Panobook: Do I Need Another Notebook? Yes.

Games, Writing

I spend a lot of my time at my desk, in front of my computer, designing. I love using a notebook for generating ideas, doing research, game design, and software design. For me, the notebook helps me extend the ideas further without bounds. I have grown accustomed to bouncing between the digital and analog worlds.

When I saw the Kickstarter introduction video to a new product called Panobook, I thought to myself, “Here are some people who just get it.” (It is the love of notebooks and their utility.) My love started by watching my father collect different types of journals and Moleskin notebooks. He had many unopened ones, but the ones he did use were spiral bound and could fit in his pocket. He was often taking notes on the go writing his lectures and sermons. I typically design in front of my computer. I have been known to turn my notebook around and design particular to the lines.

 

I don’t need another notebook, but I have found that Panobook serves a purpose. I like that Panobook lays flat on my desk, it fits in front of my keyboard, it is spiral bound, it has a dot grid, and it is designed to be catalog on my shelf when I am done with it. Love oozes out of every design decision of the Panobook. Well done.

Geoffrey West: What Does Exponential Mean?

Games

My friend Paul gave me a really great book for my birthday. The book is Scale: The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies by Geoffrey West. I spent the whole summer digging into this book and having regular conversations with Paul. There are many landmines in the book. Once you step on one, you find yourself searching the internet for more information and digging even deeper.

“One of the things that I have discovered in my talking with politicians and policymakers is that most people don’t understand what an exponential is.”

—Geoffrey West

One small piece of the book is about exponential growth. I really liked his thought experiment on exponentials and I have applied his insight to game design and development.

 

Independent Music at Gen Con 50

Entertainment

I had a huge surprise this year at Gen Con 50. Often, there are bands and musicians playing music in the hallways of the Indianapolis Convention Center, host of the Gen Con gaming convention. I stopped to watch one band from Nashville wearing crowns and cat ears. I was already a few minutes late for my next game since I stopped for coffee. I ended up watching the whole set of an independent band from Nashville, called… Big Chance / Canyon Spells / Daniel and the Lion.

From what I learned from the Google box, Canyon Spells is Jimmie Linville and Daniel Pingrey who have been making music since high school. Their collaboration is tight and has produced a lot of great music across many genres. Their set at Gen Con was tight, fun, and really entertaining. I have not heard a great new band in a long, long time, and this was a pleasant surprise at Gen Con, of all places. I am not sure where they are going or if they will get stuck with an identity crisis, but they have great song writing and performing chops. YouTube has many videos of their band performing A LOT, which is a sign of a great band. Bands need to perform as much as they can, book gigs, and travel to obscure gaming conventions to strengthen their craft. I hope they find their way into the mainstream. They deserve a shot.

Billy West at Boston Comic Con!

Comedy

I got to meet Billy West at the Boston Comic Con 2017! If you don’t his name, you probably know his voice. He has voiced a lot of characters from some of my favorite cartoons, everything from The Ren & Stimpy Show to Futurama.

I have always been fascinated watching Billy West in action. Check out his segment on Penn’s Sunday School to get a sense of his extreme versatility and voice talent.

 

 

The Paradox of Choice (Applied to Game Design)

Games

I am developing a board game design workshop here in Boston that starts in September. I am really looking forward to facilitating the workshop and learning from the participants. In preparing the course materials, I came across my notes from a board game seminar that I took at Gen Con a few years back. The seminar was hosted by Jeff Tidball. Jeff is a creative executive and award-winning game designer. His class made a lot of great points, but he made one pint really clear to me. Game design is about doing the work. You have to have a lot of “butt-in-chair” time.

How much time have you wasted trying to choose the best salad dressing?

Jeff also mentioned the paradox of choice. He recommended that we watch a TED Talk from Barry Schwartz on the subject of choice and try to apply it to game design. Barry does not talk about game design in his TED Talk, but his message about choice can easily apply. A game with no choice is not fun. A game with too many choices is also not fun. You need to find a balance and do not overwhelm your players with too many options. Choice is central to the art of game design. You need to decide which choices to present to players and which ones that can be removed from your game.

I recommend that you watch Barry Schwartz’s TED Talk, The Paradox of Choice, to get the full context and see how you can apply it to game design.

 

How to Reset the Arduino MKR1000

ThingSpeak

I am working on a project that uses the Arduino MKR1000 with ThingSpeak. While working on my code, I uploaded a bad sketch to the MKR1000. Every time that the board powers up, it starts running my bad code over and over and appears to be stuck in an infinite loop. I tried pressing the reset button, unplugging the USB cable, reboot my computer, reinstalling drivers, and unplugging the USB cable (for good measure). Nothing made the board responsive again. I found a forum post talking about the bootloader. The user mentioned that quickly pressing the reset button twice put the device into a good state by loading the bootloader. Success!

Tracking My Baby’s Progress on Our Software Team’s Kanban Board

Software

My team at work uses a Kanban board to track our software development process. We use Kanban to track tasks and pull new tasks to our respective swim lanes. We use sticky notes to indicate our tasks and move them around to indicate their status, such as “To Develop”, “To Test”, or “Completed”.

Kanban is a method for managing knowledge work which balances demands for work with the available capacity for new work. Work items are visualized to give participants a view of progress and process, from task definition to customer delivery. Team members “pull” work as capacity permits, rather than work being “pushed” into the process when requested.

In software development, for example, Kanban provides a visual process-management system which aids decision-making about what, when and how much to produce. Although the method (inspired by the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing) originated in software development and IT, it may be applied to any professional service whose work outcome is intangible rather than physical.

–Wikipedia

For fun, I added my baby as a task. And, tracked the sticky all the way to completion… He’s our best feature yet!

 

CheerLights Robot for Your Nursery

CheerLights, Nursery Hacks, ThingSpeak

I shared my latest project over on my Nursery Hacks website. It combines some of my favorite things… IoT, CheerLights, ThingSpeak, Particle, and building things for my soon-to-be-here son’s nursery.  I didn’t want a bright light in the nursery, but I did want to build a little CheerLights display for something in the background.

I found a Robot Nightlight on Amazon and purchased it. This little robot is a great night-light and you can change the color using the included infrared remote control. To connect this light to CheerLights, I built an IR controller that is internet-connected using the Particle Photon. The Photon subscribes to the latest CheerLights color on ThingSpeak and transmits the IR code as if the button was pressed on the remote control.

To build your own CheerLights Robot, visit Nursery Hacks for the parts and code.

Brain Candy Live!

Entertainment

Brain Candy Live is a touring show featuring Adam Savage and Michael Stevens (Vsauce). My mind is blown think about these two guys together and seeing them live. I am addicted to their YouTube channels. I regularly watch Adam’s one day builds on Tested and Michael’s Vsauce. It’s got what brains crave.

Becky and I are excited to see the show in Worcester, MA this weekend. It is going to be epic.

Building Successful Online Communities

Books

I am fascinated by how communities form. I fell into community building over 15 years ago when I had a comment thread on my website go crazy. Many people started commenting and replying to others and before I knew there were hundreds of comments. I installed forum and wiki software on my server and the conversation continued and more people joined in. A community formed – it grew, moderators took over, and people slowly left as interest in the topic waned.

I recommend the book Building Successful Online Communities. Communities are complex, but they lead to interesting discussions and discoveries.

Online communities are among the most popular destinations on the Internet, but not all online communities are equally successful. For every flourishing Facebook, there is a moribund Friendster — not to mention the scores of smaller social networking sites that never attracted enough members to be viable. This book offers lessons from theory and empirical research in the social sciences that can help improve the design of online communities.