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No blinking     Wednesday, May 25, 2005
This camera takes a series of photos and discards the ones where you're blinking. My first though was "I could so use this!" You see, I have the uncanny power to beat a flash. It's my superpower. But on second thought, the camera system would be limited by the number of photos you can take in 0.5 seconds, just like the rapid-snap feature I already have. If you're using a flash, I don't think you could snap enough photos. I'll put this one in my believe-it-when-I-see-it file, beside all the flying cars.

Ubuntu     Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Ubuntu is the "I want to buy the world a Coke" of Linux distributions, and I'm linking them for no reason except that I really like their web page and the promises they make to users on it. If you ever wanted to try Linux, you can download a free Live CD, which lets you see what Ubuntu is like without changing a thing on your Windows computer. (It boots straight off the CD.) They'll even mail you a CD for free. Check the screenshots.

Lord of the Rings in the Shuswap     Monday, May 16, 2005
A session report about a surprising twist in a game of the Lord of the Rings. Don't be put off by the intro -- the misadventure is not simply playing with someone who doesn't like Fatty.

British Navy Rules (pdf document)     Monday, May 16, 2005
Facinating essay on how British Navy rules in the Age of Sail led ship captains to further the empire's interests, even when it meant extra risk to themselves.

Loot     Wednesday, May 11, 2005
My mom brought out a box of childhood treasures when she visited, including a Pirates of the Caribbean musket and an A-Team boomerang. Ghost pirates versus the A-Team -- who would win? Need we really ask?

Spore     Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Will Wright has a new toybox game in the works, where you start as a microorganism and evolve into a civilization with galactic explorers. You build your creatures with a 3D editor and the game's engine decides how they should move and interact with the world. Dear bank, please give Will whatever money he needs. You can come here and shake me upside-down to empty my pockets if necessary, just like last week. Sincerely, Tim.

Delete attachments from e-mail     Monday, April 18, 2005
An extension for the free e-mail client Thunderbird that lets you delete attachments on messages sent to you, while keeping the text. I've been wanting this for years, but could only find it in Outlook.

Lost works re-emerge     Sunday, April 17, 2005
New imaging technologies may increase the amount of surviving Greek and Roman writing by 20 percent by letting historians read a previously illegible cache, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Classicists hope and expect to find new material from Hesiod, Euripides and Sophocles.

Jo     Friday, April 15, 2005
My grandma died earlier this week, and her funeral was held today. They buried a bottle of Crown Royal with her, and I hope she has the chance to share a few glasses with friends.
        She called me bootsle my whole life. There were 64 crayons and a blue car in her apartment closet, and a paper parasol in her closet at the cottage. She worked at a bookie's once and would hide the receipts in her bra. She read thick paperbacks, until her eyes faltered, and then listened to audiobooks, until her thoughts faltered too. I was named for her husband, and she spoke of him often. She was a shark at Euchre, a quarter a point, and would warn you against fishing if your eyes brushed a dictionary in Scrabble. The day after this photo was taken, my grandma fell and her health never found its way back home. My daughter's middle name is Josephine, and the name comes from Jo, my grandma.Grandma and Tim

Clearcuts from the sky     Friday, April 15, 2005
Satellite photos of BC's clearcuts. They look like D&D dungeon maps.

Avoid Francis Jewellers in Victoria     Wednesday, April 13, 2005
No link, just a story. I took my dad's watch to Francis Jewellers in Victoria because the second hand had fallen off. They repaired it, but the hand fell off again just one day later. So, sigh, back to the jewellers. To my astonishment, they would not take the watch back or refund the money. They did offer to have another crack at the watch if I would pay twice the original repair price -- and this time, chum, they'd guarantee their work! I managed to resist this offer. When I grumbled to my coworkers, I learned I wasn't the only one to have had repairs from there that broke days later. An intriguing business model for a jeweller. Anyway, I just wanted to throw this morsel into Google for any curious diamond ring shoppers: Francis Jewellers in Victoria gave me shoddy and unreliable service. Hurry and you could be next!

"There aren't supposed to be any islands here..."     Monday, April 4, 2005
Cory has the perfect take on these artificial private islands arranged in the shape of a world map. ("Before I kill you, Mister Bond, I want to share with you what it's like to have the vision ... of a god!") Personally, I kind of like living in a world where these crazy follies are built, even if only rock stars inhabit them.

Bus Packets     Thursday, March 31, 2005
A clever but apparently doomed way of bringing the Internet to rural India. In 2002, engineers planned to place wireless access points on buses. When the bus came to your town, you'd have a short window in which to download your e-mail, snipe Star Trek memorabilia on eBay, take your turn in Wallenstein, or whatever. The buses themselves would pass the packets to other buses within a kilometre, until they reach a bus near an Internet access point in the city.
     However, I can't find a trace of this project after the 2002 press release, so I have to think it fizzled. The technology was proprietary, which is always a good way to vanish into history.

Muppet Show coming to DVD!     Thursday, March 31, 2005
The most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational TV show of my youth.

MBA in a minute     Thursday, March 31, 2005
Daniel Davies uses principles from his MBA program to explain why he was skeptical about the Iraq war. He also proposes a book: "Everything I Know I Learned At A Very Expensive University."

Transparent screens     Thursday, March 24, 2005
An eerie desktop wallpaper trick. Found through BoingBoing.

Woeful chart     Wednesday, March 23, 2005
I have tried to avoid the grim and cynical Schiavo story about a woman in a vegetative state, but this infographic from CNN is a textbook example of how to lie with charts. The data shows an 8 point difference, not too big (with a 7 point margin of error, no less). But click the link to see what 8 percent looks like on the chart.
        And while I've got this can of worms open, I should note that when I was in school the debate was "is starving someone in a vegetative state more ethical than euthanizing her?" But that question seems far off the table now. (And I know, you might want to say "a body" rather than "someone." Tricksy words.)

Manna     Monday, March 21, 2005
Marshall Brain, who is not a superintelligent sheriff from the future but is still an interesting guy, wrote a speculative story about managerial software that monitors a fast food restaurant and gives step-by-step instructions to minimum wage employees. (I'd stop after chapter 2. The rest of the story is about the dangers and opportunities of a pervasive robot workforce, a topic covered better by other stories.) Brain has also written a short essay on making wholesale prices part of mandatory labelling and has a weblog about what future people will think was so sad about our lives. (Something I've been meaning to write a story about for years.)

Marketing independent games     Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Greg Costikyan, who will always be the designer of Toon in my mind but who consults on computer games these days, unleashed a rant about how skyrocketing budgets will squish innovation in mainstream gaming and how people who love games will need to become independents. It was a funny rant, but people called him on it, saying "sure, okay, but how?" He throws out four ideas here, the start of a conversation.

Spiderbot     Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Time to update the Christmas list.

Coppertwaddle     Thursday, March 10, 2005
"Coppertwaddle is a two-person card game themed to mimic Victorian-era parlor games. The publisher, Surprised Stare Games, has created an entire imaginary history to the game, inventing societies and players who supposedly flourished and refined the game throughout the middle ages, renaissance, and age of enlightenment. The fake Society of Coppertwaddlers has published several folios, or sets of the rules. The current rules follow the 15th Folio." -- from the review by Caleb Diffell. The game itself doesn't seize me, but I love the theming, "an hundred buttons," and imaginary histories of any sort.

I left a kleenex on the cosleeper     Wednesday, March 9, 2005
Bah! eBay just cancelled one of my first auctions ever, because I used the word "cosleeper" when describing a baby bed. Apparently, it's a registered trademark. Pardon me while I dilute this worthy trademark through the wonderful freedoms of individual speech. "Heavens! Is that a cosleeper you have constructed by hand and not purchased from an American company?" "All baby beds that let you sleep beside your infant are called cosleepers," said the imaginary blue fairy. "Our baby loves her cosleeper, which is made from animal fur and lead paint."

Spielboy     Tuesday, March 8, 2005
Video game writing is almost always seasoned with irreverent bad boy smirks and in-the-know allusions, but this is the first board game writing I've seen that tries that path. Two articles that caught my eye: Do I Offend about amusing or alarming cultural differences in board games and Triangular Numbers which includes "fun facts about triangular numbers" and "dull facts about triangular numbers." There's also a promising series of factoids ("Rejected Puerto Rico Roles") at the bottom of the archive page but they won't come up in my browser.

My Little Golden Book about ZOGG     Monday, March 7, 2005
Skip all the teeny print about how buddy came up with the idea and just keep hitting Next. By the way, this book has nothing to do with the Zionist Occupation Government. That's a whole other Little Golden Book.

The 10X Dominator     Monday, March 7, 2005
A flashlight so bright it can be used in self-defense. The full package is US$500. I would kind of like to walk the East Sooke Park trails at night with this. Take Back the Night from cougars! Found through this fibiger post on niche market review sites.

I would like a painting of two robot dogs please     Thursday, March 3, 2005
Wah! I had this painting in a book of science fiction art. It was a gift from an aunt, and I found it a strange choice. Although I did read science fiction, I was young enough that didn't connect the genre to Gernsbackian pulp. However, I was old enough to appreciate a gold foil space bikini.

Self-publishing through Amazon     Monday, February 28, 2005
How to get your self-published book or disc on Amazon. I'd heard it was straightforward, and friends at the local vanity house do it for their customers already, but here's how to do it yourself. Oh, and here's an Ask Metafilter thread about self-publishing. I'm actually not looking to self-publish. It just seems like we should have the technology to do this well by now.

Railroads of Catan     Wednesday, February 23, 2005
A new game, loosely based on Age of Steam, played using the Settlers of Catan board and pieces.

Mild form of Asperger's     Monday, February 21, 2005
Over the past year, I've seen an epidemic of self-diagnosed Asperger's syndrome sweep the geekosphere. This Slashdotter echoes my suspicions.

The Thumbs of Fate     Sunday, February 20, 2005
"Hey look, it's Roger Ebert." "No! Is that really him? What's he doing here?" "I don't know, but that's him." "Wait a minute, what the fuck is he doing with his hands?"

P500 program     Wednesday, February 16, 2005
GMT Games has put a cardboard version of the Street Performer Protocol into practice. They preview a variety of proposed games, accept pre-orders at a 30 percent discount, and if pre-orders top 500, then they put the game into production and charge the credit cards. They publish historical wargames, not my cup of honeyed mead, but interesting to see all the same. (I know the SPP is actually for copyable digital works. Stop bugging me or I'll throw my dragoons at you.)

Poker, Puerto Rico, and bad luck     Monday, February 14, 2005
The Tao of Gaming suggests poker and Puerto Rico are popular partly because they fall in a flattering sweet spot between skill and luck. When you win, it's skill. When you lose, it just wasn't your night.
     Now, while I'm fond of this idea as a design principle, I don't actually buy it for Puerto Rico. I'm constantly bemoaning my stupid plays in that game, or worse, my tendency to make the same stupid play over and again. (More coffee into the sea!) But this moaning is probably vanity on my part. You rabble didn't beat me, I beat myself.

Rock 'n' Rule     Saturday, February 12, 2005
The restored two-disc version of Rock 'n' Rule is piping hot and ready to come out of the oven.

Geeklists     Tuesday, February 8, 2005
A few Board Game geeklists for my future reference. Games you can make at home. Games you can download. Bruno Faidutti's ideal library organized by type.

Robot Battle     Monday, February 7, 2005
I always thought it might be fun to play a computer game where instead of issuing orders directly to units, you gave them rules ahead of time and watched the emergent results. But now that someone has actually offered such a game for free, I'm hesitant to download it. Programming robots seems a lot like work. Not that I program robots for a living. But I have a secret robot army, and that's enough for me.
     Also, in my imaginary game, I thought you would continue to add new creatures or tweak the environment as the game progressed, so that you weren't simply an observer. Either that or, rather than watch real time, you would simply check on your creatures' spread each day on a web page.
     Come to think of it, I seem to remember linking to something like that before. Google google. Ah, here we go. It was called Technosphere. My creatures, Radio Free Yogurt and Amazing Salamander Twist, died still wet from the egg. This was back in 1999! Mooselessness, like me, is old.

Board games, some online, some not     Friday, February 4, 2005

  • I've been sneaking time each day after work to play Ticket to Ride online with my mom in Ontario. Ticket to Ride is my latest gateway game, hooking unsuspecting family members and runaways into the board game world. Improvements over the board game: automatic scoring and shuffling; your cat can't destroy the continent's rail infrastructure. My one complaint is that they boot you back into the lobby 60 seconds after the game ends, so there's little time for a postgame wrap-up. Anyone can play online, but only game owners can start a game.
  • Ticket to Ride Europe is coming out in cardboard soon. Sounds like a version 2, a refinement, which is always frustrating to us version 1 owners. However, working in transportation myself, I love that in this game you never know how much a tunnel will cost until you dig.
  • I've already e-mailed everyone I know about Sea3D, but any Settlers of Catan fans who have escaped me should take a peek at this impressive free adaptation. It allows online or hotseat play.
  • Knizia's Lord of the Rings: Confrontation is as good as everyone insists. A stratego-like game with only sixteen spaces, it's fast, tense and cleverly designed. Fly, you fools.

VLC     Friday, February 4, 2005
The worst geegaw-encrusted interfaces belong to commercial software DVD players. The player that came with my wife's laptop goes the extra mile and refuses to play DVDs when connected to a TV. In the process, it forces a resolution shift which rearranges your desktop icons. It would stick gum under the table if it could.
     I finally realized free software folks wouldn't put up with this bumpf and there had to be a libre player that did things right. And there is: VLC. It has a simple interface, skinnable if you like. It plays DVDs without a fuss and even plays .cue files, an unexpected bonus. Lesson: always pick the GPL tool. It won't bother you with shimmery tricks. Instead, it will work.

Getting started with database-driven web sites     Wednesday, February 2, 2005
I love it when Slashdot covers a topic I've been meaning to look into, not only for the original article, but for the precious dozens of outraged followup posts saying "Are you mad? There's a much better way to do it!" Also, Grum, go learn this programming language and report back to me. You have 24 hours or we sink London into the sea. (London, Ontario.) Update: By popular demand, London has been submerged. Wiarton will now be the new London.

It's cooooold out there today     Wednesday, February 2, 2005
I started today by saying "Okay campers, rise and shine," and even broke out Groundhog Day on my wife's laptop over breakfast. But Slacktivist puts his heart into it, gathering together thoughts on why the movie grows on people and even captures spiritual principles, my favourite being, fake it 'til you make it.

The cushion solution     Thursday, January 20, 2005
Browsing gameblogs, I find some fascinating off-topic posts, and for some reason, they're usually about childrearing. This one is about calming a fidgety child by giving her a cushion.

Battle Lessons     Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Spooned into the middle of this article on the changes facing the U.S. army is a fascinating description of web sites where captains and lieutenants can exchange tips on how to keep their soldiers alive and effective. The web sites are private, but the article shares many of these tricks of the army trade from how to spot new types of insurgent boobytraps to what candy survives best in the heat.

Royal Photographic Society of Azeroth     Wednesday, January 12, 2005
World of Warcraft is my absolutely favourite game that I don't own or play. When I experimented with the beta, chasing monsters and gathering loot was amusing, but taking gorgeous screenshots was my real career. So I'm glad to see the official site sponsor screenshot competitions, throwing out themes and hosting winners, under the name Royal Photographic Society of Azeroth. Here are a few favourites from their call for dangerous stunts: head in a lizard, mossy giant, Joan of Arc, lonely tree branch, awkward perch, and this one, which was captioned "it stops hurting after a while."

Christopher Mulrooney likes to watch     Thursday, January 6, 2005
Suppose you lived forever, outside time, and wanted to play an elaborate prank on the doomed fleshy manthings and their pretensions. Exactly. You'd write IMDb reviews. Christopher Mulrooney has written 1068 of them. All arcane, and as far as I can tell, all admiring, dismissive only of the critics who can't recognize a leap of the mind like Red Dawn. Here's a note from his Last Starfighter review linked above: "Alex wears a white undershirt, plaid shirt and jeans. This is not, however, a mechanical application such as you find among the faux Cockneys of Masterpiece Theatre, but a genuine evocation of rural California that startles the town mouse at first glance." Other collections of film and literary critiques by CM: 1, 2, 3. Christopher also writes online poetry, which I avoided.

Age of Empires III     Wednesday, January 5, 2005
So they're preparing to release Age of Empires III. A few unconnected thoughts.

  • The screenshots are irrestibably luscious, but like every RTS screenshot these days they're zoomed in to a level that would be useless in a real game. Getting that close to the action would be like marvelling at the stitching on the soccer ball.
  • The game covers the colonization of the New World, which Ensemble oldtimers Street and Pottinger note, lets them stick with the AoE standards of exploring fogged maps, building settlements from scratch, and encountering unknown civilizations. The thing is, although I love the New World setting generally, I'm not sure I'll find it convincing to have conquistadors mining and inventing away in the New World, as though Spain didn't exist. But maybe Ensemble will surprise me.
  • The Age of Empires games teach the same lesson as St. Petersburg: minute differences in initial investments can have devestating consequences to your resources later on.
  • Ensemble love their cliffs.
  • I'd like to see a Half Life random map.
  • My Christmas scenario for AoE 2 was dragged out of the attic like a dusty angel as recently as a year ago. (Scroll down to Christmas Morning by Yogurt.) They called it a holiday tradition. Sniff, that's sweet.
  • Gosh, that's nice looking snow.

The Long Tail     Wednesday, January 5, 2005
For a few months, I'd been feeling like I'd a missed a class in weblog-ology. Everyone was mentioning The Long Tail without explanation, as though it were a common everyday term like cluetrain or googlebomb or hampsterdance. But I was never entirely sure what people were referring to. Monkeys probably. Even the Long Tail guy's weblog called the Long Tail wouldn't say.* That's how cool this reference was. "No soap radio" cool. I finally realized it was a Wired article, and you know, all the mavens were right, it's quite good. The article is about how every creative work has someone to love it, and if you can figure out a way to sell the work on the fringes, there's a lot of money to be made. (Hint: the answer in Wired involves computers.)
        *Okay, the Long Tail guy would say, but you had to press "About" and then press the word "this" and then let the thief steal the locked egg, so obviously I couldn't figure it out.

Home Hacking     Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Ah, the return of another old passion, poaching links from BoingBoing. This O'Reilly guide focuses on wireless tricks around the home. I'm saving it here because I once thought it would be nifty to use a wireless cam as a baby monitor. The online sample includes a guide to monitoring your cat with a motion detector when you're away. (Related topic: Still no catfinder from Woz, I see.)

Parle-G biscuits     Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Santa put these biscuits in my wife's Christmas stocking because he liked the cute Indian girl on the package and because they cost 33 cents. Santa can spot a bargain. It turns out that, according to their manufacturer, Parle-G biscuits are the best-selling biscuit in the world and also make your children smarter. My review: they are amazing dipped in coffee. They don't break apart or leave sodden crumbs in your mug, but your tongue will let you know that the cookie has in fact dissolved into a platonic lacework of sugar. Where does the rest of the cookie go? Don't know. Coffee hyperspace. Close-up of the little package girl here.
     Update: My wife observes I overlooked many wonderfully over-the-top parts of the official Parle-G site. There are the Hindi commercials down the right side; their ambitious claim that the cookies provide "the vital vitamins and minerals necessary for all-round mental and physical development"; their more philosophical claim that "Parle-G means more than any other glucose biscuit." And their screensaver preview which advises that the actual screensaver is "larger and more entertaining."

Too Late for Christmas     Tuesday, January 4, 2005
These boots, I would wear.

BrettspielWelt     Monday, January 3, 2005
U.S. politics finally seems to be weakening its hold on me, leaving me free to return to an older passion: board games. BrettspielWelt is a German site that lets you play board games online against human opponents, for free. Their jawdropping stable of games includes Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, St. Petersburg, Lost Cities, Princes of Florence and Dvonn, just to pick a few that I have in my toy chest at home. They also have a number of others I've been meaning to try, such as Powergrid. All free.
    By default, the site is in German, but there's an English help site. I found the easiest way to get English menus was by downloading the Java client and changing the included .prop file to say Nation=en. (You can also set many other settings with the generator on this page.)

Canadian Tire contest     Sunday, December 19, 2004
Canadian Tire has a gift registry! To promote it, they're running a contest that lets you win the value of your registry, up to $5000. (Until Dec. 24, 2004.) Hooray, play shopping! Hmm, a new barbeque, GPS, GMRS, snowshoes for the two days it snows here, and another set for the wife, a canoe, a paddle boat, waffle maker, another one for the wife... They actually just give you a gift card for the value of your registry, so if you want, you can simply put 100 life jackets on there. (But if you do, you'd better hope I'm not coming to your wedding.)

That this too too solid flesh would melt     Wednesday, December 8, 2004
Back when the Mel Gibson version of Hamlet came out, my friend Joe said the worst part was that someone would now make Hamlet 2.

Jesusland     Wednesday, November 3, 2004
There are many contemplative, hopeful and committed notes on the Web today from disappointed Kerry supporters. However, this cheerfully bitter rant from Ken Layne made me feel much better than any of them.

Anna Arrives     Thursday, October 7, 2004
And you thought I didn't update often before.
Anna Josephine

Previously on Mooselessness     Thursday, October 7, 2004
I started eyeing camcorders and reflected on why I was so totally wrong about Iraq. Or you can visit the full archives.



Mooselessness is written by Tim Mitchell of Sooke, British Columbia, Canada.