Friday, March 30, 2007

Pirates III, Blackbeard: Terror at Sea : National Geographic
As promised, Disney is gearing up for another summer of Pirates, and has released the trailer for At World's End.
Meanwhile you might enjoy playing and learning of a real pirate, Blackbeard.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

The Games for Health Competition
Unless you are really, really speedy, this comes too late for this year; the flip side is you might have a whole year to plan!! The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Serious games folk are sponsoring a competition. $30,000 is the reward.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

A Better World
We're trying hard to catch up and get back to regular blogging; I will say that the time off has also led to some cool steps forward in terms of meeting people. It's also gotten me out in parts of the country. And so a word about how things can and do get better.

I pick this topic because its too easy for sensitive self-analytical types to fall into the "world is doomed" mode. This has become the modus operandi of the press the past four years, some people have this view their entire lives; most all of us take it on at times.

The world is much better than it was. Take New York, where we visited last week. I don't love New York, there are just too many people. But it has its cool side, and its day-to-day side is much improved over a decade ago. I saw one beggar and zero drug dealers. That is an amazing improvement over the times I first visited. The city did not reek. Another amazing improvement. The people on the buses and subs all had bathed that week, and non seemed overly threatening or insane. Again, major improvement. Of course the times square district with the demise of all the porn shows is a far more civilized area--if you don't find pixelated billboards overly uncivil.

That civility has saved thousands of lives. From 1987 to 1994, each year brought over 2000 murders to NY. The state is now under 900. Rape and assault stats have fallen similarly, and robberies are cut by two thirds.

Let's make that clearer: policy and law changes since 1994 have saved some fifteen thousand lives otherwise snuffed out through tragic crime. Fifteen thousand American lives.

Follow those stats into other states, into Washington, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia. Los Angeles...the world can get better and policy can make a difference.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

History Now. Interactive History
Gilder Lehrman released its quarterly site today. There's an interactive on the growth of American cities. This thing is reeeally bad. Given some of GL's previous interactive good stuff, one wonders why they would ever release this thing. Also released are more text bits of modest contribution to kids learning history. Really. How 'bout moving a little of that cash this direction, so we could empower more developers?

Monday, March 19, 2007

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo
Can't believe this, but we're back on the road for AJAX World. Who knew?

Friday, March 16, 2007

Disney.com | The Official Home Page For All Things Disney
Have you seen Disney's home page lately Very cool. Reminds me of a Mac!
PS. Trailer for Pirates III comes out Monday.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Party's Over.
south by southwest interactive is all over but the blogging. What a week!
If you need no other reason, go for the parties. 5-10 open bar parties every night. Plus, the music!! In particular, we partied ("Mashup party) on the Austin City Limits Soundstage. For a long-time fan from frozen Ohio, this was a treat indeed. (Plus, we met managers from PBS and NPR. We begged them to open source their interactives code).

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Off to SxSW!!
Can you tell its been a bit busy here? No bloggings for two full weeks? The good news is, we've bit the bullet, purchased our $172 round trip ticket to Austin, and are off to South by SouthWest Interactive.