The guy is fantastic - his books, almost without exception, meet everyone's criteria for what a good book should have:
- A great concept:
*Earth: A miniature black hole is in the earth's core - no one knows where it comes from, or how to keep it from killing everyone. People want to use it as a weapon, as our savior and as a God. Fantastic concepts of environmentalism, applied technology, personal relations and struggle.
*Heart of the Comet: Astronauts go to Halley's comet to explore and mine. Racial tensions between genetically altered people and 'normal' people plague how the people on the comet interact for the years as well as the aggressive, bacterial/viral/worm like life forms that live in the comet's Core. Full of good, hard sci-fi with all sorts of well-researched technical concepts and terms.
*The Uplift Trilogy: Humans begin the process of genetically altering Dolphins and Chimps so we can work together on space travel and science. By coincidence, the rest of the Galaxy does this as well, but according to a strict set of rules. Human spacers come across a drifting wreckage that apparently contains the last remnants of the legendary Progenitors of all the species.
- Believable characters (Many people are fallable and not all the hero's live and triumph... there is suffering along the way)
- Struggle, Adversity, Death and Triumph (who likes it when you know exactly what's going on?)
blah blah, WotC is evil and sucks and Hasbro is evil above all and wants nothing but money...
Magic is Dying, D&D is dying....
WHATEVER
Magic has apparently been dying since they released the Beta edition. I rnu an online MtG league using the FREE software called Apprentice and channel population in our IRC channels are as high as they have ever been.
I couldn't give a whit about D&D, because its never interested me, but guess what - people will always play it. I'm sure Monopoly purists threw hissy fits when they started releasing all the various editions (Sports, New York, Europe, etc), but guess what - people still play the damn board game as much as they play any borad game nowadays.
As for the popularity of Magic, you can argue that all they want to do is suck money frmo the players, but if people love it so much, and are willing to pay, then whats the problem? People buy CD's at $18 apiece when it costs less than a dollar apiece to make. People payed hundreds of dollars for items on Diablo II and other asinine games ONLINE - much less cards you could physically do something with.
To attest to the popularity of Magic, let me give a few figures from recent tournaments. An event last weekend in Cleveland drew 605 competitors. New Jersey back in June drew 603. Tampa Bay drew 409 people back in February. 683 people played in London earlier this month. Sapporo, Japan raked in 467 three weeks ago. Barcelona had 699 last spring. 614 showed up in Antwerp, Belgium. Kobe, Japan had 1,350 in August 2001.
Oh no, Magic isn't exactly the same game it was 8 years ago back when the card quality was so average that Juzam Djinn became a hundred dollar card.
Change HAPPENS. In everything in life, change will occur. Today was the one year anniversary of the Twin Tower attacks. Life CHANGED (for better or for worse) for nearly every American 365 days ago. Rather than bemoan how the "good old days were", why not look to the future and try to have fun with whats available to you?
Most people DON'T know the difference between Techno, House and all the other genres of dance music that have popped up in an attempt to pigeonhole and define artists and music. This is both good and bad. It allows the consumer to easily find artists similar to ones they already like. On the other hand, the rank and filing of artists into one genre will often limit who hears them. Take your pick which you prefer.
Also, I have no idea if anyone else posted something like this, I'm far too lazy to go through all 500 some odd posts to see.
House - What traditional dance has basically become. Similar to Disco - generally medium- to fast-paced music that often will not incoprorate a heavy bass. Techno - Characterized by heavier Bass, quicker beats, less vocals. Trance - Slower beats, little bass, usually similar to new age materials. Relaxed, melodic music. Electronic - Similar to Trance in a general lack of bass, but can be fast-paced - almost no vocals. Two-Step - British mixture of Techno and House - very quick pace designed to elicit complex dance maneuvers. Think of Dance Dance Revolution at a high level for what 2-step dancing looks like. Craig David is a fairly good mainstream example of this, too. Drum & Bass - Just what it sounds like - lots of beats - sometimes tribal, sometimes more Electronic sounding - easy to dance to as it has clearly defined beats.
Slashdot Mirror
The guy is fantastic - his books, almost without exception, meet everyone's criteria for what a good book should have:
- A great concept:
*Earth: A miniature black hole is in the earth's core - no one knows where it comes from, or how to keep it from killing everyone. People want to use it as a weapon, as our savior and as a God. Fantastic concepts of environmentalism, applied technology, personal relations and struggle.
*Heart of the Comet: Astronauts go to Halley's comet to explore and mine. Racial tensions between genetically altered people and 'normal' people plague how the people on the comet interact for the years as well as the aggressive, bacterial/viral/worm like life forms that live in the comet's Core. Full of good, hard sci-fi with all sorts of well-researched technical concepts and terms.
*The Uplift Trilogy: Humans begin the process of genetically altering Dolphins and Chimps so we can work together on space travel and science. By coincidence, the rest of the Galaxy does this as well, but according to a strict set of rules. Human spacers come across a drifting wreckage that apparently contains the last remnants of the legendary Progenitors of all the species.
- Believable characters (Many people are fallable and not all the hero's live and triumph... there is suffering along the way)
- Struggle, Adversity, Death and Triumph (who likes it when you know exactly what's going on?)
blah blah, WotC is evil and sucks and Hasbro is evil above all and wants nothing but money...
Magic is Dying, D&D is dying....
WHATEVER
Magic has apparently been dying since they released the Beta edition. I rnu an online MtG league using the FREE software called Apprentice and channel population in our IRC channels are as high as they have ever been.
I couldn't give a whit about D&D, because its never interested me, but guess what - people will always play it. I'm sure Monopoly purists threw hissy fits when they started releasing all the various editions (Sports, New York, Europe, etc), but guess what - people still play the damn board game as much as they play any borad game nowadays.
As for the popularity of Magic, you can argue that all they want to do is suck money frmo the players, but if people love it so much, and are willing to pay, then whats the problem? People buy CD's at $18 apiece when it costs less than a dollar apiece to make. People payed hundreds of dollars for items on Diablo II and other asinine games ONLINE - much less cards you could physically do something with.
To attest to the popularity of Magic, let me give a few figures from recent tournaments. An event last weekend in Cleveland drew 605 competitors. New Jersey back in June drew 603. Tampa Bay drew 409 people back in February. 683 people played in London earlier this month. Sapporo, Japan raked in 467 three weeks ago. Barcelona had 699 last spring. 614 showed up in Antwerp, Belgium. Kobe, Japan had 1,350 in August 2001.
Oh no, Magic isn't exactly the same game it was 8 years ago back when the card quality was so average that Juzam Djinn became a hundred dollar card.
Change HAPPENS. In everything in life, change will occur. Today was the one year anniversary of the Twin Tower attacks. Life CHANGED (for better or for worse) for nearly every American 365 days ago. Rather than bemoan how the "good old days were", why not look to the future and try to have fun with whats available to you?
Most people DON'T know the difference between Techno, House and all the other genres of dance music that have popped up in an attempt to pigeonhole and define artists and music. This is both good and bad. It allows the consumer to easily find artists similar to ones they already like. On the other hand, the rank and filing of artists into one genre will often limit who hears them. Take your pick which you prefer.
Also, I have no idea if anyone else posted something like this, I'm far too lazy to go through all 500 some odd posts to see.
House - What traditional dance has basically become. Similar to Disco - generally medium- to fast-paced music that often will not incoprorate a heavy bass.
Techno - Characterized by heavier Bass, quicker beats, less vocals.
Trance - Slower beats, little bass, usually similar to new age materials. Relaxed, melodic music.
Electronic - Similar to Trance in a general lack of bass, but can be fast-paced - almost no vocals.
Two-Step - British mixture of Techno and House - very quick pace designed to elicit complex dance maneuvers. Think of Dance Dance Revolution at a high level for what 2-step dancing looks like. Craig David is a fairly good mainstream example of this, too.
Drum & Bass - Just what it sounds like - lots of beats - sometimes tribal, sometimes more Electronic sounding - easy to dance to as it has clearly defined beats.
www.e-league.com - it is a full, free Apprentice league complete with prize tournies - all for nothing.