Lucas Sullivan for PC Gamer:

Riot Games CEO Brandon Beck chalks the game’s success to the ever-enthusiastic community. “We’re most proud of the numbers that show just how many players are truly engrossed in the League of Legends experience,” says Beck. “[The community’s] loving League of Legends even when they’re not playing it—hundreds of thousands of people tuned in for our Season One Qualifiers, for instance. We’re very grateful to the League of Legends fans that have made us one of the most popular PC games today.”

The League of Legends community is by far the best gaming community I’ve ever been a part of, and I’m really proud that so many people can call themselves summoners.

Ben nails it again, for Ars Technica:

Every time I put the controller down, I felt the need to rub my hands on my jeans as if the game were making me physically dirty. It’s like watching your uncle tell racist jokes at Thanksgiving and praying someone has the guts to tell him to cut it out, but this time it’s interactive—and you’re the uncle.

Leigh Alexander:

I see the Call of Duty franchise as programming, as on television. Elite seems to hint at the end of discrete, solitary box products and promise something socially persistent, pervasive. I picture people buying T-shirts with pictures of their clan logo on it, or something.

Spot on. Call of Duty is just another platform. Elite is a step toward making it sustainable long-term.

Ideas are chaotic, so the way we record them should reflect that. I’m a highly visual thinker, and I’ve found writing linear while I’m on the phone or in a meeting just doesn’t cut it. By nature, linear notes get in the way of each other. If you start a new topic, going back to the old one requires writing in the margins or finding empty spaces between lines. It’s sloppy, ugly, and difficult to parse later, and I can hardly remember how any of it relates to each other.

If this sounds like a description of your notes and you suspect you might be more of a visual thinker, I’d recommend giving mind-mapping a try. It’s free form, easy to jump around, and engages multiple parts of your brain simultaneously for far better retention. That’s the productivity argument. The fun argument: you get to doodle in a meeting, with an excuse! Check out Brad Isaac’s cool Lifehacker article on some tips on how to get started mind mapping along with some options for organizing — or not organizing — your ideas. But keep in mind, there’s really no “right way” to mind map. You just do whatever will make your own quirky little brain recall some idea or relationship later.

If you’re into iPad apps, iThoughts HD is an awesome mind mapping tool that I use all the time for brainstorming. It also imports and exports OPML — the outline lingua Franca — so you can pull in outlines from linear outliners for free-form editing or push your mind map into a more traditional outlining program.