A really interesting piece on the motion graphics created by Prologue for Iron Man 2.

Not since the Minority Report have interfaces played such a major role in a Hollywood blockbuster. For Iron Man 2, Prologue lifted screen design elements off of flat surfaces and into the three dimensional world surrounding Tony Stark. As he struts through his secret lab, a virtual world of swirling data and wireframe plans pops forth from the genius playboy’s fingertips, creating a seamless dance between man and machine that elegantly echoes the symbiosis between Stark and his exoskeleton.

The videos are private and un-embeddable, but worth the watch. I wasn’t really planning on watching this movie until now. (via butdoesitfloat)

Labor rights for professional gamers is a tough concept to wrap one’s head around. At least in the states it is, but in South Korea it’s a different story.

“The standard in pro gaming groups is for people to live together 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no traveling to or from work, and for those ranked Group 2 or lower, their entire daily routine consists of eating, cleaning, laundry and games,” said Kim Jeong-geun. “Because of this structure of bringing in young people, developing them and then replacing them when their lifespan is spent and they have been squeezed dry, it has earned the name of ‘the chicken coop.’”

(Eating, cleaning, laundry and games sounds to me like a life many young gamers dream of… minus the cleaning and laundry maybe.)

“Everyone knows about these problems, but if you start talking about players’ rights, everyone wants to keep quiet about it, scared they might be branded as an impediment to the growth of e-Sports,” said Kim Dong-su. “They need to introduce things like a minimum age system for players and limitations on the number of games.” Citing the example of fixed StarCraft matches uncovered on May 16 through an investigation by prosecutors, Kim said, “Because players have short lifespans and uncertain futures, you inevitably have a widespread sense of ‘Let’s pull something off while things are going well.’”

Since I got my hands on the StarCraft 2 Beta, I have become a bit of a follower of the StarCraft programing and commentating scene. I wonder how many of these problems extend out to the west’s tiny place in it?

Steven Johnson on the Tumblr of the enlightenment era:

In its most customary form, “commonplacing,” as it was called, involved transcribing interesting or inspirational passages from one’s reading, assembling a personalized encyclopedia of quotations. It was a kind of solitary version of the original web logs: an archive of interesting tidbits that one encountered during one’s textual browsing. The great minds of the period—Milton, Bacon, Locke—were zealous believers in the memory-enhancing powers of the commonplace book.

My favorite characteristic of Johnson’s writing and speaking is his ability to reach back into history for some much needed perspective. Great post. Read it with Instapaper.