More Game Theory

Posted on January 23, 2002 by Pace Arko

Some interesting game links this month:

  • The Settlers of Catan, a game which I’ve never played, apparently has inspired this bit of mathematical analysis about avoiding agressive moves early in the game.
  • Nature magazine published an article about game theoretical analysis of retribution and cooperation in political and economic systems. Life’s a game folks. In a much deeper sense than many of us realize.

And finally:

Due recent, compelling advances in the software that handles all the accounting and physics, and due to the meme-set of that movie, and due to the maturation of a generation weaned on Pokemon and finally due to legions of former dot-com workers, currently underemployed, role-playing games, after a few years of decline, have staged a bit of comeback. For those of us who have kicked it old-school style for decades now, I offer this question: What would your statistics be if you were a Dungeons and Dragons character?

In case you were wondering: Str: 9; Int: 10; Wis: 13; Dex: 8; Con: 9; Chr: 9

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The Economics of the Internet

Posted on January 23, 2002 by Pace Arko

Jake repeats his claim that micropayments are the way to go however, Adam Barr disagrees. Cory Doctrow writes an enthusiastic screed (Perhaps in stark denial to what’s happened in the last two years.) about how the Internet is going to revolutionize everything.

[Sigh.] Same ol’ same old. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

The odd thing is I’ve got two friends who are trying to enlist my help in their own Internet scheme. I’ve designated myself as their official worrier and skeptic. It’s the only role I feel comfortable with. Venture capital is not really my cup of tea.

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More on Accessible Web Design

Posted on January 23, 2002 by Pace Arko
  • Every site should have a good site map. There are many reasons for this but one is accessibility: What is a user going to turn to when all your dHTML hootenanny doesn’t make any sense in a screen reader? That’s right, your site map. So it better be good!
  • I came across a site that used the same FrontPage theme that I did. Ironically their site also focuses on web accessibility. I’d like to point out that they could have made their pages even more accessible if they abandoned layout tables and only used CSS to do all their page element positioning.
  • I came across another rant about designers who build pages that are too large for screens that are 640 by 480 or even 800 by 600. This, the page’s author claims, limits accessibility. I quite agree: Farlops Industries has built pages that work with scaled up text at 640 by 480 for nearly three years now.
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One of the Few Holidays I Care About

Posted on January 21, 2002 by Pace Arko

In the same month I was born, he gave that speech. We still have a long way to go in meeting the ideals and examples, he and Malcolm proclaimed. That’s why this holiday is necessary; it reminds us of how far we have to go.

I wrote the above paragraph on MLK day. Looking back at it over a month later, I thought to myself, “what an utterly gutless tribute.”

One only has to look the hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern descent after September 11th. Or the hate crimes against gays and lesbians. Or the shooting of Amadou Diallo. Or the racial violence at Mardi Gras in Seattle last year. Or seething ethnic/nationalist tensions in Rwanda, the Balkans and many other regions of the world to know we are nowhere near achieving King’s dream.

If I think about it, it throws me into the bleakest of rage and despair. Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. It makes me hate being a human being.

But then I remember, that we have our moments.

Rodney King had a moment, after the fires started burning in LA. He asked, “Can’t we all just get along?” Ghandi, who was all too human, had a lot of moments. Malcom X had a lot of moments, for example, his Hajj was a moment.

And Martin Luther King, despite his all too human failings, had a lot of moments.

I try to remember this and it keeps me going.

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The New Year Brings in Big Change

Posted on January 7, 2002 by Pace Arko

Last Wednesday I self-installed DSL so, now I am downloading with the best. The following day, prior to departing for his fact finding tour of the ATO, the Baka shipped us some truly scary hardware to work with. Currently our technicians are engaged in extensive server and facilities administration. The results of these changes will be subtle at first but of growing significance.

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Web Accessibility Update

Posted on December 29, 2001 by Pace Arko

Zapping around on the Web, I came across an article on improving the accessibility of web logs. Because the Farlops Industries site is built to W3C standards, I would argue that my log, Factory Floor is already AA compliant with WAI guidelines. Still, as far as the rest of the Web is concerned, accessibility appears to be an afterthought.

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Two neat pages I just couldn't pass up.

Posted on December 19, 2001 by Pace Arko

Remember wrist rockets? They were hand catapults braced against the wrist for better leverage. Anyway, there is now a company that sells wristwatches with tiny catapults that fire tiny copper beads. Playing with one of these in a company meeting room would probably get you fired and sued for injuries.

I must admit, when I was younger, I entertained the urge to learn pratfalls and mock combat. Ever since I saw that DEVO video where the guy flips, back first, head over heals onto his back, I wanted to be that graceful. All those early breakdancing vids drove my ambition too. Of course I never did learn the art of pratfall but I did, years later, find a page with detailed instructions on how to fall down stairs without hurting yourself seriously.

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Pop Psychology

Posted on December 19, 2001 by Pace Arko

When I was a toddler, I was diagnosed as an autistic. In the many years that have passed since then, I’ve always dismissed that judgement as a misdiagnosis. Now I am not so sure.

It was true:

  • That I didn’t speak complete sentences until I was nearly five.
  • That I was obsessively reading at college-level by the age of 10.
  • I never had any trouble with dyslexia but, I seemed utterly clueless about simple arithmetic until well into junior high school.
  • That I didn’t really understand how to tell time with analog clock faces until I was twelve.
  • That I had the hardest time learning how to make change because some non-decimal units didn’t fit into the pattern I had constructed in my head.
  • That I had to go a speech therapist throughout the ages of six to thirteen because of a persistent lisp (both with S and TH sounds.) and stuttering.
  • And of course I was very shy, overly sensitive and easy to hoodwink.

But perhaps I am imposing order on something–my life–that has none. Self-diagnosis is always suspect. Then again I’ve always been very frustrated with the way I have been very intelligent in some ways and very stupid in others.

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Links! Links! Links!

Posted on December 19, 2001 by Pace Arko
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Why Pander to Netscape 4.x?

Posted on December 9, 2001 by Pace Arko

A List Apart has a good article this week that pretty much sums up why all the sites I build look bland in Netscape and IE 4.x (all platforms).

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