Ron's Info-Closet Annex
The online extension of Ron's Info-Closet.
Book links are usually to my Powell's affiliate program; game links are usually to Funagain Games, and benefit the Games to the Rescue Project.
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Ron Hale-Evans
rwhe@ludism.org
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Just as Kendo can be a meditative discipline, so can, uh, Zendo. Or almost any game. We have the Inner Game of Tennis; why not the Inner Game of Hearts?
Of course, people have known this about Go for a long time. In principle, it applies to Chess as well, although in practice it seems to have the opposite effect.
Entered 12:22 [/games/ludism] permalink
The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
--Muriel Rukeyser
See also Permutation City.
Entered 12:20 [/culture/commonplace_book] permalink
Gandhi and Bertie agree to disagree
My effort should never be to undermine another's faith but to make him a better follower of his own faith.
--Gandhi
Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
--Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1944-1969, pp. 71-2
Entered 13:33 [/culture/commonplace_book] permalink
Before I set out to find the REI Flagship letterbox (see below), I went in search of the Emerald City virtual letterbox by Mischief.
A virtual letterbox is one in which not only the clues but also the goal or treasure are all online. Emerald City has a nice treasure at the end of the trail, and the clue is clever and cute. An interesting experience -- you feel as though you are looking for a "real" letterbox. A quick, fun diversion. Recommended.
Entered 13:37 [/games/letterboxing] permalink
My first letterbox: REI Flagship
I've recently taken up a sport called letterboxing. It's a treasure hunt in which you decipher clues (in the U.S., usually from the Web), then hike to a hidden weatherproof box (the "letterbox") containing a unique, handmade rubber stamp. You stamp your logbook with the letterbox's stamp, and stamp the letterbox's logbook with your stamp.
For my personal stamp, I had wanted to do a graphic with a dog on it, because I love dogs and regard them as my totem animal. (Yes, I know that having a domesticated animal as a totem is... unorthodox. But you know, you don't pick your totem; it picks you.) My "letterboxing name" is related to dogs, and in fact, I am planning to take my dogs on letterbox hikes whenever it's permissible (many letterboxes are in city parks, where regulations about dogs vary).
Two nights ago, I spent a lot of time trying to draw a recognisable dog that somehow expressed my personality, but when I awoke yesterday morning, it had come to me that my stamp should show Anubis, so after buying the materials, last night I carved a rubber stamp bearing the image of Anubis (and my monogram -- see above).
Unfortunately, neither my skills nor my tools were up to the task of carving this computer graphic onto the stamp material. I'm told that the result is pretty good for a beginner, but eventually I decided to use a large version of my monogram (the sigil in the lower left of the stamp image). Too bad. I'll try my hand at another Anubis stamp (without my monogram) later.
Now, letterboxing is sort of like geocaching, but you don't need a GPS unit; the highest tech a letterboxer needs on the trail is a compass. But he does need a compass. Stewart Brand (who doesn't letterbox, as far as I know) recommends the Brunton Classic 9020G as a good, cheap, general-purpose model. It turned out that REI, an outdoor-goods co-op based in Seattle, carried this item, so I decided to go buy it and make my first letterbox the REI Flagship Letterbox. My friend Kisa and I went into the store, bought my compass and a few other things such as Nalgene bottle splash guards, gawked at the local sights (an indoor climbing pinnacle among them), and then followed the directions to the letterbox in the vicinity.
We got a little lost, because we didn't avail ourselves of the compass I had just bought, thinking we had spotted a short cut. We ended up poking around the whole area for the landmark where the letterbox was hidden. Kisa finally spotted the landmark, and I retrieved the letterbox and took it to his car, out of public view, where I did all the stamping and paging through the letterbox logbook. Then I hid the box again. Great fun, and I already have some ideas for my own letterboxes, which will be connected to my other gaming interests.
On the way home, I pulled out my logbook to admire the handsome new stamp, and Kisa said, "Look! A rainbow!" I glanced up and just then the CD player played a line from the Jethro Tull song, "Rover", from the album Heavy Horses: "The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there." Kisa shouted in surprise, and when I went home, I looked up the lyrics to "Rover". Here they are:
Rover
I chase your every footstep
and I follow every whim.
When you call the tune I'm ready
to strike up the battle hymn.
My lady of the meadows
My comber of the beach
You've thrown the stick for your dog's trick
but it's floating out of reach.
The long road is a rainbow and the pot of gold lies there.
So slip the chain and I'm off again
You'll find me everywhere. I'm a Rover.As the robin craves the summer
to hide his smock of red,
I need the pillow of your hair
in which to hide my head.
I'm simple in my sadness,
resourceful in remorse.
Then I'm down straining at the lead
holding on a windward course.Strip me from the bundle
of balloons at every fair:
colourful and carefree
Designed to make you stare.
But I'm lost and I'm losing
the thread that holds me down.
And I'm up hot and rising
in the lights of every town.
I find this a remarkably textured synchronicity: the dog connection, the treasure-hunting and wanderlust imagery, and of course the rainbow. An auspicious start?
Howdy, Anubis! See you on the trails.
Entered 00:09 [/games/letterboxing] permalink
Donald Norman, Le ShorDurPerSav du Mois
Donald Norman wrote a book called The Design of Everyday Things, a.k.a. The Psychology of Everyday Things, a.k.a. POET. I brought POET home tonight and showed it to Marty, announcing, "This will be your new god!" Marty is a technical editor by trade and user interface design critic by avocation, and recently described herself as a "professional stickler".
Of course, she's already started finding things wrong with the book.
Entered 23:11 [/personal/shordurpersavs] permalink
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