The Best Sentence of the Day

This meant putting together a story that had been shattered into thousands of pieces.

Monday, November 06, 2006

New Best Sentence #2

The players received no further instructions.

11 comments:

Saturday, November 04, 2006

New Best Sentence #1

I'm working on an article for a volume on digital games and youth learning, which is part of a research initiative funded by the MacArth...

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Best Dissertation of the Day

I'm now posting chapters from my finished and filed dissertation here . I'm posting them one at a time, like the chapters of a Dicke...

11 comments:

Saturday, July 01, 2006

The LAST Best Sentence of the Day

Okay folks. Tonight, I wrote the last best sentence of the dissertation draft. I have about one month before I file, during which there may ...

12 comments:

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Best Sentence #97

The strong sense of community forged through ubiquitous games, indeed, creates a sense of collective empowerment among the players. To what ...

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Best Sentence #96

Each time the players meet up and perform their collective play in public, they demonstrate support for the view that real community requir...

7 comments:

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Best Sentence #95

Current research holds that the twin hallmarks of online community – mutuality , or the opportunity for two-way communication, and density ,...

Monday, June 26, 2006

Best Sentence #94

Woot! Chapter 7 is finished. Time to fix Chapter 8! * This opening up of the puppet master system echoes both the explosion of grassroots al...

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Best Sentence #93

Okay, let's not get crazy. BUT. I predict that with Best Sentence #98, scheduled for Friday June 30, the entire and complete dissertatio...

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Best Sentence #92

Some strangers do not want to trust; some objects remain intractably unresponsive no matter how much string or tape is applied; and some spa...

Friday, June 23, 2006

Best Sentence #91

Reality-based superhero games view everyday life itself as fundamentally playful, and therefore they neither require nor desire a fictional ...

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Best Sentence #90

To begin this inquiry into the consequences of ubiquitous games, I will explore in the next chapter the phenomenon of the persistence of gam...

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Best Sentence #89

Reality-based superhero games (RBSGs) share a simple premise: if people are given specific instructions on how to take a more adventurous at...

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Best Sentence #88

Do players experience a sense of mastery over their real-world environments after successfully completing a ubiquitous game?

10 comments:

Monday, June 19, 2006

Best Sentence #87

There is nothing inherently fantastic in receiving a fax.

Abstract

Okay, don't get too excited. Yes, I've finished my dissertation abstract-- but no, I haven't yet completed the full draft. Chapt...

14 comments:

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Best Sentence #86

No direct translation or explanation of the fictive programming language was ever provided; however, players soon discovered that it was pos...

4 comments:

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Best Sentence #85

The massively multiplayer ornament is the aesthetic reflex of the collectivity to which ubiquitous computing aspires.

4 comments:

Friday, June 16, 2006

Best Sentence #84

Why, then, go to the trouble of employing a dissimulative aesthetic if it can be discredited so quickly?

12 comments:

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Best Sentence #83

I woke up screaming last night. Yes, I had a dissertation panic attack. Kiyash slept right through it. But Meche climbed into bed and helpf...

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Best Sentence #82

A brief observation before my best sentence of today. As I write a chapter on the so-called "dangerously" immersive qualities of a...

8 comments:

The writing process

For your enjoyment, a transcript of an IM session with fellow games research Ian Bogost . Ian listens to me mope and apoplex about my disser...

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Best Sentence #81

Okay, folks. A big bonus up to anyone who can guess who the "his" in the best sentence of today refers to. Hint: It ain't Cail...

8 comments:

Monday, June 12, 2006

Best Sentence #80

It's hard to believe, but a full, complete dissertation draft is just 1-2 weeks away from completion. Only 14 more best sentences at mos...

11 comments:

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Best Sentence #79

But how, in the medium of email, might one investigate white space? P.S. I know the point of this blog is "out of context", but wi...

18 comments:

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Best Sentence #78

My best sentences of today make a controversial claim; go ahead and debate me in the comments if you feel so inclined. Everything can be gam...

46 comments:

Friday, June 09, 2006

Best Sentence #77

Instead of a sentence today, I'll post the title of my new Chapter 6. I'm still finishing Chapter 5, but I realized 20+ pages of wh...

4 comments:

Thursday, June 08, 2006

I stand before you naked

Oh my. It is with great surprise that I awoke this morning to discover that this little introverted wisp of a blog is Blogger's Blog of ...

29 comments:

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Best Sentence #76

Kuhn describes paradigm shifts as “intellectually violent revolutions” (6). Accordingly, Weiser predicts that a take-no-prisoners approach t...

19 comments:

Monday, June 05, 2006

Best Sentence #75

The Beast augmented symbols in the virtual environment with actionable affordances. Data embedded in everyday media objects expressed not on...

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Best Sentence #74

It's the weekend, and on the weekends because I work so hard, I like to give you a little cluster of sentences instead of just one. Woo!...

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Best Sentence #73

Can we activate the world through embedded patterns, rather than embedded systems?

Friday, June 02, 2006

Cheers to Dissertation Community

Cheers to the other sentence-a-day and word-count-countdown blogs that have popped up recently! I'm so happy to have a community of fell...

24 comments:

Best Sentence #72

Many thanks to all the #unfiction folks who earlier this week shared their really great comments on the art form of SPEC. :) * Note here tha...

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Best Sentence #71

However, not all of the emergent play that surrounded the game was pleasurable for its designers to watch.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Best Sentence #70

Here, the authors hedge slightly on the origins and purpose of the game—and with good reason.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Best Sentence #69

Finally, onto the good stuff. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the chapters on alternate reality gaming. * In A Theory of Fun , game designe...

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Best Sentence #68

Whoops! So busy working yesterday I forgot to blog. But don't worry. I didn't dare take the day off... even if it is Memorial Weeken...

Friday, May 26, 2006

Best Sentence #67

210 pages and counting... * Can the aesthetics of spectacle when combined with iconic game structures and imagery in fact be used to organiz...

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Best Sentence #66

A few sentences today because I have been working SO! HARD! * Is Central Park’s Sheep Meadow necessarily less of a magic circle than a theat...

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Best Sentence #65

How are these two kinds of identity reticulated through public encounters with city architecture, neighbors and strangers, pedestrian choreo...

Monday, May 22, 2006

Best Sentence #64

I am at some kind of Zen peace today with my dissertation. Having submitted 150 pages, getting ready to submit another 50 pages this week, a...

Best Sentence #63

The designers apparently anticipate feedback on this low-tech approach; on their FAQ page, they address the project’s lack of actually ubiqu...

Saturday, May 20, 2006

Best Sentence #62

This map is another example of the project’s unfulfilled rhetoric of abundant pervasive gameplay.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Best Sentence #61

Not only would this be more physically demanding, it would also require online players to make their strategic voting decisions under a sign...

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Best Sentence #60

So much can get in the way of writing. Spent the better part of the day in the doggy hospital with Meche... we're home now, but she had ...

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Best Sentence #i've lost count

The emotional consequences of being replaced in such a potentially meaningful encounter evoke serious questions about the degree to which so...

a pitiable circumstance

My Sony Vaio laptop died overnight. I am now working from my desktop-replacement laptop, the Dell. The last time I backed up my dissertation...

Monday, May 15, 2006

Best Sentence #58

What might be the true motivations of such physically intimate applications, and why is a ludic framework necessary for their success?

Best Sentence #57

Whoops, from yesterday... a bit late. If ubicomp values material engagement, then the loss of tactile play and the designed relegation of in...

Saturday, May 13, 2006

Best Sentence #56

While the real-world players face potential physical danger, the online players risk rejection and the consequences of being misunderstood.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Best Sentence #55

The toys have literally disappeared.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Best Sentence #54

I am now officially opening the comments for this post to a little guessing game. What number best sentence will I be at when I have officia...

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Best Sentence #53

Whenever a collision occurs, the game ends.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Best Sentence #52

The map precedes the territory.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Best Sentence #51

Much like David Blaine, I feel a few minutes short of a full stunt tonight. * In the field of ubiquitous computing games research, these pla...

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Best Sentence #50

Back from New York City, where I was able to interview two of the designers I'm writing about in chapter 4. I've been doing more edi...

Monday, May 01, 2006

Best Sentence #49

If I don't get out of this ubicomp chapter tomorrow (my self-imposed submission deadline) I am going to go crazy. It is a tangible act o...

Sunday, April 30, 2006

Best Sentence #48

Lazy Sunday, no Mr. Pibbs and Red Vines, just crazy delicious dissertating. * This design concept, then, effectively performs the anxieties ...

Best Sentence #47

Whoops, forgot to blog last night. I was distracted by an emergency cupcake liberation mission to Love at First Bite Bakery. Here's the ...

Friday, April 28, 2006

Best Sentence #46

Happy Friday. Kiyash and I went to Bev Mo last night and bought 20 bottles of wine. Cabernet shiraz, white shiraz, zinfadel, chateau neuf-de...

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Best Sentence #45

Today, I wrote a mere two pages. But they're two chewy and important pages. I've had a hard time organizing and road-mapping the wri...

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Best Sentence #44

But how do you make invisible computing visible?

Monday, April 24, 2006

Best Sentence #43

Diet coke should be the official sponsor of my dissertation. I am willing, for instance, to print the dissertation on archival paper with a ...

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Best Sentence #42

This weekend, I’ve been pulling all my old rhetoric and philosophy of science books off the shelf. I came to UC Berkeley intending to study ...

Friday, April 21, 2006

Best Sentence #41

Status report! Chapter 2: Nearing final, polished completion. Likely to weigh in 35 - 40 pages. Will be submitted TONIGHT to dissertation co...

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Best Sentence #41

Oh, happy day. I realized while in the shower this morning that a very good way to explain the things I find most interesting about alternat...

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Best Sentence #40

Excellent, the O'Reilly Networks links to The Best Sentence of The Day in its introduction to an interview with me about scaling up gam...

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Best Sentence #39

Even though I worked for about 10 hours on Easter Sunday, I didn't post a 'best sentence of the day' because I had a very frustr...

Best Sentence #38

I have decided to reorganize... the first 5 or so pages each of Chapters 3, 4, and 5 will move to the end of Chapter 2, which is really too...

Monday, April 17, 2006

Best Sentence #37

Too stressed about writing... must play more. I had this very silly idea recently to quote ABBA in my dissertation. Today, I insert that quo...

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Best Sentence #36

aaaaaaaaaa if i never type the word ubiquitous again it will be too soon. It's not even that I think this is really the best sentence of...

Friday, April 14, 2006

Best Sentence #35

Gameplay is just a means to an end.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Best Sentence #34

Okay, so two things. First, doing a critical analysis of ACM and IEEE papers from a humanities perspective is weird. I know the authors are ...

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Best Sentence #33

On track to write about 10 pages today. Not bad... but my brain is totally thrashing trying to figure out what to about a Chapter 2 that has...

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Best Sentence #32

Bet some of you know the very recent current event this sentence refers to... In addition to potentially frustrating would-be players, repli...

Monday, April 10, 2006

Best Sentence #31

15 hours of writing/working/thinking today, but a pretty boring day in terms of the words on the page. I'm in the middle of presenting m...

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Best Sentence #30

The problem with writing about digital games and game studies is that new papers and new games keep popping up every damn day! Everytime I s...

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Best Sentence #29

So, another weird habit I've picked up while "writing"* 12 - 16 hours a day: Playing "Bad Day" on my cell phone. Tha...

Friday, April 07, 2006

Best Sentence #28

What might we come to understand about the state of networked play at the turn of the 21st century by using the terms more intentionally—for...

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Best Sentence #27

Like the merged fields of ubiquitous and pervasive computing, both theorists and practitioners interested in the rapid expansion of real-wor...

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Best Sentence #26

Yes! This is really a sentence from my dissertation! Are they allowed to wear roller-skates to go faster?

big news

I am officially on leave of absence from 42 Entertainment to work full-time on my dissertation. I hope to file in July.

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Best Sentence #25

oh! OH! OH! My favorite sentence of the day so far jumped out at me because of a recent frustrating email correspondence with someone who su...

Monday, April 03, 2006

Best Sentence #24

I know this is completely weird, but when I'm having a relatively good day of writing (note that mild panic and existential Ph.D. nausea...

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Best Sentence #23

Oh my god, my brain is like a giant tangled thread hopelessly knotted. Working it out.... working it out... Do we need embedded computers to...

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Best Sentence #22

Since the chest pain is no longer excruciating , it's back to writing I go. Days lost: 5. And may I mention that dissertation writing s...

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Best Sentence #21

If anyone besides Ian Bogost can guess what the 3 terms alluded to below might be, you win a prize. Plus, I would be mind-boggled. * These t...

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Best Sentence #20

Back from the Game Developers Conference and slowly returning to writing. I've started building Chapter 2, and today I am most happy not...

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Best Sentence #19

Right now, I'm working through all of the source material (game design documents, gameplay videos, gameplay blogs, interviews and press)...

Friday, March 17, 2006

Best Sentence #18

I have spent 36 of the last 48 hours writing. Ouch. My brain. However, a significant milestone achieved: I just submitted the first 45 page...

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Best Sentence #17

Today, I offer a best footnote: [2] It is worth observing here that Gold’s discussion of the importance of image reproduction and replicatio...

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Best Sentence #16

Oh boy... it's scary to show your cards. It's easier to post sentences that are evocative, but not particularly revealing of my core...

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Best Sentence #15

It is only in thinking about the nature of child’s play, and particularly the role of magical thinking in early childhood exploration of the...

Monday, March 13, 2006

Best Sentence #14

Sometimes I think I am not claiming enough. My statements are not novel or ambitious enough. Sometimes I worry that I am claiming too much. ...

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Best Sentence #13

What signals ‘this is a computer’?

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Best Sentence #12

I've received a few lovely emails from people who are actually following this live-blogging of the dissertation. That's great. The b...

Friday, March 10, 2006

Best Sentence #11

It aggressively and proudly demonstrates its mimetic charms to you.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Best Sentence #10

I want to finish this section tonight... I will try, try, try! Favorite sentence so far: However, the ability to trigger recognition or even...

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Best Sentence #9

Back in Berkeley wrestling with the same stupid section that has been giving me trouble for 3 full days now. I am about to finish it up, kno...

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Best Sentence #8

danah boyd and I are holed up in our hotel room at etech together, writing our brains out instead of networking in the halls or absorbing ge...

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Best Sentence #7

Last night, I said to Kiyash: I am always on the precipice of having nothing to say. Writing, sometimes, is such an act of faith. I have to ...

Best Sentence #6

I have a kind of strange "distracted" writing practice. When I sit down to write, I put in as many hours as my brain can stand in ...

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Best Sentence #5

Oh, good day already. Wrote until 1 am last night, up by 9 am to pick up where I left off. Finally finished the section on Caillois (tricky ...

Best Sentence #4