4/16/2003
I’m not sure how many people actually use the Rings they belong to, but I spent an hour or so going through the MT Ring looking at what was out there. I stumbled across The People’s Republic of Seabrook, run by a fellow Texan and one with several links that I did not have. You know the drill:
I Wish, You Wish - a central collection of wishes from the blogosphere. Basically, if you have one of those Amazon Wishlists you submit your info and a link to the list. I wish Amazon carried what I wanted (despite having a degree in history I still prefer ezines and Google versus books).
Rice Bowl Journals - an Asian Online Community. This site is intended to be a gathering place for the Asian online journaling and blogging community. Also see the Asian Bloggers Ring.
Sis-2-Sis Blog Webring - it’s for women and for sisters of the heart that want to exchange thoughts, gifts and ideas with other sisters.
Blagger - It’s ring for Filipino bloggers.
Pinoy Ako Blogger Ring - another ring for Filipino bloggers.
Cheeky Girls - a blog ring for Cheeky Girls. (I’m not obfuscating, that’s really all it’s about).
Luffable Nutz Bloggies - No, not Furbies, Luffables. I really couldn’t tell you what they were.
Blurps Clique - a clique that brings together various online blogs, journals and diaries belonging to adult addicts of Neopets.com.
Mama Clique - for mothers or pregnant women who have blogs. See also Blog Mums.
Georgia Webloggers - For bloggers in Georgia. Also see the Atlanta Blog Ring.
Kimberly Bloggers Ring - for bloggers with the name Kim or a variation of it. Not limited to females. Also see the Jen/Jenn and Christine rings.
Leoville Bloggers - For members of Leoville that also blog.
Blog Domains Ring - This is a ring for people who blog on the “main” domain (not subdomain or folder within… more like Gnome-Girl). Dominated is similar but not specifically for blogs.
Oh My Glasses! - a ring for bloggers that wear glasses. Also see the Glasses Wearing Blog Ring.
Rantburg - a schmorgasborg for all rants and raves.
St. Louis Bloggers - Bloggers in St. Louis.
Kansas City Blogs - A resource guide bringing together local bloggers from the KC area and beyond.
Highway 101 - Another list of bloggers from California. Also see the California Blog Ring.
Seattle Bloggers - For bloggers in Seattle.
Blogs from Wisconsin - A list of bloggers in Wisconsin. Also see Midwestern Melodies and Wisconsin Blogs.
Israeli Blog Index - For bloggers in Israel.
DC Metro Blogs - They highlight the blogs in the D.C. Metro area. Also see the DC Metro Bloggers and Beltway Bloggers.
In the next week I’ll try to get the Categories displayed on the main page, until then, know that this post is in the “Worst… Article… Ever…” file.
Wired Magazine and ‘Hit & Miss’ are sadly, two synonymous caricatures. On one hand, they publish detailed exposes (sic?) on how Kazaa operates (great story) and the future of Hydrogen-based fuel cells in cars. And on the other, they publish Malthusian/Hobbesian cliche’s that somehow just won’t die.
Case in point, today’s article entitled: Will Genetic Engineering Kill us?. I’m fairly certain that all of the ideas expounded upon in the article could come from Michael Crichton’s Terminal Man or some other dystopian plot (Gattaca comes to mind) - so it’s highly unoriginal.
Starting off on the wrong foot, Mr. Baard states,
“Bioethicists and scientists contemplating the future fear that genetic engineering and other technologies are going to divide human beings into classes that may one day try to destroy one another.”
I don’t watch much TV, but I’m fairly certain this very scenario is happening on the planet currently. In addition, this has happened for centuries and millennia. Stratifying, ostracizing, discriminating, organizing, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
I suppose we should stop breeding with healthy, intelligent and statuesque partners. After all, our offspring might turn out smarter, healthier and more beautiful than those around them. For shame! I believe the term the author is confusing (via strawman) with genetic engineering is eugenics, similar in style to what Sweden, Germany, Denmark, America and a slew of other countries practiced (sterilization via coercion) during the 20th century.
“Rich, powerful people will use technology to make their kids smarter, they say. The poor and the disenfranchised, meanwhile, will become a kind of subhuman servant class, like the Yahoos in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.”
Go ahead and prevent me from working out daily (I run a 5:45 mile) and eating healthy. Force me to use rusty blades for shaving and some acidic composition for shampoo. Take away my toothbrush and toothpaste. Take away my deodorant and cologne. Burn all of my clean undergarments and seamless shoes. In short, remove anything and everything that benefits my physical appearance in some way.
After all, I might attract a pretty butterfly and create an even prettier caterpillar. It wouldn’t be egalitarian right? For shame!
Remember, “rich, powerful people” might send their kids to great non-crappy schools. They might also provide them with wonderful medical coverage and cosmetics to beautify their image. These children in turn will become smarter and take over the planet!
Therefore, I’m expecting each and every one of you to do your part in creating an uglier, smellier and dumber gene pool. Get to work.
April 22nd marks the 10th anniversary for Mosaic, the original web browser. To usher in this special day in geekdom, News.com put together a multi-part series discussing, describing and otherwise reflecting upon the bumpy twisted road of browser evolution.
If you’re really bored and/or adventurous, test drive Mosaic — grab it here (and tell me what you think). Notice what you can and cannot view, where images are rendered (if they’re rendered at all) and ponder the advances in browserdom.
I switched from Netscape to IE around the time Netscape 4.5 came out, probably late ‘98. I’m currently using IE 6.0, but am eyeing Mozilla once more.
I’ve also used Opera, which at the time was hyped much like Be was. The friends of mine that use it still enjoy it, but many of the features (like tabbed browsing) have found their way into Mozilla (or Phoenix or Firebird or Sabado Gigante or whatever they’ll call it next month). Additionally, Opera, like many commercial developers, is on the losing end of the open-source battle. Even though they do a great job of integrating W3C standards into their browser, all of the neat bells and whistles can be copied into Mozilla (or Safari) in a matter of weeks (assuming you have 3 Russian programmers).
Although they are not as dependent on selling the browser as Netscape was, switching to a services and support model as MySQL AB and Red Hat have popularized, could lengthen their lifespan as a company.
Oh, and if you really want to play around, try out Lynx, it’s the text-based browser.
Years ago, many of my friends played a CCG called Magic: The Gathering. While it’s not quite Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) it does have flare and genre that the infamous Role Playing Game (RPG) has (I played for 3 hours and was slain by an elf!).
I actually didn’t play much M:TG, I was more of a Star Wars CCG buff. But that was an expensive hobby for a high school kid with no steady job. Plus, most of the people you play with at competitions are the types that should not be allowed outside.
This past winter a friend introduced me to a card game with a twist, called Munchkin. It’s a Free-For All (though alliances do occur, especially with ones girlfriend) designed for 6-8 players. Here are a few examples of what the cards look like.
My original intention was for Collectrix to actually be an eBay for these sorts of games. PlayerAuctions.com has proven that you can make oodles of money buying and selling characters for games like EverQuest and Dark Age of Camelot. And this is where my story begins to mesh with a Slashdot post.
I found out that many distributors and whole-sellers do not like individuals and companies that buy and sell CCGs online. Their Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) is reminiscent of the RIAA and MPAA, fortunately they aren’t as conniving as the two said lobbyists are.
I contacted Mr. Jackson to find out the various channels of sellers and distributors I should use and his reply was very surprising, he did not wish to assist me and made it clear that the creators of CCGs do not care much for individuals such as myself (we lower the prices, act competitively and figure out ways to make oodles of ducats, none of which are sent to him). Actually, the more cards I sell, the more I have to buy, the more money he makes, the bigger smile he’ll have (in theory).
Two of my old high school buddies work for a dotcom and also operate an online retailer for CCGs like Yugioh (it’s like Dragonball Z which is like Transformers was for my age group). They also found that many companies, both distributors and creators refused to do business with them (”it hurts the experience of the buyer”). They pointed me to the direction of a fellow who knew the ins and outs of purchasing large quantities of these sorts of games and I was this close to starting that operation. I even got a dozen or so friends to pool their monies together so that we could buy in bulk (margins were going to be 50-75%).
After a couple weeks of tinkering with the idea, both the energy and motivation basically stopped - and as you can see, Collectrix does nothing that I had originally intended.
Anyways, I noticed at Slashdot, this post regarding War Hammer (another quasi-RPG). It appears the parent company for War Hammer will “refuse to distribute their product to retailers who sell over the internet after July 1.” One of the reasons is the ultimate cop-out (yes, I can lambaste them if I so choose) is that showing pictures of the figurines violates their “intellectual property.” While I’m no Statist lawyer, this is an asinine claim - to wit:
“Don’t show off our products to potential buyers, we don’t care for your kind in the first place because [insert fallacious reasons here].”
The parent company does not own anything and everything monetarily connected to the War Hammer name. If they do, then I guess all of you owe them some sort of royalties because you might one day profit off the knowledge and musings provided and transcended by moi (of course, they operate with a double-standard, as I doubt they would complain if/when those selling their games online lost money — do these resellers then get to demand compensation?).
It’s one of the reasons M:TG and D&D are dying off, many of the people you have to deal with (in card shops) are anti-social and use strong-arm tactics (you aren’t winning any fans that way) for their own job security. And yes, I am referring to the archetype portrayed in The Simpsons known as: The Comic Book Guy.
Go outside already!
