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Gillian Smith

@codingcrafter

Director of IMGD at WPI. Game design, generative AI, computational craft, generative design, feminist tech, mom stories. she/they

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05.07.2023
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Latest posts by Gillian Smith @codingcrafter

I think the people positioned to fund games are really sleeping on how many people are struggling to make friends IRL after COVID.

A year ago if you’d asked me where to put money, it would have been IRL connector games (something like Pokémon go but smaller/with less infrastructure)

15.02.2026 18:18 👍 70 🔁 5 💬 4 📌 1
Preview
Desire Paths for Wikipedia An extension that remembers the path of a cursor over the linked pages of Wikipedia, “wearing” them into the page.

I've just published a new userscript that remembers the path of your cursor over the linked pages of Wikipedia, averaging and wearing them into the page, showing your browsing history over time

Install at greasyfork.org/en/scripts/5... or read more about it everest-pipkin.com#projects/des...

07.02.2026 19:59 👍 354 🔁 117 💬 7 📌 4
“People don’t understand what this job is,” he said, adding, “You cannot pick and choose, because among the very rich is a higher percentage of unpleasant and not very attractive people. Capitalism is a rough system.”
In defending his pursuit of Mr. Epstein and candidly describing the burden of raising money, Dr. Botstein gave insight into how the need to attract dollars can appear to run headlong into an academic institution’s stated values.
Mr. Epstein gave prolifically to many charities and universities, including Harvard and M.I.T., and the Wall Street Journal report showed that his network of contacts was wider than had been thought, including prominent figures like the linguist Noam Chomsky and Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and president of Harvard. Dr. Summers sought money for a poetry foundation, led by his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard literature professor. Mr. Summers declined to comment.
“Would we accept money from Jeffrey Epstein today? No,” Dr. Botstein said, describing the former donor as a “monster” and “truly evil man.” “We had no idea, the public record had no indication, that he was anything more than an ordinary — if you could say such a thing — sex offender who had been convicted and went to jail.”

“People don’t understand what this job is,” he said, adding, “You cannot pick and choose, because among the very rich is a higher percentage of unpleasant and not very attractive people. Capitalism is a rough system.” In defending his pursuit of Mr. Epstein and candidly describing the burden of raising money, Dr. Botstein gave insight into how the need to attract dollars can appear to run headlong into an academic institution’s stated values. Mr. Epstein gave prolifically to many charities and universities, including Harvard and M.I.T., and the Wall Street Journal report showed that his network of contacts was wider than had been thought, including prominent figures like the linguist Noam Chomsky and Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury secretary and president of Harvard. Dr. Summers sought money for a poetry foundation, led by his wife, Elisa New, a Harvard literature professor. Mr. Summers declined to comment. “Would we accept money from Jeffrey Epstein today? No,” Dr. Botstein said, describing the former donor as a “monster” and “truly evil man.” “We had no idea, the public record had no indication, that he was anything more than an ordinary — if you could say such a thing — sex offender who had been convicted and went to jail.”

As more academic names keep coming up in the Epstein files, I keep thinking about this NYT interview with the Bard president from a few years ago, and wondering how many people were rationalizing in similar ways.

www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/u...

01.02.2026 00:17 👍 641 🔁 179 💬 37 📌 42
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Quilicura, Chile, one of the communities I wrote about in EMPIRE OF AI, has launched a brilliant initiative to inspire more responsible AI prompting. Today, don't use AI; ask the townspeople instead: quili.ai. So heartened to see this creative act of resistance.

31.01.2026 13:25 👍 630 🔁 260 💬 7 📌 16

whenever people would go "well it's not popular enough yet" i think not only of all the popular things they ignore anyway, but how apparently the expectation is for everybody else to the job of politics for politicians so they don't have to

25.01.2026 13:22 👍 64 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 0

YES THAT'S WHAT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS
AND THATS WHY WE DON'T USE IT
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

22.01.2026 20:04 👍 1660 🔁 505 💬 28 📌 13
A much-liked post by Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com with the titles “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student” and the caption “They don’t want to get blamed again“

A much-liked post by Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com with the titles “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student” and the caption “They don’t want to get blamed again“

A joke for the history buffs:

Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com titles: “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student — They don’t want to get blamed again“

18.01.2026 13:55 👍 6937 🔁 2406 💬 85 📌 159
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19th Annual IndieCade Festival Join us this January 16th - 30th, 2026 as we celebrate this past year’s IndieCade indie game nominees. Connect with the creators, play demos and featured games, and more!

UPDATE: The awards ceremony will now be at 12:00 PST! The best place to watch is on steam: store.steampowered.com/sale/IndieCa...

In the meantime, why not check out some of our incredible nominees?

17.01.2026 19:07 👍 1 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Governor Walz Addresses Ongoing Federal Presence in Minnesota
Governor Walz Addresses Ongoing Federal Presence in Minnesota YouTube video by Office of the Governor of Minnesota

"Two to three thousand armed agents of the federal government have been deployed to Minnesota.

Armed, masked, undertrained ICE agents are going door to door, ordering people to point out where their neighbors of color live."

15.01.2026 02:32 👍 1282 🔁 617 💬 69 📌 70
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#genuary12 Boxes only. A tiny and simple sketch before my evening screen time cutoff. I do like the texture, though!

#genuary #p5js

13.01.2026 01:03 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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One day late #genuary9, playing with cellular automata rules based on hue.

#genuary #p5js

10.01.2026 18:03 👍 7 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
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#genuary8 A monochromatic city generator.

#genuary #p5js

09.01.2026 04:40 👍 8 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Protester holding a sign 

“The wrong ICE is melting, the wrong Amazon is burning.” 

(Written on the back of a frozen pizza box)

Protester holding a sign “The wrong ICE is melting, the wrong Amazon is burning.” (Written on the back of a frozen pizza box)

Protester holding a sign 

“The wrong ICE is melting, the wrong Amazon is burning.” 

(Written on the back of a frozen pizza box)

Protester holding a sign “The wrong ICE is melting, the wrong Amazon is burning.” (Written on the back of a frozen pizza box)

“The wrong ICE is melting, the wrong Amazon is burning.”

(Written on the back of a frozen pizza box)

09.01.2026 03:02 👍 483 🔁 88 💬 3 📌 3
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Job opening: game designer @ Hidden Folks We're looking for a game designer in the Netherlands to help build games in The Hidden Folks Universe, starting with a sequel to the indie hit game Hidden Folks.

friends! acquaintances! help!

i'm looking to hire a game designer (living in the Netherlands) to help build games in The Hidden Folks Universe, starting with a sequel to the indie hit game Hidden Folks.

know someone who's a good fit? pls forward this, ty!

hiddenfolks.com/job-opening/...

08.01.2026 12:58 👍 373 🔁 305 💬 10 📌 12

Ah, an opportunity to recommend the great book, “More Work For Mother” by Ruth Cowan.

Because obviously, no, AI won’t do this.

And historically, domestic “labor saving” technologies have only entrenched domestic labor expectations while shifting the specifics of the work.

08.01.2026 13:20 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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#genuary7 Inspired by boolean algebra.

I don't feel much like making silly art on this horrifying and sorrowful day. But it's been nice seeing a bit of art show up tonight, as I struggle to stop doomscrolling.

#p5js #genuary

08.01.2026 03:53 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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10,000 people honoring Renee Nicole Good
at the site of her murder

08.01.2026 03:09 👍 14371 🔁 3395 💬 153 📌 130
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#genuary6 A tiny city that becomes that little bit more complex every time you turn out the lights. Until, suddenly, your city is gone and a new one takes its place.

#genuary #p5js

07.01.2026 01:46 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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#genuary5: write "genuary" and avoid using a font

Handwritten text used as a mask when generating surrounding shapes. (Looks a bit like a colorblindness test, especially when I make "genuary" green!)

A fun, quick sketch that also made me want to draw with my iPad more often.

#genuary #p5js

06.01.2026 01:32 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Here's some of my favorites from the cross stitch patterns. #genuary4

04.01.2026 20:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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#genuary4 lowres

This was a lot of fun! Started out making a cross-stitch pattern generator (my favorite low-res non-digital rendering technique) and ended at making dragon scales.

#genuary #p5js

04.01.2026 20:29 👍 11 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
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#genuary3 prompt is the fibonacci sequence: I used the fibonacci numbers for mapping circle color and position within each bloom.

#genuary #p5js

04.01.2026 03:16 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
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It's #genuary! Today's prompt: one color, one shape. Keeping it simple for #genuary1. Hoping to keep this up at least until the new term starts. #p5js

02.01.2026 01:39 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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New Year’s Day with my husband’s great uncle. He is 101 years old and has lived in the same farmhouse in Central MA for 100 years.

His granddaughter found a ledger from the farm’s old creamery covering 1895-87. It has absolutely perfect penmanship and later became a kids’ sketchbook. I love it.

02.01.2026 00:44 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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🥳 Welcome to the Public Domain: creative works from 1930 & sound recordings published in 1925! Duke Law's Center for the Study of the Public Domain has highlighted some of the most anticipated works entering the #publicdomain in 2026!

More ➡️ blog.archive.org/public-domai...

@dukelaw.bsky.social

01.01.2026 05:02 👍 640 🔁 338 💬 1 📌 17
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Back in 2019 I took a class about procedural generation in game design and made a really cool LED board project that I promptly misplaced before I was able to hang it up. For the holidays this year I decided to buy myself the parts to build an upgraded version of it!

31.12.2025 04:19 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0

It makes me so, so happy to see this!

31.12.2025 05:19 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I read this article every time I see it.

04.12.2025 08:04 👍 445 🔁 137 💬 15 📌 0

By any reasonable historical standard — including that of the technology industry! — ChatGPT should be pulled from the market and its product managers and executives held accountable for creating a product that ROUTINELY tells teens to kill themselves. This is a basic, common sense standard.

28.12.2025 18:21 👍 2315 🔁 506 💬 20 📌 14

Remember:

When Tylenol was poisoned *by an outsider* and killed people, the company recalled all their products & redesigned them.

When Intel’s Pentium had a bug so obscure it affected 1 in _9 billion_ long division calculations, they recalled their chips.

ChatGPT was made deadly *by its team*.

28.12.2025 18:21 👍 13536 🔁 4615 💬 93 📌 77