go to the gym to work out not pick-up, I go to the grocery store to get milk, and I’m coming home from work because I don’t want to live there.
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I’m cutting it close, so super quick post:

Enjoy a Better Web

Download Firefox 3.0 today and help them set the Guinness World Record for most software downloaded in 24hrs. (That’s before 2:16pm if you’re in Toronto, a bit more time if you’re on the East Coast, lots more if we have readers in Tokyo).

Firefox FTW!

Yesterday’s discussion over donation programs reminded me that I’ve been remiss, in that I’ve never posted about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization.

The short version is that OLPC started as an initiative out of the MIT Media Lab, where they attempted (and roughly succeeded) in creating a $100 laptop (it currently costs closer to $200), to be made available to countries which historically haven’t had the funds or means to have technology in the classroom.

There was huge interest from the public in this project, and, from tech nerds, in the laptop itself — prompting the “Give 1 Get 1” offer that ran at the end of last year. (OLPC is now set up for donations only).

When I first heard about the XO-1, what I was most attracted to was that they were running free and open source software (and, at least for now, still are). It was such a fundamental element of the project that its use was listed as one of OLPC’s 5 core principles.

Though now it’s looking not so fundamental after all, with Microsoft announcing that OLPC might be running XP as early as this month. (I’ll get into why that’s boo-able if there’s interest in a “Whatsa Free/Open Software” post. Until then I’ll put a sweater on over my “Free as in Freedom” tshirt.)
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Wired Wednesday is on auto-pilot this week. As I’m moving tomorrow, and even this post is written from the floor, using stolen wireless, eating a sad little muffin. So I give you a link medley week. Some newfangled things, and a bunch of classics. Hold onto your mice.

GAMES
* A teaser for a game I’ve been looking forward to forever (okay, since last summer) — Mirror’s Edge. Featuring a strong, smart, athletic, neither over nor undersexed female lead. Le drool.

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I’m taking a break from videogames this week (though, like the weeds in Animal Crossing, they’ll be back). Turning instead to something ‘wired’ but entirely different…

With all of the noise about Ontario becoming a have-not province, and the apparent collapse of the Canadian auto manufacturing sector, it would be nice if there was some sort of significant innovation in this major market, with international appeal, with which Canada could become a global leader.

Oh wait. There is. A made in Canada electric car perfectly poised to step in as the standard in next wave urban driving.

Nah, let’s make more SUVs.

The best synopsis of this ZENN car (Zero Emission No Noise) is found here, courtesy of the Rick Mercer Report.

More on ZENN, and driving, after the jump.(more inside…)

Or “you can’t get ye flask”.

I’m in the middle of moving, so while I box my worldly possessions, I’m putting up some excerpts from Randy Smith’s column in the May 2008 issue of Edge Magazine.

It’s an excellent article, and if it wasn’t a bit too long (and a bit too legally dodgey) I’d post it here wholesale. It’s a then-and-now analysis on the dominant paradigms of video game design (and, y’know, life).

Randy makes his comparisons to Ultima V, but I kept thinking of hours spent playing King’s Quest, and its unguided, open-ended world mantra of “take anything that isn’t nailed down”. (As well as the many unforeseeable consequences. Oh god the consequences… “People who play King’s Quest should expect their characters to die rather frequently”).

It’s just one example of some damn interesting conversations happening around what’s going on in videogames, who’s playing them, and where they’re going. And that’s not even counting the conversations happening in my house.

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From Randy Smith’s “The Tyranny of Fun, and of Lord Blackthorn”, Edge Magazine, May 2008.

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“Am I the only one who gets really worked up about the fact that choice and consequence are out of vogue?
…
Ultima V had a 50-page manual that didn’t teach you how to play the game. It afforded crucial tips like “Britannia has undergone a great transformation from totalitarian monarchy to representative democracy,” and “the newly risen moon, Trammel, is in its Gibbous Waxing phase,” and “slimes carry no booty”. But, after playing through the introduction, there you were holding a dagger and a cloth map with a teeming, jester-infested world sprawled out unhelpfully before you. Who would point you to glorious victory and amassment of booty? How would you make progress? Progress on what? The petty tyrant Lord Blackthorn, who hated freedom, advertised no vulnerabilities.
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Videogames are the dead horse that we flog over social dysfunction. Kid punched another kid? Videogames. Kid didn’t finish homework? Videogames.

Whether there’s a connection there or not, videogames are not one thing any more than “movies” or “books” are. Absolutely, there are abominably crap videogames. And for the same reasons I will never see a Saw movie, I will never play Manhunt.

I’m not an apologist for the industry — it’s immature and caters to the audience it thinks it has and knows. You can wade through a bog of junk looking for a quality game. Same as you can with movies. But quality titles are out there. And they’re in a lot of gamers’ collections.

The little list I’ve posted below represent just a few game options that are mainstream, and popular, and widely available. They’re what come to my mind when a poorly put-together article blames videogames (singular) for a kid… I don’t know, not showing their student pass when they get on a bus.

So here they are: Six Good Games (with no dodge-y settings)

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