At our house in Lexington, Virginia, I recently tested a Meshtastic repeater installed at my home, achieving a good signal range of approximately half a mile without a clear line of sight. I plan to elevate the antenna to enhance reach and responsiveness. But, hey!…
I co-wrote this piece on Choice Architecture and Nudge, both of which I am opposed to in theory and practice, a few years ago. Finally found a good platform to publish it through (thanks to Basecamp and their new Writebook application). If you’re interested in…
During a recent trip to Chilean Patagonia with my students, I stumbled upon a perfect illustration of rewilding as it applies to making things. We were there to explore how we can work with nature rather than constantly imposing our will on the land –…
Have you ever been stuck on a project and couldn’t find a way out? When I first started teaching game design at DePaul University, I discovered a book by Jesse Schell called The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. It introduced me to…
Here’s a talk I gave on early work I’ve been noodling on. The basic premise is: all objects have affordances, computers have unique affordances, and what if we applied those concepts of computing and affordances (Janet Murray) to the selection of hardware components? CrowdSupply…
The world we live in today is built on top of an industrialized substrate that was created in the early 20th Century. From education, to business, to governance, we’ve been building on top of this substrate for over a hundred years without questioning it. And…
Computer games, more so than many other artistic mediums, are bound by their delivery mechanisms. Think of the last five games you’ve played, and how you’ve interacted with them. Quite likely, your experience went something like this: your hands engaged with a standard control interface…
Innovation has been reduced to simply building upon existing industrial-era systems and methods, as has disruption. Think about it – can you name a single instance of disruption that did not rely on an already-established industrial system? We must go beyond this surface level and…
“I believe that one of the greatest causes of the ecological crisis is the state of personal alienation from nature in which many people live. We lack a widespread sense of intimacy with the living world. Natural history has never been more popular in some…