February 2005 - Page 5 of 6

Dollars for Dungeons

The idea of online economies has fascinated me. You put together an online multiplayer RPG, and economic forces are soon to follow. Trade, inflation, the works. People start selling in-game goods at places like eBay. Some even manage to make a living at it. Most games frown on this type of activity, and explicitly ban sale of in-game goods for real world money.

Cnet has an article about two such games called Entropia and Second Life, among the first to actively embrace their in-game/real world economy.

I’m not sure why these mini economies are so interesting to me. Maybe because they’re a microcosm; you can watch forces which are slow in the real world play themselves out on a manageable time scale.

Such a Breeze

Google Maps debuted today, and has a very excellent interface.

Interestingly, it even displays the route of the ferry across Lake Ontario between Toronto and Rochester. Known as “The Breeze”, it went out of business last year just eighty-something days after opening. But that’s a rant for another time. I’m just surprised a map would list that route even if the ferry were in operation.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour

I rented Call of Duty: Finest Hour over the weekend.

Great fun, but once again really only worth a rental.

The single player game has amazingly detailed and vast levels. I’ve played a bunch of World War II first person shooters, and this is the first that (at points at least) made me feel like I’m in the trenches, like I can understand a small portion of being in that situation. This is particularly true in the first few levels in the game, defending Stalingrad.

I haven’t beaten the American portion of the campaign yet, but the Russian missions took me just a few hours, and the British missions even less. I suppose its the quality/quantity trade-off in effect once again.

I also have yet to give the Xbox Live portion a whirl, but I doubt I have the skills to enjoy it very much.

This game was really the last on my Xbox ‘to play’ list, so I’ll probably be taking some time off from anything new for the forseeable future.

Computers in Libraries 2k5 (again)

CIL 2005 has a 50% student discount! Still expensive (~$200), but suddenly in the splurge realm of expensive rather than the impossible realm.

My brain’s wheels are spinning…

I got my first ever chain letter in the mail today, to my address but labeled for ‘Ashley’. I’m on the strangest mailing lists.

It’s 58 degrees out and I’m having a most excellent day!

Gmail going live?

Logged into my Gmail account today and noticed I have 50 invites to give out now. Interestingly, my other account (which I give out to lists likely to spam me and such) still only has 6.

The emergence of the 50 invites makes me wonder if Gmail is getting closer to leaving beta. Though there are so many invites out there now that anyone who wants an account can probably find one, beta or not.

If anyone does want an invite, just ask.

Random thing learned this morning: Tiger Woods’ real first name is Eldrick.

Computers in Libraries 2k5 redux

I mentioned before my interest in going to the Computers in Libraries conference next month in DC. Funding the journey was the issue. Well now my parents have generously offered to pay the travel expenses, which brings the trip into the realm of possibility!

Next step: figuring out if any sort of student discount exists, and making sure I wouldn’t miss anything too important in classes. Unfortunately it misses spring break by a week.

Crossing my fingers! The events/speakers sound right up my alley.

Know anything?

I was talking to my Dad today and he’s interested in adding a DVR to his entertainment system, but doesn’t want to pay a subscription fee to Time Warner or Tivo or something similar.

Does anybody know anything about stand-alone options that have no monthly fee? I know there’s media center PCs and such, but that’d be overkill (and too expensive). And of course you can always build your own, but that’s a bit beyond my abilities.

Spambusters

Yesterday I started getting hammered by comment spam here. To combat it, I’ve instituted a random text generator. When you comment from now on, you simply copy the chracters you see in the image into the box next to it. Automated spambots can’t do this, and thus can’t post comments.

Note that if you mis-type the code, your comment will be lost.

A bit of a pain, yes. I hope you’ll bear with me.

Musings

I find myself drifting back towards making personal entries rather than ‘content’ once again. Should I keep that kind of stuff separated and elsewhere? Vote with a comment if you like.

On a cool note, today someone else added this site as a del.icio.us bookmark! Thanks smashbot, it makes me feel important.

5 Star Laundromat

I was doing my laundry this morning down the street at the laundromat, appropriately enough.

Walked in around 10:30, and there was a guy asleep on one of the folding counters. Strange, I thought, perhaps a homeless man looking for shelter from the cold. He wasn’t in my way, so I went about my business. Shortly before 11, he woke up.

This was not a homeless man; this was a hopelessly lost drunk frat boy. Yes, he was still drunk at 11 a.m., and had no idea what time it was or where he was.

He stumbled around, asking incoherent questions of the ladies emptying the change from the washers, who happened to be near him. He fumbled with his CD player, gave up trying to plug in the headphones or push buttons, and wandered out the door. There, the sunlight almost knocked him down. I looked where he’d been sleeping later, and it seems he was using a plastic bag containing other plastic bags as a pillow. I also noticed as he left that he inexplicably was carrying a spindle of blank CDs.

The change ladies and I looked at each other, shrugged, and went back to what we were doing.

Oh, my wacky neighborhood.