Tsurezuregusa (ancient Japanese text)
I randomly came across a reference to this today – it’s an English translation of a collection of essays by a Japanese monk, written ca. anno 1330. For some reason it caught my attention, so I did a little research, found some stuff on wikipedia, and a downloadable version of the book. There’s a lot of observations in there, small stories, essays, and philosophy, about a whole range of topics – women, on making good of your time, work, life – here’s a few of my favourite quotes so far:
Against Rash Temerity
A man who was reputed to be a very clever backgammon player was once asked what was his special method ; and he said, ‘You should not play to win, but you should play so as not to lose. After carefully considering which move will soonest lose the game, do not play it, but make the one move which will delay defeat as long as possible.’
This is the teaching of those who know the Way, and the same rule applies to self-conduct and the government of the state. (pp. 87)Against Pedantry
But in all matters, alas! men of shallow intellect ever seek after oddities and love the abnormal. (pp. 91)
On Good And Bad Friends
There are also three kinds of friends who are good. First, those who are generous; second, doctors; and third, those who have wisdom. (pp. 91)
On The Indications of Vulgarity
Things which are made all exactly the same are doubtless the work of those who have but little taste ; ’tis better to have dissimilarity ; and he is certainly right.
Generally speaking, uniformity in anything at all is bad ; it is better to leave a little imperfection, thereby your life (being more natural) will be prolonged. There are some who say that when a palace is being built, you should never fail to leave one little piece of it uncompleted. (pp. 67)
Read more about Tsurezuregusa on Wikipedia
- Or download the book here, as PDF
Making sound visible through cymatics
I’m guessing this will most likely take most people by surprise… well it did me, anyway =) That sound can form geometric patterns just seems so logical and elegant, yet at the same time I would’ve never thought it possible. It’s extremely interesting to me that it seems there’s an abundance of coherent phenomena, similar patterns appearing in a lot of areas where you just wouldn’t expect them to. Ancient greek philosophers were the first to discover (or at least claim) that maths are a universally true language of the universe, and somehow, I feel that cymatics connects to that ancient assertion in an interesting way.
Orbital (iPhone)
I had this recommended to me by some guys on a game developer forum, and I have to say it’s one of the few really shining examples of “easy to learn, hard to master” gameplay in the casual games genre – although this is really a case of a “light” version of this particular principle.
Controls - are extremely simple – there is in fact only one control, which is “tap anywhere” to fire the cannon. The cannon itself rotates from side to side automatically, so there is no need for anything else. Just tap when it’s in the angle you want to fire.
Menus & Interaction - The menus are simple and intuitive, just as they should be. You can view online leaderboards, as well as post your highscores to Facebook.
Gameplay – You start with an empty screen. Every time you fire your cannon, your “bullet” bounces off walls or other spheres, until its kinetic energy has been spent. It then grows until it hits another object (i.e. it grows to fill the maximum amount of space possible before colliding with something.) This means that you in effect create the play field yourself.You have to hit spheres three times to remove them. Once removed, you get a point. Simple, right?
There are two game modes: pure and gravity. Pure is quite hard, with a completely linear bounce off of objects and walls. Gravity is a bit easier, and more interesting in my opinion, as your shots in this mode are attracted to the large bodies in the game area (basically it works as if the spheres are on a surface that bulges down, like the classic portrayal of how gravity works in space. Hence your shots will gravitate towards large objects, which means you can “spin” your shots.
Multiplayer – there is indeed a few options for multiplayer of the ‘hotseat’ variety. Works very well!
Sound – the audio is some of the best I’ve heard in an iPhone game. There’s not really an awful lot of it, but there is a great, mellow soundtrack that doesn’t intrude – it just sits in the background, layering a pleasant atmosphere over the game. Sound effects are also simple, but effective. It’s clear that the audio aspect of the game has been considered just as important as the rest of it.
Conclusion – The game is priced at 99cents in the AppStore, and is well worth it – because despite the initially deceptive simplicity of the gameplay, the game is actually addictive. It’s something that you can pick up and play very easily, and still enjoy after you’ve played 20+ games, which to be honest I find is usually not the case with iPhone games. It’s easy to learn, hard to master, to use an unusually worn-out cliché. It fits very well in this case. As mentioned, it shines through that the developers took a great deal of care ensuring that the controls suit the platform, that the functionality is as you would want it to be, and that the audio just works. You should go get it right now!
Johnny Ive talks about design
Apple’s senior VP of product design, Jony Ive, talks about some of the production methods, and a few gems about product design strategy.
Redesigned garbage bags
Cool concept… I’m not sure it gives the right impression, but it certainly does make things a bit more uplifting =)