Raiders of the Lost Blog

If you haven’t tried them yet, Popcap games are a fantastic way to pass some time. Tons of free puzzle games, all written in Java, so you don’t need any plugins to enjoy them. Good stuff!

Check out this optical illusion. It’s a jpg, nothing is animated, but as soon as you look away from a spiral you’ll see it start to move. Neat! You can also use it as desktop wallpaper. I made a tiled version you can save and use as wallpaper. See how long you last before it drives you nuts!

I took a ton of pictures so far this summer. I popped them in a new photo gallery. No real theme with these, just walking around Brooklyn, Prospect Park, Park Slope, etc. Over 50 photos, here’s 4 as a sample. Feel free to check out the rest!

Check out this site. Be sure to maximize your browser window to get the proper experience. Pretty sweet, right?

I’ve made a local copy of the file as well, since that site seems to have a lot of people hitting it at once.

See more of his ASCII movies at www.romanm.ch/ascii-movies.htm

Wow! At the University of Washington you can now take a course in Everquest!

Officially it’s called COM 480 - Ethnography of On-line Role-playing Games. Pretty fascinating stuff. From the site:

Course Description

A staple of nerd subculture for almost three decades, fantasy role-playing games have taken on new life in the era of networked computing. High-speed connections, sophisticated graphics and powerful microprocessors have paved the way for massively multiplayer on-line role-playing games (MMORPG?s) such as Everquest, Anarchy Online, and Asheron?s Call.

The popularity of these on-line environments is staggering. At this very moment, more than 90,000 players are interacting with one another in Norrath — the fictional world of Everquest. According to one recent study, this virtual world is the 77th richest ?nation? on the planet with a per-capita GNP that outstrips China and India (Castranova, 2002).

It may seem far-fetched to apply economic indicators to an abstract game-world. However, a growing number of theorists are using social science research methods to investigate MMORPG?s (Turkle, 1995; Yee, 2002; Schaap, 2002; Griffiths, 2003). Such theorists believe that these cultural objects raise important questions about identity, community, and the influence of technology in our daily lives.

In this course, we will conduct an ethnographic study of the behaviors, cultural practices, and motivations of MMORPG players. The course packet will include readings that explore role-playing games, virtual community, and the construction of identity on-line. Extensive attention will also be given to methods for conducting research on-line.