1. IMG_8227 on Flickr.Liam Kenneth Cotton has arrived. We are very happy to finally have him home.

    IMG_8227 on Flickr.

    Liam Kenneth Cotton has arrived. We are very happy to finally have him home.

     
  2. RSVP at Facebook

    Paden Pierry will be doing an interactive presentation. There will be a series of videos to watch before hand, plus there will be software to install on your laptop. We will work together in pairs (so if you don’t have a laptop that is fine) When you RSVP please let us know if you will be bringing a laptop. As a pair we will walk through some more details on Blender and how to create 3d/2d art.

    Come meet other local game developers (Designers, Artist, Programmers, Storyists)

    Our location is E|Spaces Cool Springs
    http://espaces.com/locations/cool-springs/ right next to the Whole
    Foods on McEwen Dr.
    1550 W. McEwen Dr., Suite 300

    Dinner before will be at Brixx Pizza, 6pm. Just below Espaces.
    http://brixxpizza.com/locations/franklin
    1550 W. McEwen Dr, Suite 10, Franklin, TN

     

     
  3. My friend Dorian’s recommendations

    My friend Dorian’s daughter was around 7 when she designed her own race for Small World. I decided to ask him about recommendations for good kid friendly games to get them into gaming. Here is what he recommended.

    He said that Candyland is a good starter since it teaches turn-taking, piece-moving, and sportsmanship, and how to handle cards and pieces gently, all without the tension of actual decision making. He said he heard that Go Away Monster is good. For younger (but not too young) he said

    When they get a little older:

    Anyone else have good games to recommend for the very young and new gamers? 

     
  4. IPython Notebooks

    I just saw a talk by Christopher Fonnesbeck at Vanderbilt who was talking about how they are starting to use IPython Notebooks to create their data and reports. I don’t think he has put up the slides, but it was just so fascinating to see. If you haven’t heard about  IPython Notebooks, they are basically a webpage where you can put comments and then also put python code that executes and shows the results in the webpage. 

    http://nbviewer.ipython.org
    https://github.com/ipython/ipython/wiki/A-gallery-of-interesting-IPython-Notebooks
    The concept for the researchers, is that they can put their code of how they are evaluating the data, and people can reproduce the research themselves. Or they can look at how they arrived at it, and find errors and mistakes.
    Another fun example is someone showing how to do XKCD style plots:
    Just so excellent to see some of the future of research and being able to share the exact code in a documented fashion.
     
  5. Just found out that the final book has been released. I blame Ari Mozes for getting me hooked on the books, but then I stopped after book 7 since they seemed like they would never end. I swore that he wouldn’t finish the books at this rate before he died, and now I guess he had some some afterlife help to finish them. Time to hit the library and go reread them!