The Nukezilla Sunday Supplement – March 6th 2011

Every Sunday we’re going to post links to articles we think are interesting from the last week. Sundays are usually very quiet around here, so this seems like the best day to do it. We’re going to link to articles on range of subjects, including videogames, technology, movies, geek culture and much, much more.

Note: Sam’s away this weekend, so you’ll have to put up with a collection of links from previous Supplements. Full service will resume next week!

Videogames

Gaming and Reality in Modern Warfare – The Point. A look at representations of war in Call of Duty: “Official MW2 literature is full of quotes from Martin Luther, Aeschylus and even Albert Einstein on the horridness of war. “Nothing will ever end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.” But this ironic self-awareness is as vapid, as platitudinous, as passive, as the myth of duty the game itself propounds.”

The Psychology of Fanboyism – Game Pro. Why do fanboys exist? What’s in their heads that makes them align with certain products or brands. These the questions answered in this article.

Master of Play – New Yorker. A beautifully written profile of Shigeru Miyamoto, with a look at his role in the industry, his inspiration for the games he makes and a great look at videogames from an ‘outsider’s’ perspective. The best of long form reading.

Internet

Is Google Making Us Stupid? – The Atlantic. Nicholas Carr has been promoting his newest book for the past few weeks, but this is his original article: Is Google making us stupid? He argues that the skimming we do on Google is actually re-wiring our brains and making us lose the ability to focus on single, long form articles. Prove him wrong by reading this 4,000 word article.

The Raging Septuagenarian – NY Mag. A great profile piece on Rupert Murdoch, the media baron who is taking the internet. While his views might be insane, he’s certainly done very well. As he gets old, however, he’s starting to shape his Murdoch legacy and ensure that his vision continues one. Yeah, even Fox News.

The Hamster Wheel – Columbia Journalism Review. This can only be described as “eye opening”. It looks how journalism is no longer about depth, instead it’s about quantity. Getting x number of posts out in a day or being first. The writer argues that this only devalues the medium and removes a reporter’s (or blogger’s for that matter) drive.

The Web Means the End of Forgetting – The New York Times. “The Web allows for unprecedented voyeurism, exhibitionism and inadvertent indiscretion, ” but all of that is stuck there forever. This article examines how we’ll been judged by our Twitter updates.

Science

The Bomb Chroniclers – The New York Times.
A great article which looks at the people who filmed the atomic testing explosion of the 50s and 60s. These men, who have all but died (some, unsurprisingly, of cancer) were the ones who saw the wild explosions, which needed the film to to be running before hand because the light “would burn the film and jam the film gate.” Video, audio, text and pictures.

The Itch – The New Yorker. Imagine having an itch you couldn’t get rid of? This woman did, so much that she scratched into her brain and was left seriously debilitated by her injury. This article goes into the psychology and physiology of the itch as well as other strange things that our brain does. So worth a read.

Later – The New Yorker. Are you not doing what you’re supposed to do? Sitting reading these amazing links instead of filing that report or doing homework? Want to get really meta? Read this cracking article about procrastination while you procrastinate. It looks at the hows and whys of procrastination and why it actually may be a good thing. Something which I’ve always contested is true.

A Scientist Takes On Gravity – The New York Times. A look at gravity and a new theory which “some of the best physicists in the world say they don’t understand”. Good luck then.

If these aren’t to your taste (or you’ve read them before) then check out the full Supplement archive, or Longreads.com.