Bryan Alexander blogs about Flyguy, a wonderful Flash dream-game that I will not describe. Instead, I urge you to check it out for yourself. Then, if you’ve a mind, read what Bryan has to say about it, and if you’ve half a mind, read my comment in response.
Flyguy reminds me a little of “A Silly Noisy House,” an early multimedia CD-ROM by the Voyager Company that my family has always found very charming, piquant, and lovable. You’ll find a brief description of it in this Wired article from (gulp) 1994. Another website recalls “A Silly Noisy House” fondly and calls it “abandonware.” (CD-ROM as Velveteen Rabbit?) On his MIT website, Marvin Minsky talks about Voyager and his work with them on his “The Society of Mind” CD-ROM. He also gives SNH a mention.
Some folks complained that SNH was cute but a waste of time. All play, no education. My own position is that the best play is an education in wonder, and that lessons in wonder (or, you might say, lessons in expecting neat stuff) must always be part of the curriculum.
I have located more information on Peggy Weil, who developed A Silly Noisy House. I don’t have a definitive timeline for her, but it seems that in the late 90s she was working on a project called “The Blurring Test: Mr. Mind” for a company called “Web Lab”. (Is this company still a going concern?) As of last fall, she was an adjunct professor in the USC School of Cinema-Television, and she spoke on “First Person Media” at a conference in the Interactive Media Division. I wonder if Prof. Weil ever met Bob Keeshan. (Strange TV site here, but a good little piece on Captain Kangaroo, complete with lo-res clips.)
I love this line:
of fun Bernie DeKoven would be a hero to evoke in this fine, ludic, Taoist cause.
Deeply cool, and boy did I need that. The day (week, month, year, life) may be do-able after all. Thank you, Bryan.
I was pointed to your blog – I’m happy to hear that your family enjoyed SNH. If you send me an email, I’d be happy to send you my rant on edu and info tainment and some of the background behind SNH. MrMind is still ‘up’ and WebLab is not a company but a non-profit art organization. No, I never met Bob Keeshan, but I did watch CK as a kid. What do you teach? Where?
To Peggy:
We had a serious accident with our SNH CD this morning and I started looking up Peggy Weil. I have had SNH since it was first developed and have a retarded child who has treasured it for years. I spent some time today on Mr. Mind and started tracking further to find you. I have often thought of you over the years and thought it would be a great match to work on some interactive programs for handicapped individuals. Most of what is available is really pretty useless and primative when it comes to working with autistic and retarded individuals.
Were there every any updates on SNH? How is MrMind developing? It did tell me to go talk to a person so I kept up the search for you.