Barlow is blogging

John Perry Barlow is a welcome addition to the blogosphere. Go read him. You'll see why.

Georgetown CCT program

Given that I'm getting closer to the finish line on my Honours BA studies at Concordia, I've started earnest research on graduate schools that have a program that jives with my digital culture and ispace interests. Through the excellent Association of Internet Researchers (AIR-L) list, I found this program at Georgetown University that seems to have everything I want - innovation, research-focused, respectable and prestigious university and generally like-minded people.

This one goes on my own personal shortlist and renews my hope that, given my academic performance to date, despite the fact it's at Concordia, I may have a chance of securing a fellowship in a program like this one.

eBay & Grilled Cheese

I was trying to figure out what pithy words I could come up with to go along with this unusual eBay auction...but words fail me. Just go check it out for yourself while I go buy myself a chocolate bar - I'm suddenly feeling peckish.

Dungeons & Dragons

I know several people who play the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. They're doctors, lawyers, programmers, bankers, in short - adults. Known as D&D to its fans and players, it isn't about maladjusted angst-ridden teen boys running around in dark caves pretending to kill one another and sometimes succeeding (That was the plot of a real movie I saw once - Tom Hanks was even in it).

Instead, D&D is old-school game play. There is no sleek console required, no computer, no wires, no chips (other than the potato kind maybe). It requires imagination, communication skills, some grasp of math (probably the reason I never got into it), some graph paper, a pencil and a motley assortment of odd multi-sided dice. It also requires that each player create an identity and the process of creating a character (referred to as "rolling a character") is all about coming up with something original and that feels like a person you'd want to embody while still respecting the rules of the game. Goffman would have loved it.

Another thing the game most often requires is time. While many newer gamers play weekly 2-3 hour sessions, many of the more hardcore players prefer games that last an entire weekend or even an entire week. These game groups become very dedicated to each other, creating their own small very loyal communities, occasionally travelling long distances to play with a specific group they've become a part of over time.

D&D is in its 30th year, and while it was touch and go for a while through the late 80s and into 90s as Pong gave way to Donkey Kong which lead to Halo, it's enjoying a resurgence despite our digitized world.

Wizards of the Coast, the owners of the license and copyright for D&D, could be credited with this resurgence. In a brilliant move that coincided with the 21st century ongoing clash around copyright versus freedom of information, WoC released in 2000 its new D20 way of playing version 3.0 of the game and announced that the new D20 game system underlying the play would be open source. So long as their well-laid out rules on using the system were respected, publishers were free to based other games on the system.

This has paved the way for other companies to use the game system to deliver games that use other themes not related to wizards and elves and orcs. A few such game are Star Wars and Spycraft.

This is significant because it allows players to built a base of knowledge in a single system that can be played across multiple environments, leveraging their investments in the game books, diversifying their world possibilities and giving WoC a dedicated and increasingly sophisticated pool of players to whom to market add-ons and magazines and such.

It also enabled a thriving online community of dedicated players who regularly contribute public goods to the gaming community, such as player character generators, world scenarios and maps and various kinds of arcana. With hundreds of websites, mailing lists, webrings and a still-thriving Usenet newsgroups centred around the game, D&D is very much a part of the net. One of the more popular gamer-run online communities, EN World, recently raised a respectable amount of money in a very short time to keep their community going, all based on a simple request for donations by the communities caretakers.

D&D play groups are among the more popular groups on Meetup.com.

The book players need to know the rules, the Player's Handbook, has a very respectable Amazon.com sales ranking of 1,031 out of all books on Amazon (it sells better than the Bible). There is even a Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies coming out in April 2005.

Hundreds from around the world flock annually to a gaming convention called Gen Con to learn more about what will be new and to reconnect with other avid players. There is even a decent book out that traces the roots of the current digital RPG and MMORPG to D&D.

Just goes to show that technology hasn't completely supplanted face-to-face game-centred group sociability. It also shows that community at all scales, small scale micro and massively networked, is alive and well as centred around D&D.

Patron saint of geeks?

Move over St. Isidore - it seems like there's another saint in town preferred by hackers, geeks and nerds.... and it's St. Expedite.

No special treatment for disgruntled Democrats

After Tuesday's disappointing result, it looks like there have been enough Americans eyeing the north border that the Canadian government felt compelled to release a statement saying, basically, that they'll have to get in the immigration line with everyone else.
[thanks to my pal Kelly for the link]

Election Day USA

No doubt that is the headline that will scream across newspapers and stream across television screens in the US today. Election Day. Time for change. Time to vote.

I'm Canadian so I can't vote in this one, as badly as I want to do something to show that I believe Bush needs to be turfed.

Instead, I have to sit on the sidelines and hope that people like my hero Derek can make enough of a difference to turf Bush.

Derek speaks of his usual approach to politics and news. As often happens with him, his views and attitudes mirror my own. He says:

I treat politics like dog shit on the sidewalk - I avoid it as much as possible, but every once in a while I forget and get some on my shoe. Then I hope the stink doesn't linger too long.But not this year. Because this year, even someone half paying attention has to see that George W. Bush is destroying America. A pointless war, a tanking economy, and a job market as bad as any I've ever seen. Clinton may have embarrassed us with a stain on a dress, but Bush has embarrassed with a stain on the world.

(To read Derek's entire post, go here...)

If you're American and you're reading this, please vote. I'm gambling on the fact that if you're American and you read my space often, you're a lot like Derek and me, and you wouldn't be voting for Bush. So -- go! vote! please!

Make a difference on election day. Put an X on the Democratic ballot on my behalf.

Dull Men's Club

Look here. Enough said.