Dynamite 8

Found a "bomb blue" Dynamite 8 at the same "vintage fair" where I found this. I'm so excited! I gave it a little TLC, and it is totally working! My teenage aunt had one of these back in the 70s, and I always thought it was the coolest. This is my first 8 track player. My parents (and everyone else) had one when I was a kid, but the players and the tapes tend to be so fragile that I never had one myself. 8 tracks are kind of magical, locked in time as they are. They are so distinct -- their big weird shape, with the big color label, and the way the labels are so aged... they have so much character. And there is a sound 8 tracks have that is, I don't know -- unique. Not like vinyl, but not so hissy like cassettes. Anyway, I'm thrilled to have my own 8 track player at last! Especially one as cool as the Dynamite 8, with it's amazing plunger. It can't change tracks by itself... but that's kind of cool, because it means you get to use the plunger a lot! It's funny, I never really thought about the fact that each of the four tracks on an 8-track is like a 45, with it's pair of songs. I just got a box of old 8 tracks in the mail via ebay, too... so this is guaranteed to be a rockin' 70's dance party weekend!

Vizability

When the ETC moved to the PTC offices in early 2004, and I moved into room 5317, I found this abandoned "creativity toolkit." I've had it sitting around the last seven years, and I thought I'd finally get around to checking it out. It was first published in 1995, and enjoyed critical acclaim. It has three elements. First, a handbook, which explains six facets of visual thinking: environment, culture, seeing, drawing, diagramming, and imagining. This is a pleasing, elegant volume that I found very inspiring in terms of thinking visually, and communicating visually. Most interesting to me was that game designer Scott Kim contributed to the "diagramming" section. The second element, is a blank, bound book for sketching in, since the handbook and the third element suggests many sketching exercises. The third element is a CD-ROM that has a number of visual exercises. Unfortunately, it is Mac only, and what with Macs being evil and all, the software is completely unrunnable on modern Mac computers. "Sorry, classic mode is no longer supported."

I plan to keep this thing in our archive since periodically we run into people who want to do interactive projects that foster creativity. This is certainly a studied one of those. Kristina Woolsey did a lot of work pulling it together, basing a lot of it in McKim's "Exercises in Visual Thinking."

Anyway, I'm glad I finally know what this really is!

Mental Notes

I'm an avid follower of creativity cards, having produced my own set. Mental Notes is an attempt to lay out principles of psychology that might be useful for web design. You can use them for other things, of course, but there is a bias here towards web design in the detailed descriptions. The Mental Notes deck gave me a lot to think about, because I had, at one point, a plan to create a sequel to my Art of Game Design book, entitled The Psychology of Game Design. Similar to Mental Notes, the idea was to connect various ideas from the world of psychology to game design. Unfortunately, the more I worked on it, the more it felt like an encyclopedia, or maybe I should say, it felt like a deck of cards -- many random principles, but little that built up into anything significant or meaningful, and ultimately I abandoned, or at least set aside, the project. This deck suffers a little from the same problems -- I kind of wish its principles were a little more organized into suits, or some such, and like many survey treatments of psychology, it feels like important things have been missed. That said, it does seem like a useful set of "lenses" to flip through on a project, and you are sure to pick up some meaningful ideas and turns of phrase along the way. And the box is super attractive, so it makes a very nice gift for any designer. You can buy them here.

Ipod Shuffle

Someone was kind enough to give me one of these as a gift. I'd never looked closely at one before -- I was blown away by it. It's no bigger than a stick of gum, and holds 4G of music. The interface is insanely simple -- one switch that set to either "off", "play" or "shuffle." Why you'd want anything but shuffle on this is hard to imagine, since the only navigating you can do is with the button on the special headphones. One click = pause, Two clicks = go to next song, Three clicks = last song. So, basically, it's great if you want a random selection of music, with no thinking. And it sounds great. Now, amazon reviews indicate that the special headphones don't stand up to sweat very well -- but, that hasn't been a problem for me.

I mean, I remember when the Sony Walkman was a huge innovation in the music experience. What will music players look like in ten years?

Kindle 2

I've had this for some time, but had put it away for a while, preferring to read my kindle books on the Ipod Touch. I got to thinking about it again, and started making more use of my Kindle. For a while, the ugly flash upon page turning really bugged me -- I would close my eyes when it happened. Gradually, gradually, I got used to it. I'm trying out the New York Times subscription on it. To sit in a Starbucks and read the NYT on a Kindle makes me feel smart and sophisticated. It is a very nice way to read a newspaper -- superior to print, because it is easier to scan, and easier to know when you've seen it all, and much less wasteful.

I do wish that the display had more contrast -- it looks a lot like damp newspaper, and without bright light, is a bit of a challenge. But -- I like it a lot, and I wonder what meaningful improvements in ebooks will come next. I really do believe that they are the future of newspapers, and probably of books. The more I use the Kindle, the more clunky books and newspapers seem.

Ipod Touch

Yeah. So... this thing is from outer space. There is no way the human race could have made anything this good. And with a fancy leather case and bluetooth headset? My God. It's full of stars.

Levenger Matchbook Notebooks

As part of reorganizing my life, I am writing down everything little thing that I want or need to do as soon as I think of it. That sounds easy, but what if there isn't a pad handy? I always keep paper in my wallet and a pen on my keychain when I'm out, but at home, in the middle of something (brushing teeth, washing dishes, watching tv, etc.) it is easy to say, "oh, I'll write it down later", which in my case means I'll probably forget. But not anymore. I've hidden these little notepads complete with pencils in every room of my house, so I always, always, always have one handy.

Yes, my family thinks I'm crazy.

Update: Argh! Levenger no longer sells them! If you know where I can find new ones, let me know!

The Droodle

Over Christmas break, I decided to get my life organized, and part of this is "making little notes." As you'll see in an upcoming post, I've adopted the religion of Getting Things Done, and part of that is getting nagging thoughts out of your head as soon as possible, by writing them down. All of them. I usually have four or five important thoughts in the shower, which is really annoying, since I tend to forget at least two of them. So it occurred to me, someone must make a waterproof notepad, right? And they do! And I have to say, it works really, really well. They aren't cheap, and they are hard to buy (you can buy them here, but you have to send an email), but I think they are totally worth it! The paper is totally waterproof, and you write on it with an ordinary pencil. Want to be an eccentric genius? This is a great way to start.

The Deck of Lenses

Whew! I think I was more relieved to see this project finished than I was when the book was done! Perhaps that is because the cards represent a "consomme" of the book -- without them, the book isn't really complete, since they are the memory tool, the tangible takeaway of the lessons of the text. Anyway, they look great -- all the artists did such a great job! In my dreams, they change the landscape of game design forever. Well, even if they don't, they're pretty! You can get them on amazon, or at our website: www.artofgamedesign.com.