Mental Models...

A short while back, I went to this year's @Media web conference thingie in London. It was cool. I'll probably write a sensible report of it at some point, but for now I'm not going to.

One of the talks was on the topics of mental models, though, and was highly interesting. In the report that I'll eventually write, I'll explain these more... but for the meantime, here's a rather entertaining sample:

Cat Brains

Listed above the horizontal line are the tasks that are important to a cat, expressed as thoughts, emotions, behaviours and philosophies. These are collected together into towers of related tasks, which are further collected into "mental spaces", which are divided by vertical lines.

Beneath the horizontal line are things that the thoughtful human provides - either existing or proposed, or providing strong or weak support (there are different versions). The things below a tower support the tasks in that tower.

I just like the diagram and though it should be shown here.

Unknown Armies

My next tabletop RPG plan is to do somehting pulp-ish... but as a vague future plan, I've got a hankering to run some cosmic level Unknown Armies.

That's the level of gameplay where everyone knows the score, and the PCs are players on the scale of (for example) trying to influence the invisible clergy. I'm thinking of having the PCs as a cabal called "The Synod" (or somesuch), and their reason for being would be to try to put their people into the clergy and get rid of any clergy that they don't like. Players would need to have a good grasp of the Unknown Armies background and setting.

Who might be interested in such a game?

An update on my website idea...

I'm going to do it.

I'm working on designs when I get spare time, and have chosen to go with a content management system to drive it. This means that others will be able to edit stuff easily, and I'll be able to tinker about with things without having to fight with content too much. I'll be using Expression Engine, as I managed to get it installed and running a basic site on a local server at home in less than two hours the other night.

The free version doesn't do all I need, but the basic paid version (which does everything except a forum) only costs about £50. I'm considering buying the paid version just so I can skip the hassles of trying to develop my own add-ons to do the extra bits that I need. As for a forum... I'll look into it. I'm not sure I'll be adding one straight away. More likely I'll add one later on, and I'll make the choice at the time if I should buy the out-of-the box forum addon, or if I'll take the time to try and integrate some other forum software.

So there you go.

Meanwhile, in twitterville...

What have I been twittering about?

• 07:12 It turns out that when I have this flavour of food poisoning, my waist size goes up by an inch and a half. Urk! #
• 07:14 Heading off to a customer site today... All smartened up and everything. Well... smart-ish anyway due to trouser + belly
  issues. #
• 15:12 Customer visit was fine, but now feeling a little off. Heading home. Will work rest of day from there. #
• 22:23 Managed to get to Rehearsal tonight despite feeling a bit rough. Was good & useful. Must spend more time learning lines. #

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