I'm so glad the war is over! http://www.nytimes-se.com

Coming Soon: Playing Forumwarz

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Boss Key

clipped from hdrlying.com It is becoming more and more obvious to both developers and gamers, though, that PC gaming is slowly changing. Where complex strategy games and western RPGs once reigned, relaxing puzzle games and twitch shooters now stand. Just hearing about Peggle on professional PC gaming enthusiast podcasts speaks volumes about the state of the industry. Back when games like Wolfenstein and Doom were easily installed on University Computer Lab PCs and office desktops, they all shipped with the infamous “boss key,” which brought up mock spreadsheets and DOS prompts designed to fool passersby that, yes, you were in fact working.

From D&D to Google

In a sweet article in Sunday's New York Times, Wired editor Adam Rogers notes the passing of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax and argues for a sort of teleological relationship between the culture of D&D in the 1970s and our current digital culture. This is interesting for the explicit link Rogers makes between gameplay and non-game digital objects and business models. Of course, it's also clearly a geek fantasy of redemption ("The stuff I know, the geeky stuff, is the stuff you and everyone else has to know now, too"). Not to mention, it repeats the digital culture origin myth (that functions very powerfully and literally) of American boy geniuses creating through play.

Bloggers Union? Maybe All Internet Users Need a Union.

clipped from www.cnn.com In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.

If bloggers form a union, why stop there? Why not MySpace and YouTube unions? Almost all internet users these days are content creators or data generators of some sort. And we do it for free. Sometimes we even pay to toil away in Second Life or World of Warcraft.

Working Class Millionaires

Well, I could make a pot shot about this photo from the front page of today's New York Times, but it's really the accompanying article that's ridiculous. This gentleman is part of what the journalist refers to as Silicon Valley's "working class millionaires": those working in (or owning) tech companies and making millions, but feeling as though they are working long hours and are just scraping by compared to mega millionaires.

Poney Magique sheds a tear.