Alasdair – Page 20 – Alasdair Watson

Links for Thursday November 12th 2015

Cope « Nerdcon, authorship, and the problem with games
This is of some interest to me, almost from the point of view of my own internal monologue. I have a number of friends who are professional writers of one stripe or another, and I tend to in some sense, mentally rank myself "below" them as a creator, because what I mostly create these days is narrative games – LARP. (NB: this is *entirely* about my view, not theirs, and *entirely* about the media we work in, not us as people.) I have an internal sense that my storytelling medium is less "prope…

Did the tube strike improve London’s economy?
Interesting article, making the point that tube strikes have more of an effect on commuters than simply annoying people on the day, and that effect may not be entirely negative.

Raspberry Pi Bluetooth In/Out Board or “Who’s Home”
I want to be able to have my Raspberry Pi track my presence in the house – this has a load of links to useful libraries.
uncannymagazine.com
An interesting deconstruction of nerd masculinity.

Light
A new kind of camera, that alleges it can replace about $6000 worth of DSRL gear (in terms of body+lenses) for about $1200. If this is true, and they live up the quality claims they're making, than I will be getting one ASAP, because it looks superb.

Edward Snowden: we may never spot space aliens thanks to encryption | US news | The Guardian
I missed this a couple of weeks back, but this is a fantastic solution to the Fermi paradox. Any sufficiently advanced communication is indistinguishable from cosmic background radiation…

Frankfurter Brett :: The kitchen workbench – Frankfurter Brett
I've a feeling I've linked to this before, but I can't find it. In any event: *want*.

For the first time, a paraplegic has walked without a robotic suit
I love stories like this. In between the dead-pig-fucking, and the corruption, and the banal advance of technologies that basically exist to sell us more stuff, and the impending grim death of everything good, I do like the occasional story that reminds me that all this science and tech bollocks has a point.

Seth’s Blog: Ad blocking
All worth reading, but here's the killer line "More data isn't the point. Data to serve explicit promises is the point."