Follow this link, courtesy of Christine Bennett, and you will see what can be done with a My Little Pony.
Online [PC/Video] Gaming: An Industry Name Finally “Gets†It
From this article at Reuters:
The new platforms are expected to offset what Florin [Gerhard Florin, Electronic Arts’ head of European publishing] sees as a disappointing early start for online gaming. The prospect of amassing a core of gamers who pay a monthly subscription to battle other global combatants on the Internet has yet to take off.
Florin attributed the slow take-up to a nagging fear that a gamer could be humiliated in challenging an unknown foe.
“We expected millions of people wanting to play the online games and we have found that, no, they don’t. There is a pretty easy reason. If you play tennis and you don’t know your opponent you are careful whether you should play against him. The same is true with online. If you go online you could be slaughtered or cheated,†he said.
Overcoming the social aspect of online gaming, he added, will hold back the market in the short term.
I think this is probably the most frustrating thing in online gaming. It is almost impossible to win (other than when I am playing with a known group of friends), because those who do game online tend to be those who spend far too much time gaming online. So it isn’t that one might be humiliated, it’s that one will be humiliated. Of course, years ago I was beaten at Command and Conquer by an eight-year-old. When one throws in “unsportsmanlike behavior‗everything from player-killers to abusive language—as well as lag time and trouble keeping a connection to many servers, the appeal of single-player games is obvious.
I do like to play against human opponents. My son John is very challenging, especially at WarCraft III, but our skills are near enough that I can beat him when I really work at it. When I play with Isaac and David we either team up against computer-AI-driven opponents or give them one or more computer partners to help balance things out (except in the Jedi Knight series, where David needs no help). Overall, though, it is rare that online gaming is very fulfilling to the average gamer.
Family Photos Have Arrived!
They’re unretouched, they’re great examples of how difficult it is to get six people to look good at the same instant of time, and they’re here, at the Wilcox Family Photo page.
Farewell to Connie Nordahl
 "One of Connie’s many cross-stitch projects. Click to enlarge.")
I am sorry to learn that Connie Nordahl passed on (as she would have said), on Sunday, September 5, 2004. Connie was the original owner of WordSmith, a transcription and typesetting service in South Weymouth, Massachusetts; as such, she was my first boss in Desktop Publishing. (Eventually, I bought out most of the business, which became WordSmith Digital Document Services.)
Working for Connie was very helpful to my computer career; indeed, working at WordSmith provided many skills and opportunities that became foundational to what I am doing today (Java programming and Web development). When I ever get around to my page to honor “people who have helped me in life,†Connie will have an important place.
A few weeks ago, I started writing an e-mail because I’d read my first book by P.D. James, one of her favorite authors. Unfortunately, I never finished and sent it. I will also miss having someone who always agreed with strict grammatical rules.
A memorial service will be held at the Lutheran House of Prayer in Hingham (916 Main St., Route 228), at 3:00 PM on Saturday, September 18, 2004.
Fahrenheit 9/11 Does Not Even Deserve the Dubious-Yet-Ubiquitous Description “Based on a True Storyâ€
See this article at Slate for an unusually detailed (for a Web article) look at the highly controversial leftist propaganda piece. Here is an excerpt:
To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.
… And I thought the end of the Cold War had also brought an end to the great age of propaganda!
What If They Opened a Highway, and Nobody Came?
Yesterday the slowpokes widening Route 3 announced the first section to have all three lanes (and two shoulders) opened, which was Route 3 northbound, between Drum Hill (Route 4) and the New Hampshire border.
I was very pleased, as I usually go home by driving up to Drum Hill through Chelmsford side roads to get onto Route 3, rather than trying to go through the four-lanes-becoming-two-lanes nightmare currently at the 495 interchange.
So, I got the e-mail notice yesterday, but discovered that almost no one was actually using the newly-opened right lane. I guess that most people did not know the lane was opened, and definitely did not know that it was open all the way to New Hampshire.
In a related effect, we have been waiting all summer for the paving to be finished over the railroad grade crossing in Nashua that is on our way to church in Litchfield. The grade crossing was in such a bad condition that any speed over about 1 MPH would virtually guarantee significant damage to one’s vehicle. Well, a few days ago, they finally finished the top coat paving, making the grade crossing passable for the first time in months. However, people are so conditioned to driving over it at extremely slow speeds, that they are still doing so.
John Makes the Soccer Team
Congratulations to John, who has been officially awarded a starting fullback position on Tabernacle Christian School’s soccer team.
John starts ninth grade on August 30. His good friend Jay Mavrogeorge did the appropriate arm-twisting, and succeeded indoing what we could not, getting John to try out for the team.
(I’d add w00t! but John would consider that too geeky.)
David Now Has His Own Web Site
It’s in development, but being documented as it is built. http://david.wilcoxfamily.net/ Part of the trouble was trying to explain to him what I can and cannot do on a Web site. He plays the Flash- and Shockwave-based games online quite often, and figured that I could just whip up one of my own in about half an hour. There is more detail on the site, including my commentary from his perspective. Enjoy.
Rats! We Missed a Tornado!
Sometime close to when we passed through Meredith, New Hampshire, as we were driving back from Moultonborough on Friday, a small tornado (which started as a waterspout) knocked over a few trees.
The Champlain Channel has the details, and even video of the tornado.
I wish I’d seen it.
I am assembling pictures of our Moultonborough trip at photos.wilcoxfamily.net
Nightmares
[doug][david]
Our son, David, is at the age where nightmares are common, and often wakes us up when he’s had a bad dream.
Sometimes as adults we forget how troubling a bad dream can be, as our nightmares (for most of us anyway) are very infrequent.
It has been a very stressful week. Work was busy, and worst of all, our station wagon died, leaving us with a 6-person family and a 5-passenger car. Last night I had a horrible dream, for which I am holding my co-worker Doug “JavaDoug†Ross partially responsible:
I dreamed that, despite the fact that our SMC router's firewall prevents detection of machines behind it, and protection via Norton Antivirus (I do not recommend any other product), our two computers were infected by a trojan that allowed someone from outside to remote control the machines.
No matter what I tried, the remote-operator would write taunts to the screen, install and launch games one after another (Duke Nukem was one, for some reason), and prevent me from using the machines.
What was really scary is that in the dream I hit the button which disconnects the cable modem from the outside world, to eliminate the attacker’s access and start cleaning the damage, but the malicious remote operation didn’t stop!