Back in 1867, at the time of Confederation, Dean said “You don't want to use that nasty old Blogger. I'll set you up a Textpattern instead.” So I agreed. And now Canada is 136 years young, Dean lives in France, I have a Textpattern install to play with. And the rest is history.
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Few Gel things: Anil's coverage was the best (still don't get how people would get the impression he's an asshole), Heath Row can type like no-one in the world, and I kind of liked being a conference with no WiFi (it was fun to watch people open their laptops and longingly regard their mail applications for a moment or two because closing the lid again) — I think this only works if speaker and session times are short.

Also, who has some movie clips of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players at Gel? I do:

• Let's Not Have The Same Weight in 1978-Let's Have More
• Why Did We Decide to Take This Decision to You?
  • Introducing the Question
  • The Answer
  • Actual song clip
• Together as a System, We are Unbeatable

(These clips are weird AVIs from my camera which only seem to play in Quicktime. I know nothing about video stuff — if anyone wants to convert them and post them somewhere, let me know and I will point to the more widely playable files.)
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There is an interview with me in Mindjack today. Lots of good things in there — Mike Sugarbaker, the interviewer, asks good questions. Though it was off the main topic, my favorite Q&A pairing was the final question:

MS: If Ludicorp were forced at gunpoint to make an action shooter for the Xbox-or-something, and money were no object, what would you make?

SB: After a long discussion around the office we settled on three concepts - all of which should be available sometime in 2009.

• Paleolithica! - A "shooter" (slings, spears, rocks) of Cro-magnon vs Neanderthal, set in and around the Pyrenees, Catalonia, Basque Country and the Languedoc. Advance your combat skills by developing new linguistic practices to co-ordinate with your fellow fighters. (You could also get into hand-to-hand combat and rip out each others' throats! Quest for Clans of Cave Bear Fires!!)
  
  
• Library Bookbomber! - Set in the Library of Babel, you play Borges the nearly-blind Librarian battling a non-denumerable infinity of foreign-speaking janitors while hopping from low-ceilinged hexagonal room to low-ceilinged hexagonal room. Drop books on them, throw books at them: do anything you can do prevent them from kicking you out and bringing on the cataclysmic "closing time".
  
  
• Nanoswarm! - If the budget really allowed for exploration, custom hardware would be the way to go! Imagine some kind of consumer productization of a local positioning system [like a spatially tracked ring or stylus] that gave the players gestural expression. Then, the game could involve gesturally shaping the behavior of billowing swarms of nanobots dancing in the air between combatants.

But first, we will finish GNE.

(Those who know Caterina, Ben and I will know who came up with which one.)
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On the off chance that you don't read Boing Boing, dear reader, I re-present a link to the wonderful photographic study of plant structure by Karl Blossfeldt, used to educate his students about design.
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Gah! Blogger! Jebus! I've actually been wanting for a while now, damnit. 9 times out of 10 I can't get into this stupid thing. If only there was a better way.

But at least, once again, it is proven that having a weblogging spouse is a handy thing (especially when she uses Movable Type): Caterina has already written up much of that visit to New York — probably the only time I have ever been there when it has not been uncomfortably hot or uncomfortably cold. It is hard to imagine not moving there soon.
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Gel was really fantastic, especially for the first event (buy early for 2004). The venue was perfect and both the speakers and the audience were great. They even got the little things, like well-spaced and sufficiently long breaks, printing the schedule upside down on the badges so you could flip it up to quickly check the sessions and times, a constant stream of really good prizes (!), and a cocktail event at the end of the day.

Both the speakers and the audience were intelligent, diverse, interesting and engaging and I had a lot of great conversations on the breaks and before and after the event itself. Highlights for me, aside from meeting a lot of new people for the first time, were the talks by Jim Kuntstler, Ze Frank and Andrew Zolli, and of course the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players performance.

Some pictures:

• Jim Kunstler regards the National Automobile Slum
  
• Caterina arriving
  
• Me pointing at some random bits
  
• more photos
  

I was talking about the role of constraints in the creation of possibilities and creativity. You can download my presentation at ludicorp.com/gel, but it is just the raw slides right now. I will create an annotated version if I get a chance.

(You can also download Andrew Zolli's presentation, 'After Experience Design'.)
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OK, I am going to try to be serious about having a weblog for a while (I find it so much harder when I'm on the road).
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