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Zorkmids are a unit of currency in the Great Underground Empire of the Zork series of games originally by Infocom, and later by Activision, Inc. In these games, zorkmids were first minted during the reign of Belwit the Flat in the year 699 GUE.

I really liked the idea from this week's reading that we should look to gaming for the future of interactive interfaces for social media. This article explains the ways that computing could be transforming in the future with motion sensing input devices like the Xbox Kinect. It's crazy to think that some of these things are possible!

A little late in the game, but the wording here is really interesting because the censorship of bloggers by the Chinese government includes works with imagined information. In addition, they specifically cut off the comments option. We have a direct moment here where the 2.0 and call and response of online writing is considered poisonous to government action, even if the work is a fictional piece. The most important thing to note here is that China is now requiring all microbloggers to use their real names. We talked about how useful a tracked name can be, but in this case practicality loses over privacy.

Blod devoted to videogame "archaeology" as Bogost would call it. The site actually suggests reading his book too.

Get zorky! Zork cheat codes.

Google's New Search Algorithm to Crack Down on 'Black Hat Webspam' By Ars Technica By Matthew Braga, Ars Technica Nefarious search engine optimizers be warned. Google is coming for you-again. Following previous changes to Google's ranking and page layout algorithms, the search giant is pushing yet another update to its algorithm this week with the hopes of curbing "black hat webspam" from creeping into search results. * Google thinks that by increasing the complexity of its algorithms, it can weed out malicious intent. Funny thing about complexity is that it tends to breed more complexity. This reminds me a bit of Bogost's book on games. This cat and mouse scenario between Google and fake SEO creators seems to lead to ever evolving code much like in natural systems where the adaptations of the prey animal to take advantage of an environment are eventually matched by a predatory animal with adaptations designed to match or exceed the prey's abilities...

A neat -WIRED- blog documenting new developments in software (mostly Internet based), also offering some tips-and-tricks kinds of features too.

Whoops

The previous post referenced in "Connect With Your Creation Through a Real-Time Editor"

Finally (and what will appear first), all this talk about digital technology and web design pulls up an equal impulse in me to talk about other skill sets that get undervalued in an information economy. I read this a bit ago and enjoyed it. There also seems to be a trend currently that is leading us toward a sort of steam punk utopia where we will have a mixture of high and low technology. For more on the philosophical argument being put forward in this article, I highly recommend Shop Class as Soulcraft and The Mind at Work. To see some indications of the trend I'm talking about watch How It's Made (which tends to skew toward human components of the production process and is based in a tactile fetish of understanding modes of production since you do not learn how to make things ... or really how things are made) and check out all the books on craft skills, cooking, and carpentry that are exploding all over Amazon with noticeably nostalgic titles. Speaking of which, did the knitting craze end or am I just not around 50 people that have recently taken up knitting anymore?

Oh! Also add to the "evidence" list farming/gardening and the back to earth books ... and psychologically the zombie and (to a lesser extent) virus craze in movies, books, games, etc.

Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It's interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends.

I have messed around with this, and I think I came near graduating the free class that they offer. It was useful, but I didn't find that it got me too far into javascript. I did find that I liked the points and badges. Did you see the pay option alternative site (I think linked off Code Academy somewhere ... or it comes up when you search Google for Code Academy) where you can learn various coding languages as you play games? One of them teaches you CSS or Javascript as you fight zombies. If you didn't have to pay ... I would totally get into that. :)