At the turn of the century a Maryland Quaker, Lizzie Magie, was trying to develop a game that would illustrate the inequities of capitalism and promote a popular “single tax” movement led by Henry George. A century ago this month she received a patent for The Land lord’s Game; the illustration in the US Patent…
“The Clark Bar Association“? That name is sure to draw snickers when crunch time arrives. Clark will face mounds of mockery, which may prove to be the kiss of death for his candidacy and, if he’s the nominee, ensure the re-election of the jolly rancher now in the White House. If Clark is smart, he’ll…
Do not use profanity. Be very careful when discussing financial or business affairs. Avoid any mention of your private parts. Do not offer any guarantees, or refer to checks that may or may not be in the mail. | Refrain from describing anything or anybody as “free.” Abstain from the exuberant use of punctuation marks.…
Teens Finding Stupid Ways to DieJerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’ve come across several recent examples of “It’s fun until someone gets killed.” It’s bad enough when a young person dies, but when the family has to grieve over such stupid reasons… ouch, that hurts. My heart goes out to these families. Similar:In April 2000, I was…
Avalanche is a great word. Its onomatopoeia is horrific. The very syllables bring to mind a Frenchman tumbling down a mountainside, until he meets his demise in a crunching vortex of snow and rock and ice: “Ahhhh…vahhh…laaaaaaaa…uNNCHHH!” — Mike Arnzen —Oddly Chilling Thoughts (The Goreletter) Similar:ink: Inkle's open source scripting language for writing interactive narrativeGearing up…
After some good-natured ribbing about his taste in clothing, General Wesley Clark, the Democratic Presidential candidate, has decided to donate his much-famed argyle sweater to charity. —General Wesley Clark’s Argyle Sweater (EBay) I found myself doing a little superior dance, because I just happen to have a read a blog entry about the history of sweaters…
Stealthy? 1995? Please. 100% of teenagers play games today (those who don’t are a rounding error)–but I doubt the percentage in, say, 1990, during the SNES/Genesis era, was all that different. And the game industry first made the claim that it was bigger than the movies in 1980 or 81, if I remember correctly–albeit revenues…
When she got home she found her inbox stuffed with new messages, many of which were junk mail. One message was titled “BBC World service proposal,” but Onwueme said she just skipped over it. | The BBC sent a second e-mail, which she also did not take the time to read because it had the…
A student at McGill University has won the right to have his assignments marked without first submitting them to an American, anti-plagiarism website. —McGill student wins fight over anti-cheating website (CBC) As a former resident of Canada, I couldn’t repress a smirk at the CBC’s need to identify the website as “American” in the lead.…
The very premise of an online game is that it is uncontrollable – indeed, even the banned players have found ways to sneak back in various disguises. | That, in turn, presents a thorny set of philosophical problems. How do you seek to curb the baser instincts of a community of autonomous players? Is repression…
On this day in 1984, after a year of deliberation, the US supreme court ruled in favour of Sony (makers of the Betamax video-recorder) and against Universal Studios and Disney, who had claimed that viewers recording television programmes were stealing copyrighted material. The counter-argument was that home-tapers were “time-shifting”: rescheduling programmes through convenience rather than…
Approximately twenty-five years have passed since the production of the first widely-distributed computer games; but the medium still appears malleable and novel, and its criticism remains a new and open field. Much work remains to be done, and many questions have not been asked. What vocabulary will be necessary for a literate engagement with the…
In the early days of game publishing, many companies invested great effort not only in the design of their games, but also in the way those games appeared on store shelves and what was included in the box. This article’s intention is to describe this lost art of innovative game packaging from the early to…
You find yourself in yon dungeon. Back yonder there is a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH, and DENNIS. What wouldst thou deau?>_ —Strong Bad: Video Games (Homestarrunner.com) Bobby actually e-mailed me this suggestion a few days ago, and I saw it in a comment on MGK, and on the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup, but this was the…
Light playing on water drops, dust or ice crystals in the atmosphere produces a host of visual spectacles – rainbows, halos, glories, coronas and many more. Some can be seen almost every day or so, some are once in a lifetime sights. Find out where to see them and how they form. Then seek and…
[T]he typical Internet user is an avid reader of books and spends more time engaged in social activities than the non-user, it says. And, television viewing is down among some Internet users by as much as five hours per week compared with Net abstainers… —New study shatters Internet ‘geek’ image (CNN) Too bad that the folks…
Crucially, Mr Medjahdi said he could see no photographers anyway near the car, despite initial police suspicions that they might have distracted the driver. “I got a complete picture from my side and rear-view mirrors of what was happening beside me. There was no other vehicle in my field of vision. I saw no cars…
One of the great gifts of the book is the entrée it affords into the contemporary IF scene. Graham Nelson, Adam Cadre, Emily Short, and Andrew Plotkin were all authors who were new to me, but no sooner had I worked through Plotkin’s remarkable “Shade” than I added it to my spring syllabus (which I’ll…
I used to date a girl who regularly won trophies for running marathons and playing in tennis tournaments. I told her the only trophy I had ever won was 4th place in a shuffleboard tournament. At the age of nine. So she said, “so of all the nine year olds who turned out that day…
Private vs. Public Anyone can read this: professors, classmates Don’t write about your love life or last weekend‘sactivities unless you want your professors (or Dr. Gawalek) to read about it Take caution when complaining about classes or classmates Also, watch what you write — don’t link to pictures of you doing anything illegal while at…