is back!

Well, at least <a target="_blank" href="http://www.warehouse23.com/basement/">the Warehouse 23 Basement</a> is back. And, frankly, that's all that matters. It's loads of fun, especially if you're a gamer. Or, and Indian Jones fan, oddly enough. It's acutally based on that huge warehouse at the end of <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i>. Who knows, you might even find the lost Ark of the Covenant!

And, yes, once again, this first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek">my other blog</a> las week. What can I say? I'm strapped for material!
Anyway, it's Friday, so go have fun!

Speaking of drugs...

Okay, no, it's not the crazy hydroponics ads from High Times! Though, it's pretty close. According to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63603,00.html?tw=wn_story_p… article on Wired News</a>, there's an underground garden in Indiana somewhere that's going to let researchers grow their pharmacologically enhanced plants without worring about contaminating the general populace. First, I think it's a good idea to isolate the plants being tested. We have no idea what might happen if these things get loose in the wild, and I'd rather not find out. Second, I also think it's great that someone has found a way to keep the research going, because it's important.

Anyway, it's a great article, so check it out.

I finished <a target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/051513175X/fantasistnet">The Descent</a> by Jeff Long the other day.

I liked it!
It's actually in the Horror section of the bookstore, but I didn't really feel the horror aspect of it that much. In a nutshell, mankind discovers an extensive system of natural tunnels under the Earth and they're inhabited. The inhabitants aren't all that friendly. Mayhem ensues.
There are actually some interesting plot twists along the way, but it's pretty much some straight-on adventure fiction. Not the highest quality, but pretty good. And, most importantly, fun.

"Evercrack", indeed!

I rarely make social commentary on this blog, but in this case, I'll make an exception. <a target="_blnak" href="http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,63578,00.html?tw=wn_story_page_p… News ran an article</a> recently about on-line game players and addiction. It seems that there are a number of games that include character boosting "drugs" that players can use to get more points in their respective games. These drugs work like real drugs, with side-effects. Like, for instance, they give you the boost, but eventually require higher doses. Eventually, requiring doses so high that they can kill your character. But, even knowing this, people still use them.

Wow. What does this say about our society? First, it's interesting that the game designers would put drugs into the game. Especially drugs that have consequences. Second, that people who <i>know</i> better, or should know better, still use them speaks to something fundamentally flawed in our society. Has life become so cheap? Even virtual life? What's next?
More importantly, how many good stories are there in the discussion of what this all means and what might be coming? Go, write them. Make us think!

"He's go the whole blog, in his hands!"

My darling wife sent me a link to the <a target="_blank" href="http://brainoff.com/geoblog/">World as a Blog</a>, which is as fun a site as I've seen. It shows you a map of the world and, as registered blogs update, it pops up those updates in little windows! How cool!
So, if you sit and watch, you can see what bloggers all around the world are posting about. In real time! I haven't signed up for this, yet, but you can bet I will!

Yes, this appeared on <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/">my other blog</a> last week.
Now, it's Friday, go have fun!

Okay, this is kind of self-referential, but...

According to <a target="_blank" href="http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9582759%5E15318%5E%5Enb… article on AustralianIT</a>, the fine people who make the Opera web browser, are making a <i><b>blog browser</i></b>. Sort of an interesting idea, I thought, considering how popular blogs are getting these days.
But, when I read the details it turns out that what they're doing is incorporating Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, into their web browser so that users can have new items from blog RSS feeds that they subscribe to come in as individual messages in Opera's mail client, which is packaged with the browser. Which is still not a bad idea. Interesting article, anyway.

(And, yes, this first appeared at <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ryumaou.com/hoffman/netgeek/">my other blog</a>!)

I finished <a target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521588057/fantasistnet">Describ… Morphosyntax : A Guide for Field Linguists</a> this week.

I wish I could reccomend it whole-heartily and without reservation, but I just can't. First, it is a <i>very</i> techinical book. When this book was reccomended to me, it was with the idea of learning various aspects of language so that I could create a more realistic conlang. And, it will do that, I have to admit, but it will help me as a reference book. So, imagine reading a dictionary of linguistic terms with some examples, primarily in languages that you've never heard of before. (Well, okay, that part is actually cool. Some of those languages were really interesting!) Not the easiest thing to read.
Second, it reads like a textbook, which, of course, it is. At least, of a sort. The author intended this to be a guide for amatuer linguists in the field trying to save dying languages. And, I'm sure it serves that purpose quite well, if those linguists have a fair amount of linguistic study under their belt already. This is definately <b><i>not</i></b> for the first time linguistic reader. I have read several books on linguistics and I still found myself overwhelmed more than once.

So, while it was certainly a challenge for me to get through, I will absolutely refer back to sections of this book while working on conlangs. It really presents information and ideas that no other book on linguistics seems to touch. A little dry at times, but worth the effort.
In short, <a target="_blank" HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521588057/fantasistnet">Describ… Morphosyntax</a> is not for the begginer, but the dedicated amatuer linguist or conlanger (conlinguist?).

Now, this strikes me as really interesting.

The estate of author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Arthur Conan Doyle went up for sale recently. Mainly it was a lot of his story notes and personal papers. For a biographer, or publisher, it could be a really big deal to get, but it's a fairly specialized area of interest.
What really struck me about <a target="_blank" href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4981210/">the article on MSNBC</a> was the "mysterious death" of one of the people associated with the sale. Apparently, he was quite an afficiando of all things Conan Doyle, and wanted the papers to stay together and available to the public for research. He was found strangled and surrounded by stuffed animals. The death, however, was ruled a suicide. Sounds like a Sherlockian mystery if I ever heard one!

A different kind of fun...

Once I remember reading that William Gibson said that he didn't need to make up science-fiction, he just had to describe down-town Tokyo, or something to that effect. Well, imagine my excitement then, when I found this <a target="_blank" href="http://www2.gol.com/users/york/weblog/blogger.html">Tokyo MoBlog</a>! (A moblog, by the way, is a MObile weBLOG, get it?) So, here's a whole bunch of inspiration for science-ficiton: random pictures of Tokyo.

All joking aside, some of these are really lovely pictures of a city that I may never visit. Tokyo, and Japan, is as close to an alien society as a Westerner like me can get in our lifetime. It's as alien to me as anything in Star Wars, but it's right here on Earth.

Anyway, have fun with the pictures....

Desgined to kill it's own kind...

According to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,63441,00.html">this article on Wired News</a>, two scientists have engineered a virus that attacks HIV and keeps it from becoming AIDS. It's still in the test stages, but it works in a petri dish. Their next step is animal testing.
Apparently, they came up with this nasty, little bug, or anti-bug, with a computer simulation. Though, I have to admit, that seems like an enourmous simplification. Anyway, it's an interesting development in science and medicine. Imagine a series of designer "killer" virii designed to hunt down other "bad" virii. Think of what that kind of technology could do in the Third World.
But, the scientists who came up with this have already thought of the potential down-side, too. Imagine what this technology would do for the military. Or, worse, terrorists. The implications are, well, terrifying.

On the bright side, though, think of all the science-fiction plots!