RECOMMENDED READING: Understanding Pac-Man Ghost Behavior
Excerpt from Understanding Pac-Man Ghost Behavior by Chad Birch on GameInternals:
Each of the ghosts is programmed with an individual “personality”, a different algorithm it uses to determine its method of moving through the maze. Understanding how each ghost behaves is extremely important to be able to effectively avoid them...
The key to understanding ghost behavior is the concept of a target tile. The large majority of the time, each ghost has a specific tile that it is trying to reach, and its behavior revolves around trying to get to that tile from its current one. All of the ghosts use identical methods to travel towards their targets, but the different ghost personalities come about due to the individual way each ghost has of selecting its target tile. Note that there are no restrictions that a target tile must actually be possible to reach, they can (and often are) located on an inaccessible tile, and many of the common ghost behaviors are a direct result of this possibility...
Takeshi Murata at Ratio 3 in San Francisco




Takeshi Murata: Get Your Ass to Mars at Ratio 3
Apr 29 2011 - Jun 11 2011
Thumbnail Video of Archive Team Google Videos Project
Video consists of one frame of each of the videos saved by a member of the Archive Team (via Nic Alderton.)
Google Videos content is no longer available for playback. The company has migrated videos to YouTube, after originally announcing on April 15th that users would be responsible for immediate content backup pending deletion. The Archive Team, lead by Jason Scott (textfiles), worked to download as many videos as possible in the meantime. Here's a recent interview with Scott on the CBC radio program Spark.
Banks of Beautiful Buttons
2010: The Year We Make Contact isn't quite as memorable as the Stanley Kubrick film that preceded it, still Russell Davies brings to our attention these "banks of beautiful buttons":



TV Segment on Pioneering Filmmaker Mary Ellen Bute
In 1999, British TV series The Dope Show profiled experimental animator Mary Ellen Bute (1906—1983.) Film editor Thelma Schoonmaker (who has since collaborated with Martin Scorsese on dozens of films) is interviewed. Also look for a young "Ronnie Walken," who appeared in one of her live-action films before changing his name to Christopher.
Editorial Fellow
The Editorial Fellow is ideally based in New York and must be able to commit to 16 hours of work per week for 5 months. This position is unpaid, but academic credit may be arranged. The Editorial Fellow will coordinate and assist in production of Rhizome's website and weekly newsletter Rhizome News. Fellow will support daily publishing and maintenance of the blog, as well as researching and writing editorial essays, reviews, and opinion pieces.
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Improving Prometheus
Editorial Fellow
The Editorial Fellow is ideally based in New York and must be able to commit to 16 hours of work per week for 4 months, beginning in Summer 2012. This position is unpaid, but academic credit may be arranged. The Editorial Fellow will coordinate and assist in production of Rhizome's website and weekly newsletter Rhizome News. Fellow will support daily publishing and maintenance of the blog, as well as researching and writing editorial essays, reviews, and opinion pieces.
QUALIFICATIONS: Candidates must have a high level of familiarity with contemporary art and technology. Education or advanced experience beyond the undergraduate level is preferred. The candidate must have very strong writing, editing, and analytical skills, and very high internet literacy.
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NA - Further Thoughts
Thanks so much for these comments. You are right that the New Aesthetic is a broad conversation, but James Bridle's investigation is definitely political, unfortunately many of his points have been missed in the ongoing metacommentary. It seems a lot of people are confused by the visuals, which aren't *the* the New Aesthetic so much as artifacts *of* the New Aesthetic.
The NA Tumblr was Bridle thinking out loud, and something to consider in tandem with his writing/talks. Meanwhile, the conversation about these ideas has gone on for over a year now, over a number of blogs, mostly based in London
In addition to James Bridle's talks and notes, this is what I recommend reading to understand what the New Aesthetic conversation is really about:
Aaron Straup Cope's notes from SXSW:
http://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2012/03/13/godhelpus/#sxaesthetic
Chris Heathcote: A New Fashion Aesthetic
http://anti-mega.com/antimega/2012/04/02/a-new-fashion-aesthetic
Many, many BERG posts:
http://berglondon.com/blog/2011/05/13/sensor-vernacular/
http://berglondon.com/blog/2012/02/06/robot-readable-world-the-film/
http://berglondon.com/blog/2011/08/03/the-robot-readable-world/
We are the droids we’re looking for: the New Aesthetic and its friendly critics by JJ Charlesworth
http://blog.jjcharlesworth.com/2012/05/07/we-are-the-droids-were-looking-for-the-new-aesthetic-and-its-friendly-critics/
Honor Harger:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind1204&L=new-media-curating&F=&S=&P=20818
Tom Armitage:
http://infovore.org/archives/2011/05/21/waving-at-the-machines/
Greg Borenstein:
http://urbanhonking.com/ideasfordozens/2011/06/07/on-the-future-and-poetry-of-the-calibration-pose/
Natalia Buckley:
http://ntlk.net/2012/04/12/on-the-new-aesthetic/
Other notes from SXSW are linked here:
http://booktwo.org/notebook/sxaesthetic/
this was my favorite New Aesthetic tumblr post, btw:
http://new-aesthetic.tumblr.com/post/21437296950/i-used-to-go-to-the-trocadero-in-central-london-as
Editorial Fellow
The Editorial Fellow must be based in New York and must be able to commit to 16 hours of work per week for 3 months, beginning in Summer 2012. This position is unpaid, but academic credit may be arranged. The Editorial Fellow will coordinate and assist in production of Rhizome's website and weekly newsletter Rhizome News. Fellow will support daily publishing and maintenance of the blog, as well as researching and writing editorial essays, reviews, and opinion pieces.
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