The Nukezilla Sunday Supplement – May 15th 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.

Videogames

How Engagement Killed Gameplay – What Games Are. This article argues that “engagement” has replaced “gameplay” in the mind of gaming executives, leaving games to draw the user in rather than innovate. That’s not an all bad thing either.

V-Day: Plug It In - PikiGeek. A look back at some of the more… zany controllers to comes out of the industry. An entertaining little piece.

Science

World Wide Mind – Seed Magazine. Michael Chorost has a computers in his head that hears for him. In this book extract, he writes about how computers and our bodies are coming closer every day and that the internet acts a “nervous system for humanity”.

Movies & TV

A Clockwork Orange: The droog rides again – The Guardian. ”A Clockwork Orange was released 40 years ago – but has Kubrick’s film lost its power to shock? As it screens at Cannes, Steve Rose looks at how it went from infamy to pop-culture respectability.”

Sound and Vision – The New Yorker. An interesting piece from 2005 looking at the role of the score in movies, examining examples of great soundtracks and their vital important in film production.

Culture

Where are today’s Steinbecks? – BBC. “Millions of men and women have lost their jobs in the latest global downturn – the biggest for decades. Why do we hear so little about them?”

Writing

The Rise of “Logical Punctuation”. – Slate. The placement of a fullstop in relation to quotation marks is one of much debate. (“Like this.” or “Like this”.) This looks a why there’s a difference between the American and British schools of thought and gets rather nerdy over punctuation.