Bunnies Care About UNICEF

Wired collects three videos of the Rayman Raving Rabbid bunnies promoting UNICEF instead of the Wii game where they star. Cute.

The Downsides of Wii Ownership

...if you're a moron. Still, here's a good reminder to wear your wrist strap: Wii Have A Problem

ze frank describes scrabble

...and hilarity ensues

(I suppose the video is mildly offensive if you don't appreciate references to male genitals.)

My Wii's Friend Code

Most of the people I know who are getting a Wii read this site. So, here's my Wii's "friend code," which you can use for sending messages and, eventually, teaming up in an online game.

3593 1311 3289 1056

See you online.

Autumn Tradition

Every household has its autumn traditions. Beaujolais Nouveau. Thanksgiving travels. Football games. Big Nintendo launches. Whatever.

I call our fall ritual The Why-Don't-I-Write-More-Essays Festival. It kicks off shortly after I purchase each year's edition of The Best American Essays (published by my employer, if you climb to the top of our multi-story org chart). The essay is my favorite nonfiction genre, but my own curriculum vitae includes a long string of "reporting" pieces, the genre that a million J-school grads know by heart. So every year, as I devour thoughtful meanderings by the country's best writers, I ask myself why I'm not trying to work in the form I adore so much. Every year, I resolve to focus on it more, and every year I slip back into my comfortable reporting groove for articles. Granted, that's what my editors often ask of me, but there are other publications out there. Best American Essays essentially provides a list of possible buyers, since each essay lists its source.

So this year, I have a couple good ideas, and I'm once again going to try to break the cycle and at least finish an essay. Selling it is another story, but then isn't it always?

For those who love the genre as much as I, this year's collection seems decent. I remember better years—last year, I believe, was particularly good—but I'm only about halfway through the book so far. My favorite piece to date is Joseph Epstein's look at celebrity vs. fame—status vs. talent—and how our society worships the former and is largely ignorant of the latter. Of course, what I really enjoyed was the sly synopsis from this year's editor, Lauren Slater: "Joseph Epstein...frets about his lack of celebrity status." Because that's certainly at the heart of the piece, even though it barely ever gets mentioned. I'll write more about it soon, as it touched on topics I often think about.

My Wii Thoughts

Thanks to my friends Hans & Mark, I had a pre-order for a Nintendo Wii, the new console from the legendary game company. If you've missed the thousands of news pieces about the small unit, the key feature of the unit is a sensitive, wireless motion-detecting controller, dubbed the Wiimote in common parlance for its similarity to the TV remotes in every home.

Hold your Wiimote like a bat, and swing at the ball flying at you in Wii Sports Baseball (Wii Sports, a simplistic collection of sports games that serves as an effective demonstration of the controller, comes with the console). Swing the Wiimote and watch Link swing his sword in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, the latest installment of the series that practically created the epic adventure video game genre. Or use the Wiimote like a laser pointer, aiming Link's slingshot with pinpoint accuracy. ("It even has your hand tremor," said Melissa as my pointer bobbed about during the console's set-up screens).

Critics describing the Wii have worn out their thesauruses looking up synonyms for "revolutionary," and I find myself in the same trap. The controller makes perfect sense from the first moment you hold it near your shoulder and try to hit the baseball arcing towards you. Even the simple sports games are shockingly immersive when your physical movement—not some arbitrary button—dictates a character's behavior on the TV.

Even so, it's a tough adjustment for a moderate gamer like myself. I played Excite Truck at my friend Hans's house, and I kept wondering why my truck wouldn't turn. It was because I kept using the directional pad on the Wiimote instead of just turning the Wiimote left and right like a steering wheel. In Twilight Princess, Link wasn't swinging his sword because I kept pushing the A button on the Wiimote instead of swinging the controller. I'm fighting against a lifetime of hitting buttons to create an action in the game.

But Nintendo doesn't care about me. They're doing the logical thing for a company that makes the least popular of last generation's consoles: Rather than compete against Sony and Microsoft's spiralling graphics capabilities, Nintendo wants to create a brand new marketplace. They've got their eyes set on the casual gamer, a person who enjoys easy gameplay and doesn't care about polygon counts. A large number (20 percent I think) of the shoppers who bought a Nintendo DS, the successor to the Game Boy, had never owned a gaming system before. Nintendo sees that gold mine and wants to dive in, leaving the processor-speed geeks to fight over the Xbox and Playstation. And we've all seen the people who try to play a video game, only to get confused about whether to push this button or that to run or swing or jump or whatever. Take that barrier away, says Nintendo, and you open a universe of new players and thus new consumers.

That translates to more casual games, well represented in the Wii's launch. I bought Rayman Raving Rabbids, a succession of mini-games that use the Wiimote and the motion-sensitive "nunchuck" attachment that plugs into the Wiimote. You can sit down for twenty minutes and play through five or so games (though you will fume at the between-game load times). Melissa laughed as I twirled the Wiimote over my head to simulate a hammer toss (featuring a cow and chain instead of the more normal equipment), pumped the Wiimote and nunchuck up and down to simulate running, and used the nunchuck and Wiimote to hit bunnies off a platform to the beat of a dance tune.

Rayman and Wii Sports are fun, but the person who loves a compelling, epic tale should pick up The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, by wide agreement the best Zelda game ever (A title formerly held by The Ocarina of Time). I'm just a tiny bit into it, so I can't offer too much insight, but even a fast game—one that skips past the many side quests—requires a good 50 hours of gameplay. Average time is about 70 hours. Lots of familiar Zelda mechanics are in place, though at some point Link transforms into a wolf, but the pointer on the Wiimote provides a noticeable improvement in aiming. With some quick flicks, even my unsteady hand accurately took down five targets with my slingshot, a process that might have taken twice as long with the old hold-em-steady joystick aiming. And that's within just a minute of having something I could aim. Practice makes perfect, and most reviewers have agreed that "perfect" really is the term for the targeting.

These are all first-generation Wii games, laughable in retrospect as a console matures and developers figure out how to push the system further. The next innovation for the Wii is obvious: Figure out how to map the motion detector to the player's movement in a one-to-one way. Right now, I can swing the Wiimote in a sloppy diagonal, and Link will make a horizontal slash with his sword. The Wiimote has the sensitivity to detect minute changes, so I expect you'll see 1-to-1 motions soon.

Gaming pundits are already wondering if the Wiimote will open up whole new styles of gameplay that we've not yet seen. The DS, with its touch-sensitive screen, enabled new gameplay mechanics, and I'm sure the Wii will too.

Jacob on BSG

I read Television Without Pity every now and then, skimming through recaps of TV episodes I've already seen. This might sound odd, but the detailed synopses often pluck the best insights out of the forums and add some of the reviewer's own.

But Jacob, who's in charge of recap duty for Battlestar Galactica, is worth reading all on his own. His recap often veers into long philosophical tangents, and he eruditely ponders the Cylon religion. Consider this non-recap, supplemental tangent, which I hope doesn't give anything away, but be warned if you haven't watched the recent episode:

"Karl's wife said it was something called the Prayer to the Cloud of Unknowing, whatever the hell that is." Two things here: number one, it's a reference to an old religious text, and you know how much I love those. It's about what you think it's about: the veil, or "cloud of unknowing," that exists between us and God's true will. (I'll spare you my thoughts on how that connects to the whole Cylon persona/vapor-condensation thing the Hybrid was talking about.) Its use here is pretty inspired, considering that Cylon existence, as could be inferred from a race of robots, is predicated on information: even their concept of reality is constellated in terms of moving information around, bringing last week's forest into this week's conversation and so forth. So to look beyond the veil, to see the place beyond resurrection, true death, and see only "unknowing," well, that defines God. You can look it up—it's about as interesting as most old religious texts, which depends on you—but here's the prayer that serves as prologue...

Not just "And then he said. And then she said." His speculation is a fascinating adjunct to the show.

How Many Farmers at the Market

Here's a usage that I occasionally ponder: Why is it "farmer's market" and not "farmers' market?" It is not one farmer at the market, but many, unless you count the one-stand market we saw on a rainy day in Provence.

I suspect I know the answer. Writers get nervous about the plural apostrophe, because they're not as familiar with it. I'm not even sure "farmers' market" would be correct, though the basic rule outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style supports my argument: Form the possessive of singular nouns by adding an "'s" and just a "'" on plural nouns. Plus, "market" is singular, which might throw someone off, but the possessive is farmer. So someone way back when used the singular, and now the usage has stuck.

Any other theories from the 10 of you? Has anyone seen "farmers' market" used somewhere?

Silent Penultimate Panels

Via the giggle-inducing Comics Curmudgeon, the somewhat boringly named Silent Penultimate Panel Watch, a blog that tracks daily comics where the artist has left the second-to-last panel blank in a move that fills the requisite four-panel structure but adds neither humor, plot, or interest.

I Am Such a Fanboy

I actually clicked through to a series of photos showing the assembly line and warehouses for the Wii and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Oooh! Boxes!

Did I mention the Wii countdown widget on my Dashboard? Or the countdown gadget on my Google home page?

Jeff Howe Talks Crowdsourcing in Second Life

Transcript of a Q&A session with Jeff Howe about crowdsourcing in Second Life

What is crowdsourcing? I had heard the term, coined by Howe I think, but not followed it through to its definition. The gist: Throw some costly task to some sort of community where members can choose to work on it.

Second Life itself is the perfect example: Linden Labs said, "We need content to make a compelling environment. Here are the tools. Go for it." And Second Life residents responded, providing tons of content that's cheap in the eyes of Linden Labs because LL didn't pay to make it. Google's Image Labeller, where anonymous users pair up to label images for nothing more than points, strikes me as another example (and it's a brilliant idea).

An interesting discussion of what's going on in this space.

No Pun Intended

While reading a post on Vinography, I was struck by this sentence fragment: "it's actually a great distillation (no pun intended) of the issues."

We could debate the merits of "distillation" as a pun here—though it's an important part of the reverse osmosis process that reduces alcohol levels in wine. But my eye stuck on "(no pun intended)." (And I should note that this isn't a snipe at my friend Alder, but his post is the one that triggered this thought process.)

This "no pun intended" is a common practice in American prose, at least. I imagine witty British writers intend their puns with aplomb. What prompts this phrase? Is it because we hold puns in such low esteem that the author who makes one needs to separate himself/herself from the joke? I'm always happy when I can insert some subtle pun into a piece of text, as long as it doesn't sound forced. It adds some color as a wink between the reader and myself, assuming the reader gets it. Probably most of my puns amuse only myself.

But if the "no pun intended" construct is meant to separate the writer from a moment of linguistic happenstance, it also makes the reader more aware of the pun by interrupting the flow and calling attention to the offending word or words.

Thus the biggest paradox of "no pun intended." It means the exact opposite. Perhaps the punning word originally came to the author unbeckoned, but the writer has obviously noticed the pun, and then s/he chose to leave it in the text, pushing it into intent. Alder could've used any number of synonyms or alternate constructs—"snapshot" has fewer syllables and more Anglo-Saxon roots while "condense" lives one conceptual hop away from "distillation" and offers a more active verb—but he chose to leave the pun in the text, probably because at some level it tickled him.

So we are amused by puns, but we can't be seen to admit it. Or is there something else going on?

Numb3rs

Ever since I found episodes of Numb3rs on iTunes, Melissa and I have become addicted to this crime-solving show. The basic premise is easy to describe: the FBI gets help on critical cases by employing a brilliant mathematician, the brother of the lead agent, who uses equations and algorithms to narrow searches and pull needles from haystacks.

The show doesn't pull mathematical gobbledy-gook out of thin air, even if it seems like it sometimes. Among the production crew are mathematicians (including one acquaintance of mine) who brainstorm on how to apply math to the storylines, or who suggest ideas to the writing crew. There's even a supplementary educational kit called "We All Use Math Every Day," taken from the dialogue that overlays the title sequence.

Though Melissa and I enjoy the show, there are certain formulae—not the good kind—that recur with tiresome frequency. Every show features a crime set-up that has the FBI office stumped until Charlie Eppes can show up and discuss some mathematical principle, complete with an analogy that tries to explain it to the befuddled agents. (Melissa and I were amused to see that the writers have started to give the characters dialogue that makes fun of this) Charlie is a mathematical Superman, and one wonders if this office can solve any crimes without him.

My favorite characters are Larry Fleinhardt, an absent-minded physics professor who collaborates with Charlie, and Megan Reeves, an FBI agent introduced in the second season whose psychology background gives the team an insight into the human element. Both seem the most human in a cast that wavers on the border of one-dimensional, and their commentary often adds humor to the show.

Implausible or not, Melissa and I start looking for new episodes on iTunes as soon as we think they're up.

Lost Bridges puzzles

Josh at puzzlinks.com has been developing a new puzzle type, a variant of the well-known Bridges puzzles where you have to connect islands with bridges. In the standard rules, each island has a number that indicates how many bridges connect to it, you can never have more than 2 bridges connecting 2 islands, bridges can't cross, and you have to be able to get from any island to any other through the bridge network (i.e., you can't have two disconnected networks).

Josh's variant doesn't have numbers. Instead, each island is represented by a symbol. Within a puzzle, each symbol represents the same number, but it's up to you to figure out the meaning for each symbol. Very clever, and the puzzles can be quite difficult, though they're always solvable.

Here's all the ones he's made so far. Start with #1 to get the idea.