laserquest
2008/02/05 20:40:44
1 comment
1kbwc
2008/02/04 14:16:53
So, I went to BarCamp on Saturday. It was a very mixed bag.
There were three presentations that stuck with me. One was a presentation entitled Living on Virtual Fish, given by Tim Howgego. Another was a presentation on “hypernumbers”, a system in development to create distributed spread sheets, compatible with Excel, hopefully, ultimately, enabling spreadsheets to read data directly from prices or other information listed on various web sites.
The last presentation I went to was a presentation on 1000 Blank White Cards(1kbwc), using the game as a metaphor for Web2.0. 1kbwc is a game in which there are very few fixed rules, and those that do exist are poorly defined. The game is also collaborative, it’s created by the players, evolving over time, changing every time it’s played.
The basic rules of 1kbwc as I see them are:
- Make a deck:
- Each player provides a selection of cards they’ve created for previous games, collected from other players of previous games or created for this game. Probably on the order of 10 to 15 cards each, depending on the number of players.
- Some blank cards are added to the deck, making the deck consist of between a half and a third blank cards.
- Players are dealt 4 or 5 cards as a hand.
- Play goes to the left from the dealer, players draw a card and play a card.
- If a player has a blank card in their hand, they may fill it in at any time.
- Cards can have any effect they want. Some cards may be worth points.
- When the deck runs out, the player with the most points wins.
Cards should generally have some attempt at some art on them, though this isn’t really necessary. There are probably different kinds of cards too, some of which you may play at any time (possibly in reaction to another card), some which may stay on the table in front of you or some which go straight into a discard pile, but these are never actually specified in the rules.
I’ve played this a couple times now and quite enjoyed it and have a few cards of my own I’ve created that I quite like. “Yoink!”, for example, requires nor proves any further explanation.
The problem with the first couple games I played of the game, as well as the sets of cards I’ve seen online so far is that they’re somewhat too chaotic. Many cards allocate points, but points are ultimately fairly useless, especially as the deck we were playing with contained cards that would reshuffle cards into the deck so that it would never run out, leading us to finally get bored and create cards that would just end the game. People will also introduce new kinds of points to the game, which are not used, or single cards that have no interaction with any other cards and don’t actually do anything.
There are similarities between 1kbwc and Nomic. Nomic being on the extreme side of formality in its meta-rules, 1kbwc being on the extreme side of laxity in its meta-rules, where basically anything goes. Currently, I’m wondering if there’s some middle ground to be found. I’m going to try and figure out some kind of extended set of rules for a variant on 1kbwc with better guidelines for creating cards, but leaving enough flexibility for the game to still flow smoothly from turn to turn.
No comments
wikiband
2007/12/10 16:07:39
Band: Easterlings
Album: Charles Alfred Pillsbury
Tracks:- General secretary for national defence (France)
- Melanochelys trijuga
- Urban economics
- Pastoral care
- Assebroek
- Derker
- Belgershain
- Polish Fest
- Ed Walsh
- Decatur Dorsey
- American Bando Association
- Barbara of Poland
- Iceland (disambiguation)
- Advanced Helicopter Training
- Convoy, Ohio
- Arthur, Illinois
No comments
facebor
2007/12/01 23:27:36
Cory Doctorow wrote this regarding the problems behind Facebook and other social networking applications.
He says that sometimes people you don’t like get into your social group. The solution is to move by making a new account, sometimes on a new system.
I think this is basically a feature not a bug.
I’ve seen it happen over and over on IRC.
It happens in real life too.
It’s nothing new.
No comments
sob
2007/11/27 20:14:12
-!- Norgg was kicked from #pi by Shabble [go cry about it on livejournal]
No comments
a_link
2007/11/16 13:16:49
Ben Goldacre talks about homeopathy, placebos and evidence based medicine. I particularly liked:
“The placebo response is about far more than the pills – it is about the cultural meaning of a treatment, our expectation, and more. So we know that four sugar pills a day will clear up ulcers quicker than two sugar pills, we know that a saltwater injection is a more effective treatment for pain than a sugar pill, we know that green sugar pills are more effective for anxiety than red, and we know that brand packaging on painkillers increases pain relief.”
No comments
code_play
2007/11/13 14:01:27
All the code's a stage, And all the structs and functions merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one program in its time plays many parts, Its acts being seven ages. At first the prototype, Mewling and puking in the coder's arms; Then the whining redesign, with its satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to completion. And then the release, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to its coder's eyebrow. Then maintenance, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the 2.0, In fair round belly with good capon lin'd, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful features, well sav'd, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere obsoleteness; Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.Me (and Ol’ Shakey)
No comments
new_server
2007/11/07 16:11:55
Yay, norgg.org is now hosted on a xen machine completely under my control. Mwahaha.
It was previously being hosted on cowu.be run by my good friend charlie.
No comments
norggs_of_tirol
2007/08/23 12:14:09
In a bout of ego-searching, I found out that a Norgg is a type of legendary creature from the Tirol region of Austria. See here. Also here.
No comments
poetry2
2007/06/14 13:12:36
thom: where is the rage directed today? government the outrageous stupidity of the people who like to comment publically im going to go buy my own fucking island im going to call it srsly nova scotia and then im going to build a tower and shoot anyone who approaches
No comments
where_things_are
2007/05/29 15:45:56
Life carries on. Off to the Mill on Saturday, which I’m looking forward to, though it’s all a little bit disorganised this year. The wireless mesh network we’re developing at work is starting to really kick off and things will be getting interesting.
No comments
hacky
2007/04/30 17:03:45
No comments
poetry
2007/03/20 09:43:49
i think we're just going to have separate towers you can get one with a wind vane and i'll shoot fascists from minethom
No comments
more_drunken_blogging
2007/03/10 02:00:03
Haven’t updated this place in ages.
Vaguely in the process of sorting out my own hosting on a server that I actually controll.
Will get round to using some kind of actual blogging software when that happens.
Until then, I’ll just stick with this craziness.
Yes.
Also, I am definitely not tipsy right now.
No comments
vim
2007/01/24 11:51:38
Needed myself some code folding in C, so I’m learning me some vim. It’s needed some poking into doing some stuff, such as sorting out indenting and grabbing the C syntax folding rules from 7.0. Mostly it’s not really better or worse than emacs, it’s just different. I’m not sure how much to hack the indenting to be like emacs’s but for now I’ve got some form of autoindent, smartindent, softtabstop and expandtab going on.
No comments