"Thought experiment: what if tomorrow Facebook announced Facebook TV? Would their default UI — a stream of recommended items from your friends — be more or less compelling than Google's search box?" It probably would.

"It’s an old “Para mount Stu dio map of California’s geo graph i cal facsimiles”—that is, places that can stand in for other places.<br />
<br />
Siberia! Switzer land! Africa! What a state!"

"But imagine if the writer came up with a "story" before the rules.  A "pre-rules story."  At that point, you could create the rules around that story, and even if the rules seemed unconventional or unbalanced, you could be confident that they would work as long as the story works." Erm, not really; crap rules are crap rules, even if they make sense within the story. This paragraph directly contradicts his previous (accurate) paragraph, that stories must follow the rules of the game. To then say: "but we can retrofit rules onto the story if the latter was done first" just feels wrong. One more thing on my pile of "stuff about rules".

"If Kane were to have a symbiotic partner in the world of videogames, it would be the Metroid Prime trilogy".<br />
<br />
SO ANGRY. SO SO ANGRY. PUNCHY PUNCHY.

"There are a lot of other problems in the city hidden under the illusion of order and greatness: Suffocating air pollution, high unemployment, no fire stations, schools, or hospitals, a regimented lifestyle – this is the price that these sims pay for living in the city with the highest population. It’s a sick and twisted goal to strive towards. The ironic thing about it is the sims in Magnasanti tolerate it. They don’t rebel, or cause revolutions and social chaos. No one considers challenging the system by physical means since a hyper-efficient police state keeps them in line. They have all been successfully dumbed down, sickened with poor health, enslaved and mind-controlled just enough to keep this system going for thousands of years. 50,000 years to be exact. They are all imprisoned in space and time." Interview with the creator of Magnasanti. (If you've not seen the video, check it out; it is a SimCity obsession beyond belief).

"When people talk about serendipity, they’re not always talking about discovering something that’s totally brand-new. In fact, I’d haz ard that they’re USUALLY talk ing about randomly unearthing some thing that’s comforting and familiar. This is ten times more true with television."

"There are a lot of ways to approach burning discs. Burn keeps it simple, but still offers a lot of advanced options." I hate burning CDs in the Finder, and this looks great.

Great list, and lovely to be able to actually listen to it all, rather than just have to hunt it down later.

"Winner of the Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest 2010" Beautiful/awesome.

"In 1872, the British government and the Royal Society launched the first major oceanic expedition, transforming a two-hundred-and-twenty-six-foot naval warship into a floating laboratory…the ship, with five scientists, roamed the globe for thee and a half years. The crew was constantly dredging the ocean floor for specimens, and the work was repetitive, and brutal; two men went insane, two others drowned, and another committed suicide." I am looking forward to Bill Harris telling me more about this.

"The Economist has published a deliberately weird 'heroes of New Labour', to mark the end of a political decade that they dominated politically. But I think that New Labour's pantheon can only be truly understood in terms of the band that they modelled themselves on: Blur."

"I’ll never forget the adrenaline surge of landing what was basically a multimillion-dollar jet-powered glider on its 12-inch tail wheel from a full stall while wearing a space suit. And I’ll always remember the peace of sitting alone on the quiet edge of space, out of radio contact for hours."

Advance-Wars-inspired tabletop game.