As part of my continuing plot to convince you all to read my Propeller submissions, I present a few of my favorite stories from the last couple of days:
The dying art of the knuckleball
In the Red Sox clubhouse a few hours before the start of a drizzly, early-May game against the Rays, Tim Wakefield wraps his hand around a brand-new baseball and models his knuckleball grip. On television, Wakefield’s grip appears claw-like and uncomfortable, but up close, it looks effortless…
Okay, first of all, when did the Devil Rays become the Rays? Did it happen because some crazy fundies got all worked up? I’m laying 3:2 that they did.
My enthusiasm for baseball — actually, in all professional sports that aren’t hockey or soccer — has cratered in the last couple of years, but I still love to watch a knuckleballer confound a batter. It’s a dying art , like pitchers who can last more than 5 innings.
Librarian carrying “McCain=Bush” sign kicked out of McCain event
In McCain’s *open to the public* townhall meeting, a 61 year-old woman was cited for trespassing on orders from the McCain security detail for carrying a sign that read “McCain=Bush.” Carol Kreck received a ticket and her court date is set for July 23.
That the event this woman was removed from was a public event, and she didn’t do anything more disruptive than hold up a sign. “All I did was carry a sign that said McCain = Bush,” Kreck said. “And for everyone who voted for Bush, I don’t see why it’s offensive to say McCain = Bush.” Well, McCain is running for Bush’s third term.
Book review: It’s All Too Much
It’s All Too Much is a terrific book that inverts the typical approach to dealing with existential kipple. Rather than helping you find new places and novel ways to “organize” all your crap, author Peter Walsh encourages you to explore why you ever kept all that junk in the first place.
Some friends of ours have my dream house: it’s got beautiful hardwood floors, it’s uncluttered, and they can park both of their cars in their garage. My whole life, I’ve had a problem with holding onto things (real and imagined) so this book looked super interesting to me, not because I need it (I know that I just need to get rid of my shit) but because it tells me that I’m not the only one with this problem.
HOWTO: build anti-paparazzi sunglasses
Hackaday posts plans to build some simple but effective anti-paparazzi sunglasses. They work by mounting two small infrared lights on the front. The wearer is completely inconspicuous to the human eye, but cameras only see a big white blur where your face should be.
I had to deal with paparazzi in that “really fucks with your ability to live your life” way for about two months when I was a teenager. I quickly figured out that if I avoided certain places and certain people, I could also avoid the cameras. But this project is interesting to me because we live in a world where our fucktard leaders are increasingly shoving their faces into every aspect of our personal and private lives, so any effort to say NOT YOURS is pretty important to me.
Why are Americans so batty for bacon? It’s delicious, it’s decadent — and it’s also a fashion statement.
I’m a vegetarian, so bacon as food is irrelevant to me. However, bacon as a cultural phenomenon? That’s something else entirely. Something crispy and delicious!
The History of the Chaos Computer Club
With causes like ensuring secure voting machines, protecting privacy, defeating censorship and governmental obfuscation, and promoting hacker ethics, the CCC has become something of a hacktivist powerhouse. They hold an annual “Chaos Communications Congress” gathering and also a very cool hacker camp every four years.
If you’re intrigued by this article, I highly recommend reading The Hacker Crackdown, The Cuckoo’s Egg, and Cyberpunk (which has nothing to do with actual Cyberpunk).
Book Review: Dungeons and Desktops
Dungeons and Desktops chronicles the rise and fall of the Computer RPG industry, from Akalabeth to Zelda. While the bulk of the book is devoted to the genre’s ‘Golden Age’ in the late ’80s and early ’90s, author Matt Barton explores the entire history of CRPGs, from their origins in the mid ’70s to the very recent past.
I’ve written a lot of articles about video games, and my love of classic gaming is well known. But I don’t know if I’ve ever pointed out just how much I love computer RPGS. From the Infocom games of my childhood to early Mac games like Uninvited and DejaVu to Fallout 2 and Planescape: Torment, to Bioshock, the RPGS are my absolute favorites. This book seems really, really awesome. (And really, really expensive, unfortunately.)
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The Rays changed their name during the off-season as part of an attempt to reinvent the franchise. To be fair, so far it seems to have done the trick!
That book, Dungeons and Desktops, does seem very interesting, but the price of 31.90 is pretty steep.
Even my BN membership discount doesn’t amount to much! 😉
Have to find it local so I can thumb through it and see if it is worthy of my cold hard earned cash!
Bill
Also – good review of it on Slashdot:
http://books.slashdot.org/books/08/07/02/1317200.shtml
Bill
Dungeons & Desktops is expanded from a series of web articles originally appearing at GamaSutra (I think; it may have originally been published elsewhere). You can read them here.
Also, Wil, the edition of Cyberpunk you link to is the out-of-print hardback. The in-print updated softcover is here.
I loved The Cuckoo’s Egg when I first read it in the early 90s! I was born and raised in Berkeley and it felt like stepping outside when I read it.
Also, why is Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution always ignored? Is it because Stephen Levy makes an idiot of himself with his techtardity in his Newsweek articles? Regardless, Hackers is still a sublime book about a cultural that’s very important to me.
If you don’t mind revealing private information, Wil, do I not remember you once talking about going to Tops Burgers on Walnut, and cutting your hand on a can holding bacon grease? Did you recently switch to vegetarianism? If so, it would be interesting to learn why you did, and when, if you’re willing to talk about it. I’d certainly be curious to hear about it.
I second the recommendation for Levy’s book. Great account of early MIT days, leading up to the founding and growth of Sierra Online.
I too have fond memories of Infocom games, or hacking into the physics dept. VAX to play Dungeon from home. I remember playing the Ultima games and finding characters named after close SCA friends in Austin (I even made it into Ultima 7, but never played it long enough to find myself).
I got It’s All Too Much as an audiobook (I’m learning – it only takes up disk space.)
I have the clutter problem – we got a dumpster and did a garage sale and we’re about halfway to the goal – and I can tell you it is SO worth it to get rid of your shit. (I probably threw you away – sorry – a lot of the shit was old videotapes.)
And you can go the celeb ebay route and make some cash off your shit.
Morfin — Ultima 7 is without question one of the finest CRPGs I have ever played (U7 Part 2 was good as well but a little incoherent).
It would be fun to learn which character you were and see if my nostalgic rose-tinted memory can dredge it up. Surely not Iolo the Bard…?
I see your links and raise you with this one….
http://myspace.com/darkhorsepresents?issuenum=12&storynum=2
It’s an adjoining story to Dr. Horrible’s Video Blog. Pretty funny and geeky.
Bacon is the new pirates.
Wil, thanks for the Propel and Link of our post on the Chaos Computer Club!
~Ken from GeekDad
OH MY GOD you are the only other person I’ve ever heard of who HAS EVER HEARD OF Uninvited. It was also part of the “Kemco-Seika Trilogy” on the NES along with Shadowgate and Deja Vu. But Shadowgate and Deja Vu (along with Deja Vu II) got ported over to the Game Boy Color and Uninvited just got shafted. It’s a shame because I really love that game.
Your nerd cred is quite strong. 🙂
Hi Wil! Regarding the Salon article on bacon, I was the tiniest bit miffed that proper credit for the bacon vodka wasn’t given. I made some myself using that recipe and not only did I not hurl, but I made the best damned bloody mary ever with it.
Paypal Order: Have you been keeping up with your orders? I sent you two messages.
The name change came because the Devil Rays are are trying to reinvent themselves, as the OP noted.
Of course, building a stadium on the correct side of the Tampa Bay Bridge would go a long way in bringing in the fans.
Wil, I don’t know what the big deal about bacon is, either, but I’m not complaining! I’ve been blown away by the attention my Baconhenge has gotten (it’s referenced on pg 2 of the Propeller article), even earning me a brief guest spot on NPR.
What’s really funny is the number of commenters worried about the calories in it, as if it’s worse than what millions of Americans eat for a leisurely Sunday brunch. 2 slices of bacon (in one serving of henge) is not exactly half the pig!
Thanks for the link to the mention!
Dude. Bacon salt. Google it. Vegetarian. Tastes like bacon.
I’ve not tried it myself, but it sounds promising. Unless you’ve got high blood pressure.
I’m with you on the PC RPG love. Fallout 2 makes my little heart skip a beat, and then mutate into an infinitely more powerful heart.
Hey, the knuckle ball isn’t dying — young Red Sox minor leaguer Charlie Zink is perfecting his in AAA ball where he’s got a 9 and 2 record and a 2.42 era…
See http://www.soxprospects.com/players/zink-charlie.htm
I did not know you were a vegetarian. Our 14 year old daughter is a vegetarian. We buy the soy bacon. It is pretty good!
=^..^=
Have you ever watched Wake’s knuckleball in slow motion? There is no spin on the ball whatsoever! It’s nuts!
BTW, did you know Wake is currently the longest-serving member of the Red Sox? GO SOX!
As a long time but only occasional reader(I was a reg, but then lost internet access for a looooong time), I know I’ve read you writing about meat & bbq-ing before… so, to echo the previous comments, when did you go veg? And are you just vege, or are you vegan?
Yeah I’m wondering about your whole vege thing too.
You used to be cool.
Hey Will
Why not be fair and while you rail on McCain for tossing out a person holding a McCain = Bush sign and post about Obama tossing two women off his stage for wearing head scarves? Would’nt you consider that sexist and anti freedom of religion?
You select indignation shows an amazing immaturity on your part.
Sometime back you linked one of the best chicken soup recipes I’ve ever had; I still play with variations on it. Add another vote for hearing about the conversion to vegetarianism from someone who loves vegetarian cooking, but isn’t exclusive.
Re: existential kipple – Personally, I think our society’s willingness to throw things away is one of our big problems. I know when *I* throw something away, I need it the next day.
People just go out and buy a new whatever-it-is, without thinking about the waste.
Re-use — Recycle
Sierra made some of my favorite Computer games back in the day.
I STILL love me some “Quest for glory” I think the ability to finish one game from the series, then transfer that character to a disk and load them into the next game in the series was (and still is) one of the most innovative and gripping things a computer game has ever done (I think you could do that in the old D&D pools of radiance games and so on.. but I never felt a connection to my characters in the party)
Sierra made some of my favorite Computer games back in the day.
I STILL love me some “Quest for glory” I think the ability to finish one game from the series, then transfer that character to a disk and load them into the next game in the series was (and still is) one of the most innovative and gripping things a computer game has ever done (I think you could do that in the old D&D pools of radiance games and so on.. but I never felt a connection to my characters in the party)
I have to fully disagree with you on that last book you talked about, Wil. While the book is decent, and it does talk about a lot of classics, it COMPLETELY defiles the Diablo series.
I don’t mean to sound like a fanboy or anything like that, but…if you have a problem with the Diablo series, I have a problem with you (if you are into that type of game, of course…I can’t judge you for not liking a game when you don’t like the genre.)
While certainly not the first, Diablo perfected the hack-n-slash RPG, and despite many clones NOTHING has ever done it quite like the Diablo series. Even if you hate the series (though I don’t see how you could) there is no way you could deny its impact and importance to the genre. Yet, somehow, the author of that book finds a way. A curse upon his house!
Can you add your Propeller RSS feed to your FriendFeed? Then I’d read it automatically. 🙂
Ok, So jerks like this:
make us understand why you might be reluctant to talk about it, but these days such douches are fewer, so feel free to ignore them… most of the rest of us are “Do your own thing” types (like most geeks) who know that just because you’re a vegetarian, or even a vegan, doesn’t mean you’re calling us carnivores the scum of the earth or anything. We’re just interested…
I have an online friend who raved about bacon salt on her blog, so it’s probably worth a try.
Is the vegetarian thing new? I seem to remember you making chicken soup from scratch a few years ago. Anyhow, good luck with it. I know Weird Al has been a vegetarian for years and got in better shape as a result of his diet change.
Thanks Wil, nice post.
An hour and a half of my day just vaporized.
I’m truly of the To Each His Own school regarding vegetarianism, but seriously, Wil, what do you have against hockey and soccer? 😉
Also wanted to say that I enjoy your blog and will continue to do so whether I agree with you or not.
I went vegetarian about two years ago, mostly for health and environmental reasons. I occasionally eat fish, on the advice of my doctor. I don’t talk about vegetarianism very often, because militant vegetarians make me want to eat a live baby lamb on principle.
I love soccer and hockey. Was I unclear about that? I didn’t mean to be. Dang.
“My whole life, I’ve had a problem with holding onto things (real and imagined) so this book looked super interesting to me, not because I need it (I know that I just need to get rid of my shit) but because it tells me that I’m not the only one with this problem.”
Wil,
I certainly understand the urge to declutter; it comes upon me pretty often, and sometimes I even act on it. 🙂 But I’m not sure that accumulating stuff is necessarily a problem, as long as you don’t go completely over-the-top Collyer-brothers crazy.
I think some of our our stuff can keep us grounded and give us a connection to our former selves. For example, I have a copy of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye that I bought with my allowance the summer after 6th grade (it was new then!). There’s a crease in the top corner of the cover, and if I bend it a certain way, it’s like stepping back in time. When I touch that corner, I can almost hear Barry Manilow in the background and smell the fruit-punch jawbreakers I was addicted to that summer. I have a much better reading copy that I found at a book sale just a couple of years ago, but it doesn’t have that same time-machine effect on me. There wasn’t anything all that special about that summer—it kind of sucked, actually—but I just think it’s neat that this one item can bring it back so completely.
Basically, I would say: don’t get too ruthless with your stuff. You don’t want to have to buy it back on eBay later. 🙂
Wouldn’t the more appropriate bet for the knuckleball be 3:16?
Before there was It’s All Too Much, there was Don Aslett and his classic Clutter’s Last Stand and Not For Packrats Only. A couple of people I’ve met were turned off when he made the point that excess weight can be a form of clutter, but he made the point well, and I say that as one who’s been MANY different weights in this life.
To the sweet soul who pointed out you wouldn’t want to get rid of all your treasures, Aslett would agree (and Walsh likely would too). One of the things I appreciate about Aslett is that he gives you ideas how to make the most of the treasures you do keep. One particularly memorable example was a woman whose son had died and left behind an extensive, very nice pencil collection. Rather than part with them all or keep them all, she selected several representative examples of the best of the collection, then passed on the rest to a little boy interested in starting his own.
He also has a chapter on gift-giving that will change the whole way you select gifts, and for the better, too.
First time I heard you’re a vegetarian! In that light, next time you are in San Francisco, you should try the Millennium Restaurant. I’m not even a vegetarian and thought it was amazing food.