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Author: Bryant

Planning

April 10, 2006
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Brick is playing tonight down at the Kendall. 7:10 show. And I might just hang out after for the 10 PM showing of Thank You for Smoking. I’m fairly sure that there’s some inherent value in the concept of a high school noir flick. Plus it’s got the chick from Lost, no not the evil one, the other one. Plus Shaft as a high school principal.

Possibly that last is stunt casting.

Possibly I should see it at the Coolidge instead. Hm.

Non-found

April 2, 2006
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We have caught up on Lost, thanks to Chris, Tivo, Bittorrent, and iTunes. As a result, I have a new theory, which I think is completely original. Although it’s flawed insofar as it explains precisely none of the mysteries at all. Still, it’s a good theory.

I noticed last night, while Sayid, Charlie, and Ana-Lucia were off investigating something dangerous without telling anyone where they were going — this, to make sure that anything that happened to them would be as bad as possible and cause as much impact on the rest of the group as was feasible — you can’t go telling people what you’re doing, especially if you’re violating the First Rule, which is “bring the irreplaceable doctor with you on any risky expedition” — crap, lost track.

Oh yeah! Two badasses and a bottom. You can’t do a trek on the island without two badasses and a bottom. Sayid, Charlie, Ana-Lucia. Danielle, Kate, and Claire. Locke, Sawyer, and Jack. Jack’s the interesting one cause he’s constantly fluctuating between the two basic roles. But you can tell where he is at any given moment.

There’s something going on about some kind of Project, too, but it’s too opaque for me to worry about.

Blast from the past

April 1, 2006
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[When I was just a little lad, I worked at Netcom, then among the largest ISPs in the country. Some of our customers wanted me fired for posting this.]

Newsgroups: netcom.announce,netcom.general,netcom.netcruiser.announce,netcom.net
cruiser.general
Path: kremvax.scots.net!bobr
From: bobr@scots.net (Robert McReiger)
Subject: ANNOUNCEMENT:  ScotsNet
Followup-To: netcom.general,netcom.netcruiser.general
Message-ID: 
Organization: ScotsNet On-line Communication Sairvices, Inc.
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 1995 00:00:00 GMT
Approved: bobr@kremvax.scots.net
I'd like to thank ye all for reading this little message I've composed,
because this little message is representin' a large change in this
company, and it's no small decision I've made.  So it's a good thing ye
took the time to read it.  Because I've got a lot to be tellin' ye.
But before I'm about that, I suppose a number o' ye will be won'drin'
why I've gone an' changed me name.  Well, I'm goin' to be tellin' ye
that too.  I've been resarchin' me heritage, and I've discovered that
I've a wee bit of Scots ancestry in me -- and I've decided that it'd be
fittin' to honor it.
Which leads me to the subject of this wee little announcement.  You
see, I dinna think just changin' me name is enough to prove me love for
my new-found heritage.  No, I don't.  Fairthermore, I've been thinkin'
lately it's about time my company was provin' its intent to turn over a
new leaf by turning into a new company.  Wi' a new name, you know.
As such, I've decided that NETCOM Online Communication Sairvices,
Incorporated, will no longer be NETCOM Online Communication Sairvices.
Incorporated.  From now on, we're goin' to be *ScotsNet*.  And our
domain name, it'll be scots.net.
We'll also be changin' a few of our policies.  To start with, we think
anyone who gets an' account wi' us is deservin' of a little
recognition.  Any sort of account, from our beloved NetCruiser accounts
all the way to our T1 customers.  So whenever ye gets an account wi'
us, we'll be givin' you your choice of a *wee* little terrier, or a
*great whackin' huge* terrier.
Whichever ye like.
And furthermore, if ye've gotten' an account wi' us, and it hasn't
worked out -- perhaps the bairns have been peerin' at the filthy
pictures on Usenet, or perhaps ye can't get the bluidy modem to produce
the bluidy initialization strings, or maybe it's just that your spouse
dinna think you're spendin' enough time wi' your new terrier -- we've
got a way to make it up t'you.  We're not goin' to help you get it
workin', but if you can't get it workin', we'll send you a lovely
potted plant.  Altogether free.  *And* your money back, as an apology.
It's the least we can do.
And in general, there's one thing ye can count on from here on in.
ScotsNet will niver do anythin' less than our very best to be the most
*Scottish* Internet Sairvice Provider we can be, and we can be vurry
Scottish indeed.  And we will be.
Because there's one thing we know for sure.
If it's not Scottish... it's *crap*.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert McReiger                                                  bobr@scots.net
Chairman, ScotsNet Online Communication Sairvices, Inc.

The mask wars

March 27, 2006
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From one of Raph Koster’s posts on GDC:

Patrick Dugan asking a panel of academics whether the cultural shifts brought on by massively multiplayer games may include damaging our conception of the nation-state as a key form of personal identity. Academics don’t quite know what to say.

Even I know what to say to that. “Yes.” Rambly thoughts ahead.

Personal identity is increasingly fluid; the ability to put on an impenetrable mask ensures that. Hm. Rereading the quote, I wonder if it wouldn’t be more appropriate to say “tribal identity,” though. You could say that’s a subsection of personal identity. I tend to reject that as necessity, though; it’s one potential aspect of personal identity. And precision requires that we distinguish between the aspect and the whole, no?

Yes.

Anyhow: tribal identity. Are you a San Franciscan, or are you a member of Fires of Heaven? Both, maybe. Which is more important? It’s another way of forming NGOs, of playing identity politics. Which are pretty important in MMORPGs. If WoW is the new golf, it’s also the new sandlot baseball field, and the new singles bar, and the new late night campus coffee shop.

Question not yet resolved: does tribal identity solidify on a counterscale to personal identity? I’d think probably yes — we haven’t yet figured out how to have slippery faces within tribes and maintain community cohesion. (You can say community wherever I say tribal, by the by.)

One of the strong, under the radar drivers in community forming on these things is TeamSpeak/Ventrilo. Both these programs create a virtual space where you can voice-chat; in my experience, guilds keep the servers up all the time and they’re used for far more than just tactical coordination. They’re a new social channel. And voices are much more coherent and consistent than the faces we wear while we’re playing.

Then again, voice filters exist and will be more useful as time goes by. So I’ll leave predicting the future to people who get paid for it.

GILTed age

March 17, 2006
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Oh, OK, Rob. Our Canadian overlord talks, and we listen.

Unplumbed Ephemeral Circus genre time. The Empire is decaying. It has always been decaying; it will be decaying for millenial. Nobody remembers the time when it was not, except perhaps the positronic computators that remain. They grind equations into dust for purposes that were set back when the Empire was bright. It is rumored that a man knows how to change those purposes; that legacy was passed down in his clan from mother to son, from uncle to niece, and cannot be used until the time is right.

The Court is glorious. Under the masks, it is horrible. It’s a trap: the truly competent maintain the rusting machinery of the Empire elsewhere. Those attracted to power vanish in the byzantine complexities of Court etiquette. (The universities teach courses in it, of dubious value.)

The barbarians are at the stargates. The imperial armies are funded by patrons, who have varying motivations. One donates to the Crown for the sponsorship of a Legion — it is not legal to have a private army. Good Legions will be picked up by other patrons if their patron falls, which reduces the ability of the patrons to control their sponsored troops. Some patrons seek status; some are altruists; some are fanatics. The campaign is the defense against the barbarians. Military SF, but not David Drake’s style. More Asimov, but lush.

Origin of awards

March 14, 2006
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I’m running out of elliptical titles for posts about awards. Ah well.

Um, yeah, the Origins Awards. I didn’t game much this last year. That won’t stop me from commenting, though!

I see, among the Best RPG nominees: five licensed games. Well, four; I don’t think it counts as a license when the same person is writing both the original text (Artesia) and the RPG. Four out of the five use existing systems, with varying degrees of adaptation to the world.

No Dogs in the Vineyard.

There’s a lot of creativity in every RPG, licensed or not, original mechanics or not. I can’t believe that a bunch of licenses based on existing mechanics represents the most creative stuff the industry has to offer, though.

Your envelope, this time

March 6, 2006
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And after a bit of quick perl hackery, we have the results from my Oscar contest! Kyle entered twice; I took his later entry as the final one. This seems reasonable, particularly since his first entry took second place, tied with kodi and yukon_jack. Kyle, drop me an email and we’ll talk about your banner.

As a whole, our collective predictive intelligence was not as good as Kyle’s final set of picks, and wasn’t much better than the second place finishers (depending on how you count ties). C’est la vie.

Full results after the break.

Continue ReadingYour envelope, this time