Author Archives: Jeff Watson

E3: Putting Play in its Place Since 1995

There’s so much wrong with the videogames industry, and there will always be important work to be done within it. But sometimes, in our attention to urgent matters, we can lose the forest for the trees. The entire enterprise deserves … Continue reading

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A summer filmmaking assignment for my students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts

The film is exactly 97 minutes long, including credits. All the dialogue adds up to a total of 109 words. The story is told in eighteen scenes. Each scene is a single uncut shot. The main character is a superhero. … Continue reading

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Thoughtful writers need to be good hunters

“By its nature, thinking twists and turns, drifts and meanders. A hunter who followed a bee-line from a point of departure to a predetermined destination would never catch prey. To hunt you have to be alert for clues and ready … Continue reading

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Jaakko Eino Kalevi – Deeper Shadows (2015)

“No one cares about you and your things.” http://weirdworldrecordco.com/jek/

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Network Earth

Is it possible to predict when a complex system will collapse? Might network analysis enable us to identify the “tipping points” of economies and ecologies at a variety of scales? Could such analyses increase our odds of averting catastrophe? This … Continue reading

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What your head’s inside of

“Ask not what’s inside your head, but what your head’s inside of.” — James J. Gibson, in William M. Mace, James J. Gibson’s Strategy for Perceiving

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Not hubris but the ever self-renewing impulse to play

“Not hubris but the ever self-renewing impulse to play calls new worlds into being.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks

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Wikipedia Method #1

Think of a known idea, person, place, or thing you care about and/or want to learn more about. Ideally, this whatever-it-is should have its own Wikipedia article. For example, “Love,” or “Austre Moland.” Now go to Wikipedia and click on … Continue reading

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Haptoclone

High-fives at a distance: The [Haptoclone] system concentrates ultrasound energy at the intersections of the real and clone objects, which creates pressure to the real objects. If the “real object” is your finger, you feel contact force from the 3D … Continue reading

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Reality is an Emergency

The following is an edited version of my remarks delivered to close the Fall 2015 run of “Reality Starts Here” (CNTV-101), a foundational class attended by all first-year students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Designed as both a … Continue reading

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