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Reviving Ricochet: Better Than WiFi?
renard writes "Slate is carrying a column by Brendan Koerner arguing that reviving the Ricochet city-wide wireless network infrastructure would be a better idea than blanketing the nation/world with 802.11-ish WiFi. He reviews all the usual
silly reasons why Metricom, the original owners, were unable to make a go of it, and makes a good case that things may go better the second time around."
I'm sorry, but those reasons look like something more from an irc chat than actual evidence of anything... some posters even include /me on a forum! Allow me to introduce you to this cool pronoun, 'I'. I iz h4x0r 1337, d00d!
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
...with Flash!
(Reply and let us all know your best streak/score!)
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
How much longer before we all get WiFi...
Installed in our brains so the government can track us, and we can operate eBay from our cars?
Paranoia? I don't think so!
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Selling nerve gas to Saddam Hussein, $5 million ... that's a paddling.
... that's a paddling.
Arming radical Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan, $25 million
Making your son president and and r00ling the world's number one and number two largest known deposits of oil?
Priceless.
And you better beleive that's a paddling!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Jared Stattlemeyer
Keith Baker
Age: 33
Residence: Boulder, Colorado
Occupation: Freelance Game Designer
Wizards: How long have you been playing RPGs, and how long have you been playing D&D?
Keith: I started playing D&D in fifth grade, sometime around 1978. I still have my 1st Edition books, although my basic D&D set and white box rules have gone missing over the years. I've been roleplaying continuously since then. When I was growing up I was the gamemaster more often than not -- I always enjoyed coming up with stories.
Wizards: What first interested you in gaming and D&D?
Keith: I really enjoy the whole process of interactive storytelling. I've run my favorite adventure about ten times now, and it plays out differently every time depending on who's involved. I love to see what players will do when presented with difficult decisions. I like to write prose, but in some ways its more fun to see how other people will shape a story than to control every element of it.
Wizards: What are your favorite games/settings, and why do you like them?
Keith: Well, D&D for one. I like the changes in 3rd edition; the streamlining of statistic bonuses, armor class, saving throws, and multiclassing is very convenient, and I like the implementation of skills and feats although high-level combat can get fairly complicated, with all the options available to characters and attacks of opportunity and all. Of the D&D settings, I think that Planescape is my personal favorite.
I'm also a fan of [Atlas Gamess] Over the Edge. It's a different style of game, with very simple rules in comparison to D20, but it gives the gamemaster a lot of flexibility and it's an easy system for bringing in new gamers. Plus, I love the bizarre, conspiracy-laden world of Al Amarja.
Other systems I've been playing over the last few years include Feng Shui, the Hero system (primarily Champions), and more recently the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. I'm looking forward to checking out D20 Modern.
Wizards: Do you have a particular experience or situation from gaming that stands out in your memory? Something funny, exciting, or weird?
Keith: All I'm going to say is Five Ducks in a Battlesuit.
Wizards: Do you have a favorite designer? If so, who?
Keith: There are a lot of talented people out there. If I had to pick a personal favorite, I think it would be a tie between Robin Laws and Jonathan Tweet. Robin Laws's Cut-Ups Method (from the Over the Edge book Weather the Cuckoo Likes) may be my all-time favorite game mechanic.
Wizards: What got you interested in fantasy as a genre?
Keith: We had a recorded version of The Hobbit that I used to listen to all the time as a kid. It was read by Nicol Williamson, who also played Merlin in Excalibur, which threw me off when I saw that movie -- Hey, it's Gandalf!
Wizards: Who's your favorite fantasy author, and what's your favorite fantasy novel or series of fantasy novels?
Keith: My current favorite is George R.R. Martin and his Song of Ice & Fire series. He's created an intricate world filled with well-rounded, fascinating characters -- what's not to like? I'm also fond of Sherri S. Tepper's True Game books, Tanith Lee's Tales from the Flat Earth, and Stephen Brust's Vlad Taltos books. And for a different sort of fantasy, I recommend Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars.
Wizards: Of Wizards/TSR's authors or books, who/what's your favorite?
Keith: Richard Baker, no question. Of course, that may just be because his last name is Baker
Wizards: What interested you in submitting to the fantasy setting search?
Keith: I love to create worlds -- It's one of the most interesting parts of roleplaying, and it's not something you get to do very often. Coming up with ideas in the first round was just a lot of fun. Getting the chance to develop one of those ideas into a full-fledged world is an incredible and unexpected opportunity.
Wizards: Is your setting one that you've been working on for some time, or did you devise it just for the fantasy setting search?
Keith: Both. There are many elements of the setting that are drawn from my old campaigns, but the composite was something I came up with on the spur of the moment. The basic idea occurred to me when I was trying to think of something new and interesting, and then I started tying in things that worked from old campaigns.
Wizards: Without revealing too many specific details, do you work on your setting alone, or are you part of a team?
Keith: I'm working alone. With that said, there are certainly people who deserve my thanks -- notably Lee Moyer, John Blakely, and my wife Ellen -- for providing inspiration. Should the setting make it out, they'll certainly recognize the impact they had on it.
Wizards: How did you feel when you found out that your setting was chosen as one of the 11 best out of almost 11,000 submissions? What about being chosen as one of the 3 best out of those 11?
Keith: I found out I was one of the eleven during a layover at an airport, and I spent the next two hours racing around the airport trying to get emails and get things mailed out in time -- it was such a crazy situation that I was too numb to really realize what was going on. As for being one of the final three, I was shocked. When I got the phone call, I was definitely expecting to hear Thanks for playing, here's a copy of our home game.
Wizards: What do you currently do for a living?
Keith: I used to be a computer game designer. For the last six months I've been working as a freelance writer. It's been a bit of an adjustment financially, but I really enjoy the work.
Wizards: What do you plan to do if your setting is chosen and you receive the $100,000 contract?
Keith: Jump up and down screaming for half an hour? Start eating something other than ramen noodles for dinner? I love what I'm doing -- it would be wonderful to have enough financial security to be able to do it without worrying about being eaten by wild dogs (I must know at least three good writers that's happened to).
Rich Burlew
Age: 28
Residence: Queens, New York
Occupation: Graphic Designer
Wizards: How long have you been playing RPGs, and how long have you been playing D&D?
Rich: I've been playing D&D for eight years, but not consecutively. I began playing in high school, and played with a group of friends. [That lasted] for six years, until life interfered and we stopped seeing much of each other during college. I didn't pick the game up again for seven more years, until 3rd Edition came out. A few weeks later, I was sitting in a game, and a few weeks after that, I was DMing again!
Wizards: What first interested you in gaming and D&D?
Rich: Honestly, the artwork. I was picking up copies of Dragon magazine based solely on the great covers when I was, like, twelve and then started realizing that there was this whole game that went along with it that had even more cool art. I bought the books for two whole years before I first got a group together to play.
Wizards: What are your favorite games/settings, and why do you like them?
Rich: I've never used any of the pre-published settings for D&D; I always preferred to create my own. I guess that's just my own quirk. I've also played Shadowrun and Paranoia, as well as a never-ending variety of strategy and board games, with Babylon 5 Wars and Talisman being my favorites in each respective genre.
Wizards: Do you have a particular experience or situation from gaming that stands out in your memory? Something funny, or exciting, or weird?
Rich: Ninety-nine percent of my time spent playing D&D, I was the Dungeon Master, so most of memories involve ways I've screwed with the players. I really am most proud of the times I've evoked real emotions from players over fictional events.
Probably the best moment for me in my recent gaming career came in a campaign where the PCs had been traveling with a bumbling NPC paladin since the beginning of the story. I finally revealed that this so-called paladin was actually the very enemy they had been pursuing the entire time, and that he had in fact been using the PCs to aid his nefarious deeds. It was very tough for me to keep from blurting that out to the players for so long, but the payoff was great. And did they ever enjoy hunting him down after that.
Wizards: Do you have a favorite designer? If so, who?
Rich: I can't say I have a favorite designer because in all truth, I never read the names of who wrote the books until after I was selected as a finalist and realized I might be meeting some of these people.
Wizards: What got you interested in fantasy as a genre?
Rich: Fantasy books are, almost by definition, more exciting than real life. All my life, if I was going to invest the time in reading a book, it had damn well better be chock full of stuff that was never, ever going to happen [in the real world].
Wizards: Who's your favorite fantasy author, and what's your favorite fantasy novel or series of fantasy novels?
Rich: I actually read a lot more science fiction than fantasy. When I do read fantasy, I demand that it bring something new to the genre. I can't take another Tolkien retread. I've been reading the Rokugan books, which I find interesting for being set in an entirely different culture. I read a lot of comic books, particularly those that blur the line between fantasy and other genres -- a lot of Alan Moore's work: Promethea, the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Wizards: Of Wizards/TSR's authors or books, who/what's your favorite?
Rich: Probably Hickman & Weis, though not the Dragonlance stuff so much as some of their more experimental stuff once they left TSR. I like the Death Gate Cycle a lot. It showed a lot of unique spins on fantasy.
Wizards: What interested you in submitting to the fantasy setting search?
Rich: Once I saw the announcement, I realized that if I didn't submit, I would spend the rest of my life wondering if my ideas could have made it. I'm not a professional writer, and I saw this as my one chance to get my ideas out to the world, so I grabbed it.
Wizards: Is your setting one that you've been working on for some time, or did you devise it just for the Fantasy Setting Search?
Rich: The world I am working on for Wizards now was created solely for the Setting Search. I entered four one-page submissions: the one that was selected, the one that my players have been exploring for the past two years, and two other new ideas.
Wizards: Without revealing too many specific details, do you work on your setting alone, or are you part of a team?
Rich: Nope, just me. I'm too much of a control freak. Of course, with 100 blank pages staring at me, I'm beginning to think that maybe [a team] wouldn't have been so bad!
Wizards: How did you feel when you found out that your setting was chosen as one of the 11 best out of almost 11,000 submissions? What about being chosen as one of the 3 best out of those 11?
Rich: As you know, there was a big delay picking the eleven semifinalists. By the time I got the call, the whole thing had completely and totally left my mind. So it was a bolt from the blue, complete and total surprise, shock, disbelief, then party time. This may sound conceited, but once it got down to eleven people, I was much more confident of my abilities. I basically had a little worse than a one in three chance, so it was really just a matter of doing my best and not worrying about the rest.
Wizards: What do you currently do for a living?
Rich: I'm a graphic designer. I mostly work on educational textbooks. I do layouts, electronic illustration, photo retouching, etc. I always thought if I got a chance to get into the game industry, it would be on the strength of my page design.
Wizards: What do you plan to do if your setting is chosen and you receive the $100,000 contract?
Rich: I'll do as much work as Wizards wants me to on the new setting, obviously. Beyond that, I have no idea. If I can figure out a way to combine my graphic design with my game design and actually make a living off it, I will pretty much have completed every dream I've ever had.
Nathan Toomey
Age: 33
Residence: Washington, D.C. area
Occupation: Graduate Student
Wizards: How long have you been playing RPGs, and how long have you been playing D&D?
Nathan: Because my first experience playing RPGs was with D&D, the answer is the same for both: since I was twelve. I have played continuously since then until the last couple of years when I moved away from my gaming group to begin my graduate studies. Now I play [Neverwinter Nights] online with my old gaming group as we all now live in different parts of the country. My grad studies have kept me too busy to find a new local group with which to play tabletop.
Wizards: What first interested you in gaming and D&D?
Nathan: I had just begun reading J.R.R. Tolkien at the time that I first played, and the games similarity to that world, i.e. the fantasy genre, really engaged my imagination. The fact that the game was open-ended, without boundaries, and really freed ones imagination to explore was the most important aspects of the game. Also, the fact that the games and adventures took place in a medieval-like world also greatly excited me. From an even earlier age, I had been fascinated with the middle ages, knights, castles,swords, etc.
Wizards: What are your favorite games/settings, and why do you like them?
Nathan: Dark Sun, because the land is so inhospitable. That had a lot of original and clever things in it. What DM does not secretly like the idea of running a party through a harsh world in which the players have to scrape and struggle for every scrap of equipment, treasure, and survival itself?
Forgotten Realms --This was and still is the quintessential gaming world. It is generous with its creative landscapes, cultures, and history. It would be hard to not find a place for your own campaign story in this huge and wonderful place.
Planescape -- Though I never really got to venture far into this setting, this is the one setting in which I wanted to play the most. The art, the vision, the sheer, horrifying complexity and alien hugeness of Planescape is all just wonderful stuff, truly wonderful stuff.
Wizards: Do you have a particular experience or situation from gaming that stands out in your memory? Something funny, or exciting, or weird?
Nathan: Here is one experience that exemplifies how badly things can go wrong. Our party was exploring the ruins of an ancient city when Grath -- our aspiring but not yet achieved paladin -- became annoyed by how long Daggo -- our intrepid dwarf fighter-thief -- was taking to search for traps. In his impatience, Grath decided to kick open a door at random, breaking a warded circle that contained a demon. After stomping on our party for a while, the demon grew bored when we withdrew into a holy sanctuary. His taste for death not near sated, the demon left the ruins for the surface to begin his career of world destruction. Battered, bruised, humbled, and thinking ourselves trapped in the sanctuary, we looked for another way to get back into the ruins besides opening the only door we thought was guarded by the demon. We found a secret passage leading to a section of the ruins we had not yet explored. Upon entering this passage our dwarven thief set off a ward of pain that afflicted most of the party. Wracked with pain, Daggo pleaded with Spiro, the partys only mage, to dispel the effect. Having spent most of his arcane power on the demon, Spiro remembered a recently acquired scroll of dispel magic. Excited and feeling useful, Spiro hurriedly whipped out the scroll and read the runes scribed thereon. Instead of releasing the pain and agony of his comrades, he released a 10d6 fireball, which not only almost finished off the party, but also destroyed over half the partys magic items. Hunkered over the crispy remains of the unrolled scroll, only sputtering smoke coming out of his mouth when he tried to speak, Spiro dared not return the blank stares of his party members. Moreover, the ward of pain was still in effect.
Wizards: Do you have a favorite designer? If so, who?
Nathan: This is truly cruel limiting me to just one, but if you insist, then I must say Tracy and Laura Hickman for the original Ravenloft module. That was such a wonderful and visionary module at that time. I still have wonderful memories of DMing that game, several times.
Wizards: What got you interested in fantasy as a genre?
Nathan: That would have to be the master of fantasy himself, J.R.R. Tolkien. But perhaps even before him, my interest in mythology and fairytales probably led to my love of the fantasy genre. Some other important writers that got me interested in the genre were Michael Moorcock and Fritz Liebers Fafhrd and Gray Mouser books.
Wizards: Who's your favorite fantasy author, and what's your favorite fantasy novel or series of fantasy novels?
Nathan: Again, J.R.R. Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings. I hate to be so predictable.
Wizards: Of Wizards/TSR's authors or books, who/what's your favorite?
Nathan: I hate to admit that I have never read any Wizards/TSR books, but this is more because by the time they were hitting the big time, I was too engrossed in school and had very little time to read anything that my professors didnt tell me to read.
Wizards: What interested you in submitting to the fantasy setting search?
Nathan: The primary reason is the chance to contribute something to a gaming community that has meant so much to me, inspired me, sparked my creativity, given me so much enjoyment, and introduced me to my best friends. And, I would be dishonest if I did not admit to liking the proposition of getting to work with Wizards for either a short or long time period. Oh, and the monetary size of the reward was not just an afterthought.
Wizards: Is your setting one that you've been working on for some time, or did you devise it just for the fantasy setting search?
Nathan: The setting as a whole was created for the Fantasy Setting Search, though it is comprised of pieces, themes, and storylines that I have either DMed myself or have had kicking around in the back of my head for some time.
Wizards: Without revealing too many specific details, do you work on your setting alone, or are you part of a team?
Nathan: The original idea was my own, and I developed the framework in isolation. Since being notified of my acceptance into the final round, however, I have employed the help of two of my best friends and long-time gaming buddies, whose imagination, knowledge of history and human civilization, writing ability, and knowledge of the gaming and fantasy fiction genres are a tremendous benefit.
Wizards: How did you feel when you found out that your setting was chosen as one of the 11 best out of almost 11,000 submissions? What about being chosen as one of the 3 best out of those 11?
Nathan: I was very amazed and excited when I discovered that I had made it to the second round. For one thing, I was stunned that my submission had even been found among the 11,000 received by Wizards. On the day that they notified me of the good news, I left for a short vacation not knowing anything. By the time that I got back home and checked my email, I had almost missed the deadline to respond.
I was extremely anxious after I sent off my submission for the second round. Leaving class one night almost exactly two weeks later, my phone alerted me that I had voice mail. There it was, a message from Peter Archer telling me that he had some news that would interest me. I could have died. News that would interest me had to be good, so I was bubbling over with excitement feeling fairly confident that I knew what it meant. The next day, when I did finally reach him and he confirmed my suspicions, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted from me. I had done it!
Wizards: What do you currently do for a living?
Nathan: I am in the last semester of my graduate school program in national security studies. I have been employed in this career field for the last two years while getting my masters degree. Since May of this year I have been employed as a contractor to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counterproliferation Agency at the Pentagon.
Wizards: What do you plan to do if your setting is chosen and you receive the $100,000 contract?
Nathan: Take a vacation to Italy.
signal bounces you!
How about we learn to spell before we espouse our cynical ideologies?