On five consecutive Fridays for 1.5 hours each, I taught this class for the first time in January/February of 2010 to 6th and 7th graders at Laurelhurst School in Portland, OR through Saturday Academy’s in-school LEAP program. In this class I created for 6th-8th graders (but realistically up to 12th or beyond), students work in pairs, playing a variety of board games featuring various economic mechanisms, starting with simpler games like Settlers of Catan and advancing to more complex, like Wealth of Nations. They manage their scarce resources, experience first-hand the importance of capital investment and development, and alter their plans as supply and demand fluctuate.

All images are from BoardGameGeek and are copyright their creators.

Learning and Class Materials

Instead of learning economics through equations and graphs out of textbooks, students engage with simulations of economic mechanisms first-hand. Supply-and-demand affect their production and profits as they struggle to maximize their gains. Students reap the long-term rewards of their earlier capital investments if they have speculated accurately and invested shrewdly. Through this process, they develop a deeper appreciation and experiential understanding of abstract economic principles.

Each class, I provide my students with a handout of some economic concepts with brief definitions (all of which are available in the downloads section). As they play, I prompt them to relate their game-playing and decision-making to these handouts, and vice-versa. I also ask more general questions to get them to think critically about their decisions, like “Why did you choose to..?” and “What goal are you trying to accomplish by..?” Students creatively connect their experience of playing the game to their pre-existing knowledge, as well as to their handouts, to create new knowledge.

Economic concepts in each game (see the handouts in the downloads section for details):

Settlers of Catan

• Capital
• Raw Materials
• Supply and Demand
• Diversification
• Scarcity
• Opportunity Cost

Modern Art

• Speculation
• Expected Value
• Common Value Auction
• Winner’s Curse
• Bid Shading
• Path Dependency

Wealth of Nations

• Marginal Cost
• Economy of Scale
• Scarcity
• Capital
• Raw Materials
• Supply and Demand
• Opportunity Cost

Settlers of Catan

The Games

My students played three games over the course of five sessions. Two days were spent playing Settlers of Catan twice, one day to Modern Art, and two days playing one game of Wealth of Nations. In Settlers of Catan, players build settlements, roads, and cities with resources that they produce and acquire from trading with each other. What they produce depends on where they build their settlements. In Modern Art, players speculate on the art market as they auction and purchase paintings. In Wealth of Nations, players develop their nation’s industries and trade crucial resources with each other.

Wealth of Nations

Student Evaluations

Both Saturday Academy and I like finding out what students thought of my class. Three students liked Modern Art the most, three others Wealth of Nations, and the remainder named Settlers as their favorite game played during the class. All students self-reported on a last-day survey that they a) are more interested in the topic of the class, b) know more about the topic than when before the class, and c) would recommend the class to their friends. And they all described me as “good” or “excellent.” Awwww. Of course, they knew that I would be seeing their surveys, which is guaranteed to bias their responses. But Saturday Academy constructed the survey, not I!

Room for Improvement

Next time, I would like to switch out Modern Art for another game. Of the three, it has the least similarities to the other two, so provides less opportunity for building on what students learned while playing other games. Instead of touching on a broad range of concepts, I would rather go more in-depth with a smaller number, building on their understanding as the class progresses. Each handout would include less concepts on it—I think the amount this time was a little overwhelming for some students. Perhaps next time I’ll use Power Grid or Automobile.

Students from my class plan their next moves in Empire Builder

Overview

The class meets for 50 minutes a day for two weeks, during which students play one of two railroad board games, Empire Builder or EuroRails, both of which are published by Mayfair Games. Both games are played by drawing track on the board, which is divided like a grid, and delivering loads of goods from cities in which they are available to cities which have a demand for them. The only significant difference between the two games is the geographical area they cover: North America and Europe, respectively. My students work in teams of two, optimally with four teams playing each game.

         

Learning

Learning through activity, in this case play, can be greatly meaningful. When I was in 6th-11th grade, I attended a similar program (also through The Center for Gifted) that has had a profound effect on my life. It further kindled my desire for intellectual exploration and to learn and discover ideas, as well as forming the basis for my still-developing theoretical perspectives on learning and semiotics. By actively encountering the cities of North America and Europe, my students learn more permanently not only where these cities are, but what goods they export and how they might interact economically with other cities. They also learn how the availability of goods and geographic considerations like mountains have affected the growth of railroad systems. More generally applicable, they work together with their teammate, effectively communicate their ideas, and cultivate an ability to plan for the long term.

Class Materials

Beside the board game itself, which includes reference sheets listing all the cities and where each good is available, each team records all of their plans on a handout that I have adapted from Christopher Freeman’s original after observing how my students interact with it. This not only facilitates my students’ planning and day-to-day continuity, but helps me write their evaluations at the end of the session. You can view this record sheet here. All of the materials I’ve created for this class are available in the downloads section, and the games are available from Mayfair (educational discounts apply).

In addition to this record keeping sheet, my students fill out a self-evaluation form before I write my evaluations. They are asked to describe at least one of each of the following: a correct decision they made, a mistake and what they learned from it, a good decision on the part of another team, and a general piece of advice to share with a new player. This self-evaluation helps me know what they actually learned from their experience playing the game, and helps them wrap up their two-week experience.

Other Responsibilities

Other than classroom management and helping to create an exciting, safe environment in which to explore the games, I am responsible for writing three letters primarily targeted at my students’ parents. On the first day, each student receives a handout describing the class to give to their parents. On the last, they receive a handout recapping the class and detailing ways to extend their classroom experience, in this case where they can buy the games they played and other recommended board game publishers (all of which are listed in the sidebar under ‘Board Games’). Finally, my evaluations of the students, which includes 4+ sentences detailing each of their specific personal achievements, are mailed home after the final day of class.

Download “‘Why the bleep aren’t you working?’ Agency and Subjectification at a Computer Help Desk” here. It’s also available from the Downloads section of this site.

“Threadless Numbers” is a series of posts I wrote on my now defunct t-shirt blog, Fantastic Blognanza. It is an analysis of the data I collected while doing research for my final paper in a sociology class, Technology and Society, beyond what I included in that paper. The paper itself may appear on this site sometime, but it will need revising before that can happen. Note that this is somewhat old research (2007), so might not be as applicable to the current community at Threadless.com, an online crowd-sourced t-shirt design competition/community/company. The analysis is also not what it would be if I were to do it now. Regardless, hope you enjoy, and feel free to comment/critique/question!

Table of Contents

- What Is Threadless?
- Threadless Numbers #1: Is it possible to predict how well a design submitted to Threadless will score?
- Threadless Numbers #2: What’s the difference between professional and amateur designers on Threadless?
- Threadless Numbers #3: What kind of t-shirts don’t get printed at Threadless?
- Threadless Numbers #4: Does being a Threadless “alumnus/a” give your submissions an advantage?

What Is Threadless?

[Excerpted from my paper, a description of Threadless circa 2007; a really good, extensive, current discussion of Threadless as a company] Anybody is welcome to submit a t-shirt design to Threadless. When they do, their design is visible in the voting section of the Threadless website for a week, over the course of which the Threadless community judges it. (Note that if the design scores too poorly, it will be removed from the running after 24 hours.) Designs are scored on a scale from one through five; additionally, a shirt can be rated “I’d buy it!” Based on the designs’ scores (which are made public after the scoring has finished) and the “I’d buy it!” votes (which remain hidden), Threadless prints the most popular ones in limited quantities, which are usually put up for sale about 90 days after their scoring has finished. The designer of the winning design receives $2000 in cash and prizes. Regardless of how well a particular design has scored, all are available for viewing in an extensive archive.

All designs that are currently in stock can be viewed and purchased exclusively through the Threadless website. They are sold for $15 (for guys) and $17 (for girls). In 2005, Threadless made $6.2 million and was expected to make $18 million in 2006. Although nearly all designs eventually sell out, some designs sell out rapidly, others will sell out during a $10 sale, and some will last months (but usually in only a couple sizes). Threadless prints new winning designs and reprints a couple sold out (or nearly sold out) ones each week.

Threadless Numbers #1

Is it possible to predict how well a design submitted to Threadless will score?

Because I’m a t-shirt nerd, I wrote my final for Technology and Society (it’s Sociology) last semester on Threadless, which involved gathering some data from the Threadless website. Even though my research has some problems, I found some intriguing stuff! I’m planning on making a small series of “Threadless Numbers” posts, beginning with this one. Some of the other topics I would like to cover are 1) the differences between how professional and amateur designers use Threadless, 2) who actually gets their designs printed, and 3) what losing submissions are like.

The Problem

So, is it possible to predict how well a design submitted to Threadless will score?

The Answer

In short: maybe, but not with the data I collected. My data, however, provides an indication that it should be possible to make a pretty good guess based on the number of comments a design has received.

What This Means for You

Because I’m guessing most of our readers don’t have much of a background in statistics, I’m going to leave some of that stuff out. Suffice it to say, there is a real correlation between the number of comments a design receives during scoring and its final score. In a perfect world, all you would have to do is replace x in the equation displayed on the graph above with the number of comments the design has received, and you’d get its final score.

So you can only predict the final score of a design in hindsight with my numbers, which isn’t much of a prediction at all. Because of this correlation, though, it would make sense that the comments on a submission before its scoring period has ended would also correlate with the final score, although this correlation is likely to be weaker unless you can control for things like the number of users scoring designs on a given day (or day of the week).

Next Steps

If the number of users varies consistently by the day of the week, surveying a large enough sample of designs and counting the number of comments left on each day of the week should yield enough information to control for this variability. Fortunately, Threadless tells you two useful things about submissions and comments: both what day a design was submitted and on which day each comment was left. I’d be impressed if somebody goes on to do this, but it would be a logical next step to what I’ve already done. Be sure to let me know what (if anything) you find!

Discussion of Data

If reading about possible problems with this data doesn’t float your boat, stop right here. If you’re still on the edge of your seat, read on.

One of the things that would most affect the regression is a data point that I consider an outlier. That point is for Disbelief, which has 344 comments and a score of 3.10. Including the outlier makes the correlation look more logarithmic than linear (the R² is higher for a logarithmic trend line than a linear one, but lower than when excluding it). Without data on how individuals vote and comment, I can’t think of many conclusions to make from this fact. It would make sense, however, for the correlation to be logarithmic, because the maximum average score a design can have is 5, and even the most popular designs don’t score anywhere near that.

Another potential problem with my data is that I was only working with the 60 most recently printed designs as of May 6, 2007; because an overwhelming majority of submissions are pulled after 24 hours for having such low scores, it’s difficult to find data on non-winning designs that have finished their entire time in the running. I’m not sure how this would affect the data, but it seems as if it might.

A final problem is that I used the total number of comments (both negative and positive) left for a submission, because it is an easy metric to record from the Threadless website. Using the total number of positive comments would probably result in a stronger correlation.

So can I predict the final score of a design submitted to Threadless? Not really. But I hope one of you figures it out!

Threadless Numbers #2

What’s the difference between professional and amateur designers on Threadless?

Welcome to my second installment of “Threadless Numbers;” if you missed the first (on submission scores and comments), you can still read it above.

The Problem

Even though the Threadless t-shirt design competition is open to all, those who actually get their designs printed could be primarily professional designers who have little actual involvement in the Threadless community, which would be antithetical to Threadless’s image as “design by the people, for the people.” Is this the case?

The Answer

Because there are two parts to the problem (1) professional designers winning and 2) not being involved in the community), the answer is also two-fold.

Do Professional Designers Rule Threadless?

Well… yes and no, but mostly not really. Professionals (heuristically classified as “those members of Threadless who link to a designer’s portfolio or something similar on their profile”) might account for a greater total number of winning designs, but professionals and amateurs on average win about the same number of times.

Professional designers account for a greater total number of printed designs than do amateur designers. On the other hand, the number of designs printed on average by a member of either group is pretty much the same.

Even though the mean number of designs printed by professional designers (out of the 102 most recent winning designers as of May 6, 2007) is slightly higher, that difference is not statistically significant. Which means that the above graph is pretty much pointless… but whatever. It’s nice because it illustrates one point: it’s really hard to tell who on Threadless is a professional!

I judged whether each winner is a professional designer by whether or not they had a link to their professional design website in their profile. That data point at 14 printed designs is Glenn Jones, a.k.a. Glennz; even though he didn’t link to a website as of my research (and it still isn’t clear from his site that he is a professional), I know that Glenn is the creative director of Dashwood Design, a graphic design company in Auckland, New Zealand.

Are Professional Designers Really a Part of Threadless’s Community?

So professional designers don’t really win Threadless’s design competition any more than amateurs (even though they account for most of the winning designs); but do they really play as large a role in the community?

Why, yes they are! In fact, professional designers play an even larger role in Threadless’s community than do their amateur counterparts! Why might this be? I have several theories concerning this fact: that both a) professional designers are a welcome part of the community (I will return to this point shortly) and that b) the community is composed largely of professional designers!

My support for a comes largely from this Threadless blog post asking about opinions on professionals submitting to Threadless: only 15 responses (which is pretty meager), all of which are positive. And within those responses, eskimokiss a.k.a. Pascal Hoayek hit the nail on the head (I believe) as to why b might be the case: Threadless began with “a group of ‘professional’ designers releasing some creative energy by designing t-shirts.” So Threadless may not be exactly “by the people, for the people,” but more “by designers, for designers.” With its growing popularity, however, (and the pool of non-professional designers who might be interested in Threadless is larger than the number of professionals) it seems to be partially shifting toward “by designers, for the people.” Threadless Select and their recent decision to let “winning designers select a certain number of shirts to be printed every month, regardless of the voting results” (Walker 2007) may be responses to this trend.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering who scored 55095 submissions… it’s Ronin60 a.k.a. Cameron McEwan, member of Threadless number 7007 since June 20, 2002. He’s scored over 3000 more subs since May 6, 2007.

Implications and the Future

In sum, what all of this means is that professionals and amateurs have an equal shot at winning Threadless’s t-shirt design contest, and that professional designers participate heavily in Threadless’s community. Submitting designs is not the full extent of their contribution.

It will be interesting to see how things change; whether the printed designs will start to lean more toward either professionals or amateurs, or whether it will stay relatively balanced. I’m even more interested in whether more professional designers will show up who just submit entries and don’t do much else. On the other hand, participation in the community may well improve a designer’s chances of getting printed, so non-participatory professionals might not have as high odds of winning as do participators.

Interesting Things about the Data (and Problems)

May as well put this behind a cut [originally]… even though it actually is interesting! (To me.) And I only mention a p-value once, so it’s hardly more technical than the above discussion. It wouldn’t have surprised me to find a significant difference between the mean number of designs printed for professional designers and those for amateurs, whether because professionals are just “better” at designing (and so each of their designs is more likely to win) or because they design more prolifically (and so they have more chances at winning). Neither of these factors seems to have any affect, whether by the intervention of Threadless or by the will of the community. My guess is that it’s a little of each.

There is a big problem with my measurement of “participation in the Threadless community.” I chose to use “number of submissions scored” simply because it is the easiest metric to record from the Threadless site that seems reasonably to be related to participation. And it is reasonable, because voting is participation, and a form that is displayed publicly, at that. Whether voting is participation in the community (as opposed to just in Threadless’s business model), however, is open to debate.

That professional designers account for a greater total number of printed designs than amateurs cannot be explained by the fact that professional designers have on average been members of Threadless for a longer time than amateurs (586 days for pros compared to 364 for amateurs, p< .001), even though this time advantage might give professionals more experience with the community's preferences. Nor can professional designers submitting more designs (as I mentioned above, though I don't have the data to test this hypothesis) explain this discrepancy. Rather, instead of there being a difference in the nature of professional and amateur designers, there must be an imbalance in who actually submits winning designs: simply, more professional designers submit designs that get printed than do amateur designers.

Threadless Numbers #3

What kind of t-shirts don’t get printed at Threadless?

Because this feels like a lightweight week to me, I think it deserves a lightweight Threadless Numbers, and what’s more lightweight than losing Threadless t-shirts? But really I kid; there are a lot of good subs that never get printed, which leaves room for wonderful companies like Go Ape and Cotton Werks

What You Wanna Know

Who wins the t-shirt design contest on Threadless? What are their winning designs like? Well, I do have some information on that sort of thing, but…

What I”m Gonna Tell You

As of 5/6/2007, out of the most recent 120 submissions that had completed scoring, exactly 100% had been dropped from the scoring process after 24 hours because of the updated 1.5 rule. Basically, designs that aren’t scoring well get dropped after 24 hours. What this means is that most of the submissions to Threadless aren’t liked by the community. Which is why the focus of this “Threadless Numbers” is losing submissions.

Reasons for Disliking Designs

I couldn’t possibly claim to know why every person rates a particular t-shirt design poorly, but there are two large contributing factors that stood out to me in the comments of these designs: 1) the design is too similar to something previously printed by Threadless and 2) the design is too distant from Threadless’s aesthetic.

Too Hot?

A case in point for a design too similar to a previous winner is Beware of the Innermost Gnome, which is reminiscent of Nesting Dolls (in that they both use nesting dolls for their gimmick). I wouldn’t be surprised to find that winning designs inspire others to think up designs that are somewhat similar; in this case, I think people probably didn’t like the colorway and naive style of Beware of the Innermost Gnome.

Too Cold?

As for something that’s too different from Threadless’s aesthetic… I can’t find a single striking example, but if you’ve spent any time scoring t-shirt designs, I’m sure you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The Final Scores

The mean score of these submissions that had been dropped from the scoring process is 1.403, ranging from .99 for Skully to 1.72 for King. For comparison, the printed designs I discussed in Threadless Numbers #1 (above) averaged 2.772 (or 1.369 greater than the mean score for dropped designs), ranging from 2.17 for Le Voyage Dans la Lune to 3.77 for Can”t See the Forest but for the Socks.

Comments on Losing Submissions

Remember how I talked about the positive correlation between submissions’ final average scores and the number of comments they receive during scoring in “Threadless Numbers #1: Is it possible to predict how well a design submitted to Threadless will score?” Well, the average losing design receives 11 comments, compared to 91 for the winners. That these losing designs were dropped from the scoring process after 24 hours (or 1/7th the amount of time that the winning designs were scored) must be taken into account, however. An adjusted comparison, then, would be 77 to 91.

A Graph

What would this post be without a graph? Not much, that’s what. But don’t worry: no statistical analysis!

The number of comments (adjusted for being in the running for only one day) on dropped submissions is pretty random, and has a range almost as large as that for the printed designs. There are a couple things that would have made sense: 1) there would be more comments on subs that are either really good or really bad (or controversial), because somebody is more likely to have something to say about a design they feel strongly about than one for which they have a pretty neutral opinion. But without filling in the 1.7 to 2.2 range of scored submissions (which are generally either score too well to get dropped from the running or too poorly to get printed), it’s hard to say whether that’s the case.

2) Another possibility is the one which I originally proposed, that as the submission’s score increases, the number of comments the sub receives also increases. The correlation almost looks exponential, but having to adjust the number of comments for the dropped designs certainly introduces additional error, and missing a large portion of data is probably skewing the shape of the correlation; so the fit of an exponential curve is pretty bad.

Implications

I have no further generalizations to make at this time, save that more research needs to be done to make up for what mine lacks. If anybody wants to talk to me about doing their own research, I’d be more than happy to!

Threadless Numbers #4

Does being a Threadless “alumnus/a” give your submissions an advantage?

The question for this edition of Threadless Numbers, which will likely be the last for the foreseeable future, comes from MJ at Compete-tee-tion, and I thought it was a great one and quite a reasonable extension of the first “Threadless Numbers.” Let’s get on with it, then!

What’’s at Stake

As I showed in the first “Threadless Numbers,” more comments are correlated with a higher score; could either getting more comments or a higher score (or both) be because the designer has had their submissions printed before (i.e. is an “alumnus/a”)?

Where Are the Numbers?

Sadly, nowhere. Okay, not nowhere… you can find them on the Threadless website. But I don’t have them. That isn’t going to stop me from talking a bit about this problem, though! I’m going to talk about the question, problems with it, and then lay out a specific project that would serve as a good beginning for anybody who might want to follow up on my research.

Spuriousness and Direction of Causality

There are some problems with trying to show that a design got either a lot of comments or a high score because they were a Threadless alum. It could be the case that a submission gets a higher score purely because the designer has a reputation of being “good” (as defined by the judgment of the Threadless community) because they’ve been printed before. (I’m dropping number of comments from this thought experiment because it’s simpler.) This story seems plausible. It might seem reasonable, then, to compare the scores of submissions from alum designers to those of unprinted designers. But there’s a glaringly huge problem with that: alum designers might have a higher average score not because they’ve had submissions printed in the past, but because their designs are “better” than those from unprinted designers. In other words, the correlation (if there is one) would be spurious, or caused by a third variable.

Let’’s Try to Test It Anyway!

I wish we could! But here’s the thing: to control for the “goodness” of a submission we would have to quantify it. Besides the design’s average score (which is one of the variables we’re already trying to use in our correlation), how can we? We can’t use the comments on the sub because they are almost certainly caused by the same thing that causes it to have a higher average score. Unless the same design could be submitted under two users, one an alum and the other not, without the community somehow noticing (which is basically impossible), I can’t think of any other way. There is, however, something else we could do.

What Else Can We Do?

Although we can’t control for the “goodness” of a submission without operationalizing it somehow, we can still try to look at how Threadless alumnus/a status affects the number of comments on a submission, regardless of how “good” that submission is. Here’s how it would be set up: whether or not the designer of a submission is a Threadless alumnus/a is our categorical independent variable, while the number of comments on their post-alum submissions is our continuous dependent variable. Analysis would take the form of a comparison of means, controlling for the average score a design received.

Where Can I Get the Necessary Data?

I’ll tell you where! You’d have to look at designs that have completed scoring. Data for all three of the necessary variables can be obtained from this single page:
- the design’s average score (in the right-hand column)
- the number of comments the design received (in the right-hand column)
- whether or not the submitter is a Threadless alumnus/a (look for the little shield either next to a “This is my design” comment or on their profile page)

So what are you waiting for?

6 plum tomatoes (1 lb), halved lengthwise
1 1/4 tsps. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
10 leaves fresh basil
12 leaves whole fresh oregano, plus 3 tbsps. finely chopped
2 tsps. fresh lemon zest
2 tbsps. fresh lemon juice

Directions

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 250°F.

Toss tomatoes with sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and arrange, cut sides down, in a small shallow baking pan. Heat oil in a 9- to 10-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking, then cook garlic, stirring occasionally, until pale golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in basil and whole oregano leaves, then pour oil over tomatoes. Roast tomatoes until very tender but not falling apart, 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 hours.

Transfer tomatoes with a spatula to a large plate, then pour oil through a fine-mesh sieve into a small bowl or measuring cup, discarding solids. Stir in chopped oregano, zest, juice, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper.

Why this recipe?

Because the tomatoes are delicious, and the oil can be used on other things (e.g. bread, salmon, couscous, rice, pasta). I would make more tomatoes, because you are going to want to eat them all and then you won’t have any tomatoes left! Credit goes to my brother, Noah, for introducing me to this recipe.

new: Oiligarchy

Web

A politically radical game that puts you in the role of an oil company from the wonderful Molleindustria. play in your browser and then read the postmortem for a fuller experience

treats video games as a serious medium, radical politics in a video game that is also a good game, self-reflexive creators, serious but also tongue-in-cheek political commentary, postmortem makes explicit the models of the world that inform the game

Braid

Xbox 360

A terrific independent game that’s about… a bunch of things. And hopefully it will revolutionize video game design!

leaves the player with more (really quite interesting) questions than answers, many possible ways of answering those questions, innovative game mechanics, short enough that those mechanics stay fresh for the entire game, clever level design, really really really great ‘last’ level, pervaded with meaning, complex story line (bordering on convoluted… but that depends on how you approach it), trendsetting and history-altering (remains to be seen)

Gravitation

Windows/Mac/Linux

Pretty dang deep, dude. I found it more moving than Passage, by the same designer (Jason Rohrer). download

super-short, very free, pretty deep, emotionally moving

Rock Band

Xbox 360/PS3/Wii

Rocking is pretty fun, especially with your friends! It’s kind of like being in a band except you get immediate rewards and you don’t need to be able to play an instrument.

pretty good tunes, lots of people can play (especially if you’re good at sharing and taking turns!), the drums are actually a lot like playing drums (except you don’t cross over your hi-hat arm, and learning challenging parts is different than with real drums), character customization/playing with dolls, ninjas, sweet tats (if you’re into that sort of thing), awesome musical fun

Mass Effect

Xbox 360

I’ve played it all… it’s a roleplaying game and it’s about space and aliens and stuff.

it’s like being in a pretty-decent science fiction novel (I didn’t like that there were evil robots that had to be stopped, who were just kind of there), the slow-speaking aliens that announce what kind of utterance they’re making are a little interesting linguistically (also funny), discursive roleplaying (if you’re not a meta/power gamer… but it unfortunately doesn’t have a massive effect, pun intended)

Sam & Max

Mac/Windows/Linux/iPhone

I’ve only played Hit the Road, but there are some others only for Windows and soon for Wii; files available on my downloads page

more challenging non-arbitrary (mostly) adventure (though not quite as hard as Monkey Island, I’d say), interesting characters, actually decent dialogue with voice acting!, nostalgia, irreverence, satire, musical numbers

Passage

Windows/Mac/Linux

It’s like, deep. download

super-short, very free, dude, it’s deep

Bridge Construction Set

Windows/Mac/’nix

Yeah, it sounds really boring but actually it’s an awesome puzzle game of bridge engineering. download

non-violent, puzzles with relatively simple rules (physcis!) but potentially complex solutions, non-arbitrary puzzles (real stuff, like physics; which is not to say that you don’t have to learn the system. You do, especially how the parts fit together and what their strengths are), most efficient use of limited resources, multiple bridge materials to choose from, problem solving, bridge engineering!

Aerobiz

SNES

An ‘airline management simulation game’, as I like to call it. Imagine what Airline Tycoon would be, if that existed. If you’re interested, download an emulator and a ROM (and maybe check out Aerobiz: Supersonic while you’re at it).

learning stuff (about somewhat outdated airplanes, like capacity, range, and fuel efficiency; about major airline routes), advance planning, maximizing utility from limited resources (resources including not only money but airplanes in your fleet, flight slots in cities, etc.), complex in its simplicity, 1-4 players with as few as 1 controller, a touch of geography (with a touch of information about various cities worldwide), non-violent
CAVEAT: turns, not to mention full games (I’ve never completed one) take a long time, especially with more than two people! Ice cream is recommended.

Peacemaker

Mac/Windows

Attempt to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as either the Palestinian or Israeli head of state: hell yeah. download

incredibly challenging, unique goal (peace! wow!), complex (fairly many options, many of which are hard to accomplish, all of which have various pros and cons; lots of interests and effects to keep in mind when choosing actions), replayability (multiple levels of violence that arguably correlate to greater levels of realism: the more violent, the more real, honestly; at the higher levels of violence, I can imagine the game is almost impossible: I’ve only beaten it on ‘calm’ and the middle level as the Palestinian president), powerfully moving (incorporates real video and images)

The Secret of Monkey Island & Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge

Mac/Windows/Linux/iPhone

Files available on my downloads page

humor (puns, tongue-in-cheek, not only in dialogue but in the puzzles themselves), nostalgia, good midi music, pixel art (especially in Monkey Island 2), challenging and usually non-arbitrary adventure, pirates, grog, insult swordfighting

Escape Velocity

Mac/Windows

If you get Nova, you can get the previous two games and play them on the Nova engine: download

large universe, open-ended (you can play however you want: for the story, to accumulate wealth and a majestic fleet, to become the most powerful, to conquer the universe, to accomplish challenging feats, etc.), customizability (not only your ships, but the game itself can be modded extensively and relatively easily), immersion (if you want it), replayability (because of the open-endedness and customizability, as well as multiple engrossing story-lines), ‘more powerful’ ships are not necessarily better (being able to take down pretty much anything one-on-one in a nicely tuned Starbridge is awesome)

Geneforge 4

Mac/Windows

I’ve actually only played the relatively long and engaging demo, but it was a terrific (albeit time-consuming) experience. download

engrossing story-line, complex yet mysterious world, choices that actually make a difference, interesting character classes (that appear in previous Geneforge/Avernum games, but still), moral dilemmas

ElectroCity

Web

play in your web browser

environmental and social responsibility, challenging in its relative simplicity, replayability (multiple criteria for success)

SimCity 2000

Windows/Mac (Classic)

Mac-only files available on my downloads page

learning about city planning at an obviously simplified level, replayability (because of open-endedness and scenarios), advance planning

This t-shirt from Ser-vice is the first ampersand paraphernalia I’ve ever owned. It’s printed very nicely on a creme American Apparel shirt, so it fits and looks excellent. There’s even a bit of embroidery on the back, in the shape of an abstracted stalk of wheat (Ser-vice’s logo).

This t-shirt from Turn Nocturnal is my second ampersand shirt. Also printed on American Apparel, it features a nice big ampersand that more clearly reveals how the ampersand is a ligature of the Latin ‘et’, and has a subtle oversized pattern print of many different kinds of ampersands in the background.

A couple of gorgeous ampersand bookends from House Industries, in cast iron and cast aluminum. I would love to have these sitting on a bookshelf… they’re currently a bit out of my price range, unfortunately.

You can satisfy most of your ampersand-centric urges with The Ampersand, a blog started in May 2008 devoted to that most beautiful ligature.

Beef Marinade

3/4 cup oil (I use canola)
1/2 cup Chinese sesame oil (this can be tricky to find at a supermarket)
2/3 cup light soy sauce (not low sodium ‘light’; you can just use regular)
2/3 cup dry sherry
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
3/4 teaspoon ginger, minced

1 1/2 pounds flank steak, cut across the grain into paper thin slices 2″ x 1″

Bamboo skewers soaked in water

Directions

1. Mix oils, soy sauce, sherry, sugar, garlic, and ginger. Marinate beef strips in mixture, turning to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.
2. Heat broiler. Thread beef onto skewers. Brush with the marinade, coating heavily. Place on rack and broil for 1 1/2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Turn over. Brush with the marinade. Broil on the second side to desired doneness. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Makers 12 appetizer servings.

Why this recipe?

Because it’s delicious and easy! Even if you don’t have sesame oil (my local Dominick’s/Safeway didn’t have any, although they have in the past), it will turn out excellently. You could also use the same marinade for pretty much any preparation of beef. I made 10 skewers for a small potluck party, and they were an immense hit. A tip on slicing the beef thinly: it’s easier if the beef is partially frozen, and be sure to use a sharp knife.

This recipe comes from the July 9, 2008 New York Times. I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds promising! They interviewed several professional bakers to get their cookie tips, and this is the recipe published in the paper. It mentions several crucial factors: cooling the dough before baking (which has a similar function as using only 1 stick of butter in my current favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe), making large cookies (which I do anyway!), using 60%+ cacao chocolate disks, and sprinkle the tops of the balls of dough with sea salt before baking. Once I try this recipe for myself, I’ll pass judgment.

Ingredients

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons
(8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (available here and here)
sea salt

Directions

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.

4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

[recipe via NY Times]

pre-cooked sausages or hotdogs
refrigerator breadsticks
condiments

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350/375 F (your call!)
2. Cut sausages/hotdogs in half and set aside
3. After separating breadsticks, cut them in half lengthwise (one breadstick, now in two lengths, per hotdog half)
4. Place a hotdog half cut-side down on ungreased baking sheet
5. Take one length of dough and wrap it around the base of the hotdog half, crossing the ends to make a ‘V’. Repeat with the other length of dough on the opposite side.
7. Bake until the dough is golden brown (about the amount of time it says on the breadsticks package)
8. Enjoy with condiments!

Why this recipe?

Not only does it hearken back to the simpler childhood days of pigs in blankets, this recipe also includes the forces of the Empire. Get ready for intergalactic mustard battles! I’m afraid the deflector shield will be quite operational when your friends arrive.

It doesn’t work well to prepare this ahead of time and then bake them later, as the refrigerator breadsticks will dry out (trust me). If you must, however, I recommend sprinkling the breadsticks with water before placing the Tie Fighter Ties in the oven.