An open letter to Blizzard (2010/09/09)
Yeah, still thinking about this. Decided that, just because I liked the company so much for so long, I ought to give them a summary which isn’t bounded by what you can post on the forums or surrounded by trash-talking teenagers. This is a copy (edited for blog) of something I sent to their PR department, after customer support told me those were the right people to send it to.
[read more...]I love inventing FTL drives. (2010/09/08)
So, one of the recurring needs for science fiction stories is some way to travel faster than light, without which interstellar travel is impossible, and this tends to gravely undermine many awesome story ideas.
[read more...]More thoughts about Real ID (2010/09/06)
A while back, I quit World of Warcraft over Real ID. A few days after this, Blizzard announced that they were not, at least for the moment, going to go ahead with the announced plan to move all their forums over to posting exclusively under peoples’ “real names” (by which they mean “the name registered to the account, whether or not it is your legal name”).
[read more...]Hearing music is so very, very, weird. (2010/08/24)
So, they’re still messing around with ADHD drugs and dosage. Currently, the experiment is bupropion (aka wellbutrin and about 6 other brand names), which tends to increase availability of dopamine and norepinephrine.
[read more...]Might have to start doing this again... (2010/08/22)
So, I recently read an interesting book (Pragmatic Thinking & Learning), and it’s gotten me to thinking about the whole blog thing. I have a hard time remembering to do things that don’t call themselves to my attention, but I really enjoy the sort of thinking-out-loud that a blog provides, so I think I’m going to start trying to remember to post more often, possibly even setting up reminders so that this happens automatically.
[read more...]So long, and thanks for all the fishing dailies... (2010/07/07)
A few years back, I decided that I wanted to try one of these Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). After some poking around, and research, I settled on World of Warcraft. My reasons at the time were simple; Blizzard had a stellar track record of doing their best to make every game solid, well-considered, well-planned, and so on.
[read more...]Hey, Google: Being evil is not just doing evil (2010/02/12)
Google’s corporate motto is, officially, “don’t be evil”.
[read more...]The No Asshole Rule (2010/02/01)
I recently picked up a copy of Robert Sutton’s book The No Asshole Rule.
[read more...]Las Vegas: Initial impressions (2010/01/09)
This place is crazy.
[read more...]The Asparagus Letter (2010/01/04)
This is a bit of family history, uncovered while sorting through boxes of paperwork.
[read more...]