Because I'm always losing this post when I'm looking for documentation for these scripts…

This is wonderful: Rrose talks about their process, which ends up on techno and psychoacoustics… but is mainly about player pianos as well. Very good indeed, and a great interview.

I always have time for people writing about ZZT. (Anna Anthropy's book on it is cracking). I have fond memories, both of Sweeney's own 'worlds' as well as the awful things I made.

"Many people hack together shell scripts quickly to do simple tasks, but these soon take on a life of their own. Unfortunately shell scripts are full of subtle effects which result in scripts failing in unusual ways. It’s possible to write scripts which minimise these problems. In this article, I explain several techniques for writing robust bash scripts." This looks really useful.

"This gem provides a ruby interface to access Novation’s Launchpad programmatically. LEDs can be lighted and button presses can be responded to." Also later ported to Processing. Big "oooooooh" from here, because that'd be a lovely UI for so many things.

"This is all very preliminary, but here is a first pass as a Processing Kinect library." Ooh.

Trap streets – yes, of course. But trap rooms; trap architectures? That's iiinteresting.

"Bookland is a fictitious country created in the 1980s in order to reserve a Unique Country Code (UCC) prefix for EAN identifiers of published books, regardless of country of origin, so that the EAN space can catalog books by ISBN rather than maintaining a redundant parallel numbering system." Awesome. Via Kim (who else?)

"This tutorial assumes no previous knowledge of scripting or programming, but progresses rapidly toward an intermediate/advanced level of instruction . . . all the while sneaking in little nuggets of UNIX® wisdom and lore. It serves as a textbook, a manual for self-study, and a reference and source of knowledge on shell scripting techniques. The exercises and heavily-commented examples invite active reader participation, under the premise that the only way to really learn scripting is to write scripts." Really good stuff, which Nick pointed me at this morning when I revealed I couldn't write bash scripts.

"That's why guys like Tarn Adams or Vic Davis are a thousand times more interesting. They're making games, not DLC or marketing or anything else. A game, to them, isn't the launching pad. It's the rocket."

"Designing a game for a limited platform is not only a great exercise for a development team, but can often give real insights into how to take an existing product into a whole new area — often with great improvements to controls and the whole user interface and experience." Denki on porting from low-spec digital TV boxes to even-lower spec digital TV boxes. Some good stuff in here, particularly around constraint.

"…once WoLK came out and half the guild went completely insane and started chasing the really silly achievements, it was clear we were going to need an RSS feed of the things. So I built one. It’s based on the Armory, like most WoW tools, and is a complete kludge, like most of my tools. But here are my notes anyway." Hurrah! Tom wrote his magic tool up. It's great, it's daft, and I love the Armory's crazy XML. Alas, my achievements are few and far between…

"it seems to me Criterion, in particular, has identified and implemented a strategy that works remarkably well in the current games marketplace: release the best product you can and stand behind it; improve the quality and player experience with frequent upgrades; offer additional value-added content worth charging for; nurture the relationship between your consumers and your development team; and give folks what they want."

"Translator 'tempestas_caput' doesn't seem to offer any explanation as to why he's translated Zelda II into Latin, so we just won't ask. But it's not the only game getting his "sleeping language" treatment: he's also he's also gone alone, dangerously with the original Zelda, and is making his way, even more ambitiously, through Final Fantasy III." Brilliant!

"…if the future of games is to become entertainment services, then are subscriptions going to fall away in favour of upfront payments and free updates?" Some good thinking from Duncan.

"Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage."

"So, you finally caved. You've accepted a friend request from your Mom, Dad, crazy Aunt Ida, and your college roommate’s newly divorced mother. Well here's your chance to get back at them for taking away your public privacy."

Daft, lovely, and hypnotic to watch.

"I’m a web developer at heart, and a scripting language user by preference. Coding for the iPhone doesn’t feel as fluid in text handling or HTTP access as the environments I’m used to. Fortunately I’ve been able to find some fantastic open-source libraries and wrappers that make up the difference. Here are my favourites so far:" A useful – and interesting – set of links from Matt B.

"Oh words, words, words." Beautiful. Thanks, Simon.

"The Wii has captured the imagination of millions of people who didn't consider themselves gamers at all. Why are we so surprised? All this has happened before." And, no doubt, all of it will happen again. Some good insight and quotation from Mitch Krpata on a history of Nintendo's console marketing and sales strategies.

War reporting from a virtual world; Jim Rossignol documents the first skirmishes in the Offworld/RPS/Escapist conflict. Looking forward to more of this.

"It is from the era when people were all 'we will not know if acid is dangerous until we test it on THE FOXIEST GIRLS IN ENGLAND.'" Too right.

If you can see it, it exists. If you can't, it doesn't. Lovely, tough, fun.

"We were delighted to have George Oates, ex of Flickr who started and managed the Commons, come to visit us at the National Maritime Museum in November 2008. When she was here she curated some Commons content for us. This set is the first of this content." Some wonderful selections; the full archive must be remarkable.

"Perhaps more charities should project a less glamorous image, and remind us that they still have to do all the boring stuff that everyone does at work. And perhaps then we wouldn’t have such unreasonable expectations. Sponsor a filing cabinet, sir?" The thing I like most about this is being told exactly where your contribution goes; you get a real connection with a real thing. I'd rather buy charities a shelving unit than £25 of vague platitudes.