tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63791812008-05-16T08:17:49.012-07:00Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comBlogger135125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-46844772210307707462008-05-16T08:13:00.000-07:002008-05-16T08:17:49.040-07:00

An interesting study showing that people who have little power to effect their situation get caught in a negative feedback loop where they become worse at executive functions, which reinforces that they belong in low power positions, which makes them worse at executive functions.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-61968882911031163902008-05-14T12:50:00.000-07:002008-05-14T12:56:53.063-07:00

Scientist 01: We need a grant if we want to continue living the academic lives we've grown used to. Any suggestions? Scientist 02: I had this dream last night about 3-toed sloths. Scientist 01: Hmmm. I think dream analysis has been overdone. What if we try to find out if 3-toed Sloths dream about you? They sleep a lot, so they are probably *starving* for new dream material. Scientist 02:

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-86466802020629274442008-05-11T16:42:00.000-07:002008-05-11T17:03:28.654-07:00

Busy week, what with the con, mother's day and my daughter's birthday party. Wouldn't want to miss out on my weekly post, though! Here's the list: Atom #23: This title has officially jumped the shark. Sad to see it's former charm fade away. Countdown to Mystery #7: Almost...Done! One more issue remains. The stories are fairly mediocre, but the new Dr. Fate is interesting. Maybe they'll break

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-51455351287100947192008-05-11T16:39:00.000-07:002008-05-11T16:42:12.983-07:00

Well, that's done. We could have used a few more slides, and had a bit more of a directed flow, but I think Matt and I did a great job: lots of humor, lots of good info. The audience was into it, and it felt like one, big happy group when we were done. Woot!

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-47855131197290372402008-05-09T14:52:00.000-07:002008-05-09T14:54:52.223-07:00

Play Foldit, the game where you fold proteins to help biologists create new vaccines and prion bioweaponry! Ok, maybe that last part wasn't exactly true.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-68205141707850268762008-05-06T09:28:00.000-07:002008-05-06T09:35:51.434-07:00

This weekend, I'll be speaking at the Emerald City Comicon about making comic book-inspired video games in a session called "Fraught With Peril, Making Comics Into Games". I'm dragging my friend and colleague Matt Turnbull to help me say smart things. Be there or be square!

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-89227532201394905962008-05-02T20:24:00.000-07:002008-05-02T20:48:17.154-07:00

Here's the list: Avengers: The Initiative #12: Was this the last issue? It was a wrap-up issue where we realized how little we had come to care about these characters. There was a lot of promise there, but with the frequent bloody deaths and huge assortment of characters, what little character development there was faded from my mind before this issue. Blue Beetle #26: A great, but short, issue

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-86877662379187725662008-05-02T15:31:00.000-07:002008-05-02T15:40:04.206-07:00

A planner, A maniac, A playboy, and A guy who welds things together when the going gets tough. Tony Stark is the A-Team wrapped up in one.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-64428175975450688592008-05-02T11:23:00.001-07:002008-05-02T11:27:51.310-07:00

This article talks about how selfish behavior can become altruistic behavior. The most interesting quote, however, was from a study they based this study on. That previous study showed that cheaters were more likely to punish other cheaters than non-cheaters. A common sense thing,really. So, the next time you play your favorite multiplayer game, and someone calls you out for cheating, it's very

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-68881450270646642962008-04-23T20:14:00.000-07:002008-04-23T20:29:29.567-07:00

Oooh...fresh from the comic shop, here's the list! Countdown #1 : The last issue. Does a drop in the bucket in the middle of a forest where no one is there to hear it make a noise? Yes, and it's a sad, disappointed, anticlimactic noise. "I'm Mary DAMN Marvel" indeed. JLA #20: McDuffie is back and good writing comes with him with a Flash and Wonder Woman pair-up. It starts slow, but it gets

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-17312483627151509822008-04-20T10:55:00.000-07:002008-04-20T11:19:56.418-07:00

This week was better than average, but didn't excell. It was kind of a B+ week. Here's what I got: Annihilation #6: A good ending to this series. The calvary comes rushing in, the undefeatable foe is defeated and most of the characters live to see the end. Some weirdness happens when Ultron assembles himself out of a fleet of Kree robots, and I think that Warlock called Tyro his "son" (which

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-80415214543052465502008-04-20T10:51:00.000-07:002008-04-20T10:54:15.341-07:00

It's the Wizard of Oz meets Karate Kid!

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-64899462345532059432008-04-15T07:55:00.000-07:002008-04-15T08:09:29.030-07:00

I use Google Analytics to track the nearly 3 people who regularly read this blog. Some interesting information you can get from this service is exactly what search words people were using to find my site through search engines like google. This post is to address some of those search terms: How many children did Barry White have? Officially, 7 + one stepson. Daughters: La nece, Deniece, Nina,

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-35719526965417046962008-04-11T08:50:00.000-07:002008-04-11T09:10:21.540-07:00

Here's what I got this week: Avengers Fairy Tales #2: The Vision as Pinocchio. Sadly, these tales are still not living up to the X-Men series last year. The point of these books should reveal the iconic nature of the superhero character, by showing how easily they fit into these more mythic stories. However, the real trick is to show sides of those characters we hadn't thought of before, but

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-74837957998901520472008-04-08T09:22:00.001-07:002008-04-08T09:27:06.219-07:00

An interesting study from UC Davis reaffirms that people can only remember 2-4 things from every quarter-second "frame" they see. Basically, if you are shown a picture for a quarter second, you might be able to remember only 4 things from that picture. News like this always reminds me that we need to keep game HUDs simple and uncluttered, allowing players to get the information they really need

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-66627125817130945872008-04-07T17:54:00.000-07:002008-04-07T18:14:12.761-07:00

Better late than never. This week's list: Atom #22: Once again, the Atom of Gail Simone is gone, replaced by this somewhat humorless pulp hero. It's time for the realities of being a hero to come out and smack him upside the head and simultaneously take away the light-hearted guy I liked quite a bit previously. Brit #5: I love the art of Brit, and the guy with half a Grendel mask is pretty

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-31255422490630265682008-03-26T19:30:00.000-07:002008-03-26T19:51:34.464-07:00

Well, this is the week I've been waiting for, apparently, because the quality meter shot way up! Here's the list: All-Star Superman #10: Another awesome comic in a series of awesome comics. Superman becomes more human and real with each issue of this series. It's pretty spectacular. Blue Beetle #25: Blue Beetle delivers a great climactic battle with the Reach and makes them look like chumps.

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-25368677591133620602008-03-25T09:50:00.000-07:002008-03-25T09:59:26.697-07:00

Ok, so last night I watched this new CGI film, and it greatly exceeded my expectations. The voice acting was decent, the art and animation were really really good and the architecture was just fantastic. The story didn't hold many surprises, but I didn't care in the least. Awesome job!

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-48958491483890160092008-03-24T17:17:00.000-07:002008-03-24T17:49:37.830-07:00

I'm thinking about renaming this series "What I Read", since I'm having such a hard time finding outstanding comics this season. Maybe the big two are prepping for their big summer spectaculars and are too busy to quality check their stuff. Maybe I'm becoming jaded. Who knows? Anyway, this is what I grabbed this week: Brave and the Bold #11 -- Superman and his anti-universe duplicate team up

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-2141517977880084942008-03-17T18:38:00.000-07:002008-03-17T18:54:10.780-07:00

This past week was, again, one of tepid mediocrity. Here's the list: Annihilation Conquest #5: A padding issue developing the climactic fight in #6. Avengers Fairy Tales #1: I bought X-Men Fairy Tales and thought it was good. This was only sorta kinda ok. Art was good, story meandered a bit and deviated so far from the Peter Pan source material that it couldn't use the strength of that tale to

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-48273113043937715862008-03-11T12:58:00.001-07:002008-03-11T13:00:42.102-07:00

Source

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-72387759345078871422008-03-07T08:08:00.000-08:002008-03-07T08:40:37.362-08:00

This week was fairly underwhelming in terms of quality: lots of placeholder issues and the like. Countdown is still building towards its finale, but this week's issue was more about talking and less about getting stuff done, so it kinda broke the quality ramp the last few issues had been generating. One of the saddest casualties of this week was the Atom. The book no longer has that quirkiness

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-72927627432786378652008-03-05T13:22:00.000-08:002008-03-05T13:23:18.636-08:00

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-18264310185219120862008-03-04T14:08:00.000-08:002008-03-04T14:13:39.999-08:00

Heavy Duty announcement day. I've helped the IGDA Writer's SIG write a new book: "Professional Techniques for Video Game Writing", and you can preorder it now on Amazon.com. I wrote chapters on writing game manuals and on writing game design documentation, two things I have actually done! This is upsetting because I always wanted to be a fiction writer, but the only things I ever get done are

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6379181.post-45284810461476941582008-03-04T10:58:00.000-08:002008-03-04T10:59:53.525-08:00

By far, the influence of early D&D helped me choose my direction in life. It's sad that one of its creators has passed away. Hope you're having fun in the plane of your choice, Gary!

Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01310108261072524244noreply@blogger.com