I’m restarting this blog, once again. I’ve switched to WordPress for the engine. Drupal is really cool, but I think it actually had too much functionality for me. Plus, thanks to my webhost, WordPress is much easier to keep up to date and running.
I’ve set myself a goal of blogging at least once a day, but I’m also going to try and blog basically anything that I find interesting. Look for more, shorter posts in the future.
In what’s turning out to be a pretty rough month for us geeks, Arthur C. Clarke has passed away at the age of 90. He was best known for his science fiction work, including 2001: A Space Odyssey. He originated the idea of geostationary communications satellites, and was well known for his works of nonfiction as well.
In case you haven’t heard, Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons, and roleplaying games in general, has died. He died on the morning of March 4, 2008 at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
I don’t have much to add, really. As the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, he’s had a pretty significant effect on the course of my life. I was quite sad to hear of his passing. Wil Wheaton wrote a story about him that says it all more poetically than I ever could.
It’s always gratifying when I read things like this. Fair warning, the article is posted as one large image. For those not inclined to click on the link, the short of it is that Ricky Gervias, creator of the fantastic British comedies The Office and Extras, is also an atheist. The article describes his rapid (roughly a half hour) conversion from dutiful Christian to atheist.
I’ve enjoyed playing Guitar Hero in the past. As a matter of fact, when Guitar Hero 1 first came out, I was the best of my friends at it, beating it on medium in short order. (None of us ever got very far on hard.) Since then, the novelty has pretty much worn off for me, although several of my friends still play it (and Rock Band) avidly.
I’ve read lots of comments by snobbish musicians about how these games are nothing like the real instruments, and how people should learn to play said real instruments instead of wasting time on a “stupid game.” I usually tell these people to piss off. We know it’s not like the real thing, just like DDR is nothing like real dancing, and BeatMania is nothing like real DJing. That’s not the point. It’s fun.
That said, I always have wanted to learn to play guitar (amongst other instruments).
So, finally someone’s come up with the happy solution:
It’s called Guitar Rising. Unfortunately, there’s no word on availability, but they’ll be at the Game Developer Conference.<!–break–>