Daily Illuminator Archive for March 2005

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March 1, 2005:
I have so far managed to avoid becoming one of the multitudes of iPod owners. But with the Shuffle, they're going to get me . . . read article

March 2, 2005:
The story I was thinking of yesterday was not by Asimov, but by Arthur C. Clarke, who is (at the moment) better known for predicting, and thus basically inventing, the communications satellite . . . read article

March 3, 2005:
The promised rating system has been installed in e23. You can only rate an item you've bought, and of course we only know you bought it if you're a registered buyer . . . read article

March 4, 2005:
The next Munchkin game we release will be . . . Super Munchkin. Kill the super-villains, grab the super-gadgets, stab your super-buddy . . . read article

March 5, 2005:
Educate-Yourself takes a very widely holistic view of health matters. Sure, bioelectrification, sound therapy, and colloidal silver all have their place in a properly advanced regimen of personal care, but the thwarting of Sinister Forces cannot be neglected, either . . . read article

March 6, 2005:
Sunday at noon, Chris Maka and I head off to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. It should be fun and interesting, but it's absolutely a business trip . . . read article

March 7, 2005:
The trip to San Francisco was uneventful. The "Mobile Games" presentations (that is, games played on wireless platforms) will be Monday and Tuesday, and the GDC proper starts Wednesday . . . read article

March 8, 2005:
This Wednesday, March 9th, at 7:00 PM Central Time we're going to take the main web server down for a little scheduled maintenance. It should only take ten minutes, but pretty much all our public web services (including Warehouse 23, Pyramid, and JTAS) will be unavailable during that time . . . read article

March 9, 2005:
The Super Munchkin auction on eBay looks like it's going to come in at just about what we needed to bring in to cover that nice Flash system. Many thanks to all the bidders . . . read article

March 10, 2005:
The Israeli Defense Forces apparently consider D&D players undesirable recruits. Though either the reporter or the translator apparently didn't know the difference between D&D and LARP, so from this it's difficult to tell exactly what the IDF is worried about . . . read article

March 11, 2005:
The path to salvation is through knowledge, but where to find that knowledge? Gnostic Media can give you a good start, and if they can't they have plenty of books, videos, and links to pick up the slack . . . read article

March 12, 2005:
Last year I did a "Report to the Stakeholders" for 2004, assessing the way 2003 had gone and looking forward to the coming year . . . read article

March 13, 2005:
Chris and I get between GDC and GTS. The plane landed in Austin less than an hour ago . . . read article

March 14, 2005:
He should have been at GDC telling huge audiences what had gone into his last super-hit computer game. Instead, he died in obscurity, one of too many talented designers who never made it into the digital field at all . . . read article

March 15, 2005:
Senior Staff is out of the office. Viva Las Vegas . . . read article

March 16, 2005:
And keeping very busy, yes indeed. Giving away copies of Munchkin Dice, as well as the limited-run BLACK Munchkin die and the "Step-And-A-Half" card that is the 2005 Munchkin promo . . . read article

March 17, 2005:
And, of course, it's an honor to just be nominated. Yesterday, the ballot for the latest version of the Origins Awards was announced at the GAMA Trade Show, and we were pleased to learn that we picked up six nominations: GURPS Fourth Edition for Best Role-Playing Game GURPS Dragons for Best Role-Playing Game Supplement GURPS Fantasy for Best Role-Playing Game Supplement Cardboard Heroes Castles for Best Game Accessory Cardboard Heroes Modern Characters for Best Game Accessory Pyramid for Best Nonfiction Publication The final voting will be conducted by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design, and the awards will be announced at Origins 2005, June 30 to July 3 in Columbus, OH . . . read article

March 18, 2005:
The New York Stock Exchange has NASDAQ, so why shouldn't soulXchange have a little unhealthy competition? . . . read article

March 19, 2005:
Andre Norton, author of many science fiction and fantasy stories - including the Witch World series - has died after a long illness. She was 93 . . . read article

March 20, 2005:
The GTS Trade Show crew returned in triumph last night. Tired triumph, but you take what you can get . . . read article

March 21, 2005:
A project I'm working on would be much advanced if I could get my hands on some simple text-formatted lists of real-world place names . . . one name per line. You'd think this would be easy, but I haven't found useful lists online . . . read article

March 22, 2005:
I am delighted and abashed at the response to my request for place-name lists. There was all KINDS of good stuff out there, and what I could not find, the power of the mass mind did . . . read article

March 23, 2005:
Your humble servants at e23 would like your opinion on a simple question about what kind of graphic look you like better on our GURPS Fourth Edition PDF products. All you have to do is bop over to e23.sjgames.com/poll/poll.html, look over the two samples, and pick the one you like better . . . read article

March 24, 2005:
Over the past few years, Michelle Barrett has taken Warehouse 23 from a reasonably functional direct-mail department to a busy and efficient online store. Now she's looking for new horizons . . . going back to Seattle to go to school . . . read article

March 25, 2005:
Or bugs . . . zillions of 'em. Or perhaps a canyon filled with mutant cockroaches . . . read article

March 26, 2005:
Our newest Warehouse 23 employee is Thomas Weigel. He has been roleplaying since elementary school at around the time everyone thought he was "outgrowing" Let's Pretend . . . read article

March 27, 2005:
A British scientist has had what might be a world-changing idea . . . build a "rapid prototyper" that can replicate itself, a piece at a time, and release it to the public domain. In the end, he hopes, everyone will have their own home autofac. Ultra-Tech readers will know what happens next . . . . . read article

March 28, 2005:
Next time you need a memo in a hurry, and don't especially care what it says, try this nice Automatic Memo Generator from yourdictionary.com, and proactively leverage cutting-edge communication techniques to optimize your time-benefit ratio so you can get to the beach sooner.-- Steve Jackson . . . read article

March 29, 2005:
What have we here? Apparently the Secret Service Affair has been deemed worthy of inclusion in the 90s Trivial Pursuit set! . . . read article

March 30, 2005:
Not with this 3-D Star Map of the area near Sol (at least until you get past Altair). Laser etched into optical glass by Bathsheba Grossman, it's both incredibly geeky AND pretty . . . read article

March 31, 2005:
The body's own electrical field could be used to carry a signal to transfer data just by touching a device . . . or (for instance) when you shake hands with someone else. Now you can be your own network! . . . read article

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