The D&D and AD&D split happened when Gygax and Arneson couldn't agree on a royalty dispute. AD&D and D&D became separate rule sets. AD&D then became AD&D 2nd Edition. And when it came time for a new edition, they looked at the name and decided to drop the 'Advanced' and just call it D&D 3rd Edition, since all those old disputes had long since been worked out. And now, of course, it's 3.5.
So D&D begat AD&D begat AD&D 2nd Edition begat D&D 3rd Edition, which is really AD&D 3rd Edition, sorta kinda.
So D&D is not just the precursor any more. The name has come full circle.
Every time they reverse the polarity, emit a tachyon beam, or encounter a space-time anomaly, they may as well be turning on a lightsaber, engaging hyperdrive or using the force.
I disagree. I think there's a difference. A lightsaber is a fantasy sword with sci-fi trappings. A Jedi is a samurai or knight (literally) with mystical, magical powers. Even The Force was mystical and fantasy-like until TPM when George "sci-fi'ed" it up and made it Midichlorians, which was absolutely the sort of Trek-like technobabble you speak of. Aside from this, Star Wars is all about sweeping epic fantasy.
Trek doesn't have these things. Picard doesn't wear a rapier, Troi doesn't carry a magic wand, and nobody rides Electrosteeds into battle. The language may be all gobbledygook, but it's still science fiction. It's just not very hard, realistic sci-fi.
Certainly Star Trek can have appeal to kids. Heck, they had a cartoon for a while. However, Trek generally seems more willing to tackle more adult themes -- political machinations, subterfuge, racial tensions, etc. -- even if the mechanics are a little fanciful.
Compared to Star Wars, however, Trek is a lot more mechanical, crunchy and scientific. Light sabers? Jabba the Hutt? The Force? These are fantasy tropes given sci-fi trappings. But to hear Geordi talk about Dilithium crystals and the holochamber is to recognize you're not seeing Swords and Sorcery wreathed in chrome, but true science-fiction.
The only other reviews I've seen of this book are the short 5-star type which say little about the book that you can't learn from the author's website, akin to the short quotes from reviewers that movie advertisements use.
Given the opportunity to do so, I decided to do a little more in the hopes of providing justification for my own rating of the book. I can't (and won't) apologize for being thorough.
This is the main reason I brought up these issues here. They're not enough to ruin the reading experience, but they are noticeable, and presumably easy enough to fix if a publisher takes the time to do so.
The last time I spent time at a Children's Hospital was over 25 years ago. I was (and remain, outside of your comment) unaware of such events at Children's Hospitals. The image was one constructed wholly from my imagination, and you are the first to have made a connection to a real event. In any case, no offense was meant.
Fair enough. I wouldn't go so far as to call this wholly an art book. I'm not sure what it was intended to be, nor who the audience was.
However, looking at it as an art book, there really is little worth mentioning beyond what I say in the review. The overall design is a sloppy-looking, crooked affair, and the art (selected from 30 years of D&D products) is used so inappropriately as to diminish its artistic value, with colors shifted, heads cropped off, etc.
Why isn't Christopher Lambert mentioned anywhere?
on
Beowulf For Dummies?
·
· Score: 1
His 1999 take on Beowulf was truly designed for dummies. _______________________________
I invite everyone to check out Iconoclast, which just relaunched on 01/01/01. In its 5 year history, it's been named MUD of the Month at MudConnector and has been consistently ranked the number 1 science-fiction themed RP MUD on Google, Yahoo, Dmoz, and other search engines. It's not your typical fantasy-themed hack-n-slash MUD, but rather incorporates Role-Playing Game rules and a detailed cyberpunk background into a clever blend.
Iconoclast Website _______________________________
To my knowledge, the people at Fandom never claimed that their trademark had anything to do with the original meaning of the word fandom. In fact, if you visit their site, you'll see that the core premise is something called "Fan Domains". FanDom (emphasis mine) was a combination of those words - akin to MicroSoft.
Mind you, I'm not defending them. I think what they're doing isvery very wrong. But I also think that the trademarkability of dictionary words issue isn't really a strong argument. Inktomi, for instance, is in a dictionary somewhere, but does that mean I could register inktommi.name and get away with it? Should I? What about Levi jeans -- there's a Levi in the Bible.
What this has traditionally come down to is a matter of trademarking within your realm. So while I could not have made a new toothpaste named Crest, I could have made a dishwasher detergent called Crest. Nowadays, the battle over.coms has brought the issue into a new arena, because people are no longer truly battling over identity, they're battling over the right to be the sole owner of a word.
For example, Coke. If I type Coke into my Internet browser, it's going to default to coke.com. But why does Coca-Cola have the right to be coke.com? What if I run a drug treatment center for cocaine addicts and my acronym is COKE. Why would I have to defer to another organization named coke? Because they were bigger? That's not supposed to be justification in this country. Because they are more popular? Bah. Because they were first to get the domain name? Yes.
Ultimately, the real problem is the way TLDs work. Coca-cola doesn't just want coke.com because they're a commercial entity, they also want coke.org, and coke.foo, and cokesucks.com, and anything and everything with the word coke anywhere in it. (Bad example, since this isn't precisely true in the case of Coca-Cola, but it's for the sake of argument). And the reason for this is that there's a total lack of enforcement on TLD standards..tv should only be for things relating to Tuvalu or television in some way..org should only be for non-profit organizations. And so on..gov, of course, is tightly regulated. You don't see anyone registering fandom.gov, do you?
Should it be more regulated? That's a whole other beast and I don't wanna get off on a rant here. As it is I'm getting smacked down by Anonymous Cowards who apparently know who I am from my old job. Show yourselves, ya bastards! _______________________________
:The word is in the dictionary and it appeared around 1903, why is this word even allowed to be trademarked???!!!
Main Entry: coke
Etymology: perhaps from dialect coke, colk core, from Middle English
Date: 1669
: the residue of coal left after destructive distillation and used as fuel
Coke appeared in 1669. It's trademarked. The date when a word entered the language means nothing in terms of trademarkability. _______________________________
:Choosing the exact same domain name and :registering in the TV domain is sure to :cause some confusion.
Then what's the point of having a.tv extension anyway, or, for that matter,.biz,.name,.info, or any of the other new ones? If my name is Marty Fandom and I register fandom.name, are they going to come after me? Adding TLDs is pointless if you can't use words that are already being used with.com,.net and.org. _______________________________
About a year ago this time, when I was working for AnotherUniverse.com in Virginia, there were rumblings that the company was in financial trouble. Luckily, it seemed these nice gentlemen from California were willing to bail us out through a cooperative venture.
Shortly after I left the company two months later, they'd made all the employees sign their lives away with non-compete agreements; they forced the founder and president (Steve Milo, now working for Marvel Comics) out of his position into an advisory role, and then got rid of him entirely; and they slowly subverted and subsumed the AnotherUniverse name by dismantling the website and catalog and rebranding it. In short, AnotherUniverse.com was assimilated. There's no other word for it. I'm glad I got out when I did.
My friends who still work there say things are functioning well, and the company is apparently doing well. But then again, the Borg appear to be doing well as they conquer the universe too. _______________________________
Slashdot Mirror
You can still get $5 sandwiches delivered in 30 minutes or less from Ninja Burger.
Completely untrue and unfair.
I've written several book reviews for Slashdot that are quite a bit longer.
My skin is quite clear this week, thanks.
The D&D and AD&D split happened when Gygax and Arneson couldn't agree on a royalty dispute. AD&D and D&D became separate rule sets. AD&D then became AD&D 2nd Edition. And when it came time for a new edition, they looked at the name and decided to drop the 'Advanced' and just call it D&D 3rd Edition, since all those old disputes had long since been worked out. And now, of course, it's 3.5.
So D&D begat AD&D begat AD&D 2nd Edition begat D&D 3rd Edition, which is really AD&D 3rd Edition, sorta kinda.
So D&D is not just the precursor any more. The name has come full circle.
The bedrock yellow orange purple lime and red...
Did it ever bother anyone else that Barney thinks "lime" is a color?
Yes. I'm thinking Xen is already as secure as it's going to be thanks to the efforts of one Gordon Freeman.
Eat that, Combine.
Every time they reverse the polarity, emit a tachyon beam, or encounter a space-time anomaly, they may as well be turning on a lightsaber, engaging hyperdrive or using the force.
I disagree. I think there's a difference. A lightsaber is a fantasy sword with sci-fi trappings. A Jedi is a samurai or knight (literally) with mystical, magical powers. Even The Force was mystical and fantasy-like until TPM when George "sci-fi'ed" it up and made it Midichlorians, which was absolutely the sort of Trek-like technobabble you speak of. Aside from this, Star Wars is all about sweeping epic fantasy.
Trek doesn't have these things. Picard doesn't wear a rapier, Troi doesn't carry a magic wand, and nobody rides Electrosteeds into battle. The language may be all gobbledygook, but it's still science fiction. It's just not very hard, realistic sci-fi.
All IMHO, of course.
Certainly Star Trek can have appeal to kids. Heck, they had a cartoon for a while. However, Trek generally seems more willing to tackle more adult themes -- political machinations, subterfuge, racial tensions, etc. -- even if the mechanics are a little fanciful.
Compared to Star Wars, however, Trek is a lot more mechanical, crunchy and scientific. Light sabers? Jabba the Hutt? The Force? These are fantasy tropes given sci-fi trappings. But to hear Geordi talk about Dilithium crystals and the holochamber is to recognize you're not seeing Swords and Sorcery wreathed in chrome, but true science-fiction.
I think technically a Van Dyke is described as "a variation of a goatee with a mustache." So technically they both have goatees, as well as Van Dykes.
All squares are also rectangles.
Nevertheless, thanks for the clarification.
The only other reviews I've seen of this book are the short 5-star type which say little about the book that you can't learn from the author's website, akin to the short quotes from reviewers that movie advertisements use.
Given the opportunity to do so, I decided to do a little more in the hopes of providing justification for my own rating of the book. I can't (and won't) apologize for being thorough.
This is the main reason I brought up these issues here. They're not enough to ruin the reading experience, but they are noticeable, and presumably easy enough to fix if a publisher takes the time to do so.
Someone submit a Ninja Burger order on their behalf, with "extra mushrooms".
Not "extra anchovies" though. That'll the code for pot.
Forgot to add - please substitute "car dealership" for "children's hospital" to get back to the tackiness I intended to convey.
The last time I spent time at a Children's Hospital was over 25 years ago. I was (and remain, outside of your comment) unaware of such events at Children's Hospitals. The image was one constructed wholly from my imagination, and you are the first to have made a connection to a real event. In any case, no offense was meant.
You or Neil Patrick Harris (aka Doogie Howser, M.D.)?
In-character, or out, your choice.
From link: "Asserting that one must first know the rules to break them..."
Know 'em.
Broke 'em.
"This same review was posted on Fark"
Yes.
"a couple weeks ago"
No.
"but by someone else"
No.
"so I'm going out on a limb here"
Yes.
"to suggest that this guy just plageriazed the review."
No.
About all I recall of her was that she had a harelip. And I think I did give her a few for free.
She still failed.
Fair enough. I wouldn't go so far as to call this wholly an art book. I'm not sure what it was intended to be, nor who the audience was.
However, looking at it as an art book, there really is little worth mentioning beyond what I say in the review. The overall design is a sloppy-looking, crooked affair, and the art (selected from 30 years of D&D products) is used so inappropriately as to diminish its artistic value, with colors shifted, heads cropped off, etc.
His 1999 take on Beowulf was truly designed for dummies.
_______________________________
I invite everyone to check out Iconoclast, which just relaunched on 01/01/01. In its 5 year history, it's been named MUD of the Month at MudConnector and has been consistently ranked the number 1 science-fiction themed RP MUD on Google, Yahoo, Dmoz, and other search engines. It's not your typical fantasy-themed hack-n-slash MUD, but rather incorporates Role-Playing Game rules and a detailed cyberpunk background into a clever blend.
Iconoclast Website
_______________________________
To my knowledge, the people at Fandom never claimed that their trademark had anything to do with the original meaning of the word fandom. In fact, if you visit their site, you'll see that the core premise is something called "Fan Domains". FanDom (emphasis mine) was a combination of those words - akin to MicroSoft.
.coms has brought the issue into a new arena, because people are no longer truly battling over identity, they're battling over the right to be the sole owner of a word.
.tv should only be for things relating to Tuvalu or television in some way. .org should only be for non-profit organizations. And so on. .gov, of course, is tightly regulated. You don't see anyone registering fandom.gov, do you?
Mind you, I'm not defending them. I think what they're doing isvery very wrong. But I also think that the trademarkability of dictionary words issue isn't really a strong argument. Inktomi, for instance, is in a dictionary somewhere, but does that mean I could register inktommi.name and get away with it? Should I? What about Levi jeans -- there's a Levi in the Bible.
What this has traditionally come down to is a matter of trademarking within your realm. So while I could not have made a new toothpaste named Crest, I could have made a dishwasher detergent called Crest. Nowadays, the battle over
For example, Coke. If I type Coke into my Internet browser, it's going to default to coke.com. But why does Coca-Cola have the right to be coke.com? What if I run a drug treatment center for cocaine addicts and my acronym is COKE. Why would I have to defer to another organization named coke? Because they were bigger? That's not supposed to be justification in this country. Because they are more popular? Bah. Because they were first to get the domain name? Yes.
Ultimately, the real problem is the way TLDs work. Coca-cola doesn't just want coke.com because they're a commercial entity, they also want coke.org, and coke.foo, and cokesucks.com, and anything and everything with the word coke anywhere in it. (Bad example, since this isn't precisely true in the case of Coca-Cola, but it's for the sake of argument). And the reason for this is that there's a total lack of enforcement on TLD standards.
Should it be more regulated? That's a whole other beast and I don't wanna get off on a rant here. As it is I'm getting smacked down by Anonymous Cowards who apparently know who I am from my old job. Show yourselves, ya bastards!
_______________________________
Coke appeared in 1669. It's trademarked. The date when a word entered the language means nothing in terms of trademarkability.
______________________________
:Choosing the exact same domain name and
:registering in the TV domain is sure to
:cause some confusion.
.tv extension anyway, or, for that matter, .biz, .name, .info, or any of the other new ones? If my name is Marty Fandom and I register fandom.name, are they going to come after me? Adding TLDs is pointless if you can't use words that are already being used with .com, .net and .org.
Then what's the point of having a
_______________________________
About a year ago this time, when I was working for AnotherUniverse.com in Virginia, there were rumblings that the company was in financial trouble. Luckily, it seemed these nice gentlemen from California were willing to bail us out through a cooperative venture.
Shortly after I left the company two months later, they'd made all the employees sign their lives away with non-compete agreements; they forced the founder and president (Steve Milo, now working for Marvel Comics) out of his position into an advisory role, and then got rid of him entirely; and they slowly subverted and subsumed the AnotherUniverse name by dismantling the website and catalog and rebranding it. In short, AnotherUniverse.com was assimilated. There's no other word for it. I'm glad I got out when I did.
My friends who still work there say things are functioning well, and the company is apparently doing well. But then again, the Borg appear to be doing well as they conquer the universe too.
_______________________________