[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.

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? ...

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. ...

A while back, I dropped any support for RSS 1.0 on this weblog. I never regret that decision.

I’m running out of elliptical titles for posts about awards. Ah well. Um, yeah, the Origins Awards (original). 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. ...

I dropped by Tom Kratman’s web board the other day to find out what my favorite Baen author had been up to lately, and found this excerpt from an upcoming novel: Thomas felt unwelcome tears. He forced them back only with difficulty. So gallant, so brave they were, those boys over there fighting and dying against such odds, and with so little hope. Gribeauvil, seeing the boy’s emotions written upon his twisted face, said, “Yes, son; give them their due. They are a great people, a magnificent people. And we are damned lucky to have them, now.” ...

Compare and contrast: Peshawar Lancers and Shanghai Knights. We’ll do the movie first so you have time to skip it in the theaters. OK, that’s a little harsh, but it was really pretty uninspired. Good martial arts from Jackie, good comedy from Owen Wilson, rather lackluster script. I’m a sucker for Victorian pulp adventure, but this was really by the numbers without anything to distinguish it conceptually. I think moving the setting was a mistake. Leave the duo in the Old West where they’re working against our Western tropes, don’t move them to London and run them through the same dull paces every pair of Victorian pulp adventurers goes through. ...

Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld. “And the idea that inspectors can go in there and discover things, and find things, if they were be that, they would have been named ‘finders’ or ‘discoverers’ instead of ‘inspectors.’” Damn! Do my local health inspectors know about this? Do home inspectors know about this? Does Inspector Clouseau — well, OK, that last is a bad example. But geeze, guy, inspector does include the concept of finding out when someone’s lying. Hm; I think the word he’s looking for as an alternative is “investigator,” which definitely has more connotations of someone uncovering hidden truths. Still, inspector carries some of that weight as well. ...

“He was known throughout the world for his engineering accomplishments, also.” “He was probably one of the greatest living experts on geology and archaeology.” “He was a wizard with electricity.” “Ham looked what he was - a quick thinker and possibly the most astute lawyer Harvard ever turned out.” Excellence is a core aspect of any good pulp game. In order to establish this for Huey Long’s Men of Action, I’m going to steal a trick from San Angelo: City of Heroes and write down some top ten lists. Top ten doctors, top ten boxers, top ten research scientists, top ten aviators, top ten criminal masterminds, top ten archeologists, top ten diplomats… what else? Suggestions for more lists are welcome. ...

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.