un|we|senun|we|senLife, programming, music and all the rest. Articles
Eben Moglen Rocks Scotland
2007-07-03 13:03:00 Eben Moglen, one of the principal people involved in creating the GPLv3, has spoken to the Scottish Society for Computers and Law about the significance of the process by which the GPLv3 was agreed on. There’s also a transcript available over at Groklaw. More About: Scotland , Rocks , Glen
WoW Design Improvements: Conclusion
2007-06-29 18:57:00 This article is part 7 of 7 in the series, WoW Design Improv ements. If you’ve followed my series on the design mistakes of World of Warcraft, you’ll likely have noticed that I haven’t spoken a single word of criticism about the game’s mechanics. Truth be told, there are things that could be tweaked here and there, but I get the impression that not only do things work very smoothly in that department, they also are pretty much what Blizzard set out to do. I’ve criticized the game from a completely different angle, which you might have noticed by the word I repeated over and over again: community. (more…) More About: Rove , Prove
WoW Design Improvements: Addons
2007-06-25 19:33:00 This article is part 6 of 6 in the series, WoW Design Improv ements. There is one outstanding feature in the WoW client, which can get me pretty excited, and that’s the ability to modify the client user interface with Addons. Addons can not only modify the user interface elements already on the screen, but also add completely new functionality. Need help remembering which herbs you picked on what part of the game world? It’s there. Fancy a game of Texas Hold’em while your raid leader blathers away about the tactics to take down the next boss? Why don’t you play one? Still, not all is good with the Addons to WoW. Here’s my take on what could be improved. (more…) More About: Rove , Prove
Delicious Music
2007-06-24 22:07:00 Today I did something that I had wanted to do for just about as long as this site has been online. Note that I’m not referring to this blog, which has been online for only a few weeks. I’m talking about, oh, it’ll have been 1999 or 2000 that I wanted this thing done. I wanted to get a list of my CD collection online. The major reason for doing this hasn’t changed over the years: I wanted to give friends a way to look up whichever artist/album they were curious about. I like introducing people to new music, just as I like listening to music I’ve never heard before. You’ll note that a new menu item Music has appeared in the menu bar at the top. Go ahead and browse! I created the library with a wonderful program called, Deli cious Library, by a company called, Delicious Monster. It’s best feature is that it’ll use your webcam to scan in barcodes on the media you want to file, and look up details on Amazon. It stores it’s data in an ...
WoW Design Improvements: Guilds
2007-06-22 16:01:00 This article is part 5 of 5 in the series, WoW Design Improv ements. Organizing players of a game-themed virtual world into guilds or clans is just about as old as virtual worlds themselves. Since virtual worlds are places to meet people in, as opposed to games you play on your own, it seems natural to encourage the formation of communities. Creating content difficult enough to be tackled by one player alone is just about the perfect way of doing just that. When people want to organize into long-lasting communities, giving them the tools to do so is not only sensible, it’s required if you want your world to survive long. Guilds are the time-honoured approach to this, and, ignoring some kinks here and there, they work well enough. On the other hand, they’re not necessarily ideal either. (more…) More About: Rove , Prove
Experts Anno 1974
2007-06-22 00:09:00 I’ve been recommended the book Computer Lib, by Theodor H. Nelson1 a while ago. Well, it wasn’t exactly recommended, but I interpreted it as a recommendation. So I went and got it, a first edition, 6th reprint from 1978. I’d barely managed to read the introduction, when I came across a quote that struck a chord, because I had written about something along the same lines a few weeks ago. Knowledge is power and so it tends to be hoarded. Expert s in any field rarely want people to understand what they do, and generally enjoy putting them down. Thus if we say that the use of computers is dominated by a priesthood, people who spatter you with unintelligable (sic) answers and seem unwilling to give you straight ones, it is not that they are different in this respect from any other profession. Doctors, lawyers and construction engineers are the same way. Here I go and try to explain this “expert” behaviour in reasonable terms, and other people, long before me... More About: Anno , Pert
WoW Design Improvements: Friends & Foes
2007-06-16 18:57:00 This article is part 4 of 4 in the series, WoW Design Improv ements. I mentioned in a previous post in this series that the World of Warcraft client lets you put other players on a friends list, or on an ignore list. The only feature of the ignore list is that characters on this list cannot send you messages via the game’s chat system. Even things spoke in a common channel won’t appear on your screen. The friends list has two features: You get notified via a special message and a sound when characters on your friends list come online or go offline. Looking at the list, you can quickly determine which of your friends are currently online, as they are displayed in a different colour from the rest. Today I’d like to discuss the shortcomings of these lists. (more…) More About: Friends , Ends , Rove
WoW Design Improvements: In-Game Mail
2007-06-15 08:51:00 This article is part 3 of 4 in the series, WoW Design Improv ements. In a lot of ways, my gripes about WoW’s in-game mail system are similar to that about the in-game chat system: it’s needlessly restrictive. Because I’ve given a fair amount of reasoning in my previous post, this one is going to be a bit shorter1. Generally speaking, my criticism of the built-in mail system is that it’s so much like email that I don’t understand why it’s not email. When considering the similarities between the built-in chat system and IRC, I can explain the differences between the two with the fact that nowadays not everyone is familiar with IRC and how it’s done. That argument falls apart when you consider that WoW’s chat system still comes with operator privileges and some of the special channel-related commands that IRC uses2. But this is email. Just about everyone knows how to use email. (more…) But not much. [↩]If you don’t know ... More About: Mail , Game , Rove
New Games from the Shrimp
2007-06-14 12:53:00 Just now, a package from the graceful shrimp has arrived! I’ve been waiting for this for a while. She sent it off on 2007-05-09 from New Hampshire, USA1, so it took about 5 weeks to arrive. Inside are three games I’ve wanted to have for a while, but which are moderately hard to come by here in Germany. The Hero System2 War Law from Iron Crown Enterprises Robo Rally3, which must be the most fun board game I’ve ever played Ah well, work first, unpacking later. Thank you, shrimp! I’m not going to be more precise than that. [↩]I suppose I could have bought the PDF file, but I prefer dead tree books for reference. [↩]The link goes to a preview article, since http://www.roborally.com/ is not reachable right now. [↩] More About: Games , Shrimp , Ames
Bartle Test II
2007-06-14 11:07:00 My friend Norman’s response to my previous post on the Bart le Test prompted me to write a quick explanation of the test. For one thing, he referred to the whole thing as being related to games, which isn’t necessarily true at all. For another thing, he wanted to know what one can learn from that. (more…)
Bartle Test
2007-06-14 08:24:00 Ah, I found it again, and I still come out SEAK: The Bart le Test , named after Richard Bartle, co-author of the original MUD. It’s a test to determine your player type, based on what type of things you enjoy most in virtual worlds. Based on your answers, you are SEAK. Breakdown: Achiever 40.00%, Explorer 66.67%, Killer 26.67%, Socializer 66.67% SEAK players are usually very interested in the the ‘total experience’ of a virtual world — meeting other people and finding the unique places within it. They don’t care much for PVP or levelling, but meeting up with online friends to see new parts of the world is usually fun and exciting. I’m probably slightly more of an Explorer than a Socializer, but this is close enough. Go ahead, take the test, it works even if you haven’t seen a virtual world yet.
World of Warcraft Subscription
2007-06-13 13:04:00 Following a few similar posts on other people’s blogs, and a comment in my latest post on design improvements, I feel it’d be interesting to post a few numbers related to my WoW usage. I started playing pretty much exactly 750 days ago, on 2005-06-23. The amounts I payed towards WoW are at roughly € 320.-, composed of the prices for the game itself, the burning crusade expansion, and the monthly subscription fees. Over all my characters, my time spent in game comes to over 55 days. (more…) More About: World , Warcraft , World of Warcraft , Subs
WoW Design Improvements: Chatting
2007-06-12 21:35:00 This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series, WoW Design Improv ements. Well, I took my time. Things are busy right now. As I’m waiting for the compiler to do it’s dirty deeds, I can spare some time on discussing the first feature in my series on WoW design improvements: chatting with other users. Chatting in WoW stands in the tradition of all MUDs that came before it, and is reminiscent of IRC. What you type ends up as a message in a channel, and which channel that is depends on the type of channel and which channel you last spoke into. (more…) More About: Rove , Prove
Electronic Voting
2007-06-12 16:03:00 Yes, I know, I was promising to write posts on how the design of World of Warcraft could be improved. My life’s busier right now than I thought, though, so you’ll have to be patient. However, I just came across this German article (Babelfish) about voting machines, and how they can be hacked. It annoys me to see that these things are still being discussed, when it’s already abundantly clear to everyone who knows something about security, that voting machines are far too easy to manipulate. It makes me wonder why we aren’t using punchscan yet. More About: Electronic , Voting , Tron
WoW Design Improvements: Introduction
2007-06-10 22:24:00 This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series, WoW Design Improv ements. Since I ranted about Blizzard’s not considering the needs of their customers earlier today, I feel I have to explain a few more reasons why I think that’s the case. I mentioned one reason, Blizzard’s pandering to the needs of a handful of extremely dedicated players over the mass of their customer base. I have other reasons, which I consider to be design mistakes on Blizzard’s part. To explain them, I need to explain a number of features of World of Warcraft. (more…) More About: Introduction , Intro , Rove
WoW Design Improvements: Introduction
2007-06-10 22:24:00 This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series, WoW Design Improv ements. Since I ranted about Blizzard’s not considering the needs of their customers earlier today, I feel I have to explain a few more reasons why I think that’s the case. I mentioned one reason, Blizzard’s pandering to the needs of a handful of extremely dedicated players over the mass of their customer base. I have other reasons, which I consider to be design mistakes on Blizzard’s part. To explain them, I need to explain a number of features of World of Warcraft. (more…) More About: Introduction , Intro , Rove
Blizzard Don’t Care About Their Customers
2007-06-10 19:15:00 I get annoyed at this time and again. Over and over, Blizz ard demonstrate a complete lack of caring about the majority of their paying customer base. Yes, this is a rant. I enjoy playing World of Warcraft - to some degree. There are things I don’t enjoy very much about the whole experience, such as the whole “grinding” aspect (that is, repeating something over and over again until you’ve gained enough points/gold/items of one type or another to gain a reward). But all of that could be put down to me looking for different things in games than other people - I know of a few people who actually enjoy that. Myself, I like the questing part, as each quest you complete gives you a little part of the world’s storyline. People have different tastes. (more…) More About: Customers , Care , Custom
Blizzard Don’t Care About Their Customers
2007-06-10 19:15:00 I get annoyed at this time and again. Over and over, Blizz ard demonstrate a complete lack of caring about the majority of their paying customer base. Yes, this is a rant. I enjoy playing World of Warcraft - to some degree. There are things I don’t enjoy very much about the whole experience, such as the whole “grinding” aspect (that is, repeating something over and over again until you’ve gained enough points/gold/items of one type or another to gain a reward). But all of that could be put down to me looking for different things in games than other people - I know of a few people who actually enjoy that. Myself, I like the questing part, as each quest you complete gives you a little part of the world’s storyline. People have different tastes. (more…) More About: Customers , Care , Custom
Software Licensing
2007-06-07 22:32:00 Don’t you love predictions in technology, like how Bill Gates was supposed to say that “640K of memory should be enough for everyone”? A subgroup of such predictions I particularly like1 are the type that declare the death of something or another. Such as this blog entry declaring the death of the GPL. The GPL is a software license, and probably the most popular license in the FOSS community. It’s currently being revised to version 3, a long and arduous process, because the current form of the GPL is already fairly good - v3 attempts to close a few holes, and generally clean up the terminology. So why would anyone predict it’s death? (more…) That is, I find them amusing, and therefore like reading them. [↩] More About: Software , Licensing
Software Licensing
2007-06-07 22:32:00 Don’t you love predictions in technology, like how Bill Gates was supposed to say that “640K of memory should be enough for everyone”? A subgroup of such predictions I particularly like1 are the type that declare the death of something or another. Such as this blog entry declaring the death of the GPL. The GPL is a software license, and probably the most popular license in the FOSS community. It’s currently being revised to version 3, a long and arduous process, because the current form of the GPL is already fairly good - v3 attempts to close a few holes, and generally clean up the terminology. So why would anyone predict it’s death? (more…) That is, I find them amusing, and therefore like reading them. [↩] More About: Software , Licensing
Latawnya, the Naughty Horse
2007-06-05 18:33:00 Man. I’m at a loss for words. If you feel brave, take a look at the storybook here. This gem of literature is just too priceless for mere words. Nevertheless, I shall humbly submit a few observations, after the jump (do read the storybook before going on). (more…) More About: Horse , Naught
Latawnya, the Naughty Horse
2007-06-05 18:33:00 Man. I’m at a loss for words. If you feel brave, take a look at the storybook here. This gem of literature is just too priceless for mere words. Nevertheless, I shall humbly submit a few observations, after the jump (do read the storybook before going on). (more…) More About: Horse , Naught
Quantifying Ethics
2007-06-04 15:54:00 Two days ago, I proposed an idea for quantifying the quality of role-playing in RPGs. I realize the proposal was short on details, but the post was growing longer than expected. Here, then, are the details required to turn this idea into a working set of rules. It’s assumed that you read the previous article. (more…) More About: Ethics , Anti
Album: My Dying Bride - A Line of Deathless Kings
2007-06-03 17:18:00 If you’ve followed My Dying Bride as I have - that is, very attentively from around 1995 to around 2000, you will have witnessed just about all stages of their musical evolution. Starting out with early Death/Doom sounds with mostly growling vocals and heavily distorted guitars, they used clean vocals more and more often, and introduced a more hypnotic and electronic sound on their widely criticized 1998 output “34.788%…Complete”1. As if in response to the criticism, the following albums “The Light at the End of the World” and “The Dreadful Hours” reverted very much back to the previous style. For my own part, that was around the time I was more interested in Thrash and Death Metal, and Doom held less interest for me. As such, I missed their following output, “Songs of Darkness, Words of Light” almost completely. I’m writing all of this just because it makes explaining what “A Line of Deathless Kings ” ... More About: Album , Less
Role-playing
2007-06-02 09:14:00 I used to role-play a lot, and would really like to start again1. More importantly, however, discussing the merits of individual rules in role-playing game systems with my group got me interested in game design. One thing among several I’ve noticed with RPG systems is that they tend to focus on one of two sides of RPGs far more strongly than on the other. In my opinion, that makes these systems somewhat less appealing, as I’d be far more interested in a more balanced game. Here’s an idea of how one could achieve that. (more…) I’m looking for a good group in the Colchester area, as I’m likely to move there sometime this year. [↩] More About: Role
Album: Meshuggah - Catch Thirtythree
2007-06-01 11:36:00 Let me tell you what I don’t like about this album first, because it’s not a lot: they’ve resorted to 1337 5p34k1 in their album title, which I refuse to repeat except for demonstration purposes - technically, the album is called “Catch Thirtythr33″. I suppose noobs think that’s cool. Other than that, it’s very hard to come up with anything to say about this CD except that it’s what you’d expect from Meshuggah : unrelentingly brutal and and often byzantine rythmic tracks overlaid with someone shouting at the top of their lungs. I know I’m not being fair - I’m a huge fan of Meshuggah, but the problem with them is that they’re not really making it easy for people to listen to their music. I usually need to listen to one of their albums several times before I can make out the structure of their songs, because the sound texture of their songs somehow manages to stop my brain just short of understanding what I&rsqu... More About: Album , Three
你好!
2007-05-31 23:13:00 我欢迎我的访客或访客从新加 。我希望您读中文- 不幸地, babelfish 不知道Malay 或泰米尔语。 我想知道谁您也许是, 虽则。为什么您不留下评论? Google Analytics is an amazing tool!
Fuzzy Logic
2007-05-31 15:03:00 I’m a vegan. To those that know me, this comes as no surprise. Some of my friends have argued with me about the relative merits of veganism and alternative diets/life styles, and have on occasion found me defending my position with a fervour that borders on preaching1. In all these discussions, I’ve found that reasonable arguments, such as discussions about the health benefits or environmental effects of different diets have little or no impact in getting people to accept2 my position. When all is said and done, people’s positions are mostly based on their personal beliefs, and far less on facts - my own included. My belief in this matter, however, is easily misunderstood or discounted. So here’s an attempt at explaining it. (more…) Something which, incidentally, increases proportionally to the amount people defend their opposing life choices to me [↩]Not adopt: it’s up to them to adopt whichever point of view they want, but I’d like ... More About: Logic , Logi
Album: Down - Nola
2007-05-30 11:03:00 Yes! I finally found it! After having been a fan of Down’s second album, “Down II”, for years, I found their 1995 output “Nola” in a record store in Colchester today. It turned out to be a bit pricey, but UK CD prices are extraordinary high anyway, and it’s been really hard to find for years (except on iTunes, but that doesn’t quite satisfy my haptic needs). If you don’t know Down at all, head over to their website, which has a few samples of their ultra-heavy stoner rock music. If you’re too lazy for that and know Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society, that’ll do as a base of comparison. And if you don’t know who Zakk Wylde is, he’s been guitarist for Ozzy for years. Compared directly to “Down II”, “Nola” is a bit cleaner in production, and Phil Anselmo’s vocals remind one far more of Pantera. Musically, it’s also less reminiscent of southern rock, and closer to purer doom s... More About: Album
Bruno Reloaded
More articles from this author:2007-05-29 08:02:00 A while ago, a brown bear, nicknamed Brun o, wandered into Germany, killed a few sheep, and generally scared the local population because he didn’t seem to be afraid of people. Finnish bear hunters were flown in to catch him, but failed. After a while, the local government allowed Bruno to be shot down. Now someone attempts to sue the government based on the argument that shooting down a brown bear, a species not normally found in Germany, violates the population’s rights to enjoy nature and watch wildlife. I’m never sure whether to like or dislike such things. On the one hand I can admire the way these people try to work within the law to get at people acting irresponsibly. On the other hand, such happenings distort the public perspective on the issue: because, let’s face it, if someone manged to shoot Bruno with a bullet, that someone might as well have shot him with a tranquilizer dart. There was no reason whatsoever that Bruno needed to die. And brown bear... More About: Load , Loaded 1, 2, 3, 4 |
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