One thing in common between languages, religions, and games is that they’re systems of rules, like software. The world runs on these systems just like it runs on any other infrastructure.

One thing cultural systems don’t have in common with software is that you can’t just come out with an improved version, tell the internet about it, and get ten million new adopters overnight.

What is the name of the person who invented English? Or Chess? Or God? These did not have one inventor. They evolved by themselves, through cultural processes.

At least we can blame Gregory for the Gregorian Calendar. But it’s too entrenched to seriously propose an alternative. Don’t bother trying to start a format war, like Betamax vs. VHS.

There’s so much social force behind the traditions shared by millions of people that you can’t change them just by designing an improvement. “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door” is not true of these.

But once you realize that it’s possible to invent alternatives, you can play with variations. That’s worth doing, just out of curiosity to see what happens. It’s kind of like hacking UNIX on your own computer. Sometimes you just do it as a hobby, and you don’t care that the world has standardized on Microsoft Windows instead. That’s not the point.

So that’s what I’m doing here. Hacking on my own little corner of the world. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

Here is my art portfolio and why I won’t work on printed spam.