Tag: Gaming

Game of Bricks.

“It took me and about 100 other builders a little over 4 months to build the whole thing. We estimate there are around 3000 unique buildings, all hand made and all fully decorated on the interior.”

Best build some wildfire…A group of audacious (and bored) GRRM-enthusiasts recreate the entirety of King’s Landing in Minecraft. I’ve yet to try Minecraft, since quite frankly I’m afraid to court another gaming addiction. But everything I read about it makes it seem like it’s eventually going to be the online world described in the namedroppy but compulsively readable Ready Player One.

The Bloodbath at Asakai.

“This past Saturday, one misplaced mouse click in MMORPG EVE Online sent a lone Titan spaceship hurtling into enemy territory, triggering a cascade of alliances somewhat akin to the run-up to World War I, and resulting in one of the largest space battles ever seen in the history of the game.”

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate..Finally on the MMO front and also languishing in the bookmarks, Tor recounts how one simple mistake caused an intergalactic catastrophe on EVE Online (another game I’ve never played.) “While EVE ships start at $1 and top out around $100, the Titan dwarfs them all by requiring around $7600 of time/investment. Thanks to a single wrong click on Saturday night, that money is gone, and thousands more with it (at one point the estimated number reached $150,000.)”

Target Acquired.

“Then, Daphne Bavelier of Rochester University began publishing studies showing that computer games improved the vision of people with normal eyesight. I couldn’t help but wonder: If they helped the normally sighted, why not people with impairments? Also, I saw studies where enriched environments for rats improved aspects of vision damaged after early deprivation. Well, what’s an enriched visual environment for a human? It might be a computer game. I thought, ‘Click, why not give it a try?'”

Developmental psychiatrist Nancy Maurer discusses her findings that playing first-person-shooters helps people born with cataracts to improve their vision. “I’m a reader. My husband and I don’t have children. So computer games wouldn’t be a part of our lives. I’ve never played one. I can’t imagine enjoying playing one.“

hOw’S aNnIe?

“The good Dale is in the Lodge, and he can’t leave. Write it in your diary.” Since, two decades later, we never got a satisfactory resolution on Agent Cooper’s fate in the Black Lodge — although I guess it’s possible Ed Helms freed Annie from there during his epic Hangover — some enterprising soul has turned Dale’s attempted escape into a downloadable 8-bit game (available here, and here’s the source material.) Extra points for the 8-bit “Sycamore Trees.”

Borne Back Ceaselessly into the NES.


“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther, jump ever higher, collect all the coins… Hey, wait a tic…The Great Gatsby Nintendo game. Once again, he’s playing with power.

World of Enzymecraft | Taming the Dragon.


“Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans. The results in this week’s paper show that gaming, science and computation can be combined to make advances that were not possible before.” Score one for spatial reasoning: Using the game Foldit, online gamers manage to decipher a enzyme structure that has eluded scientists for a decade — in three weeks. “Cracking the enzyme ‘provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs’, says the study, referring to the medication to keep people with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) alive.“

On the subject of HIV, it looks like the enemy of our enemy is our friend: In a stunning feat of gene therapy, scientists have used a disabled version of HIV to successfully defeat leukemia. “Mr. Ludwig’s doctors have not claimed that he is cured — it is too soon to tell — nor have they declared victory over leukemia on the basis of this experiment, which involved only three patients…But scientists say [this] may signify a turning point in the long struggle to develop effective gene therapies against cancer…In essence, the team is using gene therapy to accomplish something that researchers have hoped to do for decades: train a person’s own immune system to kill cancer cells.”

Stations of the Crossword.


“Every crossword in the Times is a collaboration between the puzzle-maker and the puzzle editor. On average, about half the clues are mine. I may edit as few as five or ten percent of the clues, or as many as 95 percent for someone who does a great puzzle but not great clues. Why accept a puzzle when I’m going to edit 95 percent of the clues? Well, if someone sends me a great puzzle with an excellent theme and construction — you want fresh, interesting, familiar vocabulary throughout the grid — I feel it would be a shame to reject it on account of the clues, because I can always change them myself“

In the Atlantic, NYT crossword editor Will Shortz briefly explains the techniques of his craft. “Liz’s clue was Rory’s mom on Gilmore Girls, and I didn’t think solvers should have to know that.” You don’t? That’s a bit elitist, isn’t it? (Apparently, I’m not the only person to think so.)