The Ludologist: Game Definition Again

Ancient Greece: Victory at any cost is an entgry in Jesper Juul’s blog The Ludologist which also deals with definition. Jesper has a paper online that has a topography of games, The Game, the Player, the World: Looking for a Heart of Gameness. Why is defining games so important? Why do we continue doing it after Wittgenstein’s Investigations.
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Defining Games

Scott Miller, a CEO of a game studio, in his blog Game Matters discussed definitions of games from the book Rules of Play. He ends with a definition of his own,

A game is a structured set of fun problems.

What makes this post interesting are the number of comments – the dialolgue that follows. In some ways the dialogue circles the family of resemblances between games. The play at defining is game.

Canadian Early Information Technology: Bell in Nova Scotia

bellhomesmall.jpg
Alexander Graham Bell established a summer home near Baddeck in Nova Scotia called Beinn Bhreagh (seen in the distance in the picture – View large image.) While Beinn Bhreagh is still a private residence, there is a Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site of Canada in Baddeck that documents his experiments once he was wealthy. (I took the picture from the museum grounds.) They have an enourmous hydrofoil experiment that looks like a plane.
For a history of the telephone in Canada see BCE :: History of Innovation or an interactive Flash timeline. Hamilton, by the way, was where the first public telephone was installed and the first “long distance” line was from Hamilton to Toronto.
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AHDS Methods Network

The aim of the ICT Methods Network will be to promote and disseminate the use of ICT in UK Arts and Humanities research in order to enhance, develop and make more effective the process of research, and to communicate research outcomes more widely and efficiently. It will focus on new developments and advanced methodologies, on research processes, questions, and methods, and on uses of data, rather than on data creation and preservation or access to resources.

The English Arts and Humanities Research Board is developing a ICT Methods Network which will disseminate information about digital methodologies in the arts and humanities. I’m not sure what this will mean, but it could be a welcome turn to looking at the interpretation (quesitons and intepretative practices) of digital matter.

Digital Image/Sound and Computer Science

Digital Image / Sound & the Fine Arts [DFAR] integrates two domains, that of Computer Science and the Fine Arts, to address the issues of interdisciplinary cultural education and technological innovation for information societies and networked environments.

The ” href=”http://digital.concordia.ca/site/menu.htm”>Digital Image/Sound &the Fine Arts program at Concordia is an interesting hybrid arts computing program. It can either be taken as a double major with Computer Applications from the Department of Computer Science or it can be taken as a “specialization” in the BFA. The program sounds like it has a strong theory component. For an overview see Section 71.80 – Digital Image/Sound and Computer Science.
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Computing Programs

I was at the Ontario Universities’ Fair where all the universities have booths and thousands of high-school kids come through with their parents to shop for programs. After I had done my turn at the McMaster booth I took my son around to find a program that combines computing with arts or game design. Here is what we found.

The University of Ontario Institute of Technology is an innovative and market-oriented institution, pursuing inquiry, discovery and application through excellence in teaching and learning, value-added research and vibrant student life.
(UOIT Vision)

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