School is a Game (Just a Poorly Designed One)
The whole family has been reading Jane McGonigal’s new book recently. I think Pete has it at the moment. It’s full of interesting ideas about how to use game design techniques to make things...
Author: Mike Garrity
The Tempest Meets Tron
We went to see Tod Machover’s opera Death and the Powers today. It’s billed as a a robot opera, but the robots (a gang of iMacs who escaped from a Dr. Who episode) weren’t...
Signs of Spring
Those small, bright colored signs of spring have started appearing in our yard: the rock bags: At this time every year, the yard services start dropping these plastic bags filled with rocks and an...
AC Power Frequency in Japan
Reading all of the awful news about the tragedy in Japan, I learned an engineering fact which surprised me. As you may know, the AC power systems in different countries operate at different frequencies,...
Weather Spark
We’ve found a new tool we’re in love with. It’s called WeatherSpark. It’s the ultimate website for weather data. It has great interactive charts which will show you just about anything. Here’s a view...
Democritean Universes in Minecraft
I’m currently reading Daniel Dennett’s book Freedom Evolves. It’s about how free will is possible in deterministic universes. To discuss his ideas, he needs some play universes in which to stage thought experiments. One...
On the Other Hand, Mary Poppins has much Better Songs
One of the most interesting features of art is the way it can show you connections between things which seem unrelated. Ken Perlin recently went to see Sleep No More (which we really enjoyed...
Last Remnants
It rained a lot the last couple of days. The weatherman said: This rain will melt the last remnants of the snow. Last remnants… Doesn’t that sound nice? The snowdrops are coming up.
Minecraft Terrain Generation
Peter has been completely hooked on Minecraft for months now. He has lots of great stories to tell about managing a server, writing mods and all sorts of other things, but I haven’t been...
New Morgan Trike
I can’t say that many new cars really excite me these days. They’ve all become awfully similar to each other. Lots of silver jelly beans. But at the Geneva auto show, Morgan announced something...
