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Distro Issue 49: a visit to the craft and hackerspace at Artisan's Asylum
While Yahoo was busy hiring its new CEO away from Google, we were hard at work crankin' out this week's edition of Distro to help feed your slate reading desires. Let's just say that if a CNC gantry router that implements a Wiimote piques your interest, you're in for quite the treat this time around. We head north to Massachusetts to visit Artisan's Asylum for a glimpse of the craftiness and general hackery that takes place in an old office supply warehouse. We throw down the review gauntlet for the Nintendo 3DS XL, LG Optimus 4X HD and Sony VAIO T13 and offer some detailed reactions on said trio. AllThingsD's Mike Isaac has a go at the Q&A, "Switched On" discusses the next Office, Steam's annual sale occupies "Reaction Time" and "IRL" returns. As you might expect, all of the requisite download links await your clicks below. Update: Make sure you're downloading the newest versions of the Distro app when they're made available. This will allow you to keep tabs on all of the content and functionality packed into each issue. Distro Issue 49 PDF Distro in the iTunes App Store Distro in the Google Play Store Distro APK (for sideloading) Like Distro on Facebook Follow Distro on Twitter
"Sythentic World Initiative" Sets Foot on Azeroth
Metroblogging Azeroth put up a link to this very strange site called the "Synthetic World Initiative" out of Indiana University. I have to say, it looks pretty academic and obscure, but the base idea here is that they're organizing "expeditions" into uncharted territory of the modern world-- namely, virtual, online worlds just like the one we spend most of our time in, Azeroth.The reason why they're doing this, however, isn't really clear. Their about page quotes Shakespeare a lot-- the end result is that they seem to be attempting to quantify these new online, virtual worlds in the same way unknown worlds were quantified back in the Age of Exploration. But here's the really interesting part: it seems like they're going to discover these online game worlds by playing a game of their own. They're going to research virtual worlds by creating and interacting in their own virtual world. They say they're "test[ing] the possibility that professionals engaged in a properly designed game would generate both entertainment and productivity at the same time."Which is a fancy way of saying, I guess, that they're going to play their own roleplaying game, while playing online games and studying them (sweet gig if you're a social sciences college student). For their first "Kuriaan Expedition" (named after, I gather, something from their created game), they're meeting in World of Warcraft, over on the Alliance side of the Silver Hand server (on Sunday, they're leading an expedition into the Deadmines). At any rate, it should be interesting to see what analysis comes out of it-- odds are they won't find much we don't know about, but maybe their work will help to correct public perception of online gaming. And hey, if you're over on Silver Hand, go give 'em a /wave for us.
