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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Well, I was the first to respond to Matt Arnold's instantiation of the Artwork Meme, and because Matt knows I like 3D chess variants, he drew me this excellent 3D movement diagram for the Jester piece, as described in his "Beginner's Guide to Space Chess" essay. (The Jester is a kind of 3D equivalent of a Knight from regular two-dimensional Chess; it's a leaper, not a rider like a Rook or Bishop.)
There's still time to respond to my own offer of free artwork. Comments are disabled for this blog, so just email me at rwhe@ludism.org.
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Be tolerant in what you accept and conservative in what you emit.
--old Internet Engineering Task Force motto, meant to apply to Unix programming, but useful in learning how to behave on the bus and generally in life situations involving other people
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Ganked from Matt Arnold.
The first five people to respond to this post will get some form of art, by me, specifically for them. I make no guarantees about quality, but your piece will be unique.
The only catch, of course, is that as with most memes, if you sign up, you have to put this in your own journal as well.
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My friend Jay O'Connell has a podcast called "Jay's Tinfoil Hat". He's done about a dozen 10-minute episodes so far, on topics ranging from his young son Milo's gender variance (Milo wants to be a girl), to watching the first gay marriages take place in Cambridge, to adolescent partying, his first apartment, transhumanism, immortality, and cryonics. He has an engaging narrative voice, which is unique yet reminds me of Spalding Gray or This American Life. He also illustrates each podcast with beautiful original photographs and illustrations.
This episode is my favourite, about a junkyard that Jay used to play in as a kid. It has a surprise ending that epitomises my friend -- and curiously enough is reminiscent of Narnia, but don't let that stop you from listening.
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For a friend depressed by the election
I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which Escape is now so often used: a tone for which the uses of the word outside literary criticism give no warrant at all. In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic. In real life it is difficult to blame it, unless it fails; in criticism it would seem to be the worse the better it succeeds. Evidently we are faced by a misuse of words, and also by a confusion of thought. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it.
--J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy Stories", 1947
It is in games that many men discover their paradise.
--Robert Lynd (1879-1949)
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The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
--Muriel Rukeyser
See also Permutation City.
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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
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The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
--"Happy Thought", A Child's Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1885
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
--Eden Phillpotts
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The majority of the stupid is invincible and guaranteed for all time. The terror of their tyranny, however, is alleviated by their lack of consistency.
Attributed to Albert Einstein. (Did he really say this? It's good, anyway.)
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Never look for your work in one place and your progress in another.
--Epictetus, 55 - c. 135 CE, Discourses 1.4.17 [Oldfather Trans.]
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Adde parvum parvo manus acervus erit. [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.]
--Ovid, 43 BCE - 17 CE
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RetroLubes: Back to the Future, Forward Into the Past
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A couple of days ago I picked up a bottle of lube ("for topical cosmetic use only", it says here) at my local Love Fubar store. There was a big rack of lube and I was only interested in the ingredients and the price, as this kind of lube is a commodity item. (James "Kibo" Parry used to buy it in huge vats for his own odd purposes, and once brought a huge plastic bagful that he had coloured green to one of our post-Christmas Mathom Parties in Boston.) I therefore did not look closely at the label on the front, and when I got it home, discovered it had a creepy label (see photo). The label reads "ID Millennium" and bears a white thumbprint above the brand name on the faux holographic label. Being paranoid, my immediate reaction was to fear that the emerging world security state was attempting to soften up the populace with operant conditioning, using the positive reinforcement of sex to make people complacent about biometrics. A little thought suggests that in order for this campaign to have much effect, a significant proportion of the population would have to be buying and using this brand of lube. It's far more likely that the CEO of this company thought that a logo featuring biometrics would seem futuristic in a sexy rather than a repulsive way (as it seems to me). My wife Marty says, "Porn products have the worst marketing. We've all read the Adam & Eve catalog -- and despaired. You have to imagine Tom Carvel saying in a gravelly voice, 'It's like The Matrix! The kids will love it!'" Remember, the brand that is probably the market leader in this niche is called "AstroGlide", another pathetic attempt to sound futuristic that actually reminds me of Sputnik and poor Laika. Thus, ID Millennium -- it's, like, so three years ago. |
Entered 16:30 [/culture] permalink
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Email from a cow-orker in Japan, Kaz Morishita: "Rental-box" stores are popping up at various places in Japan. I found this recent trend in Japan interesting. "Rental-box" stores usually have large shelves divided into many square units that are about 1.5' by 1.5'. Any person can rent one square unit for ~$8/mo. to sell whatever s/he wants. Such stores are popping up partially because of empty store spaces due to the bad economy. Typical items sold include hand-made clothes, hand-made candles/soaps, original printed T-shirts, original paintings, photos, CDRs containing original videos, music, etc. Links (in Japanese): one, two, three. (My wife Marty points out that these stores have a partial USan counterpart in the craft mall.) |
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