Archive for the 'creativity' Category

09-04-2008

Make Your Own Board Games

Over the last few years, I’ve put together a few homemade versions of board games. Websites such as Board Game Geek and Game-it-Yourself! feature lists of games that can be made at home. Some can be printed, cut out, and playable in a matter of minutes. Below are a few of my favorites.

Glik

Player: 2-4
Time: 30 minutes

Glik

Glik is an abstract game where players try to move their colored pieces from their start square to their goal area. The board is made up of cards, most of which are randomly placed at the start of the game, adding an element of chance. Pieces move in a straight line until they encounter a wall, a neutral piece, or a player’s piece. In addition to Glik, the same board cards can be used to play the game Glak.

Rat Hot

Player: 1-2
Time: 30 minutes

In Rat Hot, players act as merchants, trying to stack their goods near each other, while guarding themselves from rats. Players take turns placing cards onto the board, attempting to balance defensive and offensive strategy. Cards can score points simultaneously for the player and the opponent, plus the game can end abruptly if too many rats are exposed at once.

Holiday

Player: 2-8
Time: 40 minutes

In addition to web-published games, I’ve also made my own versions of games. For instance, I made a homemade version of an otherwise out-of-print game called Holiday. I used the open source vector graphic program Inkscape along with Creative Commons licensed artwork from the Open Clip Art Library to make my own version of the board.

holiday_a007d

In Holiday, players bid for control of a charter plane and the ability to determine the plane’s next destination. Each destination city has a number of sights, each with an ideal day to see them. Players score points by playing one of their sight cards in the appropriate city. The closer you are to the sight’s ideal day, the more points you get. The game ends once any player has played all their cards. The player with the most points wins.

Others

In addition to the games above, I’ve also made homemade versions of Micropul, Hive, Hey! That’s My Fish!, and En Garde. And I have more in the works, including Snake Pit, Space Junkyard, and Pico 2.

Posted by Matt in games, Austin, creativity | No Comments »

02-22-2008

Three Music Videos to Inspire Creativity

Smashing Magazine recently linked to a bunch of creativity inspiring music videos. Besides the OK Go video I’ve blogged about before, two of my favorites were the Bat for Lashes video for the song “What’s A Girl To Do” and the RJD2 song “Work It Out.”

After discussing those two videos with my friend Steve, he recommended a video by a bluegrass band called Uncle Earl. The video for “Streak O’ Lean, Streak O’ Fat” is a mind-bending mix of genres that I’ll call “Bluegrass Tiger, Hidden River Dance.”

Bat for Lashes — What’s A Girl To Do

RJD2 - Work It Out

Uncle Earl - Streak O’ Lean, Streak O’ Fat

Posted by Matt in video, creativity, music | No Comments »

08-02-2007

Humans Still Beat Computers at Some Tasks

I read that recently computers have “solved” the game of checkers, having now mapped out every possible game. That means that a human player’s best hope would be to tie a game against such a computer.

With that in mind, it’s nice to know that humans are still better than computers when it comes to certain tasks. Yesterday, I watched a Google Tech Talk given by Luis von Ahn, a computer science Ph.D., who specializes in harnessing the computational strengths of humans. The talk was not as dry as it may sound. In fact, it was one of the most interesting Tech Talks I’ve watched.

Von Ahn has developed programs and games to help thwart spammers and collect useful data for search engines and other databases. His reCAPTCHA program helps in recognizing classic texts for the Gutenberg Project in a very novel way. When users enter text into a reCAPTCHA script to prove themselves human, they are actually helping to recognize words that computers were unable to.

Von Ahn’s games pit players against one another in ways that allow useful data to be collected. Von Ahn does a much better job of explaining and demonstrating the games that I can. I recommend checking out his presentation (below or on Google Video). Or read the recent wired Magazine profile of von Ahn. Or play one of Von Ahn’s games online.

Posted by Matt in video, tech, creativity | 1 Comment »

04-23-2007

Kinetic Scupltures That Walk

I first saw Theo Jansen’s sculptures on a video of his 2005 presentation at the Gel Conference. The kinetic sculptures he builds are otherworldly and amazing to watch, as they walk across the sand. Unfortunately, the quality of the Gel video isn’t the best. For a quicker, better introduction, check out this 1 minute video:

For more background, Jansen gave a 30 minute presentation the 2005 Pop!Tech conference. You can download a higher quality quicktime version of the presentation from the Pop!Tech website or watch a streamed version below:

Posted by Matt in creativity, movies | No Comments »

04-04-2007

Thwarting Spammers Through Creativity

The ongoing battle against spam brings out some of the most creative problem solving in programmers and system administrators. Techniques like greylisting and bayesian filtering are applied in an attempt to keep the spam problem under control.

A recent behind-the-scenes blog post about The Architecture of Mailinator details some creative problem solving that went into the design of the Mailinator service. By foregoing perfect service in favor of near-perfect service, Mailinator is able to significantly alter its approach to the problem.

Now if this all sounds a bit shaky, as in we might just lose an email now and then - you’re right. But remember, our goal is 99.99% accuracy. Not 100%. That’s an important distinction. The latest incarnation of Mailinator literally runs for months unattended. We do lose emails once in awhile - but its rare and usually involves a server crash. We accept the loss and by far most users never encounter it.

Posted by Matt in tech, creativity | No Comments »

03-06-2007

Free Mindmapping Software, Today (3/6/07) Only

I’ve been keeping an eye on the Giveaway of the Day website lately. Every day, the site posts a new Windows program that is available for downloading free for just one day. The programs are fully licensed, though they must be installed the same day they are downloaded and are not upgradeable.

In the weeks that I’ve been checking the site, the offerings have been hit-and-miss, but today’s software looks interesting. It’s a mindmapping program called ConceptDraw MINDMAP Personal 4.

I’ve been using mindmapping software for a long time. Mindmapping has been especially useful for outlining my ideas before sitting down to write. I originally used Mindjet MindManager, but it has gotten to be too expensive, in my opinion.

Lately, I’ve been using the free, open source mindmapping package called Freemind. Freemind is slow to start up and a a bit clunky overall, but it is remarkably useful, especially considering the price. Still, I’m interested in giving MINDMAP Personal a try. I’ll be downloading it as soon as I finish this post.

Posted by Matt in business, learning, communication, writing, tech, creativity | No Comments »

11-28-2006

Chain Reaction Rings a Bell

rube_goldsworthy.jpg

If Rube Goldberg and Andy Goldsworthy were lost in the woods and needed to ring a bell, here is how they might pull it off.

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Posted by Matt in creativity | No Comments »

11-16-2006

Amateur Musician/Skilled Video Editor

I found the following video via populicio.us. I don’t know the story behind the video, but I’m impressed to see what someone with no musical talent can do with the aid of some technology and a little creativity.

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Posted by Matt in creativity, music | No Comments »

06-11-2006

Custom Sketches for Only $1

I can’t remember where I first stumbled across Sketch-It, but I’m very glad I did. For just $1 you can have a custom sketch created by one of several artists. You can submit an idea, such as “ugly tie” or “baby shower.” Or you can submit a photo you’d like to see rendered as a sketch. The resulting sketches are released under a Creative Commons license.

I recently submitted a photo of my dog and I’m very impressed by the results, especially for just $1. In looking over some of the other submissions, the results can vary quite a bit, but if you’re disappointed with a sketch, you can simply pay another dollar and resubmit your request. Or you can contact individual artists who contribute to the site to find out about custom work.

Daisy photo

Daisy sketch from Sketch-It

Posted by Matt in cc, creativity, photography | No Comments »

05-23-2006

Musical Animation

I ran across this video via populicio.us recently.

You can watch more clips and purchase DVDs at the Animusic site.

Posted by Matt in creativity, movies, music | No Comments »

04-28-2006

Star Wars Radio Show Featured in Austin Chronicle

This week’s Austin Chronicle features an article about a radio show on KVRX called These Aren’t the Droids You’re Looking For. The show is a weekly half hour of radio all about Star Wars. I haven’t heard the show yet, but I applaud the creativity of the concept.

Everything in the movies is there to be discussed and dissected from as many angles as possible. Military strategy, scientific inconsistencies, the theological subtleties behind the Force: all in an evening’s work. As Needles says, “For the sake of the show, there’s more to talk about if you accept the world as real.”

Posted by Matt in communication, Austin, creativity, movies | No Comments »

04-26-2006

Dim Sum Beginner’s Guide


Click to download the guide (PDF).

On a trip to Hong Kong a couple of years ago, Amanda and I wished we’d had some kind of Rosetta Stone to take with us to the dim sum restaurants we visited. We knew dishes we liked, but we didn’t know the Chinese names or characters for them. Most of the places we tried didn’t have the typical dim sum carts to order from, so pointing wasn’t an option either.

In getting ready for our recent trip to Beijing, I decided to put together my own dim sum cheat sheet. I used Wikipedia to find a list of dim sum dishes along with the Chinese characters for them. I then searched Flickr for photos tagged “dim sum” that were under a Creative Commons license. I put the two together to create a Dim Sum Beginner’s GuidePDF file. This guide is released under a Creative Commons license, so please feel free to add to or build-on the idea.

The printout did come in handy on our trip to Beijing. Dim sum wasn’t as prevalent there as it was in Hong Kong, but we did come across a few places. The ones we ate at didn’t have English menus or picture menus, so the cheat sheet was a big help.

Admittedly, I’m still a dim sum beginner myself, so this is not a comprehensive guide. There are lots more dishes I could add, but I stuck to the ones I know well—things that we hoped to eat on our trip and would recommend to anyone who hadn’t tried dim sum before. For more options, check out the book “Dim Sum: A Pocket Guide.”

I’d love to see more twists on this idea? How about a beginner’s guide to tapas, sushi, meze, and other snacky foods around the world?

Posted by Matt in communication, food, creativity, photography, travel, wikis | 1 Comment »

04-10-2006

Four Great Rube Goldberg Videos

I watched a lot of Tom and Jerry cartoons as a kid. Some of my favorites were the ones where Tom would build his own version of the Mousetrap game. I’ve been fascinated by Rube Goldberg machines ever since.

I happened to run across three great Rube Goldberg Videos over the weekend on various sites. I wasn’t on the lookout for them and I’m not sure if they’re connected somehow. Maybe Rube Goldberg is on people’s minds because the National Rube Goldberg Contest was held recently.

I ran across this first video on the Make magazine website. The second and third were on either populicio.us or Diggdot.us. I believe the third one is a copy of The Way Things Go, which is also available on DVD. It’s about 30 minutes long, so plan your viewing accordingly. Finally, to round out the videos, I also searched out a copy of the Honda Accord commercial from a few years ago that consisted of a Rube Goldberg machine made from car parts.

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Posted by Matt in humor, tech, creativity, movies | 1 Comment »

03-31-2006

DIY Creativity Poster


Click for a larger version.

Michael Michalko has written some great books on creativity. His book Thinkertoys contains a chapter on a technique called Brutethink, where random words are used to generate ideas by forcing you to associate the words with the problem at hand. Thinkertoys includes a three page list of words (pp. 169-171) intended to be used in generating ideas.

When I read the book a while back, I thought the word list might be handy to have to refer to, so I OCRed it and converted it to text. It came to mind when I ran across tagged photos on Flickr. It was fun to plug in the various words to explore interesting photography.

After seeing Mike Matas’ post about creating a Life Poster, I decided to create a poster to use for a visual spin on “Brutethink” problem solving. Since Flickr has a great stock of photos licensed under the Creative Commons, there was a lot of source material to pull from.

I searched Flickr for photos tagged with some of the terms from Michalko’s Thinkertoys list and compiled them into a single poster-sized image. Not all the photos will necessarily evoke the words that got me to them, but I think the end product will still prove useful for generating ideas. There are also a couple of words duplicated, in cases where I couldn’t decide between photos I liked.

I used my favorite freeware image viewer, Irfanview, to crop the photos and create the contact sheet to make into a poster. The process was very similar to the one using XnView.

The beauty of Creative Commons is that I can make the poster available for download from Flickr under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. To access the full sized version, click on the “All Sizes” button towards the top of the page. Many thanks to all the photographers who made their work available via Creative Commons.

After some price comparison searching, I decided to go with P-e-photo to print the resulting poster. With shipping, a 30″x40″ poster comes to a little under $30. I’ll update this post to include a photo of the final product, once the poster arrives in the mail.

If $30 is too much for you, an 18″x24″ print would be significantly cheaper and wouldn’t require cropping. Also, the resulting montage makes for an interesting—though busy—desktop background.

Keep in mind, the same idea can be applied using a variety of random stimuli. Some other sources to seed ideas include:

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Posted by Matt in cc, creativity, photography, general | 2 Comments »

03-31-2006

Search for Creative Commons Photos Using FlickrLilli

If you’re looking for Creative Commons photos to use in a project, check out FlickrLilli. The site allows users to search Flickr for photos released under Creative Commons licenses. Flickr already allows users to search for photos under each particular license, but FlickrLilli adds the ability to search across multiple licenses at once.

Posted by Matt in creativity, photography | No Comments »

03-23-2006

Big LUECKE

Luecke as seen from space (via Google Earth)

Amanda and I flew back into town last night from Beijing. On the flight from Houston to Austin, I finished my book, so I was looking out the window when I noticed some HUGE writing on the ground. The writing spelled out “LUECKE” using trees.

When I got home, I looked up the word and Google pointed me to a post on the Google Sightseeing blog about the giant letters. It turns out that Luecke is the name of a rancher who decided to leave his mark on the world in a big way.

One of the commentors mentioned an article that had been writen in the Austin American Statesman about Mr. Luecke. I tracked down the article, from March 6, 2000, which included the following:

Before you even think of invading Earth, check the trademark just north of Smithville and go see Jimmy Luecke. You see, it’s Luecke’s world — some of us just fly over it.

We know you’ve seen the name. Commercial airline passengers into and out of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport have seen it carved out of the woods on the Luecke ranch. Jet pilots who don’t know who Luecke is have long guessed he cut the name 3 1/2 miles long and 3,100 feet high to make absolutely sure you knew who owns this planet. Hell, John Glenn, our oldest astronaut, helped take pictures of it on a shuttle mission two years ago.

Posted by Matt in communication, Austin, creativity, travel | No Comments »

02-17-2006

Visual Week In Review


Week in Review (1/27/06 - 2/2/06)

I’ve been pretty busy lately and haven’t been keeping up with news much. My weekly dose of news often comes from the Week in Review.

Each week, a group gathers in a bar in L.A. to draw a visual representation of the week’s news. It’s a fun way to get a quick glimpse of what has been happening in the world.

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Posted by Matt in communication, reading, creativity | No Comments »

12-09-2005

3 Great Xbox 360 Commercials/Short Films

I caught a commercial today for the Xbox 360 that showed some great jump roping. When I searched for a copy of it online to send to a friend, I ran across two other great commercials from the same “Jump In” campaign. The first is a huge water balloon fight and the second is a comical John Woo style showdown. If you can ignore the tag line at the end, they’re great short films.

UPDATE: I recently realized that I can embed the videos here. The showdown video is my favorite, so here it is. . .

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Posted by Matt in communication, creativity, movies | No Comments »

06-11-2005

New and Improved Google Cheat Sheet

Not too long ago, I suggested to Nancy, over at the Google Guide, that her page on Using Search Operators would make for an even better cheat sheet than Google’s own. Since her site is under a Creative Commons license, I even started making one myself, but I never got around to finishing it.

Nancy ran with the idea and the result is the Google Advanced Operators (Cheat Sheet). I now have it printed and posted on my bulletin board.

Anyone interested in learning how to better use Google should check out the Google Guide. It’s an excellent resource for both novice and advanced users.

Posted by Matt in cc, tech, creativity | No Comments »

03-26-2005

A Whole New Mind

I just finished reading a copy of Daniel H. Pink’s “A Whole New Mind,” which the author gave out for free at the close of his session at SXSW Interactive. I now wish I’d made it in for the entirety of Pink’s presentation, rather than only catching the tail end.

I really enjoyed the book and found it inspirational. The book presents a compelling case that in order to thrive in this age of abundance, automation, and Asia (i.e., Asian outsourcing) — we will need to build a new skill set of six right-brained thinking tools: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning.

Though there is more to it, “A Whole New Mind” gives the most compelling game plan I’ve seen for thriving in an era of Asian outsourcing. Until now, the only solution I’d seen was a hollow call to get creative. Pink mentions creativity, especially in his chapter on “Symphony”, but he includes five additional skills which also tie into the equation.

The book synthesizes a wide variety of things I’ve been reading or hearing recently. In particular, it reminded me of a presentation by Doug Rushkoff that I listened to from the IT Conversations website. Rushkoff makes the case that we are entering a new Renaissance. If that’s true, “A Whole New Mind” is the equivalent of “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci” for the new Renaissance.

The book could be the basis for an excellent Informal Class. I could even see it being a whole series of classes, potentially tying a variety of my own interests, suc as improv, creativity techniques, board games, and tours of local labyrinths. Maybe that would give me an excuse to finally get a copy of the MicroExpression Training Tool, which I’ve been interested in ever since reading Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent article The Naked Face.

Posted by Matt in reading, creativity | No Comments »