Culture
-
Alignment in Role-Playing Games
I can never get into playing evil characters in RPGs. I thought about why this is today. My conception of the terms goes something like the following.
-
Charles Stross on EBooks
Tags: Developer ToolsI just read a nice essay by science fiction author Charles Stross about EBooks. As usual, he presents a very lucid and entertaining look into the world of publishing.
-
Saint George
I mentioned in email that I was giving my $.02 and my friend Max said he would give me his $.02 the next time he was in town. Of course, that’s 53 kopeks for him. That would be a brass penny-sized coin, and 3 silver coins smaller than a dime. I looked for good images on the web, but didn’t find any with a few minutes of searching. All the coins have an image on the back of a guy on horseback leaping over a small squiggle on the ground. (Did I say these coins were kind of small?) It looks like a snake, but it’s got a big blob around his middle. I decided to figure out what it was, so I started googling. First I found a page mentioning new Russian coins with coats of arms for different regions. One of the coins showed the image I was looking for. So then I searched for Russian coats of arms for different regions. I found the Coat of Arms for Moscow. That told me it was Saint George (I’m sure many of you knew this from the beginning….) Then I found the page for Saint George, with another similar image. Douglas was peeking over my shoulder for part of this research, but he wasn’t much help. If someone had told me it was Saint George, I would have known it was a dragon on the ground. There you have it. If you’re wandering through Sun’s Menlo Park Campus (Building 16, third floor) the coins are on my keyboard. They will probably be there for a while given the current state of clutter in my office.
-
Most detailed movable robot sculpture
These pictures completely blew me away. I want one, but someone on digg said this robot went for $37,000. Robot Sculpture.
-
accelerando
I’ve been reading a book called Accelerando by Stross. It’s a great book. Well I think the first third is better than the rest, but by that time you are hooked. Legislatosaurus. Heh. And he uses my favorite word in the book: retcon
