Edited by Pat Kane (email)


Thanks everyone for staying on the list...The Play Ethic book is out in June, so I'm hoping to relaunch everything here in about Feburary, site and blog. Happy holidays, next Journal in mid-January. - PK.


:: State of Play ::

The Ludic Intelligentsia comes together, conference by pamphlet by blog entry...

• NYU's State of Play: Conference Papers
Looks like a seminal event in the players calendar - amazing papers from Edward Castronova, Douglas Rushkoff, Eric Zimmerman and others, outline nothing less (in my view) than the rudiments of a players' political economy. It's like Adam Smith consorting with the Glasgow merchants, one Enlightenment ago...

• Creating Emotion in Games : The Craft and Art of Emotioneering
Remember Imagineering? This is the computer game equivalent. And here's Gonzalo Frasca letting us in on a computer game critical dispute that sounds like the kind of film school debates they use to have in the 20th century.

• Wilson Center Hosts First Annual DC Serious Games Day
Simulation as policy. Does it surprise you that it happens in Washington?

• Jordan Peterson's Maps of Meaning
The ludologists' thinker de jour - who seems to allow them to enjoy playing war games on their consoles, but feel they're not entirely martial themeselves... hmm.


:: Pop Aesthetics ::

• Will Downloads Kill the Album?
It could do. Or it might raise some artists' games. Outkast's Speakerboxx at the moment shows how musicians might as well use the length of CD's to create an entire world, than pull together a prissy little career-pumping 12 track with three "singles" and the rest filler.

• 60 Seconds With Adam Schlesinger
Not sure this is the solution though... a pop album about cubicle dividers, flipcharts and team ethics? Though I've done my share of that...


:: Electronic Agon ::

• The Howard Dean Connection
Could it be that this shrill, triangulating centrist is the first guy who benefits from the democratic power of the Net?

• Why don't Americans text?
Some technical reasons, some social reasons, it seems. They might not be able to work their mobiles... but they can digitally mobilise.


:: So you wanna change the world... ::

• UN adopts Net "constitution"
Another global dream raised by the United Nations. Let's not hold our breath for delivery (said more in sorrow than anger).

• Arthur C Clarke: Humanity will survive information deluge?
"The information age has been driven and dominated by technopreneurs – a small army of ‘geeks’ who have reshaped our world faster than any political leader has ever done. And that was the easy part. We now have to apply these technologies in saving lives, improving livelihoods and lifting millions of people out of squalor, misery and suffering. In other words, our focus must now move from the geeks to the meek."

• Webs of Trust
A fascinating paper from Forum for the Future on the culture of mutuality that the web generates. Another argument for the common 'grounds of play'.

• Libre Society Manifesto
The Soulitarian pamphleteers keep putting it out in the public sphere. Who know what will catch fire these days?

• The Transcommercial Enterprise
And some smart soulitarian business theory from the congenital optimists at WorldChanging.com.

• The Revolution of Everyday Life
Favorite old players' manifesto from 60's situationist. Bit tediously class-war, but the joyous bits are good.


:: And your Powerpoint is...? ::

• Powerpoint is evil
Was NASA's safety failures in the last Shuttle disaster due to the lobotomising effects of Powerpoint displays?

• Turning Heads With PowerPoint
And can David Byrne redeem the benighted technology? God, I'd love a more dynamic alternative... but when you're in a hurry... Open Source Presentation Software: where is it?


:: Consciousness Razing ::

• 'Twin Peaks' Director Urges $1 Billion for Meditation
David Lynch (and he should know) arguing for a quietening of brain activity to stop violence and war...

• Dodgy frontal lobes, y'dig?
...while Richard Dawkins says 16 year olds can't vote, because their brains haven't developed enough yet. Too much mental determinism, spiritual or Darwnist! Give me Zack Smith's Neurosociety anytime.


:: I'll be Cloned for Christmas ::

• Eye toy tires kids out
The Playstation II camera that puts you in the action is the cutting edge of a new generation of haptic games. I'd be happier that they're jumping up and down in front of a screen than doing...

• DNA Play for Kids
Become your own Dr. Moreau! Something heavenly, or infernal, or both will be kickstarted by these things. Toys 'R' Us, indeed.


:: Playing with the Kids ::

• A Happy Family Christmas
Statement of the post-nuclear obvious from the Henley Centre


• Playing games with nurseries
Yes, we need decent childcare. But my suspicion about these ex-Marxists is that they want universal childcare so that people can chuck themselves into the productive fray with ever more vigour. Not the full aspiration, in my view.


:: So that's what a playshop looks like ::

• Out of the Blue: comedy improvisation for better business
This is what we have The Office for. Visions of forced laughter echoing round conference hotels forever, and ever...

• Practical Moral Philosophy for Lawyers: Imagining What We Do Is a Game
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