Unitarians, Gaming, Cancer, Sociability, LJ dying?

[tcpip]

My presentation to the Melbourne Unitarian Church on The Future of Planet Earth. On the wider scale, it seems that there is a strong emergence of religious humanism among Unitarian Universalists. The former president of Meadville Lombard Theological School, is the author of a new book, Reason and Reverence: Religious Humanism for the Twenty-first Century. All this comes as I'm reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". It will be nice to make comparison.

In gaming news, my review of Fantasy Imperium is up at RPG.net. I have several others coming up very soon. Will be attending Arcanacon this week. HeroQuest Glorantha pbem has had over 120 posts in the first two weeks and is now into the third scene. Everyway Aesheba game successfully wrapped up last Friday. Before one adopts online roleplaying first get a real life, merci, baralier. For designers and swordfighters, this magnificant (if bloody) article on real swordfights. To his credit, Mitchell Toy engaged in correspondence with me over his concerns of "video game violence" (personally I think "fake realism" is a problem).

anthanum alerted me to Cure for Cancer. Further research reveals that it is having trouble getting funding.

Caught recently up with darklion and SO whilst in Melbourne. Turned 39 on Saturday, and, as for the past three years, completely forgot the day and ended up dining with Paula the MCF, Craig and caseopaya who provided a very fine french cuisine dinner for me - and some very Australian cookies ;-) Had a visit from the mad and dangerous to know, dukeofmelbourne today.

Is Livejournal Dying? since introducing ads? For Firefox users there is a neat login tool and adblocker.

Comments

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

For designers and swordfighters, this magnificant (if bloody) article on real swordfights.

I've been pointing people at that one for years. Great stuff!

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder why the rapier and smallsword were used for anything other than to the first blood.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Speed and precision?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

If you want some entertainment, read George Silver's Paradoxes of Defence, which is supposed to be a self-defence manual but rapidly turns into a rant on Why Rapiers Suck.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, I've heard of that chap... Never thought I'd see the actual text tho' (not that I'd looked).

Goodness, that introductory paragraph is almost 1500 words!

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Re: the cancer cure, Orac has a description of what is actually going on. In short, yes it's good news (although not the first time we've had this sort of good news about cancer). But New Scientist is really blowing things out of all proportion and creating a conspiracy where none exists. And there is funding for the next step available.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

But New Scientist is really blowing things out of all proportion and creating a conspiracy where none exists.

True; they do have a cutting-edge approach which, on occassion, becomes populist - I remember their articles on Rupert Sheldrake's "Morphic Resonance" for example.

Thanks for the link! Very useful information.

[iosef.livejournal.com]

Maister Crown was for a long time a luminarie of the classical fencing list that William Willson runs. Since his departure that list has been very quiet excepting aroung Lansing and when new translations of the classic manuals become available.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Now the fact that he is known and respected in fencing circles does not come as a surprise to me at all..

Any more comments and this will approach spam levels

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

I prefer the review of first life personally.

Re: Any more comments and this will approach spam levels

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Oh that is brilliant. I especially liked;


Player death is a serious issue in real life, and cause for continued debate among players, who often direct unanswerable questions on the subject to the game's developers, who are apparently (and understandably) so busy that they generally keep silent.


Something I've noticed about Real Life is that a lot of the characters appears to be 'bots.

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

Happy belated birthday! I turn 39 this year as well, and I'd probably like to forget it too. ;-)

The LJ usage stats are interesting, but I'm not sure it correlates strongly with the introduction of ads. It's more likely due to the rise of MySpace which seems to have ensnared the vast majority of teenie-boppers who are less interested in journaling than in socializing--something MySpace is probably far better suited to than LJ. Eh, they can have 'em.

On that note, I wonder how many LJers have also moved over to SixApart's MySpace clone VOX.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

The LJ usage stats are interesting, but I'm not sure it correlates strongly with the introduction of ads.

*nods* Probably more coincidence than anything else.

MySpace is god awful. The interface is just terrible.

[foxfirefey]

The LJ usage stats are interesting, but I'm not sure it correlates strongly with the introduction of ads.

No, it doesn't, and I don't think that post says it does (did I miss a key sentence maybe? it's possible)--it's been happening for the past two years, about, since early 2005. It's a long term trend and correlates more with the purchase of LJ by Six Apart. However, I'm with you--I think it's a saturation of the social networking market.

Supposedly a previous fling with banner ads WAAAAAAY back in LJ's history did correlate with a strong decrease in activity. But that is very much the past, and the Internet is a bit different now.

As for Vox, that's a bit harder to determine. Vox is annoying in a lot of ways for hardcore LJers, despite how AJAXed up it is.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Alright I pay that (metaphorically speaking).

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ah, a misread on my part - the key sentence is "This changed in early 2005, after LJ became a part of 6A..." etc.

Hmm... It's not ads, it's 6A!

[cluebyfour.livejournal.com]

I don't think that post says it does

No, it probably doesn't; I was responding more to what Lev wrote after the link ("since introducing ads").

The AJAX stuff has found its way into LJ as well, especially if you use one of the VOX-based journal styles (which I do). Unfortunately I noticed that it severely degraded performance when viewing journal pages in IE 6. I had to turn a lot of the scripty crap off on my journal to get an acceptable level of responsiveness.

I am a bad friend

[severina-242.livejournal.com]

I forgot your birthday!!! Sorry!!!

To make up for this, I propose a dinner.

I may be away over the Invasion Day weekend, but when I get back, can we either go out for a slap up dinner, or I'll do the cooking thing at my place (preferably on a Friday so we can 'relax' ie, drink lots)

Happy Birthday!!!!

Love Ms. V

Re: I am a bad friend

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I forgot your birthday!!! Sorry!!!

Hey, don't feel bad. So did I!

I'll do the cooking thing at my place (preferably on a Friday so we can 'relax' ie, drink lots)

Sounds like a fine idea; we'll make sure it's "off-gaming" week.

[discordia13.livejournal.com]

LJ has adds? First thing I did when I recreated my LJ last year was adblock every add frame, just like I do for every website. I cant say I like MySpace a whole lot either. I'm yet to find anyone that can make a good website on there.

I'm currently using adblock, noscript and flashblock for a very nice and safe browsing experience.

PS. I may be in Melbourne for the first week of August. We will have to catch up.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

PS. I may be in Melbourne for the first week of August. We will have to catch up.

Excellent! Do you have a place to stay? Email me at lev AT levlafayette DOT com

[discordia13.livejournal.com]

Emailed =)

[ser-pounce.livejournal.com]

*applause* Great presentation :)

Still on for Saturday, 12:30?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words; I have neglected however to footnote all my references (someone read it as told me not to bother as they'd already check, which was quite delightful)

Looking forward to Saturday, I reckon it'll be a lot of fun.

[ser-pounce.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me too :)

Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[hawk-eye.livejournal.com]

Nice linkage on the fencing material. All my experience in dark age re-enacting and some limited fencing has always suggested that the last thing that any sane man would want to do is enter into a fair, one on one duel.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

All my experience in dark age re-enacting and some limited fencing has always suggested that the last thing that any sane man would want to do is enter into a fair, one on one duel.

Corps-a-corp dagger fighting (one hand has a dagger, the other holds a strip of cloth, drop the cloth and you surrender/lose) is the style I think is for the truly insane. Especially those who would tie the cloth to their wrist.

Apparently duelling is legal in Paraguay if both parties are registered blood donors...

[hawk-eye.livejournal.com]

That was one of the methods we used to use in dagger training (we trained to be quite competent, as well as safe), and yes, it's absolutely bloody. Guaranteed incapacition for both duelists.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Good lord. Now I can say I know someone whose actually tried it.

[hawk-eye.livejournal.com]

It was harrowing enough with metal gauntlets and blunted daggers, trust me. More than once it was possible to loop an opponent with the strip of connecting cloth/rope so that they actually cut themselves... Talk about a great way to train up body awareness!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I can imagine. It'd be like a wrestling with daggers and a blindfold/garrote in contested ownership. Absolutely terrifying.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Have you read Harlan Ellison's Memos from Purgatory? Pretty much the same rules used for a 1950s knife-fight.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

No, I don't know that one at all. Nasty results I presume.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Both of them survived, but I think that was against the odds.

Worth reading if you can track it down. It's non-fiction*; Ellison, then in his early twenties, wanted to write a novel about juvenile gangs so he joined one to find out what gang life was like. One of the morals of the story was that this was not one of his smarter decisions, but the results are interesting.

The one I have includes a later incident, some years later, where Ellison was arrested for weapons possession and spent a night in the Tombs; both sections have a lot to say about how to turn people into criminals.

*There are a couple of bits that make me feel it may have been slightly embellished, but no more so than most 'non-fiction'.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Heh. Just spotted a signed edition on Ebay. Oh, day of good fortune!

[amazinggoatgirl.livejournal.com]

Happy belated birthday to you as well!

Also, the way I see it at least, livejournal was a huge fad back when I joined in 2002 and for a couple years afterward and now that part of it is waning. Now all the trendwhores are joining MySpace or the Facebook (guilty!) instead. Facebook is on a downward spiral, as far as quality and safety go, since they opened it to non 'dot edu' email addresses, like high school students, parents, prospective employers and cops, but nonetheless remains pretty useful. I have a facebook and a livejournal for completely different reasons, so I don't think livejournal will die unless it depends on 13-20 year old trendwhores for its revenue.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hey, I joined el-jay c2002 as well, iirc. I had a look at facebook but that was about it.

LJ I like because of the clean interface. I dislike MySpace for their bloat; and some apparently inability to play nice with Firefox.

[luciusmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday.

I can't believe the Cure for Cancer thing - it's fantastic... I wonder if they've considered doing an online drive and have people put money towards it.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they've considered doing an online drive and have people put money towards it.

You know that's actually quite a good idea.

Of course, organising would be interesting - getting a registered tax deductible beneficiary in various countries.

Finding cancer scientists of note who will act as patrons and oversea the management of the fund.

All this sort of thing is necessary.

But nevertheless....

I've long had the idea that the day we find a cure for cancer will be the day we take great strides in preventing cells from dying; and you know what that means...

[amazinggoatgirl.livejournal.com]

If they're handy, could you possibly hook me up with some links to sources you used for your presentation, please? I'd like to show them to my 'willfully ignorant' boyfriend. ; )

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Sure, I've been meaning to that; I'll post them later today.

As so often is the case, a good start is Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change