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For all the times I was saved by a good book. I still have a secret desire to be a librarian!

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 e-books include items such as the shooting script, production notes, storyboards and on-set photographs."

I'd like to say that this has implications for Bogost's book, but really it's just awesome.

Interesting idea from Bogost. Although he labels it as game art, I might consider this a multimedia piece as the code itself, the process of "re-soldering" and essentially rebuilding the game cartridge, and then the finished project performed online with DIY functionality seems much more complex than the book describes. Personally I think it's a brilliant but I'm not sure I know what (if anything) it means...

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

An article about Jonathan Blow, creator of Braid. His game is featured in the first chapter of Bogost's book ("Art") as an example of a proceduralist game.

This article looks at how lowering e-book prices now could lead to less competition and consequently the danger of prices rising in the future.

This seems like a smart commentary on many of the issues we're seeing in the book and it helps modernize the Miller v California debate. It's again, largely focused on the idea of policing rights which focuses on freedoms of expression.

"Print will survive. Books will survive even longer. It's print as a marker of prestige that's dying." Discusses Wikipedia as an extension of its predecessors' vanity and inherent print medium. 

This is a google book that discusses some of the same things I mentioned in my post regarding the use of wikipedia and other networks and how that shapes our ideas of freedom.

Nicholson Baker on the Kindle. Very smart but cranky and idiosyncratic.

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.

I thought this might be interesting, especially as we head toward the section of the class where we discuss games. Here is an excerpt from the default blurb: "Victor has worked on experimental UI concepts at Apple and also created the interactive data graphics for Al Gore's book, Our Choice. In the talk Victor showed off a demo of a great real-time game editor that makes your existing coding tools look primitive at best."

Of the different online accounts I have, Tumblr is one account I don't have and after reading O'Reilly and looking at the site I have to admit I'm a little fascinated by it. It seem like in many ways it's taken the parts of Myspace, facebook, and twitter that work and pasted them all together at once. In some senses this seems overwhelming, but just from the sample pages, what I see doesn't look entirely unlike what I'm creating for this class. I intentionally linked to the about page since I think there is a great deal of interesting info that feels like it came almost came straight out of O'Reilly's book especially in regard to building communities and allowing for participation, customization, and interaction. The home page also has some useful pieces worth exploring I think.

According to Google, over 20 million books have been digitized thus far.

I'm posting this article because the author and this website are referenced in our book and I think this is also relevant to the ideas presented in O'Reilly's book. We often see discussions about knowing the audience and bringing them to certain and specific actions which brings into question the kind of rhetorical situations we react to online.

What strikes me as especially interesting about this book review is that it emphasizes and leads with the buzz surrounding its predominantly digital publication instead of the controversy about the popularity of hardcore erotic literature for women.

Lovink's latest book is all about social media. It addresses a number of the critiques we offered in class - which is not to say it answers or does away with them - but also reinforces that he offers less a theory than a report or journalistic take. (One example is the way he looks at the uneven use of blogging world wide, so that blogging becomes much less monolithic in this account.)

Apocalypse of mediocrity or community of readers as writers? And who decides what counts as boring?